The Shadow of Albion (43 page)

must consider this an act of war; Denmark is neutral and to violate her flag is an act

of arrant piracy.“

„And so he will, should he ever happen to hear of it,“ Lord Valentine said. The

youngest son of the Duke of Hurley, Lord Valentine had been encouraged to leave

home at an early age and never return, as his politics were quite at odds with his

father’s. „But I daresay Boney don’t want him to know. If anything’d make the

Danish lion lie down with Britannia, snabbling the Prince Regent’s daughter off the

high seas would do it“

„But we are fortunate that he did not,“ Captain Rytter said. „The Princess was

aboard the Trygve Lie, and we have heard nothing to say she did not reach port

safely.“

Wessex kept himself from looking at Koscuisko. His partner had been aboard the

Christina’s sister ship and was prepared to swear that Princess Stephanie had not

been on the Trygoe Lie. Instead Wessex looked toward Sir John, who, of all the rest

of those gathered tonight at this table, must know that Captain Rytter was lying.

„Indeed, though it was impossible to persuade our friends of that as well,“ said

Sir John blandly, in his fluid diplomatic French. „The Princess’s ladies-in-waiting

and gentleman ushers were aboard the captured ship, and a detachment of her

regiment, but they were wholly unable to produce the Princess, no matter how

diligent their search. Captain Rytter, of course, told the French she was not aboard.“

He shrugged. „I dare to swear their powers of comprehension were not above

ordinary.“

„So Princess Stephanie has made her way to safety,“ Koscuisko agreed

cheerfully. „What a very good thing, to be sure.“

At the end of the meal, Madame de Staël rose promptly.

„I shall leave you gentlemen to – briefly – punish the port, as I know that Sir John

and Lord Valentine are English and would fall into despair if this custom were not

followed. But I shall expect you to be brief, and the Chevalier I shall take away to

bear me company while I wait.“

Wessex obediently rose and followed Madame from the dining salon. However,

she did not conduct him to the grand salon, but rather to her private study on the

floor above.

„Are you most certain, M’sieur le Chevalier, that you wiH be leaving Verdun

within the next few days?“ Madame de Staël demanded.

„I think I can promise you absolutely that I shall be away by the end of the week.

To prefer one place over another becomes tedious over time, do you not find?“

Wessex said smoothly.

„Then I will give you this. It is a manuscript that I wish to see published – in

France.“

From a secret compartment in her desk, Madame withdrew several thick sheaves

of paper inscribed in a fine copperplate script. She piled the pages together, forming

a bundle nearly a foot thick, and began making it fast with red waxed string. „It is my

latest work – based upon my journeys in Italy. Corinne will show the world that I am

not to be forgotten!“

„If you can obtain the imprimatur. The Minster of Police will surely have

something to say about that,“ Wessex observed mildly.

Madame threw back her head and laughed. „And so he should, if he knew that it

was by my pen! That! for Fouché – I have it in mind to let him know that this is by

my hand only after the edition has been circulated, and see how he weathers the

charity of his Corsican master! But first the manuscript must be taken to a publisher

and prepared for press.“ . „Dear lady,“ Wessex protested, slightly alarmed.

„Oh, do not fear, Monsieur le Chevalier, I do not have you in mind for my

go-between. I have for some time been in correspondence with a certain religious

gentleman possessed of a noble and open mind; you have but to take this parcel to

the village of Auxerre and give it into the hands of the innkeeper there; Père le Condé

will call for it in good time – and I shall be spared the tedium of recopying it when

the so-tiresome commander of our lovely city loses my package, as he has done so

often before. Will you help me, M’sieur le Chevalier? It would seem you have been

sent by the very Spirit of Liberty to aid me.“

„When such a beautiful – and formidable – woman makes such a gracious appeal,

what can any man do but lay himself down in her service?“ Wessex answered

grandly. He needed Madame de Staël’s help – though she had been of great

assistance to him already in gaining him access to Sir John – and he relished the

opportunity to tweak the noses of the bureaucratic butchers who were currently

stifling the life of the mind here on the Continent „Then I will wrap this with my own

hands for you against its journey,“ Madame said. „I dare not trust the manuscript to

my maid – there are spies everywhere, and many within my own household. But for

now, we have the whole of the night before us, and I have invited a few of my

particular friends to call. Let us banish care.“

The party broke up long past midnight, after a glorious evening of Olympian wit

and sparkling talk. Some twenty members of Verdun’s society – free-thinking men

and women both – had made the walls ring with epigrams and laughter, and even

Wessex had been able to lay his cares aside for a while.

He had not been so rash as to attempt to approach Sir John at the garnering, but

as housing was a frequent subject of discussion, it had not been difficult to discover

where Sir John lived. Wessex had made plans to visit that location as soon as it

might be arranged.

As Wessex was making his good-byes, Madame handed him a large,

oilcloth-wrapped bundle.

„Your books, Chevalier. Be sure to return them to me soon,“ Madame said.

„You may depend upon it, my dear Baronne?“ Wessex said. „In fact, I shall

exert myself to return them a thousandfold.“

When Wessex returned to his billet, Illya Koscuisko was there before him,

lounging on the bed in shirt and trousers.

„You’ve been shopping, I see,“ Koscuisko said, indicating Wessex’s package.

„Something that may be as damaging to Bonaparte – in the long run – as a couple

of companies of heavy artillery,“ Wessex answered, setting the oilcloth-wrapped

bundle containing Madame de Staêl's manuscript down on his bed. „We are

encouraged to bring it to a little town named Auxerre.“

„I know the place,“ Koscuisko said. „A village about one hundred and eighty

kilometers outside Paris. Madame has friends there who will surely help her work see

print But is this quite the direction we are bound in, one wonders?“

„I shall know better once I have seen Sir John,“ Wessex said. As he spoke,

Wessex began changing his evening finery for the more sober coat and breeches he

had worn that day – but he did not put the coat on immediately.

First he turned the garment inside out – it was lined, not in silk or satin, but in soft

black moleskin that ate the light There were small black horn buttons on the reversed

lapels as well, and when Wessex had put the coat on and buttoned the collar into

place, he was wearing a sort of black tunic closed high up to the neck. He turned the

cuffs down over his hands, and then the dark moleskin tunic covered his white shirt

completely; he would be invisible in dim light.

The boots Wessex donned were rubber-soled, permitting a noiseless movement

and a certain ease in scaling the walls of buildings.

Koscuisko rummaged about his luggage and produced a curiosity: an unfringed

shawl of black gauze. Sheer enough to see through, the shawl’s swaddling folds

would dim the whiteness of Wessex’s skin and the brightness of his blond hair,

allowing him to become even more a phantom of the night. Wessex thanked

Koscuisko with a curt nod and began swathing himself in the veiling.

„And what am I to do, while you are frightening the amiable Sir John out of

several years’ growth?“ Koscuisko enquired.

Wessex paused to slip a long knife into one boot and to wrap a primed pistol

carefully in his handkerchief before sliding it inside his coat.

„You, my son, will be figuring out some way to get yourself and bom our horses

out of the city again – not forgetting Madame’s parcel – without raising the view

halloo. There’s an inn a few miles west of here – I’ll be there by dawn.“

„And if you aren’t?“

„Then for God’s sake take Madame’s package on to Auxerre for me, and men

get home as quick as you can. Misbourne needs to know that Princess Stephanie’s

entourage is here in Verdun. The captain was lying – she was on that ship – and I

hope Sir John can tell me why. But the information that she is here is of vital

importance.“

„And what of the Duchess?“ Koscuisko said. „Highclere has kidnapped your

wife.“

For a moment Wessex’s face went very still, but when he spoke his tone was

unchanged. „Get the information to London and the manuscript to Auxerre, there’s a

good fellow. I’ll join you as quickly as I can.“

But for all his cavalier dismissal of his Duchess’s fate, Wessex could not stop

thinking of the woman he had married as he made his careful way across the

rooftops of Verdun to a meeting with King Henry’s envoy.

The deep game his wife had been playing had proved successful – she had turned

Lady Meriel and drawn the girl away from Prince Jamie’s side. Sarah, Lady Roxbury

– now Duchess of Wessex – was a member of the Boscobel League, sworn to serve

the person of the King before her country or her crown, and so she had done. The

king was safe from the assassination that Lord Ripon must surely have contemplated

once he felt Prince Jamie was safe in his marital trap.

But now Sarah was in danger, imprisoned somewhere in France. Kidnapped by

Ripon’s ill-mannered younger brother – had Geoffrey Highclere somehow

discovered who she was? – and spirited away for reasons unknown.

Sarah might already be dead.

Wessex set his jaw. He dared not think about that now. If he did not find Princess

Stephanie, the Danish Treaty would collapse. Denmark would become Bonaparte’s

foothold on the Scandinavian countries; the Tyrant’s bridgehead from which to

launch a Russian invasion.

That must not be.

Over the last several years Wessex had made it his business to know the streets

of Verdun very well indeed, and he found Number Ten Rue de la Paix without

trouble.

Even in the summer’s heat, the rooftops of the city were largely deserted, owing

primarily to the sentries’ habit of shooting at anything they saw moving mere. Their

muskets did not have such range as to make it likely they would hit anything beyond

three hundred yards, but even a spent bullet could kill.

And so the rooftops remained empty.

Sir John, as one of the latest whom the poor city must somehow find room for,

had been given an attic bedroom, and the shutters of his windows were open against

the heat of the night. Wessex made short work of descent from the rooftop through

the open window.

The room was empty.

„I have very little worth stealing,“ Sir John Adams remarked from behind the

wardrobe. He was in nightshirt and cap, with a fireplace poker clutched in one hand.

„Your countrymen have been remarkably efficient.“

„Not my countrymen, Sir John,“ Wessex drawled, straightening from his crouch

and turning to face the envoy.

„You’re English!“ Sir John exclaimed, his eyes first widening, then narrowing as

he recognized his dinner companion from earlier in the evening.

„King Henry sent me to discover what happened to the Queen Christina and

Princess Stephanie,“ Wessex said. „It’s a pity I can’t show you a Royal

Commission, but I left that with Prince Frederick in Denmark. He was as cordial as

you may imagine.“

„And what brought you here?“ Sir John said, his tone cautious.

„I was possessed of the liveliest curiosity as to why Bonaparte should have

despatched the Marquis de Sade as envoy to the most straidaced court in Europe,“

Wessex said. „It occurred to me to imagine that his reputation for sorcery may not

be entirely undeserved.“

„That-fog was a thing of the devil, right enough,“ Sir John muttered. Gathering his

dressing gown from a nearby chair, Sir John swathed himself in its folds and sat

down. „And you’ve come here – why? After this evening’s masquerade, ‘Chevalier

de Reynard,’ I can hardly imagine that you are here to treat with the garrison

commander for my release.“

„I’m afraid not,“ Wessex agreed, „though I will certainly tell the King that you are

here in Verdun, and perhaps pressure can be brought to bear. For that matter, His