“My memory is excellent. But I will not do it.”
“I’ll see you there. Stay alive. Grey will kill me if you don’t.” He pulled his coat from the bracken, awkward and rustling as he put it on, because one of his arms was not working.
He was most probably going to his death, so she used his true name. “Good luck, my Hawker.”
“Why are all the best women French spies? Bad planning on somebody’s part.” He set his open hand, briefly, on her hair. “I would kiss you good-bye, sister mine, but I don’t think I could stand the comparison with Grey. When I’m gone, count to fifty, get out the window behind you, and take that escape route you’ve laid out through the garden. I’ll be headed the other way. You have a chance, I think.”
Men approached the chapel. She could hear them. She took his sleeve to hold him one last minute and whispered, “The village of St. Grue is five miles north, up the coast. The smugglers are run by an Englishman named Josiah. The password is jasmine, like the flower. Tell him you are from me.”
“That’s where I’ll aim. Good luck, Annique mia.”
She heard his footsteps down the length of the chapel, then a scuffle as he climbed through one of the empty windows. A moment later, shots came. Two. Three. Four of them. He had showed himself to the men in the courtyard. Somehow, weak as he was, he must have made it over the wall. Men shouted and ran, yelling that he had escaped. Horses set steel on stones, riding for the gate.
She stayed quietly where she was and listened. Perhaps they would all be fools…
Sadly, they were not. One horse still shuffled on the stones outside. One man had remained behind to finish the search.
So. She would deal with him. She lifted her cosh and took her staff from where it leaned across the top of the altar. She had swept the floor clean in the path she must take. It was entirely silent to creep the length of the chapel and press herself flat against the wall behind the door. The searcher was in no hurry. Long minutes passed before she heard boots on the stones outside. The latch lifted and the door creaked. He crossed the threshold.
Paving stones crashed to the floor as the snare fell. He yelled. She was on him at once, using the cosh. It took only two blows to make him most thoroughly immobile.
She and Adrian had discussed at length where a man would fall, tangled and fighting in the web that came down upon him. It was a pleasure to discover how correct they had been. He was sprawled unconscious upon the doorsill itself. Her prize was breathing, so it was not even a murder on her conscience.
Altogether satisfactory. That was one man less to hunt Adrian. It had been worth the hour it had taken her to weave her trap.
She knew him by the smell of his clothing before she felt his features. How remarkably persistent Henri was turning out to be. She cut strips of his shirt with Adrian’s knife and tied him up before she extracted him from the strings of her trap. Then she dragged him the length of the chapel to the pillar she had picked out. He carried a useful knife, which she collected from him. She also helped herself to his money, of which there seemed to be a good deal. There is no rain which does not water someone’s turnips.
When she had finished, she wiped her hands on her dress—truly, she did not like touching Henri—and considered her alternatives. Should she go…or stay? Adrian might return. Grey would come, or Doyle, if either lived. Or Henri’s comrades might come looking for him. There would be visits from everyone, in fact, who was not lying in his blood out in the woods. This would be a most busy place, this chapel, if anyone survived.
Most certainly she should leave immediately. She had Henri’s horse. Within a few miles of this spot were fifty friends who would help her go to England. She was ruled by grave responsibilities. Whether she gave the Albion plans to England or remained loyal to France, she must not let them fall into Leblanc’s hands. It was stupidity beyond measure to stay in this chapel on such an eventful night.
If Grey came, he might be wounded. He might need help.
And so her decision was made. There were various small businesses to attend to. She walked outside into the cold density of rain, to lead Henri’s horse to an inconspicuous spot in the briar jungle behind the chapel. It tried, several times, to bite her and succeeded once. Then there was her trap to set once more, with rocks and rope, above the door. It was Ovid, after all, who said that one’s hook should always be cast, for there will be fish in the pool where one least expects it.
HAWKER crouched in the sand, feral and silent. They were closing in—not Leblanc’s men, but a gaggle of dragoons on patrol. Nowhere to hide. He was too weak to run.
But somebody else was out here in the dunes tonight. Smugglers. The sound of gunfire had flushed them out. They had as much to fear from the dragoons as he did. And they had a boat.
He flogged his body into motion, staggering toward the breakers. Mushy sand dragged at his feet. Nothing to see in this black fog. Nothing.
Follow the sound. Annique walked around like this all the time. He could do it for a hundred yards.
The boat was already yards out in the water, oars stroking with a regular slap. He splashed after it. “Attendez. Aidez-moi.” Damn cold stuff, seawater.
Clomping and shouting their way over the crest of the dunes, came the dragoons. Gunshot skipped across the water. He should have learned to swim. It couldn’t be hard. Dogs did it.
Waves knocked him down. His clothes weighed like lead. The ground disappeared beneath his feet, and he sank like a stone. He barely felt the arms that pulled him on board.
“Ain’t one of ours, Josiah,” an English voice said. Sharp corners bit in as they rolled him over. A bullet pinged into the side of the boat.
“Frenchie by the look of ’im.”
“Throw ’im back.” Sussex voices reached a consensus. He was lifted roughly and shoved to the gunnels.
“Slime-gut, buggering pus-suckers.” He skimmed back to consciousness. “Password’s…jasmine.”
“That’s the king’s English, that is. Stow ’im aboard, lads, I won’t leave even a Cockney drown.” The voice of command was an older man with a Yorkshire accent. Someone leaned close. “Cover ’im up and let’s get out of here.”
He was pushed into the bottom of the boat and became limp and unknowing as a fish.
BIRDS chittered back and forth, discussing the coming day to see if they liked it, which was something they did before it became truly light. She sat beside Henri, listening to him grunt and thrash. He was trying to get out of the knots she’d tied. He would not succeed.
When a single horseman entered the courtyard, she took up the cosh and got into position.
The second fish in her net fought more strongly than the first. She was not gentle with her cosh. This man, returning so soon, meant the hunt for Adrian was over. He must be dead, somewhere out in those trees. She was crying when she tied the man’s hands behind him.
Then she checked to see whether she had crushed his skull, subduing him. He was unconscious but breathing. He was Grey.
She did not often have a chance to indulge in her extensive collection of swear words. She did so now. Did Grey have no care for himself at all? Did he not know how dangerous she was? Nothing could be stupider than for Grey to come to this place, sneaking about, wearing another man’s coat so that she did not know him. She would tell him so when he woke up.
She went quickly to wet a cloth in the nearest puddle. By the time she got back, he was groaning. She had not hurt him lethally, then, doubtless because his head was of solid, stupid rock. She washed his face with the cloth to bring him fully awake and as repayment for the several wet cloths he had slapped across her.
“Annique? My God. You’re the one who set that trap?”