"Cambridge, actually." He found a shadow of amusement in how aptly she had gauged him. "After my second year, there was a truce on the Continent for the first time in a decade. I decided to take a holiday in France. I soon realized that it was only a matter of time until the war resumed again.
"By chance, I learned something that would interest the Foreign Office, so I sent the information to a semidistant cousin of mine who had a position there. Lucien immediately came to Paris to talk to me. He was impressed with what I had discovered, and suggested I stay in France when the truce ended. Besides my natural deviousness, my mother was a Scot, which gave me an entree to the Scottish community that had settled in Paris after the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Since they despised Napoleon, they made excellent allies."
He had always admired his slightly older cousin; it had been gratifying to win Lucien's approval. Growing up, Robin had received damned little approval in other quarters. It had been seductively easy to convince himself that he would be doing something brave and valuable.
"At the beginning it was almost a game. I was too young and heedless to realize that… that I was selling my soul, a piece at a time." The suffocating panic began to rise again. "By the time I understood what I was doing to myself, there was nothing left of it."
"An interesting metaphor," she said softly, "but false. You may have forgotten how to find your soul, but you can't lose, sell, or give it away."
He gave a humorless smile. "Are you sure about that?"
"Quite." She took his hand in hers, and the panic retreated a little. "If you had no soul, you could not suffer the kind of guilt you feel now. In my experience, dedicated villains sleep peacefully at night."
"By that standard, I must be a saint," he said wearily.
"You said once that your friend Maggie was your partner in crime. I wondered then what you meant. She was also a spy?"
"Yes. Her father was killed by a French mob. I helped her escape. She had no reason to return to England, so we became partners. I spent much of my time traveling about the Continent, but home was wherever Maggie was. Most often, Paris."
"Comrades and lovers," Maxie murmured. "She was the linchpin. When she left you, things fell apart."
He nodded. "When We were together, I was able to keep the worst of the demons under control. I didn't start to unravel until later. How did you know?"
"Feminine intuition," Maxie said rather dryly. "I suppose that your stints as a servant were in pursuit of information."
"Exactly. People tend not to notice servants. A footman or groom can learn everything that goes on in a house."
She pulled the blanket over them. Its weight was welcome; he hadn't realized how cold he was. But the vital warmth came from Maxie. She was sweetness and sanity, her breasts soft beneath her thin shift, her gentle hands soothing.
"It has just occurred to me that many of your absurd tales might be true," she said. "Did you really share a jail cell in Constantinople with a Chinese sailor?"
He smiled faintly. "God's own truth. Li Kwan taught me some amazing fighting techniques that have saved my life several times over. Our combined talents got us out of that hellhole."
"What about Napoleon's retreat from Moscow?"
Robin made a choking sound and began shaking again, as if the chill of a Siberian wind were still in his bones.
She tightened her embrace. "It's obvious why such memories are horribly painful. But surely your work helped your country, perhaps contributed to saving lives by ending the war earlier."
"Perhaps, yet often what I did was downright trivial." His mouth twisted. "One of the triumphs of my dubious career was the not very difficult deduction that Bonaparte was planning to invade Russia because of the number of books on Russian geography he had on his library shelves."
She gave a soundless whistle. "The deduction might have been simple, but how the devil did you manage to get into the emperor's private library?"
"You don't want to know."
She smoothed his sweat damped hair back from his brow. Shadowed lines showed at the corners of his eyes. For the first time, he looked every minute of his age, and then some. "It was war," she said with compassion. "Though killing someone to gain entrance must have been dreadful, it wasn't really different from shooting a soldier on a battlefield."
"It wasn't murder that time, but seduction," be said in a voice of self loathing. "A chambermaid, plain and rather shy, but sweet. Jeanne was so grateful for the attention. I pretended to be a loyal French soldier who was recovering from wounds, and who wanted to see where his beloved emperor worked. It wasn't hard to persuade her to take me there." His fingers curled into her arm with bruising force. "I hated using women like that-taking what should be best and truest between men and women and perverting it. But I did it anyhow. God help me, I did it."
"There are men who ruin women for sport. At least you had a reason," she said quietly. "Did Jeanne ever learn that you had been using her?"
"No. I told her that my regiment was being sent to Austria, and bid her a fond adieu. She… she wept and prayed for my safety. I still see her face…" His voice broke.
Maxie grieved for plain, sweet Jeanne, and for Robin, who had betrayed his own code of honor. Yet surely there had been a positive aspect to their affair. "Jeanne may have wept for losing you, but I guarantee that it did wonders for her confidence to know that a man like you had wanted her."
When Robin started to reply, she put a finger to his lips. "Don't tell me that it was a betrayal on your part-I concede the point. But you brought her some happiness, and you let her keep her pride and dignity, which you didn't have to do."
"The fact that I was never unnecessarily cruel doesn't make my actions right," he said flatly.
Her brow furrowed as she tried to put herself in his place. "Being amoral would be a great advantage for a spy. For someone like you, who is innately decent, it was obviously ghastly. How did you manage to keep going for so many years?"
He exhaled roughly. "By walling off my worst deeds, as if they had been done by someone else. That worked for a long time. But after the war ended and there were no more crises, the walls began crumbling."
"Hence, nightmares."
"Exactly."
Gently she stroked his taut spine, thinking of when she had tried to teach him to listen to the wind. Once again, she sensed the tangled threads of his character, and this time she understood why so many strands were, spun from raw, black pain. His spirit seemed terrifyingly fragile. Though he may not have lost his soul, he was drawing ever closer to emotional breakdown. Strange to think that this darkness had always been beneath his laughter.
Empathy had left her drained. It would be easy to let matters rest here. By morning, Robin would have rebuilt the walls that saved him from madness and would be as jaunty as ever. But the fragmentation that had enabled him to survive was now in danger of destroying him.
Her mother had taught her that dreams must be renewed, and nightmares must be released. For Robin to become whole, healing light must be brought into the knotted blackness at the center of his spirit.
She shivered, feeling helpless. He needed someone stronger and wiser, but for now, she was all he had. Delving deeper into his pain would hurt them both. Yet for the sake of Robin's sanity, she must try, even if he ended by despising her.
She let her spirit float freely with the wind and rain that were cleansing the night sky. Then, after some of their strength had entered her, she opened her eyes and began to speak.
Chapter 23
Softly Maxie said, 'Tell me the rest of what haunts you, Robin."
He gave a ragged sigh. "I've said too much already."
"Do you think I am too fragile to hear the truth? I am not a sheltered English innocent from the schoolroom. I have seen enough of life to understand hard choices."
"But you are also as honest as sunshine. How can you not despise what I am?" he asked despairingly.
Because I love you. The words ca
me from deep within her, so powerful that it was difficult to keep them from her lips. But she managed, because the last thing Robin needed was unwanted declarations of love.
Instead, she replied, "I've a fondness for rogues, especially honorable ones. In the time we've been together, you've done considerable good and no harm. You saved Dafydd Jones from being trampled. You stopped me from killing Simmons, for which I was grateful as soon as my temper cooled." She kissed his temple, feeling the hard beat of his pulse. 'Tell me what you've done, Robin. Burdens are lighter for being shared."
"There were so many things," he whispered. "Endless lies. Informants I worked with who were captured and died most horribly. The French major I assassinated because he was a fine soldier who would have been able to hold a walled Spanish town against a siege indefinitely."
"Surely your informants knew the risks as well as you did. As for assassination-" she hesitated, to choose her words, "no decent person could rejoice at committing such a deed, but a siege is a dreadful thing that often ends in horrible slaughter. Did your action prevent one?"
"With their commander dead, his troops withdrew from the town without fighting. Lives were saved, which was good. But nothing can make it right to murder an honorable man who was doing his duty. I'd met him a couple of times. I liked him." Robin's misshapen hand opened and closed on the counterpane, his nails gouging the fabric. "I liked him, and I put a bullet in his back."
"Ah, Robin, Robin," she said, heart aching. "I see why you said that war would have been cleaner. For soldiers the issues are more clearly drawn, the responsibility left in higher hands. Your work was far more difficult. Often you must have had to choose between different evils, trapped in a world of grays without easy blacks and whites, never sure if you had made the right decision. A dozen years of that would be too much for anyone."
"Certainly it was too much for me."
In the distance thunder sounded, and cold rain beat harder on the glass. Feeling as if she were moving blindfolded through a marsh, where a misstep might lead to disaster, she asked, "Is that assassination the worst thing, the very worst, for which you hold yourself responsible?"
The shaking began again, but he didn't speak.. Her voice more insistent, she said, "Tell me, Robin. Perhaps the pain will fester less if you share it."
"No!" He twisted in her arms, trying to break free.
She held tight, refusing to let him escape. Again she said, 'Tell me."
He choked out, "It was in Prussia. I had obtained a copy of a treaty with grave implications for Britain."
She thought back to what she knew of the wars. "The Treaty of Tilsit, where France and Russia made a secret alliance in hopes of bringing Britain to its knees?"
He tilted his head back and looked at her. "For an American, you're well informed about European affairs."
"The subject interested my father, so we followed the news together," she explained. "You actually managed to learn what was in the secret articles of the treaty?"
"Within hours of its being signed." He gave a bitter smile. "I told you I was good at my trade. But getting the information was the easy part compared to getting it back to England. The French soon discovered what had happened, then came in pursuit. I had to get to Copenhagen, so I rode west for days, using every trick I knew to elude them. Finally I was sure I had escaped. I needed to stop and rest. My horse was half dead, and I no better. I knew a family in the area, prosperous farmers. They hated the French, and had helped me in the past."
His voice cracked. "They greeted me like a longlost son. I told them I had been pursued, but that I had escaped and there was no danger. I was so sure." A staccato pulse throbbed in his throat. "I was catastrophically wrong."
"The French found you?"
He nodded. "I slept for over twelve hours. Herr Werner woke me the next morning, when he learned that French troops were searching the neighborhood. I said I would leave immediately and went to the barn, but my horse was gone.
"Then I realized I hadn't seen Willi, their youngest son. He was sixteen, about my height and build, my coloring. He had conceived something of a hero worship for me. When I saw that my mount and saddle were gone, I had a horrible premonition that he was in danger. I ran into the forest toward the main road, trying to stop what was going to happen." His eyes spasmed shut. "I was too late."
Maxie felt his pain resonating deep within her, but knew she must force him to the end of the tale. "What happened?"
"Willi had decided to lead them away from the farm. I was on higher ground, and could see how he deliberately let a squad of French cavalry spot him. He had my horse, a coat the color of mine, and he was bareheaded, showing that damnable, identifiable blond hair. As soon as they saw him, they gave chase. He tried to outrun them. My horse was very good, and Willi might have escaped, but another squad came galloping along the road from the other direction.
"When he realized he was trapped, he bolted into the forest, but he hadn't enough of a lead. The two squads caught him quickly. They gave him no chance to surrender, just shot him down. At least a dozen musket balls bit him." Robin shuddered, a film of sweat covering his body. "Willi was a bright lad, and he managed to outwit them. A small river ran through a deep gorge in the forest, and he survived long enough to reach it. The horse screamed as it plunged over the cliff into the water."
He buried his head against Maxie, shaking with the agony of a man at the limits of his endurance. She asked no more questions, only caressed him, whispering soft words in her mother's tongue, saying that everything would be all right, that he was a valiant and honorable warrior, and that she loved him no matter what he had done-all of the things she could not say in English.
She guessed that for Robin, the boy's death had come to symbolize everything that was innocent and courageous and doomed. The Treaty of Tilsit had been signed nine years earlier, and Robin would not have been much more than a boy himself. The wonder was not that he was close to breakdown, but that he had survived, and functioned, for so long while burdened with such terrible responsibilities and guilts.
For a long time there was no sound but rain and distant thunder and grief. Gradually the echoes of anguish faded, though he still held her as if she were his one hope of heaven.
Voice stark, he continued, "The French would have liked to retrieve the documents, but the river was high. They decided the water would destroy what the bullets hadn't, and they left. I stayed and helped the Werners search until we recovered Willi's body. His parents never said one word of reproach. In some ways, that was the hardest thing of all. They even apologized because Willi had destroyed my horse and insisted I take their best mount as a replacement."
"It sounds as if Willi brought disaster on himself," Maxie said quietly. "If he hadn't intervened with his misplaced gallantry, you might have escaped cleanly with no one suffering."
"Perhaps, perhaps not." Robin drew an unsteady breath. "But the fact remains that if I hadn't stopped at the Werners' farm, Willi would not have died."
"Only God can know that, Robin. Perhaps it was Willi's time to die, and he would have slipped on the stairs and broken his neck at that same moment if you had not come. Perhaps he would have gone for a soldier when he was a year older and died fighting the French. Of course you feel grief and regret, but crucifying yourself serves no good purpose." She stroked his forehead, wishing she could soothe away the pain inside.
"I always tried to do the right thing," he said bleakly. "But too often, I didn't know what the right thing was."
She sighed. "I think most of us do the best we know how. There is really nothing more we can do."
"My best wasn't good enough."
His knotted pain proved that she had not done enough, either. She looked into her own past, then said, "After my mother's death, I attended a condolence ceremony held by members of her clan. It helped me a great deal."
Praying that she could remember or improvise enough of the ritual to help Robin, she lightly covered his ears with her ha
nds and recited, "When a man mourns, he cannot hear. Let these words remove the obstruction so that you can hear again."
After lifting her hands from his ears, she laid them over his eyes. "During your grief, you have lost the sun and fallen into darkness. I now restore the sunlight."
When she took her hands away, she saw that he was watching her gravely. Crossing her hands on the center of his chest, she intoned, "You have allowed your mind to dwell on your great grief. You must release it lest you, too, wither and die." She felt the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her palms until she lifted them away.
In your sorrow, your bed has become uncomfortable and you cannot sleep at night. Let me remove the discomfort from your resting place." She smoothed her hands across his shoulders and down his arms, then said quietly, "Willi has gone to his rest, Robin. Can't you do the same?"
His eyes closed and he pulled her down against him. At first his heart was pounding as if trying to break free of his ribs, but gradually it slowed to a more normal speed. She held tightly, feeling that some of his inner darkness had been dissolved by the light. Though it was not complete healing, it was a beginning.
He slid his hand into her hair and rested his palm on her nape. "How did you become so wise, Kanawiosta?"
"The usual way," she said wryly. "By making mistakes." She settled her head on his shoulder, so tired from the emotional storms she could scarcely stay awake.
"Whatever the reason, you have wisdom," His hand skimmed down her back, coming to rest on her hip. "Too much to consider marrying me."
His statement acted on her fatigue like a spray of ice water, shocking her to full wakefulness. For a stunned moment she replayed his words to ensure that she had heard properly. Then she sat up and stared at her companion.
Robin lay on the pillows and watched her with the patient stillness of exhaustion. The candlelight played over the stark planes of his face and bare chest, but it was too dim to read the color or expression of his shadowed eyes.
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