“She’s not what I expected.” He realized he’d turned to watch her. He hadn’t noticed himself doing it.
They were a fine matched pair, Hawker and Annique, sitting next to each other at the cozy table on the broad terrace under the trees. Coin-sized patches of sun streamed down through the trees and danced across them. They were the same age, with the same spare, compact grace of body. Black hair, glossy in the sunlight, tumbled forward across faces that were eerily alike—not in feature; there was no real resemblance—but in expression. The same faint air of wicked mirth clung to them, as if they were imps on temporary reprieve from one of the minor hells. They ate, leaning together, intent on a flow of low-voiced conversation.
“He likes her.” Doyle was watching, too. “Hope she don’t try to scamper out on his watch. Shape he’s in, he’d have to hurt her to stop her.”
“We’re safe as long as it’s daylight. Will, she’s stone blind.”
Doyle’s face didn’t change—he wouldn’t blink at the announcement that Annique was empress of the Chinese—but some signal of surprise leaked through. The mare shuffled nervously. Doyle made an odd whistling sound between his teeth, and the animal quieted.
“Crikey. Blind?”
“She took a saber cut to the skull, five months ago. There’s a scar hid up in her hair, if you go feeling for it.”
“Cats in hip boots.” Doyle fetched a little ivory pick out of his waistcoat pocket and began a ruminative exploration of his back teeth. “Why don’t I know this? I heard she was in Marseilles with the mother. Never heard a whisper about the Cub being out of commission. Not from any of my sources. Not a syllable.”
“She’s good at hiding it. She must’ve spent months practicing.” How long had it taken her to learn to fight in the dark?
“That’s why we got her so easy. Blind and on the dodge.”
“…and hungry and hurt and exhausted. It only took three of us to haul her in.” She picked up the coffee cup, eyes demurely lowered, smiling. He’d been wrong about the blue dress. It didn’t make her look like a whore. It made her look young and chic and carefree as a spring butterfly. “You ever hit a woman?”
Doyle eyed him. “Missed doing that somehow. Fun, would you say?”
“Not much. Makes you feel shabby as hell afterwards.”
“Accident, I imagine.”
“I was stupid. That doesn’t make it an accident.” He was the officer in charge. She was his prisoner, and he’d hurt her. There were no excuses. “I punched her solar plexus so hard she stopped breathing for a while. I don’t think I did any permanent damage, but keep an eye on her.”
“I keep an eye on everything.” Doyle squatted and curled the mare’s hoof up against his thigh, matter-of-fact as any blacksmith. After a brief inspection, Doyle searched one-handed in his jacket pocket and fetched out a blunt probe. He scraped along the edge of the hoof, taking his time with it. A perfectionist, William Doyle. It’d saved their bacon a few times. “You going to talk about it?”
“I let her get a line around my neck.” He slid a finger inside his cravat and pulled it aside to show the red line. It still hurt to swallow.
“Now how the devil did she…?”
“That damned nightgown. The cord tying it.”
“The cord. Oh, hell. I should have spotted that. She made a garrote. Clever as a flock of jackdaws, that girl.”
“You could say I achieved my objective. She’s stopped fighting. Do you know how much you have to hurt that woman before she gives up?”
Doyle released the hoof. “I’ve known you a good long while, Robert. What’s it been?”
“Ten years, maybe.”
“All of that.” He moved on to the next hoof and picked it up. “Sometimes it shows, you coming in from the army instead of up through the ranks in the Service. If you’d spent even a year as a field agent, you’d know how dangerous our pretty little Annique is. You’d forget she’s got breasts and do what you had to. Then you’d eat a hearty breakfast the next morning.”
“I did eat breakfast.” He sounded testy even to his own ears.
“But now you’re brooding about it. Being a gentleman. Get yerself killed, doing that.” Doyle grunted and stepped back. “You stopped being a gentleman the day you joined the Service.”
“Fine. Next time, you kick her in the belly, and I’ll hand out advice.” Across the courtyard, Annique chuckled at something Adrian said, a sound like water gurgling, sweet and easy, out of a china pitcher. Ordinary. Intimate. Relaxed.
It irritated the hell out of him. “Leblanc’s men could ride into this courtyard any minute. She sits there giggling.”
Doyle followed his gaze. “That, my friend, is sheer, unmitigated guts. She’s running for her life. There’s not a rock in Europe that girl can hide under.”
“Leblanc’s going to kill her. Nothing to do with the Albion plans. He’s covering some private secret, something particularly damning. Any ideas?”
Doyle shook his head. “With Leblanc it could be anything. He’s an evil bastard.”
“What’s Fouché doing?”
“Right about now, he’s probably wondering why one of his agents hasn’t reported in.” Doyle gave his imitation of a man contemplating fetlocks. Nobody knew more about the workings of French intelligence. “She could go to him—to Fouché. He won’t let Leblanc kill her, unless she’s been dabbling in treason with the Albion plans, which I take leave to doubt. But she’s useless to him, blind. That brothel the Secret Police keeps, the one in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. He’ll put her to work in that, with his other girls.”
The thought made a foul taste in Grey’s mouth. “Decadent place. Does she know?”
“Bound to. He’s been trying to use her as a whore since she turned fifteen. The mother’s dead. Her old master, Vauban, is dead. Soulier would help her—he’s senior enough, God knows, and she’s been his pet since she was knee high—but he’s sitting on our doorstep in London. Everybody who could protect the Cub is dead or out of France. Fouché’s going to pimp her.”
“That’s cold-blooded, even for the French.”
“No malice in it. He’s old school, Fouché is. Don’t much like a female agent working anywhere but on her back.” Doyle stooped to check the buckles on the girth straps. “There’s men who’d enjoy bedding a blind girl.”
“Hell.”
“We all know the risks, being in the Game.” Doyle dusted his hands, nothing in particular on his face. “But it’s worse for women.”
It could be a lot worse for women. He hated sending his female agents out into the field.
The innyard gates stood open to the road. High cirrus streamers and a gray haze shimmered on the horizon to the west. That was tomorrow’s weather, and the next day. It’d be raining when they ran the final gauntlet down to the coast. Leblanc’s men would be waiting for them. “She was running for England when she left Marseilles. I’m sure of it. It’s the only place she’s safe from Leblanc.”
“Makes sense. Leblanc on one side, Fouché on the other. No refuge in France. She was headed for Soulier, in London, for help.”
“And she runs into us instead. She’s ours.” Mine.
“We got ourselves one little French agent.” Doyle smiled. “I’ll bet she’s just packed with secrets. She’ll deal with us. She’s got no choice at all.”
“She’ll realize it, after a while.” He’d take her to Meeks Street, to his headquarters. She’d be safe there, and he’d have all the time in the world to delve into that clever, complicated mind. She’d tell him everything he wanted to know. He was good at what he did. “She’s already getting used to the idea. Making accommodation.”
“Is she now? Then I don’t have to worry about choking me lungs out on some spare bit o’ string she picks up, do I?”
“If you don’t turn your back on her.”
Doyle turned his frown to the horse. “I’ll be careful. Blind. Stone the crows.”