Chapter 8 - Red Ribbons
"And you should see this huge purple dress she's ordered from the modiste, Cosette." Grace sighed.
"Oh, tell me. Is it beautiful?" She asked, wide eyed.
The two of them sat together in the beautiful blooming garden of the convent. The roses were exploding everywhere she looked. White and pink and red and yellow. The smell was staggering.
Summer had come and gone, and Fauchelevent's rose garden had finally burst into life. The air around them was a heady, perfumed delight. So strong it sometimes gave Grace a headache to sit in the convent garden for too long. But sit she did, amongst the softly falling petals and giant, colourful bushes. And as Grace and Cosette's friendship grew, so did her tolerance for the smell of roses .
Cosette, young as she was, was a good friend. She was so full of hope, so full of optimism, that it warmed Grace to see someone with that much joie de vivre. She had been like that once.
Cosette wanted to know every detail, savour in every little part of the outside world that Grace could give her. Grace almost wished that the two of them could swap places. Cosette was the one who seemed like she'd revel in all of the parties and all the soirees and all the attention, and all Grace wanted to do was sit quietly in Fauchelevent's garden and read a book or two…
"It's too beautiful." Grace grumbled.
"Describe it for me." Cosette said, closing her eyes. "I want to imagine it on you."
Grace shook her head with a small smile, rolling her eyes at her
"It's… it's the same colour as crocuses." she began, thinking on how best to describe her outfit for that night "And there's this gorgeous satin draped over the skirts. Sort of iridescent in colour. Like the wings of a beetle."
"And the bodice? What's that like?"
"It drapes off the shoulders…large, bulbous sleeves…"
Grace paused for a moment. She'd found herself feeling a small pang of excitement in her stomach and she checked herself. She shouldn't be excited; That would mean she enjoyed being here, she enjoyed dressing herself up like a good little 1830's girl. And she didn't. Did she?
Grace cleared her throat and tried to sound dismissive
"I'll look like a great, purple meringue"
"It sounds divine." Cosette sighed.
"It sounds expensive."
"Oh, Grace. I dream of having a dress like that one day." Cosette chided her.
Grace looked her up and down, still in her uniform. Every time she'd come to the convent, Cosette talked of little else but the day she could finally leave.
"Perhaps I will, when I'm finally out in society." Cosette added.
"So… you're still not fussed about taking the habit?" Grace asked gently, keen to change the topic from herself
"I do not feel my calling to God's side, Grace. I feel my calling to the world out there."
"And how does your father feel about that?" Grace asked, dipping her voice low.
She cast her eyes around the garden and there was Fauchelevent, on the other side of the square, pruning some of the dead heads from the bushes. Fauchelevent was never far from them, keeping a watchful eye and a half-cocked ear on the two of them at all times. He was like a guardian angel, if Saint Michael's sword was a pair of secateurs rather than a flaming sword…
"We argue, we squabble, it gets worse the closer I get to my eighteenth birthday."
"He just wants you to be safe."
"He wants me to be caged."
"That's not true." Grace sighed. "I know it can feel stifling sometimes, the love of a parent, but God I'd give anything to be able to hear my Mum's voice right now, worrying about me…"
Grace paused as tears flooded her eyes. Cosette grabbed her hand and squeezed tight,
"I don't remember my mother. Papa almost never speaks of her." Cosette said with a sigh. "There was another woman I remember living with. A horrible thing. She used to make me fetch water from the well in the woods, even when it was dark. Papa thinks I don't remember my time with them, but I do. There was a man too. And they had a daughter, Eponine…"
That name. It rang like a death-knell through Grace's mind. And then, boom. The wall. That invisible boundary in her head came slamming down again. All Grace could do was blink in shock.
"I think perhaps I lived with them because Papa and my mother were poor." Cosette continued, oblivious to Grace's shock. "They wanted me to be safe whilst they tried to gather some funds. But I dare not ask him. Every time I have so much as mentioned my mother, he becomes morose and tearful. Her death must have been very hard on him. And I do not wish to make him sad, Grace…"
It hadn't happened for a long time, that barrier.
She poked and prodded at it again, in her mind, but it wasn't budging. Again, it felt like each time she was edging close to an answer, she was steered away from it.
"Grace?"
She looked at Cosette with vacant eyes. "Uhh, sorry?"
"Speaking of my mother. I don't want Papa to feel saddened when…or if I speak of her."
"Oh. No." Grace said, trying to shake the grogginess from her head. "No, I know you don't. And so does he."
She recovered herself quickly and Cosette stared off into the distance, her eyes settling on one of the many rose bushes in the garden.
"But… at the end of the day, it's your life, Cosette." Grace continued. "No one has to live it but you. And it's a long life to be stuck being miserable. Trust me, I learnt that lesson well enough."
Cosette took her hand again and sighed.
"I wish I could come tonight. But alas, I must wait for my birthday to be invited to engagements of the ton. I would so love to see you in your beautiful dress."
"One day. Me and you will go to a party together one day." Grace smiled.
"It's infuriating though. One more week and I could have been sipping champagne right beside you!"
"Don't wish your life away, Cosette. Enjoy being seventeen while you can."
The two of them shared a quiet smile with each other for a moment.
"Ugh, you sound just like Papa." Cosette grumbled
Cosette rolled her eyes and sighed again. Monsieur Fauchelevent, somehow sensing that he was being talked about, wandered over to the two ladies with a handful of roses.
"Yellow and pink." He said, handing them to Grace with a smile.
"Monsieur Fauchelevent, my bedroom at the Chateau is full of your roses. I wake up every day thinking I'm in the middle of a Turkish delight!" Grace said, but nevertheless she stood to accept them.
She hugged the roses close and took a long, heady sniff of the blooms. It was true that she didn't need more; there were at least hand a dozen bunches like this one, all in various stages of decay, scattered around her room. Still, she hadn't figured out a way to say no to Fauchelevent whenever he offered her more. They were just so beautiful.
"I guess I better be going. It was hard enough, trying to negotiate half an hour or so to come and see you. Jocelyn will want me to be getting plucked and blushed and scraped and sewed into my dress…"
"I shall sit here in abject jealousy, Grace." Cosette said with a pout of her lips.
Grace laughed. "Don't be jealous of me, Cosette. Tonight is just a fancy excuse to parade me round the men of the district, like a meat market."
"You mean you aren't excited to potentially be meeting your love-match?!"
"Ha! Don't make me laugh." Grace scoffed, walking towards the garden's exit. "My love-match amongst those weak-chinned, inbred morons?"
She left Cosette and Fauchelevent laughing in her wake and stepped out into the afternoon of Provins.
There wasn't time to have a gander around the bookshop or to stop for an eclair at the cafe. She was expected home soon.
Grace paused for a moment. Funny how she'd come to think of the Chateau as "home". When she'd first arrived in this time, it had felt more like a gilded cage. So much had happened to endear her to this place, these people, all of their misplaced good-intentions aside…
She walked slowly back to the Chateau, taking in the scenery along the riverbank as she did. She still wasn't on speaking-terms with Artemida, and she would normally have been doing this walk with her. It would be she as well who would be helping her get into her resplendent purple dress, fixing her hair and applying the rouge to her face, and Grace wasn't relishing in the idea of potentially hours of awkward silence between them.
But as she walked, she tried to distract herself with other thoughts. Firstly, that name that Cosette had mentioned. Eponine.
It sounded so sad. So beautiful. And again, that infuriating wall shot up in her mind as soon as she felt like she was seconds away from remembering…
It hadn't happened for so long. She'd thought the first time it had happened with Cosette might have been a fluke. The music too, that she couldn't get out of her head. But as she walked up the Chateau's gravel drive, she found herself humming another tune.
It had a recurring melody, a string of six notes.
D, E, G G, E, C
It too was sad and beautiful, like the name.
And as her eyes wandered over the last of the summer's irises and daisies in the Chateau's gardens, she found herself singing aloud:
"And rain will make the flowers grow…"
She stopped dead at the Chateau's entrance.
Her mind felt on fire. Like she'd trespassed somewhere she shouldn't have gone.
Without trying too hard or concentrating too much, she'd managed to remember something.
And out had come words.
They were nothing special. Nothing telling. Or anything that might hint at her strange situation.
But she'd remembered something.
She repeated the melody again, trying hard not to force it too much.
"And rain will make the flowers grow…"
But it was no use. She couldn't force any more words out of her mouth.
"Grace!" A voice called out to her.
She flinched and looked up from her speculations. It was Jocelyn, bustling towards her.
"Grace, the guests are due to arrive shortly!" She added, closing the gap between them with a few trots. "I've sent Artemida upstairs for you already. She's waiting for you."
"Wonderful…"
"And take this with you."
Grace frowned and glanced down at a box that Jocelyn seemed to be holding out towards her.
It was wide and flat and Grace had never seen the like before.
"What is it?"
"Open it." Jocelyn said with a warm smile.
Grace tentatively lifted the lid, and there, nestled on a white velvet cushion, was a beautiful purple-stoned necklace.
"They're amethysts and tourmaline." Jocelyn said when Grace stayed in awe-struck silence. "I wore them on my wedding day."
"Jesus Christ, Jocelyn, this looks like it's worth more than…than…"
…than my flat! She finished in her head.
"Wear them tonight. They will go so splendidly with your dress."
Grace's eyes popped. "You don't expect me to have these around my neck, do you?! Why waste them on me? That's like gilding a toilet-seat…"
"Grace…" Jocelyn said, gently taking her face in her hand. "You do yourself an injustice. You are a beautiful woman. It is not just any woman who could wear a necklace like this, without the necklace wearing them."
Grace blushed and looked sheepishly down at the floor.
"You sure you're not just trying to truss me up for the gentleman tonight?" Grace said with a pout.
"Grace, you and I both know that no amount of amethysts will change a damn thing when it comes to your dance-card tonight."
"I told you, I lost the one from the last ball-"
"Is that why I found it stuffed down the Chinese vase, full to the brim with names, and you rubbing your feet in the gardens?"
Grace looked sheepish.
"No beautiful woman was ever made less beautiful by jewellery." Jocelyn said coyly. "Now go on. Get dressed!"
Despite herself, Grace couldn't help but smile as she rushed off up the stairs. Despite the hidden agenda of it all, she liked the whole ritual of getting dressed up and looking elegant. There had been a time, before she'd come here, that she'd despised looking in the mirror at herself. She'd hated spending longer in the shower than absolutely necessary, hated wasting time putting on makeup, hated selecting an outfit that took longer than five minutes. She felt her confidence slowly creeping back to what it had once been. It was just a shame it had taken a total break from her world and her reality to realise it.
She'd resented the balls Julius and Jocelyn had thrown on her behalf. But why should she? Couldn't she enjoy a bit of harmless flirting? A bit of a spin on the dance floor? A bit of primping herself up?
For the first time since…Well, since David really… she found herself relishing in the thought of going out.
Well, it wasn't really "going out", but she still had butterflies in her stomach.
She didn't have to marry anyone. She didn't even have to speak to them if they were that loathsome. This was supposed to be a party. And she was damn well going to try and enjoy it.
Lanterns lit the Inspector's way as he made his way up the drive.
He could already hear the sounds of revelry and merriment spilling out of the open doors of the Chateau. A distant waltz, clinking glasses, the curling smoke of pipe tobacco.
He almost turned around and left. He almost marched himself right back to the Inn. But after stoically watching the rest of his battalion leave Provins on the backs of their horses, he realised just how alone he was. And that meant that he had another night of pushing down the past to deal with. Another evening stomping on top of the memories that came floating to the surface of his mind. Much better to deal with if he had a distraction…
A footman took his coat and his hat from him as he entered. He was offered a tray of champagne glasses but he waved them away with a gloved hand.
Assess the surroundings. Plot out the terrain. Scan the faces.
It was hard to unlearn the training the army had given him- Froid too, for that matter- any time he found himself in a new place. It always put him on edge, always made him uneasy. His skills in observation had been honed to a fine blade and he mentally logged each bourbon-sipping gentleman, each fan-flapping lady, each hors d'oeuvres-bearing servant in that foyer as he looked about.
No one seemed to acknowledge his arrival. Good. That meant he didn't know anybody here. Still, he moved through the busy rooms with a suspicious eye. One never knew who hid amongst the well-to-do. Who secretly bore the face of a wanted man.
He had been fooled by pomp and ceremony once before. Never again.
He stewed in his anger and walked in circles around the Chateau's rooms. Nobody approached him to introduce themselves, and he knew why; he wasn't one of these people. They could smell the horses on him, see the callouses on his hands, count the lines of stress around his eyes. He was a working man.
Ten years ago, fifteen years ago, men like him were the future. When Napoleon was Emperor, when the Revolution was not such a distant memory. When the People ruled the land.
But the King was now his master, his employer. All Javert did in upholding the Law was done in Louis-Phillips's name. So, he may have inwardly despised these people and the Monarchy they all worshipped, but he kept those opinions to himself. Treason was only treason, after all, if there was an overt act of dissent or harm. He could think all the negative thoughts he liked about Louis-Phillips. Breaking the sacred Law, would actually be doing anything about that hate…
Eventually minute blurred into minute and boredom ate away at him. He nestled himself into a corner and questioned his damnable choice in coming here. Arms folded, he seethed quietly to himself as he watched the party happening around him.
The sickly smiles and the peeling laughter and the tinkle of music did little to sate his bad mood.
It reminded him too much of another night.
He didn't want it to, but the past came rushing up to meet him.
He was older now. Still a boy, but eighteen years old, thinking he was a man.
He had been at a soirée with Froid.
"No more than one glass a night, boy." Froid said, snatching a glass from out of his hands. "Even now, it is important we stay alert and observant."
Javert watched the glass disappear from his grasp with a frown of disappointment, but did not dare question his master.
"Yes, sir."
The young man straightened his back and resumed his place beside Froid. That had been his place for ten years. Right beside Froid. Even when he had grown past Froid's height, he still stopped to listen to him. Still bowed his head low to not appear greater than him. It was better like that; Froid didn't like to feel like there was anything greater than him, or the reach of the Law that he represented.
Not only had Javert grown upwards, but he had grown outwards too. Broad shouldered and jawed. The edges of his face prickled with dark brown hairs. Although he was still yet to enjoy the stockiness that came with manhood. He still had the gangliness of youth. The suppleness of boyhood. Like a willow branch not yet bent into shape.
His hair had grown longer too. No longer did he sport the close-shawn look of his boyish days. Once Javert had grown taller than Froid, he'd almost lost interest in reaching up to clip his hair. So, he took to tying it in a deep-chestnut ponytail at the nape of his neck.
However, what set him apart from most were the colour or his eyes, and the colour of his skin. Haunted and blue, the same colour as the mountain lakes, they were breathtaking, a perfect spring sky. But whatever warmth and happiness that colour conjured up seemed to wither and die in his stare. His eyes were always the first to show his sadness, his disappointment, his loneliness. So he hid them behind his thick dark lashes, looking at the floor, his boots, the dirt on the streets. Always looking down.
And then there was his complexion. A few shades too dark to be unnoticeable. He was a rich and radiant olive, where most others in this part of France were pale and grey. And even though he looked a damn-site healthier than the rosaecia-faced housewives or the blue-bruised labourers, it set him apart. It marked him as different. It was the last little bit of dirtiness, of his gypsy-ness, that Froid couldn't scrub off him. A constant reminder of where he had come from. Of who he had come from.
He did not have the vigour and vivacity that other eighteen year old boys have. He moved slower, he spoke softer, he went to bed each night exhausted; When most young men his age were just beginning their apprentices, Javert had been in his for what seemed like a lifetime. He could see no end; Froid had always been there and always would be. And he would be his servant. A servant to the Law.
He did not hope for anything else in life. How could he? He had not known anything else to exist. Memories of the prison and of his mother were now watery and distant. Froid had taken him to live as his apprentice when he was so young, his recollections from before were vague at best. He mostly had to rely on a feeling, a smell, a sensation, rather than push himself for details of the time before.
Froid was as much as a "father" than he had ever known. Froid had made it that way.
A "father" who he always, without fail, referred to as "sir".
"Look around, boy. What do you see here?" Froid said, casting his eyes out over the party.
"Fine ladies and gentlemen of the ton, Sir."
"Exactly. You must never fool yourself into believing that you are one of them. You aren't. You are above them, boy."
"Above how, sir?" He asked.
Javert had learnt over the years that Froid enjoyed performing almost as much as enacting his role. It was important that he felt listened to, otherwise the lesson would just be repeated louder and with more dramatic emphasis later.
"You have purpose, a place in the world, impetus." Froid said quietly. "They couldn't stand the fact that Robespierre saw them for what they all are."
"And what is that, sir?"
"Pointless. Baubles of the past. Desperate."
"Desperate how, sir?" He asked with a frown.
He'd seen desperation over the years. In the faces of the poor and hungry. In all those he and Froid had policed and patrolled over the years. None of the faces he saw around him then had the same looks of desperation he'd seen on the streets. And what did it matter? Froid had taught him to ignore desperation. The law was the law. Inscrutable. Infallible.
"You see those ladies?" Froid asked, pointing at a group of high-society women.
They smiled and giggled, holding their champagne flutes in hand and flapping their lace fans. They stank of expensive perfume and privilege. Nothing about them said "desperate" to Javert.
"Yes, sir."
"The red velvet they tie around their necks, do you know what that means, boy?"
True enough, when he squinted he could see all of them had a red piece of fabric adorning their necks. Amongst the pastel pinks and blues and greens of their expensive evening dresses, the stark red seemed very at-odds with the rest of their outfits.
"It means that they all had husbands executed by the guillotine." Froid continued. "They're flaunting their availability to re-marry."
Javert's eyes popped.
Froid laughed to himself, pleased to have caused a pang of outrage in his apprentice.
"Stay away from ladies like that, boy." Froid said with a raised eyebrow. "They will eat you up for supper."
Javert frowned to himself and looked at his shoes. Froid had never spoken about women to him before. Much less tried to give him courting advice. Occasionally, Javert would see a woman of the night leaving Froid's house in the early hours of the morning, but he would always be awake to see them go. When he was up, mucking out Vendetta or making the old man's breakfast, he would see them slipping away.
Hypocritical, he thought, for a man who spent his days putting whores away.
For him, the local prostitutes held little appeal. He'd watched other boys of his age experimenting in their first doleances with women. Stumbling out of the brothels, half drunk, smelling of liqueur and sex. But he was Froid's boy. The Inspector's foundling. No whore would go near him with a barge-pole. Even if he'd wanted them to.
His eyes snagged on another lady, poised by the window of the drawing room, holding a glass of champagne of her own. She was young. Younger than the other women with red ribbons around their necks. And Javert noticed, with keen eyes, that she didn't wear one herself.
"What about her, sir?" He asked his master bravely.
Froid followed his gaze and he too saw the young lady across the room from them.
"Camille Lioncourt." Froid said with a sickly grin. "Her father is a jeweller. He's been fleecing the people of this town for years. Selling cut glass as 'diamonds', and buying the real thing off them at a fraction of their worth."
"Camille…" Javert echoed.
Froid scowled at him and batted him in the ribs with his cane. "Did you not hear the rest of what I said, boy?"
Javert's cheeks turned pink when he'd finished rubbing at his sore breastbone, looking up to find the lady giggling at him.
"Y-yes, sir." Javert stuttered, although, in truth, he'd heard little but the thundering of his blood in his ears as soon as he'd set eyes on the lady. "Jewel seller father."
"Hmmph." Froid grumbled.
"So, why have we never arrested him, Sir?" Javert asked, swiftly trying to move on.
"Because he's petit bourgeoisie! Men like Camille Lioncourt's father always find ways of avoiding prosecution."
"But, sir, don't you say that nobody is exempt from the Law?" Javert asked unsurely.
"There are fish worth trying to catch, boy," Froid said sternly. "and there are fish who aren't."
Javert's gaze floated back to the young woman. She too seemed to find him over the heads of the others at the party. Her eyes had a touch of fierceness about them. Something hungry and animalistic. But they sat within a woman who radiated poise and elegance. Every inch of her was as hard as stone, but as refined as marble. Black haired and black eyed, it was like she was obsidian or onyx personified. She had a cold and austere exterior, but her eyes were fire and molten metal. Javert had never seen a woman like her before and he almost wished he could look away, but he couldn't.
"And she is another fish not worth casting your hook for." Froid said suddenly, rapping his cane across Javert's chest again.
Javert flinched and finally broke his stare. He heard the woman giggling at him from across the room once more, loud and bouncy, and he looked back in time to see her demurely covering her mouth and glancing away.
"Why?" He asked him, a small hint of anger in his voice.
Froid's scowl was powerful. "Excuse me, boy!?"
"Why, sir?" Javert added, thoroughly checked.
"Because you are a gypsy waif! " Froid said, cruelty lacing his voice. "You are not a man of fine-breeding or wealth. Your mother was a fortune teller and your father was imprisoned on the prison. haulks. The best you can hope for, if you're lucky, is perhaps the child of a fishmonger or a blacksmith with too many daughters."
Javert swallowed hard and looked at the floor. But he felt a tug in his guts, telling him to look up again. Find those fire eyes again.
She was still looking. Still eyeing him up demurely, yet hungrily. She grabbed another glass of champagne, now bearing two in her hands and looked him square in the eye. She didn't have to say anything, didn't even have to gesture or incline her head even an inch, but he knew as he watched her walk away, that she was summoning him to her.
"Mark my words, boy." Froid scolded him. "She may not sport a red ribbon like the others, but there's only one thing she is interested in and you, unfortunately, do not befit her criter-"
"May I be excused, Sir?"
Froid blinked wordlessly at him. Perhaps it was the first time Javert had so openly disregarded him. Perhaps it was the first time anyone had so openly disregarded him. Either way, the heat of Froid's reproach was almost enough to make him wither.
Almost.
Javert tried to hold his nerve under the weight of Froid's stare and he eventually succeeded.
"If you wish." Froid said with a sigh.
Without a backwards glance, Javert was off after the woman. He cut an impassioned march through the crowd of other party attendees, anxious to keep the hem of her rapidly disappearing skirts in sight. It was like she was a mirage, and he was chasing her image through the desert.
Eventually he began to catch up to her, chasing her through room after opulent room, and occasionally she would glance back at him and flash him a wonderful, sinful smile.
He was like a pike chasing a tackle. Helplessly compelled onwards, even though he suspected that when he bit into it, it was going to hurt him.
Eventually she passed through the babbling crowds and found a small alcove of peace. There was nobody around to listen, nobody near to monitor, and it was there where she finally turned to him. A hard and confronting look.
She thrust the champagne glass in her left hand into his arms, spilling most of it all down his simple attire.
"Oh, Monsieur!" she exclaimed, a wolfish smile on her lips. "Please do accept my apologies."
He brushed awkwardly at the wet stain now all over his shirt.
"Please, let me dab that dry for you…" she continued.
She delved a finger into her cleavage and, slowly, achingly, teased out a clean white handkerchief. And poor, green boy that he was, he could do nought but helplessly watch as a fire ignited in his belly.
With that same aching slowness, she extended a poised hand out to him and dabbed at the patch of wet on his chest. Javert stared at the dark beauty with slack-jaw and sparkling eyes. He couldn't summon words. He couldn't even remember to breathe whilst the woman had her hands upon him.
He supposed that he must have said something eventually. But the rest of that first conversation was lost to the annals of his memory. A great many words passed between him and Camille, although he would come to regret each and every one.
His mood was acrid as he let the hours dwindle by.
There were memories that left him bitter, memories that left him sad, and memories that left him angry.
And unfortunately, Camille incited all three emotions inside him.
For a short while, he tried to shake off her old presence, hovering over him like a spectral gargoyle on his shoulder. But it was no use. Any time he caught himself thinking of Camille, afterwards he would be colder, crueller, more spiteful than he needed to be.
And this party had done that. Raked her back into his present like a rotting pile of leaves.
He couldn't believe that he was stuck in another one of these events.
Forcing laughter, or whatever grunts and huffs he could pass off as laughter.
Faking smiles, even the smallest twinges of the mouth feeling like a labour of Hercules to him.
Still, he'd managed to chase off most of the prattling dandys and frilly maidens with his shortness of conversation. He tended to only answer in single-syllables. Especially when the conversation was as inane as the small talk at these soirées tended to be.
He positioned himself in the corner of the drawing room. His black coat and shadowy brow cast him in shadow, and thus he was able to melt into the furniture. Javert liked it like this; he was able to watch, unbothered. To simply just observe and count the minutes until he could gracefully make his excuses to the host and leave.
He allowed himself one glass of Bordeaux a night. Only one. Just as Froid had instructed him, all those years ago. And only on occasions such as this, to make himself seem more personable and agreeable to those around him. It was beneficial if an Inspector could at least give the impression of approachability to the right sort of people, even if they eventually discovered the opposite to be true. Still, he nursed his glass, tucked between a heavy red curtain and a bust of Marcus Aurelius. All whilst the party milled around him, unbothered by the presence of the Inspector.
This way, he was able to listen. Cast one ear to the gossip and hearsay the people of the ton shared with one another: Who had just entered town, who had left in a hurry, which ladies-maids were suspected of having light fingers, which new vagabond was selling snake-oil in the market square… It all gave him ammunition to launch his future investigations.
He was sipping on his wine, eavesdropping on two young gentlemen talking about the newest prostitute at the local brothel. He was about to find himself a new hiding spot, when they began discussing all of the "specialities" she did with her mouth…
… And then he saw her.