by Baird Wells
“Tyler!”
The voice was far away. It came from beyond the fish-lipped noises of Lamott’s pulverized face. Somewhere else, beyond his immediate awareness, were shouts from further down the alley.
“Tyler, stop. Stop!” Olivia's arm hooked him from behind, dragging him, tipping him off of Lamott's chest, who now lay still. “Leave him! They're going to lynch us.” Her words were a whispered sob. “Leave him, we have to go.”
Holding out his hands, Ty examined the flaps of skin at his knuckles, Lamott's blood smeared with his own. Enthusiastic crimson fans painted his shirt front, smeared into trails along the fronts of his thighs. Murmurs grew closer, reaching a buzzing pitch, the last sounds before an agitated crowd degenerated into a violent mob. Olivia hauled on his arm again, lips trembling. “Please, Ty. Get up.”
Gears snapped together in his brain. Ty came back together, and the fog of rage evaporated. Unfolding, he grabbed Olivia's arm, pulling her behind him between the buildings.
She panted, struggling, and clutched her side. “They’re gaining!”
Winded, he flattened against the wall, shoving her past. “Run, Olivia. Just run.”
* * *
Olivia hunched, gasping, stealing glances over her shoulder while Ty hammered for all he was worth on Grayfield's townhouse door. Most of the rabble had broken off several streets back, once they realized exertion beyond simple beating would be involved. But three ragged men with the look of resurrected sailors, Lamott's men if she had to guess, pressed on after them. They were just coming into sight now, cresting a low slope in the road.
Finally, a tumbler grated behind her, and a creased eye pierced them through the crack.
Ty hammered a fist against the frame. “Piers, by God, let us in.”
The door shot back fast enough that it might have been on springs. Piers, who more resembled a statue of a butler than any living domestic servant, swept one long-fingered hand. His words were even as a lake on a still day. “Inside, Major Burrell. Inside.”
“Thank God.” Ty crooked his head her way. “Olivia, in quick.”
She couldn't stand, couldn't straighten against the stitch in her side, and high piercing cramps radiated from the spot beside her navel where Lamott's blow had landed. With one arm she reached for Ty, clutching her belly with the other. Bracing a hand on the second step, Olivia tried to push her way up. Instead, her knees went slack and struck the stone walk. The men were closer, she could hear their shouts. “Go in,” she rasped, waving at Ty. “Leave me.”
“Like hell I will,” Ty said, but before he could move, Piers reappeared at the door. He waved a hand, urging Ty to the side. The voices behind her grew louder, more urgent.
A loud report deafened her and sulfur filled her nose, stealing her scant breath. The voices ceased. Hurried footsteps faded away at her back, drowned by the murmur of an excited crowd. Piers held the top stair, smoking pistol in his hand, staring like an eagle-eyed duelist at the fleeing thugs.
Falling further onto the cool steps, Olivia opened her mouth. She wanted to say something to Ty, to Piers. Her stomach lurched. She turned her head, vomiting into the door yard.
Blood. The coppery taste coated her tongue, and she spit out a red gob to clean her mouth. She opened her eyes to a crimson stain soaking the wiry brown grass.
“Oh God, Olivia. Come here.” Ty's arms were around her, hauling her up. He was trying to help, but the pressure set her gut on fire.
“Stop!” she managed, flailing until she'd gotten an arm around his neck. He lifted her quickly, staring down at her in desperation. “Just...” Swallowing back another wave, she cocked a head toward the door. “Go.”
* * *
Piers, surprisingly efficient for a man normally so glacial, had taken the matter in hand before they were settled in the study. While a cook’s boy was sent for the physician, his mistress in the kitchen was instructed by Piers to get them food with ‘unprecedented’ haste.
Ty wasn’t certain Piers’ employer was so satisfied with his progress. Ethan, well aware they’d been missing for two days, called for lunch, only to be defeated. He wiped palms over his trousers after a single glimpse of Olivia’s raw fingertips, lacerated face, and bloody spit painting her chin. Pounding on the desk, he’d barked for a doctor, only to be greeted with a sigh and Piers’ thin lips murmuring against his ear that it was already done. Ethan paced, swore, and chastised them, lowering his tone each time he turned and caught another look at Olivia’s wounds.
Finally, more discomposed than Ty had seen him in a long while, Ethan returned to sit at his desk, shifting agitated against his chair. “You can imagine my concern, I am sure, upon hearing dragoons had come and gone with La Porte and that a pair of my agents was missing.”
Ty swallowed and held his tongue, knowing Grayfield well enough to perceive his words as rhetorical.
“Well? Did you come through with anything of value?”
Ty pressed a hand to his coat pocket. “We did.”
“La Porte?”
He glanced to Olivia, staring out the window as though she were alone, and shook his head slowly.
Ethan buried his face in his hands, suffocating an ugly swear, but Ty was too preoccupied with Olivia to take much notice.
She would come out all right. He had to believe that, but it was difficult to convince himself of it at the moment. Slumped over now on Ethan’s sofa, she was pale against the dark blue velvet. One arm was crimped behind her head, limp beneath her tangled hair. Where was the damned physician? Her eyes, narrowed to angry slits, moved between himself and Grayfield. That fact that she was alert enough to be angry was cold comfort, but he would take it.
She raised an arm, holding out her palm. “Are you going to give me the port, or no?”
“No!” He answered in unison with Grayfield, and they exchanged a glance. They had both denied her once already, upon their arrival.
“Then I'll get it myself.” She sat back up.
Ty raised a finger. “I'll put a knee on your chest, Olivia. Don't sodding test my resolve right now.” He would sit on her for her own good, if that's what it took.
Crossing her arms, Olivia glared and kept silent, and he had the niggling sense they weren't done.
Grayfield, dressed half in regular clothes and the rest a haphazard arrangement of bed garments, leaned back in his chair and studied them with red-rimmed eyes. “Let’s have a look at what you've brought.”
Crumpled, dirty and blood-stained, no one would guess that the letters in his hand were more valuable than coins, jewels, or even lives. For a second, his fingers disobeyed, refusing to let go, to part with cargo so dearly purchased. Ethan raised an eyebrow, and Ty forced his fingers to open, letters dropping to the desk in haphazard pile.
Ethan pinned the top one with a finger, dragging it to him, and began to read. His frown deepened by degrees and then he sighed, casting away the first page. “There is my first answer. Du Fresne used La Porte’s old letters and documents to gain Elena’s confidence. Presented himself as a go-between looking to protect Philipe.”
Elena’s meetings with DuFresne at the old mansion – now he understood. “He plied her for all the information he could. And she cooperated, believing Philipe was aiding her cause.”
A grave nod was his only answer for a moment. Then Ethan tapped the discarded paper. “Several agents are exposed here. Whitehall will have to bring them in quickly.”
“One of those is personal,” slurred Olivia, still wedged into the sofa, but now with a death grip around the much-contested bottle of port.
Even injured, she was a handful. “Dammit, Olivia. Give me that!”
She glared at him again, the effect ruined by eyes that blinked out of tandem. “I wouldn't try it. Not unless you've a good relationship with your left hand.”
“Leave her be!” cut in Grayfield. “Stop bickering. Dire as things stand, I must congratulate you both on what you’ve recovered.” He held up one of Thalia's letters, wavi
ng it like a flag. “On the day Fouche advised the king to retreat, he wrote d'Oettlinger of arrangements that needed to be made for the emperor's arrival in Paris, and of his plan to personally welcome Napoleon. That, incredibly, is not the most damning information here. There's more, about La Porte's –” Ethan caught himself and stood up, brushing the pages into a stack. “Speaking of the baroness...”
“Dead,” Olivia offered between swigs.
“Circumstances?” asked Ethan.
“Fitting.” Straightening, Ty folded his arms.
Olivia had been reluctant enough to share with him that she'd dispatched Thalia. She was staring at nothing, the bottle clutched in her hands with no intention of answering.
Ethan chewed the information a moment, then shrugged. “I’m satisfied, for now. Wait here while I dress. Piers should be in with food directly.” He came around the desk, resting a hand on Ty's shoulder. “We have grounds to arrest the bastard, at last. One of you should be there, as a witness. I imagine you'd like to see the thing through to the end.”
“If anyone has the pleasure, it should be Olivia. She –” Ty glanced over his shoulder and stopped. She was burrowed into the cushions, one arm hanging to the floor, bottle propped against her knee. Her chest rose and fell with such evenness that he was certain a six-gun battery could not have woken her.
Ethan shook his head. “Looks as though you'll have to stand in her stead. I'll be back directly.”
While he waited, Ty settled on the corner of Ethan's desk and picked up the letters, getting a look at their contents for the first time. There was a damning amount of information about Fouche and the baroness, shameful for two veterans of espionage. Being certain of victory had made them reckless. Reading between the lines, it wasn't difficult to puzzle out why: Olivia had been right; the pair were clearly lovers, run away with themselves inside their world of two.
The last page was a personal letter to Fouche, different from the more professional tone of the preceding ones. He skimmed it over, eyes too tired to decipher both French and the complicated penmanship. Then a single word caught his eye: Olivie.
Madame d'Oettlinger believed she had identified her blonde rival. She speculated on the matter, confessing she had bolstered her suspicions by breaking into Olivia's room and searching her belongings. It was precisely why they kept any incriminating personal items at their safe house. He doubted Thalia could have found much. And by the next few lines, he was correct. The only thing she’d discovered was a silk-covered journal wedged under a false bottom in the wardrobe.
“Truly, Olivia?” He shook his head, wondering at the existence of a more clichéd hiding spot. He skimmed Thalia’s words.
'...and then she wrote that unrequited love was not a terrible thing. It is a ‘perfect’ love which can be imagined any way one wishes, and so she would carry on and try not to be triste. What a pathetic notion...'
He watched Olivia sleeping and turned the mystery over in his mind.
Love.
Not John. She hadn't loved him, Ty was certain. La Porte? Nothing more than attraction.
Dare he hope?
There were a few lines on the back. He flipped over the page, eager for some clue.
'...by her jealous looks and flushed faces, I can only surmise it is he who torments her. I take extra pains with my attentions, enjoying it when she is provoked...'
His gaze snapped back to Olivia. Her behavior at the opera, her attitude at the estate the night La Porte was taken; it could all be construed as jealous. And then her note to Grayfield, asking to be recalled. Sighing, Ty hung his head and dropped the letter.
Compromised. Olivia hadn't meant loyalty, and he’d never doubted her on that count. She'd meant precisely the affection and trust which had been exploited in Elena Breunig to expose Philipe.
How had he been so blind, and she so damned stubborn? If there were any chance of shaking her awake in that moment, he would have tried it. Ethan's boots ringing down the stairs out in the hall said there was no time anyhow. He folded the letter and stuffed it inside his coat for later. Like so many moments in his espionage career, he knew something about which he could do nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Fouche!” Grayfield rammed a fist against the high oak gate before them, rattling the ornate panels like loose teeth. “Lâche! Venez affronter le peuple de France!” Coward! Come and face the people of France!
Silence greeted him. No sound from the other side of the gray stone facade. Hooves clattered by on the street and curious murmurs rose from passersby, but for all Ty could tell, the inside might as well have been a tomb. Wind whistled through the gate, as if daring them to enter.
Ethan planted his top hat back on his head, readying for battle. Impatient lines creased his broad forehead, pulling at the corners of piercing blue eyes. He stepped back and swung the pendulum of his arm, passing sentence on the doorway. “Open it.”
Gendarmes scrambled, falling into formation along either side of a stout log. It was fixed with three sets of iron handles, equipped for no other purpose than force.
Ty watched the soldiers as they formed up, acknowledging the barked orders. He wondered if they were seeing the gendarmes’ cooperation for the last time. In a week, the men would answer to the emperor. Considering the soldiers in the forest and the detachment that had come for Philipe, he wondered if Grayfield had conscripted the last loyal men in Paris.
The men drew backward at a double-march, a trebuchet being tightened.
“Pret, greve!” Ready, strike!
Forward at a gallop, the ram struck with a shudder. Faces grimaced, arms tightened. They went out again like the tide.
Pret, greve!
Splinters this time.
Pret, greve! Pret, greve!
One panel swung open, shivering. The other tore half from its hinges, leaning and defeated. Ethan's men poured over the threshold.
They passed through a stone arch on the far side of the outer courtyard, a doorway guarded by a high iron gate. The wooden one had been locked. Amusingly, this one stood ajar.
He had expected resistance. A glance from Ethan said he had, too. Fouche's personal guard, servants. Something was amiss. Still, he fully anticipated a trap.
All was still around them. Gravel crunched beneath fourteen pairs of boots as they moved along a path between the hedges and topiaries of the inner courtyard.
The house reminded him of a fancy mantle clock. Weathered limestone ledges gave perch to carved nymphs and heroes that watched their approach with unblinking eyes. The high windows were laid in neat rows all the way to a steep lead roof, and all were empty and dark. No faces peered out to track their progress. No servants went running to warn their master.
Staring up at the chateau's high Baroque facade, Ty suddenly shared Olivia's disgust for the Republic. Men like Fouche were content to live in the houses of the Ancient Regime. To hang its art, walk its gardens, sit in its operas. Even imitate its opulent excess.
They just refused to be ruled by its kings.
Soldiers flanked the low wide steps in pairs, muskets presented, leading all the way up to the French doors. Ethan grasped the handle and turned, swinging the door open to reveal a dimly lit hall. Ethan swirled two fingers in the air, then pointed to the opening. Soldiers fell into file, hustling nearly soundlessly into the house.
Drawing his pistol, Ty led Ethan in the troop's wake. Black and white marble tiles fit into a diamond pattern, creating an optical illusion which drew the eye to a sweeping spiral staircase which tunneled overhead into a weak shaft of light. It made his head spin. On each landing for as far as he could see hung masterwork paintings, but beyond that, the house was fittingly austere for such a dour man. No art, little decoration. Like Fouche himself, just shades of gray.
He and Ethan passed the staircase, continuing into the hall. All pretense of stealth was abandoned now that they controlled the house. Footsteps hammered on the floor above, the stop and start of pistons as men sea
rched the upper rooms.
They reached the first door. Ty stopped, held up a hand, and Ethan nodded, drawing his own pistol. Turning the knob, Ty pushed just until it unlatched. He waited a breath. Then with back pressed to the wall he pushed the door with his toe, swinging it slowly open.
Darkness greeted them. It was a study or an office, gauging by thin light spilling in from the hall. They searched the room as if they’d practiced it a thousand times, Ty going left while Ethan went right. He moved past a fireplace to behind a desk, looking in every shadowy corner and under anything that might hide their quarry. Grayfield snapped open two sets of curtains in turn, insuring no one hid behind them.
Ty flicked at papers on the desk. “Interesting, but empty. We can come back to it in a moment.”
Nodding, Ethan led them back into the hall.
They repeated their process on the next two rooms, a formal parlor and a piano room. Each was as cheerless and as empty as the last.
When they reached the last door Ty, exhausted and frayed, grabbed the knob and threw it open.
His surprise, and Grayfield's, reminded him of the dangers of complacency. This room was bright, compared to everything they’d seen so far. Pale yellow curtains were drawn open, and plaster work covered the walls in blues, pinks and golds. The parlor was cold, chilled by an overcast day, and no fire burned in the hearth.
A shivering woman huddled on a silk sofa, wearing a thin brown dress that was hardly fit to warm her. She was young, perhaps thirty. Pretty, in an understated way, with glossy brown hair and wide chocolate eyes that lent her a more exotic air than she could otherwise have claimed. One small hand strangled a handkerchief while the fingers of her other worried a chatelaine at her chest.
Ethan stepped past, into the room, glancing side to side. “Madame?”
