One Thing More by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online Page B

imprinted on his bony face. Self-pity was unknown to him, but anger lay close beneath the thin surface of his patience. What pain or injustices he had seen were hidden in his memory and he shared them with no one. He was dressed in dark brown breeches, a faded shirt and leather jerkin, ready for work.
    ‘What are you all doing up so early?’ he demanded. ‘Has something happened? Is there news?’
    ‘Only what was expected, Papa,’ Marie-Jeanne replied, shaking her head a little. ‘They are going to send the King to the guillotine.’
    ‘Of course they are!’ he retorted, shrugging sharply. ‘Did anyone imagine differently? Anyway, how do you know? Who said so?’
    ‘Célie,’ she answered.
    He swung around and his glance fell on the sleeping baby. The anger disappeared from him. ‘And how do you know?’ he asked.
    ‘I was out,’ Célie explained. She could not tell him the truth. ‘I heard them talking in the street.’
    His eyes narrowed, fear returning. ‘What were you out for at this time of the morning? It’s too early for bread!’
    ‘An errand for Citizen Bernave last night,’ she replied, keeping her voice natural. She must not seem to resent the question.
    ‘I don’t know why he can’t do his business during the daytime, like anyone else!’ he said tartly, turning away from her towards the table. ‘You shouldn’t be sent out at all hours. It isn’t right. Anything could happen to you.’ He wanted to say something more but he did not know what.
    ‘Nobody should!’ Amandine said with ill-concealed anger.
    Monsieur Lacoste forgot the subject and directed his attention back to the news. ‘So Marat won at last.’ There was a faint curl to his lips, but in the candlelight it was impossible to tell if it was satisfaction or not.
    No one answered him. Célie recalled the change in fortunes of one leader after another, and how they had pinned their hopes on each in turn. First had been Necker and Mirabeau, who had had such great dreams of order and financial stability, and failed; then Lafayette, whose words were filled with glory and liberty, and who last August had defected to the Austrians. Now Brissot and the Girondins were in power, once her father’s idols, but it was only nominally. They were full of great words, oratory to rival that of Cicero and the ancient Romans—or at least they imagined it did—and internecine quarrels to match. They had been so preoccupied with jostling for position among themselves, they had allowed Marat to overtake them all.
    Madame Lacoste came in silently. She was a slender woman, of no more than average height. Her features were striking; straight nose, level brows and deep-set eyes almost black. It was a face of passion and strength, and in a few sudden and startling moments, also of vulnerability. Célie knew very little about her; she seldom talked of herself, or where she had grown up, far more often it was of beliefs. But unlike her husband or son, these were not political but moral matters of right and wrong, questions of human love, honour and dishonour. She had no patience with the concepts of virtue by dictate of law in society as preached by Robespierre. Célie hoped she would have the sense of self-preservation not to say so. She had at least been careful enough not to mention the name of God!
    ‘I suppose the verdict is in?’ Madame asked, looking from one of them to another, then at the set table. Her lips tightened. ‘I don’t know what else you expected? They could hardly retreat now, could they? The very most would be to prevaricate, and then do it a week or a month later—as if that made any difference! It would not be a mercy, just the usual inability to make a decision. Is that chocolate ready yet, Amandine?’
    ‘They could have lost their nerve,’ Lacoste argued. ‘Settled for keeping him in prison.’
    Her face, dark-shadowed in the uncertain light, was full of scorn. ‘It would take far more nerve to tell the people they