The Spymaster's Lady sl-1

by Joanna Bourne

  There were men who’d push the interrogation now—badger her, keep her groggy and talking and see what she’d give away. She was so exhausted she could barely think. Keep hammering away at her, and she’d start making mistakes. Scare her enough, mix it with a little sympathy, and she might break. He’d seen it a hundred times.

  Except tactics like that wouldn’t work with Annique Villiers, even if he could make himself do it.

  “I won’t do anything with you tonight. I won’t tie you up, at any rate.” He ran one last brisk caress across the tangled black mane. It was the first step in seduction, getting her used to being touched. Besides, he wanted to. “Do you think you can hold off killing me till after breakfast?”

  “I must rest before I try again. It is very exhausting, fighting with you.”

  He laid a second quilt on top of the one she was wrapped in. It was just as well she didn’t roll over and look at him. His arousal was obvious as hell. Maybe he’d let Doyle guard her tomorrow—imperturbable, thoroughly married William Doyle. “You might as well go to sleep. Unless Vauban and the others taught you some way to kill me with a feather pillow.”

  “They did.” She snuggled into the warmth like a nesting animal, giving a deep, feminine chuckle. She found that amusing, did she?

  The last quilt had found refuge under the bed. He fished it out and spread it across the rush-bottomed chair. When he propped his feet up on the windowsill, he pulled the ends around him. It would get cool later on.

  Annique’s chest rose and fell gently, slow and even. That either meant she was asleep, or she was getting ready to attack him again. He’d wait and see.

  Seven

  ANNIQUE WOKE LAZILY. SHE WAS WARM AND THE bed was soft. That was a great comfort to the many sore places on her body. She smelled bread baking.

  She realized she was naked.

  She snapped alert, knowing in an instant exactly where she was. It was not the first time she had awoken surrounded by enemies. She made not the least movement, allowed no change in her breathing. The quilt had slipped down her body at some time in the night. Now it slanted across her buttocks, not hiding them at all. Grey could see any of her he wished to. It made her feel odd inside, knowing that.

  He was not in bed. It was not such a large bed one could lose an entire person in it. When she listened, she heard him breathing, off to the left.

  How long had Grey looked upon her while she slept? Did he desire her? She did not want to hear that question in her mind, but it was most assuredly there.

  She had always been a woman of measured detachment toward men. Now she lay in bed hoping a spymaster of the British would look upon her nakedness and be aroused. It was, perhaps, a form of madness. In any case, she did not want it.

  “I can tell you’re awake.” His voice came, closer than she’d expected. “You might as well get up and stop pretending.”

  “I am hoping you are a ghastly dream and will go away if I stay asleep long enough.”

  “I can’t be a nightmare. It’s morning, and I’m still here.”

  She sat up, pulling the quilt across her breasts. Her forehead she put down upon her knees to hide her face. She was entirely miserable about this whole situation. Leblanc might find her at any moment. She was plagued with an inconvenient passion for this English. She had no clothes. Soon she must face Grey, with open eyes, in the daylight. It was all most discouraging. “I am used to nightmares that are still there in the morning.”

  “Do you have any idea how silly it looks when a woman of your skills sulks like a five-year-old?”

  “I do not sulk. Why do you not go away so I can get dressed.” Perhaps Grey would wander somewhere else for a while or even fall off the face of the earth altogether if she were exceptionally fortunate.

  “I’m not leaving you alone. I don’t have time to hunt you down this morning. I don’t want to fight with you either.” He sounded impatient. “Look at me. I’m tired of talking to your spine and a handful of bedspread. I don’t evaporate just because you ignore me.”

  She didn’t move while he crossed the room toward her.

  “I don’t…For God’s sake, will you look at me when I talk to you?”

  It was time. When he was close, she lifted her head and faced him squarely and opened her eyes.

  Darkness. As always. It had been darkness for five months. She no longer expected anything else when she opened her eyes, unless she was roused suddenly from sleep and did not remember where she was.

  He stopped abruptly. He was a man who did not make noise while he was thinking. Either he talked or he was silent. She waited. After a time, she felt a wind across her face. They tried that sometimes, waving their hands at her to see if she would blink.

  “You’re blind.”

  “I am not blind.” Always, it made her angry, these people who thought they knew everything. “I cannot see. That is all.”

  “Dear God.” He took her chin tightly and tilted her face from side to side, though she could have told him nothing showed. “I can’t believe this. How? When?”

  For some reason she told him the truth. “Last May. It was not even a battle. Just a village and a…a game for a patrol riding through from one place to another. They destroyed that little place for no other reason than that they were armed men and bored and they could. I took a saber cut on the head.”

  She should not have spoken of it. Memory assaulted her—the last images she would see with her eyes. A bright tablecloth trampled by horses. The long, dark hair of a woman, flying loose as she tried to run. A man crumpled on the ground. Death after death. Even women and children. A village of innocents with no chance to fight back, dying for nothing at all.

  Her eyes closed convulsively, and she pulled free from him and turned away, dragging her quilt with her. She took the pictures of death and folded them away small, as if she were packing winter clothes into a press and closing the lid tightly down. Mostly she did not think of that last day at all, except in bad dreams.

  He said, “There’s no mark.”

  “It is not the eyes themselves.” She took a deep breath. She hated speaking of this. “The doctor at the university in Marseilles—he was a very important man with unpleasant breath—said it is the head wound from the saber. Something presses upon the optic nerve, a knot of blood or a splinter of bone. With a great many Latin terms, he says this, you understand, since he is charging my mother a great deal of money for each long word.”

  She made a good broad gesture to take his attention away while she wiped her face with the other hand. A conjurer’s trick. “If that something should go wandering about in this skull of mine, the so-important doctor says, I will see once more. But then I will most probably die at once. Or possibly not, which is the other choice. He does not commit himself. Instead he advises me not to get hit on the head again, which is advice anyone could have given without poking at me for an hour first. Me, I think he does not know very much.” There. She had the tears wiped off. Perhaps he had not noticed.

  “You’ve been like this for five months.” She was not sure what was in his voice. It was not pity.

  “I am not like this or like that. I am me, and I have been like me for much longer than five months. My eyes are not me.”

  He snorted in her face and took hold of her again to go searching through her hair for the thin, smooth scar above her temple. He drew the line of it with his fingertips. “Here, was it?”

  “As I told you.” She was furious with him that he examined her this way and she could not escape. To be naked before him was nothing to the exposure she felt when she uncovered this secret. She wished, oh most completely to the bottom of her heart, she wished she had escaped before she was forced to reveal this to Grey.

  “It’s healed cleanly,” he said.

  “Most pleasingly. I am told one cannot see the scar now that my hair has grown out again.”

  “You were with your mother when she died, weren’t you? How did you get from Marseilles to Paris
, blind?”

  “It is no concern of—” His hands tightened on her. She decided not to try his temper further this morning. “I walked.”

  “You…walked? You didn’t just walk. Not blind. Not alone.”

  “Maman has…” Pain clenched at her throat. Maman was dead. “Maman had…many friends. It was a network all her own from the years even before the Revolution. They helped me.” So many people had helped her. Maman’s network. Friends of Vauban. Friends of old Soulier, who had been Maman’s lover and who was most senior in the Secret Police. Friends of her colleagues René and Françoise. Men who had known her father. Friends she had made herself over the years. She had come so far because of a legion of ordinary people she could call upon for a favor worth a life.

  The British did not know how remarkable her memory was. Her mind held more than the Albion plans and her many, many secrets. Five thousand names and directions were safe in her head—names that meant sanctuary and aid in any corner of France. She would call upon some of them when she shook herself loose of Monsieur Grey. “I was passed from hand to hand for the whole way, until I was betrayed, and Henri came to take me to Leblanc.”

  He said nothing, just explored this scar of hers, which could be of no great interest since it was not in any way unusual. When that was finished, he thrust deep into her hair and held her head so she could not turn away. God only knew what he thought he would see. It was not the first time he had observed her, after all.

  It disturbed her intensely to be touched by this man. She did not want to desire him. This hunger was something that had befallen her, like an illness. He was as unsuitable for a lover as a penguin or the shadow of a large tree. A hulking, grim stranger who was an enemy and in the profession of spying, which was a type she did not admire. She could not have chosen more stupidly.

  His fingers combed through her hair to the end before he let it fall. It was strange to feel him do that, an intimacy no one attempted before. There had been a number of things she had done with this man and no other. More than she liked. She had not the smallest idea what was in his mind.

  “You’ve mastered it well. Being blind.” There was a note in his voice…Vauban had spoken to her in that way when she had done something that impressed him. For Vauban, she would have walked through fire to hear him speak to her so. Perhaps there were men who would do that for Grey.

  “I am almost used to it, except that it is inconvenient and may get me killed soon.”

  “You’re good at hiding it. I never guessed. Not once.”

  “It has been night, when I have been with you. Or I pretended to sleep, as I did in the coach.”

  There was more of this thoughtful pause. “This makes you easier to manage, doesn’t it?”

  She said, politely, “Henri was of your opinion, monsieur.”

  Incredibly, he laughed. He was truly the most heartless man she had ever encountered. She would not be coated with a treacle of sympathy by this one. “I won’t make Henri’s mistakes. I intend to take very good care of you, Annique.”

  For a Head of Section, he was also remarkably stupid. “Can you not see how this changes everything? Leblanc will have every soldier in France looking for a blind woman. I am the most dangerous luggage for you to cart around.”

  “Then we won’t let anyone know you’re blind.”

  Still he did not see. How could he be such a fool? “It is me Leblanc seeks. It is my mouth Leblanc must stop at all costs. I know such secrets about him…Let me go, monsieur, and he will follow me, not you.”

  This inn could not be so far from Vauban’s small village. If Grey would only help her to go there. Vauban was old and tired now, his mind confused and wandering since the last attack. He could give her no orders for what must be done with the Albion plans. That lay upon her shoulders now. But she could sit beside Vauban’s fire one last time and hold his hand and talk with him about little things that he still remembered. In Vauban’s house she would find trusted friends to take her to the coast. From there, she would go to England and find safety with Soulier and make her decisions and, perhaps, become a traitor to France.

  If Grey could be made to see reason…“Leblanc will not pursue uninteresting British spies only for the pleasure of committing slaughter upon them. In the Game, we do not kill one another in this bloodthirsty manner that would leave us all dead. Without me, you are safe.”

  Grey walked across the room. Not pacing. This one would always have a destination in mind when he set one foot in front of the other. When he came back he was carrying something. She could tell when people were carrying things. They walked differently. She had trained herself to notice this.

  “The dress should fit. It’s blue. And for God’s sake, stop calling me monsieur. It’s getting ridiculous, you trying to kill me and calling me Monsieur Grey in the next sentence.” He dropped a bundle of clothing into her lap.

  “I will speak to you exactly as I wish. You are telling me ‘no.’”

  “To letting you go? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not letting you go. What in the name of sweet reason have you done to your feet?”

  “My feet are also not your concern.”

  His hands came and pulled her feet from hiding.

  She had a vivid and delicious image of kicking him. She did not do so, however, for she found him most wholly intimidating. Besides, if she provoked him and they fought, he might end up on the bed, on top of her. If that happened, she might be infinitely unwise.

  “You’re going to get blood poisoning if you keep on like this.” His voice sounded odd. “Your shoes don’t fit.”

  “They are not, strictly speaking, my shoes. And no, they do not fit terribly well, but going barefoot would make me conspicuous. You make a great fuss about a few blisters. I have traveled for weeks and weeks with worse than this.”

  “There are three pairs of shoes in that pile. One of them must be better. If not, I’ll find some others.” He held her, and he was not as careful as he usually was. His fingers dug into her. “Don’t try to escape, walking on those feet, Annique.”

  “Ah, that is a most sound advice. I shall flap my wings and fly.” It always amazed her how few spies had any sense of humor. Grey did not seem susceptible to amusement at the moment.

  He released her so suddenly she bounced against the mattress. “Get dressed. You have ten minutes.”

  He slammed the door behind him when he left. It seemed Grey was a man who most definitely needed his breakfast before he became at all possible to deal with. Maman had said that was the case with some men. She would remember that in the future.

  Eight

  GREY SLIPPED ANNIQUE INTO A CHAIR ACROSS from Adrian, guiding her with a light, invisible touch she hardly needed. She was expert at the deception. If Leblanc’s men came asking after a blind woman, no one would think of the dark-haired lass who’d had breakfast so openly on the terrace in front of the inn, carefree in the early morning sun.

  She sat, eyes demurely lowered. Her fingers skimmed the edge of the table till she found the napkin. She shook it out across her lap.

  He saw the exact moment Adrian looked into Annique’s beautiful blank eyes. Saw the snap of assessment. Shock. Instant comprehension. “She can’t see.”

  “Keep her inconspicuous,” Grey ordered.

  “My pleasure. Oh my, I do like a surprise, first thing in the morning.” The boy was in pain, but alert. He’d do for a while.

  “You’re on display.” He said the obvious, so Annique would know. “Twenty minutes, and I’ll get you out of here. Hold out that long. Eat.” That was for both of them.

  Across the courtyard, Will Doyle was playing coachman, pacing the off-side horse, a big piebald mare, in a wide circle around the innyard, watching its gait. He made a first-rate coachman. He also made an excellent German count, merchant banker, Cockney pimp, and vicar of the Church of England.

  Doyle rounded one last time and brought the mare to a stop. “Nobody’s sniffing around yet.”

>   “They’ll think we’ve gone to ground in Paris. Gives us a head start.” But men on horseback could always outrun them.

  “We amble along, slow and innocent, and we’ll do.”

  With luck. Lots and lots of luck. “I want that bullet out as soon as we can. Look for a likely spot past St. Richier. You have everything we need?”

  “Whole surgeon’s kit. I stole it from a naval surgeon in Neuilly. This here’s his horse, too.” He patted the mare’s flank. “Wish I’d thought to kidnap that sawbones.”

  “So do I. I don’t suppose you’ve ever dug a bullet out of anybody in that long, varied career of yours?” He turned his back to the inn. Adrian could read lips. “I’m going to kill him. I don’t know dammitall about pulling bullets out of people. Sure you don’t want to try your hand?”

  “He’ll do better if it’s you digs into him. He trusts you. That helps.” Doyle knelt and ran his hands up and down the horse’s leg, being a coachman. “He ain’t going to die of a bullet or two. Born to hang, our Hawker. How’d it go with the girl?”

  “She’s not what I expected.” He realized he’d turned to watch her. He hadn’t noticed himself doing it.

  They were a fine matched pair, Hawker and Annique, sitting next to each other at the cozy table on the broad terrace under the trees. Coin-sized patches of sun streamed down through the trees and danced across them. They were the same age, with the same spare, compact grace of body. Black hair, glossy in the sunlight, tumbled forward across faces that were eerily alike—not in feature; there was no real resemblance—but in expression. The same faint air of wicked mirth clung to them, as if they were imps on temporary reprieve from one of the minor hells. They ate, leaning together, intent on a flow of low-voiced conversation.

  “He likes her.” Doyle was watching, too. “Hope she don’t try to scamper out on his watch. Shape he’s in, he’d have to hurt her to stop her.”

  “We’re safe as long as it’s daylight. Will, she’s stone blind.”