He went on, "Seems that he was excommunicated from the Order. Been trying to get back in ever since."

"Why was he excommunicated?"

"Bringing the Order into disrepute. Likes a wager by the sounds of things. Only he's not the lucky sort. He's up to his eyes in debt by all accounts."

"Could it be he hoped to kill Mother as a means of gaining favor with his Order?"

Mr. Weatherall shot me an impressed look. "Could well be the case though I can't help but think it'd be a bit of half-witted strategy for him. Could be that killing your mother would have brought him even greater disgrace. He'd have no way of knowing." He shook his head. "Wait to see if the a.s.sa.s.sination is viewed in a favorable light and only then claim credit for it, maybe. But no, I can't see it. To me this sounds as though he was offering his services to the highest bidder, trying to clear those gambling debts. I reckon our friend Ruddock was working as a sword for hire."

"So the a.s.sa.s.sins were not the ones behind the attempt?"

"Not necessarily."

"Have you told the Crows?"

He shook his head.

"Why not?"

He looked evasive. "Your mother had certain . . . suspicions concerning the Crows."

"What sort of suspicions?"

"Do you remember a certain Francois Thomas Germain?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"Fierce-looking guy. He would have been around when you were a child. Francois Thomas Germain was your father's lieutenant. He had some dodgy ideas and your father turfed him out of the Order. He's dead now. But your mother always wondered if Messieurs Lafreniere, Le Peletier, Sivert, and Madame Levesque might have had sympathies with him."

I started, unable to believe what I was hearing. "You can't believe my father's advisers would plot to kill Mother?"

True, I'd always hated the Crows, but then again I'd always hated Madame Levene, and I couldn't imagine her plotting my murder. The idea was too far-fetched.

Mr. Weatherall continued. "Your mother's death would have suited their ends. The Crows might well have been your father's advisers in name, but after Germain got the boot it was your mother who had his ear above all others, including them. With her out of the way . . ."

"But she is 'out of the way.' She's dead, and my father has remained true to his policies."

"It's impossible to say what goes on, Elise. Maybe he's proven less pliable than expected."

"No, it still doesn't make sense to me," I said, shaking my head.

"Things don't always make sense, love. The a.s.sa.s.sins trying to kill your mother didn't make sense, but everyone was keen to believe it. No, for the time being I'm staying suspicious unless I have evidence otherwise, and if it's all the same to you, I'm playing it safe until we know either way."

Inside me was a strangely hollow feeling, a sense that a curtain had been drawn back to expose uncertainties behind. There might be people within our own organization who wished us wrong. I had to find out-I had to find out either way.

"What about Father?"

"What of him?"

"You haven't told him your suspicions?"

With his eyes fixed on the top of the desk, he shook his head.

"Why?"

"Well, firstly because they are just suspicions, and as you've pointed out, pretty wild ones at that. If they're not true-which they're most likely not-I look like a b.l.o.o.d.y idiot; if they are, then all I've done is alert them and while they're busy laughing it off because I don't have a shred of proof, they're making plans to do away with me. And also . . ."

"What?"

"I have not been acquitting myself well since your mother died, Elise," he admitted. "Reverting to old ways, you might say, and in the process burning what bridges I had built with my fellow Templars. There are some similarities between me and Mr. Ruddock."

"I see. And that's why I can smell wine on your breath, is it?"

"We all cope in our own way, child."

"She's been gone almost ten years, Mr. Weatherall."

He gave a short mirthless laugh. "Mourn too much for your tastes, do I? Well, I could say the same of you, p.i.s.sing away the last of your education, making enemies when you should be forging connections and contacts. Don't you be sneering at the likes of me, Elise. Not until your own house is in order."

I frowned. "We need to know who was behind that attempt."

"Which is what I'm doing."

"How?"

"This bloke Ruddock is hiding out in London. We have contacts in London. The Carrolls, if you recall. I've already sent word ahead of my arrival."

Never was I more certain of anything. "I'm coming with you."

He looked at me peevishly. "No you're b.l.o.o.d.y well not, you're staying here and finishing your schooling. For crying out loud, girl, what on earth would your father say?"

"How about we tell him I'm to pay an educational visit to London in order to improve my English?"

The protector jabbed his finger on the desk. "No. How about we do nothing of the sort? How about you stay here?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm coming with you. This man has haunted my nightmares for years, Mr. Weatherall." I fixed him with my best imploring look. "I have some ghosts I need to lay to rest."

He rolled his eyes. "Pull the other one. You forget how well I know you. More likely you want the excitement, and you want to get away from this place."

"Well, okay," I said, "but come on, Mr. Weatherall. Do you know how difficult it is to have the likes of Valerie sneering at me and not tell them that one day, when she's pushing out children for the drunken son of a marquis, I will be head of the Templars? This stage of my life cannot end soon enough for me. I'm desperate for the next stage to start."

"You'll just have to wait."

"I've only got a year to go," I pushed.

"They call it finishing for a reason. You can't finish unless you finish."

"I won't even be away that long."

"No. And anyway, even-even-if I agreed, you'd never get her out there to say yes."

"We could forge letters," I insisted. "Anything she writes to Father, you could intercept. I take it you have been intercepting the letters . . ."

"Of course I have. Why do you think I'm here and not him? But he's going to find out sooner or later. At some point, Elise, one way or another, your lies will be exposed."

"It'll be too late then."

He bulged with fresh anger, his skin reddening against the white of his whiskers. "This-this is exactly what I'm talking about. You're so full of yourself you've forgotten your responsibilities. It's making you reckless and the more reckless you are the more you endanger your family's position. I wish I'd never b.l.o.o.d.y told you now. I thought I could talk some sense into you."

I looked at him, an idea forming, and then in a display of acting that would have impressed Valerie, pretended to decide he was right and that I was sorry and all the other stuff he wanted to see in my face.

He nodded and cast his voice toward the door. "Right, at last, you're finished. This letter I shall take home to your father, accompanied by the news that I gave you six strokes of the cane."

I shook my head and held up desperate fingers.

He blanched. "What I mean is, twelve strokes of the cane."

I shook my head furiously. Held out fingers again.

"I mean ten strokes of the cane."

Pretend-wiping my brow, I called out, "Oh no, monsieur, not ten strokes."

"Now, is this the cane used to punish you girls?"

He had moved over to Madame Levene's desk, which was in sight of the keyhole, and picked the cane from its pride of place across her desk. At the same time he used the cover of his back and sleight of hand to pluck a cushion from her chair and skim it across the floor to me.

It was all very smooth. Like we did it every day. What a team we made. I picked up the cushion and laid it across the desk as he walked over with a cane, and once more we were out of sight of the keyhole.

"Right," he said loudly, for the benefit of Madame Levene, with a wink at me. I stood to one side while he gave the cushion ten smart whacks, making suitable ouch noises after each one. And after all, when it came to authentic pain noises, who knew better than I? I could imagine Madame Levene cursing as all the action happened out of sight, no doubt planning to rearrange the furniture as soon as possible.

When it was over and I'd summoned thoughts of Mother to make myself cry, and we'd replaced the cushion and cane, we opened the door. Madame Levene was standing in the vestibule some distance away. I arranged my face to look like a person who had recently been punished, gave her a baleful look with my red-rimmed eyes and, with my head down and resisting the temptation to give Mr. Weatherall a good-bye wink, I scuttled off as if to lick my wounds.

In fact I had a little thinking to do.

23 JANUARY 1788.

Let's see. How did this start? That's right-with Judith Poulou saying that Madame Levene had a lover.

That was all Judith had said, one night after lights out, that Madame Levene had "a lover in the woods" and the other girls had mainly scoffed at the idea. But not me. I'd remembered a night some time ago when, just after supper, I'd spied the dreaded headmistress from a dormitory window, wrapping herself in a shawl as she hurried down the steps away from the schoolhouse, then melted into the darkness beyond.

There'd been something about the way she behaved that made me think she wasn't just planning to take the air. The way she looked from left to right. The way she headed toward the path that led in the direction of the sports fields and, yes, maybe, the woods at the perimeter.

It had taken me two nights of keeping watch, but last night I saw her again. Just as before, she left the schoolhouse, and with the same furtive air, although not furtive enough to detect a window opening in the schoolhouse above, and me climbing from it, clambering down the trellis to the ground and setting off in pursuit.

At last I was putting my training into action. I became like a wraith in the night, keeping her just in sight, silently tracking her as she used the light of the moon to navigate her way along the lawn and to the perimeter of the sports fields.

They were an open expanse and I scowled for a moment-then did what my mother and Mr. Weatherall had always taught me to do. I a.s.sessed the situation. Madame Levene with the light of the moon behind her-her old bespectacled eyes versus my young ones. I decided to stay behind her, keeping her in the distance, so that she was little more than a shadow ahead of me. I saw the moonlight glint on her spectacles as she turned to check she wasn't being followed, and I froze, became part of the night, prayed my calculations had been correct.

They were. The witch kept on going until she reached the tree line and was swallowed up by the harsh shapes of tree trunks and undergrowth. I sped up and followed her, finding the same path she'd taken, that cut through the woods, and becoming a ghost. The route reminding me of years spent taking a similar track to see Mr. Weatherall. A track that used to end with my protector perched waiting on his tree stump, smiling, unburdened, then, by the weight of my mother's death.

I'd never smelled wine on his breath back then.

I banished the memory as ahead of us I saw the small groundskeeper's lodge and realized where she was heading. I drew to a halt and from my position behind a tree watched as she knocked gently and the door was opened. I heard her say, "I couldn't wait to see you," and there was the distinct sound of a kiss-a kiss-and then she disappeared inside, the door closing behind her.

So this was her lover in the woods. Jacques, the groundskeeper, of whom I knew little other than what I'd seen as he attended to his duties in the middle distance. One thing I did know was that he was younger than Madame Levene. What a dark horse she was.

I returned, knowing the rumors were true. And, unfortunately for her, not only was I the one in possession of that information, but I was not above using it to get what I wanted from her. Indeed, that was precisely what I intended to do.

25 JANUARY 1788.

Just after lunch, Judith came to see me. The very same Judith from whom I'd heard the rumor about Madame Levene's love. Neither one of my enemies nor my admirers, Judith face was impa.s.sive as she delivered the news that the headmistress wanted to see me in her office right away in order to talk about the theft of a horseshoe from the dormitory door.

I made my face grave as if to say, "Oh G.o.d, not again. When will this torture ever end?" when in fact I couldn't have been more thrilled. Madame Levene was playing right into my hands. Handed to me on a plate was a golden opportunity to give her the good news that I knew all about her lover, Jacques, because while she thought she was going to cane me for stealing the dormitory's lucky horseshoe, in actual fact I'd be leaving not with the usual smarting palm and a seething sense of injustice, but a letter for my father. A letter in which Madame Levene informed him that his daughter Elise was to be leaving for individual English tuition in . . . guess.

If all went to plan, that was.

At her door I knocked smartly, entered, then, with my shoulders flung back and my chin inclined, strode across her office to where she sat before the window and dropped the horseshoe on her desk.

There was a moment of silence. Those beady eyes fixed on the unwelcome bit of rusted iron on her desk, then rose to meet mine, but instead of the usual look of disdain and barely masked hatred, there was something else there-some unreadable emotion I'd never seen in her before.

"Ah," she said, a slight tremor in her voice, "very good. You have returned the stolen horseshoe."

"That's what you wanted to see me about, wasn't it?" I said carefully, less sure of myself all of a sudden.

"That was what I told Judith I wanted to see you about, yes." She reached beneath her desk and I heard the sound of a drawer sc.r.a.ping open, and she added, "But there was another reason."

I felt a chill, hardly dared ask, "And what was that, Madame?"

"This," she said, placing something on the desk in front of her.

It was my journal. I felt my eyes widen. Was suddenly short of breath. My fists flexing.

"You . . ." I tried, but could not finish. "You . . ."

She leveled a trembling bony finger at me and her eyes blazed as her voice rose, her anger matching mine. "Don't play the victim with me, young lady. Not after what I've read." The pointing finger jabbed at the cover of my journal-a cover that I knew so well, that looked odd and out of place on the headmistress's desk-a cover under which were my most private thoughts, ripped from their hiding place under my mattress. Pored over by most hated enemy.

My temper began to rise. I fought to control my breathing and my shoulders rose and fell, fists still clenching and unclenching.

"How . . . how much did you read?" I managed.

"Enough to know you were planning to blackmail me," she said tersely. "No more, no less."

Even in the heat of my anger I couldn't miss the irony. We were both caught-hoisted halfway between shame at our own actions and outrage at what had been done to us. Myself, I felt a potent brew of fury, guilt and sheer hatred, and in my mind formed the image of me diving across the desk at her, hands fixing around her neck as her eyes bulged behind her round spectacles . . .

Instead, I simply stared at her, barely able to comprehend what was happening.

"How could you?"