Mary Blayney (4 page)

“I’m finished with your hair.”

Gabriel turned to face her. “Damn it, woman.” He took both her hands and held them tight. “Give me something. Anything. At least tell me that my family knows I am alive.”

4

C
HARLOTTE SAT BACK
on her heels, pulling her hands from his. He had done that all evening—react physically to his emotions, like the way he spread his arms and laughed at his first look at the sky.

His temper was just as close to the surface. She dried her fingers on her shift to keep from raising a hand to her throat and the bruise she knew would be there tomorrow.

It was not what she expected from someone who read books all day. Not this man of mercurial moods. It was hardly what one expected in a man of science.

She had thought to find a stoop-shouldered, squinty-eyed man, older than his years. Lord Gabriel Pennistan might show signs of long imprisonment, but no one would call him old or stoop-shouldered. His cheeks were as gaunt as his body, but it accentuated the fullness of his mouth. Tall and blond, he looked fit despite his months in prison.

And he had provoked her so that she had lost her temper. Charlotte tried to recall the last man who had done that. None came to mind since her husband had died. And her anger had never won anything from him but derision. She had learned and wrapped scorn around herself like a suit of armor.

Gabriel Pennistan was waiting, staring at her as if he could hear the words she was thinking.

“Why does it matter who is paying me?” she asked.

“I need some reason to believe in you,” he answered. “You have my life in your hands. It may be worthless to you, but I want to clear my family name. To find some way to do right by the men who died in front of me.”

“How noble, my lord.” She made herself frame the words as an insult. His blue eyes darkened with anger.

She looked away. If she did not tell him, would he do something foolish? She gave in. “Viscount Sidmouth told your family that you might be alive. It was the Duke of Meryon who hired me.”

“My father? I find that hard to believe.”

“No. Your brother is the duke now.”

Water sloshed over the rim and onto the stone floor as he straightened. “My father is dead?”

Charlotte shook her head, both yes and no. “I can only assume so.”

He drew a deep, hard breath. “My father is dead,” he said again. There was a long silence. “It’s hard to imagine the world without him. I wonder when. How?” He gave his attention to washing and was silent awhile. “He was not a kind man. Nor approving. But he was a presence. The French government certainly hated him.”

He spoke the last more to himself than to her.

“Like father like son. The new duke is forbidding and intimidating.”

He eased his head back on the rim again. His eyes were closed, but there was too much tension in his body for him to be resting.

“I must wash your back and then you have to shave. But first, allow me to treat your eye inflammation. Hold still.”

He followed her instruction and felt her fingers smooth something around the edge of both eyes. The relief was instantaneous.

“Oh,” he breathed, “thank you, again, dear jailer. I thought the itching would have me gouging my eyes out. What is it?”

“Some magic concoction a friend supplies me with.”

“The man of science is appalled by that description, but the sufferer salutes you.” He sat still for a moment, holding his breath and then releasing it in a long sigh.

There it was again, a very physical response to the simplest pleasure. It went hand in hand with the intensity. With all his sensibilities so close to the surface, it was no wonder trouble found him. Who had ever thought he would make a credible spy?

Gabriel opened his eyes and stared up at her. “If you met my family, talked to them, they must have convinced you I am neither spy nor traitor.”

She ignored his entreaty, turning back to her work. Yes, the duke had said his brother was too lazy to work at being a spy. Lord Jessup had described him as a man whose head was lost in whatever field of science interested him at the moment. Lady Olivia said he was too honest. Charlotte was sure his work in Portugal had cured him of that.

“I am
not
a traitor.”

There was the passion again, urging her to believe him or else. “Tell me your version of what happened.”

He did not begin right away. Was it because he resented obeying a woman’s demand or because he was honest? Her husband had insisted that a true spy would have a story ready, a story as close to the truth as possible.

“I went to Portugal in 1811.”

“You went to Portugal in the middle of a war? With the French in control of Spain and England losing the fight?” The scars on his back were reddened by the water. She took the soaped sponge and began to wipe away the dirt, using as gentle a touch as she could manage.

“I hoped to see a colleague, Dr. Borgos, and study the Great Comet with him. He lived near Corunna in the north of Portugal. A good distance from Spain and the threat of Napoleon’s marshals. Napoleon was on his way to Russia by then.”

“And still a nest of intrigue and spies.”

“Not at Dr. Borgos’s estate. He was a respected astronomer and old. Not a threat to anyone.”

She was not so sure that age and education made one less dangerous, but she wanted to hear Gabriel’s story, not start a debate with him. “You went to Portugal to study the night sky. Is there not sky enough in England?”

“A friend of mine, Rhys Braedon, had an argument with his brother and was determined to head off to Portugal. I knew Borgos and knew he would welcome us. I went to see the Great Comet. With an expert.” He said the last sentence with emphasis. “It was Borgos who drew me to Portugal, not the sky. I cannot speak for Braedon, though I expect that he just wanted to move beyond his family’s influence.”

She listened as she carefully cleaned around the scars. Some of them were older than others. How had they not become infected? For all his bad luck, this was one disaster he had avoided. “Why did you not invite Borgos to meet you somewhere that was not so dangerous?”

“Name a place in Europe that has not felt the scourge of Napoleon. Besides, Dr. Borgos is confined to a chair. Travel is impossible for him.”

He shifted his body and went on. She ran the sponge over his shoulders and down his back, slowly, feeling each muscle. How had he managed to keep his strength when he had been confined for so long? He shuddered, and she moved the sponge back up his spine to his neck. He shivered. She felt only a little guilty at what she was doing to him. A very refined kind of torture. It virtually guaranteed he would keep talking to distract himself.

“I spent nearly a year with the doctor. Rhys married Borgos’s daughter and they went back to England. She was with child and Borgos was anxious that she should be safe.”

He was quiet for a moment, then shook his head. “Have you ever had one of those moments, one you can look back to, a moment when you know your life changed?”

She nodded at the rhetorical question, forcing herself to continue her washing even though she felt physically ill at the memory.

“Borgos became ill. I think he had been failing the whole time we were with him, but his daughter’s farewell was heartbreaking, quite literally. Sometimes he was aware, sometimes he was not. He had me write a letter to his daughter and to his son. But his son had died in the war. That’s when I knew death was near. He finished dictating the letter and looked at me. ‘Thank you, Gabriel, thank you for your care and your company. Please, my son, do not waste this life.’ I thought he was gone, but he looked at me again and grabbed my hand. ‘Make the world a better place.’ Then he died.”

He lapsed into silence, and she breathed a prayer for the doctor’s soul.

“I kept the letter he wrote his son as a reminder of his words. That was totally unnecessary.” He added that with a harsh laugh, as if the memory was more of a nightmare. “At first I pursued the work that had brought me to Portugal. It was when I was in Lisbon reading a paper to men too old to fight or to those who were unwilling, that I realized I needed to take action, to join the fight to make the world safe from tyrants like Napoleon. I decided to buy a commission.

“The fight for Spain was fully engaged, even though Napoleon was now fighting a war on two fronts. I went to Wellington’s winter camp and asked about a commission. Wellington himself met with me and asked if I would consider doing work for him that did not require a uniform. He asked me to work as a spy, using my interest in science as a disguise.”

Charlotte stopped washing him and he paused as well. “You were willing to do that, my lord? Be a spy, knowing no one would receive you if they found out? That you could be imprisoned, tortured and executed without the protection of a uniform?”

“Yes,” Gabriel said without hesitation. “There are some things more important than who will invite me to their next ball.” He looked at her over his shoulder as if she would challenge what he said. When she began washing his back again, he turned from her and continued.

“They insisted that my interests were a good enough excuse to give me entrée almost anyplace. I had learned Portuguese. I was welcome in society and could go to the meanest tavern or the finest balls in the name of science.”

She had finished bathing him, but held on to the sponge, washing already clean spots so that he would continue. All details were valuable. Already she saw him in a different light. His willingness to be a spy was not the conventional choice for the son of a duke.

“I was to go to…” he paused, “…a city where I would frequent a list of places they had me memorize, make myself known and see what I could learn. I went to the city I will not name and did as I was instructed.

“The ruse worked for a while. It is amazing what men will say when they are in their cups or think they are speaking to someone whose only interest is science. A few times I even found information on my own. Then one night I went to the tavern that was one of my regular haunts.

“When I arrived, there was a band of ruffians holding seven men as hostages. They asked me to identify my fellow spies. I refused, denying any wrongdoing. Without giving me a second chance, they shot and slaughtered all of them. I thought my body was going to be added to the corpses. They said that I was being spared even though I had betrayed those who had died. I was wanted for further questioning.”

He stopped talking, and she waited for him to gather his composure.

“They poured spirits on the dead and burned the place down. As an example to others? To cover their crime? I don’t know. Maybe both. They knocked me unconscious before I could do anything to stop them. I’ve thought about it for months now and have no idea what I did that served those men up to death.”

Charlotte sat back again, letting him relive his personal hell. If one had a conscience it was a worse punishment than years in prison. Finally he drew a deep breath and continued.

“We left on a small French cutter. When we reached France we traveled by foot. At Le Havre I was put in prison and forgotten. That’s my story, a total waste of more lives than my own.” He let out a breath and turned his head a little. “Tell me, Charlotte, what have you done to make the world a better place?”

“I know this much,” she said, not really ignoring his question, “self-pity
is
a waste.” She turned his head away from her, pretending that she was not finished with his neck. When the silence had dragged on, she prodded him, “Were you tortured? Is that how you came to have the scars on your back?”

“No. Those are from my three escape attempts. Ludicrous failures, every one of them.” He shook his head and went on. “My original captors said I was to be taken to Paris. The Minister of Police wanted to see me.”

“Fouché, the French spymaster?” She nodded. “That is impressive.” That part, at least, was exactly what the government had told her.

“Perhaps. I suppose so. Fouché has been in and out of favor with Napoleon and I cannot be certain he was the Minister of Police at the time, but even when he is out of favor, there are many loyal to him, or at least willing to do his bidding.”

“That has been true since before the revolution,” she said. “It is amazing how he is able to sell his services no matter who is in power.” She walked to the table to light the candles near the shaving mirror. “Why did Fouché wish to see you?”

“I have no idea. No, no, I have a dozen ideas. He wanted to execute me more publicly. A ducal connection would attract some attention.”

She shrugged. “You have only to convince Viscount Sidmouth to be set free.”

“It is the truth, damn your skeptical mind.” He picked up the sponge and threw it into the fire. It sizzled and was gone quickly, rather like his temper, she thought.

“It is a near version of the story Viscount Sidmouth passed on. With a critical difference.”

“What is it?”

She shook her head. “You will find out when you reach London.” When he would have protested, she raised her hand. “Those are my orders.”

He slid back into the water.

“I
can
tell you that about six months ago word reached the War Office that you were alive. They dismissed it as unreliable information.” She was surprised when he did no more than nod. Where was his temper now? “Your brother was willing to pursue it. I was sure you were dead and that he was behaving for absurdly sentimental reasons.”