The Orchid Affair Read online

  There was no way she could eke this out further. “Yes, sir.” She curtsied.

  “Mademoiselle?” Jaouen’s voice rose behind her. “There is one last thing.”

  “Sir?”

  “Don’t curtsy,” he said. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  And he turned back to his papers.

  Laura would have curtsied to cover her confusion, but apparently it didn’t suit her. She lurched for the doorway, only to come up hard against something that wasn’t doorlike at all, although it did have the effect of arresting her progress and knocking the breath out of her. Laura found herself blinking into an expanse of blue wool, adorned with very hard and very shiny silver buttons.

  “Oh, I say!” exclaimed a male voice that was obviously not Jean the gatekeeper’s, any more than that coat could belong to Jean the gatekeeper. It was a plummy, well-educated male voice. A large pair of hands reached out to catch her by the hips, although whether to steady her or assess her contours was unclear. Her contours must have passed muster, because the hands lingered. He gave a good squeeze. “I am sorry. Didn’t expect to see anyone coming out of there.”

  The hands were well manicured, with smooth nails and a smattering of fair hair along the backs. They were attached to a large young man in a regimental uniform, light brown hair brushed to a sheen above a pair of ruddy cheeks in a fair-skinned face.

  “No harm done,” said Laura crisply, twisting away.

  “I should hate to be the cause of a lady’s distress.” The young man smiled roguishly down at her in a way that suggested he was more accustomed to causing distress than relieving it.

  “The governess,” stressed Laura, “is unharmed and thanks you for your kind attentions.”

  “Ah.” Instead of being deterred, the young man propped an arm up on the wall above her head. “So you’re the new governess. I must say, you’re a sight better looking than Jeannette.”

  Hard to feel flattered when that was the comparison. “Thank you. Sir.”

  “Philippe?”

  Behind them, the chair scraped against the wooden floor. Jaouen stood with one hand braced on the desk, frowning at the new arrival. The young man’s polished appearance only served to emphasize Jaouen’s rumpled clothes and unshaven cheeks. The twin lines in his forehead grew deeper as he looked at his guest.

  He did not seem pleased to see him.

  “Hullo, Cousin André!” said the young man boisterously. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  If he couldn’t tell the answer to that just from looking at Jaouen, there was no helping him.

  Of course, thought Laura. This was the cousin Jaouen had mentioned during her abortive interview. She began to understand why Jaouen had warned her about him. The young man was certainly well favored, and carried with him an air of aristocratic insouciance that suggested that he was used to receiving whatever he desired—a category that included the female staff. This was one who would always choose ease over effort, convenience over conquest. It was hard to imagine anyone less like Jaouen. This man’s uniform looked like it was more for parade than service and his hair was as buffed as his buttons.

  “I thought you were rejoining your regiment,” said Jaouen, and there was a warning note in his voice that even Laura couldn’t miss.

  “I didn’t want to miss all the fun in Paris,” said the young man cheerfully. “It’s much more exciting here.”

  Jaouen was not amused. “It won’t be so exciting when you’re courtmartialed for desertion. Did you think of that? How would your poor mother feel?”

  “Gloomy, gloomy, Cousin André.” The young man sauntered over to the desk. There were two bright red spots in his cheeks that might have been from the wind or wine or a bit of both. “I have more faith in my stars than that.”

  “The stars have been known to shine on others before this. There is no need to actively encourage them to do so.”

  “Not my stars.” Seizing Jaouen’s coffee cup, he hoisted it in an exuberant toast. “How go the plans for the fête?” Dark drops of drugged coffee sloshed over the sides and onto Jaouen’s papers. Any moment now, and the desk would be snoring.

  No, Laura thought. No, no, no.

  Reaching up, Jaouen snagged the cup, placing it firmly back on its saucer. “The fête may need to be postponed.”

  “Postponed!” Philippe shot up with all the indignation of a young child denied a treat.

  Jaouen pressed his eyes tightly closed for a moment before turning to Laura. “You may go, Mademoiselle Griscogne. I wouldn’t want to keep you from the children.”

  “Oh, I say!” intervened the young man, flapping a hand. With a nod at the coffeepot, he said winningly, “Do you think we might . . .”

  “No,” said Jaouen.

  “Shall I bring another cup?” asked Laura, beyond hope of salvaging the situation. When the stars chose to frown, they frowned indeed. Who knew that putting one tired man to sleep would be so much bother? Now she had two of them in the study, drugged coffee all over the desk, and none of it in Jaouen.

  “Yes,” said the young man, just as Jaouen said “No.”

  “Then I shall return to the children.” Laura started to curtsy, remembered herself, and nodded instead. “Good night, sir.”

  “How about a brandy, then?” Laura heard Jaouen’s cousin say behind her.

  “Later,” said Jaouen. “You’d best come with me. I have something to show you.”

  A door closed, and over the tread of male feet, Laura heard Jaouen saying quietly, “Didn’t you get the news? Both Tante Hélène and Cousin Héloïse are indisposed.”

  “Merde!” Philippe’s voice carried, echoing along the marble. “The same complaint?”

  “I don’t think they will be receiving again for a very long time.”

  “Well, that won’t do—,” she could hear Philippe saying, and then another door closed and the sound was blotted out.

  Laura paused, tucking herself into the corner between the door and the wall in one of the endless strings of reception rooms that marched along the ground floor. She listened, but she couldn’t hear them anymore. They must have moved sufficiently far away towards the other side of the house.

  Leaving Jaouen’s study, with all his papers in it, untenanted.

  Perhaps the stars weren’t so very unfavorable after all. Laura cautiously made her way back along the way she had come, taking care not to creep. Only suspect persons crept; persons with nothing on their consciences walked normally. She had lost a handkerchief, or a button. She had forgot to ask whether the children liked warm milk. She had come to collect the coffee tray, to make him a fresh pot, since this one would have gone cold.

  Oh yes, she liked that one. Very good, very eager, very plausible. That was she, a regular Good Samaritan. Back in her prior situations, she would never have stooped to so menial a chore. She had jealously guarded her prerogatives in the cutthroat world of the household hierarchy.

  Like an echo, she could hear Jaouen’s words of half an hour before. Just because one has a prerogative doesn’t mean one should abuse it. A curious sentiment from an employer to an employee. It certainly wasn’t one to which any of her previous employers had subscribed.

  The study door had been closed, but not latched. At times like this, the understaffing of the Hôtel de Bac was a decided advantage. Jeannette was with the children, Jean in his cubbyhole by the gate. There was no one to see her as she turned the latch on the study door. The door squeaked as she pressed it forward, but there was no one to hear it.

  Laura hoped that whatever it was that Jaouen had to show his cousin took a very long time indeed.

  The study was just as it had been before, the crowded bookshelves, the almost empty walls, the papers scattered along the desk. Without Jaouen in it, it felt, perversely, smaller, as though his presence had lent the little room depth and dimension. Strange what force some personalities had, to shape the world around them. Her own was as a nullity, scarcely creating an eddy in the landscapes thro
ugh which she passed.

  That was, she reminded herself, a good thing, especially in situations such as these.

  Tucking her skirts close to her legs to keep them from rustling, she slipped around to the far side of the desk, to the document Jaouen had been writing when she interrupted him. It appeared to be a bulletin of some sort, a report of the latest interrogation.

  Laura quickly scanned Jaouen’s summary. His writing was neat, precise, just what she would have expected from him, with no wasted flourishes or curlicues: At the Abbaye the night before, he had interrogated a Royalist agent named Querelle. Querelle confessed to a plot to kidnap the First Consul, replacing him with a member of the royal family who would claim the throne in the name of Louis XVIII. All fairly standard stuff, so far. This was to be accomplished by the work of five generals, four of whom he had named under interrogation. Arch-agitator Georges Cadoudal was known even now to be in Paris. Jaouen recommended an immediate watch be set for him. He would be known by his extreme girth and Royalist sentiments.

  How did one identify Royalist sentiments? Were they emblazoned on one’s hat like a Revolutionary cockade?

  The plot struck Laura as distinctly far-fetched. Kidnapping the First Consul? Expecting five generals to all work together instead of jockeying for power and selling one another out? It was a plot so naïve only a man could have come up with it.

  There was no mention of lost princes.

  What had the Pink Carnation been talking about in the bookshop? Laura spared a thought for the lost Dauphin. If (and it was a very large if) this Cadoudal’s cell had somehow found and secured the lost Dauphin, if the member of the royal family they intended to produce was indeed the lost Louis XVII—if, if, if—this far-fetched plot might not be so very far-fetched after all. The people of Paris wouldn’t rally for five bickering generals, but they just might for the son of Louis XVI. There was a romance already to the legend of the lost Dauphin, and hardheaded though they otherwise might be, the people of Paris loved a good romance.

  But there was no reference to the Dauphin—or, for that matter, any prince at all—in Jaouen’s report.

  With a feeling of deep resignation, Laura turned to the larger sheaf of papers. It was written in a different hand, not Jaouen’s, clumsy and sprawling, marred with blots and cross-outs and bits of dripped wax. It had to be at least fifty pages long, in a sort of hectic shorthand, where essential verbs appeared to be left out in the interest of speed.

  Laura skimmed as quickly as she could over the first section, sweat prickling under her arms as she read, one ear trained on the door, alert for any sign of movement. The ink was cheap, the paper bad, and the coffee drops didn’t help. It was the same as what she had seen already in Jaouen’s report, except more disjointed and at greater length. Only the answers had been set down, not the questions—nor the means used to acquire them.

  This Querelle insisted that the plan was merely to kidnap the First Consul until he agreed to abdicate voluntarily. Laura snorted. If he believed that, he was more naïve than she. If the First Consul didn’t agree to abdicate voluntarily—

  Laura turned the page and came up short. A good five pages of the report had been ruined, soaked through with ink, as though someone’s elbow had jarred against an ink pot. It must have been a full ink pot; the paper had been utterly saturated, washing out most of the writing beneath, except for some fragments around the edges and bottom that had missed the deluge. It looked, curiously, as though the spilled ink were darker in color than the ink in which it had been written, although that might have had more to do with quantity. It had all long since dried.

  Hmph. Jaouen was going to have to write up this part of the report from memory. Laura frowned, wondering how she was going to access it. She held the top sheet to the light, squinting at it, but it was no use; the spilled ink had obliterated everything in its path. All that was left were disjointed fragments—not even full words most of the time.

  Laura turned the page. The stain was lighter further on. The bottom page wasn’t legible, but one could at least make out the vague shapes of what must have been words—an “and” here, or a “Consul” there, and sometimes what looked like part of “general” or “troops” (unless, of course, the prisoner had simply said “oops,” but Laura rather doubted they would bother to take that down).

  She was amusing herself with that concept when something caught her attention that wasn’t amusing at all. It was the remains of a word, only four letters of it clear, the rest covered under the pervasive ink stain. “—ince.”

  The blotted word was “prince.”

  Chapter 7

  Laura dreamed of lost princes and woke up with a headache.

  Fortunately, she still had the headache powder Jeanette had given her for Jaouen the night before. Laura stirred it into her tea and set about teaching. If she was to make so elementary a mistake as bungling a simple administration of sleeping powder, she might at least make sure her teaching was satisfactory.

  It was going to be an interesting challenge, communicating with the Pink Carnation when she wasn’t allowed to leave the house.

  That afternoon, as Jeannette reclaimed the children for feeding, bathing, and general clucking, Laura drafted a brief note to the bookseller. On reflection, she wrote, she had decided to delay the children’s introduction to botany until they were further along in their general studies. She would be along on her half day the following Sunday to collect the Latin texts she had requested. His with the greatest expressions of respect and esteem, et cetera, Laure Griscogne.

  She stuck the note just within the front cover and entrusted the whole to Jean to deliver. Monsieur Jaouen had said she could, after all. And if he were to open the note, there would be nothing at all he could find there to excite his suspicion. She only hoped the bookseller caught her double meaning. Or that the note didn’t fall out along the way. Or that Jean didn’t just drop the book on the floor of his gatehouse lair, put his feet up, and spit in her general direction.

  There was no reply that night. Laura sat by the fire and read aloud to the children from Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont’s fairy tales. Jeannette rocked back and forth and pretended not to listen while Laura read and brooded, the old, familiar phrases rolling off her tongue with very little relation to her brain. As Beauty wandered into the Beast’s castle, Laura wondered whether the bookseller had missed her meaning. By the time the Beast’s favorite flower was dying, Laura was quite sure that Jean had resorted to a drop and a spit. Jean, she had learned, used spitting the way other, more evolved, creatures used speech: to convey a whole range of emotion. And wouldn’t it be just like him to hold on to the book just to thwart her?

  Of course, he couldn’t realize just how much it would thwart her. If he did, she would really be in trouble.

  “Read us another!” exclaimed Pierre-André.

  “Tomorrow,” said Laura, and closed the book.

  That might be it! She could send to the shop for more fairy tales. Or . . . she could wait and see what happened. Prudence over impatience, she counseled herself. Even a governess could only patronize a bookshop so much before people started getting suspicious. And by people, she meant the Ministry of Police. All she needed was to draw their attention to the bookshop on the Rue Serpente and bring the whole edifice crashing down upon all their heads.

  On the second day, she taught lessons in the morning and set the children passages from Racine to memorize in the evening, Pierre-André’s significantly shorter than Gabrielle’s. Pierre-André lost his place and giggled. Gabrielle slunk off with her Romance of the Forest. Jeannette knit. When Jean appeared to deliver the evening’s load of coal, it was all Laura could do not to jump up and shake him.

  But she didn’t.

  By the third day, Laura was feeling distinctly twitchy. She had never imagined that it would be possible to feel marooned in the midst of one of the major cities of Europe—utterly cut off from everyone and everything but the play of light in the nursery grate
, Pierre-André’s giggles, Gabrielle’s sulks, and the click, click, click of Jeannette’s needles as she carried on with her everlasting knitting. One more click, and Laura wasn’t going to be accountable for the consequences.

  “Who wants to go exploring?” Laura asked impulsively, flinging down the slate she had been using to demonstrate the principles of long division.

  “Papa said we weren’t to leave the house,” said Gabrielle primly.

  Laura eyed Gabrielle appraisingly. They had come to what Laura could only consider an armed truce; Gabrielle was tolerating her until such time as someone had the sense to throw her out. There were no frogs in the bed (the youngest Marchmont child), no ink down her back while she marked up compositions (Harry Littleton), and no midnight apparitions by ghosts in bedsheets (Laura had particularly enjoyed that one, especially when the littlest ghost had taken a header into the fender). Gabrielle wielded good behavior like a weapon, performing her lessons punctiliously and with a minimum of personal communication. Infinitely preferable to the frogs.

  “But have you been exploring within the house?” Laura demanded.

  “A house is a house is a house,” contributed Jeannette, spinning her woolly web like a spider who had hijacked a sheep.

  “Not this sort of house.” Laura lowered her voice thrillingly. “Who knows what might be in the other wings.”

  “Toys?” asked Pierre-André brightly.

  “Perhaps,” said Laura noncommittally, but she was watching Gabrielle. No reader of Mrs. Radcliffe’s could resist that sort of possibility. Skeletons in closets, secret passageways, moldering manuscripts . . . “The house is very large and very old. There’s no telling what we might find.”

  Gabrielle grudgingly dragged herself out of her chair. “If we have to . . .”

  Ha! Laura had her. She didn’t know if they would find secret passageways, or a large manuscript entitled How to Thwart Royalist Plots by André Jaouen, but goodness knew what else might be there. At least she would be doing something instead of waiting, waiting, waiting. If she was to be marooned on an island, at least she might make full use of all the resources it offered.