“I was not aiming for your teeth, monsieur,” she said.
“No, you weren’t, were you?”
“So entertaining.” Adrian’s voice was a satiric croak. “Why don’t we torture her later…when she’s stronger. So much more fun.”
“Hell.” Grey hoisted her to the seat. She was free to turn away from him and huddle in a corner.
“Harmony is restored.” The boy Adrian adjusted himself on the seat with creakings of leather and the swish of cloth.
“Easy for you to talk. You’re not the one she’s planning to emasculate,” Grey said sourly.
“That’s the entertainment…I was talking about.”
“You should save your chivalry. You don’t know her. This is a beautiful little snake.”
“But I do know her, by reputation, at least. The Fox Cub and I are old rivals…from the days in Italy. We snakes have to…stick together.”
She knew then who this Adrian must be, though he had used a different name in Italy. Such stories were told of him. Certainly she had fallen among deadly company this night.
Grey did not leave her to digest this new information in silence. He leaned across and brushed her hair back, settling it around her ear, uncovering her face, nudging her chin up. The outside lanterns would reveal her completely. She kept her eyes shut.
Adrian must have been looking her over, too. “She’s afraid of you, if that’s what you wanted. It comes and it goes. She’s afraid now.”
“I want her afraid. I want her too afraid to give me any trouble. Annique, just how afraid of me are you?”
“Immensely, monsieur. As much as you could wish.” Her voice broke. Dieu. Was there any way on earth she had not betrayed herself in these last minutes? “Entirely terrified, in fact.”
“What do you think?” Grey asked Adrian. “Real or just playacting?”
“Real enough. I saw many frightened women in my interesting youth. You’re very easy to be scared of. Believe me, I know.”
“Maybe she’ll behave herself. In deference to your delicate sensibilities, however, I’ll beat and starve her later.” He let her go.
This was infinitely comforting. She had known several men who tortured people, and not one of them had the least trace of humor.
She turned to the corner and put her hands up as if she were rubbing her eyes for the headache. She had been so very, very stupid to be caught like this. How Vauban would scold when he heard. He had trained her better than this. She had been so stupid. It was no doubt possible to be more shamed than she felt right at this moment, but she could not imagine how. Her hands shook where she held them tightly against her eyes.
“I’m not that easy to manipulate, mademoiselle,” Grey said. “You’ll find I have a singular lack of pity. And don’t even think of fighting me. Take this.”
“This” was a flask, half full. The water was stale and tasted of metal, but it was lovely as the finest wine on her tongue. Despite her boasting, he could have demanded many things from her in exchange for this water he tossed to her so casually. He must know that.
He dropped a loaf of bread into her lap. It was the same one he had used to trap her with, dusty from landing on the ground.
She brushed off the sand and tore a piece of the good bread and ate it slowly, alternating bites of bread with pulls of water. After a time, she no longer wanted to cry. It was magic, this bread and water, and it gave her heart again. Escape seemed possible once more. Now, perhaps.
Deliberately, she leaned back on the cushions, eyes still closed, her body slack and weary. The carriage lamps outside burned with a thick, oily smell. In that flicker of light, they were certainly watching her with all attention. The least tensing of a muscle would give her away.
She filled her voice with discouragement, of which she had any amount handy. “I think you win. See—I take your food, and I no longer fight you.” She lifted the bread as if it were heavy and took another bite and chewed and swallowed. They would not expect her to escape while she was in the middle of chewing. “It is no huge triumph to defeat me. I have not eaten for several days. You are not so clever, Monsieur Grey.”
Adrian snickered from his place on the opposite seat. Grey said nothing at all. The carriage rocked and jolted. They made some speed through the silent countryside, heading uphill, away from Paris. This road—she knew it well—wound through a region of compact stone villages and fields and grand houses surrounded by huge gardens. She could smell the late-blooming roses of the gardens and the country grasses. Occasionally there was the smell of apples. Everywhere the smoke of hearth fires filled the air, burning to keep the night chill out of the little stone houses.
It was the perfect place to run, the perfect time.
She had reached an accommodation with darkness months ago. She knew a thousand tricks of moving without sight that these men had never dreamed of. The night was her friendly kingdom, ready to hide her. None of them could outrun her in the dark.
She swallowed the bite of bread and pretended to take another. Now. This was the moment. It is not good to plan such things too much. The opponent feels it.
She twisted sideways in the seat and kicked Grey with all her strength. This time, for variety’s sake, she kicked him in the belly.
Four
“THANK THE GODS.” ADRIAN COLLAPSED ACROSS the bed, fully dressed. His coat stank of wine. That was to explain him staggering with every step.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“Nobody saw.”
“Hell. That’s just fine, then, if nobody saw.” Grey slung Adrian’s feet up and began pulling the boots off. “Damned fool.”
“They’ll be looking for somebody with a bullet hole in him. Not some…idiot carrying a bottle.”
“Carrying a bottle and singing off key, strolling right through the middle of the innyard.”
“Nobody sees you when you…don’t hide. Pure genius.”
It might have been, but it had used up the last of Adrian’s strength. “Next time, do what you’re told.” When Grey unbuttoned the striped waistcoat, the front of Adrian’s shirt was soaked red. More blood lost. And they still had to get the bullet out of him.
“…and I wasn’t off-key. I have a particularly fine baritone.”
“So does an ass. Don’t sit up.” Roussel, the innkeeper, already had Doyle’s red valise ready on the dresser. Lockpicks and a collection of subtle weapons were lined up in the barbering kit, disguised as complex grooming aids. There was a choice of scissors. “I’ll cut that coat off.”
“More wardrobe sacrificed to the needs of the Service.” Adrian’s lips quirked. “Take it. Take it. We’re sick of one another’s company. I’ve been wearing it—what’s it been—three days?
“Four, since you got shot.”
“Ah. I lost a day.”
“That day was no loss. I was there.”
They spoke French. Even alone, even in this inn that belonged body and soul to the British Service, they never broke into English. It was one of the thousand habits that kept them alive. Voices change when they change to a new language. Grey’s own voice was refined and smooth in the drawling Toulouse French he affected. In English, his normal tone was a grating deep growl, heavy with the underlay of his native West Country accent.
He rolled his sleeves back and selected a pair of scissors. “There are sharp points on these. Hold still.”
“Behold me, motionless as a clam.” Adrian let his head fall back onto the pillow. “We shouldn’t have brought her here. We could have dumped her in any of those villages.”
“I need her. You, I can dump in a Normandy village and say good riddance.” He cut through wool and the heavy silk of the waistcoat and the linen of the shirt. “Lift your arm. Yes. That’s got it.”
“You’ve brought a French agent to a British Service shelter house. This is Roussel’s bailiwick. He’s going to want to slit her throat.”
“Roussel doesn’t get everything he wants.” The bandage beneath was heavy with fresh blood, stiff and brown at the edges. Five, six snips, and he cut it away.