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‘England?’ she echoed, surprised. ‘Why should I do that?’
‘I’m going to escort you back to London, where we will call on the Foreign Office. There you will explain exactly how you entrapped my cousin in this scheme, manoeuvring him into doing no more than any other gentleman would have done. Demonstrating that he was blameless in not anticipating the assassination attempt, and any fault should be assigned to the intelligence services whose job it was to sniff out such things.’
Her mind racing, Elodie weighed the options. Her hopes rose crazily as she recognised that travelling to London, as this man apparently had the means to do, would get her a deal closer to France, and immediately—not next autumn or in another year, which was as soon as she’d dared hope her slowly accumulating resources would allow.
But even with King Louis on France’s throne and the two nations officially at peace, as a French citizen she was still vulnerable. If she testified to involvement in an attempt on the life of the great English hero Lord Wellington, saviour of Europe and victor of Waterloo, she could well be imprisoned. Maybe even executed.
Unless she escaped on the way. Ransleigh would likely want to journey by sea, which would make the chances of eluding him before arrival in England very difficult. Unless …
‘I will go with you, but only if we stop first in Paris.’ Paris, a city she knew like the lines on her palm. Paris, where only a moment’s inattention would allow her to slip away into a warren of medieval alleyways so dense and winding, he would never be able to trail her.
Where, after waiting a safe interval, she could hunt for Philippe.
He made a show of looking about the room, which lacked the presence of a footman or even a maid to lend her assistance. ‘I don’t think you’re in much of a position to dictate terms. And I have no interest in visiting Paris.’
‘A mistake, Monsieur Ransleigh. It is a beautiful city.’
‘So it is, but unimportant to me at present.’
She shrugged. ‘To you, perhaps, but not to me. Unless we go first to Paris, I will not go with you.’
His eyes darkened, unmistakable menace in their depths. ‘I can compel you.’
She nodded. ‘You could drug me, I suppose. Gag, bind and smuggle me aboard a ship in Trieste. But nothing can compel me to deliver to the London authorities the sort of testimony you wish, unless I myself choose to do so.’
Fury flashed in those blue eyes and his jaw clenched. If his cousin’s career had truly been ruined by her actions, he had cause to be angry.
Just as she’d had no choice about involving Max in the plot.
‘I could simply kill you now,’ he murmured, stepping closer. ‘Your life for the life you ruined.’ He placed his hands around her neck.
She froze, her heartbeat stampeding. Had she survived so much, only for it all to end now? His hands, warm against the chill of her neck, were large and undoubtedly strong. One quick twist and it would be over.
But despite the hostility of his action, as the seconds ticked away with his fingers encircling her neck, some instinct told her that he didn’t truly mean to hurt her.
As her fear subsided to a manageable level, she grasped his hands with a calm she was far from feeling. To her great relief, he let her pull them away from her neck, confirming her assessment.
‘Paris first, then London. I will wait in the garden for your decision.’
Though her heart pounded so hard that she was dizzy, Elodie made herself rise and walk with unhurried steps from the room. Not for her life would she let him see how vulnerable she felt. Never again would any man make her afraid.
Why should they? She had nothing left to lose.
Out of his sight, she clutched the stair rail to keep from falling as she descended, then stumbled out the back door to the bench at the centre of the garden. She grabbed the edge with trembling fingers and sat down hard, gulping in a shuddering breath of jonquil-scented air.
Eyes narrowed, Will watched Elodie Lefevre cross the room with quiet elegance and disappear down the stairwell.
Devil’s teeth! She was nothing like what he’d expected.
He’d come to Vienna prepared to find a seductive siren, who traded upon her beauty to entice while at the same time playing the frightened innocent. Luring in Max, for whom protecting a woman was a duty engraved upon his very soul.
Elodie Lefevre was attractive, certainly, but hers was a quiet beauty. Sombrely dressed and keeping herself in the background, as he’d learned she always did, she’d have attracted little notice among the crowd of fashionable, aristocratic lovelies who’d fluttered like exotic butterflies through the balls and salons of the Congress of Vienna.
She had courage, too. After her first indrawn breath of alarm, she’d not flinched when he clamped his fingers around her throat.
Not that he’d had any intention of actually harming her, of course. But he’d hoped that his display of anger and a threat of violence might make her panic and capitulate before reinforcements could arrive.
If she had any.
He frowned. It had taken a month of thorough, patient tracking to find her, but the closer he got, the more puzzled and curious he became about the woman who’d just coolly descended to the garden. As if strange men vaulted into her rooms and threatened her life every day.
Maybe they did. For, until she’d confirmed her identity, he’d been nearly convinced the woman he’d located couldn’t be the Elodie Lefevre he sought.
Why was the cousin of a wealthy diplomat living in shabby rooms in a decaying, unfashionable section of Vienna?
Why did she inhabit those rooms alone—lacking, from the information he’d charmed out of the landlady, even a maid?
Why did it appear she eked out a living doing embroidery work for a fashionable dressmaker whom Madame Lefevre, as hostess to one of the Congress of Vienna’s most well-placed diplomats, would have visited as a customer?
But neither could he deny the facts that had led him, piecing together each small bit of testimony gathered from maids, porters, hotel managers, street vendors, seamstresses, merchants and dry-good dealers, from the elegant hotel suite she’d presided over for St Arnaud to these modest rooms off a Vienna back alley.
St Arnaud himself had disappeared the night of the failed assassination. Will didn’t understand why someone clever enough to have concocted such a scheme would have been so careless about ensuring his cousin’s safety.
And how had she sensed Will’s presence on the balcony? He knew for certain he’d made no sound as he carefully scaled the wall from the courtyard to the ledge outside her window. Either she was incredibly prescient, or he’d badly lost his touch, and he didn’t think it was the latter.
Her awareness impressed him even more than her courage, sparking an admiration he had no wish to feel.
Any more than he’d wanted the reaction triggered when he’d placed his hands around her neck. The softness of her skin, the faint scent of lavender teasing his nostrils, sent a fierce desire surging through him, as abrupt and immediate as the leap of her pulse under his thumbs.
Finding himself attracted to Elodie Lefevre was a complication he didn’t need. What he did need were answers to all the questions he had about her.
Such as why it was so important for her to get to Paris.
A quick examination of her room told him nothing; the hired furniture, sewing supplies and few basic necessities could have been anyone’s. She seemed to possess nothing that gave any clue to the character of the woman who’d lived here, as he’d learned, for more than a year, alone but for the daily visits of her former maid.
He’d just have to go question the woman herself. He suspected she would be as vigilant at keeping her secrets as she was at catching out uninvited visitors to her rooms.
To achieve his aims, he needed to master both those secrets—and her. Turning on his heel, he headed for the garden.
Chapter Three
Will found Madame Lefevre picking spent blooms from the border of lavender surrounding a central planting of tall yellow flowers.
Hearing him approach, she looked back over her shoulder. ‘Well?’
He waited, but she added nothing to that single word—neither pleading nor explanation nor entreaty. Once again, he was struck by her calm, an odd quality of stillness overlaid with a touch of melancholy.
Men awaiting battle would envy that sangfroid. Or did she not truly realise how vulnerable she was?
‘For a woman who’s just had her life threatened, you seem remarkably tranquil.’
She shrugged. ‘Nothing I say or do will change what you have decided. If it is to kill me, I am not strong or skilled enough to prevent you. Struggling and pleading are so … undignified. And if I am to die, I would rather spend my last moments enjoying the beauty of my garden.’
So she did understand the gravity of her position. Yet the calm remained.
As a man who’d earned much of his blunt by his wits, Will had played cards with masters of the game, men who didn’t show by the twitch of an eyelid whether they held a winning or losing hand. Madame Lefevre could hold her own with the best of them. He’d never met a woman so difficult to read.
She was like a puzzle spread out in a jumble of pieces. The more he learned about her, the stronger his desire to fit them all together.
Delaying answering her question so he might examine that puzzle further, he said, ‘The garden is lovely. So serene, and those yellow flowers are so fragrant. Did you plant it?’
