“Five men?”
Enigma lifted a brow. “Is the task too much for you? I could hire a few of these whores, if you are not up for the job.”
“I meant only to verify the information.” Their eyes held until Major Rousseau looked down, saying, “Forgive the interruption.”
“He will be transported at night, so you will have no difficulty in making your way to the docks where you will board The Siren bound for Scotland. Before reaching shore, however, you will be rowed to a second vessel anchored in the harbor which leaves for France the following morning. Do you have any questions?”
“And if something goes awry, and I miss The Siren. Is there an alternative plan in place?”
“Yes.” Enigma stared and Evariste’s could feel his pulse steadily increase. He heard the scraping of metal and looked down to see a small dagger that lay on the wooden bench between them. “Cut your own throat or I will find you and do it for you.”
Evariste pushed the dagger back and said with all the arrogance he was known for. “Five men is of no consequence and I expect to have bathed, imbibed, and fornicated before the English even know that Lord Cunningham has been killed.”
“Excellent.” Enigma said, sounding unimpressed.
“And as for fornicating, does Chloe still entertain here.”
“Ah, Chloe! She is quite accomplished with the whip, is she not?”
They both smiled, knowing that Chloe had mastered many more sensual torments than just the whip.
“Very.” Evariste felt his blood begin to stir, felt the need to walk the thin line between pain and pleasure.
“Then I shall leave you to your amusements or rather Chloe’s.” His superior rose, and then with a friendly smile said, “Do not contact me again,” before blending into the crush of London’s most exclusive brothel.
Chapter Twelve
Paris, France
October 21, 1811
“What have you done with my keys?” Nicole demanded, throwing open the door of the bedchamber she had given the Scot.
But when he did not immediately respond, a flicker of unease replaced her irritation only to return when she saw the near empty decanter of brandy.
“Damont!”
His head jerked off the crushed pillows, his auburn hair streaked with gold as he ran his fingers through the thick waves with one eye completely closed and the other blinking against the morning light.
“Christ almighty!” He licked his parched lips. “What time is it?”
Nicole glanced at the silver watch she had pinned to the bodice of her morning gown.
“Half past…” But her words trailed off and she bit her bottom lip when she saw the Scot sitting up in bed. “Seven.”
The silk sheet was sliding down an abdomen so muscled that she wondered if he had an ounce of fat on his exquisite body. His shoulders were square, padded with hard muscles which were balanced by thoroughly male curves. His chest was thick, solid, the heavy weight of muscle evident just below the dark disks of his nipples.
He was breathtakingly, mouthwateringly male and she had to grab hold of her muslin skirts or risk walking to his bed and running her hands up and down him as if he were made entirely of mink.
“The sun is scarcely up!” The Scot planted his hands on the mattress and pushed himself upright. However, it was not his flexing arms that made her jaw fall open but the glimpse of bare thigh that made her know unequivocally that he was nude beneath the golden silk. “What is so damn urgent that necessitates waking me at this ungodly hour?”
“Walking.” Fortunately, he was still half foxed and oblivious of her lustful perusal. “I want to take a stroll around the square.”
“Why?” he asked, lifting his bulky arm to rub the back of his tousled head.
“Why what?” Nicole had totally lost the thread of conversation, wanting nothing more than to take over the task for him.
The man clicked his tongue, apparently frustrated by something, but she had no idea what.
“Why would ya want to go strollin’ so early in the mornin’?”
“Oh, damn!” She remembered why. “Just give me the keys!”
“They're atop the canopy. If you would just step outside—“
But Nicole was already dragging a wing backed chair from the corner of the room to the side of his unkempt bed. She lifted her skirts and stood atop the vermillion chair cushion, feeling around the canopy for the heavy key ring.
“They're not up here!”
“Yes, they are.” Nicole stretched her arm out as far as she could reach and found them, curling her middle finger inside the brass ring. “If you would just let me get my clothes on--”
At that moment, her precarious position and the unstable cushion on which she stood combined to overset her weight. She began to fall but caught herself on the velvet canopy only to have the chair slide backward, leaving her sprawl across the Scot’s muscular abdomen. His breath gave with a whoosh, but fortunately she had managed to retain hold of the brass ring.
“Sorry,” she said, scrambling off of him and then running down the corridor, the delicious heat of his body still clinging to her breasts.
Nicole unlocked the front door and flew down the stairs only to immerge into the square just in time to see Joseph LeCoeur’s carriage rambling out of sight.
Damn!
Nicole’s heavy breathing had slowed to a silent pant by the time she returned the fourth floor apartment. She opened the door and was greeted by Daniel Damont standing in the hall with the silk sheet rapped about his trim waist.
Lord, he was handsome.
“Oh, well. I’m glad to see that your elbows broke your fall.” Monsieur Damont chided as she walked toward the back of the apartment and unfortunately, him. “I, for one, was delighted that my stomach could be of service to ya.”
Nicole stopped and looked up, knowing that she should have been intimidated by a man that stood at least a foot above her. But when she was angry, the size of a man made no difference to her.
She lifted her index finger and poked him in his massive chest, saying, “Do not interfere with my work again. Joseph LeCoeur was walking in the square this morning and now I shall have to wait, along with half of the ladies in Paris, to make my introduction at the masquerade ball host by the Marquis de La Roche.”
“You hope to introduce yourself to Minister LeCoeur before you kill him?”
Nicole shook her head with the patience of Job. “No, Monsieur Damont, I want to seduce the minister before I kill him.”
“Why?”
“Well, I am sure that the idea is quite foreign to you, but a man is often alone with a woman when he beds her thus giving me the opportunity to kill him.”
The Scot nodded, acquiescing to her experience, his expressive brows drawing together over those luminous eyes.
“What did he do?”
That stopped her cold, forcing Nicole to slow her breathing so that she could think. “Minister LeCoeur?”
“Aye. What did Minister LeCoeur do to deserve such censure?”
“Uhmm,” Nicole shrugged then looked down to avoid meeting his eye as her mind cataloged Minister LeCoeur’s many sins. “He has murdered three men to reach the position of Minister of Police. He has imprisoned countless others; men, women, and their children who oppose the French government’s policies. He has ordered the suppression of protests within Paris and even aided in the capture of Andreas Hofer following the Tyrolian Insurrection.”
“Forgive me, Mademoiselle Beauvoire, but what business is it of yours if Minister LeCoeur kills his own people.”
“Surely, you jest.” Nicole sputtered, unable to comprehend such thinking. “The man had murdered, lord knows how many innocent people and you say this is none of Britain’s affair? Would you object to Minister LeCoeur’s methods if he turned his eyes on England?”
“The minister will not turn his eyes on England.” The arrogant man smiled, the sight muddling her brain further.
“A
nd how, pray tell do you know that he will not?” she asked, trying to concentrate.
“Because you’re going to kill him before the bastard gets the chance.”
“Then you approve of the assassination?”
“Aye.” Daniel Damont nodded as if he were the most reasonable man in all of France. “He sounds a right bastard who deserves to be killed.”
“Your support astounds me, Monsieur Damont.”
The Scot held up one hand, his bright eyes going wide as he laughed.
“Not that I could do it, mind ya. I would need a man lookin’ me in the eye when I killed him.” He turned and walked into his bedchamber. “But it sounds as though you’ve plenty of justification for killin’ the minister.”
Nicole followed, feeling the need to argue even though Monsieur Damont had just agreed with her. “The British government has justified this assassination, not I.” She stared at him while he sat on the edge of his bed, pulling on brown pantaloons beneath the silk bed sheet.
“Perhaps, but it’ll be you who answers for your sins, not the Foreign Office.”
The Scot tossed the sheet on the rumbled bed then stamped on his frilly shoes, distaste curling his upper lip.
“He’s a murderer!”
“As are you, nine times over if I recall.”
Nicole felt the back of her throat constrict, the back of her eyes sting.
“Assassination is not murder. I kill to protect the innocent and helpless people of this country; people that have no one to champion them, people that are beaten, raped and robbed every day that this war continues. How can I, how can anyone watch men like Joseph LeCoeur abuse their power and just walk away?”
Nicole lifted her chin, staring at Monsieur Damont while she braced herself against his condemnation.
“You haven’t walked away.” He smiled, not with amusement, but not quite admiration.
No, she had not. She had not walked away at Newgate. She had not walked away at Honfleur, nor Versailles, nor the fifth floor suite of the Palace Royal. She had not walked away and it had cost her dearly and was costing her still.
Unable to endure another moment of his penetrating gaze, Nicole spun saying over her shoulder. “Get dressed.”
“Where are we goin’?” the man asked with his enchanting brogue.
“Shopping.”
Chapter Thirteen
Daniel watched Nicole Beauvoire from the corner of his eye as they strolled along the Rue Saint Honore, trying to decide if the woman was mad, or merely a patriot.
Her impassioned speech pertaining to the assassinations had certainly sounded reasonable, sane. She was protecting the innocent, defending her country against the tyranny of the corrupt. Yet, as he tried to envision executing a man in cold blood, without provocation… No image came.
But that was the point of contention, was it not… provocation.
She was a woman and perhaps her understanding of provocation was entirely different from his own. Nicole Beauvoire believed that she was protecting the innocents of this war, believed that she was justified in performing the assassinations.
He was undecided as to whether her position was defensible, the philosophical question being murky at best.
If a man was in the process of murdering a woman, Daniel would not only be justified in stopping the man with any force needed, but condemned if he walked passed the commission of that crime. Yet, if that same man were simply intending to murder the woman, would he then be justified in preempting the violent act by any means necessary?
And the more pertinent question that had been bothering him, eating away at his conscience all night--Was he then culpable for the assassination of Joseph LeCoeur if he did nothing to stop it from taking place?
Again, he could not say.
“Here we are.”
Daniel was pulled from his deliberation and into the agreeable surroundings of the unusual shop they had just entered. To his surprise, the shop was not that of a modiste, or a milliner, but that a shop which sold toys.
Colorful silk butterflies hung from the ceiling and Daniel smiled as a tow-headed boy barreled out the door, aiming a wooden pistol that popped a cork when the child pulled the trigger. Tiny toy soldiers lined the shelves of one wall with exquisitely detailed rocking horses sitting beneath them.
Strolling over, Daniel fingered the black mane of one of the horses, confirming that it was indeed made from coarse horse hair. He looked up, staring at the back of the woman who had brought him here as she bent forward to speak in whispered tones with the elderly owner of the colorful shop.
Curious as to what an assassin could possibly want in a toy shop, Daniel circled a display of dolls and slowly made his way toward the counter so that he might hear their conversation.
“Three years, if I remember?” the proprietor of the shop was asking.
The petite woman nodded and the shop keeper disappeared behind a curtain only to return a moment later. The merchant smiled, holding up a brightly painted wooden top.
“If you will note, Mademoiselle, the circular pattern adds interest for the child when the top is spun.” The older man twisted his fingers, sending the top spinning on the surface of the counter. “Viola.”
Nicole Beauvoire stood on her tip toes so that she might peer down directly over the rotating toy.
“Oh,” she laughed, taking Daniel by surprise. The sound was so light, so genuine, so divested of the dark deeds which she now contemplated that he found himself walking to the counter to have a look. “That’s wonderful.”
She was still grinning when Daniel approached and the sight caused him to miscalculate the distance and he bumped the counter with the tip of his atrocious shoe. The top began to wobble and she scooped it up and stared at him, her violet eyes lit with pleasure.
“Observe what happens to the blue and red lines when the top begins to rotate,” she said, excited to share her new discovery.
Crossing his forearms on the polished counter, Daniel hunched over prepared to be amazed. But at the moment it was her smile, the contrast between white teeth and raspberry red lips that tempted him to lick the juice from every recess of her luscious little mouth.
“Uh, spin away,” Daniel said, a bit strained.
She mimicked the shop keeper’s quick movements, but it took several attempts before she could set the top to spinning.
“Look,” the lady said delighted, forcing him to quail his basal instincts.
He dutifully bent his head and smiled genuinely as the colorful swirls appeared to expand then contract to the outer edges of the top, only to do it all over again.
“Brilliant,” he chuckled, joined by the shop keeper and the beautiful woman to his left.
Still smiling, Daniel glanced up but as he bent his head to view the top once more he noticed that the striking woman had also placed her forearms on the oak counter. This had the delicious effect of pushing her rather large breasts to the point of bursting from her bodice. And while he preferred a woman’s rounded backside to her rounded bosom, no man could help but admire the lady’s all too feminine curves.
Including, he realized, the elderly shop keeper.
With a menacing glare at the lecherous old man, Daniel snatched up the top, causing Mademoiselle Beauvoire to scowl as she uncoiled from her provocative position.
“I’ll take it, Monsieur Gaulet, and if you would please be so kind as to wrap the top with this.” She passed the shopkeeper a sealed correspondence, her canary yellow reticule dangling from her delicate wrist. “I would be most appreciative.”
“Of course, Mademoiselle Beauvoire. I assume you would like this gift sent to Honfluer?”
“Oui.”
The man bowed and then went off to wrap the top, leaving Daniel to wonder as to whom would be the recipient of the interesting toy but more importantly… the letter.
“Mademoiselle Beauvoire?” Daniel raised his brows. “You must come here often.”
He watched her stiffened slightly and
confirmed with a nod. “Oui, quite often.”
The woman turned away and examined the toy soldiers with such scrutiny that Daniel was sure her lovely violet eyes would cross. She obviously had no intention of revealing the information he had been fishing for, so he reached into his pocket and pulled out his money.
“How much is the cost?” he asked as the shop keeper emerged from the back.
The man glanced at Nicole Beauvoire who took the small package and smiled graciously, saying, “Just add the purchase to my account, Monsieur Gaulet. Au revoir.”
Stepping onto the street, the alluring spy yanked at her gloves and turned on him in anger.
“We!” she snarled through a charming smile. “Unless, you intend all of Paris to think you my protector, I would prefer you not toss money about as if we were somehow aligned.”
“My apologies, I suppose it was merely a matter of habit.”
The lady swept a speculative gaze over the length of him and apparently found him wanting. “I suppose paying for a woman would be habitual with you. However, it is difficult enough working with you tagging along at my heels. I could do without your attracting unnecessary attention.”
Mademoiselle Beauvoire turned her head to the right, her black hair glistening in the morning sun. Her eyes fixed in the distance and he could see from her pristine profile that she was thinking.
“As a matter of fact,” she pulled the strings of her reticule and removed a small piece of paper. “Go to this address and collect the items on the list. I shall meet you back at the apartment later this evening.”
Daniel shook his head and with a crooked grin, said, “No chance I’m leavin’ your side, lass.”
Sighing, the woman looked up and spoke to him as if he were an idiot. “Monsieur Damont, I am going to the apothecary where I plan to discuss, in great detail, remedies for feminine ailments. And while I am sure the topic would prove most fascinating for you, the fact remains that you know my objective, leaving me very little choice but to return to the apartment or risk your exposing this sanction to every citizen of Paris!”
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