The Spymaster's Lady

One

SHE WAS WILLING TO DIE, OF COURSE, BUT SHE had not planned to do it so soon, or in such a prolonged and uncomfortable fashion, or at the hands of her own countrymen.

She slumped against the wall, which was of cut stone and immensely solid, as prison walls often are. “I do not have the plans. I never had them.”

“I am not a patient man. Where are the plans?”

“I do not have—”

The openhanded slap whipped out of the darkness. For one instant she slipped over the edge of consciousness. Then she was back again, in the dark and in pain, with Leblanc.

“Just so.” He touched her cheek where he had hit her and turned her toward him. He did it gently. He had much practice in hurting women. “We continue. This time you will be more helpful.”

“Please. I am trying.”

“You will tell me where you have hidden the plans, Annique.”

“They are a mad dream, these Albion plans. A chimera. I never saw them.” Even as she said it, the Albion plans were clear in her mind. She had held the many pages in her hands, the dog-eared edges, maps covered with smudges and fingerprints, the lists in small, neat writing. I will not think of this. If I remember, it will show on my face.

“Vauban gave you the plans in Bruges. What did he tell you to do with them?”

He told me to take them to England. “Why would he give me plans? I am not a valise to go carrying papers about the countryside.”

His fist closed on her throat. Pain exploded. Pain that stopped her breath. She dug her fingers into the wall and held on. With such a useful stone wall to hold on to, she would not fall down.

Leblanc released her. “Let us begin again, at Bruges. You were there. You admit that.”

“I was there. Yes. I reported to Vauban. I was a pair of eyes watching the British. Nothing more. I have told you and told you.” The fingers on her chin tightened. A new pain.

“Vauban left Bruges empty-handed. He went back to Paris without the plans. He must have given them to you. Vauban trusted you.”

He trusted me with treason. She wouldn’t think that. Wouldn’t remember.

Her voice had gone hoarse a long time ago. “The papers never came to us. Never.” She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “You hold my life in your hands, sir. If I had the Albion plans, I would lay them at your feet to buy it back.”

Leblanc swore softly, cursing her. Cursing Vauban, who was far away and safe. “The old man didn’t hide them. He was too carefully watched. What happened to them?”

“Look to your own associates. Or maybe the British took them. I never saw them. I swear it.”

Leblanc nudged her chin upwards. “You swear? Little Cub, I have watched you lie and lie with that angel face since you were a child. Do not attempt to lie to me.”

“I would not dare. I have served you well. Do you think I’m such a fool I’ve stopped being afraid of you?” She let tears brim into her eyes. It was a most useful skill and one she had practiced assiduously.

“Almost, one might believe you.”

He plays with me. She squeezed her lids and let tears slide in cold tracks down her cheeks.

“Almost.” He slowly scratched a line upon her cheek with his thumbnail, following a tear. “But, alas, not quite. You will be more honest before morning, I think.”

“I am honest to you now.”

“Perhaps. We will discuss this at length when my guests have departed. Did you know? Fouché comes to my little soiree tonight. A great honor. He comes to me from meetings with Bonaparte. He comes directly to me, to speak of what the First Consul has said. I am becoming the great man in Paris these days.”

What would I say if I were innocent? “Take me to Fouché. He will believe me.”

“You will see Fouché when I am satisfied your pretty little mouth is speaking the truth. Until then…” He reached to the nape of her neck to loosen her dress, pulling the first tie free. “You will make yourself agreeable, eh? I have heard you can be most amusing.”

“I will…try to please you.” I will survive this. I can survive whatever he does to me.

“You will try very, very hard before I am finished with you.”

“Please.” He wanted to see fear. She would grovel at once, as was politic. “Please. I will do what you want, but not here. Not in a dirty cell with men watching. I hear them breathing. Do not make me do this in front of them.”

“It is only the English dogs. I kennel some spies here till I dispose of them.” His fingers hooked the rough material of her dress at the bodice and pulled it down, uncovering her. “Perhaps I like them to watch.”

She breathed in the air he had used, hot and moist, smelling of wintergreen. His hand crawled inside the bodice of her dress to take hold of her breast. His fingers were smooth and dry, like dead sticks, and he hurt her again and again.

She would not be sick upon Leblanc in his evening clothes. This was no time for her stomach to decide to be sincere.

She pressed against the wall at her back and tried to become nothing. She was darkness. Emptiness. She did not exist at all. It did not work, of course, but it was a goal to fix the mind upon.

At last, he stopped. “I will enjoy using you.”

She did not try to speak. There was no earthly use in doing so.

He hurt her one final time, pinching her mouth between thumb and forefinger, breaking the skin of her dry lips and leaving a taste of blood.

“You have not amused me yet.” He released her abruptly. She heard the scrape and click as he lifted his lantern from the table. “But you will.”

The door clanged shut behind him. His footsteps faded in the corridor, going toward the stairs and upward.

“PIG” She whispered it to the closed door, though that was an insult to pigs, who were, in general, amiable.

She could hear the other prisoners, the English spies, making small sounds on the other side of the cell, but it was dark, and they could no longer see her. She scrubbed her mouth with the back of her hand and swallowed the sick bile in her throat. It was amazingly filthy being touched by Leblanc. It was like being crawled upon by slugs. She did not think she would become even slightly accustomed to it in the days she had left.

She pulled her dress into decency and let herself fold onto the dirt floor, feeling miserable. This was the end then. The choice that had tormented her for so long—what should be done with the Albion plans that had been entrusted to her—was made. All her logic and reasoning, all her searchings of the heart, had come to nothing. Leblanc had won. She would withstand his persuasions for only a day or two. Then he would wrest the Albion plans from her memory and commit God knew what greedy betrayals with them.

Her old mentor Vauban would be disappointed in her when he heard. He waited in his small stone house in Normandy for her to send word. He had left the decision to her, what should be done with the plans, but he had not intended that she give them to Leblanc. She had failed him. She had failed everyone.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was strange to know her remaining breaths were numbered in some tens of thousands. Forty thousand? Fifty? Perhaps when she was in unbearable pain later on tonight, she would start counting.

She pulled her shoes off, one and then the other. She had been in prisons twice before in her life, both times completely harrowing. At least she had been above ground then, and she had been able to see. Maman had been with her, that first time. Now Maman was dead in a stupid accident that should not have killed a dog. Maman, Maman, how I miss you. There was no one in this world to help her.

In the darkness, one feels very alone. She had never become used to this.

The English spy spoke, deep and slow, out of the dark. “I would stand and greet you politely.” Chain clinked. “But I’m forced to be rude.”

It was a measure of how lonely she was that the voice of an enemy English came like a warm handclasp. “There is much of that in my life lately. Rudeness.”

“It seems you have annoyed Leblanc.” He spoke the rich French of the South, without the least trace of a foreign accent.

“You also, it would seem.”

“He doesn’t plan to let any of us leave here alive.”

“That is most likely.” She rolled off her stockings, tucked them into her sleeve so she would not lose them, and slipped the shoes back on. One cannot go barefoot. Even in the anteroom to hell, one must be practical.

“Shall we prove him wrong, you and I?”

He did not sound resigned to death, which was admirable in its way, though not very realistic. It was an altogether English way of seeing things.

In the face of such bravery, she could not sit upon the floor and wail. French honor demanded a Frenchwoman meet death as courageously as any English. French honor always seemed to be demanding things of her. Bravery, of a sort, was a coin she was used to counterfeiting. Besides, the plan she was weaving might work. She might overcome Leblanc and escape the chateau and deal with these Albion plans that were the cause of so much trouble to her. And assuredly pigs might grow wings and fly around steeples all over town.

The English was waiting for an answer. She pulled herself to her feet. “I would be delighted to disappoint Leblanc in any way. Do you know where we are? I was not able to tell when I was brought here, but I hope very much this is the chateau in Garches.”

“A strange thing to hope, but yes, this is Garches, the house of the Secret Police.”

“Good, then. I know this place.”

“That will prove useful. After we deal with these chains,” he clinked metallically, “and that locked door. We can help each other.”

He made many assumptions. “There is always the possibility.”

“We can be allies.” The spy chose his words carefully, hoping to charm her so she would be a tool for him. He slipped velvet upon his voice. Underneath, though, she heard an uncompromising sternness and great anger. There was nothing she did not know about such hard, calculating men.

Leblanc took much upon himself to capture British agents in this way. It was an old custom of both French and British secret services that they were not bloodthirsty with one another’s agents. This was one of many rules Leblanc broke nowadays.

She worked her way along the wall, picking at the rocks, stealing the gravel that had come loose in the cracks and putting it into her stocking to make her little cosh. It was a weapon easy to use when one could not see. One of her great favorites.

There was a whisper of movement. A younger voice, very weak, spoke. “Somebody’s here.”

Her English spy answered, “Just a girl Leblanc brought in. Nothing to worry about.”

“…more questions?”

“Not yet. It’s late at night. We have hours before they come for us. Hours.”

“Good. I’ll be ready…when the chance comes.”

“It’ll be soon now, Adrian. We’ll get free. Wait.”

The mindless optimism of the English. Who could comprehend it? Had not her own mother told her they were all mad?

It was a tidy small prison Leblanc kept. So few loose stones. It took a while before the cosh was heavy enough. She tied the end of the stocking and tucked it into the pocket hidden beneath her skirt. Then she continued to explore the walls, finding nothing at all interesting. There is not so much to discover about rooms that are used as prisons. This one had been a wine cellar before the Revolution. It still smelled of old wood and good wine as well as less wholesome things. Halfway around the cell she came to where the Englishmen were chained, so she stopped to let her hands have a look at them as well.

The one who lay upon the ground was young, younger than she was. Seventeen? Eighteen? He had the body of an acrobat, one of those slight, tightly constructed people. He had been wounded. She could smell the gunpowder on his clothes and the wound going bad. She would wager money there was metal still inside him. When she ran her fingers across his face, his lips were dry and cracked, and he was burning hot. High fever.

They had chained him to the wall with an excellent chain, but a large, old-fashioned padlock. That would have to be picked if they were to escape. She searched his boots and the seams of his clothing, just in case Leblanc’s men had missed some small, useful object. There was nothing at all, naturally, but one must always check.

“Nice…” he murmured when she ran her hands over him. “Later, sweetheart. Too tired…” Not so young a boy then. He spoke in English. There might be an innocent reason for an English to be in France, in these days when their countries were not exactly at war, but somehow she was sure Leblanc spoke truly. This was a spy. “So tired.” Then he said clearly, “Tell Lazarus I won’t do that anymore. Never. Tell him.”

“We shall speak of it,” she said softly, “later,” which was a promise hard to fulfill, since she did not expect to have so very many laters. Though perhaps a few more than this boy.

He struggled to sit up. “Queen’s Knight Three. I have to go. They’re waiting for me to deliver the Red Knight.” He was speaking what he should not, almost certainly, and he would injure himself, thrashing about. She pushed him gently back down.

Strong arms intervened. “Quiet. That’s all done.” The other man held the boy, muffling his words.

He need not have worried. She was no longer interested in such secrets. In truth, she would as soon not learn them.

“Tell the others.”

“I will. Everyone got away safe. Rest now.”

The boy had knocked over the water jug, struggling. Her hands found it, rolled on its side, empty. It was perfectly dry inside. The thought of water stabbed sour pinpricks in her mouth. She was so thirsty.

Nothing is worse than thirst. Not hunger. Not even pain. Maybe it was as well there was no water to tempt her. Perhaps she would have become an animal and stolen from these men, who suffered more than she did. It was better not to know how low she could have fallen. “When was the last time they gave you water?”

“Two days ago.”

“You have not much longer to wait, then. Leblanc will keep me alive for a while, in the hopes I may be useful to him. And to play with.” In the end, he will kill me. Even when I give him the Albion plans—every word, every map, every list—he will still kill me. I know what he did in Bruges. He cannot let me live.

“His habits are known.”

He was large, the English spy of the deep voice and iron sternness. She sensed a huge presence even before she touched him. Her hands brought her more details. The big man had folded his coat under the boy, accepting another measure of discomfort to keep his friend off the cold floor. It was a very British courage, that small act. She felt his fierce, protective concentration surrounding the boy, as if force of will alone were enough to hold life in him. It would be a brave man indeed who dared to die when this man had forbidden it.

She reached tentatively and discovered soft linen and long, sinewy courses of muscle down his chest and then, where his shirt lay open at the neck, a disconcerting resilience of masculine skin. She would have pulled away, but his hand came to cover hers, pressing it down over his heart. She felt the beat under her palm, startling and alive. Such power and strength.

He said, “I know what Leblanc does to women. I’m sorry you’ve fallen into his hands. Believe that.”

“Me, I am also extremely sorry.” This one was determined to be nice to her, was he not? She took her hand back. She would free him, if she could, and then they would see exactly how delightful he was. “These locks,” she jiggled his manacle, “are very clumsy. One twiddle, and I could get them off. You do not have a small length of wire about you, do you?”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you think?”

“I do not expect it to be so simple. Life is not, in my experience.”

“Mine also. Did Leblanc hurt you?”

“Not so much.”

He touched her throat where she was sore and bruised. “No woman should fall into Leblanc’s hands. We’ll get out of here. There’s some way out. We’ll find it.” He gripped her shoulder, heavy and reassuring.

She should get up and search the cell. But somehow she found herself just sitting next to him, resting. Her breath trickled out of her. Some of the fear that had companioned her for weeks drained away, too. How long had it been since anyone had offered her comfort? How strange to find it here, in this fearful place, at the hands of an enemy.

After what seemed a long time, she roused herself. “There is another problem. Your friend cannot walk from here, even if I get him free of the chain.”

“He’ll make it. Better men than Leblanc have tried to kill him.” Not everyone would have heard the anguish beneath the surface of that voice, but she did. They both knew this Adrian was dying. In a dozen hours, in at most another day, his wound and thirst and the damp chill of the stones would finish him off.

The boy spoke up in a thin thread of polished Gascon French. “It is…one small bullet hole. A nothing.” He was very weak, very gallant. “It’s the…infernal boredom…I can’t stand.”

“If we only had a deck of cards,” the big man said.

“I’ll bring some…next time.”

They would have made good Frenchmen, these two. It was a pity Leblanc would soon take her from this cell. One could find worse companions for the long journey into the dark. At least the two of them would be together when they died. She would be wholly alone.

But it was better not to speculate upon how Leblanc would break her to his will and kill her, which could only lead to melancholy. It was time to slide from beneath the touch of this English spy and be busy again. She could not sit forever, hoping courage would seep out of his skin and into her.

She stood, and immediately felt cold. It was as if she had left a warm and accustomed shelter when she left the man’s side. That was most silly. This was no shelter, and he did not like her much despite the soft voice he used. What lay between them was an untrusting vigilance one might have carved slices of.

Perhaps he knew who she was. Or perhaps he was one of those earnest men who go about spying in total seriousness. He would die for his country in a straightforward English fashion in this musty place and hate her because she was French. To see the world so simply was undoubtedly an English trait.

So be it. As it happened, she was not an amicable friend of big English spies. A French trait, doubtless.

She shrugged, which he would not see, and began working her way around the rest of the cell, inspecting the floor and every inch of the wall as high as she could reach. “In your time here, has Henri Bréval visited the cell?”

“He came twice with Leblanc, once alone, asking questions.”

“He has the key? He himself? That is good then.”

“You think so?”

“I have some hopes of Henri.” There was not a rusted nail, not a shard of glass. There was nothing useful anywhere. She must place her hope in Henri’s stupidity, which was nearly limitless. “If Fouché is indeed upstairs drinking wine and playing cards, Leblanc will not leave his side. One does not neglect the head of the Secret Police to disport oneself with a woman. But Henri, who takes note of him? He may seize the moment. He wishes to use me, you understand, and he has had no chance yet.”

“I see.” They were most noncommittal words.

Was it possible he believed she would welcome Henri? What dreadful taste he thought she had. “Leblanc does not let many people know about this room. It is very secret what he does here.”

“So Henri may come sneaking down alone. You plan to take him.” He said it calmly, as if it were not remarkable that she should attack a man like Henri Bréval. She was almost certain he knew what she was.

“I can’t help you,” the chain that bound him rattled, “unless you get him close.”

“Henri is not so stupid. Not quite. But I have a small plan.”

“Then all I can do is wish you well.”

He seemed a man with an excellent grasp of essentials. He would be useful to her if she could get his chains off. That she would accomplish once those pigs became like the proverb and grew wings and went flying.

Exploring the cell further, she stubbed her toe upon a table, empty of even a spoon. There were also chairs, which presented more opportunity. She was working at the pegs that held a chair together when she heard footsteps.

“We have a visitor,” the big English said.

“I hear.” One man descended the steps into the cellar. Henri. It must be Henri. She set the chair upright, out of her way, and drew her cosh into her hand and turned toward the sound of footsteps. A shudder ran along her spine, but it was only the cold of the room. It was not fear. She could not afford to be afraid. “It is one man. Alone.”

“Leblanc or Henri, do you think?”

“It is Henri. He walks more heavily. Now you will shut up quietly and not distract me.” She prayed it was Henri. Not Leblanc. She had no chance against Leblanc.

The Englishman was perfectly still, but he charged the air with a hungry, controlled rage. It was as if she had a wolf chained to that wall behind her. His presence tugged and tugged at her attention when it was desperately important to keep her mind on Henri.

Henri. She licked her lips and grimly concentrated on Henri, an unpleasant subject, but one of great immediacy. There were twenty steps on the small curved staircase that led from kitchen to cellar. She counted the last of them, footstep by footstep. Then he was in the corridor that led to the cell.

Henri had always thought her reputation inflated. When he had brought her the long way to Paris to turn her over to Leblanc, she had played the spineless fool for him, begging humbly for food and water, stumbling, making him feel powerful. She was so diminished in her darkness he thought her completely harmless. He had become contemptuous.

Let him come just a little close, and he would discover how harmless she was. Most surely he would.

She knew the honey to trap him. She would portray for him the Silly Young Harlot. It was an old favorite role of hers. She had acted it a hundred times.

She licked her lips and let them pout, open and loose. What else? She pulled strands of hair down around her face. Her dress was already torn at the neckline. She found the spot and ripped the tear wider. Good. He would see only that bare skin. She could hold a dozen coshes and he would never notice.

Quickly. Quickly. He was coming closer. She took another deep breath and let the role close around her like a familiar garment. She became the Harlot. Yielding, easy to daunt, out of her depth in this game of intrigue and lies. Henri liked victims. She would set the most perfect victim before him and hope he took the bait.

Hid beneath layer upon layer of soft and foolish Harlot, she waited. Her fist, holding the cosh, never wavered. She would not allow herself to be afraid. It was another role she had crafted; the Brave Spy. She had played this one so long it fit like her skin.

Probably, at the center of her being, under all the pretense, the real Annique was a quivering mouse. She would not go prying in there and find out.

THE grilled window in the door glowed ghostly pale, then brightened as a lantern came closer. Grey could see again. The details of his cell emerged. Rough blocks of stone, a table, two chairs. And the girl.

She faced the door, stiff and silent and totally intent upon the man out in the corridor. Not a move out of her. Not the twitch of a fingernail. Her eyes, set in deep smudges of exhaustion, were half-closed and unfocused. She didn’t once glance in his direction.

He watched her draw a deep breath, never taking her attention from that small barred window in the door. Her lips shaped words silently, praying or talking to herself. Maybe cursing. Again, she combed her fingers through her hair in staccato, purposeful, elegant flicks that left wild elflocks hanging across her face.

She was totally feminine in every movement, indefinably French. With her coloring—black hair, pale skin, eyes of that dark indigo blue—she had to be pure Celt. She’d be from the west of France. Brittany, maybe. Annique was a Breton name. She carried the magic of the Celt in her, used it to weave that fascination the great courtesans created. Even as he watched, she licked her lips again and wriggled deliberately, sensually. A man couldn’t look away.

She’d torn her own dress. The curve of her breast showed white against the dark fabric—a whore, bringing out her wares. She was a whore, a liar, and a killer…and his life depended on her. “Good luck,” he whispered.

She didn’t turn. She gave one quick, dismissive shake of her head. “Be still. You are not part of this.”

That was the final twist of the knife. He was helpless. He measured out his twenty inches of chain, picturing just how far a fast kick could reach. But Henri wasn’t going to wander that close. She’d have to subdue Henri Bréval on her own, without even a toothpick to fight with.

There were red marks on her skin where Leblanc had been tormenting her and the tracks of tears on her cheeks. She couldn’t have looked more harmless. That was another lie, of course.

He knew this woman. He’d recognized her the moment Leblanc pushed her stumbling into this cell. Feature by feature, that face was etched in his memory. He’d seen her the day he found his men, ambushed, twisted and bloody, dead in a cornfield near Bruges. If he’d had any doubt, the mention of the Albion plans would have convinced him. The Albion plans had been used to lure them to Bruges.

He’d been tracking this spy across Europe for the last six months. What bloody irony to meet her here.

He’d have his revenge. Leblanc was an artist in human degradation. Pretty Annique wouldn’t die easily or cleanly or with any of that beauty intact. His men would be avenged.

If he got out of here…No, when he got out of here, Annique would come with him. He’d take her to England. He’d find out every damn thing she knew about what happened at Bruges. He’d get the Albion plans from her. Then he’d take his own vengeance.

She’d be supremely useful to British intelligence. Besides, he wouldn’t leave a rabid hyena to Leblanc.

The peephole went bright as Henri held the lantern up. His heavy, florid face pressed to the grill. “Leblanc is furious with you.”

“Please.” The girl wilted visibly, leaning on the table for support, a sweet, succulent curve of entrapped femininity. “Oh, please.” The drab blue of her dress and the crude cut of the garment marked her as a servant and accessible. Somehow her disheveled hair, falling forward over her face, had become sensuality itself. “This is all a mistake. A mistake. I swear…”

Henri laced fingers through the bars. “You’ll talk to him in the end, Annique. You’ll beg to talk. You know what he’ll do to you.”

There was a sniffle. “Leblanc…He does not believe me. He will hurt me terribly. Tell him I know nothing more. Please, Henri. Tell him.” Her voice had changed completely. She sounded younger, subtly less refined, and very frightened. It was a masterful performance.

“He’ll hurt you no matter what I tell him.” Henri gloated.

The girl’s face sank into her upturned palm. Her hair spilled in dark rivers through her fingers. “I cannot bear it. He will use me…like a grunting animal. I am not meant to be used by peasants.”

Clever. Clever. He saw what she was doing. Henri’s voice marked him as Parisian, a man of the city streets. Leblanc, for all his surface polish, was the son of a pig farmer. And Henri worked for Leblanc.

Henri’s spite snaked out into the cell. “You were always Vauban’s pet—Vauban and his elite cadre. Vauban and his important missions. You were too good for the rest of us. But tonight the so-special Annique that nobody could touch becomes a blind puppet for Leblanc to play with. If you’d been kind to me before, maybe I’d help you now.”

“Leblanc has become Fouché’s favorite. With the head of the Secret Police behind him, he can do anything. You cannot help me. You would not dare defy him.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. “I will do whatever he wishes. I have no choice.”

“I’ll have you when he’s through with you.”

She went on speaking. She might not have heard Henri. “He will make me oil my body and do the Gypsy dances I learned when I was a child. I will dance in the firelight for him with nothing but a thin bit of silken cloth upon me. Red silk. He…he prefers red. He has told me.”

Grey wrapped the chain around his hand, gripping tight, seized by the image of a slim body writhing naked, silhouetted in the golden glow of fire. He wasn’t the only one. Henri gripped the crossed bars of the grill and pressed his face close, salivating.

Annique, eyes downcast, swayed as if she were already undulating in the sensual dance she described. “I will draw the crimson silk from my body and caress him with it. The silk will be warm and damp with the heat of the dance. With my heat.” Her left hand stroked down her body, intimately.

Grey ached from a dozen beatings, thirst was a torment every second, and he knew exactly what she was doing. He still went hard as a rock. He was helpless to stop it. God, but she was good.

Huskily, dreamily, she continued. “He will lie upon his bed and call me to him. At first, only to touch. Then to put my mouth upon him, wherever he directs. I have been trained to be skillful with my mouth. I will have no choice, you see, but to do as he demands of me.”

Henri clanked and fumbled with the lock. In a great hurry, was Henri. If the Frenchman was half as aroused by Annique’s little act as Grey was, it was a wonder he could get the door open at all.

The door banged back against the stone wall. “You must not come in here, Henri,” she said softly, not moving, “or touch me in any way without the permission of Leblanc.”

“Damn Leblanc.” Henri slapped the lantern down and cornered her against the table. His fist twisted into her skirt and pulled it up. He grabbed the white shift beneath.

“You should not…You must not…” She struggled, pushing futilely at his hands with no more strength than a tiny, captured bird.

“No.” He threw himself at Henri. And jerked short on his iron leash. The circle of pain at his wrist brought him back to reality. He couldn’t get to her. He couldn’t fight Henri for her. There wasn’t a bloody thing he could do but watch.

“Do not…” Her flailing arm hit the lantern. It tilted and skidded off the table and clattered to the floor and extinguished. Darkness was instant and absolute.

“Stupid bitch,” Henri snarled. “You…”

There was a small squashed thud. Henri yelped in pain. More thuds—one, two, three. The table scraped sideways. Something large and soft fell.

No movement. He heard Annique breathing hard, the smallness of it and the contralto gasps uniquely hers.

Planned. She’d planned it all. He crouched, tense as stretched cord, and acknowledged how well he’d been fooled. She’d planned this from start to finish. She’d manipulated both of them with that damned act of hers.

There was a long silence, broken by intriguing rustling sounds and Annique grunting from time to time. Her footsteps, when she walked toward him, were sure and unhesitating. She came in a straight line across the cell as if it were not dark as a tomb.

“What did you do to Henri?” The issue, he thought, had never really been in doubt.

“I hit him upon the head with a sock full of rocks.” She seemed to think it over while she sat down beside him. “At least I am almost sure I hit his head once. I hit him many places. Anyway, he is quiet.”

“Dead?”

“He is breathing. But one can never tell with head wounds. I may have yet another complicated explanation to make to God when I show up at his doorstep, which, considering all things, may be at any moment. I hope I have not killed him, quite, though he undoubtedly deserves it. I will leave that to someone else to do, another day. There are many people who would enjoy killing him. Several dozen I can call to mind at once.”

She baffled him. There was ruthlessness there, but it was a kind of blithe toughness, clean as a fresh wind. He didn’t catch a whiff of the evil that killed men in cold blood, from ambush. He had to keep reminding himself what she was. “You did more than knock him over the head. What was the rest of it, afterwards?”

“You desire the whole report?” She sounded amused. “But you are a spymaster, I think, Englishman. No one else asks such questions so calmly, as if by right. Very well, I shall report to you the whole report—that I have tied Henri up and helped myself to his money. There was an interesting packet of papers in a pocket he may have thought was secret. You may have them if you like. Me, I am no longer in the business of collecting secret papers.”

Her hands patted over him lightly. “I have also found a so-handy stickpin, and if you will lift your pretty iron cuff here. Yes. Just so. Now hold still. I am not a fishwife that I can filet this silly lock while you wriggle about. You will make me regret that I am being noble and saving your life if you do not behave sensibly.”

“I am at your disposal.” He offered his chained wrist. At the same time he reached out and touched her hair, ready to grab her if she tried to leave without freeing him.

She put herself right in his power—a man twice her size, twice her strength, and an enemy. She had to know what her writhing and whispering did to a man. Revenge and anger and lust churned in his body like molten iron. The wonder was it didn’t burn through his skin and set this soft hair on fire.

“Ah. We proceed,” she said in the darkness. “This lock is not so complicated as it pretends to be. We are discussing matters.”

She edged closer and shifted the manacle to a different angle, brushing against his thigh. With every accidental contact, his groin tightened and throbbed. All he could think of was her soft voice saying, “I will oil my body and dance in the firelight.” He was no Henri. He wasn’t going to touch her. But how did he get a picture like that out of his head?

“And…it is done.” The lock fell open.

She made it seem easy. It wasn’t. He rubbed his wrist. “I thank you.”

He stood and stretched to his full height, welcoming the pain of muscles uncramping. Free. Savage exultation flooded him. He was free. He bunched and unbunched his fists, glorying in the surge of power that swept him. He felt like he could take these stones apart with his bare hands. It was dark as the pit of hell and they were twenty feet under a stronghold of the French Secret Police. But the door hung open. He’d get them out of here—Adrian and this remarkable, treacherous woman—or die trying. If they didn’t escape, it would be better for all of them to die in the attempt.

While that woman worked on Adrian’s manacle, he groped his way across the cell to Henri, who was, as she had said, breathing. The Frenchman was tied, hand and foot, with his stockings and gagged with his own cravat. A thorough woman. Checking the bonds was an academic exercise. There was indeed a secret pocket in the jacket. He helped himself to the papers, then tugged Henri’s pants down to his ankles, leaving him half naked.

“What do you busy yourself with?” She’d heard him shifting Henri about. “I find myself inquisitive this evening.”

“I’m giving Henri something to discuss with Leblanc when they next meet.” It might buy them ten minutes while Henri explained his plans for the girl. “I may eventually regret leaving him alive.”

“If we are very lucky, you will have an eventually in which to do so.” There was a final, small, decisive click. “That is your Adrian’s lock open. He cannot walk from here, you know.”

“I’ll carry him. Do you have a plan for getting out of the chateau with an unconscious man and no weapons and half the Secret Police of France upstairs?”

“But certainly. We will not discuss it here, though. Bring your friend and come, please, if you are fond of living.”

He put an arm under Adrian’s good shoulder and hauled him upright. The boy couldn’t stand without help, but he could walk when held up. He was conversing with unseen people in a variety of languages.

“Don’t die on me now, Hawker,” he said. “Don’t you dare die on me.”