She glanced at me, startled, with red-rimmed eyes.

“You have used it yourself?”

“God, no!” I startled myself with the vehemence of my exclamation, and took a deep breath.

“No. I’ve seen women who have, though – at L’Hôpital des Anges.” The abortionists – the angel-makers – practiced largely in the privacy of homes, their own or their clients’. Their successes were not the ones that came to the hospital. I laid a hand unobtrusively over my own abdomen, as though for protection of its helpless occupant. Louise caught the gesture and hurled herself into the sofa, burying her head in her hands.

“Oh, I wish I were dead!” she moaned. “Why, why couldn’t I be as fortunate as you – to be bearing the child of a husband I loved?” She clutched her own plump stomach with both hands, staring down at it as though expecting the child to peek out between her fingers.

There were any number of answers to that particular question, but I didn’t think she really wanted to hear any of them. I took a deep breath and sat down beside her, patting a heaving damask shoulder.

“Louise,” I said. “Do you want the child?”

She lifted her head and stared at me in astonishment.

“But of course I want it!” she exclaimed. “It’s his – it’s Charles’s! It’s…” Her face crumpled, and she bowed her head once more over her hands, clasped so tightly over her belly. “It’s mine,” she whispered. After a long moment, she raised her streaming face, and with a pathetic attempt to pull herself together, wiped her nose on a trailing sleeve.

“But it’s no good,” she said. “If I don’t…” She glanced at the recipe on the table and swallowed heavily. “Then Jules will divorce me – he’ll cast me out. There would be the most terrible scandal. I might be excommunicated! Not even Father could protect me.”

“Yes,” I said. “But…” I hesitated, then cast caution to the winds. “Is there any chance Jules might be convinced the child is his?” I asked bluntly.

She looked blank for a moment, and I wanted to shake her.

“I don’t see how, unless – oh!” Light dawned, and she looked at me, horrified.

“Sleep with Jules, you mean? But Charles would be furious!”

“Charles,” I said through my teeth, “is not pregnant!”

“Well, but he’s… that is… I couldn’t!” The look of horror was fading, though, being slowly replaced with the growing realization of possibility.

I didn’t want to push her; still, I saw no good reason for her to risk her life for the sake of Charles Stuart’s pride, either.

“Do you suppose Charles would want you to endanger yourself?” I said. “For that matter – does he know about the child?”

She nodded, mouth slightly open as she thought about it, hands still clenched together over her stomach.

“Yes. That’s what we quarreled about last time.” She sniffed. “He was angry; he said it was all my fault, that I should have waited until he had reclaimed his father’s throne. Then he would be king someday, and he could come and take me away from Jules, and have the Pope annul my marriage, and his sons could be heirs to England and Scotlan…” She gave way once more, sniveling and wailing incoherently into a fold of her skirt.

I rolled my eyes in exasperation.

“Oh, do be quiet, Louise!” I snapped. It shocked her enough to make her stop weeping, at least momentarily, and I took advantage of the hiatus to press my point.

“Look,” I said, as persuasively as possible, “you don’t suppose Charles would want you to sacrifice his son, do you? Legitimate or not?” Actually, I rather thought Charles would be in favor of any step that removed inconvenience from his own path, regardless of the effects on Louise or his putative offspring. On the other hand, the Prince did have a marked streak of romanticism; perhaps he could be induced to view this as the sort of temporary adversity common to exiled monarchs. Obviously, I was going to need Jamie’s help. I grimaced at the thought of what he was likely to say about it.

“Well…” Louise was wavering, wanting desperately to be convinced. I had a momentary pang of pity for Jules, Prince de Rohan, but the vision of a young servant-girl, dying in protracted, blood-smeared agony on a pallet spread in the stone hallway of L’Hôpital des Anges was brutally clear in my mind.

It was nearly sunset when I left the de Rohans’, footsteps dragging. Louise, palpitating with nervousness, was upstairs in her boudoir, her maid putting up her hair and arraying her in her most daring gown before she went down to a private supper with her husband. I felt completely drained, and hoped that Jamie hadn’t brought anyone home for supper; I could use a spot of privacy, too.

He hadn’t; when I entered the study, he was seated at the desk, poring over three or four sheets of close-written paper.

“Do you think ‘the fur merchant’ is more likely to be Louis of France, or his minister Duverney?” he asked, without looking up.

“Fine, thank you, darling, and how are you?” I said.

“All right,” he said absently. The cowlicks on the top of his head were sticking up straight; he massaged his scalp vigorously as I watched, scowling down his long nose at the paper.

“I’m sure ‘the tailor from Vendôme’ must be Monsieur Geyer,” he said, running a finger along the lines of the letter, “and ‘our mutual friend’ – that could be either the Earl of Mar, or possibly the papal envoy. I think the Earl, from the rest of it, but the-”

“What on earth is that?” I peered over his shoulder, and gasped when I saw the signature at the foot of the letter. James Stuart, by the grace of God King of England and Scotland.

“Bloody Christ! It worked, then!” Swinging around, I spotted Fergus, crouched on a stool in front of the fire, industriously stuffing pastries into his face. “Good lad,” I said, smiling at him. He grinned back at me, cheeks puffed like a chipmunk’s with chestnut tart.

“We got it from the papal messenger,” Jamie explained, coming to the surface long enough to realize I was there. “Fergus took it from the bag while he was eating supper in a tavern. He’ll spend the night there, so we’ll have to put this back before morning. No difficulties there, Fergus?”

The boy swallowed and shook his head. “No, milord. He sleeps alone – not trusting his bedmates not to steal the contents of his bag.” He grinned derisively at this. “The second window on the left, above the stables.” He waved an airy hand, the deft, grubby fingers reaching for another pie. “It is nothing, milord.”

I had a sudden vision of that fine-boned hand held squirming on a block, with an executioner’s blade raised above the broomstick wrist. I gulped, forcing down the sudden lurch of my stomach. Fergus wore a small greenish copper medal on a string about his neck; the image of St. Dismas, I hoped.

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath to steady myself, “what’s all this about fur merchants?”

There was no time then for leisurely inspection. In the end, I made a quick fair copy of the letter, and the original was carefully refolded and its original seal replaced with the aid of a knife blade heated in a candle flame.

Watching this operation critically, Fergus shook his head at Jamie. “You have the touch, milord. It is a pity that the one hand is crippled.”

Jamie glanced dispassionately at his right hand. It really wasn’t too bad; a couple of fingers set slightly askew, a thick scar down the length of the middle finger. The only major damage had been to the fourth finger, which stuck out stiffly, its second joint so badly crushed that the healing had fused two fingerbones together. The hand had been broken in Wentworth Prison, less than four months ago, by Jack Randall.

“Never mind,” he said, smiling. He flexed the hand and flicked the fingers playfully at Fergus. “My great paws are too big to make a living picking pockets, anyway.” He had regained an astounding degree of movement, I thought. He still carried the soft ball of rags I had made for him, squeezing it unobtrusively hundreds of times a day as he went about his business. And if the knitting bones hurt him, he never complained.