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Will filed that observation away. ‘Why is she so insistent on returning to Paris?’
‘Her family’s there, I expect. She never spoke about herself, nor was she the sort who thought only of her own comfort. Waiting for her at the dressmakers or at those grand balls, I heard other maids talking about their ladies. Madame wasn’t like most of them, always difficult and demanding. She was kind. She noticed people and their troubles.’
Her eyes far away, Clara smiled. ‘One night, Klaus the footman had a terrible head cold, hardly able to breathe, poor man. Madame only passed by him in the hall on her way to a reception, but first thing the next morning, she had me fetch herbs and made him a tisane. Not that she made a great fuss about doing so, playing Lady Bountiful. No, she just turned it over to the butler and told him to make sure Klaus drank it.’
‘Did you ever wonder why she’d not brought her own maid to Vienna?’
Clara shrugged. ‘Maybe the woman didn’t want to travel so far. Maybe she couldn’t afford to bring her. I don’t think she had any coin of her own. St Arnaud paid my wages, all the bills for jewels, gowns and the household expenses, but he gave her no pin money at all. She didn’t have even a few schillings to buy ices when we were out.’
So, as she’d claimed, Will noted, madame had been entirely dependent on St Arnaud. ‘She never spoke of any other relations?’
‘No. But if they were all like St Arnaud, I understand why she wouldn’t.’ The maid stopped abruptly, wrinkling her brow. ‘There was one person she mentioned. Several times, when I’d given her laudanum for the pain after St Arnaud had struck her, she murmured a name as she dozed. Philippe.’
Surprise and something barbed and sharp stung him in the gut. Impatiently he dismissed it. ‘Husband … brother … lover?’
‘Not her husband—St Arnaud said he’d died in the wars. I did once ask her who “Philippe” was, but she just smiled and made no answer, and I didn’t want to press. She sounded … longing. Maybe he’s someone she wanted to marry, that her cousin had refused; I can see him sending away anyone he didn’t think grand enough for the St Arnauds. Maybe St Arnaud promised if she helped him in Vienna, he would let her marry the man. I know he had some sort of power to force her to do his will.’
For some reason he’d rather not examine, Will didn’t like the idea of Madame Lefevre pining for a Parisian lover. Shaking his head to rid himself of the image, he said, ‘Madame’s dependence on St Arnaud for food, clothing, housing and position would have been enough to coerce her co-operation.’
‘No, it was more than that,’ Clara insisted. ‘Not that she didn’t appreciate fine silks and pretty gems—who would not? But when she had to, she sold them without any sign of regret. She seemed quite content to live simply, not missing in the least the grand society for whom she used to play hostess. All she spoke about was earning enough coin to return to Paris.’
Not wishing to hear any more speculation about the mysterious “Philippe”, Will changed direction. ‘She’s had no contact with St Arnaud since the night of the attack, then?’
The maid shuddered. ‘Better that he believe she died of her injuries. She came close enough.’
‘St Arnaud emigrated to the Caribbean afterwards.’
‘That, I can’t say. I only know he left Vienna that night. If there’s any justice in the world, someone somewhere caught him and he’s rotting in prison.’
Clara looked up, meeting his gaze squarely. ‘If God has any mercy, once she’s done what you want, you’ll let her go back to Paris. To this Philippe, whoever he is. After all she’s suffered, losing her husband, enduring St Arnaud’s abuse, she deserves some happiness.’
Will wasn’t about to assure the maid he’d send madame back—to Paris or her ‘Philippe’—until he’d finished with her. And resolved what had already flared between them.
Instead, he pulled out a coin. ‘Thank you, Clara. I appreciate—’
‘No need for that,’ the maid interrupted, waving the money away. ‘Use it to keep her safe. You will watch out for her, won’t you? I know if someone wished her ill, they could have moved against her any time this last year. But still … I worry. She’s such a gentle soul, too innocent for this world, perhaps.’
Will remembered the woman in the garden, quietly picking spent blooms from her flowers while a stranger decided whether or not to wring her neck. She was more resigned than gentle or innocent, he thought. As if life had treated her so harshly, she simply accepted evil and injustice, feeling there was little she could do to protect herself from it.
Since his earliest days on the streets, Will had faced down bullies and fought to right wrongs when he found them. Picturing that calm face bent over the blooms and the brutal hand St Arnaud had raised against it, Will felt a surge of protectiveness he didn’t want to feel.
No point getting all worked up over her little tragedy; if she’d ended up abused, she’d played her role with full knowledge of the possible consequences, he reminded himself. Unlike Max, who’d been lured in unawares and betrayed by his own nobility.
And of course the maid thought her a heroine. If she could take in Max, who was nobody’s fool, it would have been child’s play for her to win over a simple, barely educated girl who depended on her for employment.
Suppressing the last of his sympathy towards Madame Lefevre, he nodded a dismissal to her maid. ‘I’ll meet you at the inn in two days.’
Clara nodded. ‘The old man’s disguise—you’re sure you can carry it off?’
‘Can she carry off hers?’
‘She can do whatever she must. She already has. Good-night, sir.’ With an answering nod, the girl walked into the gathering night.
Will turned back towards the inn where he planned to procure dinner, mulling over what he’d learned from Clara.
According to the maid, madame had been brought, without other money or resources, to Vienna and forced to do St Arnaud’s bidding. She cared little about wealth or high position. Her sole ambition was to return to Paris … and ‘Philippe’.
She can do whatever she must, the maid had said. Apparently, betraying Max Ransleigh had been one of those things. Eluding Will and cheating Max of the vindication due him might be another.
She was surely counting on trying to escape him, if not on the road, then once they arrived in Paris. He’d need to remain vigilant to make sure she did not.
From the maid’s reactions, it seemed even she feared the watchers might not be pleased to have her mistress leave Vienna. Madame Lefevre might well have other enemies in addition to the angry cousin of the man she’d ruined.
Her masculine disguise, which he’d first accepted almost as a jest, now looked like a prudent precaution.
For a moment, he envisioned madame’s slender body encased in breeches that outlined her legs, curved over thigh and calf, displayed the turn of an ankle. His mouth watered and his body hardened.
But he couldn’t allow lustful thoughts to distract him—yet. His sole focus now must be on getting her safely to Paris. Because until they reached London, he meant to ensure no one else harmed her.
Chapter Six
Late in the afternoon two days later, garbed in the clothing of an old gentleman, wearing spectacles so thick she could hardly see and leaning heavily on a cane, Elodie let Clara help her into the taproom of a modest inn on the western outskirts of Vienna. As the innkeeper bustled over to welcome them, Will Ransleigh strode in.
‘Uncle Fritz, so glad you could join me! The trip from Linz was not too tiring, I trust?’
In a voice pitched as low as she could make it, Elodie replied, ‘Tolerable, my boy.’
‘Good. Herr Schultz,’ he addressed the innkeeper, ‘bring some refreshment to our room, please. Josephine, let’s help our uncle up.’
With Clara at one arm and Will Ransleigh at the other, Elodie slowly shuffled up the stairs.
Not until she’d entered the sitting room Ransleigh had hired and heard the door shut behind her did she breathe a sigh of relief. The first step of her escape had proceeded without a hitch. Exultation and a rising excitement sent her spirits soaring.
As she sank into a chair and pulled off the distorting spectacles, she looked up to see Will Ransleigh’s expression warm with a smile of genuine approval that gratified her even as her stomach fluttered in response. His expression serious, he was arresting, but with that smile—oh, my! How did any woman resist him?
‘Bravo, madame. I had grave doubts, but I have to admit, you made a wonderfully credible old man.’
‘You made a rather fine old gentleman yourself,’ she said, smiling back at him. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you if you’d not arrived with Clara. You were a wizard with the blacking as well, going from white-powdered hair to brunette faster than I could don the clothing you provided. Now I see you’ve transformed yourself yet again.’
Though he’d kept his hair darkened with blacking, he’d changed from the modest working-man’s attire he’d worn the day he climbed up her balcony into gentleman’s garb, well cut and of quality material, but not so elegant or fashionable as to attract undue notice.
