“You are sure she is dead? Beyond doubt?”

She nodded.

“I’m very sorry,” Galba said quietly. “Go now. We will talk later.”

Grey led her away. Her exit was followed by Adrian’s wry gaze, but Galba sat looking down at the book in his hands, his face set and utterly still.

It was Robert who walked beside her down the hall and opened the door to the stairwell that led to the basement. It was Robert, looking as he always did, who smiled reassuringly at her, as if all were correct and excellent with the world. But it was Grey’s grip on her the whole way.

Twenty-three

IF ONE WISHES TO DO SECRET AND UNPLEASANT things to people, Annique thought, cellars are the logical place. It was not altogether surprising Grey should take her to one. It was not damp or sinister, being one of those basements half in, half above, the ground. The corridor was carpeted, the walls papered in a delicate pattern of blue flowers. All was deceptively ordinary. But the arched windows, high in the wall, were barred with iron grills that sank deep into the brick.

No escape. How thorough they are. She and the knowledge she carried were wholly at the disposal of the British Service. Doors, closed and threatening, waited on either side of the hall. He would take her behind one of them.

“They aren’t torture chambers.” Grey was annoyed. “Left side is workshops. Storage rooms on the other side. That one’s full of papers. Not an oubliette in the house. I’m not Leblanc.”

“You are more subtle than he is. Infinitely, evilly more subtle.” She wrapped her arms around her to control the shaking. He opened the last door on the right and went in before her. She did not know what would happen next, but she could not imagine Grey hurting her. Or Robert. Whichever one he was.

“You are not real.” She stood in the empty hallway. There was nowhere to run, after all. “I have been tearing my heart to pieces for a mountebank scarecrow. A puppet. I am the girl in the story who falls in love with a clockwork figure in the tower. I have thought myself very clever from time to time, but I am more stupid than dirt.”

Grey came back to the door. He had Robert’s face, but he was not Robert. “I’m not made of clockwork.”

“You. You do not exist at all. You are a nothing, Monsieur Grey. You are a shadow and a cloth flapping in the wind.”

“I am Robert Greyson Montclaire Fordham. Everything I told you is the truth—my parents, my brothers, the house in Somerset, the trout pond, the pony I taught to do tricks. I was Robert Fordham for twenty-six years before Grey ever existed.”

“You lied to me. You are nothing but lies to your back teeth.”

His grin showed exactly those teeth at her. “Then we’re well matched. Are you still afraid?”

“Of course I am afraid. I would be an imbecile not to be afraid.”

“You’re already over it. I won’t hurt a hair on your head and you know it. Come.” He took her hand and pulled her with him into the room which was, amazingly, a bath. It was shining clean and luxurious and surprised her considerably more than a dungeon would have.

“This is a bath,” she said stupidly.

“So it is. I hope you find that endlessly reassuring.”

“I do not want to be reassured. I want to escape.”

He laughed. He had betrayed her and decoyed her into this house and captured her and now he laughed at her. He was most definitely coldhearted as a clockwork.

She was confronted by a small, paneled room. The two arched windows were barred with iron latticework. She couldn’t see out of the milky glass, but, from the angle of the sun, she could tell the room faced south. A red rug from Turkey slanted across the black and white tile. A fire was just starting in the brick fireplace set in the wall. Beside the fire, a cheval glass reflected everything.

The bath was a huge, high-sided, oval tub of polished mahogany. Odd pipes emerged from the wall, with spigots upon them.

“This looks like an expensive brothel,” she said, knowing something of the matter, “except for that,” she gestured toward the pipes, “which looks like part of a brewery I saw in Munich once. What do you do with this?”

“It’s a bathtub. What do you think I do—stew prisoners in boiling oil?” He stomped over and opened spigots. They gave out water, which was logical, though she did not see how it could be hot. “My official torturer takes Wednesday off to practice on small animals. You’ll have to make do with me. If you’re wondering about the water—the other side of the wall is the kitchen stove and a hot water tank. I have ingenious drainage instead of servants running around with pails.”

Servants who might be bribed. They have thought of everything. “I see.”

“I thought you would. I’ll have this full in a minute. You get your clothes off.” He thrummed with hungry tension. Inside her, an answering tension arose.

“Do you think it is this simple between us? That you will ask, and I will take off my clothing?”

“I think it’s damn complicated between us. Always has been.” He shut the taps off and tested the water. “Not one bloody thing’s been simple so far. Why should this be?” When he came to her, he took hold of her carefully, as if she were breakable. He turned her to face away from him, toward the mirror. “We’ll take this one step at a time.” He set his hands to the shawl she was wearing and unwrapped it and dropped it on the floor. “This is the first step.”

“Why are you doing this? Why?”

“Taking your clothes off? Desperation. Madness. If you take a good look at me you’ll see I’m about to break apart.” His voice was tight and fierce, deep as a growl, unsteady at the edges. “Now we take your dress off. That’s the next step. Lots of knots to untie, aren’t there? Stop me if you have any real objections.”

“I do not even know what you want with me.”

“You’ll figure it out, clever girl that you are.”

“I do not mean at this moment, here. I mean…” She made the mistake of looking in the mirror. “I mean…” The mirror showed a perfect ragamuffin with parted lips and wide, staring eyes. Robert was in the mirror with her. His fingers were silk soft on her back, letting her dress loose.

“How can you be both of them?” Her voice came out young and bewildered. “Robert, how can you be Grey? I look at you and look at you, and you are both of them, and I think I will die of it.”

“Very unlikely.”

“I cannot do this with you when I do not even know who you are.” But she lied. It did not matter which man it was who made her feel this way.

“Let’s see if you can.” He plucked away at the knots.

She did not want this. She desired it with all her heart. She managed to do both at once, very strongly, with her mind entirely empty of thought the whole time.

He undid the last knot. In the mirror, he opened her dress and folded the edges back like petals and pulled it downward. No hurry. No hurry at all. Her dress slid away from her, a long, dark column collapsing.

He said, “You can’t imagine how much I hate this dress. I’ve wanted to rip it off you every minute of every day, morning till night. I’ve dreamed of doing this.”

“Robert did not want that.” Her voice had become husky. Her mind filled with imaginings so strong they were tongues of heat, lapping her thighs, licking inside her. She was melting like wax in his hands.

“Robert wanted it so much his teeth ached.” He lifted the pale shift from her shoulders and slid it off, uncovering her breasts, inch by inch. “I’m Robert. I know.”

Her hands clenched convulsively when the linen brushed by, falling. But she let it slip away. Let this happen to her.

She was naked and more naked. The brothels had mirrors like this. She had not known why. Now she did. It pulled at her mind, seeing herself naked with him. It made her only a woman with all her clothes off and the dark shape of a man behind her. Such elemental simplicity. It was obvious what she would soon do, that naked girl in the mirror.

She looked down so she would not see herself submitting in this idiotic way. The rug was rows of jewel-bright flowers. Around her feet spread the dark pool of her dress and her white shift. Grey knelt on the rug, on all those flowers, and unwrapped the rags that had held her knife, which she did not have, and had not once thought of using, anyway. Then her stockings fell, and she was stepping out of her shoes. His touch was velvet on her legs. She could not think at all.

“God, you’re beautiful.” His breath feathered across her skin as he stood. “Let’s put you in the tub while the water’s hot.” He pushed her gently in that direction, fingers on her bare back. “That’s right. Off you go.”

Maman would tell me to do what he asks. That is the path of the clever spy…to use her body to entice and control. But she was the one enticed. She did not become naked before Grey to be devious.

She stepped into the bath. Water steamed around her. All the little waves stroked at her as she lowered herself in. She slid down far into the water, sinking in it to her chin, and kept an eye on Grey.

Grey sat on the carved bench at the side of the room and untied his cravat. The bench had griffins on its arms and he hung his cravat over one of them, across its nose. He laid his jacket beside him on the bench. “We’ll wash your hair.”

“If you go away, I will wash anything you want me to.” All her many years as an agent had not prepared her for this. A decade cavorting with lions and demons in hell would not prepare one for this.

He smiled Robert’s smile, slow and warm. “Do you know that you become a complete vagabond the minute you set foot on the road—grimy and rumpled and chewing grass stems? I watched you get dirtier and more disreputable every ten paces. You have the most amazing protective coloration.”