As they walked up the stone steps and along the passage, Noir said, “Tell me, Georges, do you ever smuggle British people into France?”
“Oh, no, sir,” George exclaimed, apparently shocked. “Like you say, sir, I’m one of yours.”
Noir turned and met his gaze. “Then you wouldn’t know anything about a wounded British officer? Or his family.”
Georges held his gaze steadily. “Never smuggled any such into the country. Ever.”
It might have been the truth. But the careful wording was suspect.
No one had smuggled Major Dain or his wife into France. Nature had done that. Perhaps Georges hadn’t brought Isabelle and her supposed “husband” either, but Noir suspected he had something to do with it. Which was another reason to let him go. Sooner or later, they would need him again.
An uncomfortable twinge of guilt pierced his happiness. But it was easy enough to squash, for nothing in the world would convince him to endanger Isabelle.
*
Noir spent the next two hours writing a report of the task to date, stating frankly that, while they had cleaned things up to some degree, the smuggling in the area was so entangled with covert operations and intelligence gathering that he recommended shelving further investigation until peace time. He suggested they would accomplish everything possible or sensible within the next two weeks.
By which time, he devoutly hoped, Isabelle would be well clear of danger.
Thinking of whom…
Seizing a fresh piece of paper, he dashed off a note, sealed it, and directed it to Madam Renard in the Rue l’Église. Then, grabbing his coat, he left the office. “I’ll be back in the afternoon,” he called to the duty guard. “Captain Kronberg is in charge.”
On the way to his quarters to change, he sent Dupont off with his note to Isabelle. But as he turned, he found Lieutenant Bernard watching him with suspicion.
“Well?” he demanded.
“Are you writing to her?” Bernard demanded.
Armand stared at him. “It’s none of your damned business who I write to.”
Bernard flushed. “Of course not. Merely… Captain, where do you stand with the divine Lucie? I would not tread on your toes, but I am serious in my—”
“Don’t be,” Armand interrupted. “For she isn’t. If she ever leaves the mayor, it will not be for the likes of either of us.”
Bernard started angrily, “Then you merely trifle with the lady?”
“Oh, take a powder,” Armand exclaimed. “I’ve never even tried to lay a finger on her and never will.”
Bernard’s face relaxed into smiles. “Then you will not mind if I…”
“I advise you not to, but the rest is up to you,” Armand said and walked away.
Half an hour later, he rode out of St. Sebastien by the south road and dismounted. For the next hour, he strolled about in the woods to either side of the road, sometimes dragging his horse with him toward something that caught his eyes, sometimes letting the horse choose, so long as he didn’t stray too far from the road.
Alert to every sound from the road, he heard a loaded cart go by toward the town, and then a carriage bowl along in the opposite direction. He saw an elderly farmer and his wife make their slow way along the road, leading a donkey laden with provisions. And not far behind them, a tall, elegant lady, walking briskly.
She wore the same warm blue pelisse he had seen already and a fetching little hat with a long blue feather. It looked vaguely familiar to him, as if he had seen it in a local shop. He didn’t much care. To him, its main beauty lay in the fact that it hid none of her lovely face and very little of her shining, golden hair. She dazzled him, as she always had.
His heart soared just because she had come. And as he walked to meet her, he knew he had no control over this feeling. It simply swamped him, consumed him, and he reveled in it. Live for the day.
She looked a little nervous, though she walked straight to him without hesitation. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Not now. I just wanted to see you.”
Magnificent anger flashed in her grey-green eyes. “Armand, I was worried to death! How could you send such an urgent note with no reason? I thought we were going to have to escape immediately!”
“Not immediately. Though now you mention it, are you acquainted with a smuggler called Georges?”
A hint of doubt entered her eyes. Then she said, “Yes, as it happens. At least I presume he is a smuggler. Someone who called himself Georges showed us where the Dains were hiding and sent a carriage for us.”
“Is he working for the British?”
“I don’t know,” she said candidly. “I thought he admired Louisa.”
He let out a shout of laughter, then he offered her his free arm. “Shall we walk?”
She took his arm without hesitation, and her fingers seemed to burn through her glove and his sleeves to his skin, making him more intensely aware of her than he had ever been of anyone or anything in his life before.
Side by side, with his horse following amiably enough, they strolled into the woods. It was another cold, bright autumn morning, perfect for walking, and for some time there seemed no point in saying anything.
Then, smiling up at the sky, she spoke. “Out here, there seems no urgency, no difficulty. No past or future danger. No one to judge us. It’s just you and I walking.”
“And kissing,” he said huskily, bending to take her upturned mouth.
She allowed it, eyes closed, lips parting languidly to let him explore. It was sweet, heady. But when she nibbled at his lower lip and kissed him back, passion surged with such force, that he had to release her mouth and walk faster before he ravished her among the trees.
He wondered if she would object, and hastily banished the notion from his mind. However, it crept back at various points during those blissful couple of hours alone. In the afternoon blink of sunshine, they sat on the bank of a rushing stream and ate the bread and cheese he had brought to share with her. They talked about everything, including their past loves and griefs, childhood games, war and politics, art and literature. She was, he found, a highly educated woman, frustrated with the narrow subjects taught to young English girls.
“I avoided formal teaching a lot of the time, but I learned from my foster father’s library. From just talking to him in fact.”
A faint shadow crossed her face. “What a pity I will never meet him.”
“Not unless you can spare the time to jaunt to Paris with me. I had a letter this morning, summoning me.”
She looked down at her hands. “When do you leave?”
He shrugged. “When I can spare the time.”
Amusement tugged at her lips. “You are not a very obedient foster son, are you?”
“I’m not a very obedient anything. It’s why they send me on little jaunts like the one to England.”
“Your forlorn hopes,” she said. “Which you fulfill.”
“Up to a point, mostly. But this one would have been a waste of time if you hadn’t happened along.”
She took his hand and lifted it to her cheek. “What are we to do, Armand?”
“Live for the day, and see where it leads.”
She kissed his hand, and he kissed her lips, and she lay back against the bank in his embrace until once more lust threatened to overwhelm his good sense.
Reluctantly, he released her. “I need to go back.”
“So do I,” she said shakily.
He stood and reached down to help her up. “But our time isn’t over. Let’s ride back as far as we can.”
That, too, was dangerously fun, for he took her up in the saddle in front of him and kissed her white, elegant neck while the horse walked lazily forward. Her breath quickened again, her head moving in shameless pleasure as she arched her neck under his lips.
He kicked the horse into a trot, and held her cuddled into his chest instead. It was a blissful way to travel, though when they reached the road, he had to pay a lit
tle more attention.
In the end, they managed to ride together half way back to St. Sebastien before they saw a carriage in the distance coming toward them. Hastily, he dismounted and lifted her down.
“Walk on,” he said. “I’ll catch you up.” Still, he couldn’t resist a quick kiss before he let go.
He turned the animal to make it look as though he was traveling in the opposite direction. Then, as the carriage approached, he pretended to examine the horse’s hoof, brushing mud and leaves out of it.
He glanced up at the carriage as it drew alongside. It was emblazoned with St. Sebastien’s coat of arms, and inside it was the mayor and his wife. Peculiarly dismayed, he lifted his hand in a cheerful wave and carried on poking at the hoof until the horse got fed up and jerked it free with a snort.
If she had recognized Isabelle—and the chances were good—she was going to feel distinctly miffed that he hadn’t called that morning. Still, surely there was not much harm she could do.
Chapter Seventeen
“You’re going to the fortress?” Sir Marcus said in alarm when Isabelle told him her plans over breakfast the following morning. “Is that a good idea?”
“I don’t know,” Isabelle admitted. “Lucie Levigne sent round a note last night asking me to join her. Apparently, it’s a charitable visit to the prisoners of war who are kept there. The charity is led by the local priest, who will also be present. I think it’s just a matter of taking them baskets of food and occasionally writing letters for them. Or something.”
Dain still frowned. “Are you not more liable to betray yourself around victims of the enemy?”
“I don’t see why, but I shall be particularly careful.”
“And if you’re asked to write a letter for a British prisoner, won’t your excellent knowledge of English give you away?”
She shrugged. “Captain le Noir has excellent English. No one suspects him. Besides, I believe the prisoners are largely Portuguese and Spanish.”
“Will he be there? Le Noir?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
It would be a bad idea to meet him when Lucie was with her. All the same, she couldn’t prevent her quickening heartbeat at the thought of even seeing him at a distance. She was like a schoolgirl in the throes of first love. And after yesterday, everything was more intense than ever. Madness…
Lucie and Father Despard arrived to collect her ten minutes later. Isabelle could see no shadow of jealousy or ill humor in the other woman’s guileless face, so she had to assume that even if Lucie had seen Armand yesterday, she had not seen her. And to be fair, Isabelle had not even glanced at the carriage, but kept walking as though her mind was somewhere else entirely. It was.
They travelled in Lucie’s carriage, some distance outside the town to the fortress where Armand was quartered, and where some thirty prisoners of war were incarcerated. Although Lucie chattered the whole time, at least her talk of admirers and affairs was limited by the presence of the elderly priest.
The fortress was a somewhat grim building—two buildings, in fact. The prison appeared to be the larger, before which the carriage drew up. The smaller apparently housed the officers’ quarters and the offices, according to Lucie whose gaze lingered there rather too long. Deliberately, Isabelle didn’t look.
As they alighted from the carriage, an officer—not Captain le Noir nor any of the men she had met before—came out of the imposing front doors to greet them. He took the baskets from Lucie’s and Isabelle’s hands, then summoned two soldiers to help with the rest.
Isabelle followed the officer inside, her neck prickling with the knowledge that she was inside an enemy prison. It wouldn’t take too much to put her on the other side of this charitable exercise.
A group of five soldiers, apparently sergeants, were slumped in the bare hall within. Largely unshaven and tattered, they nevertheless managed to rise civilly before the French officer told them to. The baskets were laid on the long, wooden table down the center of the hall.
“For you and your men,” Lucie said, smiling at them. “From St. Sebastien.”
A murmur of thanks in French and Spanish rumbled from the sergeants. The rest of the men were brought in then, and Isabelle saw that Lucie and Father Despard had the duties divided familiarly between them. Lucie, a beautiful lady bountiful, distributed the food, while the priest sat in a more private corner to allow prisoners to confess or seek spiritual guidance.
Isabelle lifted one of the baskets to help speed up the distribution process. Lucie snatched it back so speedily that Isabelle blinked. Something seemed to flash in the other woman’s eyes, something very like venom, but it was so brief that it could have been a trick of the light.
Lucie’s tinkling laugh sounded. “What a start you gave me! I am silly. I am so used to doing this alone. But yes, you deal with the baskets, and I shall ask the lieutenant about their welfare.”
Lucie drifted off, and Isabelle found herself in the odd position of handing out supplies to her fellow enemies of Bonapartist France. It felt exceedingly strange and uncomfortable, not least because many of the men looked sick or harbored only partly healed injuries.
“Have you seen a doctor? A surgeon?” she asked one poor man with a dirty bandage on his arm. Some of the staining seeping out from the inside seemed to be new. But the man clearly didn’t understand her, so she only smiled and wished him well.
But when the distribution was done and she looked around for Lucie to ask her about the men’s medical care, the other woman was not there. Some of the prisoners had shuffled back to the depths they had come from. Others were waiting to speak to Father Despard. Isabelle approached the lieutenant who had shown them in and now stood aloof but watchful by the door.
“Monsieur, do the men have medical attention?” she asked.
“There is a surgeon among them. I suppose they don’t all—excuse me, madame.” He strode off to break up some dispute between the men that might otherwise have turned into a fight. He was aided, she saw, by one of the sergeants.
Feeling somewhat helpless, she decided to seek out Lucie instead. If nothing else, the mayor’s wife would have access to more superior officers. Armand, whispered a voice in her mind, although he had never mentioned prisoners being in his charge.
The yard outside the hall was empty and silent, with no sign of Lucie.
She has gone to Armand… A twinge of foolish jealousy twisted through Isabelle, though she quickly thrust it aside, for she didn’t really believe it. On the other hand, she didn’t put it beyond Lucie to try to find him.
She followed her own curiosity, walking around the outside of the building. There were iron bars on the ground-floor windows, adding to the general grimness of the building. As she rounded the corner, a French soldier stepped out of a side door and strode off toward the back.
She hurried after him, until a hiss caught her attention and she glanced warily at the nearest window. It was open, and a hand clutched one of the iron bars.
“Madame, please,” a voice said in execrable French, and then in more desperate English. “You got a kind face, missus, do me a favor, for the love of God.”
His accent was not remotely Iberian, but that of London’s less salubrious streets. Surprise nearly caused her to respond in English, but she managed to stop herself in time.
“What is it?” she asked in French. “What do you need?”
An unshaven, somewhat villainous face appeared, resting against the bars. “Get a letter to my wife,” he pleaded.
“You want me to write it for you?” Since he looked uncomprehending at that, she made writing motions on her hand.
“Lord love you, no, ma’am, I can do that bit. Up to a point. And she can read it,” he added proudly. “Trouble is, doubt they ever get to her. Never had one back, and I’ve been here more than a year.” Clearly encouraged by the sympathy she must have shown in her face, he added, “I got two little boys as well. I want them to hear something of their dad,
know him just a bit.”
His other hand came up, holding a grubby, folded paper with a name and address written on the front. He shoved it between the bars. “Take it, Madame. Give it to one of the sailors in St. Sebastien, you know?”
She stared at him, torn.
“Le marin,” he urged in somewhat frantic French.
Her breath caught. “I understand you,” she said in English and reaching up, she snatched the letter, hiding it hastily in her reticule. “I’ll see that she gets it.”
The prisoner smiled, revealing some broken and discolored teeth. “Bless you, madame.”
He vanished from view, and Isabelle glanced furtively toward the back of the building and then the front.
Lucie Levigne stood only yards away, staring at her. “What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I promised I would send his letter home,” Isabelle said calmly. She had to assume Lucie had seen her take the letter, had probably heard her speak in English. She just had to make the woman understand she had done nothing wrong.
But Lucie, all appearances to the contrary, was no fool. “How are you going to do that?”
“I shall give it to Captain le Noir,” Isabelle said and walked past her, back toward the front of the building, though not before she’d caught a much more definite flash of hatred in Lucie’s face.
“He has nothing to do with the prisoners, you know,” Lucie said.
“But he knows the local sailors. I’m sure he’ll tell me if I’m doing something wrong.”
“I can tell you that.”
There was a hardness in Lucie’s voice Isabelle had not heard before. Jealousy… She had seen them together yesterday. Or perhaps she just regarded Armand, like all other men in the town, as hers for the taking. With her beauty and position, she must have had most things her own way for a long time.
And then, suddenly, she laughed and linked her arm through Isabelle’s. “Well, we shall not quarrel over the poor man’s letter. You have a soft heart, and I quite understand. Thank you for your help today. It gave me just the chance I needed to call on a friend we both know.”
The Broken Heart Page 17
