The Spymaster's Lady

Five

“IT’S DARK IN HERE.” GREY’S VOICE WAS A RASP of sandpaper and velvet. He spoke in the familiar form, as one speaks to the most intimate of friends or to children or animals or servants. Or prostitutes.

“Light candles if you wish. It makes no difference to me.” She spoke in the formal mode of speaking, which is how one talks to foreign spies who have kidnapped you.

“I thought Doyle told you to get into the nightgown.”

“He did, most certainly. I will let you know if ever I begin taking orders from Monsieur Doyle.” She faced the window, the nightgown twisted between her hands, and did not turn toward him. The night ahead would be one of immeasurable difficulty.

Wind came to her off the fields, smelling of cows and the earth and apples. She felt a longing, sharp as a physical pain, to see the fields and the stars above them. It never left her in all these months, that ache.

The shirt she wore billowed loose, then flattened possessively over her breasts and her hips, then blew loose again. Grey’s shirt. She had some wide knowledge of men. There were those who would find her alluring, so incongruously within a man’s shirt, with her feet bare on the floor and her hair farouche and uncombed about her face. In the so-obvious silk rag she held in her fingers, she would look the whore. Wearing a man’s shirt, she appeared the wise and subtle courtesan. There were no right choices for her tonight.

She heard him lock the door behind him.

“You’ve decked yourself out in my shirt. Well, well, well.” He was never without that undercurrent of incomprehensible anger when he spoke to her. “Maybe I should have expected that. The nightgown is blatant. Nobody could accuse you of being blatant.”

“Have you not tormented me enough for the sin of being French and a spy? This is the middle of France, Monsieur Grey. I am not your lawful prey. Let me go. It is the only sensible answer for any of us.”

“After you give me the Albion plans. We’ll pay, you know, if that sort of thing matters to you. Extravagantly.”

Oh, but Leblanc had much to answer for. It was the final straw among great heaps of straw that his words should set this English upon her, demanding the Albion plans.

How much she would like to say, “You desire the Albion plans? But yes, I have them tucked here in my garter, you see? Take them away and stop Monsieur Napoleon from making this stupid invasion of your island, which will kill many thousand French soldiers and countless English and will not succeed at all.”

It was not that simple. It had never been that simple.

She lied, immediately and convincingly. “I do not have these plans. Never, not once, have I laid eyes upon them.”

“You lie well. I suppose I’m not the first man to tell you that.”

She hit the windowsill with her fist. “No and no! I am sick of this folly. Leblanc spits poison like a toad and you believe him for reasons wholly incomprehensible. You kidnap me into Normandy for nothing. You endanger me and yourself with this mad insistence to—”

“Turn around and look at me. I’m damned tired of talking to your back.”

“You, I do not find attractive or interesting. In fact, I wish you would go away altogether.”

Adamant hands gripped her and turned her, without pain, but very, very firmly. She kept her head lowered, concealing her face from him in the dark.

“You’re thinking about fighting me. Don’t. Believe me, little fox, you wouldn’t like what I’d do to you. Don’t make me show you how thoroughly you’re trapped.”

“Trapped? But yes, I admit it freely. I am easy to snare these days. A dolt like Henri can do it.”

“I haven’t found it particularly easy. I’m changing the rules of this game we play.”

“I do not play games against Grey of the British Service. I would not dare.”

“You’re playing one now.”

Where the many nerves ran in the joining at her shoulder, his fingers explored, drawing idle, poignant circles, which entirely paralyzed her. Then he slid, smooth and slow, down her arm. How powerless it made her feel to learn his hands could secure themselves around her upper arm like large bracelets. At her elbow he found a great sensitivity.

Fighting points. He caressed the fighting points, lingering till she shivered with it. She had never thought of this obvious truth. At the weak places where one strikes an opponent, the nerves run exposed and vulnerable and receptive. Receptive to any touch. He knew that. It was disheartening to encounter so much admirable expertise in an opponent.

She squeezed her eyes closed and wished for the hundredth time she could see his expression and guess what he was going to do to her. Nothing so simple as to hurt her.

The rumble of his voice vibrated across her skin. “That shirt’s more erotic than I would have believed possible. To see my shirt wrapped around you and know there’s nothing…but you…underneath it.” He plucked at the fabric, considering it with his fingertips. “You take the prerogatives of a longtime lover when you help yourself to my clothes. I should be disarmed. Clever Annique.”

“I am not so clever,” she muttered, being sincere.

His hand traveled to rest over her heart. “You have exactly the right number of buttons undone. I congratulate you. One less, and you’d be playing the timid virgin.” He slipped two fingers into the shirt, tugged briefly, and left the top button loosed behind him. “Virgin isn’t a convincing role for you.”

He could say such things to a woman he was going to take to his bed. She could not reason with him when he was like this. She could do nothing but stand and listen to him and tremble everywhere.

He stroked downward and found the next button. “Too many unfastened, and there’s no challenge to it.” He slid it open. “Men enjoy challenges.”

The beat of her heart shook her whole body. Did he know she was growing excited for him, at that place between her legs where he would want to pleasure himself? It was most probable he did.

He set another button free. He would have her naked soon. Her plan of reasoning with him did not seem to be working.

“A man itches to peel you, veil by veil, laying your secrets bare, opening you up to reveal mysteries.”

Her body was not mysterious in that place he so poetically discussed, merely hot and anxious. She squeezed herself together, which did not help, but indeed made things worse. She could not stop herself doing it either, again and again, so matters grew progressively more complicated for her. “Me, I have no mysteries. You delude yourself.”

“It would be so easy to lure the honey out of you. All I have to do is this…” His fingers grazed her breast, through the shirt. “…and two sweet little berries come nudging up against the cloth, begging to be tasted. Like that. Yes. That’s honest enough. It might be the only kind of honesty you have in you.”

“Do not be superior. You know nothing about me.”

“I know you like your work. Not every woman would. You give us exactly what we want, don’t you, pretty Annique? Leblanc. Henri. Me. You become every man’s private fantasy. What he dreams of, alone at midnight. You’re doing it now. Before I realize what I want, you’re offering it to me. I never knew a woman could do that. A man touches you in peril of his soul.”

“You may keep your soul. I do not want it.”

“I don’t give a damn what you want, Annique Villiers. You’re good, though. That sound you make in your throat, that buzzing like a hive of contented bees. That’s perfect. I felt it through my whole body when you did that.”

His muscles were dense with tension, shaking. That was his anger, which she had not yet earned, and his hunger for her, which would have been obvious to an idiot. How she was to ride these twin beasts to her advantage she could not at all imagine.

“You like to set the puppets dancing, don’t you? Tweak a string here. Tweak a string there. Be soft and vulnerable and…responsive. I don’t think there’s a man on earth who could resist you.”

Without warning, he twisted his fist into the shirt and pulled tight. She was jerked and dragged forward, up onto her toes. She gasped and grabbed to hold on to him. “Don’t try this again.” He shook her, once, briskly. “Not with me.”

“I do not—”

“No more games. Go shuck yourself out of this damned teasing shirt. Put on the silk I sent in or slither into bed naked. I don’t care which.”

“I will not wear that indecent thing. I am not—” She stopped herself and swallowed and made herself say, “I am not some woman of the streets to be bought for the price of a hot meal. I do not—”

“For God’s sake, don’t be so bloody dramatic.” She was set upon her feet. His grip loosened slowly and released. “And damn your nonexistent modesty. From now on you wear clothes you can’t hide weapons in. That’s all. Get in bed and sleep.”

“I will sleep as the mouse sleeps beside the cat. Do not lie to me, English. I have no patience with it.”

“I don’t have a hell of a lot of patience myself right now. So unless you’re offering me a poke at this…” The deep vee of her shirt flipped open. Cool air rushed in. “…experienced, devious little body, get into that nightgown and get to bed.”

“Monsieur, do not do this to me.”

“Not a damn thing’s going to happen to you if you behave. You follow orders, and you’ll be treated well. Fight me one more time, and I swear I’ll tie you to the bedpost. Accept it.”

Accept it, he said. But he lied to her and to himself, too, if he thought he would lay her down in that soft bed and not take her.

He was no monster. He would not force her. But he wanted her fiercely, and he thought she was of light morals, and willing. Tonight, in the long quiet hours, he would put his hands upon her and confuse her until she made the answers he wished, softly, in the intimacy of the covers. In the end he might make her want what he did to her. She was not strong and sensible when it came to this man.

That was yet another reason she must escape.

When all other weapons are gone, one must depend upon cunning and lies and terrible schemes. Vauban had taught her that. Maman had taught her. René and Françoise and wise, cynical old Soulier had taught her that—all her old friends in the spying Game. She had known this since she was a child. Sometimes one must do things one does not exactly like.

She could not commit despicable acts as Annique. She must be someone of greater resolution. There were roles within her…She took a steadying breath and chose. She would be the Worldly Courtesan. Had she not played this role often in Vienna?

She crossed her arms over her breasts and bowed her head and let the role of the Courtesan settle across her spirit. It wrapped round her like a thick, protective cloak. The Worldly Courtesan was years older than Annique, knowing and cynical. She did not give a fig whatsoever about an enemy English. The Courtesan would not worry about wearing that obscene scrap of cloth…or whatever else it might become necessary to do.

She raised her chin. The Courtesan was not dismayed because a man desired her. It gave her power.

She shrugged. “You have won this futile small victory of yours.” Being the Courtesan, she could push past Grey, impatient and contemptuous, and saunter across the room. It was three long steps from the window to the table; she had counted after dinner. She turned her back on him and tossed the slippery silk of the nightgown across the table, next to the candlestick. She touched that one last time. Her bones and muscles would remember where it was when all was in disorder. The scene was set. Everything was prepared.

“Go away. I will dress in this vulgar garment. But I will not strip naked in front of you.” Her voice was cool and patrician, heavy with ennui. The Courtesan’s voice. She set two fingers on the tabletop to keep her body oriented exactly as she wanted it. “Whatever you think, I am not a woman of light amusements with strangers.”

“It’s too dark to see much. Do it now, before I strip you down and toss you into bed myself.”

“How alluring you make it sound.” The Courtesan she had molded around her mind could say that. “With the women of England you are a great success with such methods, no?” Playing the Courtesan, she could reach nonchalantly for the hem of the shirt, as if she undressed every night in some man’s company. “If you will not leave, at least turn your back.”

“To preserve your modesty?”

“It is not such a large favor to ask. I am less accustomed to humiliation than you seem to think.” The shell of her role cracked, and a quaver of her shame and fear showed through. She could not have done better if she’d practiced a week.

“That much I can do.”

She heard the rustle of his movement. Now she must undress. It was hard, playing the whore, the first of several difficult acts. She lifted the shirt up over her head and revealed her nakedness. Perhaps the room was dark enough that he would see nothing. Perhaps he had turned his back as he said. If not, she must hope he would be distracted, as men always were by her body, and not notice exactly what she was doing.

Now. No more delay. Now.

One. Two. Three. She tossed the shirt onto the table. Under cover of that, she picked up the heavy brass candlestick. She flipped it to be a club. Spun toward Grey. Lunged toward the sound of his breathing and swung.

Missed.

She staggered, off balance. Where was he? She tried to hear him. Where?

A whisper of air. Pain exploded in her wrist. She dropped her weapon. He’d kicked her wrist. Hit the bone of it. The candlestick rolled clattering on the floor.

“Sapristi!” Such pain. This was disaster. She had made a miscalculation of great magnitude. She backed away quickly, unarmed and naked before him, shaking her hand out to get feeling back within it. “You are fast, monsieur.”

“Fast enough.”

Another step back. Here was the table. Thank le bon Dieu. She scurried for the other side, plucking across the wood till she touched silk. The nightgown. “You did not look away. That was deceitful.”

“Let’s talk about deceit, shall we?”

“That is a problem between us, I agree.”

Feverishly, she grappled with the nightgown, one-handed and clumsy. It was vital she get this on. She got it right side up and pulled it around her and pushed one arm into the sleeve, then the other. Here was the cord. Good. Very good. Fumbling, she tied it.

He made his way around the table, edging her ahead of him by slow, deliberate footfalls. She was not stupid enough to think she could escape. It was no surprise to feel his hands close on her, gentle and insistent, as if he held a sack of rebellious eggs. He was being careful with her. His hunger for her vibrated between them like discordant music. His touch was perfectly impersonal. She was totally unnerved by this.

He said, “You’ve decided then. I tie you up. It’s simpler this way.”

“Undoubtedly.” Her voice was ragged in her ears. “But I would much rather you did not.”

“At last. You’ve said something I believe.” He backed her toward the bed, step by step. Not roughly. Gradually. A little pressure was all he needed. “Prudent of you to put on the nightgown, even if it’s too late. Were you planning to kill me with that candlestick?”

“I would not kill you on purpose, but I am clumsy these days and might have misjudged. Is there anything at all I can say to keep you from doing this to me?” She was trembling badly.

“Nothing I can think of, right off.”

“What if I promise not to try to escape again, not at all, till we reach England?”

“No.” He was most chillingly ordinary and calm. “I have extra bandages I don’t need for Adrian. I’ll use those. They’re nice and soft.” How provident of him. Perhaps he took prisoners frequently. How would she know what the British did? “It won’t be too uncomfortable. You may even get some sleep.”

“I am harmless, really. You should reconsider.”

“You don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “I don’t hurt women. Not even women like you.”

More of his incomprehensible insults. As if he did not have his dozens of women agents working for his Service. It was illogical that he should despise her.

The mattress bumped against her thigh. He twisted the hold upon her shoulder shrewdly, and she lost her balance and fell downward onto the bed. Coverlets flapped and clung as she scrambled away from him through the treacherous softness, to the wall. That was as far as she could flee. Her back pressed to the cold plaster. Silk slicked against her skin. She drew herself together and set her face to her knees. The Fox Cub was cornered at last.

All her clever roles had deserted her. No one was left to deal with this situation but Annique. And Annique was afraid. Afraid.

She listened to him cross the room. The leather valise creaked. Small sounds told her he searched within it. Then his steps returned toward her.

“Grey…monsieur…I will promise not to attack you again. I will swear it by whatever you like.”

The bed sagged as he sat next to her. “You could offer me a couple French secrets. Maybe the ones you were discussing with Leblanc.”

“The Albion plans.” She made herself say it lightly. “Leblanc obsesses himself with them lately.”

“I’m obsessed with them myself. We’re going to talk about the Albion plans for a good long time, you and I.”

She was cold inside. Cold and sick. “But this is foolish. I am a small player in the Game. I do not make the grand political intrigues. You will be disappointed if you expect important secrets from me.”

“You won’t disappoint me.” There were many nuances in his voice.

The bed jiggled as he worked with something in his hands. That would be the linen bandages he spoke of—the ones he would tie her with. He was preparing them. Soon she would be helpless and all chance of escape gone.

“I do not wish to be tied up,” she whispered.

“I don’t think you can convince me. You could try, though. Offer me just a small secret, and we’ll see.”

Not secrets. Something else. She had known, deep in her heart, that it would come to this.

One last plan. There is always a last plan one has hoped not to use. She gathered the silken nightdress about her and crawled toward him, to his side, till she was close. Till she could almost feel the heat from his body. She made herself kneel on the bed, her knees apart. She had seen prostitutes do this in the whorehouse her mother kept for a time in Paris. Doubtless Monsieur Grey had visited many whore-houses and would recognize what she offered.

She heard him draw in a deep, uneven breath. The bed dipped as he shifted his weight. His finger closed on her arm, but he only brought her right wrist upward. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Smoothly, she eased her hand away from him. “It is nothing.”

“That’s another reason I don’t want to fight you. I’ll end up hurting you again. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I do not want you to hurt me either. Or tie me up.”

He gave a grunt. She felt him turn away. And still his breath was unsteady.

The Courtesan had no fear of any man living. No fear of touching and being touched. Ageless knowledge had the Courtesan.

It was time to begin. She found the long, smooth cord and pulled the knot free. It was thin, twisted silk, very strong. Her night-robe slid open, like wind unfolding. He would feel the silk fall upon his skin. Even in the darkness, he would see her body as light and shadow. She felt herself blush.

She whispered, “It has its own appeal, you understand—to be tied. But it is limiting. I would rather be…inventive.” It might have been the Courtesan who reached out to caress him, full of knowledge. It might have been Annique, being curious.

The skin of his neck was dry and warm, rough in texture. To touch him did not feel like stroking an animal or her own skin. His cheek was a landscape of bristles with the muscles of his jaw bunched tight beneath. His mouth, unexpectedly, was silk. It opened under her fingertips, and she felt the touch of his tongue. She did not know what to do when a man tasted her fingers. It brought a shamed little clench of heat between her legs. If she’d allowed herself, she would have been scared silly.

He said, “What do you want?”

“I will not speak secrets. But I will please you, if you give me one final chance.”

“How very tempting. Why?”

“Perhaps I am tired of fighting. It grows discouraging.”

“That’s not it. Tell me why.”

So stern. He must trust her enough to let her close. In the silence, she could hear the crickets from the fields and the murmur of voices in the courtyard below.

“I desire you.” Truth. She would tell him truth. How ironic. “I desired you when I first touched you, in Leblanc’s small dungeon. In the coach, when we fought…” She drew words from the deepest privacy of her mind. “It is a great intimacy to fight with a man as I have fought you.”

“I’ll grant you that. It’s intimate.”

“We fought. But you did not hurt me. You were entirely exasperated with me and you held me down, very heavy on top of me. I imagined…how it would be in bed with you.” Each word was a humiliation, stripping her mind as naked as her body. But this would fascinate a man like Grey. This would distract him. “I am…at need, inside me.”

“Awkward for you.”

“I do not wish to feel this way. We are enemies.” He could not begin to imagine the awkwardness it was for her. Even now, when she should be wholly involved in useful schemes and lies, a warm trickle of wanting coursed through her. If things had been different…She put the thought away.

Her fingers, hidden in the folds of her nightdress, worked away at the cord of the nightgown. She slid it, inch by inch, out of the long casing that held it. “We need not be enemies, in the dark, where no one sees. What happens in this room…it is as if it has not happened at all.”

“An intriguing thought.”

“You may tie me up afterwards if you wish. You have made no promises.” Amazing to hear that teasing in her voice. She crept an inch closer to him.

“I can tie you up right now. I don’t trust you worth a damn.”

“You are wise not to trust me. But sometimes I am not an agent of France. Sometimes, I am only Annique.”

His weight shifted again. She heard a metallic click as his ring touched the table beside the bed. He was setting something there. He had turned away from her.

She wound the silk cord quickly, three times, around her left hand. When she leaned toward him, she touched his back. She lay her forehead upon the hard prominence of his shoulder blade. “Here in the dark…I can be anything you want.” The ache between her legs, which was the ache of wanting him to be exactly in that place, throbbed.

She kissed through the thin linen of his shirt. His muscles twitched under her lips. He had formidable control, Grey, as a man in his position must, but he was not indifferent. He was stretched taut in every tendon, ferocious with wanting her, vulnerable as a strong man is to his own passions. She moved to the bare skin of his neck and tasted that.

“You take a lot for granted,” he growled.

She laughed, a deep, throaty sound, copied exactly from Maman. “I will do nothing you do not desire.”

She wrapped the silk line around her right palm. Once, twice. Again. In her lap, two feet of slack stretched between her fists. She pressed close to him. She must be very close to do what she intended.

Oh, but it was hard for her. Touching him unnerved her beyond bearing. Her naked breasts brushed warm cloth, heated by the muscles beneath. The shock of it struck through her like twin lightnings. She could not remember to breathe. She was wholly the stunned rabbit.

He rumbled deep in his chest, like a mountain, grumbling before an earthquake.

Somehow, the Courtesan within her knew what was to be done next. There was the back of his neck to be kissed, again and again, working her way upward along leathery muscles. The sudden taste and texture of his hair against her mouth made her quiver, it was so surprising.

He would feel that shiver through her. It would make her seem more harmless. If only her mind did not skip and skitter so. She opened and closed her hands, where they held the wrapped cord.

She rose up, kneeling, and took his ear into her mouth to lick it and swirl it with her tongue, finding it bitter and salty and oddly shaped. She bit down gently. She had wanted to do this to a man for some time, to see what it was like.

Almost time…almost…The silk cord was damp in her hands. I will not hurt you, she promised silently. I will take immense care.

“I was wrong. You can be blatant.” Grey’s touch came to her thigh. He would push her away in a moment, or pull her to him. She was not sure which. But she knew he could stand no more. “What happened to that finesse of yours?”

Now. It had to be now. I do not want to do this. I do not want to do this at all.

She whispered, “I am all finesse.”

One so-slight pull on the silken cord between her hands. She crossed her arms and made a loop of it and leaned forward. She kissed him softly, just under the ear. With the kiss, she flipped the cord over his head and circled his neck. She snapped it closed and jerked hard, cutting off his air.