Page 22 of To Ruin a Gentleman (The Scarlet Chronicle 1)

Paris hadn’t improvedin the week or so he’d been away. If nothing else it teemed with more tension than before. He and the comtesse had had no trouble entering the city in the morning. The peasants who had held her captive were nowhere to be found. Her friends, the young Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Merville had welcomed her unexpected visit, and she had immediately gone to bathe and change and make herself once again presentable. Hugh was sorry to see her back in full dress again. He’d rather liked the way the thin petticoats clung to her legs and the way the low bodice barely contained her breasts when she bent over.

Now she wore a peach dress that gave no hint as to the long, shapely legs it concealed and the fichu at the neck covered all of the creamy skin he’d admired so often the past few days.

The vicomte’s valet had managed to find suitable clothing for Hugh as well, and he’d made an excuse to go out into the city.

“Oh, but you must not go out, Monsieur le Vicomte,” Merville told him over coffee and pastries at midday. “It is too dangerous.”

“Just Daventry, please.”

Merville nodded. Hugh doubted the noble was yet five and twenty or that he had to shave more than twice a week. He had pale blond hair and almost colorless gray eyes. His features were fine and narrow, making him look as though he might break if caught in a stiff breeze. His wife was even more fragile. She reminded Hugh of a china doll. Her hair was more red than blond, but she had the same pale skin as her husband, and she was what Hugh liked to think of as dainty. Looking at the vicomtesse made Hugh appreciate Angelette even more. She was strong and brave. If anyone could survive the tumult in France, it was she.

But the de Mervilles would easily be trampled. They were kind and had opened their home without question. Unlike most of the nobles Hugh had met thus far, the de Mervilles seemed to understand the situation in Paris had become dangerous.

“In fact,” the young vicomtesse said, looking at Angelette, “we are preparing to leave the city ourselves. I am feeling better, and we thought to travel to the countryside...” She looked away, her hand going to her abdomen and confirming what Hugh had suspected. She was with child. Her husband came to stand beside her, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“But now you say the countryside is not safe.”

“I think you will be safer in the city,” Angelette said, sipping her coffee. “Here there are troops to protect you.”

“But the royal troops do nothing, Angelette,” the vicomte said. “Only yesterday the troops clashed with peasants denouncing the king. And what do you think the commander did after the crowds dispersed? He took the cavalry out of Paris to Sèvres!”

Hugh understood the commander’s motivation. He did not want to kill peasants and set off more violence. But if the people were marching in support of those advocating revolution, they had obviously turned against the king.

“Surely the king will order them back,” Angelette said.

“It may well be too late,” Merville told her. “The people are scrambling to arm themselves. They plundered weapons arsenals, and last night they attacked customs posts and Saint-Lazare.”

“Saint-Lazare? I thought that was a convent and hospital,” Hugh said.

Merville nodded. “The mob took dozens of wagons of wheat and anything else they wanted.”

“The royal troops did nothing to stop them,” his wife said quietly.

“And now the electors of Paris have agreed to recruit a citizens’ militia from the districts of Paris to restore order.”

“So the peasants have formed their own army?” Hugh shook his head. The French king had all but lost and the battle had not yet begun.

“They call it a bourgeois militia. I hear they have more than forty thousand men.” The vicomte took a shallow breath. “We must leave before they come for us.”

Hugh rose. “You are welcome to travel with me. You’ll be safe in England, and I plan to leave for Calais as soon as possible.”

“We would be in your debt,” Merville said.

“Surely you will travel with us,” his wife said to Angelette.

She shook her head. “I can’t. I must tell my brother-in-law what has happened and do what I can to help him protect the ancestral estate. I think it is what Georges would have wanted.”

“Georges would have wanted you to stay alive,” Hugh said, slapping the table angrily. “What good are paintings and carpets if you’re dead?”

She glared at him. “I could not care less for the paintings and carpets, but I do care for Georges’s family. They are my family too.”

“Then write to them.”

“I have, but I must go to them as well. When tensions in Paris ease, I will travel to see them.” She looked at her hosts. “I will not make you postpone your leaving. I will find another—”

“Absolutely not. You must stay here,” the vicomtesse told her. “You are welcome, even in our absence.”

“Thank you, Marie.”

---