“Which is to say ‘they cannot play.’ You make my head ache with your classical allusions and your piano lessons and your endless arguments.” She propped sheet music on the stand. “You are very certain I will stay here and work for you and give all my secrets to England.”
“I am certain. You’ve spent ten years wading through the carnage Napoleon has made of Europe. You are neither a nitwit nor a savage. Rather than see Kent raped and burned, you will give me what is in your head.”
“And shift advantage to England, so I may see British soldiers burn the little farms of Normandy.”
“Or perhaps you will save the Vendée from being burned again by Napoleon. No one can know the final consequences of his actions.”
“No one can know…It is foolish what you say.”
She was so very young. He forgot that, sometimes, talking to her. “For thirty years I have contrived and schemed to command events. What I have learned is that the future is not a performing dog. Nothing happens as we plan. Expedience is the most delusive of guides.”
“And yet, one must choose.” She turned a page of music and then another. “I must choose.”
“Then stop trying to read the future and do so. Do what is right to do, here, in this minute. And that, granddaughter, you are perfectly capable of discerning.”
The knowledge she carried, the unbearable weight of it, showed in her eyes. Just a glimpse. Then she hid it and thumped herself down on the piano bench and flipped the wood panel up from the keys. “Even if I could understand you, which I do not, I would not listen. You will say anything, you and Grey, to get what you want.”
“You are not a woman one lies to with impunity. Whatever we say, you will decide for yourself. Wisely, I think.”
She would choose correctly in the end. She could never be of the cult that worshipped Napoleon. Not Peter’s daughter. It would be her terrible duty to betray France. His job, and Robert’s, to reconcile her to the guilt of it.
“I speak politely to you because I have been taught respect for age and white hairs.” She let off a few loud discords to make her point. “You become sure of me. It is a mistake on your part. I am a woman of infinite cunning. I will give to you precisely as much information as I wish, no more. And I will do it for my own reasons, in my own time.”
A formidable woman, as Paxton said. Thank God Robert knew how to deal with her.
She began to poke through Bach’s “Prelude in C Major.” Her hands could never be clumsy, of course, but she was utterly without an ear for music. He chose the red sofa, a deliberately uncomfortable piece of furniture, and closed his eyes and accepted his penance.
The notes ceased abruptly. “Ils arrivent.”
They were coming. She stood and gripped the back of a chair, keeping well away from the window and its chance of snipers. Vauban had trained her supremely well. The young girl longing for her lover’s return was wholly subsumed in the experienced agent who never made mistakes.
Now even he could hear the horses. Out front, Ferguson stumped up the basement stairs to greet them as the hackney pulled to a halt. They were back, safe. From the corner of his eye he saw Annique truly relax for the first time in hours.
He is back. She pressed her hand to her stomach and felt the knots untie, one by one. Was she not foolish to worry about Grey, who had survived battles, when he went upon a trifling errand? Being in love made her an idiot.
Galba pretended not to notice her weakness. She was disarmed, utterly, to be the recipient of such delicate politeness.
Marguerite came in first, Grey and Adrian following. She looked extremely pleased with herself, so it was even more clear that all had gone well.
“Done.” Adrian tossed his cane on a table and spun his hat down on top of it. “Smooth as silk. I told you it would be.”
Marguerite’s fingers worked at the ribbons of her bonnet. “I saw the child myself, on board, still sleeping. She is recovering. Everyone is agreed to let her go with her father, though the man is a rogue.”
“Walk in. Steal someone. Walk out.” Adrian’s eyes gleamed. “I love this work.”
Doyle was the last one in. He portrayed some low English type in a leather coat and a neckcloth with brightly colored dots upon it. “Lazarus is annoyed. Mostly at that young fool.”
“I’ve annoyed him before.”
“How you managed to stay alive as long as you have…” But his Marguerite brought him a glass of wine from the sideboard and kissed him upon the mouth, right there in the parlor. It was a serious, married kiss that looked as if it had been practiced a good while.
“You like him dressed rough, do you, Maggie?” Adrian dodged back from the small fist Marguerite raised in his direction. He was like a buzzing fly when it amused him to be. “Must be like having an affair with the groom. You should try that sometime when he’s off wandering in France.”
“You, Hawker me lad, are going to get your comeuppance one fine day,” Doyle said. “Maggie don’t need no advice who to have affairs with. Woman with a mind of her own, she is.”
Marguerite chuckled. “I prefer my lovers more soigné, but a woman my age cannot be particular. I think this one will clean up nicely when I get him home.”
Adrian went to help Giles pour wine. “Lazarus didn’t slit my throat, the smugglers owe us a huge favor, and the Service walks away clean. Ye gods, sometimes I even amaze myself.”
And Grey had come to her, come as if there were no one else in the room. He put a glass into her hand and closed her fingers around it. How could she think at all when he looked at her this way, as if he wished to drag her to his lair upstairs and make her naked?
Adrian lifted his glass. “To espionage. The bladeless sword…”
“…without a hilt.” Galba made the answer. “My congratulations. You’ve done well, all of you.”
She toasted with the others. How easy to sink into the camaraderie here, to pretend she was one of them.
It was time and past time she escaped this house. She was disconcerted by many of her thoughts nowadays. Day by day she could feel her certainties seeping away. Each night she slept curled in Grey’s arms, warmed by his rumbling breath as he slept. She felt herself slowly become Welsh, as a caterpillar might lie, puzzling in its cocoon, dreaming and changing. Soon she would not want to leave. Soon, perhaps, she would trust the British and give up her secrets to them. She felt them waiting for that, Grey and the others.
Marguerite strolled across the room, drawing her fingers through her hair. Sunlight dappling her blue dress as she passed the windows. Thin curtains swayed with the wind, molding the bars, blowing loose. Outside a coach approached. It slowed.
A shaft of uneasiness pierced her. Wrong. Something was wrong. In profile, passing the window, Marguerite could be any woman. Any target. “Marguerite!”
“Maggie,” Doyle said sternly. “You’re making a shadow. Get away from the window.”
The carriage outside. Slowing. Wrong. Wrong.
Adrian already had his hand on Maggie. The bullet shattered the window, and Maggie fell like a stone.
That shot was the signal. The world crashed apart. Windows burst inward, one after another, in thundering blasts. Splinters of glass flew like a million spears in the air. She hit the floor. Hid her face. Broken glass cascaded down on top of her. Her arms stung and began to bleed. The curtains writhed like mad ghosts. More shots. Chaos.
“Maggie!”
Adrian’s voice cut across Doyle’s cry. “Not hit. She’s not hit.”
Which was a lie. She could see blood upon Marguerite’s head. But she knew what Adrian meant—that Maggie was not killed.
Outside, horses neighed in terror. Hooves rang on the cobbles.
Rattling concussion pounded and pounded and tore the room apart. The ceiling caught the force of a direct hit. Plaster thudded down around her. She wriggled and crunched forward. Women’s clothes were no good for this. No protection from the glass. She cut herself. Lead smacked the rug an inch from her face. She crawled forward, right there, through the path of that bullet. Shots hit the bars and bricks and marble sill and bounced off, striking at random. Death riding little slugs of metal. Everywhere.