The plot accelerates. Drop a review, if you please.
Javert turned his back to the gendarme standing at attention in his office. Grinding his teeth together, he looked out the open windows over the streets of Paris. Such is the nature of the ambitious, to be irked and irritated by another with the same vaulting resolve.
He forced a deep inhalation, gathering his words carefully. "Tanville, I am flattered by your enthusiasm, but I have already informed those to be involved with my trap." He clasped his hands behind his back. "I do not require more men."
The young gendarme dared one step closer, and at hearing the sudden motion, Javert spun tightly around. He hated this underling's posture, his short stature, his dirty-blonde hair and his messily kept moustache. And always, that sheepish grin of forced respect on his long face.
"I have always admired your work, Inspector Javert," the man's high-pitched voiced grated against Javert's ears.
He harrumphed quietly, gripping the back of his desk chair tightly in his hands.
The gendarme was not to be deterred apparently. His irritating voice continued, as did that foolish smile. "You see, Inspector..." he scratched behind his head, his shoulders raising in a shrug... "You really don't have much of a choice. It's the Commissioner's orders to add me to your taskforce." His lanky hand reached from the back of his head, diving into his right-hand pocket and withdrawing a small folded piece of paper.
In two long strides, Javert circled around his desk and snatched the paper from the weakly thin fingers. His green eyes passed efficiently over the scrawled lines for a single second for him to understand. He grunted, folding the paper in two and pinning it with his palm to the top of his desk at his side.
"I warn you, Tanville. Cause my trap to close without my prey because you were one man too many, and you have my word I will see you dismissed." He watched as the slightest trace of concern knit the young man's brow together. "You may have friends in high places, but you don't want to form enemies with authority like mine either."
Alastair Tanville glanced down at the Inspector's hand—his fist crumpled the Commissioner's notice as if to squeeze its order from it. But he was not so easily intimidated; he grinned widely. "You have my word, Inspector. What's one more loyal and eager man at your command?"
A single laugh burst from Javert as he turned his back on the gendarme again. He could only bring himself to look at that face for so long.
Just then, the bells of Notre Dame rang the hour, chiming with the deep-throated sonorities eight times. At the very last stroke, a quick rapping knock sounded at his door. "Come," Javert ordered with a smile. She was perfectly punctual. Immediately, he busied himself by sitting at his desk, organizing and sorting the superfluous stacks of paper.
"Bonjour, Inspector," her voice greeted, "I've brought you coffee again, Monsieur."
He didn't bother to look up, gesturing brusquely with a wave of his hand to set it down beside him. He heard the door shut and her footsteps begin their short, measured walk to her desk.
But they stopped short. "Allow me, Madame," that whiny-voiced gendarme ventured ever so politely.
Javert's gaze flashed up, observing the exact moment for himself. He couldn't help but smirk watching Cécelie push away the hand as it reached to take the cup from her. Her eyes gleamed humouredly down at him, sharing an amused smile as she set the china cup down on the desktop. He off-handedly mumbled his thanks under his breath and returned to signing reports. The productive silence broke only for the screech of her chair as she settled in her seat beside him.
But that shrill voice pierced the silence again. "Madame, are you not la Comptesse?"
"What does it matter to you, Tanville?" Javert sneered into his paperwork, not even bothering to direct a glance at the gendarme.
Tanville shrugged and adjusted the cuffs of his navy and red uniform. "It doesn't, 'Sieur Javert—" Javert twitched at the crassness of the title— "It's just that there has been little talk of nothing else for the past day..."
Cécelie's musical laugh barely surprised him, and, nevertheless, he stared at her beside him. She angled her chin forward, folding her arms and leaning them across the tabletop before her. Laughing again, she said, "And what do you say about me... Tanville, is it?"
A thin smile turned his equally thin mouth. "Well, most of it isn't fit for a lady's ears, Madame..."
"Try me," she interjected with a twitch of her eyes, narrowing their blue intensity at the stranger.
Tanville froze, shocked slightly by her forward, inappropriate demeanor. Guess that part of the rumors was true. With a nervous laugh, he toyed with the bright red plume of the cap pinned in the crook of his arm. "Bien, Madame... mostly we just... think... about what sort of a mistress you would make..."
Javert loudly cleared his throat, still not so much as throwing a sidelong glance from his papers. "I was under the impression, Tanville, that you were scheduled for duty in the lower prisons at eight every morning—" he emphatically set the paper atop an already huge stack beside him— " or am I wrong?"
Tanville forced his grin wider as he bowed slightly to the Inspector. "Excuse me, but I believe I must be going." As he turned towards the door, he heard footsteps follow behind him. And just as he reached for the door handle, a thin, lithe hand grabbed it before he could, opening the door wide for him.
"You leave without affirming the rumors, Tanville?" Her smile was alluringly crooked, her eyes fiercely dark in their hue and unashamed, immodest in their scrutiny. She seemed to look everywhere and nowhere in particular at the same time.
Her chuckle so soft, he almost couldn't hear it. "Are you not curious whether I would make a devoted, wilting, and yielding mistress."
The constant scratching of the pen's nip stopped.
"...or perhaps animated and giggly and enthusiastic..."
Breathing from the opposite side of the room grew louder, and so did Cécelie's voice.
"... or perhaps a mistress as cruel and harsh as she is unfaithful and fickle?"
The familiar clink of a pen dipping in an inkpot echoed in the heavy silence, almost deafening to the eager gendarme. He raised one eyebrow. "Well, Madame... which is it?"
"I will never tell, and you will never know," she laughed, dipping a comical curtsey with one hand to gesture him out the door.
He would not budge. His dark eyes darted back to the bureau, finding the Inspector still hard at work with signatures and depositions. That moment, Tanville forgot to keep his grin on his mouth. "Well, perhaps I should ask the Inspector, Madame, if you will not tell me which one you are..."
She chuckled harsher again, "It would do you no good, Monsieur. I am my own mistress." Her eyes brightened, and Tanville could not tell whether fear or passion lit them. She guided him through the door, her posture tall, her jaw clenched tightly. "Bonjour, Monsieur," she bid him, shutting the door behind his back.
Waiting until the echoing footsteps faded from the hall, Cécelie tried to hide the tremor in her hands. She turned slowly, half-afraid, half-amused to see what expression crossed the Inspector's face. But all that returned her glance was the straight, dark top of his head, as he still bent low over his work. Hesitating, she eventually decided to retake her seat, unable to look away from him, waiting for his approval. Beginning to fear his condemnation.
Hands folded in her lap, she watched his fixated gaze, his efficient, swift work. Her brows furrowed slightly, irritated that he ignored her. She may have toyed with the young man, shamelessly perhaps. But that meant nothing, not like what they had... Her eyes flashed over his down-turned head again.
"Monsieur l'inspecteur?" she called softly.
He grunted, tapping the extra ink from his nib on the rim of the bottle, throwing a brief look from the corner of his eye.
Cécelie's head cocked to one side, trying to catch his gaze again unsuccessfully. "Surely, you know I was merely teasing the man..."
"Of course you were," his mumble sounded constrained. Or was that sarcasm, Cécelie sneered.
"I shoved him out of your office for his disrespect, Monsieur..." her head shook defensively from side to side, "...and what I told him..."
"Yes, thank you, Cécelie." Javert stood awkwardly from his desk, his voice exasperatedly short. He gathered the papers from his desk, lining them perfectly in a pile. Finally, he met her gaze, the familiar piercing look catching her off guard. His mouth curled slowly into a thin smile. "Remarkable, really, the way you hide the truth. I am glad to see you value secrecy enough not to make a complete spectacle of yourself." He shoved the collated papers into her hands. "Now, the sorting will not be done by itself." His eyes glimmered as he sat back down, reaching for his pen again with a curling smirk on his gaunt face. "Get to it," he half laughed, "Mistress Cécelie."
She barely breathed a laugh, smirking as she made her way over to the shelves, sorting papers silently by their correct case number. Every few seconds, she checked from the corner of her eye if he was watching from across the room. Instead, she only found the green of his eyes fixed on the papers held in his hands.
From the periphery of his sigh, he observed her every glance; a smile twitched for but an instant over his mouth at her disappointment each time she checked. Subordination suited her, he sneered to himself.
Then the gleam of bleached white china caught his eye. Looking away from the report in his hands, he reached for the still steaming coffee. If he were not careful, he could easily grow accustomed to this newly forming ritual. The fortification after an exhausting night. The gentle hum of productivity. The soft swirling swish of her skirts as she walked about his office.
Without warning, the door banged open, Tanville panting as he stood in its frame. "Inspector Javert," he wheezed as he saluted the brim of his hat, "News from the informers in the red light district." He paused, wiping the trickle of sweat from the side of his face.
"Get on with it," Javert snarled from his desk.
"Tournot's gang must have caught wind they were being followed, Monsieur. The informants reported all five members entering Mistress Rosette's... establishment... throughout the course of the night."
"Are they still there?" the Inspector's face lost all expression, stony and unmoving.
"Reports say they had not left by daybreak." Tanville replied succinctly, barely glancing to the woman off to his side.
Javert stood from his bureau, retrieving his greatcoat and stick. With a shake of his head, he let a slowly, gravely laugh pass from his lips. "No, they are trapped now until nightfall, and by then we will be ready. I have barely just enough time."
His coat and stick in one arm, his free hand grabbed Cécelie by her elbow. "Get yourself ready, Rénauld. It's time to prove your other skills," his laughter shook his words, causing each one to quake in his anticipation. "Tanville," his attention shifted suddenly, "gather the first division. Efficiency is everything. We have absolutely no time to lose."
The gendarme bowed quickly, and as he straightened, he noticed how the tightly the Inspector's fingers gripped into the woman's arm. But he would not take the obvious time to pause and draw attention, turning quickly to follow his instructions.
Regaining himself, he felt the muscles of her arm spasm in his grasp. Javert released his hand from her, half-surprised she was still in his office. A flat smile formed over his mouth. "Cécelie, get going. My success depends greatly on you alone. Do not be the reason and entire gang of thieves and murderers slips through my net."
"Had that happen before, Monsieur?" she smirked as she stepped to the door.
His face furrowed in thought so deep it appeared painful. His eyes flashed wide, their emerald light burning back at her, steeled over in resolve. "It will not happen again," he barked his reply, his teeth frighteningly visible in his snarl.
"For my own purposes as well as yours, Inspector Javert, I will do my best." Her determined smile seemed to linger, though he heard her footsteps pace down the hall long after the door had shut.