“Not a bluff.”
“Adrian?”
“Not a bluff. In fact, she’s calling ours.” Adrian jerked a thumb. “Grey’s.”
Galba nodded. “That is my own opinion. I called it bravura, but it is, in fact, admirably rational. She will not eat. It’s the only conceivable weapon left her. I assume she will not even take water.”
“No water. Nothing.” He closed his eyes, going over the conversation, trying to remember when he’d felt her resolve harden. “She was planning it when she refused the coffee. She made the decision when she heard your offer. For a minute, she wanted to say yes. She’s not going to let herself surrender that easily.”
“So she has given us less than two days to persuade her by reasoned argument or demonstrate we are villains,” Galba said. “Captive and with no weapons, she has wrested control of the situation from our hands. Admirable.”
Doyle sprawled in the big chair next to the fire with his feet up on the firedogs. Maggie was on the low ottoman, leaning against his knee, companionably close. She stirred and sat up. “Are you saying that girl means to starve herself to death if you don’t let her go?”
“I won’t let it come to that.” He picked up Annique’s wineglass and rotated it softly. The wine made a circle, a whirlpool of spinning red lights with a dimple in the center.
“She has been preparing for this eventuality all her life,” Galba said softly. “We are her enemies, Marguerite, and we have her cornered. She is desperate and passionate and, most especially, she is very young.”
…And bloody careless with her life. He set the glass down impatiently. “Damn Socrates, anyway.”
Adrian started to speak, then stalked over to help Giles clear away the cups.
Galba tapped the carved panel inset in the arms of his chair. “The Albion plans are a grave responsibility for one so young. Eventually, we will relieve her of that. In the meantime, we must present her with alternate methods of confronting us.”
“I should take her home with me before you end up killing her in your stupid Game with your stupid secrets.” Maggie scowled. “You will be satisfied, I suppose, if she suicides herself to escape you.”
“We won’t let her do that, Maggie. It ain’t dead simple getting hold of pretty French girls this side of the Channel.” Doyle pulled his wife back against him and wrapped her in bearlike arms. “And Robert wouldn’t like it.”
“Then Robert should not push her to desperation,” she said tartly.
“We’re all in on it.” Adrian retrieved Paxton’s empty glass. “Grey takes her to bed. The rest of us slink around being friendly and insidious. We’re so wily it makes me sick.”
“Wily,” Doyle agreed. “That’s us.”
Adrian expressed his opinion by picking up Doyle’s coffee cup, still half full, and walking off with it.
“Hawker.” Grey got a tight-lipped, angry glare from Adrian. “Don’t make her less than she is. She’s not just friendly, pretty Annique. Remember that. She’s the Fox Cub and this is the Game.”
“With points about even, so far,” Doyle said. “So I don’t feel as brilliant as I generally do. Also, I don’t like Reams breathing down our neck. He’s got jurisdiction, when it comes right down to it.”
Reams wasn’t going to touch Annique. “There’re ways around that.” Grey clenched and unclenched his fists. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get to use them on Reams.
“The colonel could fall off his horse, I suppose.” Adrian stopped stacking dishes to think. “Or eat something that disagrees with him. Or find a cobra in his bed.”
“There’s a lot of that happens,” Doyle agreed.
“Or he could cut his throat, shaving.”
“We will not call upon your peculiar expertise, Adrian.” Galba rose heavily and walked across the room to the large walnut desk. He fished in his waistcoat pocket and drew out a key. “Nor is that her best protection from the colonel.” He frowned. “Pax, I have information to disclose that I do not wish to burden you with, where you must go.”
Paxton gave his slow, deceptively gentle smile. “I need to pack. And sleep, if I can.” He collected the bottle of Bordeaux from the sideboard as he walked by. “Good night, all. As for you, young man…”
“I know. I know. Ferguson needs me in the kitchen.” Giles took it good-naturedly. He clattered the last of the dishes into the dumbwaiter, closed the hatch, and followed.
“I shall find something to do as well, I suppose.” Maggie brushed her skirts and prepared to stand.
“I’d like you to stay, if you will.” Galba fitted his key into the side drawer of the desk. “I value your insight, Marguerite. It will also save Will the trouble of repeating this conversation to you, later.”
“I admit nothing.” But she smiled as she approached the desk where Galba was laying out file folders. “What is this, then?”
Grey stood. These would be the files about Annique, the ones that had never passed through his office. He’d wondered why there was a skilled, important agent, with no file on her, anywhere. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
Two of the three thick files Galba laid on the blotter were old. The original buff had darkened to a dull brown. On the opening lip of all three was a long, crimson line. That meant they were to be opened only in the presence of a Head of Section.
Grave-faced, Galba picked the topmost. “What is in these files has been the most closely guarded secret of the British Service for twenty years. The time for such secrecy is past. It ended six weeks ago.” He pushed the folder across the desk. “In extremis, you may use any of this. It will trump Military Intelligence.”
It was Annique’s file. The one Grey had never seen. The name, Annique Villiers, was the third of twelve aliases scripted in bold ink on the upper right corner. The folder was three inches thick, filled with close-written reports in many hands. Most of the papers, even the faded ones, were crisp and unwrinkled. They hadn’t had much handling. Not many people had read this file.
He hesitated, then flipped it open. Summary notes were always inside the left cover. The first line told him everything. Adrian was reading upside down. He drew his breath in sharply. “Ye gods.” Doyle, leaning over his shoulder, took it in with a single glance and cursed.
He kept reading. No wonder this was secret. No wonder.
Doyle took a lumbering step toward Galba. “I should have been told.”
“Nobody was told.”
“They were operating in Vienna. My fief. Damn it, I should have been told.”
Galba said, “You know the privileges of detached status. Will, you made those rules.”
“You don’t use ’em against me. I came close to…Good God, why didn’t you tell me? One word would have been enough. One word.”
“Your actions and your enmity were part of her protection.”
Annique’s file. Grey turned over page after page, feeling the anger twist in his chest. This is going to break her heart. “She doesn’t know. Why the goddamned hell doesn’t she know?”
“I do not deny culpability.” Face grim, Galba relocked the drawer and pocketed the key. “I disapproved, but I sanctioned it. The simple fact is, her mother chose not to tell her.”
Unbelievable. “I understand it when she was a child. But when she was grown—how could she not tell her?”
“There are no excuses. She never told Annique. Now we must.”
“We tell her everything. Every damn thing.” He slapped the file. “We give her this. Complete. Every word. She has the right to know.”
“She has the right.” Galba sank heavily into the wing chair by the fire. “I knew this was coming. I pity her profoundly, but I cannot take this cup from her.”
“Tomorrow.” Not tonight. Let me give her one night, before I have to do this to her.
Adrian was flipping angrily through the second folder, page by page. “Twenty years of lies. We haven’t left you a rag against the wind, have we, ma pauvre?”
“It was wro
ng.” Doyle rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t care how valuable she was to us. This was wrong. And we did it.”
Maggie wasn’t familiar with Service files. It took her longer to read notations and decipher the story. “I cannot believe this. How could a woman do such a thing to her child? They were close, Annique and her mother?”
“Very close,” Doyle said.
“You will hurt her unbearably. With her mother newly dead…”
“I know, Maggie luv. It’s bad enough what we’re doing to that girl. Now we kick her in the guts with this.”
“We’re not going to drop it in her lap and yell, ‘Surprise!’ We’ll go slow…” Adrian, for once, looked unsure. “We’ll…we’ll what? How do you say something like this?”
“She will not believe you,” Maggie said. “Even before you hurt her so badly, you must convince her.”
“The proof’s in her own mind,” Doyle said. “Her mother must have slipped up once or twice in all those years.”
Once she was told, Annique would remember. She’d lie awake at night and remember every lie she’d been told.
And he had to decide how to tell her. “Maggie’s right. We have to convince her that it’s true.” He took the file Adrian was looking at and extracted a single sheet. He smoothed it flat for everyone to see. “Here. We start at the beginning. Tomorrow we take her to St. Odran’s and show her the original of this in the parish record. Can we do that with Leblanc loose?”
Doyle hesitated, then nodded. “It’s a small risk. But we have enough men to keep her safe for that long.”
“Good. We show her the parish record, then bring her back and give her the files. We explain.” He looked up. Galba’s shrewd, deep-set eyes met his. “You explain. I sure as hell can’t.”
“I have been considering the proper words for ten years. Perhaps I’ll find them tomorrow.”
Twenty-nine
ANNIQUE WAS WAITING FOR HIM IN HIS BEDROOM, on his bed, on her belly. She was on top of the covers, reading a book. She was naked.
She looked at him through her eyelashes. “I am glad you were not devoured by that animal which has draped itself across the doorway. What is it, that thing?”
In all England, all France, all the world, there was no other woman for him. Only Annique. He had her naked in his bed. One of life’s perfect moments.
“We think it’s part wolfhound. Doyle found it down by the docks, likely off some ship or other.”
“I would say it is rather wolf and possibly also part elephant. It does not like me.”
“Good. Then you won’t go wandering around the halls after dark. Maggie brought some nightclothes.”
“I saw them. They are very lovely, of course, but I thought you would prefer to see that I am totally harmless when you approach me. It is necessary, as I understand these things, that a man not be nervous at such times.” She propped herself up, her breasts just brushing the crimson leather cover. Her smile was knowing, and her eyes were shy. Men would kill to possess this woman.
He came to her, unwinding his cravat, sliding it out of his collar, tossing it onto the chair in passing. He felt infinitely powerful. She made him feel that way. “I’m glad you’re so willing. I suppose you’re preparing for one last beautiful night of lovemaking…”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Perhaps.”
“…before you start dying of thirst.”
Her brows contracted in annoyance. “I had not intended to bring that up. Such matters are not conducive to romantic behavior.”
“Casts a damper over everything, doesn’t it, all that dire nobility of yours.”
“I have changed nothing with my decision. I merely strip away the veneer of civility. I do not need to justify my behavior to a—”
“Then don’t. The best minds in the British spy service are going to talk you out of it tomorrow. We spent the last hour plotting. We have plans.”
“Oh.” She looked stubborn and apprehensive. Also relieved. Nine-tenths of her was hoping to be persuaded out of that idiocy.
He said, “I have plans, too.” She had only to look at him to see what he had in mind.
He jerked the last button loose and pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor, then stripped his trousers off. She started to sit up, but he set his hand on her shoulder to keep her as she was. He liked her this way…naked, laid out on her belly. She was exquisitely lovely, and she couldn’t attack. “Have I mentioned you’re the most beautiful woman in the world?”
“From one cause and another we have missed saying such things to each other.”
Those sleek cat muscles of hers told him how nervous she was. Willing, but nervous. He could use that nervousness. He could make it explode inside her like foam in a keg. He’d send her wild tonight. Beyond thought. Beyond restraint. “I like the curve here…” He ran his hand down the long, taut muscles that paralleled her spine. “It’s like the countryside back home. Long and rolling.”
“I am like countryside?”
“Somerset countryside.” He stroked her buttocks. “With little hills.”
“But truly, men have strange minds.”
He stroked her again. “Did your mother tell you that?”
“I find that my mother did not say anything to the point. She did not wish me to be a courtesan, you understand, and therefore did not instruct me in those arts.” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Except for a few trifles. I believe they are not known to respectable English girls, who are very uneducated. I will show you, if you like.”
A pang of pure lust shot through him. His lady was not at all innocent in some ways. He foresaw many long, interesting nights while they worked out exactly who would be in charge in this bed. “Later, maybe.”
“There is one in particular that sounds interesting. I am curious to see how it works.”
She would drive him insane. She’d do it on purpose.
“We’ll save it for those long winter nights ahead. Have I told you I love you, Annique? It started about the fourth time you tried to maim me. I never did find time to say the words.”
“It is the right time now. We are at leisure, and I am not armed.” She was sad under the teasing. He’d put a stop to that fairly soon. “I find it gratifying in the extreme to be loved, especially by a man like you. I shall become quite puffed-up and conceited with it, I think.”
“You go right ahead and do that.” The sweet flesh of her back had decided to stop being nervous and go soft. The tremors in her were just beginning. “This is where you say you love me back.”
“Ah…love.” She pinched a crease into the linen pillowcase beneath her. “You must be disappointed, mon ennemi. I desire you. This is not love.”
“Just desire.”
“You are the first man for me. There must be a first man for every woman, when she is innocent and fools herself into believing in love. This is true even if she is destined to lie with seventy thousand in her lifetime.”
She lay there, wanting him. Scared of it. Wondering if that made her a whore or just a fool. Halfway wondering if she was trading herself to an enemy spy, for safety. Not trusting herself to know the difference between wanting and being in love. If her mother weren’t already dead, he’d strangle her himself.
And that was enough worrying from the Fox Cub tonight. In ten minutes he’d make her forget that nonsense. Give him fifteen, and she’d forget her own name. He slid the book out from underneath her and tossed it away. Her breasts cuddled softly into his palm.
When he touched her, he felt the shudder, felt the throb in her flesh.
You’re mine, Annique…every exquisite, dangerous inch of you. “I haven’t worked it out yet, but seventy thousand would keep you fairly busy.”
He raised her up some, kissing along her neck to confuse her, to quiet that busy mind of hers. She bent her head to watch him while he touched her, watched her nipples squeeze up into hard little buttons between his finger and thumb. She’d already starte
d breathing fast. She was responsive as hell. Good. With a woman like Annique, he needed all the advantage he could get.
He kissed the top of her head. “Seventy thousand’s a lot. Maybe I can convince you to settle for a few less. How about a hundred? Or a dozen?” He lured her chin upward, drawing her jawline. “Or one?”
When she lifted her eyes, they were deep blue and vulnerable as spring flowers. “One?”
“Me.”
“Oh.” She breathed onto his shoulder. “Well.” He could feel each separate breath. Neither of them moved. Slowly she let her forehead lower till it rested against him. Her tongue—a soft, warm touch—tasted him. Tasted his skin.
He knew for sure, then. This hit her as hard as it hit him. They were both lost. No way back for them.
His hand shook with the effort of keeping control. Slow. He had to go slow. He didn’t trust himself to touch her anywhere but her hair. Her neck. The shell of her ear. Let’s not roll her over and dive in like a sailor on shore leave, Robert. She’s new at this, and more ignorant than she wants you to know.
He took her face in light, outstretched fingers. Finger to flesh, tied together by the current between them, he drew her up and up until she was kneeling on the bed. And he was kneeling. Hunger and magic danced in the air. He set his lips to her lips. He’d never had a chance to enjoy her slowly, to savor her when there was nothing ahead but a night of lovemaking. Now, he did.
Her mouth was soft and hot. Hungry. The gateway to a universe of desire. She shuddered as he licked and bit and demanded.
He broke away and whispered, “Who are you thinking about, Annique? Those seventy thousand men? Or maybe a Gypsy boy?”
Dear God, but she was ready for him. He knew it by the slick of sweat on her skin, by the quivering of those sleek, beautiful muscles, even by her smell. Her whole body was his for the asking. Nothing held back. Nothing forbidden.
“I am not thinking of any Gypsy boy, my Grey.” Her voice was husky. “I am thinking of no one but you.”
She put her arms around him and drew him down beside her on the coverlet. She whispered, soft in his ear, wickedly, “And Robert, of course.”
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