“You’ve mastered it well. Being blind.” There was a note in his voice…Vauban had spoken to her in that way when she had done something that impressed him. For Vauban, she would have walked through fire to hear him speak to her so. Perhaps there were men who would do that for Grey.

“I am almost used to it, except that it is inconvenient and may get me killed soon.”

“You’re good at hiding it. I never guessed. Not once.”

“It has been night, when I have been with you. Or I pretended to sleep, as I did in the coach.”

There was more of this thoughtful pause. “This makes you easier to manage, doesn’t it?”

She said, politely, “Henri was of your opinion, monsieur.”

Incredibly, he laughed. He was truly the most heartless man she had ever encountered. She would not be coated with a treacle of sympathy by this one. “I won’t make Henri’s mistakes. I intend to take very good care of you, Annique.”

For a Head of Section, he was also remarkably stupid. “Can you not see how this changes everything? Leblanc will have every soldier in France looking for a blind woman. I am the most dangerous luggage for you to cart around.”

“Then we won’t let anyone know you’re blind.”

Still he did not see. How could he be such a fool? “It is me Leblanc seeks. It is my mouth Leblanc must stop at all costs. I know such secrets about him…Let me go, monsieur, and he will follow me, not you.”

This inn could not be so far from Vauban’s small village. If Grey would only help her to go there. Vauban was old and tired now, his mind confused and wandering since the last attack. He could give her no orders for what must be done with the Albion plans. That lay upon her shoulders now. But she could sit beside Vauban’s fire one last time and hold his hand and talk with him about little things that he still remembered. In Vauban’s house she would find trusted friends to take her to the coast. From there, she would go to England and find safety with Soulier and make her decisions and, perhaps, become a traitor to France.

If Grey could be made to see reason…“Leblanc will not pursue uninteresting British spies only for the pleasure of committing slaughter upon them. In the Game, we do not kill one another in this bloodthirsty manner that would leave us all dead. Without me, you are safe.”

Grey walked across the room. Not pacing. This one would always have a destination in mind when he set one foot in front of the other. When he came back he was carrying something. She could tell when people were carrying things. They walked differently. She had trained herself to notice this.

“The dress should fit. It’s blue. And for God’s sake, stop calling me monsieur. It’s getting ridiculous, you trying to kill me and calling me Monsieur Grey in the next sentence.” He dropped a bundle of clothing into her lap.

“I will speak to you exactly as I wish. You are telling me ‘no.’”

“To letting you go? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I’m not letting you go. What in the name of sweet reason have you done to your feet?”

“My feet are also not your concern.”

His hands came and pulled her feet from hiding.

She had a vivid and delicious image of kicking him. She did not do so, however, for she found him most wholly intimidating. Besides, if she provoked him and they fought, he might end up on the bed, on top of her. If that happened, she might be infinitely unwise.

“You’re going to get blood poisoning if you keep on like this.” His voice sounded odd. “Your shoes don’t fit.”

“They are not, strictly speaking, my shoes. And no, they do not fit terribly well, but going barefoot would make me conspicuous. You make a great fuss about a few blisters. I have traveled for weeks and weeks with worse than this.”

“There are three pairs of shoes in that pile. One of them must be better. If not, I’ll find some others.” He held her, and he was not as careful as he usually was. His fingers dug into her. “Don’t try to escape, walking on those feet, Annique.”

“Ah, that is a most sound advice. I shall flap my wings and fly.” It always amazed her how few spies had any sense of humor. Grey did not seem susceptible to amusement at the moment.

He released her so suddenly she bounced against the mattress. “Get dressed. You have ten minutes.”

He slammed the door behind him when he left. It seemed Grey was a man who most definitely needed his breakfast before he became at all possible to deal with. Maman had said that was the case with some men. She would remember that in the future.

Eight

GREY SLIPPED ANNIQUE INTO A CHAIR ACROSS from Adrian, guiding her with a light, invisible touch she hardly needed. She was expert at the deception. If Leblanc’s men came asking after a blind woman, no one would think of the dark-haired lass who’d had breakfast so openly on the terrace in front of the inn, carefree in the early morning sun.

She sat, eyes demurely lowered. Her fingers skimmed the edge of the table till she found the napkin. She shook it out across her lap.

He saw the exact moment Adrian looked into Annique’s beautiful blank eyes. Saw the snap of assessment. Shock. Instant comprehension. “She can’t see.”

“Keep her inconspicuous,” Grey ordered.

“My pleasure. Oh my, I do like a surprise, first thing in the morning.” The boy was in pain, but alert. He’d do for a while.

“You’re on display.” He said the obvious, so Annique would know. “Twenty minutes, and I’ll get you out of here. Hold out that long. Eat.” That was for both of them.

Across the courtyard, Will Doyle was playing coachman, pacing the off-side horse, a big piebald mare, in a wide circle around the innyard, watching its gait. He made a first-rate coachman. He also made an excellent German count, merchant banker, Cockney pimp, and vicar of the Church of England.

Doyle rounded one last time and brought the mare to a stop. “Nobody’s sniffing around yet.”

“They’ll think we’ve gone to ground in Paris. Gives us a head start.” But men on horseback could always outrun them.

“We amble along, slow and innocent, and we’ll do.”

With luck. Lots and lots of luck. “I want that bullet out as soon as we can. Look for a likely spot past St. Richier. You have everything we need?”

“Whole surgeon’s kit. I stole it from a naval surgeon in Neuilly. This here’s his horse, too.” He patted the mare’s flank. “Wish I’d thought to kidnap that sawbones.”

“So do I. I don’t suppose you’ve ever dug a bullet out of anybody in that long, varied career of yours?” He turned his back to the inn. Adrian could read lips. “I’m going to kill him. I don’t know dammitall about pulling bullets out of people. Sure you don’t want to try your hand?”

“He’ll do better if it’s you digs into him. He trusts you. That helps.” Doyle knelt and ran his hands up and down the horse’s leg, being a coachman. “He ain’t going to die of a bullet or two. Born to hang, our Hawker. How’d it go with the girl?”

“She’s not what I expected.” He realized he’d turned to watch her. He hadn’t noticed himself doing it.

They were a fine matched pair, Hawker and Annique, sitting next to each other at the cozy table on the broad terrace under the trees. Coin-sized patches of sun streamed down through the trees and danced across them. They were the same age, with the same spare, compact grace of body. Black hair, glossy in the sunlight, tumbled forward across faces that were eerily alike—not in feature; there was no real resemblance—but in expression. The same faint air of wicked mirth clung to them, as if they were imps on temporary reprieve from one of the minor hells. They ate, leaning together, intent on a flow of low-voiced conversation.

“He likes her.” Doyle was watching, too. “Hope she don’t try to scamper out on his watch. Shape he’s in, he’d have to hurt her to stop her.”

“We’re safe as long as it’s daylight. Will, she’s stone blind.”

Doyle’s face didn’t change—he wouldn’t blink at the announcement that Annique was empress of the Chinese—but some signal of surprise leaked through. The mare shuffled nervously. Doyle made an odd whistling sound between his teeth, and the animal quieted.

“Crikey. Blind?”

“She took a saber cut to the skull, five months ago. There’s a scar hid up in her hair, if you go feeling for it.”

“Cats in hip boots.” Doyle fetched a little ivory pick out of his waistcoat pocket and began a ruminative exploration of his back teeth. “Why don’t I know this? I heard she was in Marseilles with the mother. Never heard a whisper about the Cub being out of commission. Not from any of my sources. Not a syllable.”

“She’s good at hiding it. She must’ve spent months practicing.” How long had it taken her to learn to fight in the dark?

“That’s why we got her so easy. Blind and on the dodge.”

“…and hungry and hurt and exhausted. It only took three of us to haul her in.” She picked up the coffee cup, eyes demurely lowered, smiling. He’d been wrong about the blue dress. It didn’t make her look like a whore. It made her look young and chic and carefree as a spring butterfly. “You ever hit a woman?”

Doyle eyed him. “Missed doing that somehow. Fun, would you say?”

“Not much. Makes you feel shabby as hell afterwards.”

“Accident, I imagine.”

“I was stupid. That doesn’t make it an accident.” He was the officer in charge. She was his prisoner, and he’d hurt her. There were no excuses. “I punched her solar plexus so hard she stopped breathing for a while. I don’t think I did any permanent damage, but keep an eye on her.”

“I keep an eye on everything.” Doyle squatted and curled the mare’s hoof up against his thigh, matter-of-fact as any blacksmith. After a brief inspection, Doyle searched one-handed in his jacket pocket and fetched out a blunt probe. He scraped along the edge of the hoof, taking his time with it. A perfectionist, William Doyle. It’d saved their bacon a few times. “You going to talk about it?”