The Heroic Baron (3 page)

“What can they hope to do here?”

“Gascon says his parents hope to find jobs in service.” Daniel shrugged, mimicking Alain’s gesture of
disbelief.

“In service? Hythe is hardly the place to do that, and
they have no resources to afford a trip to London,
which is their best chance at finding that kind of work.
This venture of theirs seems poorly planned.” Alain
groused. He was silent, letting Harker settle the coffee
service on the table near the fireplace.

“Shall I pour out, my lord?” Harker asked.

Alain cocked his head at Harker. “Does Cook need
help in the kitchens? I’ve recently developed a penchant for fresh baked breads, tea cakes, and the like.”

“I don’t recall you having a sweet tooth before, my
lord.”

“There’s always a first time, Harker. Tell Cook I’ll be sending a French baker to her within the week. Whatever he bakes and we don’t eat, we’ll send down to The
Sail and Oar. The taverner will know how to put the extra loaves to good use.” A stunned Harker left the room
with a curt, “yes my lord.”

Alain turned to see Daniel smiling over his coffee
cup. “Stop grinning, Daniel. I’ve decided that if the
baker and his wife work out, Hythe will be in need of a
teahouse. I hear they are becoming popular in London.
You can design it.”

Daniel waved his coffee cup. “I’m not smiling at that.
I am smiling at you. Just a moment ago you were cursing their flight as an irresponsibly managed adventure.
Now, you’re setting them up in business. You’re generous to a fault. You’ve saved them just as you saved me”

Alain looked startled. He decided to play the sapskull. “Whatever do you mean?”

Daniel smiled indulgently. “I know what you did for
me by giving me the commission for your `grand vision.’ You rescued me from ignominy. I was on the
verge of quitting and looking for work as an assistant to
a larger firm. You rescued me and my dream of being
my own man.”

Alain looked away, awkward with his friend’s praise.
“You were the best qualified man for the job. It didn’t
matter that you weren’t famous” It hadn’t mattered to
him. He knew the depth of his school chum’s abilities.
Unfortunately, it had mattered to others of the nobility
who could afford to build the mansions Daniel designed. Once Alain had taken up his case, commissions
had flooded in. He returned to a more comfortable
topic of conversation. “Did the boy say anything else?”

Daniel gave a wry grin. “I hesitate to tell you what
else he said.”

“Give over man, don’t hold back” Alain cajoled.

“Well, it seems that the boy’s cousins are still in
Paris with no way to get out”

“Where there are cousins, there are aunts and uncles
too, I presume?” Alain drummed his long fingers absently on the arm of his chair.

“Presumably.”

“It bears thinking on” Alain rose from the chair and
paced in front of the long window, looking outside into
the falling darkness without really seeing it. His mind
was already whirring.

Cautiously, Daniel asked, “What bears thinking on?
I’ve seen that look in your eye plenty of times during
our school days. It bodes no good”

“What look?” Alain protested, momentarily derailed
from his conversation.

Daniel threw up his hands. “The one where your eyes
start shooting green sparks and before I know it, you’ve
dragged me into another madcap escapade like the time
you insisted we had to rescue Tristan Moreland from
the headmaster’s office at Eton”

Alain shrugged, hiding a smile. “We got away with
it. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. But
that’s not important now. What is important are the
Panchettes.”

“Truly, Alain, you can’t be thinking to save them all”

“That’s precisely what I’m thinking.” Alain turned
from the window, his face a mask of seriousness.

“Surely you’re joking? I was only joking when I said
it.” Daniel looked beleaguered. He set down the coffee cup and reached for a fortifying swallow of brandy
from the forgotten glass at his side.

“I assure you I am not joking. We should go get the
aunt, the uncle, and the cousins.”

Daniel sputtered, spraying brandy on the Aubusson
carpet. “What about the resort?”

Alain’s face lit with his enthusiasm, more enthusiasm
than he’d felt since the tragedy. “Don’t you see, they are
the `grand vision’! We’re building a resort town for
middle-class families, for people who aren’t rich.”

“What does a resort town have to do with poor bakers in Paris?” Daniel, literal and concrete to the last,
puckered his brow.

Alain threw his arms wide, excitement radiating
from him. “The new world, the world that will be in
place after the wars are over is a world of equality; a
world that will be accessible to people who are not nobility. We have an obligation to liberate people from
oppression. It’s already started. Ready-made clothes
have made it possible for people to ape their betters.
This is an exciting time, Daniel, the world is changing
under our very feet. We will go to Paris and get the rest
of their family. It will be our contribution to the new
world order. What do you say?” Alain knelt down in
front of his friend, looking expectantly at Daniel’s face.

Slowly, comprehension dawned. Daniel nodded, repeating Alain’s earlier words. “It bears thinking on.”

“It certainly does!” For the first time in days, Alain
was glad to be alive.

Paris, France, April 1811

od”G bless you, my child.” The old woman on the
crudely constructed rope bed in the corner of the dim
room reached up a gnarled hand in gratitude to cup Cecile’s smooth cheek. “I hope you haven’t given me more
than can you afford to spare. There are so many others
in need and there’s your brother too, West-ce pas?”

Cecile tucked the frayed blankets about the woman.
“We must all do what we can for one another in these
times. Do not fret over me. I have work” Work that allowed her to pick over the spoils of the wealthy general’s kitchen; work that allowed her to play her
treasured violin every night in order to earn the largesse
of the general and his friends while they sat around their
groaning supper tables toasting the New Regime under
Napoleon. For Cecile and others like her, the New
Regime didn’t look or act much differently than the old.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll bring medicine and a hot
soup with a carrot” Cecile assured the old woman. She
picked her basket up from the rickety table in the
room’s center and took a final look at the dingy lodgings, making a mental note of the woman’s needs. Perhaps she might contrive to bring clean sheets. The
maids in the general’s household were doing the spring
laundry that week. They might be willing to part with
the old sheets set aside to be thrown away.

Cecile stepped outside into the brighter light of day,
her thoughts on the list of errands she needed to run before going to the general’s house that evening. The sunlight contrasted sharply with the dim interior of the old
woman’s room, and she collided with a brick wall before her eyes could adjust.

“Oof!” Cecile doubled over panting as the wind was
knocked from her lungs. She dropped her basket and
clutched her stomach. She’d been stupid not to concentrate on her surroundings. What if I had fallen and broken an arm or even so much as sprained a finger or
shoulder? What would happen to my brother if I
couldn’t play my violin?

“Pardonez-moi, Mademoiselle, are you hurt?”

The brick wall spoke! Cecile looked up in surprise.
The wall was a man-a tall, tawny-haired man with
sharp green eyes the color of new moss that were studying her in interest. Cecile pulled herself up to her full
height, just an inch under five and a half feet. She felt
shorter than usual against the man’s height. His intense
scrutiny made her feel vulnerable.

“I am fine” Cecile replied brusquely, brushing at her gray serge skirts. She gave the Apollo-like figure a cursory nod and attempted to step around him.

“Attendez, attendez, Mademoiselle,” the man cried.
“You’ve forgotten your basket. You must have dropped it
when I so indelicately crashed into you” He moved to retrieve the basket from the narrow sidewalk, unintentionally providing Cecile with a view of his powerful body in
motion. The stranger had exquisitely broad shoulders
that strained the seams of his coat and long muscled legs
that flexed divinely as he bent for the basket.

“May I ask you, Mademoiselle, if you know the residence of the Panchettes? I believe they are bakers, or at
least they were once”

Cecile took the basket he handed her, assessing the
stranger as he had no doubt assessed her moments ago.
She had not seen him in the neighborhood before. She
didn’t dare trust him to be on an innocent mission. “Je
regrette, Monsieur.” Cecile shook her head and shrugged.
“I do not know those people. If you will excuse me, I
must be going.” She made to step around him a second
time, only to find herself blocked again.

A knowing smile formed on his lips, even as his
mossy eyes grew jade hard at her response. His hand
reached inside his coat for a wallet. He pulled out several franc bills. Cecile tried not to gape at the money.
The sum would buy medicine for her brother and others, not to mention clothes and food and perhaps a doctor. He asked his question again. “Do you know where I
can find the Panchettes?”

Cecile swallowed hard against the temptation. Someday the money would be gone, spent for good things,
but her guilt would remain if anything happened to the Panchettes. She would find another way to get the
things she needed. She tilted her head at an angle, doing her best to look outraged. “I cannot be bought,
Monsieur, not even for a lie.”

The hardness melted from his eyes and his smile
softened. “My apologies, take it for the truth” He
reached for her hand and pressed the bills into it, curling her fingers around them. “I commend you for your
principles.”

Somewhere in the warren of tenements a whistle
called out. The man’s head jerked up, seeming to separate the sound from the usual whines and noises of the
squalid neighborhood. “Adieu, Mademoiselle.”

Cecile watched the stranger dart around the corner
and disappear into an alleyway. His absence broke the
spell that held her rooted to the sidewalk. Common
sense returning, she thrust the enormous sum of bills
deep into her skirt pocket. What had the man been
thinking of to carry such an amount of money with him
and to brandish it about so openly in the slums? He was
lucky it had been in the quiet part of the afternoon
when everyone was at work or the market. He’d have
been attacked for certain. Well, not necessarily for certain, Cecile thought, beginning to walk back to the
room she shared with her brother. Anyone would think
twice before starting a fight with the broad-shouldered
Apollo. She knew from her own clumsiness just how
muscular he was. Their collision had knocked the wind
out of her, but hadn’t fazed him in the least.

“Cecile, you are late! I was getting worried,” her
brother called out from his bed by the window. A thin ray of sunlight streamed across his worn plaid blanket.
He looked exceedingly thin and pale in the light. The
winter had not been kind to him.

Cecile rushed to him, excited to share her news. “Etienne, you will not guess what delayed me” She told
him the story of the golden stranger and showed him
the money. “We can afford your medicines. You’ll get
well faster now and soon be back to your old self.
Maybe we can save some of it for a trip to the country,”
Cecile fantasized out loud. The money would not last.
If she could save any of it, it would be saved to weather
another winter. The last winter had not been kind to
them. She was lucky Etienne was still with her. Pneumonia had laid waste to his undernourished young
body. She too was still overly thin despite the scraps
she scavenged from the general’s table.

Etienne smiled wanly and sank back against his
nearly flat pillows. “I am glad. I think the sun helps.”
He gestured to the thin stream of light.

Cecile was torn with guilt. She long believed city living had sapped her brother’s strength with its pollution,
but he was all she had left of family. She could not bear
to let him go. She bit her lip, staring at the treasure
she’d laid out on Etienne’s bed. She did not know when
she’d have such a sum at her disposal again. “Etienne,
perhaps it is time you went to the country. You could
take the money to pay for your keep. There are still
families in our old village who know us. You could stay
with one of them.”

“I will get better, ma cherie. We needn’t be separated
just yet” Etienne replied bravely. “What we need to do,
is find a safe place to hide the money, then you need to eat a little and be off to work. I fixed soup from the
leftovers. It’s on the hob” Etienne nodded proudly to
the small black kettle hanging over their fireplace.

“You shouldn’t have taxed yourself.” Cecile scolded
lightly. She stood in the center of their room, hands on
hips, looking around. “You’ve swept and cleaned too.
No wonder you look so wan” She shook her finger at
him. “You were worrying me. I feared a relapse”