The Orchid Affair Read online

  Mlle. Griscogne’s smile went sour around the edges, like milk curdling.

  Why should she be valued only for her father’s sake? Feeling like a very unlikely knight errant, André heard himself saying, “That will hardly be necessary. Mlle. Griscogne informs me that she is accustomed to taking care of herself.”

  “And others, too,” she said, lifting the package in illustration. “I should be getting back to Gabrielle and Pierre-André. I promised Pierre-André a story.”

  “On your half day?”

  “What else am I to do with it?” She grimaced at André. “Curl my hair?”

  Beneath the crooked brim of her bonnet, wisps had escaped their pins to curl around her face, surprisingly vibrant.

  His governess, it seemed, was full of surprises.

  André realized she was waiting for him to say something. “Shall you tell them about the wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

  “Or a sheep in wolf’s clothing.” Mlle. Griscogne turned to the old artist. “There’s a theme for you, Monsieur Daubier, fables turned upside down.”

  “The world’s been turned upside down, so why not the fables?” grumbled the old artist. “That I should live to see this day! Michel and Chiaretta de Griscogne’s girl reduced to teaching someone else’s brats.”

  “Since those are my brats you’re talking about, I’ll choose to ignore that,” André said dryly. Turning to his governess, he said, “Chiaretta?”

  Mlle. Griscogne shrugged. “My mother was Venetian.”

  “One of the great beauties of our age.” Daubier’s eyes had gone all misty again, so misty that André couldn’t help but look at him sharply.

  Julie’s old teacher and Mlle. Griscogne’s mother . . . ?

  “And a great poetess, too,” Daubier added hastily, feeling André’s gaze. “She was a beautiful person who wrote beautiful poetry.”

  “She would be pleased to hear you say that,” said Mlle. Griscogne quietly.

  The old man looked gratified.

  André looked at his children’s governess, searching for some sign of the Circe who had been her mother.

  He could see what Daubier had meant about her being paintable; one didn’t live with an artist for years without picking up a sense of what played well in oil and canvas. She had the sort of features that would have sent Julie running for her palette: high cheekbones; a long, thin-bridged nose; wide, well-defined lips.

  She ought, he realized, to have been striking, but she had done everything conceivably possible to render herself otherwise. There was that infernal, ubiquitous gray that turned dark hair drab and olive skin sallow; there was the way she tucked her chin into her neck and pursed her lips to make them narrower.

  Until she forgot. Until she let herself relax in a smile, a grimace, an unguarded motion. She was only plain because she made herself so.

  “Do I have a spot on my face?” Mlle. Griscogne countered his gaze, and André knew, without a doubt, that she knew exactly what he had been doing.

  Caught out, André went on the offensive, “Do you write poetry, Mademoiselle Griscogne?”

  She hadn’t expected that. “Only when I wish to torment my charges.”

  “Poetic justice?”

  “In its purest form.”

  “If I’m late with your wages, shall I anticipate being bombarded with ballads?”

  “I prefer to persecute with pasquinades. Much more economical.”

  Daubier shook his head. “No one ever doubted your technical proficiency, my dear. Not like listening to that poor Whittlesby creature. It was just the creative spark that was wanting.”

  Mlle. Griscogne’s dark eyes slanted up at André. “Those who can’t,” she said, “teach.”

  “There, there, my dear.” Daubier patted her comfortably on the arm. “The muse doesn’t come to us all.”

  “Some of us,” said André bluntly, “don’t invite her. She’s a demanding old jade. There’s no telling what sort of havoc will be wrought when one lets the muse into the house.”

  The words came out sounding far more bitter than he had intended.

  “The muse,” asked Daubier, that shrewd old man, “or those possessed by her?”

  “Does it make a difference?” said André dismissively.

  But it did. To have one’s own relationship with the muse, any muse, might be exhilarating. To have the muse as third party to one’s marriage made for a crowded bed. There was a reason Daubier had never married, although the old man liked to volubly proclaim that it was because no woman would ever have him. André ascribed it to something else entirely. Daubier was already married—to his muse. Any other relationship would be bigamy.

  He hadn’t minded—he had told himself—when Julie would get out of bed in the middle of the night because an idea was too good not to commit to paper. He hadn’t been hurt—he told himself—when she disappeared in the middle of their wedding reception. Hers was an amazing talent and he was privileged to be able to share that talent with her. He had his own work; how could he possibly begrudge her hers?

  It was a moot point now, all long ago and far away. There was nothing left but a pile of unfinished canvases, linens packed in lavender, and, of course, Gabrielle and Pierre-André.

  “My muse and I have come to an accommodation these days,” said Daubier comfortably. “I leave her alone until after breakfast and she lets me sleep of nights. We’re like an old married couple who know each other’s ways. Did I tell you I’ve been invited to paint the First Consul?”

  André’s brows drew together at the seeming non sequitur. “No, you didn’t.”

  “You can see how far I’ve fallen, my dear,” said Daubier to Mlle. Griscogne. “I’ve turned society portraitist in my old age.”

  “Should I offer you congratulations or condolences?” said Mlle. Griscogne.

  “Neither,” said the old man. His eyes shifted to André. “Just wish me luck.”

  “When do you go for your first sitting?” André asked, but Daubier was given no time to answer.

  A carriage clattered down the street, parting the pedestrians as they scrambled for cover on either side. André’s heart sank. He knew that carriage, just as well as he knew its occupant. Someone rapped sharply inside the cab. The carriage came to an abrupt halt just beside Daubier.

  The window-shade rolled up, revealing the sallow visage of Gaston Delaroche.

  “Good day, Gaston,” said André. “Come to play chess, have you?”

  Delaroche looked right past him, over his shoulder. His lips curved up in what passed in him for a smile.

  With exaggerated surprise, he exclaimed, “Ah, Mademoiselle Griscogne. Such a pleasure to see you again.”

  Chapter 11

  Laura looked at Delaroche in confusion. “You have the advantage of me, Monsieur.”

  This man, whom she had met only once, was smiling at her as though they were somehow complicit. She didn’t recall telling him her name, although she imagined he could have found it easily enough. Although why bother? She was just a governess. Insignificant.

  At least, she was supposed to be.

  “A fine day, Mademoiselle Griscogne.” There he went, lingering on her name again, pressing down on the syllables as though staking a claim to her person. “Is it not?”

  “Out enjoying the weather, Gaston?” Jaouen stepped between her and Delaroche, although whether to shield her or block her, she wasn’t sure. The briskness of his tone belied the seeming casualness of his words. “Or have you come to flirt with my governess?”

  Delaroche continued to smile at Laura, although his words were directed to Jaouen. “I was told I would find you here. Playing . . . chess.” He made the game sound like an aberration.

  “As you see, you find me here, although the game has yet to begin.” Laura got the feeling that chess wasn’t the game Jaouen was speaking of. “What news?”

  Delaroche took his time about answering. There was no mistaking the ring of triumph in his voice. “Cadoudal has bee
n found.”

  Laura held herself very still, clamping carefully down on any reaction. Cadoudal. That was the man Whittlesby claimed was the sole link to their missing prince. If Cadoudal had been found . . .

  “Found?” Jaouen stepped up to the window of the coach, all business. “Is he in custody?”

  Was it too much to hope that Whittlesby was still at the print shop?

  Delaroche’s lips thinned. “The vole escaped the snare.”

  “In other words, no,” said Jaouen dryly.

  Laura resumed breathing. It was rather a relief to know that there was no immediate need to find Whittlesby, alert the Pink Carnation, free Cadoudal from police custody, and spirit an as-yet-unidentified prince of the blood out of Paris. The Pink Carnation would still have to be informed of this turn of events, but it wasn’t as dire as it might have been.

  “Cadoudal’s manservant has been taken to the Prefecture. Fouché wants you”—Delaroche’s lip curled—“to go through his lodgings.”

  “And you offered to play messenger? Terribly kind of you.”

  “Are you coming?” Delaroche demanded.

  Instead of answering, Jaouen turned to Daubier. “Daubier, my friend, we shall have to postpone our match for another day. Will you see Mademoiselle Griscogne back to the Hôtel de Bac on my behalf?”

  Escort? Or custody? Jaouen’s face betrayed nothing more than polite regret.

  “I should be honored.” Daubier essayed a bow, but was thwarted by his own girth.

  “Don’t be honored, be swift. As I must be, it seems. Mademoiselle.” Touching a hand to the brim of his hat, Jaouen put his hand to the latch of the carriage door.

  Instead of shifting to make room for him on the bench, Delaroche remained precisely where he was, in the seat nearest the door, leaving Jaouen the choice of climbing over him or closing the door and circling behind the carriage to the other side.

  Holding the door open, Jaouen looked patiently at Delaroche. “I can sit on you, or next to you,” he said. “It is entirely your choice.”

  He would do it too, Laura had no doubt. Neither did the man in the carriage. Slowly, grudgingly, Delaroche shifted across the seat.

  “Thank you,” said Jaouen blandly, and swung into his vacated seat.

  Delaroche gave Jaouen a look that could have dissolved rock. Even a yard away, Laura could feel the pure vitriol of it.

  Colleagues they might be, but Laura felt very safe in guessing that they weren’t friends.

  “Shall we?” said Monsieur Daubier, startling her.

  Laura pulled her attention away from the retreating carriage and squinted at her parents’ old friend.

  He had the sun behind him, turning his shock of white hair to silver so that he glowed like an unlikely angel—one of the larger, less kempt ones, too fond of his cloud and his comfort to have followed Lucifer on his expedition down to Hell.

  “Come, my dear. The streets of Paris await us!” Daubier gestured expansively, opening his arms as though to embrace the entire street and everyone on it.

  A matron in a flowery hat gave him an alarmed look and scurried over the planks to the other side of the street.

  Laura shook her head at him. Her bonnet brim still skewed at an odd angle. Really, one would think the blasted thing could survive one collision. She gave it an irritated tug. “I am no fine lady to need escorting, Monsieur Daubier. Just a governess.”

  “Nonsense, my dear. As you can see, I need the exercise.” Daubier dealt a resounding smack to his middle. He hadn’t had quite that paunch when she was little, although the first signs of it had already begun to appear. He’d had only one chin then, rather than five, but otherwise it was the same Daubier, an expansive manner hiding a too-shrewd eye. “You would be doing me a service by taking me for a stroll on this fine day.”

  “It is fine, isn’t it?”

  “Not quite so fine as finding you after all these years. My little Laure, all grown up.” Daubier beamed down at her, but there was something hollow about it. The sentiments were correct, but his mind was elsewhere. “How did you come to be working for my old friend Jaouen?”

  Daubier’s cane tap-tap-tapped on the cobbles as they made their way towards the Hôtel de Bac.

  Good heavens, did he really want the whole story? It was a very long story, starting with a storm off the coast of Cornwall and two people without the sense to stay indoors on dry land.

  How could she even begin to explain to M. Daubier, whose world, from what she had seen, began and ended with the walls of his studio? What could she tell him of those sixteen years of scrabbling for positions, of the chance opportunity that had led her back to Paris?

  Laura settled for the simple version. “Monsieur Jaouen needed a governess. I am one. It is simple enough.”

  Simple enough on the face of it, but Daubier didn’t look reassured. “Was there no one who would take you in, when it happened?”

  “When they died, you mean?”

  Daubier looked a bit nonplussed by her frankness, but he soldiered boldly on. “Yes. There must have been someone, even abroad. Where were you when it happened?”

  “Italy,” Laura lied calmly. “They died in a sailing accident.”

  It had been England, but who was there to contradict her now? What did it matter whether it had been Cornwall or Lake Como?

  “But surely,” persisted Daubier, “one of their friends . . . Your parents had so many friends.”

  Laura couldn’t argue with that. All across Europe, there was hardly a town where there hadn’t been an open door, a spare room, an extra place laid at the table. Her parents had possessed the gift of making themselves loved, not deeply, but broadly. When they had died, they had left behind them a million acquaintances, but no family, no close friends, no one to whom she could reasonably turn for shelter.

  To be fair, she hadn’t tried. She hadn’t wanted to be a charity case, Chiaretta and Michel’s useless daughter, without the talent to be trained as an artist, too plain to be anyone’s muse.

  Over the years before their death, she had become something of a running project among her parents’ friends. Her parents had sent her for drawing lessons to Daubier, for voice to Aurelia Fiorila, for drama, for dance, for anything at which she might conceivably be found to excel. Laura had become proficient at everything, but excelled at nothing. She had known, as children do without being told, that her parents would have preferred a few spectacular failures to her own particular brand of passionless mastery.

  “You might,” said Daubier tentatively, “have come to me.”

  He looked so uneasy at making the offer, as though still fearing that she might, after all these years, actually take him up on it, that Laura couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Nonsense, Monsieur Daubier,” Laura said fondly. “You would have used me as a perch for your birds and I would have resented you horribly for it.”

  “Your parents—,” he began again.

  “Loved you dearly,” said Laura firmly. “But you are too old to find yourself with child, and I am far too old to find myself with parent. Consider yourself absolved of all responsibility.”

  Daubier let out a little huff of breath. “I always told Chiaretta she ought to have named you Minerva rather than Laura.”

  “For my wisdom?”

  “No,” said Daubier, “for your domineering disposition.”

  Laura wasn’t sure whether to be amused or offended. She had lived so long among strangers that she had forgotten what it was to be among old acquaintances, particularly old acquaintances who had known one since a little beyond birth and claimed all the outspokenness that was the privilege of age.

  Perhaps it was true; she might have been accounted a bit assertive as an adolescent.

  All right. She had been called domineering more than once. And officious. And occasionally headstrong. But someone had to make sure the bills were paid and the sculptures delivered on time and that her mother’s many admirers didn’t run into one another and c
ause scenes in the public rooms of inns. Her mother thrived on those scenes, but Laura didn’t. High drama they might provide, but they invariably occasioned a search for new lodging. Hostelries with clean sheets and good soap were hard to find, especially when one had been banned from the bulk of them.

  She had raged all these years about being abandoned, but the abandonment had suited her better than an adoption, especially an unwilling one.

  Daubier broke into her recollections. “Let me find you another situation,” he said abruptly.

  Laura looked at him in confusion. “Another situation?”

  “I can find you a post in another household. There are still plenty of affluent families in Paris. Many of them come to me for portraits. If you must earn your living, I can find you a nice family, a pleasant family.”

  Laura squinted against the sunshine, wishing she could see more clearly. “Are you saying that Monsieur Jaouen is not?” she asked, half joking.

  Daubier’s rumpled face was entirely serious. “I love André as a brother. Well, as a sort of nephew. Or maybe a first cousin once removed. But I should not want to see a daughter of mine in that house.”

  Daubier had never had daughters, partly because he had never been able to pull himself away from his canvases long enough to sire any.

  “Why ever not?” demanded Laura. “Does Monsieur Jaouen turn into an ogre at the full moon? Hold wild orgies in the basement? Ought I to be on the lookout for headless wives bundled into a trunk?”

  Daubier was not amused. “It isn’t that,” he said reluctantly. “André is a man of perfectly sound moral character and respectable habits. But . . .”

  Laura’s levity faded away as she watched the old artist poke at the cobbles with the tip of his cane. “You are serious, aren’t you? Why?”

  Daubier’s eyes shifted from one side to the other. Lowering his voice, he said tersely, “It isn’t safe to be so closely associated with Fouché’s chosen successor. These are unsettled times.”

  “Are you referring to Monsieur Delaroche?”