“He did. With soldiers who battered down the gate, killing one of our guards.” The comtesse’s face creased with sorrow and anger. “The man had worked here since he’d been a boy, grown up here. And Potier’s soldiers cut him down like he was of no importance. Potier broke open the front door and trod his dirty boots on my floors. He expected me to hide in a cupboard, which he’d no doubt have been happy to rip open, but no. I faced him on the stairs.”
I could well imagine the comtesse, her dignity in place, standing above Potier and his soldiers, daring them to advance any further. She must have been a very beautiful woman then, with her comeliness, though grayer now, still intact.
I turned to Denis. “Your letter indicated that the last place Potier planned to go was the Deveres’ ironworks.”
“He did pay them a call,” the comtesse answered before Denis could speak. “Potier declared that if they’d admit I forced them to aid me in resisting the reprisals, he’d spare them. They would sign a paper to that effect, and they would be free. The Devere boys, bless them, refused to betray me. Their father had been executed months before, and they were already shattered, but they defied him. And so Potier came here to force me to confess that I fueled the resistance. Of course I confessed it. I did not hide my intentions to stop the horrors he and his cronies inflicted upon us.”
“He struck her down,” Perrault said in French, old rage flowing through her words. “He slapped my mistress like she was a peasant, and she fell. I was not having that.”
“My dear Perrault, if you had succeeded in reaching him, you would have been killed on the spot.” The comtesse turned a smile on her maid, one that held great fondness. “I had not been so foolish as to emerge from my chamber unarmed. I had a loaded pistol with me—a dueling pistol, which belonged to my husband. With it, I shot Potier dead. That menace would terrorize my city no longer.”
Chapter 26
The comtesse held us with a long gaze once she’d made her declaration, then she wilted, drawing a shaky breath. Perrault sank beside her worriedly.
Denis was the first to break the silence. “You are very brave, comtesse.” He lifted his cup in salute.
“Very foolish.” The comtesse laughed, her cheeks pink. “I expected to feel bullets enter my body immediately after that, or blades, or both. The soldiers who’d been behind Potier on the stairs took aim at me, but then, one by one, they lowered their weapons. Without a word, they turned and walked away. They left the house, quit the grounds, and I never saw them again.”
“They abandoned him here?” I asked incredulously.
“They did.” The comtesse took a tight sip of coffee that Perrault pressed on her. “I hadn’t realized how reluctantly the soldiers served him. One of them said something to me before he went, but the pistol shot still rang in my ears, and I have no idea what. But he looked satisfied.”
I nodded in understanding. “What did you do then?”
The comtesse sighed. “Perrault took the pistol from me, as I couldn’t seem to let it go. Potier didn’t die instantly. He raised his head and glared at me and probably cursed me, but I still could hear nothing. We had to wait a few minutes …” Her lips trembled, and she pressed them tightly together.
I held my silence a moment before I made my next observation, giving her time to compose herself. “Michel has been very unfriendly to me, even before I learned anything about Potier.”
The comtesse handed her cup back to Perrault. “Michel is very protective of us, and also of the Deveres. They have been good to him.”
“You asked them for help with Potier,” I said with conviction.
The comtesse nodded. “Perrault suggested it. Michel was just a boy at the time, but he ran errands for the Deveres and did odd jobs in the ironworks. Perrault sent for him. No one noticed a small boy running about, and he used the tunnels to enter the house. I would not let him into the hall where Potier lay, but sent him back with a message. Fernand and Giraud came. They were young men at the time, Giraud just starting his own family. They asked me no questions, only took Potier’s body away.”
To the ironworks, I assumed, where a body could be burned to ash in one of their great forges.
“Perrault and some of my guards cleaned up the stairs …” The comtesse faltered.
“You must speak no more of it, Madame,” Perrault instructed. “Your visitors can depart.” She sent a warning glare at the pair of us.
“No, no.” The comtesse waved away the shock of years gone by and took the coffee from her maid once more. “Mr. Denis has come all the way from England for a business transaction, and it would be rude to turn him away. I know you will scold Michel for his part in dredging up the past, but what’s done is done. Do not be too hard on the boy.”
I was not as forgiving as the comtesse, but I realized the futility of showing Michel my disapprobation.
Perrault turned on us. “You will not tell the gendarmes.”
Denis lifted his brows. “Tell them what? A tale of a courageous woman defending her home during the war? Besides, where is the evidence of this shooting? The witnesses? It might have been the soldiers themselves who shot Potier, or he could have come to grief entirely by accident. Who is to say?”
The comtesse had refused to desert her city in times of danger, had stood up to defend it, and had won the hearts of her fellow Lyonnais. I, like Denis, could only admire her.
“He has the right of it,” I said. “You have nothing to fear from us, Madame. Please stress this to Michel.” I rubbed my injured knee, my smile rueful.
“Again, I apologize,” the comtesse said quickly, though she regarded us with gratitude. “He was rash to act without ascertaining your purpose.”
“It is of no moment.” I gave the comtesse a respectful nod and took a sip of the full-bodied coffee. “May I ask, without causing offense—was Signor Gallo blackmailing you over the matter?”
The fact that the comtesse was responsible for Potier’s death explained why Gallo had the paper with Potier’s name on it hidden with the valuable letter stolen from this household.
