The Spymaster's Lady sl-1

by Joanna Bourne

  “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 colle
agues 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?”

  She could say nothing at all. It was a deadly dance she made with Leblanc. They held each other by the throat. She accused him of nothing. In return, he would keep his silence about Vauban and that day in Bruges.

  Soulier’s eyes never left her face. “You do not care to speculate? No? That is interesting, I think. And what is this?” A servant girl, an English by the look of her, entered and stooped to whisper a few words in Soulier’s ear. “How rumor bestirs herself in this town of London. You are sought.”

  “Leblanc?”

  He had come to kill her. He would take her from this parlor out to the streets and kill her.

  “Do not look like the stricken doe, Annique. I shall not let him stain these pretty carpets with your blood. Instead, I shall ask him why he does extraordinarily stupid things here in my island kingdom.” He listened again to the maid, then gave her quiet orders. “Leblanc is only the first of our morning callers. Your lover, Grey, approaches as well, almost upon Leblanc’s heels.”

  Grey had found her. She fought the sudden, absurd relief that filled her. This was not rescue. It was confusion beyond belief.

  The cane in Soulier’s hands inscribed a neat circle on the floor. “This will be entertaining. I must admit Grey to this house. I am the open agent in England and here under his sufferance, so I must behave myself.”

  “You should send him away. He is dangerous.”

  “He is that, certainly. But perhaps he will chat with me about Leblanc’s schemes, since you have so little interest.”

  At the front of the house, doors opened and closed. She tried to imagine what would happen when these three spymasters met and could not, except that she would probably die at the hands of Leblanc. All was disaster and unbridled turmoil. There was no plan she could conceive for dealing with it.

  Then Leblanc entered the room, and she was so simply terrified she could not think at all.

  “Jacques.” Soulier’s voice was noticeably cool. His men, waiting quietly in the background, became alert. “You condescend to visit me. Come. Babette shall prepare coffee for you as well. Or if you would prefer wine—”

  “I have come for Annique. Give her to me, and I go.”

  Leblanc held his right arm stiffly to his chest. So it pained him still, where she had put her knife into him. His face was pasty against the dark English coat he wore. But it was not wholly pain that made him pale. He was in great fear. Was it that Grey was moments behind him? Or did he think she had broken her silence about what had happened in Bruges? He should know she would not betray Vauban.

  Soulier said meditatively, “You are abrupt tonight, Jacques. And yet I find we have much to discuss. There is the matter of the attack upon the headquarters of the British Service—”

  “I have no time to prattle with an old man. I am an officer of the First Consul of France. I do not concern myself with appeasing English spies. When France is threatened, I take action. I—”

  “And I am an old man,” Soulier said, “who does not enact dramas at three in the morning. You see Annique? She sits with Fouché’s death order hanging above her and this irresponsible knifing in alleyways you attempt. She does not play me melodramas at this ungodly hour. Sit down.”

  “Annique is mine.” His eyes said he had come to kill her. “Assigned to me by Fouché. Do not come between me and what is mine, Soulier.”

  “Pah! You are upon my territory, you and your men you have brought to England without my permission or my knowledge. You have done various insane actions in my domain. You shall explain them to me, and perhaps I will not raise my voice loud enough to be heard in Paris.”

  “Do not cross me. I have an agent to discipline and a death order to—”

  The door opened, and Grey came in.

  He had come to her, here in the bastion of his enemies. He wore the authority of his office and the controlled deadliness of a soldier. He had never looked more menacing.

  Soulier inclined his head. “Monsieur Grey, I bid you welcome. You will forgive me for not rising. It is an old trouble with a wound. You have come to assure yourself that Annique has come safely through the perils of the night. As you see, she is unhurt.”

  Ignoring him, Grey stalked forward.

  Unperturbed, Soulier continued, “I make you my sincere and humble apology for the damage to your headquarters. Do not, I beg of you, send men to enact the same stupidity upon us in Paris. It is the work of this one crétin who ram-pages madly in England. He will be brought under proper control.”

  Grey lifted her half out of her chair to kiss her, passionately and possessively, hard upon her mouth. It surprised her, but she was more immediately concerned with receiving and hiding the knife he passed to her. As a declaration of affection, the knife did as well as any number of kisses.

  His expression was murderously grim. If he killed someone, she hoped it would be Leblanc.

  “Why is he here?” Leblanc’s voice rose to a squeak. He stabbed his finger at Grey, sputtering. “What are you doing? What are you plotting with this Englishman? You accuse me of madness. This is the madness.” He looked from man to man, at the circle of Soulier’s agents. “Remove this Englishman. I have Fouché’s authority, and I say this.”

  No one moved. Soulier said, “You will doubtless explain why you give orders in my house, Jacques.”

  “It is you who overstep yourself. Even you cannot consort openly with English spies. You make treason here.”

  “I do the unusual, perhaps, but I feel in my bones this is an unusual night. Monsieur Grey and I know one another of old, though we have not met face-to-face…as you did when you held him in your cellar in Paris.”

  Leblanc spat on the rich carpet.

  Soulier smiled. “Does Fouché know you held the Head of the British Section and had not the wit to recognize him? We will hope he is in a good mood the day he hears that.”

  Leblanc was red now as he had been pale before. “My position is secure. Do not challenge me, old man. I have become a power in France, the confidant of Fouché.”

  “Then perhaps Fouché will be sympathetic of your blunders.”

  Soulier and Grey exchanged cool glances. “Jacques is correct in this much. This is unprecedented, what we do here. Tonight we step out of our assigned roles, you and I, and f
ace one another. I am a man who has no love of the bizarre. What my colleague so rudely demands, I ask more politely. What do you come here for?”

  “Annique.”

  “You may not have her. You must realize that.”

  Grey said, “This is England, Soulier.”

  “And the woman Carruthers is your agent in Paris. Let us not speak of force. You will not enter my stronghold and remove my agents. In return, the woman Carruthers will knit placidly in her white house with blue shutters in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It has been understood for a decade between Galba and Fouché that one square upon the board shall be sacrosanct in each capital. This is ours. Annique stays with me.”

  “She’s not safe.” Grey jerked his thumb at Leblanc. “That bastard’s going to kill her.”

  “Not within my house.” Soulier touched fingertip to fingertip, his elbows on the padded arms of the chair. “Monsieur Grey, no harm will come to Annique. With the death of her mother, and my old friend Vauban dead as well, I stand as protector to her. I will let no…”

  Vauban? What had he said? It cannot be true. She felt the room jar, as if it were a carriage that had stopped suddenly. “Vauban is dead?”

  They stopped and looked at her. Grey said, “You didn’t know?”

  Soulier said carefully, “For weeks now. Did you not hear? The last day of July. He died peacefully in his sleep, my child. His years were fulfilled. We were—”

  Gunfire cracked. A shock. Heat stung her cheek. She was on the floor, flat on her face, with no memory of throwing herself there. Gunpowder hung in the air. She had not been hit. She felt no pain, only cold and fear.

  Frantic scuffling. The thud and grunt of men fighting. A chair clattered. The pistol bounced across the floor.

  Soulier was on his feet, his cane revealed as a thin sword blade. His guards stood in front of him, shielding him.

  Leblanc pulled his knife. In a blur of speed, Grey wheeled and kicked and connected. La savate. She had not known Grey was a savateur. Leblanc staggered and screamed and launched himself upon Grey, stabbing.