Page 33 of Souvenir Heart

“A joke that has made things a damn sight more complicated.”

“Complicated?” She blinked again. She was drowning in a sea of unreality. “Do pardon me, citizen, for being so very thoughtless. I am deeply sorry the drawing from my sketchbook that was stolen by my neighbor and turned over to the Committee for Public Safety has caused you trouble. I do hope that the likelihood that I will be sent to the guillotine…” She faltered, feeling as if saying the thing aloud somehow would make it more real, then swallowed, and continued. “I pray that it will not inconvenience you overmuch...”

“It will not.” He stepped forward, eyes fixed on her. His presence seemed to fill the tiny room with a vibrant energy, and for a moment she hesitated, uncertain whether to back away from him or to step closer.

“Because it will not happen,” he said, his voice low and sure.

Marguerite shook her head. This man, Marcus? He sounded so certain, she could almost believe him. She wanted to believe him. But it would be like clutching at smoke.

She looked up at him. “And how are you going to stop them from executing me? By drawing an escape tunnel? A balloon?”

“Balloon?” A corner of his serious lips tugged upwards. “That would be David’s forté. I’m a bit more practical…”

“David? Who is David?” She glanced around. There were only the two of them: Marcus and Saint-Just. “Who are you? Not your names. Who sent you?”

“We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.” Andre de Saint-Just stepped between them.

“Saint-Just,” she narrowed her eyes at the curly-haired man, “are you related to Citizen Robespierre’s friend, Louis de Saint-Just?”

“I told you it was a terrible idea.” Marcus scowled at her would-be-lawyer.

“Alas, Marcus is better with action than words.” Saint-Just said, ignoring both Marcus’s remark and her question. “What he is endeavoring to say is that we’re part of a team that has come to rescue you.”

“Rescue me? A team? Of what? Artists and lawyers?” Marguerite made no effort to hide her disbelief. “You saw what happened in that courtroom. There’s nothing you can say.” She nodded at Saint-Just. “Or you can draw.” She shot a glance at Marcus. “That will convince those people that I am not an enemy of the state.” That will save me.

“Forget the courtroom,” Marcus began.

“Forget the courtroom?” She repeated. The room where they’d held up her drawing of Marat? Where the people in the gallery had screamed for her death?

“Extemporaneous speech, as you’ve no doubt noticed, isn’t one of Marcus’s finer skills,” Saint-Just interjected, this time ignoring what sounded very much like a growl from the man. “But when it comes to extemporaneous action, I assure you there’s none better. He—we, have a great deal of other, far more useful skills. Trust me, trust us, when I say, we will get you out of here.”

“Trust?” As in the carriage after her arrest, Marguerite felt the tickle of hysterical laughter bubbling up in her chest. “I trusted my neighbor, Victorine, and look where that got me. I’ve known her for years. I’ve never even seen either of you before…” she hesitated. Did seeing Marcus in her dreams count?

“Your father sent us.” Marcus interrupted.

The bubbles in her chest turned into ice chips. Her father?

The dark-haired man reached into his waistcoat pocket and drew out a small cloth-wrapped package. Unfolding the cloth, he held out an oval miniature framed in gold and enamel. She recognized the frame and the portrait. She could remember sitting for it, the stiff folds of her dress, her governess and the artist telling her to sit up straight, to stop fidgeting.

“Where did you get that?” The last time she’d seen it, it had been on her father’s massive desk beside a blue and white Sevres inkwell and a bowl full of keys. She’d heard nothing from her father since she’d turned down his offer to flee with him. In the ensuing months, she’d suppressed any thought of him. Because when she didn’t, she imagined the worst.

As she was doing now. “Did you steal it?”

“He gave it to me.”

“Willingly?” Her stomach twisted at the thought of the other ways they might have obtained it.

“Indeed, he insisted I take it.”

Alarm bells were clanging so loudly in her head she could barely think. Why? Of all the influential people imprisoned in the Conciergerie in need of rescue, why were these strangers offering to help her?

Marguerite repeated the answer she’d given to anyone who asked about her father, to the arresting officers, the registrar in the prison, to overly curious cellmates. The lines she’d said only moments ago to the justices. “I don’t know where my father is. I haven’t seen him in over two years…”

“We have.” Marcus said, slipping the miniature back into his waistcoat. He reached into another pocket and pulled out the sketchbook she’d seen him holding in the courtroom. Opening it wide in a gesture that reminded her of the antenna-browed justice with her sketchbook.

Repressing a shudder, she leaned forward. Caught a distracting scent of sunshine, leather, and chalk.

Not a fish.