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“Because I wish I could forget, and talking about it makes meremember.”
“Is it so awful?” she asked, the softness of her voice swirling around him like anembrace.
Some of it was. “In my idealistic youth, I surrounded myself with people Ishouldn’thave.”
“He knew you a long time ago,” she said. “He said you were revolutionary-minded.”
That had been the operation, up until Max ended up dead. “At the time, it was better that those in France thoughtIwas.”
She shook her head as though none of that made any sense, and then her hazel eyes lit against the candlelight filling her chambers. “The rapier in LeHavre?”
“No, not that time.” The rapier incident had been an earlier mission when he was much more green and knew even less about the world. It would probably be better to lie, though. To do what he’d been trained to do in order to survive behind enemy lines. But he had never lied to her. There weren’t a ton of things for him to be proud of in life, but that was certainly one of the few. “This was Paris, and I was uninjured,” he told her thetruth.
Caroline looked up at him, waiting for him to say more, to saysomething.
“He killed my cousin.” Marc closed his eyes as the memory of Max’s lifeless form, lying in the middle of that dirty alley, flashed in his mind. “Maxime was more like a little brother, though.” His voice cracked just a bit. Dear God, he hadn’t said his cousin’s name aloud in forever. “He looked up to me, trusted me, and I got himkilled.”
At her slight intake of air, Marc released his hold on Caroline and turned away from her. Damn it all, he could still remember the anguished cry that had escaped his aunt when she found out upon his return toEngland.
“When was this?” Caroline asked frombehindhim.
“Almost a dozenyearsago.”
“We were in the middle of the war,” she saidsoftly.
Yes, but not all wars were fought on battlefields. He didn’t say that out loud, however, as it would make it sound like what he’d done was heroic in some way. And looking back on all of it, it was farfromthat.
“You were in France duringthewar?”
“Partofit.”
“Marc.” Her hand landed on his back and with it brought the tiniest bit of peace flowing through him. “Tell me what happened. Why were you inFrance?”
“Because I was a damned idiot.” In much the same way Kelling and Winslett were idiots now. He’d been so idealistic, wanting to better the world; but the world was exactly as it was, and nothing was going to change it one way or the other, notreally.
“I don’t believe thatatall.”
Marc scoffed slightly. “Well, perhaps your faith in me is misplaced,Caroline.”
“I don’t believe that either. Why were you in France?” she askedagain.
He shook his head and told her the truth. “At the time, there were fears of a possible invasion from France into Ireland.” He breathed out a breath. “I was sent there to gather information and to stop such a thing from happening if I had thechance.”
Chapter19
Caroline could hardly believeher ears. She had always thought of Marc as one of the most capable men of her acquaintance. But surely he wasn’t capable of preventing an invasion all by himself. “Whosent you for thatpurpose?”
“The Home Office,” he said without a moment’shesitation.
Heavens! Was he saying…was he really saying he was aspy? Did that explain his scars and general evasiveness? “You work for the HomeOffice?”
“Worked. Past tense,” he said sounding ratherdejected.
Goodness! That was the last thing in the world she expected him to say tonight. “Does my brother know this? OrAlex?Or—”
“For God’s sake, no,” he said, turning back around to face her. “When you work for the Home Office, you don’t go around telling people, Caroline, and you don’t tell them after the facteither.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she vowed. “Iswearit.”
