Read Chapter 17: A Secret Tryst

The ink was barely dry on the morning edition when Élise slipped out the back of her shop, past the alley where the rag-pickers sorted their finds, and into the warren of streets behind the Halles. She wore a plain grey wool cloak, her hair pinned tight beneath a white cap, and she carried a basket of eggs as if she were a market wife on an errand. The eggs were real. The errand was not.

Antoine had chosen the place: a bookbinder's attic on the Rue de la Verrerie, a room so low that he had to stoop beneath the beams. He was already there when she arrived, standing at the dormer window with his hands clasped behind his back, watching the street below. He turned when she entered, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

"You're late," he said.

"I had to be certain I wasn't followed." She set the basket on a stack of wrapped boards. "The inspector's men have been circling my street since Tuesday."

"Beaumont is thorough. That's why I chose this room." He gestured to the low ceiling, the shelves of half-bound volumes. "The binder is a cousin of my mother's. He asks no questions."

Élise removed her cap and shook out her hair. It was a small freedom, one she allowed herself only in private, and she saw Antoine's gaze catch on the motion before he looked away.

"You said you had information."

"I do." He drew a folded sheet from his coat. "The Prefecture has issued a new order. All printing houses are to register their presses within the fortnight, with a sworn statement of the number and type of machines they operate. Unregistered presses are to be confiscated, their owners tried before a police tribunal."

Élise felt the blood drain from her face. "That will shut down half the radical press in Paris."

"And the other half will go deeper underground." Antoine held the sheet out to her. "But it will also make it easier for men like Beaumont to find presses like yours."

She took the paper and read it, though she already understood the weight of his words. Her hand-press in Jean-Luc's room was small, portable, easy to conceal. But it was also a machine, and machines could be traced. The press on the Rue du Temple was heavier, bolted to the floor of the cellar, and now that LeFevre knew of it, it was more dangerous than useful.

"We have to move the Courier," she said.

"I know."

"And Pierre's pamphlets. He'll be hungry for the next installment soon."

Antoine studied her. "You've been quiet about Pierre. Did something happen?"

Élise hesitated. She had not told him about the failed meeting, about the pamphlets lost to LeFevre's raid, about the debt that grew with every passing day. She had not told him that the rent was due in four days, or that her brother sat in a cell in La Force while she traded secrets with his enemy.

"Pierre is patient," she said at last. "For now."

Antoine did not press. That was one of the things she had come to admire about him, despite herself. He asked questions, but he knew when to let them hang unanswered.

"There is something else," he said. "Beaumont spoke to me this morning, in his office. He asked about you."

Élise's hands stilled on the paper. "What did you tell him?"

"That you are a printer's daughter who has fallen on hard times, and that your father's debts have left you in a precarious position." He paused. "I told him you were not a threat to public order."

"And he believed you?"

"I think he wanted to. But that will not last long. He has heard rumors of a woman's journal circulating in the markets. He finds the idea amusing." Antoine smiled thinly. "He does not know that amusement will cost him his position."

"His position?"

"Once I have proof of his corruption. The bribes he takes from LeFevre, the informants he protects." Antoine's voice hardened. "I have been gathering testimony for weeks. Shopkeepers who paid him for protection. A printer on the Rue Saint-Jacques whose press was confiscated after he refused to pay. It is enough to ruin him, if I can find a publisher bold enough to print it."

Élise looked at him, understanding. "You want me to print it."

"I want you to consider it." He moved closer, and she felt the warmth of him even at arm's length. "If we can discredit Beaumont, we buy ourselves time. Time to move the press. Time to find your... whatever you are trying to find."

She heard the pause. He knew. She had been careful, but he was too clever, too observant. He had seen her slip away toward La Force, had noticed the bruised look in her eyes when she returned. He did not know the truth, but he knew there was a truth to be known.

"What I am trying to find is my father's legacy," she said, which was true, in a way. "He built something in this shop. I will not let it be torn down by men like LeFevre."

"Or by men like me?"

The question hung between them. His gray eyes were serious, unreadable. They stood so close now that she could see the faint scar above his brow, the small imperfection in his otherwise careful face.

"I don't know what you are," she said honestly. "I know what you do. I know what you say in your newspaper. I know what you told the inspector this morning."

"And yet here you are."

"Because I have no one else to trust."

He flinched slightly. She had meant it as a confession, but it sounded like an accusation. She saw the recognition in his eyes, the understanding that her partnership with him was born of desperation, not choice. And still he did not step away.

"It doesn't have to be that way," he said. "You could leave Paris. Take your money, what little you have, and go south. Start again. No revolution, no debt, no—

"No brother," she finished. "No father. No voice."

"Élise."

He said her name softly, almost without thinking, and she felt something shift in her chest. She did not know if it was anger or tenderness, and she did not have time to decide before the sound of boots rang out below in the street.

Antoine moved to the window in one stride, peering down through the dirty glass. Élise pressed herself against the wall, her heart hammering.

"Police patrol," he said, his voice low. "Three men. They are stopping at the corner."

"They can't know we're here."

"They don't need to know. They only need to be suspicious."

The footsteps drew closer. Élise could hear the murmur of voices now, the scrape of boot leather against the cobbles. Antoine turned from the window, and in the dim light of the attic, his face was sharp, urgent.

"Listen to me," he said. "If they come up, you are a bookbinder's apprentice. You know nothing of printing. You are here to collect a commission for your employer."

"And you?"

"I am a journalist, investigating a trade dispute. I will talk my way past them." He paused. "It is what I have always been good at."

The footsteps stopped directly below. A knock sounded against the binder's door.

Élise and Antoine stood frozen, a breath apart. She could smell his soap, the faint scent of coffee on his clothes. She looked up at him, and she saw that he was looking at her mouth.

"Antoine," she whispered.

He raised his hand, slowly, as if to touch her face. The knock came again, louder, and he dropped his hand and stepped back.

"Stay here," he said. "Do not move."

He was gone before she could answer. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, his voice rising to meet the police in an easy, confident register, the polite confusion of a man who had nothing to hide.

She pressed her hands to her chest and felt her heart still racing. The press downstairs. The rent. Beaumont. Jean-Luc. It all rushed through her mind, but beneath it, she could still feel the ghost of his hand, the nearness of him.

When Antoine returned, he was calm. "They were looking for a deserter," he said. "Not us."

"Good." She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. "Then we have time."

"We have a little." He looked at her, and for a moment something flickered between them, raw and unrehearsed. "But not much. Do you have a plan?"

Élise straightened her shoulders. "I always have a plan."

"Does it involve telling me the truth?"

She met his eyes. "When I can trust you with it."

He did not argue. He only nodded, and she gathered her basket and her dignity and made her way back down the stairs, into the cold streets of Paris, where nothing had changed but everything had.