by Lisa Chaplin
Yes . . . the terrain was bad for him, but bonne chance for his enemies. Yet the mounting odds only made Bonaparte think better, react faster. He tapped on the coach to move forward. “Be prepared for attack.”
Rue Laboratoire, Ambleteuse, France
October 29, 1802 (Early Afternoon)
In the middle of a sudden snowstorm so intense that Fulton had spent the afternoon in the stable repairing Nautilus, a knock came at the kitchen door.
The white afternoon was softening to the indeterminate gray of pretwilight as Lisbeth scrubbed the kitchen table and butcher’s block. Who could it be? In almost two months nobody had ever come here, and it wasn’t likely to be the commander at the back door, not this day of all days. He had to be off somewhere foiling the assassination attempt . . . if there really was one.
Well, whoever it was, she felt some relief that she wouldn’t have to think about Fulton’s proposal for a little while—then her heart began pounding. What if it was—?
Don’t be stupid. Alain wouldn’t knock at the door.
Still, she slipped a cutting knife into her apron before she went to open the door.
A rail-thin stranger stood in the doorway facing her. His cheeks were rough and red from walking through the snow. He wore a uniform of the French Army, but it was dirty and ragged, like his cloak. He had an uncertain smile and an empty sleeve where his arm had been. Covered in snow, he shifted from one foot to the other. “Mamselle, I-I have not eaten in some time . . . if you have anything, bread and cheese, or milk . . . ?”
The stranger couldn’t look at her, but swayed on his feet.
“Oh, come in, m’sieur.” Taking his only arm, she led him to a chair by the fire and dragged the small table over so he could lean on it. “I made soup. There is plenty left.”
She laid an extra log on the fire, set the soup back to heat, and added the teakettle to the wide fire hook. Then she cut bread and took the butter from the pantry.
“Thank you so much for your kindness, mamselle. I-I do not like . . .”
She turned her head to smile at him. “I understand, m’sieur. If we cannot share what we have with a fellow man in need in these dangerous times, what sort of persons have we become?”
His return smile was no more than a humiliated stretching of lips. “I am Serge Mareschal, late of the Armée Française.” He waved his hand at his empty sleeve. “Now, I am nothing.”
Knowing how she hated pity, she forced it from her tone. “Don’t say that, M. Mareschal. We are not defined by what we do or how we appear.” Knowing it for a lie—every society had hypocritical standards—she stumbled on, “All of us have value to our families, to our country, and to God.”
Mareschal shook his head, but didn’t speak.
“I am Elise Dupont.” She sketched a dipping curtsy and made the tea. As she served him she asked, “Do you have a family, m’sieur?”
“My son is three and my daughter is five, and a third on the way,” he replied, in a tone of shame, wolfing down the food. Then he looked up, flushing dark red. “If-if you have some more soup to spare . . .”
“I will give you what I can.” Stifling a yawn—it had been weeks since she’d slept the night through, and now Fulton’s proposal filled her mind in quiet hours—she waved off his humiliated gratitude. “I have bread, cheese, meat, and milk as well as soup.” Another yawn; she felt slow and stupid. “All I ask is that you return the basket and stone jars. These are not my things to give. I’m merely the housekeeper here.”
After he’d eaten, Mareschal said, “I’ll impose no further on your hospitality, mamselle.” Then he mumbled, “I am truly sorry, but I was given no choice . . .”
He stamped his feet, and two men rushed in from the back door. As Lisbeth screamed and tried to pull out the knife, they hit her on the side of her head. Her legs lost their power, and she sagged. Powerful arms took hold of her and dragged her from the house as everything went dark.
CHAPTER 34
Fort Vauban, Ambleteuse Beach
October 29, 1802 (Afternoon)
SWEAT BEADED LISBETH’S BROW despite the intense cold of the room. It was ridiculous; she certainly didn’t feel hot after being carried through a heavy dumping of snow without even being covered with her cloak. The soldiers who invaded the house had brought her to this old fort on the beach she’d passed so many times on her walks and left her in this half-frozen room in a chair far from the fire. Her hair was damp, her dress wet, and she couldn’t get warm. The room was late medieval with its high, uneven whitewashed walls and thick, heavy beams. Wind whistled in from poorly fit windows and cracks in the walls.
“Madame, I asked you three questions. I expect answers.”
Lisbeth met the colonel’s eyes, and for the third time, gave the same answer. “My name is Elise Dupont. I moved here recently from Abbeville.”
For a long minute Colonel Lebrun, a graying, portly man, just watched her. He was seated at a lopsided desk, his back close to the fire. “And the rest?”
She held in the urge to sigh. If this was Bonaparte’s idea of a military interrogation, he needed to train his people better. “I don’t know any Monsieur Borchonne. I am just a housekeeper, m’sieur.”
Lebrun seemed unmoved by her deliberate stupidity. “When the sun rises, you’ll be escorted to Boulogne for more formal questioning. Best if you speak to me now, you know. It gives you a chance,” he said, his would-be encouragement touched with a calculating expression. “Because you see, if you’re found to be in collusion with Jacobin or British spies, madame, you can expect the guillotine.”
Ambleteuse-Wimille Road
Lying amid the sand grass less than two miles north of the Camps de Boulogne, Camelford saw the coach heading his way. Right on time, exactly when and where Fouché had told him to be. Now all he had to do was lie still and wait.
He’d always found simple plans were the best. Such as killing a loudmouthed, red-haired thorn in his side to leave no traces behind of his weeks in Boulogne, or paying a struggling merchant today to take him out of Boulogne, smuggled in his carriage. Simple, effective, and the merchant’s family would get a thousand francs in lieu of his safe return. He’d been a pig of a man in any case, chewing food with his mouth open, and spraying chunks of it on Camelford as he spoke. Such mannerless apes deserved death. No doubt his family would be grateful to him.
It was time; the coach was close enough. Squinting through the thickest grass he’d found in the field, he lifted one of four rifles he had with him and shot the front horse.
Fort Vauban
“We found no record of your life in Abbeville, Madame Dupont. Tell us why that is.”
Lisbeth tried to make her mind work, but she felt as if she’d run for miles. Her heart was fluttering like a bird in a cage it couldn’t break. “I don’t come from there.” She heard the quiver in her voice. “I come from Bergerac, in the Dordogne.”
“If you’re from the Dordogne, why do you have a northern accent?”
“I . . . cultivated it.” She switched accents, speaking in pure Aquitaine French. Once more she blessed Grand-mère’s “French accent” games. “My husband is violent”—she touched her scarred cheek—“and gives his mistress children. I am not barren, m’sieur, merely neglected. I can’t go back to a man who despises me and refuses to give me a child.”
She’d selected her reason carefully during her sleepless nights. Violence was no reason to leave a husband in the eyes of the law, but Catholic traditions prevailed despite the Revolution. For a man to refuse to give even a hated wife a child went against the laws of God.
Yes, she’d chosen well. The uncertainty was clear in Lebrun’s eyes.
“May I ask why you felt it necessary to check my background, m’sieur?” The fear in her voice wasn’t feigned. “Is my husband trying to find me?”
“Madame, you are safe,” the colonel said in a crisp tone. “The first consul has asked us to interrogate every person recently come to the region.” At t
hat moment a man ran into the room with a note. The colonel read it and looked up. She shivered at his expression.
“I require knowledge about your employer.” His voice was gentle; the look in his eyes, inflexible. “What is he working on in his stables with his odd-smelling smoke and his portable forge? We have already ascertained that his name is not Monteaux. I believe the American inventor Robert Fulton is reclusive and speaks fluent French.”
She shivered, as if he’d thrown cold water over her. Her head still pounded from the blow she’d taken in the kitchen, making her slow and stupid.
The colonel smiled: a chilling thing. It seemed Napoleon had trained his men well, after all. “What do you know about the death of Jean LeClerc, Madame Dupont? Or should I say, Madame Delacorte—formerly Elizabeth Sunderland, known as the British whore of Abbeville?”
Then he crossed the room and leaned over her, still with that smile that promised a more frightening future than a mere physical attack. “Now, Elizabeth, you’ll start telling the truth.”
The Wimereux-Wimille Road (North of Boulogne)
A shot took out a lead horse. As it fell the others neighed and reared.
The coach tipped to the right. The sharpshooters fell to the floor of the coach, dropping their rifles. Bonaparte threw his weight onto the left side of the coach, dragging one of the shooters with him. The weight was enough to make the coach fall to wavering balance—
Boom! Another shot sounded. Mynatt cried out and fell off the box.
Men fell in war; it was a soldier’s reality. But Bonaparte prayed for le bon Dieu to keep his friend Mynatt alive. “Keep going, Beaumont,” he yelled to the other driver.
Beaumont yelled, “I can’t, my lord, the lead horse is dead.”
A shot whizzed by his ear. If he hadn’t had the glass removed yesterday, he could have been dead, injured, or panicking.
A good plan, this. Simple and effective. They were prepared for me to fight.
Keeping in the shadows, the first consul—still a soldier first and foremost—snatched up a rifle, took aim, and shot. Having practiced since his teen years, he could shoot straight even in gathering darkness and under unsteady conditions. The man rolled in time and grabbed a second rifle. Recognizing the face, Napoleon snatched up another rifle, took aim, and fired. His attacker cried out and dropped the rifle, his shooting arm made useless.
Bonaparte kicked his sharpshooters. “Take that man alive.”
FROG-MARCHED TO THE COACH by the sharpshooters that had rendered his arm useless with a single shot through the muscle—if he knew which one had shot him, he’d kill him—Camelford faced the man he loathed above all others. Before he could look down his nose at the Corsican piece of gutter trash, the two soldiers pushed him—Camelford—onto his knees.
Boney smiled down at him. “We meet again, Lord Camelford. Your cousin Mr. Pitt will be glad to know you’ve been recovered safely. You will be returned home . . . at a price.” The smile grew. “Last time there was no public consequence. Now, I will not be so forgiving. You will become famous throughout France and England as the man who couldn’t kill Napoleon Bonaparte twice. The name Pitt will be synonymous with failure throughout England.”
Twitching, Camelford’s gaze shifted. Bonaparte had had expert marksmen in the coach with him. Such a departure from his usual method of aping Caesar or William the Conqueror, always needing to take the lead himself, showed a brilliance Camelford never thought he’d have to prepare for. A man so lowborn and lacking in gentility could be an excellent soldier, but when had he become such a brilliant tactician?
And a gutter-trash cabin boy had warned him that Boney would do something like this, damn his eyes! It was against the will of God that the lower orders outthink their betters. It was intolerable. Either the devil was with him, or Boney had a highborn Englishman in his pay . . . it was the only logical explanation, and he’d find out who, as soon as he returned to England.
CHAPTER 35
Fort Vauban
TELL ME ABOUT THE man masquerading as Gaston Borchonne, where he is, what Fulton’s inventing, and what he means to do with it.”
The colonel was no fool trying to dominate her with beatings or sex. Lisbeth couldn’t see how to undermine this patient, smiling interrogation. There was no violence, no yelling. He smiled when she lied, as if he knew the truth and expected her not to speak it. She’d tried weeping to convince him she was a weak woman being dominated by the big strong man, but he’d advised her not to waste his time. Layer by layer he’d stripped her games, and she became a little more frightened.
It was as if he knew her, was certain what she’d say or try next.
“Again—tell me about the man calling himself Gaston Borchonne, what Monsieur Fulton’s inventing, and what he means to do with it.”
Lisbeth stared at him, eyes big and sad. “I told you, Colonel. I don’t know.”
“I think you do.” Colonel Lebrun leaned closer. Strange, his breath was pleasant coffee, but all she smelled was death. “You’re a British spy. Why else would a married English lady be living with an American who invents subversive machines with exploding weapons?”
She sighed. “I found somewhere to live and work after my husband gave me no home or choice of living, then tried to kill me.”
His expression was akin to pity. “If you don’t tell me, you’ll face a harder inquisition tomorrow, madame. Or do you not know Lord Bonaparte is here and blaming the British for the latest attempt on his life? You’re very conveniently placed to help with the attempt . . . or to take the blame, as it seems your friends have deserted you.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it and shivered. A bucket of ice water tossed over her soul. The commander had been gone for weeks.
No, he wouldn’t desert me. He swore he’d save me.
And you believed him, but didn’t you always know you were buying a pig in a poke? If it comes to you or the mission, you knew what he’d choose.
The little smile playing around his mouth told her the colonel knew she was panicking. The first lesson in how to make a woman betray herself and others: cut her off at her emotions. Hell hath no fury . . . especially if he knew she’d remained strong during other interrogations.
And he did seem to know it. But how?
That ice bucket became her soul. She doubted Luc knew enough to betray her—and the Jacobins hated Napoleon. That left only one person.
She no longer had to put on a show of terror. If Alain were here, there was only one way to cut him off at the knees. The colonel wanted the truth, so she’d give it to him.
“Colonel, in the sixteen months since I arrived in France I’ve been beaten, cut, shot at, and raped, my child stolen, and that was only my husband’s treatment of me. You know my name. I presume you’ve been told that my father, who is a King’s Man, trained me. But my father is a traditional man who disowned me for eloping with an enemy spy. Can you see a loyalist who left me to my fate training me to this work, when it is a shame and disgrace for a lady to do anything but marry well and bear children?”
“Would that not be the perfect cover for a spy?” he asked, still smiling in the way that chilled her, but something had crept into his expression, some kind of doubt.
“I see your point—but as the daughter of a mere baronet, my actions are scrutinized far more closely than, say, the daughter of an earl or a duke. You are old enough to remember this about French society.” Encouraged by the growing uncertainty in his eyes, she went on, “You must have some record about me. You must know that, until just over a year ago, I was raised in the country with my mother. I only left home to visit my grandmother, and once for the London Season. I am only nineteen now. How could I be a trained spy when my father only came home four weeks of the year? When did I have time to spy for Britain when I was with child nine months of the time I’ve been here and working ten to twelve hours a day since two weeks after the birth of my son?” Her cheeks burned as she added, “None of those hours at work wer
e spent, ah, entertaining the patrons in a room upstairs. This fact upset Monsieur Marron, the owner of Tavern Le Boeuf greatly, as I’m certain he’d tell you. So again, I had no chance to gather information for anyone.”
Good, she could see more seeds of doubt sown by facts the colonel could check. Throwing pointy little rocks at Alain’s castle of glass—and by the look in the other’s eyes, she’d hit the target with accuracy.
She allowed pleading to enter her expression. “You see the scars on my face. Do you think I can withstand this kind of treatment for long? I’m tired, and my head hurts from where your men hit me. I just want to go home. Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew anything?”
“That would depend on what you were promised,” Lebrun said, the strain showing in his conversational tone. “Such as the return of your child to you.”
Before she could catch herself she’d gasped . . . and Lebrun slowly smiled.
Rue Laboratoire, Ambleteuse
It was barely six, but early night swamped the thinning snow until it fell, defeated, in the darkness and cold. The crooked house had also given into the weather’s domination, dark and silent, with none of the warm laughter Duncan had heard in recent weeks when he’d come to check on Lisbeth’s well-being. There was a low light in the kitchen, but none elsewhere.
The only sign of life was in Fulton’s stable. A crack of light showed through makeshift curtains, and cheerful whistling from behind the big wooden doors. “M. Fulton.” Duncan banged on the doors barred from the inside. “M. Fulton, we must talk.”
The whistling halted. “Go away, Englishman. I won’t give you anything!”
“You’re in danger, as is Madame Dupont.”
After a silence, Fulton called, “Prove it.”
He leaned into the doors, calling as softly as he could through the crack between them. “There was an attempted assassination of the first consul near Boulogne two hours ago. By now he’ll have ordered the capture of all foreigners in the region. Your inventions will be forfeit, and Madame Dupont’s husband will find her and kill her.”