The Forbidden Rose

It was not so hard to do one’s duty. It is the afterward that eats one alive. One survives a long time after doing one’s duty. Years and years.

I was born a de Fleurignac. I made myself the Finch, a leader of La Flèche. Neither of them can have anything to do with Guillaume LeBreton, not in any of his guises.

Love was painful. She would not recommend it to any of her friends.

Behind her, Victor said, “If there is something between you and the peddler, it must end.”

He looked vexed. It was an expression that often visited his face. He had been a malicious boy, full of mean plots and empty bluster. Now he was an unpleasant man and his threats were entirely real.

So she spoke lightly. “Do you intend to hunt poor, grubby Citoyen LeBreton to his rooms in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine? It does not become you to be vengeful, particularly to a man who has served me well. But then, you never did know how to deal with the servants.”

She must speak of a man like Guillaume LeBreton as if he were nothing. It was the only way she could protect him. “I would send a christening present to the little miller’s daughter next year, if one still did that sort of thing and I could remember where he said she lived.”

Nineteen

WILLIAM DOYLE FELT COMFORTABLE IN THE Marais. A man could take to the streets any time of day, dressed any way at all, and not stand out. Even the donkeys looked natural.

Hawker walked beside him, cat quiet, every muscle loose and ready, his eyes darting from side to side. “Noisy,” he commented. “Lots of people.”

“All kinds, which is to our advantage. And narrow streets. Good place to get lost, if you’re ever running.”

British Service headquarters was in the Marais. A goodly selection of humanity lived here, side by side. Rich men, in the airy, ground-floor appartements. Grisettes and laborers, on the higher floors, where it was cheap. Tradesmen and shopwomen passed him. Servants were out in force, walking petulant little dogs or carrying bread home to these grand houses along the way. The starveling poor would creep down from their attics later, when it got hot.

Folks who noticed him would think he was selling vegetables at the back door of those big houses, ducking around the price controls.

I shouldn’t have left her there.

Cousin Victor would guess what he and Maggie had been doing this morning. He might talk about equality and fraternity, but Victor had all the de Fleurignac pride. That was a man best avoided.

Rue Pierre-le-Sage was an alley, not wide enough for two people to walk side by side, even if they knew each other well. He and Hawker each took a donkey and led them through. A pair of shop women pushed past, one at a time, dressed in neat dark clothing, hurrying, maybe a little late for work. The distance separating him from Maggie felt like a rope playing out behind him, getting longer, but not letting go.

She’d want to boot that elegant leech-bastard cousin out of her house. One more reason she’d go to her father. The whole point in taking her to Paris was so she’d flush the old man out.

A line waited at the boulanger on the corner, snaking halfway down the block, everybody blinking and grumpy, hoping the bread wouldn’t run out before they got to the door. Shopkeepers were setting tables of goods outside the door. The offerings were thin, so they spread the merchandise out.

He’d put her back where she belonged, with her family. He’d have men watching her. He’d know if she was in trouble. There was no call to think Victor would hurt her. She didn’t act afraid of him.

It’s not like I can carry her home and keep her for a pet.

The houses of the quartier showed blank faces to the street, keeping their private lives private. Passages led to courtyards inside, everything closed off by wide, high, double doors, locked tight and guarded by suspicious concierges.

British Service headquarters was partway down Rue de la Verrerie. The gate was painted blue.

He was twenty-nine years old. He’d been British Service for a dozen years, an independent agent for six. This was the first time he’d been a damn fool for a woman.

The small door in the big double gate opened a crack.

“It’s me. And this one.” He tugged the boy up alongside, showing him. The porter didn’t mind if agents brought wild tigers to the door, but he had to see them first.

The door pulled back. The porter stood aside. They walked through a section of square dark overhang, into the courtyard. Dulce and Decorum clattered along behind.

It was quiet in here, but even this early in the morning the house was awake. The shutters on the kitchen windows were open, the sashes up. White curtains showed inside, swaying the tiniest amount. A broom leaned in the open door on the far side of the court, where the stairs ran up. Trails of water darkened the flagstones between the stone sink and the big pots of petunias and lilies set around the walls. Pools of water lay under the red geraniums on the windowsills. Dulce strolled over and started eating geraniums.

“I thought it’d be bigger, the way you talk about it.” Hawker looked around, probably considering ways to burgle the place. Nothing like a lad with a trade.

Everyone here, behind every window that overlooked this courtyard, was British Service. His people. If there was any safe haven in France, this was it.

He was expected. The kitchen door opened. Helen Carruthers, Head of Section for France, known here as Hélène Cachard—old, skinny, straight-backed, white-haired, dressed in raven black, dour as always, strode out. Her shadow—Althea—round and rosy and wrapped in a red-striped dress, followed, beaming.

“You have survived, I see.” Carruthers reached up, put a hand on each of his shoulders. Gripped and released. Stepped back. “We heard about the work in London. Not badly done.”

Which was the same as a crushing embrace and a hearty handshake, coming from Carruthers. He wondered what she’d heard about the job in England. Most of it, probably.

He might as well get the next part over with. “Adrian Hawkins. Hawker.”

Carruthers could make silence a weapon. She could roll it up and bludgeon you with it and bury you in the garden. He was surprised the flowers didn’t curl up and turn brown, the cold was so heavy in the air.

She said to Hawker, “You are not welcome here.”

“I didn’t ask to come.” The boy used his best French. Courtly, aristocratic, polite. “Madame.”

Carruthers sliced pieces off the boy with her eyes. “I have no choice but to house you. You will stay out of my sight, do you understand?” She raised her voice and beckoned a young woman over. “Claudine, take this . . . this rat to the room in the attic and leave it there. See that it remains quiet until it is needed. Other than that, I do not want to know of its existence. Guillaume, with me, please.”

That went well.

HAWKER climbed the stairs to the attic, a pace behind Claudine, glad to get away from the wrought-iron wolf-bitch downstairs.

Claudine, though. He could see himself getting along with Claudine like a house afire. She was plain as a pine board, but with a nice wriggle to her hips like she was used to rocking that cradle. A knowing one, Claudine, and probably a good toss.

He loved women. It’d be a grim world it weren’t for the women in it, and ugly girls were the warm ones. The soft hammocks. The good friends. Who’d chase after pretty when there were women like this?

Claudine looked him over when they got to the top of the stairs. “Your room.”

She was wondering whether to treat him like a boy or a man. He could have told her. “You are kind, mademoiselle.”

“Citoyenne,” she corrected primly. “I am Citoyenne Claudine. We are careful, mon petit bonhomme, to be excellent citizens of the Republic. You have all that you need? We will bring your belongings to you, later, when your animals are unpacked.”

I do not envy the man who gets stuck with that job. He hoped nobody inventoried the counterfeit they’d be taking out of those baskets. He’d helped himself to a few bundles.