MV02 Death Wears a Crown Read online

  “How could you do such a thing?” marveled the chambermaid.

  “Shoot a thief?” asked Victoire.

  “Fire a pistol.” The chambermaid shuddered and the flames of the candles on the branch she held quivered in sympathy. “I should never be able to. I wouldn’t dare to.”

  “You might think otherwise if you found a stranger in your room at night.”

  The chambermaid looked shocked and gestured in confusion. “You are very brave, Madame, braver than any woman I have known, to face a dangerous thief as you did, with a gun, and firing it. I have never known any woman who could do that before. Never in my entire life.”

  “I doubt that very much,” said Victoire with unexpected mildness as she attempted to stop the chambermaid from blithering. “Most women are very brave indeed. They are so brave that they do not know it.” She looked away from her things and sighed. “It is possible that the thief was attempting to find something other than money. I am aware of that.”

  “Madame?” said the chambermaid as she lingered at the door. “You don’t mean that he intended to ... harm you?”

  Victoire turned toward her. “Not the way you mean.” She waved the thought away. “Go. I want the chocolate, and I need time to think.”

  “Yes, Madame,” said the chambermaid with a hurried curtsy before she hastened away down the stairs.

  Victoire stared around her room and sighed. Little as she wished to admit it, she was shaken. Her body was stiff and unwieldy, as if it belonged to someone else and she was only borrowing it. Shock made her slightly nauseated. How could she sleep again tonight? A grue crawled up her spine. She clutched her arms around herself and hung on, worried that she might start to tremble. Beneath her arms she felt the money belt, and for an instant that made her apprehension worse.

  What had the man wanted? What was he searching for? Was he truly after money, or had he been seeking the dispatches? How could he know of them, or what they were about? She tried to sort out her thoughts, but those three questions revolved in her mind, fed by her lack of answers. She sank down onto the bed. What would she tell Vernet when she saw him? Would she alarm him unduly if she voiced her suspicions about the thief? She did not want him to add worries for her to the demands of his work, but if she did not warn him, might he not be more vulnerable than if she remained silent?

  The chambermaid returned, carrying a tray with a tall pot and a mug upon it. “Your chocolate, Madame.” She set this on the dressing table. “And I would probably have cognac if I had been through what you have suffered tonight.”

  “Hardly suffered,” said Victoire brusquely, rising. She could smell the chocolate and it made her very hungry for the drink, as if it were meat instead of liquid.

  “The landlord has asked to see you before you depart in the morning. He made me be sure I told you.” This was delivered with another short curtsy. “Good night, Madame. Do not fear, you are guarded now. I will rouse you in good time.” It was apparent from her tone of voice that she did not relish the prospect of being up again in two hours.

  “Thank you,” said Victoire as she poured her chocolate.

  The chambermaid nodded and was gone again, leaving Victoire to sip her chocolate in the vain hope that it would make her sleepy enough to override the apprehension that filled her.

  * * *

  Both corporals were waiting in the pre-dawn gloom as Victoire descended the stairs, her caped traveling coat closed to the throat and her dashing Hussar’s shako held on with a wide satin ribbon.

  Corporal Feuille greeted her without effusiveness, his stubble-covered cheeks giving eloquent testimony to his nighttime activities. “The musician is missing.”

  “The musician?” Victoire inquired. She had a faint headache from sleeplessness and had to resist the urge to demand more information at once.

  “Yes,” said Corporal Cruche. “He left his horn, but he’s gone. He has to be the one who broke into your room last night.” He made a disapproving face. “Musicians! They never have any money.”

  Victoire scowled. “He can’t be much of a musician if he left his horn behind. It makes no sense for him to give up his livelihood.”

  “Well, as to that,” said Corporal Feuille, “I have a theory. I think he was planning to return to his own room with whatever he had taken from you, never thinking that you would be armed.”

  This interested Victoire. “Why do you say that?”

  Corporal Feuille could not resist preening. “It makes sense, Madame Vernet. Here is a man of little wealth, making his way to Paris where employment awaits him. He played last night as a way to reduce the cost of his room. And you are a woman traveling alone, for although we are guarding you, at night you must keep to your room yourself.” He faltered. “We meant to have a servant sleep outside your door, but ... but we failed to arrange it. We were ... distracted.” He stared apologetically at his boots, as if uncertain how to account for his boasting and drink of the evening before.

  “I am aware of that,” said Victoire. “Is that why you think he came into my room? Because I am a woman alone?”

  “And because you were dining alone. He might have thought you carried a goodly cache of gold with you.” Corporal Cruche’s large-featured face revealed that he, too, suspected that Madame Vernet had money at her disposal.

  “But why would I travel by diligence if I had funds? Why not try the rooms of the travelers in the coach? They are clearly most prosperous.” Victoire was now at the foot of the stairs, glancing around for the landlord.

  “But they are armed,” said Corporal Feuille. “He would have been foolish to attempt to steal from them. But you, alone, must have appeared to be the easiest source of funds for him.”

  “I see,” said Victoire, who had arrived at slightly different conclusions.

  “And the landlord is waiting for you in the taproom. We will come with you if you think it necessary,” said Corporal Cruche, who plainly did not want to be bothered.

  “That will not be necessary,” Victoire told him. “I would rather that you supervise the loading of my luggage.”

  Both corporals gave her sketchy salutes.

  As Victoire entered the taproom, she noticed a mongrel dog lying near the door, the lantern-light falling on his brindled coat; she looked at the animal with curiosity. As she started toward the hearth where the landlord was setting logs on the embers of the night fires, she glanced again at the dog. “You said that he is not used for tracking?”

  “For ratting,” said the landlord, continuing with his work, his face becoming more visible as the first little tongues of flame lapped the wood. “But by the looks of his muzzle he took a nip at something or someone last night. The poor fellow’s been whining and he’s got a sore shoulder, that’s for certain.” Satisfied with the first flames crackling into the new logs, the landlord straightened up and came toward her. “I hope you will accept my apologies, Madame Vernet, for the inconveniences you have suffered here.”

  “Certainly. I thought I indicated that last night.” She did her best to give him a friendly smile, but her mouth felt tight and she knew she would not be able to put the man at ease.

  “Last night was a difficult time, and often-times, when the dangers are over and the alarums ended, there are second thoughts.” He kicked at the few charcoaled scraps of the previous evening that had slipped onto the flags in front of the fireplace. “I did not want you to suppose that—”

  “Under the circumstances I think you managed as well as anyone could expect,” said Victoire stiffly. “And I will so inform my husband when I tell him of what transpired here.” She reached into her reticule for the coins she had put there. “This is the cost of the room.”

  The landlord waved the coins away. “No, Madame Vernet, I would rather you did not pay me.”

  “You did not know this would happen, and therefore you should not have to
answer for it,” she said reasonably.

  “True, but you are a guest in my inn, and you should not be subjected to such abuse. I would prefer you allow me to make this gesture. I do not want it said that I prey on the misfortunes of my guests. I should have arranged for you to be guarded better, but to say truly, I supposed that the corporals were only trying to increase their importance by claiming you carried money and dispatches.”

  Victoire suspected that the man had spent the last hour preparing to say that to her, and so she regarded him steadily. “There is no reason to fear me, or to assume that my husband would hold you responsible for what occurred. The corporals have more to fear from him than you do.”

  “But still,” said the landlord. “Please do me the courtesy of accepting my hospitality without charge.”

  She was aware he was serious, but she could not entirely rid herself of the obligations she felt. “Then take this”—she held out a silver coin—“for the chocolate. Will you do that, at least?”

  He chuckled and accepted the coin. “Very well.” He looked over at the mongrel as it gave a low whine as it turned in its sleep. “Poor old Bouchonie. He’s more than ten years old. It’s a shame he had to be hurt.”

  Victoire agreed, adding, “Still, if he bit the man, he had his revenge.”

  The landlord hitched up his shoulders. “A heavy blow to an old dog, who’s to say what it might do to him?”

  At that Victoire became inquisitive. “Do you truly think that he bit the man?” What had he said his name was? Mon ... Montra ... something. She shook her head and listened to the landlord.

  “I think he must have. No one complained of his biting when they visited the necessary houses; the ostlers have not been bitten. It could be that he caught a rabbit, but why would he be hurt?” He made a gesture of futility. “The dog cannot talk, Madame, so I may only speculate. And my speculation leads me to think that he bit the thief as he fled.”

  “You may be correct,” said Victoire, wondering how she would ever be able to locate a musician without his instrument and sporting a bullet-wound and a dog-bite.

  “And I may not,” the landlord concurred. He took her extended hand and bowed over it. “I hope that you will not hold this misfortune against my inn, Madame Vernet.”

  “The inn did not try to rob me,” she pointed out. “Rest assured that your reputation will not suffer at my hands, or my husband’s.” This was clearly what the landlord wanted to be certain of, she realized, and she went on, “Neither of us have any reason to think poorly of you or to question your role in the ... incident.”

  “You are very gracious, Madame Vernet,” said the landlord, bowing to her once more, relief in every line of his body.

  “Hardly that,” she corrected him. “But I am about to be late, and that would be unfortunate.” She had heard footsteps in the hallway and the sound of the ostlers harnessing the team to the diligence.

  The landlord escorted her to the door of his inn with a flourish. “I have enough to apologize for,” he said with an attempt at gallantry. “So I will not seek to detain you further.”

  The driver was squinting up at the sky as the eastern horizon brightened to silver and rose. “There’ll be wind today,” he announced to the passengers gathered in the inn yard. “Best keep your coats about you.”

  With this unwelcome thought, Victoire permitted the landlord to hand her up into the diligence, and noticed that the two corporals, her self-appointed escorts, were watching with ill-concealed annoyance. Affronted as they were, Victoire hoped that it would teach them to be more prudent in what they said to other travelers. Concealing a shudder at the lingering shock of the night, she took her place in the carriage. They would pass the night in Beauvais, she thought, following the map in her mind. And then one more night—at Argenteuil or Colombes, perhaps—before they came at last to Paris.

  Paris, Victoire thought. Home.

  THE VERNETS lived beyond the fashionable quarter of Paris on a cul-de-sac that backed onto a tannery that now served as livery-and-smithy. Their house was narrow and tall, built two hundred years before, like the rest of them in this area, the rooms small and drafty. The ceiling in the kitchen—a woefully old-fashioned chamber—was patched with damp that no amount of reslating the roof could entirely banish. The staircases leaned and creaked treacherously whenever anyone climbed them.

  Odette Pilier, the widow who served as the Vernets’ housekeeper, met her employer at the door, her black dress covered by a blue apron and her cap askew over chestnut curls. “Good Lord and His saints, thank Heaven you’re back again,” she cried as she flung open the door for her.

  The porter bearing her luggage stood in the street, his small pushcart laden with Victoire’s chests. “I’ll set these on the step,” he said, and went about his task quickly, for he knew he could expect little in the way of favors from someone living in such a house.

  Victoire handed him his money and a small doucement, all the while listening to Odette catalogue the various domestic catastrophes that had occurred in her absence. She waved her housekeeper into silence. “Let me sort this out first, and then we will tend to your troubles, Odette.”

  The afternoon was overcast and stuffy, and the sour scent of drains and old mortar combined to make the street seem more dreary than it was. The work of the blacksmith at his forge sounded like ancient, discordant bells.

  “Ah, Madame Vernet, I am so relieved to have you home,” Odette sighed. She was only three years older than Victoire, but seemed more, and not just for her widow’s black: as a young woman left with no money when her sergeant husband had been killed in battle, she had been forced to come to terms with the world in a way that made her timorous and reserved beyond her years.

  “Will you lend me a hand?” Victoire asked as she went to retrieve her luggage. “Between the two of us I’m certain we can manage.”

  Odette flung up her hands. “You could have had the porter tend to it.”

  “And he would have charged me for every stair he climbed, and every time he climbed them,” said Victoire. “This trip has already been too expensive.” She tugged at one of the leather handles on the case. “Help me, will you?”

  “If it is necessary,” said Odette, capitulating. She came down the stairs and took the other end of the case.

  In ten minutes the two women had tugged and dragged Victoire’s luggage into the house, and now the cases were standing in the door to the living room.

  “We might as well unpack them here. Half my clothes need washing, and the rest will have to be aired.” Victoire looked around the shabby room and did her best not to show the disappointment the room often inspired in her. “The cases will need to be stored again, but it will be easier when they are empty.”

  “You look very tired,” said Odette, scrutinizing her employer. “You are not having more ... trouble, are you?”

  “No,” said Victoire. “In fact, I think I am much recovered from my miscarriage. But you are correct. I am tired. And I am ill-at-ease.” She sank down into her favorite chair and proceeded to tell Odette about her night at the Vigne et Tonneau.

  Odette blessed herself and exclaimed in dismay when Victoire described how she had shot the thief.

  “At least,” she added conscientiously, “I think I did. If nothing else, I scared him off.” She bit her lower lip. “But I haven’t been able to sleep since that night.”

  “You must have a care, Madame,” said Odette. “It is very bad to keep awake in that fashion. You must let me prepare a tisane for you, something that will soothe you.”

  “Yes, thank you,” said Victoire at once, “but first I need a decent meal, something with taste to it.” She pulled off her gloves and stuffed them into her reticule. “And tomorrow I will need to be out in the world, for I have errands to perform for my husband.”

  Odette looked dismayed. “But madame, you’ve just be
en through a dangerous encounter. Surely you need to keep to your bed for a day, to recover yourself.” She watched Victoire narrowly. “You admit you are tired, and often this leads to illness.”

  “Inactivity will do me more harm than good,” said Victoire decisively. “I appreciate your concern, Odette, but trust me to know my own limits.” She rose and unfastened her caped traveling coat. “I’ll be able to recuperate from my journey after I’ve discharged my husband’s tasks.” She handed her coat to Odette. “You had better sponge it with vinegar. After all that time in a diligence, who knows what clings to it. And put water to heating. I know I need a bath.” She looked down at her lap. “I’ve had food and drink spilled here for the last four days, and I know it is all sticking to me still.”

  “Of course, Madame Vernet,” said Odette. “A hot bath will do you good, and you’ll feel more yourself again.”

  “I trust I will,” said Victoire.

  Odette folded the coat over her arm. “I’ll attend to it, Madame. But there are a few matters that you must hear of.” She pointed to a place near the window. “There is more damp. The carpenter will have to repair it, or there is danger that the window will not hold.”

  Victoire looked at the place Odette indicated. “You’re right,” she said with a gesture of resignation. “And something still must be done about the bannister as well.”

  “Unfortunately,” Odette agreed.

  “I see,” said Victoire, thinking of Vernet’s dress uniform and her few keepsakes and antiques. There was a silver-and-garnet brooch that she would not mind parting with, along with the rest; she never wore it, for neither silver nor garnets became her, so there would be little sacrifice in selling it as well as the others. “It must be tended to,” she allowed.

  “Madame?” said Odette.

  “I will make arrangements, do not fear,” said Victoire, and turned her mind away from such distressing thoughts. “What’s been going on in Paris since I went away?”