The Spymaster's Lady sl-1

by Joanna Bourne

  “I am very stupid.”

  “I think that means yes.” He was smiling.

  She gave him his victory. “I would come to you sometime in the night, tiptoeing down the hall, and open the door and crawl in beside you. Already, I am listening to the argument your body makes to mine. If you carried me to that bed, even without taking a moment to be persuasive, I would want you like flames.”

  “The hall gets chilly. Sleep with me tonight, in that bed.”

  He cradled her cheek into the warm hardness of his palm. He was so aware of her…even the infinitesimal nod of her head, he felt.

  “You have to say it.”

  “Yes.” She was without shame.

  “I’ll hold you to that.” He drew her against him, body to body, and nuzzled into her hair, breathing the scent, making a growl deep in his throat. It grappled at her heart, that he desired even her smell.

  His hands also hungered for her. They molded the soft dress to her buttocks, stroking, taking pleasure in the shape of her body. She closed her eyes to be in the darkness with the strength of him, and his hunger, and the massive beating heart. There was nothing but sensation. Heat ignited between her legs and spread sweetly. She glowed inside her skin, in ripples. She was drunk with it. She was…

  She was Annique Villiers, and this man was her enemy.

  She pushed away from him, breathing hard. She had been moaning little noises and not realized. Truly, she was a fool.

  “I make…” She had to start again. “I make mistakes with you. I lose myself.”

  “You’re not used to being confused.”

  “Do not patronize me, monsieur. I have gone ever so slightly mad where you are concerned. It could happen to anyone.” She stomped across the room, barefoot, to sit on the edge of the chair. The Maggie of Doyle had provided her silk stockings with a white pattern. Exquisite. She would wear exquisite stockings to go mad in. “Perhaps I shall regain my senses and sleep alone tonight. Who knows? You cannot bemuse me and entangle me forever.”

  “We’re entangling each other.”

  “But one of us is the jailer. You want me to forget that. That is why you are so gentle. Me, I would rather you were sincere and badgered me with questions. Then I would remember I am a prisoner. If I had any pride, I would not crawl into your bed and play the whore.”

  Silence struck, forceful as any bolt of lightning. Tension crackled in the air between them. She felt his anger like hot sparks on her skin. “Is that what you’re doing? Playing the whore?”

  She would not look at him. “I have been taught to do that, if captured.”

  The man who gazed down at her was entirely Grey. Not one speck of Robert. “Prisoner and jailer? If that’s all we are, then let’s get down to a little badgering. Tell me about the Albion plans. Who gave them to you? Ah. That’s almost perfect. You look surprised and offended. Very good.”

  Chill wrapped her suddenly, because he was angry at her and because he was a man who could see through lies. She had nothing, really, that belonged to her now but her lies. She tied her garter and secured the stocking into place. “I have never seen these plans everyone is so fond of believing I carry around with me like a cat her kittens. I do not know why—”

  “You carry them in your head.”

  Cold covered her. Froze her heart. She could not move. He cannot know that. He cannot. No one knows that. “I do not understand what you mean.”

  “Every page, every list, every map. It’s all in there in your memory, knocking up against Racine and Voltaire and Tacitus. That’s why Leblanc’s never going to find them. He doesn’t know where to look.”

  Slowly, she slipped on the shoes he had brought for her from somewhere. She must keep moving. Her brain would not work, not even one tiny bit. He knows. He knows. How can he know?

  He studied her and waited. “I didn’t mean to strike you dumb.”

  You have stood before gunfire. You have stolen dispatches from under the very noses of the Prussian high command. You are the Fox Cub. Do not sit like the tonguetied idiot. It was great fortitude that allowed her to shrug. “You theorize. That is sloppy. And it is a very silly theory.”

  “What are you going to do with the plans, Annique? Stand on the shore and wave when the French fleet sails in? You know where they’re landing, of course.”

  Her mouth was dry as sand. “I do not say I know nothing, because I am a woman of unparalleled intelligence, but certainly I know nothing of invasions. You have fallen into a great pit of nonsense.”

  “You hate Bonaparte. You’ve probably hated him since the Vendée. You came to England to stop the invasion. You walked from Marseilles, blind and alone, because you know what’s coming.”

  “I tell you again, I know nothing of those plans. I am a loyal Frenchwoman.”

  He let it lie between them for a while before he said, very gently, “In the end, when you have no other choice, you’ll give me the Albion plans. You can’t do anything else.”

  Something within her cracked and crumbled. Her courage, perhaps. Grey knew. He had added so many little pieces together—Leblanc’s malice and her incautious words—and he discerned everything. One sniff, and he knew all that was in the kitchen. The secret of her memory. The choice that confronted her and tortured her. The decision she must make. He knew even what she would decide. He was one of the great spies, the equal of a Soulier and a Vauban.

  He saw when her courage broke. There was nothing he could not see inside her.

  “Damn.” He crossed at once to where she sat and lifted her and held her. “I’ve scared you. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that.” Her cheek pressed the lines of his brocaded waistcoat. He pulled her to him, and his arms became iron. “We’ll talk. We’ll just talk. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. But Bonaparte’s scheme is madness. We both know it. It’s going to hurt France as much as England.”

  He was so wise about her. He would gnaw away at the foundations of her spirit like a mouse at the wainscoting. She had no defenses against him. “I do not wish to speak of French politics. It is an intricate and depressing topic.”

  “Fine. We’re not talking.” He set his chin on top of her head. “Just hold on to me for a while.”

  With her eyes closed, in darkness, it was like being back in France, being blind, knowing Grey by the touch and smell of him. After a time, a clock sounded in one of the rooms along the hall. Seven strokes. His back muscles tightened under her hands, and she knew the little truce between them was over. Truces were of that nature. They ended, sooner or later.

  He let her go. “I shouldn’t have made love to you this afternoon. I’ve made you doubt your own judgment. You’d trust me better if your body weren’t hungry for me.” He looked down and traced the shell of her ear with his fingertip. “See? When you feel even that much, you pull back, thinking I’m trying to manipulate you.”

  “Are you not?”

  He opened his hand, as if he released something. “I don’t know how to convince you. I want you so much I can’t think clearly.”

  “What will you do with me when I will not become the traitor for you?” She let her arms drop away from him.

  “It’s not going to happen that way.”

  “That is a comfortable belief for you, surely.”

  “Do you want promises? I have a few. Whatever happens, I’ll protect you from Leblanc and Fouché. I’m not going to hurt you, even if I keep scaring the bloody hell out of you.”

  “I am desolated to disappoint you, but you are an amateur in this business of frightening me. I have met experts.”

  “And it just gets worse from here on in. You are so bloody complex. I wouldn’t love you if you were stupid, but it’d be a lot easier on both of us.” He took a deep breath. “Come downstairs and eat. They’ve already started.”

  Twenty-seven

  IT WAS A WHOLLY MASCULINE DÉCOR, THIS HOUSE at Meeks Street. The halls were hung with antique maps and architectural drawings in dark f
rames. The tables she passed held file folders and empty coffee cups and men’s gloves tossed carelessly into a wide bowl. There was no clutter of flowers, no potpourris, no bibelots.

  The dining room was next to that study where Grey had let her sleep this afternoon. She was learning her way around the house which was her prison. Eventually she would know it extremely well.

  At the mirror in the main hall she stopped to inspect her toilette one last time.

  “The dress is good on you. Sweet. Innocent.” Grey scowled. Not at her. She was merely in the line of fire as he considered his own thoughts. “You’re harmless as a Bengal tiger, thank God. How much do you know about Colonel Joseph Reams of British Military Intelligence?”

  Her face betrayed nothing, but her stomach clenched. Françoise, who had been one of Vauban’s own, and her friend, and a spy of great skill, had been questioned once by Reams—taken and questioned only on flimsy suspicion. She had needed months to heal. “I have heard of him. One or two small things.”

  “Then you know what we’re dealing with. You’ll have to meet him.”

  It was well known that Reams of the Military Intelligence tortured women like her, spies, and took pleasure in it. She had let Grey lull her into complacency. Now she was wisely terrified again. “He comes because I am here. The Military Intelligence takes interest in me. I should have thought of that.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “No. That is…perhaps. In some ways.” Could he not see she was frightened into idiocy and leave her in peace? “That is a strange question.”

  “Trust me this much. Reams can’t touch you. He has no power under this roof. I will not let anyone hurt you.”

  “That is what Galba said. I would believe it more if it were not said so often.”

  “You have my word.” For him, that settled matters. He had been an English officer before he was put in charge of many spies. Perhaps she did trust him.

  He opened the door to a gem of a room, perfectly proportioned, papered with Chinese scenes of pagodas and distant mountains. Curtains of white jacquard silk were drawn close so one could not see the bars. A simple dinner had been laid upon the table. She gave her attention to the men, and the one woman, who sat there.

  “…avoid a confrontation,” Adrian was saying as she walked into the room. “Lazarus may even be hoping—”

  He stopped speaking and sprang to his feet. The other men rose too—Galba, at the head of the table; Monsieur Doyle, whom she recognized easily from years ago in Vienna; the boy Giles, who had opened the door to this house for her; a thin, brown-haired man she did not know. Grudgingly and at the last minute, the last of them stood, a short, pink-faced man. That was Colonel Reams, she thought.

  “Mademoiselle, I hope you are rested.” Galba drew her to the table and made a great show of introducing her to Doyle, who was calling himself Viscount Markham, and his wife, Lady Markham, who did not look like a woman named Maggie. She was, amazingly, French, with the accent of an aristo, which is not a thing expected of a Maggie. The thin man with the aspect of a librarian—most certainly a spy of considerable deadliness—was the Honorable Thomas Paxton. Next, Galba presented Colonel Reams, who did not look at her, but sneered rudely. Galba then allowed her to meet Adrian and Giles.

  Grey put her into the chair between Galba and Adrian and went himself to the left side of the colonel, which is the weaker side of an opponent and advantageous for attack. “Colonel,” he said, sitting down.

  “Major.” A terse and unfriendly acknowledgment from Reams.

  They hated each other, Grey and the Colonel Reams. The others were also not fond of the colonel. She, who had been trained to notice such things, saw that Doyle and Adrian and the scholarly Paxton sat as men sit in an unfamiliar tavern, loose in their chairs, their arms upon the table, their feet planted, ready to spring up. Every man in the room watched Colonel Reams carefully, though they did not seem to do so. It was a dinner party awash in well-practiced stratagems.

  Adrian murmured that she was not to worry as Grey had matters entirely in his hands. He served upon her plate chicken and potatoes and green beans, pretending to consult with her but in fact paying no attention whatsoever when she said she wanted nothing.

  Galba resumed the conversation where it had left off. “Your culpability will be known, Adrian. Lazarus is no fool. Have you considered the consequences?”

  “If we don’t intervene, Whitechapel will be knee-deep in bodies by the end of the week. What I want to do is—”

  “You need to keep yer nose out of it, is my opinion,” Colonel Reams interrupted. “Let ’em bite each other’s buggering cocks off and choke on ’em. Since we’re shut of that nonsense—”

  “You are so earthy and forthright, you army chaps,” Adrian coolly cut in.

  “I want to know why this French whore trots in here like she—”

  “But this isn’t some manly, thigh-slapping dinner in your barracks.”

  Grey made an inconspicuous hand motion, and Adrian subsided. “You’re a guest here, Colonel, and there are ladies present. Adrian, serve Mademoiselle Villiers some wine.”

  Grey was making a point, so she let Adrian fill her glass for her.

  The colonel snarled and swiveled to confront Galba. “You tell me why there’s a bloody slut of a French spy sitting at the dinner table.”

  Galba allowed an eloquent silence to punctuate, then said, mildly enough, “We will not discuss this now, Colonel. Or in those terms.” He turned back to Adrian. “I’m wary of intervention in Lazarus’s own household. It is provocation on our part.”

  “Not our part. My part. I’m acting on my own. Annique, you will not grow up to be big and strong if you don’t eat your vegetables.”

  She rearranged what Adrian had put upon her plate with her fork and listened to him wax eloquent in favor of some scheme, doubtless dangerous and complex. She did not eat. She could not have eaten anyway while the Colonel Reams seethed at her in that fashion. The wine smelled like an excellent Bordeaux.

  “Your decision?” Galba glanced at Grey.

  “It has to be attempted. We’ll deal with Lazarus afterwards. Will goes along to do the heavy lifting.”

  Adrian exhaled impatiently. “It’s a second-floor window. She…” His eyes slid across Reams. “The package I’m collecting weighs four stone. I could fetch it out under one arm.”

  “And that’s all you have,” Grey said. “Your shoulder isn’t healed. Do this, if you have to. But Will goes with you.” Thus Grey made judgments of important matters, sending these deadly men out to steal, taking care they should be safe.

  It would be easy to fall in love with such a man. He felt her eye upon him and grinned, just in a flash, like a man at his sweetheart, and also like a tomcat who has been much satisfied by a tabby. It was a compliment, but an embarrassing one, though of course no one at the table knew what he had been up to with her.

  Then he was speaking to Doyle, all business. “…pull in two extra guards. Galba’s in the guest room, but Pax leaves before dawn.”

  The quiet Paxton stretched across the table to fetch back the wine bottle. “I’ll take the usual route. If you have messages, give them to me tonight.”

  “You already have mine.” Galba took up his wineglass. “Good journey.” It was unobtrusive, but Grey and Doyle and Adrian lifted their glasses as well, and they drank as one.

  How it brought back memories, this meal. As a child in Lyon she had carried bread and wine to tables like this and sat as the quiet mouse while men and women made such preparations and left, one by one, to walk alone into danger. Later, she had been one of Vauban’s people, his very inner circle. That silent toast…Her friends had made those for her. It was lonely to look upon this as an outsider.

  “Upon that note…” Galba’s chair creaked. “Mademoiselle Villiers, we must clarify this situation for all concerned. I regret giving you so little time to compose yourself.”

  She set the fork down and ceased annoying the veg
etables. “I am all attention.”

  “Do you wish to accompany Colonel Reams and place yourself under the protection of Military Intelligence? I did not think so. No, Colonel, you may speak later. Your choice, mademoiselle.”

  She shook her head.

  “Then you shall not. You will remain with us. However, I would prefer that you were not distracted by illusionary alternatives. You are planning to escape, I believe.”

  “One explores many possibilities.” She did not try to look young and naive, as that would be wasted here. Instead, she composed her face as if she were at the opera, attentive but uncomprehending.

  Grey appreciated it. The flicker in his eye was all amusement.

  Galba was less easy to read. “Let us make your situation plain. You are not without intelligence, but you underestimate your worth on the playing field. That is not uncommon in someone your age. Robert, you may take Mademoiselle Annique to the front door and open it for her.”

  Colonel Reams hopped to his feet like a red and angry bantam. “She’s a French national. You have no right. The girl’s mine, damn it.” He should have been absurd with his jiggling paunch and a napkin clutched in his hand. He was not ridiculous to someone who might soon be in his cellars for questioning.

  Then Grey was at her elbow, shepherding her from the room, his body between her and that spewing of rage, his path direct and unswerving toward the colonel. It was Reams who backed away. He swung round to snarl into the bland face of Galba, whose dangerousness was of an order the colonel did not recognize.

  The clamor of his outrage trailed them down the hall to the dim, stiff parlor where Grey unlocked the front door. The cool evening wind enveloped them.

  They stopped just inside the doorway, and Grey looked alertly at the houses opposite. He was considering the question of snipers, she thought.

  “The colonel fears you will let me walk out of here. He is a stupid man, is he not?” she said.