Page 29 of Souvenir Heart

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Do not tell me of your heart, fair one, but show me your art. The verse rose unbidden in her head. All she’d wanted to do was show her art.

And now her art was going to be the death of her.

“I will speak for her.”

Marguerite turned to see a man with a head of black curls and brilliant blue eyes entering the courtroom. He looked like a Carvaggio painting of the subversive god Bacchus come to life. And she’d never seen him before, much less hired him.

“I’m Citizeness Rouvroy’s lawyer. Andre de Saint-Just.”

In one hand, he held what looked like an official seal, though Marguerite couldn’t be certain, given how quickly he slipped it back into his jacket pocket. In the other, he held a folder stuffed with papers, which he waved at the justices.

“My apologies for my tardiness, citizens,” he said striding forward. He dipped his head to the antenna-browed justice. “Prosecuter Fouquier-Tinville.” Then he dipped his head to her, flashing a brilliant and unsettlingly conspiratorial smile. “Citizeness.”

“Ah, well, the roads these days,” he continued, straightening up and spreading his hands in a what can you do gesture. “I encountered some difficulties...”

Difficulties. What could this stranger possibly know of difficulties?

Marguerite thought she might be losing her mind. She’d spent three nights in a crowded cell, with nothing but soiled straw on the floor, and a single bucket for waste, her head filled with her own anxieties and the wails of others. It had taken all her strength to dress herself, stand upright, and repeat her name when she’d finally been called to court.

Still, she was absolutely certain she hadn’t retained a lawyer. Who in the name of heaven was Andre de Saint-Just?

Twenty-One

Andre de Saint-Just. Marcus winced inwardly. “You’re asking for attention,” he’d warned when Andre suggested using the surname of one of Robespierre’s most radical deputies on his forged identity papers.

“Just so,” Andre flashed him a grin. “They won’t have time to find out whether I’m actually related to Louis de Saint-Just, but they will have time to worry about it.”

Andre and David had arrived the day after Marcus had gone to Marguerite’s apartments. By that time, he’d not only discovered where Citizeness de Rouvroy was being held, but also that she’d be called up to hear charges this morning.

“Saint-Just is from Aisne, isn’t he?” Andre mused, stroking a chin stubbled from long nights on the road. “Do you think I ought to adopt an Hauts-de-France regional accent?”

Marcus repressed the urge to shout hell no. The accent was notoriously difficult to master, but then suggesting to Andre that he shouldn’t try something was an almost certain way to ensure that he would.

In retrospect, perhaps he shouldn’t have suggested that for today, they observe Citizeness de Rouvroy and the proceedings, then make a plan based on what they learned.

Which is what he’d been doing. Observing. Leaning against the wall at the back of the spectator’s gallery. Six armed national guardsmen stationed to the right and at the front of the room, three rows of picnicking spectators, three rows of anxious accused, and two railings separated him from the object of his mission.

She was dressed in a blue and white striped gown tied at the waist with a red sash. Modest, politically correct, and yet, showcasing both the slenderness of her waist and the fullness of her bosom. A red scarf was threaded through the waves of her dark hair in a manner that somehow managed to seem both artless and stylish.

Sketching her, he told himself, was purely for cover purposes: The heart-shaped face, the large brown eyes beneath those delicately arched brows, and the generous mouth.

He told himself that if looking at her made his heart beat faster and his muscles tense, it was simply because she was the target of this mission.

Nothing more.

Then prosecutor held up the green sketchbook.

And Marcus nearly dropped his.

Marguerite de Rouvroy had drawn one of the most powerful men in France as a fish.

“I’ll need to investigate this sketchbook to see if the work really is Citizeness Rouvroy’s.” Andre said in a reassuringly perfect Parisian accent.

Andre stepping forward had been Plan B. Though admittedly, Plan A had just gone spectacularly up in flames.

“Are you saying that this isn’t her sketchbook?” asked the prosecutor, who Marcus recognized as Fouquier-Tinville, newly appointed chief-prosecutor/public accuser and renowned for his dedication to conviction, regardless of the accused’s guilt or innocence.

Oh, it was hers all right. He recognized the style, the vibrancy and confidence in the lines that he’d seen in the works in her apartment. In a few quick strokes Marguerite had captured both the coarse energy of Marat’s expression, and the shimmering fluidity of a fish’s scales. Displayed in a gallery, it would have won her accolades. In this courtroom, it was a death sentence.