The Spymaster's Lady (25 page)

“What will you do with me when I will not become the traitor for you?” She let her arms drop away from him.

“It's not going to happen that way.”

“That is a comfortable belief for you, surely.”

“Do you want promises? I have a few. Whatever happens, I'll protect you from Leblanc and Fouché. I'm not going to hurt you, even if I keep scaring the bloody hell out of you.”

“I am desolated to disappoint you, but you are an amateur in this business of frightening me. I have met experts.”

“And it just gets worse from here on in. You are so bloody complex. I wouldn't love you if you were stupid, but it'd be a lot easier on both of us.” He took a deep breath. “Come downstairs and eat. They've already started.”

I
T WAS A WHOLLY MASCULINE
DÉCOR
, THIS HOUSE
at Meeks Street. The halls were hung with antique maps and architectural drawings in dark frames. The tables she passed held file folders and empty coffee cups and men's gloves tossed carelessly into a wide bowl. There was no clutter of flowers, no potpourris, no bibelots.

The dining room was next to that study where Grey had let her sleep this afternoon. She was learning her way around the house which was her prison. Eventually she would know it extremely well.

At the mirror in the main hall she stopped to inspect her toilette one last time.

“The dress is good on you. Sweet. Innocent.” Grey scowled. Not at her. She was merely in the line of fire as he considered his own thoughts. “You're harmless as a Bengal tiger, thank God. How much do you know about Colonel Joseph Reams of British Military Intelligence?”

Her face betrayed nothing, but her stomach clenched. Françoise, who had been one of Vauban's own, and her friend, and a spy of great skill, had been questioned once by Reams—taken and questioned only on flimsy suspicion. She had needed months to heal. “I have heard of him. One or two small things.”

“Then you know what we're dealing with. You'll have to meet him.”

It was well known that Reams of the Military Intelligence tortured women like her, spies, and took pleasure in it. She had let Grey lull her into complacency. Now she was wisely terrified again. “He comes because I am here. The Military Intelligence takes interest in me. I should have thought of that.”

“Do you trust me?”

“No. That is…perhaps. In some ways.” Could he not see she was frightened into idiocy and leave her in peace? “That is a strange question.”

“Trust me this much. Reams can't touch you. He has no power under this roof. I will not let anyone hurt you.”

“That is what Galba said. I would believe it more if it were not said so often.”

“You have my word.” For him, that settled matters. He had been an English officer before he was put in charge of many spies. Perhaps she did trust him.

He opened the door to a gem of a room, perfectly proportioned, papered with Chinese scenes of pagodas and distant mountains. Curtains of white jacquard silk were drawn close so one could not see the bars. A simple dinner had been laid upon the table. She gave her attention to the men, and the one woman, who sat there.

“…avoid a confrontation,” Adrian was saying as she walked into the room. “Lazarus may even be hoping—”

He stopped speaking and sprang to his feet. The other men rose too—Galba, at the head of the table; Monsieur Doyle, whom she recognized easily from years ago in Vienna; the boy Giles, who had opened the door to this house for her; a thin, brown-haired man she did not know. Grudgingly and at the last minute, the last of them stood, a short, pink-faced man. That was Colonel Reams, she thought.

“Mademoiselle, I hope you are rested.” Galba drew her to the table and made a great show of introducing her to Doyle, who was calling himself Viscount Markham, and his wife, Lady Markham, who did not look like a woman named Maggie. She was, amazingly, French, with the accent of an aristo, which is not a thing expected of a Maggie. The thin man with the aspect of a librarian—most certainly a spy of considerable deadliness—was the Honorable Thomas Paxton. Next, Galba presented Colonel Reams, who did not look at her, but sneered rudely. Galba then allowed her to meet Adrian and Giles.

Grey put her into the chair between Galba and Adrian and went himself to the left side of the colonel, which is the weaker side of an opponent and advantageous for attack. “Colonel,” he said, sitting down.

“Major.” A terse and unfriendly acknowledgment from Reams.

They hated each other, Grey and the Colonel Reams. The others were also not fond of the colonel. She, who had been trained to notice such things, saw that Doyle and Adrian and the scholarly Paxton sat as men sit in an unfamiliar tavern, loose in their chairs, their arms upon the table, their feet planted, ready to spring up. Every man in the room watched Colonel Reams carefully, though they did not seem to do so. It was a dinner party awash in well-practiced stratagems.

Adrian murmured that she was not to worry as Grey had matters entirely in his hands. He served upon her plate chicken and potatoes and green beans, pretending to consult with her but in fact paying no attention whatsoever when she said she wanted nothing.

Galba resumed the conversation where it had left off. “Your culpability will be known, Adrian. Lazarus is no fool. Have you considered the consequences?”

“If we don't intervene, Whitechapel will be knee-deep in bodies by the end of the week. What I want to do is—”

“You need to keep yer nose out of it, is my opinion,” Colonel Reams interrupted. “Let 'em bite each other's buggering cocks off and choke on 'em. Since we're shut of that nonsense—”

“You are so earthy and forthright, you army chaps,” Adrian coolly cut in.

“I want to know why this French whore trots in here like she—”

“But this isn't some manly, thigh-slapping dinner in your barracks.”

Grey made an inconspicuous hand motion, and Adrian subsided. “You're a guest here, Colonel, and there are ladies present. Adrian, serve Mademoiselle Villiers some wine.”

Grey was making a point, so she let Adrian fill her glass for her.

The colonel snarled and swiveled to confront Galba. “You tell me why there's a bloody slut of a French spy sitting at the dinner table.”

Galba allowed an eloquent silence to punctuate, then said, mildly enough, “We will not discuss this now, Colonel. Or in those terms.” He turned back to Adrian. “I'm wary of intervention in Lazarus's own household. It is provocation on our part.”

“Not our part. My part. I'm acting on my own. Annique, you will not grow up to be big and strong if you don't eat your vegetables.”

She rearranged what Adrian had put upon her plate with her fork and listened to him wax eloquent in favor of some scheme, doubtless dangerous and complex. She did not eat. She could not have eaten anyway while the Colonel Reams seethed at her in that fashion. The wine smelled like an excellent Bordeaux.

“Your decision?” Galba glanced at Grey.

“It has to be attempted. We'll deal with Lazarus afterwards. Will goes along to do the heavy lifting.”

Adrian exhaled impatiently. “It's a second-floor window. She…” His eyes slid across Reams. “The package I'm collecting weighs four stone. I could fetch it out under one arm.”

“And that's all you have,” Grey said. “Your shoulder isn't healed. Do this, if you have to. But Will goes with you.” Thus Grey made judgments of important matters, sending these deadly men out to steal, taking care they should be safe.

It would be easy to fall in love with such a man. He felt her eye upon him and grinned, just in a flash, like a man at his sweetheart, and also like a tomcat who has been much satisfied by a tabby. It was a compliment, but an embarrassing one, though of course no one at the table knew what he had been up to with her.

Then he was speaking to Doyle, all business. “…pull in two extra guards. Galba's in the guest room, but Pax leaves before dawn.”

The quiet Paxton stretched across the table to fetch back the wine bottle. “I'll take the usual route. If you have messages, give them to me tonight.”

“You already have mine.” Galba took up his wineglass. “Good journey.” It was unobtrusive, but Grey and Doyle and Adrian lifted their glasses as well, and they drank as one.

How it brought back memories, this meal. As a child in Lyon she had carried bread and wine to tables like this and sat as the quiet mouse while men and women made such preparations and left, one by one, to walk alone into danger. Later, she had been one of Vauban's people, his very inner circle. That silent toast…Her friends had made those for her. It was lonely to look upon this as an outsider.

“Upon that note…” Galba's chair creaked. “Mademoiselle Villiers, we must clarify this situation for all concerned. I regret giving you so little time to compose yourself.”

She set the fork down and ceased annoying the vegetables. “I am all attention.”

“Do you wish to accompany Colonel Reams and place yourself under the protection of Military Intelligence? I did not think so. No, Colonel, you may speak later. Your choice, mademoiselle.”

She shook her head.

“Then you shall not. You will remain with us. However, I would prefer that you were not distracted by illusionary alternatives. You are planning to escape, I believe.”

“One explores many possibilities.” She did not try to look young and naive, as that would be wasted here. Instead, she composed her face as if she were at the opera, attentive but uncomprehending.

Grey appreciated it. The flicker in his eye was all amusement.

Galba was less easy to read. “Let us make your situation plain. You are not without intelligence, but you underestimate your worth on the playing field. That is not uncommon in someone your age. Robert, you may take Mademoiselle Annique to the front door and open it for her.”

Colonel Reams hopped to his feet like a red and angry bantam. “She's a French national. You have no right. The girl's mine, damn it.” He should have been absurd with his jiggling paunch and a napkin clutched in his hand. He was not ridiculous to someone who might soon be in his cellars for questioning.

Then Grey was at her elbow, shepherding her from the room, his body between her and that spewing of rage, his path direct and unswerving toward the colonel. It was Reams who backed away. He swung round to snarl into the bland face of Galba, whose dangerousness was of an order the colonel did not recognize.

The clamor of his outrage trailed them down the hall to the dim, stiff parlor where Grey unlocked the front door. The cool evening wind enveloped them.

They stopped just inside the doorway, and Grey looked alertly at the houses opposite. He was considering the question of snipers, she thought.

“The colonel fears you will let me walk out of here. He is a stupid man, is he not?” she said.

“He's a self-serving son of a bitch.”

“That also.” She looked upon the quiet street in the dusk. “You have opened this door for me as Galba told you to. You wish to show me something. I have an idea what it may be.”

“Of course you do.” He gestured toward the large black carriage waiting directly in front of the house. “That's Reams's carriage. The healthy young men inside who are taking such an interest in you are from his private detachment of marines. He's brought three.”

“Three? It is an honor of sorts, I suppose.”

“You have a reputation among spies. We can ignore them, however, because Reams can't touch you. Remember that. Now, look to your right, farther up the street.” Grey's arm around her was not to keep her from running. It was for comfort. “Number Sixteen, with the window at the front where the lamp is. That's Soulier's agent keeping an amiable eye upon us. She grows herbs in her back garden and presents us with sachets of lavender every year at Christmas. She has visitors tonight. Large Frenchmen. They're at the window now, watching us.”

He let her absorb it for a while, then said, “When Soulier gets orders from Fouché, he won't have any choice.”

The sky was opalescent with sunset. The linden trees planted in the little strip of garden in the middle of the street rustled very slightly in the wind. They both knew that a death order from Fouché might already have reached London. “It is a difficult time for Soulier.”

“So it is. We have no word on Leblanc yet. He's probably already in London. Let's finish this. Look left.” A cart and horse waited in the street. Pickaxes and shovels and piles of bricks disordered the pavement. Two men, long after any reasonable hour, repaired a brick wall in front of one of the houses. “Our local Czarist agents.”

“I am learning Russian. It is a country France has not invaded yet, but I wish to be prepared.”

“I suppose that memory of yours helps you learn languages. Who else have we got? The French Royalists are up on Braddy Street, two or three lots of them, mostly keeping an eye on each other. It's hard to tell the Royalists apart. Sometimes they're not even sure.”

“Is that all of them?” She felt profoundly tired. It was inconceivable so many men should interest themselves in her. It was sheer perversity. They could not possibly know what she carried in her head.

“One more. At the corner. See the crossing sweeper? He belongs to Lazarus.”

“Lazarus? Ah…the Lazarus of Adrian. The one he goes to steal from tonight. I do not know the name.”

“He's not political. Lazarus rules the criminals of this town. He deals in precious objects. He'd sell the knowledge in your head, and you, to the highest bidder.” His grip tightened on her arm. “You would give him that knowledge within a short time. He is…skilled.”

“This is an interesting neighborhood.” She didn't try to keep the fear out of her voice. Grey had brought her here to frighten her and deserved to know how well he had succeeded. “They will all speculate upon why I am in your headquarters, beautifully dressed and not held by any duress. That is what you want, no? To show them you have done me no harm?”