Pam Rosenthal (28 page)

Odd.

“Let’s have a look, Pierre.”

The valet said that he’d packed it this morning, but his master had tossed it aside.

“He told me that if his trip proved a failure I was to give it to a used clothing dealer; for he’d never want to see it again.”

Which would, the inspector thought, have been rather a windfall for the used clothing dealer. Because sewn into the lining of this dressing gown was a fabulous ruby ring.

“I don’t know, Jeanne. I simply don’t,” was all the Vicomte had said when the inspector had formally arrested him for the murder of the Baron Roque.

“Well, then it’s nothing but a mix-up,” his wife had answered briskly, “and we’ll all be laughing about it soon enough.”

“Take a warm cloak,” she told him. “It’s going to be cold tonight. And I’ll be sending you food and more warm clothes tomorrow at…at?” She turned questioning eyes to the inspector.

“At the Bastille, Madame.”

“Ah.” The Vicomte smiled. “Not like the trivial prison where they put me the last time. You know, Jeanne, I’d be awfully put out if they didn’t think I was important enough for the Bastille. Along with the truly subversive writers.”

“I’ll be speaking to my lawyer first thing in the morning,” she told him. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you right out.”

“But I am sorry for the trouble I’m causing you, Jeanne.” Odd embrace the two of them had exchanged, the inspector thought. Warm and even passionate in a way, but the sort of passion shared by comrades in arms rather than an intimate married couple. Well, they were an odd pair; he rather liked them. Not that he was surprised at that. Unlike Pierre, Chief Inspector Marais was past being surprised at his own personal response to a suspect.

“You’ve been kind, Monsieur
L’inspecteur,”
the Vicomte said, “to let me bid farewell to my wife in a civilized fashion. But can we go now? This is hard on her.

“No, wait a minute, just one thing more.” He turned to Pierre. “You see, I’ve already paid for my next regular Friday visit to The Pearl in the Rose. Of course
you
remember it, Monsieur…” Pierre turned bright scarlet. “…that sober-looking establishment near the quay on the Left Bank. You’d followed me there a few weeks ago, though at the time, I’d thought you were fascinated by the place itself. Of course it
is
awfully expensive—available only to those who’ve inherited or married great fortunes. I’d considered inviting you in, as my guest.

“Well, it would be a pity, don’t you think, to leave the girls unattended this Friday? So why don’t you go in my stead? Explain the situation, Monsieur, and give Madame Alyse my apologies and best regards.”

An odd speech for a man to deliver in front of his wife, the inspector thought. Pierre stammered his incoherent thanks, while the Marquise seemed torn between rueful laughter and barely suppressed tears.

“I’ll miss you while you’re away, Joseph,” she said, “but I’m sure this silly affair will be settled quickly.”

“And now you’d really better go, Monsieur
L’inspecteur
,” she said.

Marais had led his little procession out of the place as quickly as he could, to give the lady a chance to let her tears out in peace and privacy.

Instead of crying, though, she helped a distraught Baptiste put Joseph’s rooms in order. And then she went to her study and penned two lists. First she recorded every word that she, Joseph, and the policemen had uttered, to give to her lawyer. And second, she enumerated an extravagant array of things to send to the Bastille.

Lists were comforting things, she thought. Unlike letters to worthless, stupid people.

Still, the letter had to be written, and the sooner the better. And so she penned a letter to the Duc and Duchesse de Carency Auvers-Raimond, outlining the state of affairs and asking for any assistance they could offer. Not that she really expected their help. But it was only decent to inform them of Joseph’s situation rather than let them read about it in the scandal sheets.

And only when a side door opened and quick familiar footsteps clicked on the marble floors did she relax her composure and allow herself to weep in a pair of loving, sympathetic arms.

Chapter Nineteen

“That will be all, Marianne,” the Duchesse said. “And be sure to close the door behind you. I’ll ring for a footman if Monsieur le Duc or I need anything else.”

Marie-Laure curtsied, picked up the tea things, and quit the room, shutting the door behind her by nudging it with her hip and elbow. The Duc and Duchesse listened to the receding sound of her footsteps on the corridor’s parquet floor.

“She’s looking well,” the Duchesse remarked to her husband. “And Jacques reports that she doesn’t complain of any maladies to the other servants. But it’s wise to check on her from time to time, I think, just in case.”

He nodded distractedly, his eyes on the door, where Marie-Laure had pressed her hip against it.

The Duchesse cleared her throat. “And as for this news about your brother…”

Wresting his attention from the doorway, he turned to face her. “Did
you
have anything to do with that?” he demanded.

She gazed back at him with flat green eyes. “Not a thing. Of course, it’s rather a stroke of luck for us. But no, it never occurred to me—either to betray him, if he’s the murderer, or to plot against him if he isn’t.”

She spoke softly, as though to show him she wasn’t affected by the skeptical look on his face. “I’m flattered, Monsieur, that you suppose I have the wit for such a thing. I know that you haven’t, no matter how much you might wish to.”

“
I?
But I’d
never…
I mean, he’s my
brother
, damn it, Amélie.” The Duc didn’t seem able to finish his thought.

He stopped, shrugged. “Do you think he did it?” he asked.

“Does it matter if he did?” she replied. “Does it matter
who
did it? Or who informed on him, for that matter?”

He thought for a moment. “No, I don’t suppose it does,” he said slowly.

She nodded, watching his expression change while he considered what she’d just suggested to him. He was hardly a logician, she thought, but he’d work it out. Best, though, to offer a little assistance.

Her voice became warmer, more confiding. “After all,” she said, “he’s gotten so much attention all these years, so much of everything that should have been yours. What difference will it make if he spends a little time in prison, while events here take their natural course? Nothing serious will befall him; he’ll slide by, as he always has. It will probably be resolved quite easily, without any assistance from you or me. Someday soon I’ll answer Fat Jeanne’s letter though; some sympathetic, sisterly clucking, just to be polite.

“But what’s important,” she added, “is to be sure that no news of this comes into the house.”

The fashion magazines and scandal sheets had stopped arriving by post, much to Marie-Laure’s relief. At least, she thought, there wouldn’t be any more of those items about Joseph’s mistress.

Nor, it seemed, would there be any more letters from him.

Not that she expected to receive one. She’d stopped hoping to hear from him some weeks ago.

No, she corrected herself, she’d
thought
she’d stopped hoping, but her heart had leaped when Nicolas had handed her a letter this morning.

But it had only been from Gilles. It was thicker than his usual communications, though—and uncharacteristically lively and voluble, she thought.

Well, he’d been working so terribly hard, she reminded herself; it was nice to see him enjoy a moment of self-congratulation now that his prosperous, productive future was finally coming into view. The school term would be over in a few months. He was studying hard for his examinations, but confident of passing them; he was already planning his medical practice. He and Sylvie would be married at the end of June. The dowry would help him rent an office, as well as a place for all of them to live.

And then
(he’d written)
you’ll be able to come home, Marie-Laure
. (She could construe his satisfaction from his even handwriting, with its sturdy capitals.) It was a shame, he continued, that she’d had to spend a year at the beck and call of some damn aristocrats. But she shouldn’t lose heart, things would soon be comfortable and well ordered again.

She smiled wryly, imagining herself bringing an aristocrat’s bastard into Gilles’s well-ordered world.

Not that he’d turn her away: Gilles was incapable of family disloyalty; he’d care for her and the baby both, and defend her stoutly to anyone who might hazard a disapproving glance. But he’d be saddened and humiliated, and during his first month of marriage and his new professional life, too—for it was in June that she expected the baby to arrive.

She had no way of fixing the date exactly, but Marie-Laure suspected that she’d conceived almost immediately. Such a shame, she thought: all that maddening, frustrating care Joseph had insisted upon—and for all the difference those damn sheathes had made, they could have made blissful, unprotected love every night.

She figured that she was about four and a half months’ pregnant—well, she was the right size for that, Louise had told her, with the authority of the oldest child of a brood of ten. And her exhaustion and queasiness had disappeared completely right after the New Year, which was what was supposed to happen, according to Bertrande, at the end of the first three months.

Not only had she stopped feeling dull and depressed; the absurd truth was that—physically at least—she felt wonderful: strong as an ox and hungry as a bear. She could tell that she looked wonderful, too, with all that energy coursing through her veins. In fact, she rather wished she didn’t look so vibrant, at least during those unpleasant and mysterious sessions, every few weeks, when she was summoned to serve the Duc and Duchesse their tea. But she’d usually forget the couple’s humiliating stares as soon as she closed the library door behind her, because her optimism and determination had returned as well. Which, she told herself, was certainly a good thing in her present difficult circumstances—not to speak of the endlessly detailed demands the Duchesse had been making on the entire household.

“Never,” as Nicholas summed it up, “in all the history of the French nobility, has there been a more pampered and cosseted expectant mother.”

Louise and Marie-Laure were still stitching their yards of satin into an endless array of loose, comfortable gowns and peignoirs. And Monsieur Colet found his ingenuity sorely taxed by requests for menus that were mild and sustaining “yet elegant and varied too, to tempt a delicate appetite.” His mouth twisted sardonically as he repeated the Duchesse’s words.

“Do you think she’s really pregnant?” Robert asked. “Maybe she’s stuffing pillows under her gown and plotting something.”

“What, to steal a baby from somewhere?” Nicolas laughed and Marie-Laure’s stomach lurched. “Don’t be ridiculous, Robert.”

“She’s not pretending,” Louise told the group. “I peeked into her chamber one day when she was having her bath. She does have a big belly—I saw it, all shiny and soapy.”

“She’s clever,” Monsieur Colet said. “She probably figured out a way to bribe our little Monsieur Hubert to do his job.

“Which means,” he added, “that I now may do
mine
.” He winked at Marie-Laure. “And feed an expectant mother as best I can.”

So Marie-Laure had enjoyed delicate, delicious, and wonderfully digestible meals these past months, along with lots of support and advice from the rest of the servants. Except for spiteful Jacques and prudish Arsène, most of them had been as nice as possible. And a few of them had taken her and the baby on as a joint project.

Monsieur Colet supervised her plans for future employment. He was keeping an eye on the market for cooks in small households in the region. She’d have no trouble finding a new job, he assured her, with his recommendation.

And as February drew to a close, and she was about to enter her fifth month of pregnancy, Bertrande helped her find lodgings with cousins in the village of Carency. For a deposit of five
livres
, the cousins had promised to hold the room until Marie-Laure needed it. She hoped to be able to work another three months before she had to start living on the remainder of her money.

If things went as planned, she’d spend two months in the village—one before the baby’s birth and one after—before going to her new job and boarding the child with a wet nurse.

She hated the idea of her baby taking nourishment at someone else’s breast. She’d always despised the custom of putting a baby out to nurse, entrusting its care to an indigent, overworked woman who was only doing it for pay. And she knew the dangers: children—rich and poor alike—often died as a result of the indifferent care they received.

In fact, she could recite by heart a passage from one of Rousseau’s novels, about certain mothers who, “having got rid of their babies, devote themselves gaily to the pleasures of the town.” Ruefully, she remembered her indignant adolescent response when she’d first read those words. How passionate, how ready she’d been to ignore the plight of mothers who had no choice in the matter. Like the great philosopher himself, Marie-Laure had not given a moment’s thought to what it would feel like to send your baby away and hope for the best.