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Darcy chuckled. “My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, works for the War Office; he wrote to Dreyfus about my visit. He also gave me a token by which English agents make themselves known to one another.” Leaning to one side, he pulled the small slip of paper from the pocket of his worn jacket and handed it to her.
***
Elizabeth examined the scrap of paper. There were no words, just an ink drawing of a red flower. “Hmm, it looks like a pimpernel,” she mused.
“I believe it is supposed to be a rose.”
She returned the paper to him. “The War Office needs better artists.”
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“I do not believe aesthetics are their primary concern,” William said with a grin.
“But in such a business as espionage, surely the smallest mistake could lead to peril,” Elizabeth said archly. “What should we do if Mr. Dreyfus believes it to be a pimpernel and that is the War Office’s code for ‘shoot on sight?’”
He laughed heartily; at least she had made him forget his concerns about her health. “Or perhaps the pimpernel is the flower assigned to agents of the Dutch government. Mr. Dreyfus might expect us to arrive with tulip bulbs in our pockets.”
“That is a danger indeed.” William’s voice was warm with laughter. “I suppose espionage is fraught with all sorts of risks.”
He sobered as he pulled the horse to a halt in front of a warm stone house; the front entrance opened directly onto a circular drive. Vines climbed up the front façade, and a few bedraggled roses grew in a clump under one window.
All seemed well. But why did the sight give her a sense of uneasiness? Shivers ran from the nape of her neck down her spine, and her stomach roiled with tension. After a moment she realized there was none of the activity that she would expect from the kind of busy and prosperous house this appeared to be. No servants were fetching water. No grooms were exercising the master’s horses. No chickens wandered about searching for food. How odd.
Apparently happy to be at leisure, the horse, a young mare, immediately availed herself of the grass at the side of the drive. William alighted from his seat, crossed to Elizabeth’s side of the carriage, and offered her a hand. She looked down uncertainly; the curricle seat was very high. But William simply put both hands on her waist—as he had in front of the Martins’ house—and swung her to the drive. She again had a fluttery sensation in her stomach as her body thrilled to his touch; she longed to lean into his arms, feeling his body enclose hers.
A long moment passed while they stood in this attitude. Touching William was so pleasant that Elizabeth was loath to let go.
William released her so rapidly that he nearly tripped over his own feet. “Right, well, shall we see if Mr. Dreyfus is at home?” Turning toward the house, he offered her his arm, and they traversed the dirt drive toward the front door.
William knocked at the door, and they waited. Nobody answered. William scowled. “Even if Mr. Dreyfus is away, I would expect his ill-tempered housekeeper to answer once more.” He knocked again. After a long moment the scuff of a shoe on the floor sounded inside the house, and thumps suggested someone was removing a bar on the other side of the door.
Unsurprisingly, William’s chivalry compelled him to stand between her and the door as if she required a bodyguard. His body obscured most of Elizabeth’s view of the person who opened the door. She had the impression of a paunchy man, not tall, in his forties, and with graying hair, but she could not glimpse his face.
“Mr. Dreyfus?”
“Yes?” The other man’s tone was suspicious.
“I am Darcy. We are in need of your assistance.” William extended his hand with the scrap of paper held between thumb and forefinger.
The other man grunted in recognition. “Yes, I heard about you. Come in, then.” His tone was rather begrudging, and the sound of his voice was oddly familiar. She dismissed it; without her memory, everything provoked a sense of oddness these days.
William stepped back, gesturing for Elizabeth to enter the house before him. Only then did she truly glimpse the other man’s face. She started, struck forcefully by a sensation of recognition. But how could she recognize this man when she recognized nothing else in her life? Surely she had never encountered him before.
However, Mr. Dreyfus’s reaction to Elizabeth was far more striking. His eyes bulged, and his face paled. “But-But you are dead! I saw you fall from the boat! You could not have—after that blow to the head—”
Images from her dream came rushing back to Elizabeth in an instant. The rowing boat. The gun. The explosion. Naked hatred on a man’s face. This man’s face. She did not understand all the images, but she knew she had encountered this man before when he kidnapped her from the ship.
Chapter Nine
She had to escape.
But her body refused to cooperate. She shook with tremors, and her feet were afflicted with acute paralysis at the moment she most needed them to act. She grabbed William’s arm, and his eyes shot to her face in alarm. “It is the man!” she hissed. “The man from my dream—with the pistol.”
Realization dawned on Darcy’s face. “From the rowing boat?”
“Yes!”
“You are the Black Cobra!” Darcy hurled the accusation at Dreyfus. “A double agent.”
