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With the same precision he analysed rooms and roads, he surveyed his opponents with that deceptively disinterested, downcast gaze. Having watched the game for several hours, Elodie was convinced he’d worked out just how much he could win from each opponent without straining their purses enough to provoke a belligerent response and just how much overall so as not to have his skill excite comment. He bolstered her belief by deliberately losing a hand from time to time and by his occasional crows of triumph when he won, as if winning were a surprise. Whereas, she was certain he could have fleeced all his opponents, had he chosen to.
Clara had told her how he’d lifted her purse at the market.
Would he have the skill to fleece her, when the time came? Smiling faintly, she thought of Will removing the rough, scratchy man’s garb, covering her mouth with his, her body with his, parting her legs to bare to his touch and possession that hottest, most needy place …
The cold splash of ale on her knee jerked her back to awareness. Lost in sensual imagining, she’d drifted off and nearly dropped her mug. Alarmed to have come close to creating a commotion that would have attracted unwelcome attention, she looked up to find Will staring at her.
Elodie froze; not wishing to bring her to anyone’s notice, Will never looked directly at her when in company.
‘Pierre, take yourself up to the room before you shatter the mug—or spill any more of that good ale! I can wash up and remove my own coat tonight.’
A quick nod punctuated the command. Too weary to object, Elodie walked quietly out, hearing as she closed the door Will tell the others, ‘Doesn’t have the stamina of youth, poor Pierre. Old family retainer, you know.’
A murmur of commiseration followed her up the stairs. Old family retainer indeed, she thought indignantly, recognising the subtle taunt. The day was coming, Monsieur Ransleigh would soon discover, when she would be neither ‘old’ nor slavishly obedient.
Their room tonight was on the top floor. She paused after climbing to the first-floor landing, which boasted a window overlooking the street. Weary though she was, the star-spangled sky called out for admiration.
Just a few days’ journey ahead, Paris beckoned. And somewhere within that teeming city, she urgently hoped, was Philippe.
Longing for him swelled within her, the ache sharper than usual. She’d been away so long, she was as apprehensive as she was excited to arrive at last and discover whether the long months of hope were justified. Whether she could find him and make him hers again.
She immediately banished a soul-chilling fear that she might fail. Of course she would succeed, she reassured herself. They belonged together. No amount of time or separation could change that.
With a sigh, she trudged up the final set of stairs, the starlight from the window below fading as she ascended. Five steps down into the darkness of the hallway, she was grabbed roughly from behind. The hard chill of a blade pressed against her neck.
‘Come with me quietly, madam,’ a voice murmured, ‘or your next move will be your last.’
Elodie tensed, her heartbeat skyrocketing. After an instant, though, she forced back the panic, emptying herself of everything but the need to calculate the physical advantage of the man detaining her and the meaning of his words.
Though he’d spoken in French, his accent was English; he knew she was not Ransleigh’s valet, which meant he must have tracked them from Vienna. Would he kill her, or just threaten her to force her co-operation?
‘Don’t hurt me, sir!’ she said, putting some of the alarm she’d suppressed into a voice pitched as low as she could make it. ‘You’re mistaken; I’m Monsieur LeClair’s valet, Pierre.’
‘No, you are Elodie Lefevre, implicated in the plot to assassinate Lord Wellington in Vienna last year,’ the voice replied. ‘You’re going to descend these stairs with me to the back entrance. Now.’
Her mind tumbling over itself, looking for some means to escape, Elodie let the man push her ahead of him to the landing, stumbling as much as she dared to delay their progress. ‘You are wrong, monsieur!’ she whispered urgently. ‘Speak to my master, he can straighten this out!’
A short laugh huffed against her ear. ‘I mean to speak to him. After I take care of you.’
‘Take care of me? What do you—?’
‘Silence!’ the man hissed in her ear. ‘Speak again and I’ll shut you up permanently.’
The assailant knew what he was doing; he kept her arms pinned behind her as he shuffled her forwards, and the blade at her throat never wavered. Could she stumble, catch her foot under his boot and use his own weight to knock him down the stairs, ducking out of the way before he cut her throat?
Probably not. Dragging her feet from step to step, muscles tensed and body poised to flee at the first opportunity, Elodie let her captor push her down the stairs and turn her towards the back exit leading to the stables.
Once outside, she would have more room to manoeuvre. Her assailant knew she was a woman; perhaps she could pretend to faint. Just a moment’s opportunity and, thankfully free of encumbering skirts, she could take to her heels.
Her assailant unlatched the door and thrust her into the deserted stable yard. Knowing this would probably be her best chance, she’d gathered herself to make a break when, out of the stillness, came the unmistakable metallic click of a pistol being cocked.
Her assailant heard it, too, and halted. From deep within the shadows by the wall, Will said, ‘Put down the knife, or I’ll blow your head off. At this distance, I can’t miss.’
‘I can cut her throat before you can fire.’
‘Perhaps.’ A glimmer of humour coloured his voice. ‘But you would still be dead, so what would it matter? Monsieur, you will oblige me by giving over the knife and keeping your hands well in front of you. Then you will accompany me and my much-maligned valet up to our room.’
When the man holding her hesitated, Will sighed. ‘Do not try me, sirrah. I’m not at all averse to decorating this wall with your brains.’
With a reluctant laugh, the man surrendered his knife. Taking it, Will said, ‘Pierre, search his pockets.’
Weak-kneed with relief, Elodie turned to face her attacker. She had no idea how Will had discovered them, but she’d never in her life been so relieved to see anyone.
While Will kept his pistol trained on the man, Elodie hurriedly rifled the man’s greatcoat, removing a pistol from each pocket and holding them up. ‘That’s all.’
‘Good. Pierre, you go first and make sure no one else is about. Sound an all clear and we’ll follow you.’
A few moments later, Will herded her erstwhile attacker into their top-floor bedchamber. After pushing him into a chair, he quickly bound the man’s wrists behind him, then motioned her to light a candle.
As soon as he held it close enough to make out the attacker’s features, his expression turned from angry to incredulous. ‘George Armitage! What the deuce are you doing here?’
‘Trying to keep you from catching a bullet or being fitted for the hangman’s necktie,’ Armitage replied.
While Elodie tried to figure out what was going on, Will said drily, ‘Your concern would overwhelm me … if you hadn’t been trying to carve up my valet. If I unbind you, do I have your word as an officer you’ll not threaten him again or try to escape?’
‘You do,’ Armitage said.
‘Pierre, pour some wine,’ Will directed as he set about removing the ropes.
‘No need to maintain the fiction; I know he’s no lad,’ Armitage said.
‘But the rest of the inn doesn’t need to know. What are you doing here, skulking about and attacking harmless servants? Last time we talked, you were about to leave Paris with your regiment, bound for London.’
‘So I was, and did. Sold out and went back to the estate, but as Papa has no intention of turning over the reins any time soon, it was bloody boring. I took myself off to London and lounged about the club, losing at cards and vying for the favours of various actresses until Locksley—you remember him, lieutenant in the 95th—talked me into joining the Foreign Office. Thought it might provide some of the excitement I’d missed since leaving the army.’
‘But how did you end up here?’
‘You were seen leaving England, bound for Vienna, barely two weeks after returning from Brussels. Knowing what had happened to your cousin Max, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what you meant to do.’
‘And the Foreign Office was so displeased by that, they sent a bloodhound after me?’
‘Though the officials weren’t too concerned when Max tried to track down Madame Lefevre, some who knew you felt you might be better at ferreting her out. I can’t believe you weren’t aware that no one, neither the English, nor the French, nor the Austrians, wished her to be found. So when I discovered they meant to send someone to stop you, I volunteered. Fellow officer and all—didn’t want to see you come to harm.’
‘I suppose I owe you thanks, then. I must say, though your tracking skills are acceptable, if tonight was an example of how you plan an ambush, your Foreign Office career is likely to come to a quick and violent end.’
Ignoring that jibe, Armitage continued, ‘The Foreign Office just wants you back in England, out of this, but there are others with less charitable intentions. Once madame scarpered, according to my superiors in Vienna, several agents set out after her.’
