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“D’you think I’ll tell you that, girl?” She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she judged him to be about thirty years of age and accustomed to hard labor. His face was weathered and his nose reddened from drink.
“No, but it can’t hurt to ask.”
“I could just grab that sack of coins and be gone.”
“You could, but I’d shoot you in the back of your knee as you ran.” She revealed the nose of her pistol. “I assure you that I know how to use this.” Her hand was trembling so badly that the pistol visibly shook.
Fear closed her throat. She hadn’t expected to be so afraid.
She’d been training for this, planning for it and now, faced with walking into a truly dangerous situation, everything seized up inside her and she could barely breathe. It was because she knew too much.
She knew about the agents who had died in the field. Died for their king and country.
“You’ll shoot me in the middle of Vauxhall?” the man scoffed. “I don’t think so.”
Control yourself. Project strength and confidence.“I’ll maim you and then I’ll take back the coins and melt into the shadows, leaving you lying on the ground bleeding. No one would suspect a young lady of being the one with the pistol. Now, do you have the information, or don’t you?”
He spat on the ground. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll hand over the coins?”
She held up the bag of coins in one hand and her pistol in the other. She shook the bag and the coins clinked together.
His eyes narrowed with greed.
She avoided glancing in Drew’s direction, but knowing that he was there gave her strength. “You give me the name and I’ll give you the coins.”
“I have my orders. I’m to hand over the note at the same time you hand me the coins.”
“Orders from whom?”
“D’you think I would tell you that?”
“All right. On my count, then. And don’t think I can’t shoot you in the time it takes me to read the note. One. Two.”
She held out the coins. He raised a scrap of paper.
“Three.”
They made the exchange.
She glanced at the paper.Olivia Lachance, proprietress of the Princess Eve.
The man backed away, eyeing her reticule, then briskly walked away.
Drew moved after him stealthily, keeping to the trees.
Mina collapsed against a tree trunk, letting out a ragged breath.
Until now, her dabbling in espionage had all been conducted at a distance, from the safety of Uncle Malcolm’s guarded stronghold and training grounds.
Solving puzzles, finding the codes within the ciphers, recognizing patterns, piecing together information, experimenting with weaponry, all worthy pursuits and all... safe.
Very, very safe.
She couldn’t be afraid. A spy knew no fear.
Some of the dedicated spies her uncle handled had been indoctrinated from a young age at a secret spy boarding school. The Duke of Ravenwood had attended the school. She’d heard it said that he entered school a normal, healthy boy, teasing and laughing and charming, despite the recent death of his father, and that he’d become a hardened man, tough and ruthless, without a conscience or a soul.
She’d seen her mother through ten-year-old eyes. To Mina she’d been a laughing, vibrant vision of loveliness sweeping into her life and then twirling back out again. But she knew that her mother and father had been spies in wartime. She’d read her diary.
