The girl coloured at such an introduction, but there was no stopping Lytton’s sister.
‘Luxford needs to learn the art of dancing again. Perhaps he might agree to be your partner?’
Short of rudeness, Shay could do little but smile.
‘I have a waltz free towards the end of the evening, Lord Luxford? Could I pencil you in?’
‘I would be honoured, Miss Smithson.’
His tone sounded mellow, though he felt only numbness as he watched the girl write his name on a card.
‘If you would rather another time, my lord, I would also understand...?’
Having been given an out so prettily and sincerely, Shay shook his head and deep dimples rose from each of her cheeks.
She was as beautiful as Anna had once been, but his jaw tightened as he realised that it was another sort of woman he was seeking, one far from England, far from safety and lost to him in a way he could barely fathom.
Across the room he noticed others observe them and felt a slide of anxiety.
He had changed from a man who saw the best in people to one who only saw the worst. Inside himself now was darkness and a yawning empty desolation. Aurelian’s eyes held the same shadows.
He moved aside as Prudence Staines and Crystal Smithson walked away.
‘You look preoccupied, Lian.’
‘Celeste Fournier, for all her dangerous ways, suits you better than any of these society butterflies. Your past would clip their wings before a month was gone and you would be bored.’
For the first time that evening Shay smiled.
‘Join me for a brandy, Lian. In the card room.’
Without further ado, they wound their way across the crowded assembly and made for the quieter quarters to one side.
* * *
When Shay left three hours later, the night was full of stars scattered across a clear London sky in the way they seldom were. Endless and uncountable. He wondered if Celeste Fournier might be watching the same sky from somewhere, or whether she had been killed for accusations which had shaken the very fabric of Napoleonic espionage. ‘Please Lord, let her have lived.’ The refrain caught him by surprise, as did the zealousness of the entreaty.
* * *
Celeste made her way north after leaving Paris, travelling on her own and watchful. She did not speak with anyone as she went, dressed as a lad of the land, her shoes worn and her clothes unremarkable. She had found food as she passed through, root vegetables in farmers’ fields, juicier fare on the cottage vines of small landholders. She had exchanged her rosary for fish in Beauvais and her crucifix for a gold coin in Amiens. Such trappings of the Lord were well-received and easily pawned. She’d wondered if the sickness she was cursed with would ever go, the nausea and the weakness, the fatigue that ate at her until the thinness made her bones jut out from her body.
She slept in the hedges by day, tucked in under leaves and branches well away from the sight of anyone. She washed in rivers and allowed her hair to grow again, the clipped shortness changing into a length she was able to tie backen queue.
She had given Legrand her promise to remain in the rooms he had found for her in Paris after the trial of Benet, but had bolted the first moment his back was turned. She knew what he wanted. She had smelt it on his breath and seen it in his eyes. An easy target, given her accusations. ‘I can protect you, my dear,’ he had said and she’d known exactly what that meant. She had let nobody near her since Summerley Shayborne and was prepared to kill herself if any man took liberties.
Summer. The name shimmered above everything. He was safe, she was sure of it. Even before she had left Paris rumours were beginning to filter back with the information that Wellesley’s greatest spy had returned to his homeland of England. Unscathed. Newly titled.
He would be Lord Luxford now. Aurelian de la Tomber had spoken the name to her the second time she had seen him, his chin split open like a ripe peach.
‘It is just as well that Luxford escaped your clutches when he did, Mademoiselle Guerin.’ There’d been no kindness at all in the observation.
‘He is a good man with strong moral courage. I wish him well.’
‘Unlike you,mademoiselle. A woman who might sell her very soul to the Devil if he was paying well.’
‘It takes one to know one, I would suppose.’ She allowed no hint of softness to be on show. De la Tomber was a friend of Summerley Shayborne’s. The two men would meet again some time, she was sure of it, and Celeste wanted no uncertainty of motive concerning her emotions to permeate that conversation.
‘Your accusations have made the sort of impact I’d imagine even you have been surprised by.’
