The Duchess and the Spy

by Marly Mathews

  A loud rap at the door caught her attention. She looked over at Napoleon. What was she going to do? She’d put him in a deep enchanted slumber, and even she couldn’t use her magic to pull him out of it. She could only hope she’d be able to put off whomever was at the door until the morning.

  She slipped her feet into her slippers, and padded quietly toward the door. She listened. Carefully opening the door, she found a guard standing waiting patiently for her.

  “This is for you, Mademoiselle. I will not keep you from His Imperial Majesty. Have a good night.” He winked at her. Her stomach flipped.

  Her heart stopped when she looked down at the wax seal. What did Pierre want to pester her with now?

  Hastily, she broke the wax seal, and started reading the missive.

  My dearest Isabella,

  I’ve heard of your dangerous liaison with The Emperor. I’ve also heard that you’ve been given a different set of orders, and that you shall be trained to be a French Intelligence Agent. I do not doubt you are up to the task, however, pray keep in mind that I am your true master. I’d like to give you a reason for remaining loyal to me. I have Mademoiselle Trudeau in my custody. I shall be keeping her until you return. Never fear…she will be safe, as long as you toe the mark. Make one wrong step, dearest, and Daphne shall have her little neck slit. Once you reach England, if you do not return to me when I call for you—she will be sacrificed. I have eyes everywhere. Remember that.

  With all of my love,

  Pierre

  Isabella’s hands shook. Walking over to the fireplace, she threw the letter into the leaping flames.

  She would see her bastard of an uncle rot in hell, if it was the last thing she did.

  Chapter Five

  Isabella was in hell.

  She’d gone through a month of intensive training only to find herself in the middle of hell on Earth. The night sky lit up with cannon fire between the two ships. The Bastille hadn’t been able to sail undetected through the British lines as they’d hoped to do. By the looks of the sea battle being waged—the Royal Navy had easily gained the upper hand, which wasn’t surprising, they did rule the seas. Soon, they would trounce the hell out of the French Frigate, and she would be done for.

  She had just managed to force her way back up onto the bridge. She looked up at the glistening stars in the sky. If only she could use her magic to try and stop this battle—but she couldn’t, if she did, she risked exposure.

  Focusing her eyesight on the British Frigate that had engaged them, her heart stopped when her line of sight locked on the carriage mounted guns. They had The Bastille in their line of sight. And, she didn’t have to be a seaman to know that The Bastille was no match for the British Frigates firepower.

  Time stood still.

  The guns targeting the bridge fired. She ran for the man nearest to her and pushed him down. She stood up and then slipped again, and fell to the deck. Somehow her leg twisted beneath her, and her knee hurt like a bloody bugger. Scorching fire engulfed the bridge. Shouts of fury rang out, mingled with shouts of desperation. Black smoke filled the air. Sickness boiled within her stomach, as it twisted horribly.

  Death had taken so many of the sailors on The Bastille. The ship was sinking. The sailor she’d assisted earlier, helped her to her feet, and she found that she could barely stand the pain in her leg was so intense. She sprang for the rail as one of the sails that was on fire started to fall toward where she stood. Before she knew it, her body crashed into the water, and she struggled to remain afloat as debris shot down around her. If she wasn’t killed by the splinters of wood and metal raining down around her the sharks might get her as blood coloured the water a deep crimson.

  Strength seemed to be ebbing from her in waves. She was so tired. She wanted to sleep, but she knew she had to stay awake. There was no way she could use her powers—she was just shattered. She heard the sounds of distress from both ships. They were both going down. Somehow, in the confusion of battle, The Bastille had managed to ram the British Frigate. It wouldn’t be long before the water around her was filled with lifeless bodies.

  She looked up at the moon in the sky, and she prayed for morning.

  ****

  “Bloody hell!” Lord Wyndham raged, as he stormed through White’s. He flung himself into his favourite leather chair, and stared forlornly over at his childhood friend. “Another blasted ship! Those cursed frogs are really starting to annoy me. Elphinstone can’t be gone. It seems as if it were only yesterday when we were sitting here joking and making plans for our futures,” Christopher lamented, raking his hands through his hair.

  Thoughts of Isabella had plagued him for one whole month. Thirty bloody days had gone by since he’d seen her last, and he ached for her. He had never met a woman who had affected him so profoundly, and many times during his restless nights, he had wished to have her once again in his arms. She had grown in a beautiful woman, and images of her haunted his dreams.

  Needless to say, he hadn’t gotten much rest, and now, the news of Elphinstone’s ship going down with all hands, had forced him straight over the edge. He hated this bloody war. The sooner they won, the better. The suffering had to end.

  “Guess you own the entire company now, since he left his shares to you,” Albert Messing, Viscount Merryville concluded. Albert stared dully at the piece of paper that he still clutched in his hand. “They say here that HMS Minerva went down with all hands. Seems they got into one hell of a scuffle last night. They were attempting to prevent a French Frigate from invading British waters. Bugger all, how I hate this life.” Merryville scowled, eagerly reaching for the strong Scottish whisky that the porter had brought round. He slugged it down, but it did nothing to ease the clenching sensations in the pit of his stomach.

  Christopher was so depressed, he didn’t even have the heart to tell the man that he’d already been apprised of all of the morbid details of the fate of HMS Minerva.

  White’s was filled with ribaldry, and the sounds of men murmuring as they played cards. They were all acting as if nothing was wrong. As if men weren’t dying every damn day.

  He reached for the whisky decanter before Merryville could get to it.

  Discussions of duels, and riding competitions, not to mention hunting filled the room. Debates about the war, and which way it was turning, filled the club and Christopher had to keep from allowing his anger to explode. He attempted to drown out the noises of the other wealthy men, and instead felt more morose by the moment.

  Soon, he would be in high dudgeon, and there wouldn’t be any way to rescue him from it. He wanted to kill a dozen frogs for the misery they had caused him that day. He could have avoided most of this. If only Isabella had allowed him to kill the fat little pig that called himself an Emperor. He would have been greatly rewarded by the Crown for doing what several hired assassins had been unable to do. By all appearances, Boney had nine lives. He could only hope Boney reached the ninth life soon.

  “We both hate this bloody life. But if we didn’t live it, then we’d be losing many more British lives. That dirty bastard needs to be stopped, before he ramrods his way through the entire British Empire,” Christopher stated, through clenched teeth. He closed his eyes, as his imagination got the better of him. Scenes of the carnage that must have dominated the English Channel last night filled his head. It seemed almost unbelievable to him—he’d just been on the HMS Minerva, it was incredible how drastically things could change over such a short amount of time.

  Elphinstone had always secretly loathed the water, and though he had known how to swim, Christopher knew he had constantly battled his fear of drowning. Had he been killed in the heat of battle, or had he drowned?

  He could only pray that he hadn’t suffered.

  Christopher snatched the morning newspaper off of the table, and rifled through it. Elphinstone had always read the morning newspaper. He had continually told him that it was his way of staying connected. But now the only thing that he was connected
to was the bottom of the sea. They’d been friends since childhood and now…now, he was dead.

  Damnation.

  Oh, how, Isabella would be devastated. She had loved Jason like a brother, and how would his father take the news? He had already lost so much. Christopher felt bloody wretched.

  “I need to be anywhere but here!” Christopher blurted out. He threw the paper back down onto the table. The question was, would he go to Covington House or Wyndham House? Wyndham House was filled with ghosts—ghosts he couldn’t face right now, so Covington House it was.

  Raucous laughter erupted from a group of men near the hazard tables, and he wanted to smash their collective heads against the wall.

  “Don’t forget Whitehall will in all likelihood want us to report soon. The French have spies scattered throughout England, and they are becoming somewhat of a nuisance. Did you hear about that chap they caught only last week?”

  “No,” he sighed heavily. He’d had enough of French spies on English soil, and then, when it came to The Duchess, he didn’t know if he’d ever have his fill.

  They’d just lost one of their own the previous week. He’d been found out by Joseph Fouché, and Napoleon had had him executed.

  “His mother was English, and he was working against her people in the name of that dirty bastard Boney. They found him with some rather crucial information detailing our troop movement. If that intelligence had been delivered, we would have lost thousands. It may have even cost us the war,” Merryville explained. He emptied his whisky glass and gestured for the porter. Christopher watched him as he reached for a chicken leg, and tucked into it.

  “Food and whisky, you just can’t beat it,” Albert declared. Depression filled his normally jubilant voice.

  “What happened to him?” he demanded coldly. He narrowed his eyes.

  “Lined him up before a firing squad,” Albert declared happily. “Jolly good, when the filthy bastards get their just dues. But I’m told his last words struck a nerve.”

  “What were his last valiant words, pray tell?” he inquired. He stood up to his impressive height, and leaned toward Merryville.

  His friend craned his neck to stare up at him, frowning when he glanced past him.

  “Speaking of bastards,” he said cryptically.

  Christopher wrinkled his brow. “Would you just get on it with it?” he demanded.

  “Ah, yes, death to the British!” Merryville supplied solemnly.

  Merryville picked his whisky glass up, and raised it to his lips. “Think I’ll get ape drunk. Then, I’ll go and see my sweet Nellie.” His eyes filled with contentment, and he looked as if he were about to take a trip to paradise.

  “You do that old man. Just mind your tongue. We don’t need you giving any bloody secrets to that trollop.” He gave Merryville a stern look of warning, and fixed his stiff cravat.

  “Her ladyship ain’t a trollop. She is a woman of breeding,” he retorted defensively, scowling at Christopher.

  “Yes, you keep telling yourself that Merryville. She married a title. So, technically that makes her respectable, even if she is a whore.” He smiled at Merryville’s look of disgust, and ambled away.

  “Hells Bells, would you bloody well look were you are going,” he said, as he nearly collided with the pompous imbecile that Merryville spotted only moments before. He snorted loudly, when the bastard made the mistake of trying to catch his audience. He was already in a foul mood. This wasn’t the most opportune moment for his cousin to pester him.

  “Wyndham,” Austin Blanding, the only son of the third Viscount of Blakeley placed a restraining hand on his shoulders. His eyes rested dangerously on Austin’s hand, and he quickly removed it from his shoulder. “I’ve heard some disturbing news considering your young delightful sister. It seems she’s about to place herself out on the marriage mart. You don’t suppose she’d be willing to consider the son of a viscount, who has aspirations to become an earl someday?”

  For one brief moment, he seriously considered breaking Austin’s nose.

  “Our uncle has a son, Blanding,” he said, barely keeping his anger in check. “Don’t bet on earning that title too prematurely.”

  He really didn’t think his mother would mind too much if he wiped the floor with Austin’s face. As long as he didn’t kill Austin, she’d be happy.

  “Yes. Well, the stupid fool hasn’t been heard from in months. No doubt he’s lost at sea. Our idiotic government probably hasn’t been able to report on his loss, since his father is so bloody influential,” Austin remarked snidely. He carefully flicked a piece of lint off of his ivory colored jacket, stiffening when Christopher stepped toward him.

  Christopher itched to have a go at him. He was the best pugilist at White’s, and the men sure as hell wouldn’t mind. They welcomed any form of entertainment, hell, they’d readily lay bets on the outcome.

  “I sincerely hope that you aren’t wishing for William’s untimely demise?” His voice was laced with coldness. He knew he had a murderous look on his face, and yet Blanding didn’t seem ruffled in the slightest. “Oh, and if I were you, I’d sensor that wide trap of yours. After all, in times of war, one would almost call your dismissal of our government as being traitorous. Listen well, William is by no stretch of the imagination lost at sea. When we do bludgeon Napoleon out of existence, and do be sure that we will, I shall have cause to bloody that priggish face of yours. But at the moment, I am dealing with a personal loss. So you can either step aside willingly, or I shall use my fists to move you.”

  Not surprisingly, Austin quickly ducked out of his way. Christopher emerged out onto the bustling and noisy street, and replayed the events of the previous night, over and over again in his mind. There were no survivors, and that meant that Elphinstone was gone for sure.

  As soon as he walked into Covington House he decided that if he moved fast, he could slip back out of the house without even being noticed.

  His mother was somehow managing to walk down the stairs, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how she managed to see anything. The stack of books she carried hid her face, and obstructed her view.

  “Your Aunt Mary is coming for tea, and I simply must locate that passage of Shakespeare that I promised to find for her.” Jane Brandon, the Duchess of Covington eyed her eldest son warily, as she made her way to the expansive library that Covington House boasted, sighing, she dropped into the nearest chair.

  She spread her collection of books onto the cherry wood table in front of her, and started sorting through them. Pushing her spectacles up, she stared at him with her searching cognac colored eyes.

  “What happened, dearest? You seem quite exhausted, and might I say, a bit vexed.”

  “Elphinstone has been killed in action,” he announced hollowly. He sprawled out onto the yellow silk Adams sofa, and sighing forlornly, stared across at his mother.

  “Dear God,” Jane exclaimed horrifically. She pressed her hand to her mouth, as her eyes widened to dangerous proportions. Tears pooled within their luminescent depths. “His poor father. He has already lost so much!”

  Sunlight poured into the room, but it did nothing to cheer him up. The incredibly high ceiling gave the room an open feeling. The walls were lined with scads of bookshelves, and they were near to bursting with the books they harboured. The library was painted a muted shade of yellow, and marble pillars separated one section of the library from the other.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to tell his family.”

  “They might already know,” Jane sighed.

  He cast his eyes down to the Axminster carpet, and fell into an uneasy silence.

  “I should have done more. Elphinstone shouldn’t have been on the HMS Minerva, when it went down. It was in sore need of being repaired, and if we didn’t need it so badly, the damn ship would have been off active duty months ago.”

  “Be that as it may, my dear, you can’t torture yourself. I suspect that Jason wouldn’t want you to agonize over
his death. He would have wanted you to mourn him, and then, he would have wanted you to move on with your life.”

  “I know.”

  “Whatever you do, do not mention William. Mary has enough things on her mind as it is. I know that she frets over him every single day, and she deals with her stress by simply putting it out of her mind. I can feel for her, whenever you and Jack are away, I almost lose my mind with worry.”

  “My lips are sealed,” he promised. Leaning forward, he reached for one of his mother’s books.

  “Mama, do you believe in witches?”

  His mother hesitated. “Well, they are in Shakespeare, and people have always believed in them…”

  “Ah, yes, we used to burn witches at the stake, Mama.”

  “Yes, well, those were dark barbaric times. I am glad to say that our society has become enlightened.”

  “Yes, indeed. The frogs became enlightened enough to use something as barbaric as the guillotine.”

  “Indeed, and yet it is better than the breaking wheel.” His mother sighed. “I think that magical creatures do exist, my dear. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I believe we know one of them.”

  “Ah, I see. Found Isabella, did you?”

  He groaned. “You know me too well. Aye, I found her, and she used her magic on me.”

  “Well, she is Isabella De Clermont. You know she has MacLeod blood in her, and they…well, legend has it they have fairy blood, Son. And over the years that blood has become diluted and now…now they say they are witches.”

  “I knew of the legend, I just never thought it was real.”

  “Well, it is about time you realized there was something different about her. She was such a lovely girl—quite besotted with you, and we so hoped you two would someday marry. Unfortunately, dear Mary didn’t inherit the gift that runs in that side of their family. But Isabella’s grandmother, Adaira, she has it, as did Isabella’s mother, Sandrine. Adaira had three children, Mary, Sandrine and her son, Robert. Sandrine had a brother named Robert, and married a Robert,” his mother laughed. “Now, Adaira’s son is the Duke, and they say he has a bit of a magical touch. However, it has been rumoured that Isabella is the most gifted one in the family line. They haven’t had a woman like her in the family since the 17th century. So, she was taken back to France, eh? I know Duncan searched high and low for her and sent out people to find her, and her grandmother has done all that she could…they say that the family can’t affect their own destinies. It seems that is their curse. They can’t save themselves, or those they love.”