The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig Page B

name again? Worse and worse that she was a member of his household and he couldn’t even remember her name, just her position, as though she were a piece of furniture, something fungible, designed for his service.
    It had been something to do with gray. Gray like her dress and the confining stone of the Abbaye. Gris . Yes, Griscogne, that was it.
    “Mademoiselle Griscogne?”
    The governess paused on the second step. She turned back to him, her face carefully expressionless. André wondered what she was really thinking. Nothing complimentary, he suspected.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Tell Jeannette to send down a coffee and a headache powder to my study. I know she has them,” he said.
    “I shall do my best to extract them from her, sir,” Laura said.
    The faint outlines of a smile altered the tired lines of her employer’s face. “Without thumbscrews, if you please,” he said, and turned to go.
    Laura paused, one hand on the banister. She thought that was a joke. She hoped that was a joke. With one who worked for Fouché, one couldn’t be quite sure. Thumbscrews might be a requisite part of the job description.
    For a moment, there, she had thought he intended to use them on her.
    That had either gone very well, or very badly. She wasn’t quite sure, but she did know she could use a headache powder of her own. Her ears were ringing, either from the prolonged exposure to cold or to Jaouen; either one would have the same effect. She seemed to have forgotten to breathe for the duration of most of that interview.
    But he hadn’t sacked her. Whatever else had happened, he hadn’t sacked her.
    This was, however, shaping up to be the oddest relationship she had ever had with an employer, and that included the viscountess who believed she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra. Laura’s employer had spent most of her time draped across a sphinx in the salon trailing diaphanous draperies, but she had left Laura to do what she would with the children, who were named, appropriately enough, Mark and Anthony.
    Laura watched discreetly as Jaouen walked briskly through a door at the far end of the hall. Even as visibly tired as he was, his movements vibrated with purpose. His study must lie that way, and in it whatever papers he had brought back from the Abbaye. By tomorrow, those precious papers would already be back at the Prefecture, out of her reach. She needed those papers and she needed them now, before Jaouen took them away with him again.
    Jaouen had just given her the perfect excuse.
    Laura paused on the threshold of the schoolroom as the germ of an idea began to form.
    Jeannette, misinterpreting Laura’s hesitation, jerked her head to the left, to a door all but concealed in the paneling. “I put your bag in there.”
    “Thank you,” said Laura, and went where the nursery maid had indicated.
    It must have been a dressing room in a more affluent time, back before the two large chambers next to it had been requisitioned as nursery room and schoolroom respectively. A fanciful, if faded, scene of elaborate birdcages, brightly colored birds, and lush foliage covered the walls, attesting to the taste of the last Comtesse de Bac. The dressing table was still in place, its ornate, gilt-framed mirror propped over a table topped in delicately veined marble, as was a grand armoire with curving ornaments on top, but a narrow bed had been shoved into one corner of the room, made up with sheets, a blanket, and one very flat pillow.
    Laura stood in front of her new bed in her new room and pondered her options. The idea was risky, but it might just work.
    Opening the armoire, Laura reached for her carpetbag.
    Yes, there it was, among a jumble of similar remedies: a small twist of white powder. It was always best to keep dangerous items out in the open, among similar objects, or at least so the Pink Carnation said. The sleeping draught had been designed to look like an innocent packet of headache powder, just as the powerful emetics next to