Author's Note: Goodness, but I was at a total block with this end of this chapter and how to keep it going. To those of you who reviewed the last chapter, thank you! Because your reviews, I made myself write it. This was a hard chapter to finish, and I hope it won't be too dull to read! I still feel completely at a loss with this story because I haven't plotted it out (I'm making it up as I go, which is completely against my norm), so I'm quite nervous at disappointing my regulars! Thank you all for reading and reviewing. I really enjoying reading your thoughts each time!

~BD

The Invisible Savior

When Marguerite came to, it was with a groggy sense of dread. The room was dark, but behind her closed eyelids she knew there was a candle or a lantern somewhere nearby. Distantly, she could hear the wind howling outside. That clearly meant she was still in the mountains, still in this vicious snowstorm. It was chilly in the room, and she wasn't wearing her coat. Beneath her temple, she could feel the cold wooden floor, and her hands were bound behind her back.

Unbidden, a couple of tears slipped out and down her cheeks. She had been captured; presumably by Chauvelin or one of his henchmen, for she couldn't imagine why anyone else would capture her. She had finally reached the end of a long, dreary, horrible road, it seemed.

Slowly, she cracked open one eye. The room was blurry and dark. A candle flickered on a table, set against the opposite wall. She couldn't make anything else out, but she seemed to be alone.

On the other hand, she thought bitterly, she thought she had been alone in her room at the inn, and she obviously hadn't been.

She sighed imperceptibly and closed her eyes to block the tiny, dull light. She had never met those four families, and yet they haunted her constantly. She had only heard of them from a friend who wanted to help them, and thought Marguerite might hold some sway on government officials. And she had truly thought Chauvelin was working for the French government when she passed along the information. She wondered, sadly, if any members of those families had survived the war, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, and the Nazi death marches. She would have traded places with any of them, for they had each other before she had unwittingly sentenced them to death, and she'd had no one once Armand had vanished. It would have been better if she had gone in their place, she thought angrily. Then she wouldn't be here, in this lonely, cold, wretched hovel, high in the mountains, where no one could save her or help her, where she would finally meet her end. She remembered the nuns at the Catholic school when she was a little girl, and she hoped that when she met God, he would forgive her for what she had done unknowingly back during the war.

A soft, low groan startled Marguerite. She turned her head too quickly to find the source, and she winced. She had a terrible bump on the back of her head and it was throbbing fiercely. Blearily, through the pain, she made out another dark shape near her. It shifted slightly and whispered her name.

A distant part of her brain recognized Andrew's voice, hoarse and raw as it was. She felt like crying – another innocent death would now be at her hands. Andrew knew nothing of her past life and there had been no reason for him to die just because she had made mistakes. But it seemed fate was more cruel than that; another person's blood would end up on her hands before it was all over. She wondered if he could escape this prison, and the desire to help him goaded her into struggling to sit up. She curled her legs under her and twisted towards him.

"Andrew," she whispered, edging closer to him. "Are you bound? Can you sit up?"

"Yes. To both," was the ragged response. It took a couple of tries, but he managed to sit up and edge closer to her, until their shoulders were touching.

She squeezed her eyes shut and trying to piece together what had happened. "I don't remember anything. Except that I was about to turn the quilts down for the night when someone attacked me..."

"You knocked something over. It was loud enough that I heard it, and I came back to your room to see if something was wrong. A man had just stepped into the hall, half-holding you on his arm. You were unconscious, so I assumed he had knocked you out. Others must have been nearby because I have a terrible knot on my head and I don't remember anything else myself."

A couple of tears slid down her cheeks and she turned her face into Andrew's shoulder. "I am so sorry," she moaned. "This is my fault."

Andrew said nothing, and Marguerite wondered why he did not ask her for more information. Or at least tell her that surely it was not her fault. But he remained silent.

"If we twist our backs to each other," she continued quietly, trying to ignore his ominous silence, "I can try to untie your hands. Then you must get out of here, and quickly, without being seen."

Andrew seemed startled at this idea. "Absolutely not. I cannot leave you, mademoiselle."

"You must," she insisted firmly, yet still speaking in a whisper. Her tears had stopped now. It was clear what she had to do. She had to free Andrew so he could escape. "It is me they want. Not you."

A wry smile tugged Andrew's lips. "I think they want both of us. Otherwise, we would not both be here."

"You are correct," a new voice interrupted.

Marguerite jumped violently and drew her legs to her chest, as though this might protect her from harm. A door had snapped closed beyond of her line of vision, and Chauvelin came into the room, not at all in a hurry. He made his way to the table and deposited some papers, then turned to face both of them.

"I wanted both of you, not just St. Just. Otherwise, you would not both be here."

"Andrew has nothing to do with what is between you and I," Marguerite answered vehemently. "Let him leave here safely! It is me you are after, and we both know it."

Chauvelin's face remained impassive. "There is so much you do not know," he stated, crossing his arms over his chest. "For instance, you do not know who Andrew Ffoulkes really is."

Marguerite paused. This single statement was enough to cause a few sticky spider webs of doubt to flit through her mind, but it was best not to let Chauvelin notice any sudden, confused doubts. Instead, she responded staunchly, "He is a fellow actor and my co-star for our current film."

Beside her, she noted that Andrew was motionless, perfectly still but alert. Rather than mull over the idea that Andrew might be some sort of villain in this game, Marguerite shifted her eyes back towards Chauvelin.

In the candlelight, he looked much older than she remembered. When he had visited her salon in Paris before the war, he had been in his forties, his hair a dark brown with a few strands of gray. But he had always been a short, slender man with a fox-like face and piercing eyes. Marguerite had met him through several mutual friends – back then, he had been a detective for the gendarmerie, but at some point prior, he had worked once upon a time as, first, a secondary school teacher, and then, just after the Great War, a paralegal for a prosecuting attorney, just for a couple of years. He was an educated man, though she was certain most of it had been self-taught. Chauvelin was not one to allow circumstance to guide his life; if he could change fate, he would do so. In the 1930s, she had thought the trait admirable and interesting, for she felt she had been doing the exact same thing.

Now, she thought he was unspeakably dangerous.

"I see your co-star does not speak when off set." Chauvelin's lips twitched into what would have been a smile at his little jest, but he mastered the impulse.

"I am certain I don't know what you mean," Andrew finally said, his voice utterly polite and courteous. "I am an actor, sir. Before that, I did vaudeville, which was still acting..."

"And during the war?" Chauvelin mused, cutting Andrew off.

"I assisted the English army."

Marguerite realized that she had not known what Andrew did during the second war. She further realized, to her astonishment, that she had never once asked Andrew what he had done before the war, either. Perhaps it was simply because she didn't want him asking questions about the skeletons in her own closet, but she really knew very little about him, it seemed.

"You assisted the English army? Or perhaps you assisted another master?" Chauvelin was calm, almost too calm, and Marguerite shuddered.

"I was not a double agent, if that is what you are implying," Andrew responded coldly.

"We both know that is not what I am implying."

"Well, I, for one, am afraid that I don't know what you are implying."

"A couple of months ago, Madame St. Just was unable to inform me of the Scarlet Pimpernel's true identity," Chauvelin went on, as though Andrew had not argued the point. He turned towards the table and reshuffled the papers. "I was astounded that she did not know, to be honest. The wittiest, most adored woman in all of France, with scores of people at her feet to do her bidding! How could she not know? Especially filming this ridiculous film about him. I would have thought mere curiosity would have set her to investigate further, until she discovered his real name. But apparently not."

Marguerite interrupted, scowling at him. "You are not as brilliant as you once were, monsieur. I have no interest in the man's identity."

That was true enough, she thought bitterly. Oh yes, once, she had been interested. The entire world had been interested! But the war had been long and draining, and her interest had faded after she'd fled to Switzerland to avoid capture by the Allies. And since filming on The Invisible Savior had begun, Marguerite had only vaguely wondered who the man really was. Curiosity was a nasty beast, and it had a way of turning on you and biting you when you least expected, just like any beast. Sometimes it was best to let an enigma remain just that.

"None at all?" Chauvelin looked surprised, mocking. His lips twisted into a sarcastic smile. "Monsieur Ffoulkes knows of his identity. Did you know that, Madame St. Just?"

Marguerite paused, thinking back. Yes... Actually, she did know that, though she had nearly forgotten. At the Cannes Film Festival, back in September, when she'd first been introduced to Andrew, he had made the comment to her that he and Hastings both know the person behind the mask, the man who called himself The Scarlet Pimpernel. Andrew said the mysterious man was nothing as to what most people expected.

"As a matter of fact," she answered haughtily, trying not to sound surprised, "I did know that."

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Andrew's brow wrinkle slightly in thought, but she ignored him for the moment.

"Did you also know," Chauvelin pressed, "That Monsieur Ffoulkes himself is a member of that League? His real master, mademoiselle, is the very man I am seeking."

Marguerite felt her breath catch in her chest, as though someone had just punched her. Andrew, a member of the League of men who had saved so many from the Nazis? Anything was possible, but God help her, if it was true, than he very likely did know about her past – he would have known the entire time of their acquaintance that Marguerite had sent four families to Drancy with her idle tongue, and that Chauvelin had been a double agent himself. What on earth must Andrew really think of her? He likely hated her! But if that were the case, why had he agreed to sign the movie deal, playing opposite of her? None of it made any sense to her overwrought mind, and she blurted out angrily, "Impossible. If he were really a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, he would not be playing opposite me in any film, let alone one about such a brilliant, admired man!"

"Ah yes, we come around to the film in question. Monsieur," Chauvelin sneered, "how is it that you landed the role?"

"Director Fontbleu saw a screen test –" Andrew began, but Chauvelin cut him off.

"Fontbleu was set up, do not pretend otherwise! The Pimpernel himself arranged the entire thing!"

"You are raving!" Marguerite broke in furiously. "If that were the case, the Pimpernel would never have allowed me to play the lead! Andrew," she added, turning to look at him finally, because by God, she had to tell him so he would understand, "Chauvelin wants me dead because I alone know the truth about him. He was a double agent –"

"Enough!" Chauvelin barked. He stepped forward faster than she could have imagined, his hand raised to hit her.

Marguerite flinched at this, but went on, "And because I unintentionally passed along information to him –"

His hand struck her face, causing a harsh, stinging sensation on her cheek. Beside her, Andrew shifted immediately, but Chauvelin kicked out at him as well, preventing him from assisting her in any way.

"I said enough!" he snarled.

He was speaking through gritted teeth, Marguerite could tell. The labored breathing, the hissing intake of air through his lips... it was evident that he was angry, but it had been worth it to push his buttons enough to make him reach such a point. Chauvelin was almost never visibly affected by anything, and it gave her a perverse pleasure to see him so out of control of his emotions.

"Back to the conversation at hand! You made the suggestion, Madame St. Just, that the Scarlet Pimpernel would never place you in a lead role if he were indeed choreographing the entire production," Chauvelin went on. His voice was still strained, though slightly calmer. "Do not ask me to fathom the way the man's mind works. But if he insisted on you, it must have been for a reason, and I will get to the bottom of it."

"Good God, man!" Andrew looked incredulous. "Have you nothing better to do than get involved in a film production?"

"Tell me, Monsieur Ffoulkes, why did the infamous Scarlet Pimpernel wish Marguerite St. Just to play the lead in his film? He knows she sent four families to Drancy, I believe."

"Blast if I know why he chose her," Andrew answered, abandoning any pretense in his annoyance. "He certainly doesn't tell us everything, for the very reason that if we were caught, just like right now, we wouldn't have the information to pass along to someone like you."

Chauvelin was quiet for a moment. Marguerite could not decipher his expression, for his face was half in shadow. At last he said, "I'll give the two of you some time to think, and consider your perilous position. I want the Scarlet Pimpernel. His identity, whereabouts, and reasons for his current mission - those will be the prices of your freedom."

With that, he swept out of the door, banging it shut.

Marguerite squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry.

After a few moments, Andrew spoke. His voice was hollow and quiet, but firm. "Marguerite. You need to know that I will not give up his identity, even at the cost of my own life. Nor can I reveal it to you. I would die before telling anyone who he is, without his permission. He is the bravest man in the world, and I owe him that much."

She nodded, a few tears slipping past her lashes despite her attempts to remain calm, staining her cheeks and chin. With her hands tied behind her back, she could not wipe the salty tracks away. Instead, she murmured, "I would not want you to tell me." Then she added bitterly, "I am not to be trusted."

"I have never said that." Andrew's response was stiff.

"No," she conceded, "but if you are indeed a member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel... if you saved innocents from death during the war... then you have known what I did for a long time now, and you have never trusted me. I wonder how you have even managed to work with me all this time, knowing what I did during the war. You must despise me."

He was silent at that, and Marguerite knew she had hit upon the truth. That saddened her almost as much as everything else did; she wondered how many others despised her but did not voice their opinions aloud, because of who she was - a famous actress.

Unable to stand the silence, she went on (mostly to herself) "What I don't understand is why on earth such a man would demand I play the lead role in a film about his exploits. He knows who I am, doesn't he? So it simply doesn't make any sense. Perhaps that is the only thing I wish to know in all of this. Is it some sort of perverse jest? Is he mocking me? I never thought him that sort of person during the war. But Suzanne would have been a better choice for this role, not me. She never did anything as horrible as what I did."

She didn't think Andrew would answer, but after several long moments, he finally said, in a halting manner, "He... he does know what you did. But he also knew you were innocent."

"Did he?" She laughed quietly, humorlessly at this. "And how would he know that I am innocent?"

"You said so yourself," Andrew reminded her. "When you were provoking Chauvelin. You said it was unintentional. You did not know Chauvelin was a double agent when you told him about those four families."

She heaved a sigh, feeling much too old, and leaned against the cold wall behind her. "No, you are right. I thought he was working for France. He had been a friend of mine before the war, one who often came to my parties and my salon. And so, when the war began, I never once suspected that he might be a double agent for Germany. I was horrified when I found out that he had revealed the location of the farmhouse in question to the Nazis. If I could have taken their place... if I could have gone instead of them..." She felt more tears slid down her face; admitting it to herself was one thing – admitting it to Andrew was entirely another. "I should have died, not them."

"You don't know that they died," Andrew said gently.

"The law of statistics was most certainly not in their favor. I would be shocked if any were alive."

"Still. You don't know that they all died."

She whispered, "Oh God, Andrew. How I have hated myself since I learned that Chauvelin tricked me, that he turned them over to the Nazis. You cannot imagine how I have felt."

"The Scarlet Pimpernel never hated you. As I said – he knew you were innocent. And that's why..." Andrew stopped, as though thinking better of what he was saying, but to Marguerite's surprise, he plunged on. "He's hopelessly in love with you, actually. Git would never admit it to you, or to any of us, but he is."

Marguerite was unfazed by this revelation; even a bit let down. Men were always in love with her, it was nothing new or special or even romantic anymore. She would have thought that such a brilliant man as the Scarlet Pimpernel, who had saved hundreds (if not thousands) of people, would have been more intelligent than to fall in love with a superficial face on a poster or a beautiful female lead in a film, acting out a part.

She said, "He is in love with an actress, not me. He doesn't know me. He doesn't know little Margot, the orphan girl who struggled to survive through childhood without starving. He doesn't know how much I missed my brother when Armand went missing. He doesn't know how much I wish I weren't constantly in the spotlight. He doesn't know that I like long walks in the country or a quiet house, without people laughing and being fake."

She couldn't see Andrew's face in the dark, but his words sounded as though he were smiling. "He knows you more than you think he does. And he's never even seen one of your films, actually."

"No man would ever love me if they knew my hands were stained with innocent blood."

"I think," Andrew mused, sliding closer to her to comfort her, "that you should forgive yourself. Others forgive easier than we forgive ourselves. I hold nothing against you, and neither does the Scarlet Pimpernel."

"I will never forgive myself. Never." She began to cry in earnest, and she leaned her head on Andrew's shoulder, desperate as she was for any support. "I killed four families, Andrew! I sent four families to a concentration camp! Could you forgive yourself if you had done such a thing?"

She was not surprised when he didn't answer that question. Because she knew he could not have forgiven himself anymore than she could forgive herself.

When Chauvelin returned fifteen minutes later, it was to find that neither prisoner was in any mood to reveal their knowledge any more than they had been before, and that infuriated him. While he knew the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel, dragging it out of Andrew at least would have been a sadistic pleasure; besides, he needed to find out exactly what Blakeney was up to in the French Alps at the same time he was here. Presumably it was to protect Marguerite, since she was the lead actress in that ridiculous film, but what was the ulterior motive? Surely the man had one. He always did.

Watching Marguerite suffer through the interrogation was only an added bonus. He did not strike her again, though it had given him satisfaction to do so earlier.

Neither of them would be set free – that much was absolutely certain.

He decided to let them wait a bit longer. The room was cold, the storm was not abating, and he had plenty of time to let them decide if they wished to speak or not. Hours, really.

As Marguerite glared furiously at him, he smirked at her and carelessly summoned a man into the room – a former German soldier by name of Dietrich Giselbert.

Chauvelin had discovered the man only a few days previously, but he was a great find. He was young, blond man who had apparently moved to the French Alps after the war and now herded sheep for a living. Battle on the front lines had hardened the lad, who couldn't have been more than 18 when he'd entered the war in 1944 as an infantry soldier. The coldness showed clearly in his face and blue eyes – he had not forgiven the world for Germany's loss. Chauvelin had just happened to overhear him cursing in a local pub a week earlier, and upon seeing a small tattoo of a Nazi symbol on the man's wrist, he'd asked if the man needed work for a few days.

Dietrich had readily agreed. The barman had admitted that he'd never seen the lad before, but that there were sheepherders in the mountains that rarely came down, of course. Chauvelin had drilled Dietrich mercilessly, but the German had answered all of his questions satisfactorily. Now, he would be put to use guarding the two prisoners, and to Chauvelin's relief, Dietrich seemed quite delighted at the chance to exercise his beliefs once more, even if only for a short time.

"Make certain they do not escape," Chauvelin stated coolly, when the younger man entered at his bidding. "I will return in an hour to determine if they wish to reveal any of their knowledge."

"May I do as I please with them?" A weird light flickered in the German's icy eyes as he glanced towards Marguerite, who stiffened visibly under his harsh gaze.

"As you wish," he shrugged. He really could care less what happened to Marguerite. Once, he might have thought her beautiful. Now, she was just a liability.

Marguerite stifled a gasp and looked positively horrified; Andrew Ffoulkes tensed and pushed up to his knees in an effort to protect her. It was futile – Herr Giselbert kicked at him with heavy boots and Andrew fell backwards, striking his head on the wooden wall and toppling like a ragdoll to the floor, unconscious.

It was all Chauvelin could do not to laugh at how easily Andrew had been knocked out. Mastering himself, he added, "I need them alive, Herr Giselbert. Remember that, please. You will not earn a Mark or a Franc if you kill either, or render them unable to answer my questions."

The blond man grunted. "Ja." He kept his eyes on Marguerite, who now looked utterly petrified.

Chauvelin closed the door behind him and headed down the corridor to another room – one with a fire and some food, for it was nearly freezing in the room that Marguerite and Andrew were cloistered in. As he entered, a couple of other German men who were waiting on him to return, quickly moved to set his dinner upon the table.

"Danke, Herr Heinrich, Herr Traugott." He settled himself at the table as the two men, both on loan from one of the Nazi supporters who had attended his dinner on a month earlier, moved to stand by the door as guards.

Without warning, a woman's scream echoed through the little shack in the mountains. Chauvelin did not flinch, but merely picked up his knife to cut his steak. How many times had he heard the screams of different people being tortured for information? Too many to count, really. It was nothing new, nothing interesting.

Calmly, he said, "Herr Traugott, if you would shut the door, please?"

"Of course, Monsieur Chauvelin," the man replied brusquely.

The door closed with a light snap, and the screams for mercy became faint and muffled, though not entirely drowned out by the wind and thin walls.

Chauvelin stabbed at a piece of steak with a small smile; behind him, Herr Heinrich murmured to his companion, "Herr Giselbert is a true German patriot, is he not?"

Chauvelin could not help but agree. It seemed luck was moving in his direction after all, and his recent find was proving extremely efficient. And damn Sir Percival Blakeney, Baronet, to hell – the man would not reach this place in time to save either Marguerite or Andrew Ffoulkes from death, just as he had not saved those Jewish families Marguerite had sentenced to death, either.