Page 53 of Souvenir Heart

On her first day in the prison, a woman in the courtyard had pointed out a man lingering by the gate separating the men’s section from theirs. “Fouquier-Tinville’s lapdog,” she’d hissed. “Reports everything everyone says and does in the hopes of saving his wretched skin. Makes things up when there’s nothing to report. Avoid him if you can.”

“When?” was all she dared ask Andre.

“Soon.”

Her eyes slid past the empty beds, past the books, the clothes, the needlework their occupants had left behind. Her nearest cellmates were knitting stockings, discussing what food they would eat when—if—they were set free. “Might you be more specific?”

He shook his head. “Still some details to work out.”

“Could you work faster?”

“We’ve bought you some time. Had your name removed from the registry. We are working as fast as we can. But there are a lot of bits and pieces to put into place. No one’s done anything like this…from here…before.”

“So the guards repeatedly tell us.”

Andre turned to look at her, blue eyes as intense as the center of a flame. “No one’s ever done it, yet.”

Marcus’s words.

There was the sound of boot soles against the stone floors, followed by the jangle of keys as the guard began unlocking the cell door. “Time’s up, citizen,” he said, swinging it open.

Andre gathered up the papers spread on his lap desk, opened the leather-covered lid, put them inside, closed it and folded the desk. Tucking it under his arm, he stood. Lifting her hand, he brushed it with his lips. He said softly, as if he’d read her mind, “Marcus has sworn to bring you back safely. He’s a man of his word, madame.”

She thanked him politely; she’d learned politesse before she was out of leading strings. Watched as he walked out of the cell, out of this place, out into the sunshine of the Parisian streets. Leaving her behind. To wait.

Marguerite wanted to scream, to pummel the ancient stone walls and rattle the bars with her fury and frustration.

Wait: She was beginning to hate the very sound of the word.

Thirty-Five

“Back again, citizen?” the guard at the gate of the Conciergerie asked.

“Business is brisk,” Marcus nodded meaningfully at the family members and friends who waited below the prison windows in the hopes of glimpsing the face of a loved one.

“Isn’t it, though?” the guard agreed, his eyes briefly following the direction of Marcus’s gaze. Then he stretched out his hand. “Papers?” After a quick perusal of Marcus’s forged documents, he swung the gate open.

Inside the prison, Marcus encountered more gates and guards ordering him to show his papers, inspecting his clothing, and peering inside his box of artist’s supplies and the leather artist’s tube with varying degrees of attention. None managed to discover the box’s false bottom.

As he continued through the prison, he mentally reviewed the number and placement of guards and gates, the twists and turns of each hallway and stairwell. He’d committed them to memory upon his first visit, but the practice was a helpful way of identifying any changes.

The guard assigned to escort Marcus, as he distributed painted miniatures and made new sketches, had a nose that put him in mind of a hungry parrot. Parrot Nose, too, had inspected his art box, rummaging through the pastels and chalk, unwrapping some of the miniatures, and finding no contraband.

Marcus stifled a yawn, flexing his fingers to ease the cramps from an evening’s worth of forgery. After examining Allard’s documents, he’d spent several hours practicing the different handwriting on them. When he was certain he’d achieved a natural facsimile of each, he used careful drops of a solution created by David to remove the ‘All’ from all instances where the name ‘Allard’ appeared, replacing it with ‘Bern’ so that now he had a complete set for Marguerite’s new identity as Simon Bernard. That Marguerite and Allard shared the same eye and hair color made altering the documents even simpler.

“What’s this?” Parrot nose hadn’t failed to notice the bottle of wine in the leather artist’s tube.

“Special order for Captain Laurent,” Marcus nodded in the direction of the captain’s office. Despite the Revolution’s claims that all men were created equal, he doubted any private would dare pilfer alcohol meant for a superior officer, particularly one who was a notoriously ill-tempered drunk.

The guard pulled the bottle out of the tube, peered inside and made a clucking noise. Marcus was also gambling that the sight of another bottle neck would convince him that the tube held nothing more than a series of bottles. In fact, it was nothing more than a neck, set atop Allard’s tightly rolled jacket and breeches.

“That for Laurent, as well?”

“Protecting the liberty, equality, and fraternity is thirsty work.”

With a snort of disgust, the guard shoved the bottle in his hand back into the tube.

Marcus smothered his sigh of relief with a cough.