The Spymaster's Lady (16 page)

So. She would deal with him. She lifted her cosh and took her staff from where it leaned across the top of the altar. She had swept the floor clean in the path she must take. It was entirely silent to creep the length of the chapel and press herself flat against the wall behind the door. The searcher was in no hurry. Long minutes passed before she heard boots on the stones outside. The latch lifted and the door creaked. He crossed the threshold.

Paving stones crashed to the floor as the snare fell. He yelled. She was on him at once, using the cosh. It took only two blows to make him most thoroughly immobile.

She and Adrian had discussed at length where a man would fall, tangled and fighting in the web that came down upon him. It was a pleasure to discover how correct they had been. He was sprawled unconscious upon the doorsill itself. Her prize was breathing, so it was not even a murder on her conscience.

Altogether satisfactory. That was one man less to hunt Adrian. It had been worth the hour it had taken her to weave her trap.

She knew him by the smell of his clothing before she felt his features. How remarkably persistent Henri was turning out to be. She cut strips of his shirt with Adrian's knife and tied him up before she extracted him from the strings of her trap. Then she dragged him the length of the chapel to the pillar she had picked out. He carried a useful knife, which she collected from him. She also helped herself to his money, of which there seemed to be a good deal. There is no rain which does not water someone's turnips.

When she had finished, she wiped her hands on her dress—truly, she did not like touching Henri—and considered her alternatives. Should she go…or stay? Adrian might return. Grey would come, or Doyle, if either lived. Or Henri's comrades might come looking for him. There would be visits from everyone, in fact, who was not lying in his blood out in the woods. This would be a most busy place, this chapel, if anyone survived.

Most certainly she should leave immediately. She had Henri's horse. Within a few miles of this spot were fifty friends who would help her go to England. She was ruled by grave responsibilities. Whether she gave the Albion plans to England or remained loyal to France, she must not let them fall into Leblanc's hands. It was stupidity beyond measure to stay in this chapel on such an eventful night.

If Grey came, he might be wounded. He might need help.

And so her decision was made. There were various small businesses to attend to. She walked outside into the cold density of rain, to lead Henri's horse to an inconspicuous spot in the briar jungle behind the chapel. It tried, several times, to bite her and succeeded once. Then there was her trap to set once more, with rocks and rope, above the door. It was Ovid, after all, who said that one's hook should always be cast, for there will be fish in the pool where one least expects it.

H
AWKER
crouched in the sand, feral and silent. They were closing in—not Leblanc's men, but a gaggle of dragoons on patrol. Nowhere to hide. He was too weak to run.

But somebody else was out here in the dunes tonight. Smugglers. The sound of gunfire had flushed them out. They had as much to fear from the dragoons as he did. And they had a boat.

He flogged his body into motion, staggering toward the breakers. Mushy sand dragged at his feet. Nothing to see in this black fog. Nothing.

Follow the sound. Annique walked around like this all the time. He could do it for a hundred yards.

The boat was already yards out in the water, oars stroking with a regular slap. He splashed after it.
“Attendez. Aidez-moi.”
Damn cold stuff, seawater.

Clomping and shouting their way over the crest of the dunes, came the dragoons. Gunshot skipped across the water. He should have learned to swim. It couldn't be hard. Dogs did it.

Waves knocked him down. His clothes weighed like lead. The ground disappeared beneath his feet, and he sank like a stone. He barely felt the arms that pulled him on board.

“Ain't one of ours, Josiah,” an English voice said. Sharp corners bit in as they rolled him over. A bullet pinged into the side of the boat.

“Frenchie by the look of 'im.”

“Throw 'im back.” Sussex voices reached a consensus. He was lifted roughly and shoved to the gunnels.

“Slime-gut, buggering pus-suckers.” He skimmed back to consciousness. “Password's…jasmine.”

“That's the king's English, that is. Stow 'im aboard, lads, I won't leave even a Cockney drown.” The voice of command was an older man with a Yorkshire accent. Someone leaned close. “Cover 'im up and let's get out of here.”

He was pushed into the bottom of the boat and became limp and unknowing as a fish.

B
IRDS
chittered back and forth, discussing the coming day to see if they liked it, which was something they did before it became truly light. She sat beside Henri, listening to him grunt and thrash. He was trying to get out of the knots she'd tied. He would not succeed.

When a single horseman entered the courtyard, she took up the cosh and got into position.

The second fish in her net fought more strongly than the first. She was not gentle with her cosh. This man, returning so soon, meant the hunt for Adrian was over. He must be dead, somewhere out in those trees. She was crying when she tied the man's hands behind him.

Then she checked to see whether she had crushed his skull, subduing him. He was unconscious but breathing. He was Grey.

She did not often have a chance to indulge in her extensive collection of swear words. She did so now. Did Grey have no care for himself at all? Did he not know how dangerous she was? Nothing could be stupider than for Grey to come to this place, sneaking about, wearing another man's coat so that she did not know him. She would tell him so when he woke up.

She went quickly to wet a cloth in the nearest puddle. By the time she got back, he was groaning. She had not hurt him lethally, then, doubtless because his head was of solid, stupid rock. She washed his face with the cloth to bring him fully awake and as repayment for the several wet cloths he had slapped across her.

“Annique? My God. You're the one who set that trap?”

“But of course. My friend, I must tell you. More than two hours ago, men rode into this monastery. Leblanc's men. Adrian led them away, except for Henri, who is over there.” She waved in the general direction of Henri, who was wriggling noisily by the pillar she had attached him to. “Adrian has not come back. There were shots…He is so weak. And there were at least three of them.”

“He'll make it. He's the sneakiest man alive. The men chasing us are great blundering dolts in the woods. City men. Untie me.”

“Doyle is…?” She couldn't finish the question.

“Leading them in circles. They won't get Doyle. He's been doing this longer than you've been alive. And we killed a couple. Get these ropes off my hands.”

“I do not think so.” She did run her finger over the ties she had made, but it was to check that they were quite secure. “I wish Doyle very well. You also, Grey. I wish you the good luck in your travels.” She spoke to him, this last time, in the intimate form of the language, the one used between friends and lovers. “I part company with you now, as has been my intention for some while. This should not amaze you.”

“Don't do this, Annique. Let me loose.”

Oh, but Grey was furious. He did not like to be helpless, this one. But there were other things in his voice…Worry for her. Caring. She could not be completely mistaken about that. She would not hurt like this if he did not care at all.

“I cannot stay long,” she said. “Leblanc's men may become bored with chasing the excellent Doyle and return. And there will be gendarmes, before many hours pass, who will ask themselves why this wood is completely full to the brim with dead bodies everywhere. Do you need money? I will give you some of Henri's, if you like.”

“Let me get you across the Channel. I'll set you free on the other side, I promise. I'll give you a head start. Whatever you want. Don't do this on your own. You don't have a chance.”

She smoothed the coat on his shoulder, where there were admirable muscles. She could indulge herself also in stroking his cheek. That was even better—the touch of skin upon skin. “Do you know, when I am with you I am not afraid at all. It is a magic altogether curious that happens inside the heart. I wish I could take it with me when I leave.”

She should not waste her time sitting and talking to him. They both had numerous tasks to accomplish before dawn. But she had not engaged in so many dissipations in her life, after all. She could allow herself a few minutes. “I am frightened of this next journey. The noise of the sea makes it hard to hear what is around me. I must go a long way through this desolation, which is chaotic and full of men trying to kill me. I would avoid it, if I could. I am not an idiot.”

“Think. Just stop and think. If by some miracle you get to England, you're going to fall into my hands anyway. You're just delaying the inevitable.” He was working very hard to get free, but she was no amateur at the craft of tying people. “I'm not going to hurt you. I swear it.”

“It is sad, my Grey. We are constrained by the rules of this Game we play. There is not one little place under those rules for me to be with you happily. Or apart happily, which is what makes it so unfair.” She sat more comfortably, pulling her knees up, resting her arms across them. “I have discovered a curious fact about myself. An hour ago I was sure you were dead, and it hurt very much. Now you are alive, and it is only that I must leave you, and I find that even more painful. That is not at all logical.”

In all the time she had known Grey—well, it was not so very long after all—she had never searched his face with her hands to know what he looked like. She could do it now. His hair was short, but soft to hold between her fingers. He had strongly marked bones in his nose—it had been broken once, she thought—and skin of an uncivilized roughness. The ridge of his eyebrows was most pronounced. Not pretty, Monsieur Grey. She had not thought he would be.

“I shall leave you the knife of Henri,” she said, “though I could use it myself. It is in apology for those bumps I have given you with this useful small cosh of mine. You must cut your way free when I am gone. I shall gift you also with Henri, who, I must tell you, I am beginning to find boring in the extreme in his attentions. I have still not murdered him, as you see. I am all benevolence.”

“You're going to get yourself killed out there.”

“It is very possible.” She had one last minute to stroke his body, to hold on to the warmth of him. He was strong and worthy of respect, and gentle, and her enemy. Her choice of him seemed as inevitable as tides in the ocean. One drowns in the ocean. “Do you know the
Symposium
, Grey?” She set her palm against the stubble on his cheek. Men were not like women at all, to the touch. “The
Symposium
of Plato.”

“I'll find you, wherever you go. You know that. I'll never give up.”

“You will not find me. You shall not know at all where to look for me. Pay attention. Plato says that lovers are like two parts of an egg that fit together perfectly. Each half is made for the other, the single match to it. We are incomplete alone. Together, we are whole. All men are seeking that other half of themselves. Do you remember?”

“This isn't the goddamned time to talk about Plato.”

That made her smile. “I think you are the other half of me. It was a great mix-up in heaven. A scandal. For you there was meant to be a pretty English schoolgirl in the city of Bath and for me some fine Italian pastry cook in Palermo. But the cradles were switched somehow, and it all ended up like this…of an impossibility beyond words.”

“Annique…”

Swiftly, softly, she leaned to him and covered his mouth and kissed him. It seemed to surprise him.

“I wish I had never met you,” she whispered. “And in all my life I will not forget lying beside you, body to body, and wanting you.”

“For God's sake…”

She stood up and jammed the knife in a crack between two stones some distance away, where it would take him a while to get to it. “Adrian was right. I should have made love to you when I had the chance.”

She walked out of the chapel, ignoring his words behind her, which were angry in the extreme, and taking care not to trip on the bits and pieces of her trap that were strewn around the entryway.

Henri's horse was glad to see her. It did not like being so enclosed by briars. There was less trouble than she would have thought to mount, and no one in this dead monastery would see that her dress was hiked up far beyond decency. She gave the horse its head to find a way out of the courtyard and onto the road. Then all she could do was point toward the sound of the sea, hold on to rein and mane very tightly, and kick hard. It would be dawn soon. There was enough light for a horse to see. At the water's edge she could follow the line of surf north.

She had come a mile when the road straightened and sloped downward. Henri's horse picked up speed.

A blow slammed her. Shock. Pain. Falling. She had an instant to know it was a tree branch, hanging over the road, that had hit her. That the horse had done this on purpose.