Doctor Who_ Set Piece - Kate Orman [101]
‘Hey,’ said Ace. ‘I got used to being on my own when I was in Egypt. Besides, it’s not just the Commune. The rifts can’t be repaired. Somebody’s got to stay and keep an eye on them.’
‘How are you going to do that?’
Ace grinned hugely. ‘The basement’s full of time machines.’
Benny grinned back, despite the lump in her throat. ‘Look after yourself. I’ll try to look after him. He needs someone to look after him.’
‘Does he?’ said Ace. She shook her head. ‘Don’t let him stuff you around.’
‘Don’t get into too many liaisons dangereuses, okay?’
They clasped hands. ‘Watch your butt, Summerfield. It’s a tough universe.’
‘With you loose in it,’ said Benny, ‘it had better be.’
The Doctor stood in the brilliant light of the Console Room. His face was shadowed. ‘I knew she was going to leave.’
Benny sniffled. ‘The sorceror’s apprentice. Someone’s got to keep an eye on those rifts. Someone who’s been out into the universe. Earth needs its champion.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I knew she ended up here, all along. I traced her family tree long before we went to Whitby.’
‘Remind me,’ said Benny tiredly, putting an arm around his shoulders, ‘never to try and throw you a surprise party.’
‘Will she be alright?’
‘I’ve never seen her look so alright.’
He shrugged his injured shoulder, wincing. ‘I suppose the wound will heal quickly.’
‘I suppose it will.’
199
Chapter 18
The New Adventures
I hate quotations.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, May 1849)
Place: Paris
Date: 5 October 1815
Ace’s age: Twenty-eight
Baron Vivant Dominique Denon was sixty-eight years old. At the moment, he was feeling every minute of those sixty-eight years. He was writing his resignation as Directeur-Général des Musées Impériaux.
They’d managed to keep the British out of the Louvre for months. He’d written letters of protest and personally confronted the soldiers who turned up on the museum’s steps. Finally Wellington had sent a Lieutenant-Colonel around to order Denon to surrender the art treasures he’d watched over for so long.
Well, ha! He’d given that Anglais a piece of his mind. He had twenty-five guards, and instructions to defend the museum to the last, and that had been exactly what he’d meant to do.
Even now, he felt he should have done something more to save the collection. It broke his heart to imagine it scattered over Europe – or carted back to England for the glory of the Empire. He’d faced worse dangers than stony-faced Grenadiers, bayonets fixed or not. He’d prevented Napoleon himself from burning Louvre paintings. He’d survived the Reign of Terror and the invasion of Egypt. Why, he and Mlle Summerfield had put paid to rougher ruffians than cocky British soldiers.
He smiled at the old memory. Whatever had become of that woman? Something extraordinaire, no doubt, something magique. He hoped she was still having wild adventures somewhere. While he had nothing left to do but to grow old gracefully.
There was a knock at his door. ‘ Oui? ’
‘ Il y a une jeune fille qui est venue vous voir, ’ said his housekeeper, with just a hint of amusement in her voice. ‘ Une Anglaise, je crois. ’
201
‘Please,’ said Denon, pushing his half-finished letter away. ‘Show her in.’
He didn’t know the woman – no, she looked familiar, but he could not place her. Nor was he feeling particularly well-disposed to the English. ‘What do you want, Mademoiselle?’
‘Well,’ she said, in London-flavoured French, ‘I just thought I’d let you know that Bernice is alright.’
It took him a moment to work out what she was talking about. ‘Mlle Summerfield?’
‘Yeah. She told me about having to leave you without saying goodbye properly.’
‘ Extraordinaire, ’ said Denon. ‘Please, sit down. How do you know her?’
‘That’s complicated. I know she couldn’t tell you very much about where she came from, who she was. But I do know that without your help, she would have died – or have been trapped, with no way of returning to her friends.’
Denon merely inclined his head. ‘I cannot help but think I have seen you somewhere before.’
‘Wellington took a painting