The Spymaster's Lady

Section.”

“He’s good at it,” Doyle said.

Grey folded something smooth and warm around her. It was his coat, and it smelled of him. Then she knew.

“You have given me drugs.”

“Yes, Annique,” Grey said.

It was too late to do anything about it.

Twelve

The coast of Northern France, near Cayeux

“DO NOT GIVE ME FAMILY PARTIES OF DUTCH, with their three children and a grandmother.” One hand on the reins, the other clenching a rolled list, Leblanc sat stiff in the saddle. “Or schoolgirls. Or two old men who tune pianos. This is useless.”

“These have passed today. No one else.” The corporal of militia stood stolidly.

“I tell you again, you are looking for a blind woman. Young, dark-haired. Very lovely. It is inconceivable no one would notice. There will be a man with her. Tall. Brown hair. Brown eyes.”

“There may be another with them. A young man, wounded,” Henri added.

Leblanc scowled him to silence. “Forget the others. We have to find the blind girl. She will come this way. She must.”

Henri’s mount crept forward, planning to take a bite out of the corporal. Henri kneed it back into line. “Or they may strike south.”

“She won’t. She knows every foot of this coast. And it’s the best route to England.” Leblanc tore the list he had been offered into pieces. They fluttered to the ground and danced in the wind around the hooves of his horses. “How is she slipping past the patrols? How? Damn these peasants. Someone’s helping her.”

“No blind women came by my post,” the corporal said stolidly.

Leblanc squinted across the barrens of pine and sand toward the slice of slate-colored sea. “That village?”

The corporal said, “Pointe Venteuse, sir.”

“It has an inn?”

“Oui, monsieur, a fine one. Madame Dumare is—”

“You will take your men, Corporal, and you will go through every house in that wretched village. You will go through every hedge and outhouse and cow byre searching for that woman. Then you will search them again. You will do this until I tell you to stop.”

“But—”

“Perhaps next time I will not hear so much of Dutch families. I will be at the inn. Henri…”

Resigned, Henri spurred forward.

“Let us make a lesson here. Pick two or three women and bring them to the inn for questioning. If the inn is indeed fine, I will spend the night there.”

So. It was to be one of those nights. Henri shrugged and motioned four of the troop to fall in behind him. Husbands and fathers would object. They would object more tomorrow, when they saw what was done with the girls.

“Dark-haired,” Leblanc called after him. “I want them dark-haired. And young.”

Thirteen

TIME CRAWLED OVER HER AND AROUND HER. SHE floated in endless swirling waters. When the heavy, dark weight of them receded, she was sitting up with a man’s arm around her.

“Drink this.” It was Grey who said that, and what she was to drink was coffee. Very sweet coffee.

“I do not take so much sugar.” She shook her head, annoyed and barely awake. “It is too much. Really.” But she drank it because he put it to her lips and kept offering it to her until it was gone. Then he held her close to his chest as she spiraled into the blackness. It was like falling down into him.

Darkness gave way to the velvet times when she was full of mindless contentment and did ordinary things, but nothing was important in the least. She walked or stood or sat, and Grey was nearby, telling her what to do, guiding her through the moments of spinning bewilderment. Then she would lie down and sleep, in a bed or on the ground, wherever he had put her.

Once, she lay with the softness of a bed beneath her. Grey’s body sprawled beside her, sleeping. The bed was warm with him, and his arm lay across her, heavy and relaxed. Desire uncoiled in her. Her skin stretched tight over a thousand humming feathers. She turned to him and slid herself against him, and it burned. Between her legs it burned and sang, and she pressed and pressed herself against him.

He woke. “Easy, Annique. You’re dreaming. Don’t…” He set her away from him. “No.” It was a whisper in her ear. “You’re beautiful, Fox Cub. Sleep now. Just sleep.” But she held tight to him, wrapped around him. She felt, suddenly, an ecstasy that broke her into a thousand fragments. She cried out and fell, slowly, all the thousand pieces of her, into the warm, drugged ocean the opium had prepared for her.

Then she was in the coach, tucked against Grey’s side, warm sunlight on her face. The click click of wheels and the jiggle and thump of the road had been with her a long time. Grey held her and stroked slowly down her back. It would be nice if he did that more. She slipped down to nestle into his lap. Now he would stroke her everywhere.

He ran his fingers softly across her forehead and into her hair. It was not enough. She rolled, inviting his hand across her belly.

“Like a cat,” she heard him murmur.

Adrian’s voice came softly, nearby. “She wants it. Opium hits some of ’em like that. She’s going to make some man deliriously happy, one day.”

“Not you,” Grey said.

“Unfortunately, no. But then, it’s not my flag she’s running up the mast, is it?”

Grey gave a deep growl. The vibration buzzed through him and into her skin. She rubbed her cheek against him and breathed him in. Through the rough fabric of his trousers, the muscles and the bones of his thighs emerged into her mind like rocks from sand. It felt wonderful, touching him.

I should not be doing this. It was a faint voice, far beneath the dark waters of her mind.

“She’s hurting.” Adrian’s light words drifted across her, words with no meaning. “Why don’t you give her a touch or two and let her fall asleep happy? She won’t remember.”

“Why don’t I kick you out in the nearest cornfield and let you walk home.”

“I can look the other way.”

“Shut up, Adrian.”

“Your sort always makes it complicated. She’s coming out again.”

“Blast. You’re right.” The universe shifted. She was sitting up. She heard Grey say, “Make it a half dose. Or less. Less than that.”

There was a glass to drink, very bitter. She did not want to take it, because they were giving her opium, but it was drunk before she woke up enough to fight. Then Grey let her lie down in his lap again.

“Go back to sleep.” He rearranged her on the seat. She curled around his hand, trying to pull it between her legs, for the touch of him. It kept slipping away.

“Sleep. That’s what you want. Nothing else.”

She fell down into the darkness. The words fell in after her, melting on her skin like snowflakes.