Page 31 of Souvenir Heart

“Weren’t they the pair the murdered patrol was searching for…?”

L’Helias nodded, far less reluctantly this time. “Seems that there were four passengers in the coach. The man and the woman stayed with the coach, which the hostlers said took the road west, towards the coast. But one of the other passengers, a French man, hired a horse from them and made arrangements to return it to a hostelry in Paris.”

The chief leaned forward. “Now that is interesting.”

“I thought so, too,” L’Helias agreed. “So, I sent a patrol after the coach—no word yet, and I was wondering…about sending men to Paris…but…I’m not sure how the Parisians will react to us to conducting an investigation on their turf...”

“We’ll need to tread carefully. Our men. Their jurisdiction.” The chief steepled his fingers and tapped his paired index fingers thoughtfully against his chin. “Do you have a description of the man who left for Paris?”

“Mid-thirties, about a little shy of 6 feet tall, the hostlers guessed. Not fat. Brown hair, brown eyes, no visible scars.”

“What about the name and address of the hostelry in Paris where he is supposed to return his mount?”

“Yes, sir.” L’Helias pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and checked it. “Before the Revolution it was called the Lily, but now it’s called the Liberty.”

“Send two men to the place. Tell them to follow up on the information you’ve given me, but report what they find to the Paris National Guard. Tell them to wait for Paris’s response before returning and reporting to me.”

The brigade chief smiled grimly, “With any luck there’s a nest of spies in Paris, not here.” And he didn’t add, finding the man in brown will be on their heads and not mine.

Twenty-Three

The need to catch her before she fell was instinctive; but Marcus was a man who placed experience before instinct. There was no way he could vault the six rows of people and two railings to get to the lady in time. Much less deal with the chaos that would ensue.

And so, he stopped, hands curling into fists, arms tight against his sides, and watched as Andre reached out to catch Marguerite de Rouvroy as she fell. He was less successful at controlling the unexpected growl that slipped through his gritted teeth.

The lady, however, seemed to think she had no need of assistance. Waving aside Andre’s hand, she caught herself, straightened her spine and, once again, lifted that curiously determined chin. The only evidence that she’d faltered for even a moment, was a single rebellious curl that escaped the red scarf woven through her hair. Her blue and white striped gown with its red sash appeared as unruffled as the lady herself.

“Hey there, step back, you’re not the only one who wants to see the traitorous whore.” A man grabbed Marcus’s elbow; a man with a body like a bag of turnips and a red cap that looked as if he might have stitched it himself.

“Pardon, citizen.” Marcus suppressed the urge to grab the offending hand and twist the man’s arm backwards. He instead pulled his sketchbook out of his pocket. Waving it in a way that further impeded the man’s view, he added. “Documenting the people’s justice. For tomorrow’s papers.”

Ignoring the man’s muttered “I’d like to chop his head off,” he thought about the way Marguerite had looked at him earlier. How she’d stared at his hands and then at his body, with an intensity that made his skin feel as though he were standing too close to a fire. The way her eyes had widened when they’d met his. The sudden shift in her expression—from curiosity to shock, as if she somehow recognized him.

Which was impossible, of course, because they hadn’t met. He frowned at Marguerite, who was looking up at Andre and nodding, a hint of a smile curving her lips. At least, he didn’t think they had.

Still, this operation was turning out to be full of surprises. The lady’s raided apartments, her arrest, now that damned portrait of Marat as a fish.

Dangerous surprises.

No, it had been a good thing he hadn’t leapt forward to catch her. He needed to tread cautiously. Keep his wits about him. He had Andre and David with him now.

It was a relief that Andre was standing beside her. Andre always knew what to say to charm women and they adored him. Trusted him. Which just proved that most of them had more straw in their heads than in their summer hats.

Not that Marguerite was wearing a hat.

Marcus shook his head. His wits were wandering again.

Marquerite de Rouvroy was the target of this mission. And at this moment, she was on trial for her life.

If they were going to save her, she’d have to trust all three of them. Not just Andre. Marcus thought of the way she’d stared at his hands; there was something he could do that the ever-charming Andre could not. Flipping open his sketchbook to the back, he tore several pages free.

“His drawings are probably shit, just like he is,” the lumpy man in the red hat, who was still clearly annoyed that Marcus was blocking the view of his countrymen’s humiliation and despair, said in a stage whisper.

Marcus placed his pencil at the edge of the pages, then rolled everything together in a tight cylinder. Holding it in one hand, he reached up with the other, tugged the ribbon of his queue free, and used it to tie the tiny bundle together. Slipping it into his sleeve, he glanced back to where Andre and Marguerite were standing.

Andre was stepping forward to address the justices. They craned their heads, listening. After a few moments, Fouquier-Tinville looked over at the entrance to the courtroom, snapping his fingers to attract the attention of two blue-uniformed guards, who were standing on either side of the door. When they turned to look at him, he motioned for them to approach.

In another moment, the two guards were escorting Andre and Marguerite de Rouvroy away from the bench, down the aisle between the spectator’s gallery and the rows of the accused, towards the exit.