‘He is long dead.’
‘How?’
‘War carries many casualties.’ She did not like the waver in her tone so she coughed to hide it. But Shayborne had heard it, she could tell that he had.
‘Your father should not have brought you back to France in the first place.’
‘No?’
‘I told him it was suicide, but he did not listen. Europe was descending into chaos and there was no safe road for any traveller. A simpleton could have worked that out.’
‘We are French, Major, and our time in England was at an end. We came home.’ The hardness in her words covered over the anger.
* * *
‘Home to danger and tumult? Home to a rising political anarchy?’
Hell, Shay thought, could the English girl he had known been entirely lost under the cold French woman she’d become? The black scrawny wig of a baker boy shouldn’t suit her, but it did and her whole demeanour was more than convincing. Celeste Fournier had always been good at hiding who she was, even as a seventeen-year-old.
‘Perhaps such travel was as dangerous as your choice of work, Major? You broke a parole to General Marmont in Bayonne and nobody was pleased. Is the word given by a gentleman such a trifling thing, then?’
‘The French were going to hang me.’
‘In uniform?’ Disbelief lay in her query.
‘Not everyone adheres to the rules of warfare. Those soldiers who accompanied me across Spain might not have done the deed themselves, but on the border I was to be handed over to Savary’s thugs on Marmont’s orders. I had heard it said there were instructions to see that I did not live to cause another problem.’ He looked across the street. ‘That man over there reading the paper. Do you know him? I have seen him before.’
‘At a guess, I would say he is one of the Minister of Police’s. I recognise the arrogance and the incompetence. You are right before his eyes and he does not see you because it is me he has in his sights.’
‘Why you?’
The sharpness of his observations made her give him the truth. ‘A few days ago I tried to help a French family who had strong ties with England and it did not go well at all.’
The crouching danger of Paris at war, Shay thought, and no end in sight. ‘So you are under scrutiny for it?’
‘Any mistake can be your last here, now that trust has gone.’
‘Trust.’
‘Everyone says that Napoleon will triumph, but nobody truly believes it any more. By my calculations his empire will be diminishing by the end of next year. I am sure you have heard of his pretensions to capture Moscow.’
He smiled and tipped his head. ‘Come to Spain with me, then. We could leave tonight.’
‘I’m no longer the Celeste Fournier you once knew, Major, and I’d be safer alone.’
‘How can it be safer to be taken to the Military Police and named as a spy?’
‘There are worse things than an honourable death in this life.’
‘And would it be such an honourable death when they find out you have warned me and allowed me to escape? Such a person could not hope for lenience.’
‘And I would not expect it.’
His finger ran across the soft flesh at her throat. ‘Your heart is beating too fast to plead indifference, though your father’s tutelage in the art of theatre adds a certain truth to your charade. It must fool many.’
‘I am not like you, Major Shayborne. My morality is questionable at the best of times and if you believe otherwise you will be disappointed. Meet me tomorrow under the front arch of Les Halles if you want my help to leave the city. At five in the morning. Do not bring luggage. It is your last and final choice. If you aren’t there, I shall not see you again.Bonne chance.’
Anger sliced through him and he bit down on a reply, but she’d pulled away and was already gone.
