AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Three
“He’s waking,” Ffoulkessaid, and everyone save Alex pulled masks over their faces to conceal their true identities. Chevalier already knew Alex, which meant if the League could not persuade him to cooperate, she would have to leave the country sooner than she’d planned.
Alex moved closer so her face would be the first he’d see upon waking. She looked down at him, his hair spread on the pillow, his mouth slack with sleep, his hands locked in the fetters. He had not moved, and she almost contradicted Ffoulkes and argued Chevalier was still sleeping.
And then she saw his eyelids flicker.
The revolutionary was no fool. He was pretending to sleep, listening and attempting to discern where he was and who had captured him while his abductors still thought him senseless. Alex looked at the others—Blake, Montagne, and Ffoulkes—and put a finger to her lips. Then she sat beside Chevalier on a slim rectangle of space, all that was available on the narrow bed.
“I know you are awake,” she said. “Open your eyes so we might discuss your current predicament and how you might be free of it.”
“I’ll be happy to discuss it with you,” he said, his voice low and tinged with irritation and his eyes still closed, “if you unlock my hands.”
“I cannot do that, monsieur.”
Now he did open his eyes, and they were dark with anger. “I should have known you were a royalist,” he sneered at her.
She kept her expression passive, although her heart had jumped at his words. She considered herself a humanist, and the urge to defend that belief was strong. But this was not the time or the man with whom to argue philosophy. “Because I like Shakespeare?”
“Because you are English.” He sat and looked about the room. “You English love your kings.”
She gave a small nod of assent. “So did you French until recently. But”—she held up a finger before he could interrupt—“I think we can all agree on one point. None of us likes the bloody turn of this revolution.”
His eyes scanned the attic, taking in the others sitting at the table behind them, Ffoulkes at the side of the bed with a domino to disguise his face and hair, and then his gaze rested on her.
She could all but feel the fury burn in the depths of those lovely café au lait eyes. Strangely enough, she felt more drawn to him, despite his obvious dislike of her. She had always loved passionate men, and she could easily imagine Chevalier’s anger turned to desire.
“What do you want?” he asked. “Who are all of you? Girondists?” His lip curled when he said the name.
“Even worse,” Ffoulkes said in English. “The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”
Alex had heard that Chevalier had spent some time in London several years before, and now she saw that information was correct. The way his brows rose in alarm proved he understood Ffoulkes perfectly. It had been wise of Andrew to test the captive early, lest they fall into a habit of speaking English in front of him, assuming he could not understand.
“Je ne comprends pas.”
“Liar,” she said, still in English. “Even if you did not know English, you would know the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel. And, unfortunately for you, you have been meeting with the man at a café in the Palais-Royal. A Citoyen Allié, I believe he called himself?”
Most people would have not seen the small sign of distress Chevalier made. The slight testing of his fetters was almost unnoticeable unless one was accustomed to studying imperceptible gestures and nuances of expression. “You begin to see your predicament, I think,” she said, still speaking in English because she knew it was not his native language and would put him at a disadvantage. “You have been consorting with a known enemy of the republic. Robespierre’s most wanted, I believe.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line, and she could see he would have liked nothing better than to leap at her, lock his hands around her throat, and drain her life away. Ffoulkes must have sensed that as well because he drew nearer. She did not need to be protected. She was perfectly capable of defending herself, but men did like to feel as though they had a purpose, so she gave Ffoulkes a grateful smile.
Then she looked back at Chevalier, whose expression might have melted the ice crystals that had formed on her window overnight. “Not only have you been consorting with the enemy, you have aided and abetted him.” She held out her hand without bothering to turn around. She knew Montagne would hand her the papers. When they were in her hands, she turned them so he could see. “I believe these are copies of letters in your own hand.”
His gaze flicked to the papers and then back to her face. His look was so intense she could imagine he burned her visage into his mind. She did not want to think what revenge he imagined for her. No doubt it was violent and vicious.
She glanced at the papers now, thumbing through them as though she had not read them all several times. “Oh, dear. Robespierre will not gain many allies from these letters. He has a long list of political enemies and he seems quite determined to see them all arrested and executed on charges that seem...well”—she gave him a rather embarrassed look—“rather flimsy if not outright false.”
She looked at the next document and tsked. “And this one. Oh, my. He condones a recent massacre in Lyon. I do think the public opinion is quite against him in that instance. Didn’t the Convention recall that general and charge him with all manner of abuse of power and atrocities?”
“So, you have enough material to blackmail me,” Chevalier said in English. He had a rather thick accent, and Alex, who had grown so used to hearing French, remembered that she had a soft spot for men who spoke English with a French accent. Her gaze shifted to his lips. When the French spoke English their mouths always moved as though they were eating a ripe peach. Alex found it rather erotic.
Which was precisely why she should not look at his mouth. But she did it anyway.
“Go ahead then. Tell me your”—he gestured with his hand—“what is the word? Demands? What is it you wish me to do before you will hand over these letters?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said shaking her head and smiling. She rather enjoyed having the upper hand, rather enjoyed being the one to make him squirm and suffer as he had been part of the reason for the misery of so many of his countrymen. “If I tell you that, you will run right back to your superior, Monsieur Robespierre, and inform him of the Pimpernel’s latest plan. Then you could swoop in and thwart us and that would only turn you into a hero. I am firmly against that course of action.”
