Angel Rogue (35 page)

"Comrades and lovers," Maxie murmured. "She was the linchpin. When she left you, things fell apart."

He nodded. "When We were together, I was able to keep the worst of the demons under control. I didn't start to unravel until later. How did you know?"

"Feminine intuition," Maxie said rather dryly. "I suppose that your stints as a servant were in pursuit of information."

"Exactly. People tend not to notice servants. A footman or groom can learn everything that goes on in a house."

She pulled the blanket over them. Its weight was welcome; he hadn't realized how cold he was. But the vital warmth came from Maxie. She was sweetness and sanity, her breasts soft beneath her thin shift, her gentle hands soothing.

"It has just occurred to me that many of your absurd tales might be true," she said. "Did you really share a jail cell in Constantinople with a Chinese sailor?"

He smiled faintly. "God's own truth. Li Kwan taught me some amazing fighting techniques that have saved my life several times over. Our combined talents got us out of that hellhole."

"What about Napoleon's retreat from Moscow?"

Robin made a choking sound and began shaking again, as if the chill of a Siberian wind were still in his bones.

She tightened her embrace. "It's obvious why such memories are horribly painful. But surely your work helped your country, perhaps contributed to saving lives by ending the war earlier."

"Perhaps, yet often what I did was downright trivial." His mouth twisted. "One of the triumphs of my dubious career was the not very difficult deduction that Bonaparte was planning to invade Russia because of the number of books on Russian geography he had on his library shelves."

She gave a soundless whistle. "The deduction might have been simple, but how the devil did you manage to get into the emperor's private library?"

"You don't want to know."

She smoothed his sweat damped hair back from his brow. Shadowed lines showed at the corners of his eyes. For the first time, he looked every minute of his age, and then some. "It was war," she said with compassion. "Though killing someone to gain entrance must have been dreadful, it wasn't really different from shooting a soldier on a battlefield."

"It wasn't murder that time, but seduction," be said in a voice of self loathing. "A chambermaid, plain and rather shy, but sweet. Jeanne was so grateful for the attention. I pretended to be a loyal French soldier who was recovering from wounds, and who wanted to see where his beloved emperor worked. It wasn't hard to persuade her to take me there." His fingers curled into her arm with bruising force. "I hated using women like that—taking what should be best and truest between men and women and perverting it. But I did it anyhow. God help me, I did it."

"There are men who ruin women for sport. At least you had a reason," she said quietly. "Did Jeanne ever learn that you had been using her?"

"No. I told her that my regiment was being sent to Austria, and bid her a fond adieu. She… she wept and prayed for my safety. I still see her face…" His voice broke.

Maxie grieved for plain, sweet Jeanne, and for Robin, who had betrayed his own code of honor. Yet surely there had been a positive aspect to their affair. "Jeanne may have wept for losing you, but I guarantee that it did wonders for her confidence to know that a man like you had wanted her."

When Robin started to reply, she put a finger to his lips. "Don't tell me that it was a betrayal on your part—I concede the point. But you brought her some happiness, and you let her keep her pride and dignity, which you didn't have to do."

"The fact that I was never unnecessarily cruel doesn't make my actions right," he said flatly.

Her brow furrowed as she tried to put herself in his place. "Being amoral would be a great advantage for a spy. For someone like you, who is innately decent, it was obviously ghastly. How did you manage to keep going for so many years?"

He exhaled roughly. "By walling off my worst deeds, as if they had been done by someone else. That worked for a long time. But after the war ended and there were no more crises, the walls began crumbling."

"Hence, nightmares."

"Exactly."

Gently she stroked his taut spine, thinking of when she had tried to teach him to listen to the wind. Once again, she sensed the tangled threads of his character, and this time she understood why so many strands were, spun from raw, black pain. His spirit seemed terrifyingly fragile. Though he may not have lost his soul, he was drawing ever closer to emotional breakdown. Strange to think that this darkness had always been beneath his laughter.

Empathy had left her drained. It would be easy to let matters rest here. By morning, Robin would have rebuilt the walls that saved him from madness and would be as jaunty as ever. But the fragmentation that had enabled him to survive was now in danger of destroying him.

Her mother had taught her that dreams must be renewed, and nightmares must be released. For Robin to become whole, healing light must be brought into the knotted blackness at the center of his spirit.

She shivered, feeling helpless. He needed someone stronger and wiser, but for now, she was all he had. Delving deeper into his pain would hurt them both. Yet for the sake of Robin's sanity, she must try, even if he ended by despising her.

She let her spirit float freely with the wind and rain that were cleansing the night sky. Then, after some of their strength had entered her, she opened her eyes and began to speak.

Softly Maxie said, 'Tell me the rest of what haunts you, Robin."

He gave a ragged sigh. "I've said too much already."

"Do you think I am too fragile to hear the truth? I am not a sheltered English innocent from the schoolroom. I have seen enough of life to understand hard choices."

"But you are also as honest as sunshine. How can you not despise what I am?" he asked despairingly.

Because I love you
. The words came from deep within her, so powerful that it was difficult to keep them from her lips. But she managed, because the last thing Robin needed was unwanted declarations of love.

Instead, she replied, "I've a fondness for rogues, especially honorable ones. In the time we've been together, you've done considerable good and no harm. You saved Dafydd Jones from being trampled. You stopped me from killing Simmons, for which I was grateful as soon as my temper cooled." She kissed his temple, feeling the hard beat of his pulse. 'Tell me what you've done, Robin. Burdens are lighter for being shared."

"There were so many things," he whispered. "Endless lies. Informants I worked with who were captured and died most horribly. The French major I assassinated because he was a fine soldier who would have been able to hold a walled Spanish town against a siege indefinitely."

"Surely your informants knew the risks as well as you did. As for assassination—" she hesitated, to choose her words, "no decent person could rejoice at committing such a deed, but a siege is a dreadful thing that often ends in horrible slaughter. Did your action prevent one?"

"With their commander dead, his troops withdrew from the town without fighting. Lives were saved, which was good. But nothing can make it right to murder an honorable man who was doing his duty. I'd met him a couple of times. I liked him." Robin's misshapen hand opened and closed on the counterpane, his nails gouging the fabric. "I liked him, and I put a bullet in his back."

"Ah, Robin, Robin," she said, heart aching. "I see why you said that war would have been cleaner. For soldiers the issues are more clearly drawn, the responsibility left in higher hands. Your work was far more difficult. Often you must have had to choose between different evils, trapped in a world of grays without easy blacks and whites, never sure if you had made the right decision. A dozen years of that would be too much for anyone."

"Certainly it was too much for me."

In the distance thunder sounded, and cold rain beat harder on the glass. Feeling as if she were moving blindfolded through a marsh, where a misstep might lead to disaster, she asked, "Is that assassination the worst thing, the very worst, for which you hold yourself responsible?"

The shaking began again, but he didn't speak. . Her voice more insistent, she said, "Tell me, Robin. Perhaps the pain will fester less if you share it."

"No!" He twisted in her arms, trying to break free.

She held tight, refusing to let him escape. Again she said, 'Tell me."

He choked out, "It was in Prussia. I had obtained a copy of a treaty with grave implications for Britain."

She thought back to what she knew of the wars. "The Treaty of Tilsit, where France and Russia made a secret alliance in hopes of bringing Britain to its knees?"

He tilted his head back and looked at her. "For an American, you're well informed about European affairs."

"The subject interested my father, so we followed the news together," she explained. "You actually managed to learn what was in the secret articles of the treaty?"

"Within hours of its being signed." He gave a bitter smile. "I told you I was good at my trade. But getting the information was the easy part compared to getting it back to England. The French soon discovered what had happened, then came in pursuit. I had to get to Copenhagen, so I rode west for days, using every trick I knew to elude them. Finally I was sure I had escaped. I needed to stop and rest. My horse was half dead, and I no better. I knew a family in the area, prosperous farmers. They hated the French, and had helped me in the past."

His voice cracked. "They greeted me like a longlost son. I told them I had been pursued, but that I had escaped and there was no danger. I was so sure." A staccato pulse throbbed in his throat. "I was catastrophically wrong."

"The French found you?"

He nodded. "I slept for over twelve hours. Herr Werner woke me the next morning, when he learned that French troops were searching the neighborhood. I said I would leave immediately and went to the barn, but my horse was gone.

"Then I realized I hadn't seen Willi, their youngest son. He was sixteen, about my height and build, my coloring. He had conceived something of a hero worship for me. When I saw that my mount and saddle were gone, I had a horrible premonition that he was in danger. I ran into the forest toward the main road, trying to stop what was going to happen." His eyes spasmed shut. "I was too late."