The Tide Watchers

by Lisa Chaplin

  If he didn’t sell it for funding, that is. On marriage, her property becomes his.

  No, he wouldn’t tell Fulton a thing about her. She deserved a chance to find a man who wanted more than work, sex, and her money. If Fulton only wanted her as a mistress—and he’d shown that by his lack of respect in his half offer—it was obvious he didn’t know who she was.

  If she returned to England unmarried, she’d be the one to pay the price for being a young girl deceived. In their world, women suffered the consequences for their bad choices, but rarely men—and that wasn’t about to change while even so few men had the vote.

  He pushed the note into his pocket. She’d made herself very clear: she wouldn’t take Fulton to bed without her son’s safety assured. Rescue efforts had to be redoubled.

  Unconscious of his observation, Lisbeth slipped into the house. Candlelight wavered in her room, soon snuffed. Either she’d avoided Fulton or refused him her bed. Duncan wasn’t surprised. Since he’d met her, he’d only seen her holding to the morals her mother raised her by. She’d been born a lady, and a lady she’d remained, no matter what Delacorte put her through. She wouldn’t take Fulton to her bed for gain, or duty. Perhaps not even for her child.

  He wrote on the back of the note:

  At last report, Delacorte has half a dozen hired men surrounding the house. Cal and his men have had no chance to take the boy, but Cal managed to speak to his wet nurse. She is willing to come with the child. Cal has four men, and given Delacorte’s recent reverses, I doubt he can afford to keep six men there for long.

  He gritted his teeth and forced himself to write the next words.

  My brother has sworn to save your son. If you do not trust me, madame, trust him.

  CHAPTER 28

  Rue de Miromesnil, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, France

  September 24, 1802

  GEORGY FLUNG HERSELF INTO her dressing-table chair and unpinned her hair. It had been another long night at the Tuileries. She longed for John to come to her, to hold her and say he was going to end this madness. But it was night; he wouldn’t risk her reputation that way, or give Napoleon any reason to suspect her.

  At least Mama’s blatant matchmaking attempts to men of the highest estate worked in Georgy’s favor. John, a duke, had entry to the house at any decent time, but Camelford, a mere baron, couldn’t get time alone with Georgy. Not that he was courting her. No, he’d made it very clear all he wanted was to discover what she’d learned.

  So while Camelford kicked his heels, getting madder than a hornet by the day, she and John spent hours talking, laughing, playing games, and exchanging information.

  “I’m no agent for the British government, just someone who may enter the Tuileries any night I choose. Because of my unique position as Francis’s brother, I have a perceived right to watch over you,” he’d told her on his first visit. “Even Napoleon accepts it. That’s how it was put to me, and why I made a sudden decision to come to Paris.”

  Though the admission hurt a little, Georgy felt the warmth fill her cheeks. “I’m glad you came, for whatever reason,” she’d murmured, unable to look at him.

  “I, too,” he’d said softly, and the words felt more intimate than a touch. “I wish to always be honest with you. But for now it must be this way, Georgiana. You will be the new interest of the first consul, and I your brother-protector and hopeless lover.”

  The word lover made her blush harder. “You know . . . Francis and I . . .”

  “I know. Francis told me.” He took her hand and patted it, smiling. “It’s quite all right.”

  Night after night they played the charade at the Tuileries. Napoleon was too busy to see her through the day, and she assured him she didn’t expect it, though he sent her several exquisite gifts. Friendly from the first evening, Madame Bonaparte invited her to several gatherings. When there, Josephine asked the oddest questions, which Georgy always tried to answer with truth. John attended these functions also, though he rarely approached her, and never for private conversation.

  By night she was Napoleon’s, seated beside him at dinner, dancing with him as much as French society dictated was proper. Eugene de Beauharnais had faded into the background, finding another rich young lady to pursue. And the whispers had spread across the Channel to the London gossip rags, which all raved about a certain, half-naked Lady G—G— (ooh, delicious, my dear! Could the G be Godiva?) becoming the next Madame Bonaparte.

  And all to no purpose: Napoleon told her nothing worth repeating.

  But tonight she finally had something to tell. She ached for John with a fierce longing. If only he could sense it—

  A tap at her window filled her with unexpected joy. Could it be—surely it must—? She ran over, threw up the sash—then her heart tumbled to her slippered feet, seeing the harsh-featured face glaring up at her. “I hear you have something to tell me, Lady Georgiana. I suggest you come down, or I’ll come up to you.”

  He didn’t need to say more. To get what he wanted, he’d ruin her reputation without a second thought. She nodded and slipped out of her room. The footman she’d suspected of being in Camelford’s pay opened the front door for her, handing her a cloak.

  She threw it on and pulled the hood over her loosened hair—but even if she were discovered with him en déshabillé, she’d accept ruin rather than be forced to wed a boor like Camelford.

  He met her within three steps of leaving the house, and grabbing her arm, pulled her out into the middle of the street. Looking down his nose at her in the light of the streetlamps, he looked terrifying. “Well?”

  She lifted her brows. “What makes you think I have anything to tell?”

  Camelford sighed harshly. “Don’t try my patience, Lady Georgiana. I’m not telling you how I know, only that I do. Do you have a date?”

  She shook her head.

  His face grew darker. “Then I’ll get word to the first consul that you’ve been meeting the Duke of Bedford by day, and you’re a suspected agent of the British Alien Office.”

  The threat wasn’t empty. Camelford didn’t care about her, or John, or the British Alien Office; he cared only about his agenda. “Why should he listen to you? Why should he believe you, after Apr—” She faltered there, for in his face was a promise of violence. And in his fists.

  “I don’t care either way. He’ll get rid of you just in case, and will probably toss out every English visitor to France on the strength of it. How will my cousin feel about that?” When she hesitated, torn, he snapped, “The famous Madame Jeanne Recamier is the British spy known as The Incomparable. I’d wager Boney doesn’t know her identity here either—but by Jupiter, he will. I’ll take out a half page in all the Paris newssheets if I must.”

  Her resistance collapsed. She was no agent or femme fatale, just a girl alone and out of her depth. Quivering, hating him more than she’d ever hated anyone, she turned and hurried inside the house, feeling soiled . . . and a failure to her country.

  “DAMN IT!” CAMELFORD MUTTERED, seeing his best chance at discovery fleeing into her house—and guts to garters, the stupid chit would take care never to be alone again.

  Women were a waste of air in the world, apart from breeding the next generation. They ought to be confined to the house until and after they married, not interfering in matters beyond their comprehension.

  “Lord Camelford,” came a low voice from behind. Camelford whirled, pulling out his stick sword from his cane—

  How it came to be lying on the ground three feet behind him, he didn’t know, but he looked at the skinny rat who had approached him with more wary respect. “What is it you want?” he snapped, rubbing his throbbing wrist.

  “My master would like a few words with you,” the rat said softly, his eyes peering up and down the road.

  About to consign the rat master to hell, Camelford forced himself to swallow the words, and ask, “Who is your master?”

  The rat smiled. “He said to tell you he has the date and time you
seek. Come.” And he led the unresisting Camelford onto a nondescript coach, heading to the north of the Île de la Cité.

  CHAPTER 29

  Wimereux (Channel Coast)

  September 24, 1802

  BOOM-BANG—THE DEEP RESOUNDING THROUGH the scrubby forest told a tale Duncan, waiting at the cross paths just inside Wimereux for Argenteuil to return, didn’t want to hear.

  A second boom came from a different weapon. The echoes of both returned to him in waves, pulsing like changing tides; then there was nothing but the howling of air currents moving in from the Channel. The boy must be dead, and he must let the body rot on a forest path in France, as if he didn’t matter to anyone. It was time to run.

  The dead are unimportant; deal with the living: this was the inflexible rule in his world. Disobeying orders could bring death to hundreds, even thousands. He’d left dozens of bodies to rot or sink beneath the waves, with a silent prayer to God to take care of them.

  This time his prayer felt blocked by the voice of his conscience.

  Damn the girl for changing him. Ever since he’d seen her lying in her own blood, she’d stopped being a faceless sacrifice for her country. Her near death made him sick to his stomach. Pushing her at Fulton when she was so delicate robbed him of sleep. The scar on her face made him second-guess every risk he’d asked her to take.

  She wasn’t just “the girl,” or Eddie’s daughter making the acceptable sacrifice. Fragile and brittle, terrified and still trying to fulfill a mission that went against every principle she’d been raised by—willing to destroy herself to save her baby—she’d become Lisbeth: a damned little heroine in his eyes.

  Now Argenteuil had become Símon, and he was young, so brave and young.

  Damn it. He ran down the path toward where the fading explosion still echoed.

  “Hold, lad. The Frogs’ll be on us in a minute.”

  Without thinking, Duncan pulled his pistols, loaded and cocked . . . then the accent penetrated. The man came into view, a great hulking brute in a black cloak, carrying the boy.

  Duncan scowled. By the scar near his ear, it was definitely Alec Stewart this time. He ought to have known the man would keep interfering.

  Stewart slipped into a barely noticeable side path off the major one, heading northeast. “This way, lad, or they’ll know the boy’s not alone.”

  Gritting his teeth, Duncan moved onto the side path. When Stewart crouched down behind scrubby growth, he followed suit. “You were supposed to stay in England,” he whispered.

  Stewart grinned. “Zephyr sent me as backup, lad; you knew he would. Now come on.”

  He barely heard. “Why you and Cal both keep involving yourselves with me—”

  Stewart turned on him, frowning. “You’ve met Cal? Where is he?”

  Duncan frowned, wondering why Stewart didn’t know where his own twin was. “He was in Abbeville until a month ago, infiltrating the Jacobins.”

  “Ready to protect you at a moment’s notice, you mean,” Stewart muttered. “It’s why we joined the cause in the first place.”

  Duncan sighed in frustration. Bloody Zephyr with his plots and plans, using all three brothers as each other’s alibi. The spymaster would use, destroy, and toss away all of them if it meant peace for Britain. “I didn’t force either of you to become my alibi, nor to become the Destroyer Twins—Apollyon,” he murmured, mocking their code names: Apollyon and Abaddon.

  Following his usual manner of ignoring Duncan’s hostility, Stewart only shrugged. “So where is Cal?”

  “He’s in Eaucourt, trying to rescue—”

  “Your lass’s son,” Stewart filled in when he hesitated, sounding exasperated. “Bloody idiot thinks he’s Jason and all the Argonauts together. Has he got backup at least?”

  Duncan nodded, refusing to discuss Lisbeth. “Three of my men.”

  Stewart peered around the bushes onto the path. “Whoever shot the boy must have gone for reinforcements first.”

  “Give me the boy,” Duncan whispered fiercely.

  With Argenteuil cradled in his arms, Stewart grinned. “And have you run off when I have the pleasure of your company?” Alec pulled some rags from his cloak and began wadding the boy’s injury, high on his chest.

  Duncan ground his teeth. “Do you wear that cloak to make fun of me?”

  “No, lad, I do it to protect you,” he retorted in a gentle scold, just like a brother. Like Leo treated Andrew.

  Duncan kept his aching jaw clamped until he could control it. “There’s a rumor that one of the Destroyer Twins is being implicated in the rue Saint-Nicaise killings of 1800. I know it wasn’t me. So was it you or Cal?”

  Argenteuil’s wound was strapped down tight. Stewart’s head tilted. “So my brother’s Cal, but I’m not Alec?”

  “Answer the question, damn you.”

  Stewart shrugged. “It was me.”

  The three words carried a world of unspoken ghosts: a silent symphony of requiems, each one with his or her face. It seemed Duncan had more in common with this unwanted half brother than he’d have believed only minutes ago. He opened his mouth, but closed it. What was there to say? This Destroyer Twin carried more pain than his laughing mask showed, and he of all people ought to have known that.

  “Hush now,” Stewart whispered, cocking his head down the path. The thuds of booted feet came and slowly faded. Both men stayed still for several minutes in case they returned.

  Stewart looked down at Símon’s wound. “The boy needs more help than I can give.”

  “Give him to me.” Duncan held his arms out.

  Stewart shook his head. “Are you aware there’s talk about incarceration of all foreigners—especially those on the Channel Coast? A British spy was shot in Boulogne-sur-Mer the other day. Boney’s visit must be close, and Fulton’s getting a name here. They don’t know your lass is English yet, but it will soon be dangerous for her.”

  “A British spy was shot in Boulogne?” Duncan asked sharply, stomach sinking.

  “A dark-haired man, midtwenties. He was yours?” With a heavy heart, Duncan nodded. Stewart said quietly, “I’m sorry, lad. They threw his body in the river outside the city walls with a chain around his neck, calling him a British spy seeking Boney’s life.”

  Poor Peebles. Duncan struggled to think. Who’d found Peebles, and more important, what had he given away? Who’d given him over? Was it the rat in his team who’d given Peebles’s name to the French?

  “I intercepted a semaphore from Boulogne two days ago,” Stewart whispered. “Did you receive notice of it?”

  Duncan shook his head wearily. Confirmation received of that damned double agent on his ship, but at least he had a definite lead now: he could check which of his signalers was on duty at the time. “What did it say? What time was it?”

  “It’s all written here.” With a short struggle, Stewart managed to pull out a wad of paper wrapped in oilskin. “All the details are there. Only you could tell if it’s from your man or not.”

  Duncan pocketed it with brief thanks. “We have to get Símon to help first.”

  Lisbeth. Símon. Peebles. Had Camelford made it inside Boulogne? Would the next body be that of a cheeky, red-haired Cockney cabin boy with an uncanny eye for trouble?

  All raw recruits under twenty-five, all sacrificed in the name of king and country. Would the king ever know their names? Would their names be on lists of national heroes?

  Wishing his team was anywhere but here, Duncan muttered, “Did Zephyr send you?”

  “He asked me to keep an eye on the situation. Somebody has to scuttle the assassination if Fulton and your lass are to stay safe.”

  It sounded odd the way his fluent French was interrupted by the totally Scottish lass. “I thought you weren’t Zephyr’s—quote—‘puppet’ any longer, Stewart. And don’t use the words of your nation, it gives us away,” he said coldly.

  The smile was evident in the other’s voice. “We go this way, lad.” With that, Stewart led the way
through the eastern side of the scrub, off the main path onto a small creek bed. They trudged in silence, avoiding slippery rocks and pools of water. Then Stewart looked at him, eyes somber. “This has rattled you, hasn’t it—the boy’s injury? You’re blaming yourself for it?”

  “Who else is there to blame?” Duncan whispered fiercely. “I sent him.”

  They stopped off to one side of the creek. Stewart sat down, cradling the boy in his arms. “He chose his path,” Stewart said, voice gentle.

  “He had no idea. He’s twenty-two.” Duncan looked down at the boy, with the pale stillness that comes before death. Lisbeth had survived it by the miracle of Clare’s knowledge, but Clare wasn’t here. “Peebles was twenty-five. I sent him into Boulogne, and now he’s dead. Símon had only five months’ training, and he’s been shot. I should have gone—I’m the experienced agent.”

  “How old were you on your first mission—seventeen?” Stewart shot him an intense look. “How old is the girl you sent to Fulton? How much training did she receive, a week, two? I note you don’t suffer the same pangs of conscience over her, yet she’s younger, and nearly died only a few weeks ago. Do you not worry about her because you expect her to work on her back?”

  Duncan’s hands curled into quick fists—

  One of Stewart’s arms came out from holding the boy and flashed across his chest, blocking the attack. “No, damn you, answer me! Why the hell are you making a whore of that poor girl? Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

  He snarled back, “Like the fifty victims of the rue Saint-Nicaise? How old was the youngest child that died—seven? How do you justify your duty that day?”

  Stewart whitened. “I don’t.” Two words slamming a door on a house full of ghosts.

  He hadn’t expected to feel so shamed. Duncan lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry.”

  “I am too. You’ll never know how much.” Looking into Duncan’s face, Alec didn’t bother to hide the suffering. The damage.

  So that’s why he resigned from the Alien Office. Duncan hated the insight. He didn’t want to like Alec Stewart, and he didn’t want to empathize with him.