A Night Of Secret Surrender

‘Why you?’

The sharpness of his observations made her give him the truth. ‘A few days ago I tried to help a French family who had strong ties with England and it did not go well at all.’

The crouching danger of Paris at war, Shay thought, and no end in sight. ‘So you are under scrutiny for it?’

‘Any mistake can be your last here, now that trust has gone.’

‘Trust.’

‘Everyone says that Napoleon will triumph, but nobody truly believes it any more. By my calculations his empire will be diminishing by the end of next year. I am sure you have heard of his pretensions to capture Moscow.’

He smiled and tipped his head. ‘Come to Spain with me, then. We could leave tonight.’

‘I’m no longer the Celeste Fournier you once knew, Major, and I’d be safer alone.’

‘How can it be safer to be taken to the Military Police and named as a spy?’

‘There are worse things than an honourable death in this life.’

‘And would it be such an honourable death when they find out you have warned me and allowed me to escape? Such a person could not hope for lenience.’

‘And I would not expect it.’

His finger ran across the soft flesh at her throat. ‘Your heart is beating too fast to plead indifference, though your father’s tutelage in the art of theatre adds a certain truth to your charade. It must fool many.’

‘I am not like you, Major Shayborne. My morality is questionable at the best of times and if you believe otherwise you will be disappointed. Meet me tomorrow under the front arch of Les Halles if you want my help to leave the city. At five in the morning. Do not bring luggage. It is your last and final choice. If you aren’t there, I shall not see you again. Bonne chance.’

Anger sliced through him and he bit down on a reply, but she’d pulled away and was already gone.

Like smoke. There one moment and gone the next. He wondered how she did that, but reasoned the street was suddenly full of pedestrians and she had only been waiting for them to draw near so that she might depart unnoticed. His eyes scanned the road.

Yes, there she was a good hundred yards away, sliding into the alley behind a cart selling fish. His gaze didn’t linger, though, because other eyes might well be watching and even a little security was better than nothing.

She’d looked smaller than he remembered and a hell of a lot thinner. And there had been a line of scars circling the sensitive skin above her left wrist. He wondered why.

* * *

He had ruffled her calm, she thought, and left her on edge. No one had spoken to her so honestly since her father had died, and the pull to return to England was stronger than she had imagined it might have been.

A safe place. A quiet and beautiful sanctuary. Shaking her head, she turned away into the shadows, causing her to miss the telltale sign of someone hiding.

More than one, she corrected a few seconds later when Guy Bernard and Pierre Alan held her between them, arms splayed across the uneven stone of the wall, the black wig tugged off and thrown down, trampled into the dust.

‘Benet has reconsidered your part in the Dubois debacle and has sent us to deliver both a warning and a counsel.’ Guy spoke, his voice softly furious, even as his fist slammed into her unprotected stomach, the air viciously expelled from her windpipe, leaving her retching for breath.

‘Your other interests are to desist immediately and any further contact with the English shall be taken as treason on your behalf and you will be accorded the appropriate treatment. You are to be made an example of as a message to others, let it be known that there can be no question of loyalty in these difficult times. A tutelage in humility, if you like, and one that reinforces that even the best of us are not immune to answering to the might of France.’ Her face was next, the careful punch of a fist bruising her mouth and shaking her front teeth.

For a moment, she saw stars about her, the earth tilting and the warmth of blood running down her chin to drip unheeded on to the rough homespun of her trousers.

‘Benet wants to make sure that you realise if there is another incident of such a nature, you will be dead. Do you understand? There will be no further clemency.’

Alan’s knife was out now and the slice across the skin on her right hand cut deep into the flesh between her thumb and forefinger.

‘Do you understand?’ Pierre Alan repeated, menace clearly audible.

‘Yes,’ she breathed out, feeling the spin of terror. Another few moments of this and she would not make it home, the weakness of shock consuming her former bravado.

‘Look at me.’ It was Guy’s voice now, its personal intonation alerting her to a new degradation on its way even as his lips came down hard across her own. One hand curled about her throat, holding her there as the other wormed under her shirt and squeezed her left breast.

She saw his intent and the horror of her past resurfaced, moving like wraiths under her skin before the world blackened about the edges and she was falling, her blood slick on the coping stones as her feet went from beneath her.

* * *

When she woke she still wore all her clothes and was relieved that he had not followed through on the threat implicit in his assault. Leaning over to one side, she was tidily sick, the contents of her stomach soaking her trousers and running across the bleached stone.

Her nose streamed, her hand smarted and one of her front teeth felt loosened. A lucky escape. A fortunate evasion. The ache in her breast left her dizzy as she fumbled with the buttons on her shirt. He had pinched her there, next to the nipple, pinched her so hard the skin had dimpled and left a red mark.

But nothing was broken. Nothing would be permanent save for the scars inside. Benet knew his business and Guy was a competent servant. If not for her hope of helping Shayborne, she would have been well bent into submission now, too scared to think for herself, let alone act.

They could find her whenever and wherever they wanted and next time she would die. Less cleanly than Benet had directed, she imagined, the rush of lust in Guy’s face unhidden. If he had been there alone without Pierre Alan looking on, she wondered if he could have controlled himself. She was certain he would not have.

A crossroad dressed as a warning. The play of men against a woman. No one knew the true and personal ramifications of what had been threatened, save her.

She sat back and took her hat in her hand, hiding the injuries with it as others hurried past. For this moment she could not walk, fright having frozen her into incapacity. Passers-by would see a drunk perhaps, a youth who could not hold his liquor, a working boy with little sense or intellect and no hope.

Breathe, she instructed herself firmly and began to find air, small gulps at first and then greater ones. The tight alarm in her chest loosened and her teeth let go of the soft flesh inside her mouth.

‘Papa,’ she whispered when her voice was back, hating the need she could hear in the single word and the tears that stung the cut across one edge of her cheek.

Chapter Two (#ulink_3f41068d-1633-57f8-bbdb-4db7cd83ba86)

Shay counted down the seconds following Celeste’s departure, wanting to place a good amount of time between them. Safety depended on careful observations and well-planned escape routes.

McPherson would have to be warned, of course. The net was closing in day by day, but he hadn’t yet done what he’d hoped to since coming to Paris. He had passed military and political intelligence through McPherson to Wellesley, good intelligence that would inform the strategists and policy makers. But things were coming to a head now and he did not want to miss the last battles of the campaign.

Napoleon and the Grande Armée were Russia-bound and General Wellesley was moving east towards France, chasing the last of the remaining French troops under General Soult out of Spain.

He would quit Paris for the Spanish north. In disguise, he thought, and his heart sank. In all the weeks he’d been in France he had worn his uniform, as he had promised to do. Never before had he broken his promise to stay under the protection of military clothes.

Celeste Fournier was another problem. If she had come to him, then others were probably watching, too, and her vow of help was beguiling. He would like to understand why she had left Sussex so abruptly. He would like to know why she had never made contact with him, why she had slid into the Parisian underworld of subterfuge and sacrifice instead.

A small hole in the canvas allowed him to slip into the backstreet behind the restaurant and up through a series of alleyways that led to Montmartre.

McPherson’s apartment was halfway up the hill on the Rue des Abbesses and he was home, setting a substantial diamond in a gold ring.

‘The secret police and the War Office have us in sight. You will need to pack up and leave.’

Grey eyebrows shot up. ‘Cunningham implied as much when I saw him last. The White Dove warned him.’