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“Hold.” Ffoulkes leaned both hands on the table. “Are you saying Robespierre visited Chevalier’s apartments when you were there?”
“I hid.”
“Good God, Alex! If you’d been discovered—”
“I wasn’t.”
“Not this time. And I don’t want to risk a next time. There is no time to lose. We need a locksmith if we’re to have any hope of opening that cell. Montagne can get the locksmith in, and Chevalier can distract the guard, but he can’t walk out with Louis Charles.”
“And Montagne and I discussed it. We don’t think it’s wise for us to use the secret tunnel again,” Dewhurst said. “It will be guarded or walled up now.”
Miss Blake raised a brow. “You were having a discussion with Laurent?”
His mouth curved slightly. “It was brief.”
“If we can smuggle Laurent in, he knows all sorts of secret passages inside the Temple.”
“Exactly how many people do you think I can walk in with?” Chevalier demanded. “Why don’t you all come? That won’t seem suspicious.”
“What if someone from the inside let us in a back way?” Alexandra said, tapping her chin. “Perhaps someone who is very good at disguise could pretend to be a servant and—”
“While I was there, the captain told me he knows every guard and every servant personally. If you tried it, you would be caught and questioned.” Tristan didn’t need to add that Alex would also be killed.
“Then we have no choice but to use the secret tunnel.” Alex sat back, dejected.
“A year or so ago I went to Vauxhall Gardens,” Miss Blake said slowly. “Vauxhall is a pleasure garden in London. They have music and dancing and fireworks.”
“We know what Vauxhall Gardens is,” Dewhurst grumbled.
“Hemight not.” She indicated Tristan.
“I’ve been to London, Miss Blake, so I have heard of these gardens.”
“When I was there, I saw the most wonderful rope walker.”
“All I ever see are whores,” Dewhurst muttered.
“You have to look up, Lord Anthony,” Miss Blake remarked, lifting her hands from her ample chest to her face.
Everyone but Dewhurst stifled a laugh. Tristan found he rather liked Miss Blake, though she obviously had horrible taste in men.
“This rope walker could do amazing tricks on the rope. She stood on her hands and bent over backward. I was terrified she would fall, even though there was a net to catch her if she did. But she didn’t fall. She was very talented. And don’t look at me like that, Sir Andrew. I have a point. There must be rope walkers in Paris, although what we need is someone who can climb a rope rather than walk it.”
“Even if we could find such a person,” Dewhurst said, “how would we secure a rope inside the Temple?”
“You don’t need a rope,” Montagne said from the doorway. He’d returned and looked as unruffled as before. “There are drainpipes from the roof of the Temple almost to the ground. We’d just need someone who could climb one of those. There’s a walkway on the inside of the turrets. He or she could gain entrance from there.”
“And how are we to find someone who can climb like a monkey?” Dewhurst asked. “It’s not as though we can walk through the Parisian prisons and ask for the expert climbers to come forward.”
“I can climb it,” Alexandra said.
“No,” Tristan said before he was even aware of what he was doing.
She cut her gaze to him. “Yes, I can. When I was in the traveling troupe with my parents I knew rope walkers. They have to be good climbers to make it up to the rope.”
“Then I was right that we need a rope walker.” Miss Blake smiled.
“You need a good climber, and though I never did much rope walking, I did often help to string the ropes. That requires expert climbing. I’d like to think I became quite good at it.”
