The butler passed his mistress without seeing her in the shadows, carrying the visitor’s outerwear. A not-unpleasant odor of horse and woodsmoke came in its wake.
The man carried his valise—good leather, well-traveled—to the stone hearth, set it down, and spread his palms before the fire. He wore a simple gray double-breasted waistcoat under a sporting jacket, gray also and plain, ankle-length trousers to match, and boots fastened with strings instead of buckles, the fashion in London that season. He was trim, fair, of middle height, and wore his hair to his collar. Lady Carolyn thought he looked like a wild Irish poet.
She placed his age at thirty, but he might have been older; firelight was kind to the tracks of time.
After warming himself front and back, he strolled about the hall, taking in the gloomy canvases on the walls. Coming to a stop before the newest, of the mistress of the house, he seemed to smile; again, perhaps, an illusion.
She approached him then. The rustle of her skirts and petticoats made him turn. No, he was not smiling; but neither was his expression stern.
“Welcome to our home, sir. I’m Carolyn Rexborough.” She offered a hand weighted down with rings.
The visitor bowed over it, but did not take it. “Your ladyship is most kind. I’m here to see Lord Rexborough.”
She could not place his accent. American, possibly; although the American industrialists she’d seen at court all spoke in brays, their cheeks stuffed like a squirrel’s. She tolerated snuff, but found tobacco taken in such a way despicable. This man bore no trace of the practice.
His eyes were a smoky shade, not blue or brown; rather a greenish gray, with light webworks at the outer corners. He was older than thirty. She felt a frisson then, extending from the top of her spine to her loins. The old familiar tingle.
“And you are…?”
“Here to see Lord Rexborough.”
“You said that. I was asking your name.”
Something tugged at the corners of his mouth. A well-shaped mouth, although the lips were somewhat thin. Not a drawback. Geoffrey had the lips of a voluptuary, meaty and moist when pursed, like boiled plums.
“If he hasn’t told your ladyship, it isn’t my place to supply the information.”
“Is your name not your property?”
“With respect, madam, it isn’t yours.”
The frisson thawed abruptly. “You’re insolent, sir!”
“Again, with respect, I’m not the one who persists in asking a question once an answer has been given.”
“Not a satisfactory answer.”
“I found the question unsatisfactory.”
“I’ll have you thrown out!”
“Not your decision. I shouldn’t have to keep repeating I’m here to see your husband.”
Her cheeks stung, but she had the breeding and the presence to curtsy briefly before turning and rustling away. As she left the room, she thought she heard a low chuckle behind her, but it may have been logs shifting on the grate.
Lady Carolyn did not share her husband’s taste in houseguests.
The butler returned, bowed, and conducted the visitor to the library. Two men were seated in the enormous room, facing each other across a long refectory table, heavily carved from cherry and piled with books, sporting journals, and copies of the Times of London.
A youngish man in a tight figured waistcoat and lilac knee-breeches sat at the near end. His companion was grossly fat. He wore a coarse pullover appropriate to an English spring and woolen trousers.
A mismatched pair, these men, like the older one’s eyes. Soft firelight glowed on gold-leaf bindings and glistened in the larger orb.
The visitor bowed in the direction of the man at the near end of the table. “Milord.” Then, to the man in the pullover and trousers: “General Cadoudal.”
The second man lifted his brows—rusty brown, like his badly shorn hair. “Have we met?”
“Never. But you were described to me.”
“By whom?”
“A mutual acquaintance.”
Rexborough scowled. “Who are you, sir, and what brings you here? My servant said you’re expected, but I assure you he’s wrong.”
“Stop playing the imperious country squire, Geoffrey; it doesn’t suit you.” Cadoudal was still looking at the visitor. “I was told weeks ago a certain party was on his way, without being told his name or his business; only that it might coincide with mine.”
“Preposterous. How do you know he’s the one you’re expecting?”
“Because I’ve expected no one else since before the new year.”
“You’re making free with my hospitality, inviting strangers into my house. With a bag, no less. Am I to be told how long he plans to stay?”
The stranger said, “I never go from London without it. Where I sleep tonight is of no consequence to me.”
“Geoffrey. The business we have to discuss is political. It wouldn’t interest you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Allow me my own mind at least.”
The visitor set down his valise and came forward to whisper in Cadoudal’s ear. The Breton hesitated, then nodded.
The man bowed to Rexborough. “Milord, you would not only find the conversation tedious, but dangerous. The Crown doesn’t look kindly on British subjects who conspire against foreign governments.”
“That addle-pated old fool can barely understand English, even had he his hearing. He’s deaf as well as blind.”
“Lèse majesté.” Cadoudal smiled. “It’s pleasant to challenge authority in one’s own library. To ignore Parliament policy is treason. My friend, events of the most far-reaching nature have come to your door. You’ll learn of them in the fullness of time; but rude guest that I am, I won’t be the one to place your household in danger. Please honor my wishes.”
The fourth earl of Rexborough rose.
“Call on me when I’m of use.”
After he left, seconds passed in silence. The stranger broke it. “He’ll eavesdrop, of course.”
“Nonsense. He’ll have a servant do it.”
“The trouble with the English is they’ve ruled the world so long they think everyone else’s affairs are theirs as well.”
“Are you not English?”
“Your friends didn’t tell you?”
“They said someone was coming who would make up for Christmas Eve. I knew nothing about you beyond that. I’d thought from your speech you were a Cornishman or some such outlandish creature. Most of my travels take place between France and the Channel.”
“That’s encouraging; your ignorance, I mean. Nothing then has leaked. I’d hate to have come all this way only to spill my secrets to a spy.”
A cramp gripped Cadoudal’s stomach. He leaned forward until it passed, then sat back to mop his face with a silk handkerchief. “This wing was built under Charles I, when the Puritans lusted for noble heads; the Jacobins didn’t invent the practice. The interior walls are two feet thick, and the door black oak banded with iron. It’s entirely soundproof. I tested it.”
“How?”
“Before I came, I salted the domestic staff with soldiers I commanded in France. I suppose you’d call them spies. I placed one outside, closed and barred the door, and sang a medley of fine old marches at the top of my lungs; which you would appreciate if you ever heard me bellowing orders in the field. Then we traded places. You could slaughter a pig in here and leave the household none the wiser.”
The visitor spun on his heel, strode to the door, and tore it open, all in one motion. The hall outside was empty.
He turned back, withdrawing a hand from his waistcoat. Evidently the man was armed.
“It must be lonely to trust no one,” said the general.
“Not a fatal condition.” The other unwound the stock from his neck and stuffed a corner of it inside the keyhole. Then he turned back.
“Satisfied?”
“Never. But my work’s never entirely without risk.”
“What is your work?”
The stranger inclined his head toward the cut-crystal set on the table. “Refill it. It will make our talk more enjoyable.”
“Will you join me?”
“I like to keep my wits when I’m working.”
Cadoudal poured claret for himself. “Work. There’s that word again.”
His visitor drew out the chair Rexborough had been sitting in, dragged it the length of the table, and sat facing Cadoudal at an angle. The rest of their conversation was conducted in unassailable French.
“What are you called?” the houseguest asked.
“In France I use Chaucer. In England Molière. Among others as the situation suggests.”
“A literary man.”
“If you like. I rarely read fiction. But the names come easily when I’m forced to change without warning.”
“How do I know you represent whom you say? Fouché has rats everywhere.”
The room fell silent again. After a moment the man took something from a waistcoat pocket and placed it in Cadoudal’s palm.
The ring was no larger than a centime, but heavier than a gold Louis. He judged it to be twenty-four karats. It was decorated with a white alabaster fleur-de-lis on a shield encircled by tiny sapphires. Blue stars leapt from them when he turned it in the firelight.
“You could have stolen it, of course.”
“If it were stolen, you would have heard about it.”
“A forgery, then.”
“Have it assessed. I know an expert who can be trusted not to talk, but how could I prove he’s not my creature? It’s an endless process.”
“May I?” Cadoudal closed his hand around it.
“By all means. It’s death if I’m discovered with it.”
“It’s death if I’m discovered at all.” He pocketed the ring. “An endless process, as you say. Very well. But I must know something about you.”
The man’s lips were thin, his smile thinner. “A trust for a trust?”
“You must agree it’s a fair request. You know everything about me.”
“I’ll begin with my qualifications. I can handle a pistol, but I’m more comfortable with a cutting edge. I’ve taken lives with both.”
“How do you stand with powder?”
“As far away as possible.”
“I’m a humorless man, sir. I’ve no time for jests.”
“It was no jest. I think you’ll agree powder’s lost its charm since Christmas Eve.”
“Did you serve in the military?”
“I held a commission.”
“In which army?”
“I fought in Paris and Egypt.”
“I can count a half-dozen armies that did; most recently Bonaparte’s.”
The visitor made no response to that.
“You’ve killed Englishmen?”
“Yes.”
“Frenchmen?”
“Austrians, too, and Russians. I’ve never killed an American, although I’d like to try. I’d regard it a challenge, given their native ingenuity. Arsenic in chewing tobacco suggests itself, or in their excellent Kentucky whiskey; but I find poisoning cowardly. I don’t discriminate among people when it comes to killing. I’m an assassin, General, not a bigot.”
The man was not lying; his gaze was level. And Cadoudal knew now the ring in his pocket was genuine. Its mere presence in a commoner’s possession was cause for arrest.
He was shocked by the fellow’s admissions. No, not admissions, or boasts: Qualifications, as he put it. Cadoudal had slain men in the field, but that had been in wartime, when all biblical restrictions were set aside. A man who avenged himself for personal reasons was a soldier just the same. François Carbon had killed without principle, but it had been just the one time. To repeat the offense on a regular basis—
He swallowed some wine. “You murder at random?”
“I murder for money. But I’m sure you knew that. What have we been talking about all this time?”