The Spymaster's Lady (33 page)

She could say nothing at all. It was a deadly dance she made with Leblanc. They held each other by the throat. She accused him of nothing. In return, he would keep his silence about Vauban and that day in Bruges.

Soulier's eyes never left her face. “You do not care to speculate? No? That is interesting, I think. And what is this?” A servant girl, an English by the look of her, entered and stooped to whisper a few words in Soulier's ear. “How rumor bestirs herself in this town of London. You are sought.”

“Leblanc?”

He had come to kill her. He would take her from this parlor out to the streets and kill her.

“Do not look like the stricken doe, Annique. I shall not let him stain these pretty carpets with your blood. Instead, I shall ask him why he does extraordinarily stupid things here in my island kingdom.” He listened again to the maid, then gave her quiet orders. “Leblanc is only the first of our morning callers. Your lover, Grey, approaches as well, almost upon Leblanc's heels.”

Grey had found her. She fought the sudden, absurd relief that filled her. This was not rescue. It was confusion beyond belief.

The cane in Soulier's hands inscribed a neat circle on the floor. “This will be entertaining. I must admit Grey to this house. I am the open agent in England and here under his sufferance, so I must behave myself.”

“You should send him away. He is dangerous.”

“He is that, certainly. But perhaps he will chat with me about Leblanc's schemes, since you have so little interest.”

At the front of the house, doors opened and closed. She tried to imagine what would happen when these three spymasters met and could not, except that she would probably die at the hands of Leblanc. All was disaster and unbridled turmoil. There was no plan she could conceive for dealing with it.

Then Leblanc entered the room, and she was so simply terrified she could not think at all.

“Jacques.” Soulier's voice was noticeably cool. His men, waiting quietly in the background, became alert. “You condescend to visit me. Come. Babette shall prepare coffee for you as well. Or if you would prefer wine—”

“I have come for Annique. Give her to me, and I go.”

Leblanc held his right arm stiffly to his chest. So it pained him still, where she had put her knife into him. His face was pasty against the dark English coat he wore. But it was not wholly pain that made him pale. He was in great fear. Was it that Grey was moments behind him? Or did he think she had broken her silence about what had happened in Bruges? He should know she would not betray Vauban.

Soulier said meditatively, “You are abrupt tonight, Jacques. And yet I find we have much to discuss. There is the matter of the attack upon the headquarters of the British Service—”

“I have no time to prattle with an old man. I am an officer of the First Consul of France. I do not concern myself with appeasing English spies. When France is threatened, I take action. I—”

“And I am an old man,” Soulier said, “who does not enact dramas at three in the morning. You see Annique? She sits with Fouché's death order hanging above her and this irresponsible knifing in alleyways you attempt. She does not play me melodramas at this ungodly hour. Sit down.”

“Annique is mine.” His eyes said he had come to kill her. “Assigned to me by Fouché. Do not come between me and what is mine, Soulier.”

“Pah! You are upon my territory, you and your men you have brought to England without my permission or my knowledge. You have done various insane actions in my domain. You shall explain them to me, and perhaps I will not raise my voice loud enough to be heard in Paris.”

“Do not cross me. I have an agent to discipline and a death order to—”

The door opened, and Grey came in.

He had come to her, here in the bastion of his enemies. He wore the authority of his office and the controlled deadliness of a soldier. He had never looked more menacing.

Soulier inclined his head. “Monsieur Grey, I bid you welcome. You will forgive me for not rising. It is an old trouble with a wound. You have come to assure yourself that Annique has come safely through the perils of the night. As you see, she is unhurt.”

Ignoring him, Grey stalked forward.

Unperturbed, Soulier continued, “I make you my sincere and humble apology for the damage to your headquarters. Do not, I beg of you, send men to enact the same stupidity upon us in Paris. It is the work of this one
crétin
who ram-pages madly in England. He will be brought under proper control.”

Grey lifted her half out of her chair to kiss her, passionately and possessively, hard upon her mouth. It surprised her, but she was more immediately concerned with receiving and hiding the knife he passed to her. As a declaration of affection, the knife did as well as any number of kisses.

His expression was murderously grim. If he killed someone, she hoped it would be Leblanc.

“Why is he here?” Leblanc's voice rose to a squeak. He stabbed his finger at Grey, sputtering. “What are you doing? What are you plotting with this Englishman? You accuse me of madness. This is the madness.” He looked from man to man, at the circle of Soulier's agents. “Remove this Englishman. I have Fouché's authority, and I say this.”

No one moved. Soulier said, “You will doubtless explain why you give orders in my house, Jacques.”

“It is you who overstep yourself. Even you cannot consort openly with English spies. You make treason here.”

“I do the unusual, perhaps, but I feel in my bones this is an unusual night. Monsieur Grey and I know one another of old, though we have not met face-to-face…as you did when you held him in your cellar in Paris.”

Leblanc spat on the rich carpet.

Soulier smiled. “Does Fouché know you held the Head of the British Section and had not the wit to recognize him? We will hope he is in a good mood the day he hears that.”

Leblanc was red now as he had been pale before. “My position is secure. Do not challenge me, old man. I have become a power in France, the confidant of Fouché.”

“Then perhaps Fouché will be sympathetic of your blunders.”

Soulier and Grey exchanged cool glances. “Jacques is correct in this much. This is unprecedented, what we do here. Tonight we step out of our assigned roles, you and I, and face one another. I am a man who has no love of the bizarre. What my colleague so rudely demands, I ask more politely. What do you come here for?”

“Annique.”

“You may not have her. You must realize that.”

Grey said, “This is England, Soulier.”

“And the woman Carruthers is your agent in Paris. Let us not speak of force. You will not enter my stronghold and remove my agents. In return, the woman Carruthers will knit placidly in her white house with blue shutters in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It has been understood for a decade between Galba and Fouché that one square upon the board shall be sacrosanct in each capital. This is ours. Annique stays with me.”

“She's not safe.” Grey jerked his thumb at Leblanc. “That bastard's going to kill her.”

“Not within my house.” Soulier touched fingertip to fingertip, his elbows on the padded arms of the chair. “Monsieur Grey, no harm will come to Annique. With the death of her mother, and my old friend Vauban dead as well, I stand as protector to her. I will let no…”

Vauban? What had he said?
It cannot be true.
She felt the room jar, as if it were a carriage that had stopped suddenly. “Vauban is dead?”

They stopped and looked at her. Grey said, “You didn't know?”

Soulier said carefully, “For weeks now. Did you not hear? The last day of July. He died peacefully in his sleep, my child. His years were fulfilled. We were—”

Gunfire cracked. A shock. Heat stung her cheek. She was on the floor, flat on her face, with no memory of throwing herself there. Gunpowder hung in the air. She had not been hit. She felt no pain, only cold and fear.

Frantic scuffling. The thud and grunt of men fighting. A chair clattered. The pistol bounced across the floor.

Soulier was on his feet, his cane revealed as a thin sword blade. His guards stood in front of him, shielding him.

Leblanc pulled his knife. In a blur of speed, Grey wheeled and kicked and connected.
La savate.
She had not known Grey was a
savateur.
Leblanc staggered and screamed and launched himself upon Grey, stabbing.

They went down together. A lamp fell. Dishes crashed to the floor. She could not throw her knife into the tangle of two men wrestling. The guards, idiots, did nothing.

It was a fight of lightning swiftness, a fight of cats in an alley. Leblanc raised steel that glittered like ice. Struck. Grey caught his arm. The blade sawed back and forth and flipped, end over end, to clatter at Soulier's feet. Grey's fist struck. Leblanc collapsed, bloody, on the floor.

She knelt, gasping, the knife she had not used still in her hand. Grey was not hurt. Not hurt. Not one tiny bit hurt. He was safe.

The guards ran forward, not sure which man to hold. Soulier's voice came calmly. “Assist Leblanc to rise, Yves. Just so. Continue to assist him. Monsieur Grey, I am inexpressibly grateful. Annique, my very dear…you are not injured? I see you are not.”

She got to her feet, shaking so badly she searched for something to support her. The scratch on her cheek…She wiped at it with the back of her hand. A nothing. When she turned to look, behind her on the yellow silk panel of the wall, the bullet made a neat, round puncture, black at the edges.

Leblanc hung heavily in an implacable hold. He looked…diminished. He was only a thin, ugly man in rumpled clothing, bleeding from his nose. Not the important spy of France. Not the bogeyman of her childhood.

Her voice came as if from far away. “Vauban is dead. I did not know.”

Grey came up behind her. “I would have told you. I thought you knew.”

There was a humming in her ears. So strange. She felt as if she were floating. Because she knew everything. She could see it all. So obvious. “Vauban dies. And it was a week, not more, that Maman's coach falls unbelievably from a high cliff. I was to ride out with her that day.”

“My God,” Grey muttered.

Behind her eyes, fire pulsed. She faced Leblanc. “Was I so hard to kill you must take Maman as well? Or did you think I had shared the secret with her?”

“I don't know what you mean.” Leblanc's gaze slid away. His pupils jerked in tiny twitches. He was guilty. Guilty and afraid.

He killed Maman.
The world went blood red. She dropped her knife and went for him with her bare hands.

He gagged as her hands closed on his throat. She would tear him apart. Rip his flesh to pieces. She fought the guards who pulled Leblanc away. She fought Grey when he held her arms behind her back and did not let her sink her claws into Leblanc.

“Arrête, chérie.”
Soulier's voice reached her.

“I will kill him.” She kicked Grey, who kept her from Leblanc. “I will kill him fifty times. Murderer! Assassin. Animal!” She would shred him to bits.

“She lies. Do not listen to her. It is all lies.”

“So far, she merely promises to kill you,” Soulier said. “I am almost inclined to allow it. But we will hear what she has to say first. Calm her, Monsieur Grey. She will hurt herself.”

She would wipe this piece of filth from the universe. She would grind him to suet. “Son of a maggot. Murderer.”

“Annique, stop.” Grey's strength closed around her, and she could not move. “Tell me.”

The smell of Grey, the steadiness of him, filled her senses. Fury trickled away. She was empty. She slumped against him, chilled and sick, panting for air.

Vauban was dead. He would never again fold together the pages of her report and nod, all gruff, and say, “Good work,” in front of everyone. He would never pour water in her wine as if she were still a child. Never. Never. Never again for Vauban. For Maman. Everything was gone. Tears burned in her eyes, and the pain choked her. Grey held her to him so she was hidden.

Soulier said, “Child, there is no time for this. Set it aside.”

She clung one minute to Grey's jacket. The rage had passed, leaving her hollow. It was as if her heart and mind had been scooped out of her altogether. She was nothing but a cold wind wrapped in a woman's skin.

She tried to push away from Grey and found herself still held—warmly, carefully, firmly. He did not let her go. He turned her within his arms so that she faced Soulier. It seemed she would have the comfort of his body whether she wished for it or not.

“I am composed,” she said.

“Good. I must deal with Leblanc,” Soulier said. “Give me the truth of this matter.”

Truth. How strange that she could tell the simple truth in this company. There was no old man in his stone house in Normandy, depending upon her silence. Vauban was dead. Nothing could hurt him.