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One
Paris terrified her. The daily executions, the violence in the streets, the National Guard, who ransacked houses nightly in search of royalist sympathizers. Honoria BlakehatedParis.
And yet, she was still here.
She had no one but herself to blame for the fact that she wasn’t tucked in safe under the roof of her flat in London. No one but herself to blame that she was stuffing feathers back into a mattress that had been bayoneted and all but destroyed by the Guard not once but three times in the past month she’d been here. No one to blame but herself that she was tired and on edge.
No but herself and, perhaps in part, Monsieur Palomer.
Hiding three men of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel under the floorboards in her bedchamber for half the night would make any person nervous and exhausted. Especially when Lord Anthony Dewhurst, Lord Edward Hastings, and Sir Andrew Ffoulkes were among Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety’s most wanted.
No one suspected two women—herself and Alexandra Martin—of being in league with the Pimpernel. The soldiers searched the safe house—could she call it a safe house when it had been searched three times in thirty days?—never pausing to consider that two members of the League they sought stood directly before them.
Honoria could not have said precisely what Alexandra did for the Pimpernel. She suspected Alex ferried aristos through Paris and into the countryside so they could be taken to safety in England. Alex was also in charge of disguises, and she had a remarkable talent there. She could make a large, dark man like Dewhurst look old and decrepit. She could make the burly Scot Mackenzie look like a woman—not an attractive woman, but not an ugly one either. And when Alex wasn’t leading aristos through the catacombs running under the city of Paris, she was performing on the stage. She had a small part in a production ofLe Jugement dernier des roisat the People’s Theater.
If they’d been in London, Alex and Honoria would not have been acquainted. Honoria was one of only a handful of women who worked for the British Museum. She was an expert in Roman antiquities and spent much of her day identifying and cataloguing pieces acquired by or for the museum. She enjoyed working for the museum in Montagu House. It was quiet and peaceful and her little chamber was hidden away from the prying eyes of most men.
Honoria had realized early on that she was unusually attractive. Had she been the daughter of a duke or some other titled gentleman, her beauty might have worked to her advantage. But she had no lofty connections and, after the age of fifteen, no one to protect her. She’d done all she could to hide her stunning beauty, but nothing worked so well as locking herself in a dusty office with the bust of a long-dead emperor.
Honoria sneezed as she stuffed the last feather into the mattress. It had taken all morning, but the room was finally put to rights. She didn’t even want to think about the mess awaiting her in the drawing room. Thank God all the papers and correspondence the League needed were hidden in a false panel in the dining room wall. Not only would it have doomed them if the soldiers had discovered the documents, she would be the one cleaning up the shredded foolscap before she, too, was dragged to prison.
Honoria’s work for the Pimpernel was neither as exciting nor as dangerous as that of the others. Not only was she knowledgeable about Roman artifacts. She possessed the ability to duplicate almost any handwriting. It was a talent she had realized purely by mistake when, after she annoyed him once too often, her father had given her the tedious task of copying old manuscripts. She’d made it more interesting by imitating the penmanship of the author. Her skill had impressed her father, so she’d honed it to perfection. Now the League needed her for her skills in forgery and document creation. She could sign Robespierre’s name better than he could, and the papers she made for the aristos escaping Paris looked as authentic as any issued by the Committee for Public Safety. She could duplicate the stamp, the embossing, and every other minute detail.
The nature of her work meant she rarely left the safe house. For the most part, she did not mind. The safe house was, as the name would suggest, relatively safe. But in the back of her mind one small point niggled. She hadn’t begged the Pimpernel to bring her to Paris so she could be safe. She had been safe in her little room in the back of Montagu House. She could have continued making false passports for him there.
Honoria had begun forging papers for the Pimpernel because she wanted adventure. She’d wanted to make a difference. She’d wanted to experience life. She’d been hiding from the age of fifteen. Now, at the age of six and twenty, she wasn’t afraid any longer. But she was still hiding behind severe hairstyles, drab shapeless dresses, and enormous spectacles that did nothing to improve her already perfect vision. Even with her ornaments, Dewhurst had described her as “too demmed pretty to go out alone,” and Ffoulkes had said she might go out at night but “in the daylight you’d draw too much attention.” Considering the curfew in effect after dark, the dictate meant Honoria almost never went out.
Once, Alex had worked her magic, making Honoria look sallow and pock-marked with missing teeth. She’d been able to go out then, but she’d been terrified someone might discover her disguise and begin asking questions.
And so she stayed inside and hid herself away. Now she was scheduled to return to London as soon as transport was available. What would she have to show for her efforts in Paris? Ink stains on her fingers and bags under her eyes. How was that any different from London? She’d been forging passports and papers to be used in France for the last few years. Not on a daily or even a weekly basis, but a couple one month and a few more several months later. And then Monsieur Palomer had walked into her cramped chamber at the British Museum. He’d been a friend of her father’s and knew she had a talent for forgery. She hadn’t wanted to hear his tales of the horrors in Paris. She’d read of them in the papers and that had been enough. But she hadn’t been able to make him stop talking, and something about listening to him recount what he’d seen was so much worse than merely reading about it.
His eyes had been haunted. He didn’t want to go back to France, but he felt he must. He had family and friends trapped in Paris, and he could not leave them to their fate. He wasn’t a noble but a drapery merchant to the nobility. His curtains had hung at Versailles. His factory had been burned and looted, many of his workers killed, and his family threatened. He’d been in England for business and was afraid to go back using his real name. He wanted to save his family and as many others as he could.
Honoria had made him the necessary papers and watched him walk out the door. She’d never seen or heard of him again, and she had looked for mentions of him or his family.
Had he died? Had he lived? Had he saved his family?
