It was the perfect place to run, the perfect time.

She had reached an accommodation with darkness months ago. She knew a thousand tricks of moving without sight that these men had never dreamed of. The night was her friendly kingdom, ready to hide her. None of them could outrun her in the dark.

She swallowed the bite of bread and pretended to take another. Now. This was the moment. It is not good to plan such things too much. The opponent feels it.

She twisted sideways in the seat and kicked Grey with all her strength. This time, for variety’s sake, she kicked him in the belly.

Four

“THANK THE GODS.” ADRIAN COLLAPSED ACROSS the bed, fully dressed. His coat stank of wine. That was to explain him staggering with every step.

“You’re bleeding again.”

“Nobody saw.”

“Hell. That’s just fine, then, if nobody saw.” Grey slung Adrian’s feet up and began pulling the boots off. “Damned fool.”

“They’ll be looking for somebody with a bullet hole in him. Not some…idiot carrying a bottle.”

“Carrying a bottle and singing off key, strolling right through the middle of the innyard.”

“Nobody sees you when you…don’t hide. Pure genius.”

It might have been, but it had used up the last of Adrian’s strength. “Next time, do what you’re told.” When Grey unbuttoned the striped waistcoat, the front of Adrian’s shirt was soaked red. More blood lost. And they still had to get the bullet out of him.

“…and I wasn’t off-key. I have a particularly fine baritone.”

“So does an ass. Don’t sit up.” Roussel, the innkeeper, already had Doyle’s red valise ready on the dresser. Lockpicks and a collection of subtle weapons were lined up in the barbering kit, disguised as complex grooming aids. There was a choice of scissors. “I’ll cut that coat off.”

“More wardrobe sacrificed to the needs of the Service.” Adrian’s lips quirked. “Take it. Take it. We’re sick of one another’s company. I’ve been wearing it—what’s it been—three days?

“Four, since you got shot.”

“Ah. I lost a day.”

“That day was no loss. I was there.”

They spoke French. Even alone, even in this inn that belonged body and soul to the British Service, they never broke into English. It was one of the thousand habits that kept them alive. Voices change when they change to a new language. Grey’s own voice was refined and smooth in the drawling Toulouse French he affected. In English, his normal tone was a grating deep growl, heavy with the underlay of his native West Country accent.

He rolled his sleeves back and selected a pair of scissors. “There are sharp points on these. Hold still.”

“Behold me, motionless as a clam.” Adrian let his head fall back onto the pillow. “We shouldn’t have brought her here. We could have dumped her in any of those villages.”

“I need her. You, I can dump in a Normandy village and say good riddance.” He cut through wool and the heavy silk of the waistcoat and the linen of the shirt. “Lift your arm. Yes. That’s got it.”

“You’ve brought a French agent to a British Service shelter house. This is Roussel’s bailiwick. He’s going to want to slit her throat.”

“Roussel doesn’t get everything he wants.” The bandage beneath was heavy with fresh blood, stiff and brown at the edges. Five, six snips, and he cut it away.

Adrian curled up to peer at his chest. “Looks like a hell of a mess from here. How is it?”

“Not bad.” Under a plaque of gummy dried blood, the wound was draining thin, straw-colored liquid. Was that normal? He kept his opinion off his face. “Better than I expected.”

The Hawker, unfortunately, could read any man living. He leaned back and opened and closed his hand a few times and looked away. From the open window came the faint sound of men talking at the tables outside. “Any chance for a doctor?”

“Roussel doesn’t trust the local man. We’ll manage on our own.”

“How intrepid of us.”

The fever was down, fought to a temporary truce by the Hawker’s leathery toughness. That couldn’t last much longer. This sneaky, brilliant boy was going to die because Grey couldn’t risk getting a French doctor to him. Because they’d been too slow running down an alley in Paris four days ago. Because he’d sent Hawker into France in the first place.

He was going to kill the boy tomorrow, digging that bullet out. Damn and damn and damn.

Roussel’s daughter had brought up water. Grey poured some in the basin. It was hot, almost too hot to touch. “We’ll clean up. We’ll eat well and sleep soft tonight. Tomorrow we put more distance between us and Paris, then stop and pull the slug out.” He made himself study the jagged pucker of red skin. “You’ll have a beautiful scar.”

“It will add to my manifold charms. Who digs into me—you or Doyle?”

“We talked it over. My hands are better with small work.”

“You flipped a coin. I know.” Adrian sketched a grin. “We could wait till England. I know a man in Chelsea who has a fine, artistic way with a bullet.”

“Coward.”

“Fervently. Tomorrow then. If you’re set on this, I suggest you choose someplace private. I will whine in an unmanly fashion.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

There were towels stacked beside the basin. Grey tried to remember what they did in the medical tents, after battle. There’d been wounds soaking under hot cloths. That worked with horses, too. He’d try it. He wet linen in the steaming water and wrung it out gingerly. “This is hot.”

“Ach!” The boy jerked. “Hot. Yes. Right you are.” He took a slow, tight breath between clenched teeth. “Oh, that’s toasty hot. Listen…Carruthers has my last report. That’s safe. Tell Giles to take what he wants from my room at Meeks Street. George gets the watch in my dresser drawer. I promised it to him if I didn’t make it back from some jaunt.”

“You’re making it back from this one.” Grey lifted the cloth and looked at the wound.

“Orders. You know how I am about obeying orders. Are you going to keep gawking at the bullet hole? Grotesque, if you want my opinion.” Adrian fixed his eyes on the crack that ran across the plaster ceiling. “Grey, if the fever comes back…Don’t let me talk.”

The Hawker had more than his fair share of secrets. “I won’t.”

“Thanks.” He took a deep breath. “Oh. Money. There’s a pile of it at Hoare’s Bank under the name Adrian Hawker. And some deeds.” He winced as the cloth lifted. “Find Black John. I’m godfather, if you can believe it, to his oldest son. The money goes to the boy.” Another deep breath. “I think I owe the tailor. Pay it off for me, will you.”

“You sound like Socrates over a mug of hemlock.” He squeezed the cloth in hot water again and laid it back on the wound.

“Who’s…ach…Who’s Socrates?”

“A dead Greek. Annique admires him.”

“Wasted on him, if he’s dead. That is a woman born to be appreciated by some man who’s warm and alive.” Adrian’s thin, dark face was a dozen shades paler than it should have been, but he managed an unconvincing leer. “Me, probably. She doesn’t care for you at all, mon vieux.”

“She’s not supposed to like me. She’s supposed to be afraid of me and stop trying to escape. She can like you.” Grey worked awhile in silence, swabbing blood off the rest of the boy’s chest. “I’m going to sit you up. Don’t help. Let me do the work.”

“Right.”

The boy felt light, and brittle as glass, when Grey lifted him. He stuffed pillows to prop him up. “Rest a minute.”

He tipped the dirty water out the window, down into the pawlike ivy that climbed the stone walls. It was a warm night. On the terrace below, men lingered late around the tables. They were local farmers mostly, but a few were travelers carrying the accents of Paris or Normandy. A pair of men playing cards chatted softly in the patois of the Brittany coast. Candles flickered on the tables, illuminating a peasant cap, a fashionable chapeau, and a shock of fair hair. One of Roussel’s plump, dark-haired daughters sidled between the men, collecting glasses. Beyond the innyard gate, the shadowed fields were full of the trill of crickets.

They’d be safe tonight, in this tiny village, in this obscure inn, which was a waystation of the British spy network in France. Tomorrow was going to be hell.

The bed creaked. “You’re handling her wrong,” Adrian said. “She’s battering herself to bits against you. It’s sickening.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. It’s like wrestling a starved cat.”

But he lied. It was wrestling lightning wrapped in silk. Annique Villiers wouldn’t admit she was beaten. Desperately, madly, she kept throwing herself against him, trying to get out of the coach. Again and again, he’d trapped a kicking, writhing, squirming body beneath him. Every time he pinned her, she’d sigh and lie back and accept another defeat. The sharp angles melted. The pulsing energy went quiescent in his hands. It was like the soft, sweet letting go of a woman after climax. She was everything beautiful and insidious. Addictive as opium.

Hell of a way for a senior officer to feel about a treacherous French bitch. “I’m trying not to hurt her. It’s not easy. She’s fast as a little cobra.” He put the dressing in place and set Adrian’s hand to cover it. “Press hard.” He tied up the last corner of bandage. “I doubt she’s looking forward to the discussions I have planned. I know what’s she’s done.”

Will Doyle pushed into the room, balancing a tray. “What has she done?” He had a roll of clothing bundled under his arm, a swirl of burgundy and white, moss green and slate blue. He edged the door shut with his foot. “Besides run rings around us in Italy and Austria the last couple years?”