I Spy a Duke (36 page)

“You call sending me my brother’s teeth being
good
to me?” Vivian ground out.

Sauveterre shrugged. “I could have sent you his balls. Would you have preferred that?”

She shuddered. “You’re revolting.”

“A pretty little governess is supposed to distract Falcon long enough so that she can get information. Our profession depends on the lure of sluts.” His eyes left her face, trailing down her body. “But you, you must have a golden cunny to get a duke to
marry
your strumpet arse.”

Vivian stiffened against his touch. “I am no man’s whore, least of all yours.”

He sniggered. “Your British law makes a woman her husband’s slave. It is the aspect of your code that Bonaparte appreciates the most.”

“Then Bonaparte is a sick bastard,” she jeered.

He backhanded her across her mouth, the hit so hard she heard her own teeth rattle. “
Never
speak about the First Consul that way.”

She spit out a mouthful of blood and saliva in his face. “If you wanted my loyalty, you shouldn’t have killed my brother.”

Fury spasmed across Sauveterre’s face, altering his inconspicuous features in a petrifying manner.
This
was the man who’d stomped on her brother’s face, who’d beat him until only his bloody coat could identify him.

He swiped a hand across his face, wiping off her spit. “Falcon should do better at training his bitches. Let’s tell him that, shall we?”

As his voice became dangerously cold, she gave up any hope of subterfuge. She tried to run from him, but he rounded on her, wrapping his arms around her. He squeezed her so tight she could barely breathe. It was happening—the moment she’d worried about in training. He was taking to her another place, and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Sauveterre dragged her to the door, opening it. He shoved her out in front of him, hanging onto her arm in case she tried to escape. In one fluid movement he pulled a knife out from his sheath, bracing it against her throat.

She stood on the porch, the blade poised at the sensitive skin at her throat, and she surveyed the slaughter in the yard. Three men dead. Another two writhing in pain. Arden and Nixon stared at her, their faces mirror images of shock.

James, bruised but still standing, turned around. The color drained from his face.
 

“I love you,” she gasped out, not daring to say anything more, for a trickle of blood seeped down her throat as Sauveterre dug in the tip of the knife.

CHAPTER TWENTY

James had thought he knew what fear was. The chill down his spine at a coming attack, or the dull ache of ominous precognition he could not shake. He had dared believe he was omnipotent when it came to fear, for in his twenty-eight years alive he had poured blood, sweat and agony into his country and gotten little in return.

He had been wrong.

He had never truly understood fear until this instant.
Real
fear was the pierce through his throat, as if Sauveterre held him too at knifepoint. It was the slow slide of crimson down Vivian’s pale skin. The certainty that she would die at the hands of a madman because he had not saved her.

This was why spies did not fall in love.
 

Everything in his life turned to rot, and now she would pay for his sins with her life.

For a full minute, he could do nothing but stare at Vivian’s face. He did not even register the spy behind her. The deadly silver glint of the blade at her throat stole his wits. He could not be the agent she needed. He could not breathe.

Arden recovered first. “This has nothing to do with her. If you want a hostage, take me. I guarantee you I will bring you more glory with Bonaparte than she ever would.”

He heard Arden’s voice on his left, but he dare not take his eyes from Vivian to verify her position. As if somehow, by the power of his thoughts alone, he could keep Sauveterre from cutting her.

 
Tenuously, he reconstructed his grip on reality. Arden’s speech had centered him. Reminded him that he was not alone. He had two of the best agents in England on his side. His mind began to race, sifting through every possible combat maneuver he knew to free Vivian.

“I don’t doubt that you’d be quite valuable, Songbird,” Sauveterre said with a baleful smile, the knife still poised at Vivian’s throat. “But I’ll have you too soon. All in due time.”

“How?” Nixon’s gruff voice broke in. The jarvey was close enough on James’s right that out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nixon gesture to the bloodshed behind them. “Three of your men are dead. The last three will die soon. You have
no one.
”

Sauveterre surveyed the copse scattered with dead bodies, as if seeing it for the first time. A spark of trepidation singed his dark gaze before it was promptly smothered. “I’ll admit the circumstances are not ideal. I expected more from my fellow Talons. But life is a revolving set of disappointments, isn’t it? The plan goes on. It evolves.”

Recognition coursed through him in an unforeseen onslaught. Several years ago, he’d encountered another French assassin who spoke reverently of “plans.” That man had been thinner; his hair was longer.

But his voice was the same. Throaty and nasal.
 

He was almost certain it was the same man. If he was right, then there was hope for Vivian.
 

“Bouchard,” he called conversationally, walking forward as though they were old friends. He did not need to look behind him to know that Arden and Nixon would back his play. Now, their expressions would be blank, revealing nothing to the enemy. Their bodies were poised to attack at a second’s notice.

Like him, they constantly looked for the angle that would allow them to capture Sauveterre without harm to Vivian.
 

Sauveterre tensed, pricking the tip of the knife against Vivian’s throat again. “Stay where you are.”
 

A fresh spot of blood appeared underneath the point of the blade, sopping down. Vivian’s body slackened. Her skin had become precariously white. He did not know how much longer she could stand on her own two feet.
 

Stay with me, love
.

“Bouchard,” he repeated, more insistently this time. Sauveterre’s tautness reassured him he was correct in his identification. “I know it’s you. Do not pretend you were not in Calais that March night four years ago.”
 

While he addressed the man who had called himself Sauveterre, his eyes never left Vivian’s face, silently willing her to believe the end had not yet arrived. He’d promised to protect her always, and he’d keep that promise with his last dying breath.

Sauveterre said nothing. But his left eye twitched and his nostrils flared, signs of indignation he could not contain under James’s watchful gaze.
 

James had two options: either he could goad Sauveterre further in hopes that the man would become flustered and exhibit a weakness he could utilize, or he could back off and try to find another way to save Vivian.

God, what if he made the wrong choice? He risked her
life
on the chance that he was as good at reading people as he thought. He wished with all his will that he could turn back time, keeping her from this position.

She was so very still in Sauveterre’s arms. Shoulders tight, knuckles white at her side. Her only movement was her rapidly blinking eyes as she stared straight ahead, her eyes appearing damp and excessively bright.
 

He could practically feel her terror, emanating off her in waves that threatened to drown him too. Though Sauveterre had ceased pressing the tip of the blade into her throat, the knife remained a threat. The wound on her forehead concerned him. She needed medical attention, not a continued stalemate.
 

None of them were close enough to rush Sauveterre—the bastard would slit Vivian’s throat before they made it to the porch.
 

James sent up a silent prayer that the Lion was watching over them, guiding his actions to a fortuitous end. He lifted his gaze to Sauveterre, arching a brow at the Frenchman.

“You must remember,” he urged, keeping his tone level while his mind plotted seventy different ways to kill the blackguard. “It was not the best time for you, was it? If I recall correctly, you’d just finished telling me
all
about where the Talon’s latest cadre of weapons was located. Isn’t that right, Bouchard?”

Sauveterre sucked his cheeks in, his brows lowering. “Don’t call me Bouchard. That is not my name.” The spy’s grip appeared to slacken on the knife for a moment.

James’s eyes widened in faux innocence. “My apologies. Is that not what they call you now? I distinctly remember LeGrand deeming you ‘Big Mouth.’”

“Because of
you
,” Sauveterre spat. “Because of you they refused to call me by my true alias.”

Behind him, he heard a guffaw. Nixon, he was sure. Arden was too dignified.

Sauveterre flinched. The tiniest movement, barely perceptible, but enough that his hand went limp again for a second. Vivian sucked in a hasty breath, her eyes shining with gratitude. She still could not risk speaking—not when the blade came back against her throat, tight again.

If he could get Sauveterre to loosen more…

“Your own people don’t respect you,” James said. “You’re going to be the cautionary tale they tell new spies. ‘Don’t be like Big Mouth. He died in a draw match because he was too foolish to realize he was outmanned.’”

Sauveterre’s craggy face reddened. “There may be three of you, but I’d say my odds are good. After all, I have your little whore here.” With his right hand, he burrowed his fingers into the hollow above Vivian’s hip.

She whimpered, her cry splintering her heart in two. There would not be pieces large enough to bury when he was done with Sauveterre.
 

“You see, I don’t need a knife to inflict pain upon your lady love,” Sauveterre said. “But I have waited a long, long time for this moment with you, Falcon. I will not wait longer. You took something from me—my friend, Nicodème. So I will take something from you.”

Vivian’s eyes bulged, her pupils becoming smaller, making her appear half-mad. The terror, combined with her blood loss, was becoming too much. At any minute, she might faint, risking the nick of the knife as she collapsed.

James let the full force of his wrath glide onto his features, his voice ice-cold. Sharp as the blade Sauveterre held. “You kill her and you sign your death warrant. Do you think there is a country you can flee to where I will not find you? I will hunt you to the ends of the Earth.”
 

“I suggest you let her go,” Arden commanded, her voice steely. “Or I will make damn certain you regret it.”

“And I’ll help,” Nixon added.

“She isn’t part of this.” James took a step forward, emboldened by the cagy way Sauveterre’s gaze flicked between him, Arden, and Nixon. “You want to fight with me, then fight
with me
. Not her. Or are you so little of a man that you must hide behind a woman?”

Arden—and Vivian, if he was lucky—would slap him later for that comment, but it had the desired effect on Sauveterre. He hesitated. His gaze drifted downward, head bowed. His fingers slid on the knife.

Vivian must have felt the blade relax, for the fear splashed upon her face tapered in accordance. Her lip no longer trembled. When Sauveterre looked toward Arden, James met Vivian’s gaze, her blue eyes clear.
 

“I love you,” he mouthed.
 

Her lips curled in a tiny smile, a bit of color coming back to her ashen cheeks.
 

“Little man, big mouth,” James called, mocking Sauveterre. “Let’s see if you can fight me without that albatross around your neck.”
 

He looked directly at Vivian, praying she’d understand his hint.
 

She grabbed onto Sauveterre’s knife arm to keep the blade steady as she flung her head back, her skull slamming into his chin with a sickening crack. Sauveterre fell back, the knife sliding ineffectively off her throat. She punched back, connecting with his groin, hitting him again and again, until finally he wilted, his knees giving out. Taking off at a gallop, she jumped off the porch and did not stop running until she was in James’s arms again.