Chapter Twenty

T he cemetery of St. Pierre in Montmartre sat atop the majestic butte that overlooked the thousands living in Paris. Nestled in the corner of a churchyard, it was small and intimate. With few souls buried in the earth, the tiny resting place offered a bench for those who came to mourn and reflect.

In the unsettled spring snow, rain, and sleet, Ram and Amber met each week to walk among the stones that marked the lives of those who had hungered, loved, hated, and fought for the life they wished. In mid-March Ram heard from Kane that at the Tuileries, Bonaparte and Ambassador Whitworth openly argued. It was the worst of the two men's recent encounters.

Ram told Amber how relations grew worse. She knew. She heard the same in her own circles.

Under the spreading limbs of ancient trees, the bare branches would sway in the wind when first they met. As weeks went by, the buds sprouted and burst into the darker, larger greens of April. The flowering of Paris provided fragrant camouflage for their joyous reunions.

Each one had a rhythm.

She would throw her arms around him and kiss him on the cheek.

He would hold her to him for the space of one eternal minute.

Her heart would pulse with regret at what she had to do and pride at what they accomplished together.

"News?" he would ask her.

Occasionally, she would tell tales vital to Ram. An Englishman had fallen afoul of Vaillancourt and been imprisoned in the Temple. A Dutch merchant was arrested for failure to pay his export taxes. Two new cannon were being cast in Mauberge—and they were to go to Vauban's pretty fortress in Strasbourg. Sometimes she had no information.

Ram never asked what Amber did or who she saw, nor even what she sought. If he began to think that she had asked him to meet regularly so that she could enjoy his company, he was not entirely wrong. She needed his love for her, his belief, to bolster her. For the truth was, she grew tired of her task. Her ambition flagged with her energy. She knew not many days or nights she would have to go on to look for the list of her friends whom Rene would assemble and kill. She knew not how many nights she could continue to listen for the right conversations to get what information she needed.

She did not describe her life for Ram. Her days were so ordinary, they merited no description. Her nights amid the whirl of Bonaparte's Society required a library to hold all she learned from the gossip. Ram did not need to know it. He certainly did not wish to hear her trials and tribulations. He wanted her out of that life, and she knew it.

But then came one night at dinner at her Aunt Cecily's house. There, she overheard that a group of spies were soon to be rounded up and arrested. Vaillancourt had the orders and the plans.

Amber held her breath. Were Kane, Gus, and Ram to be arrested?

But no one she knew was jailed that night.

That was the most frightening night and day she'd experienced. But more days passed and no one was arrested. She told herself it was simply a pause in the terrors.

*

"Does he press you to sleep with him?" Ram had ventured to ask her one day as a chilly rain fell upon them at the end of April. She had a large umbrella, but the poor thing was soaked in a few minutes.

They both huddled into their winter coats. The chill of their topic defied any protection.

"He tries to be a gentleman." She looked away toward the moss growing over the stone markers of those departed. Had they loved like she loved Ram? Had they wanted the one person in this world whom they had to reject, as she did? Had they sorrowed for it?

She hung her head. What was the use of such speculation?

She put her gloved hand to Ram's jaw. He bore a morning's growth of dark beard. His hair covered his ears, even longer lately. He'd become careless of his hair and beard. He worried about her nearness to Vaillancourt.

Ram's gaze, tortured and lost, examined hers. She sought an answer that would not increase his anxiety. "I lead him along on what strings I have. He is…enthralled. God knows why," she murmured.

"I know why," Ram whispered.

She raised a hand, denying him and herself the pleasure of his comfort. If he touched her, she would dissolve in a mist of misery. Her agony made her sensitive, teary eyed. Unable to bear the grief in her heart and in his eyes, she twirled away. "Until next week."

*

The next few days, the gossip sheets flooded the Paris streets. Ram's servants brought them home to him. He could overhear them talking to each other with their speculations that the Treaty of Amiens drew to a close.

Ram visited with Kane more frequently and learned his friend had ordered his majordom Corsini to begin to close his house. "I tell you, Ram, get ready. Pack. Hide your passport. Have cash on hand. Your route of departure planned. The gendarmes will come for your servants, too."

Ram prepared his faithful staff for his disappearance. He also gave them sufficient funds to hide or leave Paris, whatever they wished.

For much of that, Ram had planned long ago. When he and Amber lived in the Neufchateau house in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, he had planned carriages, routes, changes, and even set aside great sums of cash. Now he checked his previous contacts, but not all were at his disposal. He would have to make new contacts. And, like that day months ago, he would not leave Paris without Amber.

She did not know that. He would not tell her. The argument she would give him would be outrageous.

But she would not win this time.