A Scoundrels Kiss

by Shelly Thacker

  “Financial reasons.” Wolf sat back, his mouth curving in a cynical twist. “Apparently the family fell into ruin a generation ago. Something to do with disastrous investments and a scandal involving her mother. The mademoiselle created any number of chemical concoctions over the years, according to the serving woman, but none ever earned so much as a centime. So it seems she decided to turn her efforts in a more…profitable direction.”

  “You can imagine how much the French would pay for such a weapon,” Fleming bit out. “Her brother had already collected the first installment and was living in lavish style at Versailles. But she was clearly the one behind it all. She needed him only for entrée into military circles and to act as her sales representative.”

  Appalled, Max stared down at the plain features drawn in stark black lines on the parchment. The youthful face held a simple honesty, almost an innocence. That such a woman had incredible scientific gifts was surprising enough—but that she could turn her gifts in such a murderous direction was shocking. Unspeakable.

  And to do so for money…

  He dropped the sketch as if it burned his fingers. She was no better than an intellectual mercenary, trading her lethal skills for coin. Fury overwhelmed everything else he felt. Fury at this woman who had sent so many to their deaths with her invention. Who had almost killed his brother.

  Before Max could recover his power of speech, Wolf continued, his voice urgent now. “We have to get our last two men out of France, and quickly. If our sixth man is a traitor working for the French, their lives are in danger every second they remain. There isn’t time to have them do what must be done.”

  “Which is?” Max lifted his gaze.

  “Abduct her,” Fleming replied matter-of-factly.

  Max stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he looked at Wolf. Both men watched him, waiting expectantly.

  Yet it took a moment for their unspoken question to sink in.

  “You’re asking me to do it?” He felt as startled as he had earlier when their driver tapped him on the shoulder in front of the Hawk and Sparrow.

  “We’ve no choice. She’s our only hope of reproducing this chemical compound,” Wolf said emphatically. “Which is our only hope of fending off the French.”

  “We need a man to go in and get her out of that asylum,” Fleming explained. “Someone to smuggle her to England as quietly and safely as possible. Before the French realize that she’s the one who created their new weapon.”

  “It shouldn’t be impossible,” Wolf assured him.

  “Impossible?” Max reached up to remove his spectacles, his fingers suddenly clumsy. “Oh no, not at all.” He tried to laugh but it came out more like a strangled cough. “It sounds like rather a creative way to commit suicide, but certainly not impossible.”

  “We wouldn’t have asked you here if we didn’t think you could manage it, D’Avenant,” Fleming said impatiently. “Don’t think we haven’t investigated you thoroughly—the medals for marksmanship you’ve been winning at every club in London, your lectures at the Academy of Sciences, the brilliant papers you’ve had published—”

  “Your colleagues and friends describe you as an honorable man,” Wolf noted. “Quiet, kind, a perfect gentleman—”

  “One or two young ladies may have even used the word ‘sweet.’” Fleming made a face.

  Max felt his cheeks warm. “My parents raised their sons to always be chivalrous and protective toward women,” he said a bit defensively.

  In truth, nothing turned him into a babbling idiot faster than the company of a beautiful woman.

  “The main point is,” Fleming continued, “even during your illness, you never let the pain stop you from pursuing your goals. Tenacity is exactly the quality we’re looking for.”

  “We’ve lost too many good men already,” Wolf said quietly. “We don’t want to risk one more, but this is too important. The French have far more information on this weapon than we do, perhaps even a small supply of the chemical. If they manage to reproduce it, the British navy will be finished. England will be finished.”

  “Think of your king and country, man. If and when this mademoiselle gets her memory back, she must be in English hands.”

  “But why me?” Max swallowed hard. “You must have any number of men who are better qualified and more experienced at this sort of thing.”

  Wolf shook his head emphatically. “We can’t risk sending one of our own. The turncoat—if he is indeed a turncoat—would know any of our operatives. It would jeopardize the entire mission. We need an outsider.”

  “An outsider with enough intelligence and scientific knowledge to make sense of whatever memories the girl might recover.” Fleming ticked off Max’s qualifications on his fingers. “Someone who knows his way around weapons. Someone fluent enough in French to pass as a native—”

  “How’s your French, D’Avenant?”

  “Better than my Russian,” Max replied almost automatically, as if this were an academic interview at the university rather than a secret conversation with spies. “Not quite as good as my Italian.” It was all starting to make sense. Too much sense. “But I can name other men with the same qualifications.”

  Wolf and Fleming exchanged a rather uncomfortable glance.

  “You weren’t our first choice,” Fleming admitted in a reluctant tone. “But the others we’ve approached have wives and children to think of, too much to lose. You’re younger. Unattached—”

  “And a D’Avenant,” Wolf added impatiently. “And we don’t have time for an extensive recruiting search. The French might be producing more of this chemical even while the three of us sit here arguing. You’re our man, D’Avenant. Will you go?”

  Will you go? A deceptively simple question. Max opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t speak.

  He thought of the bloodstains on the papers. Of the three operatives who had already died. Men far more experienced than him. Dead.

  But even as logic urged caution, he knew what his answer would be. He would take on their mission and the danger be damned—because thousands of lives might be saved. Because of honor, patriotism, duty to king and country.

  But he also had another reason, one that disturbed him deeply.

  It was the chance for vengeance against the French bastards who had shot Julian’s ship out from under him. Against those who had dared test their murderous new weapon on a D’Avenant vessel.

  They should have thought twice before making that mistake.

  The aggressive need for action shredded his usual logic and reason until he could feel himself shaking with the force of it.

  It was completely unlike him. And bloody unnerving.

  “I’ll need…time,” he said finally, trying to wrestle the unfamiliar feeling under control. “I’ll have to explain to my family—”

  “There’s no time for that.” Fleming shook his head. “We’ve no way of knowing how long LeBon might hold out before spilling the truth about his sister. You can send a letter to your family. Explain that you’ve decided to go off on the Grand Tour you never had. We need you to leave at once. The end of the week at the latest.”

  “We’ll give you weapons and some training in a few of our special methods—”

  “And we’ll have a physician explain to you all that is known about injuries to the head and amnesia. Try to help the girl get her memory back as quickly as possible. The sooner we have this chemical weapon, the safer England will be.”

  Max felt dazed trying to absorb it all at once. “Do I have time for a question or two?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Of course.” Fleming leaned back in his seat with a sardonic smile. “I suppose you want to know what sort of compensation you’ll receive?”

  “Uh…” Max hesitated. He honestly hadn’t thought of that.

  “Name your price. Whatever you wish,” Wolf urged. “Our operatives are paid handsomely.”

  Certainly. The ones who survive, Max thought. Not wanting to appear a total oaf, h
e tried to think of something to ask for.

  But he was content with his life. He had his family, a few good friends, satisfying academic pursuits, his books. He didn’t need anything else.

  So he told them the truth.

  “The honor of serving my country and saving English lives will be payment enough.”

  Both men looked dumbfounded.

  Max hurried to pose his real question, not giving himself time to consider anything but the specifics of carrying out the plan. “What if I need help once I’m in France? How am I to contact you?”

  Wolf and Fleming exchanged another silent glance. Neither rushed to answer his question.

  “What if I need help?” Max repeated uneasily.

  Wolf regarded him with a solemn expression. “Once you’re in, you’ll be entirely on your own. If you’re captured, we cannot help you, or admit in any way that the Crown had anything to do with this. We are entirely a secret operation—and that cloak of secrecy must be maintained at all cost. If you’re caught, it will look as if you’re simply an angry brother seeking revenge. That’s what will be reported in the English newspapers.”

  Max congratulated himself on remaining calm as he digested that information. He understood only now just how far these men would go to gain their ends. He knew they would report the unfortunate news to the press, and he knew the story would be believed. Because it was all too close to the truth.

  He also understood that these two had not sought him out purely because of his academic reputation and his skill with a pistol.

  They wanted him because he could be easily explained away if he had the temerity to get himself killed.

  Wolf smiled, a rather humorless but somehow sympathetic smile. “And your other question?”

  “What makes you think she’ll come with me?” Max nodded to the sketch that he had dropped on the coach’s floor. “Assuming, of course, I’m able to break into this asylum and abduct her without getting us both killed. What the devil am I supposed to do then? Drag her bound and gagged all the way across France? Might attract rather a fair amount of attention, wouldn’t you say?”

  Wolf chuckled. “That part of the mission should prove far easier, D’Avenant—”

  “And far more pleasant,” Fleming put in, his grin widening.

  “As we said, the chit suffers from a complete loss of memory. She doesn’t remember her life, her family, even her own name.”

  Fleming bent to retrieve the sketch. He handed it back to Max. “It should be a fairly simple matter to convince this ‘plain little thing’ that you’re her brave, handsome husband come to rescue her.”

  Paris

  The scream grew louder, echoing through the dark chambers, rising to a screech of pain and rage before it subsided into a thin wail.

  It always followed the same pattern, that scream. And it came only at night. Every night. Came like a ghost to touch her with icy fingers and chill her right to the center of her being.

  It wrenched away whatever hope and courage she managed to gather during the day, and left only despair in their place.

  Despair…and fear. Fear that her life had never been anything but this.

  And would never be anything more.

  She lay trembling on the spindly bed, cold trickles of perspiration making her thin chemise stick to her body. She had grown accustomed to the other sounds, to the endless cries and howls and sobs and mindless chantings that hammered at her senses day after day. To the steady thump, thump, thump of the poor soul who occupied the…the cell next to hers, bumping rhythmically against the wall.

  Cell? No…yes. Was that the word? She couldn’t remember. She did not know. Words and thoughts seemed to tangle together in her mind, some sharp and clear, others hopelessly confusing. It left her with a helpless, muddled feeling that made her head ache.

  The scream began again, stark and terrifying, rising out of the darkness.

  She had to clench her teeth to bite back an answering scream. She wouldn’t give in to panic. Wouldn’t become like the howling denizens of this place. She wasn’t one of them. Wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Wasn’t.

  What she was or where she belonged, she didn’t know. But she had to get out of this place. Had to get free.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  She struggled against the leather straps that held her prisoner, pulling with all her strength, but it was useless. Her guard had lost patience with her today, had bound her tightly to the bed so she wouldn’t attempt another…another…

  Tensing, closing her eyes, she willed the word to come. Why couldn’t she remember? Most things were so sensible and understandable, why were some so lost? Why?

  Giving up on the missing word, she strained against the bindings but the…the square metal pieces that fastened the straps were painfully tight. Her hands and feet had gone numb hours ago and her wrists and ankles were already bleeding from her attempts to…to get away.

  She had fought and kicked when the guard tied her, knowing what it would mean: she couldn’t curl up on her side in a small ball with her hands over her ears as she usually did at night. Tonight, she was forced to lie flat on her back. Helpless. Awake.

  Listening.

  The scream began again, an inhuman screech of pure anguish.

  Tossing her head in frustration, she only succeeded in tangling her long, loose hair about her face and in her eyes. Finally she went limp, falling back on the lumpy mattress, resisting the whimper that rose within her, the tears that gathered on her lashes. With little puffs of breath, she tried to blow the tendrils of hair out of her eyes. She couldn’t.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  She choked down a sob, blinking hard, refusing to cry. In all the torment she had suffered since awakening in this place eleven days ago, she had not cried. She had endured the noises, the hunger, the foul smells, the old nuns with their white robes who came every day to poke and prod at her.

  She had heard them discussing her, those first two days when she hadn’t been able to speak clearly, when they didn’t realize how much she understood. “Injury” and “strange case” and “amnesia,” they had muttered. The last word had no meaning to her, but she grasped fully the rest of what they said: the only other person they’d ever known with a “strange case” like hers had gone mad.

  And died in this place.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Her pounding heart took up the relentless, thudding rhythm. Died. She wished she didn’t remember what that meant, but she did.

  The nuns had started asking endless, exhausting questions as soon as her ability to speak had returned. But everyone seemed to talk too quickly, their words running together. Great rushing rivers of words. Who areyou? Do you know whathappened to you? Doyou remember yourname? Do you remember howyou cametobe here?

  Do you remember? Doyou remember? Doyouremember?

  No and no and no!

  She didn’t remember anything that had happened before she opened her eyes in this tiny…cell with its bare stone walls and floor, to find Sister Ratface bending over her.

  That was what she called the woman in charge. Her real name was Sister Clemence.

  She remembered that, but pretended she didn’t. The woman looked exactly like a rat, with her pointy nose and squinty little eyes.

  She couldn’t remember where she had ever seen a rat before, but she knew what one looked like. She knew. Just as she knew that Paris was a large city and the capital of France. Just as she knew that a nun was a religious woman who chose to live apart from the world in a…convent.

  How did she know that? Where had she learned it? When?

  She lay there and listened to the scream, rising again.

  Over and over, she told the sisters how much she wanted to go home. She didn’t know where that was, or why it was so important to her, but she wanted it. With all her heart. Home. Out. Freedom. Home. Perhaps there, her memory would come back.

  But the sisters were adamant that she couldn’t leave until she was well, unti
l she could answer their questions correctly. And so she had tried.

  Oh, how she had tried.

  Sometimes she would invent an answer or two, hoping it would please them and they would finally let her leave. But her answers never pleased them.

  And when she asked them questions, they refused to answer. Which angered her. She wanted to know how she had come to be here. Where she was from. Where her home was. They replied in only the vaguest terms. And the words they used confused her.

  Words like accident and carriage and the long one that they said was her name: marienicolelebon.

  None of those words had any meaning to her. She could tell from the way Sister Ratface said it that an “accident” was not a good thing. But she had no idea what a “carriage” was.

  Thump, thump, thump

  Why? Why couldn’t she remember any of that, when she could remember everything that had happened since she awakened here? Every moment. Every face. Every name.

  She remembered crabby Sister Fidele, who had come to change the bandage on her head every day until the deep cut had healed. She remembered Guy and Victor, who stood guard outside her door by turns, day and night. She remembered Monsieur Trochère, the short physician with the enormous white wig and powdered face who had examined her and declared that she might never get her memory back.

  She remembered all of that. But everything that had happened before was…

  Gone.

  Her life, her past, who she was. Simply gone. As if she had never existed outside of this cell.

  Do you remember? Do you remember? Doyouremember?

  In the past few days, she had tried simply ignoring the sisters when they came with their questions. But that only made them lose patience and shout at her. And shouting always brought the awful ache to her head.

  The terrible, pounding pain that made her vision blur.

  When she could stand it no longer, she would shout back at them, and sometimes Sister Ratface would slap her for being “impudent” and go out and lock the door and not bring any supper.