The Spymaster's Lady

Six

HIS LUNGS CONVULSED. A DEMON WEIGHT CLAMPED HIS back, locked at his throat, choked him, pulled him down. He grappled at it with numb hands. He couldn’t…

He threw himself back and forth, trying to beat off the enemy that held him. Black alternated with red flashes. He twisted. Punched out with his last strength. He didn’t feel the impact when he hit.

Too late. The thought spiraled with him, down into nothingness. This was what it felt like to die.

Suddenly the intolerable pressure on his throat was gone. He sucked air. Agony swept through his chest. The world washed blood red as he kicked and pushed free. He rolled away fast, ran into a wall, and wedged his back against it. Gasping, he waited for the next attack.

It was dark when he opened his eyes. Night. That was why he didn’t hear guns and horses. The battle was over. He’d been left behind, wounded, for the human vultures that scavenged the death fields. Where were his men? They wouldn’t have left him. They’d lost then. Disorderly retreat. A rout.

Beside him, someone was choking. Maybe dying.

There was softness under him. Not dirt. He bunched up a handful. It was…cloth. The disorientation was so great it made him dizzy. Then he knew. He was in bed, not on the battlefield. In France, at Roussel’s inn.

Fighting Annique Villiers.

The death rattle beside him was Annique. He remembered now. He’d hit her. Hit her with fists that could kill a grown man. What have I done?

It was too dark to see, but he could hear her. He found the curve of a hip and ran his hands up and down her body. She was naked and she shook like she was breaking apart. Hell. Oh, hell.

He needed light. He staggered up and blundered across the room. In the hearth, the embers were alive under the ashes. He kicked, flat-footed, at the logs till orange showed through. The candle was on the mantelpiece. He held it to the ember, snarling with impatience, for the long second it took the wick to catch fire.

She was on the mattress, bent double, clutching her stomach.

He slapped the candle onto the spike of a holder. She was pale as the sheet, gasping for air. When he took hold of her, her skin was cold and clammy. He flipped the whole defensive ball of her onto her back. Eyes wide and blank and blind as a doll’s slid past him with no recognition. It scared the hell out of him.

Where did I hit you?

There was no blood on her face, no mark on her throat. Thank God for that. He’d hit her only once—he was almost sure of it. Only once. If he’d battered into those fragile little bones on her face, she’d have shattered like glass.

She was wrapped around her belly, so that must be where he’d hurt her. Her rib cage. Had he broken her ribs? He felt down her sides, probing fast, line by line. He’d feel a break in her ribs, wouldn’t he? She had thin, delicate bones with no flesh on them. He’d feel a break.

He pulled her into his lap. It took only little force to pull her arms away, a little more to unroll her enough to see what was what.

Little breasts. Pale skin. Just below her heart, surrounded by old bruises, was a red mark the size of his fist. He’d slammed her dead center in the solar plexus. No wonder she couldn’t breathe.

“Lie still. You’ve had the wind knocked out of you. That’s all.” Dear God, I hope that’s all. Her diaphragm was hard as a board. She was fighting her own lungs. “Easy now. There’s plenty of air.”

“C…c…aa…”

Nothing broken on the arch of her rib cage. Nothing he could feel. “Your chest’s clamped down where I hit you. You’ll be fine in a minute.” He pressed in with the heel of his hand, pushing those locked muscles, telling them they better damn well get back to work. “It’s already getting better.”

She scooped a breath in. Coughed. Every muscle spasmed.

“I’ve got you. Easy now.” He kept up a flow of meaningless words, massaging the rock-hard diaphragm while she arched back, dragging at air with her whole body. “Everything’s fine. Steady. Steady, girl.” He sounded like he was talking to one of his brother’s high-strung mares. But it was working. She hauled in a sharp gasp and held it. Let it go. “That’s better. That’s right.” Her hand clenched tight around his. He could feel her hanging on to the certainty in his voice.

Her head fell back against him. She pulled in long, jerky sobs. Let them out. Breathing. It sounded like she’d keep at it.

“You’re going to be fine.” Unless he’d cracked one of those ribs. Unless he’d hurt her inside where it didn’t show. He pressed deep, hand by hand, across her belly, and she didn’t wince any place in particular. That had to be a good sign.

He stroked from her breasts downward, again and again, over that abused diaphragm, down the flat plane between her hips. Her muscles were tight bunches, distinct and hard under his palm. She lay in his arms with her eyes closed, twitching hard about every third breath. Her breasts quivered when her breath rasped in and out. The nipples were lighter pink than he would have expected. That’d be because her skin was so white.

He kept stroking her belly, feeling her loosen and relax, muscle by muscle. She had satin skin with not an ounce of fat under it. The hair between her legs was ebony black and curly. Luxuriant as a little sable. Looked soft there.

“No! Let me go.” She jerked away, flung herself to the far side of the bed, turned her back to him, and tucked herself tight as a hedgehog.

That was good. She wouldn’t twist up into a pretzel if she had a broken rib. “You’ve got your breath back.”

She faced the wall, taking deep breaths. “I guess we’re no longer being friendly in the dark where it doesn’t count,” he said.

No answer.

Rags of the flame-colored nightgown wrapped around her, like she lay in the middle of a shredded exotic orchid. Her hair was inky black, stark on her white skin. She hadn’t had an easy time of it lately. He could count her ribs. The shadow of old bruises marked her everywhere, a whole collection, in all stages of healing. Under the damage was a truly lovely body. Not lush, but perfectly shaped. If they’d made naked china figurines at that factory at Dresden, they’d have looked like her. Trust the French to find something this beautiful and make a spy of her.

The garrote she’d used snaked over the edge of the bed, absurdly red. That made it part of her nightgown and something he’d ordered into the room. Stupid of him.

It was twisted silk, unbreakable. An elegant and lethal weapon. If she’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead.

“One of us,” Doyle had called her. “One of the best.” Grey had her naked and battered and so weak she didn’t even brush her hair back off her face. Utterly defeated. All he’d had to do was catch her starving and exhausted and on the run from every police agent in France. And knock her half-conscious. And outweigh her by seven stone and be a trained killer. Simple, really.

She’d attacked him with forty inches of goddamned nightgown cord.

Congratulations, Robert. Another French spy routed. Splendid job. Damn, but he hated fighting women.

The quilts had scattered to the floor in their little altercation. He picked one up and pulled it across her. With that, she finally acknowledged his existence. She pulled the quilt close, up to her chin, and curled into it. “Did I hurt you?”

Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this. “Did you what?”

“With the garrote. Did I hurt you? I was afraid I would kill you. It is very dangerous to attack someone with the garrote. But I had no choice, so I ventured.”

That was some mad logic for you. He sat on the bed and slipped his hand under the quilt, taking hold of her shoulder. She didn’t react. She might not have noticed. “You ventured, did you?”

“When the candlestick did not work. It was my last reserve, the garrote. I was almost certain I would not kill you, but there is always a large element of chance.”

That calm, considering voice was one of her lies. He didn’t need to see her face to know that. In her skin he could feel the fine-grained trembling that said fear, exhaustion, numbness. Shock. He’d seen this in men after battle, in prisoners under questioning. Push a man hard enough, and he becomes detached, almost uncaring. Annique had come to that place.

“The element of chance,” he prompted softly.

“I have no experience with the garrote, except one afternoon using it upon René, in Françoise’s kitchen, when he taught me. He most certainly did not fight me so horribly as you do. I suppose it was because of the good china.”

“The china would be a problem.”

“Françoise would not have been pleased if we had broken her dishes.” She pulled one hand out from under the quilt and scrubbed it across her face. “René thought I should become somewhat dangerous because I was so small. He taught me many deadly tricks, but they were never as useful as he expected.” She let out a long sigh. “I should not have attempted the garrote. I knew that, but I did not listen to myself saying so. And it was useless anyway. I was clumsy and have done nothing but enrage and hurt you.”

She hadn’t been clumsy with the garrote. She’d lost control because she wasn’t willing to kill him. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“Most likely I did, and you are being composed and manly about it. Though it is obvious I did not break your neck, which was my great fear.” The quilt wriggled as she uncurled. “I will tell you I am not sorry in the least, even if I hurt you gravely, because you should not make off with me this way. It is wholly despicable to entrap women and kidnap them with you across France and force them to wear indecent nightclothes only because you do not trust them.”

“We’re in a despicable profession.”

“I am reminded of this from time to time.” She shrugged and shifted away. “You need not hold on to me. I am entirely subdued, I assure you.”

“Docile as a lamb.” He kept his hand on the intricate scaffolding of her collarbone. Tension radiated from where his palm rested. It intrigued him, that tension. Her body was telling him secrets.

“You are the skeptic. It is your profession, of course. Still, it is sad you cannot trust such great simplicity as I offer.”

Simple? There was no end to the labyrinth inside Annique Villiers. He’d work his way through, given time. Already, he had one of her lies unraveled. He was almost sure…

He drew a finger along her shoulder and felt the shimmer of startled awareness. Nervousness danced under her skin. It was like stroking one of his brother’s new colts, a young one that hadn’t felt a man’s touch yet.

Not jaded, not hardened. Not practiced and knowledgeable. How had he managed to convince himself this was a woman used to being handled by men? Adrian said she wasn’t a whore, and Adrian was never wrong about women.

How many men, Annique? Not many, I’ll bet. Did your masters keep you unawakened so you could play the boy more convincingly? Their mistake. It left her vulnerable. Achingly, ignorantly vulnerable. He’d use that against her, sooner or later. “What the devil am I going to do with you, Annique?”

“Let me go?”

“No. Not that.”

“I did not think you would agree, though it would be wisest for both of us if I arose from this bed and went quietly into the night. You have no need to keep me.”

“What happened at Bruges?” He felt her skin answer. She knew. “That’s why I keep you. You might try trusting me. Better me than Leblanc.”

“I am hoping to escape you both.” She sighed. “Even now, there is a chance.”

“It’s possible. You’re skilled.” In his network of spies, he could count on his fingers the agents who matched Annique’s caliber. A spy like this was worth a cavalry division. “That’s one more reason I’m not letting you go.”

“I have known several men of your type. None of them was amenable to reason.” She sounded more and more resigned. “We come to an impasse, you and I. What will you do with me?”

“Damned if I know. Take you to England and decide there, probably. By then we’ll understand each other better.”

“I meant, what will you do with me tonight? I am eating life in very small bites these days, monsieur.”

There were men who’d push the interrogation now—badger her, keep her groggy and talking and see what she’d give away. She was so exhausted she could barely think. Keep hammering away at her, and she’d start making mistakes. Scare her enough, mix it with a little sympathy, and she might break. He’d seen it a hundred times.

Except tactics like that wouldn’t work with Annique Villiers, even if he could make himself do it.

“I won’t do anything with you tonight. I won’t tie you up, at any rate.” He ran one last brisk caress across the tangled black mane. It was the first step in seduction, getting her used to being touched. Besides, he wanted to. “Do you think you can hold off killing me till after breakfast?”

“I must rest before I try again. It is very exhausting, fighting with you.”

He laid a second quilt on top of the one she was wrapped in. It was just as well she didn’t roll over and look at him. His arousal was obvious as hell. Maybe he’d let Doyle guard her tomorrow—imperturbable, thoroughly married William Doyle. “You might as well go to sleep. Unless Vauban and the others taught you some way to kill me with a feather pillow.”

“They did.” She snuggled into the warmth like a nesting animal, giving a deep, feminine chuckle. She found that amusing, did she?

The last quilt had found refuge under the bed. He fished it out and spread it across the rush-bottomed chair. When he propped his feet up on the windowsill, he pulled the ends around him. It would get cool later on.

Annique’s chest rose and fell gently, slow and even. That either meant she was asleep, or she was getting ready to attack him again. He’d wait and see.