"Pray, do not react at all to what I have to impart to you, or make any sign of distress. Pretend I tell you another amusing tale-can you do that? There may be people watching us this very instant."
"Watchin'? What the Devil for?" Lewrie asked, frowning, fighting the urge to peer about. Caroline put her hand in his but kept a silent shudder well hidden.
"Years ago, as the Revolution turned violent, and right through the Reign of Terror in Ninety-Three," Sir Pulteney Plumb explained in a softer voice, "there was a grand English lord who was so appalled by the injustice and bloodshed that he organised a league of gentlemen dedicated to the rescue of innocents from the guillotine and the Mob… which league was quite successful, right up to the death of Robespierre and the outbreak of the war with France in February of Ninety-Three. Of course, this league sometimes depended upon the aid, and the intelligence passed on, from well-disguised Royalist sympathisers here in Paris, throughout France. I confess to you only that I was once a member of that league then, and now, able to make cautious rencontres with former French supporters… even under the noses of the Police Nationale."
"What the bloody-" Lewrie began to flummox.
"Hist! Listen carefully, I pray you!" Sir Pulteney cautioned, then continued. "The rebel Georges Cadoudal's failed attempt to kill Bonaparte with a hidden bomb a while back-quite near here in point of fact, at the intersection of the Rue Saint-Nicaise and the Rue de la Loi-has tightened the surveillance of the Police upon any who might still harbour Royalist, anti-Bonaparte feelings.
"Yet!" Sir Pulteney went on with a louder bark, as if getting to the punch-line of a jape, "one of our old confidants sought me out whilst you were away, and told me that whatever it is you did or said to Napoleon has made him exceedingly wroth with you,… and he has given orders that you are to be… eliminated for your insult to him."
"My insult?" Lewrie gawped. "But what the Devil did-"
"Dear God!" Caroline softly exclaimed, blanching.
"Now laugh. Laugh as if I just told you the grandest amusing tale!" Sir Pulteney hissed, breaking out his characteristic donkey's bray. The Lewries' amusement sounded much lamer, as if they were merely being polite or the tale had not been all that amusing.
"Therefore, you both must flee Paris, instanter," Sir Pulteney said, leaning closer and urging them to begin strolling again. "Pack as if you haven't a care in the world, wind up your accounts, without showing any signs of haste. Above all, do not let on to your hired servants or the concierge of your lodgings back yonder that you are departing in a panic. Most importantly, do not discuss the matter if a servant is anywhere within earshot, for you may trust no one whom you do not know, even a fellow Englishman whom you suddenly encounter here in Paris… He may be a skilled, bilingual Police agent. I will arrange for your bulkier possessions' shipment back to England, and I have already begun the scheme to spirit you back to England. If you will trust to my experience and abilities in this matter?"
"What? Well, erm… hey?" Lewrie stammered, thinking that only a feeble idiot would trust this braying ass with an empty pewter snuff box, for Sir Pulteney Plumb gave all evidence of losing it within the hour; too scatter-brained to keep up with a pocket handkerchief!
Part of a secret league, him? Lewrie thought, incredulous over the very idea; he arranged hundreds of escapes? Best we abandon all our traps and run like Blazes, this instant! I made Napoleon angry? He wants me dead? Or, is it Charitй de Guillen's doin? Yet she's no real power here… does she?
"Alan, if what he says is true…," Caroline almost whimpered, squeezing his hand like a vise. "What must we do? This is impossible!"
"Softly, Mistress Lewrie, softly!" Sir Pulteney cautioned her, "and do not lose heart. You must believe that what I say is true, and that what our old league accomplished in years past we shall be able to accomplish now. plans are already afoot, soon as I was informed of Bonaparte's wrath by someone well placed in his entourage. I've sent word to some of our old compatriots in England to cross over to help, and once we reach the coast, we shall be met by a schooner, mastered by yet another of our old compatriots. Royalist sympathisers and old supporters, though Minister Fouchй and Rйal imagine they have eliminated our, and Cadoudal's, networks, I assure you that whichever route we take, there will be many along the way to aid us.
"Will you believe me, sir, madam… for your lives? Will you trust me to see you safely out of France, and home to England?" Plumb pressed them.
"Christ, I… s'pose we must," Lewrie gravelled, still unable to take it all in. "Trust someone, at any rate. Though it beggars all belief that Bonaparte'd go t'such lengths, knowin' such an act would re-start the war. 'Less… that's what he wishes…," Lewrie trailed off, his mind reeling.
"You didn't insult him, Alan, I don't think," Caroline said in a distraught whisper, looking deep into her husband's eyes. "It was more our government's delays that irked him, but surely he can't hold that against you… against us! Oh, why did I ever insist that we come to France? This is all my fault!"
"Still, sir and madam… do you trust me to make good your escape?" Sir Pulteney pressed with uncharacteristic sternness.
"Don't see how you can, yet… they say drownin' man'll clutch even the feeblest straws," Lewrie decided, puffing out his cheeeks in frustration. "Aye, I s'pose we must… We do. Though, how…?"
"We have our ways, stap me if we don't!" Sir Pulteney assured them, then cackled out loud. "Begad, but we do have our ways!"
Charitй de Guilleri, in the meantime, had been having a grand few days. Firstly, she had finally allowed the dashing Major Clary of the Chasseurs to have his way, discovering that Denis was a most pleasing lover. Secondly, her beloved New Orleans, her Louisiana, was now rumoured to almost be back in France's grasp. While she could not fantasise that her continued hints, suggestions, or pleas for France to reclaim Louisiana from the dullard, corrupt, and incompetent Spanish had been the sole cause, Charitй had, in the best salons, found allies who felt the same as she. A couple of Napoleon's brothers, Talleyrand (though that had taken an affair with the crippled, arrogant, and dismissive older fumier-an affair which had become almost unendurable before Talleyrand had discovered Madame Grand!), and a few others-all had coaxed, cajoled, and spoken favourably for an expansion of empire on the American continent.
Two years before, soon after Napoleon had become First Consul, talks had been opened with Spain for an exchange. Charles IV of Spain desired a kingdom for his new son-in-law, and Bonaparte had offered Tuscany, now firmly occupied by French troops, in exchange for Louisiana. An agreement had tentatively been signed then, at San Ildefonso, yet it still lacked the formal signature and approval from the dilatory and suspicious Charles IV.
Now, though… wonder of wonders, Talleyrand had dropped her a hint at the levee where she had confronted that imp of Hell from her past, Alan Lewrie, that Charles's final approval would soon come!
She could go home in triumph, not as an escaped felon from Spanish justice for piracy, not as a failed revolutionary, but as a confidante of Napoleon Bonaparte himself, a member of the official delegation which would accept the turnover in the Place d'Armes, before the Cathedral of St. Louis, to the cheers of her fellow Creoles, her fellow Frenchmen and Frenchwomen! She would be a heroine at last!