Where Shadows Dance

grounds, a few more scattered houses, and then the open fields of Paddington.

Where in the bloody hell was Foley going?

Then he realized the hackney was pulling up before the cemetery’s plain, small chapel. Sebastian slowed to a walk. As he watched, Foley paid off the jarvey, pulled his hat low, and strode quickly through the gates to the burial ground.

Sebastian followed him.

He was aware of an aged landau with two footmen parked farther up the leafy lane that ran along the far side of the burial ground. There was something vaguely familiar about the liveried coachman on the box, but Sebastian couldn’t place him.

Pausing in the shadows cast by the chapel’s high walls, Sebastian watched Foley slip from one monument to the next, being careful to keep to the long, rank grass rather than the graveled path.

What the hell was he doing?

Then Sebastian realized there was someone else in the cemetery, near a massive weeping willow that shaded what looked like the oldest section of graves. A small, slim woman in a gray walking dress trimmed at the neck with a narrow band of simple lace, she clutched a bulky gray reticule in one hand; a black silk patch covered her right eye.

Angelina Champagne.

Pressing himself flat against the chapel wall, Sebastian watched Sir Hyde Foley crouch behind a massive classically columned monument.

The Frenchwoman had paused beside one of the low, lichen-covered vaults. Much of the tomb’s weathered concrete surface had crumbled and fallen away, exposing the brick structure beneath. She cast a quick glance around. But the burial ground was quiet, the only sounds the breeze rustling the leaves of the willow and the cheerful chirping of an unseen sparrow high above them.

Stooping low, she stripped off her fine kid gloves, then eased one of the bricks from the old tomb’s lower course. It was obviously loose, for it came out easily. Setting it aside, she reached her hand into the small dark opening now revealed. From where he stood, Sebastian could see her stiffen.

She withdrew her empty hand and cast another darting look around.

“It’s nice to know that Yasmina told me the truth,” said Sir Hyde Foley, stepping out from behind the monument to stroll toward her. “In the end.”

Angelina Champagne held herself very still. “You killed her.”

“I did, yes. But before she died, she provided me with some very useful information.” He nodded to the tomb beside them. “The location of your drop point, for instance. The clever signal she used to let you know she’d left information there.” He paused. “And of course your identity as an agent of Napoleon. I suspect she hoped if she told me what I wanted to know, I might allow her to live. ”

Angelina Champagne let her head fall back, her remaining eye narrowing as she watched Foley walk up to her. “How did you discover that Yasmina’s motives for seducing you had nothing to do with your beaux yeux and everything to do with your propensity for bragging about your knowledge of state secrets?”

A quiver of fury, quickly contained, flickered across the Undersecretary’s sharp-featured face. “As it happens, Ross told me. He confronted me with his suspicions the day before he died. I denied everything, of course. I’m not certain he believed me, but it gave him pause.”

“Alexander knew?” She frowned. “How could he have known?”

“De La Rocque.”

“Ah.” She pushed carefully to her feet, her reticule and gloves clutched in her hands. “He was cleverer than I thought.”

“Not so clever in the end. The fool attempted to blackmail me. I had every intention of quietly silencing him myself, only someone else—you, perhaps?—was kind enough to take care of it for me.”

A faint whisper of a sound—like cloth shifting against cloth, or perhaps a soft kid shoe brushing against stone—drew Sebastian’s attention to one of the newer tombs that lay in the dappled shade of the willow. It was obvious that neither Angelina Champagne nor Sir Hyde Foley had heard anything. But then, Sebastian’s senses were unusually acute.

Squinting against the glare of the sun, he studied the tall young woman who stood motionless in the shade of the giant old willow. The glorious teal and yellow walking dress he’d admired earlier had been replaced by a more subdued muslin gown worn with a lightweight, moss green spencer and a small chip hat devoid of feathers. But it was undoubtedly his betrothed. He remembered the landau with the familiar coachman he’d noticed waiting in the lane and wondered what she had done with her maid.

He also wondered what the bloody hell she was doing here.

He heard Angelina Champagne say, “So it was you who killed Ross.”

Foley drew up beside her. “No. I assumed it was you.”

“I liked Alexander. And I had no reason to kill him.”

“But you would have killed him, had it become necessary. After all, you killed Lindquist.”

“We did.” She gave a wry smile. “Although in a sense, one could say that you did. If you hadn’t bragged about the gold transfers to Yasmina, we never would have known where to look for him.”

Sebastian saw Foley’s shoulders bunch, saw the flash of the knife blade in the man’s hand. “Look out!” he shouted and came from behind the chapel at a run.

He was too late.

Reaching out, Foley grabbed the Frenchwoman by her upper arm and plunged the knife into her breast.

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian. Then he swore again, throwing himself flat as the booming explosion of a pistol echoed around the burial ground.

Foley turned a strange, slow pirouette, his body tense, a look of shock and surprise on his face, the front of his white silk waistcoat a sheet of dark shiny wetness. He took one step. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell in a limp sprawl against the side of the tomb.

Sebastian’s gaze jerked back to the Frenchwoman. She still had one hand in her reticule. He could see the charred hole in the side of the cloth and realized she must have hidden a small pistol there. For a moment, her startled gaze met his.

She crumbled slowly.

He pushed up, aware of the patter of running feet as Miss Jarvis rushed forward. Sebastian reached the fallen woman first.

He gathered her gently into his arms. She was still conscious, her eye filming with tears, one hand coming up to grip his forearm.

“How did you come to be here?” she asked.

“I followed Foley.”

“Ah.” There was a pause. “You heard?”

“Yes.”

“It’s true, what he said. We killed de La Rocque and Lindquist, too—both were agents of the enemies of France. But I swear to you, I had nothing to do with the death of Alexander Ross.” She coughed, and a trickle of blood spilled down her chin. “Je ne regret rien,” she said softly. “We are at war.”

He was aware of Miss Jarvis drawing up at the edge of the tomb. She made no move to come any closer.

Angelina’s grip on his arm tightened. She said, “I never did tell you about your mother.”

Sebastian felt his breath catch in his throat. “Tell me what?”

She shook her head. “You look so like her. Except for the eyes. She told me you had his eyes.”

“What? Whose eyes?” But he realized she had slipped beyond hearing him.

He held her as she breathed her last, as her heart slowed and stopped and the life eased from her body. Then he laid her gently into the long grass and turned his head to fix his betrothed with a hard stare.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

She returned his gaze steadily. “I followed her.”

“You what? Why?”

“I thought you were wrong about Foley—”