The Spymaster's Lady Read online

  She leaned heavily on that old broom handle she’d collected. Her clothes were filthy with dirt and cobwebs, her skin bone-white with fatigue. Alone, exhausted and on foot—how far did she think she’d get before Leblanc ran her down? He was doing her a favor, really, gathering her in. Whatever he did to her it couldn’t be worse than what Leblanc had in mind.

  He set the lantern down carefully on the gravel, freeing up his hand.

  Water sloshed in the bottle. With any luck, that would be enough to nail her to the spot. He strolled toward her, bottle swinging loose between his fingers, the loaf tucked casually under his arm. Simple tricks work best. It was like catching a filly in a field. You go slow and steady and act like you’re thinking about something else.

  “Do you want cheese, too? I can have him bring some down.” He spoke as if Doyle were still on top of the carriage. He wasn’t. Without looking, he could have charted Doyle’s course, circling in silence, cutting off the woman’s escape. They’d worked together ten years. He knew where Doyle would position himself. He’d be a dozen feet behind the target and to the right of the pathway. “Bread and water doesn’t begin to pay the debt I owe you.”

  “I do not collect debts from English spies.” She shuffled uneasily. “A debt ties you to people.”

  “Water’s not much of a debt. A little cool water.” He tossed the word like a looped noose. Let her think about thirst, not about him closing in. He was nearly there.

  He could almost hear her instincts screaming for her to run. The intent, listening tilt of her head said it all. How long had Leblanc kept her without water? She must be desperate to take this risk.

  One last step, and he clamped an unbreakable grip on her arm. She was his.

  She tried to jerk away. “I do not like people touching me, monsieur.”

  “This is the best way. You don’t have a chance against Leblanc. At least with me—”

  Pain exploded in his elbow. The broom handle spun, smooth as glass, and cracked across his kneecap. White, cold, unbelievable agony knifed up his leg. He fell. Slammed down onto his shoulder. The girl flicked free, like a fish out of a badly cast net. There was nothing in the dark but scattering gravel.

  “Bloody. Damn. Hell!” Blind with pain, he staggered up and limped after her. Idiot. He was an idiot. He’d seen what she’d done to Henri. He knew what she was.

  That was almost the end of it. She was unbelievably fast in the dark. He heard her stick clacking into trees, finding a path. She was getting away.

  But Doyle was the wiliest of old campaigners. He’d put himself where he could see the girl outlined against the glow of the lantern. He didn’t show at all in the dark shrubbery. She barreled straight into Doyle’s massive arms, and he scooped her right in.

  Almost scooped her in.

  “Son of a buggering…” He arrived to find Doyle clutching his belly, sputtering colorful Breton dialect. “…gangrenous sea cow.” The girl was loose and scrambling to her feet. She was damned good if she could land a blow on Doyle.

  Oh yes. It was going to be a pleasure bringing Mademoiselle Annique in.

  He dodged that blasted lethal stick of hers, stepped in, and twisted it out of her hands. That had her disarmed. Then he had to deal with the surprising, elegant little fight she put up. She was strong for a woman, all lean muscles and neat, sturdy bones, but she had no weight on her. The top of her head didn’t come even to his chin. She never had a chance.

  It took less than three minutes. When it was over, he pulled her arms behind her, not hurting her more than he had to, but not letting her hurt him either. She panted, her sides heaving in and out, and every muscle in her trembled in shock. It had been a hard night for Miss Annique. Then it was step by step back to the coach, dragging her, letting her fight enough to tire herself out. She wouldn’t have much strength left.

  He felt a sense of fierce, primitive possession. His. She was his.

  Rubbing his belly and grumbling, Doyle ambled up. “Fast as bedickens, ain’t you, me girl? Bring her over here to the light.” Doyle took a handful of hair and tilted her head back. She was still fighting, her eyes closed in furious concentration as she tried to kick somebody.

  “God’s little parakeets. Annique Villiers.” Doyle gave a low whistle. “You collect the damnedest things, Grey. What the hell are you doing with the Fox Cub?”

  Three

  SOMETIMES, ANNIQUE THOUGHT, ONE PAYS dearly for a tiny mistake. She should not have been tempted by the water.

  It had been a short, inglorious fight. She had no chance against this English spy she had stupidly freed from Leblanc. They were both blind in this night, and she had practiced, endlessly, fighting without sight. But it gave her no advantage. She summoned up all the dirty tricks she had ever learned and pulled them out, one by one. The big man knew them all. He was much better at this business of fighting than she was.

  It ended quickly. He flattened her hard against him and wrapped her up like a troublesome little parcel, and she could not escape. His muscles were iron and polished wood, invulnerable, endlessly strong. She could feel savage satisfaction coursing through his body. He was positively gleeful to trap her like this. She became very afraid of him.

  An hour ago, she had set her hand against his heart and wanted nothing more than to stay beside him. She would now do exactly that. The universe had been treating her with great sarcasm lately.

  She was dragged forward. The coachman—the English spy pretending to be a coachman—took her hair and looked at her face and said, “Annique Villiers.”

  She had not expected to be known. Not this far north. Not by the English, with whom she had had so few dealings.

  Then he said, “You collect the damnedest things, Grey.” The shock of that removed her breath.

  Grey. The English spy was Grey? She was most definitely fighting above her station. By the good God, no wonder they had gathered her up in this way. She had stumbled into the disorderly tail end of some major British operation. For no other reason would Grey himself be in France.

  It was the most astoundingly bad luck. The man called Grey was Head of the entire British Section, directly under the legendary Galba himself. Grey had no need to be wandering in Paris waylaying female spies. He was a man of many agents all across Europe and numberless important activities, all of them more complex and vital than provoking and tormenting her in this way. Grey should be—she tried angrily to decide what was appropriate—he should be plotting Napoleon’s downfall in an office at the Whitehall or in some other suitable place. It was altogether dangerous and stupid for him to be lurking about in France, where he was in great jeopardy and anyone at all might lock him into cellars at any time.

  Grey was indisputably in France. Held pinioned in his arms, she felt weariness and thirst and the long weeks of running alone in the dark and this senior English spy defeat her all together. Her heart failed within her, and she lost whatever effectiveness she had ever possessed as a fighter. “Please do not do this to me.”

  “Easy does it. Up with you.” Grey dragged her into the coach as if she were a trophy he had won by great cleverness. As she was. “No more fighting. I really wouldn’t try it.”

  “Please. I will betray nothing of you. Not a whisper.” Her words were muffled against the cushions where he pinned her. He was made of perfectly solid muscle and extremely heavy.

  “No, I don’t think you will,” he said.

  He was content that she should thrash and kick beneath him until she wore herself out and became somewhat easier to manage. She saw at once what he intended, but it took her a long time to become wise and accept the inevitable and lay her forehead down on the cushions and give up, to be simply gasping and limp like a fish upon a bank.

  She was in great trouble. She had not been trapped in this way because the English wished to collect minor and unimportant agents. It was Leblanc’s stupid words concerning the Albion plans that interested them. Every spy in Europe was looking for those plans. Leblanc mig
ht so easily have held his tongue. There was no good luck for her lately.

  She considered what a man like Grey might do to discover the whereabouts of the Albion plans when he took a French agent away from Paris to somewhere solitary and she was alone with him. She could imagine how he might extract the information he wanted and then silence a French spy who knew many awkward secrets. She knelt in the iron grip of his hands, covered with sweat from fighting, but inside she was as cold as January.

  “Finished?” Grey asked.

  She could only nod.

  “I’m glad you two finally settled that.” Adrian was upon the other seat. His voice was feeble but perfectly full of laughter. “You keep banging into me.”

  “It’s settled,” Grey said, “except she’s going to bite me if I let go.”

  Her terror diminished with those words, for the attitude of Grey was not that of a man about to do murder, and the boy Adrian was entirely lighthearted, which only a monster would be if she were to die in the environs of Paris at the hands of these English.

  “I should have left you to rot with Leblanc,” she said. “I wish I had.”

  “It’s a little late to wish that, mademoiselle,” Grey said.

  “I beg to differ. It is never too late. I will probably wish it for the rest of my life. What is your intention to do with me?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Annique.”

  Yes, he would. Did he imagine she was stupid? “I have saved your life. This is no fit repayment, what you do to me.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t.” Then there was some silence in which he did not at all amplify his response.

  There is a transition to be made in the mind. To admit one is beaten. She admitted defeat most privately to herself and felt weakness and despair flow throughout her muscles. Grey, who held her pinned most effectively, would feel it also. He relaxed his hold somewhat. She muttered, “It was said by Socrates that no evil can befall the good, either in life or after death. I am not so sure of this as I once was. What do you want from me?”

  “Your company. For a time.” There was deep satisfaction in his voice.

  “How long will you keep me?”

  “Until I let you go.”

  “Oh, but you are witty, monsieur. Forgive me if I do not laugh. I am not in good humor tonight.” She let her cheek lie against the seat, against the cool leather, unutterably exhausted and beaten. Fox Cub they called her, her friends and her enemies in the little world of spying. No fox’s trick would free her this time. Nonetheless, she tried one last time to pretend to be stupider than she was. “You waste your time with me. I am the small agent, the quiet mouse in the wall, the messenger. I hold no secrets of interest to the English.”

  And thus she pretended to know not a thimbleful about Albion plans or the invasion of England or what had happened all those months ago in Bruges, or much else either. She did not expect to fool him.

  “Is that so?” He did not sound very interested.

  “Most certainly. You have heard Leblanc say otherwise, but he is a fool.” When he said nothing, she clarified, “He speaks of the Albion plans, of which I know not the least morsel. Leblanc makes the old quarrel, you understand. He has hated Vauban since the days of the Revolution, when they were both young and ambitious agents, and my mother also. She is dead now, which frustrates him utterly, so he invents plots that never were. He destroys the daughter because he cannot have the mother. It is small-minded of him.”

  “You, of course, are innocent.”

  “It pleases you to be ironic. It is not that I am innocent. I am only innocent of these particular matters. That is the truth, English.”

  “Your truth has more layers than an onion. We’ll see what happens when we will peel off a few of those layers.”

  She did not like the sound of that.

  The English did not believe her. He would hold on to her like grim death, no matter what convincing lies she told. Soon, the questioning would begin.

  She was tired beyond measure of these stupid and intransigent plans, which kept trying to cause her death and had no resting place anywhere. They were the most sharp of two-edged swords, those plans: deadly to the land of England if they remained hidden, perilous to France if given to the English. It was foolish beyond measure that Napoleon should have ordered them made and she was entirely disgusted with the whole business.

  The driver hitched the horses, backing them with a shuffle of hooves, harnessing them with jingling reins. That was no trivial job for one man, alone, in the dark of night. But Grey would not descend to help him. He stayed where he was, holding her arm behind her back in that clever way that did not hurt and did not allow her to move. It was like being constrained by a stone statue or some other object impervious to argument.

  He said, “Let’s put an end to this. Are you tired of crouching on the floor, Mademoiselle Villiers?”

  “Extremely, Monsieur Grey.”

  “Then I suggest we make an agreement. You will promise to sit quietly and stop kicking me. I will let you sit up and give you something to eat and drink. Do you agree?”

  So. They would begin thus. She recognized the first of many little compromises he would force upon her. Each “yes” made the next one easier until, as he hoped, it would seem wholly natural to do exactly as he told her in all things.

  “Leblanc uses such methods,” she said. “You would make me accept this kidnapping in return for a few ounces of water. It is profoundly discouraging how similar spies are everywhere.”

  “Very philosophic. Do I have your agreement?”

  “I make you no agreements. It is indifferent to me whether I sit on the seat or lie tied on the floor, unless the carriage is infested with fleas, which is of course a possibility. The question of water will resolve itself, I think, in another day.”

  The driver could be heard, walking a circuit of the coach, kicking stones away from the wheels. The carriage rocked as he climbed up to the box. They lurched forward, up the hill, past the ditch that marked the old gate, jouncing on ruts in the Rue des Orphelines, clattering on the cobbles of the Rue Bérenger. They turned right. West. Toward England.

  Toward Soulier, who was posted to London, serving the Secret Police and France. Soulier, who would give her sanctuary from Leblanc. With Soulier’s protection, she might even live long enough to deal with the Albion plans. These men were taking her ever so swiftly in the direction she wished to go. Of a certainty, there was an evil, humorous angel in charge of her own particular heavens.

  “I wonder whether I should call your bluff.” Grey’s hands tightened. “Shall we—”

  From the other side of the carriage, Adrian spoke, “For the gods’ sake, Grey, leave the girl be.”

  “It’s not your teeth she’s trying to kick in.”

  “I was not aiming for your teeth, monsieur,” she said.

  “No, you weren’t, were you?”

  “So entertaining.” Adrian’s voice was a satiric croak. “Why don’t we torture her later…when she’s stronger. So much more fun.”

  “Hell.” Grey hoisted her to the seat. She was free to turn away from him and huddle in a corner.

  “Harmony is restored.” The boy Adrian adjusted himself on the seat with creakings of leather and the swish of cloth.

  “Easy for you to talk. You’re not the one she’s planning to emasculate,” Grey said sourly.

  “That’s the entertainment…I was talking about.”

  “You should save your chivalry. You don’t know her. This is a beautiful little snake.”

  “But I do know her, by reputation, at least. The Fox Cub and I are old rivals…from the days in Italy. We snakes have to…stick together.”

  She knew then who this Adrian must be, though he had used a different name in Italy. Such stories were told of him. Certainly she had fallen among deadly company this night.

  Grey did not leave her to digest this new information in silence. He leaned across and brushed her hair back, settling it
around her ear, uncovering her face, nudging her chin up. The outside lanterns would reveal her completely. She kept her eyes shut.

  Adrian must have been looking her over, too. “She’s afraid of you, if that’s what you wanted. It comes and it goes. She’s afraid now.”

  “I want her afraid. I want her too afraid to give me any trouble. Annique, just how afraid of me are you?”

  “Immensely, monsieur. As much as you could wish.” Her voice broke. Dieu. Was there any way on earth she had not betrayed herself in these last minutes? “Entirely terrified, in fact.”

  “What do you think?” Grey asked Adrian. “Real or just playacting?”

  “Real enough. I saw many frightened women in my interesting youth. You’re very easy to be scared of. Believe me, I know.”

  “Maybe she’ll behave herself. In deference to your delicate sensibilities, however, I’ll beat and starve her later.” He let her go.

  This was infinitely comforting. She had known several men who tortured people, and not one of them had the least trace of humor.

  She turned to the corner and put her hands up as if she were rubbing her eyes for the headache. She had been so very, very stupid to be caught like this. How Vauban would scold when he heard. He had trained her better than this. She had been so stupid. It was no doubt possible to be more shamed than she felt right at this moment, but she could not imagine how. Her hands shook where she held them tightly against her eyes.

  “I’m not that easy to manipulate, mademoiselle,” Grey said. “You’ll find I have a singular lack of pity. And don’t even think of fighting me. Take this.”

  “This” was a flask, half full. The water was stale and tasted of metal, but it was lovely as the finest wine on her tongue. Despite her boasting, he could have demanded many things from her in exchange for this water he tossed to her so casually. He must know that.

  He dropped a loaf of bread into her lap. It was the same one he had used to trap her with, dusty from landing on the ground.