Raven strode forward to inspect the statue and she squinted to see if her aim had been true. When she heard him curse she bit back a smile of triumph.
That should give the condescending pig something to think about.
She assumed an innocent expression as he returned. “How did I do?”
“You shot his fig leaf off!”
She opened her eyes wide in feigned surprise. “Really? I was aiming for his head.”
He took the pistol from her hand with a sardonic smile. “You can shoot.”
She tilted her head. “It would appear so.”
“Vixen. You could have told me.”
She shot him a jaunty smile, remembering what he’d said when she’d quizzed him about his ability to speak Spanish. “You never asked.”
He handed her the second pistol. “Bet you can’t do it again.”
“Bet you I can.” Heloise stepped up close and pressed the barrel of the pistol against his chest, directly over his heart. The air between them thickened at the sudden reversal of power. Heloise found it hard to breathe. He was so close she could feel the heat of him all the way to her bones, feel the strength of his chest against hers. With the pistol between them, death between them, she fought a heady sensation of control.
But instead of backing away, as she’d expected, Raven leaned forward and pressed his chest into the barrel, his eyes glittering in challenge. “You won’t shoot me, Hellcat.”
The amusement in his voice, the arrogant certainty, was beyond irritating.
“You think not?”
“I know you’re tempted, but think of the mess. At such point-blank range, you’ll blow a hole in my chest. You’ll be covered in my blood.”
Bile rose in her throat as she envisioned the warm spatter on her face, her hands. And yet a strange hunger curled low in her belly, too, as if blood and desire were somehow intertwined. She frowned at the contradiction. Raven’s gaze flicked down to her lips. Heloise tensed, expecting a kiss, but in a lightning move he grabbed the barrel of the gun and twisted it away to the side, wrenching her wrist. She released the weapon with a cry.
“You’re right,” she said, glaring at him as she rubbed her hand. “Shooting a statue is one thing, but I could never pull the trigger on a human being, however great the provocation,” she added meaningfully. The thought of using the weapon on another person made her nauseous. “I don’t believe aggression is the answer to everything.”
He glowered at her, as if she were a particularly vexing child. “Grow up, Heloise. You can’t fix everything with diplomacy. Sometimes the only thing that works is good, honest violence.” His brows lowered. “If the time ever comes when you need to use this in earnest, you will. You win by whatever means you can contrive. In war there are no rules. If you don’t win, you die. It’s that simple.”
Heloise jerked away from him, uncomfortable with the intensity in his eyes. This was one thing they would never agree on. She started walking back to the palace, and decided to steer the conversation to something less incendiary. “Major Scovell told me something interesting earlier. Did you know that we’re only three miles from Altamira? I had no idea it was so close.”
Raven shook his head. “What’s at Altamira?”
“A series of caves, only recently discovered. I read about them last year in the Journal of Anthropology.”
His lips twitched. “You’ll have to enlighten me. The Journal of Anthropology is not a publication I read with great frequency.”
She ignored his gentle teasing. “The walls of the caves are decorated with prehistoric paintings of wild animals. They could be even older than the pyramids.” She gave him her best pleading look, all wrinkled forehead and big eyes. “I would love to see it in person.”
He lowered his brows. “Absolutely not. I’m not your personal tour guide.”
She scowled at his high-handed attitude. “I don’t expect you to take me. I can take some of the soldiers as an escort.”
“You’re not going anywhere. It’s not safe. There are groups of bandits roaming the hills, all kinds of unsavory characters lurking around. Have you forgotten the attempt on your life?”
“Of course I haven’t. But that was back in England.”
“You’re no safer here.”
She let out a growl of frustration and quickened her pace. “You’re worse than my brothers.”
“Be sensible. I’m sworn to protect you. I can’t do that if I’m not with you.”
Righteous fury warmed her chest. “That’s all I am, isn’t it? An inconvenience. A duty.”
“You think I like this situation any better than you do?” He followed her, his steps loud on the gravel path. “This isn’t a game, Hellcat. Can’t you see I’m only trying to protect you?”
“No, you’re trying to make your own life easier, just like when we were young.”
—
Raven caught her by the arm and swung her round to face him, all his good humor gone. He narrowed his eyes and she shrank back. Good. He wanted her afraid. This was too important to be nice. He needed her to grasp how tenuous her safety really was. “Do you recall my code name?”
She remained stubbornly silent.
“It’s Hades. But sometimes I use the code name Anubis. You’re the scholar. What do you know of Anubis?”
She tossed her head. “He’s the god of the Underworld. The patron of lost souls.”
The hope in her eyes was like a kick to his stomach. She was so damned optimistic, looking for goodness in him that just didn’t exist. His temper rose. She didn’t have him on a pedestal, far from it, but he needed to extinguish the last rays of hope that he was at heart a good man. He was broken and bitter and lost beyond measure. Steeped so deep in the black mire of revenge that there was no way back to the surface.
“What else?”
She licked her lips. “He was the god of the darkness, of death. Of embalming.”
He dropped his voice to a menacing whisper. “And what does he do?”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “He escorts the souls of the dead to the afterlife.”
“Precisely.” He pressed forward. “What do you think I do, Heloise?”
“You’re a smuggler. A spy.”
He held her gaze. “And what do you think happened to the man who shot at you in the garden?”
Her eyes widened. “You said he rode away.”
He pinned her with his gaze, refusing to let her look away. “He didn’t.”
She made a choked noise. His chest constricted as first disbelief, then horror filled her expression. “You killed him?”
“He tried to kill you. My job is to keep you alive and I will do whatever is necessary. If I have to kill, then that’s what I’ll do.” There. He’d said it. The cold, unvarnished truth. He waited for her inevitable recoil.
“How many?” she whispered.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “I killed my first man at nineteen—one of the guards holding me hostage. After that I was recruited by Castlereagh and I’ve been at war for the past six years. I’ve never bothered to count.” He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t lose any sleep over the people I’ve killed. There might not be dragons anymore, but there are monsters, human monsters, who prey on the innocent and kill without mercy. Whatever you might think of me and my methods, it’s men like me who deal with them. It’s men like me who keep you safe.”
He watched wariness and fear creep into her eyes and cursed himself for putting it there, but she had to know what she was dealing with. “You are going to stay here and read those remaining codes. Do I make myself clear?”
She nodded, her face pale. She pulled free of his hands and scurried back to the library as if all the devils in hell were after her. Raven cursed. He hated to frighten her, but he knew he was right. Her safety was paramount.
Chapter 21
Georges Lavalle stood in the rain overlooking Raven’s empty dock and swore with impressive Gallic fluency.
“Fils de putain!”
Not only was his colleague dead, but the bungling amateur had failed to kill the English code-breaking bitch. Now he, Georges, had been sent to the far ends of this miserable, rain-sodden country to track down some scarred nitwit of a girl. Except she’d managed to escape, and it was no coincidence that it had happened at the property of her neighbor, Lord Ravenwood, the English spy known as Hades.
Georges knew Raven. They’d crossed paths on a handful of occasions in Europe over the past decade, never close enough to engage, but close enough to recognize each other by sight. The world of spying was relatively small. All the major European players had a reputation in the field, and Raven was no exception. His code name was appropriate. He was rumored to be a devil in a fight, unforgiving and merciless. Much like Georges himself.
He almost admired the bastard.
It had felt good cutting the throat of that London scholar, Edward Lamb. Georges smiled. Such a stupid name; he’d truly been like a lamb to the slaughter—he’d barely even put up a fight. The little lamb hadn’t bleated though. He’d stubbornly refused to reveal the location of their senior code-breaker in Spain.
Georges detested such pointless heroism. These stupid English, with their mad German king and their corpulent prince. They should have risen up and lopped off their ruler’s head years ago, as his brothers in France had done.
Georges sighed and huddled deeper into his greatcoat. Defeat left a bitter taste in his mouth and there wasn’t even a decent bottle of wine to be had in this piece-of-shit country to drown it out. It would be a pleasure to return to France, even if he’d have to tell Savary about his failure to find the Hampden bitch.
—
It took Heloise another few hours to translate the remaining coded messages, but they were no more helpful than the others, and she returned to her room and sank onto the bed, battling an overwhelming sensation of anticlimax. She plucked at the fringed cover of the bedspread. If only she could have done more, discovered where Kit was being held. But life was never that convenient, or that kind.
According to Scovell, Raven had gone to try to locate a contact who might have heard of the man called Alvarez. She had little hope that talking to his informants would yield any results. Alvarez was surely an extremely common Spanish name.
He hadn’t needed to be so bossy, either. Her irritation grew as she thought of his high-handed order to stay. As if she were a good little dog. Now that there were no more codes to read, she’d outlived her usefulness. No doubt Raven was wishing he could send her packing, on the next ship home. But of course he wouldn’t do that, because of his own perverse, self-appointed role as her protector.
A whisper of defiance unfurled in her chest. Raven had no right to order her around. She’d done everything he’d asked of her. Come with him to this godforsaken place. Translated his codes. Faced her worst fears in order to cross that dratted river.
The rest of her staid, conservative life stretched ahead of her like a prison sentence, an eternity of dutiful acquiescence and good, proper behavior. The faces of Lord Collingham and Lord Wilton floated in her mind and her defiance coalesced into resolve. She was not under arrest. She’d come here of her own free will. Sort of.
This was her last chance for an adventure.
She found Scovell in his study, deep in a weighty tome on linguistics. He glanced up with an absentminded frown.
“Well then, my dear, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve been thinking I might visit the caves at Altamira. With your permission, I’d like to borrow some men to escort me.”
“Would Lord Ravenwood mind, do you think?”
Heloise tossed her head. “Lord Ravenwood has no interest in seeing the caves.” That, at least, was perfectly true. “Since there are no more messages to translate, I’ll be returning to England shortly, and I would like to see the caves before I go. I want to see whether there are any visual similarities between these pictograms and Egyptian hieroglyphs.”
Scovell gave a genial shrug. “What an interesting idea. Well, I suppose they aren’t too far. Only a few miles. If you leave now you’ll be back before sundown.” He gave her a twinkling, paternal smile. “And I’m sure the men would be more than happy to oblige you. Squiring a pretty lady around the place is bound to be far more popular than guard duty,” he chuckled.
Heloise’s escort turned out to be the skinny youth who’d served them tea, whose name was Private Canning, and his superior officer, an enormous Irishman with twinkling eyes and a nose that was permanently squashed to the side, called Sergeant Mullaney.
She smiled in delight as they rode out of the city gates, reveling in the open air, and quashed a twinge of guilt at disobeying Raven’s orders. He’d been exaggerating the danger to frighten her into obedience, and besides, she had two strong, armed men with her.
She turned to her escorts, curious to learn more about people so far removed from her own usual social circle. “So, Private Canning? How long have you been in the army?”
The young man jumped in surprise at being directly addressed and she watched in amusement as a tide of red crept up his neck and over his cheeks. His voice cracked a little as he spoke.
“ ’Bout a year, miss. Joined up right after Waterloo, I did.”
His accent, she noted, was pure East London. “And what did you do before you were in the army?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I were a palmer, miss.”
Heloise frowned, mystified. “What’s that?”
Canning looked down sheepishly. “A pickpocket,” he mumbled.
Heloise laughed in delight. “Oh! Were you really? How fascinating! I’ve never met a pickpocket before.” She really should have included something like this on her list. Make disreputable acquaintances whenever possible.
Canning had clearly anticipated disapproval because he looked a little surprised at her enthusiasm. “I never stole from anyone who’d earned their money,” he defended quickly. “Only rich bucks too stupid to hide their cash. Flaunting it, come to town to blow their allowance. They could afford it. All they lost out on was a new cravat or an extra bottle of claret. I needed the blunt for the doctor, ’cause me mum was sick.”
Heloise bit back a smile. He was just like Raven, with his warped sense of morality. Both had dubious notions of right and wrong, but an oddly pure code of ethics. It was an intriguing contradiction. Besides, who was she to disapprove of someone trying to care for their sick family? She’d probably have done the same thing.
“I weren’t one of ’em sneeze lurkers, neither.” Canning wrinkled his nose in disdain. “That’s them wot throws snuff in a mark’s face. I had skills, me.” He held up one thin hand and wiggled his fingers. “Lightest touch in St. Giles.”
His cockney accent became more pronounced as he reminisced.
“What did you steal?”
“ ’Ankerchiefs mostly. They’re not attached to belcher chains, like watches, see. Easy to sell, too. Unless they got letters on.”
“Letters? Oh, you mean an embroidered monogram,” Heloise said. “How exactly do you go about it?”
“First you got to pick the right place. Somewhere there’s lots of jostlin’, like a fair or a market. Public executions were always good. Then you make one big contact with your mark—bump into ’im hard on the shoulder, say, or trip and fall up against ’im. He’ll be so busy concentratin’ on that, he won’t notice your ’and in ’is pocket. It’s misdirection, see?”
“I see,” Heloise said, enthralled.
“I got a good face for it, too. I look much younger than I am. All innocent, like.” Canning shot her a cheeky grin. “No one never suspected me. If they grabbed me, I’d just furrow my brows and act like I was scared, or about to cry, and suddenly I was the victim. Most of the marks ended up apologizing for bumping into me!” He chuckled, utterly unrepentant.
“So why did you stop?”
He shrugged his thin shoulders. “A few of me mates got
nabbed and sent to the Clink. I realized it was only a matter of time before I ended up there, too. After Waterloo the army was cryin’ out for new recruits—they’d lost so many men, you see, and they was offerin’ regular pay and decent meals, so I signed up.” He sniffed eloquently. “It’s not so bad, really.”
Sergeant Mullaney’s hearty laugh interrupted him. “Young Canning thinks it’s deadly dull here.”
Canning scowled. “I didn’t join the army to sit around doin’ nothin’. I still ’aint never seen no action. Never even fired my gun, ’cept in practice.” He glumly patted the long-barreled rifle slung over his shoulder.
Mullaney shrugged. “Better peace than war. Give me dull over exciting any day.”
“ ’S all right for you. You’ve been in hundreds of battles.”
Mullaney leaned across and gave Canning’s hair an affectionate ruffle then he turned to Heloise. “A slight exaggeration. But I’ve seen some action, right enough.”
“Mullaney was in the division.” Canning whispered the words with reverence, his face worshipful.
Heloise frowned. “And, ah, what’s that?”
“The light division,” Canning explained with a touch of asperity.
Mullaney nodded. “Seven years in the 52nd Light Infantry, I was. Under Colonel Colborne.”
“Goodness. You must have seen a lot of fighting.”
“Yes, ma’am. Corunna was my first taste of it, back in ’09. Got nicked on my arm at Ciudad Rodrigo in 1812.” He rolled up his sleeve to show a long, jagged scar. “But I was good for Toulouse and Bayonne, and then of course Waterloo, this time last year.”
Heloise regarded him with new respect. “What was it like? Waterloo?”
Canning nodded, his face eager. “It must have felt pretty fine to give Boney ’is last good thrashing.”
Mullaney’s eyes took on a faraway look, as if he’d turned his gaze inward. Heloise recognized that expression. Raven had it sometimes, when he spoke about his imprisonment.
“I was at the farm at Quatre Bras.” Grim lines bracketed Mullaney’s mouth. “That first French cannonade lasted for two hours. Then came the cavalry. Lads were dropping like flies. The ground was churned up, all trampled crops and corpses of men and horses.”
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