12

Christien heard Lydia coming long before she reached his room. China rattled, floorboards creaked, her voice flowed like hot chocolate along the corridor and beneath his door. Then she pushed the door open and glided in with all grace and elegance in a cream-colored gown and scarlet ribbons.

She didn’t smile at him. Indeed, her mouth appeared tight, with a muscle bunched at the side of her jaw. She kept her lashes over her eyes, concealing the expression in the velvet-brown depths.

Her companion proved a different specimen. Blonde hair frizzing around her pale face, she shot a glance at him that held pure venom, antagonism beyond the usual for even an Englishman to demonstrate toward a Frenchman.

“I don’t approve of my lady taking breakfast with you in your chamber,” Barbara announced. “But she has a mind of her own. It doesn’t bode well for her following the Lord’s will, but that’s between her and God.”

“Indeed it is.” Lydia shot her companion a frosty glare. “Monsieur de Meuse wishes to speak with me, and his injury precludes him from leaving his room.”

It might have been his imagination, but Christien thought her eyes rolled upward, in the direction of her room. His injury hadn’t prevented him from climbing the steps to spy.

To spy. He’d confessed to being a spy, and she all but ignored it. Almost as though she would believe nothing he told her, so he might as well talk if it made him feel better. As long as the blackmailing Mr. Lang’s threats kept her working with Christien, things might work out. How much better if . . .

He drew the dressing gown more tightly around him. “You ladies are very kind.”

“It’s our Christian duty.” The companion snatched the tray from Lydia and all but slammed it onto a low table. “Sit down, Lydia. I’ll serve you.”

“You needn’t—” Lydia stopped, glanced around, and drew a chair closer to the one Christien had pulled as near to the hearth as he dared.

April or not, spring in England forever chilled him.

“Unless you wish Miss Bainbridge to hear what you have to say,” Lydia said, “I recommend we talk in French.”

“Of course.” Christien glanced at the sour-faced spinster, and his heart pinched.

Her dislike of him should have curdled the milk in its Wedgwood pitcher. Yet she served with care, not spilling a drop of the tea or skimping on the butter for the bread. She might scowl at him, but she looked at Lydia with kindness and concern.

No doubt the basis for her animosity toward him. He was the enemy to Miss Barbara Bainbridge, apparently some poor relation to the family. She wouldn’t know how much of an enemy Lydia thought him. He was simply French by birth, by the first ten years of his life spent in that country, by the part of him that longed to return to the verdant countryside and strong coffee for le petit déjouner instead of the endless English tea. The way Miss Bainbridge stood as far away from him as possible while still handing him his cup demonstrated her unwillingness to come near him. Yet she was near him, helping Lydia because it was the right thing to do.

He smiled at her. “Would you prefer we wait a day or two for this talk? Peut-être wait until I am whole enough to go down to a parlor or, better yet, my own home so you don’t have to stay here?”

“I would stay by Lady Gale regardless of your location.” Barbara took a cup of tea for herself and withdrew to the furthest seat in the room—the stool in front of the dressing table.

“It’s all right.” Lydia smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. She switched to French. “I warned her ahead of time we would speak in French for your sake.”

“I expect she thinks I’m too barbaric to speak King’s English for more than a sentence or two.”

“Something like that.” Lydia’s smile relaxed, and the corners of her eyes creased the tiniest bit.

“Would it help if she knew I attended Cambridge for three years?”

“Not particularly. Cambridge, you may remember, didn’t support the king in the Civil War.”

“You’re jesting, non?”

Lydia shook her head. “Barbara is still uncertain of the Regency we have right now. To her, taking power from the king is akin to . . . cutting off his head.”

Christien glanced at Barbara. Her face was set in such stony lines he wondered how she could open her mouth to drink her tea.

“My family came close to joining Louis, vous comprenez?” he reminded her.

“Indeed. And yet your father was a revolutionary from the American rebellion.” Lydia gave him a sidelong glance.

“The American rebellion was nothing like what happened in France. If war can be polite, it was in comparison.” Christien gazed into the now tepid brown liquid in his cup. “Papa loved adventure, and a war in the wilderness of the New World seemed exciting to him. He would have approved of me, if things had gone differently in eighteen three.”

“In 1803?” Lydia straightened in her chair. “What happened then?”

“You British canceled the Treaty of Amiens. The little peace with Napoleon ended, and my father was caught inside France where he was suddenly no longer welcome.” The sludge in his cup sloshed dangerously close to the rim, and he set the cup on the table. “He never reached home. Napoleon’s men captured him and killed him. They said he was a spy, was an enemy to France. But he was simply there to see his lands, to see if he could salvage something . . .” He raised his head and looked into her big, dark eyes. Though his own eyes felt hot with the tears of grief, he knew better than to shed them. “That is why I am not working for Napoleon. His men killed my father.”

She gazed right back at him without a flicker of emotion. “It is also why you could be working for Napoleon—because if England had not canceled the peace, none of that would have happened.”

“Ah, my lady, it would have. We begged Papa not to go.” From the corner of his eye, he caught movement from the companion and glanced her way. She smoothed out her features, but not before he caught her sneer.

So she disliked emotion.

Or she understood every word after all and thought him a liar?

His mouth tightened. “This is part of my story for you, my lady. At least hear me out before you say I don’t speak the truth.”

“Of course. I am sorry. You can understand my position, can you not?” For an instant, grief contorted Lydia’s features.

Christien remained still. More than still. He clamped his good hand onto the arm of the chair to stop himself from going to her, drawing her to him. She shouldn’t suffer because of the games despots played. Like his father, she was caught in the middle because she wanted to help her family, because she wanted to help him and repay an old debt.

Before this moment, he had admired her, cherished her, experienced some thoughts about her that perhaps a Christian man should not. Right then, with a yard of space and two cups of dreadful English tea between them, he accepted that he loved her, had probably loved her the moment she handed him her bracelet.

His heart expanded so that his chest could scarcely contain it, and it threatened to rip wide open and expose every feeling spilling through his lifeblood and yearning toward her.

Je t’aime. Je t’aime. Je t’aime.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

His heart pushed the words upward, choking his throat.

“My lady—” He swallowed, shook his head to send the foolishness away from his mind, if not his heart.

The love wouldn’t leave his heart.

He swallowed again, tried to speak again. “Since my father died, weeks before I reached my majority, I have dedicated my life to bringing Napoleon to his end.” Conviction rang in his tone. He couldn’t have asked for better.

He could have asked for more reaction from Lydia. She sat so still with her English reserve that he almost believed she hadn’t heard him. Likewise, her companion didn’t move. She seemed to be examining her fingernails, clean but bitten to the quick.

Resisting the urge to squirm like a schoolboy instructed to explain toads in the schoolmaster’s bed, Christien continued. “For nearly ten years, I have worked for your government inside Napoleon’s Army. I have posed as an émigré who wishes to serve the emperor to gain favor and have my family lands restored.”

“And they believe you?” Lydia’s nose pinched as though she smelled something distasteful.

“The British government gives me bits of information to feed the French.” He sighed. “Gave me. The English won’t let me go back. I have been discovered, I think. But I get ahead of myself.”

And behind in time. The house was stirring. Maids trotted up steps with water jugs sloshing and coal scuttles rattling.

Without time to coat the truth in subterfuge, he blurted out, “Your husband, my lady, was my spy master.”

She jumped. “Charles?” Her hand flew to her mouth, and her face paled.

The companion sprang to her feet so fast she knocked over the stool. “What is it?” she demanded in English. “Is he maligning your sainted husband?”

“If Charles was sainted,” Lydia muttered, “then there is no hope for Christendom.”

“Lydia.” The companion’s jaw dropped.

“Sit down, Barbara, please.” Lydia clasped her hands in her lap, though they continued to tremble. “Monsieur de Meuse has succeeded in gaining my attention.”

“Tres bien.” Christien gave her a wry smile. “Very good indeed. Shall I continue?”

She nodded.

If he were closer, he would have taken her hands in his, warmed them, calmed them. He was not near enough, and the pain in his shoulder prevented him from moving. He settled for catching and holding her gaze. “Charles ended up left behind in Spain because he had paused to get a message to me. It was all chaos with the horses left on the beach and trying to swim out to their masters on the ships, and baggage left behind. Our men were looting and gleeful, and no one noticed me finding the chevalier and getting him to my quarters. We were able to talk before he succumbed to his wounds and before anyone would disrupt us. He gave me the names of other men. One was a Monsieur Lang—please, hear me out.”

Lydia inclined her head. The errant curl bobbed against her cheek, a distraction. A temptation.

Christien heaved a silent sigh of relief and tried to proceed as quickly as he could, for now he heard one of the sisters talking in the corridor, the pretty blonde saying she intended to ride.

Lydia sprang to her feet. “Barbara, stop her. She can’t go riding this early without someone going with her.”

“I can’t leave you here alone with a . . . gentleman.” Barbara remained put.

“Monsieur de Meuse is a gentleman, whatever else we think of him. My virtue is safe, and so is my reputation if you don’t go telling everyone I’m here.” Lydia glanced toward the door, outside which Miss Honore now spoke in her trilling songbird of a voice.

“Mr. Frobisher is bringing the horses around from the mews in five minutes. I positively must be ready.”

“Now, Barbara.” Lydia’s expression was fierce.

Mouth shut as tight as a miser’s purse, Barbara rose and stalked to the door. She slammed it behind her.

“Why does she dislike me so?” Christien reverted back to English.

“It’s not you personally.” Lydia returned to her chair. “It’s the French. She lost her fiancé in the early days of the war.”

“I am sorry for her then. We’ve all lost too much in this war. And now we’ve this trouble with America too. More wars. More death. I’ve been trying for ten years to see it end.” He fixed his gaze on her face, drawing her attention. “With England the victor. Without that, Napoleon will conquer the world, and we do not want his regime here.”

“So you have worked to stop it. How then did our government let you get into our prison?” The question held curiosity, interest, not a sneer or speculation.

Christien relaxed for the first time since the night before. Even the pain in his shoulder diminished to a dull throb. “I was a French Army officer. Quite simply, I was on my way from Marseilles to Cadiz, as I’d been on leave, and my ship was taken by the British Navy. I couldn’t divulge who I was without giving myself away to my fellow officers and risking the British not believing me at the same time, so I had to go to prison and trust that you would help, as Charles said you would. I did not have as great a faith in you as he did upon his deathbed, but he said something about favors you owed.”

“Did he?” Her face contorted. Her eyes glistened.

“Does this distress you, my dear—my lady?”

“It doesn’t matter. Continue.” She nearly barked out the words. “You contacted me. With the intention of blackmailing me into getting you into Society?”

“No, I had nothing to do with blackmail. My Mr. Lang had nothing to do with blackmail. I fully intended to go to your house in Tavistock and await orders. But while on my way there, the guard slipped me a message that said I was in danger and must vanish, must get out of Devonshire immediately. He helped me escape, so I went to Falmouth and sold the bracelet for passage to somewhere. I planned to go to Guernsey.”

“So how did you end up in—Exeter, was it?” She tilted her head to one side, a little smile on her lips.

“Hastings, my lady.” He smiled back. “Lang. He caught up with me there, in truth. He took me to Hastings because he said no one would look for me there. I have been there for a month at his home, eating well and resting. He has been with me, telling me of what he thinks may happen here in England, and we have been planning what to do.”

She sat up straighter. “Happening here in England?”

“Oui. Unrest is here with the length of the war and the losses, the trouble with America, and the machines in the north. We think Napoleon has sent men to foment more trouble, incite riots and revolution here.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He leaned forward, reaching out, but not quite able to touch her. “The countryside is ripe for revolutionaries to harvest. People are hungry and tired of losing their loved ones to war. The king has failed them in his madness, and the prince regent is a man led more by pleasure than—”

“Hush, you speak sedition.” Her face whitened, her knuckles whitened.

Christien sighed. “Peut-être I do, but it is more the truth than not, and Napoleon is happy to bring France’s oldest enemy down from inside.”

“No, it can’t happen here. I won’t . . . I can’t . . .” She raised her hand to her brow and closed her eyes. “If you are telling only a little of the truth, my family is in danger and I’ve failed so much, I—” She dropped her hand to her lap and stiffened her posture. “What am I saying to you? For all I know, what you tell me is balderdash. Why would France want to use Society? You’d think revolution would come from the lower classes.”

“It didn’t in America or, truth be told, France. The lower classes need someone to organize them, someone who is literate and used to leadership. And who is closer to the powers that be to do the leaders damage than those in the Upper Ten Thousand?”

Her fingers writhed on her lap. “I wish you didn’t make sense. I wish I knew whom to believe. Mr. Lang waylaid me in the garden of an inn and blackmailed me into introducing you to Society.”

“Me or Monsieurs Barnaby and Frobisher, one of whom tried running me down with his horse the other day.”

“So you say.”

“And what does Mr. Barnaby say?” Christien spoke through clenched teeth.

“I’ll learn later this morning. At least he said he wished to speak with me.”

“You won’t meet him alone, will you?”

“A drive in the park. Not that that’s any concern of yours.”

“It is my concern. I drew you into this with my letter of introduction and request for further help.”

“You—” She started. “There’s the flaw in your story. The only Mr. Lang I could possibly know is the one who blackmailed me into taking his letters of introduction.”

“But of course you know Lang. He’s delivered two important messages to you. Two letters of introduction—Frobisher and Barnaby, and myself. Or so it appears.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her brow puckered and her eyes flickered.

He grasped the moment of her uncertainty. “Was the man in the garden the same as the man who delivered my messages? Did you look at the handwriting?”

“I . . . can’t be certain of the former or the latter.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes. “The letters were destroyed along with all my correspondences. I couldn’t make a comparison.”

“Destroyed?” Christien shot upright and choked on a groan of pain. “How?”

“You didn’t reach my desk, monsieur?”

“You arrived home early.” He smiled at her.

She smiled back, briefly, but enough to lighten his heart. Perhaps, just perhaps, she was beginning to believe a little of what he said.

“All the papers in my desk were ripped to shreds. But left behind so I’d know they’d done it.”

“And done so from inside your household.” A chill ran up Christien’s spine. “My lady, this is too dangerous. You cannot remain in town.”

“How can I leave? Mr. Lang has threatened my family through accusing me of helping you escape from England.”

“He didn’t—” He stopped, shook his head. “My dear lady, we have gone in a circle, non? Until you believe that someone is an impostor, we can never work to find the source of the danger to England.”

“If there is danger to England. Oh my, I don’t know.” She rose and began to pace around the chamber, flipping the draperies back from the window to expose a slow drizzle of rain clouding the glass, then stooping to gather something up from the rug beneath the dressing table.

Her gown flowed around her, a swirl of gauzy muslin to emphasize her grace of movement. The errant curl bobbed between ear and cheek, a hint of rebellion amidst the proper—the modest dress and tightly pinned coiffure. Christien wished he were an artist so he could paint her. That way he would have a picture of her to cherish when he concluded this mission and returned to his family and relieved his maman of the burden of running the farm, capable though she was at doing so. He wouldn’t even consider taking the flesh-and-blood Lydia back there. She wanted to run as soon as she dared. Only the blackmail held her in town now.

And loyalty to her family.

The family had taken him in without question, and he had possibly led them into danger if someone within the household worked against him already. He wanted to run too. Yet forces beyond his control held him in place, held him to the assignment, as they had too often, compelling him to undertake roles he didn’t want to play.

Roles that built a wall of deception between him and his loved ones, between him and God.

Despite his throbbing shoulder, he rose and approached Lydia once again at the window. “I cannot make you believe me, not when others have done their best to muddy the waters. But please do not dismiss me out of hand.”

In more ways than one.

“But I understand if you do,” he added.

“Then you’ll understand if I don’t.” She faced him, her eyes pinched at the corners. “If you’re telling the truth, then your cause is just and you need my help. If you are lying, then I don’t dare anger Mr. Lang, the blackmailer. So for now, monsieur le comte, I will remain at your side. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must speak with my sisters about their behavior.”

And she was gone, slipping out the door with a last flutter of her pale skirt and a gentle click of the door latch.

His blessings always came with a barb inserted. He got to keep Lydia near him, perhaps persuade her to care for him, to believe him at the least, yet at a cost to her.

Non, he mustn’t think that way. He hadn’t created the difficulty unless he could blame his long-ago desire for revenge on the country that had killed his father and taken the smile from his mother’s eyes.

He leaned his brow against the chilled window glass. Nearly ten years of his role was far too long. He should have stopped years ago, perhaps after Charles Gale had died. He should have stopped before he dragged Gale’s widow into the debacle of this mission.

Then there was Barnaby and Frobisher and a man named Lang with connections that had to come from within the Home Office.

Christien couldn’t think. He’d taken too much of the laudanum the day before. Despite continuing pain, he wouldn’t make that mistake this day. If he could obtain some coffee, strong and black with a quantity of warm milk, his mind would function more clearly.

Some of his French habits would never change. They held such a grip on him he would have sworn he smelled coffee.

He turned from the window. He should try for more sleep. Once rested, he would return home. If someone intended to harm him, the last thing Christien wanted was to drag so much as a mouse from the Bainbridge pantry into danger.

He stepped toward the bed. His door opened and closed so quickly he thought perhaps a maid intended to enter then changed her mind. But a quick glance showed him a diminutive creature in white apron and cap, bearing that most blessed of kitchen utensils—a coffeepot.

“I knew you’d be wanting your morning café au lait, mon frère,” she announced.

“Your brother, indeed.” Christien staggered a step forward and gripped the bedpost. “What are you doing here, Lisette?”

She tossed her head. “What I do better than dancing or husband hunting. I’m the new Bainbridge cook.”