“It was Bertrand Montfort,” said the agent, eyes carefully trained on Nick. “He’s running a rogue operation.”
“It’s not going through the Foreign Office?”
The agent shook his head.
Certain elements began to make sense. “Villefranche is the perfect scapegoat. Get a member of the Orléans family to do the dirty work and take the fall, if necessary.”
“No one would ever link Villefranche to Montfort. But to what end? The assassination will only incite revolution.”
“Perhaps that is the intention.”
“And how does another French revolution benefit Montfort?”
The question hung in the air, unanswered, even as the revelation winded Nick like a blow to the gut. Bertrand Montfort . . . Uncle Bertie. A deep sense of confirmation settled inside him.
It fit. Pieces that his biases had been too blind to see fell into place. Certain intricacies of the operation only he and Montfort knew now became clear. Nick’s brain rifled through the past fortnight piece by piece: the attack in his rooms; the note to Mariana; the visit to Mariana.
Mariana.
Hot blood turned to ice in his veins. Montfort had used her to draw him out. Even after all this time and distance apart from her, Montfort knew she was his Achilles’ heel, a fact that had likely been evident to all but him over the years.
And he thought he’d created an insurmountable distance between himself and her. It was laughable how completely the last few days had proven the opposite true.
The agent poured another two fingers of whiskey. Of course, Nick wasn’t the only man in this room with a connection to Bertrand Montfort. “Tell me he didn’t recognize you.”
The agent allowed a long, assessing moment to pass. Nick alone hadn’t sacrificed in the name of England. Before him sat a man who had sacrificedeverything.
“It was dark. I was cagey. He didn’t recognize me,” the agent said, laying on a thick Spanish accent. “I’m not easily recognized these days.” A bitter edge laced his words.
Nick had no interest in pursuing this line of conversation. He had a more urgent concern. “Was anything said about Mariana?”
“Only that Villefranche would continue engaging her until King Louis expires.”
Nick should allow the conversation to pivot toward their mission—the agent had given him the opportunity by mentioning the dying king—but he was fixated. “Montfort is playing Mariana against me. He thinks wherever she is, I won’t be too far away.”
The agent lifted his eyebrows. “He’d be a fool not to.”
“Blast.”
Nick slammed back another round of whiskey beneath the agent’s passive gaze. If there was an agent better than him, it was the man sitting before him. Even with the scar, which could be minimized or maximized to effect, the man was a chameleon, lost inside every role, equal to every circumstance. All those years ago in England, Nick couldn’t have predicted such a frivolous youth would transform into the hardened man before him now—a man who had fought beside him in battle. This was the only man in the world he trusted with his life.
A thought occurred to him. “How would you feel about a new assignment?”
“You want me to follow her?” the other man intuited.
Nick nodded.
“I could do that.” The agent leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, head cocked at a speculative angle. “Or—”
“Or what?”
“You could take her home.” The agent leaned back in his chair, surely testing every limit of its flimsy construction. “Yougo home.”
Nick’s stomach tightened. “The assassination plot—”
“Will resolve itself,” the man finished for him. “As these situations do.”
“I hadn’t realized you’d become so cavalier about our work.”
