A Rose at Midnight (22 page)

The comment roused her from her tight, controlled rage. “What young man?” Her voice came out raw and almost unrecognizable, the first coherent words she had spoken since Malviver had dragged her into the house.

Madame Claude halted in her efforts to untie Ghislaine’s ankles, staring at her in frank curiosity. “You speak like an aristo,” she said. “Had I known, I could have held out for a higher price.” She sounded patently disgruntled. “But then, the price you fetched was good enough. And you needn’t worry your pretty little head about what young man. You’re to be kept for the earl’s exclusive use for as long as he wishes. He grows bored easily—chances are you’ll be able to accommodate other patrons within several weeks, but by then the young Englishman will have left Paris. He was easily distracted when I said you were otherwise engaged. Don’t worry—there will be other handsome young men to compensate you for the ones like the earl.”

The one brief flare of hope had died, smashed inside her. He’d seen her. He hadn’t recognized her, she knew that, but something about her had caught his eye. It hadn’t been a latent memory. It hadn’t been sudden concern for a helpless victim. It had been a passing wave of lust, easily diverted.

She sat up in the bed, her mind moving at a rapid pace. First and foremost, she had to get away from this place, back to Charles-Louis. And to do so would require every ounce of her intelligence and cunning.

“I imagine,” she said slowly, “that I would find the experience more pleasant with a handsome young man.” She coarsened her voice just slightly. Too much so would have been unbelievable. Instinct was taking over, telling her that subtlety could be her greatest ally.

Madame Claude beamed at her. “I knew you were a smart one. You’ll do well at this life if you can come to terms with it, and there’s no better life for a woman. You get paid for what men would take from you for free, and you learn how to master them. How to make the men do what you want. You learn to take your pleasure where you can find it, and you can live a comfortable life of leisure. A few hours of work on your back every night is better than slaving all day in a dress shop.”

“I can’t sew.”

“You see. You’ve made a wise choice, my dear. You’ll go far in this business, see if I’m not right.”

Ghislaine never said a word. Made the right choice, had she? Choice had never come into play since she’d been dragged into this wicked place. But she would choose—never again would she be a helpless victim.

It took her two days to escape. Two days of enduring the earl’s return visits, two days of enduring the vicious cruelties with which he assaulted her body. Two days of listening to his fulsome compliments, his moans of pleasure. Two days of pain and degradation disguised as an act of love.

He’d smiled blearily at her as he’d rolled away. “Demme if I don’t take you back to England with me,” he said. “You’ve quite won my heart, gel.” He reached over and pinched her breast, and it took all her self-control not to flinch. “I have friends who’d appreciate a fine little thing like you. And I’ve always enjoyed watching.”

He sat up, his back to her as he panted slightly. She lay there, watching his soft, white skin, puffy and unmarred. She glanced down at her own body, degraded by his, and her resolve strengthened.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he wheezed, reaching down for his clothes. “You’re still a bit reluctant, but I’ve always liked that in a wench. I’m very good at teaching obedience. I don’t know when I’ve been quite so enamored of a slut.”

The huge vase was made of heavy, cheap porcelain. Had she used one of the delicate Chinese vases that had decorated Sans Doute, it would have hardly slowed him down. The hideous cracking sound as she brought it down on his head sounded like a skull splitting, and he slid onto the floor without a sound.

She wondered if she’d killed him. She scrambled off the bed to stare at him, but despite an expression of faint surprise on his face, he seemed to be sound asleep.

A shame, that. She wanted to kill him. If she’d had a knife, she would have done much worse than that. As it was, she had no choice but to leave him, slumped naked on the floor. She paused only long enough to dump the contents of the chamber pot in his lap.

She had no clothes but the white night rail he delighted in ripping off her. She took his clothes instead, the baggy pants and billowing shirt dwarfing her small body. She climbed out the window, she who was deathly afraid of heights, not even noticing that she had to drop two flights to the filthy alleyway below.

She twisted her ankle when she landed, but she made no sound. Moments later she was hobbling off into the darkness, searching for her brother.

During their weeks on the street, she and Charles-Louis had kept to themselves, wisely trusting no one. The one exception had been a rag-picker known by one and all as Old Bones. He plied his way through the streets, pulling a cart behind him, trading and selling odd pieces of refuse. The man was ageless. Word had it that he was one of that despised race, a Hebrew, and his rheumy old eyes could see farther than most. He’d been kind to Charles-Louis, giving the fretful boy a crust of bread when he could have used it himself, warning Ghislaine when a group of marauding citizens had stumbled drunkenly through the streets nearby, looking for anyone worth butchering.

In return, she’d brought Old Bones bits and pieces of things that he could find a buyer for, asking nothing in return. A strange friendship had grown up between them. If anyone knew where Charles-Louis was, he would.

It took her another day and a half to find them. And in the end, she found them in the worst place of all.

She’d avoided the Place de la Revolution assiduously during the weeks in Paris. Every day she heard the names of people who’d been beheaded. She’d wept the day the king had died, wept when the silly little queen had followed. But on this day she couldn’t keep away. This was the day her parents were among those scheduled to die.

She wasn’t sure what drew her to that blood-drenched place. Perhaps her parents would have preferred to go to their inevitable deaths thinking she was safe, far away from the horror that was Paris.

But she had no choice. For her own sake she had to be there. To be with them, in love and sorrow. She couldn’t let them die surrounded by a vengeful mob, with no one to weep for them.

They didn’t see her as they rode in the tumbrel, amid the jeers of the blood-crazed onlookers. They didn’t see her as they climbed the scaffold, and for that she was glad. She held her breath as the blade fell, but there were no tears. Her tears were gone.

She heard the scream, a short, shrill one, ending in sudden silence. And across the crowded square she saw the figure of her brother, struggling as Old Bones tried to restrain him.

Another victim mounted the scaffold, and the crowd paid no attention to the disruption in the square. It took her a long time to reach him, but by the time she caught Charles-Louis in her arms he was silent. She never heard him speak again.

Between the two of them, she and Old Bones kept him fed and warm. He responded to nothing, having vanished into a childlike world where he could barely take care of his bodily functions. She’d even managed to find a few sou for a doctor, but the man had simply shaken his head, helpless to aid Charles-Louis. Shock, he’d said, could do that to a mind. The boy had retreated someplace safe, where no one could harm him. And only God knew whether he’d ever emerge from that self-imposed cocoon.

She’d done her best to protect him, watching over him, with barely enough to eat as winter closed in around them. Until Old Bones came to her with a gentle suggestion.

“There is no food,” he’d said.

Ghislaine had laughed bitterly. “Tell me something new. There’s been no food for days.”

“There have been scraps. Crumbs, most of which you’ve fed your brother. It’s November now. Your brother will freeze to death on the streets. Most days he doesn’t even remember to put on his cloak. He needs shoes, he needs a blanket, he needs decent food. As do you.”

She had held herself very still, knowing in her heart what was coming next. She hadn’t told Old Bones where she had been during those lost two days in July, but he was old and wise as time, and he had to have known. And that it hadn’t been her choice.

She’d grown hard, cold in the last few months. The only love she had in her heart was for Charles-Louis. Even Old Bones she barely tolerated, and only if he didn’t touch her. As he was a man who didn’t care much for other human beings either, they managed well enough.

“You are not telling me anything I don’t already know,” she said quietly. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“The obvious one. You have something you could sell. In the streets of Paris few people are fortunate enough not to sell whatever they can.”

“Be quiet,” she snapped, casting a worried glance at Charles-Louis. Despite the hard life and lack of nourishment, he’d grown. His clothes were ragged, torn, and too small for his adolescent body. He was thirteen years old, and there was nothing but childlike blankness in his eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, Ghislaine. His ears may hear, but his mind cannot. He won’t know if you decide to sell your body on the streets to feed and clothe him.”

It was said, out in the open. Suddenly she could feel the Englishman, panting and sweating on top of her, his breath fetid in her face, his hands hurting, hurting…

“No!” she cried, the protest tom from her.

Old Bones had merely shrugged. “I forgot. An aristo has standards.”

“I would kill,” she said, her voice flat and full of despair. “I would stab people and steal their purses. I would rob the corpses of my family. But I cannot sell myself on the streets. I would go mad.”

“Murdering pickpockets seldom make enough to feed themselves, much less three people,” Old Bones pointed out.

A bizarre sense of humor surfaced. “You expect to live off the rewards of my whoredom?”

“It’s logical. I can find the customers, make certain you’re safe.”

“You can protect me?” Her laugh was cold as ice.

“No one can protect you. No one can protect any of us. But I can help. You survived once—don’t bother to deny it. I’ve lived on the streets of Paris for too long not to have an idea of what happened to you when you disappeared this summer. You survived, but you failed to prosper. You can do it again, this time for a good cause.”

“Damn you, I can’t…” Her cry of protest was interrupted by Charles-Louis’s sudden hacking cough.

“He needs a blanket,” Old Bones said, his cracked voice pitiless. “He needs warm soup and medicine. He’ll die, sooner or later. And he’ll die before you do—he’s much weaker. Do you want to watch that?”

She shivered. It was cold, so very cold. She thought back to Madame Claude, with her smug face and fine sheets, and she thought of her customers. Of the raddled old earl with his taste for pain. Of Nicholas Blackthorne, glancing at her and dismissing her as a faceless prostitute.

“I won’t go back there,” she said fiercely.

“You don’t have to go anywhere. M. Porcin at the butcher shop asked me whether you might be amenable to earning a little money. You would go to his house, and he would pay you.” If he had been sympathetic or kind, she would have refused. As it was, he was only matter-of-fact. “An hour or less, Ghislaine. Lying on your back, thinking about all the ways you could spend a few extra francs. How can you say no?”

She wondered. And then she knew that she wouldn’t, couldn’t say no. If she had survived being bound and raped, she could survive M. Porcin’s gruff pleasures. He was not a cruel man—he occasionally gave her a scrap or two of meat for her brother, and his eyes were sad, not evil. She could take his money, and survive.

In the end, she did it three times. Twice with M. Porcin, when the hunger grew too bad and Charles-Louis’s bones began to show through his pale, dirt-streaked skin. She had cause to bless the childlike silence that had descended upon him. He didn’t know what she was doing for him. He need never know the shame his sister had chosen.

The third time was the final one, and she was never certain if it counted with the sins engraved on her soul or not, since the act wasn’t completed. It hardly mattered. She’d lost her soul long ago. She’d lost her God shortly thereafter.

“I won’t,” she told Old Bones, when he’d informed her someone else had demanded her services. “M. Porcin is one thing. He’s a kind man, and he finishes quickly. He expects nothing of me. I won’t go to a stranger…”

“Porcin was taken today,” Old Bones said wearily, too inured to show sorrow or dismay. “He was denounced by a member of the neighborhood committee. They don’t waste their time with people like Porcin. More fodder for Madame La Guillotine.”

Ghislaine accepted his fate with nothing more than a shrug, dismissing a man who, in his way, had tried to be kind. “So you have already found a replacement,” she said.

Old Bones shook his head. “Not exactly. The man who denounced Porcin. He had his reasons.”

Ghislaine felt the first tiny trickles of fear penetrate her defenses. “They were?”

“Porcin’s shop is a thriving business. The man wanted it. He also wanted you.”

She didn’t flinch. “I imagine the prosperous shop was a greater enticement,” she said flatly. “I refuse to take responsibility…”

“Stupid aristo!” Old Bones spat. “This isn’t a game. The man is dangerous. He’s asked for you. You cannot say no.”

“I can! I can choose.”

“He’ll find you. He’s a powerful man, growing more powerful every day. He’s one of the leaders of the new society adept at stabbing a neighbor in the back, at finding a weakness. He’s already risen far in the revolutionary government. There’ll be no stopping him.”

“I won’t…”

“You will. You will go to his house, and you will do anything he asks of you. If you don’t, Charles-Louis will die.”

“How could he even know of us? Of me, of Charles-Louis…?”

“You’re a distinctive sight, Ghislaine. For all that you stay in the shadows, the people know of the aristo and her brother, hiding in the night. You’re far too pretty, even in your rags, to escape notice. And the man makes it his business to know everything. Don’t think you can protect Charles-Louis either. You can protect no one from this man. The best you can hope for is to appease him.”