The next day, Javert did not see Cosette at all. He slept through the night, though fitfully, because his dreams were filled with thoughts about seeing Gavroche's bullet-riddled little corpse, with thoughts of being haunted by the spectre of Valjean for years, with thoughts of staring down into the cold and waiting black Seine, with thoughts of the taste of Cosette's lips. He gasped awake more than once, wincing in pain and staring at the dark ceiling, his fists clutching at the blue toile blankets as he swallowed past the dry knot in his throat and realised he was more lost now than ever.
He slept most of the day, which was too warm and oppressively sunny. Toussaint brought him crusty bread and wine at some point, and though he did not take more laudanum for the pain, he was still drowsy from his unstable sleep and from the ache in his healing face. He got up and used the chamber pot twice during the day, and Toussaint came to empty it. The bedroom got hot, so Javert asked Toussaint to open the window, and he could hear distant voices and the sound of horse hooves and rolling carriage wheels from beyond the garden walls. He just lay there all day, drifting in and out of bored rest, but Cosette never made an appearance.
For some reason, Javert kept flicking his eyes toward his door, imagining that she might come creeping through, that she might sit gently on the edge of his bed like she'd done a few times now. She would lean down and kiss him, threading her fingers into his hair, her voice soft, her breath warm on his lips. She would be confused and urgent. She would want him. She wouldn't even really know what she wanted, but she would want him , the lovely little bird. Javert had been lying there in his bed for hours thinking about that, imagining it, wondering if she might come, but she never did come.
Javert passed a few hours reading Antigone by Sophocles, though it was a French translation as he had no literacy whatsoever in Greek. At last he surrendered and went to sleep again for the night, but he had not been very tired, and his dreams had again been very troubled. His body had awakened him quite vividly well before sunrise, and Javert had determined without question that he would go to the station-house today to assure his Commissaire that he was healing well and would be back at work very soon. Perhaps, Javert thought, there was some paperwork he could bring back to rue Plumet so that at least this time of healing was not completely idle.
He heaved himself out of bed after using the flint and steel kit in the little drawer to light the candle in the elaborate brass holder, and he carried the light over to the vanity near the window. He poured some lukewarm water from the cream-and-blue ceramic pitcher into the matching basin on the washstand. He took a few moments to use the bar of mild olive Castile soap on the stand to wash his face, carefully gliding over his stitches to cleanse them without abrading the area too roughly and being gentle around the inflamed cheekbone. He sudsed the sweat and grime from his neck and chest, from his hairline and from behind his ears. He peeled off his nightshirt and dampened a small linen cloth, using a bit of soapy water to clean the worst of his own sweaty smell from his underarms and limbs before daubing his privates as clean as possible. It felt good, he thought distantly, to feel the tepid water evaporate from his bare skin.
He used a boar-bristle toothbrush and a bit of powder to scrub roughly at his teeth, which had held up surprisingly well through the decades, all things considered. Javert had his strict sense of discipline to thank for that, he supposed. He had never let his body fall into a state of disrepair, even as he'd reached the age of fifty-four. He had served in Napoleon's army in his youth, and he had returned to France to become an abstemious and self-controlling prison guard and then police officer. All the while, he had valued his own hygiene and physical appearance nearly as much as he had valued his sense of duty. He had bathed much more regularly than had his fellow officers; that much was obvious by the stench the others wore about them. He had always kept his long hair neatly brushed and tied back. He even kept a comb and extra ribbon in his uniform at all times in case his queue came loose on the job. He cleaned his teeth religiously so that they would not rot out of his skull. He kept his body well-nourished and toned and in good health. And so, at fifty-four, he was still intimidating and robust in appearance, and that fact made Javert rather proud.
Right now, he needed something to feel proud about. He had, in the last several days, lost a good deal of himself, he thought.
He stared in the mirror and used a straight razor and some small scissors to carefully adjust the situation of his facial hair until it was precisely to his liking, with his substantial mutton chops sharply angling just so and shaping around his jawbones. At the present time, though, it was nearly impossible to work with the left side of his face, because that was where he'd been struck by the wine bottle. Javert finally gave up on his efforts to precisely neaten the upper edge of his lower left cheek, because it was simply too painful to touch the razor there. He sighed and instead turned his attention to using a soft-bristled brush to sweep his grey hair back smoothly, and suddenly he remembered the way Cosette had burrowed her fingers his hair beside his ear.
He froze as he stared into the mirror and gulped. Abruptly, and very unexpectedly, blood flushed between his legs and caused swelling there, and Javert shifted where he stood, trying and failing to will away the sensation of desire that was welling up. He seethed through clenched teeth as he finished tying his hair back, knotting up the queue securely and dragging his fingers over his own straight, silky grey hair as he shut his eyes and remembered the sight of Cosette's wide, curious pale eyes when she'd drawn a few stray locks away from his face.
"Cosette," he heard himself whisper aloud then, and the throbbing between his legs became very insistent. Javert's hands flew to the edge of the wash table, and he winced. She was just a young girl, he scolded himself. Just a little flit of a thing. She was mourning that silly, dead, bourgeois rebel boy. And she was Jean Valjean's adopted daughter. And who was he? Who was Javert, anyway? Just some dusty old bachelor of a half-Gypsy policeman, an enemy of her father's, who had been dragged to this house because he'd been cowardly enough to have been about to jump off a ruddy bridge out of piteous desperation. And now he was standing here with his cock hard thinking of her touching his hair.
"Ridiculous," he hissed to himself, opening his eyes and glaring maliciously at himself in the mirror. He slammed a hand roughly on the wood of the wash table and huffed a breath, shoving away all thoughts of Cosette. He tried not to think of her at all as he stormed over to his wardrobe and yanked on a plain white cotton shirt and linen knee-length drawers. He tried not to think of her as he buttoned up his emerald wool waistcoat, or as he slid on his maroon frock coat and his black wool breeches. He managed to keep his head clear as he tied up his black cravat in a no-nonsense manner round his neck, as he attached his plain brass pocket watch to his waistcoat and reached for his top hat. But then he froze when he went for his shined-up boots.
Suddenly he remembered lying in his bed, dizzy from being struck, needing rest badly, and Cosette fretting over him like a mother hen as she'd helped him ease under the blankets. Before she'd tucked him in like a beloved child, she'd yanked off his boots without him asking her to do so. Now Javert stared at them on the ground and licked his lips, feeling like he could taste her there. He shook his head and whispered to himself again,
"You are being ridiculous."
He shoved his feet into his boots and then wrenched open the bedroom door.
"Monsieur le Commissaire." Javert snapped to attention, even though he had not come to the station-house in uniform. He had considered it, had considered coming in full dress, but to do so would have violated the direct orders he had been given. He was on leave until his wounds from the glassing incident had healed, so he had come in civilian attire. Still, he stood at attention with his back ramrod straight and his arms glued to his sides as Commissaire Caron entered the office where Javert had been waiting for him. Caron, a man around Javert's age but significantly shorter and thinner with a wiry mustache and small black eyes, looked surprised to see Javert at the station-house at all. He nodded and said crisply,
"At ease. Sit, Javert."
Javert slowly sank down into the leather chair opposite his commander, who eyed his injured face and pursed his narrow lips. Commissaire Caron noted tartly, "Quite a bottle that pimp struck you with. You look like you've been stung by a hundred bees, Javert."
Javert's face flushed hot with embarrassment at that. He sighed a little and nodded. "I do apologise for being unable to do my duty properly, Commissaire Caron. That is why I have come. I have come to ask for work."
Canon scoffed. "Of course you have. Why am I not surprised? This injury has granted you a lovely little holiday, Javert, but of course you will not accept it. That is not in your nature, is it?"
Javert was silent. He waited until Canon shifted some things around on his desk and then finally lifted a heavy, thick folio out from under a pile and nodded to himself. He passed it across the desk to Javert and instructed him,
"See to all of this. It will feel like drudgery, I'm sure, but it needs to be done. There is much to be done in the wake of this wretched rebellion, I'm afraid. As it turns out, many of the scum who were at various barricades were not Frenchmen at all."
Javert gave the Commissaire a curious look and opened the folio. His eyes flicked down the list of suspects before him, and he scowled at the names. "Bianchi. Kaczmarek. Hoffman. Fischer. Kowalski. Gallo. These are… Italians, Poles, Germans."
He raised his gaze back to the Commissaire, who nodded slowly and looked annoyed as he affirmed, "Everyone on that list is currently in custody and has been confirmed to be a refugee in Paris from a country that evicted them or from which they fled because of their nationalist tendencies, or because of their republican actions. His Majesty's France will not tolerate them here. The paperwork in that folio is what is needed to securely and quickly deport them. France will not pay to house them in our prisons. So… there is your work, Javert. Take it and get that mess of a face healed up."
Javert nodded firmly. He rose from his chair and saluted. Then he broke his salute and said, rather sincerely, "Thank you… Monsieur le Commissaire."
Canon just stared at him for a long moment and finally shrugged. "I know you too well at this point, Javert. I know very well that you can not just sit and read books and stare out windows whilst the swelling in that face comes down and your mind clears completely. Go take care of that paperwork, but do it in bed, eh?"
"Yes, Monsieur." Javert bowed respectfully.
"Dismissed."
Javert decided to stop for a late breakfast at La Verdure et la Vigne, a light and airy place near the Palais-Royal Gardens. He tucked his folio from the station-house under his arm as he was shown to a table near the large glass window on his own. He sat down and was quickly attended to by a young, pretty woman in her twenties who was clad in a simple dark blue cotton dress, her brunette curls drawn back into a low and very unassuming chignon that was covered with a white bonnet that matched her apron. She curtsied politely, looking Javert up and down as her lips parted a little. She handed him the menu for the breakfast on offer, and still he felt her eyes on him as he made his selections.
"Erm… coffee, brewed strong. Cream, no sugar. Two poached eggs… a bit of salami and some good cheese… and some berries. That'll do."
He passed the menu back to the waitress, who stared at him dumbly for a moment before jarring with her nubby little pencil in her hand and nodding frantically. She grinned madly then and repeated his order back to him. She dashed off, and Javert frowned deeply. What a strange young woman, he thought, to have treated him so. It must have been his face, he thought. She must have been ogling the injury on his face and either feeling sorry for him or thinking that he was downright offensive for having come out in public looking so hideous and deformed.
Feeling abruptly very self-conscious, Javert stared at the empty chair opposite him and shifted where he sat. He had a sudden vision, for some reason, of bringing Cosette to this restaurant. It would be an odd thing, wouldn't it, to sit here in public with her, the two of them dining together and conversing? It would be bizarre, to be here with her out in the open where everyone could see, able to stare into her pale eyes and see her smile, to have a discussion, to enjoy a meal and then stroll through the streets with her back to his house and…
Back to his house.
Javert's mouth fell open at that thought. Why had his mind gone there? She would never see his house, and he knew that damned well. Javert lived on rue de la Croix-Nivert in a three-story stone house, unassuming but perfectly respectable. There was nothing extravagant about the interior of his home, and indeed in some ways it was downright spartan, but it was kept immaculately clean and tidy, and the furnishings were all in very good condition. Javert would hardly have been ashamed for Cosette to see it. Still… she would never step foot inside the place. What reason would she have to do so? His throat felt very dry all of a sudden, and he was not exactly certain why.
"Monsieur?"
Javert startled and looked up, and when he did, he saw that the waitress had come back and had brought him his coffee. He nodded his thanks as she set it down before him. She pulled his plate of food off of her rolling serving cart, setting it on the table, and he eyed his eggs and salami and cheese with sliced strawberries and a few blackberries in a little bowl.
"Anything else, Monsieur?"
Her voice was a strange little trill, and when Javert glanced up at her again, he realised what the issue was. Flirting. She was flirting with him. He frowned at her. That was most unexpected, he thought. Had he not come into this restaurant with a face that looked… well, exactly like he'd been beaten round his skull? And he was fifty-four years old; why was a pretty young waitress flirting with him? But there she was, her hands crossed before her as she swayed back and forth on her feet and flashed him a winning little smile. Javert had seen such toying and coquetry many times from women through the years, though it was not very often that he himself had been the recipient. He cleared his throat and said somewhat firmly,
"No, mademoiselle. Nothing else."
He pulled out a few coins and paid his way through so that she would leave him alone, and she looked a bit crestfallen but dipped politely as she pushed her cart away, leaving Javert to enjoy his coffee and eggs and berries in peace.
"My. What pleasant weather we are having this afternoon, after yesterday's warm sunshine," joked a voice from behind where Javert stood looking through the glass windows that overlooked Valjean's messy little garden. He smirked and shook his head, rolling his eyes. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he shifted as he recalled a bit grimly,
"Rain always made things quite difficult at Toulon."
"So it did," Valjean agreed, stepping up alongside Javert. He did not make eye contact, just standing beside Javert and staring out the window as the rain poured hard, cascading down the glass. "Ought you not be abed, Inspector? With that injury?"
"I have been working," Javert said firmly. "Paperwork. Follow-up from the rebellion."
"Ah." Valjean sniffed. "Well. I have never in my life known you to neglect your duty, Javert. I would not expect you to wallow idly because of a silly little wine bottle now."
Javert finally turned his face just a little to glance at Valjean, noticing just how very old the man had become. White-haired, wrinkled, just a bit hunched. He seemed drawn and weary. He was still strong. That much had been very obvious when Javert had found Valjean rescuing Marius. He was still relatively nimble. That much had been obvious judging by Valjean's actions at the barricade. But he was genuinely old now. Javert knew that Valjean had a good ten years on him. He had been a grown, beastly man when first Javert had met him at Toulon. Now Javert sighed and gnawed his lip for a moment before muttering,
"You have raised her well."
Valjean's lips curled up just a little. He still stared out the window. His pale eyes glistened suddenly, and he whispered, "Then if I fall asleep tonight and do not wake, my life will have been a success. She is my life's purpose. But I admit… I had hoped that Marius Pontmercy would live. She loved him; she would have married him. And then he would have cared for her. I am old, Javert. You know as well as I do that I will not live too much longer. She is only just becoming a young woman. I worry desperately over her future. Her mother…"
"She is not her mother," Javert snarled, hearing the cruel roughness in his own voice immediately. His mind flared with a vivid flashback then; he could see Cosette's mother in his mind, could feel Fantine grasping desperately at his own leg and pleading for mercy. He could hear his own voice admonishing her, threatening her with court, with jail. She was sick and dying, and if he'd known that, he had not really cared. Valjean had cared enough to get her to a hospital and to learn about Cosette's whereabouts, to physically fight Javert, to escape, to go fetch Cosette and…
Javert felt profoundly sick all of a sudden. His head was spinning. His fingers went up to the windowpane, and he leaned forward until his forehead touched the cool glass. He shut his eyes and whispered again,
"She is not her mother, Valjean."
"No. No, Cosette is not Fantine, because Fantine was abandoned," he heard Valjean muse. "Cosette will be left a bit of an inheritance, at least, to ensure she has food and clothing and shelter. Still, this world is not entirely safe for a young woman alone, you know, and I -"
"Have you made plans to die in the immediate future?" Javert snapped rather sardonically, pulling his head away from the window and glaring at Valjean. The other man shook his head a little and shrugged.
"Her welfare has been at the forefront of my consciousness for a decade."
Javert nodded slowly. "I can see that."
Valjean opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, but then, from behind the two men, a songbird's voice twirled through the air,
"Oh! Inspector Javert! How good it is to see you up and about. I had tried not to bother you yesterday whilst you were resting, but…"
He turned to see that Cosette had come into the little reception room, and suddenly his breath caught. She was in black again, black for Marius Pontmercy, this time a high-necked bombazine dress with little decoration aside from buttons down the front and bit of velvet at the sleeve cuffs and neckline. Her blonde hair had been criss-crossed atop her head in a braided crown, and for some reason, despite the simplicity and lack of glamour in her appearance, Javert found her almost unfathomably pretty just now. He instinctively dropped into a little bow at the sight of her and murmured quickly,
"Mademoiselle Cosette."
When he met her eyes, he could feel her fingers brushing his stray hairs away, could feel her breath on his lips, and he struggled to stay calm and collected in front of her father. He cleared his throat a bit roughly and tore his eyes from her, glancing outside and mimicking what Valjean had said earlier as he noted helplessly,
"It is… lovely weather, no?"
Valjean's eyes went from Javert to Cosette and then back again, and his mouth twitched a little. Cosette laughed quietly at Javert's borrowed little jape, and she rushed over to where Javert stood. She eagerly pressed her palms to one of the windows, completely ignoring her father as she gushed,
"Oh, I find I do not mind the rain every now and then. It brings life to the flowers. And, anyway, when you toss the windows open at night and it is raining, it washes away the worst smells of the city, I find."
"Yes, that much is true." Javert smirked a little. Many times, he had been on foot patrol and had been grateful for the rain, since it masked putrid stenches in the summertime. He took a half step toward Cosette and informed her in a voice that was, perhaps, too quiet and private, "I have found that so many people underestimate the advantages of a good walk taken for leisure in the rain. So often, it begins raining, and everyone flees indoors, into shelter. But rain can be invigorating. It is helpful, I find, sometimes, to walk in the rain."
Cosette grinned broadly at him and nodded. "I have often thought so," she agreed in a little whisper. "It is… healing."
He knew what she meant by that. His face needed healing. He'd been hit hard with a glass bottle and was out of work. His very soul needed healing. Jean Valjean had wrestled him off of the Pont au Change when he'd been a half second away from killing himself. Cosette needed healing. Marius was dead. The boy she'd fallen for had died for nothing.
But of course they could not go walking in the rain, the two of them, like fools, arm in arm. He was, what, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years her senior? And a policeman. And unmarried. And she was an unwed young woman. For the two of them to walk alone was beyond improper and scandalous. It was profoundly inappropriate. Javert knew that very well. He finally turned to Valjean and shrugged, giving his old nemesis a bit of an awkward expression before prompting him,
"Well? Game for a stroll through the Luxembourg Gardens on this lovely afternoon, Valjean?"
Would you like to chaperone? That was what Javert had very obviously asked. Valjean met Javert's eyes and just stared for a long moment. Javert waited, unsure of what exactly Valjean was going to say. Perhaps Valjean was going to forbid his daughter from ever leaving the house with Javert at all. Javert honestly would not have been terribly surprised, nor would he have blamed Valjean very much. He still did not trust Valjean as far as he could throw the man, so he could hardly expect trust in return. He was quite surprised, therefore, when Valjean's reaction was to straighten his old back and to tip his head a little before glancing between Cosette and Javert and declaring,
"I find I am of no real disposition to go out in this weather, but I would hardly begrudge either of you the fresh air or the exercise. By all means, Inspector, if you would be good enough to escort my daughter and supervise her as she takes in the Luxembourg Gardens, I would be very grateful. You do so enjoy a good walk there, even in the rain, don't you, Cosette?"
Javert glanced at her in shock. Cosette's lips parted, but she nodded. "Yes, Papa. I always do."
"Good. It is settled, then," Valjean said stiffly. "Go and get yourself some sturdy boots, my dear, and fetch yourself a good bonnet and mantle. There is a bit of a chill."
Cosette smiled, still seeming surprised, and rushed off, leaving Javert alone with Valjean again. Javert glanced Valjean up and down, feeling almost suspicious, and slowly made his way out of the reception space. The two of them ambled down the stairs in silence, and Javert was acutely aware of the creaking of the steps beneath his boots. Once they were downstairs and he'd begun to pull on his own mackintosh raincoat, which he'd dragged off a hook in the foyer of the house, he said softly to Valjean,
"You are being almost alarmingly indulgent with her, Valjean, when it comes to my presence. And you used her as an excuse when you tried to convince me to stay here. Explain yourself."
He reached for his top hat and squarely placed it on his head. Valjean said nothing at first. Javert almost snapped at Valjean then, demanding to know if there was some sort of plot afoot, if now that Marius Pontmercy had died of a festered gunshot wound and Valjean worried and fretted about Cosette's future, if he would try to guilt-trip Javert into taking care of the girl. He nearly snarled that he owed Valjean nothing, that they were even and square, that he was not indebted to a petty criminal who had broken his parole and then dragged Valjean off a bridge. He would not be manipulated into taking over care of Cosette just because Jean Valjean had done so for Fantine and now had anxiety because he'd grown old. But Javert could not bring himself to growl out any of that. He just took hold of the black oiled cotton umbrella that was waiting on the wooden bench near the door. He calmly extended and secured the ribs and held them in place with the metal latch. The umbrella was quite large, big enough that Javert would be able to easily shelter himself and Cosette with it. Still, he thought, it was entirely irregular that he would walk alone with her, as an unmarried man many decades her senior. He stood there in silence, holding the umbrella, and glared at Valjean in expectation. He shrugged. "Well?"
"For many years," Valjean said stoutly, "I have wanted nothing more than Cosette's happiness. I went to the barricade to try and save that boy - Marius Pontmercy - in pursuit of Cosette's happiness. And though the scars between you and I are deep and real and probably shall never truly heal, Javert, there is something about you that makes her happy. Believe you me, I wish I did not see her eyes light up when they settled upon you. But I do see it. And you are here, and I am old, and that boy is dead."
"Valjean." Javert shook his head roughly, warning in his voice. Where exactly what Valjean going with all of this? Was he attempting to… to play matchmaker? With Javert and Fantine's daughter, with Valjean's daughter? He shut his eyes and tried to be furious, tried to think of the years he'd spent determinedly hunting down 24601 like a beast. He tried to think of how he'd nearly leaped off a bridge. But all he could think of was the smell of roses on Cosette and her warm breath on his lips and her fingers brushing away loose tendrils of his hair. He seethed through his teeth, opened his eyes, and said in an ominous sort of growl,
"I caution you, Valjean, not to mock me or attempt to manipulate me. The games between us are meant to be over. Do not use Cosette as a pawn in the years-long feud between us."
"That is not at all what I intend to do," Valjean whispered, glancing over his shoulder. His face twisted strangely. He leaned toward Javert, causing Javert to stiffen almost defensively, and he hissed, "Do you honestly think I enjoy seeing the way you look at my daughter, Javert? I am not blind or foolish. Do you think I enjoy the way she looks at you , of all people? Hmm? But Marius Pontmercy is dead, and I am old. Have some scrap of honour and at least consider, for the briefest moment, that after everything that has passed between you and I, after what you did to her mother, perhaps you ought to at least consider -"
"Here I am! Ready to go."
Javert startled. Cosette was, it seemed, quite adept at bursting into spaces and interrupting tense moments between himself and Valjean. She looked anxiously between Javert and Valjean, her bright smile fading a little. She worried aloud,
"Is everything all right, Papa?"
"Yes, my dear. The Inspector has got the umbrella just here." Valjean sighed and then went to where Cosette stood in a black waxed wool rain mantle that had a hood draped over the small black bonnet she'd put over her braided style beneath. She had put on simple black gloves and carried a black crepe drawstring bag over her wrist. She looked more than respectable, but not at all fussy. Still Javert found her intolerably pretty and youthful. He glanced at Valjean, thinking of everything the man had said. Suddenly it all dawned on him.
Valjean was more than aware of the rather obvious magnetism between Cosette and Javert; they had apparently not hidden it well at all these last few days. Well, that was not at all surprising. Jean Valjean had known Cosette very well since she'd been a small child, and he'd known Javert for decades now. He could probably read flickers in their eyes, twitches of their lips, like words on book pages. And it was as he'd confessed to Javert. He was beginning to feel a sense of desperation setting in as he aged and weakened. Cosette was blossoming into young womanhood, yes, but the world was not built for young women to live independently. Not really . A young woman in Paris, even one with a fair bit of money, needed to be passed from her father to her husband. Cosette did not even have a mother to care for her in the case of Valjean's death; she'd be left completely alone. Javert sighed. He thought of her sitting on the edge of his bed, whimpering helplessly that she felt gluttonous for him after a good, deep kiss, her first real kiss. He pinched his lips and turned his eyes from Valjean, letting them settle on Cosette. He nodded.
"Let us away into the rain, then, Mademoiselle."
"Erm… Inspector Javert, I think perhaps we underestimated the weather!" exclaimed Cosette, clutching at her hood and leaning forward into the wind. Javert grasped at the umbrella in his right hand, fighting to keep it steady as he held his top hat on with his left hand. He stared down at Cosette as they tried to make their way to the Luxembourg Gardens. It was not even a mile from Valjean's house in rue Plumet to the gardens, but today, with the wind and the rain, it felt like a march through hell. Javert found himself laughing all of a sudden, which was something he very rarely did. Cosette stared up at him with a broad grin, but a sudden burst of wind and a passing carriage sent a barrage of water at her, and then, despite Javert's effort with the umbrella and her rainwear, her porcelain face was utterly soaked. Javert froze and gaped down at her, but as she wiped her face, her mouth falling open in shock, Cosette erupted into a mad fit of giggles. Javert shook his head and smirked, trying not to mock her even a little as he noticed where they were and suggested,
"Perhaps a hot chocolate at a café in the Galerie Vivienne, Mademoiselle, instead of an attempt at the Luxembourg Gardens? I fear we were entirely too ambitious."
"Hot chocolate. Yes." Cosette nodded eagerly, and Javert was surprised then when she took hold of his elbow and let him guide her toward the nearby covered arcade. Javert had not spent much time inside the Galerie Vivienne as a patron. It was pretty to look at, with its glass roof and its mosaics and its nice window displays. He'd mostly been inside in his official capacity as a police officer, either on patrol or as an Inspector investigating crimes that had occurred there. Now, though, as he dismantled his umbrella and shook it off before guiding Cosette inside, he felt the warm glow of the place and actually listened as Cosette breathed,
"Oh, it is so very lovely, isn't it?"
"Hmm." Javert gnawed his lip. He hurried with her over to the Café Coin Secret, one of a number of indoor establishments in the arcade. There were marble-topped tables with elegant wooden chairs arranged out in the massive broad corridor so patrons could ogle other patrons whilst sipping coffee and eating pastries, but Javert had no intention of doing so. He walked with Cosette up to the podium, and unsurprisingly, was recognised at once.
"Inspector Javert," the head waiter murmured with polite discretion, and Javert nodded. The waiter glanced a bit curiously at Cosette, who was wordlessly and rather innocently taking down her rain hood and soaked bonnet. Javert cleared his throat and muttered,
"Something private in the back, if you've got it."
"Yes, of course." The waiter nodded and flicked up his lips. "Follow me, please."
Cosette merrily walked with Javert through the café then, and Javert kept his chin up imperiously in case anyone else recognised him. What would anyone think, he wondered, seeing him in public with a young and beautiful girl? At his breakfast earlier, he'd fantasised about taking Cosette out to eat. A ludicrous idea, he'd thought then, but a wondrous one. Now he was rather panicking, being here at a café with her and having already been called by his name. He licked his lips and nodded stoutly as he pulled out Cosette's chair for her at the far, secluded table to which they were shown. He sank into the chair opposite her, hanging up his hat and her bonnet, along with his coat and her mantle on the stand beside them. He leaned the umbrella up against the stand and then sighed, dragging his palm along his grey hair, which had become damp and a bit wind-blown. He stared across the table at Cosette in the dim light of the small candelabra between them; it was quite dark in the recesses of the café. She was pretty here, he thought, her cheeks still flushed from the exertion of walking in the rainstorm.
"Mademoiselle. Inspector." The head waiter who had greeted them up front appeared again and spoke quietly, reverently, as if he did not wish to embarrass the policeman. Javert flashed the man a small, tight look of approval and ordered himself and Cosette a hot chocolate each. Once the waiter had gone, he asked her, just a bit awkwardly,
"You didn't want anything else?"
She shook her head and smiled meekly. "No. Thank you."
She appeared to have folded her hands neatly on her lap then, and she looked around the café nervously as she murmured, "It did not seem so blustery when we left the house, did it, Inspector? We walked into a bit of a maelstrom."
"Not exactly weather for strolling about in gardens, I'm afraid," he admitted, drumming his fingertips on the marble tabletop. He opened his mouth a little to test the pain in his face; it was getting better now, he thought. He huffed a breath and then shifted where he sat, and he finally said to Cosette, "It was not raining earlier, when I went to the station-house or to breakfast. I passed by my own house on the way back to rue Plumet and went inside to get a few things… it did not begin to rain in earnest until past luncheon."
Cosette's face lit up with interest. She tipped her head and asked him, "You went to the police station-house today? And out to breakfast? And your own home? Aren't you meant to be resting?"
He shrugged and quirked up half his mouth. "I suppose I am not following those orders well. I am at the Galerie Vivienne at the moment, am I not?"
Before she could answer him, the waiter appeared with mugs of steaming chocolate. They were so hot that both Javert and Cosette let them sit and wait for a few moments, and he listened while she leaned forward, her brows raising as she accused him,
"You wanted to work, didn't you, Inspector?"
He chewed the inside of his cheek. "You mock me, Mademoiselle."
She smiled. "You are not the sort of man who can lie in bed day after day. Even with pain in your face. I know it."
"It seems many people know this about me." Javert picked up his hot chocolate and took a small sip. It was searingly hot, but he bore the temperature and savoured the sweet cocoa flavour. Cosette still let hers rest on the table. She gave him a bit of an odd look for a moment, and Javert was suddenly very aware that this - this - was what Valjean had been seeing from her. The wide-eyed hunger that Javert had seen blazing in her gaze more than once now… it was coming from her here, in this café, through the candlelight. He cleared his throat and mumbled,
"My Commissaire gave me a bit of paperwork to do. That's all."
"Still." Cosette picked up her spoon and dragged it over the foamy surface of her hot chocolate. "You are, and always have been, it seems, a man devoted to your work and duty."
Javert tingled to hear her say that about him. He straightened his spine and shrugged a little. His heart accelerated in his chest. Why did it make him feel so very alive , suddenly, to hear words like that from Cosette? He found himself a bit speechless, so he just picked up his hot chocolate and sipped again.
"You got something from your own house and took it back to rue Plumet," Cosette mused, and Javert nodded wordlessly. Cosette gave him a prying but innocent look and asked, "Where is your house? Will you tell me about it?"
Javert hesitated. "It is a serviceable and respectable place on rue de la Croix-Nivert, but, truly, it is nothing special. It is clean and well cared-for, but it is hardly luxurious."
Cosette's face became peaceful then. She finally picked up her cup of hot chocolate and took a long sip of it. She set her cup down and gave Javert a serious look as she said in a low and thoughtful tone,
"Do you know, Inspector Javert, I am so very happy that my dear Papa happened upon you that night when you were on the Pont au Change? And I am so very happy that you decided to join us at our home, as our guest. It really has brought me so much delight, having you about, even with the loss of my beloved Marius. I'm sure your home in rue de la Croix-Nivert is quite nice, but I do hope you'll stay with us for a while longer yet."
She sipped her chocolate again, and Javert just stared at her. His abdomen twisted. He shut his eyes and thought of her yanking off his boots, her fingers drawing away his stray hair, his tongue pulling across the roof of her mouth as she squealed against his lips. He thought of her breath beside his ear, waking him. The smell of roses on her. Suddenly his throat felt thick, and he impulsively reached into his small purse and yanked out a few coins. Cosette seemed surprised until Javert asked her quickly,
"We ought to… ought to start heading back, perhaps. The weather could… get even worse, somehow."
She just nodded and reached for her bonnet. "Thank you for the chocolate, Inspector."
The weather got worse, somehow.
Javert and Cosette had emerged from the sheltered confines of the Galerie Vivienne with their clothes having dried a bit after spending time in the café, but they had emerged into a veritable tempest. At the house in rue Plumet, the rain had seemed almost idyllic. When they'd been trying to make their way to the Luxembourg Gardens, the whipping rain and wind had been harsh. Now, the weather had devolved into a fierce summer storm, with vibrant lightning and claps of thunder that terorrised all of Paris. The rain was falling in diagonal sheets that were blown roughly by gusts of wind. Cosette squealed in shock when they went out onto the footpath, and immediately Javert called down to her,
"There is a cabstand not terribly far from here… though in this storm, I doubt any would be available."
"Let us just hurry home!" Cosette grinned madly at him, shocking him by snatching at his elbow and setting off at a childish sort of trot. Javert hurried to keep up with her, his strides long and confident on the puddle-ridden path as Cosette breathlessly trod back toward her father's house. Every so often, she would glance up at him when thunder clapped, her eyes alight with a mix of fear and excitement, and she would laugh a little. Javert's chest yanked when he saw her do such things. She was youthful in a way that was oddly liberating for him to witness, he thought.
At one point, the umbrella Javert had brought from Valjean's house was nearly ripped from his hand, and a few of the ribs snapped like twigs in the wind. Javert snarled and muttered some choice words, pausing briefly to disassemble the broken umbrella. He carried it as he and Cosette huddled themselves down and forward, making their way as quickly as they could through the storm. They were both quickly soaked, and the rain was more than a little chilly. By the time they reached Valjean's house at 55 rue Plumet, Javert realised he was as wet as if he'd jumped into a frigid bath tub fully clothed. He glanced at Cosette to see that her black bombazine dress was so sodden that it was dripping and heavy. She was clutching rather desperately at the skirts to heave them up around her as she stepped up to the gate of her father's house. Javert let her pass by him, and when they reached the door, she fumbled in her drawstring bag for her key. Her gloves were slippery from the rain, though, so Javert gently reached out and took the key from her.
"Thank you," he heard her puff. She was exhausted, it seemed, from having rushed here in the furious weather as fast as her legs would bring her. She watched as Javert unlocked the door and pushed it open for her, and then she hustled inside, and when Javert stepped in after her, Toussaint immediately appeared from the kitchen.
"Oh! Mademoiselle Cosette! Your father and I worried once it began to thunder and lightning."
"All's well, Toussaint. We decided not to go to the gardens." Cosette began to hurriedly strip off her mantle and bonnet and gloves, pushing them all into Toussaint's waiting hands. Javert slowly pulled off his own hat and mackintosh raincoat, listening and watching as Toussaint fretted,
"Oh, Mademoiselle. You are soaked to the bone. You'll catch such an awful cold, you will! I will draw you up a nice hot bath at once."
"Erm. Yes. Soon," Cosette said, her pale eyes flicking to Javert. Her little fingers danced over her braided crown. Toussaint seemed confused, and Javert shared the sentiment. Cosette shifted where she stood and gave Javert a very deliberate look before asking him, "You wanted to show me… that object, Inspector? That… the thing that you brought back here today, when you went to your home in rue de la Croix-Nivert? I am such an impatient creature. I simply can't be made to wait to see it."
"Oh." Javert nodded. She was trying to get into his bedchamber alone with him before Toussaint took her for a bath. He felt a sudden surge, a thrill, go from his chest down through his abdomen and flush where it ought not to just now. He cleared his throat. "Yes, Mademoiselle. It was my medal… from my service… earned at Austerlitz."
Cosette nodded eagerly. "Yes. You must show me, Inspector, and tell me all about it. Toussaint, the bath can wait. I've been damp all afternoon. I'm fine. I promise."
Toussaint looked quite sceptical, but nodded and curtsied before walking away with Cosette's mantle, gloves, and bonnet in her hands. Cosette waited for Toussaint to go, and then her pale cheeks flushed a bit scarlet and she stared at Javert before she whispered,
"Will you show me that medal now, Inspector?"
He nodded once and moved past her, leading her toward the guest bedroom where he'd been staying ever since Jean Valjean had torn him off the parapet on the Pont au Change. His mind was very much in a different state now, he registered. He pushed open the door to the bedchamber and let Cosette in first, glancing back to see if Valjean was watching and realising suddenly that he did not think Valjean would care. He shut the door and turned, about to ask Cosette if she actually cared about seeing his Légion d'honneur. Before he could, he felt her small hands press up flat against the planes of his chest, and suddenly she was staring at him with wide-eyed, almost feral need that ignited in him a sudden, powerful inclination to guide her and show her. She wanted more than she had received from him before, he knew. Her eyes right now told him she wanted more right this moment.
"You are shivering," he noted, for she was, but she whispered in response,
"It is not entirely from the damp and cold, Inspector."
"Hmm." He reached up and took her face in his hands, but when he tried to bend down to kiss her, he realised the height difference between them made it a bit difficult. He was very tall and very broad as far as grown men were concerned; he towered over nearly all the men he arrested and over his fellow police officers. And Cosette was just a tiny little thing, smaller even than most young women. So as he tried to meet her for a kiss, even with her up on her toes, he found himself choking out a little laugh and admitting to her,
"I am a bit of a giant brute. I apologise."
"Nonsense." Cosette took hold of his sleeves and pulled on him until he went to the edge of his blue toile bed, and when Javert sank onto the edge, sitting, she came to stand between his legs. With him sitting and her standing, they were almost the same height, which seemed to amuse Cosette very much. Javert reached to stroke a bit at her jaw and neck with his knuckles, her skin still damp from the rain. She was soft, he thought. Soft and young. She felt like silk beneath his touch. He kept caressing her, for it felt like the right thing to do, and after a moment, Cosette's head tipped back a little. She surprised him by reaching for his maroon frock coat and rather insistently pushing at it, urging Javert to shuck it. He did, feeling relieved to have the heavy, wet garment off. But he murmured to her,
"Cosette, I am not going to sit here and undress."
"I know," she whispered, but then her fingers went to his emerald wool waistcoat and began to quickly unfasten the buttons. Javert felt a flush and a tightening between his legs, insistent and firm, and he gasped a little. The way he wanted her just now was dangerous, he thought. Men struggled with control in situations like this, particularly when it was obvious that the young lady in the room returned the man's affections. He glared at Cosette and tried to pull her fingers from his waistcoat, but he found himself unable to summon the willpower. Instead he realised he was helping her pull the garment off, and then before he knew what was happening, he was yanking his white cotton shirt up and over his head. Somehow, he had wound up shirtless, and her smooth little hands were all over him. She was searching him with her touch, gliding her fingers around his shoulders, down the ripples of his thick arm muscles, around his chest and over his stomach…
"Oh…" She whispered the syllable in a cracked, helpless sound and then collapsed forward a little until her mouth crashed onto his. He caught her, his hands grasping at her face. She had no clue what she was doing with the kiss, he realised at one. She only knew that she wanted it, badly. So he guided her carefully through it, showing her with patience how to use her tongue in his mouth and then returning the favour until they were trading caresses with their tongues dancing in a sort of pavane. He pulled at her lip a bit and then planted a few gentle kisses on her lips before touching his forehead to hers, relishing the feel of her hands gripping the forearms whose strength had been forged through decades of hard work. He caught his breath and finally murmured to her,
"You are… very pretty."
Cosette pulled back just enough to stare at him with slightly sad eyes. She moved her hands to his face, carefully avoiding the injured bit, and she asked him,
"Am I an awful Jezebel to want you like this when Marius has only just left this world? It's only that… I think I was a fool to have fallen for him, and I find myself very angry with him. And I find myself… you are… I can not help these feelings. I have prayed about it all and asked for guidance, but I hear nothing in response. Am I a wretched whore? Will I burn for it all?"
"I do not suppose anyone burns for things such as this," Javert said, squaring his jaw. He sighed and dragged his teeth over his lip. "In any case, Cosette, you do not much strike me as a fool."
She hesitated, and then her cheeks went a little red. "Toussaint did not explain things in full, I think. You had more detail about…"
She trailed off, and Javert curled up half his mouth. He reached up and brought her face down to his, planting a few careful kisses on her lips before whispering against her skin,
"What is it? I am sitting here before you without a shirt on, and I took you out and drank hot chocolate with you without a chaperone, and I have just kissed you, so you might as well ask, Mademoiselle."
She kissed him once more and then pulled back, looking suddenly very shy as her fingers tore at each other. She seemed almost on the verge of tears before she finally whispered,
"It seems to me that there are real kisses, and then there is good lovemaking. Yes?"
Javert cocked up an eyebrow and tipped his head. "Ideally. Yes."
Cosette shrugged. "But the latter could put a child on a woman, no?"
Javert nodded slowly, realising the source of her anxiety now. "Yes. Of course it could."
She really did seem like she was going to cry then as she asked in a tremulous voice he could hardly hear, "Well… is there… nothing else? In between?"
Javert's mouth fell open. How little young ladies like Cosette knew of this world, he thought. He was struck through, suddenly, with vibrant and unwanted memories of things he'd done with stray women who had passed fleetingly through his life. None had lasted long. He was fifty-four years old; most of those dalliances had happened decades ago. Javert had always been a very serious man, but at least in his youth he had put in some effort to try and assuage his natural libido.
That had been a very long time ago.
"Erm… yes," He nodded to Cosette. He reached, on instinct, to brush a thumb under her eye, to stroke at her cheekbone almost comfortingly. "Yes. There are… many things which can be done… between a man and a woman. Things which go beyond kissing but which can not put a child on a woman."
"What sorts of things?" Cosette breathed, her face lighting up. Javert winced. He really, genuinely did not wish to sit here and give Cosette a detailed lecture describing fellatio, or talk to her about how exactly a man might use his fingers to pleasure a woman and make her moan into a pillow. He still had some semblance of pride, hadn't he? He just kept stroking at her face and sighed.
"Those are things to be learnt of first-hand, not heard about through description," he told her, but then he immediately realised that had sounded like he was suggesting that they ought to do those things together. He was about to apologise, to amend what he'd said, but Cosette flashed him a satisfied little smirk and reached rather playfully for his hair. He flinched when she did that. Why did he like it so very much when she touched his hair? He was not certain exactly why. Perhaps because he took such care of it himself. But he melted a bit when she smoothed it and tucked away some strands that had come loose from his hat and from the wind and rain. She asked him in a flirtatious little tone,
"Is that an invitation into your bedchamber tonight whilst everyone else is sleeping, Inspector?"
"Cosette!" Javert hissed, and for some reason his hands flew up to the narrow, corseted waist of her damp black bombazine dress. She seemed amused, but he gave her a scolding look of disapproval and murmured, "I have every confidence your father would attempt to murder me if he discovered you and I…"
He trailed off then, because he remembered the way Valjean had talked to him about Cosette earlier in the day. He gulped hard, feeling Cosette's waist beneath his hands, seeing the way she was gazing at him, and thinking about her coming to his room in nothing but her nightclothes with terrible things in mind. He was dizzy and thirsty suddenly, and finally he whispered,
"You mustn't get caught. You must wait until you are quite certain your father and Toussaint are abed."
Cosette's head bobbed eagerly. Javert squeezed his eyes shut and lamented,
"You shall be the death of me."
"I am actually very glad that you are alive, as it happens," Cosette told him, and Javert gave her a bit of a look at that. He reached for his cotton shirt, still sticky from the damp, and yanked it on as he instructed her,
"Go. Go take your bath. Toussaint will wonder what I possibly could have achieved in battle to have kept you interested this long."
Cosette grinned and nodded. She turned and headed for the door. She paused with her hand on the knob and then turned round, frowning a little.
"Did you really earn a Légion d'honneur at Austerlitz?" she asked, and Javert nodded.
"Yes, I did."
Cosette hesitated. "What did you do?"
Javert shrugged. His mind flashed and banged with memories, and when he spoke, recalling the past, his voice was numb. "It was chaos. We were going to be annhiliated by Austrian cannon fire. I led a charge up the hill, through a hail of fire. We engaged in hand-to-hand combat, disabled the cannons, and secured the position. I suppose it did help turn the tide of the battle."
Cosette looked utterly shocked. She smiled weakly and then nodded. She said nothing at all, but her eyes studied him closely, and suddenly Javert wanted to slam her up against the door and find a way to kiss her, height difference be damned. Instead he just gave her a curt little nod and reminded her,
"Your bath, Cosette."
"Yes. Right." She turned to go, pulling the door shut behind her.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apologies for the crazy length of this chapter. It really ran away from me! I'll try to keep future chapters a bit shorter! Haha. Thank you so much for reading and thanks especially for any feedback!