For those who are wondering, this isn't actually from one of Baroness Orczy's books. It's based off of the 1995 BBC adaptation, which I primarily love because of Richard Grant and Marvin Shaw's superb character portrayals. If you'e ever watched the series, you may have realized that Marguerite and Percy have all the chemistry of a wet dishrag, while Marguerite and Chauvelin have a slow-burning sexual tension that (almost) culminates at the end of the first season. This is my re-imagining of their interaction in the theatre during that third episode. (If you'd like a synopsis of what's going on in that episode, see below. If you don't care or don't like spoilers, feel free to skip the following paragraph.)
Essentially, the backstory is as follows. The Dauphin has been kidnapped by a masked person who kills the guards in the orphanage where the boy is being kept and vanishes into the night. No one knows where the child is. Sir Percy hears of this and decides to rescue the Dauphin, a plan which is partially facilitated by Marguerite. She openly quarrels with Sir Percy in London, leaves him, and ostensibly goes back to her old life in Paris. All of this is an act, meant to convince Chauvelin and Robespierre that she has truly returned to the revolutionary cause. In the meantime, Marguerite and Sir Percy discover that the kidnapper is most likely the Chevalier D'Orly, who is actually a woman who for years has been masquerading as a man. The Chevalier went into hiding during the Terror by returning to her female identity and becoming an actress at the Comédie-Française, where Marguerite eventually discovers her secret. At the point where this fanfic begins, Marguerite has just discovered her fellow actress's secret identity and has also received a warning note from her husband, telling her to leave the theatre immediately under the protection of Sir Andrew. Chauvelin catches her mid-departure. From there on, it's purely my imagination and no longer based on the show.
Fair warning: if you're a book purist (or an enormous Percy/Marguerite shipper), you may not care much for this. Either way, I've always thought it was entertaining to explore Marguerite's romantic relationships with characters other than Sir Percy. Baroness Orczy emphasizes that relationship a good deal, but all the undercurrents of other possibilities (or past loves) are still there. So...please read, review if you are so minded, and enjoy!
She does not know what to do. On the one hand, there is the loyalty she owes her husband and her conviction of the rightness of his cause. She has not stopped believing in the purity of his intentions or the importance of his mission, not for a moment. But on the other hand (and it is this metaphorical hand which troubles her so), there is the man whom she once loved, who occupied both her bed and her heart, and who still retains a hint of that fierce, passionate devotion he felt for her years ago. It is he who embodies all the fire and idealism of her early years spent as the darling of the Republic, fêted, adored, alight with the belief in the equality of all mankind. Whether she likes it or not, Chauvelin has brought surging back all the memories of those happy years spent with Armand as queen of the Rue St. Richelieu. It is now up to her to decide what to do with those memories and the emotions they invoke.
When she steals out of the theatre to follow the faux Chevalier, she has but one thought on her mind—the young Dauphin's sad fate, and her responsibility to rescue the child if she can. When she comes back to search the woman's belongings, she is still driven by only that thought. It is not until she gets her husband's hastily scrawled message that she remembers she is due to meet Chauvelin for dinner that night, and to miss would be a clear sign of betrayal in his suspicious mind. She makes up her mind on the spur of the moment and thinks she has slipped past him undetected when she suddenly hears, loud as a thunderclap in the silence of the empty theatre, the sound of a pistol hammer being cocked. She freezes, heart pounding.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he drawls slowly, and there is ice-cold menace in his tone. She, who knows him so well, can see in his eyes the wounded pride and something deeper, barely masked by the hatred he affects so well.
"I'm sorry, Paul, but I'm feeling unwell tonight. I'm afraid I would be poor company for you," she lies, but she knows he can hear the falter in her voice and see her hands trembling. He knows her well too, and her disguises have always fallen apart under that measured stare.
"Or perhaps you're stealing out to meet your husband, the elusive Pimpernel?" he queries, and the note of menace has become sharper. "I should have known from the beginning you were lying to me, Marguerite."
She can feel the blood draining from her cheeks, and briefly she wonders if he would actually kill her. The Paul Chauvelin of old would have never harmed a hair on her head, but she barely recognizes the vengeful man before her with the deep shadows worn under his eyes and bitterness coating his every word.
"Paul…" she says, helplessly, wondering how to persuade him that she has not played him false when the truth is staring him in the face. If she can just hold him here for a little longer, it will give Sir Percy time to follow the Chevalier, perhaps find the Dauphin's hiding place. She just needs a little more time.
"I should never have trusted you, Marguerite," Chauvelin says, and the barely perceptible quiver in his voice gives her a sudden flash of hope. Perhaps it is foolish, even suicidal, to bank so heavily on the affection she hopes he still feels for her, but she can think of no other way. If she can convince him that she loves him again, if he believes her, she can hold him back long enough. Just long enough.
"Paul," she whispers, but this time there is passion rather than fear coloring her tone. "Don't say that." She is acting on pure instinct, and her gut tells her that he will believe her touch more than words at this point. Slowly, deliberately, she crosses the distance between them and tentatively lays her hand against his cheek, ignoring the pistol pointed at her chest. "I told you the truth when I came back to France. That life is dead to me."
He closes his eyes and turns his face into her hand, and she wonders if it is really going to be this easy. Then he opens them again, and she can see the war raging between his heart and his brain.
"How can I believe you?" he murmurs, seizing her hand with his. "When you are his wife—"
Swiftly, she drops to her knees, raising her other hand to his face. "Paul, you heard him at the auction, did you not? He despises me, and I him. There is nothing left for me there. I came here, hoping that you…that perhaps…"
He drops the pistol and stands, raising her with him. He is holding her firmly by the shoulders so that he can peer down into her eyes, lay her bare within and without.
"What did you hope, Marguerite?" he asks, and she could not possibly be mistaken this time—it is most certainly passion shaking in his voice.
"That I could come back to the life I once had here," she whispers, eyes wide and lips trembling. "That I could find love again…here, where I was so happy before."
He is searching her, scanning her face, her body language for any sign that she might be lying to him. And in a sense she is not, for she realizes suddenly, traitorously, that there is a part of her that does want him still, that misses the wanton gaiety of her old life and its glowing ideals. Apparently he sees this partial truth in her face, for without warning he seizes her in his arms and crushes her to him, his embrace so tight that for a moment she can barely breathe.
"Ah, Marguerite, I hardly dared believe it," he murmurs against her ear, and the sensation of his lips on the sensitive skin makes her moan. "That you had come back to me, that once again you wanted to be mine."
"As you are mine," she says with the unmistakable ring of possession. "I knew you had never completely forgotten me, Paul. I was sure of it."
"How could I?" he whispers, ardently, and then his mouth is on hers and she temporarily forgets her husband and the abducted Dauphin and the constant intrigues of Paris and can think of nothing but the familiar and yet new sensation of his lips and teeth and tongue. He has always been a remarkable lover, dominating and tender at the same time, and her body responds even as her head whirls with confused and contradictory thoughts.
"Sacre-bleu, Marguerite," he groans, "you torment me beyond belief. Is there anywhere we can go in this drafty place?"
She nods her head a little, and hardly knowing what she is doing, reaches out and takes his hand. It is wrong, she knows it, and somewhere deep in her soul she is aware that what she is about to do is not for Percy's sake, nor for the sake of the mission, but because she, Marguerite St. Just, wants this down to the marrow of her bones. And so she leads him to her dressing room and locks the door, closing out everything but the certainty of her need. She looks at him from across the room, where doubt and naked yearning are warring for mastery in his face, and knows that this is something she must do. There is no other choice.
"Paul," she murmurs yet again, and then she is in his arms, his lips gliding over the soft skin of her neck and the swell of her breast, and his fingers fumbling at the fastenings of her dress with frantic haste.
"Let me see you," he rasps, and she quickly unbuttons her gown and lets it fall to the ground. Slowly, almost shyly, she lets the straps of her chemise fall over her shoulders and begins to tug at the laces of her corset. It has been so long since any man save her husband has seen her like this, and the intimacy of it is shocking, despite the fact that Paul is no stranger to her body. She worries that he will find her changed somehow, less beautiful, less desirable, that he will think the years have not been kind.
She need not have been afraid. When her clothes fall away into a puddle around her feet, he sucks in air like a drowning man, his eyes fixed on her, branding her with their intensity. She remembers him looking at her like this the first time they were together, that look of mingled desperation and desire, as though he feared she might disappear if he took his eyes off her for even a moment. Triumph curves her lips, and she walks slowly over to him, savoring the way his gaze rakes over her curves. When her slim fingers begin to unwind his stock, she can feel the groan build deep in his throat. She teases him, torments him, taking her sweet time as she unbuttons each layer of clothing, until finally he loses patience and tumbles her onto the daybed in the corner of the room.
This, this she remembers well, the press of his heavy body against her own, the insistence of his hands and hips, the rough whispers of pleasure as her hands glide over his flesh. He has always fascinated her, this enigma of a man who is capable of such cruelty and such tenderness, who hides a wealth of scars under the façade of loyal servant to the Republic. And although she has never plumbed the depths of his past, never truly known the secrets that lie waiting behind his mask of indifference, she knows that they are there, and the knowledge is tantalizing to her.
He is demanding, as he always has been, taking what he wants without a second thought, but his mastery excites her. It takes him only a few minutes to have her trembling and ready, and when he finally enters her, the sensation is almost too much for her to bear. Already her heart is careening wildly, and she can feel her whole body flush as she wraps herself around him. But she is no longer a nineteen-year-old girl, a novice in the art of lovemaking, and a wicked impulse overtakes her to surprise him, show him that she is not the same naïve Marguerite St. Just he fell in love with years ago. She is a tall woman, and fairly strong, and without warning she pushes back against him and flips them over on the narrow bed, almost sending them both crashing to the floor. Perched on top of him, she grins down into his shocked face.
"My God, where did you learn that trick?" he asks in amazement, and then his face darkens as he realizes where exactly she might have learnt that particular move. She immediately sees the signs of impending danger and hastens to distract him.
"Actresses talk, Paul," she says mischievously as she moves atop him. "We tell each other all sorts of things."
He huffs out a breath and settles his hands on her hips. "Tais-toi, Marguerite," he grits through clenched teeth, and then she no longer has any energy for speech because she is too busy watching his face as she rides him. It doesn't take long until he is on the cusp of release, head thrown back, eyes closed in an agony of desire. But just as he is about to go over the brink, and she with him, he opens his eyes and grates, "Regardez-moi." She obeys—looking at him, into him, and she sees for one moment the depth of the passion he has for her. And then they are both falling, falling apart, clutching each other as they spiral into darkness.
When they finally rouse from their stupor, her head is on his shoulder, her leg draped over his, and he is stroking her hair in the old way, twisting the curls around his fingers and watching them spring back as he lets them go. She is utterly limp, exhausted, her muscles burning with exertion, and unbidden the thoughts of her betrayal creep into her mind. She resolutely pushes them back. Whether for good or ill, she has taken this step, and she cannot go back now. Better to bask in the moment and think of such things later.
She can hear his heart still pounding under her ear, and after a moment, she raises her head and looks at him.
"I can hear your heartbeat," she says, smugly, and he slits one eye open to glare at her.
"Don't gloat, p'tite," he mutters, his tone warning, but she knows him too well to miss the sleepy satisfaction written across his face and the tenderness of his arms wrapped around her. She has missed this, she realizes, the feeling of excitement and danger mingled with the sweetness of the aftermath, the knowledge that she has somehow tamed a wild beast and brought it to eat out of her hand. It is a heady realization, and as much as she loves her husband (whom she is steadfastly refusing to think about), their lovemaking has never had that element of danger to it. How could it?
"Paul," she murmurs as she snuggles her head back onto his shoulder, "this would really be much more comfortable in a proper bed. With sheets. And pillows."
He makes a noise halfway between a grunt and a moan. "Ahh, ma caille, do you really want to get up? Now?"
She smiles against his collarbone. "Maybe in a little bit. Do you still have that little apartement in the Rue St. Lazare?"
"Yes," he says, and rolls over to nuzzle at her neck, making her giggle and push him away.
"Mmm, come on," she says quickly, the old impulsive, affectionate manner coming back to her like a well-worn glove. "I want to sleep on feather pillows tonight, not this rock-hard cushion."
He is preparing to get out of the small daybed, but stops raised up on one elbow. "You want to stay with me tonight, Marguerite?" he asks, and there is a world of confusion and hope in the words.
She nods, and her heart twists a little. She had almost forgotten how tentative he can be, how deep the wells of fear run within him. Perhaps it is foolish of her to imagine that the hardened man who has sent hundreds to the guillotine can still feel love for her, but imagine it she does. She cannot bear not to.
"Come, Paul," she says, very gently, and she stops for a moment as she is pulling on her chemise and a loose overdress. "Take me home with you." He too is in the midst of dressing, but he pauses and steps over to her, laying his hand on her cheek and drawing his thumb lightly over her lips.
"I have missed you, Marguerite," he murmurs low, and a shiver runs up her spine. There is no doubt that he means every word, and it terrifies her that she is now in the position of being passionately loved by two men at once. This cannot end well, and she knows it.
"I've missed you too," she whispers, and she knows, to her horror, that she is not lying. This is no longer about a decoy, and she cannot pretend otherwise. But even so, she dares not make a false move now. She will go with him tonight, and she has absolutely no idea what she will say to Percy, or how she will explain her actions later. For tonight, she will simply be Marguerite St. Just, the republican and the revolutionary, in love with a man whose hands are stained to the wrist with noble blood.
Those hands are gentle, though, as they take her arm and escort her to the carriage, and she curls up beside him with her head against his arm and drifts into slumber. She does not wake up until they stop in the Rue St. Lazare and he lifts her out of the carriage, carrying her up the stairs to his little apartement with the tenderness of a groom carrying his bride across the threshold. She wraps her arms around his neck sleepily, and when he lays her down in his bed, she curls up like a child. After a moment or two, when he has locked the door and secured the sashes of the windows, he slides into bed beside her. He hesitates for a moment, and she rolls over to stretch against him.
"Hold me, Paul," she commands, and he complies. At the feel of his arms around her, strong and secure, she drifts off again, content to forget the rest of the world…if only for tonight.