“Yes, yes, I know all about it. The truth is that a sword like that isn’t serviceable in battle, you know.” She talked to him as though he couldn’t tell the difference between a sabre and a soup ladle or had never set foot closer to a battlefield than Hyde Park. “Wellington told me all about it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “And how, if I may ask, have you come to be acquainted with Wellington?”
She shrugged. “I sat next to him during an entire evening at a banquet, and he bored me to tears with his lengthy battle tales. Then he showed me his sword, which was pretty enough but entirely for show, and entirely useless, and in the end he confessed he’d never used it at all during battle, but a more common service sword. I confess I was rather disappointed. What’s the use of carrying a sword if you won’t use it? I don’t understand it.”
Georg bit back a smile. So the great man himself, hero of the Peninsula, had bored her. He had no clue why that pleased him. But please him it did, rather tremendously.
“The British wear a Mameluke, I believe. A pretty piece, well enough for a drawing room. In that much you are right.” He paused. “But do not mistake Wellington’s levée sword for the weapon I carry. An Austrian field sabre is quite different altogether, and I should be grateful if you did not confuse the two again.” He paused again. “I must say I am rather impressed by your knowledge of weapons.”
She shrugged. “I am an excellent shot, as I am certain you have discovered by now. I am also not too bad at archery. Definitely better than Julius, but shootingis more to my liking. Fencing doesn’t interest me. And cannons such as howitzers and mortars are boring. They are merely loud.”
Georg blinked. “It is rather rare for a lady to be so informed about weapons of war. Why the interest, I wonder?”
She flashed him a sudden smile, which lit up her eyes, and a dimple appeared, and he caught his breath. “The future wife of a field marshal has to be thus informed, don’t you agree?”
He was still struggling for an answer, when she took his arm again and pulled him into a building. The smell of coffee, cinnamon and baking revealed that it was aconfiserie, a sugar bakery that specialised in selling sweets and sorbet.
She paused just inside the doorway, her gaze sweeping the room before she guided him to a table in the far corner, where the wall was at her back and the door within sight.
“Why did you change your mind about our betrothal, Lady Evie?”
Her eyes wandered over the tables and the people in the room, as if searching for someone. “Because I realised it’s rather practical to have a bridegroom after all. One needs a male escort who is always at one’s beck and call. They are more convenient than a maid, particularly when one must go out, like this.”
“Of course.” He folded his arms. “I wonder why this did not occur to me sooner?”
“Better than a companion who falls ill with the measles,” she explained. “Besides, the wedding is rather far off, giving us enough time to still change our minds.”
Ah. So the poppet had left a back door open, had she?
He folded his arms and leaned back. He couldn’t remember when he had been thus amused.
He watched her from underneath hooded eyes. She was restless, shifting on her chair, her eyes wandering over the people. Was she looking for someone?
She bit on her lip and fiddled with her reticule.
“Who are you looking for, Evie?” he asked, quietly.
Her eyes flew to him, like a startled deer.
“You appear to be worried about something,” he insisted.
She opened her mouth, closed it again. Her fingers tightened on the reticule. He watched her weigh something behind her eyes, and found he had gone very still, waiting in anticipation of what she was to say. He was not to be disappointed.
“What happens,” she said at last, lowering her voice, “when one gets caught for espionage? Do they get executed?”
She’d pulled the rug out from under him yet again.
He wanted to laugh it off, then registered the tightness of her lips, the slight shade under her eyes.
He answered her carefully. “Under military law, it is a capital offence, and spies are court-martialled. The death sentence is carried out by a firing squad.” He held her gaze. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
She was decidedly pale. She gave a curt nod. Leaning forward, she said, “Tell me, then. Have you ever heard about?—”
A smooth voice inserted itself into their conversation. “Lady Evangeline. What a delightful coincidence.”
Her gaze flew up to meet that of a well-polished man. His blond curls tumbled artfully about his high forehead and his lips curled into a slightly sardonic smile. “And Hartenberg. Of course. I have heard you are to be congratulated, soon, Your Excellency. Or not? The latest state ofthings was, I believe, that it was to be called off. But seeing you here intête-à-têtemight make one believe that this may have been mere rumours after all. One should not always believe what one hears.”
“Metternich,” Hartenberg groaned. “What now?”
