I gathered I was meant to be impressed by this. “Who?”

“For heaven’s sake, Ellie! Where have you been living? Under a rock?”

“The British Library?”

“Same difference.”

“Mike Rock?”

Pammy let out a long-suffering sigh. “Micah Stone,” she said, with exaggerated patience. “He is only the new Keanu Reeves.”

I was tempted to say “who?” just to annoy Pammy, but controlled myself. Even I knew who Keanu Reeves was. Plus, I had just spotted Colin approaching the museum.

“Hey!” I gave a little wave in his general direction. “Pams, can I call you back?”

“Whatever. I just wanted you to know that Melinda’s in Paris this weekend.”

Colin spotted me and executed a brisk turn. He did not look precisely thrilled to see me.

“Um, thanks,” I said into my mobile. I wasn’t sure why she was telling me. Melinda and I don’t exactly move in the same circles. Even her third-grade birthday parties were far cooler than mine. “I really have to go now.”

“Ta,” trilled Pammy. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Smooches!”

“Right back at you,” I said, and hit End, just as Colin came through the gate.

I shot off the bench. There was a big wet spot on my behind, courtesy of said bench, but that was the least of my worries.

“Hey. I mean, hi.” Colin did not return my energetic greeting. He seemed to be working on his glower. He did a very good line in glower. I shifted from one boot to the other. “So, um, what were you doing with the police?”

“I thought you were going to the police archives.”

I felt guilty without even being quite sure why. “I was. But then I saw the flyer for an exhibit here and changed my mind.”

“Brilliant,” said Colin. He spoke very slowly and clearly. “Your police archives are in the sodding police station.”

I thought through the ramifications of this.

“Oh,” I said. Guiltily.

“Yes,” agreed Colin. “Oh. When I asked them if they’d seen a redheaded American girl, they thought I was trying to file a missing-persons report. I kept waiting for them to ask what I’d done with you. I was afraid they were about to go off and dredge the Seine.”

Can one dredge a river? I decided it was safer not to ask.

“Oh, dear.” Trying not to laugh, I slipped an arm around Colin’s waist and buried my face in his sweater. It was a particularly welcoming sweater—lambswool, nice and fuzzy. “I’m sorry?”

“You’d better be.” But his arm came around my shoulders and I could feel his cheek briefly brush against my hair. After a moment, he said briskly, “The Serena situation is all sorted, by the way.”

I removed my flushed face from his sweater. “Is it?”

I hoped by “sorted” he didn’t mean “ensconced on the couch in our room.”

“They’ve put her in the Famiglia next door. Their sister hotel,” he clarified.

“Is she okay with that?” I asked. It seemed more tactful than turning cartwheels and letting out a big hip-hip-huzzah. Plus, I didn’t think the Cognacq-Jay people would appreciate my turning cartwheels near the windows. Especially in heels.

Colin shrugged. “If she isn’t, she’ll have to take it up with them.” Then he spoiled it by adding, “I told her we’d meet her for drinks before joining Mum.”

Fair enough. I could be gracious in victory. We were all going to need a little Dutch courage before the evening’s festivities. And by Dutch, I mean gin. Lots of it.

“Let’s go,” I said. “We’re all going to need it.”

Colin looked down at me. He was giving me one of his inscrutable looks. “You can’t even begin to imagine,” he said.

Why did that not precisely fill me with confidence?

Chapter 9

The bookshop on the Rue Saint-Honoré was a different creature from the one on the Rue Serpente.

Silver bells chimed dulcetly as Laura pushed open the door. Sunlight streamed through the wide plate-glass windows, illuminating tasteful displays of books on specially constructed racks. Framed prints hung on the red-papered walls, featuring copies of etchings by the great illustrators of the past five centuries.

At the far end of the room, a disheveled figure in a ruffled shirt, topped only by a waistcoat, held forth to a distressed-looking proprietor.

Oh Lord. Laura prevented herself from rolling her eyes to the ceiling. Just what she needed. That poet. Again. Did he plague all the bookshops in the city, or only the ones she intended to patronize?

Taking a firm grip on her reticule, Laura marched down the length of the shop. After waiting more than a week for this rendezvous, she certainly wasn’t going to be deterred by a longhaired windbag with more sleeve than sense. Laura itched to have a proper conversation with the Carnation or the Carnation’s agent. This whole business of keeping one’s eyes and ears open and seeing what turned up was maddening. If they would only tell her what they wanted to know, in plain English with no nonsense about lost princes and horrid novels, she might actually be able to do something about it.

Laura bore down on the poet and the proprietor. The bookseller cast Laura a hunted look over the poet’s shoulder as the poet waved a small volume dramatically in the air.

The poet struck a tragic pose. “You call this an illustration!”

Laura called it more of a blur as it wafted past her nose.

“Perfidy! Base perfidy! This is nothing less than a betrayal of the muse herself, whose divine trail we all must strive to follow.”

“If you don’t like it,” said the bookseller grimly, “you can take your custom elsewhere. Ah, Mademoiselle!” He seized on Laura’s presence with gratitude. “If you will excuse me, sir, I believe this lady—”

“With these rank scribblings profaning the pure prowess of my poetry? I crave—nay! I require!—the counsel and guidance of one of those members of the gentler sex whose minds are more attuned to the lilting call of Beauty’s song.” The poet also seized on Laura. On her arm, to be precise. “Madame—oh, whatever your name is! Would you lend your invaluable aid to the incalculable cause of pure poesy?”

“Er—,” began Laura, very ready to tell him just what he could do with his poesy and his wayward hand. For an effete poetic type, he had a surprisingly strong grip.

“Those blundering oafs in the backroom have made an unpardonable hash of it.” The poet thrust his book at Laura’s nose. Laura sneezed at the scent of ink and glue. “Don’t you agree, Madame—oh, whatever?”

Laura’s tart reply died on her lips. Pressed inside the book, just where she could see it, was a white card embossed with the image of a small, pink flower.

“Unpardonable,” Laura agreed. “Achoo!”

“Come!” The poet towed Laura towards a curtain at the back of the room. “Tell those oafs what they can do to improve their performance. Perhaps the gentle voice of a lady may reach those hardened hearts that the humble plaint of a mere poet has failed to move.” In a lower voice, utterly unlike his unusual singsong drawl, Whittlesby said, “Come with me. Quickly.”

Laura went, stumbling over her skirt. When he said quickly, he meant it.

In the back room, a large machine was buzzing and clanking. The air was acrid with the scent of ink and glue. An apprentice bustled busily about, feeding long rolls of paper into the great machine. On a long table, open pots of glue sat beside a litter of pages and pieces of cardboard and leather. The print shop conducted a varied business. In addition to the pages waiting to be sewn together into books, there were also piles of printed broadsides, advertising the performance of a new troupe of comedians, the Commedia dell’Aruzzio, performing a repertoire drawn from Molière, the classical dramatists, and the Commedia dell’Arte. Laura suspected that translated to people dressing in parti-colored hose, chasing one another around the stage with sticks, while quoting the odd line purloined from the better known of Molière’s comedies.

“Is it meant to rattle like that?” Laura stepped prudently away from the printing press, keeping her skirt clear of the vats of ink and glue.

“You should be grateful it does. No one can hear us over the din. If anyone asks, we’re consulting over a verse translation of Latin exercises for small children.”

“Or the illustrations in your new volume of poetry,” Laura reminded him. Whittlesby acknowledged the point with a slight bow. Laura looked around, bemused. “Is every bookshop in Paris in this network?”

Whittlesby raised both brows. “I have no idea what you mean. I only come here for the inspiration afforded by the birthplace of the books we hold so dear.” Dropping the pose, he said, in a businesslike tone, “What have you heard?”

Oh no. They weren’t playing it that way. Now that she had a proper human being at her disposal, even such a one as Whittlesby, she wasn’t saying anything until she had heard what she needed to know. “What did you want me to find? Lost princes are a highly indirect instruction.”

“But the Abbey bit was clear, I imagine,” prompted Whittlesby, as if he were talking to a very small child.

If he’d had any experience with children at all, he would know that was never the way to get results.

“Very,” said Laura, refusing to be prompted.

Whittlesby moved to stand beside her, holding the book open in front of her as though consulting over the set of an illustration. “There is a plot afoot—not our plot,” he added pointedly, “to depose the First Consul and replace him with a prince of the blood.”

“Surely an outcome to be desired?” Laura kept her head bent over the book. The illustrations really were quite poorly done. Julie Beniet’s careless sketches in the margins of Venus’ Feast had contained three times their power.

Whittlesby turned a page at random. “The idea is excellent, the execution is execrable. Fouché has already arrested several of the lesser conspirators. If they get Cadoudal, the whole jig is up.”

“What did you want me to do?” Laura traced the flank of a satyr with her finger. A smudge of ink came off on her glove.

Whittlesby pursed his lips as though contemplating the picture. “There are rumors that the prince, whichever he may be, is already in place. It might be Artois, it might be his son, de Berry. Neither has been seen in his usual haunts. All we know is that a prince of the blood is to plunge into place and take up the crown once Bonaparte has been oh-so-conveniently whisked away. We have instructions”—Laura noticed that Whittlesby didn’t say from whom—“to get this prince out of Paris before the whole plot blows sky high.”

“How do you know it will, er, blow?”

Whittlesby shook his head. Out of character, his movements were entirely different from those of his assumed persona—quick, direct, to the point. “If they were to do it, it were best it had been done quickly. By dawdling, they’ve killed their chance. Now that Fouché knows of the plot, he won’t rest till he’s found the whole. It’s all over before it’s begun. There’s no more chance of good, but it can cause us a good deal of harm.”

“Where do I come into this?”

“If the prince is found, Jaouen will be the first to know. We need to get there before Fouché. Any word, any hint of a rumor, we need to know first.”

“Why can’t you simply ask Cadoudal?”

Whittlesby pulled a face. “Cadoudal is running for his life right now. His entire existence relies on not being seen. Even if we could find him, he might not tell. There is”—Whittlesby paused, weighing his words carefully—“a difference of philosophy between our two organizations.”

“I see,” said Laura. As she had been told during her training in Sussex, the French Royalist groups and those sponsored by the English government didn’t always see eye to eye. Their goals might overlap, but they weren’t necessarily the same. They were constantly tripping over one another’s toes. “And the others in his organization?”

“Don’t know where the prince is,” Whittlesby said grimly. “Only that he’s here. In Paris.”

“That was all that came out of the Abbaye,” confirmed Laura. “A man named Querelle was put to the question.”

Whittlesby nodded as though he knew what she was talking about. “Jean-Pierre Querelle. Go on.”

“There’s very little to go on with. Querelle confessed a plot to kidnap the First Consul and replace him with a member of the royal family. Five generals, one of whom was this Cadoudal, were to manage the military coup. Four of them were to be shipped in from England, one suborned here.”