“A stranger happened along when Christoff was trying to drag me into an alley,” she told them. “I didn’t get his name.”
“I will shake his hand if ever I meet him,” Guillaume promised, “and I will always walk you home myself from now on.”
“What about me?” Felicity teased, although she wore a smile, obviously approving of her brother’s romantic interest.
“We’ll find you a nice man to walk you home,” her brother said and put his arm around his sister.
Serena no longer wanted to participate in this teasing banter. Things had changed, and her previous carefree life of working in the Halle aux Vins during the day and enjoying evenings with her friends was over. At work, she would be wary of Monsieur Christoff’s associates who might somehow blame her, and in the cafés, she would listen intently both for those who sought to betray the emperor and for those who would turn Malcolm in to the Imperial Guards.
***
MALCOLM DESCENDED THEback stairs at the Café de Chartres. The news from Randall was alarming. Jules Versanne had disappeared entirely, and no one believed it was of his own volition. Somehow, he’d been discovered as a royalist, and they were cracking down especially hard on anyone who might be the wily Fox himself.Le Renardhad eyes and ears everywhere, or so it seemed.
More than that, the supposedly closed catacombs under the Left Bank of Paris had seen recent activity. It was true that bodies were still taken there occasionally, but coalition spies had seen men who were very much alive traversing the main gate at the top of the very steep and long steps. Malcolm had been tasked with descending into the tunnels and having a good look around.
Seeing Serena at a table with her friends, he paused. An idea was coming to him, but he couldn’t talk to her with anyone around in case they started asking why she knew a British man.
Running back upstairs, startling Randall, he snatched a piece of paper off the table and took the pen from his associate’s hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Your letter to Prinny can wait,” Malcolm said.
“It’s to Wellington, actually.”
Malcolm hesitated, then quickly scrawled a note inviting Serena to meet him the following day an hour before sundown at the Jardin des Plantes, very close to the wine market.
“Organizing a little tryst, are you?” Randall asked, reading over his shoulder.
“Hardly,” Malcolm said. “She’s a helpful, resourceful woman.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not worthy of a good tupping.”
Malcolm nearly turned on him. Yet refusing to rise to the bait, he shrugged. It wasn’t the time to defend Serena’s honor, especially when he did so badly hope to tup her before he returned to England.
“The best time to get into the old mining tunnels is at dusk,” Malcolm said. “One guard is there all day, and he locks up directly after dark. Odds are he’ll be bored in the hour before he bolts the gate and leaves.”
“And what better alleviator of boredom than a beautiful redhead,” Randall agreed.
Why did it sound rather distasteful when his associate put it so plainly?
Handing the note to the man who guarded the second floor, he instructed its delivery to the ravishing copper-haired beauty in the dining room, then watched from the recesses of the stairwell to make sure it was delivered.
As soon as she read the note, she glanced around the dining room before tucking it into her reticule. Immediately, she resumed chatting with the man across from her. Malcolm had no idea if Serena would agree to help, nor even if she would keep his request secret from her friends.
***
LATE THE FOLLOWINGafternoon, while pacing the circular brass temple at the summit of the Jardin des Plantes’ impressive hedgerow labyrinth, Malcolm began to fear the worst. For all he knew, an Imperial Guard might show up in Serena’s place. Naturally, that was why he’d chosen the hill at the botanical gardens, giving him an expansive view of Paris and of anyone approaching.
And then he saw her coming up one of the winding paths. To him, she was unmistakable despite her ordinary spencer and bonnet that looked like any other female in Paris. Having been intimate and having touched her body, Malcolm could pick her out even if she was draped in a coarse feed sack simply by the way she walked and by the shape of her.
“Thank you for coming. I hope it hasn’t caused you any inconvenience,” he said, deciding to begin with formality. Inside, he was simply glad she hadn’t betrayed him.
“Not inconvenient at all,” she said. “After being indoors all day at the Halle aux Vins, it is a treat to be here. Such a gorgeous view.” She gestured across the Seine that sparkled like a necklace as the sun sank lower in the sky. “The tiresome part was last night, when my friends all wondered if I’d received abillet-doux.”
A love note!“I’m sure that happens often,” Malcolm said. He could think of a dozen ways to praise her, and many would be romantic enough for a poem.
Yet she rolled her eyes, dismissing his assertion. “I told them it was a wine order. Speaking of which, I brought two bottles, as you requested.”
