“You and I shall talk in the morning,” Henry said significantly.
Anna was fairly sure she would avoid that, but at this moment, she was too tired to think. She stumbled upstairs to her bedchamber and fell fully clothed into bed.
*
After a mere couple of hours sleep, Gosselin took up his post in the coffee house once more. It was only just light, and he was the only customer. Even the waiter was yawning.
Although news from London had dried up—Delon, damn him, had always claimed Watters was useless—Gosselin had every reason to hope that Lord Castlereagh was now close. With Talleyrand in the country, he surely had to be, and Gosselin’s finest moment was at hand.
At least, he hoped it was. Right now, he felt anything but fine. He raised his coffee cup in his bandaged hand, thinking bitter thoughts about unladylike, violent English noblewomen like Lady Anna Gaunt. She had stabbed him quite brutally in the hand before he even knew she had a weapon, and then ran off to join Delon in a fight with some very vicious seamen. Her stupidity annoyed him, for he had never thought her remotely stupid before.
It was another weakness to add to Delon’s and give him back some sense of wellbeing. The little coup d’état Gosselin and Fouché had enacted against the over-powerful Delon might not have succeeded in killing the cur. But it had, finally, betrayed the first weakness he had ever found in his commander. He cared for the fools who did his bidding. Which made eliminating them all the sweeter, and almost made up for Delon fooling him and giving himself up to the British.
Gosselin had begun to suspect that Anna, clearly Delon’s tool in Blackhaven, was another weakness. Now, it seemed Delon was also hers. Which irritated Gosselin, who rather wanted her for himself. Besides which, he would far rather have tied her up or even killed her on the other side of Blackhaven and sent Delon searching all over the country for her while Gosselin completed his task in peace. And hopefully escaped back to France before Colonel Delon came hunting for him.
It was, surely, only a matter of time before the British arrested Delon once more. Gosselin would prefer to tie up this loose end if he could, but since Delon knew he was here, he doubted his chances.
Unfortunately, Delon also knew about Talleyrand. Gosselin only hoped it would not enter Delon’s head that the Prince of Benevento would wander into the Blackhaven Hotel in the full view of the populace. But at least now that Talleyrand had arrived, Lord Castlereagh could not be far away. After all, neither man could hope to remain inconspicuous for very long.
Gosselin sipped his coffee and while he watched the front door of the hotel, he allowed himself to dwell with some bitterness on the events of last night. It had begun well, witnessing the night time landing of Talleyrand in Blackhaven Cove, and following undetected, as he had imagined. Seeing both Delon and Anna waiting ahead had been a blow. As if they had known where Talleyrand was going.
Being discovered by Delon had been another blow, and from there it had all gone to pieces. He had salvaged nothing from that, except knowledge of Delon’s latest weakness. But he still had his task to perform and with luck, Delon would sleep his way through that.
This happy thought must have calmed him so much that he nodded off in his chair, for he came to with a jolt to see an unmarked coach stopped in front of the hotel across the street. Even as Gosselin sat up, the coach drove off again, and four men entered the hotel: three well-dressed gentlemen and a valet. Of the three gentlemen, one was particularly well muffled—against the cold, one would have thought, if one did not suspect him of merely hiding his identity. It was impossible to see his face. Gosselin quelled the urge to run across the road and peer at him in the foyer. No one could arrest him for looking.
Fortunately, he stayed with the plan and waited, keeping his eyes now on the first-floor windows of the all-important room… And, yes! The curtains twitched. A man’s face—one he did not recognize—appeared briefly, parting the curtains only slightly to allow in some light.
The rooms were occupied. Now they just awaited Talleyrand…
But Castlereagh must have been travelling through the night. He would be exhausted. No one but an imbecile would face Talleyrand in such a state. Castlereagh would sleep, which meant so could Gosselin.
Before he could even take the coin from his pocket to pay for his coffee, someone slid into the chair opposite him.
“Good morning,” said Colonel Delon.
Gosselin’s stomach rebelled, threatening to eject the recently consumed coffee.
Delon smiled. “Who are you protecting now?”
“I was enjoying a cup of coffee before I go home,” Gosselin retorted.
“To Cliff View? You might as well, you know, for I can find you just as easily at the tavern.”
Gosselin couldn’t stop his eyes widening, and Delon laughed. “Poor, poor France.”
“I have never pretended to be as experienced as you in matters of low spying,” Gosselin said, trying for dignity.
“Then you have no business taking on such a position. But we both know that. What happened to your hand?”
Thrown by the sudden change of subject, Gosselin blinked at his bandage for a moment before he said resentfully. “That she-cat you have made such a pet of, stabbed me. If you ask me, she is no more a marquis’s daughter than I am!”
“But then, I would never ask you for information.”
A dangerous glitter had formed in Delon’s impenetrable, unblinking eyes, urging Gosselin to poke further.
“I would not turn your back on that one,” he sneered. “I certainly wouldn’t sleep at her side.”
“No,” Delon agreed, standing abruptly and looming over the table so that Gosselin feared he had gone too far. “You wouldn’t. Your tongue is also too loose for your position. Good-bye, Gosselin.”
He swept out of the door, looking, Gosselin thought resentfully, rather magnificent. Rather as Gosselin himself wished to appear. What he could not understand was why Delon had come in in the first place. He had asked him no probing questions, nor threatened him. It was almost as if he had just come to look at him.
Gosselin’s stomach jolted unpleasantly. There had used to be all sorts of nonsense talked about Delon. They said he could tell the tiniest lie from the tone of your voice. That he could tell exactly what you were thinking from simply looking into your eyes. For several seconds, Gosselin felt frozen with terror that Delon had learned his whole plan from that hard stare.
But, of course, that was rubbish. And just in case Delon was still watching him, he threw a coin on the table, and went deliberately back to Cliff View to sleep. Even Delon himself would have to sleep some time.
*
Louis had been sitting on one of the hotel foyer sofas, apparently lost in his newspaper, when the four men had bundled through the front door. Without appearing to look up from the paper, he picked out the chief of them immediately. Tall, thin, unexpectedly youthful and aristocratically handsome, he allowed the others to surround him, to conduct business at the desk before he was whisked upstairs, followed by two porters with their baggage.
Standing up, Louis saw that they were met on the landing by the lofty and rarely glimpsed figure of the hotel owner himself.
Satisfied, Louis strolled out of the hotel. As usual, Gosselin was fixed in his seat at the coffee house window. Which was annoying. Louis had hoped the arrival might pass him by unnoticed. Nor could he discern the direction of Gosselin’s gaze. So, he walked across the road to the coffee house. Gosselin’s head did not turn to follow him.
When he entered the coffee house, he saw at once that Gosselin’s attention was fully on the hotel, and he was gazing upward. To be sure, Louis walked right over to him, and as he sat, followed his enemy’s gaze up to the first-floor window. Gosselin knew.
Of course he did. It was why he had never risked attacking Louis there and bringing such attention to the hotel that the meeting was moved…
But he would do nothing until Talleyrand arrived. Why else would he ha
ve been following him last night if the prince was not central to his plans?
Like Gosselin, Louis retired to bed. Unlike Gosselin, however, he needed only a couple of hours of sleep to thrive, and he had a well-trained ability to wake at more or less exactly the time he wished to.
He rose and dressed before midday and sent for some breakfast. When the knock sounded at his door, he opened it to take the tray from the maid and forestall any of the flirtatious behavior that had become tedious to him.
But it was not the maid who stood there. It was not even his breakfast. It was a veiled lady in black crepe like a widow.
The disguise did not fool him for a moment, though he hoped devoutly it had misled everyone else. Grasping her wrist, he jerked her into the room and closed the door.
He kissed her through the veil, and when that was not enough, he drew it up over her head and kissed her naked lips.
“What the devil are you doing here?” he all but groaned into her mouth.
“It’s Castlereagh,” she breathed, drawing back.
“I know.”
She frowned. “Damn you, how did you know?”
“I saw him arrive. How did you know?”
“Henry. It was the real reason he posted up here. It scared the wits out of him to think of a French spy in the vicinity of the foreign secretary. Which is quite funny when one thinks of Sir Thomas Watters who must have been in his vicinity for years.”
Louis shrugged. “But he never gave us anything useful. He just took the money. Until now. He must have known his colleagues had discovered his past treachery and given Gosselin this meeting as a parting gift. He must have been extremely well paid for that.” He took her face between his hands. “What are you doing here?”
“Escaping Henry, who will only ask me awkward questions about you. Don’t you like the disguise? I made it from an old mourning dress of my mother’s.”
“I like it very well. I like you in all your guises, but you are taking a risk. And not, I suspect, to come to my bed.”
She flushed, as he had hoped she would, though she answered openly. “I doubt it would be sensible if Lord Castlereagh is already here. Why do you suppose he is meeting Talleyrand? And which of us should be concerned, you or I?”
Louis sighed and released her, walking to the window. “Concerned by their secret meeting? Neither of us, probably. I imagine it is some ploy of Talleyrand’s to secure favorable terms for France in the peace that is sure to come by the spring. What worries me is Gosselin’s part in this.”
“Would even Gosselin not want favorable terms for his country?”
“His country is of purely secondary interest to Gosselin,” Delon said dryly. “Neither he nor Fouché, his master, would thrive in peace time. His aim must be to prolong the war.”
“So, he must disrupt the meeting,” Anna said slowly. “Or prevent it altogether.” She met Louis’s gaze and the smile he loved flickered across her face. “In this, if in nothing else, we must be on the same side.”
“I like that.”
“So do I,” she whispered.
He walked back to her, his pace deliberately slow and predatory. “Then what should we do?”
“Stop Gosselin,” she said breathlessly.
He took her hands. Folding them behind her back, he drew her against his body. In winter, her skin smelled of summer flowers. Her softness melted into him. He felt the rapid beat of her heart, the faint tremble of her response.
“How?” he asked.
“I thought you could knock him down. What would you advise?”
“I thought you could threaten him with your dainty stiletto. Though when I hold you like this, in my power, I find I don’t care very much about anyone else.”
She tilted her head, her breath warm on his lips. “What a wicked spy.”
“A poor spy,” he corrected, pushing his hips harder against her. He might have been trying to distract her with a little bodily lust, but he suspected it was he who was losing. She pushed back, even swayed, gently, caressing him with the soft curves of her breasts and stroking the hardness in his pantaloons.
Her eyes, hot and clouded, begged him. Her parted lips, luscious and trembling, seduced him without even touching.
He caught his uneven breath. To hell with it.
At the moment of his decision, a knock sounded at the door. His breakfast. He stared down into Anna’s beautiful face. She made no effort to free herself. He could ignore his breakfast and take Anna to bed at last. He could think of nothing against that plan at all. It would distract her and enable his mind to focus, eventually, on something other than her person and sheer, unutterable lust.
Another, louder knock irritated him. For a second longer, it hung in the balance. And then, because this wasn’t the right way with Anna, he released her hands.
“Enter,” he said quickly, before he changed his mind. At the same time, he strode to the door and took the tray from the girl—his usual, flirtatious maid—and closed the door. “Join me for breakfast,” he invited.
She gazed at him, so clearly wondering what had changed his mind that he blurted, “Don’t tempt me. If I take you to bed, I won’t leave you alone, and Gosselin will do his worst.”
She sat down at the table and poured a cup of coffee, taking a sip before she pushed the cup and saucer across the table to him. “So how should we set about stopping him?”
“I shall stop him,” Louis said firmly. “He owes me his life many times over. You must keep Henry away from the hotel or he will ruin everything from ignorance.”
Anna didn’t speak, merely searched his face. He suspected she saw through his instructions to his main aim—to keep her safely out of the way.
“And then?” she said at last.
“And then I shall call at the castle, as a good suitor should, and tell you how it ended.”
“That seems very tame. From my point of view.”
“I shall endeavor to make it…er…not tame.”
A smile flickered in her eyes. The reality of “afterward” was already upon them. “And will that be the last we see of Sir Lytton?”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “It depends how quietly everything can be done.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “Anna. Until the war is over, there can be no certainty between us. Only promises.”
“I keep my promises,” she said.
He smiled. “So do I.”
She drew in a shaky breath and rose to her feet. “Then I shall leave you for now. Au revoir.”
He rose with her. “Au revoir,” he said softly.
*
Anna left him with her emotions in turmoil. But her mind was clear and full of plans. Since she knew he would be watching, she left the hotel and walked up the high street in the direction of the harbor. After a little, she turned left and returned from the side street, walking close in to the wall as she approached the front door so that he would not be able to see her from his window. It was less noticeable than a lady blundering about at the kitchen entrance.
Again, veiled, she sailed through the foyer to the stairs. By then, she must have been a familiar sight. This time, she did not go on up to the second floor but walked along the first-floor passage. None of the doors were guarded. But by walking the length of the passages repeatedly, and skulking a little, she began to narrow down the rooms likeliest to house Lord Castlereagh.
And when she encountered a friendly maid stripping down the bed in one of the other rooms, she stopped the maid in the passage with a trivial question while her arms were full of clean bedding. Anna helped her carry it into the bedchamber and struck up a conversation with her.
As she left, Anna paused at the door, and thoughtfully lifted her veil. “I wonder if you would consider helping me?”
“Of course, ma’am,” the girl said at once. “Anything.”
Anna stepped back inside the bedchamber and closed the door.
Chapter Seventeen
At about half past three in the a
fternoon, Talleyrand arrived at the hotel. He wore an elderly fur-lined cloak, which effectively covered his habitual elegance of dress, and he was accompanied not by Captain Alban but by a man Louis recognized as Alban’s surgeon.
Louis gave him time to cross the foyer and walk up to Castlereagh’s rooms on the first floor. Then he rose and donned his coat, still somewhat gingerly, for although his wound had not reopened, it was somewhat tender again after his exertions of the previous night. He tucked a sheathed dagger into the top of his pantaloons, and into the other side, he placed the bulky, stolen pistol. He hoped fervently he would not have to use the latter, since he suspected it fired wide and was as likely to blow his own head off as anyone else’s. Like Talleyrand, he threw a winter cloak around his shoulders to hide the state of his dress.
As he left his room and walked downstairs, he noticed a difference in the hotel. Large men lounged in slightly ill-fitting gentlemen’s clothes on the first-floor landings and near the front door of the hotel. They were Captain Alban’s men. And Alban himself lounged on one of the foyer sofas with the lady he had landed in Blackhaven more than a week ago.
This could have proved difficult, for it was possible Alban would have a better memory for prisoners than his men did. However, Louis was fortunate enough to spy Mrs. Winslow entering the hotel and hurried to greet her. She seemed delighted to see him, but then spotted Alban’s wife—the duke’s daughter—and abandoned him with unflattering haste. Louis, with the seal of her acquaintanceship passed out of the hotel, if not unnoticed, then at least not recognized.
Another of Alban’s men stood chatting to the doorman outside the hotel. Louis strolled past them and round to the back of the hotel where the stable and coach house stood. Alban’s men were also guarding the kitchen entrance, but no one paid Louis much attention as he entered the stable. They might, of course, notice if he didn’t come out again, but he doubted they would waste time trying to discover him and leave the back door unguarded.
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