Dark Angel (Lescaut Quartet)

by Tracy Grant

  The lieutenant saluted smartly and left the room. Lescaut returned to his chair. "And now, my dear Adam," he said as he resumed his seat, "I must hear your part of the story."

  Adam had hoped that Caroline's story would suffice, but it was as full of holes as a torn rag. It would never satisfy Lescaut. "You owe me, Robert," he reminded the other man.

  "I do." Lescaut gave him a disarming smile that Adam did not trust for one moment. Lescaut would want the truth behind Emily's abduction. "And I trust I am repaying you," Lescaut went on. "But you owe me something in return."

  "You want to know why the child was taken." Adam met Lescaut's eyes.

  "Precisely." Lescaut settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. "They were after Madame Rawley?"

  "No." Adam glanced at Caroline. She looked exhausted, but she was following the conversation intently and for the first time there was a flicker of hope in her eyes.

  "No, of course not. They were after you." Lescaut's hand beat a tattoo on the arm of his chair. "But why, Adam? You are on an errand of mercy, is that not so? You harm no one. You threaten no one. You have no official—or unofficial—-mission you are carrying out during your journey." Lescaut's eyes narrowed. "Or have you?"

  They had had no sleep the night before. Every muscle in Adam's body screamed for rest. He could not bear thinking of Emily, lost and frightened. He could not bear this inactivity or the charade that must be played out to pay for Lescaut's help. "I am English," he said, his voice calm. "That's enough. Perhaps they hoped the French would pay them for me."

  "You would never be taken for English unless you chose to be." Lescaut shook his head. "Adam, Adam, why can you not trust me?"

  Lescaut knew very well why they could not trust each other. "I am trusting you," Adam said. "With our lives, with our freedom, with a child's safety. Surely you will not insist on looking in the shadows."

  Lescaut smiled. "Ah, the shadows, that is the interesting part, isn't it?" He glanced at Caroline. Her face had become a mask, but perhaps that was answer enough.

  It was time to bend a little. Adam gave a huge sigh, to indicate that Lescaut had at last overcome him. "The country is unsettled; I do not need to tell you that. We were taken prisoner in the mountains by a group of bandits—"

  "Guerrilleros."

  Adam shrugged. "Perhaps. I did not inquire. I told them I was English and no enemy to Spain."

  "No more are we enemy to Spain." Lescaut grimaced. "We're only enemies to each other."

  Adam made a gesture of acknowledgement.

  Lescaut's gaze became more direct. "You are reluctant to tell the story. I do not want to ask Madame Rawley. Perhaps she does not know it. So. I shall tell you how I think it happened. Not because you are English, Adam. You overestimate our interest in English civilians. But because your bandits were guerrilleros, and the guerrilleros are thieves who intercept our messages, and because the price of your freedom was one such message—not yours, I fear, ours—that you promised to carry to the English. Am I right?"

  Adam felt a moment of admiration for his friend. He had known that Lescaut was likely to work it out, but he had not thought it would happen so quickly. "You always had a fund of stories, Robert."

  Lescaut smiled. "Sometimes they’re even true."

  The two men stared at each other for a long time. The ticking of the clock on Lescaut's table sounded unnaturally loud. Lescaut knew he was bound to win. Adam knew he would temper that victory. Throwing his arms wide in a gesture of resignation, Adam stuck out his right leg. "I'm afraid I'll need some help."

  Lescaut grinned and came toward him. "With the greatest of pleasure." He put his hands on Adam's boot and gave a sharp tug. When it came off he handed it with grave courtesy to Adam.

  Adam reached into the boot, lifted the lining, and drew out some folded papers. "Got a bit wet, I'm afraid." He handed them to Lescaut. "Madame Rawley didn't tell you that we took a drenching in the Carrión."

  Lescaut frowned and moved to the table where he unfolded and smoothed out the papers. They had become soft and fuzzy with damp. The pages—there were two of them—stuck together and tore as he tried to separate them. Lescaut swore. "There's not much left to make out."

  Adam had taken care that there wouldn't be. When they reached Bunedo he had removed the oilskin covering and given the papers a good soak, watching the sharp lines of writing soften and bleed into the paper. He had known then that he might be forced to throw his pursuers a tidbit, but he did not intend to provide them with serious nourishment.

  Lescaut raised his head. "I don't suppose you managed to read this before your accident in the river?"

  Adam shook his head.

  "Pity." Their eyes met and held. Lescaut thought Adam was lying—as indeed he was—but Adam knew he was not going to press the matter.

  Caroline did not understand all that went on between the two men, but she knew now that they had a history, that they were adversaries, that they had a kind of rude affection for each other. She knew too that Lescaut had been clever in the matter of the dispatch and that Adam had been cleverer still. And she suspected that Lescaut knew this as well. As she watched the scene in silence, Caroline wondered that they could play out this game between them when Emily's safety was at stake. She would have given up a thousand dispatches to recover her daughter.

  "Very well." Lescaut left the table and came toward them once more. "We have concluded our business, have we not? Not as neatly as one would like, but—" He lifted his shoulders and smiled. "One learns to make do with what one is offered. Now, will you both do me the honor of sharing my breakfast?"

  Caroline was on her feet. She understood that they were free, but if they were free they must not stay for food. They must go at once to look for Emily. "We can't—"

  Lescaut came toward her and took her hand. "There is nothing you can do now, madame, that is not already being done by others who are—forgive me—more knowledgeable and better suited to these acts than yourself. And you must eat to sustain yourself for the waiting. Waiting is the hardest act of all." He regarded her a moment, his eyes kind. "Believe me, I understand," he said in a gentle voice. "I have a child myself."

  "I'm sorry," she said, abashed. "Is your wife here with you?"

  For a moment Lescaut's face shuttered. "My wife died some time ago," he said in an expressionless voice. And then before Caroline could respond, he moved to the door. "This way, madame."

  Lescaut led them to a small parlor at the back of the house. He gave rapid orders and the table set for one was quickly set for three. Coffee appeared, and hot crusty rolls. Caroline realized she was famished. Lescaut laced her coffee liberally with sugar. Another luxury. She savored its hot sweetness and thought of Emily. Emily brought memories of Acquera, and Acquera—

  "Adam," she said abruptly, "the letter. It wasn't forged."

  Lescaut raised his brows. Adam smiled. "The letter you sent to me in Lisbon, Robert. It served as St. Juste's credentials and bought my freedom in Acquera."

  "In Lisbon...Yes, I remember it now. Very brief and not at all incriminating. How the devil did you get away with it?"

  "The lieutenant in charge of the foraging party was very young. And your signature was very bold."

  "Adam!" Caroline was following the exchange with difficulty and she felt left out. "What was in that letter?"

  Lescaut placed another roll on her plate. "It was a letter of thanks, madame, for a favor done."

  Caroline looked from one man to another. "A favor?"

  "You'd better tell her," Adam murmured.

  A reminiscent smile played about Lescaut's lips. "Martina. Red, pouty lips, bright black eyes, a figure just come to the point of ripeness...Forgive me, madame, but she was all of fifteen and reveling in her newfound womanhood. A determined child. She'd taken it into her head that she was in love with one of my officers—not that he hadn't given her encouragement, you know how those things are—and she had left her family to be with him. Some women I would h
ave allowed to march with us. But not this innocent."

  Caroline regarded him impatiently. Adam had said he had a fund of stories, but she was not sure she believed this one. They were trying to distract her. "How does Adam come into it?" she asked.

  "Ah. We were marching, you understand. We were two days out of Madrid before I discovered that Martina was with us. I had no men to spare to take her home, and in any case she would have refused to go. So you can understand that I was delighted when I came upon Adam."

  "For the first time?"

  "Hardly. I would not ask such a favor from a stranger."

  "It's odd that two men on opposite sides in a vile and bloody war have become such very good friends."

  "Not odd at all, Madame Rawley. It is the way in war. One learns to know and respect one's enemy."

  At these words a wry smile crossed Adam's face. He was sitting with his arms on the table and his eyes fixed on Lescaut. Caroline wondered if there was more to it than this, if Adam was working for the French as well as the English. The question was no sooner asked than answered, Adam could never be a traitor; she would stake her salvation on it. Yet she knew almost nothing of his life since her marriage to Jared nine years ago. They were worlds apart, in space as well as time.

  She felt a brief spasm of jealousy, the same jealousy she had felt when Adam went off to university to live a life that had nothing to do with her. She pushed the feeling aside as unworthy and turned her attention back to their host. "Tell me, Colonel Lescaut, what it is your enemy was able to do for you."

  "Convince Martina to leave her officer. How did you do it, Adam?"

  "I told her he had the pox and a wife. The pox she could live with. The wife she could not."

  Lescaut laughed. "And then you took her home."

  "Unsullied. Or apparently so. Her family wouldn't have had her back otherwise." Adam swallowed the last of his coffee. "I had two days with that hysterical child, Robert. Remember that when we balance our accounts. I came up with a story that even her father accepted—something about an abduction for ransom. He was more willing to accept his daughter's virtue when he learned that he might have had to give up his purse for her." Adam shook his head. "The most difficult mission I've ever had."

  "Hence my letter of thanks." Lescaut's eyes were suddenly serious. "You look bemused, madame. Believe me, war is about more than fighting, on your side as well as on ours."

  "Yes. I understand." Caroline's ideas about war had been very simple when she left England. She was no longer so naive. "At least I understand part of it," she added, trying to be honest. "Adam traveled two hundred miles across Portugal and Spain to bring me to safety. That has nothing to do with the war, though I would not have been in Acquera if my husband had not been a soldier. War is about all of us, Colonel Lescaut. There is no escape."

  "Alas, no," Lescaut said with feeling. "Sometimes I think that war is about soldiers on one side and the people across whose lands they battle on the other. But it is not even as simple as that. Spaniard sets against Spaniard. Shall I tell you how we met, Adam and I?"

  Caroline looked down at the bits of roll she had been crumbling while Adam and Lescaut talked. "Please," she said. She was only half attending, but if they kept talking, if she tried to focus on their stories, perhaps she could hold her fear at bay.

  "Very well. I was at—never mind, the place is unimportant—I was on a particular mission and not in uniform. That poses dangers, you understand, for if one is caught the military courtesies do not apply."

  "You would have been shot as a spy." That was why Adam's work was so dangerous.

  "Exactly. I was younger then and careless of my life." Lescaut stared into his cup for a moment, then lifted his eyes to hers. They were blue, Caroline decided. She must hold on to details, the color of the colonel's eyes, the light striking the water glass before her, the smell of the violets in a small white vase. "It was a small village," Lescaut went on, "and like most villages it had its passions. Some of the villagers had joined the guerrilleros in the hills where they could harass our soldiers, but those that remained, the afrancesados, were fiercely loyal to King Joseph and his French allies.

  "A small detachment of our men had passed through the village that day, and that night the guerrilleros came down from the hills. They were too late to find the French soldiers, so they took revenge on their sympathizers. Old feuds, my friend Carmen told me, old scores to settle. She thought I was better out of it and hid me in a barn."

  "Carmen?" Caroline asked. She might have known Lescaut would find a woman wherever he went.

  "A friend, Madame Rawley. Sixty years old and strong as a bull."

  "I see." Caroline felt properly chastened. "And Adam?"

  "I arrived later," Adam said, "with Carmen's grandson. He was with the guerrilleros and he feared for my safety. It seems we were an embarrassment to both sides." A look of pure delight passed between the two men. "Carmen's grandson took me to a ruined chapel a mile or two away. I found Robert there before me. Carmen had decided the barn was no longer safe. She had insisted that he go disguised. Robert was wearing a long skirt and shawl—he-made a fine old woman—"

  "And Adam was scruffy enough to pass for a peasant," Lescaut finished. "I thought he was Spanish. Adam suspected I was a British deserter. It took us the rest of the night to work it out."

  "With the help of a skin of wine."

  "Two, as I recall."

  "Enough to seal a friendship." An unbidden smile came to Caroline's lips. How strange that she should feel so comfortable with an enemy of her country. How strange that she should trust him with her daughter's safety. The fear rose again in her throat. "Colonel Lescaut. If your men do not find Emily..."

  "Then we have tonight, madame."

  "I shall keep the appointment."

  "No!" Both men spoke at once.

  Adam's eyes were sharp with fear. "You've seen the men, Caro. I can't trust you to their mercy."

  "I shall keep the appointment," she said again. "Alone, as the message said."

  "Not alone. I'll go with you."

  "No, Adam. If they see you there, they'll suspect a trap—" She broke off and willed herself to calm the beating of her heart. "If they see you there, they'll run away and we'll never know where they've taken Emily."

  Adam met her eyes for a moment and Caroline knew he was weighing her safety against Emily's. "All right," he said at last. "You'll go alone. But Hawkins and I will be nearby."

  "As will my men," Lescaut said. "Have no fear, Madame Rawley. We will not interfere. We want only to see that no harm comes to you."

  Caroline shivered and drew further back into the doorway that sheltered her from the glances of passersby. Lescaut and three of his men were in an upstairs room of a house on the opposite side of the alley from where she stood. Adam and Hawkins were nearby. They had not told her where.

  Despite what they claimed was an exhaustive search, Lescaut's men had found no trace of her daughter. Hawkins, in whom Caroline put more confidence, had been no more successful. She had passed an agonizing day. The short time at Lescaut's breakfast table, which had lulled her into an illusory security, was long past. In defiance of Adam she had left the inn and spent the day prowling the streets in the vicinity of San Sebastian, talking to the women. Soldiers wouldn't think of asking women, but where a child was concerned a woman would see more than a man. But Caroline was no more successful than the soldiers.

  She glanced round now to get her bearings. It was a long, narrow alley, blocked at the far end by the rear wall of the church. On either side were the back walls of houses which fronted on streets running parallel to the alley. The near end of the alley ran at right angles to the Via Léon, a street filled with noise and activity during the day but now quiet and deserted. People were at dinner or drinking in the taverns. It was too cold to stroll for pleasure. Only an occasional group of soldiers passed the mouth of the alley, or a solitary Spaniard hurrying by on some unknown errand.

 
; The man she was going to meet would come from the Via Léon, and it was there that she fixed her gaze, willing him to appear. She heard the church bells strike ten. She wondered if it was all a hoax, if they had taken Emily—No, she would not think of that. Of course they would come. They wanted the dispatch. She had it, suitably crumpled and folded in its oilskin packet in the pocket of her skirt. The dispatch was quite legible. It should be; Lescaut had written it that morning.

  Caroline waited, sick with apprehension. The night was cold but she could feel a small trickle of sweat between her breasts. She started at each sound of footsteps in the street beyond the alley, peered at each man that passed its mouth, wondering if this was the one. For a long time no one passed at all. Bells chimed the quarter-hour. Somewhere a dog barked.

  And then she heard the footsteps, not from the Via Léon but from behind her. She whirled round and saw a man approaching from the far end of the alley. She could not tell where he came from. Perhaps from one of the houses backing on the alley farther down, perhaps from the door she could dimly see in the back wall of the church. She waited, transfixed, while her mind kept saying over and over, "Emily, Emily, Emily."

  As the man drew closer Caroline saw that he was not the heavyset man with the beard who had started the fight in Norilla. It was the thin man with the long face, the bearded man's partner, the one who had pulled a knife on Adam. He stopped, as though not certain where she was. "Señora," he called.

  Caroline stepped out from the shelter of the doorway and moved to the middle of the alley. "I'm here," she said. "Where is my child?"

  She saw a flash of white in the dim oval that was his face. "In time, Señora."

  Caroline reached into the pocket of her skirt. "I have what you want," she said, tugging at the oilskin packet. The thin man looked at the packet in surprise. He moved closer and stepped a little aside, forcing her to turn to face him. "Where is my child?" she said again, trying to keep the desperation from her voice.