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The concierge knocked to inform them their carriage was ready, and he ushered Elodie outside for the short drive to the Marais.
When they arrived at the Hôtel de la Rocherie, Will sent in his card, telling the lackey who greeted them that though he was a person previously unknown to the comtesse, he was in Paris on important government business and must discuss with her a matter of utmost urgency. After showing them into a drawing room elegantly appointed with striped wallpaper and Louis XVI furniture, the man withdrew.
Too nervous to sit, Elodie walked about, trailing her hand over the back of the sofa, down the edges of the satin window hangings. ‘Oh, Will,’ she whispered, ‘This is where madame received us when St Arnaud and I called on her with Philippe. The last place I saw my son, before they stole him from me.’
‘It’s fitting, then,’ Will said bracingly, ‘that, in this same room, he will be restored to you.’
A few minutes later, an elaborately gowned woman Will assumed to be the comtesse entered the room. As he bowed over her hand, she said, ‘Monsieur Ransleigh? I cannot imagine what business you might have with—’
‘And Madame Ransleigh, too,’ Will interrupted, nodding towards Elodie, who stood frozen by the mantel.
As the comtesse’s gaze followed the direction of his nod, the polite smile faded and her face went pale. ‘Elodie Lefevre?’ she gasped, stumbling towards the Louis XVI fauteuil and grasping the arm so tightly, Will thought she might have fallen without its support. ‘My brother told me you were dead!’
‘Sorry to disappoint,’ Elodie replied with some asperity, ‘but as you can see, I am still quite alive, moi. St Arnaud claimed I’d died, did he? How was I supposed to have met my demise?’
‘He—he said you’d been injured during the … the attempt on the Duke’s life. He did everything he could for you, but you died in his arms later that night. And then he fled.’
‘He got the last part right,’ Will said drily. ‘Shall we sit, madame? This must have been quite a shock. You will need time to recover, before we place our proposal before you.’
‘Yes, let me order refreshment. I, for one, could use a glass of wine.’
Even while giving orders to the lackey who responded to her summons, the comtesse kept staring at Elodie, as if unable to believe she had truly survived Vienna. After they’d been served, she drank deeply of her wine, then looked back to Elodie again and asked, ‘Are you going to try to take my son?’
‘Philippe is not your son,’ Will reminded her.
‘Perhaps not always, but he is now! For nearly two years he has known no other mother. You have only to ask him, he will tell you I am his maman.’
‘I know,’ Elodie said. ‘I do appreciate the tender care you have taken of him.’
‘You know?’ the comtesse repeated with a puzzled frown. Then her eyes widened and she gasped, ‘Was it you who accosted him in the park, two months ago? The servants said someone with an oddly intent manner had approached him. That they came back again to this house the very next day. I was so alarmed, I considered informing the gendarmes, but Prince Talleyrand advised against it.’ Her questioning tone turned accusatory. ‘You frightened him! How could you, if you care for him?’
‘I’d hoped that if he studied me long enough, he would remember me. Can you imagine how it felt to see him again and realise he did not even recognise me?’ she burst out. ‘When I had thought of nothing but his welfare, every day, since he was taken from me?’
‘Taken from you? My brother said you’d agreed to go to Vienna without him.’
‘That report was as accurate as the one about my death!’ Elodie retorted. ‘I regret to disillusion you about your brother, but the only reason I left this hôtel without my son was because St Arnaud drugged my tea and abducted me. Once he had me in Vienna, he used the threat of harming Philippe to force me to participate in his plot. Did you truly not know?’
The comtesse dropped her eyes, not meeting Elodie’s gaze. ‘I am … aware of my brother’s strong convictions, and the sometimes ruthless means he uses to carry them out. I knew there was something … suspect about your leaving Philippe so abruptly. But the child enchanted me from the first moment. When St Arnaud told me that he was setting out for Vienna immediately and that you had returned home to finish your preparations without seeing Philippe again, so you wouldn’t have to distress him by telling him goodbye, I was too thrilled at being able to keep him to want to question the arrangement.’
‘Was he … distressed when I did not come back for him?’ Elodie asked.
The comtesse nodded. ‘Of course. But I had a nursery full of toys to distract him and he loved listening to me read stories. When he would ask for you, I would tell him you were doing an important task, but you would be back soon. He cried at nights, mostly, so I slept in the nursery with him for the first month. And gradually he stopped asking.’
A sheen of tears glazed Elodie’s eyes. ‘Thank you for being so kind to him.’
The comtesse shrugged. ‘Eh bien, I love him, too. But what do you mean to do now? It was many weeks after you disappeared before he was happy and comfortable. Surely you won’t upset him again, by wrenching him from my care?’
‘It was to safeguard his happiness and well-being, and for that reason alone, that I did not take him with me when I had the opportunity two months ago. But as much as I appreciate your care of him, he is my son and I want him back.’
The comtesse was shaking her head. ‘But you cannot mean to take him now, surely! Give him some time! He is too young to understand all of this. You would only confuse and upset him.’
‘We don’t intend to take him away from you immediately,’ Will inserted. ‘Right now, he thinks of this as home and of you as his maman. What we propose is that my wife be reunited with him, spend time with him, let him become comfortable with her again. Once he is enough at ease with her to agree to it, we will take him to stay with us.’
Tears gathered in the comtesse’s eyes. ‘And then I will never see him again? Ah, madame, if you only knew what it is like to lose your son for ever, you would not be so cruel.’
‘Believe me, I know!’ Elodie retorted. ‘Mine has been lost to me for nearly two years.’
‘He wouldn’t be far away,’ Will said. ‘I was sent to Paris on an economic mission to the French government. If negotiations succeed and we proceed to implement the plans, I could remain in Paris for many months. You would be able to see Philippe daily, if you liked.’
‘I would like him to remain here,’ the comtesse replied wistfully. ‘My own son is dead; never in this life will I hold him again. But your son, madame, is alive. Though in taking him back you cut out my heart, I … I will not prevent you. Only, I beg you, don’t drag him away until he is ready to go willingly.’
‘I would take him no other way.’ Elodie walked over and put a hand on the comtesse’s arm. ‘Thank you. I know how difficult it must be for you to agree to let him go. But as my husband said, we will be in Paris for an extended time. It will be weeks yet, probably, before he is willing to leave you, months after that before we would return to England.’
The comtesse shook her head sadly. ‘There are not enough months in eternity to reconcile me to losing him.’
‘You shall never lose him,’ Elodie reassured her. ‘Not completely. How could you, when you will always hold a special place in his heart? I promise I will never attempt to erase your image there.’
‘Even though I let him forget you?’ the comtesse replied. ‘But surely you see that was different. I thought you were dead! Why should I remind him of a woman who would never return to him?’
‘As long as you both make his welfare your first concern, I don’t see why we can’t all come to a sensible agreement,’ Will said.
‘Can I see him now?’ Elodie asked.
Knowing her so well, Will could hear the longing in her voice. Knowing, too, that negotiating the terms of Philippe’s custody would cause her anxiety—and wanting to make sure, in case the comtesse possessed any of her brother’s perfidy, that the woman understood exactly what Will was prepared to do to enforce the agreement—Will said, ‘Yes, comtesse, would you please have Philippe sent down now? Elodie, my love, you’re too distracted and anxious to think clearly. Why don’t you go out—’ he gestured towards the French doors leading out to a small, formal garden that stretched between the hôtel’s two wings ‘—and take a stroll while we wait for the boy? The comtesse and I can discuss the particulars.’
Gratitude and relief in her eyes, Elodie said, ‘Thank you. I would like that.’
Will kissed her hand. ‘Into the garden with you, then.’
After the doors shut behind his wife, Will turned back to the comtesse. ‘I’m pleased that you are choosing to be reasonable, madame.’
She sighed. ‘I don’t wish to be. I should like to pack Philippe up and run away with him to a place where you would never find us. But … I do know what it is to lose a son. I’m not sure I could live with myself, if I were to deliberately cause another such pain.’
