You have stood before gunfire. You have stolen dispatches from under the very noses of the Prussian high command. You are the Fox Cub. Do not sit like the tonguetied idiot. It was great fortitude that allowed her to shrug. “You theorize. That is sloppy. And it is a very silly theory.”
“What are you going to do with the plans, Annique? Stand on the shore and wave when the French fleet sails in? You know where they’re landing, of course.”
Her mouth was dry as sand. “I do not say I know nothing, because I am a woman of unparalleled intelligence, but certainly I know nothing of invasions. You have fallen into a great pit of nonsense.”
“You hate Bonaparte. You’ve probably hated him since the Vendée. You came to England to stop the invasion. You walked from Marseilles, blind and alone, because you know what’s coming.”
“I tell you again, I know nothing of those plans. I am a loyal Frenchwoman.”
He let it lie between them for a while before he said, very gently, “In the end, when you have no other choice, you’ll give me the Albion plans. You can’t do anything else.”
Something within her cracked and crumbled. Her courage, perhaps. Grey knew. He had added so many little pieces together—Leblanc’s malice and her incautious words—and he discerned everything. One sniff, and he knew all that was in the kitchen. The secret of her memory. The choice that confronted her and tortured her. The decision she must make. He knew even what she would decide. He was one of the great spies, the equal of a Soulier and a Vauban.
He saw when her courage broke. There was nothing he could not see inside her.
“Damn.” He crossed at once to where she sat and lifted her and held her. “I’ve scared you. I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that.” Her cheek pressed the lines of his brocaded waistcoat. He pulled her to him, and his arms became iron. “We’ll talk. We’ll just talk. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to. But Bonaparte’s scheme is madness. We both know it. It’s going to hurt France as much as England.”
He was so wise about her. He would gnaw away at the foundations of her spirit like a mouse at the wainscoting. She had no defenses against him. “I do not wish to speak of French politics. It is an intricate and depressing topic.”
“Fine. We’re not talking.” He set his chin on top of her head. “Just hold on to me for a while.”
With her eyes closed, in darkness, it was like being back in France, being blind, knowing Grey by the touch and smell of him. After a time, a clock sounded in one of the rooms along the hall. Seven strokes. His back muscles tightened under her hands, and she knew the little truce between them was over. Truces were of that nature. They ended, sooner or later.
He let her go. “I shouldn’t have made love to you this afternoon. I’ve made you doubt your own judgment. You’d trust me better if your body weren’t hungry for me.” He looked down and traced the shell of her ear with his fingertip. “See? When you feel even that much, you pull back, thinking I’m trying to manipulate you.”
“Are you not?”
He opened his hand, as if he released something. “I don’t know how to convince you. I want you so much I can’t think clearly.”
“What will you do with me when I will not become the traitor for you?” She let her arms drop away from him.
“It’s not going to happen that way.”
“That is a comfortable belief for you, surely.”
“Do you want promises? I have a few. Whatever happens, I’ll protect you from Leblanc and Fouché. I’m not going to hurt you, even if I keep scaring the bloody hell out of you.”
“I am desolated to disappoint you, but you are an amateur in this business of frightening me. I have met experts.”
“And it just gets worse from here on in. You are so bloody complex. I wouldn’t love you if you were stupid, but it’d be a lot easier on both of us.” He took a deep breath. “Come downstairs and eat. They’ve already started.”
Twenty-seven
IT WAS A WHOLLY MASCULINE DÉCOR, THIS HOUSE at Meeks Street. The halls were hung with antique maps and architectural drawings in dark frames. The tables she passed held file folders and empty coffee cups and men’s gloves tossed carelessly into a wide bowl. There was no clutter of flowers, no potpourris, no bibelots.
The dining room was next to that study where Grey had let her sleep this afternoon. She was learning her way around the house which was her prison. Eventually she would know it extremely well.
At the mirror in the main hall she stopped to inspect her toilette one last time.
“The dress is good on you. Sweet. Innocent.” Grey scowled. Not at her. She was merely in the line of fire as he considered his own thoughts. “You’re harmless as a Bengal tiger, thank God. How much do you know about Colonel Joseph Reams of British Military Intelligence?”
Her face betrayed nothing, but her stomach clenched. Françoise, who had been one of Vauban’s own, and her friend, and a spy of great skill, had been questioned once by Reams—taken and questioned only on flimsy suspicion. She had needed months to heal. “I have heard of him. One or two small things.”
“Then you know what we’re dealing with. You’ll have to meet him.”
It was well known that Reams of the Military Intelligence tortured women like her, spies, and took pleasure in it. She had let Grey lull her into complacency. Now she was wisely terrified again. “He comes because I am here. The Military Intelligence takes interest in me. I should have thought of that.”
“Do you trust me?”
“No. That is…perhaps. In some ways.” Could he not see she was frightened into idiocy and leave her in peace? “That is a strange question.”
“Trust me this much. Reams can’t touch you. He has no power under this roof. I will not let anyone hurt you.”
“That is what Galba said. I would believe it more if it were not said so often.”
“You have my word.” For him, that settled matters. He had been an English officer before he was put in charge of many spies. Perhaps she did trust him.
He opened the door to a gem of a room, perfectly proportioned, papered with Chinese scenes of pagodas and distant mountains. Curtains of white jacquard silk were drawn close so one could not see the bars. A simple dinner had been laid upon the table. She gave her attention to the men, and the one woman, who sat there.
“…avoid a confrontation,” Adrian was saying as she walked into the room. “Lazarus may even be hoping—”
He stopped speaking and sprang to his feet. The other men rose too—Galba, at the head of the table; Monsieur Doyle, whom she recognized easily from years ago in Vienna; the boy Giles, who had opened the door to this house for her; a thin, brown-haired man she did not know. Grudgingly and at the last minute, the last of them stood, a short, pink-faced man. That was Colonel Reams, she thought.
“Mademoiselle, I hope you are rested.” Galba drew her to the table and made a great show of introducing her to Doyle, who was calling himself Viscount Markham, and his wife, Lady Markham, who did not look like a woman named Maggie. She was, amazingly, French, with the accent of an aristo, which is not a thing expected of a Maggie. The thin man with the aspect of a librarian—most certainly a spy of considerable deadliness—was the Honorable Thomas Paxton. Next, Galba presented Colonel Reams, who did not look at her, but sneered rudely. Galba then allowed her to meet Adrian and Giles.
Grey put her into the chair between Galba and Adrian and went himself to the left side of the colonel, which is the weaker side of an opponent and advantageous for attack. “Colonel,” he said, sitting down.
“Major.” A terse and unfriendly acknowledgment from Reams.
They hated each other, Grey and the Colonel Reams. The others were also not fond of the colonel. She, who had been trained to notice such things, saw that Doyle and Adrian and the scholarly Paxton sat as men sit in an unfamiliar tavern, loose in their chairs, their arms upon the table, their feet planted, ready to spring up. Every man in the room watched Colonel Reams carefully, though they did not seem to do so. It was a dinner party awash in well-practiced stratagems.