The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

Chapter Twenty-Four

Reason returned to Richard with the force of a blow.

It took Richard, his hand on the buttons of his breeches, a second to realize that it had indeed been a blow. From the boatman’s paddle. Accidentally, or otherwise, the boatman had dealt Richard a stinging whack right on the back of his head.

But the lump on his head was nothing to the bulge in his breeches. Urgh. Now there was pain. Rather prominent parts of his anatomy were screaming at him in intense irritation. Below him lay Amy, her lips red and swollen, slightly parted, her eyes misty with desire, damp, ready, willing. It would be so easy—so natural—to ease up those tousled skirts. . . .

Richard hauled himself up onto the bench, and plunged his hands over the side, letting the cold water wash the arousing scent of Amy off of him. He would have stuck his head over the edge, too, but he wasn’t at all sure what might be lurking in the water, and he wouldn’t put it past that boatman to help the rest of him into the river with that confounded paddle. Although, Richard supposed, he really ought to be thanking the boatman rather than cursing him. If not for that fortuitous blow . . . Richard’s face paled in a way that had nothing to do with the icy temperature of the water. Had he really been about to take Amy on the floor of a dirty boat in the middle of the Seine? Oh God. What had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.

As cold water and equally chilly thoughts began to clear the haze of lust from Richard’s brain, he realized that the murmuring noise he’d been half-hearing for some time wasn’t the swaying of the waves, but the monologue of the boatman, who was muttering, “Go on. Act like I’m not here. Treat my boat like a brothel. Don’t matter what I think, do it?”

The last time Richard had blushed had been in the summer of 1788, when, as a spotty twelve-year-old, he had been caught gaping down the bodice of the Duchess of Devonshire. Fifteen years’ worth of embarrassed flush burned in his cheeks, mercifully hidden by hood and mask. Leaning over, he helped Amy up from the floor, trying not to look too closely at her pink cheeks and shining eyes.

“That was wonderful,” sighed Amy happily.

For wonderful substitute awful, thought Richard grimly as Amy snuggled trustingly into his side. Idiot! Him, that was, not her. He could only thank whatever powers out there that were still keeping an eye on him for stopping matters before they reached the ultimate point.

“Do you want me to row back and forth—again?” the boatman asked sourly, flinging his rope expertly over a piling.

“No,” Richard said shortly. He dropped a few coins in the man’s calloused hand, so consumed with self-loathing that it took him a moment to realize that Amy was attempting to climb out of the boat on her own, teetering back and forth with one foot on the edge, and looking in imminent danger of toppling into the water at any moment.

Chalk up another point against him.

Richard handed Amy out of the boat and tried not to notice the way her fingers lingered on his arm or the glowing smile she cast up at him from under her too-large hood. Considering what had just transpired, she had every right to the possessive clasp, as well as to the smile that gave affection and assumed it in return. Hell, she had every right to an instant proposal, bended knee and all. Or at least the confession of his true identity.

But he couldn’t give her any of those things. Not yet.

Tony’s specter rose before Richard’s eyes, blocking out Amy’s smiling face. Not Tony as he had known him in life—that Tony, a dandy in an embroidered waistcoat, with a light foot for the dance and an appreciative eye for the female form, would have cheered on a bit of dalliance—but that other, awful Tony. The Tony lying bloody and abandoned on the dirt floor of a French hut because he, Richard, had been distracted from his duty by a woman.

Something else niggled at the back of Richard’s mind, something to do with the Swiss gold. Something he would have noticed before had his brain not been muddled with desire. How in the hell had Amy known about the Swiss gold? True, he had seen her come flying out of Bonaparte’s study as though possessed of a dozen furies, but he had searched that same room not half an hour later and discovered no such information. If he had, he wouldn’t have had to spend the evening trying to pry the same intelligence out of the First Consul’s brandy-sodden brother-in-law. If Amy hadn’t learned of the Swiss gold from searching Bonaparte’s study, then where?

A chill that had nothing to do with the night air engulfed Richard. Based on Geoff’s reports, and the evidence of his own eyes, Balcourt was up to something that involved the transport of mysterious packages. He spent that part of his day not occupied by his tailor lurking about the Tuilleries. It took no great leap of intelligence to jump from there to the conclusion that Balcourt was up to his neck in the affair of the Swiss gold. And Amy was his sister, mysteriously summoned back to France just as Napoleon commenced his plans for the invasion of England. What better way to entrap the Purple Gentian? Provide him some intelligence, discover his plans . . . and summon Delaroche. It would be a sure way to Bonaparte’s favor for Balcourt and his sister.

Richard’s eyes slid sideways towards Amy, down to the little hand resting so trustingly on his arm, and he swore silently.

Nobody could be that good an actress. Her reactions to her parents’ deaths could have been feigned—but if so, she ought to be at Drury Lane, partnering Kean. Every one of Richard’s instincts, well-honed over a decade of outwitting the French, screamed her innocence.

But he couldn’t take that chance. How many of his men would be involved in the assault upon the coach bearing the Swiss gold? A half dozen at least. Geoff would insist on going along, Geoff who was one of the two men Richard could unreservedly call friend.

He had to end it with her. And later, when it was all over, when the mission was safely accomplished, when the invasion of England was thwarted, he could make it up to her. There was no other choice.

Next to the Purple Gentian, his hand warm and strong under her arm, Amy drifted through a world wreathed in magic. How could she have thought the streets of Paris dingy? The cobblestones glimmered in the moonlight, and the dark windows twinkled with stars. Beautiful, beautiful stars. Tilting her head back, Amy traced familiar patterns through the sky.

A necklace of stars. Amy hugged the phrase to her like a pile of love letters. When he had first uttered the words, she had been shocked speechless, more shocked than she had ever been in her life. That this man she had known for a mere two days—even if she had been daydreaming about him for most of her life—should be able to slip into her mind and retrieve one of her most precious memories . . . it was inconceivable. But then, somewhere between the stars and the tender expression on the Gentian’s face as he looked down at her in that silly little boat, everything had made complete sense. This was her sign—practically a certificate of approval from her parents—that he was her true love. What other explanation could there be?

Far away, up in the darkness, Amy could have sworn one of the stars winked.

Amy’s speculations were cut short as they turned along the side of the Hotel de Balcourt. The Gentian’s head was turned away from her as he checked for an open window, his hood hiding all but the tip of his nose from Amy’s view. Her hands still tingled with the feel of the short, crisp hair hidden under that hood. And the rest of her tingled with other memories entirely.

As they drew to a halt outside an unlatched first-floor window, Amy turned to face the Gentian, gazing up at the masked face revealed beneath his hood. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for rescuing me, and thank you even more for everything else.”

Rising on tiptoes, Amy swayed towards the Purple Gentian, lifting her face for a tender farewell kiss. She nearly toppled over as he took a jerky step back.

“I’m sorry,” the Gentian said abruptly. “None of this should have happened.”

He was back to being dark and inscrutable. In the shadow of the house, the Gentian’s hooded face had all the expression of a faceless monk in a gothic novel. It was just the shadow of the house, cutting off light, which made the Gentian look so aloof, Amy reassured herself. This was, after all, the same man who had laughed with her, kissed her, and promised her a necklace of stars. Unlike the evening’s earlier identity confusion, there could be no doubt that this was the same Purple Gentian of an hour or half an hour past, even if he was anonymously swathed in a dark cloak and hood. Amy had kept a hand on his arm at all times.

Until now.

Since that was clearly a situation that needed to be remedied, Amy took a step forward and rested a hand on the Purple Gentian’s chest. “Don’t be sorry,” Amy said feelingly. “I’m sorry to have dragged you into a fight with Marston, but I can’t regret anything else that happened. It was the most absolutely wonderful night of my life. You’re the most absolutely wonderful—”

The Purple Gentian shook his hooded head. “Don’t, Amy.”

Under her fingers, the Gentian’s chest was rigid, unmoving, as though he wasn’t even breathing. Amy tilted her head back, back to the point of dizziness, to peer through the slits of his mask. “Are you worried that the praise will go to your head?” she teased. “And that it will puff up until you can’t fit into your disguises anymore?”

The Purple Gentian redirected his gaze somewhere to the left of Amy’s shoulder. Amy had to resist the impulse to turn around to see what could possibly be so engrossing.

“I’m serious, Amy,” he said flatly.

“So am I,” said Amy cheerfully. “I do think you’re wonderful. How would you like me to prove it to you? I could follow you into Hades, like Orpheus after Eurydice. I could—”

“Amy, we can’t see each other anymore.”

The exuberant words Amy had been about to utter withered and died unspoken. She pulled back and stared at the Gentian. “What do you mean?”

Surely, there must be some other meaning to his words. Perhaps what he meant was that they couldn’t go on meeting at night like this. She could agree with that. It would be much nicer to meet by daylight, to see his face when he spoke to her. Or maybe he meant his words literally; in the gloom, she really couldn’t see him anymore either, Amy rationalized madly.

“I meant just what I said.”

His words might have been uninformative, but the tone of his voice, as stony as his motionless body, brooked no misinterpretation. Amy’s spirits plummeted from the stars to the grimy cobblestones at her feet.

“You don’t want to see me anymore?” Amy hated the little quaver she heard in her own voice.

The Purple Gentian nodded slowly.

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense at all. It might as well have been a series of grunts, rather than words, for all the sense it made. Amy bit her lip on the anguished “why?” that was trying to burst out of her mouth and lowered her eyes to stare at the Gentian’s scuffed boots. He liked her. She knew he liked her. Didn’t he? After all, he had rescued her and kissed her and—oh goodness, there had been the necklace of stars. Surely, if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t have done any of that. Would he?

Amy’s hands curled into fists as she marshaled her panicked thoughts. There must be another reason.

“Are you worried about my reputation?” she blurted out. “Because as long as we meet discreetly there’s really no cause to worry.”

“That’s not it.” A wintry undertone of regret ran through the Purple Gentian’s words, as chill and dead as a garden in December. Taking Amy’s hand, which still rested forgotten against his heart, he gently returned it to her side.

Amy, who had been desperately searching for any signs of emotion, found herself wishing he would go back to his statue impersonation. Inscrutability was infinitely preferable to rue. And pity.

“I’m sorry, Amy,” the Gentian was saying, with that same killing gentleness. “I wish it could be some other way.”

The empty platitude scraped along Amy’s heightened nerves, like a stone in her shoe that had to be flung out. “What other way?” she demanded. “You’re talking in riddles! Why can’t you see me again? I don’t understand.”

The Purple Gentian’s jaw tightened, and he gazed out into the air over Amy’s shoulder as though the answer might be lurking somewhere in those selfsame stars he had promised to her earlier.

Amy watched his averted face anxiously.

“It’s the mission, you see,” he said finally, awkwardly.

“Oh!” said Amy, then, “No, I don’t see. My information was a help to the mission, wasn’t it?” she probed.

“Yes.”

“Then what? Are you worried about my being in danger? I promise, I’ll be more cautious. I’ll even—”

Lowering his hooded head to look at Amy, the Gentian pronounced with chilling finality, “I can’t let infatuation get in the way of the mission.”

“Infatuation,” Amy repeated, her eyes begging him, willing him to take the word back. “Is that what you feel for me? Infatuation?”

A dreadful, frozen silence followed. The nightingales stopped chirping. The wind stopped blowing. The stars didn’t dare twinkle. The moon looked as stiff and brittle as Amy felt.

And then the Purple Gentian shrugged.

“That’s one way of describing it.”

The moon crumbled into a thousand shards. Infatuation. Not even a poor cousin of love. All of her carefully hoarded memories rushed back at her in a new, unpleasant aspect. Instead of the Purple Gentian’s kiss in the study, she saw his eagerness to leap out the window. Away from her. She was a liability. An impediment to the mission.

Had everything they had shared been no more than a distraction to him?

It could have been worse, she supposed. He could have left her with the illusion that he cared for her, kissed her good-bye, walked away, and never returned. At least he had been honest. At least he had shown her that much regard. She supposed she should be grateful for that. Her gratitude sat like ashes in her mouth.

“Thank you,” Amy said tightly, “for not lying to me.”

“It’s not—I don’t want you to think—Damn!” the Gentian cursed explosively.

Why wouldn’t he just leave? The sight of him, looming there in his blasted black cloak, so dashing and handsome and—oh, anxiously boyish, stung like salt on a pricked finger.

“Good night.” Amy nodded stiffly in what she hoped was the right direction. It was hard to tell with her eyes averted. But if she looked again, the tears might start, and that, above all things, was not to be borne. “Thank you for seeing me home. You can leave now,” she added.

Only he didn’t.

The Gentian took a step towards her, his entire body taut with tension that made his cloak rustle. He leaned forward on the balls of his feet, and the muscles in his throat worked as though he were mustering himself to speak. Despite herself, Amy felt herself leaning forward to listen, wanting to hear his explanation, his excuses, his apologies. It’s not infatuation, he would say. I misspoke. I’m sorry.

“Amy, I—” he began, and paused.

Yes? Amy willed him on, trying to keep her eagerness out of her eyes.

Something like bitterness fluttered across the Gentian’s face. His weight shifted back to his heels, and his body and face stilled again into inscrutability.

“I’ll help you up over the window,” he said.

Somehow, Amy managed to keep her face from crumpling. She had thought that nothing could hurt more than that dreadful word, infatuation. She had thought she had already reached whatever threshold there was for romantic agony. I’ll help you over the window. How could a simple statement be the vehicle for so much pain? Of course, it wasn’t really those words, so much as the ones he hadn’t said. She should have known better than to hope for them.

The Purple Gentian was standing there, waiting, one hand held out to her. Amy recoiled from it as though it were an asp.

Amy planted her elbows on the windowsill. “I’ll be quite all right on my own, thank you.”

“No, you won’t.” Was there a hint of amusement in the Gentian’s voice? “I saw you trying to make your way back in last night.”

Horror coursed through Amy. He had seen that? Numb with embarrassment and despair, she remembered her fumblings of the night before, all the times her elbows had slipped, all the times she had painstakingly gotten a leg up on the sill only to tumble down again. Oh goodness. The man probably thought she was a joke. Worse than a joke. No wonder he didn’t want anything more to do with her! What use was she when she couldn’t even climb through the window of her own bloody house without making a ridiculous spectacle of herself?

“Up you go.” The Purple Gentian placed a hand under her bottom and boosted her over the windowsill, as unceremoniously as though he were heaving a sack of grain into a wagon. One rough push, and his hand withdrew. He didn’t even want to touch her. Amy remembered the myriad touches she had gloried in less than an hour past, an embarrassment of touches, enjoyed profligately, and quickly gone.

Without looking back, she slid her legs under her, into the dining room. Behind her, fabric rustled. The Gentian’s cape, shifting in the breeze. Amy tried not to picture it, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Good night, Amy,” the Gentian said softly, from the other side of the window.

Amy didn’t turn. She put one foot in front of the other, then another, moving stiffly towards the dining room door. She was concentrating so hard on movement, simple movement, that she couldn’t even be sure whether she imagined that one, last whisper.

“I’ll make it up to you soon. Trust me.”

As he slunk around the side of the house, Richard reminded himself that it would be pure lunacy to sprint back and apologize. This was for the best. And if he kept telling himself that over and over maybe he would be able to wipe out the distressing image of Amy’s frozen face. Far better that Amy be unhappy than good men die, Richard rationalized loftily. Only, this time, the noble sentiment fell rather flat. Richard writhed with an uncomfortable combination of guilt and unfulfilled desire.

Damn it, they’d better get their hands on that gold quickly, because he didn’t think he could take much more of this. Unless, he mused hopefully, Amy’s disenchantment with the Purple Gentian would make her more receptive to the winning qualities of Lord Richard Selwick.

Before he made his way to the nearest cold bath, Richard had one last errand. He counted windows until he found the one he wanted. No light gleamed from behind the heavy draperies. Smiling silently to himself, the sleek smile of the panther on the prowl, Richard hauled himself over the edge of the window and into the empty room. Déjà vu, he thought, as he jumped lightly down from the velvet upholstered window seat. Only this time there was no Amy waiting for him beneath the desk.

At least, he hoped not.

Just to be safe—since one really never knew with Amy—Richard took a quick peek under the desk. No, no Amy. Richard reminded himself that he should be experiencing relief, not disappointment.

Making his way to the globe, Richard took up where he had left off the night before. His fingers felt for that telltale crack along the equator, easing towards the tiny bump that must be . . . Ah! Richard smirked as the two halves sprang open. The catch.

Richard’s smirk disappeared as his mouth dropped open in shock. What in the blazes? Plunging his hand into the rounded base, he ran it back and forth and around. He felt along the top of the globe to see if something might be glued to the inside. He stuck his head in so far that his nose bashed into the bottom. Clutching his wounded appendage, Richard staggered back and slammed the empty globe shut.

Someone else had gotten there first.