Page 60 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
“Oui, merci.” Kane held the man’s gaze, and when he heard the last of Gus’s footsteps fade, he began. “I am here asmademoiselle’s friend to help her find Madame St. Antoine. I am eager to remove her fear for her friend.”
“I understand,monsieur. You have my discretion.”
During the Terror, Bonnet had arranged many details for private meetings between Maurice, Kane, and their friends. All of them had been in the cellars here in town and at the main vineyard. “Thank you. Tell me, did Madame St. Antoine have any close friends here in Reims?”
The skinny fellow drifted near to Kane. He cleared his throat and spoke low. “Two. Both went off to Paris. Tola Force, monsieur. Neither returned.”
“I see.” Kane exhaled. “I am sorry to hear that. Who of those in the city did not favormadame?”
“The local magistrate was particularly irritating to her. He is still here. A nuisance not only tomadame, but to many. He has asked where she is.”
“Did you tell him she came here?”
“Never,monsieur. She came in the night; she left in the night. My maid and I would die before we breathed a word that our lady was here.”
*
Her skirts inone hand, Gus took the stairs at a clip. The delight at returning to the house had fled as soon as Bonnet told them Amber left weeks ago.
At the top of the stairs on the second floor, she stood absorbing the sunlight through the dome above. She remained still and listened. She heard not the pace of Amber’s favorite maid, Nancy. The girl had a club foot, and she dragged it as she stepped. Even on carpet, her gait identified her.
Nancy did not come. Wherever she was, she had not yet learned that Gus was here. Once she did, she’d rush to see her. Such was their affection that a bellpull was not required to hurry Nancy to her arms.
Gus hastened down the hall to the right and the large suites of the master and mistress of the house.
At Amber’s quarters, Gus swung open the sitting room double doors. Save for the cloths draped over the unused furniture, all was as it had been the last time Gus and Amber had been here together. Last February it was, after a hellish snowstorm.
“If it clears quickly,” Amber had told her, “it will be good for the grapes. I’d like a good harvest for thevendanges. The court favors our white.”
Gus had pinned her with a look. “You mean Bonaparte prefers it.”
So did Vaillancourt.
Amber had rolled a shoulder. “Good for business. Would that I have more than grapes to save me from him.”
“Give up the network, Amber. It becomes too perilous.”
“I can’t. You know it. The system will not permit it. One above, one below. No one who knows any others. Besides, would you give up? Desert me?”
Gus shook her head. “Never. I hate them as much as you. They killed two of my friends whom they sent to their deaths in Carmes.”
“Exactly.” Amber turned her face toward the window overlooking the cathedral. “Do you suppose any of those kings crowned there imagined that one day they and their family would be swept aside like so much dust?”
“Never. Royals believe in their own right to rule. To them, God would not be so cruel as to destroy the very system he has created.” Amber had snorted. Placing her hands upon the window ledge, she leaned forward to view those below in the streets. “I don’t want kings, and I don’t want those who imitate them.” She shook off her reverie and spun. She caught up her bright copper red hair in her hand. “I think of cutting this off like you have.”
Gus now strode to her friend’s dressing table and sat upon the bench. She flung off the clean white cloth draped over the items there. Before her were her friend’s combs and bushes, her hand cream and face cream, and her perfumes, all five of them. The bottles and jars weremostlyin their exact usual spots. The comb, sleek. The brushes, spotless, without one bright autumn strand of hair.
Amber had been here. If she had not, the hand cream would be in the right-hand drawer, the face cream in the one below.
Amber never wished anyone to think she needed such emollients. Not even her maid Nancy.
Tonight, Gus cared naught for those.
No. In the third drawer was the treasure she sought. She pulled it open and saw its usual contents: ribbons. A jumble of them. Yellows and golds, greens, jades, teals, purples, creams, and pale blush pinks. And beneath, when one pressed on the bottom at the right back, the thick wood popped and one could lift the bottom out.
And beneath, Amber would hide notes.
There on two other occasions when Amber could not deliver a proper message to her second-in-command—after her husband Maurice died and after she had suffered her miscarriage—she had given Gus directives on whom to meet, what to take, whom to trust.
