Page 26 of Souvenir Heart

Suzanne crossed the room and took a bottle and glass down from a shelf. Tucking the bottle under her arm, she wiped the glass with her skirt, then set both bottle and glass on the table.

Uncorking the bottle, Marcus filled the glass and took a long, grateful swallow.

“Many thanks. It’s hot as hell out there and my throat feels as if I’ve swallowed half the dirt of Paris.”

Suzanne, who’d fetched a second glass for herself, filled it and said, “What else did you find?”

“Empty house. No Citizeness Rouvroy. No servants. Place was a mess. Pretty clear that someone, most likely several someones, had searched it.” He shook his head, flashing back on the papers and books scattered everywhere. That book.

Thinking of the woman in the portrait with her air of critical amusement, of the talented artist who’d painted it, and who’d almost certainly read his wretched poetry, he winced.

“Does it hurt?” Suzanne gestured with her glass at his hand.

“It’s fine.” Marcus wiggled his fingers at her, welcoming the sting as the cuts re-opened, and took another sip of wine. He couldn’t help noticing her hand, with its small pink nails bitten nearly to the quick and a wrist so thin he could have snapped it like a wishbone. They’d come for Madame de Rouvroy. What if they came for her?

“You know,” he said abruptly, “if you wish to come with us to England, you only have to ask…”

“England?” She stared at him as if he’d suddenly grown an additional pair of ears. “Whatever would I do in England?”

What the hell was wrong with him? He prided himself on planning ahead, thinking things through. But he’d focused on her hand and the words had tumbled out. “I… you…could…”

“Do what I do here?” she suggested. “Or perhaps you’d find me work as a maid? Scrubbing floors? Carrying buckets of water? Chamber pots? I’d rather take my chances with the pox and revolution. Not to mention that I don’t know any English. And I hear they boil all their foods.”

“Just the meat,” He said, then admitted, “and the vegetables.”

Suzanne gave him the look Parisians reserve for all those who have the misfortune of having been born anywhere other than their city.

“There’s less mud,” he countered.

“Pppff…”

“It’s getting increasingly dangerous here.” He said, aware he was losing the argument, but determined to make one last foray before ceding the field.

“Bad times come; bad times go. It’s just the way of things.” She shrugged. “Besides, I have friends here. No, you can keep your England for the likes of your Citizeness Rouvroy.”

“Have any idea of how I might go about finding her?”

Suzanne nibbled at a cuticle. “It’s not as if they need evidence to convict, but they do like to put on a public show.”

“A courtroom?”

“Trials are held almost every day at the Palace of Justice. A few questions in the right ears, a few coins in the right palms. And there you go.”

“Not the meeting place I’d have chosen, but at least I know she’ll be there.”

“Better than a prison cell,” Suzanne remarked.

Better than the guillotine.

Nineteen

“Hang the aristocrats from on high! Oh! It’ll be fine, be fine, be fine. The aristocrats, we’ll hang ‘em all,” the spectators in the gallery exuberantly sang. The refrain of the popular revolutionary anthem, which had been sung more times than Marguerite could count, was accompanied by waving fists, stamping feet, and applause.

“We will now hear from Phillipe Boyaval, who will recount his heroic actions against the Austrians at the battle of Jemappes last year,” announced a justice seated at the front of the court room.

A man in a tattered military uniform strode forward, waving the half-empty sleeve of his right arm at the crowd.

His gesture was met with more cheers and applause, and cries of “Death to Dumoriez,” the general who’d led his troops to victory at Jemappes, then defected to the Austrians. There were also scattered shouts of “Death to the Girondists;” the party who had championed Dumoriez.