Prologue
Summer, Paris, 1792
The pretty butterflies had vanished from Versailles along with their queen. Verity Garnier glanced around the ballroom as she performed the steps of the minuet. The women were like pale moths in their simple white gowns, for few dared dress as lavishly as they had three years before. The attack on the Bastille had seen to that. But an actress should never bow to convention. Verity wore a gown of heavily ribbed, jonquil silk brocaded with roses from her last play.
When the music died away, her dance partner, Monsieur Picard escorted her from the floor, bowed and left her. She sat on a gilt chair beside a column and snapped open her fan, bored and longing to leave. But she was here at the invitation of Georges Danton and could not afford to insult a man as powerful as he.
Another influential man, a member of the Jacobin Club, sworn to protect the revolution from the aristocrats, Jacques Rocchard, strutted toward her with a glass of champagne in each hand. The confidence of the Jacobin’s was rising, as the Girondins lost power. He was dressed in the dreary black box-like coat and breeches the Jacobins had adopted. He held a glass out for her. “You look magnificent tonight, Mademoiselle Garnier.” His greedy, light brown eyes perused her form.
“Merci.” Tamping down a shudder, she forced a smile and sipped the cold liquid.
He leaned down, and his fingers brushed a powdered ringlet resting on her shoulder, a brief, sly action. “A triumph. You are like a spring bloom in a winter garden.”
Verity resisted the urge to smack his hand away. Around her, women whispered behind their fans, and men watched with interest. They knew what Jacques wanted. It was no secret that he desired her for his mistress. It would be difficult to keep him at arm’s length, but she was determined to try. More enemies than friends were to be found in Paris in these troubled times, and she needed friends desperately now. He could help her, should he feel inclined.
“My lady wife is away from home. Come to my apartment on the Rive Gauche, corner of the Rue Seguier, at midnight tomorrow night,” he murmured.
The arrangement didn’t suit her. She would be at his mercy. “Why do you persist after I have refused you twice?”
“A third time would be most unwise of you. Your father has been imprisoned, I’m told.” He looked very sure of himself. “And I like to collect beautiful things. You are undeniably beautiful, Mademoiselle.”
The mention of her father tightened her ribcage. She forced a smile. “As you wish, monsieur.”
Unwilling to upset his host, Jacques nodded and hurried away as Georges Danton made his way toward her.
Verity would think of the best way to deal with this later. Relief at Jacques departure was replaced by anxiety as she eyed the massively built and powerful man before her. She straightened her shoulders. His eyes held a victorious gleam, for he knew he held her future in his hands.
The fiacre traveled along the Seine as the homeless settled down for the night under its bridges. It was dangerous to be out alone and unescorted. As her father could no longer help her, Verity had to learn to adapt, a woman on her own in this city must learn to be devious. She caressed the reassuring bulk of the flintlock pistol in her reticule, but if a mob took it into their heads to rob her, the weapon would provide her little protection. Paris had become a surging crowd of inhumanity, first with the food riots and now as crowds flocked to watch the tumbrel take poor unfortunates to the guillotine.
The Comité de Surveillance was weeding out the aristos attempting to escape Paris. Even the king and the queen were in real danger after their dash for the Austrian border failed. It had been their ultimate downfall and tipped public opinion against them. How foolish they’d been. Such a serious miscalculation not to have gone to Belgium, for they would now be safe. They traveled at snail’s pace with too many attendants and relatives and were apprehended, their Swiss Guard slaughtered. Louis, and Marie Antoinette, seemed doomed and now France had declared war against Austria.
Verity shivered. What hope existed for her father, a humble academic who, motivated by his love for France, dared to voice his opinions? He stood accused of being a counter-revolutionary. On the Ile de la Cité were the towering walls of the Palais de Justice, and the Conciergerie, where the Guard had taken her papa, snatching him away in the night. She had been unable to learn anything about his imprisonment or his state of wellbeing. A few days later, men had come and stripped their home of most of its valuables. She found herself out on the street with just a few sticks of furniture and little money. An actress friend had offered to share her bed, but Verity could not stay with her for long.
The carriage pulled up as the clock struck midnight, the wishing hour. She doubted her wish would be granted tonight, but she refused to give up hope. Pulling the hood of her cloak over her head, she stepped from the vehicle and gave instructions to the coachman to wait.
Along the wall, shadows moved beyond the circle of lantern light. Verity hurried toward the ornate building overlooking Notre Dame de Paris. Badly damaged and desecrated, the Gothic cathedral stood silent across the water, stripped of its meaning. Paris was a godless city.
A yawning caretaker opened the door. He silently waved toward the staircase.
Verity climbed to the next floor and knocked on the door.
Jacques opened it. “Mademoiselle.” He stepped aside for her to pass. His apartments gleamed in the light of several candelabras. The opulent surroundings failed to match his simple country waistcoat and plaited hair, the dress of the Jacobins. Marble statues perched on pedestals, swags of silk decorated the windows, gilt mirrors and paintings filled every space on the walls. No servants appeared to attend them. Through a doorway, she glimpsed a four-poster bed festooned with rose damask. She attempted to calm herself with a deep breath.
“Allow me to take your cape.”
Verity had avoided men like him with some success since she’d become an actress. But a determined rake like Jacques was very sure of himself. He held the trump card. He knew she wanted something from him.
“Wine?”
“Merci.”
She didn’t want the wine, but it was a delaying tactic and would help banish her nerves. She turned the crystal glass sparkling with a myriad of flickering lights in her hand, then took a sip. A superb vintage she felt sure, and yet the wine soured in her mouth. She drank more allowing the ruby liquid to slide down her throat.
Jacques steeled her wrist. “Not so fast.” He took her glass and placed it on the table. “I dislike seducing women the worse for wine.”
“Why do you want me? Don’t tell me it’s because you like the way I look. There are many lovely actresses who would favor you. I’m only here because I need your help.”
He shrugged. “Ungallant of me to tell you, but you will persist. Your refusal to take a lover is the subject of much discussion. A virgin actress is as rare as a benevolent aristo. I bet my compatriots I would be the one to relieve you of that burden.” Jacques pulled on the cuff at his sleeve, his dark eyes shining with egotism. “It is true, is it not? You’ve refused all offers since you joined the theater.”
He took her silence as agreement and flicked his tongue over his full pink bottom lip. “The first time is seldom the best. Given time, I will introduce you to such delights you will thank me.”
He was so arrogant and confident of his abilities it sickened her, but it also gave her hope she might outsmart him in this cat-and-mouse game. “And I promise to thank you after you persuade the Comité de Sûreté Générale to release my father from imprisonment. I know your word carries enormous weight, citizen.” Verity attempted a smile of admiration. He was her last chance. She had again begged her father’s jailer, Georges Danton, for leniency, to no avail. Instead, he had given her a disturbing ultimatum.
Jacques wasn’t listening. He reached out and grabbed her, fast as a snake, pulling her roughly against him. “You will not leave here tonight without giving me something on account, however.”
He was strong for a short man. Verity gasped and tried to back away. “I am a good actress. How can you be sure I will not act out my pleasure with you?”
He paused. “You may the first time. But only the first time.”
“There won’t be a second, Jacques.”
He raised a brow. “Non?”
Danton’s orders had sent her plummeting into a spiral of despair, but she almost enjoyed telling Jacques. “Danton sends me to London to join an acting troupe. I leave tomorrow.”
She’d succeeded in surprising him. He dropped his hands from her waist. “Why would he do that?”
“He wishes me to perform a seduction of my own. I must entice a man back to France.”
“Who is this man?”
“Viscount Beaumont.”
He frowned in puzzlement. “An Englishman?”
“Beaumont married into French aristocracy. I know nothing more.”
Jacques gave a seductive smile. “Then we’d best not waste the few hours left to us.”
“I hoped you would intervene on my account. You must act now, tonight. Give me a letter. If I can get Robespierre onside, I can remain in Paris.” She forced a smile. “And then you can spend more time with me.”
He shook his head. “My dear Verity, as attractive as that sounds, if I were to comply, my dear wife would hear of it.” He gestured around the luxurious room. “Her family’s money provides all this. She allows me only so much rope.”
Cold rage and despair flooded her veins. “You never intended to help me!” She spun away from him to snatch up her cape, but Jacques was faster. He dragged her struggling into the bedchamber and pushed her onto the bed.
“You are to seduce Lord Beaumont?” He leaned over her, tugging at his cravat. “Not a role for an innocent. You need to learn some technique, ma chère. And I am just the man to teach you.”
She shoved him away. “But I do not wish to be taught by such as you!” He drew back his arm and slapped her hard across the face. Bright lights flashed across her vision.
Verity drew in a ragged breath. “Demon!”
“Do not play games with me.” He removed his coat as she lay gasping on the bed, dizzy from his blow. Stepping closer, he stroked her stinging cheek with a finger.
“Do not worry, little one. If you don’t struggle I promise to be kind.”
She glared at him and silently cursed. Her reticule with the pistol was on the table in the other room. “We had an agreement. I trusted you to keep it.”
“Foolish of you,” he said coolly.
Nothing she said penetrated his arrogant assumption that he could take whatever he wished. She wanted to avert her eyes as he undressed, but fear kept her gaze fixed upon him as he stripped his shirt from his broad chest with its thick mat of graying dark hair. His pantaloons followed. Already, he was aroused. “See what our little disagreement has done to me.” He gave a guttural laugh and strutted around the bed.
Sick with fear, she swallowed bile and pressed her back against the bedpost, her eyes darting around for a way of escape. He stood between her and the door. A woman’s screams no longer brought help from any quarter. Determination in his hard gaze, he kneeled over her on the bed, his hot breath on her neck, as he pulled away the fichu to expose her breasts rising with each frantic breath. She reached behind her, and her fingers found the cold porcelain of an antique vase, on a table beside the bed.
She grasped it with her right hand and smashed it down on his head.
With a moan, Jacques fell on top of her.
She struggled to push him away. “Idiot!”
Unconscious, but he breathed well enough. She didn’t want his death bringing the authorities down on her head. It was a shame about the vase though.
Relieved she didn’t have to shoot him, she fled the bedchamber, snatching up her cloak and her reticule on the way out. She realized she had made a powerful enemy, perhaps it was just as well that she was leaving France at first light.
She hauled the hood of her cloak down over her face and ran down the stairs, hoping desperately that the driver had waited. Once in the street, her galloping pulse slowed. The carriage was there. She climbed in and crumpled against the squabs, blowing away an errant lock of hair with a puffed breath, annoyed and dismayed by her poor handling of this affair. Her temper always got her into trouble! Might she not have charmed the fellow around to her way of thinking? “Au nom de Dieu!” She shuddered, doubting it. Jacques would not have been stopped any other way. Even if she’d given in, she doubted he would have helped her. She must shrug off this failure and not lose her focus. Her father’s life depended on it.
Lord Beaumont would be another obstacle, which she hoped she could manage with more aplomb. It would be a test of her acting skills, she had a hearty dislike of all men except for her father. They only wanted one thing from her. She’d promised her father not to become like other actresses, free with her favors. But if she had to break her promise to entice this lord back with her to Paris, then she would. It would take careful planning.