Mystic Rider (12 page)

He would never consider interfering in the Other World,
except rescuing the king meant rescuing the chalice, and possibly capturing
Murdoch by drawing him out, thereby keeping his mate safe. All of which were
perfectly legitimate and approved by the gods and laws of Aelynn.

“Your gentlemen dress colorfully here,” he observed,
studying the garish blue and gold stripes and red accents of the uniform of a
soldier near the palace’s entrance. The bulky breeches were no doubt easier for
warfare, but the ruffled collar looked most uncomfortable.

Chantal followed his glance. “You are not familiar with your
own Swiss Guards?”

He shrugged. “I do not associate with military men.”

She still looked at him oddly but seemed to accept his
explanation. “The Swiss Guards protect the royal family. You will see them only
at the palace. The king has hired mercenaries in the field who wear the uniforms
of their regiment, but they’re usually led by French nobility. Officers of the
nobility favor blue and scarlet.” She nodded in the direction of two soldiers
parading in front of the Swiss Guard. “Those blue uniforms over there identify
the Assembly’s National Guard.”

“And the ones outside the prison yesterday?” he asked
dubiously, uncertain why a country needed so many soldiers. “They wore stripes
and trousers and looked nothing like these.”

“Those were local militia. Each sector of Paris and every
town and half the aristocrats in France have their own soldiers. The ones here
usually wear trousers instead of breeches, and favor patriotic red, white, and
blue. Some are loyal to whoever pays them that day.”

In Ian’s last vision, Murdoch had worn the ornate blue and
scarlet of a royalist officer. One more piece added to his knowledge.

“How do the National Guard and the king’s officers differ?”

She looked uncomfortable. “The king hires mercenaries to
guard the interests of the nobility. The Assembly instituted the National Guard
two years ago to protect
all
the
citizens of France. The king shouldn’t doubt the loyalty of his people.”

Ian raised his eyebrows at her naïveté, but she obviously
lived in a happy world of her own making. He could see the problem of hiring a
mercenary like Murdoch. Hired troops were loyal only to their ambition. And
from the anger he was picking up, he suspected the National Guard had no love
for their king. The whole situation fermented and simmered unhealthily.

Finally discovering that some small parts of Pauline’s plan
were indeed, in place, Ian indicated a tall, blond gentleman in an elegantly
tailored frock coat who waited near a bench that his fellow conspirator had
described earlier. “I would talk to that gentleman over there.”

“That’s Count von Fersen.” Chantal tilted him a look from
beneath her hat. “He’s from Sweden, not Switzerland. How do you know of him?”

“Mutual acquaintances,” Ian replied without breaking stride.
Pauline’s explanation had been that the count was the queen’s lover and
desperate to save the royal family from their imprisonment.

Chantal hurried to keep up with him. “Except for your
coloring, there is some resemblance between you — you are both tall, strong,
honest, and willing to do what is right at all costs. The count is truly quite
formidable.”

Ian slanted her a look. “I am formidable?”

“How could you not be? Given your skill with weapons…”

Inexplicably pleased that his intended mate found him
formidable, Ian continued on to the next curiosity. “You know this man well?”

She waved away the question. “I’ve met him at salons. It is
rumored he is a ladies’ man,” she continued, “and enjoys the queen’s favors.”

Which was why the handsome count was willing to aid the
beautiful queen, Pauline had said, and from Ian’s glimpse of the count’s
anxiety now, he concurred.

He cast Chantal another sideways look to see how she
expected him to take her comparison of him to a ladies’ man. “I shall have to
challenge him if he should look on you as I do,” he said solemnly.

He fully meant that. He would challenge any man who came
between him and his amacara, but Chantal did not quite understand his intent.
Ian hid his smile when she darted him a look but couldn’t ask her question
because they’d reached their destination.

“Madame Deveau,” the count said as they arrived. “It is a
pleasure to see you again. Madame Racine said you were entertaining a friend of
mine.”

Count von Fersen, the queen’s lover, held out his hand, and
Ian knew his plan to rescue the royal couple was already in place. He
stiffened, assessing any challenge the other man might present, but the count
exuded only concern for the queen and her children.

As he shook the other man’s hand, Ian had the feeling that
Chantal and her father would heartily disapprove of his intentions, which would
certainly complicate his already complicated courtship.

Chantal had always recognized and admired the courage in
the count’s voice, only now, comparing him to Ian, she realized the shallowness
of his character. Von Fersen might be golden, handsome, and smiling, but his
gallantry was that of the court. Beneath the pleasantries he bestowed upon her,
he was assessing her loyalty to the royal couple, testing her intelligence, and
clearly dismissing her as useless for his purposes, whatever they might be. She
felt no attraction to the man at all, although she was aware he had several
mistresses and that every other lady in Paris swooned over his beauty.

Ian, on the other hand, was dark, mysterious, and unsmiling.
She could almost swear he was a Spartan warrior poised for battle as he
discussed the king’s health and plans for the summer. Still, despite his
enigmatic expression, Ian did not hide behind charm and subterfuge. He openly
revealed himself as a friend to the court, even though he had to know that she
disapproved.

Ian blatantly ignored her opinions when he did not agree
with them, but he at least respected her knowledge enough to listen. That he
chose to dismiss her view on the king’s imprisonment was not relevant. All
Paris argued over it. She preferred Ian’s honest rejection to the count’s
artificial pretense that all was well.

Despite her acknowledgment of her lover’s superiority,
Chantal was not inclined to be diplomatic after von Fersen made his bows and
departed.

“Do you have any idea how much Marie Antoinette spent on
refurbishing the Tuileries when they moved in here?” she asked. “And now you
and the count discuss returning her to Versailles for the summer where she can
quadruple her staff and build more useless follies while people starve? While
no doubt plotting to let her brothers’ armies invade to march on Paris and
overthrow the Assembly.”

“I merely inquired into their health.” Idly swinging his
long staff as a gentleman would his walking stick, Ian eyed the long, low
building housing the Swiss Guard. “It is up to your Assembly to take charge of
finances and prevent royal overspending.”

“It’s not that simple,” she argued, but rather than launch
into a political tirade, she switched to a more pleasant subject. “I hadn’t
thought, but if you are Swiss, then do you know anyone in the king’s guards?” The
king’s Swiss Guards possessed an unusual loyalty to Louis and his queen. That
might explain a great deal of Ian’s interest in the king — except that he hadn’t
recognized the guards’ uniforms.

Ian shrugged. “I have an… acquaintance …in the royal army,
yes, but I don’t believe he’s here. Did you say your father keeps a stable?”

She cast him a curious glance as he stumbled over the word
acquaintance
. “North of Paris, yes. We
once raced horses, but the upkeep has become prohibitive. Why?”

“Once I’ve recovered the chalice, I wish to find my fellow
countryman. I thought it might be easier if I acquire transportation.” He
strode purposefully along the gravel path near the barracks, examining the
grimy windows and doors rather than the garden.

“Unless you ride, you will have to ask my father about our
carriage horses. The stable contains brood mares and a stallion, but they are
thoroughbreds from England and not broken to the traces.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to see your stable. We do not
have horses at home. The count mentioned that yours possess great speed, and I
have discovered an affinity for these animals.”

Occasionally, Ian was more than passing strange. Chantal
frowned, trying to remember the count saying any such thing, but she’d quit
listening once she realized von Fersen wasn’t interested in her opinions.
“Perhaps tomorrow we could visit them,” she suggested as they turned toward the
river. She could not imagine any country that lacked horses, so perhaps she’d
misunderstood. “I suppose Switzerland is too mountainous for racing horses?”

“Something like that,” he agreed, studying the river and its
environs. “Could we reach your stable by riverboat?”

“No, and it’s best if we wait for news of your chalice
before leaving the city. Then, if my father agrees, we could provide a horse
for Pierre once he is released, so that he may quit this country quickly.”

As Jean and Pauline’s youngest brother, Pierre had been
Chantal’s childhood friend, too though not a close one. She hated to see him go
into exile, if only for Pauline’s sake, but his departure seemed inevitable.

Ian considered her suggestion. “You are fond of these
people, yes?”

“Yes, of course. Pauline is like a sister to me. We have our
differences, but I am godmother to her children, as she would have been to
mine, had I been so blessed.”

Swinging his stick, he frowned at a punt drifting on the river.
As if refraining from asking the question on his mind, he turned away from the
water. “I shall see what I can do then.”

“What you can do about what?” she asked in puzzlement,
hurrying to keep up with his now rapid stride in a different direction.

“I have a friend in this country, one who married here and
lives on the coast. He tells me that your families are very important to you,
and that we should not disregard your ties to them.”

“You have to be
told
that?
What do you do in your country  — throw your relations down the mountain when you
tire of them?”

Ian snorted. “If you knew my sister, you would understand.”
Before she could comment, he redirected the topic. “Tell me, what is the name
of that animal on the leash over there?”

Chantal glanced in the direction he indicated and saw only a
lovingly groomed spaniel being walked by a fashionably garbed woman at a
distance farther down the path. “The dog? You do not have dogs either? Are you
sure you do not live on the moon?”

“Not precisely,” he admitted. “Do you know the lady? I must
speak with her.”

“She is not someone I may publicly accost.” Chantal tugged
his arm to keep him in place when he seemed determined to ignore her opinion
once again. “You can’t go up to strangers and ask about their dogs.” She had to
set aside her questions about a land with no dogs or horses in favor of
preventing his faux pas
.

“I fail to see why not. There is no barrier preventing it.”
He continued determinedly on his course, forcing her to hurry to keep up with
him.

“I am very liberal in my beliefs, monsieur, but my father
would have an apoplexy if he heard I was publicly acknowledging a courtesan. It
is bad enough that you ruin my reputation in the privacy of my home, but I
cannot allow you to shame me like this!”

He halted and stared at her with perplexity. “Explain courtesan,
please.”

Chantal rubbed the place between her eyes that had begun to
ache. “Does your country consist only of yourself? No men who pay for the
favors of women? Or perhaps you have no women in Switzerland?”

He snorted in apparent amusement. “We have men and women in
plenty, and many ways of courting and enjoying each other’s favors. There is
only pleasure and no shame in it. It is your customs that are odd. Explain,
please.”

“You do not have women who exchange their favors for jewels
and gowns and other forms of wealth?”

He was watching the beautiful courtesan stroll toward them,
a vision in fluttering ribbons and flimsy muslin and exposed bosom. Chantal
wanted to elbow him for his interest, but she had no right to act on her newly
acknowledged jealousy.

“Our men might compete for the hand of a woman, and women
often compete for the attention of men they favor, but that is not the same, is
it? You are saying if I offer her coins or a pretty pearl, she will share her…
favors.
”

“She is not a prostitute,” Chantal replied crossly, wishing
she could drag him away. “She is an expensive courtesan. I was surprised that
she did not follow the court to Austria, but she has apparently found a new
lover in the Assembly. The lady trades in state secrets as well as jewels.”

He stared at her in astonishment. “Surely that is a crime.”

Chantal deliberately dropped his arm and took a side path so
she needn’t acknowledge the other woman’s presence. She wasn’t an innocent.
This was Paris, after all, the city of equality. She was sophisticated enough
to attend fashionable salons that such creatures also attended, but she was
sufficiently well-bred to know how to avert the nuisance of meeting when they
needn’t.

She’d hoped Ian would follow, but instead, he laid in wait
for the object of his interest, twirling his stick, a breeze rippling his robes
over his boots, his dark visage a study in curiosity. Chantal considered
walking straight home and leaving the annoying man alone, but she couldn’t
resist eavesdropping from behind the lilacs.

He intrigued her far more than was wise. Sometimes, he
seemed so oblivious to reality that he may as well have sprung full blown from
the earth just yesterday.

“Excuse me, madame,” she heard him say. “I could not help
but notice that your …dog …has an infected ear that pains him greatly. You might
wish to take him to a healer.”