The Heart That Wins (Regency Spies Book 3) (2 page)

For the first time in her life she knew the pull of physical attraction. It had been impossible to look at him without wanting to touch him. She had had to clasp her hands together in order not to do so. When he had told her he had been wounded she had been light-headed with fear. Only later had she wondered what he would have done if she had fainted. Would he have picked her up and touched her face? She hoped she had hidden such lascivious thoughts from him.

If anything he was even more handsome now than he had been as a boy. Mothers had always sought him for his wealth and their daughters had wanted him for his looks. John, however, had wanted her. Sophia could not remember a time when they had not been friends and was not even sure now how or when they had become friends. Even if she tried she could not remember a time before he had been there, getting into trouble with her, trying to protect her, gently guiding her. He was only three weeks older than her, but had always been wiser. Sophia blinked away the sudden tears that stung in her eyes, for nothing remained of that friendship now.

She wished she had been prepared. If she had known it was John she was to see… But the uniformed man was not John; he was Captain Warren.

All too soon she arrived at the house where Edmund and Mary were staying. The servant who greeted her at the door tried to turn her away and Sophia thought for the first time about the impression she must have made on John. She had been travelling wet and muddy roads for days. It had been a week since she had washed, longer since she had bathed. It was a wonder John had recognised her at all. It was as well that he had not got close enough to smell her.

Eventually she was shown into the comfortable-looking drawing-room where Edmund and Mary were sitting.

“You could have warned me that John was at the embassy.”

Edmund stood and bowed, his face almost as closed as John’s had been.

“Sophia, what a pleasure to see you. I’d like to introduce our other guest to you.”

Sophia turned and saw a tall, thin man rise out of a chair on the other side of the room. He bowed precisely.  Her cheeks were warm with embarrassment.

“Miss Sophia Arbuthnot, may I introduce Herr Franz Schröder.”

Sophia curtsied awkwardly; her breeches did not make her feel remotely elegant. She was relieved that Herr Schröder’s expression of polite interest did not change. If he had looked shocked or amused, she would not have known what to do. She was not used to feeling unequal to a situation. Meeting John again had unsettled her.

“I am delighted to meet you, Miss Arbuthnot. Edmund has told me a great deal about you.”

His accent was as German as his name. Sophia glanced at Edmund, who nodded.

“And I have heard a great deal about you. It is a great pleasure to meet you at last.”

Franz Schröder was a Prussian spy known as the Dutchman. Edmund had told her and Mary tales of some of his exploits.

Herr Schröder smiled, his eyes never leaving her face, as if to measure the smile’s effect on her. Sophia did not return the smile. He was attractive, certainly, but she was entirely unmoved. His smile faded; Sophia had won a victory of some kind. She was not even sure why there should have been a battle.

“If you reported to John Warren before you came here, I must assume that you have bad news.”

Edmund motioned for her to sit. Reflecting again on the state of her clothes, she remained standing. She turned slightly so that he could see the extent of the mud. His lips curved up a little and he and Herr Schröder remained standing. She had never managed to convince Edmund that she would not be offended if he sat while she stood. John had always been easy enough in her company to do so, until today. Noticing that they were looking at her, she struggled to remember why.

“Bad news” prompted Edmund.

“You were right. I can only be a few days ahead of Bonaparte.”

Edmund put his arm around his wife’s waist and Mary placed her hand over his. The gesture made Sophia’s heart lurch with a sense of loss.

“Everything is ready,” said Edmund. “We will leave tomorrow.”

Now Sophia looked at Mary properly for the first time. She was clearly pregnant.

“Don’t worry, Sophia, I am strong enough to travel,” said Mary.

“I know. I recall other journeys when you were in this condition.” Sophia smiled. “I have asked John to come here tonight,” she continued. “He didn’t believe that Bonaparte could become emperor again. I knew the two of you could persuade him.”

“I don’t think that will help,” said Edmund. “I’ll go to him now.”

Sophia was surprised, then she remembered Edmund’s friendship with John’s family. Although not close to John himself, Edmund was close to Lady Caroline, John’s mother, as well as Lord Meldon, John’s uncle.

“He believed me and went to tell the acting ambassador,” she said.

“I owe it to his mother to make sure he leaves in time,” said Edmund.

It had not occurred to Sophia that John might not want to leave, but he had a strong sense of duty. It would be like him to put the needs of others above his own.

“Please make him see that he must leave,” she said.

There was no need for her to hide her feelings from Edmund and Mary. Herr Schröder would have to make of them what he would.

“He’s not a boy any more, but I will convince him,” said Edmund.

Sophia was satisfied. Edmund could be persuasive when he chose.

“I must bathe and put on some clothes that don’t make me look like a boy,” she said.

“I do not think you could look like a boy whatever you wore,” said Herr Schröder. He looked at her appreciatively and Sophia smiled despite herself. In all the tales about the tall Prussian Edmund had told, he had never mentioned how handsome his colleague was. The man was about thirty, fashionably dressed, despite his dark hair being cut unfashionably short. He had a scar about three inches long on his left cheek that Sophia knew was the result of a fight with a French officer who had tried to stop him setting sail from the Low Countries with some French refugees. It did nothing to detract from his beauty, but rather made him seem mysterious and remote. His accent was heavy and she guessed he must usually speak German with Mary and Edmund, who were both fluent in that language.

“You are kind,” she said.

“I think, Miss Arbuthnot, that I shall always speak kindly to you.”

Sophia blushed and was grateful for the dirt on her face, as she had no intention of encouraging him.

“Sophia, please, for it seems we are all friends here.”

She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. It was true that Edmund and Mary kept an informal house, but on a day when even John had called her ‘Miss Arbuthnot’ it seemed wrong to allow someone she had known for less than an hour to use her name.

“I have known Edmund for many years, but it is only recently that I have learned that he has another name, so I must use the one with which I am familiar.”

“I have many names, Franz, as have you,” said Edmund. “One evening we will tell one another the tales about how we gathered them, but it seems that that evening must be in Brussels.”

“Brussels?”

Sophia had thought that he meant to return to England. Brussels was the last place she wanted to go. Her mother lived there with her lover and Sophia’s two half-brothers.

“That’s where the largest army in Europe is stationed,” said Edmund. “Bonaparte must either take the risk of engaging the allies in the Low Countries or he must allow them to invade France.”

Mary crossed the room to take Sophia’s hands in hers, but Sophia barely noticed. She was not sure which frightened her more: the idea of seeing her mother again or of John going back to fight.

Sophia did not think Edmund would let her return to England if she wanted to go. He was her commanding officer and she had sworn obedience to him. Smiling weakly at Mary, she stood straighter. She had already faced worse things than her mother for the love of John.

“There will be work for us, then,” she said.

“There will indeed be work for us,” said Edmund.

Sophia made an effort to turn her thoughts away from John and back to what should have been her main concern.

“If you want to know where an army is, you should have someone in it,” she said.

She had learned this from Edmund himself and from the Earl of Meldon, who had fought in Spain, in the days when following the war had been an intellectual exercise for her and not a matter of life and death.

“Surely the difficulty is communicating that information,” said Mary.

Sophia was used to her friend joining in discussions of this nature, but Franz was surprised. Sophia wondered if he had forgotten she was there. It was a mistake people often made. Unlike her husband, Mary was dark, plain and quiet. She preferred listening to conversations to participating in them. Before they had married, Edmund had made the decision to share everything with her. Sophia had wondered at first whether this had just been pragmatism, as Mary was intelligent and would work out that he was a spy. A better understanding of his character, however, showed her that, as he was not an habitual liar. lying did not come easily to him and he lied only when he must. It was important to him that he tell his wife the truth. Mary knew more of Edmund’s plans than Sophia did.

“That is why there must be two of us,” said Sophia. “One to get the information and the other to bring it back.”

The three of them had discussed this often and Sophia had her own ideas about how this might be achieved.

“Perhaps you and I could be a French soldier and his wife,” suggested Franz.

Sophia bit her tongue to prevent herself telling him exactly what she thought of that idea.

“Your French is terrible,” muttered Edmund.

“There are enough German speakers in the French army...” He paused and looked at Sophia, with that smile back on his face. “No, I’m afraid you could not convince anyone that you belong among the camp followers. You are right, however, that the only way to know where an army is is to be in it.”

Edmund shrugged. He had never been a soldier and had a surprisingly limited understanding of what an army did. His service had been covert and mainly concerned with the removal of key people, the provision of misinformation or the gathering of information about strategic plans. Presented with a prospective battlefield, he could not identify which features made it defensible or not. All he could say was that certain parts of it made good hiding places for living men and other parts were good places to hide the dead so that they would never be found, or would be unrecognisable if they were. Since John had joined the army Sophia had made it her particular study to find out how an army worked and how battles were fought. No soldier she came across was safe from her questioning. Now she understood things that Edmund, and, it seemed, Franz, did not.

“Franz, if you can’t be sensible, we should let Sophia go to her bath and I should go to Captain Warren.”

“Of course, the dashing Captain Warren.”

Franz was dismissive.

“You know him?”

Sophia was curious to know how John had come to make such a bad impression on a man she had held in high esteem before she had even met him. She wondered how long Franz had been in Paris and whether he had met John. John said he had been to the house to pay his respects to Edmund and Mary. He had probably dined here several times. Her thoughts faltered. If John had dined here, Edmund and Mary would already have convinced him of the dangers presented by Bonaparte’s return. Something was wrong here.

“Everyone knows him… or of him.”

Sophia did not like the way Franz spoke about the man she loved. Neither Edmund nor Mary had defended John, and that worried her more.

“Sophia has known John Warren all her life,” said Edmund.

Sophia knew she was not meant to see the slight shake of his head as he warned Franz, but Edmund’s training had been too good, and her observational skill matched his own.

“I doubt he is the same man you knew,” said Edmund. He sounded sad, no, disappointed. “You should bathe and probably sleep, you look exhausted.”

Sophia did not doubt she looked exhausted, for she was. She did, however, want to know what Franz, and Edmund and Mary, it seemed, knew about John that was so much to his detriment. John was a man driven by duty. She had never known him to do anything mean or dishonest and she trusted him completely. It was true that Edmund and John had quarrelled in London, although Mary had not told her any details, but neither was a man to bear a grudge.

“That can wait, I’d...”

“Sophia, dear, if we’re to leave tomorrow, you should rest.” Mary squeezed Sophia’s hands. “Your luggage was never unpacked, but you might want to take some clothes out of your trunk, as we won’t have time to wash or repair anything you’ve brought with you.”

Mary was gentle, but forceful and Sophia realised that she was not to learn anything more about John for a while.

“I won’t even get to see what they’re wearing in Paris,” she said inconsequentially.

It would not hurt to let Franz think she was an empty-headed fool. Her only thoughts about Parisian fashions were governed by a desire for John to see her at her best.