Charlotte knew Murcheson had remained at his factory, in an attempt to preserve his cover should it be intact after the events of the past few days. She found herself longing for the man’s presence, even if he had been a bit paternalistic earlier, because he would at least have listened to her. She had no assurance these men would. They had all put their guns away, but it seemed obvious they were only moments away from deploying them again to go after their quarry.
“Please,” she begged. “Don’t storm the ship. Give Dexter just a little more time. Just . . . just ten minutes. If he doesn’t come out with Coeur de Fer by then, you can go in and do your worst.”
“We have our orders, ma’am.” He stepped toward Charlotte, reaching for her arm. She backed away nimbly, drawing her pistol from its holster on her thigh.
“I don’t give a damn what your orders are, I know what I heard and I won’t let any of you risk my husband’s life.” The men stood stunned, hands halted on the way back to their own weapons. She’d drawn too quickly for them to respond in time, however. Clearly they hadn’t been expecting anything like this from Charlotte. She wondered briefly if it was her size, her gender or the situation that had put them off guard.
“Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said slowly, “put your weapon down. You don’t want to do this.” He sounded as though he were trying to placate a child.
Charlotte backed another few steps away and fixed the group with a glare. “You’re making a grave error to think I won’t shoot. Do you really think I value any of your lives more highly than my husband’s? You there!” she snapped at the agent standing farthest from her, “hands where I can see them. All of you, hands up. If anybody else tries reaching for a pistol, he’ll be shot for his trouble. I won’t kill you but I will incapacitate you if I have to.”
The agent moved his hand away from the holster and raised his arms. The others followed suit, looking miserable and baffled about what to do next.
Charlotte kept the gun trained on the lead agent and pulled out her pocket chronometer. “Ten minutes. That’s all I asked for, that’s reasonable, and if he doesn’t come out by then we’ll . . . reevaluate.”
“Three minutes,” offered the agent.
She shook her head. “You’re still not taking me seriously, are you? I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I will not let you board that ship, sir. Don’t try my patience. You’re in no position to negotiate.”
“Murcheson will see you hanged if you’re wrong, Lady Hardison.”
“My father is more frightening than Murcheson, trust me.”
The noise of a hatch creaking open alerted Charlotte even before the agents’ amazed glances did, and she had to resist the urge to turn her head to see whether it was Dexter or Martin standing on the deck of the ship.
“I’m all right. I’m coming down,” Dexter called out. “Please don’t shoot.”
As the wave of relief struck her, Charlotte’s hand began to tremble. She forced herself to breathe steadily and stay focused on the agents in front of her as Dexter spoke again.
“Mr. Martin is coming with me,” he told them. “Please, ah, don’t shoot him either. I’ve given him my word he won’t be hurt. Charlotte, what’s going on down there?”
“Have you been harmed, Lord Hardison?” the lead agent called. His hand twitched down as though he were thinking of reaching for his gun, then snapped back up again when Charlotte made a warning noise.
“No, not really,” Dexter said. “Have you?”
With a feeble smile, Charlotte replied, “I haven’t shot anyone yet. These gentlemen are rather set on killing Mr. Martin, though. Shall I keep them from doing that?”
“I suppose so. We’re coming down, but this gangplank will take me a moment. I’ll have to do it myself, Monsieur Martin is in no shape to help,” Dexter explained as he started turning the giant crank to extend and lower the gangplank to the dock. From the corner of her eye, Charlotte could see the mechanism working.
Then there was a moment of silence, and she backed up even more to put the gangplank between herself and the agents, so she could see Dexter. He stood at the top with an arm braced around his slender, pale, black-suited companion.
“All right. Don’t shoot,” Dexter warned them again, though the agents made no move toward their weapons. “He’s dying already, anyway, so there would really be no point.”
Dying? Charlotte watched them descend, the sight confirming Dexter’s words. Martin was obviously sick unto death, his breath a rasping wheeze, his legs barely able to support his trembling body. As they approached the circle of watery light provided by the dock’s single lamp, Charlotte could see that Coeur de Fer was flushed an unnatural pink, and drenched with sweat.
“Dear God. You can lower your weapon now, Lady Hardison,” the agent in charge said as Dexter stopped by a piling and lowered Martin to sit on the rough stump. “Your husband is right, there would be no point to shooting this man. He’s done for. Stand down, gentlemen.”
Charlotte considered him for a moment, then cocked her pistol back and flicked the safety on before tucking it back into its holster. She turned to Dexter, who was still bending over the crumpled husk of a man he’d half-carried off the ship.
“He has a story to tell,” he explained, straightening to look at the agents and Charlotte.
Coeur de Fer nodded, then took a breath and began. “Seven years ago, I sold my soul . . .”
THE AGENTS HAD gathered around Coeur de Fer, straining to hear his voice, one of them writing it all down in a notebook he’d procured from somewhere. From time to time in the narrative, one or another of them would exclaim as another years-old mystery was resolved.
Murder and sabotage, callous cruelty and greed. If half what Martin said were true, Dubois was a monster indeed, even worse than the sort Murcheson had suspected him of being. And Coeur de Fer had been his creature, trapped into service by his own ambition and poor choices.
“Simone Vernier probably had all the information she needed to have Dubois strung up. If she had only lived long enough to report . . .” The British agent’s voice trailed off as he considered what might have happened had Dubois received the justice he’d deserved back then, when he really had been committing deliberate treason, actively conspiring against the ruling faction of the French government in hopes of derailing the treaty process.
“Ah, but if she had, she would have probably also gotten those notes to our superiors, and if that had happened the French might never have come to the negotiating table with the British,” Martin countered. “Who ever knows about these things? That was one of Dubois’s mistakes, thinking he could predict the outcome of such complicated plans.”
An ambulance siren sounded in the distance, approaching rapidly. Martin reached out, clutching Dexter’s forearm. “My mother is Marie-Terese Imbert. She lives in Bayeux. See that she gets my remains, at least the metal. I am worth far more dead than alive, and I should like to be some good to her after all these years.”
“I will,” Dexter assured him.
A fit of coughing and retching overwhelmed Martin, and he could barely speak by the time he regained what little breath was left to him.
“I was Jean-Michel Imbert once,” he whispered. He swayed on his post, and Dexter leaned in to support him again. “My greatest regret was letting my mother think I had died. But I couldn’t let her know what I had become.”
Dexter thought of his own mother, several years widowed but nevertheless peaceful and happy, and extravagantly proud of her son. She had cried at his wedding. That had been his great regret, lying to his mother about Charlotte and the marriage, but he’d known she would forgive him after the fact and be proud of him for serving the Crown so selflessly. He was struck by how fortunate he was, and how ridiculous it was that he took his luck for granted most of the time.