She touched her way through the last things in the bag. There was a coil of fine-woven silk rope, thin, but strong enough to hold a man’s weight. It was light and smooth as flowing water, and there were yards and yards of it. “Adrian, I will tell you…we are much alike, we two.” She ran the rope reverently through her fingers. “Even though you carry that noisy pistol with the powder that is certainly wet already. This rope…I shall set such a snare with this. You shall help me.”
“Rabbits, Annique?”
She laughed. “But no. Weasels.”
Fifteen
THE FIRE HAD BURNED DOWN TO EMBERS. THE wall of the chapel protected her back, and she held Adrian close to her to keep warmth between them. One cloak, like a blanket, spread over them both.
“There are pictures on the walls,” Adrian said. “I’ve been lying here looking at them. Where the plaster’s left, it’s painted with…I guess you’d call it a meadow. Flowers all over. Thirty or forty different kinds. The columns have vines of blue flowers running right up ’em.”
“It sounds pretty.”
“It is. Right above us on the ceiling, there’s a white bird with the sun behind it. That’s up there getting smoky from the fire.”
“I think we have been sacrilegious. I did not remember this was a house of God when I was roasting apples.”
“The gods moved out of here a long time ago.” Adrian hesitated. “You can’t see what happened here. Believe me, cooking apples is nothing compared to what was done in this place.”
“Do not tell me, then. I have seen enough elsewhere that I can imagine it.”
“We both have.” He moved restlessly, with a crackling in the bedding beneath them. “I wish you’d go to sleep. Unless you’ve decided to pull all these damp clothes off and make wild, passionate love.”
“No, Adrian.”
“I was afraid not. Be a good girl, then, and try to sleep. It’s not your watch. It’s too soon to expect them back. Much too soon.”
“How long will we wait for them?”
There were many things they did not need to say out loud to each other. “The rest of today. Tonight. Till tomorrow at noon. If Grey hasn’t come by then, we’ll leave.”
Rain dripped persistently at the far end of the chapel, near the door. There was a leak there, and a wide puddle of water. “He will not come, will he?”
“He’s been in worse corners than this. You French don’t know half the things he’s done.”
The cloud of misery that had been weighing upon her lightened somewhat. She must remember that Grey was no ordinary man. He had been in many dangerous snarls, and always he had untangled them and escaped. Perhaps he and Doyle were even now enacting some fiendishly clever plan, and he would come looking for her again as he promised. She would not put it past him.
“I know almost nothing of Grey. I have not interested myself in the British, as there are any number of other nations to spy upon. It is a grave lack in my education. You, little brother, I know something of, from the time you worked in Milan.”
“When did I become your little brother? I thought we were twins.”
“We are, but you are seventeen minutes younger. Because of this, I have always bullied you unmercifully. I work these things out when I am playing a role, you see. I used to blackmail all your candy from you when we were children in Grafing, and I told tales on you and got you into trouble. Even now I tell my friends about your mistresses so the young ladies are all shocked with you. I am a terrible person when I’m your twin.”
He chuckled weakly. “You’re a terrible person even when you aren’t, did you know that?”
“I have several terrible people to be, within me, when I need them.” Twigs scratched her annoyingly as she stretched. “What does he look like? I have not seen him, you know.”
“Skin like shoe leather. Wide across the shoulders. Big barrel of a chest…”
“Not Doyle, as you understand quite well. I have seen Monsieur Doyle several times in Vienna when we were with great attention not noticing each other. What does Grey look like?”
“He is the Head of Section for the British Intelligence Service. He is not for you, my child.”
“
“Tall and battered around some. Not handsome.” That was all he had to say.
“I hope you are more eloquent in reporting to your superiors, for of a certainty I am no wiser than I was three minutes ago.” She grimaced toward the unseen ceiling. “Which was doubtless your intention. You are right, though. It does not matter.”
There was no picture of Grey in her mind. He was strong arms to harbor in and broad hands with calloused palms that had touched her everywhere. He was sternness and great certainty in deciding what must be done, so much certainty that the air around him was charged with it. He was the cleverest of spymasters, frightening when he was one’s enemy. He was the smell of clean soap and a roughness of his chin when he had not shaved for several hours. Those things, and a voice speaking the French of Toulouse, were all she had. Strange to know so much about him and not to know what he looked like.
Adrian said, “Have you fallen in love with Grey? That wasn’t wise of you.”
Sometimes, she was not wise. There were many people who could have told him this.
He said, “You aren’t going to deny it, are you? Not to your twin.”
She listened to the fire for a while. “When one says, ‘I will not let myself feel anything for that man,’ it is already too late.”
“Why, Annique?”
“I do not think such stupidity can have a reason.” She had most assuredly been stupid. “To love…it is a great madness for those in our profession.”
“You’re right about that.” He shifted again, uncomfortably. “It was a woman who put that bullet in me. Did you know?”
“One cannot tell from looking at the wound, as it happens.”
“A remarkable girl. Something like you, in a way. A great player in the Game.”
“You should still not let her shoot holes in you. You are also very good at this Game you play.”
“We’re all daunting as demons. Did Grey get to you yet, or are you still a virgin?”
She should not have been surprised. There was nothing this one would not say. “You make numberless assumptions, many of them wrong.”
“I don’t think so. Has he?”
“Has no one told you that you are nosy beyond belief?”
“You don’t have to answer.”
“But you will speculate upon this endlessly, whatever I say or do not say. And you will do it aloud. There is no shame in you, Adrian.”
“None.” She heard the smile in his voice.
She sighed. “
“If Grey doesn’t hurry up and take you to bed, I swear I will. You should find out what you’ve missed.”
“Very little, I suspect. This business of man and woman is not a club with secret passwords. Me, I know all there is to know of these things and—”
“That’s what I thought. You’ve done nothing. Grey is six or seven kinds of a fool.”
“This is a very indelicate conversation, and I do not believe I will have it with you any longer.”
“If you get the chance, make love to him. He’s not a master of the art, like me, but—”
