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But Laurent was not leaving without Marie-Thérèse and the dauphin. He would do all he could for the queen and the king’s sister, but it was the princess and her brother he’d promised he would never leave. If only the people of France had known Marie Antoinette as he did. She was not like the libelles and the politicians portrayed her. She was a doting mother and a loyal wife. She could have escaped France half a dozen times, but she stayed because she did not want to leave her husband. She wanted to keep their little family together. Her family was more important to her than anything else. His family had been much the same until Amélie had died.
But the queen was not so much a fool as the king. When the situation at the Tuileries, the palace in Paris where the royal family had been imprisoned after they had been forced from Versailles, had grown dangerous, she had made Laurent promise to save her children if anything should happen to her. Laurent had promised on the soul of his dead sister Amélie. He had to save the children, and then the patriots could send him to the guillotine or whatever new torture they’d created. He’d go with his conscience clear.
In the meantime, he would rather not sit and wait for the Pimpernel’s men to stumble across them. He lifted the lamp higher and stared into the long shadows of the crypt. “Follow me,” he instructed the Englishwoman.
“No. I won’t go any deeper.”
He frowned at her over his shoulder. “Do you think it full of skeletons and rotting corpses? The dead are in coffins. That’s a good deal better than what you see on the streets of Paris.”
Her lips trembled, and he knew she’d seen the tumbrels of dead as well. Arms and legs bounced up and down as the carts moved to take the bodies and the severed heads to the Seine to be thrown in to drift toward the ocean.
“I am staying right here.” She planted her feet as if to demonstrate.
Good God but he’d thought his fellow Frenchmen stubborn and unyielding. He had no time for this nonsense. Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes. “By all means, if you’d like me to carry you again, stand there and glare at me. I have no objection to the feel of your derrière under my hand.”
He moved toward her, and she held her hands out. “I will follow you. Odious man!”
He gestured with the lamp.
To his surprise, she was actually quiet as they walked. He’d expected her to chatter, to ask where they were going and what his plan might entail, but the only sound was the soft thud of his boots on the damp stone. As they moved deeper into the crypt, the arches looked less ornate and more ancient. He could not read the worn words on the sarcophagi. The darkness around them grew thick and heavy, and he did not think she realized she had grabbed first his elbow and then his hand. Her warm flesh pressed against his as she held his hand a bit more tightly than was comfortable.
He did not mind. The silence here seemed impenetrable, a reminder that one day—perhaps very soon—he too would be part of that unending silence.
“Look there,” she whispered, her voice sounding strange in the quiet. She’d spoken in English, probably without realizing it and so he answered her in the same language.
“A door. What do you wager it is sealed shut?”
“I don’t gamble,” she said primly.
Of all the statements she’d made, none had surprised him as much. He’d never met anyone, save the king’s sister, who did not gamble. And even she played cards when the occasion called for it.
“Why not?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t like to lose.”
“Here.” He pushed the lamp into her hands. He didn’t like to lose either, and he was betting the door would open. Whether it led anywhere he wanted to go was a question for the future. “Higher,” he ordered, approaching the arched wooden door. It had to be several hundred years old, perhaps as old as the church itself. The wood was dark with age. He swiped a cobweb off the round iron door handle, and it squeaked when he lifted it. The metal was rough beneath his fingers.
He gave the door a hard yank, praying no skeletons would fall out if it opened, but it did not open. It did budge, but the door was thicker and heavier than he’d expected, and he had to bend his knees and pull continuously to budge it.
Finally, it opened enough for him to peer through, and he took the lamp and held it to the opening he’d made. For a moment, he was not certain what he saw, and then he smiled.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because,chérie,I believe I have just found a way out.” He pulled the door open wider, making room for a body to fit through. Then he took the lamp from her and motioned for her to precede him.
She shook her head. He should have expected that, considering she was quickly gaining the title Most Stubborn Woman Alive.
Laurent bit his lip to stop the curses. He took a deep breath. “Mademoiselle, you did not want to enter the crypt. Now I offer you a way out and you argue with that too?”
“I don’t know what’s up there. I know what is in here.”
“We shall find out what is up there together. Where is your sense of adventure?”
At the question she looked away, but to his surprise she looked back at him, her mouth firm and her eyes full of determination. She held out her hand. “Give me the lamp.”
“Why?”
“I’ll light our way.”
