Page 10 of Taken by the Rake (The Scarlet Chronicle 3)

She jerked and jumped from her chair. “You frightened me!” she accused.

“It was not my intention. You were quite involved in your work. You could hang for forgery, you know.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Only if I am caught. And I would probably be guillotined.”

“Why risk it? May I?” He indicated the table, and she nodded. He lifted the paper and studied it against the original. “It’s very good.”

“I risk it because without these papers those condemned to the guillotine have no hope of escape.”

Laurent glanced at her, then back at the forgery. It really was very good. “I thought FR smuggled them out in wine casks.”

“He cannot continue to use the same methods or the soldiers will catch him. The nature of his work is to stay one step ahead of the soldiers.”

“This isn’t for me.” Perhaps she’d already made his or needed him to give her more instructions.

She shook her head as though amazed at his statement. “No. It is not for you. I’m certain that must be hard for you to comprehend, but there are others who need help.”

“I must seem very arrogant to you.”

She didn’t respond.

“It is hard to change after a lifetime of behaving in such a way. Perhaps it will surprise you if I tell you it is not out of selfishness I want one of your forged papers.”

“If you think to surprise me with your lack of arrogance,” she began, lifting her cup of tea and sipping, “you have failed. To reject something that has not even been offered is quite arrogant.”

She was correct, of course. And he was arrogant, privileged, spoiled, vain—everything he’d ever been accused of. But to his surprise, his heart was not completely rotten. “I do not want to be rescued. In fact, I do not care what happens to me. There is only one person I care about, and I need your papers”—another thought occurred to him—“I need your League to help me save her.”

“Is that so?”

The voice, deep and male, came from behind him. Suddenly three men and a petite woman were standing behind him. They couldn’t have come through the door. He would have heard it open. So where the hell had they come from?

As though reading his mind, the biggest revolutionary, the one he recognized as giving him the foolscap at La Force today, smiled with no humor whatsoever. “Unnerving, isn’t it? You never know when we will appear.”

“Secret passage.” That was the woman. She looked vaguely familiar.

The big one scowled at her, but she shrugged. “As though he would not have figured it out.”

They spoke in French, but they had the look and manner of the English. The woman, a pixie with cropped blond hair, crossed to the dark-haired beauty and took her arm.

“I see you found your way here,” the big one said to Laurent. His mouth was tight and his eyes shadowed from fatigue. “A pity we can no longer use you.”

“What does that mean?” Laurent demanded.

“Surely ye daen’t think we freed ye because your execution would hae been unjust.” That was the Scot—broad-shouldered with a thick mane of unruly hair and dark stubble on his cheeks.

“Then why did you help me escape?”

“The rumor is that you have been in the Temple,” the little blonde said. “We haven’t been able to obtain the design plans. We wanted you to draw a map for us, or better yet, take us in.”

Laurent had guessed correctly. He would have liked nothing better than to help them gain entrance to the Temple prison. He would have gone with them and rescued Madame Royale himself. But these men and women spoke in the past tense. “And now?” he asked.

“Now everything has changed.” That was the big, dark one again.

“How so?” asked the raven-haired beauty.

“It’s the queen,” the little blonde said. “They’ve taken her from the Temple and imprisoned her in the Conciergerie.”

Laurent’s skin felt as though ice had been applied to it, and he took in a sharp breath. There was no mistaking the new government’s plan if they’d moved the queen to the Conciergerie. The end was near for Marie Antoinette. The Conciergerie was where men and women were sent for trial by the Tribunal. Very few ever tasted freedom again. Most left in a tumbrel with their last stop the guillotine.

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