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He sighed and shook his head. "Monsieur de Montfort will remain a prisoner for the foreseeable future. Consider it an insurance policy. Napoleon's daughter at large in Paris is a variable the provisional government cannot afford. You are remarkably gifted at inspiring loyalty in people who have no rational reason to give it. The Seventh Regiment comes to mind. Jean d'Arc was mentioned in the dispatches, I believe." His gaze sharpened. "And then there is Monsieur de Montfort. The most disloyal man in Europe by reputation, and yet somehow even he threw away rank, name, and country for you. France is changing itself, and countries are never as vulnerable as when they are changing themselves. I cannot have a swan arranging the water."

Her throat burned, and she swallowed to keep the humiliated tears from her eyes. "You are afraid of a single swan."

He looked at her with that same unashamed attention. "No. I am afraid of what people do when they decide a swan is an eagle."

The air in the room seemed to thicken, and envy sparkled in his gaze. Talleyrand coveted the devotion her father commanded, perhaps as much as he feared it. As long as she remained what she was, Rodrick would remain where he was.

She drew a breath. It came shallow. Then she slipped her hand inside her coat and drew out the folded paper she had carried since Waterloo.

Talleyrand took it between two fingers. His eyes moved over Napoleon's handwriting, paused at the signature, then traveled back up the lines.

"And what, precisely, do you imagine this is worth?"

Louise shrugged. "Without it, I'm nothing more than an actress, a ballerina, an adventuress—a young woman with gray eyes and a convenient story."

Talleyrand frowned. Until then, he had looked at her as though she were a problem he had solved before she entered the room. The faint amusement remained at the corners of his mouth, but it no longer reached his eyes.

She held his gaze. "Now, I would like to have Rodrick de Montfort released."

The swans moved outside. One turned, cutting a thin line through the water. The light shifted across the desk. Behind Talleyrand, a clock pendulum swung back and forth, measuring every second he refused to answer.

Damp gathered in Louise's palms, and her pulse beat high in her throat. It was easier to cross an army with a saber in her hand than to stand here while this bastard decided whether Rodrick walked free.

He studied the paper for a long moment. The corners, the folds, the hand that had written it. His face did not change. No smile, no flicker of amusement.

Then his fingers moved. And he reached for his pen.

The carriage had barely stopped when Louise opened the door. She did not wait for the step, the duke's hand, or Antoine's steadying presence. She dropped to the street and looked up at the prison rising before her.

La Force had once been a palace, built to receive aristocrats beneath painted ceilings and candlelight. Now rust spread across the iron gate, smoke stained the stone, and somewhere beyond those narrow windows, it kept Rodrick prisoner.

Louise closed her eyes. Please be here. Her knees weakened beneath her. Since that field, she had moved as if in sleep, one task carrying her blindly into the next, while the world remained dim around her. The thought that she might step inside, find him, and feel his gaze settle on her again made the darkness tilt.

"There must be some error." William stepped down from the carriage behind her.

The Duke of Albemarle possessed many qualities. Hélène had listed them when persuading Louise to bring him along, and among them was an authoritative physical presence better suited to drawing rooms than prison walls.

"There is no error. This is La Force," Louise said.

"Someone is going to pay for this." William's jaw hardened as he looked at the building.

Indeed. Rodrick had probably been paying for weeks. Stone. Damp. Men packed together without light. Her nails pressed through her gloves into her palms.

Antoine joined them carrying a lantern. The two guards at the entrance scarcely glanced up from their dice when Talleyrand's order was shown. One unlocked the gate, and the hinges dragged across stone with a metallic groan that seemed to travel through Louise's teeth.

She stepped through. Cold damp settled against her skin, carrying old straw, unwashed bodies, and a sourness she could taste at the back of her tongue.

The warden's office lay below the courtyard, a low room crowded by a desk, ledgers, and stacks of papers tied with string. The warden himself was a man of middle years with the expression of someone who had watched desperation enter through his door often enough that it had become another administrative inconvenience.

He read Talleyrand's order. Then he caught a ledger. Paper whispered beneath his fingers as he turned the pages.

"No record. We have British nationals. Civilian detainees from the occupation. We have—" He consulted another page. "No Rodrick de Montfort. No Captain de Montreval."

Louise caught the edge of the desk before her knees could fold.

"I have an order of release from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Signed today. Which means the prisoner exists."

The warden regarded her with the composure of a man threatened by people far more frightening than a young woman in a traveling coat.