Amber widened her large, sultry eyes and nodded at the fortepiano. “I have come for the music.”
“Come sit down.” Gus locked arms with Amber and led her to the settee as Inès did the same with Giselle.
“I have not heard you play in so many years,” Giselle said as she sat in a chair. “I need it this morning.”
“Not well today?” Gus asked her.
“Not very,” Giselle admitted. “And you?”
“I get stronger each day. The sickness in the morning does diminish with each new baby.” This was Gus’s third pregnancy. “The recovery from childbirth takes longer.”
“Too much to do to keep a family running,” added Amber, who wasmany months along in her own third pregnancy. “But I would not change it for the world.”
“Marriage,” said Inès, “looks good on each of you.”I wish I were able to claim that for myself.
“You will play for us today, I hope?”Giselle leaned over to squeeze her hand.
“I don’t wish to bore the guests.”
“Your command of the keyboard has thrilled so many in Paris,” Amber declared. “Now those in London will be able to enjoy it.”
“How do you feel that you will soon be on your own?” Giselle said, her blue eyes level on Inès. She took her gloves off but positioned her arms in such a way that was odd.
A week ago, Giselle had shopped with Inès for china and tableware. The two of them had talked about how Giselle had gotten by when she first came to England from France more than a year and a half ago. At first, she had found it difficult to be alone in a strange country. She spoke English, so that was not a problem, but she did not speak of the reason she had emigrated to England. She did not need to. Not to Inès, for she knew.
Against all the rules of espionage protocol, Inès knew the reason for Giselle’s posting here in England. That knowledge came not from any informant or slip of the tongue by Giselle. Oh, no. Inès knew because she herself had been a recipient of Giselle’s excellent work. One look at the fine product her longtime friend had produced so that the French might be deceived, and Inès knew the artist. She knew the stroke of Giselle’s pencil, the brush of her hand with charcoal, the dexterity of her use of oils.Oui, quelle horreur,to realize thatit was sweet Giselle Laurant who drew landscapes of English coastal towns—and who might die if she were captured or killed because of it.
Inès had breathed not a sigh, not a murmur of her knowledge. Not to her protector. Not to her runner in Boulogne. Not to the privateer-smuggler, Jacques Durand. Certainly never to Scarlett or Todd Carlton. If she had, they would have been horrified to witness her breach of the code. But in truth, it profited her nothing to tell of it to anyone. She kept her silence, for if she uttered any more about her past, who knew what connection might occur to link Giselle to the person responsible for her landscapes’ acceptance by the French Admiralty?
Inès felt a flash of fire through her heart. Was Giselle sought by Vaillancourt even now? Was there a price on her head?As there most definitely is on mine.
She struggled to focus on Giselle. Her challenges. Her past.
Scarlett and Todd Carlton knew who she was and what she had done. But to them, she would say nothing. They would never speak of it. Inès had performed a valuable service to the war effort. She’d done it in secret. She’d done it alone. And she had helped in a small way to change the course of the war against Bonaparte. The greater public would never learn how that change had occurred.
Inès shook off the dread that seized her heart and focused on the conversation Giselle had opened, smiling at her lovely childhood friend.
“I am happy to be here in London,” she told her, there in the lovely salon whose gay springtime pinks and ivories lifted her spirits. “It will be the first house of my own I’ve ever had. It’s the first one I’ve felt secure in for many years.” She fell silent, the memories of her family’s chateau on the Loire flooding back.Tears welled. She sniffed, angry with herself for her sensitivities. She must become tougher. Stronger. Bolder. “I’m sorry.”
Amber pressed a handkerchief into her palm. Giselle took hold of her hand.
It was then that Inès noted the scars upon her friend’s hands and forearms. “What are these? How did this happen?”
Giselle seemed to coil in on herself. “I was attacked last summer.”
“No!” Inès groaned. “By whom? Why?”
But the looks that traveled among the other three told of the unspeakable.
“Inès,” Giselle began, “you must not fret. They are not painful.”
“Perhaps not now!” Inès was angry, bitter. “But then you were tied, lashed, and for a long period. Who would dare such a thing?” She rebelled at her friends’ calm discussion of this—and stood. “Tell me!”
“I was abducted. Held. Tied. Clive saved me. Lord Halsey and Lord Ashley. Langley, too.”
Inès studied the faces of each one of her friends. “And your abductor? Who was that?”
“The leaders escaped. But three were taken to the local gaol.”
