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Sixteen
Her green eyes werefull of apologies as she layered the heavy makeup on him. He felt as though anyone who looked at him would see the cosmetics and question him, but when he stepped in front of the looking glass, he didn’t appear to be wearing any cosmetics at all. He also didn’t look at all like himself. She’d made him seem older and haggard with a scar across one cheek. He looked very much like one of the dozens of peasants from Faubourg Saint-Antoine who’d joined the National Guard out of revolutionary fervor and the desire to feed his family. Dewhurst, on the other hand, looked younger and, if possible, more stupid. She shoved a wadded-up handkerchief in his mouth to stilt his speech and gave him pox scars.
“What is this?” Dewhurst said, pointing to his forehead, which protruded slightly, giving him a loutish look.
“A disguise.”
“Why can’t he look like the simpleton?” Dewhurst mumbled around the handkerchief.
“If the cosmetics fit...”
With a curse, Dewhurst stomped out of her bedchamber. Tristan moved to follow, but she grasped his hand. He didn’t look back at her; instead, he stood rigidly.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “You have to believe that.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you still angry?” Careful of his makeup, she turned his chin so he looked at her.
“Because you may not have known, but you don’t disapprove.”
She dropped her hand. “And does the republic act any differently?”
“No. And you may remember that is the reason I turned on Robespierre.” He started for the door again.
“Tristan, I—”
He paused, hand on the latch.
“I’ll talk with you when you return.”
Without a word, he followed Dewhurst through a secret passage and out a secret door. There was an hour until curfew, so they had no time to waste. Dewhurst headed toward La Force, his step purposeful. People they passed shied away or touched their cockades, checking to make certain they’d remembered to pin them on. Tristan tried not to notice how hungry and pale they looked. He tried not to think about the pain in Alex’s eyes. Who was he to cause her pain? He’d known it would end like this as soon as he’d first woken in that attic. Once he acted against the republic, there was no going back. He’d be forced to flee Paris and France. Possibly forever.
Maybe he’d known that the first time he met with Citoyen Allié or the first time he’d given the man papers detailing Robespierre’s crimes and excesses. Even if he hadn’t known Alex, hadn’t kissed her, lain with her, touched her, he would not want to leave the city of his birth.
But it seemed particularly egregious to be forced out and to have the last member of his family threatened by a group ofrosbifswho would still be here when he was long gone. And that was the other thorn that pricked him. If they actually succeeded in rescuing the boy from the Temple, Tristan would have to leave Alex.
It would have been better not to take her to bed at all, but how was he to know he would begin to feel something for her?
“You’d better stop mooning over Alex and start playing your part,” Dewhurst muttered. “You’re supposed to be the superior. We’re almost there.”
