Tender the Storm (51 page)

His eyes trained on Zoë, Rolfe murmured, "It's possible, but not likely to happen as long as the Dauphin lives." Since the rumor was rife that the young Louise XVII, as he was known abroad, was failing in health, neither of Rolfe's companions took comfort from his answer.

As they embarked on an argument on the merits of releasing the boy king from his incarceration
in
one of the gloomiest prisons in Paris to permanent exile abroad, Rolfe gave himself up to contemplating his wife and her companion.

Over her shoulder, Zoë flashed Rolfe a furtive glance. She was shaking like a leaf, and expected any moment to hear someone denounce her companion as that most wanted of all criminals,
Le Cache-Cache.

Her tone low and vibrating, she exclaimed, "You were mad to come here like this! I never thought
,
I never dreamed that you would take such risks. You must leave at once! Do you hear?"

"I am going nowhere," said Leon Devereux truculently, "until you give me the satisfaction of an answer. You are my sister, Zoë, and under my protection. I could not credit it when I heard that you had accepted the
carte blanche
of some doddering old foreigner. Tell me it is not so."

Zoë wrung her hands. Ignoring her brother's moot question, she implored, "Please, Leon, be reasonable. You are only a boy and . . ." She shrank under the fire from those flashing dark eyes. In a more conciliating tone, she offered, "Monsieur Ronsard is a guest in this house, nothing more."

Leon's gaze swept the telling color which crept across Zoë's cheekbones. His lips tightened. A moment before, Zoë's fears had been all for her brother, an automatic response, a relic from childhood days. She was struck afresh by the realization that this fierce young warrior commanding respect bore little resemblance to the brother she remembered. Her fears, she realized, should be all for Rolfe. From the corner of her eye, she saw Rolfe rise to his feet. He began to limp in her direction. Her nerves were stretched taut.

In desperation more than in fury, she rounded on Leon. "How dare you sit in judgment on me!" she hissed, and for good measure, she added venomously,
"Le Cache-Cache!
By your presence here, you jeopardize not only your own life, but mine also. For the love of God, go before it's too late."

"I'm not afraid," he said with so much arrogance that Zoë had to quell the rising hysteria.

With forced calm, she implored, "Look, this is
not the time nor
place for explanations. You must go."

"Then meet me in the boathouse tonight when everyone has gone home."

"No," she quickly interjected. "It's too dangerous." Rolfe's suspicions, she was sure, were thoroughly aroused. He would be watching her like a hawk watches an unwary wood pigeon. Her eyes locked on him. As he slowly advanced towards her, he was delayed as first one person then another stopped to exchange a few words with him.

"A week," she said, "
in
another week, everything will be arranged." She was thinking of the passports she had yet to procure from Charles Lagrange. "A week tonight, I shall meet you when everyone has retired for the night. Now go, please, before you are discovered!"

Without waiting for Leon's reply, she spun away from him. Intent on creating a diversion, she moved quickly to the piano. A moment later, a gong sounded, signaling that Zoë was ready to begin her recital. Her guests scarcely had time to make their way to their places before their hostess launched into a piece by her
favourite
composer.

Lounging with lazy grace against a plaster pillar, Rolfe listened absently to his wife's spirited rendition of Scarlatti. The young man with whom Zoë had been in heated conversation had melted into the throng. Without haste, Rolfe scanned the faces of his wife's rapt audience. At Zoë's salons, so he had been given to understand, there was always quite a following of the
jeunesse doree.
With their uniforms of squared skirt coats, tight pantaloons, and braided hair, it was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. But
he
was no longer there. Rolfe was almost sure of it. His wife's brow was too tranquil, her smile too radiant not to be genuine, and a far cry from the look of strain which had pinched her features when she was in conversation with the young
muscadin
.
Rolfe's eyes were as gray as the North Sea when they finally came to rest on Zoë.

*
  
  
*
  
  
*

One of Zoë's guests, known in
La Compagnie
only as
Le Patron,
surveyed the beautiful young woman who played the piano so passionately. But behind the absorbed stare, a mind was actively at work.

La Compagne
had served its usefulness,
Le Patron
was thinking. The writing was on the wall. The White Terror, the failing health of the young Dauphin, the almost certain threat of Royalist invasion — these circumstances made the society's position precarious in the extreme. There was a new climate in France.
La Compangie
and all its members were doomed to be hounded down and ruthlessly exterminated.

There was another, more compelling reason to be troubled about
La Compagnie. Le Patron's
eyes unerringly found the Swedish diplomat. The Englishman,
Le Patron
was thinking, was confident to a degree. His disguise was easily penetrated once one knew that he was not who he pretended to be.

The man was Zoë's divorced husband. He was also the man who had blown the operation in England sky-high. He'd been dealt with —or so
Le Patron
had thought at the time. And now the Englishman had turned up in Paris.

Once apprised of the man's identity, a number of things came sharply into focus, among them the failed attempt on Deputy Tallien's life.
Le Cache-Cache
was not having the success that he had once enjoyed, and
Le Patron
was coming to suspect that the society had been infiltrated. Of late, all its moves had been checked. In the interests of self-preservation it had become necessary to sacrifice
La Compagnie.

Le Patron
smiled, thinking that in a very short while
the authorities would be congratulating themselves on having completely routed the most dreaded secret society in existence. They would not be satisfied, of course, until they had tracked down the prime mover of the whole enterprise.
Le Patron
had no intention of being caught in their net. No. It was necessary to set things up in such a way that all suspicion was averted from the real leader of the society.

Already, things had been set in motion. In the next few days, the only members of the society who were in a position to point a finger at
Le Patron,
that is, the section heads, would be systematically eliminated. It was a ploy
Le Patron
had used in London with some success. Nothing was left to chance. No one must be able to tie
Le Patron
to the society.

With the demise of
La Compagnie,
a lucrative business would be shut down. Murder,
Le Patron
had discovered, was a paying proposition. And
La Compagnie
had made an excellent cover. Those who paid to have an "obstacle" removed from their path were assured that not a breath of suspicion would touch upon them. How should it? All the evidence was carefully laid out to point to
La Compagnie.

Le Patron
reflected that there was little regret in having to relinquish this lucrative trade. It was time and enough to retire with all the wealth which had accumulated. But before that day arrived, all the loose ends must be tied up. And this time, there must be no errors.
Le Patron,
personally, would see to it.

Before the week was out, all Paris was buzzing with the report that the Committee of Public Safety
had flushed out those subversives who were members of
La Compagnie.
Those who did not die resisting arrest were quietly though quickly executed with no questions asked. Few escaped.

Rolfe's first thought was that Housard, before time, had deliberately passed on the information they had painstakingly garnered to Deputy Tallien.

"Why should I do that?" asked Housard.

"Wasn't that the plan? Once our work was done, you were going to turn informer?"

"Our work isn't done, leastways it wasn't until this happened. We
are no nearer knowing
who
Le Patron
is than ever we were."

"Then if you didn't inform against them, who did?"

They were resting their horses in the Bois de Boulogne at the top of a rise overlooking the river. Rolfe's mount was nervous, reflecting the tension which gripped his rider.

Housard's eyes squinted into the sun. He stood in his stirrups as if the view out over the Seine was of supreme interest. Without shifting his gaze, he said, "I don't know who the informer is, but I could hazard a guess."

"Le Patron
himself," said Rolfe dryly.