The Spymaster's Lady sl-1

by Joanna Bourne

  “She leaves here with me.”

  “Most touching.” Soulier regarded Grey steadily. “You make me the villain in this play. But it is you who brought Annique to this disaster she faces. You have used her, Grey, without taking any thought for her at all.”

  “Listen, you son of a bitch—”

  Soulier raised his hand. “Let me finish, please. Because you have seduced her away from France, Fouché has put a death order upon her. There is nowhere—not in the deserts of Arabia, not upon the face of the moon—that she can hide from such an order. I must clean up the debacle you have made of her life. I will bring her to Fouché and turn his wrath aside. I will prepare her to earn his forgiveness in the only way she can, if she is to live. This pretty love affair you have between you will make it horribly painful for her.” His eyes glittered, black and opaque as onyx. “My Fox Cub is a woman of rare quality, beyond the price of jewels as an agent. Unique. You have come close to ruining her. I am angry at what you have done to her. Very angry.”

  “She’s British Service.”

  “Silence! Mon Dieu. You shall not say that!” Soulier rose from his chair, enraged and shaking. “Not even in this room when we are alone. Not even to me. Do not whisper it. She is not recruited to you. All may be forgiven—except for an agent to turn. You make her death certain.”

  “She’s mine. Her mother was ours.”

  Deep, unconditional love swept across her. Thus Grey paid for her freedom with that great secret from his store of secrets. He was like a rajah laying down the legendary ruby of his kingdom to ransom his woman.

  Soulier stared. “Lucille?”

  “She was British Service.”

  “Nom d’un nom d’un nom. No. I cannot believe.” Soulier strode away with an abruptness that belied his years and crossed the room. “It cannot be.”

  “From the first day she arrived in France. I could show you reports twenty years old. She was always ours.”

  “Ma belle Lucille. That such a thing could be.” He drew a curtain aside and faced into the night. It was a long minute before he spoke again. “Lucille…I knew she was the best France had. I did not realize she was the best England had instead.” One could not see Soulier’s face, only hear his voice. “She was…lumineuse. Nothing so ordinary as beauty. I was one of many who loved her.”

  “I’m told she was a remarkable woman.”

  “And she belonged to England. We shall be the laughingstock of Europe if this leaks out.”

  “It will. These things always do.”

  After a minute, Soulier let the curtain fall. He began to chuckle. “Oh, Lucille, how you would laugh to see me étonné like this. Mon Dieu, but I shall indulge myself by telling this to Fouché, to his face. It will pay back many, many difficult moments I have had with him.” He limped his way back to the tapestry chair, shaking his head. “My beautiful Lucille. You will tell me now that she was English…Yes, I see you will. It is enough to make a grown man weep to contemplate how many of our secrets have slipped to you over the years through those pretty fingers. What a very great deal of trouble I shall be put to, cleaning up this mess.”

  He lowered himself to the chair, muttering, “Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, what did that woman not know. I shall be busy for months.” Soulier reached his hand out. “Annique, come to me.”

  He had been protector and teacher for so many years. She took his hand and looked down at him.

  “Those secrets you gathered for me…The ones you carried back and forth for me in your pretty head. They are all in the hands of the British, are they not?”

  She nodded.

  “You were a double agent even when you were a child?”

  To pretend she had lied to him all her life, that she had played a role to Vauban and to René and Françoise…There are some lies one cannot tell.

  “I see. Not quite the British agent then. Lucille did not tell you.”

  “Annique was always ours,” Grey said. “I have reports she wrote before she learned to spell.”

  “Doubtless you do, but I do not think my Cub sent them to you. No,” Soulier said. “We shall let it pass. I am not hungry for her blood, God knows. I am still trying to think of a way to keep her.”

  She could only be silent. Soulier’s ingenuity was formidable.

  “Alas, Annique, we have not treated you well, have we? Vauban makes you the ass for his load of madness, and Leblanc menaces you with knives and guns. I was dilatory and did not find you in time. You have fled to your mother’s people instead of to me, and I have lost you forever. Leblanc should be killed several times over. I will attempt it. And Pierre, your father?”

  “Ours,” Grey said.

  “Morbleu, but this must not become known. Pierre Lalumière is one of the martyrs of the Revolution. A man of passionate ideals. If he had not died young, perhaps there would have been less bloodshed in that time we all wish to forget.” A spasm of dismay passed across his face. “Do not tell me, Grey, that he was British.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I would not have believed it. A mind so enlightened. Next you will tell me Voltaire and Racine are the products of your Oxford University. No. Do not say it. I do not want to know. The world is a disillusioning place altogether.” Soulier collected his cane and wrapped it in his hold and spoke low. “I will admit, just between these walls, that I am not sorry Vauban succeeded in his final folly. Napoleon has developed a taste for grandiose gambles, which should be discouraged. Our First Consul is not lucky upon the water. Oh, take her and go, Grey. She is your agent, and untouchable. She will doubtless drive you mad.”

  “I’ve given you Leblanc, neatly wrapped for disposal. We’re even.”

  “On the contrary. I am, as you English say, your cat’s paw. I am disgusted with this turn of events. I lose my splendid young agent of resource and cleverness and must now replace the section chief of central France, though he was an excrescence upon the boil of a pox and stupid to go along with it. The only compensation of this night is that I need not debauch la petite, which I did not look forward to in the least.”

  “Fouché’s death order?”

  Soulier made a sweeping motion, dismissing it. “You may consider it canceled. It was meant to stop the leak of secrets. It is far too late for that.”

  “Good.” Grey was blunt. “Then I won’t issue any of my own.”

  “We do not kill one another’s agents, you and I.” Soulier planted the cane and got to his feet, leaning upon it heavily. “Too much blood upon the chessboard of the Game, and we become no different from the military savages who litter the fields of Europe with the bodies of those poor young men. Annique, kiss me and depart. Our relationship has become so complicated even a Frenchman cannot untangle it. Take care we do not meet again, now that we are enemies.”

  “I shall be properly wary of you, Soulier.” She kissed his cheek, as she had a thousand times. “I shall miss you.”

  “Go with the blessings of le bon Dieu. He is not fashionable in Paris these days but will doubtless reappear in his own good time.” He sighed. “I think I shall declare it night once more and have a glass of wine before I go to bed.”

  Thirty-nine

  THE HACKNEY COACH THAT BELONGED TO THE British Service was waiting for them at the curb outside Soulier’s charming town house.

  “I do not know how to feel.” She sat next to Grey. At this moment it did not matter much to her where they went. “It is strange not to have Leblanc attempting to kill me.”

  On the forward seat lay a pile of black wool cloth. When Grey unfolded it, it proved to be a long wool cloak, such as countrywomen wear. He wrapped it around her. She had not noticed she was shivering until then.

  “I shake like a custard. It is spineless of me,” she said. “I am still frightened, I think.”

  “I don’t blame you. What a cold, calculating bastard that man is.”

  “I do not at all mind that Fouché should kill him. It is an excellent idea.”

  “I me
ant Soulier,” Grey said dryly.

  “Soulier? But he will face Fouché in Paris and tell lies to bargain my life back for me. He risks his career and perhaps his life. You must not blame him that he is not delicate with me. One is not delicate with one’s agents.”

  “One does not pimp one’s agents either. It’s the first thing they teach you in spymaster school. No, don’t argue. This is for you.” He handed her a small, heavy sack that contained coins. She shook it open a bit and dipped her fingers in.

  “There is a lot of money here,” she said neutrally. She could not be sure of the value of British coins from just the feel, but there were many.

  “I don’t want you loose on the streets with no money in your pocket. I also have three pounds sixpence of yours in my desk drawer. I should get that back to you sometime.”

  “Oh, that. I stole it from Henri, if you will recall, so I do not know if it is rightfully mine or not. It is difficult to determine, with money.”

  “Isn’t it?” He pounded twice on the roof of the coach with the flat of his hand. “Unless you have an objection, we’ll get out here.”

  The coach stopped. “You are letting me go?”

  “I am indeed.” He jumped out without kicking down the step and reached back to lock huge hands around her waist and lift her to the ground.

  It was a quiet, respectable neighborhood. The street was lined with prosperous houses, every door silent and dark in the hours before dawn. Even the cats slept. The breathing of the coach horses and the metallic click of their hooves made the only noise. If Grey were accompanied by many minions, they were not making themselves evident.

  “You are letting me walk away with the Albion plans in my head.” It was not the first time his behavior had bewildered her. “I do not object, you understand, but it seems inconsistent.”

  “The French are so sure we have them, it hardly matters whether we do or not. It should discourage them from showing up on the doorstep this spring.” As soon as he latched the door, he thumped on the side panel, and the coach rolled away. She listened to its wheels on the cobbles while he settled the cloak upon her and tied it at the neck. “You’ve done what you came to England to do.”

  “Yes.” She had not come to England to fall in love, but she had done so. She had made a botch of it.

  “Kent is safe for a while. I can’t grub through the plans and mine them for French secrets, so France is safe. Stalemate.”

  “Just so.”

  He did not seem to be angry with her. He brushed her hair from her forehead and set it behind her ear. “You’ve won.”

  She could not read his face in the dark. He was only shadows and gentle hands. But gentleness is not love.

  She swallowed. “When I left you tonight, I did not want to go. I had no choice. There were many lives at stake.”

  “I know. What will you do, now that you’re free, and nobody’s trying to kill you?”

  I will be utterly alone. “I have always thought I would become a cook, someday, if I lived to retire. I will go to Wales, perhaps. It seems to be a place where a woman with the name Jones can live without ridicule.”

  “I’d better let you get on with it. West,” he said, pointing, “is that way.”

  She was most entirely free. Just as she had wanted. One must be careful what one wishes for.

  There is nothing more to say to a lover when one has set his love aside and snuck secretly from his bed. And, in any case, the Head of the British Section cannot ally himself with an unreliable French spy. Perhaps Grey had lied to himself from time to time on the subject. As she had lied to herself.

  So she turned and started walking west. She could smell the river on the left of her. The Thames.

  She knew at once he was behind her. After twenty steps she was still not sure how she felt about it. “You are following me. Why are you doing this?”

  “To protect you.” Which was what he had said to her once before. “And because I want to.”

  She drew a long breath in and kept walking. “You are a difficult man to be in love with.”

  Even in the dim light, she knew he grinned.

  Ahead of them was a park with sharp iron palings on its fence. She did not know which park. She did not know precisely where she was in London, as she had not been paying proper attention. “Are you planning to follow me all the way to Wales?”

  “If I have to. We’ll stop at Tydings on the way. Would you like to get married here in London or when we get to my parents’ house?”

  She bumped into him. Somehow he had put himself in front of her, blocking the path. He was warm and disconcerting to run into.

  “You have not asked me to marry you.” That was the most stupid thing of the several things she could have said.

  “Marry me, Annique.”

  She wanted to step around him and walk away and be gone, but she could not make herself move. “It is not possible between us. I wish you had chosen to be wise. Then I would not have to.”

  He stroked her hair, like a warm wind. “Marry me.”

  It hurt, knowing she must say the many sensible things that must be said. “You will lose your position if you marry with a French spy, which I am, who cannot be trusted, which I cannot.”

  “Then I’ll resign my bloody position. There’s a letter in my desk drawer. I wrote it the day I brought you to Meeks Street. Doyle knows. He’ll pull it out tomorrow when I don’t come back.”

  “He will not find it, for you will go to your office immediately and tear it up.”

  “Would you like to go to India? I have a standing offer from one of the directors of the East India Company. We’d become tremendously rich, if that matters to you.”

  “I do not want to be rich. And I know you are already rich. Adrian told me. He thought I should know.”

  “Remind me to throttle Adrian. We can get married about five hours from now, at St. Odran’s, if it suits you. That’ll give me time to call everybody in. We’ll invite Soulier…There. That’s made you smile.”

  “You are entirely mad. You will doubtless stick straws in your hair and caper about the streets.”

  “Let’s find some privacy for that.” He considered the park. It was a big place. One could smell a great extent of greenery and perhaps a lake, somewhere within it. “You have a problem with these spikes and pointy things?”

  The gates would be closed at this hour of night. “Hah. You make the joke. This little fence? But I am in skirts, though, and a large cloak, which is very warm and lovely, but awkward to climb with. So if you will…Yes. That is helpful.” She stepped into his cupped hands and was over in a flash. Grey followed her a moment later.

  He took her hand. The dark enclosed them. They might have been in the country, it was so quiet, with so many stars overhead. It came to her that she had never walked out under the night, hand in hand, with a lover. Or with the British Head of Section, for that matter.

  They’d come to a flat, grassy hillock, deep in the park. He twitched her cloak off and furled it down to the ground before she could protest. “Hush. I’ll keep you warm.” Before she could speak, he spilled her downward, onto the ground, onto the soft wool, and sprawled beside her and put his arm around her and drew her to him. “Is this better?”

  “This is foolishness.”

  “There hasn’t been enough foolishness in your life. No. Stay close.” He urged her with a whisper, a touch, till she lay beside him, body to body.

  The stars spread out above her in patterns vast and mysterious.

  “You’ll like Tydings,” he said. “It’s old stone, the color of honey. There’s meadow behind and a view of the hills that stretches on forever. We’ll make love over every inch of it, at night, being sneaky about it.”

  How did he do this to her? “You entice me with dreams and entangle me with this sacrifice you make of yourself. It is like fighting shadows.”

  “Don’t fight. When we’re old, we’ll stagger down the path to the river and collapse on the benc
h and watch our grandchildren play in the mud. We’ll remember making love on that bench. And by the river. Maybe in the river, too, some hot night.”

  “I have never thought of being old.”

  “It’s time you did. Be old with me.” Dreams and impossibilities sheltered in his bones and muscles. When he held her like this, she could almost believe in them.

  “I do not like it that you free me with one hand and entrap me with the other. It is not straightforward of you.”

  “I’m not a straightforward man.”

  “You cannot resign from the British Service, my Grey. Napoleon will not sail in the spring—I have done that much—but someday he will come. You cannot leave your post. You are one of the guardians of this land.”

  “So’s Doyle. Let him sit in that stuffy office and be Head of Section for a while.” His hands slid along her side, making themselves busy up and down her body. It had been only a few hours since she was in bed with him, and her body remembered.

  “But you are Head. You hold those deadly men of your Service between your hands and protect them, and they trust you utterly. You are responsible for them.” She was becoming limp and needy, clinging to him. “You do not listen. You are seducing me instead.”

  “Trying to.”

  She had not known that her eyelids would feel that way when someone had his lips upon them. Like silk. Light flowed where he licked with his tongue. “You make it quite impossible for me to think.”

  “Really?”

  “You need not sound so pleased. It is a weakness on my part.”

  “That sounds promising. Are you going to marry me?”

  “It is not that simple.”

  He leaned up on his elbow and looked down at her. His face was cast in moonlight, inches away, grave and intent. “But it is simple. Not easy, but simple. Even in Wales or India, you’ll have to choose—France or England.”