The Tide Watchers (10 page)

It seemed sensible, yet felt unfinished. Something about it was too
wrong
to not object. “Not if they know you and I have come to know each other—and now you've publicly claimed me, Monsieur Marron will know. He's already furious that I won't entertain the patrons. He'd see our, um, friendship as a threat.” She made a rueful face. “Quite a few of the regulars have wagers as to who will be the first to break my resistance, and they come every night to either charm or molest me. You've destroyed their hopes. They may change taverns—and M. Marron is very attached to his profits. I'll probably lose my position.”

Expecting anger, his nod took her by surprise. “Well thought out, madame. Do you have any suggestions?”

She put her hands on her hips and stared him down. “How can I, when you haven't told me what you really want from me yet?”

Again, there was no anger—and too late, she realized she'd played into his hands. He'd counted on her to say it. “You're a quick study, madame,” he replied, with approval in his voice. “You have one other unique position that makes you invaluable to us.”

“If you want information from my husband,” she snapped, “stop pouring the butter boat over me. He left me three months ago.”

“But you know where he is. You've been there.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I've had John follow you to protect you. You went to Eaucourt six of the seven nights he escorted you home, stayed twenty-five minutes, and left. You have an arrangement with the older Madame Delacorte, it seems.”

Tongues of fire licked at her, hot, furious. “Does it occur to you that knowing my most private business won't endear me to your cause?
I don't like you ferreting out my secrets, monsieur. And I won't have you near my son, or using him to ensure my cooperation!”

A long silence. The shadows of the candlelight played over his face, revealing nothing. “Is it using your son to tell you I already have three men watching the house to ensure, not your cooperation, but his safety?”

She blinked, once, twice. Her mind blanked. Only one word came to her. “Why?”

And he smiled. Yes, the fish had taken the worm, was on the hook—and if she resented it, the almost sick hope swamped the anger like storm waves over a small boat. “Because I will return your son to you.”

A
S A GIRL, LISBETH
had read Mrs. Radcliffe's lurid novels at night, keeping them stuffed beneath her mattress, lest Mama found out. In her beloved books, a shocking discovery or joyous news made the heroine freeze in place, her heart pound or throat tighten, or she'd faint in the hero's arms.

I will return your son to you.

No such pretty reactions for Lisbeth. Bile flew up like a flock of birds desperate to escape, and she vomited over the hall runner, and the stranger's boots before she fell in a huddle against the wall, gasping and hiccupping.

So typical of the disastrous tomboy she'd been. In two meetings, she'd managed to show this man everything that a woman of pride and social position would never reveal.

He turned and walked off, and she couldn't blame him for it. She disgusted herself.

But he was back in moments. “Here, madame.” He pressed a glass into her hand. “Breathe normally, in and out slowly for the next minute, and then drink.”

A massive hiccup emerged when she tried to thank him, so she followed his instructions.

He cleaned the vomit with some rags while she recovered. When her body was behaving itself again, he said, “Come into the sitting room. I apologize for the dust. I've barely stayed here, and I haven't yet found a housekeeper.”

Weakly she nodded, not caring what state his house was in.
Edmond
. . .

When she was pregnant, all she'd seen was Edmond's violent con
ception. But one look at him and his conception made no difference. She loved her baby heart and soul, and from the moment Alain took him, she'd ached with his loss. A half hour snatched with Edmond whenever Alain was away in no way lessened the hunger. The only way to not give into madness had been to show Alain that no matter what he did, he couldn't break her. One day he'd have to leave town for longer than a few hours, and she'd take Edmond—

That was as far as her plans went, driving her to silent despair.

But this ruthless stranger had sworn to rescue her son, and every emotion rose from the icy grave she'd buried them in, alive and burning. She didn't care what he wanted from her, or what it took to get her baby back, she'd do it.

The stranger helped her to her feet, led her to the wide front room, and seated her in a red wing chair before the empty fireplace. Dust flew up, making her sneeze. “I beg your pardon. I can't afford to open a window. You know how it is here. You've lived here long enough.”

She nodded. How many people had lost their heads through an indiscreet word overheard by neighbors . . . or through enemies listening at open windows? Envy, lust, or covetousness had led to thousands of false accusations during the Revolution, and the Terror. Her poor parents-in-law were proof of that.

He lit a lantern, sat on a horrible mustard-yellow chaise facing her, and spoke in a dispassionate tone. “We suspect the numbers of French infantry and ships grow weekly, despite the terms of the peace. This comes at a time when our naval superiority is severely depleted. The British people want peace, so the government refuses even to wonder if First Consul Bonaparte has broken the Treaty of Amiens. We must prove the truth, or face the consequences.”

Fighting the urge to hiccup she nodded, waved at him to go on.

“Both nations are flooded with enemy spies, and Delacorte is very highly ranked.” His arms spread out. “So why does he remain here?”

Lisbeth blew out a breath. With every pore of her dying to ask about Edmond's recovery, she forced herself to follow the conversation, to prove herself to him. “Alain's father was of the nobility. He
was guillotined early in the Terror, and his mother was brutalized two days later. It affected her mind.”
And my three-month-old son is in her care, maintaining her fragile hold on sanity.
“Alain comes and goes, but he never leaves her, or my son, for long.”

His silence screamed in protest of her half explanation. “His brother Guillaume stayed with her when he was courting me—” She skidded to a halt before saying, “
In England.
Guillaume died of consumption nine months ago. He was dying when Alain brought me here.”

“Sadly, it's a common story since '89. Robespierre was a self-righteous fool, and the Directory a toothless lion. No wonder people flocked to the first consul's banner. He's proven himself an effective leader, unlike the others.” He frowned. “But it doesn't answer my question. Why does a man so ambitious and ruthless as Delacorte stay in this backwater? Why hasn't he moved his family to Paris, or back to Britain, where they could pose as émigrés?”

“That I cannot tell you. Though it would be rather hard for him to indulge his amusement at my degradation from that distance,” she answered with a careless shrug. Not for her life would she show this man any weakness, when her son's rescue was being discussed.

“He wouldn't need that if he was on assignment—unless he already is. What's happening here, madame? You said he comes and goes. Surely you've seen or heard something.”

Despite her will, when he leaned toward her, she jerked back, and the hiccups began anew.

“I beg your pardon, madame. I forgot.” He moved back on the chaise. “Breathe slowly and take another drink.”

His empathy disarmed her, as did his lack of judgment at her overreaction. But she couldn't even take that at face value. It might only be an indicator of how much he needed her. Which would be excellent if she had anything she could bargain with—but with her father's seeming blessing on his mission, and his men already watching the house where her son lived, the stranger held all the cards. Curious on that point, she decided to test it out. “I'm well aware of what I owe you—”

“I have told you many times that you owe me nothing, Madame Delacorte.” The words held a strange bitterness, directed not at her, but elsewhere: another time, another woman. “Whether you help me or not is your choice.”

Not when you hold my baby's rescue in your hands.
She had no choice but to move with his unseen dance. He controlled the conversation, information given and withheld, allowing her to come to the conclusion he desired.

But she'd done that once with Alain. She refused to repeat her mistakes with any other man, no matter what he promised. “Tell me, why is Tavern Le Boeuf important? What was said in those conversations you overheard?”

Another slight smile was her reward for her insight. “I told you, I saw certain agents—of varying political groups—discussing matters of deep interest to us. I believe Le Boeuf is part of an espionage hub from here to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Perhaps it goes as far as Calais or Paris. We think there's a connection to Alain Delacorte—and to his master.”

She lifted her chin. “Napoleon, you mean?”

He shook his head, mouthed,
Fouché
.

A sliver of ice pierced her heart. In France there was only one Fouché. A former religious schoolteacher who never took full monastic orders, Joseph Fouché had encompassed France's radical political change with all its rabid self-interest. It was whispered that in the thirteen years since the Revolution began, he'd killed more people than the most sadistic of Inquisitors had managed in a lifetime. In Lyon he'd watched a massacre of innocents with a pair of severed human ears dangling from his hat. Quiet, emotionless, he lived in the shadows; yet those who attempted to lower his political dominance ended up headless, their bodies floating in the Seine.

Alain had embraced the enjoyment of torture with sickening enthusiasm. Lisbeth's body still bore the marks of his abuse, which occurred even during her early pregnancy, until the doctor had hinted that any further . . .
um
. . . clumsiness (turning pale and twitching)
. . .
could hurt the unborn child.

That was the reason she'd never leave France, why she risked her life to go to the house in Eaucourt. Edmond was in the care of a nervous wreck and an aficionado of the new de Sade. She had to keep her baby safe.

The stranger walked into her thoughts as if he saw the point she'd reached. “You said he comes and goes?”

His tone brooked no denial. Aching for her baby, she nodded. “If you want dates and times, I can write them down. But if he found out . . .” Suddenly she understood why this stranger had publicly claimed her as his woman. “No. I won't go back, or ask him questions. The last time he was displeased with me . . .” A wave of nausea hit her. “No. I can't do it.”

The stranger looked in her eyes, his grim. “It won't happen again. I will ensure it.”

She must regain her calm, for Edmond's sake. “That might be difficult when the whole town believes I'm a whore, even the gendarmes. When I laid a complaint at the prefecture, they suggested I put my price up. If LeClerc and Tolbert could afford me, even the poorest-paid police among them might come for cheap nocturnal visits.”

His face closed off, but a faint scent of violence hung in the air. “Was it Delacorte that invented and spread the story about your soiled virtue? It's obvious he set those men onto you.”

Unsurprised by his perception, she nodded.

“That's why I'm certain he'll return when he knows you have a ‘protector'—but I can and do swear he won't hurt you again. You won't be alone, madame.” In his expression, in the respectful tone he used, she saw his knowledge of the kinds of abuse Alain had inflicted on her. “I want you to remain at the tavern as long as possible. Can you listen to the conversations as you pass, and if you learn anything you feel will be of interest, report to me?”

No longer did he sound so confident, and that tipped the scales in her favor. “Yes.”

His shoulders dropped a little. In his tiny show of relief, again she felt more in control, even as she noticed that slight unevenness to his
body. “Leave a note inside a red rag that will be tied in the shrubbery on the road south. I'll show you where.”

Judging an answer to be unnecessary, she waited.

There was a smile in his voice. “I'll train you. Are you willing to forsake a little sleep?”

She wasn't particularly worried—yet; she had already worked ten days on and two days off, in twelve-hour shifts, and covering for the other girls when they entertained upstairs. But for her baby—“Certainly.”

“Mine are no empty promises, madame. In return for your help, you and your son will go home.” His voice was neutral; his eyes were not.
Compassion.
“Your son's papers are ready with a new surname.”

“What name? You can't use Sunderland.”

“Obviously not,” he said, but he softened the slight sarcasm with a bow. “His birth will be registered at a church in our county with a different father, a member of the nobility: a man Delacorte cannot trace to your family.”

“Why?” This time she wouldn't take a deflection. “Why do you care about my son?”

“A workman deserves his wage,” he said with a strange smile, quoting the Bible. “Besides, no innocent should be raised by that man.” The depth in his tone went beyond sympathy for her situation, beyond pity or promises. The haunted eyes spoke to her.

Moved by it, she grabbed his gloved hand and kissed it. “
Thank you,
monsieur. I will call you
mon coeur,
Gaston, anything you wish. I will make no more errors. Anything you ask—”

He snatched his hand away. “I need no thanks from you. Until I tell you otherwise, I
am
Gaston Borchonne to you and the world, as you are Elise Delacorte to me.”

Her head drooped. “Certainly . . . Gaston.”

Her meekness seemed to exasperate him further. “
Gaston
sounds too much a lie on your tongue. Stick to monsieur when we are alone, if you can't do better than that.”

“I'm sorry if I'm uncomfortable with lies,” she snapped, despite
her fear for Edmond. “I suppose I will learn the way of it soon enough, but I'd prefer it not to be my way of life.”

His eyes softened, but she saw the reluctance—the
thinking
of ways to reassure her. “It's like that for us all at first, but don't be afraid of me. I might lose my temper, but I'll never hurt you. I will see your son rescued, no matter what happens.”

She was so necessary to whatever his real plans were, then.

“I will see you home. You'll need rest for what comes next. You have a lot to learn.”

He rose to his feet. Shutters slamming down. Obviously, the conversation was over. Torn, she followed him to the door—but he blocked the way, with a smothered curse. “Don't look, mada—
ma
chère,
for God's sake, don't look.”