The Spymaster's Lady (32 page)

S
HE SLIPPED DOWN THE STAIRS LIKE A SHADOW,
naked, wearing only shoes, her clothing bundled under her arm. It would be ten or fifteen minutes before Grey stirred in his sleep and felt for her and realized she was gone from his bed. She had that long.

At the end of the hall, a single yellow flame burned in a glass chimney. But she had counted these steps. She could have walked this path blind. Surprises of glass crunched in the carpet under her feet. Ferguson had not been able to sweep it all up. For this one night the monster dog was not stalking the halls, slavering and famished, seeking human flesh.

The door to the front parlor was closed, locked with its expensive Bramah lock. But Grey had opened this door from the other side with a hidden lever. In this devious house, doubtless there was a release on this side as well.

There is a truth of locks and hidden places. If the same mind contrives two, they are alike in flavor. In the parlor, the release was a sconce on the wall. Here…? The mirror at the end of the hall flickered with the shadow of her pale, naked body, as she made her silent search. A narrow mar-quetry table clung tightly against the wall, so tightly she could not squeeze her fingers behind it.

It was the back left leg that lifted to the side. A hidden bolt snicked. The door to the parlor clicked. Cool air touched her face, blowing in from the glassless windows.

Ferguson's broom leaned against the wall. She brought it with her. Two minutes had passed since she arose from bed.

She did not pause to congratulate herself. Softly, she picked her way across the parlor. The floor had been roughly swept. She made no sound, walking through. Broken furniture was pushed back against the walls. The hideous sideboard was unscathed. It was typical of battles that the ugliest things emerged unharmed. The piano was a ruin of twisted wire and splintered wood. No scales would ever again be practiced upon it. One heartening thought amid much destruction.

How many broken rooms had she walked through when she lived among armies? She had seen houses as wealthy as this, shelled and looted and left open to the weather. This parlor had the smell of a battle ruin—gunpowder and plaster dust and, faintly at the edges, blood.

One image filled her mind, plucked from the confusion and fear this afternoon. An image of the window.

The bars were lines of solid black against the gray fog, lit by the streetlamp outside. She slid her fingers along the sill. Yes. She'd seen shotgun blasts hit here again and again. In the deep crevice, the middle bar shifted in its mooring.

She would bend this bar. This birdcage would open, and the bird would fly free.

Ferguson's broomstick was still in her hand. She wedged it hard against the metal and pried. Pried again, panting with effort. The lead that secured iron into marble rattled and crumbled. It was moving.

Another try. She set her foot against the wall and racked herself, calling on every muscle, on desperation, on all the strength of her will. With agonizing slowness, the bar bent.

Again. Gasping, she set a new hold. This was not the first obstacle she had approached. Like many others, it was convinced, reluctantly, to move aside.

Again. This time, when her hold slipped, she stepped back. Panting, she measured the gap with her outstretched hands. It was enough. Just enough. Men who put bars across windows never believed how little a space is needed to squeeze through if you are small and know exactly how to do it.

Ten minutes. It had been all of ten minutes by now. Quickly, she tossed her bundle of clothing into the night, to the paved space in front of the house. She sent her shoes following.

Giles and Ferguson had knocked out the last of the glass, preparing for the glaziers tomorrow, but malicious splinters lurked everywhere. She sliced the palm of her hand, climbing to the windowsill. Naked, lubricated by fear and blood, she squirmed between the bars.

She had always been thin, and the long, dark road from the south of France had fined her down even more. But it was not easy getting through. Iron edges scraped skin. Unyielding stone and metal bruised muscle and bone. It was necessary to close her mind firmly against pain.

Soon Grey would awaken and find the bed empty. That was also a pain she must close her mind to.

And she was out.

She crouched on the windowsill, drew her legs under her, and launched herself outward, past the kitchen stairwell, with its little sharp spikes, to the paved space beyond. She hit and caught herself with outstretched hands and turned it into a roll. A kaleidoscope of pain. Stone blocks, glass, sharp edges battered at her. At the end of her roll she flopped flat, arms outstretched, sick, dizzy, half-unconscious.

It took a few seconds to come back to herself. The paving was icy under her bare back. She hurt with many varied, individual pains.

The house at Meeks Street stretched above her into the night. Behind it hung the gauzy ball of the moon. When she turned her head, the streetlamps were a long row of globes hanging in blackness, each one smaller than the last. They wavered, shimmering, because she was crying. She had no time to cry. None at all.

Fourteen minutes.

She struggled to her feet, naked except for goose bumps. The spies stationed in this street would see her, a hunched and pale ghost, as she scrambled into her clothes. First the white shift went over her head. Then the dark, concealing dress. She contorted to button it.

She must move fast now. Grey would search for her. Already, men must be creeping forward down this prim street. Stockings. Shoes. She had planned her escape in detail. One has much leisure to make plans, when imprisoned.

She took one last breath. The air of Number Seven Meeks Street smelled of sulfur and charcoal, as a battlefield does. Then, running, she crossed the road to a narrow walkway between two houses. The low fence was a mere hop, and the mews beyond led to Braddy Street.

Men waited for her there.

She dodged them. She ran, flat out, till her sides ached with each breath. Stopped suddenly and slid into a back garden. Became a passing wind that did not even awaken the dogs. Crept down the alley to another street. Ran again, in a different direction.

This was the Game she played so long and well. Again, she was the little fox who outwitted them all. But tonight she was not joyful with it. Tonight, the game she played hurt and hurt and hurt with every step she took.

The night was filled with spies. Some she outran and some she evaded and some she fooled altogether. But the best of them kept pace, and tracked her, as she had known they would. In the end, she let them trap her in a corner behind a shop. They were large men, firm and skilled, and they did not hurt her much. They were French.

A
DRIAN
held the lamp so they could see the gap in the bars. “Leblanc might have her. Or Soulier. Reams left four marines up on Braddy Street. The Russians are still sniffing around. And Lazarus. Those are the most likely.”

“Lazarus is angry at you.” Grey chipped the words off from the great, cold fear inside him. Among other criminal enterprises, Lazarus bought and sold women. They all knew what Lazarus did to women.

“If it's Lazarus, we have time. He goes slow at first. He won't hurt her much tonight. He'll just…” Adrian started to say more, then looked at Grey's face and stopped. “I'm not welcome there right now, but I can find out if he has her.”

Galba was swathed in a brocade dressing gown, the knot tied askew. He touched the bars. “Giles, get some chain and close this. Robert, what are the chances she'll run the gauntlet and escape out of London?”

“None.” He shifted Adrian's hand holding the lamp. Annique's bloody fingerprints showed stark red on the windowsill and up and down the bars, still damp. “She won't make it a mile. If Soulier doesn't bag her, Lazarus will. He knows she's important to Adrian, and he has a hundred thieves and murderers to set on her trail.”

Galba said, “Where do we send the men?”

He looked into the night, making himself cold and analytic. A gibbering madman rattled at the back of his brain. He was going to kill someone tonight. “We go to Soulier. Get dressed, Hawk. We may not have much time.”

A
NNIQUE HAD KNOWN
S
OULIER ALL HER LIFE.
He had been Papa's friend. It was Soulier who came when Papa was hanged and carried her away in his arms from the king's prison. Years later, Soulier had been one of Maman's lovers.

When she had been the youngest of Vauban's cadre, Soulier had visited often in Françoise's house in the
Quartier Latin
to sit at the kitchen table and laugh and drink and plot with René and the others. She'd scampered to bring cakes and pour them coffee in big cups or little cups, depending on the time of day. He had chucked her under the chin and named her Fox Cub and she had called him Old Renard. They had been very witty together.

“Entre. Entre donc, petite,”
Soulier welcomed her, just as if large men did not accompany her. They went to stand against the wall, regarding her every twitch. Six men. Did they imagine she would spring and attack Soulier with her teeth? Someday she would discover where this rumor of her bloodthirstiness had been started.

Soulier had not changed at all. He was thin and exquisite, somehow like a cynical old magpie, one who has seen many nests robbed and many eggs broken. She must lie to him tonight. It would be very difficult, lying to Soulier. One does not become director of spies in the stronghold of France's enemy by being a fool.

“Come. Yes. Here to me. My child, I was pierced to my heart to hear of your mother's death. It hurts me still. She was a great and beautiful lady and my friend. To die so suddenly, in such an accident. I am grieved beyond measure.”

In the midst of her plots and contrivances, she had forgotten Soulier would mourn her mother's death. She had not thought once of his sorrow. It would seem she had become cold and unfeeling these days, as well as a traitor. She gave him the only comfort she had. “It was swift. There would have been a single moment only when the carriage tilted. Then…a fall into the sea.”

“Seconds only, and she is gone. The brightness of her snuffed out, and we are left, missing her. You most of all. Coming so soon after the other…But we will not talk of this. It is too new and painful.”

“I cannot quite believe it, even yet.”

“It is good you have kept yourself busy. That is always best at such times.” He beckoned. “But let me look at you. You have become a young woman since we last met. You will be more lovely than your mother, even.” He made a gesture toward her face. “It is there, waiting within you. I am glad you were able to escape the British.”

“I am as well, though I am fled from the frying pan to the fire, as the English say.”

“As to that…Fouché is annoyed with you, I'm afraid. But sit. Sit. Or you will make me play the polite host and stand up, and I am far too indolent to do that. Come next to me, in this armchair. I do not wish to shout at you across the room. Yves, bring the boule table, yes, here between us and set the lamp upon it. Just so. Now we may be cozy. Were you coming to see me, child? Somehow I do not think so.”

It was a great irony that she had escaped Meeks Street and put herself into the path of the French exactly so she would be brought to this house. “It is a long story. Where shall I start?”

“With Monsieur Grey, perhaps, and why you have chosen to travel with him across France and England. I am one of many wondering why you have done this thing. Do not hurry. Think upon it a while. I would wish your little history to be perfect.”

“Me, also.”

“I have every faith in you. It is even possible you shall tell me the truth.” He spread his elegant hands. “What will you take with me? Wine? Biscuits? Coffee? I shall send this great side of beef who stands here so idly to the kitchen to make himself useful. I do not even know whether this is early or late in London. A city that does not have proper bakeries to tell one that morning is come…How shall a man know?”

She lifted her hand, palm up, to show equal bewilderment. She felt herself being very French. Strange how she slipped back into it when she was speaking French. “Do you know, I have been almost starved in this dreadful country. Coffee, really good coffee, I would like. And a morsel of bread one can eat. You would not believe what the English eat for breakfast.”

“I have lived in this country for five years. There is nothing I would not believe of these English. Yves, tell Babette to prepare the little meal for us, and coffee.” Soulier meticulously adjusted the shade of the lamp, making the light fall across her face, unmerciful and bright. “We shall drink coffee together, and you will explain to me why you have been such a naughty girl that Fouché has sent me the orders he has. And why Leblanc has pursued you here from his proper station in France.”

Leblanc was one of many topics she did not wish to discuss tonight. “Events are of such a complexity…”

“It is said you become the lover of Grey, the Head of Section. He is an admirable man, Monsieur Grey.”

She knew what they were all thinking. To Soulier and his agents she was become a nothing, an unreliable who spilled her secrets in a man's bed. She was humiliated before the only audience that mattered. “We are lovers.” She had known it would be bitter to turn traitor. She had not prepared herself for the shame that washed across her.

Calm, wise eyes studied her. “We used to chuckle at you, Vauban and I, that you played the harlot so well and were so fastidious and virginal beneath it all. We thought, when the time was right, that René would drag you into the bushes some evening and make you wiser.”

She had to smile. “René teased me about it, always. He made such promises—a pasha of the East could not have fulfilled them.”

“A wild man, that one. So much laughter in him. He is wasted upon the Russians. You were all scattered when Vauban retired. I do not think any of you remain in France but Leblanc.”

She let her hands fall, empty, into her lap. Leblanc. Always Leblanc. “He was never one of us.”

Soulier snapped his fingers. One of his henchmen came quietly to kneel by the fire and build it up. She had shivered when he named Leblanc, so Soulier warmed the room for her. He saw everything.

His cane leaned beside him, a slim ebony wand tipped in silver. He played with it, twirling it between two fingers in his familiar way. “Was Grey your first? One's first love is sweet and strong and fresh. My home city has a wine of that nature. Beaujolais. One drinks it raw and new, in great quantities, when one is young, before one turns to finer wines.”

She cleared her throat. “He was the first.”

“That will make a fine memory to carry with you when you leave England. Not the wisest man to pick. But I do not think he gave you any choice, eh,
petite
?”

“No, monsieur.”

“You will call me Soulier, as always. Things have not changed between us because you have been foolish with an Englishman. Though you have enraged Fouché completely, I am afraid.”

Yves, who was the chief of Soulier's men in England and not stupid in the least, had returned to place a silver tray on the table between them. There were small flaky rolls, very hot, wrapped in a napkin, and a silver coffeepot, and wide, cream-colored bowls of a size to settle kindly within two hands. It was wholly French, such a breakfast.

Soulier poured coffee into a bowl. “You shall have much of this hot milk and just a touch, only, of sugar. I remember what you eat in the mornings, which Babette has decided this must be. She is infallible, my Babette, so we shall call it morning. We shall wait patiently till evening to let you taste a wine I have been saving, which you will someday develop the palate to appreciate.”

She took the bowl of hot coffee and the roll from his hands. Presented with these things, this way, there was nothing to do but dip the roll into the coffee and eat it bite by bite, as one does at home when one is entirely safe. This was Babette's message to her and Soulier's as well.

“So I shall live to this evening. Perhaps even long enough to develop a proper palate for wine.”

“If it were in my hands, you would live as long as Methuselah. Of course I shall ignore these orders, which Fouché has given when something he ate did not agree with him. He would not thank me if I took so literally every small word that drops from his lips.”

“Thank you.” She had known, in all the French secret service, only two men brave enough to ignore a death order from Fouché. Vauban was the other.

She finished the roll and drank milky coffee in long, slow sips, holding the bowl with both hands.

“It has been a long road for you, my cub, all the way from Marseilles, with Leblanc so incomprehensibly murderous. The men I sent were not quick enough to find you and rescue you.” He shook his head. “For that I am greatly at fault. You have felt abandoned, I think. And then you fell into the hands of the British. Will you tell me what secrets were the price of refuge in England?”

“I will answer whatever questions you put to me, monsieur.”

“Annique,
chérie,
you hurt me.”

“Soulier. Yes. I will tell you, Soulier.”

“That is better. You have been the guest of the British Service for many days now. What have you told them?”

It was not time to speak of the Albion plans. Not yet. Not yet. She would speak of little betrayals first, as was believable. “I have confirmed the names of Vauban's old agents, though they knew us all. I gave them Frederick Tillman, who is in British Military Intelligence for us.” She swallowed. “There is more.”

The agent Yves stalked across the room to attend to a draft that worked its way through the curtains. He did not glance in her direction, but he condemned her with each angry footfall. He was the first of many who would despise her.

No. Not the first. She despised herself. Tonight was the end of her long loyalty to France. She had deserted Grey as well, and the British Service. After tonight, she was loyal to no man, to no nation. She who had believed herself loyal to the death, once upon a time.

Part of her watched her hands tremble upon the bowl of coffee. Part of her was pleased she played so skillfully the repentant sheep, returned to the fold. Such excellent technique she had. So skilled an agent.

She was quite sick of Annique Villiers. She set the bowl down because it was not possible for her to drink it, after all.

And Soulier saw so much. “I have said this and said this, Annique, but you passionate young ones never believe.” Soulier stabbed his cane to the floor, emphasizing. “All men can be broken. All! You. Me. That self-righteous young fool who stomps himself across my
salon.
Anyone. The British Service has men who can suck the pith from your soul without leaving a mark upon you. Grey is the most expert of them. You had no chance against him.
Petite,
please, look at me.”

She did. One obeyed Soulier.

“You will tell me, one by one, the holes you have put in our defenses. I shall repair them. I have seen many mistakes in my life. This is not such a huge one.”

“There is more. You do not know…”

“I shall amend all. Fox Cub, this has happened before, many times. France does not tumble down like a house of cards when an agent is captured. A few operations will be closed. This agent or that will be moved and given a new name. I shall amuse myself sending some of our fat colleagues scuttling for cover,
hein
? It will do them no harm. We become complacent. Now we shall be the tidy housewife and sweep the dust out of our corners.”

The Albion plans were not a matter of small housekeepings or moving this agent or that. Such treason was not forgiven. Soulier would receive orders even he could not ignore.

He said to her softly, “I shall bring you to Paris, and you will grovel before Fouché, which he will enjoy greatly because you are a pretty girl. He will give you most unpleasant work for a time, to prove your loyalty. A year. Perhaps two.” He dissected her spirit, accurately, with remote kindness. “You will do as he says. No. Listen to me. You will do this. You will accustom yourself, and you will live. It will be easier to accept this when you do not come so directly from your English lover's bed, still warm from him.” He saw the involuntary flinch and reached across the table to touch her arm. “I understand better than you imagine, child. I will do nothing to smudge your memories of Grey, but the interlude has passed. You have been foolish. Now you will be sensible.”

She pulled away from his hand. “I will not whore for Fouché.”

Soulier sighed and turned away and made a small adjustment to the wick of the lamp. He was elegant even in this tiny, domestic office. “Sadly, it does not depend upon your consent,
petite
. I will do what I can to make it bearable. But this is painful for both of us. Instead, you shall tell me why Leblanc has conceived this irritation with you that sends him mad in this way. What has possessed him?”

Greed and evil.
“Who can say? He is a man of many unpleasant schemes.”

“Assuredly. But his schemes have never tempted him to murder you, not even when you were twelve and maddening as a sack of mice. Why now?”