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Louise went utterly still beneath his touch. "Autun?"

Rodrick's hands stopped. "Yes."

For several seconds she said nothing. Then her shoulders eased. "Of course."

Rodrick resumed stitching, watching her face. "Of course?"

"He could hardly sign letters concerning Napoleon's natural daughter with his own name. If they were intercepted, it would endanger us both."

He drew the final stitch taut. Louise did not flinch.

"Autun knew who I was for four years and never revealed it," she continued. "Whatever else Talleyrand has done, he protected that secret."

There it was. Rodrick knew the maneuver intimately—take the inconvenient fact, turn it until it supported the conclusion one had already chosen.

Rodrick tied off the last stitch and cut the thread.

Louise's eyes were closed. Perhaps the brandy had finally carried her off. Let her sleep. Let her wake in the morning believing it had all been a bad dream.

He wrapped the wound in linen, secured the bandage, and felt his strength run out. He leaned back against the headboard. Stretched his legs out along the mattress.

The room hushed. Just the candle guttering in the draft from the window, and her breathing, and the distant sound of the château settling into evening.

She shifted until she was facing him. A strange new light shone in her eyes. "You left the army because of your sister. I would do the same. For those I love."

"You know nothing about me." His voice came out stripped. "Don't fool yourself into believing you do. Don't fucking trust me."

"If it comes to dying in battle," she said, and her words wafted against his cheek, "I will be glad to be by your side."

His gaze drifted along her face. "You ridiculous woman. You will not die in battle. And if you do, you had better know that I will kill you again."

She smiled, unaware that she had just made him bleed. Her eyelids grew heavy, and her good hand settled over his heart with the trust of a drowning woman who had found wreckage and mistaken it for shore.

Rodrick stared at the ceiling, locking his arms behind his head. His hands had wreaked enough havoc for one day. Then Louise sighed against him, and one of the treacherous things came free. It settled around her almost of its own accord, his forearm beneath her head, his hand curving against her shoulder. She purred and fitted herself against his chest.

Rodrick interpreted it as I am being held, and I find the arrangement acceptable. He went motionless. If a loaded pistol had pressed against his ribs, he could hardly have treated it with greater caution.

"This changes nothing between us," he said, smelling her hair.

When the devil had he turned into such a pathetic liar?

"Of course not," she said, nuzzling his chest. "I still hate you, and tomorrow we march."

Louise awoke, pulled from sleep by a dull throb in her arm. She lay still, blinking at the ceiling of her own room. Which meant that at some point during the night, Rodrick had moved her from his bed to hers. Not that she wanted to sleep with him. Did she?

Groaning, she sat up. A woman should not be expected to think clearly after the wound and the brandy and the heat of his chest under her cheek... The sound of his breathing when he finally slept, like a man who had at last put down a weight. What would it feel like if he put that weight on her? If he buried it against her neck and forgot, for one moment, to be Rodrick de Montfort.

She pressed her fingers to her temple, waited for the room to settle, and looked at the bandage. The knot was tied at the side where it wouldn't press on the wound. He was gentle like that. A gentle spy. A gentle spy who was fighting for the memory of a dead sister.

Look at her. Soon she would turn into Celeste and start reciting Shakespeare. He was still a spy, and she was Napoleon's daughter.

A uniform awaited at the vanity. The green jacket lay open, and she traced the lines of yellow braid. The cloth was fine, built to hold its shape under hard use, under weather, under the accumulated punishment of a campaign.

She lifted it. It had weight. The breeches lay beneath—buff, the chasseur's cut—and the boots stood beside the chair, tall and black and waiting, the leather stiff, the spurs catching the faint sunlight. This was the costume of the only part she had ever wanted to play.

She stripped and washed quickly at the basin, cold water brisk against her face, neck, and the inside of her wrists. She dried her face. Looked at herself in the glass. Her breasts were small, and she was lean. The coat would easily conceal her curves.

She brushed her hair quickly, knowing she would have to cut it before they left. No matter. It was easier. Less to manage.