Royal 02 - Royal Passion (44 page)

And in its aftermath they held each other, staring into the darkness, comforting, being comforted.

Roderic and Mara made their way back toward Ruthenia House some time later. They were met halfway there by Michael, Trude, and Estes. When Roderic's cousin had returned to discover that the prince and Mara were still missing, he, with Rolfe and the rest of the cadre, had launched a full-scale search. Hilarity sprang into Roderic's eyes as he saw his followers, but it was quickly extinguished. With every commendation for their swift action and gratitude for their concern, he gave them an expurgated account of what had happened. If his explanation of how the dirt and grime came to be decorating his and Mara's clothing was rather glib, no one seemed to notice.

Grandmère Helene, driven from her bed by her fears for Mara's safety, waited in the salon with Angeline. Roderic and Mara were scolded and hugged in equal measure. The story had to be told again, from the beginning, and yet again as other search parties returned. Finally, Angeline took pity upon them and sent them away to bathe and change before dinner.

The meal turned into a celebration, with three kinds of wine accompanying the courses, Mara's favorite
tartelettes aux fraises
for dessert as an offering of thanksgiving for her return from Madame Cook and the staff, and champagne served in the salon afterward.

Due to the unrest in the streets, they were not disturbed by visitors, which was felt to be a blessing by all. The discussion of the political situation was lively. Rolfe felt that Louis Philippe could weather the crisis if he just held firm. Roderic disagreed. Some gesture was needed, he thought, to show the king was not intransigent, that he was aware of the march of progress and the changes in French society of the past forty years. Grandmère Helene, who seemed to have been rejuvenated by being once more in company, sided with Rolfe, as did Juliana. Angeline, however, was of the same opinion as her son, and Mara herself saw the logic of his reasoning. The cadre was equally divided in their opinions and equally vociferous. Despite the differences of opinion, and regardless of the gravity of the situation, everyone seemed to feel that the matter could be resolved so long as there was no violent confrontation between the crown and the reformists.

Roderic excused himself early in order to see to what he described as a problem that demanded his attention. Mara discovered soon after that weariness from her adventures, combined with the wine she had drunk, was making her so drowsy that she could hardly hold her eyes open. Kissing her grandmother, she said her good-nights and left them also.

She expected to find Lila waiting for her in her dressing room. The girl was not there. Mara swept into the bedchamber, thinking that she might be laying out her nightgown or mending the fire. As she went, she pulled from her hair the pins that were pressing into her scalp, letting the heavy skein slide down to uncoil over her shoulder. Her head was bent as she searched for stray pins in the shining swath. She glanced up and came to an abrupt halt.

Roderic reclined in a slipper chair before the fire, his legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, his hands clasped behind his head. There was a kindling deep in his eyes as he watched her, surveying the dark veiling of her hair, her red lips parted in surprise, and the rounded curves of her breasts, which were emphasized by the lift of her arms.

Her mouth closed with a snap. “So this is the problem that required your attention?"

"A very important one. You might call it a problem of strategy, a flanking movement.” He lowered his hands, coming to his feet in a fluid gathering of muscles and moving toward her.

"I see, to outmaneuver your father."

"It seemed more filial than defying him. He likes to think he is omnipotent, all in the best interests of those concerned. Sometimes he is, of course, and it's an endearing trait, but not now."

"You love him very much.” There was no reason to be surprised at the knowledge; still, she was.

"He is my sire twice over,” Roderic said simply, “and my father."

Her weariness had vanished. She turned from him slightly, saying over her shoulder, “To avoid him, you may now have to stay here the night through."

"I may,” he answered gravely as he reached to lift a soft, curling strand of her hair, rubbing it gently across her cheek. “Does it trouble you?"

"Not if I can be released from this prison of clothes. What have you done with Lila?"

"I? Why, nothing. But she went away when she saw I meant to stay."

"Did she, indeed?” Mara said in derisive suspicion.

He settled his hand upon her shoulder, turning her back to him. He bent his head to touch her tender nape with his lips, punctuating his words with soft kisses upon the smooth skin of her back as he released her buttons. “Autocrat that I sometimes am ... I may have given her reason ... to think ... that you would not be needing ... a maid..."

Luca returned the following evening. Roderic received him in the salon with everyone present. Every inch the prince, he stood before the fireplace with his legs spread and his hands loosely clasped behind him while the gypsy walked down the room toward him. Luca saluted, and Roderic acknowledged it, but there were no glad greetings.

Neither was there condemnation. Roderic, his voice softly incisive, asked, “Why are you here?"

"I am of the cadre,” Luca said, his head high, his shoulders squared with gypsy pride. He wore his uniform, and it was pristine.

"You left us once. What reason do you have for returning?"

"You know what is happening in the city: the marches, the barricades of cobblestones in the streets. The word that reached us at the camp is that the National Guardsmen were called out to quell the riots, but instead of standing steady, they threw down their guns and joined the reformists. More, it has come to us that a man you have cause to distrust, de Landes, is gathering men. He buys toughs, riffraff, the kind who will do anything for a price. He jokes of needing an army to attack a palace. You are my prince, son of the
boyar.
You may have need of me. I am here."

A wry smile twisted Roderic's lips. “It's been said, and truly, that there is no gratitude in princes. I cannot promise you the hand of my sister in return for your allegiance."

"I don't expect it.” The gaze of the gypsy flickered briefly to Juliana's face, then away again. His expression was impassive, without hope, but also without resignation.

"If I place you to guard my back, how can I know that you will not desert that post for the sake of the tents of the
Tzigane
?"

"I have grown used, with you, to life lived at a faster pace, to thoughts that fly more swiftly and days that have purpose. I am addicted to these things as surely as the opium-eater is to the juice of the poppy. For them, and for your sake, I will cease to be a
Tzigane
."

Roderic stared at him, weighing his words and the steady light in his eyes. Finally he said, “You will always be a gypsy—and that is as it should be. Welcome, Luca."

He put out his hand and the gypsy took it. The cadre, with a volley of yells, closed in around them, slapping them on the back and buffeting them on the shoulders. Juliana, watching, made a sound of distress under her breath. Her blue eyes icy with contempt, she jumped to her feet and left the room. Luca saw her go, followed her progress with a somber look, but made no move to go after her.

It was the next day, the twenty-third day of February, 1848, that King Louis Philippe, bowing to the will of the crowds in the streets of Paris, if not of his people, dismissed his foreign minister and most trusted advisor, François Guizot. In his place, the king appointed a man with reformist sympathies, Comte Molé.

The news was slow in reaching the rampaging mobs. Later that evening they gathered in force outside Guizot's house on the boulevard des Capucines, chanting their slogans and brandishing torches. The military had been called in to protect the former minister and his property. They stood nervously fingering their rifles while the crowd grew larger and louder. Insults were hurled, along with a few stones and a great deal of rotten fruit and eggs. A man in the yelling multitude waved a pistol. Whether accidentally or with a purpose, the pistol went off. The soldiers fired a salvo directly into the crowd. People scattered, screaming, helping the injured to stagger away. On the ground, among the dropped torches, were left the bodies of twenty men and women.

The reformist called them martyrs; the Bonapartist labeled them fools; the legitimist hailed them as pawns, but the Orleanist wept with rage as five of the corpses were trundled through the street, recognizing them for the symbols of the end that they were.

Within twenty-four hours, Louis Philippe, king of the French, under pressure from the mobs in the streets and his own sons, abdicated the throne. As his successor, he named his grandson, the comte de Paris, with his daughter-in-law, the duchesse d'Orléans, as regent. Having learned well the harsh lesson posed by the executions of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the bourgeois king did not tarry for heroic gestures, but fled Paris with his queen in a hired carriage. Possessed of little more than what they could carry in their hands, they crossed the channel to England and exile.

The reformists were in disarray. Their accomplishment had far exceeded their hopes. They had expected to force change down the king's throat; instead, they had toppled the government. Among them were many who, like Victor Hugo, now looked for great things from the regency of the young duchesse, Helen of Mecklenburg-Shwerin, who was considered a liberal and intelligent lady. There were just as many reformists who suddenly wanted to have done with royalty, to establish a government of the people based on a constitution like that of the United States. The reformist meeting at Ruthenia House had been planned originally to discuss further means of bringing about the desired changes. It became instead a forum to discuss and reconcile their differences.

They congregated in the long gallery. Chairs of various sorts had been brought in from other parts of the house. Tall candelabrums of brass were ranged down both sides of the hall. The candles that filled them burned bright, their flames wavering in the drafts that eddied in the enormous open space, sending smoke curling up to the vaulted and frescoed ceiling. The light was reflected, multiplying, in the tall, arched windows that faced each other along the length of the gallery. The men, perhaps fifteen in number in addition to the cadre, gravitated toward the fire since the night had turned bitterly cold.

The conduct of the meeting had, so far, been vocal and yet sober. It was as if those gathered there felt the weight of what they were doing and of the changes they were making in the course of history. They had been calling for months for reform, for a revolt of the people; until that moment, it had not seemed like treason.

Perhaps it was the sense of responsibility, the feeling of emerging onto a wider, more public stage, that made them accept the audience that gathered to watch. Grandmère, fascinated at being so close to this political process, had demanded to be allowed to attend, and Angeline, no less interested, had supported her. Juliana and Mara had added their requests—Juliana out of curiosity, Mara from a feverish need to be present, to see what would take place concerning de Landes.

Would the Frenchman come? Did he mean to carry through the suggestion that she had made, or had her rescue by Roderic caused him to abandon it? It seemed that he might be still determined from the news Luca had brought; surely he was the man hiring thugs about which the gypsy had spoken? If he was, and if that information was put together with the plan they had discussed, it seemed ominous.

Was Roderic prepared? Mara did not know. She had tried to speak to him about it. Her choice of time and place had not, perhaps, been the best. He had nodded his comprehension of what she was saying and continued making love to her. If he accepted the seriousness of the situation, if he had made plans to counter whatever de Landes might do, he had given no sign of it. His preparations, like his mental processes, were seldom overt, and yet it would have given her more confidence to see some show of force on the part of the cadre or at least some indication that they were armed. Roderic himself, and Rolfe beside him, did not appear to have so much as a penknife between them as they lounged in chairs near the great marble fireplace.

Roderic's
garde du corps
stood near the edges of the gathering: Michael, Trude, and Estes on one side; Jacques and Jared on the other. Mara looked around for Luca, but he was nowhere in sight. She had seen him earlier in the corridor outside, however. Perhaps he was standing guard? It was good to think that someone was on alert.

The man who had become the leader of the reformists, Lamartine, was on his feet addressing the group. He stood tall before them, his thin face ennobled with the force of his belief in the cause he had worked for with such fervor for so long. “My friends, the time is now. The king and the Orleanists have Men, not in blood but caught in their own trap. In the past we have had the revolution of freedom and the counterrevolution of glory. Now we have the revolution of the public conscience and the revolution of contempt!"

There was an outcry of agreement. When it died away, Lamartine went on. “We must grasp this opportunity that we have been given, for its like will never come again. We can rally to the duchesse d'Orléans and the comte de Paris, hoping to use influence to gain the goals we seek, or we can form a provisional government, a second republic. The choice is ours. But we must decide, we must move. Already the legitimist followers of the comte de Chambord gather like vultures. Already the radicals and socialists are meeting at the Hôtel de Ville to form their own government. We cannot endure another bloodbath, another round of fraternal wars between the aristocracy and the assembly, or between the assembly and the commune. It is for us to prevent Paris, and France itself, from being plunged once more into chaos. It is for us to place our influence behind the force for greater good, and with our weight provide stability. We alone can doit!"