‘I wondered if you might have. He recognised you.’
‘Is he...safe?’ The last word was whispered though the noise in the room was substantial.
‘We’ll talk of it later. Right now we need to go.’
She saw him glance at the clock in the corner. Half an hour exactly since the man had departed. Further instructions had been given unsaid. He left a silver coin on the table.
Outside the sun was shining through the rain in that particular way of summer deluges. The small drops of it marked his habit in a darker colour. Celeste liked the coolness on her face.
Five streets to the south-west they came to the Boulevard Malesherbes. The man from the tavern was waiting in the vestibule and beckoned them forward. Three more flights of steps and they were in front of a door that was green, the paint peeling so that a brighter yellow showed through.
Inside, the place was tidy and well furnished.
‘I’ve been waiting for you since the day before yesterday, Shay, for Axel said you had been taken in by Benet and Les Chevaliers for questioning.’ His eyes came across to Celeste, looking her up and down.
‘Brigitte Guerin.’ Summer gave this introduction, the protection of the name telling her a lot. ‘She got me out.’
‘Perhaps only to sell you off to someone else at a higher price?’
Celeste tried to school her annoyance.
‘Brigitte, meet Aurelian de la Tomber.’
Now memory clicked. ‘I know of you. You are one of Clarke’s men and your family owns the most expensive house in Faubourg Saint Honoré. Aristocrats who have survived the reign of Terror virtually intact?’
‘Impressive.’ De la Tomber smiled and she thought then that he was almost as beautiful as Shayborne. She had never met him directly, but she had heard of him. A dangerous man by all accounts, a man who played a game a thousand times more convoluted than her own. Right now he only looked puzzled.
‘You’d be best to stay here for a day or two until the heat dies down. I shan’t come back again until tomorrow morning for it’ll be safer that way. There is food and water in the kitchen and good wine, too. My agency thinks you have already left Paris, but there are others who are not so sure. They know you are wounded. A bullet to the thigh by all accounts and not an easy thing to walk upon?’
‘It is better now. The merest scratch.’
‘I have doubts that the minions of Benet are slipping so badly in their expertise of torture.’ He looked at the habit and at Shayborne’s shaved head. ‘The persona of a devout Catholic priest has a certain power in it. I hope you know your verses.’
‘Napoleon has his detractors in the church, Lian, and there are very many places in which to gain sanctuary and have few questions asked.’
‘Wellesley is offering a substantial reward to anyone who can extract you from the French. He hopes you might simply turn up to claim it yourself if you can make it to the border of Spain...’
Shayborne stopped him. ‘I have not yet decided which route we will travel.’
‘You will stay together, then?’ There was a heavy frown across his brow, but he did not pursue such an insult further. ‘There is more money in the desk and weaponry in the space behind the painting of boats in the hall. If you have need of me, leave a candle in the front window at eight o’clock in the evening and I will come.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, there is one more thing. Madame Debussy said that if I saw you, I was to give you this, Mademoiselle Guerin.’ He turned and lifted a book from the table, handing it to Summer.
So de la Tomber knew of her relationship with Caroline. That fact had her heart racing.
It was her father’s journal. Celeste knew the cover like the back of her hand and it was all she could do not to move forward and snatch it, her teeth digging into the soft flesh at the side of her mouth to prevent herself from speaking.
When he had gone, Shayborne passed the book over and she slipped it inside her jacket, every fibre in her body aching to open it. Not now. She needed time and space to read what her papa had written. At this moment it was enough that it was there, next to her heart. Safe.
* * *
Aurelian did not trust Celeste and Shay wondered what their connection was for the book meant something, too. He could see the pulse in the soft folds of her throat beating at a pace almost twice what it had been before. So many possibilities. He seldom left things to such chance and felt uneasy because of it.
Part of him wanted to flee from Paris now, before the darkness came. If he had been alone, he would have, but Celeste Fournier looked tired, the rings beneath her eyes almost purple in this light. There was grazing on her chin, too, and a cut on the bridge of her nose. The brutal cold-hearted woman who had come into the dungeon of Les Chevaliers and saved him had disappeared completely.
Instead she looked lost and uncertain. And damn young. The smoky bruised blue of her eyes held a thousand thoughts, each one turning through worry before she could hide it.
