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She turned back to face the man, studying his features in the flickering light from the small torch. “Why are you telling me this? For all you know, I could use such information against Max, against all of you.”
“I’m not quite certain why. Perhaps it was the way you reached out your hand as if to touch him and then turned away before he might see you. Or it might have been the tears in your eyes that blinded you to my approach. You’ve both been quite interesting to watch these past minutes. When you stand at a distance, see only the gestures, without hearing the words? Sometimes, young lady, that’s when the heart hears more clearly than the ears ever will.”
Zoé looked at Richard levelly. “Your heart and eyes deceive you, sir. Max has no heart, and neither do I. We’re cold, fairly terrible people, intent only on survival.”
“And the game,” Richard added, raising one eyebrow. “I lived by my wits at the card tables for the majority of my life, young lady, traveling all of England and the Continent. Always in search of the next adventure. To win, yes, winning is always important, as one can become accustomed to regular meals and a dry bed. But it isn’t paramount for people like us. We’re different from most of the world, aren’t we? For people like us, it’s the thrill of the hunt, the chances you take. The risks that make your blood pump hot in your veins, always skating on the thin ice of detection and even death—and feeding off that danger. That’s what I see in you, in Max. Together, you must have been pure beauty to watch in action.”
A hundred memories came crashing unbidden into Zoé’s mind. “Yes, we were both quite good at what we did. Thank you, Richard, for reminding me,” she said simply before heading toward the end of the tunnel, eager to get out from beneath the crushing confinement of the boulders overhead. “I’d say it’s time to go meet the family.”
CHAPTER TWO
MAX LAY BACK in his bath, his injured head propped against a thick, soft length of toweling. He’d vowed never to see her again, never ask about her, never think about her. He’d willed his heart and mind to forget her.
And then, there she was. Here she is. Under his brother’s roof and his grandmother’s at least temporary protection thanks to Richard Borders, and disturbingly back in his life. Clearly not forgotten.
Zoé. Blonde, beautiful, courageous, passionate, daring, clever. Lying, cold-hearted, devious, deadly Zoé Charbonneau.
From the beginning they’d been inseparable, paired together by the Crown and sent off to the Continent. First as wary partners, then as friends, then as lovers; they’d variously played the parts of siblings, husband and wife, priest and holy sister.
They’d even been so daring as to attend one of Bonaparte’s luxurious fetes as minor Flemish royalty, Max standing guard outside Boney’s private office after midnight while Zoé rifled through the drawers of his desk. She’d committed two dispatches from his field marshals to memory and then pocketed a small crystal paperweight bearing a gold eagle, just so the man would know someone had breeched his supposed impenetrable security—yet have no idea what information had been compromised.
Max’s contribution, a week later, had been to wrap up the paperweight and post it back to Paris, even as Zoé scolded him that such an action might be considered rubbing salt into an open wound.
And then she’d laughed, and he’d laughed, and they’d made love in the hayloft of a barn just outside Marseilles.
They’d been so good together. In every way.
They’d come together in passion in more than a dozen countries, sometimes in rainy meadows, sometimes on silken sheets, at times in leisure and other times in haste, to rejoice, or to conquer unspoken fear after near disaster.
They were two. They were one. They thought alike, anticipated each other’s every move, guarded each other’s back.
How many times had Max begged her to give up the game and allow him to take her to Redgrave Manor? Where she’d be safe, where he would visit her when he could, where he wouldn’t have to worry about her.
And how many times had she told him no, she couldn’t live not knowing where he was, the dangers he faced. They’d begun together and they would finish together, only when Bonaparte accepted true terms of truce, and proved his word. Until then, with war formally declared or not, they would live out their oath to the king.
Besides, if they’d only admit it, they were having themselves the adventure of a lifetime. Existing on the edge of danger and heart-pounding tension, loving freely and fiercely, relishing each new challenge, each victory, applauding each other for their combined brilliance. Were any other two people ever so alive?
Was any one fool ever so badly hoodwinked and betrayed?
“Dozing, or fading into unconsciousness again?”
Max opened his eyes, grateful to be rescued from his thoughts. “Gideon,” he said flatly. “If you’re referring to that moment climbing the hill to the horses, I did not swoon. I stumbled.”
“And quite gracefully at that. In either event, it’s a good thing your new friend was behind you. You’ll have to tell me more about him.”
“I’ll do that, just as soon as I know more than that I woke on the beach with him looming over me with that extraordinary grin of his, as if I’d just mightily delighted him. Now, can I safely assume you’re it as far as unwanted company tonight, or is Trixie close on your heels?”
“She’s otherwise occupied, welcoming home her new husband,” Gideon said as he shifted Max’s clothing from chair to floor and sat down. “You’ve missed a lot, Max, but you can hear it all tomorrow, after Jessica and I have departed for London.”
“You have a meeting with Perceval?”
“No, not this time. In fact, we’re rather avoiding each other, the prime minster and I. He nearly had Valentine clapped in irons, a sentiment I’ve shared more than once, but that also is another story, and I won’t deny our youngest brother the delight I’m sure he’ll bathe in as he tells it. Only then should you allow Kate to corner you and tell you all about how wonderful love with her marquis is, which can be damned embarrassing when we’re more used to her challenging us to races.”
“Kate and Simon Ravenhill. Kate with anybody for that matter. It will be a while until I get used to that, although Val being conked on the head by Cupid’s shovel, as he explained the thing to me, probably is the news that really bears off the palm. I’m on the Continent, risking my life, and all anyone here has been doing is billing and cooing.”
“You underestimate your siblings. I’d say we’ve been doing a trifle more than that since last you and I spoke. As have you.”
Gideon’s tone told Max that, athough there would be questions to come concerning how and why he’d been on the smuggling craft, he and Zoé would be the only topic of discussion tonight. “Just ask your questions and then leave me to my misery. My head’s pounding as it is.”
“And you look like hell, there’s also that.”
“While you’re always impeccable,” Max said, “even when running about on a moonlit beach like some revenue officer, rounding up smugglers.”
“I don’t know about that, but I do manage to shave.”
“I shave,” Max protested, rubbing his face. Zoé used to shave him. He’d actually trusted her with a straight razor.
“If you say so, although I’d be interested in hearing how you do that, and yet always look as if you haven’t. Although I will admit you look less the too-pretty young Greek god with half your face fuzzy. Is that your hope?”
“I won’t deny that. But as I said, I do shave. Every three or four days.”
“Such a pity I’ve yet to be in your company on any of those glorious days.”
“Are you finished now? Or is this leading us somewhere?”
“No,” Gideon said, tugging lightly at his shirt cuffs. “I’d just realized we hadn’t yet welcomed you home in our usual loving, brotherly way.” He smiled at his brother. “Welcome home, Max.”
His older brother bore the closest resemblance to their Spanish mother. Dark, smoldering, his bearing both aristocratic and intimidating. Max had visited the bullring while in Spain, and had no trouble visualizing Gideon dressed all in gold and black, standing with his long legs tightly together, his spine bent gracefully back as he swirled the red-lined cape daringly, encouraging the bull to charge. With Gideon, however, it was the ton he dared, the ton he ruled, seemingly with no effort on his part. If Max had a hero when he was growing up, it had been Gideon.
Now he wished he’d just go away. But he’d really like to hear more about Richard Borders, the man Max knew only as a friend of Jessica, Gideon’s recent bride.
“Before you launch your inquisition—tell me about Richard Borders and Trixie. That’s going to take some getting used to, as well, you know. I thought she hated men...on general principles, I mean, which had nothing to do with bedding every last man in England.” Max had already stepped out of the tub and wrapped the toweling sheet around his waist. “Here, give me those,” he said, motioning toward the clothes on the floor. “They may be two years away from the latest style, but that doesn’t mean they deserve such shabby treatment.”
“Four years, at the least. It’s been a long time since you’ve graced Redgrave Manor with your presence.” Gideon handed over the clothes. “Oh, and not every last man. Only those she thought useful, trainable, biddable, and—is this a word? Blackmailable?”
“Probably more of a description.” Having drawn on a pair of tan breeches, Max shoved his damp arms into a white shirt with flowing sleeves, the unturned cuffs sliding down to his fingertips, the shirttails hanging. He didn’t bother to close more than a few of the buttons before adding a red and black paisley waistcoat, also left open.
“Always the epitome of style and precise grooming. It still amazes me why women are so drawn to you,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “All that’s missing, other than hose and shoes—and underdrawers—are those damn blue-lens spectacles you were wearing last I saw you in London. For which, may I say, you have my enormous gratitude. The scruffy facial hair is more than sufficient.”
“Don’t be too grateful. They’re around here somewhere, not cracked or even slightly bent. What do you want to know, Gideon? I’ve still got business tonight.”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve never before had a guest—allow me to clarify that, a female guest at the Manor locked up for the night. And we haven’t even been formally introduced.”
“You make it sound as if we keep a dungeon.” Max grabbed up his brushes and began working his way through his damp, faintly shaggy black hair that fell from a slight center part to below his ears, swearing under his breath as one of the brushes hit the now barely scabbed-over bump on the side of his head. “I told you her name. Zoé. Zoé Charbonneau.”
He then headed for his bedchamber, knowing Gideon would follow him, which he did.
Gideon turned around a straight chair and straddled it as Max looked toward the door to the hallway. His brother was demonstrating how this was all just a friendly chat. That was one way of seeing the thing. But what the move really meant was sit down, Max, because you’re going nowhere until I know all I want to know. Sit down, now. “Lovely name. French, although her English is perfect, not that you allowed for more than three words before having her sent off to the Manor. But that does nothing but spur more questions.”
Max sat down. “She’s just as proficient in Spanish, Italian, German—harsh language except when she speaks it—and with enough Russian and several other languages to get us by.”
“Us. Impressive young lady. You never managed more than French, and when you speak it I’m afraid that melodious language turns harsh. So I take it from the little you’ve said thus far that you two once worked together on the Continent. And now you don’t. Interesting.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“How long?
“Damn, you’re like a terrier after a bone. I last saw her eight or nine months ago, all right, long before I last visited you in London. And since you aren’t going to give up until I tell you more, allow me to get through this as quickly as possible. It’s imperative I see her yet tonight.”
“I don’t know if that’s wise. She’s under my roof now.”
“God’s teeth but the Earl of Saltwood loves to give orders. If it eases your lordship’s mind, I swear on Trixie’s painted toenails I won’t harm her, but I doubt Zoé believes that. She’s probably already fashioning a rope out of the bed sheets and sharpening a letter opener into a knife she can then strap to her thigh with a bit of curtain cord. Unless nobody thought to relieve her of the sticker she carries in her boot. Perhaps she’s managed to remove one of the bedposts and plans to use it as a jousting lance aimed at the first person to dare entering her room.”
“Now you’re exaggerating.”
“Yes, of course. I’m exaggerating, but only that last bit about the bedpost,” Max said, his tone more than a tad sarcastic. “All right, let’s do this, as Trixie would just ferret it all out of me in any case. Zoé was born in France, where her father was fairly wealthy, thanks to the reputation of the knives, swords and other blades produced in his foundries. Many of the royal family and peers were his loyal clients. During the Revolution his foundries were taken over, and her family escaped to Austria. He had managed to take some money with him, but not enough to establish another foundry, so he played himself off as a comte until their luck ran out or, since he took power, Bonaparte’s army could be seen on the horizon, and they were off again. Finally, he and Zoé—the mother had died somewhere along the way—ended up here in England.”
“That explains her ability with languages, if not her father’s insistence on being tied to the French noble class.”
“They existed on that lie, Gideon. Lies and sympathy and quiet loans to the dear comte who would repay them threefold when the Bourbons were back on the throne. You know how mad our society matrons are for émigrés. He was invited to social events, even week-long parties in some of the best country houses—Zoé always invited along to be with the other children in attendance. When particularly pressed for funds, a few jewels found their way into the man’s pocket after some of those parties, sometimes with her help.”
“Wonderful. I’ve installed a thief in my household.”
“Not the least of her talents. At any rate, the ploy worked well enough until another émigré recognized him for who he was. He then fixed his mind on returning to France and retaking possession of his various business enterprises. In order to do that, the French royalty had to be reinstalled on the throne. Zoé decided to help him by volunteering to work for the Crown.”
“A woman? And so young? That’s insane.”
Max crossed one long leg over his knee. “Yes, thank you. I totally agree. Except for one thing—she’s damn good at what she does, especially with languages, which was how she managed to be taken on in the first place. But they soon knew the treasure they had. She’d already been active for over a year before I was paired with her, very much against my wishes I might add, as I was considered to be the student, and her the mentor.”
“I can see the reasoning, however,” Gideon interrupted. “A man and woman, traveling together, don’t raise as much suspicion as a man, or men, traveling together.”
Max nodded his agreement. “She’s a piece of work, brother, and raised to the blade, I suppose you’d say. Fences, shoots better than most men, the way she handles a knife should make any prudent man nervous and she’s killed more than once when the situation called for violence. She can play the lady with the best of them, probably ten times better than Kate, but she’s solid steel beneath that fetching exterior. Cold, hard steel. And she’s deadly smart.”
“With all these unique, commendable charms to lure you, there was no question you’d become lovers,” Gideon said flatly, ignoring the rest.
“Good on you, as Valentine would say. Yes, we became lovers. Together day and night. She’s beautiful, I’m a man. We were in a dangerous business, never knowing if we’d live another day. It was inevitable.” Max took a deep breath. “And then she decided working with the French was more profitable than a pittance from the Crown and the chance to save the world, one might say.”
Gideon frowned. “Let me make an assumption here. The father died.”
“Even with the return of the monarchy, Zoé could never lay claim to her father’s possessions and property, not as a female. Did I mention she’s also practical?”
“You knew about the father’s death?”
Max avoided his brother’s gaze, instead watching his own movements as he turned back his unbuttoned cuffs. That had always bothered him, that she hadn’t told him. Damn, he could do with a drink. “Only afterwards.”
“After what, Max?” Gideon asked quietly.
“After three agents she betrayed had been lined up outside the cottage where we’d occasionally rendezvous, trussed up like animals bound for market and shot in the head. Two Englishmen, the third French. All good men. I could have been lying there with them, but I’d spent the night meeting with a courier bound for London after gathering information from the other agents I’d summoned to the cottage, and didn’t return until the next morning to find— I told you what I found.”
“You won’t mind if I say I prefer you alive.”
“Thank you. Before you ask, yes, Zoé had been at the cottage when I left, but she was gone. The only one still alive was another late arrival, Anton Boucher, one of our French agents. He handed me the letter Zoé left behind.”
“Not surprising. Women always feel this overweening need to explain, especially when their hearts are involved,” Gideon said, nodding. “What did she write?”
“What I’ve already told you. Her father was dead and she’d sold her talents to the French. She would be miles away before I returned in the morning, and it would please her if I didn’t follow her, hoping to change her mind.”
‘Did she admit to killing the other agents?”
“She never mentioned them, but what better way to prove herself to the French than to turn over names and locations to them? Was she there when it happened, or already on her way to Paris? I don’t know. But one way or another, those deaths are on her head. Oh, there was something else in her note about how, as much as she’d cared for me, the time had come for her to take care of herself, as being a country wife would never suit her.”
“Cared for you? Jesus, that’s cold. No wonder you’ve been such a bear these past months, so much so that Val supposed you’d sworn off women or some such thing. Quite a blow to your pride, amid everything else, being cared for by the woman you love. My sympathies, brother, on the whole of it.”
“Again, thank you,” Max said shortly, feeling his cheeks go hot. “Look, I don’t want to go over this and over this. Boucher and I buried the bodies to hide them before both of us raced off to warn our other agents for fear Zoé had exposed them, as well, traded names I may have inadvertently told her for whatever the French had promised her. I had no secrets from her—as you pointed out, I loved her. I trusted her with my life. And before you ask, of the two dozen or so agents we had in place, five more died before we could successfully locate and warn them.”
“Eight agents suddenly out of the field. That must have been quite the blow to Perceval. And to you, of course.”
“None of this is about me, Gideon, and clearly never was. As for Zoé, she’d miscalculated, badly. It would appear the French weren’t about to trust her to be loyal to them any more than she had been to England, something she might have learned from England’s own Benedict Arnold. The last I’d heard, she’d been locked up in some Paris prison. Now may I be excused, your lordship?”
“I don’t think so, no,” Gideon said. “You can be a bit of a hothead, Max, much as I love you, not to mention having more than your fair share of pride. Dead agents, spurned by your lover—hoodwinked by your lover? I can understand your reaction, but do you still feel the same way eight months later? How do you know she wasn’t forced to write that letter? How do you know she wasn’t betrayed by someone, as well, even this other supposed late arrival, this Boucher fellow?”
“You should pen novels. To be truthful, I’d been concerned about him for some time—we’d been having a few too many more failures than successes, I thought—although I had no real facts. Just my suspicions, which I’d included with my other intelligence sent off with the courier. He would have been the first I’d suspected, save for one thing, one indisputable fact.”
“I’d be interested in hearing that one fact, if you could indulge me.”
We’d laughed together, cried together... “Anton’s nephew Georges was one of the executed agents. The boy was barely eighteen, his dead sister’s only child and the apple of Anton’s eye. That left only Zoé, for nobody else knew of our rendezvous spot. Nobody. Boucher didn’t betray us. It was all on Zoé. The only reason I can think of that she’s still alive is that people like us are commodities, often to be traded, exploited, which makes me doubly curious about how and why she was released.”
“Or escaped.” Gideon got to his feet, turning the chair around, placing it carefully. “You’re in a dirty business, brother, and I can’t say I’m pleased with the Max standing before me now. It may be time you left his majesty’s service. It may have been time eight months ago.”
Max bristled. “We were suddenly rather short on agents, and then you came to me about the Society and we decided it would be best if I worked the thread from the Continent.”
“And God forbid you could have told me the truth, or I never would have asked that of you.” Gideon looked at him for long moments and then nodded his head almost imperceptibly. “Water already passed beneath the bridge, leaving us with that creature upstairs. I know you’re full of questions, as I am myself. If she was offered her freedom in exchange for selling her talents to someone—well, let’s just say it and have it out in the open, shall we? Is it too large a leap of conjecture to believe she’s now found employment with the Society?”
Max didn’t bother to deny he’d already wondered the same thing. “Very good, brother. I told you, she has talents, and who else would have her? She’s burned her bridges with both us and the French, and treachery would seem to be her only salable talent.”
Gideon pinched thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “So many questions present themselves. You’d spoken to her of Redgrave Manor, of course. She’d be at least loosely familiar with the estate?”
“As I’d waxed poetical about the place, and the family, innumerable times, you can assume so.” And then, because things had already gone too far to keep secrets from his brother, he said, “I sailed tonight with the person who led me to Gravelines and the Society-hired smugglers.”
Gideon looked at him, then frowned. “Allow me to hazard yet another guess. This Boucher person?”
With his hand now on the doorknob, Max turned and asked his brother, “One and the same, yes. So here we are again, the three of us. Do you believe in coincidences, Gideon, because I damned well don’t, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the greatest fool in nature, hoodwinked by the pair of them. According to Richard, it was Anton who hit me with the belaying pin.”
“Go on.”
“Yes. Maybe that bump on my head loosened something brilliant, or maybe I’m delirious, but think about this a moment, Gideon. What if they’d been working together all along? What if I was only allowed to live because they knew our reaction would be to pull all of our agents from the Continent in order to protect them, taking us months to reestablish ourselves there, while more and more French troops were secretly marched to the Peninsula? What if there never was a French prison? It’s possible. If it weren’t for Georges...”
“More and more I’m learning the most impossible things are possible. It will be interesting to hear what your Monsieur Boucher has to say. Did you see him with the other prisoners before they were led away? We’ve got them all locked up in various outbuildings until we can sort them out in the morning.”
