The Tide Watchers (5 page)

“You owe me nothing, and I ask nothing.” Quiet, yet spoken with a hardness that made Lisbeth gasp and step back, and he softened. “I beg your pardon, madame.”

With difficulty, she nodded. “Go on,” she murmured.

“If I can't come to you, one of my men will do so. He'll use the word
Tidewatcher
.”

She blinked and tilted her head, frowning. “What—tidewatcher? What does that mean?”

“
Bonsoir,
madame.” Before she could recoil he'd come around the horse, bowed over her hand, and, taking the horse's reins, slipped into the night.

She stared into the predawn emptiness, dark gray as his cloak. Had it been a dream? The thick curls of morning river mist added to the sense of unreality. If she'd stayed home, she'd be a future baroness, established in London's
haut ton,
surrounded by friends and family. Instead—

She could hear Alain's gloating voice.
Happy birthday, ma chère. Remember last year?

No.
Reliving the night at The White Goose only gave him power over her. There was no point in regretting the spoiled, headstrong child she'd been. She was a mother now.

Yet as she entered the
pension
and locked the door behind her, her eyes fluttered shut.
I'm sorry I was a difficult daughter, Mama. I wish I'd stayed to meet the baron's heir for you, Papa.

Thinking of her father brought her anonymous Galahad to mind. Despite his gallantry—or perhaps because of it—she saw him as a hawk on the hunt, circling above her. Her father had sent him, she felt certain of that; but there was some purpose beyond that, something he couldn't ask of her after she'd been attacked. But he'd be back tomorrow, and he'd ask then.

Given the woman she'd become, the only two options left her chilled to the bone.

Abbeville, France

August 18, 1802

D
UNCAN SLIPPED INTO THE
saddle with a strong sense of
now is the summer of my discontent
. Even the small satisfaction of finding her had been snatched away, like a Captain Sharp cheating him at the card table. He'd found the girl. He should be able to go home, returning with a clean conscience, and report to Eddie that his runaway daughter was well and happy. Then he could go home. Put this waste of a year behind him. Get on with his life.

But when Bertie Greatheed wrote to Zephyr, it changed everything. The full message had come that morning. Greatheed, owner of the Royal Pump Rooms, traveler, dramatist, and font of all British gossip in France, had said, “French husband deserted her. Chit's put herself beneath contempt, working in a tavern where the girls whore themselves.” Duncan could almost see the midlands squire speaking in his broad accent, shaking his round head. “If she joined the ranks or not don't matter. No family of good reputation would take her back.”

As the coach rumbled south on bad coastal roads from Étaples to Abbeville yesterday, Duncan had hoped it wasn't the Sunderland girl. That she was somewhere else, or even dead.

Greatheed knew their world well, the world of British high society. A son was forgiven any and all peccadilloes and welcomed home, but a daughter must remain pure. If she married a rich nobleman, she might make it worth Society's overlooking her past, but the chances of that were minuscule if she wasn't a virgin. Though she
was
an heiress—Eddie's wealth was almost indecent—the scandal of eloping to Scotland with an émigré, and one who'd turned out to be a spy for the
infamous French spymaster Joseph Fouché, meant the Sunderland girl had no chance of returning to Society. Especially because it seemed she'd be unwilling to desert the son she should never have had.

He'd set up his cover story, the Gaston Borchonne alias to hand. Armed with perfectly forged papers, the ever-efficient Burton had found the agent for the Borchonne house and obtained the keys. The entire Borchonne family was dead, apart from the long-missing Gaston and one missing cousin. Everything was in place, thanks to Zephyr's foresight—

How long had Zephyr known the girl was here—and how long had he been distracting Duncan with minor missions, allowing the girl to suffer? So typical of Zephyr, but if Eddie found out . . . then he chuckled. As if Zephyr would care.

Duncan had been to Abbeville months before, but he hadn't thought to come to Le Boeuf
,
the most notorious of taverns on the Amiens-Calais road. The tavern from which no redemption would come, if Eddie or anyone else found out the girl had even passed its portals.

With her unique face and hair, he'd recognized her at once. Even wearing a red-and-white-checkered dress spotted with sauce and ale stains, and ugly boots, the air shimmered around her. It was like she carried a pocket of hectic magic, resonating from another time or place, like a tale of the ancients. Not like the mythic Helen, or the glorious Lorelei on her rock. She didn't have the beauty that led to madness. It was something else . . . the girl had the same blind distance in her eyes as the mermaid figurehead on his ship. The Oracle—yes, the priestess hiding behind the wall who decided a man's future while she remained held apart from the concerns of ordinary men.

He clipped the side of his head. “Stick a cork in your stupid bloody myths and sailors' superstitions. Stick to the point.”

He'd completed one mission only to stumble onto one more imperative. The girl worked in an obvious hub of French espionage. Without trying, she'd given him a way to ferret out the mysteries at Tavern Le Boeuf . . . and what it was they had scheduled for October 29.

He'd reached the Borchonne house. He opened the gate and headed to the small stable to get Blue settled.

A reluctant confession to make, but a small, mean part of him had hoped to find her life here less than blissful. He'd thought it a minor vengeance, considering all she'd put him through. But the way she'd been treated by the patrons at Le Boeuf
,
the owner, the men who'd attacked her—no one answered her screams for help. It felt . . . well, rehearsed. A Drury Lane drama.

His knowledge of Alain Delacorte gave the suspicions credence. A few months ago, Bonaparte had deposed Delacorte's mentor, Joseph Fouché, as the head of the secret police, even scrapping the entire portfolio. Though he'd been given over a million francs for his ousting, and was still France's unofficial spymaster, it was the power Boney denied him that Fouché craved most. One of his minions was Alain Delacorte—and, like his mentor, Delacorte enjoyed playing puppet-master. Arranging this dangerous, lonely life for the mother of his child was probably good sport to a man of his talents—a way to alleviate the boredom.

Why was Delacorte still in Abbeville? It couldn't be the girl; surely she was no threat. But given the sentries in the region, and the conversations at Le Boeuf—

The Treaty of Amiens had ended the war months ago, but in the Channel region, it didn't seem so. Something here smelled foul to the wind. Boney was up to something—and if Fouché knew, it explained Delacorte's continued presence.

Another semaphore had come from the ship this morning. A promising new recruit with the improbable name of Peebles had passed the guards stationed on the roads to Boulogne-sur-Mer. Armed with excellently forged papers and a French accent he'd inherited from his French mother, Peebles had bluffed his way in, along with the small set of portable semaphore flags and a shade cloth on poles to hide his actions from anyone else. All he needed was an empty roof.

Now Le Boeuf had become a link in the Channel Coast mystery chain—but despite his having saved her tonight, the girl had made it obvious she wasn't willing to play his game. Somehow she'd worked
out that he'd waited to save her until the last moment, and it made her suspicious.

He must change her mind. Lucky for him, he knew how to do it.

“Commander.”

Without a sound Duncan wheeled around and cocked his head toward the house, covered Blue with a blanket, and left the stall.

When the door closed behind them, he snapped, “Three seconds to behave correctly. And you're supposed to be on ship.”

“Pardon,
Monsieur Borchonne,
” Mark answered with abject humility, with the natural cheekiness still managing to shine through. When they returned to England, he'd hand the boy back to Zephyr. He wasn't built to guide a boy who seemed to thrive in a harder school than he was willing to teach. “A letter came from a passing ship. Hazeltine thought you oughta see it quick-smart.” The wiry boy shoved a packet into his hand. By the looseness of the seal and the specks of dirt around it, Duncan suspected the flap had been pushed down hard after Mark read the missive.

He lifted his brows. “You found your way here in unfamiliar territory, at night?”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Ya fink I look fresh, monsieur? I got here afore sunset. I been waitin' for
hours
. I fell asleep in the shrubbery over there. Ruddy cold it were, too.” The Cockney dialect mangled his French verbs, but was somehow apropos of a Paris slum-lad.

Duncan's mouth twitched as he opened the packet. A bit of roughing it wouldn't hurt. Mark needed to learn obedience before he'd go anywhere in the Alien Office. Wily and cunning, bursting at the seams with raw talent, a loose cannon like him couldn't be let on his own, or he'd advertise their presence to all the wrong people.

Reading the packet's direction, he understood why Third Lieutenant Hazeltine had sent it. Only Zephyr and Eddie knew Duncan's new cover name—but the handwriting, slanted and hard without bothering to be copperplate, wasn't the spymaster's but his mentor's.

He read Eddie's letter first.

This information came to me. Leo and Andrew have verified it, but we
cannot do more. I need you to meet with him in London—and for God's sake, display a little patience!

Intrigued, Duncan read the thicker letter. When he'd done, he looked up. “Return to ship and tell Flynn to prepare the crew. We must make the London docks by tomorrow's sunset.”

Mark's brows lifted, but his eyes lit with excitement. “From 'ere to Lunnon in under a full day? It's what, nine hours in the packet boat from Calais to Dover, and that's less than a third the distance. We'd make a whole new record for that, Commander, um, monsieur!”

“Then a record we'll set,” Duncan retorted.

THOUGH SHE ACHED IN
every muscle, Lisbeth couldn't change into nightclothes; the craving battled exhaustion and even the fear, and won. In a few minutes she was in her oldest dress, her hair out of the tight chignon and in its habitual braid. She threw on a thick cloak and headed out on the street going south. When she neared the soldiers' checkpoint, she turned southwest, pushing into a small, tight forest by the river. She held up her cloak, allowing the brambles to tear her dress instead. Her hands were soon scraped raw and bleeding, but it was the only way. If there were a real walking path here, soldiers would man that, too.

At the northern end of the village of Eaucourt stood a white-and-blue cottage with sky-blue shutters, the last summer flowers flaunting their beauty in the windowsills. Winter herbs were thriving despite the heat. She inhaled the restful scent of rosemary, sage, and wintergreen.

Alain believed the child-wife he'd deserted in hostile territory wouldn't know how to slip past the soldiers guarding the roads out of Abbeville. He wouldn't begin to dream she'd be able to follow LeClerc and Tolbert as far as the Eaucourt road and time the minutes until their return.

Only one village was close enough to make a report and return in under an hour. Forging a path through the forest she'd searched
Eaucourt by night until she'd found the house. Then she'd crept up the back stairs, found the nursery window—and she'd met her mother-in-law.

Using the edge of the outside stairs to minimize noise, she climbed to the second floor. Soft golden light told Lisbeth that Marceline was waiting.

Slat thin, with hollow eyes and frizzled gray hair bundled into a careless knot, Marceline rocked in the chair by the fire, holding Edmond in her lap, singing a ditty. Her damaged eyes stared dotingly into the sleeping face of her three-month-old grandson.

Edmond was flushed, so pretty in sleep. Lisbeth drank in the honey-tinted blond curls, the crooked dreaming smile—all the signs that this beautiful child had something of her.

She scratched on the glass. Though expecting her, Marceline started, her eyes pinched in the fear that never left her. Pity wrenching her, Lisbeth lifted the window and climbed in as quietly as possible. “It's me, Marceline. Where is Alain?” she whispered.

“He will be home at daylight,” Marceline murmured, not looking at her.

“I understand.” She took the baby into her arms with a spurt of joy that hurt her. “Thank you, Marceline, thank you.”

The pale night rail and wrap Marceline wore made soft whooshing sounds as the older woman left the room on uncertain feet, still singing the ditty.

“My baby,” Lisbeth whispered, staring at Edmond's face while she could. She had no way of knowing when Alain would discover her little trysts and move to where she couldn't reach them. She put her finger in the baby's palm. “I'm your mama. Can you understand, sweetheart? Can you remember me?”

His fist curled around her finger as if in answer.

Take him and go
.
Marceline can't possibly stop you. You could run, and—

And then what?
With his resources, Alain would find her in hours. Though she hated to admit it, Edmond needed Marceline, this pretty cottage, the wet nurse, and all the time and attention
she
couldn't give
him. Though violent to almost anyone else, Alain was an adoring son, and—so the women in town taunted her—a devoted family man. Perhaps he was, to anyone born and raised in France, or to anyone he didn't see as the destroyer of his greatest mission.

Lisbeth's throat filled with a lump she couldn't swallow. Though she shouldn't come—it brought nothing but pain—these minutes might be the only time she'd ever have with her son.

THE FIRST COCKCROW CAME
too soon. Edmond was in his cradle by the time Marceline appeared in the doorway, a tired ghost. “He's coming. Go.”

With a panicked
merci
Lisbeth slipped out the window, tiptoed down the stairs lest a servant hear her, stumbled through the back garden, and bolted across the fields to the forest.

Pushing through the brambles, leaving skin, blood, and scraps of her dress behind; trudging back to Abbeville and the cramped room in the cheap boardinghouse she'd be ashamed to bring Edmond to, the hatred and need for revenge curled through her, a cat's claws pushing into her skin. No matter what it took, one day she'd have Edmond, and all Alain's beloved power games would avail him nothing.

An hour later, nestled in her bed trying to sleep, she caught her breath. The man without a name had offered to take her home. Would he do as much for her son?