“I’ve told you I’m not interested in taking you to bed,” he responded, amusement in his voice. “At least not in your current state. But no doubt you’ll agree with me that all of your garments are in serious need of a wash. If you’ll hand out your chemise and petticoats, I’ll find you something to wear until we’ve got your clothes clean and mended. In the meantime, I suggest you get into that bath before the water grows cold.”
The door closed with a snap.
Alix stood frozen in place. What to do now? She’d look ridiculous if she went storming into the next room with nothing on but her shift demanding the return of her stays. Moreover, a heated argument over undergarments was bound to raise questions. She glanced at the hipbath by the fire, steamy tendrils beckoning like phantom fingers from the surface of the water and caught a whiff of lavender. She relaxed her body with effort, then slid her shift over her head and eased into the soapy water, feeling the warmth embrace her tired body.
She’d just have to trust that she could get her stays backbefore Rafe or anyone else had a chance to examine them too closely.
She picked up the washcloth. Things were happening too fast. She shouldn’t have sent David back before she’d reached her mother’s. She began vigorously scrubbing her hair and skin, rinsing away layers of grime. She and David had passed through so many checkpoints, been searched and questioned, but still they’d managed to get through. She glanced at her hands; David had made her scrape them along rocks so the skin wouldn’t look so smooth and unaccustomed to labor. Her nails were broken and dirty. There were long scratches on her arms that she’d gotten from crawling between the boards of the chicken wagon. She scrubbed harder. The distance to her mother’s had been so short, and she’d been sosurethat Madeleine would be home. She’d gotten overconfident.
Alix shuddered, thinking of the three men who’d attacked her on her mother’s doorstep. She wished she could scrub hard enough to erase the memory. They’d grabbed at her, their eyes hungry and their mouths loose and wet. She wasn’t naive; she’d seen and heard enough at Versailles to know what they wanted. She thought of how she’d struggled and no one had come, how people on the streets just kept walking. Until the man Harcrest came along. Her hands clenched the washcloth. She wondered what he would he expect in payment for his services.
Men always expected payment, her mother said.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. He’d said he wasn’t interested in taking her to bed, she reminded herself. Yet he knew she was alone and unprotected. She cursed herself for telling him too much, but what else could she do? She could go back out on the streets, or she could somehow convince this man to help her. Alix thought of the gems in her stays. Perhaps she could buy his protection, promise him more when she found her mother?
There was nothing else to be done, she thought as she ran her fingers through the worst of the tangles in her hair. She needed his help. She’d have to go back to Madeleine’s apartments and see if there was anyone or anything there that might tell her where the comtesse had gone. She couldn’t bring her mind to accept the idea that her mother might be imprisoned or killed. Shemusthave fled, but where? Italy was too far, the way to Austria cut across a war zone. England was the most likely choice.
How could she reach Calais by herself? She splashed water on her face. She was so tired, it was hard to think. She gazed longingly at the low rope bed against the wall, and yawned. The threadbare linens and the rough wool blanket looked as inviting as any eiderdown. Maybe if she could just rest her head for a few moments, the fog that enshrouded her brain might clear and it would come to her what she should do.
“Mademoiselle Alix seemsto be a bit awkward for afemme du monde,” Jervis remarked as he dropped back into his chair. He eyed the stays Rafe still held in his hand. “And that’s some fancy looking lingerie she’s sporting.”
Rafe turned the elegant stays in his hand examining not only the satin laces, but the rosebuds delicately stitched in pale shades of silk thread. He flipped them over and his eyes narrowed as he recognized the label of one of the most exclusive stay makers in Paris. Handing them to Jervis he said, “Not exactly the stays of a working girl.”
Jervis whistled in appreciation. “Not to mention a bit too hard wearing for the job.” Then running his hand across the fabric, he frowned. “Here, what’s this? There’s something sewed into this thing.”
Knowing Rafe would stop him if he asked first, Jervis slipped a small knife from .his boot and began cutting the tiny stitches. A pile of tightly folded papers tumbled intohis hand. “Eh, papers, can’t read ‘em,” he muttered thrusting them at Rafe. “Ooh, but I definitely speaks the language of these gents,” he said as a small trove of jeweled earrings and rings spilled out of another section of the lining.
Rafe glanced at the glittering gems in Jervis’s lap and said sternly, “Put them back.”
Jervis chuckled. “The gents and I was just visiting, not planning a lasting friendship. So what’s the story? What’s in them papers?”
Rafe unfolded the sheets and smoothed them out. Leafing quickly through them, he said, “Titles for several large estates south of Paris, residency papers.” He glanced up at Jervis, his eyes thoughtful. “I think the lady and I need to have a talk. In the meantime, make yourself useful and stroll back down to the Rue de l’Université. See if you can find out who’s been living at the house with the dancing nymphs on the front, but do it quietly.”
“You don’t have to worry about me none, Captain,” Jervis replied, retrieving a battered tricorne from the window ledge. “I am the soul of discretion.” He paused at the sitting room door and glanced back at Rafe. “We’re still leaving Paris on Friday, aren’t we, Captain?”
Rafe nodded reassuringly. “I’m sure there’s a simple explanation for all of this. We’ll find the girl’s family and be on our way. You’ll be back on English soil with a good pint of ale in your hand by week’s end.”
Jervis turned back to the door and rapped lightly. Receiving no response he tried again, knocking more loudly. When there was still no answer, he pushed the door open. Rafe heard him chuckle. “Here now, Captain, come look at this. I told you she was a thief. The little baggage has stolen my bed, see if she hasn’t.” Shaking his head he said, “She’s a pretty little thing, I’ll give you that, but this is no time to be tasting the French pastries. And you, don’t you want tobe hurrying on back to Lady Anne?” Without waiting for an answer, he went cackling off down the stairs.
Rafe frowned at the fading footsteps of his manservant, then crossed to the room to kneel beside the low rope bed. The girl must be exhausted, he thought, as he pushed aside a damp curl that had fallen over her face. She had been brushing her hair when she fell asleep; his silver-backed hairbrush was still tangled in her dark tresses. He drew it out, feeling the silken strands slide free across his hand. Her hair was as not as dark as he’d thought when he’d first seen her. It reminded him of polished mahogany, richly threaded with russet and gold.
He studied the pale oval of her face, the dark lashes accenting the olive rings of fatigue beneath her shuttered eyes. She flailed suddenly and as Rafe bent close to prevent her from falling off the narrow cot, she mumbled about fire and death. She had titles for several estates sewn into her stays. How far had she come to reach Paris? How had she gotten here and had she traveled alone? And if not, where were her people now?
Alix tossed again. “Please, Papa,please,” she begged.
He smoothed her forehead and shushed her as he’d done with Elizabeth when she’d been small and had bad dreams after their father died. Her skin was so soft, he thought, allowing his finger to trail along the downy curve of her cheek. She muttered incomprehensibly, flailing with her arms as if to push someone away, and the thin sheet covering her slid down exposing the upper half of a creamy breast. A feeling that was far from brotherly swept through Rafe, and he quickly pulled his hand away.
He cast a glance around the room to see if he could find something more substantial to cover her with and she flailed again, throwing her body half off the cot. At this rate, he worried, she was going to wind up on the floor. Telling himself it was for her own protection, he slid onearm beneath her shoulders and another beneath her knees and carried her into his room. Her body was warm and sweet, and he tried to ignore the arousal unfurling in his belly as he tucked her into his bed.
He stood for a moment looking down at her, sleeping more calmly now, and wondered again who she was. Her skin looked like she hadn’t spent much time in the sun, and her hands and arms, though scratched and bruised, looked too slim and smooth to have spent much time at heavy labor. He thought of the papers Jervis had found. Was she a thief, as Jervis had suggested—perhaps a ladies’ maid run off with her mistress’s gems and papers? He frowned. The stays were much too elegant for a ladies’ maid; her chemise, though soiled, too fine. Could she be some former lord’s mistress? The furrow between his brows deepened. Or a fugitive aristocrat?
Rafe thought of the house-to-house searches the National Guard and the sans-culottes had conducted the week before. He recalled the stories he and Jervis had heard downstairs in the inn’s tap room; people laughing over tales of aristocrats caught in outrageous disguises: a marquis discovered dressed as a fishwife; a comtesse garbed as a prostitute. He thought of Alix’s silly hat and the imperious way she’d informed him that she didn’t kiss strangers on the street, her elegant curtsy. He shook his head as he turned and stoked up the fire. He should have known that his impulse to rescue the little waif would lead to trouble— impulses always did. He lit a candle on the table and drew the curtains, casting the room into soft golden shadow. Jervis was right. She was a pretty little baggage, but they needed to send her on her way. As soon as he found someone to take care of her, that’s precisely what he’d do. Pulling off his jacket and unbuttoning his waistcoat, Rafe settled back in an armchair to wait for Alix to wake.
Alix was backin the dark passageway in the château, watching with paralyzed horror as peasants brandishing pitchforks and torches burst through the false wall and spilled into the narrow hall. She turned to run, but was blocked by her father who frowned down upon her. “Don’t be a coward, Alix; treat with the fellows.”
“Treat with them?” she screamed in frustration. “You tried to treat with them and look what happened. They killed you.”
“You think you know better than a man how to handle these things?” He shook his head disapprovingly.
