Elizabeth Boyle (62 page)

“Leave off, you fool, I’m her—” Lucien started to say, in a voice too loud for Lily’s comfort.

“My newfound protector,” she cut in. “Oh, please Monsieur Milne, no violence, not again,” she said loud enough for the nearby guests, milling as they were in a curious circle, waiting to catch any note of gossip about the wealthy newcomer, Adelaide de Chevenoy. “The last man who dared look at me is still recovering from your savagery.”

She caught several of the women shivering and then saw them give Webb a second, closer look.

“Stop it, both of you,” she whispered, elbowing her way between the two posturing men. She turned to Webb, dropping her voice to barely above a whisper. “You fool, you are making a scene over my brother.” She flicked her gaze to Lucien. “There is too much at stake, Lucien, to risk it over this matter. Look at this man, don’t you recognize him? You know who he is.” She paused for a second to let her words sink in. “None of this will be decided today. Not now, and not by you.”

She laughed out loud and, wrapping her arm around Webb’s, sidled up next to him like a contrite mistress caught with another man. “My foolish beloved, Monsieur D’Artiers is a friend of the family. His
chére maman
and mine were girlhood companions. Why, we practically grew up together, isn’t that right, Lucien?”

Her brother looked caught in a quandary. His widening eyes betrayed his recognition of Webb, and the darkening flicker in them told Lily he approved even less of her current course of action or choice of companions. Much to Lily’s relief, Lucien glanced around and more than likely saw the questions on everyone’s faces. Slowly he held his hand out to Webb in greeting.

“My apologies,” he said, bowing slightly. “Adelaide is like a little sister to me. If I seem overly familiar or protective, it is because of our family connections, and those, monsieur, are as important to me as
blood
.”

Webb inclined his head slightly to acknowledge Lucien’s veiled threat.

“Do you remember my father’s house?” Lily asked. When Lucien said he did, she invited him to call. “I do so want to hear all about your delightful family.”

“I’ll be by tomorrow,” he said in clipped tones, before he bowed and made his exit. “First thing in the morning.”

“Time we followed suit and made our excuses as well,” Webb said. “We may have a long night ahead of us.”

Pleading fatigue from all her travels, Lily said her farewells to their hostess and then to Roselie, who promised to call the next day.

Lily hoped the only thing Roselie would find at the de Chevenoy household tomorrow afternoon would be a missing heiress.

As they hurried down the long, gilded corridors of the palace, Lily clung to Webb’s arm. She sensed an overwhelming tension flowing from him. While she thought at first it was due to their encounter with Lucien, the way he towed her out to the courtyard, led her to believe there was something more on his mind.

Webb halted their frantic pace just outside the main entranceway and waved to their driver, who sat waiting beside the gates.

“That was close,” she said, shivering in the damp cold air moving in from the nearby Seine.

The driver clucked to his horses and directed Troussebois’s carriage toward where they stood. Steam blew from the animal’s breath in great moist clouds.

She looked up at Webb. “Apparendy Lucien never received Sophia’s note.”

“That doesn’t bode well for us.” He handed her up inside the dark recesses of the carriage.

After he gave the driver directions, she caught him glancing back at the palace and muttering to himself as he climbed in beside her.

“If Lucien didn’t get your sister’s note, then who did?”

W
ebb held back from telling Lily about his foray into the heart of the palace. If they found the journals tonight there would be no reason to worry her about a fate that would never come to pass.

For come the morrow, the de Chevenoy heiress would disappear, a mystery that would leave Napoleon a rich and happy man and Paris society mourning the loss of such a bright flower.

To his relief, she didn’t question his earlier disappearance. It was as if she hadn’t noticed that he’d been gone for nearly an hour. Instead she sat in moody silence in her corner of the carriage, a thoughtful frown lining her features.

A protective part of him wanted to shelter her from the truth—that if they didn’t get out of Paris as soon as possible, in all likelihood their lives, certainly his, would be forfeit.

He’d all but forced her, blackmailed her, into coming on this mission, and now he may well be leading her to her death.

The rational part of him reasoned that Lily seemed to understand the importance of finding the journals and quitting Paris as quickly as possible, without his having to give an explanation. She’d made no protests about leaving the Tuileries early but then again her interview with her brother hadn’t looked like it had gone well.

Still, it didn’t seem quite right not to tell her.

If Lily were some typical English miss, he realized, she’d fall into a case of vapors when told of their precarious position. And it was the typical English miss that he’d instructed his mother to search for in the Marriage Mart. The demure sort who, once she’d recovered from her faint, would then give him a firm, but politely worded demand to be taken home. A woman who would consider the extent of her duty to her country and husband that of providing an efficiently managed home, a half score of well-behaved children and the proper social backdrop to promote his standing within their carefully chosen social circle.

Lily hardly fit that mold, he thought, as she jumped down from the carriage without waiting for the coachman, and made her way, in that direct, no-nonsense manner of hers, up the front stairs, and opened the door with the key Costard had given her.

No, Lily D’Artiers Copeland, for all her protests of being unworthy of this assignment, carried her secrets and deceptions like a master spy.

Webb considered that one of her most intriguing qualities.

And for some reason, the idea of unwrapping the lady’s mysteries appealed to him more than the thought of spending the rest of his days wedded to some dewy-eyed miss.

Indeed, Lily was not a woman from whom he could hide anything. He owed her the truth.

The Costards had left a light burning in the hallway, the silent house evidence that the couple had long ago sought the comfort and warmth of their bed.

“Shall we?” Lily whispered, dangling the study key by its green ribbon.

He nodded.

She slid the key into the lock and turned it. The first tumbler fell with a loud thump that seemed to echo through the halls of the quiet house. She frowned at this newest wrinkle.

Before he could offer a suggestion, Lily pulled her shawl from her shoulders and wrapped it around the doorknob, concealing the lock below. As she continued turning the key, the tumblers were silent, their noisy signal muffled by the cashmere.

The knob turned and she slid the door open with the silent, practiced ease of one accomplished in cloak and dagger skullduggery.

He knew he should celebrate her quick, astute handling of each challenge she met, but it seemed each time she succeeded, she left him with more questions about her than answers.

After they entered the study, Webb closed the door behind them. Holding a single taper high, he looked about the familiar chamber. It had changed little with Henri’s passing—the same piles of books, scattered papers, and general disorder the man had preferred.

Lily ran her finger through the layer of dust on the shelf. “When I was in here this afternoon with Madame Costard, she apologized for the state of this room. Apparently the study has been off limits since Henri’s death.”

“This layer of dust is a good sign,” he commented. “It means this room has gone undisturbed and we are the first ones to search it.”

He set the candle down in a silver holder on the small table next to the chair Henri often sat in to read.

“I’ll start with his desk,” he told Lily. “Why don’t you start with the bookshelves. Open every book, and make sure the contents agree with the title. Be on the lookout for hidden panels in the shelves or anything else that appears unusual.”

She dropped her shawl on a leather-bound chair near the hearth. “Do you have any idea what these journals look like?” she asked, her gaze moving over the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining either side of the small fireplace.

Webb shook his head. “I didn’t know Henri kept any until my father told me.”

Lily sighed and set to work.

For a while they worked in companionable silence, until Lily blurted out, “You wouldn’t have believed my brother’s audacity tonight!”

Webb waited for her to continue, but then realized she wanted him to prompt her. “What did he do?”

She closed the book in her hand with a decided slam. “He expected me to leave with him. Just like that. He even went so far as to insist that I return immediately to my parents’ home in Virginia, as if I were some errant miss run astray. He treats me like … like …”

“Like older brothers treat their younger siblings.” Webb pulled open another drawer and began sorting through the mishmash of papers. “My brothers used to do the same thing to me. When I began working for my father, he thought it best that I apprentice with my eldest brother, James. When James suspected any trouble, he’d ship me off on some useless errand where I wouldn’t be in harm’s way.”

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I outfoxed him, finally. We were in Madrid, and I knew we needed to obtain papers that had been stolen from a naval ship. The information in them was vital to British actions in the Mediterranean. We found out they were being held in the house of a royal aide. When I heard James negotiating with a flash-cove to steal the papers for us, I slipped away and did the job myself. I not only succeeded in half the time, but also saved the Foreign Office a healthy measure in bribes.”

She laughed. “That’s all well and good for you, at least you were able to go with your brother. My family and …” she paused for a moment, “and others always think of me as ‘little Lily.’ Always in trouble, always headstrong, as if I’d never aged beyond thirteen.” She turned away.

Guilt hit him hard. She’d included him in that group, and dammit if it wasn’t true. He’d argued against including her for just the reasons she’d stated. In all the years they’d been apart, it had never occurred to him that “little Lily” would grow into a woman of deceptive wiles.

One capable of deceiving not only his sense, but also his heart.

Hardly little Lily, he thought, glancing at the curve of her bare shoulders, the soft, sensual glow of her skin, and the very womanly lines from her breasts down to her softly rounded hips.

He should tell her.

Tell her now, before his thoughts wandered any further afield. Webb almost laughed. Nothing like a good discussion about imminent death to kill amorous thoughts!

Yet telling her was akin to trusting her.

Trust Lily? Like she’d trusted him?

Come to think of it, she’d never divulged her reasons for her outright refusal to go to Paris. Or her claimed engagement to the likes of Adam Saint-Jean.

Yet, what could Lily, of all people, be hiding?

Worse still, he was fast coming to the realization that their labors were to no avail and he would be compelled to tell her the truth. After Webb had examined every piece of paper in the various drawers, cubbyholes, and nooks, he continued by nearly taking Henri’s desk apart piece by piece in an attempt to find the hidden journals.

“Anything in the shelves?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The desk?”

He held out his hand.

She peered into his palm and grinned at the collection of old pen nibs and odd coins. “Some treasure you found there. I’ll stick to the de Chevenoy diamonds.” She patted the tiara sitting slightly askew on her head, though the stones still blinked and glittered as if they were bedecking a perfectly attired princess.

Lily’s once-white dress now held a distinctly grayish hue from the clouds of dust she’d launched with each book plucked from the shelves. Her previously perfect coiffure lay in tired coils down her neck.

Still she worked, tirelessly and without complaint. He could tell she was doing a thorough job, carefully checking each book and studying the text like a lookout scanning the horizon for any sign of enemy ships.

He set to work on the other pieces of furniture in the room, feeling the cushions and upholstery, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

Lily replaced the last of the books. “Any other ideas?”

Webb stood in the middle of the room, eyeing the walls for possible hidden panels. “Let’s take down the paintings.”

They carefully removed each frame. Webb examined them, but found nothing. In his estimation, they had done just about everything short of chipping away the plaster on the walls, and yet they had not found the journals.

Lily’s worried gaze fell on him. “Now what?”

“How do you feel about spending the rest of the night in Henri’s bedroom?”

She tipped her head and glanced coyly at him. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Costard stood at the first-floor landing looking down the shadows of the hall toward the closed door of his late master’s bedchamber.

“What are they up to?” Mme. Costard asked, startling him with her sudden presence at his side.

“Don’t creep up on me like that, wife.” He nodded his head toward the telltale shaft of light leaking out from beneath the closed door. “They were searching in the study for the last hour and now they are rifling through the master’s chamber.”

Mme. Costard shook her head. “They’ll be filthy before they’re done and probably expecting me to clean their clothes.”

Costard frowned. “That’s not what should be worrying us.”

Madame nodded in agreement. “Perhaps. Still, I hope she had the good sense to change out of that lovely gown before she started nosing around the house. I’d hate to think of such a fine thing being ruined.”

He glanced over at his wife.