A Private Duel with Agent Gunn (The Gentlemen of Scotland Yard)

by Stone, Jillian

  “One of them could be Eduardo.” Cate leaned her head on his shoulder and asked an innocent question, perhaps too naive. “Why would the British government be interested in Spanish insurrectionists?”

  He glanced up from the official-looking papers and stared quite pointedly, as though he were trying to assess if she was playing along. “Anarchists of all stripes supply much-needed provisions to one another. If one group has access to nitroglycerin, for example, another might have arms for trade of a different nature—rifles or ammunition. Not to mention the sharing of information, perhaps the most valuable of all their resources.”

  “And this place they are holding Eduardo—you know where this prison is?”

  Finn thumped the page. “See here—the Citadel of Saint-Martin is located on the Île de Ré. The island is just off La Rochelle.” His soft brown eyes turned darker. “Cate, don’t get too worked up about this. It could very well turn out to be nothing.” He swept the back of his hand against her cheek. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  A second twinge of guilt washed over her. “I’ve been a sneak and a thief. Why would you wish to help me, Finn?”

  “By following you here to La Rochelle, I was able to disrupt if not permanently disable Los Tigres. I’d like to finish my report to Special Branch with an accurate summary of events including the whereabouts of Eduardo de Dovia—poet laureate of Los Tigres.” He drew her close and kissed her softly. “But I do wonder—have you been dishonest with me about this?” His gaze was disarmingly sincere. “I want you to want me.”

  “Madre de Dios, how can I convince you?”

  “Rather difficult at this point—after so much deceit.” He kissed her again, this time deeper, and she plunged willingly into a dance of tongues.

  “How do you do this to me, cheri?” Her heart raced with desire as his fingers probed between her legs. He turned her onto her back and hooked her leg over his shoulder. They both wanted this badly, she could hear it in their breaking voices. She opened to his cock, already hard as stone and nudging at her entrance. Their lovemaking was going to be swift and explosive this time. Her heart hammered in her chest—or was that someone was pounding on the door?

  Finn froze in midthrust. As near as she could read it, the smoldering desire in his eyes struggled with his sense of duty. She felt it herself. “Ignore it.”

  He pulled back gently and turned his head. “Who is it?”

  “Dé Riquet—let me in.”

  Finn exhaled a groan. “This better be important, or I’ll kill the little rat. Just warning you.” He lifted himself off the bed and tugged on drawers. On his way to the door, he picked up her chemise and tossed it over.

  With his hands on his hips, Finn took a moment to recover. Cate did not know much about penises. The only one she had ever known was poking out of manly drawers and twitching about. She did not like the look on his face when he stuffed it into his breeches.

  He braced a shoulder against the wall and opened the door a crack. “Why are you back? I gave you enough francs for at least three whores—”

  Dé Riquet pushed past Flynn. “The Chief of Police and a squad of harbor patrol are combing the quarter door-to-door. They’re not far away.” He dipped a polite bow to Cate. “Please, you must both leave. They are after me—but they are also looking for the two of you.”

  Finn picked the con artist up by his coat and pressed him up against the wall. “Say that again, little man, and try to make sense this time.”

  Dé Riquet held silver-tipped fingers up. “Deux possibilités. Someone saw us row away from the ship. Or—you didn’t get them all.”

  “Jesus Christ, could the news get any worse?” Finn eased up on their scrawny cohort.

  The sly rascal slid down the wall. “The laundress down the street says they asked her about Dé Riquet and two others—a dark-haired young woman and a British assassin.”

  “Merde!” Finn tossed on his shirt and coat and signaled Cate to dress. “I don’t suppose you packed extra trousers?”

  She shook her head.

  “No bustles or corsets. Put on something loose you can run in.” Finn barked orders even as his glare returned to their disreputable host. “How did this happen?”

  Dé Riquet leaned against the wall where Finn left him. “Monsieur, you can’t go around blowing up boats in La Rochelle harbor without someone noticing.” Busy with ammunition and firearms, Finn missed Dé Riquet’s rude gesture.

  Cate snorted a laugh. “Huevos de toro, this little one has.”

  Finn hid the shorter shotgun under his coat and slung the rifle over his shoulder. He turned to the small-statured Frenchman. “I need you to get us to the stables without being seen.” When Dé Riquet held out his hand, Finn leaned into him. “You dare name a price, and you will be looking for a very large thimble to stick on your neck.”

  * * *

  FINN DUCKED HIS head around a column of the covered walkway. “Midway down you’ll find a passageway into an arcade of small shops,” Dé Riquet hissed. “Wind your way through. You’re going to have to cross the thoroughfare without being seen. The stable is on the other side.”

  “We’re headed for Saint-Martin, Île de Ré. How best to get there?”

  “You’ll find the ferry at the east end of town, but they shut down after dusk. Ask around at an inn nearby—The Quiet Woman. The proprietor also runs the ferry.” Dé Riquet held up his hands with a shrug. “For the right price, he’ll take you across.”

  Finn nodded behind them. “You ought to think about leaving town for a while,” he said. The slight, unkempt man backed away. “There’s a lighthouse run by a salt farmer in La Flotte. If you make it that far tonight, mention my name.”

  Finn reached for Cate’s hand, gripping it with the intent to hold on. They made their way past a row of street vendors and small shops, most of them closing up for the evening. Just enough bustle to create cover. He pulled her into a doorway at the end of the arcade.

  “You might treat Dé Riquet with a bit more civility,” Cate sniffed. “After all, he’s done a good bit of dangerous work.”

  He looked back at her. “I’ve given the man nearly fifty quid in the last twelve hours.” He checked his timepiece. Half past ten o’clock. “I got paid less for eighteen months’ duty in the Kandahar Valley.” Finn peered up and down the widest boulevard in La Rochelle. Likely a busy market street during the day, at the moment the thoroughfare was a desolate stretch of cobbled pavers.

  Cate nodded toward the far end of the broad avenue. “There’s a good deal of bustle down by the wharf, wouldn’t you say?”

  He grabbed her hand again. “At the first sign of traffic, we’re going to take cover either behind or alongside whatever is moving down the road.” He checked back with Cate. Eager wide eyes gleamed in the dark. She wet her lips and nodded.

  “All right then.” Slipping onto the concourse, they dodged a fish cart then double-backed behind a dray stacked with barrels. “Hold on.” Finn swept Cate behind him as a public coach and team of four nearly ran them down. They waited in a crouched position for a transport van headed in the opposite direction. Jogging alongside carts and carriages, they zigged and zagged a path across the wide thoroughfare. On the other side of the road he squeezed her hand. “Nice footwork.”

  She grinned. “I should hope so.”

  Once inside the stable, they located Sergeant MacGregor and a stable boy. While Finn bridled, the groom brushed and saddled. He holstered rifles and tied on both travel bags. “Astride or sidesaddle? Never mind.” He grabbed her by the waist and lifted her onto the huge chestnut horse.

  He slid in behind her and encouraged her to settle that pretty derriere right up against him. This was going to be pleasant. He pulled his greatcoat around the both of them and buttoned. “There—you’ll hardly be noticed.”

  The backstreets of town would be darker, but they would also be deserted. He and Cate could be easily noticed. Finn preferred to take his chances on the busier
, gaslit avenues, where he could wend his way through traffic. The journey out of town, though tense, proved easy enough as they moved from storefronts to a peninsula of storehouses. Based on the drunks and prostitutes Finn observed on the street, La Rochelle’s shipping district featured a number of rowdy pubs and whorehouses.

  They soon found the ferry tied up to a quay at the east end of town. Finn pointed past the concrete pier into a black sea. “The Île de Ré is just across the straight.” He turned MacGregor down a street that curved along the water.

  Tucked under his coat, Cate had kept him pleasantly aroused during most of the journey. Less than an hour ago in Dé Riquet’s flat she had opened to him, hooking her leg over his shoulder. Lifting her hips in invitation, she had whispered, “How do you do this to me, cheri?” The very remembrance made him ache for her.

  On horseback, their bodies rocked together with a different kind of intimacy. Something gentler and most appealing. Reins in one hand, he pulled her against his loins. “Comfortable?” She shifted against him.

  “Mm-hmm, with the exception of that hard thing poking my bum.” He snorted a laugh and kissed the hair on top of her head.

  Slender fingers attached to a small hand pointed out the opening of his coat. He aligned his sight with the direction of her finger. A sign hung above the inn: the stylized picture of a peasant woman without a head. “Ah—I never noticed before, but are there many inns in France named The Quiet Woman?”

  Cate smiled. “Perhaps not quite as common as The Rose and Crown.” She sat up straight, eyes alert. “So you did get a look at my overseas wire.”

  “Bribed the clerk in the telegraph office.” His breath lifted the small hairs of her temple. “Hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  Finn unbuttoned his coat. “I’m going to lower you down first—use the top of my boot as a step, that’s it.” He found a hitching post close to a window of the inn, where he could keep an eye on horse and belongings. “If the ferryman is willing, we’ll not be staying long—a bite of something and off we go.”

  He opened the door and a bell jingled. The bottom floor of the inn was all pub—with a large hearth and a handful of customers scattered about the room. Finn leaned his rifle against the brass rail of bar and slipped a banknote to the young woman rinsing glasses. “I’m told I might be able to find the ferryman here. The lady and I need to get to Saint-Martin tonight.”

  “There is no ferryman here, monsieur.” The girl smiled. “But there is a ferrywoman.”

  Finn blinked and spun around. “Is that so? And where might she be?” There looked to be a few men scattered about the room, but no women.

  An elbow nudged his side. Cate nodded toward the girl behind the bar. “My uncle is unwell and not expected to recover. My brother and I operate the Île de Ré ferry now.”

  Finn studied the young woman. “Sorry to hear about your uncle, but might there be a chance I could talk you into a private charter? We’d like to go tonight, if possible.”

  The girl in front of him and the young lady beside him could almost be sisters. Dark hair, taller than average, slight figures. “Twenty-five francs, monsieur, and do not bother to haggle with me.”

  “Toss in a meal—” He waved a hand when she eyeballed him. “Whatever’s left in the kitchen, and you’ve got a deal.”

  “I will have something sent out.” The young woman untied her apron. “I must wake my brother. Meet us at the pier as soon as you finish.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Cate scooped up lentils and sausage, savoring every spoonful of pottage. The inn’s baker brought in a loaf of warm bread, practically singing “Fresh from the oven.” Finn tore off a hunk and dipped it in the thick soup. “Keep in mind, Dé Riquet referred us to these people,” he said.

  Cate hesitated before biting into a thickly buttered, well-salted slice. “And that means?”

  He had a habit of rocking his head side to side in contemplation. It was becoming one of his mannerisms she most loved to watch. “They could be useful in other matters. Have you thought about what you are going to do, if indeed your brother is scheduled to be shipped off to Devil’s Island?”

  Cate swallowed hard. “What exactly is this Devil’s Island? The name is horrid enough.”

  Finn settled back and finished chewing. “A penal colony in French Guiana, on the eastern coast of South America.”

  She set down her spoon. “I know where French Guiana is. My parents died adventuring in the Amazon rain forest.”

  He leaned over the table. “Cate . . . Devil’s Island is all that it implies. No matter the sentence, almost no one comes back from there alive.” Finn lowered his gaze and slurped down a few spoonfuls of hot broth. “The papers I carry may serve us well, at the very least they might delay matters—throw a cog in the wheel, so to speak.”

  Her stomach went topsy-turvy. Ravenous one moment, near to vomiting the next. Suddenly she wanted to get on with it—push on to the old fortress prison. Finn’s papers could get them inside, a meeting with someone in charge. And then what would she do? Worse yet, what if Eduardo was not there? Alonso could have easily lied about Devil’s Island. But a lie of such specificity? Her gut told her there was truth in his words. Cate allowed a brief internal moment of doubt. If her brother was not detained in this Citadel, she would continue her search until she found him. Her hopes had been raised from the dead; she wasn’t about to let go now. “Might we take the rest of the loaf with us?” Lost in myriad thoughts, she accompanied Finn out of the inn.

  “You’re worried.” He tucked the fresh bread loaf into a saddlebag and untied Sergeant MacGregor. “I did not mean to frighten you, Cate, but you must know the truth of the matter. Even if your brother is alive, there may be no way—”

  “Don’t say it, Finn.” She shot him a glare.

  He stopped at a fountain and let the horse drink. “That look was colder than the bite in the air, love.” He pulled her into his arms. “Put your hands inside my coat.”

  Stubbornly, she kept her arms folded over her chest.

  “Put your hands”—he dipped his head to capture her gaze—“inside my coat.”

  She melted against him. “I am frightened for Eduardo—for us. Look what I am dragging you into. Are you prepared to help me, Finn?”

  He held her against his chest and rubbed her back. “First, we need to find out if he’s even in the Citadel. Prison authorities may not want to admit they have him—you saw the papers. What we need is intelligence, beyond customary channels—the underground kind.”

  “You’re the spy for hire. I have no idea how to go about getting that sort of information.” She looked up into eyes that crinkled at the sides.

  “Somehow I doubt that,” Finn murmured under his breath, and turned her toward the ferry. He signaled to the young man and woman waiting on the pier. “I wager these two know a good deal about the comings and goings on the Île de Ré.”

  The young woman from the public room in the inn waved them aboard. “Won’t be long now, sir. Boiler’s near ready.” She wore trousers and a heavy woolen jacket.

  Finn raised a brow and nudged Cate. “It seems you two have the same fashion sense.”

  “Pay him no mind. He secretly likes girls who dress like boys—comme les garçons.” Cate winked at the girl.

  The ferry was of open construction, with an engine house, boiler, and a smokestack all set beside a raised pilot station. “Tether your horse here, monsieur.” The young man beamed at Cate. “The seas are calm tonight, mademoiselle, the crossing will take but a few minutes.” They moved off the moment the girl tossed off the line and jumped aboard.

  Finn secured his horse, and approached the pilot behind the steerage. “We’re headed for Saint-Martin-de-Ré. Dé Riquet suggested we spend tonight in La Flotte—there is a lighthouse keeper there?”

  The young man’s gaze moved back and forth between them. “My name is Bruno Géroux. This is my sister Laurette.”

  Finn nodded to them both.
“This is Miss Willoughby, and I am Hugh Curzon, her escort.”

  The young woman took the wheel from her brother. “If you are friends of Dé Riquet, you will enjoy Sylvain Robideaux, he is gardien de phare.”

  Cate addressed sister and brother. “We are most anxious for information regarding the Citadel.”

  Finn nodded. “At the moment, our greatest concern is one of timing. Mostly regarding when the prisoners are to be shipped off.” Cate knew that hesitation; Finn waited for one of them to talk. A cold wind swept off the ocean and she huddled against him.

  “Normally, we do not ferry past Sablanceaux, the eastern point.” Bruno pulled down his cap and stuck his in hands in his pockets. “Prisoner transport is one of the exceptions. Several days ago, we ferried men up to the fortress. The convict ship was anchored off Saint-Martin.”

  Laurette nodded. “A great floating prison with masts. You can’t miss it.”

  “And might I inquire how long this floating prison remains in port, normally, before making its transoceanic voyage?” Finn asked.

  “Two or three weeks. Sometimes longer.”

  “And this convict ship has been in port—?”

  “Several weeks.”

  “So any day now,” Finn ruminated aloud. “Thank you. You’ve both been most helpful.” He studied the outline of dark terra firma ahead. Cate craned her neck and could make out a pier and a few flickering gaslights.

  Finn turned back to the Géroux siblings. “I’ve a mind to push on—make Saint-Martin tonight. This fellow Robideaux. Why do you suppose Dé Riquet would have recommended him? Since the two are colleagues, I can wager a guess as to the man’s character, but why else?”

  Bruno shrugged, shifting his gaze to his sister. “I have a thought. Perhaps more of an intuition, but here it is: You are interested in the fortress, mais oui? Sylvain Robideaux claims to have lived inside the walls undetected for many days.”