Charming a Spy (20 page)

Dubois was curled up on the dirt floor with his elbows resting on his knees, his head hung between them. He was a skeleton of a man.

“What is that, Dubois? I couldn’t hear you,” he shouted in French, playing his role so none of the other prisoners would suspect anything unusual. Luke slowly peered up from his knees to meet Geoff’s gaze. He recognized the piercing green eyes: they were the same as Katherine’s.

“Get up you lazy redcoat,” Geoff yelled, opening the cell door with his key.

Geoff yielded his baton with a firm grip in the other hand, pretending to defend himself in case any of the men tried to charge him while he held the barred door open. In reality he very much doubted any of them could stand, let alone fight. He vowed then and there, when he got back to England, to get a regiment to come back to this prison and free all of these English soldiers. He wanted to tell them they would be rescued, give them hope for one more fortnight until he could return, but it was too risky. Besides, they must have had some hope to have survived so long in these conditions.

“Get out here,” he yelled again, only this time with fierce indignation.

Luke slowly began to rise. “Now!” Geoff grabbed him by the arm and yanked him up. He held onto his arm tightly, trying to make it look like he was roughly handling the prisoner when in actuality he was giving Luke enough support so he could walk. He propped Luke against the wall and then shut and locked the door cell behind them, praying silently for the other soldiers.

“March, for this will be the last time you ever walk, redcoat,” he said as they passed in front of the other guard posted near the entrance to the cells. Geoff noticed Luke didn’t seem scared at all. Only weak and resigned. The man would probably welcome death right now.

Geoff dragged Luke by the arm back towards the gate. There were two soldiers barring the entrance. At least a dozen more soldiers sat atop each tower laden with pistols and cannons.

Geoff and Asby had carefully laid out every aspect of the plan up until this point. There was only one way in and out of the prison. It was too infrequently trafficked for a distraction and too heavily guarded for a breakaway. If Geoff and Luke were going to escape, it was going to be by a combination of sheer genius and luck, which Geoff neither expected nor relied on. Nevertheless, here they stood.

“Where are you taking this prisoner?” a soldier demanded.

“Directly to the emperor,” Geoff said. Luke turned towards Geoff, an expression of surprise and terror in his eyes. Luckily, he said nothing.

The skeptical guard raised one eyebrow. Geoff couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t as if many prisoners marched through the front gate headed straight for Napoleon himself. But something about this guard told Geoff this hair-brained scheme might work.

“Where are the orders?”

“There is no paperwork,” Geoff answered with confidence.

“No paperwork? Then he’s not going anywhere, is he?”

“Do you really think the great emperor himself would want this sort of thing documented? Use your brain, man.” Geoff scolded the guard. Luke drew himself up at his side but did not interrupt.

“What sort of thing?” the soldier puffed up his chest and broadened his stance, bristling at Geoff’s tone of voice.

Geoff moved closer to the guard and lowered his voice as if he was letting the soldier in on a secret. “Look, I really don’t think you want to cause a scene here. Napoleon himself handpicked this one on his last visit to Lille.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the soldier bit back.

“I suppose he thought he had a pretty countenance. I can’t say I share that sentiment, but I can almost see it. Look at those green eyes and dark eyelashes,” Geoff said, gesturing to Luke’s face. “Underneath all the grime, I bet he’s a right looker… to someone with those preferences, of course.”

“Are you saying—”

Geoff interrupted the soldier’s thought before he could complete it. “Of course we all know the emperor is happily married to the Duchess of Parma. And we all know the reason he kicked over Josephine had nothing to do with the Russian Tsar, who he was most certainly
not
obsessed with.”

“Surely you can’t… you can’t mean” the soldier stammered, trying to come to terms with this revelation about his ruler.

Geoff jumped in once again, preventing him from thinking too much. “I’m surprised myself, but I don’t question direct orders. You would think a man of the emperor’s stature would prefer a smaller sort,” he said, taking Luke’s measure with his eyes, “but you know what they say about one man’s treasure. Regardless, I have my orders to deliver this man to the palace and I don’t plan to disappoint the emperor. Unless, shall I tell him you were concerned about his taste in… interests?” Geoff asked the soldier. “What was your name again?”

The soldier took one large step back from Geoff so they were no longer in a private conversation. His cheeks were red and he looked nonplussed. “Prisoner passing through,” he shouted to the regiment of guards and then retook his position at the gate, his staff held erect.

“That’s what I thought,” Geoff muttered to himself for his own satisfaction, then still clutching and dragging Luke along, walked out of the prison.

‡

K
at spent a
week in bed feigning illness. It wasn’t hard to do. She truly felt sick. Every time she thought about Geoff, she wanted her body to disintegrate into thousands of tiny pieces and fall onto the bed sheets like a wood log burned to ash.

She couldn’t eat. Concentration was impossible. When she slept, her traitorous body dreamed of being touched by Geoff and she would wake weeping, remembering none of it was real.

“Darling, won’t you tell me what is wrong?” Aunt Ellie begged after a half a week of her melancholy. “Did something happen at the house party? Were you treated badly?”

“I think losing Luke has finally hit me,” she said. It was half the truth anyways.

Kat did feel as though she’d lost Luke all over again. Now she definitively knew he was alive, only she was further than ever from being able to help him. If only she knew what Geoff was up to, she could have done something, somehow warned Luke about the danger. She wanted to tell her brother he was being hunted, by the man she once thought she loved.

Kat continued trying to make sense of it all, torturing herself with questions. Why did Geoff think Luke was a traitor? What did he think Kat knew about all of this? What was at stake? And most importantly, how could she stop Geoff from killing Luke?

Being so incredibly helpless was the worst feeling in the world. There had to be something she could do. But what? The only thing giving her any hope at all was she didn’t sense any pain from Luke. Wherever he was, her brother was safe, at least for now.

Eventually, a plan came to her, but she was going to need help. She needed a man who could travel with her, someone who knew France and someone who loved Luke as much as she did. As much as she hated to ask, she saw only one option.

She penned off a note to Rafe Grier and then got out of bed for the first time in seven days.

Later that afternoon

Kat fidgeted with
the corner of her dress while she waited for Rafe to arrive. She’d written ten past noon in her note. It was now twenty past and Rafe was still not there. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Yes, they had reconciled the last time they met in the duke’s library, but it was still going to be awkward between them. Rejection and threats did not make a wonderful bedrock to build a friendship upon. Luckily, as soon as she started to think about what her backup plan should be, Royston announced his arrival.

“Ms. Dubois,” Rafe Grier said, bowing in front of her.

“Mr. Grier, thank you for coming.”

“Not at all. Your note said you may need help, and well, I owe you a great deal. Especially after what happened at the duke’s house party. If there is anything I could do to be of service, I will gladly do it.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Kat said. “Because you see, I have a very big favor to ask.”

“You can ask anything of me.”

“Thank you. I hope it is true because I fear this is going to sound far-fetched. In fact, I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me. I find it difficult to understand myself,” she said.

“Ms. Dubois, I don’t know what you are about to say, but I assure you, you can tell me any manner of thing.”

“I know you and Luke were friends. He must have trusted you.”

“He did, completely,” Rafe said.

“Well, this is about Luke.”

“About Luke? Does that mean he is alive?”

“I think he may be,” Kat said. Rafe seemed strangely expressionless. Not surprised or happy. In fact, he appeared rather stoic.

“Why?” Rafe asked. He obviously didn’t believe her. Kat wasn’t surprised, frankly because no one ever did. However, this time she had more than a feeling to base her claim that Luke was alive.

“Here is the most unbelievable part.”

“I’m listening,” he reassured her.

“On the last day of Duke Stamwell’s party, I woke up early before everyone left. I went downstairs to have breakfast and overheard two men talking. They were talking about Luke.”

“What did they say?”

“They said…” she paused, considering one last time if she should really trust Rafe. He’d practically molested her only a week before. But he had apologized and Luke trusted him. Plus, she didn’t really have any other options. “They said Luke was a traitor.”

There was a long pause. Rafe didn’t say anything. He probably couldn’t process it, poor man. It was a lot to take in. She’d gone to bed for a week after hearing the news. But time was of the essence, and she had to convince him to help. And quickly.

She went on, “I don’t know how anyone could think my brother is a traitor. He loved his country. He is an honest, moral man. You are his friend so surely you would agree there is no one who could be less capable of being a traitor than Luke.”

“I do agree,” Rafe said. “Luke is definitely not a traitor.”

“Thank you,” Kat said, grateful he agreed with her. “I only recognized one of the men’s voices. But this will be even more shocking…”

“Yes,” Rafe said eagerly.

“It was Stamwell.”

“Stamwell. What else did he say?”

“He said he was going to France to find Luke and then he was going to bring him back to be tried as a traitor.”

“Did he say that exactly?”

“Well, I’m not sure he used those precise words, but that was the idea of it, yes. And thus why I need your help, Mr. Grier. I need to stop him before he finds Luke. And I need your help,” Katherine added, “because you know your way around France from the war, and you know my brother. I know this is a lot to ask of you. But I don’t know who else to ask.”

“You did the right thing,” Rafe said, taking both of Kat’s hands in his. “I’m happy you told me. We’ll figure something out together.” Kat felt a rush of relief.

“So you will truly help me?”

“Of course. I want to find Luke as badly as you do… and before Stamwell.”

“But how? Do you have any idea of where to start?”

“I think I might,” he said. “But leave the planning to me. You need to prepare yourself for a journey.”

“When will we leave?”

“Soon. As soon as I leave here, I’ll start making some inquiries at the docks. I’ll send word when I find us passage to France. Hopefully, we can leave as soon as tomorrow morning. Can you be ready by then?”

“Yes, of course,” Kat said. She would walk out the door with him right now if he said so.

“Pack lightly and don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else,” Rafe said. “Not your friends, not your maid, not even your aunt. You cannot trust anyone right now.”

He was right. She thought she could trust Geoff and look at how that turned out. No, she would not tell a soul. Tomorrow, she would find Luke… at last.

‡

N
o place on
the globe could one see more stars than on the deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean. It was a starry, starry night and Geoff was feeling quite satisfied with himself. He’d rescued an innocent man and would soon deliver him home, to his aunt and sister. Kat would think him a hero.