The Tide Watchers

by Lisa Chaplin

  The tavern owner’s son turned back to Lisbeth. “Elise, why are you here?”

  Hair and face covered in grime, Lisbeth faced Marron, biting her lip, eyes pleading. “Alain discovered my . . . friendship with Monsieur Borchonne. He came to Gaston’s house, where I was, ah”—she looked down, fiddled with her fingers—“talking with him . . .”

  Sniggering sounds came from all around. Bloody clever of her to play the cowed girl and make excellent use of her bad reputation at one time. She’d be a fine asset to his mission.

  “Within a minute of finding LeClerc’s body, gendarmes were at the doors. My grand-mère’s great-great-great-grandfather was a Huguenot. I found the tunnel in a storage room of the house.” Grimy hands fluttered in a helpless gesture. “The tunnel was the only way, Luc. I’m sorry to have brought this upon you. We only wanted to escape Alain and the gendarmes.”

  A thudding sound came from beneath them: a series of musical knocks, just as Duncan had done. “Frères, brothers! It is I, Alain. Let me in!”

  The other Jacobins looked to Marron. His body twitched, his face torn by indecision. Too long the silence. After less than a minute, Delacorte snarled, clear for them all to hear, “Shoot the door at the edges. The center has lead weights.”

  Lisbeth was right; patience was not Delacorte’s forte and could be his downfall, if Duncan could make use of it—

  “You brought this on us!” Luc Marron’s kind face turned dark with accusation. He glared at Lisbeth and lifted the musket. “If I leave you here for him, he’ll be satisfied.”

  “You’d kill me for an accident?” she whispered, her eyes big with pleading. “If we hadn’t come, Luc, where would you be now? Facing the gendarmes yourself after Alain betrayed you. If I had been Genevieve—is she not my age?—would you allow anyone to shoot your daughter?”

  Marron’s gaze dropped. The musket wavered in his hands.

  Another thud came; an explosion sounded from below. The trapdoor’s farthest edge blew apart. The Jacobins yelped and jumped off the trapdoor as a high-pitched cry came from beneath, in jagged harmony. Back-shot could kill in enclosed spaces.

  Marron paled. “The wood won’t hold for long. Load it down with the old cannonballs in the corner!”

  Three men ran to do his bidding. Duncan snarled, “You know it won’t hold them for long. They’ll kill us all. Run!”

  Marron grabbed Lisbeth’s arm. “Bring him, and Raoul. Come to the boathouse via the south. I’ll take her by the north path and meet you there.”

  One man ran for the weights while the others looked around. One cried, “Raoul’s gone!”

  “This proves the treachery. Bring Borchonne to the clearing by the boathouse. Question him there.” Marron dragged Lisbeth out the door.

  She looked at Duncan, with all the irony he felt. You won’t be alone. You’re safe now. Within hours, his promise had become fool’s gold.

  Weaponless and surrounded by five armed men, Duncan had no choice. He let the men tie his hands and drag him out of the barn, running for the unknown boathouse. This Raoul who decamped so suddenly must be Alec or his twin, Cal, or some other damned Stewart he hadn’t yet met; but for the first time, he prayed for some Stewart meddling in his life.

  CHAPTER 13

  Somme River, North of Abbeville

  August 27, 1802

  AT THE DECREPIT BOATHOUSE a few miles north of Abbeville, Luc had dumped a rickety chair in front of the only window in the building, plumped Lisbeth down on it, and tied her hand and foot with boat rope; he had been questioning her for over an hour.

  It was one of those rare crystal-clear late summer days. Brilliant morning light penetrated the thin forest and poured through the dirty windows, searching out shadows, exposing secrets.

  If Alain were outside, he’d see her in seconds. Easy pickings, he’d say in a sneering tone.

  “Who’s the man you came with? What does he want with us? How long have you known about me?”

  Telling as much truth as she knew must be her best course, less chance of being caught in a lie. “His name is Gaston Borchonne. I met him last Tuesday night, when he stopped LeClerc and Tolbert from raping me behind the belfry of St. Vulfran’s. Then he became . . . a friend. You saw him last night talking to me at Le Boeuf?”

  Luc interrupted her in a harder tone than she’d ever heard from him. “Your private life is of no consequence to me. What does he want with us?”

  Even without her cloak, sweat trickled down her neck. Where was Duncan? “I told you, we only wanted to get away from Alain.”

  His hard slap rocked her head sideways. “I want the truth! What does your friend know about—” He closed his mouth, gaze darting to his compatriots.

  She almost laughed. After a year with Alain and working in Le Boeuf with some of the worst of the male species, did he think a piddling slap would break her? Make use of it. She forced a humble tone with fear pulsing through it, to make Luc despise her weakness and underestimate her. Just as Alain did. “Please don’t hurt me. I knew nothing about your group until we came up through the trapdoor this morning. We found LeClerc’s body on Gaston’s doorstep last night and escaped through the tunnel, which led us to you.”

  One of the other Jacobins who’d just walked in stopped and gasped. “LeClerc is dead?”

  She nodded. “His body was brought to Gaston’s door. I was with him the entire time. I know he didn’t do it.”

  Luc waved that off. “You ask me to believe you found a door to our tunnel, and it opened like magic?”

  The morning sun slanted in through the northeastern-facing window. Lisbeth watched the dust motes dance around her, trembling with exhaustion and apprehension. As a Jacobin—which he must be if he was Fouché’s man—surely Alain knew to come here as well as to the barn. How long did they have? “We dug an inch of dirt out of the crevices with knives and pulled hard before it opened. Gaston didn’t know it was there—”

  “He is not Gaston Borchonne, woman,” the Jacobin who’d entered the boathouse snarled. “I am Gaston’s second cousin. He has similar coloring and height, but Gaston’s ears stuck out from his head.”

  Luc’s arms folded over his chest. “So who is this man, and what does he want with us?”

  Her head pounded from lack of sleep. Her fingers and toes were numb from their bonds; she wriggled them, keeping ready for escape. “I only met him last week. He saved me, gave me the Borchonne name, and said I’d see him again. Tonight he came back. He told me he’d been in the Spanish navy, was a first lieutenant.”

  Luc peered into her face. “Do you know how I can tell you’re lying to me?”

  Play the helpless girl. Obey him. She shook her head, eyes wide.

  He smiled, cold and thin. “The same way I know you sometimes wonder if it would be worth it to go upstairs with the men who throw money at you. Your head drops a little and you blink when you say no.”

  Compared to Alain, Luc was a novice in the art of interrogation. Sighing, she met his triumphant gaze blankly. “I’m nineteen, Luc. I’ve been awake almost a whole day. I’ve seen a dead body, escaped gendarmes and Alain, thinking I was safe at last, only to fall into your laps. I’m falling asleep sitting up, my eyes are burning, and I’m too close to the window.”

  “The window?” one of the other Jacobins asked when Luc only scowled.

  She blinked again. “If Alain and the gendarmes are close by, they’ll shoot the window.”

  “Why?” Luc asked, sharp. “How would you know this?”

  She cursed herself for forgetting to play the ingénue. Men were only easy to manipulate if they believed she was a silly girl. “In the past week he’s had me beaten, tried to have me raped and accused of murder. I think Alain wants me dead without being implicated in the murder. In shooting the window, he could blame the gendarmes for killing me, or perhaps any of you here.”

  “He’s our brother. He wouldn’t betray us,” Luc snarled, not bothering with the rest of her tale. In post-Revolution, pos
t-Terror France, violence was still so commonplace it was rare if a woman hadn’t been beaten or raped and beaten at least once; and with Lisbeth being English, and of the aristocracy, of course she was a prime target.

  A helpless smile was her best weapon. “I’m sure you know best.” She let her lashes droop. A foolish mistake: a warm blanket of weariness covered her, whispering sleep.

  With a growl of frustration, Luc shook her and asked about the tunnel again, how she’d known to go looking for it.

  “Grand-mère told me about the tunnels created in the time of the battles of Rouen and Dreux. The Huguenots used them to escape from Catherine de’ Medici’s Inquisitors. Many of those escape tunnels began in the storage room beneath the stairs.” She yawned, making her eyes water. “I’m sorry, I’m so tired.” Since she was half asleep, she’d make use of it.

  “Where does the imposter live?” Luc demanded.

  She frowned as she tried to remember the number on the gate. Where had she gone?

  Damn her self-pitying stupidity the past year, a tired ghost drifting through life without a fight! Damn everyone in Abbeville, and damn Alain most of all. She wanted her baby. Whatever it took, she’d have Edmond. She’d play any part—she’d kill if she had to; but she refused to die.

  The creeping sense of being watched returned. She moved her head again, listening for any sound or movement. She tightened her body, ready to flip the chair.

  “Answer me, Elise! Where does the impostor calling himself Borchonne live?”

  Lisbeth shook herself, thinking hard. “It’s on the Quai de la Pointe—twenty-eight, I think,” she answered, but now the exhaustion wasn’t an act. Her head had turned dull and stupid. Every blink made it harder for her to open her eyes again.

  “He stayed in my family’s house,” the real Borchonne’s cousin muttered angrily.

  “Never mind that! Did your family build the house, and were they ever Huguenots? Is there a tunnel there?” Luc demanded of the other.

  As they argued among themselves, Lisbeth’s head drooped again. The Jacobins’ quarrel came warped, as if through water. Sleep beckoned her, a shepherd calling to his sheep. Though she tried to remain ready for attack, her chin touched her chest, and she drew a quivering breath. Cushioning darkness whispered its haunting tune.

  Boom! The window exploded. More musket fire came from the other side of the boathouse. Lisbeth flung the chair sideways a moment too late. Though the ball didn’t hit her, glass shards followed like a faithful lover. She cried out as broken glass embedded in her cheek, arm, and shoulder, near the neck. Blood ran down her face and arm, and there was a horrible, painful pulsing at her shoulder.

  Luc yelled, but she couldn’t understand him over the whooshing arcs like rushing water inside her head. Then the pulsing and the pain took her to blessed blackness.

  TIED HAND AND FOOT, Duncan was on the ground in a small clearing not far from the boathouse. This northern forest was thin, with several clearings. After being up all night and spending hours in the tunnel, the bright sunlight nearly blinded him.

  He’d endured an hour of their questions, slaps, and punches. They rapped out questions without giving a thing away—but they kept returning to one subject, harping and haranguing him about his face, and his family.

  That word gave away the reason for their paranoia. Alec must be here, but how he’d infiltrated the Jacobins so fast after dealing with Windham and the plot against the king . . .

  You fool! It’s not Alec. It must be Cal.

  The Jacobins had just brought out their knives, ready to cut, when the boom of muskets filled the air. Curse the Jacobins’ paranoia, separating him from Lisbeth! Duncan snarled at his captors, “Sounds like Delacorte reached the boathouse.”

  “Luc could be shooting your lady friend, Gaston Borchonne.” The man used his cover name mockingly, but his gaze shifted left.

  Acrid gunpowder smoke drifted over and around them. “All this smoke is coming from inside the boathouse? All those shots to kill one woman? I only met the lady a few days ago. I won’t miss her if she dies. I assume your attachment to your friends is strong enough to find out what’s happening?”

  The noise of exploding shot filled the dell, coming from the boathouse. The one in charge jerked his head; a young man ran off, crouching, holding his musket in front of him.

  All the Jacobins were on their feet, making sure their muskets were primed, the shot dry.

  One of the first maxims Duncan had learned as a spy was not to kick his enemy when he was down; the other was, show no weakness. He watched those watching him, working at his bonds, waiting for the right moment.

  The young man ran back in. “Delacorte and the gendarmes are shooting our brothers!”

  The men ran off, leaving Duncan alone to work on the triple-tied knots at his wrists.

  When Fouché hears of this debacle, Delacorte’s a dead man. To save his skin, Delacorte would have to kill every Jacobin here, kill them all, including the gendarmes left alive, and blame another group for it. Even then he wouldn’t have long to make himself worth keeping alive—

  Oh, the clever bastard. Delacorte would denounce Lisbeth as a British spy . . . and because she was Eddie’s daughter, Boney would give the story credence. Especially with Duncan here—his description had been given in a dozen or more plots through the years, only dropped because of the public alibis his half brothers Alec or Cal Stewart had given him.

  He pulled and tugged his hands, but though his skin ripped and bled, the ropes remained tight. He cursed the Jacobins in every language he knew for being so bloody efficient for once.

  “Here, lad, let me.”

  Duncan twisted around. A face hauntingly similar to his own was right behind him, with a mess of black half curls tied in a careless riband at his neck. Yes, he’d been right about why the Jacobins had treated him as an enemy at first sight of his face. But there were no scars on this man’s face. “You’re Cal.”

  “Aye, lad,” Alec’s twin said in a voice devoid of emotion as he cut Duncan’s bonds. “Good to meet you at last.”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re this Raoul the Jacobins talked of.”

  The Black Stewart handed Duncan a rifle. “I saw you come up from the tunnel and hotfooted it out of there. I found your men on the northern dock. They’re beneath the boathouse now, with a cache of handy weapons. I took these for us.”

  His hands and feet numb from the tight bonds, Duncan dropped the rifle Cal tossed at him. Seven barrels looked up at him, wedged tight together. “You can use a Nock? And what are you doing in Abbeville with the Jacobins?” After wriggling his hands and feet, Duncan checked out the barrels, bracing himself for the same kind of mummery Alec enjoyed.

  Cal shrugged and hauled Duncan to his feet. “Of course I can use a Nock. I wouldn’t have brought them otherwise. I infiltrated this group months ago. I found Delacorte a few weeks back, notified Zephyr, and gathered as much intelligence on Delacorte as I could.”

  Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “When did you receive your orders to come here?”

  “You’ll have to ask Zephyr about that.”

  Expecting more information was useless. Cal and Alec were as well trained as he.

  Heroes of the Glorious First of June sea battle in 1794, the Black Stewart twins had come to former spymaster William Wickham’s attention. Once Eddie gave his commanding officer the family history, the rest was inevitable. Three brothers with a close enough resemblance to give each other an alibi—one not known to be family, therefore even giving both the known twins an alibi—was too grand an opportunity for Wickham, and now Zephyr, to pass up.

  Alec, Cal, and Duncan: the three sons of Broderick Stewart, the last Jacobite hanged at Tyburn in 1772. Laird and Lady Stewart, stripped of home and title after their son’s disastrous participation in the Pretender’s claim to the British throne, had raised the twins Cal and Alec by any means possible. They were proud Stewarts with full heritage. The bastard Duncan was Baron Annersley
’s heir, bought and paid for through marriage to their father’s straw-damsel sweetheart, a chambermaid swollen with child. An English aristocrat to his fingertips, Annersley had his heir but treated Duncan as a necessary evil. Why were the Stewart brothers always protecting him? His birth had killed their father. What the hell could they possibly want from him?

  “I like the modifications you made to the Nocks, lad,” Cal said, inspecting them. “I’ve seen the full-bore pieces set ships on fire or break the shoulders of the shooters.”

  Duncan realized in resignation that Zephyr had found Lisbeth before he did. Could he never do anything simple, such as notify Duncan of the girl’s locale? “With only one round of shot in each of the barrels instead of two rounds, half the amount of gunpowder, and the wadding at the butt of the stock, it lowers the danger considerably. The wadding has India rubber for softer recoil.” He watched Cal bounce his hand against the rifle butt, wishing he was anyone but one of the twins that reminded him of his ancestry, the background Annersley had taunted him about all through his childhood. Only a royal bastard is acceptable, and Scottish royalty no longer exists, boy. You are nothing except what I make of you. Nobody else wants you.

  “Let’s go.” Duncan tossed the enormous rifle over his shoulder, the leather strap across his chest, and ran north along the river, in the wake of his former captors.

  The river carried bobbing pieces of walls, broken glass, and roof shingles on a sluggish tide. He ran faster. Another fifty yards, and a small, uneven dell opened up by the river. Standing at its southern edge, he took in the scene. What remained of the boathouse at the northern rim of the dell was a smoking ruin. Rocks and trees formed an odd semicircle around it, warm sunshine and the pall of shot lighting it in a ghastly halo. Parts of the walls on two sides exploded as he watched. The men who’d taken him were halfway to the hut, dead or dying, lying in dirt and pools of their own blood. Closer to the hut were the bodies of gendarmes. More bodies—presumably other Jacobins, he couldn’t identify each body at this distance—sprawled around where the walls and door of the boathouse had been.