Elizabeth Boyle (59 page)

“Oh, don’t you look—” Mme. Costard started, before giving way to motherly tears of pride.

“
Harrumph
,” her husband muttered. “Why that dress isn’t decent!” He snatched up her shawl, which Celeste had left for Lily on the chair in the entryway, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Don’t you have anything less, less …”

“Transparent?” Webb finished for him. “Why, I can see your … your …” He stopped himself as Lily’s eyebrows rose in a mischievous twist.

“Then perhaps, sir, you shouldn’t look.” She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed Mme. Costard on the cheek. “Thank you, Madame, for your help and thoughtfulness.”

“You are not going out dressed in that manner,” Webb said. A nodding Costard moved to his elbow in a show of masculine sensibilities. “Why … you’ll … you’ll freeze to death.”

Hadn’t she heard a word he’d said this afternoon about blending into the crowd? Being nondescript? Why a blind man wouldn’t miss Lily the way she illuminated the room with those blasted diamonds.

Not to mention her scandalous dress.

“Both of you sound like old fools,” Mme. Costard said, wrapping the shawl a little tighter around Lily’s shoulders. “
Oui
, the dress is a bit daring, but this is what they are wearing and I won’t have a daughter of the Comtesse de Chevenoy appearing in anything but the latest fashion.”

Troussebois’s driver poked his head in the open door. “Monsieur, if you want to be there on time, we’ve got to leave now.” His blinking gaze caught sight of Lily, and Webb thought the man was going to choke.

“See, I told you,” Mme. Costard declared. “Our dear girl looks
magnifique
. So, there it is.” With that Mme. Costard started shooing them out of the house and down the steps.

One of Napoleon’s guards let out a low whistle.

As Lily swirled past Webb, a triumphant smile on her face, he whispered in her ear, “Just make sure you keep that shawl on.”

“You really don’t want me to, do you, Webb?” Her voice purred over him in soft, sultry tones.

Webb closed his eyes, wondering if he’d suddenly lost all his skills as a detached, cool agent. Had his thoughts been that transparent?

As transparent, he realized as he followed her sashaying form into the carriage, as her damnable dress.

D
uring their ride to the Tuileries Palace, Lily found Webb’s strained silence a relief. She’d expected him to lecture her the entire route about her deliberate dereliction from his instructions.

Blend in. Be nondescript. Lily couldn’t think of anything more foolish. If she wanted to gain control of the de Chevenoy house and get rid of the guards and strictures, she needed to prove she was in control.

And that meant charming Bonaparte.

As her mother had always told her and Sophia, the best defense in the world of men was a fast and underhanded offense. This gown, embellished with the de Chevenoy diamonds, was the best kind of subterfuge she could muster. Though it was freezing, she thought, tugging the lap blanket higher.

Besides, after Troussebois had left, Webb had fled out of the de Chevenoy house. She couldn’t help but wonder whether his excuse about seeing to his own lodgings wasn’t just that, an excuse for him to get away from her.

The carriage ride to the Tuderies Palace, where Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul and his wife Josephine, resided, turned out to be a short distance away, but in that time, Lily once again saw the tremendous price Paris had paid during the past ten years of revolution.

Their carriage rolled by one tumbledown house after another in a neighborhood that had once been the glory of Paris. For blocks she had yet to see a window without broken frames or boards to cover the gaping scars. Remnants and tatters of once-fine draperies flapped softly in the wind. Ornately carved facades and decorated doorways bore the ugly pockmarks of chisels where the thieves had come after …

After the owners had lost their heads, she realized.

Gone were the tree-lined boulevards she’d often recalled when she’d thought of her homeland. Heaped amongst the chopped stumps of the once-proud poplars and birch lay piles of garbage, the odor of sewage and rotting remains, filling the air with their ripe and stagnant perfume.

As the carriage took a terrible bounce over a gaping hole in the pavement, the driver tossed down an apology.

Gone was the bright and beautiful Paris of her childhood. Left in its place, she found a broken and aged crone.

“Is the entire city like this?” she asked.

Webb nodded. “Like you saw when we drove in. Though the First Consul has promised change.”

She shook her head and drew back from the window. Could anyone return Paris to the jeweled city she remembered and loved?

But all of this made the little house on the
Rue du Renard
just that much more remarkable.

How had Henri saved his home and his head?

Slowly the driver picked his way through the city and finally stopped the carriage before the entranceway to the palace. A footman opened the door and assisted her down. As Webb alighted, he paused, glancing around the yard.

“Is something wrong?” she whispered, shivering in the cold and wrapping her cashmere shawl tighter around her shoulders.

He shook his head. “There’s been quite a few changes since I was here last.”

“Was that long ago?”

He patted his injured shoulder. “Not really.”

This was where Webb had been shot during his last assignment. Lily swallowed, her lighthearted take on the evening and her overblown self-confidence suddenly deflating.

The danger before them suddenly became too real. When she’d agreed to Jefferson’s proposal to spy for the Americans, she’d been well counseled that her life would be forfeit if she were caught. Except for a few moments, when she’d first found Lord Dryden in Giles’s study, she hadn’t really given much thought to what that notion meant. Now, as she looked up at the doorway looming before them, she noticed the guards standing at attention.

Guards at the doors. Guards at the gates. Guards lining the walkways. All carrying rifles fitted with shining bayonets.

A ready and waiting firing squad at a moment’s notice, she thought wryly.

And as her frantic gaze danced from guest to guest, she realized further that most of the men alighting from the other carriages or strolling in wore uniforms of one kind or another.

And most of them were looking at her. Not just glancing, staring.

Oh, what had she done? She’d made herself a target for every man in the room. In her
näiveté
, she’d ignored Webb’s good advice, thinking she knew what was best.

She tried to breathe, but the air around her seemed to have disappeared.

Webb patted her gently on the back. “Now do you see what I meant about blending in?”

She nodded, still unable to find the air to speak.

“Just smile,” he told her, patting her hand and placing it on his arm as he guided her up the steps.

Smiling brightly, as if the panic forming in her belly were nothing but excitement for the party ahead, she clung to Webb’s arm. “Talk to me,” she managed to whisper. “Tell me what changes you see.”

Tell me we’ll live through this night
, she wanted to say.

Webb pointed over toward a grassy section in front of the entrance. “The ‘Liberty’ trees planted during the Revolution are all gone. And the walls,” he said, nodding over to the newly whitewashed stonework, “were covered with slogans and symbols from the Revolution. Had been for years.”

The warmth of his hand renewed her confidence as they continued their slow progression up the crowded steps.

“During the Revolution, the palace housed the Committee of Public Safety, the men responsible for the worst of the Terror.”

“Robespierre.” The name still gave Lily nightmares. He’d been responsible for the price on her sister’s head, and the near destruction of their entire family.

“Yes, your sister’s good friend. It seems Napoleon is removing all visible signs of the previous tenants and distancing himself from their heinous part in France’s history.”

“Good riddance,” Lily whispered, mustering back some of her confidence.

Webb’s brows quirked. “That would be a sentiment shared by many, but voiced by few. Stay away from discussions of the past, the future, and anyone currently in power.”

“And that leaves what?”

“The weather.”

She laughed. “A subject you would be well versed on, given your recent experience in the inclement nature of it.”

He laughed as well. “You little hoyden. I don’t know how you got me into that predicament, but let me tell you it won’t happen again.”

“I think I may have put us in a worse one.”

Down the ornate hall they walked. The robin’s egg blue color, white trim, and liberal use of gilt gave the palace an airy, yet regal feel.

“All this is new,” Webb commented with a nod toward the paintings and the newly refurbished furniture. “Someone has been very busy indeed.”

They passed a group of men, some in uniforms and others clearly taking the dandified fashions of the
Incroyables
to new heights with their ill-fitting trousers and high collars. Their conversations stopped the moment they spied her. Their open-mouthed gaping only confirmed the worst of her fears.

Lust burned in their gazes, but whether it was from the revealing nature of her gown or the wealth in gems she wore, she couldn’t tell.

However it didn’t take but a few moments for them to recover and fall in step behind her and Webb like a pack of hounds who’d caught the scent of the fox.

Webb noticed the unwanted attention they were garnering and made a point of repositioning Lily’s hand and placing it on his forearm with a great show of manners.

It was a possessive move. Motivated, he told himself, to demonstrate to every man in sight that she was off limits.

But whether it was for the betterment of their mission or for something else, he was in no mood to explore his reasons.

Lily’s grip on his arm tightened and he glanced down at her. Part of him wanted to tell her how well she looked, but glancing over his shoulder and seeing the growing trail of admirers she was gathering in her wake, he could only grumble, “What were you thinking, accepting those diamonds?”

Her gaze flicked ahead, her mouth pursed in disapproval. “They were my mother’s.”

“Need I remind you the Comtesse de Chevenoy was not your mother?” he whispered into her ear, an intimate gesture, again meant for the men who watched her.

“Do you think me that foolish?”

He didn’t answer.

She smiled and nodded at the next group of lingering guests they encountered.

This group was no more subtle in their overt curiosity than the last.

“Madame Costard insisted,” she whispered back. “What was I supposed to do? No, Madame, I cannot wear my mother’s jewels because the woman was not my mother?”

“Did you have to wear all of them?”

She muttered something under her breath about men, a disparaging comment he chose to ignore.

“Really Webb, no woman would refuse—”

He held up his hand. “—refuse to wear her mother’s jewels?”

“Precisely.” She smiled at him.

This time they passed a group of ladies who immediately set to whispering behind their fans.

“Don’t you find these people excessively rude?” Lily commented. “They stare as if they have no manners. I’ll be glad to be away from here tomorrow.”

“That is, if we find the journals tonight. We can’t leave Paris until we find Henri’s journals.”

“We’ll do that tonight when we return.”

“I doubt it,” he confided. “I checked the door to Henri’s office while I was waiting for you, and it’s still locked. I even tried to pick the fool thing, but no luck. The man was meticulous about having only the best locks.”

“Then it helps to have the key,” Lily commented, sliding back the edge of her glove. She tipped her arm and revealed a green ribbon tied around her wrist, and attached to the ribbon, a brass key.

“Where did you get that?”

She grinned, readjusting her glove. “From Henri’s office, when I was in there this afternoon with Madame Costard. She didn’t give me much time to look around, but as we were leaving I spotted this on a hook by the door. I assumed it might be important so, you could say, I borrowed it.” Her eyes sparkled like the gems in her hair.

It was sheer luck, he told himself that she’d found the key. Sheer luck. But he knew it wasn’t just that.

She was his match and partner in every sense of the word, but before he could tell her, a commotion to the right of them erupted.

“Oh, my gracious!” a large woman exclaimed, stepping in their path. “The de Chevenoy diamonds. I would recognize them anywhere.”

The woman’s voice carried down the hall, stopping most of the conversations, as the other guests tipped their heads to get a better look at the developing scene.

“And if these are the diamonds, then you must be my dear, lost Adelaide.” The woman hustled Lily into a hearty hug, drawing her into a motherly embrace, great rolling tears springing to the woman’s dark brown eyes.

After several moments of wailing and carrying on, the woman thrust Lily out at arm’s length. “You are the image of your dear mother, my girl. Why the very image. You nearly gave me apoplexy when I saw you coming down the hall, for I thought it was my dear Comtesse de Chevenoy come back from the dead.” The woman glanced over at Webb, but only for a second as she turned her watery gaze back to Lily. “You don’t know who I am? You don’t remember me, do you?”

Lily shook her head. “I am sorry, Madame. I have been away so long.”

“Oh, your father was criminal to send you away from me. I told him I would raise you as my own dear daughter after Marie’s death, but he was a stubborn fool and insisted on sending you to that infernal convent. But now you are back, and I will be able to see you take your rightful place in society, just as your mother would have wanted.”

“And you are?” Lily prompted.

“Why your dearly beloved godmother, Roselie-Jeanne Paville. Well, not your real godmother, but it’s what your mother would have wanted if she hadn’t died. Your father never honored her wishes, but that is such ancient history now. You must call me
Tante
Roselie, as you did when you were a child.”