Page 100

"Why are you out of your line?"

Louise drew a breath. "I carry a warning."

"Bon. Facts."

Facts she could give him. Facts did not require her to be a daughter, abandoned or otherwise.

"There is a squadron, sire."

The quill slowed but did not stop. "Whose?"

"English."

"How many?"

"A handpicked unit. Light cavalry."

Would he ever lift his head? One glance, that was all.

The quill halted. For a moment, it hovered above the page. Then he set it down across the lip of the inkwell.

"What is their object?"

"You, sire."

At last he looked at her. His gaze went through her chest. Tired, alert. Human eyes. His eyes.

"Explain."

"They are riding ahead of the column. They have been given one task." She gazed at her gloved hands, her heart as tight as her fists. "To find you. And kill you."

The carriage rolled on, the wheels grinding over stone. The map shifted slightly under his hand. "How far?"

"Less than an hour."

He tilted his head. "Remove your helmet."

Louise's fingers went cold. The helmet held Lieutenant d'Arc together. Beneath it, she could still be an officer carrying intelligence, useful and necessary. Without it, there would only be Louise.

Her hand rose to the strap. The buckle slipped beneath her fingers. She tried again, nails catching against the leather. Her pulse beat so hard at the base of her throat that she wondered whether he could see it.

The clasp came free.

Louise lifted the helmet from her head. A loose strand fell across her cheek, and she had to resist the childish urge to smooth it back, to make herself presentable before he saw too much.

Late afternoon light entered through the window and fell across her face.

There was nowhere left to hide.

"Eugénie?"

His voice became rough at the edges, and the change closed Louise's throat so completely that she had to swallow before she could answer.

"No, it is her daughter, sire. Louise."

Silence filled the carriage. Napoleon's gaze moved over her face with an attention that made her skin feel too exposed. Her eyes, her brow, the line of her mouth. Louise stood beneath the scrutiny with the helmet hanging uselessly from one hand, and all the wanting she had carried since Autun's first letter.

Her heart pounded so hard she feared it might burst. He would send her away. He would reject her and send her away as a stranger who was trying to fool him and—