Книга - What a Hero Dares

What a Hero Dares
Kasey Michaels


Desire and loyalty collide in the riveting conclusion to USA TODAY bestselling author Kasey Michaels's series about the Redgraves–four siblings united by their legacy of scandal and seduction…Punished for his father's crimes and scorned by society, fearless soldier Maximillien Redgrave fights to protect England. But his quest to restore his family's reputation is his own private battle. Trusting the irresistible young Zoe Charbonneau, whose betrayal destroyed his closest comrades and nearly unraveled his covert mission, is a mistake he intends to never repeat. So when the discovery of a smuggling ring compels him to embark on a voyage straight into danger, he's prepared for anything–except to find Zoe on his ship.Believed to be a double agent for England and France, Zoe must clear her name in order to save her life. Convincing Max of her innocence seems impossible, until inescapable desire tempts them both to trust–and love–again. But a circle of enemies is closing in, and their time together might run out before they outrun danger….







Praise for bestselling author

KASEY MICHAELS

‘Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.’

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

‘Michaels holds the reader in her clutches and doesn’t let go.’

—RT Book Reviews on What a Gentleman Desires, Top Pick

‘A multi-layered tale … Here is a novel that holds attention because of the intricate story, engaging characters and wonderful writing.’

—RT Book Reviews on What an Earl Wants, Top Pick

‘Michaels’ beloved Regency romances are witty and smart, and the second volume in her Redgrave series is no different. The lively banter, intriguing plot, fascinating twists and turns … sheer delight.’

—RT Book Reviews on What a Lady Needs

‘The historical elements … imbue the novel with powerful realism that will keep readers coming back.’

—Publishers Weekly on A Midsummer Night’s Sin

‘A poignant and highly satisfying read … filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.’

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

‘Michaels’ new Regency series is a joy …’

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke


Also available from

KASEY MICHAELS

The Redgraves

What an Earl Wants

‘The Wedding Party’ in

Rules of Engagement

What a Gentleman Desires

What a Hero Dares

The Blackthorn Brothers

The Taming of the Rake

A Midsummer Night’s Sin

Much Ado About Rogues

The Daughtry Family

How to Tempt a Duke

How to Tame a Lady

How to Beguile a Beauty

How to Wed a Baron

The Sunshine Girls

Dial M for Mischief

Mischief Becomes Her

Mischief 24/7

The Beckets of Romney Marsh

A Gentleman by

Any Other Name

The Dangerous Debutante

Beware of Virtuous Women

A Most Unsuitable Groom

A Reckless Beauty

Return of the Prodigal

Becket’s Last Stand

Other Must-Reads

The Bride of the Unicorn

The Secrets of the Heart

The Passion of an Angel

Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

Stuck in Shangri-La

Shall We Dance?

The Butler Did It


What a Hero

Dares

Kasey Michaels






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Dear Reader,

I’ve spent three books listening to Maximilien Redgrave’s siblings talk about him, drop snippets about him here and there for me to pick up on—for readers to pick up on. Now it’s time to see what all the fuss has been about.

He’s a handsome fellow, this Max Redgrave, not to mention cocky. Bright, outwardly confident, determined, daring. But he isn’t perfect. He’s been betrayed, had his heart badly broken and his trust in his own judgement shaken by one Zoé Charbonneau, the French beauty who made him the man he is today: deadly dangerous.

Now Zoé’s back, just as Max is up to his neck in intrigue. She’s got a score of her own to settle and doesn’t care if she’s in his way—not as long as he stays out of hers. Which isn’t as easy as it sounds, not when they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other, enemies or not.

All I have to do now is sit here at my computer and let Max lead me where he wants to go … everywhere a hero dares!

Please visit me online on Facebook or my website, www.kaseymichaels.com (http://www.kaseymichaels.com) to catch up on all my news.

Kasey Michaels


To Mike, with all my love.

In good times and bad these past fifty years,

you’ve always been there for me.


‘Lord, I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing!’

—Jonathan Swift


Contents

PROLOGUE (#u30b1ee99-dae6-5d46-9f71-9d7a3e411873)

CHAPTER ONE (#u70c45b13-9917-5c2f-9eeb-fea76c60b2f6)

CHAPTER TWO (#ue868d32b-06ad-50bd-9a60-adb3e305c38e)

CHAPTER THREE (#ue384dc57-28d6-54ff-9c4e-e902121b858c)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

EXTRACT (#litres_trial_promo)


PROLOGUE

SOMETIME IN THE mid-1700s, Charles Redgrave, sixteenth earl of Saltwood, took it into his head that the amount of royal Stuart blood in his veins trumped that flowing in the Hanovers now (erroneously, obviously) occupying the English throne.

Charles did not like sharing what he perceived as his power, but realized he did need a few reasonably intelligent aides, inferiors who would obey his every command and help secure those goals (no matter their own petty motives).

And thus the Society, a most unique hellfire club, was born.

Charles handpicked his inner circle, the Devil’s Thirteen as they were then dubbed, offering them, if not the sun and the moon, a secret world of more earthly delights, along with wealth and power such as they’d never dreamed could be theirs. Once he had his chosen ones, like-minded traitors all, they sought out their minions, as all the best courts had minions, sycophants, useful, loyal, yet expendable.

He outfitted a hidden pleasure palace on Saltwood land geared to satisfying every desire, indulging every carnal pleasure, encouraging every vice, from women (always a grand draw, Charles knew), to heady opium pipes. There was also the promise of intellectual discourse in there somewhere, and the lofty goal of a more justly ruled England, but mostly the more minor members were there for the silly costumes and the diddling.

It was only after their desires were met, even exceeded, and the first demands were voiced that they truly realized this particular hellfire club, this Society, now owned them—them and their reputations, with Charles’s every wish suddenly their command.

Charles knew he needed one thing more: an army. For that he turned to France, and struck yet another devil’s bargain, truly believing he was about to embark on the path that would lead him to the throne.

Instead, Charles turned up quite dead one morning (a plate of bad fish, so sad), before the French army could be launched, its destination the welcoming shores of Redgrave Manor. The Devil’s Thirteen and the minions melted back into a more humdrum society, hopeful the masks they’d worn during ceremonies, the code names they’d used, would protect their identities.

Whispers of debauchery and perhaps sedition to one side, the Society might have been forgotten, if not for one thing. Charles had decreed every member keep a journal. Those journals were yearly turned over to the Keeper to update the bible, the key to everything about the Society.

When the time was considered ripe, the Keeper had dutifully turned over the journals and bible to Charles’s only son. Barry Redgrave, as hoped, had oohed and aahed in sincere appreciation, and apparently decided his late sire had been nothing less than a bloody genius. Along with an almost eerie resemblance, Barry had inherited an attraction to the more perverse delights life had to offer. Although Barry believed himself to be more handsome than his father, and most definitely smarter.

And that plate of bad fish? The Keeper had another tale to tell about that!

Even before he reached his majority, Barry had clearly taken over the running of Redgrave Manor, cajoling his doting yet oddly nervous mother, winning her over with his smiles, his outward affection, while operating quite secretly behind her back. The morning he turned one-and-twenty, after a long night of revelry with his chums in Town, he flung his unsteady, drunken self into his mother’s chambers in the family’s Cavendish Square mansion, to rouse the woman with a cruel slap followed by a boozy, punishing kiss on her mouth.

He was followed by a trail of maids and footmen prepared to “Pack you up, you murdering whore,” and denied her an allowance unless she limited her visits to the Manor to one month out of each year.

He then paid a covert visit to Grosvenor Square. He politely thanked the aging Keeper and mentor in the ways of the Society for all he’d done, and told him to say hello to Charles a moment before tossing the old fool down the marble stairs.

Two weeks later, he purchased that same Grosvenor Square mansion, leaving his father’s outrageous monstrosity in Cavendish Square for his mama’s use. Let her live with the ghosts there.

And let the games begin!

While his still young and beautiful mother traveled on the Continent or partied in Mayfair, he appointed his very best friend, Turner Collier, to act as the group’s Keeper, guardian of the bible. They then went about gathering up any of the original Devil’s Thirteen and minions still aboveground, and the Society was soon back in business. He met and married a barely royal Spanish beauty he deemed a suitable broodmare, put a child in her as often as he could, enlarged both the Manor house and its lands. And plotted. And schemed. And added more and more like thinkers and helpful minions to his Society.

All within the confines of his first and truly only love, Redgrave Manor.

For nearly ten years of planning and conniving and bribing, all seemed to go quite swimmingly. His negotiations with the French king would soon come to fruition. Until the fall of the Bastille dealt the first crushing blow to Barry’s ambitions. That was closely followed by his drunken decision to stand up in a duel against his wife’s French lover, only to fall on his handsome face when a weapon fired from the trees put a bullet hole in his back and a period to his existence. The new widow, smoking pistol supposedly still in her hand, promptly deserted her four young children and ran off to France with her lover.

What followed was open conjecture throughout the ton concerning some sort of salacious hellfire club, and even speculation that Barry Redgrave had been whoring out his wife to his devil-worshipping friends, and that was really why she shot him. There were whispers of sedition and treason as people remembered his father and those rumors, dragging them out for another airing. But, mostly, it was the titillating scandal of the murder, the reason behind it, and the insult to those who deemed the Redgraves immoral, unsuited to retain the earldom (or the Manor, or all that lovely money).

It was as if Barry was more of a danger dead than he’d been while alive. The Redgraves were about to lose everything...including control of their secrets.

Enter the determined Beatrix, Dowager Countess of Saltwood, and fiercely protective grandmother to Barry’s four good-as-orphaned children. The by now deliciously notorious Trixie, who had spent her entire widowhood playing May games with society, most especially the men—those she loathed, those she admired, and those she might someday be able to use.

She’d learned a lot from Charles....

Perhaps because she had more brass than a chamber pot, but most probably because she knew more than most men would like the world (and especially their wives) to know, she managed to make it through the scandal. She spent decades tenaciously (and perhaps more cleverly than legally), holding on to the earldom for her eldest grandson, Gideon, who had been only nine when his father was hastily interred in the family mausoleum.

Her husband’s Society, her son’s intention to follow in his father’s footsteps—these were never mentioned within earshot of the grandchildren. Trixie would rather die a thousand deaths than reveal what had gone on within the Society, the part Charles had forced her to play those long years ago. Her grandchildren knew of the scandal caused by their parents’ actions, yes—that would be impossible to hide from them as they matured and traveled to London, but with the Society long since gone, there was no reason for them to know anything else.

In truth, they seemed to delight in being those scandalous Redgraves. Welcomed everywhere, because to deny them would be folly. Quick, intelligent, dangerous, no door was shut to them. Who’d dare?

But now, suddenly, the Society was back for a third go-round, even using Redgrave land as its headquarters. Its methods the same, its partner this time none but the upstart new French emperor himself, Napoleon Bonaparte. For years, he had longed to add England to his long list of conquered countries. The Society would be more than eager to assist him in that endeavor in exchange for—God, what did they want? Certainly not the Crown; that silly Stuart business could only be gained through the Redgraves, and they certainly had no part in this new incarnation of the Society.

No, the methods might be the same, but the aims were different. Still, at the end of the day, if the Crown got so much as a whiff of what was going on, the Redgraves would pay the price, and this time no amount of Trixie’s machinations would save them.

Gideon, already suspicious that something odd was going on at Redgrave Manor, had learned about the resurrected Society through Turner Collier’s daughter, Jessica. He immediately confronted Trixie, demanding she tell him everything she knew. Consulting with his siblings, they then decided they were left with no other choice than to secretly, quietly ferret out the members and this time bury the Society too deep for it ever to be raised again.

First and foremost, of course, the Redgraves were all loyal to the Crown. But they were also loyal to the Redgrave name, and to the incredibly brave woman who had raised and protected them. They knew neither could survive the possibility of being connected to this or any earlier incarnation of the Society.

Plus, even with some early quick successes, they knew they were running out of time, having been forced to bring Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in on what they’d learned about Society efforts to sabotage troops and supplies heading to Wellington on the Peninsula.

Gideon’s sister, Lady Katherine, had scoured Redgrave Manor, locating the journals from both her grandfather’s and father’s time but not, alas, the all-important bible, the tome having been reduced to ashes by the Keeper. His brother Valentine, following clues found in those journals, had dared to infiltrate a portion of the Society, nearly losing his life in the process, but adding to their knowledge.

They were getting ever closer to the core of the Society and these new, unknown leaders who hid behind masks and code names while going about their dirty business.

Unfortunately, these successes also alerted the Society that the Redgraves were onto them, most certainly fueled by information given to them by the dowager countess.

Only a few short days ago, following a nearly successful arson in the mansion in Cavendish Square with a bold attempt on Trixie’s life on the streets of London, the hunters had suddenly become the hunted.

There couldn’t be a better time for Maximillien Redgrave, currently doing his own investigating from the other side of the Channel, to return to the estate where, unbeknownst to him, his family was all already gathered, and under siege.

Max also didn’t know his own past was sailing to Redgrave Manor with him.

But he was about to find out.


CHAPTER ONE

MAXIMILLIEN REDGRAVE had last seen his birthplace from the seat of his curricle as he set off to London and a quiet meeting in a small office tucked away in the bowels of the Royal Admiralty. He felt he’d been traveling ever since, going about the king’s business, with only a few, flying visits to London. It was during one of those visits that he’d learned about the Society, so that his work on the Continent now included searching out anyone who might be affiliated with the treasonous hellfire group.

This very night he was returning to Redgrave Manor, the magnificent estate that sprawled nearly to the size of a small English county. Sneaking home, as it were, via the back door.

Not that he’d expected to ride through the front gates heralded by fanfares of trumpets in any case, a roasted boar turning on the spit in the massive kitchen fireplace. A few hearty claps on the back from his brothers, an excited hug from his sister, a half-dozen dogs slobbering on his boots. That would be more than sufficient.

Except for the necessary addition of his irascible grandmother reclining at her ease on her favorite chaise longue, hoisting a wineglass as she sent him a knowing wink. It wouldn’t be a proper homecoming without her.

After all, who else but Trixie Redgrave would have thought setting her grandson up as an agent for the Crown held less pitfalls than allowing him to roam Mayfair, wealthy, bored and hot for adventure? To either her credit or as the result of grandmotherly niggles of guilt, she’d then commissioned her own agents to watch over him, report his every move, his every mission to her. According to Gideon, they all had discreet keepers following them about, guardian angels who happened to be wide as barn doors and carry small arsenals with them. Poor Kate, still living on the estate, had everyone from the potboy to the butler to the tenants sworn to keeping her safe.

Not that Trixie would admit to any such thing.

Not that Max would so accuse her, either, or tell her the number of times he’d escaped those same keepers from the first day they’d set off to Eton with him, employing both fair means and foul. Oh, no, he would simply continue as he’d begun all those years ago, and thus wouldn’t tease Trixie later tonight about how their new friend Richard Borders had crossed the Channel and somehow located that one tavern out of dozens lining the water in Gravelines, France, probably to inform him he’d just been whistled to heel by his true master.

Not now, Trixie, he’d whispered inside his head, pulling his hat down far enough to cover his distinctive low, winglike brows and long-lashed, sherry-brown eyes as he sidled out the side door and into an alley smelling of everything foul the human body could produce.

There were occasions his almost startling handsomeness was a boon, but not at times like this; right now Max craved anonymity, and having Richard calling out his name or asking the barmaid if she’d seen him could get both the seeker and the sought filleted. Besides, I’ve got fish of my own to fry, thank you. I’ll be kissing the dear lady’s powdered cheek soon enough.

Max didn’t applaud himself as he melted into the darkness, as it had been easy enough avoiding Richard. The man would be looking for someone who appeared very different from the Max Redgrave who had been slouching in a dark corner of the taproom, his hair and beard unkempt, his clothes not much more than several layers of rags beneath a long, greasy cloak, his wide-brimmed hat filthy and sagging over his face. He did have a gold earring, but any bit of sweepings found roaming Gravelines could use his sticker to slit a drunken seaman’s ear and help himself to a bit of gold. It was almost expected of them.

“And who was that fine, fair, fat gentleman you just left behind, mon ami?”

Max answered Anton Boucher without bothering to turn his head. “Who? You didn’t have to follow me. I only came out here to relieve myself,” and turned to the wall and unbuttoned his homespun trousers. “You’ve been at this too long, Anton. You’ve turned into an old woman, seeing trouble everywhere. It may be prudent of you to step back. The wind, you know.”

“It is picking up, isn’t it,” the man said, retreating a few paces. “And the rain, as well. As long as we’re out here and already drenched, we may as well get on with it. Perhaps they won’t sail, as a full moon does no one any good when it’s hidden behind clouds.”

“Admit it, Anton, you’re a timid sailor. There’s no need for you to travel with me tonight. I won’t be returning with you in any case.”

“Nonsense, as if I’d leave you with no one to guard your back. Besides, I’ve gained their trust. Only the one ship tonight, and they won’t let you board without me.”

Max deliberately kept his tone light. “Braggart. But I suppose you’re right. And you’re confident they’ll have the same destination as last time?”

“Same godforsaken destination every time, just as I told you.” Anton smiled, his pale blue eyes seeming to twinkle in the reflection from a streak of lightning overhead. “Missed all the fun then, didn’t we, sailing in the trailing boat? Pirates, the captain swore as we turned and raced back here, as if he’d know a pirate from a pickle. Probably just other smugglers, thinking to make an easy profit without the trouble of having to cross the Channel. Can’t trust the English, Max, you know that, being one of them.”

“The same stands for you, concerning your fellow Frenchmen,” Max returned, and Anton’s smile vanished.

“Touché. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead, does it?”

Max wished he hadn’t spoken. This was no night for unpleasant memories. “No, it doesn’t.”

They made their way along the docks to the rather questionable-looking vessel their so-called employers had chosen for the run across the Channel. Borrowed from a band of English owlers their French hosts were currently entertaining at one of the inns expressly built for their comfort by none other than the emperor himself. Like so many others, having delivered their cargo of wool, all they’d wanted was full tankards and some sweet mam’zelles warming their laps before loading up their cargos of brandy, tea and silk for the return to the beaches of Romney Marsh or perhaps Folkestone before daybreak.

Max had watched from the corner of the taproom as the unsuspecting crew drank down their ale, neatly doctored with laudanum. The fools were now blissfully asleep with their heads fallen forward onto the tabletops, unaware their vessel was about to take a second run across the Channel yet this night. They’d wake to find a friendly gang of ships’ carpenters repairing damage they’d discovered on the hull. Not to worry yourselves, my good messieurs, they would be told, you can sail for home tonight, and in the meantime, please enjoy the hospitality of these lovely young buds of springtime whose only wish is to please you.

Clever. Bonaparte and the Society, working together for their mutual advantage. God only knew what headed to England, God only knowing what returned with them to Gravelines.

Max wished he’d discovered the truth on his own, but that hadn’t been the case. It was only after running down Anton in Ostend that he’d learned about the tactics, if not the cargo or the destination. And it was only when he and Anton had sailed from Gravelines with the Society that he’d glimpsed the familiar shorelines of Redgrave Manor just before the sloop sailing ahead of them was attacked and their mission had been aborted, rescheduled for tonight.

A real piece of work, Anton Boucher, this Frenchman who had thrown in his lot with the English. Never revealing more than he had to, and if not a friend, at least trustworthy. To a point. Max had told him only what he’d wished him to know when he’d asked for his assistance...but never called the Society by name or let on that he’d recognized the area of English coastline that had been and was now again their destination. As far as Anton was concerned, Max was simply carrying out another mission for the Crown.

No matter how much you trust them, tell them only what they need to know and, if you can manage it, only half of that. Max had earned that lesson the hardest way possible.

“Are you regretting escaping your watchdogs in Ostend?” the Frenchman asked as he squinted through the downpour, looking up and down the pier. “Don’t you miss them?”

“I never miss them for long, unfortunately, as they’ve somehow made their way here. As far as they know, however, I’m still at my hotel, sleeping off an afternoon of melancholy drinking, just as if the place had only a front door. You’re not supposed to notice them at any rate, as my behemoths rather pride themselves on their stealth.”

“And now you’re about to leave them on the other side of the Channel. Poor fellows. Even hounds can’t follow a scent across the water.”

“They can make their own way home,” Max grumbled as they each loaded yokes holding a pair of small brandy kegs onto their shoulders and advanced up the narrow, dangerously swaying gangplank. Along with Richard, who’d obviously already found them guarding that same front door. “Damn, man, we haven’t cast off yet, and already you’re turning green. It’s only a storm, not Armageddon. Don’t worry, all we can do is drown.”

“Sometimes I do not so much like you, mon ami. French stomachs are delicate, not like those of you English, who would eat shoe leather, and probably do.”

“Only on Sundays, with quite lovely burnt carrots and turnips. Find yourself a dark corner, why don’t you, as I help the others finish the loading.”

Ten minutes later they were pushing away from the dock, and ten minutes after that Anton was leaning over the rail, alternately cursing and casting up his accounts.

At least the wind was with them, and they’d be off-shore at Redgrave Manor in a matter of hours. Unless the unknown captain’s skill faltered, in which case they’d all be at the bottom of the Channel. There was always that. Years ago, Max had been able to brag of being not only the youngest coxswain in the Royal Navy, but had been aboard the Trafalgar when the mighty Nelson was mortally struck down. But those who’d been there never spoke of that fateful day, even in whispers.

Just as he could not betray himself now by conking the inept captain over the head with a belaying pin and taking control of the ship.

Cursing the foul weather under his breath, Max leaned against a portion of lashed-together kegs as the sloop seemed to climb skyward on each wave, only for the hull to then slap down on black water turned hard as any board.

There came the sound of tearing sail high in the rigging, and Anton’s curses grew louder. A French royalist intent on defeating Bonaparte and returning the monarchy to the throne in Paris, Anton had been secretly working for the English for close to a decade, and he and Max had more than once joined ranks in ferreting out information valuable to the Crown. Worked together, gotten roaring drunk together, laughed together...mourned together.

It was only natural that he would contact Anton for his assistance, and it was Anton who’d first suggested English traitors could be making themselves at home in any of the hotels Bonaparte had ordered built to house English smugglers along the coast, many of them at Dunkirk and Gravelines. Anton had taken out a gold coin and flipped it, with him picking Gravelines when he won.

Max had seen that trick from Anton and his two-headed coin before, but had never called him on it, just as Max had some small tricks of his own. Anton had information he wasn’t sharing, and had made sure Gravelines was their destination. As long as they both knew each other’s tricks they could both pretend ignorance in certain things. It was safer that way, as long as the mission succeeded.

Which, hopefully, it was about to do.

Once in the seaside town, watching and careful listening had resulted in information about one small group of men and their borrowed ships. Their runs were infrequent, and loaded with quite singular cargo. Yes, they loaded brandy meant for England, unloaded wool that came from England. But there was something more.

“Men going to England, but not returning with the ship,” Anton had informed Max. “My contact told me it’s the damndest thing. Sometimes two, three dozen seamen sailing off along with the kegs, but only a handful returning on the next tide.”

He’d laughed then, that full-throated laugh of his that rose all the way to his pale eyes. “You don’t suppose Boney is invading a score or so at a time? Piecemeal building himself an army on English shores? I always told you, Max, these revolutionists toss words like liberté, égalité, fraternité into the dustbin every time they sniff a whiff of power. Drop a crown on their heads, like Boney, and they’re even worse, gobbling up other countries like sugar treats. Why else are you here, with the English so concerned about Bonaparte’s business, yes?”

Remembering Anton’s words, Max squinted into the darkness along the deck, attempting to single out bodies that didn’t belong, anyone who seemed out of place. It was impossible to recognize faces from his other crossing, save for a magnificently tall and leanly muscled man with skin the shade of wild honey and eyes the color of sand that stared straight back at him. Max acknowledged him with a ragtag salute, and the man nodded in return, then both looked away.

Friend? Foe? Interested bystander? The man would bear watching.

Other than the crew, he then counted the other men clinging to the ropes, hired from the docks to assist in the off-loading of the contraband once they reached the shoreline. Expendable bodies, like his, and Anton’s, hired to do a job of work, or drown in the process.

Except there were too many of them.

There were more than a dozen Frenchmen, four quiet men dressed as Dutchmen. A trio of Spaniards who could be dockside lingerers or hired mercenaries, but currently fully occupied with their rosaries. A short, fairly rotund fellow engulfed head-to-foot in a worse cloak than Max’s own and currently hanging over the railing next to Anton, apparently feeding the fish with whatever he’d had for supper.

Lastly, his gaze alit on a slim figure wrapped all in black: black leather trousers, black tunic, overly large black hooded cloak, black gloves, black boots, black muffler covering all but a pair of narrowly slitted eyes.

Not one of the crew. Definitely not hired to wade through the choppy waters to the beach, a brace of kegs tied over his shoulders. Which meant one thing... Max was looking at another part of the cargo, most likely a spy.

And spies could be valuable.

He spent the next three hours making and discarding plans. He knew he wasn’t returning to Gravelines; that had never been part of his plan. But now, on top of successfully stealing away from the shore on his own, he would have to lug an unwilling companion along with him.

There was no other possible conclusion: he had to enlist Anton’s help once they reached their destination.

He reminded himself yet again that he trusted Boucher. As much as he trusted any man. Or woman.

Which, Max acknowledged silently, wasn’t much. For instance, he still didn’t quite understand why Anton, such a sorry sailor, would insist upon escorting him to England in this storm when he could have vouched for him to get him on board, and then waved his farewell from the dock. That didn’t quite make sense.

The Frenchman hadn’t led him astray yet; his information had all been spot-on. But loyalties could change, especially if money was involved, just as easily as the direction of the wind now blowing toward England, at last leaving the storm behind them. Trust was at a premium in these tumultuous times. It was all too easy to end up betrayed and dead. Both Anton and Max knew that. But we don’t speak of such things. The past is the past, and the guilty one punished does not bring back the dead....

“Open the shutter, boy,” the captain suddenly commanded. “Once, then again, and watch for the all clear from shore. Ah, there it is! Lower the longboats, and be quick about it.”

It was time. His decision made, Max scrambled to his feet with the others, and headed for Anton, who was still standing at the rail.

“We part ways now, yes?” Anton whispered close beside Max’s ear, his breath foul, so that Max covered his own mouth and nose. “Me to follow our return cargo once it lands, and you to chase after those who remain on the shore. Don’t attempt to sneak away empty-handed. I think it best you heft a brace of kegs, like the others. The longboats are down. Here, let me help hoist a yoke onto your shoulders.”

Max nodded, remaining where he was, his forearms on the rail, leaning forward, straining to see the shore as Anton went to retrieve the yoke and kegs. Then Max would tell him about the possible spy.

He never got the chance.

“Anton! Another smuggler’s lantern, signaling onshore. Could be unwelcome company portside,” he said, turning toward the man, so that the belaying pin that came down on his head only grazed his skull rather than rendering him totally unconscious.

All he would ever remember after that was a hard body barreling into him with force sufficient to knock his breath from him, and helplessly falling through the air, heading for the dark water that was suddenly lit by the flash of a cannon broadside that seemed to have come out of nowhere to crash through the rigging of the sloop.

* * *

“RELEASE ME, YOU FOOL, I’m all right. Let me go!”

Zoé Charbonneau’s words were closely followed by a kick that landed in the most tender spot of her unnecessary rescuer’s pudgy anatomy. He seemed to go unconscious with the pain. Her arm was freed at once and she was up and running, stumbling, only to fall to her knees on the sharp shingle beside Maximillien Redgrave.

Max. Her Max. But not any longer.

She spared only a moment to look into his well-remembered face, still misbelieving what she was seeing even after staring at him for hours, before she pushed him over onto his belly with all her might, and then straddled him.

“Breathe, damn you,” she commanded, bracing her arms against him, slamming the sides of her fists into his back over and over again. “Don’t you dare die again!”

“Like this, mademoiselle,” came an unfamiliar voice from behind her.

Zoé felt herself being picked up and tossed aside like so much flotsam and looked up to see the towering Arabic man from the smuggler’s sloop. “No, don’t, I have to—”

“Many apologies. I am called Tariq, and promise you I am harmless. If you would please to turn his head to one side? His nose in the sand aids nothing.”

She did as instructed, and saw Tariq pushing on Max’s back with twice the strength she had been able to muster.

“Is he past saving?” she asked, her voice maddeningly tremulous, her hands clasped tightly together at her chest so that she wouldn’t give in to the urge to push his sodden hair back from his face.

“Only a fool would leave a young lady so eager to keep him here,” the man said, grinning, showing off a splendid set of strong white teeth. “Is your man a fool?”

Zoé shook her head, ordering herself to be calm. Hysteria aided nothing; she’d learned that long ago. Even if she were dying inside, she had trained herself to remain outwardly calm, even detached. Perhaps she’d succeeded too well, especially in these last months, and was no longer capable of feeling even what she should. But, then, how else to survive in this treacherous world she’d chosen to live in? “No, just stubborn.”

“Then he’ll live. Stubborn is good.”

As if to prove the man’s point, Max began to cough and choke, and then rise on his elbows and knees to begin vomiting up half the Channel.

Zoé immediately scrambled backward, away from him, then stood up to assess her surroundings. It would be disastrous for Max to see her, even as it would kill her to walk away.

“Take care of him please, Tariq, and then trust him to take care of you. But you never saw me, did you?”

Max’s savior winked at her. “The pale-haired angel in the devil’s clothes? Who would believe me?”

“Shukran, Tariq. Thank you,” she responded, dredging up some of her limited Arabic.

“Alla ysallmak, miss, may God keep you safe.”

“Until I get my bearings, He’ll have to, won’t He?”

There was light enough to see where she was, thanks to the bright flames shooting up from the sails of the smuggling craft, its hull slowly listing to port as a dozen or more grappling hooks thrown from a nearby ship attempted to heave it to starboard, intent on keeping it afloat until it could be dragged closer to shore.

There was yelling somewhere in the distance, pistol fire and the sound of clashing swords, but no one else was visible besides Max, Tariq and the still-unconscious stranger. Just the beach, some abandoned-looking cottages with a steep hill and darkness behind them. An impressively high, clearly impassable rock jetty jutted out into the water to her left; another grassy hill rose to her right, beyond which she could see a distant outcropping of land, dim lights telling her it was clearly home to some sort of town. Anyone attempting escape from the beach would surely head toward the lights, and most certainly be easily captured.

Which was why she knew she had one way to go: up.

Climbing. Like all trapped, desperate animals.

No, she wouldn’t think about that.

With one more assessing look toward Max, barely resisting the urge to touch him just one last time, she headed for what was possibly a path that would lead her up the faintly visible hillside behind the cottages. He could take care of himself, the man who called himself Tariq could assist him, and if Boucher still breathed, he also would have no other choice but to navigate the steep hillside in order to escape in the current chaos.

Unless he was responsible for it. No, no, that was impossible. Anton would never willingly put himself in a position of danger by ordering someone to fire on a ship while he was still aboard.

For her own safety and now Max’s, as well, she had to presume Anton’d survived the attack. More, she had to know.

It had taken her many weeks to ferret the Frenchman out, only to almost lose him earlier on the docks. If she lost track of him now, it might be years before she could locate him again, now that he was in England. Even worse if he had seen her; then he’d be the one in pursuit. Her entire future lay in finding him first. Only with him dead could she walk away, hope to begin her life anew.

Or so she’d thought when she’d first boarded the smuggling vessel.

But Max was alive. Against all information, against all hope, Max was alive. Even disguised, she’d always known him; how he walked, the tilt of his head.

This changed everything.

Her own head felt ready to explode with questions.

She’d taken no more than a few steps before a grip very like iron closed around her arm and she was whirled about, going chest to chest with her unwanted rescuer, who apparently had more recovery power than she’d given him credit for. Again, she aimed a knee toward his crotch, but what had succeeded the first time was neatly countered this time.

“Now, lass, where do you thinking you’d be heading in such a hurry?” the older man said, twisting her arm about to bring it up behind her. “Seems to me, tossing away your cloak and leaping in after the lad and me like you did? Smacks of concern, I’d say.”

“Someone was firing on us. I was saving myself, you fool. He means nothing to me.”

“Of course you were. Of course he doesn’t. He means nothing to either of us.”

Zoé stopped struggling, knowing she didn’t have the power needed to escape this grinning old man. She hadn’t slept in days, couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She’d expended nearly all of her energy making her way to shore; she simply had nothing left to fight with. She’d have to outthink him while formulating a better plan. There was always the knife in her boot, if she could only reach it, but she’d never killed for no reason, not if her wits could save her. “After you pushed him overboard, I would imagine he means something to you.”

“Ah, but only after one of those Frenchies nearly put him to sleep with that belaying pin, and just before the cannon shot whistled through the rigging. There’s all that to consider, don’t you think? So much going on. Now, let’s go see the lad, shall we?”

Zoé felt panic rising in her throat even as her knees, already wobbly, turned to mush. “I’ll pay you to let me go. Pay you well, in English coin.”

“And there’s a pity for you and a blessing for me, as I once would have welcomed the coin but no longer need it. Tell me now, miss, before you run off—do you know where you are, where you’re heading? I’d want to know that before I traveled too far. Let me enlighten you. Behind you, the Channel, so not really a choice at all. To your left, to your right, and for as far as you can see ahead of you and leagues beyond that, is Redgrave land. All of it, more than you could imagine. And with every man-jack on it loyal to the Redgraves. Exhausted, forced to travel on foot, and with only that fetching but rather singular rig-out? Still so anxious to be off?”

“Mon dieu.” Zoé’s entire body sagged at this devastating news. But she shouldn’t have been surprised, just as she shouldn’t have been so quick to believe him dead. It was inevitable. One way or another, Max Redgrave always won.

“He’ll more than likely turn me over to be hanged now that we’re on this side of the Channel,” she said quietly as she looked Max’s way, to see him now only as a shadow sitting on the beach, his forearms resting on his bent knees, still unaware of her presence. “And it will be on your head.”

“Truly? A gentleman like Max? You must have been a very naughty girl.”

“I’m certain he believes as much. Please, if you have any compassion...”

“Fresh out, I’m afraid. But a bit of advice, young lady. Never whimper. Men loathe whimpering. Face him head-on.”

“Something to consider, I suppose.” She continued to watch as Max, with Tariq’s help, staggered to his feet, one hand held to the side of his head. Zoé wanted to turn away, not see the hate and hurt in his eyes when he at last recognized her, but she forced herself to raise her chin while praying neither that chin nor her voice would wobble. “Maximillien, my congratulations,” she dared as he drew nearer. “I thought never to see you again, but you seem to have more lives than a litter of cats.”

He halted where he was, still supported by Tariq. He looked at her for a long time, taking in her bedraggled mane of blond, seawater-stiff hair, her sodden clothing clinging tightly to her body, before holding his cold dark gaze with her own soft brown one. His answer came in a maddening drawl of disinterest. “My, my, will wonders never cease. It’s been months.”

“Has it?” she returned coolly, as if she hadn’t counted the days. There was such a hardness in his eyes as he looked at her, which was no real surprise. She felt naked standing in front of him, vulnerable, which was an unwelcome realization. Some fires clearly didn’t die, no matter how many tears you’d shed over them.

He merely shrugged, as if her words were of no matter to him. Down, but never out—that was Max. “I was told you were in prison.”

Anger, quick and hot, betrayed her. “I was told you were dead. But you’d simply walked away. As if we never existed, you and me, together.”

“But there never was a you and me, was there? No, don’t bother to lie. On to more important matters, if you please. It was you on the ship. That business of bad pennies and all of that. I should have known,” he said, pulling himself more upright, showing he could stand on his own two feet even if he fainted in the process, the idiot. Brave, strong, stubborn...but not always smart.

“You should have known a lot of things.” No, no. I have to stop, now. To say anything else would only make things worse. I can’t let the shock of seeing him trick me into showing him he still has the power to hurt me. “But, yes, let’s move on.”

“I suppose I have you to thank for this blasted bump on my head.”

“Yes, of course. I already proved I’m the embodiment of all things evil.”

“I believe the lady considers herself insulted, and has good reason,” the man who still held tight to her arm interrupted. “It’s one of the frogs you have to thank for the bump. Oh, and I’m the one who pushed you over the rail, so you can thank me for that.”

“Richard?” Max leaned forward, squinting in the dying light from the burning rigging, clearly seeing the other man for the first time. “How...?”

“How else could I boost you out the back door more efficiently than by so clumsily coming in through the front door dressed in all my now thoroughly ruined finery? You may be quicker than this harmless old fat man, but I’ve been around longer than you, and know more tricks. You should look behind you more often, although I admit the rain was more a boon to me than it was to you. In any event, welcome home. This young lady you’ve been glaring daggers at thinks you’re going to have her hanged. Is that right?”

They were speaking of her as if she weren’t there, listening to every word. Max looked like hell, maybe worse than hell, but was still the most handsome, compelling man she’d ever met. Her last and best lover. The man who’d held her in his arms and told her about Redgrave Manor and his own estate, about his family and how they would welcome her. The children they would have together. She’d loved him so much. She’d fallen into jagged, devastated bits on the floor of her cell when told he was dead.

“I hadn’t considered the matter, but, yes, she deserves at least that. Don’t you, Zoé? But the ladies might not approve. Perhaps we’ll put it to a vote tomorrow, over tea and cakes. Are they here, Richard, or scattered all over London and the countryside?”

“Every last one of them here, yes. As you’ve probably gathered, I was sent to fetch you, which wasn’t particularly easy. It took me two trips across the Channel to find you, as you were no longer in Ostend when I got there, and when I returned to London for more information it was to find out there’d been an attempt on— No, that can wait. What’s of first importance is that the Society is all but figuratively knocking on the Manor gates and ready to smash them down. There’s trouble, lad, deadly serious trouble, and you’re just what Trixie thinks is needed. I didn’t know our destination tonight when I invited myself onboard, but sometimes a man gets lucky, doesn’t he?”

Max looked again at Zoé, who couldn’t help but flinch under that intense gaze. “Does he?” Then he raised his head as if sniffing the air to locate the noise that still came to them on the breeze. “What in bloody hell is going on, Richard? There aren’t really pirates, are there? Somehow the family already knew about the smuggling runs? They would have saved me a mountain of trouble if someone had bothered to get a message to me.”

“If you’ll excuse me for pointing this out, I am the message.”

Zoé hadn’t been paying much heed to the noise still coming to them across the dark distance, or to anything but her own perilous position, and how every second that passed was taking Anton further from her reach. But Max had her attention now.

“There’s even more to this beyond a smuggling run? I should have known, with Anton aboard,” she said.

Max looked at her rather curiously, as if she’d just spoken in Greek or some such thing. “Richard, since the women are here, may I assume my brothers are the cause of that commotion we’re hearing?”

“Currently occupied on the far side of that impressive pile of rocks, yes, by now undoubtedly just finishing up their business. Oh, and there may be a few, um, gentlemen of the skull and crossbones persuasion in attendance at the party, as well, but we don’t ask questions, as it concerns a private arrangement between the marquis and his secretive friend.”

Max lifted a hand to his head once more and then took it away, looking curiously at the dark wet stain on his palm. “We’ll leave that for now, whatever in holy hell that meant, or who this marquis is. Tariq, what do you say we all make our way up the path. From there, we can look down on the beach on the other side of the jetty. It’s safest you remain with me, and I wouldn’t be averse to a helping hand.”

“No need for climbing,” Richard told him. “Follow me.”

Zoé didn’t resist as Richard let go of her arm and took hold of her hand instead as he walked her toward the jetty, grateful for his assistance over the slippery mix of sand and shingle as she attempted yet again to marshal her thoughts. Max was in some sort of trouble? His beloved family was in some sort of trouble? If he wasn’t going to immediately turn her over to the authorities in Dover to be measured for her hanging chains, perhaps she could convince him to let her help, prove she could be trusted.

No. Thanks to Anton, it was too late for that.

“Give me a minute, if you please. It’s here somewhere,” Richard said, letting go of Zoé as he used his fingertips to probe at the edges of the solid rock wall now in front of them while Tariq took hold of her shoulders, anchoring her gently but firmly where she stood. “There’s one on either side. I don’t know how he discovered them, but I watched carefully as Simon showed me. Perhaps it’s too dark to— Ah, there’s the handholds.”

He stepped back as Zoé heard the scrape of rock against rock and a section of the stone in front of her somehow turned into a door that swung open as the man called Richard held out one arm in a flourish and took a bow. “Metal hinges replacing brittle, ancient leather, and liberally greased. Repeated at the other end. Amazing, isn’t it, considering it’s probably old as Caesar’s war horse.”

“A passageway through the rocks? I’ll be damned,” Max said from behind her. “I’ve fished from these beaches all of my life.... Where does it lead?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” Zoé said, taking the initiative, pushing her fear of dark places behind her determination to save herself. After all, what did she have to lose? And once Max was surrounded by his family, she might find a way to gain a pistol and make her escape. She hadn’t precisely given her word she wouldn’t try.

As Tariq released his grip and she stepped through the narrow opening, she deftly gathered up her mane of betraying blond hair and twisted it into a knot, then slipped a black toque out of her trouser pocket and covered her head with it. There was a small torch burning against the wall to her right as she moved forward in what must be a cave hollowed out of the mass of jumbled rocks by the tides. The cave seemed to be heading uphill. If she just kept her head, became as inconspicuous as possible, and then slowly melted away from the others and back into the tunnel...

“Ah, I think not, Zoé,” Max growled, grabbing her arm. “For some strange reason, I’d prefer you alive for the moment, and the best way to accomplish that is for you to let me go first.”

“Perhaps I want to die, because you hate me so,” she said, shrugging her shoulders in a purely Gallic gesture she already knew would bounce off him like a dried pea dropped on a drumhead. She needed to keep him more angry than interested.

“While you love me so,” he bit out, proving her point, and then rudely shoved her behind him while Richard and Tariq forged ahead.

“You don’t know the meaning of love. And neither did I. Young and reckless, the pair of us, believing ourselves invincible. But no longer. Have you ever been in a Paris cell, Max? Have you ever been so cold and hungry you’d do most anything for a blanket and a crust of stale bread? Most anything.”

Max very nearly winced, but he’d never so betray himself, she knew that. “You knew what you were doing. That things didn’t work out the way you’d planned isn’t any concern of mine.”

“How very English of you.”

“Now’s not the time or place for this conversation.”

“Yet I’ll dare one thing more. Until I stepped on that blasted boat and saw you, I believed you dead.”

Now he was forced to look at her. “Boucher? You were following Anton? Why?”

She’d said enough to, hopefully, make him suspicious. Keep him alive. “That’s a question you might want to ask him, while you let me be on my way, which would probably bother your conscience less than turning me over to the Crown. Now, as it would seem whatever battle was raging is over, it’s time your family gets to welcome the prodigal home. Do you think they’ll all be there? Gideon, Valentine and perhaps even your darling, daring Kate? Yes, I remember all their names. How delighted they will be. Or are we to stay here in this strange damp passageway until we all drown?”

Max looked down at his booted feet and the seawater sloshing around his ankles. “Damn. Tide’s coming in. The whole other side of the beach will be underwater in an hour. Let’s go.”

“Brilliant suggestion. Do you perhaps have a white handkerchief hidden in that mass of rags you’re wearing? It would be highly embarrassing, wouldn’t it, if one of your own brothers mistook you for the enemy and shot you.”

“That won’t happen.” As if to prove his point, Max took a few more steps, and then put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. The sound seemed to bounce off the stone walls.

The same melancholy birdsong of a whistle he’d taught her, the one the two of them had employed many times in the past. She instantly remembered the lessons in whistling, and the kisses they’d shared as he showed her how to pucker her lips just so.

Maybe she did want to die. Seeing him again, knowing what she’d gambled and lost, was so bloody hard.

There was a short silence, and then an answering whistle, closely followed by a shout. “Max? Max, you son of a hound! Where are you? Everyone—weapons down. My brother’s out here somewhere, damn him!”

“That’s big brother Gideon. This could prove interesting. He’ll either hug me or knock me down. Perhaps both. Richard, Tariq—you two watch her if you please, until I call the all clear. She’s rather anxious to leave us,” Max warned before running a hand through his wet, unkempt hair, and then sloshing off downhill against the rising tide, toward the end of the tunnel.

“Forgive me for overhearing, but it was rather impossible not to catch at least a few words. Echos, you understand. More than a lovers’ spat between the two of you, clearly,” Richard said, stepping forward to pull Zoé’s arm through his.

“Nonsense, sir, we’re the best of good chums, as you English say it,” she responded dully.

Behind her, Tariq chuckled softly.

“Much more than that at one time, I would think. I’m an observant man. Part of him wanted to throttle you, while part of him wanted to pull you close to his heart and cover your face with kisses, if I might be so romantical. Men can be difficult, especially where their hearts are involved.”

“His head is the problem. It’s very hard. A pig’s head.”

“I think you mean he’s pigheaded, stubborn. But you love him. You nearly maimed me to get to him when you though he’d drowned, remember?”

“We should all forget that. It was but an aberration. My mind was temporarily muddled at the shock of seeing him again.”

“I won’t argue with you. Tell me, did he ever mention Trixie to you?”

Zoé turned to peer at the man inquisitively. She’d yet to attempt to place this Richard person with Max, let alone with the rest of the Redgraves. She could easily have looked at him and dismissed him; just another pudgy white-haired old man. Except for his physical strength. Except for his quick, incisive mind. That second look made it easier for her to believe this man had survived on his wits more than once. “His grandmother? Yes, he did. Several times. To hear him tell it, she’s quite extraordinary.”

“She’s considerably more than simply extraordinary. I do believe the two of you should have a small talk. In fact, I’m quite certain she’ll demand it.”

“Why?”

“Because even on such short acquaintance, I dare to say you two may be very much alike. Just don’t lie to her, because she’ll know.”

“I may be an exemplary liar,” Zoé said, one ear open to the sounds from beyond the cave, but hearing nothing more than muffled voices.

“The ability to lie convincingly is only a minor talent. Eleanor of Aquitaine could have taken lessons in family intrigue from the dowager countess. You’d have to live another forty years for even the hope of being a patch on Trixie Redgrave, young lady. Only remember this, as the dowager countess goes, so go the Redgraves.”

She turned back to face the man, studying his features in the flickering light from the small torch. “Why are you telling me this? For all you know, I could use such information against Max, against all of you.”

“I’m not quite certain why. Perhaps it was the way you reached out your hand as if to touch him and then turned away before he might see you. Or it might have been the tears in your eyes that blinded you to my approach. You’ve both been quite interesting to watch these past minutes. When you stand at a distance, see only the gestures, without hearing the words? Sometimes, young lady, that’s when the heart hears more clearly than the ears ever will.”

Zoé looked at Richard levelly. “Your heart and eyes deceive you, sir. Max has no heart, and neither do I. We’re cold, fairly terrible people, intent only on survival.”

“And the game,” Richard added, raising one eyebrow. “I lived by my wits at the card tables for the majority of my life, young lady, traveling all of England and the Continent. Always in search of the next adventure. To win, yes, winning is always important, as one can become accustomed to regular meals and a dry bed. But it isn’t paramount for people like us. We’re different from most of the world, aren’t we? For people like us, it’s the thrill of the hunt, the chances you take. The risks that make your blood pump hot in your veins, always skating on the thin ice of detection and even death—and feeding off that danger. That’s what I see in you, in Max. Together, you must have been pure beauty to watch in action.”

A hundred memories came crashing unbidden into Zoé’s mind. “Yes, we were both quite good at what we did. Thank you, Richard, for reminding me,” she said simply before heading toward the end of the tunnel, eager to get out from beneath the crushing confinement of the boulders overhead. “I’d say it’s time to go meet the family.”


CHAPTER TWO

MAX LAY BACK in his bath, his injured head propped against a thick, soft length of toweling. He’d vowed never to see her again, never ask about her, never think about her. He’d willed his heart and mind to forget her.

And then, there she was. Here she is. Under his brother’s roof and his grandmother’s at least temporary protection thanks to Richard Borders, and disturbingly back in his life. Clearly not forgotten.

Zoé. Blonde, beautiful, courageous, passionate, daring, clever. Lying, cold-hearted, devious, deadly Zoé Charbonneau.

From the beginning they’d been inseparable, paired together by the Crown and sent off to the Continent. First as wary partners, then as friends, then as lovers; they’d variously played the parts of siblings, husband and wife, priest and holy sister.

They’d even been so daring as to attend one of Bonaparte’s luxurious fetes as minor Flemish royalty, Max standing guard outside Boney’s private office after midnight while Zoé rifled through the drawers of his desk. She’d committed two dispatches from his field marshals to memory and then pocketed a small crystal paperweight bearing a gold eagle, just so the man would know someone had breeched his supposed impenetrable security—yet have no idea what information had been compromised.

Max’s contribution, a week later, had been to wrap up the paperweight and post it back to Paris, even as Zoé scolded him that such an action might be considered rubbing salt into an open wound.

And then she’d laughed, and he’d laughed, and they’d made love in the hayloft of a barn just outside Marseilles.

They’d been so good together. In every way.

They’d come together in passion in more than a dozen countries, sometimes in rainy meadows, sometimes on silken sheets, at times in leisure and other times in haste, to rejoice, or to conquer unspoken fear after near disaster.

They were two. They were one. They thought alike, anticipated each other’s every move, guarded each other’s back.

How many times had Max begged her to give up the game and allow him to take her to Redgrave Manor? Where she’d be safe, where he would visit her when he could, where he wouldn’t have to worry about her.

And how many times had she told him no, she couldn’t live not knowing where he was, the dangers he faced. They’d begun together and they would finish together, only when Bonaparte accepted true terms of truce, and proved his word. Until then, with war formally declared or not, they would live out their oath to the king.

Besides, if they’d only admit it, they were having themselves the adventure of a lifetime. Existing on the edge of danger and heart-pounding tension, loving freely and fiercely, relishing each new challenge, each victory, applauding each other for their combined brilliance. Were any other two people ever so alive?

Was any one fool ever so badly hoodwinked and betrayed?

“Dozing, or fading into unconsciousness again?”

Max opened his eyes, grateful to be rescued from his thoughts. “Gideon,” he said flatly. “If you’re referring to that moment climbing the hill to the horses, I did not swoon. I stumbled.”

“And quite gracefully at that. In either event, it’s a good thing your new friend was behind you. You’ll have to tell me more about him.”

“I’ll do that, just as soon as I know more than that I woke on the beach with him looming over me with that extraordinary grin of his, as if I’d just mightily delighted him. Now, can I safely assume you’re it as far as unwanted company tonight, or is Trixie close on your heels?”

“She’s otherwise occupied, welcoming home her new husband,” Gideon said as he shifted Max’s clothing from chair to floor and sat down. “You’ve missed a lot, Max, but you can hear it all tomorrow, after Jessica and I have departed for London.”

“You have a meeting with Perceval?”

“No, not this time. In fact, we’re rather avoiding each other, the prime minster and I. He nearly had Valentine clapped in irons, a sentiment I’ve shared more than once, but that also is another story, and I won’t deny our youngest brother the delight I’m sure he’ll bathe in as he tells it. Only then should you allow Kate to corner you and tell you all about how wonderful love with her marquis is, which can be damned embarrassing when we’re more used to her challenging us to races.”

“Kate and Simon Ravenhill. Kate with anybody for that matter. It will be a while until I get used to that, although Val being conked on the head by Cupid’s shovel, as he explained the thing to me, probably is the news that really bears off the palm. I’m on the Continent, risking my life, and all anyone here has been doing is billing and cooing.”

“You underestimate your siblings. I’d say we’ve been doing a trifle more than that since last you and I spoke. As have you.”

Gideon’s tone told Max that, athough there would be questions to come concerning how and why he’d been on the smuggling craft, he and Zoé would be the only topic of discussion tonight. “Just ask your questions and then leave me to my misery. My head’s pounding as it is.”

“And you look like hell, there’s also that.”

“While you’re always impeccable,” Max said, “even when running about on a moonlit beach like some revenue officer, rounding up smugglers.”

“I don’t know about that, but I do manage to shave.”

“I shave,” Max protested, rubbing his face. Zoé used to shave him. He’d actually trusted her with a straight razor.

“If you say so, although I’d be interested in hearing how you do that, and yet always look as if you haven’t. Although I will admit you look less the too-pretty young Greek god with half your face fuzzy. Is that your hope?”

“I won’t deny that. But as I said, I do shave. Every three or four days.”

“Such a pity I’ve yet to be in your company on any of those glorious days.”

“Are you finished now? Or is this leading us somewhere?”

“No,” Gideon said, tugging lightly at his shirt cuffs. “I’d just realized we hadn’t yet welcomed you home in our usual loving, brotherly way.” He smiled at his brother. “Welcome home, Max.”

His older brother bore the closest resemblance to their Spanish mother. Dark, smoldering, his bearing both aristocratic and intimidating. Max had visited the bullring while in Spain, and had no trouble visualizing Gideon dressed all in gold and black, standing with his long legs tightly together, his spine bent gracefully back as he swirled the red-lined cape daringly, encouraging the bull to charge. With Gideon, however, it was the ton he dared, the ton he ruled, seemingly with no effort on his part. If Max had a hero when he was growing up, it had been Gideon.

Now he wished he’d just go away. But he’d really like to hear more about Richard Borders, the man Max knew only as a friend of Jessica, Gideon’s recent bride.

“Before you launch your inquisition—tell me about Richard Borders and Trixie. That’s going to take some getting used to, as well, you know. I thought she hated men...on general principles, I mean, which had nothing to do with bedding every last man in England.” Max had already stepped out of the tub and wrapped the toweling sheet around his waist. “Here, give me those,” he said, motioning toward the clothes on the floor. “They may be two years away from the latest style, but that doesn’t mean they deserve such shabby treatment.”

“Four years, at the least. It’s been a long time since you’ve graced Redgrave Manor with your presence.” Gideon handed over the clothes. “Oh, and not every last man. Only those she thought useful, trainable, biddable, and—is this a word? Blackmailable?”

“Probably more of a description.” Having drawn on a pair of tan breeches, Max shoved his damp arms into a white shirt with flowing sleeves, the unturned cuffs sliding down to his fingertips, the shirttails hanging. He didn’t bother to close more than a few of the buttons before adding a red and black paisley waistcoat, also left open.

“Always the epitome of style and precise grooming. It still amazes me why women are so drawn to you,” Gideon said, shaking his head. “All that’s missing, other than hose and shoes—and underdrawers—are those damn blue-lens spectacles you were wearing last I saw you in London. For which, may I say, you have my enormous gratitude. The scruffy facial hair is more than sufficient.”

“Don’t be too grateful. They’re around here somewhere, not cracked or even slightly bent. What do you want to know, Gideon? I’ve still got business tonight.”

“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve never before had a guest—allow me to clarify that, a female guest at the Manor locked up for the night. And we haven’t even been formally introduced.”

“You make it sound as if we keep a dungeon.” Max grabbed up his brushes and began working his way through his damp, faintly shaggy black hair that fell from a slight center part to below his ears, swearing under his breath as one of the brushes hit the now barely scabbed-over bump on the side of his head. “I told you her name. Zoé. Zoé Charbonneau.”

He then headed for his bedchamber, knowing Gideon would follow him, which he did.

Gideon turned around a straight chair and straddled it as Max looked toward the door to the hallway. His brother was demonstrating how this was all just a friendly chat. That was one way of seeing the thing. But what the move really meant was sit down, Max, because you’re going nowhere until I know all I want to know. Sit down, now. “Lovely name. French, although her English is perfect, not that you allowed for more than three words before having her sent off to the Manor. But that does nothing but spur more questions.”

Max sat down. “She’s just as proficient in Spanish, Italian, German—harsh language except when she speaks it—and with enough Russian and several other languages to get us by.”

“Us. Impressive young lady. You never managed more than French, and when you speak it I’m afraid that melodious language turns harsh. So I take it from the little you’ve said thus far that you two once worked together on the Continent. And now you don’t. Interesting.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“How long?

“Damn, you’re like a terrier after a bone. I last saw her eight or nine months ago, all right, long before I last visited you in London. And since you aren’t going to give up until I tell you more, allow me to get through this as quickly as possible. It’s imperative I see her yet tonight.”

“I don’t know if that’s wise. She’s under my roof now.”

“God’s teeth but the Earl of Saltwood loves to give orders. If it eases your lordship’s mind, I swear on Trixie’s painted toenails I won’t harm her, but I doubt Zoé believes that. She’s probably already fashioning a rope out of the bed sheets and sharpening a letter opener into a knife she can then strap to her thigh with a bit of curtain cord. Unless nobody thought to relieve her of the sticker she carries in her boot. Perhaps she’s managed to remove one of the bedposts and plans to use it as a jousting lance aimed at the first person to dare entering her room.”

“Now you’re exaggerating.”

“Yes, of course. I’m exaggerating, but only that last bit about the bedpost,” Max said, his tone more than a tad sarcastic. “All right, let’s do this, as Trixie would just ferret it all out of me in any case. Zoé was born in France, where her father was fairly wealthy, thanks to the reputation of the knives, swords and other blades produced in his foundries. Many of the royal family and peers were his loyal clients. During the Revolution his foundries were taken over, and her family escaped to Austria. He had managed to take some money with him, but not enough to establish another foundry, so he played himself off as a comte until their luck ran out or, since he took power, Bonaparte’s army could be seen on the horizon, and they were off again. Finally, he and Zoé—the mother had died somewhere along the way—ended up here in England.”

“That explains her ability with languages, if not her father’s insistence on being tied to the French noble class.”

“They existed on that lie, Gideon. Lies and sympathy and quiet loans to the dear comte who would repay them threefold when the Bourbons were back on the throne. You know how mad our society matrons are for émigrés. He was invited to social events, even week-long parties in some of the best country houses—Zoé always invited along to be with the other children in attendance. When particularly pressed for funds, a few jewels found their way into the man’s pocket after some of those parties, sometimes with her help.”

“Wonderful. I’ve installed a thief in my household.”

“Not the least of her talents. At any rate, the ploy worked well enough until another émigré recognized him for who he was. He then fixed his mind on returning to France and retaking possession of his various business enterprises. In order to do that, the French royalty had to be reinstalled on the throne. Zoé decided to help him by volunteering to work for the Crown.”

“A woman? And so young? That’s insane.”

Max crossed one long leg over his knee. “Yes, thank you. I totally agree. Except for one thing—she’s damn good at what she does, especially with languages, which was how she managed to be taken on in the first place. But they soon knew the treasure they had. She’d already been active for over a year before I was paired with her, very much against my wishes I might add, as I was considered to be the student, and her the mentor.”

“I can see the reasoning, however,” Gideon interrupted. “A man and woman, traveling together, don’t raise as much suspicion as a man, or men, traveling together.”

Max nodded his agreement. “She’s a piece of work, brother, and raised to the blade, I suppose you’d say. Fences, shoots better than most men, the way she handles a knife should make any prudent man nervous and she’s killed more than once when the situation called for violence. She can play the lady with the best of them, probably ten times better than Kate, but she’s solid steel beneath that fetching exterior. Cold, hard steel. And she’s deadly smart.”

“With all these unique, commendable charms to lure you, there was no question you’d become lovers,” Gideon said flatly, ignoring the rest.

“Good on you, as Valentine would say. Yes, we became lovers. Together day and night. She’s beautiful, I’m a man. We were in a dangerous business, never knowing if we’d live another day. It was inevitable.” Max took a deep breath. “And then she decided working with the French was more profitable than a pittance from the Crown and the chance to save the world, one might say.”

Gideon frowned. “Let me make an assumption here. The father died.”

“Even with the return of the monarchy, Zoé could never lay claim to her father’s possessions and property, not as a female. Did I mention she’s also practical?”

“You knew about the father’s death?”

Max avoided his brother’s gaze, instead watching his own movements as he turned back his unbuttoned cuffs. That had always bothered him, that she hadn’t told him. Damn, he could do with a drink. “Only afterwards.”

“After what, Max?” Gideon asked quietly.

“After three agents she betrayed had been lined up outside the cottage where we’d occasionally rendezvous, trussed up like animals bound for market and shot in the head. Two Englishmen, the third French. All good men. I could have been lying there with them, but I’d spent the night meeting with a courier bound for London after gathering information from the other agents I’d summoned to the cottage, and didn’t return until the next morning to find— I told you what I found.”

“You won’t mind if I say I prefer you alive.”

“Thank you. Before you ask, yes, Zoé had been at the cottage when I left, but she was gone. The only one still alive was another late arrival, Anton Boucher, one of our French agents. He handed me the letter Zoé left behind.”

“Not surprising. Women always feel this overweening need to explain, especially when their hearts are involved,” Gideon said, nodding. “What did she write?”

“What I’ve already told you. Her father was dead and she’d sold her talents to the French. She would be miles away before I returned in the morning, and it would please her if I didn’t follow her, hoping to change her mind.”

‘Did she admit to killing the other agents?”

“She never mentioned them, but what better way to prove herself to the French than to turn over names and locations to them? Was she there when it happened, or already on her way to Paris? I don’t know. But one way or another, those deaths are on her head. Oh, there was something else in her note about how, as much as she’d cared for me, the time had come for her to take care of herself, as being a country wife would never suit her.”

“Cared for you? Jesus, that’s cold. No wonder you’ve been such a bear these past months, so much so that Val supposed you’d sworn off women or some such thing. Quite a blow to your pride, amid everything else, being cared for by the woman you love. My sympathies, brother, on the whole of it.”

“Again, thank you,” Max said shortly, feeling his cheeks go hot. “Look, I don’t want to go over this and over this. Boucher and I buried the bodies to hide them before both of us raced off to warn our other agents for fear Zoé had exposed them, as well, traded names I may have inadvertently told her for whatever the French had promised her. I had no secrets from her—as you pointed out, I loved her. I trusted her with my life. And before you ask, of the two dozen or so agents we had in place, five more died before we could successfully locate and warn them.”

“Eight agents suddenly out of the field. That must have been quite the blow to Perceval. And to you, of course.”

“None of this is about me, Gideon, and clearly never was. As for Zoé, she’d miscalculated, badly. It would appear the French weren’t about to trust her to be loyal to them any more than she had been to England, something she might have learned from England’s own Benedict Arnold. The last I’d heard, she’d been locked up in some Paris prison. Now may I be excused, your lordship?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Gideon said. “You can be a bit of a hothead, Max, much as I love you, not to mention having more than your fair share of pride. Dead agents, spurned by your lover—hoodwinked by your lover? I can understand your reaction, but do you still feel the same way eight months later? How do you know she wasn’t forced to write that letter? How do you know she wasn’t betrayed by someone, as well, even this other supposed late arrival, this Boucher fellow?”

“You should pen novels. To be truthful, I’d been concerned about him for some time—we’d been having a few too many more failures than successes, I thought—although I had no real facts. Just my suspicions, which I’d included with my other intelligence sent off with the courier. He would have been the first I’d suspected, save for one thing, one indisputable fact.”

“I’d be interested in hearing that one fact, if you could indulge me.”

We’d laughed together, cried together... “Anton’s nephew Georges was one of the executed agents. The boy was barely eighteen, his dead sister’s only child and the apple of Anton’s eye. That left only Zoé, for nobody else knew of our rendezvous spot. Nobody. Boucher didn’t betray us. It was all on Zoé. The only reason I can think of that she’s still alive is that people like us are commodities, often to be traded, exploited, which makes me doubly curious about how and why she was released.”

“Or escaped.” Gideon got to his feet, turning the chair around, placing it carefully. “You’re in a dirty business, brother, and I can’t say I’m pleased with the Max standing before me now. It may be time you left his majesty’s service. It may have been time eight months ago.”

Max bristled. “We were suddenly rather short on agents, and then you came to me about the Society and we decided it would be best if I worked the thread from the Continent.”

“And God forbid you could have told me the truth, or I never would have asked that of you.” Gideon looked at him for long moments and then nodded his head almost imperceptibly. “Water already passed beneath the bridge, leaving us with that creature upstairs. I know you’re full of questions, as I am myself. If she was offered her freedom in exchange for selling her talents to someone—well, let’s just say it and have it out in the open, shall we? Is it too large a leap of conjecture to believe she’s now found employment with the Society?”

Max didn’t bother to deny he’d already wondered the same thing. “Very good, brother. I told you, she has talents, and who else would have her? She’s burned her bridges with both us and the French, and treachery would seem to be her only salable talent.”

Gideon pinched thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. “So many questions present themselves. You’d spoken to her of Redgrave Manor, of course. She’d be at least loosely familiar with the estate?”

“As I’d waxed poetical about the place, and the family, innumerable times, you can assume so.” And then, because things had already gone too far to keep secrets from his brother, he said, “I sailed tonight with the person who led me to Gravelines and the Society-hired smugglers.”

Gideon looked at him, then frowned. “Allow me to hazard yet another guess. This Boucher person?”

With his hand now on the doorknob, Max turned and asked his brother, “One and the same, yes. So here we are again, the three of us. Do you believe in coincidences, Gideon, because I damned well don’t, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the greatest fool in nature, hoodwinked by the pair of them. According to Richard, it was Anton who hit me with the belaying pin.”

“Go on.”

“Yes. Maybe that bump on my head loosened something brilliant, or maybe I’m delirious, but think about this a moment, Gideon. What if they’d been working together all along? What if I was only allowed to live because they knew our reaction would be to pull all of our agents from the Continent in order to protect them, taking us months to reestablish ourselves there, while more and more French troops were secretly marched to the Peninsula? What if there never was a French prison? It’s possible. If it weren’t for Georges...”

“More and more I’m learning the most impossible things are possible. It will be interesting to hear what your Monsieur Boucher has to say. Did you see him with the other prisoners before they were led away? We’ve got them all locked up in various outbuildings until we can sort them out in the morning.”

“I don’t know. He’s with them, already dead, or if he believes me still alive and now suspicious of him, or saw Zoé on the beach, has escaped somehow. The answer will have to wait until morning. Right now I need to see Zoé, before I confront him. She said something earlier that— No, that’s enough. You, Valentine, Simon and I can talk more tomorrow over breakfast, before you and Jessica leave for London. Since you sent Richard after me, I imagine something important has been learned.”

“Bad news can always wait. No later than nine, if you please. There’s a lot you don’t know, little of it good, all of it shocking.”

Max was more than simply curious. “Does any of it concern the fact that in a house literally overrun with staff, I found myself having to light my own fire in the grate and bathe in only a few inches of tepid water?”

“Yes, it does. Max? We men make most of our mistakes with women. I know it’s not in your nature...but if we’re to learn anything more of the Society from this Zoé of yours, you might want to consider treading softly concerning the past.”

“I suppose you think I should visit the conservatory and pluck a few posies for her, as well? Clearly marriage has softened your head. Let me handle this, Gideon. I know the woman, you don’t.”

“The way you knew her eight months ago? Or the way you think you knew her eight months ago? Love can make fools of us all.”

Max opened his mouth to say something, realized he had nothing to say, yet had more questions than made him feel comfortable, so he let the door he slammed behind him speak for him.


CHAPTER THREE

SHE RECOGNIZED MAX’S distinctive footfalls, could picture him advancing beyond the patchwork of carpets scattered over the thick wood plank floor of her attic cell. There was a near arrogance in his walk, a confidence that had others instinctively stepping aside to give him room to pass.

She’d teasingly termed it his “I am so much more than you could ever aspire to be” walk, as opposed to his equally brilliant old-man’s shuffle, his wounded-soldier limp, his prim and proper vicar’s modest gait, his prancing nincompoop’s mincing step or his drunk-as-a-lord laughable stagger.

He was adept at all of them, but what came most naturally to him was that sure-footed stride that said: I am Maximillien Redgrave; take heed, ignore me at your own peril.

And he was heading straight toward her.

Not that she hadn’t left the mullioned window open, with the light muslin draperies blowing in the breeze.

“Zoé?”

She lay back against the fairly steeply-pitched slate roof, her bare feet firmly braced against one of the ornate iron cleats that lined the edge, and looked up at the moon as the clouds slowly rolled by, revealing its grinning face.

“Look, you’ve either jumped, which you’d never do, or you’ve escaped, which is next to impossible. Which leaves you hiding out there somewhere like a sulky child. Never your best look, by the way. In any event, I’m coming out. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t attempt to push me over the edge.”

She’d known he was her man, her equal, the first time she’d seen him walking toward her, his handsome face a thundercloud as he realized he’d been put under the command of a woman. But that anger hadn’t lasted much more than a sennight before he ceased resisting their undeniable attraction for each other.

She wondered now, as she had then, if he could hear her heart pounding in her chest.

Now, as then, she believed he was about to offer a limited, reluctant truce. As she was currently out of options, she decided to agree with him.

“You always did talk too much,” she said, turning her head to watch as Max gracefully eased his way over the sill of the dormer window, found purchase for one bare foot, and then maneuvered himself onto his back not three feet away from her.

“That’s because you usually devised interesting ways of shutting me up, as I recall.”

Only his tone warned that he wasn’t being teasingly reminiscent.

“You have no fear of me believing seduction would work on you, Max. Not anymore. What do you want? It’s late, and I’m tired.”

“I also wouldn’t suggest falling asleep in your current precarious position. Think of the mess one of the servants might trip over in the morning.”

This time he did sound genuinely amused. Zoé rolled her eyes. “I was about to go in when you barged out here to harass me.”

His gaze met hers in the moonlight. “So this isn’t some sort of attempt at escape?”

Don’t look at me, don’t look at me. You make me want so much more...

“But of course it is. I plan to crawl to the very tip of the roof in this borrowed dressing gown and then flap my arms as hard as I can and fly away. That blow to your hard skull must have done more damage than I thought. Just remember, if you become dizzy and fall to the courtyard below, I take no responsibility.”

“Yes, the consequence would be on my own head, wouldn’t it? Probably literally. Now tell me why you climbed out here.”

She turned away from him, looking into the seemingly infinite distance of moonlight and shadows. “I dislike closed doors, especially locked doors. After months in a dank cell with little light and constantly foul air, simply standing at the window wasn’t enough to keep me from—but that was never your problem, was it?”

“If I’d found you and dragged you back to London, you would have been hanged for the murder of English agents. I chose the lesser of two evils, and let you go.”

“For you, Max. The lesser of two evils for you. Admit it, I made a fool of you in front of your superiors, your message to them concerning your worry that Anton might be working for the French, while all the time being hoodwinked by your French lover. You washed your hands of me.”

“If it’s any help, you were already gone, and I didn’t really have time to think at all beyond getting our other agents out of harm’s way.”

She knew the answer to her next question before she asked it. “And then you came chasing hotfoot to Paris, looking for me.”

With the moon full above them, she could see a faint flicker of pain cross his features. “My superiors—our superiors—moved all of the surviving agents out of France entirely. I was assigned to the Home Office for a month—”

“Your punishment.”

“Yes, my punishment for all but indicting innocent, bereaved Anton as a traitor while allowing myself to be, as you so incisively said, hoodwinked by my lover, thus losing us eight good agents. Then I was reassigned to the Peninsula with Wellington. And then...and then something else demanded my attention. I did eventually hear that you weren’t on the loose, but in prison.”

“I see. In that case, no, your explanation means nothing to me.”

He nodded. “Understood. Why were you released?”

How she wanted to tell the truth, about everything. But it had been too late for that eight months ago. So she’d keep him concentrated on the present.

“There was an arrangement. Nothing that concerns you.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “I want to go back inside now. Kindly take yourself out of my way and spare me the indignity of having to crawl over you.”

Max didn’t move, except to turn on his side so he could face her. “Not yet. You traded names to show your new loyalty. You as good as murdered those men, Zoé. What else did you expect from me?”

Don’t, Zoé. Don’t feel sorry for him, or for yourself. You only did what you had to do. You wanted him to believe you, remember? But now it’s over, with events moved long past any hope of salvaging what we’d once had, because what we’d once had clearly hadn’t been enough. The truth will aid nothing, and perhaps make things even worse. Just let it go... Let him go the same way he let you go. He was never really yours.

“Nothing else. I expected exactly what you did. I even prayed for it, something I hadn’t done in a long time.”

“But now you’re claiming innocence? That is what you’re doing, isn’t it, Zoé?”

Too late. Too late for questions, too late for answers.

“I’m claiming nothing. Why I’m here has nothing to do with you. As far as I knew, you died months ago. I told you that on the beach. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a walking, talking ghost from the past. Now move out of my way. If I’m to plead my case to be allowed to leave, it will be with your grandmother. Richard tells me she has great good sense.”

“And I don’t. I suppose you’re right, because I’ll be damned if I can’t still imagine you in my arms, your legs wrapped high about my back as we drive each other out of our minds. My superiors were right to punish me. I never thought I was the sort of fool who, against all common sense, could be led about by his—”

“Oh, Max, just shut up. Please, shut up.”

Without another word, he at last turned away from her and carefully made his way back to the opened casement, neatly easing himself over the windowsill. She followed a moment later, the skirt of the dressing gown and the night rail beneath it carefully tucked about her body.

“Give me your hand.”

“I can manage on my own,” she shot back, but the slates were becoming slippery with dew, so she only issued the complaint before tucking her hand in his. His touch devastated her, and for the first time she could see herself losing her balance and sliding off the edge of the roof.

“Steady, woman.” In a moment he had both her hands safely within his grip, and she was half lifted, half dragged over the windowsill, to end with her bare feet on the floor, the length of her body pressed up against Max’s lean strength.

She could see his dark features in the light from the fire and lit candles, just as she knew he could see hers.

How badly had the time in prison aged her? It had taken her months to fully regain her strength, the weight she’d lost. But even now she knew she would never be the same Zoé Charbonneau who’d been all but flung into that dank cell, the sound of a heavy key turning in the lock presumably sealing her fate. No matter if she bathed in milk and rose petals every day for the remainder of her life. If she had been able to lose the stink of prison that had clung to her, she could never be rid of the new shadows in her brown eyes or the nightmares that still plagued her.

“You look just the same,” Max said, raising his hand to run a fingertip down her cheek. “Life just doesn’t seem to touch you, Zoé.”

She turned her head away. “Now who’s the liar? You look like hell, Max. You probably need some sleep.” She disengaged herself and took several steps away from him, hanging on with her last fraying thread of resolve. “And a shave wouldn’t come amiss, although I’d admit the earring is rather interesting.”

Max touched his ear, and the diamond that winked there. “I don’t know why you women suffer these things. It hurt like hell for three days, having that hole punched in me.”

She sat in the only chair in the small servant’s room. She wanted him to leave, but at the same time she wanted him to stay, so she asked him: “It’s quite the stone. Is it real or glass?”

He stayed where he stood, the sloped ceiling of the room fairly well hindering him from moving too far in any but the direction of the door or single window. “You’d have to ask the man I cut it from about that. No self-respecting wharf rat is without one, I discovered, and relieving the fellow of his earring after I’d milled him down for looking at me too long established me in certain quarters.”

Zoé nodded. “It isn’t enough to dress the part, is it? You have to knock down at least one man before the others learn to mind their own business. Did you have to slice his ear?”

“I wasn’t going to kneel over him until he woke up, fiddling with the damn thing to figure out how to remove it. Besides, I’d already poked the hole in my own ear. Should I keep it, do you think?”

His rakish yet boyish smile curled her toes.

Suddenly the months disappeared as if they’d never happened. This feeling wouldn’t last, she knew, but the moment was too precious to waste. “I’d say no. It makes you much too memorable. If you haven’t had it stuck there too long, the hole should close up in a few weeks. After the swelling goes down, that is. I wouldn’t have made such a botch of the job if I’d done it for—”

The moment was over. There’d probably never be a time when they wouldn’t stumble over their past history within minutes of calling a temporary truce.

“Why were you following Anton?”

Very clearly over.

Zoé shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “To see where he went, of course. Why did he try to knock you unconscious?”

“He didn’t tell you why he was going to do that?” Max said as he touched a hand rather gingerly to the side of his head.

“He didn’t know I was aboard. I didn’t know you were going to be aboard. If you can get anything into that thick head of yours, understand this—I do not work for or with Anton Boucher. I act on my own now. Trusting others is for simpletons.”

“So it was all one grand coincidence, the three of us crossing the Channel tonight in the same ship.”

Zoé pushed herself up and out of the chair. “You and Anton clearly were traveling together. You were the only coincidence. Taking Anton to meet your family, were you? That doesn’t seem like anything you’d do, especially considering it was your family that very nearly blew us out of the water. See, Max? You have questions, but so do I. My solution is for you to let me go, putting an end to those questions. It would seem you and your family have enough on your plates without attempting to wedge me into whatever is going on.”

He stared at her yet again, as if he could somehow bore a hole into her head and examine her brain for answers. “How do you survive? How do you live? How do you eat? You can’t work for the French or the English. Who benefits from your talents now, Zoé? You were always amazingly inventive, but you couldn’t have survived without some sort of help. Tell me about this arrangement.”

So much for bravado, for lies. Sometimes the only ploy that works is to tell the truth. “I already was halfway toward convincing the night guard I would make him a rich man if he let me go, when I had a visitor from a very unexpected corner. Bonaparte has as many enemies inside France as he does without. If I would work for this person, I would be released. I agreed.”

“Damn, we were right.” Max was suddenly leaning forward, as if he could somehow physically drag the words from her. “Who? An Englishman? Give me his name.”

“An Englishman? In Paris? Walking freely in and out of that terrible prison? The man introduced himself as Monsieur Périgord, but I believe that was only to test my intelligence.”

Max straightened, nearly hitting his head on the pitched ceiling. “Charles Talleyrand? No, that’s impossible.”

“But true, although he was careful to keep his face hidden beneath the hood of his voluminous cloak. Le grand négociateur, who’s turned his loyalties more than a poor man turns his shirt cuffs. Were I Bonaparte, Talleyrand’s head would be stuck on a pike at the city gates. The day will come when the new emperor regrets not ordering the execution.”

“Men like Talleyrand always land on their feet, one way or another.”

“I suppose so. In any event, he’d somehow learned of my skill with languages, and entrusted me to carry a verbal message to Austria for him. I didn’t ask how he knew. I was much more intent on his offer to free me. I traveled to Salzburg for him, paid well before I left because I was then to continue straight on to my second mission, which would take me to London.”

“But with money now in your pocket, you went hunting Anton instead?” Max shook his head as if attempting to shake some bit of knowledge loose. “Not me. Anton. Just as you said.”

“And so we’ve come full circle, only this time it would seem you believe me. Very good, Max. Now if you’d be so kind as to leave the door unlocked as you leave, by morning I’ll no longer be your problem.”

“I can’t do that. How long have you been following Anton?”

That question surprised her. “You’d trust any answer I’d give you?”

“I’ll measure any answer you give me, let’s settle on that compromise. If your answers prove helpful, I might allow you the freedom of the house, but not the grounds. With any key to your chamber in your own possession so that you don’t feel constrained to climb out on any more roofs.”

Zoé sat down once more, her mind busy. This was her chance to prove herself, and she knew it. What had mostly amused her at the time could be just what Max might want to know. “A rather one-sided bargain, but I suppose I have no choice. Anton is a creature of habit, as you already know, or you wouldn’t have found him—unless he found you?”

“No, I found him.”

“Because you’re so all-powerful, or because he let you?” Zoé asked, only because she couldn’t help herself. There had always been this competition between them, once a friendly sparring, but now she realized the game had lost all its humor. “But no matter,” she added quickly. “I haunted his favorite hotel in Ostend until he showed his face.”

“You were taking quite a chance, confronting him.”

“The opportunity never presented itself.” Zoé’s quick mind knew what was important and what was not, so she left any further telling of how she’d found Anton and told Max about the man’s dining companions. “He was seated at a table in the open air outside the hotel, joined by a man and woman. The woman dark-haired and past her first youth, but rather beautiful still. And a man—tall, muscular—ten or fifteen years her senior. Blond, strikingly so, and blue-eyed. He seemed...agitated. The woman had her hand laid on Anton’s forearm, while beneath the table she had slid off her slipper and was running her bare toes up and down his stockinged leg. Quite the coquette.”

“And you recognized neither of them?”

Ah, she’d said something important. Zoé shook her head. “I was most concentrated on Anton. He seemed to be in charge of the conversation, at times appearing angry, until the blond man pushed back his chair so that it tumbled to the flagstones and he stomped off, leaving the woman to make amends.”

She smiled. “After I’d cooled my heels for a good hour outside the hotel while Anton and the woman played upstairs, sipping some rather pleasant Bordeaux beneath my wide-brimmed bonnet and fairly hideous red wig, they reappeared, as did the blond man some moments later. He’d been propping up a lamppost directly across the street—clearly aware of what was transpiring inside the hotel. The woman teased him, kissed him, and then discreetly cupped his genitals as she flicked her tongue across her upper lip. Straight from one man’s bed and already seducing another. You can see why I haven’t forgotten her.”

“And the blond man?”

“Imbecilic over the woman. He raised both her hands to his mouth, kissing her overturned palms while, if I heard correctly, apologizing for his behavior. Anton laughed—we both know how indiscriminate he is about who he ruts or where—and within moments the three had entered a coach and been driven off toward the waterfront. I admit to being intrigued. I followed them. Once I was certain Anton was in his hotel for the night, I returned to the small warehouse they’d visited and took a look inside.”

“A dangerous move.” Max held up a hand. “Wait. The man and woman. Could you overhear anything they’d said? Were they speaking French, or English? Did they look French to you?”

“The woman spoke French in the way of a proper English schoolgirl, and the man didn’t speak at all until the end, and then spoke English. He had some sort of accent, a country-born accent, I’d say, definitely lacking in formal education. You know how I delight in languages.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

She wished to heaven she did, because Max’s interest was with the couple and she longed to know why. “No. Clearly they had business with Anton. That’s all. And, although you may not be interested, it would appear Anton has been dabbling in opium trading. At first glance it seemed to be the usual contraband bound for England, but when I opened one of the brandy kegs it was solidly packed with oilskin-wrapped opium. Our mutual friend is quite the enterprising fellow, doubtless a fervent admirer of my most recent employer, and willing to serve any number of different masters, as long as it’s personally profitable.”

“I can’t believe this,” Max said, looking pale in the candlelight. “Anton and the Society?”

Zoé didn’t understand what Max meant, but if she told him what she knew, gained at least a modicum of his trust, eventually he’d tell her the rest.

“It was time for my visit to Anton. Unfortunately, he’d already slipped away—a drawback to working alone—so that I spent that night watching for him only to realize he’d escaped me. It took nearly another month to track him down again, looking first in Dunkirk, and then in Gravelines, because of the opium, you understand. It would do Anton no good if it remained in France, and Ostend’s harbor has lately come under English scrutiny. Two days later, and here we are, aren’t we? I imagine if your family managed to rescue any of the kegs I saw onboard tonight, they’re not filled with brandy.”

“And the man and woman?”

Zoé sighed. Again, the man and woman. He’d already known about the opium, she could see it in his eyes. What in the devil was going on here? Why would Boucher have chosen Redgrave land to be his rendezvous point with his smuggling partners? Why had he brought Max with him on the crossing, and then tried to either knock him unconscious or kill him? And all this obviously of strong interest to the Redgraves. Walk away? She wouldn’t leave Redgrave Manor now unless bound to the back of a cart and dragged.

Zoé believed she’d just seen the door to at least a conditional acceptance opening a crack in her favor, and she grabbed at it. “Are these questions in aid of something in particular? The trouble it would seem you Redgraves have found yourselves in, if I understood correctly earlier? Perhaps I can help, as it would appear I’m once again without financial prospects. For one, I’d definitely recognize the man and woman if I ever saw them again.”

“You’d sell your services to the devil himself, wouldn’t you?” Max asked, heading for the door. “Remember, I’ve seen your handiwork when you believe it time to change employers. Only a fool would trust you.”

So much for conciliatory gestures.

“And you’re certainly no fool, are you, Max?” she called after him as he turned his back on her.

She watched as his shoulders stiffened, as they rose up and down with his sudden deep breathing.

“I’m more the fool than you know,” he said, his back still turned. “If I’m beginning to believe you’re innocent, what in God’s name does that say about me?”

Poor Max. She longed to shake him. She longed to comfort him.

“What does it say about both of us, Max. Other than that we neither of us were so brilliant as we’d believed. Anton duped us both.”

He at last turned to look at her, but made no move toward her. “He should be locked up with the others in one of the outbuildings. I think it’s time all three of us had a small chat,” he said quietly. “I’ll ask Gideon and Richard to join us, as I no longer trust my ability to know who is lying and who’s telling the truth.”

“No, not yet,” Zoé warned him, for she’d spent several hours out on the roof, thinking how best to handle Boucher. “In your heart you know I’m telling the truth. I don’t think he saw me tonight, so perhaps you can continue as you were, pretending to still trust him. I don’t know what you mean when you speak about this Society, but I truly think that’s best, and I know you can do it. Think of your family, Max. Expose him at some point, yes, but not yet, not when he might still prove useful to you. Then give him to me. That’s all I ask in return for helping you, and I’ll be on my way. I owe you that much, and you owe me that much.”

At last Max understood; she could see it in his eyes, his expression suddenly bleak and defeated. “You were following Anton to kill him. For no other reason than to kill him. Not only that, or he’d be dead by now. You wanted him to see who was about to kill him.” Max took a single step toward her, with her involuntarily moving forward at the same time. “Tell me what happened. Please, Zoé. What happened after I left to meet with the courier?”

“There’s no point in that now, other than that you know your true enemy and can protect yourself. Otherwise it all would have been for nothing.”

“All what would have been for nothing?” Max took another step and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me. Please.”

She bent her knees and ducked out from beneath his light grasp, returning to the window to look out into the night sky. She’d believed him dead, had resigned herself to never being able to tell him what she longed for him to know. Still, the story flattered neither of them, and she wanted to get over this rough ground as quickly as possible.

“I was asleep in the loft with the others napping downstairs when Anton rode in with three men. Before I could fully rouse myself and get into my boots, they’d dragged Ralph and Howard and Georges outside and were tying them up on the ground. Ralph and Howard were dispatched at once, bullets to their heads.” She closed her eyes, seeing everything as if it was happening again. “And then...”

“Look at me, Zoé. Don’t look at the past, look at me.”

She turned around, leaning back against the windowsill, the moonlight most probably turning her unbound hair to silvery gossamer—drawing Max toward her like a moth to the flames. But now was not the time for such thoughts. She felt so incredibly sad. “Don’t you understand, Max? You are the past, and so am I. It’s too late to change that.”

He looked at her for a long time. “I suppose you’re right. Tell me about Georges.”

“He was so sweet, wasn’t he, and so young,” Zoé said at last, a single tear escaping down her cheek. “Anton went down on his knees beside him as the boy sobbed, pleaded, saying he didn’t want to die. Anton...Anton sat him up and hugged him close, kissed his cheeks, and told him no, his men had been overzealous in tying him up in the first place. Georges laughed and cried in relief, holding out his bound hands behind him so that his uncle could slice the ropes around his wrists. He was still smiling when Anton put a small pistol to his ear and shot him. Then he kissed him again as he gently laid the body back on the ground, thanking the boy for his sacrifice.”





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