Surrender to a Stranger (11 page)

“Is that so?” remarked Citizen Julien. “And do you believe that?” His tone was one of amusement.

Gadbois shrugged. “I am not in the business of believing or not believing,” he replied indifferently. “All I know is that the reward for her capture is high. The National Guard is searching for her as we speak, and everyone who leaves the gates of Paris is being questioned thoroughly.” He looked at him intently. “If someone is helping her, they will both have to exercise extreme caution at all times.”

Citizen Julien acknowledged his warning with a nod. “Thank you for the candles, Citizen,” he replied.

Jacqueline lay on the bed, staring at the dozens of cracks that webbed the ceiling. She had packed up all the food and gifts Citizen Julien had brought her. The action of packing had briefly taken her mind off everything else. For a few moments all she had to think about was what should be wrapped in which piece of paper, and whether there was a sufficient length of string to tie the packages together into a neat bundle. Once that was done there were no simple chores left to occupy her, so she lay on the bed to consider the major changes in her situation, and the options those changes had created.

Basically she had two choices. She could stay with Citizen Julien, who would try to get her safely to England and reunite her with her sisters. Or she could remain in Paris and see to it that Nicolas Bourdon did not live.

The idea of being with Suzanne and Séraphine again was extremely tempting. She had not seen them in over five months, and the thought of wrapping her arms around them and holding them close filled her with pleasure. When she had sent them away, her thoughts had been only for their physical safety. They had not wanted to go. They both cried and protested pitifully during the few days it took to make the arrangements. They told Jacqueline they were afraid to leave their father, brother, and sister, afraid that they might never see them again. Jacqueline hushed them with soothing words that trivialized their fears, telling them it was only for a month or two, that as soon as Papa was released and things had settled down in France, she would arrange for their return. Suzanne, who was ten, asked her if those bad people who had taken her papa away were going to kill him. Jacqueline scolded her severely, telling her not to think such silly thoughts. Everything was going to be fine. She and Antoine would help Papa make those people see that arresting him was a mistake. Papa would be released and then they would all be together again. She promised.

But she had not been able to keep that promise. In a sequence of events that seemed more like a nightmare than reality, her father had been found guilty of the charges laid against him. He was guillotined that same day, and she and Antoine were not even permitted to spend a few moments with him before his execution. In the brief hours before he climbed into the cart that would take him to his executioner, he wrote Jacqueline and Antoine a letter of farewell. He asked them to find it in their hearts to forgive his enemies, as he had. He did not doubt that their actions were motivated by a genuine belief in the creation and preservation of the new order of France, and it was not up to him to be their judge or to find fault in their zealousness. God alone could judge them. He asked his children not to cry and, despite their pain, not to hate.

It was a request Jacqueline found impossible to fulfil.

Her father and Antoine were dead. There was nothing she could do to change that. And her sisters were now orphans, lost and lonely in a strange land. It was evident they needed someone to help them through the loss of their family and the life they once knew. Jacqueline would have liked to believe she was that person. It would have comforted her to think she could go to them filled with wisdom and love, and be able to quietly and patiently help them heal, slowly restoring their faith in the goodness of life and mankind until they could see only brightness and hope in the dawn of each day, instead of anguish and loss. But deep inside she knew she could not. A dark and painful fury was growing within her, festering into something hideously virulent and caustic. It seemed to swell and stretch with every breath, weighing down her body and her spirit, making her desperate with the need to rage, to scream, to cry, to take any action that would somehow help to relieve her suffering. She knew she could not cry. Her father’s arrest and death had cured her forever of that empty, futile gesture.

If she accompanied Citizen Julien to England, what help could she possibly be to her sisters? Since she herself was so overcome by hate and rage, how could she help them with the challenge of dealing with their loss, of putting the past behind them and having faith in the future? How could she ask them to forget and go on to a new life, when she had absolutely no intention of doing so herself? Her sisters were young, only six and ten. Everyone knew children could heal. There would be scars, of course, but eventually time would fade them. Their memories of their father and brother would become cloudy and distant, their recollections of life at the Château de Lambert no more than a pleasant, blurred series of small, unimportant moments.

Jacqueline knew this with a certainty that made her heart bleed. When her mother died giving birth to Séraphine, Jacqueline was sure she would never enjoy another moment of her life again. For months she devoted herself totally to looking after Suzanne, who was four at the time and as devastated by the loss as Jacqueline. But while Jacqueline could not abide to be in the same room with the new baby, whom she regarded as the instrument of her mother’s death, Suzanne was totally enchanted by little Séraphine and wanted to be with her constantly. When Séraphine started to walk, Jacqueline found she could no longer ignore her. Séraphine would toddle away from her governess and throw herself at Jacqueline, wrapping her chubby arms around her legs and refusing to let go. Eventually the needs of her own anger took second place to the needs of this motherless child. And although Jacqueline talked about their mother often, little Suzanne began to have more questions about her than actual memories. Even for Jacqueline, time gradually managed to stanch the flow of pain that poured from her heart each day.

So Séraphine and Suzanne would eventually recover. But Jacqueline would not. This time she was an adult, and the pain was not just that of a tragic death, but of an entire family destroyed by corruption and injustice. For Jacqueline, even time could not heal this kind of agony. Nothing could.

She made her decision. She would not flee to England. She was too consumed by hate and anger to have anything good to offer her sisters. So she would not join them. But if it was the last thing she did, she would see to it that Nicolas Bourdon did not live. Perhaps that was why she had been given a reprieve from her execution. She did not doubt she would be captured after she murdered him. It did not matter. As long as Nicolas was dead, her own survival meant nothing to her.

The sound of heavy, booted feet stamping across the floor below jerked her from her thoughts. A voice, harsh and authoritative, rang through the inn. Jacqueline strained to listen, but she could not make out what the man was saying. A quiet, hushed voice responded, presumably Citizen Dufresne’s. She sprang from the bed and rushed across the room to press her ear against the door. The sounds were still muffled. She twisted down on the door latch, only to find it locked. She did not have a key to let herself out. Citizen Julien had taken the precaution of locking her in once again, perhaps thinking to protect her, but the innkeeper probably kept a second set. If he did not, it would be easy enough to break the door down. Citizen Dufresne and the man downstairs seemed to be arguing, and Jacqueline could hear the sound of furniture being overturned and doors banging open. Her heart froze in her chest as the heavy thump of boots began to move up the stairs.

For a few seconds panic gripped her with such violent intensity she was unable to move. They had found her. She was going to be arrested and taken directly to the guillotine. How monstrously unfair that she should have cheated death for just a few short hours, only to be dragged back and thrust once again into its icy black grip. Vengeance would not be hers after all. Nicolas would live, and she would die. There was no justice after all.

She spun around suddenly, frantic with the need to do something, but not quite sure what. Her eyes came to rest on the lacily frosted windowpane.

She tore across the room and yanked the window open. Then she hauled her legs up and over the sill and lowered herself down until her feet touched the narrow ledge below. She tentatively exchanged her grip on the sill for a hold on the shutter, terrified that the ledge would not accept her weight. It did. Her wooden sabots were large and clumsy on the narrow shelf, so she had to inch her way slowly along toward the next window, hanging on to the shutter for as long as she could with her left hand as the outstretched fingers of her right reached out to touch the corner of the next one. She couldn’t quite grab it without letting go of the first shutter, and for a few interminable seconds she struggled not to scream as she felt herself almost lose her balance. She ground down on her teeth and clung with desperate hands to the flat, crumbling surface of the building, her face pressed so closely against the pockmarked brick that she was sure it was crushed into her skin forever. With a grunt of determination she forced herself to release her right hand from the wall and reached out to grab the next shutter. Dry, splintering wood bit into her fingers. She ignored the pain, pressing down on the wood to test its strength before inching her way along again. Past that set of shutters, and on to the next, moving as quickly as her fear and her balance would allow, until finally she had reached the edge of the inn. The low roof of the next building began not far below her; still, it took a will of iron to make her let go of the shutters and leap down onto it. She landed with a heavy thud on her knees and hands, and then she was up and scurrying across the roof to a corner that overlooked a pile of debris and garbage. A gasp of fear escaped her as she jumped off the roof and landed in the center of the icy stiff mound. It did not cushion her fall as well as she hoped, and she found she was limping slightly as she bolted around the building into the dark, narrow passageway that ran between the buildings out to the street.

The front of the inn was crowded with people who had stopped what they were doing to watch a detachment of the National Guard make another arrest. Jacqueline quickly pulled her cap down low over her forehead, buried her face into the collar of her jacket, and ambled out into the street to lose herself in the middle of the curious mob. Eight horses were waiting patiently near the door of the inn. One soldier was watching over them, which meant that it had only taken seven brave men to go into the inn to arrest her. Obviously her previous encounter with the National Guard was known. She looked about slowly to see if anyone was staring at her. The street was filled with men and boys of all ages dressed in outfits similar to hers, so she did not stand out. Citizen Julien had been wise in his choice of costume for her.

She started to move gradually toward the back of the crowd, intending to lose herself in the steady stream of traffic up ahead that was either uninterested or unaware of the commotion happening inside the inn. The sight of a carriage rounding the corner at the end of the street stopped her. It flew along at a speed that was dangerously reckless on such a narrow and crowded street, causing the tightly pressed assembly to split into two great waves to accommodate it. Fortunately for Jacqueline she was caught up in the swell that moved farther away from the inn to the other side of the street. The carriage rattled to a halt in front of the inn, the door swung open, and out stepped Nicolas.

The wave of absolute hatred that washed over her as she looked at him was so intense it made her feel nauseated. He paused to speak briefly with the soldier standing outside before entering the inn. Every impulse in her told her to run, to get off that street and out of that area as fast as she possibly could, but instead she remained firmly rooted to the spot, listening to the jeers and yells of the crowd as they waited impatiently for the soldiers to come out with their prisoner.

A few minutes later Nicolas emerged from the door, a look of dark fury and disgust on his face. The innkeeper Dufresne followed behind him, wringing his hands and protesting apologetically. The remaining soldiers of the National Guard filed out of the small doorway and returned to their horses, looking irritated and sheepish. They mounted quickly and rode away, obviously embarrassed at having failed in their mission. Nicolas strode toward his carriage, but before getting in, he paused, taking a moment to scan the crowd. It was almost as if he could sense she was near, that he knew she was watching, and if he just looked long enough he would find her. If he did, she had little confidence that he would be fooled by her disguise. Once again a feeling of panic began to grip her, making her hunch further into the depths of her jacket. She casually stepped behind a huge, burly man, who effectively shielded her from Nicolas’s gaze.

The crowd’s calls for arresting the prisoner had now deteriorated into a blistering mockery of the National Guard. Nicolas gave the crowd a savage glare, effectively silencing the people closest to him, who undoubtedly feared that if provoked, he might decide to arrest them instead. Evidently satisfied that he had been able to cower at least some of them into respectful submission, he jerked open the door of the carriage and climbed inside. Jacqueline let out a breath of relief as the carriage began to roll away.

She could not believe her good fortune. Not only had she not been discovered, but Nicolas had practically been delivered into her hands. She began to move quickly through the crush of the crowd, past jostling elbows and shoulders, intent on following his carriage until it eventually took him home. The excitement of purpose hastened her steps. Once she knew where he lived, it would be easy to return there tonight and gain entrance. She would convince him she was alone and afraid, and desperately needed him to hide her somewhere. She would tell him that in exchange for his assistance she was willing to become his mistress. Whether he agreed to her bargain or not, she had no doubt he would want her, there and then, as a way of asserting his power over her. All she needed was a few seconds alone with him, his guard lowered by his need for her, to plunge a knife deep into his heart. If he did not fall immediately, she would draw it out and plunge it in again. The first time would be for her father, the second for Antoine. Their deaths would be avenged. She smiled at the thought.