Next, Éponine wanted to go stargazing.
Grantaire wondered if she was using him as some kind of outlet to indulge all her romantic fantasies — despite, he knew, not caring for him that way. He wondered too if that ought to offend him. It didn't really. He was happy to do whatever she wanted.
So Éponine and Grantaire went stargazing. They lay on their backs in an open field, angled in an upside down V with their heads together at the top.
"Do you know any constellations?" Grantaire asked.
Éponine didn't know the meaning of the word, so he proceeded to point some out to her. She then found him an arrangement that she claimed looked like a bottle of absinthe.
"Tilted on its side, see? And that smattering of stars there — that can be some of the drink spilling out and puddling."
"I never spill my absinthe," he smiled. "Must be your whiskey bottle."
It occurred to Grantaire as they jested that he and Éponine had not drunk together in quite a while… He wasn't sure why. Perhaps he'd subconsciously wanted to refrain from drinking in front of Azelma? But Azelma only joined him and Éponine occasionally...
Grantaire was interrupted in his musings by Éponine bolting upright into a seated position. The quick movement startled him. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and looked at her questioningly.
"What is it, Ép?"
She pointed. He followed her finger and saw the figure of a man, crossing the field some distance away. Grantaire looked from the man to Éponine, and his throat tightened.
"Do you know that person?"
She tossed him a condescending glance. "It's Monsieur Marius, aveugle. "
"Ah!" Grantaire sagged in relief. He was not keen on encountering any other man in Éponine's life…
Or... Perhaps he was...
Éponine interrupted Grantaire's aggressive reverie by pushing herself onto her feet.
"Come on," she said, her eyes fixed on Pontmercy's distant figure. "Let's follow him."
Grantaire barked out a laugh. Dancing and stargazing was one thing. But if Éponine thought she was going to rope him into her night-time stalking of Pontmercy…
But she was already loping away. So, with only a grumble, he picked himself up and jogged after her.
As it turned out, Pontmercy was headed to see his sweetheart. He snuck into the garden of her rather massive house, and Éponine and a dutiful Grantaire hid just outside the gate, watching.
"I can't believe you enjoy this," Grantaire muttered, peevishly. "Spying on him while he's making love to your rival."
Éponine opened her mouth to retort that it was no different than watching Enjolras plan his revolution (the other Amis always joked about how Patria was their leader's mistress), but she remembered herself in time and held her tongue.
"She isn't my rival," she said instead. "Rival means both people have a fighting chance. I haven't."
By the bright moonlight, Éponine saw Grantaire's forehead twitch. She turned away so she wouldn't also have to see the sympathy in his eyes.
The two proceeded "spying" in silence after that. Grantaire's only communication was to bring his hand to Éponine's back and lightly finger the ends of her hair. She cast him a brief smile.
After several minutes had passed, Éponine suddenly straightened up and cocked her head, as though listening to something. Grantaire watched her curiously.
"What is it?" he asked, for the second time that evening.
"Do you hear voices?"
"No." Pontmercy and the girl were just close enough to see, but too far off to hear.
Éponine turned around, peering into the distance. Suddenly, she paled. "Oh no." She began rocking on the balls of her feet and wringing her hands. " Merde. Oh no, oh merde. "
Grantaire's hands flew anxiously to her shoulders to calm her. He craned his neck behind him in an attempt to identify the threat. His eyes flicked about, and finally settled on a small mob of figures, slowly coming their way.
"'Taire," Éponine's voice was wrought with fear and urgency. "Scram. Please."
Grantaire's chest tightened in alarm. "What is it?" he hissed, tightening his grip on her shoulders. "Who are they?"
"No one I want you to meet. Go away. Go home."
"You know them." It was a statement, not a question. Grantaire felt sick to his stomach, and sick at heart.
Éponine nodded.
Grantaire's mouth twisted. "Right." His hand fell to Éponine's wrist and he gave her a tug. "Let's go."
"No." She pulled away, shaking her head. "I need to stay here. They'll try to rob the house. Monsieur Marius is in there."
"And? What are you going to do about it?"
"I'll convince them not to."
Grantaire glanced over his shoulder again. The figures were far closer and could probably already see them. He turned to Éponine, his eyes pleading. "Éponine, please come with me."
"Scram, 'Taire." She sounded as desperate as he felt. She pressed both hands to his chest and gave him a vigorous shove. He staggered back. Righting himself, he stepped toward her again and caught her hand in his.
"I'm not going anywhere without you."
" Please... " Éponine's eyes ran over Grantaire's face, desperately searching for a crack in his resolve. But he was solid, as determined as she'd ever seen him. Her whole body drooped in despondent defeat. Then, she straightened up and fixed him with a fierce stare. "Don't you dare make a scene." With that, she turned to face the approaching mob.
Grantaire's hand still held hers, and he gave it a squeeze. She looked down at their clasped hands, then back at the mob. Fear flashed across her face, and she wriggled out of his grip.
"Don't touch me," she whispered.
It was not a reproach or an expression of revulsion. Rather, she seemed to be giving him some crucial instruction. Grantaire's forehead pinched together in confusion and anxiety, but he did not reach for her hand again.
Fixing his eyes back on the mob, he saw that they had stopped for a moment and seemed to be discussing among themselves. But soon they evidently came to a decision, and began approaching again. As the figures materialized in detail, Grantaire saw that most of them were carrying some type of weapon (meat axes, clubs, and the like) and had faces blackened with soot. One was wearing a mask. They all wore the clothes of ruffians, save for a slender young man who was dressed rather elegantly. He had left his face unblackened, and Grantaire couldn't help but remark that it was extraordinarily handsome.
'If I had a face like that,' he thought to himself wryly, peppering the angst of the moment with a touch of humour, 'I wouldn't want to hide it either.'
As they approached, the handsome youth stepped ahead of the group, drawing close to Éponine.
"'Ponine," he lilted. His voice was smooth as butter. "You gave us pause for a moment. Thought maybe there was someone standing watch. But I recognized you."
He reached out and trailed the back of his hand along the skin of Éponine's bare arm. A fire lit itself inside Grantaire's stomach and his hands clenched into fists at his side. Éponine cast him a glance that was at once threatening and pleading. Don't you dare make a scene, that glance said, echoing her words of a moment ago.
The handsome man turned his gaze to Grantaire. "Who's this?" he asked, his mouth stretching into a grin that exposed perfect white teeth. "Not your bourgeois boy, I'm sure. I can hardly imagine you'd fall for a face like that. "
"No." Éponine's voice was horrifyingly sweet. It didn't sound like her at all. "'Course I wouldn't."
Grantaire flinched. She'd never said anything cruel about his ugliness before… Never even teased him about it in good humour. Was Éponine acting? She didn't seem to be… but this wasn't the Éponine he knew at all. Everything about her was foreign — from the casual cruelness of her words, to the tone in which she spoke them, to the adoring way she gazed at that handsome young man… It was all sickly sweet, doting, submissive. It made Grantaire feel as though curdled milk was pumping through his veins, rather than blood.
Grantaire watched as Éponine stepped forward and kissed the young man at the corner of his mouth. Had Grantaire looked at the young man, he would have seen an expression of surprised delight on his face, betraying that Éponine's behaviour was not ordinary. But Grantaire did not look at him. His eyes were locked on Éponine.
"What brings you here, 'Parnasse?" Éponine asked lightly.
If it was possible for Grantaire's gut to tighten even more so, it did at the utterance of that name.
"Who hurts you?"
"It's not one person. Papa. 'Parnasse. The other men I need to screw."
Grantaire's eyes at last broke away from Éponine's face and travelled to Montparnasse. They flicked down to his hands. They were elegant hands, soft and white from lack of work. His fingers were long and slender. Grantaire imagined those fingers wrapped around Éponine's throat…
His head reeled. He watched as Montparnasse smiled lasciviously at Éponine.
"Came to rob the place of course," Montparnasse answered her.
"Rob it?" Éponine sounded convincingly surprised, though she'd predicted a moment earlier that this was what the mob was here for. "But why? I told you all this place was a biscuit."
The masked man spoke up. "You were misinformed," he drawled in a ventriloquist's voice.
Another small, skinny man who stood close to the front of the group spoke as well. "The old man's as rich as I thought," he growled. "New sources confirm it. Besides that, revenge is a sweet enough prize for me."
"It's alright 'Ponine," Montparnasse said, still with that lecherous smile. "Everyone's allowed to make mistakes once in a while." Montparnasse lifted a hand to Éponine's face and tickled underneath her chin with one of those slender fingers.
Grantaire's heart threw itself against his chest like a battering ram. He clenched his fists even tighter so that his fingernails dug painfully into his palms.
The small man spoke again. "Not a mistake that almost costs us a fortune!" he barked. "She'll pay for this one when we get home."
"Papa." Éponine stepped forward and reached for the small man's hand.
Papa...
Papa and 'Parnasse...
Grantaire was seeing white.
"Papa, I've spent much time here. They live simply. Just the old man, the girl, and one servant. The old man even eats black bread. Your sources must be mistaken. He's certainly no millionaire."
"He's a scammer, that's what he is," Thénardier growled. "Tricks us all into thinking he's poor, makes us grateful to him for his generosity, when in fact he's stashing heaps of silver and gold that he doesn't care to hand over. Well, he'll hand it over tonight."
"Papa —"
"He's right, 'Ponine," Montparnasse contributed, hooking an arm around Éponine's waist and drawing her to his side. "Apparently the old man's got some bizarre affinity for living like a pauper, but he is indeed a millionaire."
Éponine turned from Montparnasse back to her father, her eyes anxious and desperate. Finally, her face hardened.
"Alright," she said, pulling away from Montparnasse's grasp and looking around at the ruffians. "You're determined to rob the place, are you? Well, I won't let you. If you try to get into the garden — if you so much as touch this gate — I'll scream the place down. I'll rouse the whole neighbourhood with my screaming. I'm the watchdog, and if you try anything, I'll bark." Her jaw tightened and she lifted her chin defiantly. "What do I care if my body's picked up in the street tomorrow morning, beaten to death by my own father? I'm not scared of you. So you might as well be on your way. You're not getting through these gates on my watch."
Thénardier stared at his daughter in shock. Then his face twisted into something horrible. Grantaire's heartbeat quickened and his entire body tensed.
"What's gotten into you?" Thénardier spat. "I'll show you to defy your father, you little bitch!" He raised his hand, the back of it poised to strike Éponine across the face —
And Grantaire pounced.
A roar ripped from his lungs as he launched himself at Thénardier, tackling him to the ground. Éponine let out a howl of despair, then flung herself onto Grantaire's back, wrapping her arms around his middle and trying desperately to haul him off of her father.
"Stop!" she cried. As Grantaire wound back a closed fist, she promptly released his middle and latched onto the crook of his elbow instead, using her entire body weight to hold his arm back. "'Taire, stop it!"
Montparnasse joined the fray. He hadn't a clue who this ugly oaf was, but he didn't like the way he looked at 'Ponine, so he was all too happy to rid Thénardier of his assailant. Drawing up behind Éponine, Montparnasse reached down and grabbed her by the hair. With a vicious yank — she was light, but she was fierce — he managed to toss her aside. Then he flicked his right hand with a kind of flourish and popped out his knife.
Éponine was there in an instant. Before Montparnasse even had a chance to raise the knife above Grantaire's back, she whirled around and seized it by the blade with both hands. Wresting it from his grip, she brandished the knife before its owner.
"Don't touch him!" she shrieked. "I swear I'll kill you, 'Parnasse!"
Blood began to trickle from her hands down her wrists.
Montparnasse stared at Éponine in mute shock. His eyes shifted over to Grantaire, who was being wrestled off of Thénardier by Guelemer and Brujon, but who was giving the two brutes quite a run for their money. Then he looked again at Éponine, and his lips curled back into a snarl.
Éponine couldn't deign to give that snarl any attention, for Guelemer was raising a club above Grantaire's head. With another shriek, she threw Montparnasse's knife, and it buried itself in the back of Guelemer's hand. He howled and dropped the club, which glanced off of Grantaire's shoulders.
And then Éponine was screaming. Screaming long and loud. It was such a shrill, piercing sound that many of the ruffians swore and covered their ears.
"Abort!" Claquesous barked, waving his arms at the others. "If they haven't heard us yet, they have now! Beat it and meet back at base!"
The members of Patron-Minette scattered. Guelemer and Thénardier were a little behind the others, for Guelemer had to wrench the knife out of his hand (he cast it aside) and Thénardier was still picking himself up from the ground, a little dazed.
Yet it was Montparnasse who tarried the longest. He stood in place, long after Claquesous had barked his warning, looking slowly from Éponine to Grantaire. In his eyes was that same dangerous glint that had once made Éponine fear for Marius's safety.
Trembling, Éponine bent down onto the ground, her eyes never leaving Montparnasse, and closed her bleeding hand around the discarded knife.
"Beat it, 'Parnasse," she whispered.
The assassin's handsome mouth twisted into a smirk. Then he turned and loped away.