Jo Graham - [Numinous World 05] Read online

  I bent my head, and he pulled out some small paper, with which he proceeded to tie up an errant curl.

  "You will be as fine as ever," he said, dexterously rolling another curl in paper, for all the world as though he were my ladies' maid. "You will put your hat on when you go out, and not take your hair down until you get home."

  Where he could not see I rolled my eyes. It seemed my main attraction was my hair, and I was more than tired of this already. Two, three, four curls, each one fussily arranged and papered. I looked up, trying to see how many he planned to do. The slip of paper he was folding to put around my curl was a thousand franc note!

  He glanced down, catching my eye, and his thin aristocratic lips bent in a smile. "You see, I am not insensible after all."

  I pulled a bit of hair forward from the other side. "Here is another piece that needs doing!"

  Talleyrand laughed. "For the sake of your curls, Madame!"

  "Oh yes," I said.

  There were eight in all before he put my hat back on, arranging the pins and ribbon just so. "Now you are decent, Madame," he said.

  "I am," I said, getting to my feet. "And I hope you are left with an impression of my case that is favorable."

  "Quite," he said.

  I waited for him to suggest another rendezvous, but he was already looking at the papers on his desk. "I shall be going then," I said.

  "Good afternoon, Madame," he said, rising to his feet to see me out. He stopped, one hand on the door handle, prepared to let me out. "And Madame," he said courteously, "You may tell my dear friend Fouché that this was an excellent try, but in the future I prefer to arrange my own assignations."

  "Ah!" I gaped.

  He glanced at my hat. "But I believe it's been worth your while. I know how little Fouché pays his agents. Good afternoon, Madame."

  "Good afternoon," I managed, and somehow got myself downstairs and into the carriage before I burst into laughter. It was that or tears.

  I told "the gentleman" in person. He made no comment, only waited for me to tell the entire story, as baldly as I might. I would not seem squeamish to him. Nor did I attempt to conceal the money, though I certainly had not brought it with me.

  Fouché's only comment was a shrug, as if to say he had expected no more. "Well," he said, "Talleyrand is no fool." Which I thought should have been self-evident. They had been playing deadly games, sometimes at cross purposes and sometimes not, for the better part of ten years.

  "Since you have already been amply paid," he said, "I see that you need no more. Until I next summon you, Madame."

  And with that I had to be content. It was true that, though the currency was inflated and 8,000 francs was not worth what it had been a few years before, it was still more than I might have hoped for in the run of a play. The price for Talleyrand in scoring off Fouché, and probably a bargain at the price.

  It was only a few days later that the verdict came down in Moreau's trial. While it had not been specifically proven that he had been part of the Royalist assassination plot, it was clear that he had known such a plot existed and had done nothing to avert it. For this he was convicted as a mere accessory, to two years in prison, rather than the death sentences that were pronounced on the others.

  I thought he had done rather well for himself. But then, Moreau had always been cautious, and doubtless there were no incriminating papers, only word of mouth from unreliable witnesses and thugs hired to do the dirty work.

  He served four days of his term. On the fifth day, Bonaparte commuted his sentence to exile, giving him ten days to quit the country. This was, I thought, quite a masterstroke. In prison, Moreau would seem a martyr. Living peacefully in retirement elsewhere, there was little to be said of him, and the First Consul should look magnanimous to someone who had plotted his own murder.

  I was glad, for I should not have liked to hear that he was killed.

  To my surprise, a letter came for me the next day.

  My dear Madame St. Elme,

  I do not know whether you will be glad to hear from me, or rather the opposite, but as I am preparing to leave I have come across some documents belonging to you, letters and legal papers relating to your marriage that I think you will want. Is there some time when we might conveniently meet that I may deliver them to your hand? Day after tomorrow at noon in the Boulevard Madeleine would suffice, if you can think of no better.

  I am your obedient,

  Victor Moreau

  I stared at the paper, and for a moment I felt all of that old thrill, all of that frisson of desire I had once known, staring at his spidery writing. Perhaps I had not loved him, but I had desired him. I had hated him. For a moment I thought of nothing more than crushing the paper between my hands or burning it. If Victor had some papers of mine, he could have sent them as easily as the note. Why should he want to see me, so many years too late?

  Curiosity won. Or perhaps I wanted some denouement, some ending. I could slap him. I could curse him. I did not know what I would do. But what I should not do was wait at home, wondering what would have happened if I had gone.

  That day was a day of rain, with fitful summer squalls racing across the sky. I stood in the Blvd. Madeleine fully half an hour, waiting for him. I almost didn’t recognize him. He was cloaked against the rain, his hat pulled low on his head, his steps quick and abstracted.

  When he lifted his face, I drew in a breath of surprise. His hair which had been ebony only touched with gray was now almost white, startling with his dark, sharp eyes. He looked so much older. I had thought he would be as he had been, when we had begun almost eight years ago, but he was nearly fifty and looked it.

  "Ida," he said, and once again I started. He had never called me that. It was not my real name, and he had never called me by it.

  "Victor," I said.

  His eyes looked me over, and I saw a hint of that old amusement there. "You haven't changed."

  "You have," I said.

  "Misfortunes," he said, and shrugged.

  "You should have known better," I said.

  He shrugged again and offered me his arm. "Probably."

  I took it and we walked together, not going anywhere in particular. "You had papers for me?"

  "Yes." He dug a packet from his pocket and gave them to me. "I thought you might need them."

  "You might have thought that six years ago," I said. "Why did you keep them?"

  "One of life's mysteries," he said, and I took his arm and we walked again.

  I glanced sideways at him. "Where do you go?"

  He laughed, a short laugh like a bark. "New Jersey."

  "New Jersey?"

  "New Jersey, in the United States," he said. "A pleasant enough place, I'm told. It lacks palaces, but I understand that it at least has restaurants."

  "Why ever in the world?" I would have expected London, or Rome, or even Cairo.

  "Why not?" I was getting tired of his diffident shrug. "Are you going to ask me now if I am guilty of all I was charged with? A present for a new master?"

  "I know you're guilty," I said evenly, "and I expect I would have a harder time proving it than the prosecutor. You forget how well I knew you, Victor."

  "I suppose you did." He stopped and we stood facing one another in the rainy street. His eyes roved over my face as his hands once had. "I should have expected you to be coarsened by now."

  "From the life you left me to?" My voice was bitter, but not as much as I had expected. "You underestimate me. You always have."

  "I never have," he said mildly. "Did I not say that when a man makes a pet of a tiger he should not be surprised when one day it bites his hand off?"

  "It was you that bit my hand," I said.

  "And it was you who loved Ney." He took my arm again and we walked, stepping carefully on the slick stones. "I saw you together in Munich, you know. I knew you were there."

  "And said nothing?"

  "I had other things on my mind," he said. His profile was gray and impas
sive. "You are a tiger, and you will outlive us all."

  "I hope so," I said. "But if I do, it will be no thanks to you."

  He smiled as though at some pleasant memory. "You can still thank me for delivering you from that odious marriage, and for seeing to your education. That, I think, I did well."

  "Yes," I said. "You did. But I am not done with it yet. My husband's family is still trying to get me back to Holland and lock me away."

  "My dear, if I could I should intervene," he said. "I did all those years, while I could."

  "Did you?" This time it was I who stopped and faced him. "Until your arrest?"

  He nodded, one eyebrow rising. "Who else did you think? But I have no more power to do anything of the kind."

  I put my gloved hand on his arm. "Victor, why would you do that?"

  "Tigers don't belong in cages," he said, and steered us around a boy taking dustbins out.

  I said nothing. The rain dripped down from my bonnet.

  "I do not think I will see you again," he said conversationally.

  "I don't imagine so," I said, trying to make light of it. "I am seldom in New Jersey."

  "I wouldn't think you're missing much." The corner of his mouth quirked. "How will you remember me, I wonder? An ogre? A failed conspirator? A general not quite as good as Bonaparte or a lover not quite as dear as Ney?"

  I stopped and took both his hands in mine. "As my Valmont," I said. "My dark seducer, dangerous and fascinating, cruel and lost. That is what I will remember of you, Victor. That is the story I will tell about you in years to come."

  For a moment he smiled. "Better to reign in hell, then?"

  "Much better," I said, and kissed him goodbye in the rain for the last time.

  Playing for Queens

  My third assignment for Fouché was not until the eve of autumn. I had hoped, after the failure of throwing me at Talleyrand, that he would lose interest in me. Of course not. Of course Fouché didn't simply forget about me.

  However, this time instead of sending Maurice or one of his other thugs, he simply sent a note for me with the instruction that I should present myself immediately. He had been reinstated as Minister of Police since the spring, and I supposed he thought there was no reason he could not simply summon me to his office now.

  It was a beautiful day, though rather warm, and I was not surprised to see that his windows were open, letting in all the racket of the Place Vendome two stories below. I made my courtesy briefly. "Monsieur."

  "Madame." He did not look up from the folder before him, only waved me to the chair opposite his desk.

  A chair, I thought cynically. I am really moving up in the world. I settled myself, wondering who he wanted me to sleep with this time.

  At last he looked up from the papers, as though suddenly noticing me. "Madame, do you recall Dr. Fraser, the gentleman I asked you to find last spring?"

  "Yes, of course," I said. "But as you know, he died nearly two years ago. Or so I was told by reliable people. Is that not true?"

  Fouché's mouth twitched in a thin line, what perhaps passed for a smile from him. "Dr. Fraser is indeed dead. A pity, but something that can be worked around. He can no longer provide the evidence I require, but fortunately it is likely that it can be obtained in other ways."

  I waited, a cold pit of dread in my stomach at what those ways might be. I had heard stories of the Terror, of course, and of his means of obtaining information.

  As though he read my face, his lips twisted in a real smile. "Nothing so draconian, Madame. Much can be accomplished with money. You are to act as my go between, to persuade a certain lady to sell me the documents I desire. I had reason to believe that she has them, and they are far too valuable for her to have disposed of. Your job is simply to persuade her that it would greatly be to her benefit to work with me, and to convey those documents to you for a reasonable sum."

  "Who is the lady?" I asked.

  "Therese Tallien. I understand she is well known to you."

  I took a breath. "Yes," I said. I certainly knew Therese. Once I had thought we were dear friends. Until Victor disposed of me, and I was no longer of any importance at all.

  "M. Tallien has divorced her," Fouché said. "Some small matter of her bearing three children who were not his. She is now living quite retired in the Loire, until her new lover, the Comte de Camaran, is free to marry her without losing any part of his inheritance. His uncle is acutely ill, I hear, and once he is gone his edict that his nephew will have nothing to do with her is meaningless. And alas, Madame Tallien is barred the capital. Some little fracas with the Emperor, I understand. He suggested that she would prefer to live away from court." Fouché looked at me and his gray eyes sparkled maliciously. "Is it not nice that we once again have a court?"

  There was no possible answer to that which would not cause me great trouble, so I held my tongue.

  "I see that you are prudent, Madame," Fouché said, with a quick nod. He reached into a desk drawer and brought forth a purse, which he gave to me. "There is a draft within for fifty thousand francs, as well as some travel money for you. If Madame Tallien is cooperative, the draft is hers in exchange for the documents I want."

  I kept my voice steady. I did not want to see Therese, did not want to talk to her, not after all that had passed between us. But I knew better than to refuse Fouché. "What are these documents and how shall I know if they are the ones you want?" I asked. Fifty thousand francs was a lot of money. Therese had always had lavish tastes, and I supposed that since her divorce, and since her affair with the banker Ouvrard ended, she might be feeling the pinch.

  "Letters or notes to Madame Tallien from Madame Bonaparte," Fouché said. "Requesting her assistance in a matter of delicacy. You will get these documents from Madame Tallien and bring them to me. That is your sole part in this affair. I send you because I expect that you can be exceptionally persuasive to Madame Tallien."

  I felt the blood rise in my cheeks. Servants talk. He had heard, then, what had once passed between us.

  "Is that clear, Madame?"

  "Yes," I said.

  I had a long time to think on the way to the Loire. The roads were good and the days warm and pleasant, and my funds more than adequate for inns as I traveled. I went dressed as Charles for more than one reason. The obvious one was that it was simply far easier to travel as a man than a woman, who would need to have a maid if she pretended to decency, and who would be held back by the slow pace of a carriage, which I should have to rent. As Charles, I could simply saddle Nestor and go.

  The other reason was much more complicated. I had never had the upper hand with Therese, a hanger on in her stellar orbit, a rather ordinary blonde among the ladies of fashion who circled around her. I had thought, perhaps, that I was a friend. I had been wrong. When I had gone to her after Victor threw me out, she had refused to have anything further to do with me once it became clear that Victor was done. I was valuable only while I was with him. Without him, I returned to being nothing.

  That still stung. I had not gotten over that yet.

  I supposed most women would have seen through her. But strange as my early life had been, and as solitary as my adolescence, a wife before I was a woman, I had never had the crowd of girls around me that most women had. I had never been part of the circle of maidens whispering and gossiping, never learned how to tell what was true and what was false. I counted myself lucky in some ways to have missed it, but in missing it I had never learned to survive in the world of women. I did not know how. In retrospect, I thought Therese had played me for a fool more than once, only I had been too naïve to realize it.

  Charles was another matter. Charles had always had the upper hand with her, sometimes quite literally. If I had to see Therese again, much less needed to try to get her to do something, it was better to be Charles than Elza.

  And yet Fouché thought I might prove "exceptionally persuasive." Could it be that quiet, respectable and comfortable exile was wearing on her? With
out the political circles that were her meat and drink, without lovers to seduce and games to play, what did she have, exiled to a beautiful house far from the capital?

  It came to me that Napoleon understood all of us far too well. Victor might a thousand times rather languish in jail rather than in unremarkable exile in New Jersey, as though he were so little threat that he might be dismissed. Therese would, I was sure, rather be locked up dramatically in a convent or thrown into the Conciergerie, where her plight would attract a great deal of sympathy, than simply be barred the capital and the court. After all, who would pity her, with a lovely house and all the rest of the world at her disposal? She might go to Rome or London if she liked, or live in palatial comfort in the country. How should she parlay this into poor treatment? Meanwhile, his reputation for mercy could but grow, if enemies received clemency.

  And so it was with some trepidation that Charles van Aylde presented himself at her chateau.

  Therese took her time receiving me. At last I was ushered in to her morning room, a lovely small chamber on the ground floor with gold wallpaper with a pattern of twining roses. French doors opened onto a green lawn and the distant landscapes of a glowing English garden. She was reclining on a pale pink chaise, her fine lawn gown the palest shade of yellow. It set off her skin to perfection, which time had seemingly not touched at all.

  Still, she was not entirely the same. Her breasts were fuller, her arms plumper, and her hands where they rested on her lap were not entirely still. She was not completely the master of the situation. She did not know why I was here.

  "Good afternoon, Madame," I said with a dancing master perfect bow, Charles' hat in my hand and a fine leg before me. "It is a pleasure to see you as ravishing as ever."

  She smiled, and there was something of the old predator in it. "Good afternoon, M. van Aylde. I confess I am surprised to see you in my humble country house." She had decided to play along. Perhaps entertaining her was my best course.

  "I happened to be in the neighborhood," I said, straightening and toying negligently with the riding crop in my hand. I never used it on Nestor, of course, but it made an appropriate and provocative prop. "As a matter of chance. I thought that I would see how you are keeping, rusticating in the country as you are."