She stared into pale hazel eyes that sent her tumbling back to long-ago summers in Dorset, to salty sea air and the weathered sandstone family home where her happiest memories were kept.
“Hello, Elinor.” Will Naismith’s watchful gaze studied her from behind black-framed spectacles.
“Will.” Shock—and a joy so unanticipated that it confounded her—robbed Elle of the ability to speak. Instead she soaked him in. His face had ripened in the years since she’d last seen him, but his unruly dark copper hair was the same, and he’d retained that off-kilter handsomeness that still provoked a jolt of yearning in her chest.
“Bienvenue, Madame Laurent.” Henri stepped forward and brought her hand to his lips. “As always, you are ravissante this evening.” Only then did she remember to acknowledge the other gentlemen standing with Will, somehow managing to say the appropriate things when Henri introduced her to Mr. Verney.
“I understand you are previously acquainted with our dear Monsieur Naismith.” Henri’s canny red-rimmed eyes studied her from beneath tufted brows.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded very far away to her own ears. She turned to Will, still not quite believing it was him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m inclined to ask the same of you.” Time had sharpened Will’s features, hardening the high plains of his cheeks and firming the lines of his full lips. His nose was not as straight as it used to be; the slight detour in the bridge suggested he’d broken it since she’d last seen him, which seemed strange for a scholarly man like Will. The change altered his appearance, making him seem less boyish and more unyielding, like a roughly carved objet d’art. She almost smiled because despite his overtly masculine appearance, pale freckles still dusted his nose and cheeks. “I’d understood that you’d…departed…five years ago.”
“I have only recently returned.”
His expression remained inscrutable. “What a happy turn of events.”
“Beg pardon.” Mr. Verney cleared his throat. “How do you two know each other?” Before Elle could answer, she felt a hand brush her lower back.
“Cheri.” Coming to stand next to her, Duret moved a proprietary hand to her elbow. “Won’t you introduce me to the gentleman who paid so handsomely for the opportunity to dance with you?”
“Certainly.” She forced a measured tone. “Général Gerard Duret, allow me to present Monsieur Wilford Naismith, an acquaintance of my brother’s from university.”
“Enchante, monsieur.” He assessed Will with probing dark eyes. “What brings you to Paris?”
“I have private business to attend to.” Will spoke with chilly courtesy.
“Monsieur Naismith is an expert in ancient coinage,” Henri interjected. “He’s in our fair city regarding a numismatic matter.”
“Is that so?” Duret pursed his lips. “Are you in Paris to retrieve something of high value?”
“Hardly.” Will adjusted his spectacles. “I am here in a consultant capacity, to assess whether a piece my colleague wishes to purchase is authentic. Unfortunately, fourrées can be a problem for collectors.”
Duret’s forehead lifted. “Fourrées?”
“Ancient coins plated with precious metal to make them look solid,” Will said. “They are considered less desirable than the real thing.”
“Identifying counterfeits is a difficult task,” Duret said. “Objects, like people, are often not what they appear.”
“Ferreting out the truth is a challenge, but it can be done,” Will answered mildly, as if he hadn’t noted the tension crackling in the air.
“I shall keep that in mind,” Duret said. “In any case, I do hope you will enjoy your stay.”
“I fully expect to,” Will said. “It’s a pleasure to have occasion to enjoy the delights of your city now that the peace has been achieved.”
“I gather Madame Laurent is one of those delights,” Duret said with a strained smile, “considering the high price you have paid for the privilege of taking a turn with her.”
Will held Duret’s gaze. “Such opportunities are hard to resist when the monies raised go to such a worthy cause.”
“Yes, one likes to do what one can to assist orphans and widows.”
“Especially with such a prize to be won.” Will moved to Elle’s opposite side and offered his arm. “I believe this is my dance.” Beneath her fingers, she felt the warmth of his skin through the fabric of his tailcoat.
Displeasure lined Duret’s face as he watched them touch, albeit through gloves. “Do not let me stop you.”
“I would not dream of it.”
Elle’s heart hammered as he led her away. Few dared to draw Duret’s ire as Will had just done. They strolled toward the doors leading out of the salon, following a stream of other couples to the ballroom, with Elle acutely aware of his masculine presence at her side after all these years.
“You are quiet, as ever,” she ventured.
“I hardly know what to say,” he said. “Except perhaps that death becomes you.”
She sensed a question beneath the cool irony. Where have you been? But she was not prepared to answer, so instead she said, “You shouldn’t have challenged Gerard publicly in that way.”
His arm went rigid beneath her fingers. “You make free with his Christian name.”
She ignored the rebuke, anxious to make him see reason. A scholarly gentleman like Will wouldn’t immediately comprehend how ruthless a blackguard such as Duret could be. “He is dangerous, especially to people who cross him or take what he thinks is his.”
“And are you his?”
Heat stung her cheeks. “You of all people should comprehend I am no one’s mistress but my own.”
“I suppose it is understandable your lover wouldn’t care to share you with another.”
She wanted to protest. To tell him he had it all wrong. But she bit her lip and said nothing. He had no right to judge her, especially not after what he’d put her through.
When they reached the dance floor, Will took her into his arms, and the leathery scent of his shaving soap drifted over her. A heightened sense of awareness at its most corporeal settled between them. His other hand went to her waist, and they moved into the waltz. Will’s dancing had always been a perfunctory endeavor, not something he gave himself over to. The Will she knew wasn’t a social creature; he’d always preferred to lock himself away with his coins and numismatic books and journals. And yet, secure in the steady strength of his embrace as he guided her across the floor, she felt truly safe for the first time in years.
“Where have you been all of this time, Elle?” Genuine worry softened his tone.
Her throat ached. There was so much she longed to tell him. “I was unavoidably detained.”
“Are you being held here against your will?” Urgent concern lit his gaze. “You have only to say the word and I shall see you returned safely to your family.”
Fear rippled through her at the thought of Will facing off against a merciless brute like Duret. “No. I choose to be here. I do not do anything that displeases me.”
A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Yes, and well I know it.” He studied her face intently, as if searching for the truth there. “What I fail to understand is how being away from your father and brother—who’ve been devastated by your supposed demise—could possibly please you.”
Guilt twisted in her chest for having failed the people she loved most in the world. “Why are you surprised?” She spoke sharply, the bitterness of their parting still vivid in her memory. “You’ve always believed me to be inconstant.”
He pressed his lips inward. “What an interesting way to characterize what transpired between us.”
She remembered it all too well. Especially the silences. The painful memories cut through her like an ax. “I’m surprised you recall it at all.”
He exhaled loudly through his nose. “What passed between us is hardly something I could forget.”
They moved in silence, both of them suffused in their own emotions. The music―a triumphant revelry that paid tribute to the revolution―swirled around them, the sharpest notes seeming to punctuate their embittered feelings. When the music came to an end, they broke apart and he offered a stiff elbow to escort her from the ballroom.
“What shall I tell your father?” The controlled words were edged with the anger she’d felt rising in him throughout the dance. “And your brother, who happens to be one of my oldest friends?”
“If you wish to shield them, you will tell them nothing.” Soon enough, they would all know how unnatural she was. “They have already mourned me. Leave things as they are.” For now.
He turned his head sharply to look at her; his disbelief was palpable. “What the devil is the matter with you? Do you honestly believe no one from back home will eventually recognize you and send word to your father?”
Of course it was bound to happen. Now that the peace had been signed and Britons were flocking to Paris to enjoy its delights, it was only a matter of time before someone recognized her, as Will had this evening. But she was determined to remedy the disaster her perfidy had wrought before facing her family’s disappointment when they learned of her terrible failing. And she had no doubt they would eventually learn of it. “I will send word to my family in my own time and in my own way.”
“How do you think Aldridge will react when he learns that his daughter lives but hasn’t bothered to inform him?”
“I’m afraid it cannot be helped.” Unable to meet his shocked gaze, she stared blindly ahead. “Urgent matters keep me in Paris.”
“And what matters are those?”
“Matters of a private nature.”
“I see.” The words were soaked with disdain. “I can well imagine who that private business might concern.” They’d reached the edge of the ballroom, and he stepped away from her, offering an abrupt bow before turning stiffly away.
Watching him go, she leaned shakily against a nearby column and released a long, shuddering breath. Will. A sharp, sweet pain throbbed in her chest.
If only he knew the truth. But it was better that he did not, because if he did, he would hate her all the more.
The following day, Elle sat in her breakfast room with the ironed morning newspaper untouched by her side, sipping her tea and nibbling on a piece of toast. Her usually healthy appetite, unladylike as it was, had deserted her this morning.
She absently turned the ancient Cleopatra coin in her hand. The piece had become something of a talisman, and she’d kept it close all of these years. It was cool to the touch, the patina intact, exactly as it had been when Will had given the piece to her. He’d always said the value of ancient coins could be ruined if someone cleaned them the wrong way.
She ran her thumb over the ragged surface. It wasn’t surprising Will had come to Paris to pursue his old obsession; ancient currency had always been far more important to him than anyone or anything, including her. Regardless, she regretted not accepting his proposal all those years ago. How different life would have been. Perhaps she would never have discovered how broken she was inside.
“Won’t you invite me to join you in breaking the fast?” Duret’s gravelly voice sounded from the threshold behind her.
She suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. The general enjoyed calling on her at inappropriate times, but she endured his boorish behavior because he might prove useful in her search.
She slipped the coin into her pocket. “By all means,” she said pleasantly, signaling her footman to set another place at the table. Duret claimed the seat at her right while his man, Jean Paul, who went everywhere with his master, stood stiff-spined against the wall behind the general, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
The Frenchman helped himself to a piece of toast from her plate and took a hearty bite, chewing it with gusto.
“It is hardly gentlemanly to call upon a lady in the morning,” she said lightly.
“I have never claimed to be one of your aristocrats.” Her footman came forward to pour his coffee. “Indeed, since the great revolution your so-called gentlemen are in short supply.”
“Yes, Madame Guillotine certainly saw to that.”
He sipped the hot liquid. “Most efficiently.”
“Are you going to enlighten me as to what brings you to my door at this ungodly hour?”
“I have a proposition for you.” He shifted to allow the footman to place a meal of eggs fried in butter, beans, and pork crepinettes before him.
“Oh?” Elle carefully returned her floral porcelain cup in its saucer. “And what might that be?”
Duret signaled for her footman to leave the room. With a nod from her, he acquiesced, closing the door behind him. As always, Duret’s man remained by his master’s side.
“As much as the thought of sharing you with another pains me,” Duret said. “The time has come.”
She tensed. “Share me with another?”
“I fully intend to seduce you one day.” He ran a beefy finger over her bare forearm. Suppressing a shudder, she sent up a prayer of gratitude for the rumored war injury that robbed Duret of his ability to perform certain manly functions.
At first she’d been puzzled by his restraint—Duret was not a man who denied himself—until she’d understood the reason for it. According to her enterprising maid, Sophie, the general frequented a discreet brothel where clients with very particular, and often depraved, tastes were entertained.
It wasn’t just that Duret enjoyed rough play in the bedchamber; the whores gossiped about his desperate fury when the doxies failed to resurrect that which had long lain dormant. Elle surmised Duret’s quick temper and rumored ruthlessness arose from his frustration at being unmanned. Somehow, rumors of his malady had not circulated in society, likely due to fears of harsh reprisals.
“I cannot explain my infatuation,” he continued. “You are no great beauty, and that body of yours could certainly use some padding.”
She shifted her arm away. “You’ll turn my head with such compliments.”
“Despite your average appearance, you possess a certain—je ne sais quoi—fierceness.” He spoke as if he assessed a mare at Tatersall’s, London’s premier purveyor of horseflesh for gentlemen of means. “On the surface you are a lady, but it is the hint of wildness beneath that makes a man want to mount you and bring you into submission.”
She swallowed down her distaste. “You mentioned a proposition,” she prompted politely.
“I propose an exchange of sorts.” He took a hearty bite of buttered eggs. “I give you the girl and you secure the information I desire.”
She frowned, at first not comprehending his meaning. “The girl?” Her heart started to race. “Do you speak of Susanna? Have you found my daughter?”
He chewed on a small, flat sausage. “Yes.”
“Where is she?” She gripped his thick forearm, cautious joy kindling in her heart. “When can I see her?”
It had been four months since she’d learned the miraculous news that the child lived. She’d always believed Susanna had perished at birth, but Moineau―a longtime friend of her late husband’s—had come to her shortly after her release with news the girl had been stolen at birth. Elle didn’t know precisely what Moineau’s connections were, but the Frenchman was known to have an admirable network of informants at all levels of Paris society.
The revelation illuminated just how defective she was. Any decent mother would have intuited that her child was alive. She obviously lacked the most basic maternal instincts. Nothing else could explain why she’d failed Susanna so miserably, allowing her to spend her entire young life with strangers, people who might be mistreating her at this very moment.
She might not be much of a mother, but Elle was determined to put things to rights as much as she could. She’d cultivated a friendship with Duret, believing his vast resources as a powerful police ministry official could help find her daughter. And now it seemed her calculation had been a wise one.
“I do, in fact, know where the girl is.” His fork scraped against his plate. “But before you see her, you must deliver something of value to me.”
“Done.” She knew he’d never give her anything free of obligation. “You have only to name it.”
“I expect you to use your unique appeal to identify and seduce a foreign operative who is of high interest to the French republic.”
She blinked and sat back in her chair. “You cannot be serious.”
“Oh, but I am,” he said easily. “Very much so. We have information that the British have planted one of their best agents among us. We have long sought to unmask the elusive spymaster known as Le Rasoir.”
“The Razor?” She shook her head, incredulous. “A rather cryptic sobriquet, don’t you think?”
“An accurate one, regrettably. His operations are conducted with perfect precision. From our understanding, Le Rasoir has never lost a fellow agent on a mission, and no innocents have been sacrificed in his quest to accomplish his goals. Yet he is lethal when challenged and has bested many of our agents with nothing but his bare hands.”
“So he only murders fellow spies?” she said. “Such a paragon.”
“We’ve narrowed the suspect down to a gentleman who has recently come to Paris. You will entertain him with the purpose of unveiling him as Le Rasoir.” He sipped his coffee. “You are to become his mistress, earn his trust, learn what his current mission is, and report back to me.”
She couldn’t believe he was serious. “Even if I were to agree, how could I possibly know anything about unmasking a spy?”
He shrugged. “Tempt him into your bed without delay. The male of the species is most accommodating once their lust has been satisfied.”
“It’s a preposterous plan.” The words were cool, even as panic drummed in her chest. What would become of Susanna if she failed to do Duret’s bidding? “I know nothing of intrigue and, according to you, even your best men cannot find this Razor person you seek.”
“But you are not a man.” A smug expression settled over his face. “Men have a weakness for alluring women, and you are more enchanting than most.”
“I am not that alluring,” she said tartly.
“Do not underestimate your charms.” He took a big gulp of coffee. “Besides, an agent of the Crown will find it easier to share confidences with the daughter of one of England’s most revered statesmen.”
Dread shivered down her spine. They’d selected her to entrap the Razor due to her high-ranking family. But would a man known for his slyness relax his guard solely because of her conection to the upper reaches of power in England? Surely, her friendly acquaintance with Duret would put any English representative worth his salt on his guard.
“Even if I were to consider such a tawdry endeavor, how can I be assured you have found my daughter?” But as she asked, she knew he had. It fit with what Moineau had revealed—that her baby had been spirited away by someone at the highest levels of government.
“I did not exactly find her,” Duret said.
“I don’t take your meaning.”
“What I mean to say, cheri, is that I didn’t find her because I’ve had her all along.”
She inhaled her shock. “How is that possible?”
“As soon as you birthed the babe, she was delivered into the hands of one of my factors.”
“For what purpose?” Disbelief rippled through her. All these months—all these years—Duret had been the one holding her daughter? “Why would you steal my child from me?”
“I surmised the granddaughter of the great Marquess of Aldridge could one day be of great use to us, a valuable bargaining chip to extract a favor from a nobleman who is privy to all of England’s secrets.” His eyes gleamed. “Aldridge’s devotion to his family is well known. As a loving grandfather, he could be expected to bend to Napoléon’s will in exchange for his granddaughter’s freedom.”
She exhaled as the meaning of his words sank in. “You thought to use my child to make my father a traitor to his own country.”
“Exactament.” He motioned for his man to bring him more coffee. “However, there has been a slight change in plans. Instead of the grandfather, the child’s mother will help orchestrate Le Rasoir’s demise.”
She forced air into her frozen lungs, watching blindly as Jean Paul came forward to refill his master’s cup. The Razor was obviously an asset to England, and she was being asked to facilitate his ruin. “You expect me to whore myself and conspire against my country in exchange for my child?”
“Yes indeed.” He wiped the plate with his toast, soaking up the last bits of juice. “You take my meaning perfectly.”
“Where has my daughter been all this time?” Her heart ached at the thought of the little girl she’d never met left to the mercy of strangers. “What have you done with her?”
He tossed the final remnant of toast into his mouth and licked his fingers. “She is with a genteel family in the country, where she has been well looked after.”
As the shock wore off, fury and outrage began to take root. She clasped her hands together in her lap, resisting the urge to launch herself at him and gouge his eyes out. “And if I refuse?”
“Do you know how much pretty little virgins sell for in the House of Venus?”
She shot him a horrified look. Duret was capable of this, and worse.
“More even than your admirer paid for the pleasure of your company last evening.” He pushed the now-empty plate away from him and reclined back in his chair with his coffee. “Your little Susanna is how old now? Almost six, n’est-ce pas? Reports are that she is a very pretty and precocious child. The price for her innocence would be very high indeed.”
“Surely even you aren’t capable of doing something so awful.”
“I wouldn’t even think of it.” He sipped from his hot drink. “But for some men, such a thing is to their taste, and there are establishments that are known to cater to their desires.”
She thought of the vile bawd’s house frequented by Duret. The idea that children could be one of the peculiar sexual tastes Sophie had referred to prompted bile to rise through her stomach and into her throat. She reached for her water glass with trembling hands and brought it to her lips, swallowing the cool liquid slowly to settle her nausea.
“Your daughter’s future is entirely in your hands now.” He quieted for a moment, concentrating as he tugged hard on each of his fingers, methodically cracking his knuckles one at a time, the popping sounds punctuating the silence. “Should you fail in your duty to France, you would be the one subjecting the child to so dire a fate.”
Rage pulsed in her veins, and the impulse to cause him grievous injury gripped her. She ran a light finger over the innocent-looking knife she’d used to spread jam on her toast, tracing the handle’s ornate rococo style pattern. The polished silver was cool to the touch, the shiny blades almost pristine, except for the traces of jam and crumbs. She wondered how far she would have to ram it into his eye to reach his brain. Was it even possible? “So my choice is either to become a whore or allow you to make one of my child.”
“Exactement.”
She tried to think rationally. The idea of spying against England, the home she loved, was unthinkable. But she was a mother before all else—if a woman who’d never held her child in her arms could be considered a true mother. Her throat constricted, and the familiar blanket of guilt and self-loathing for having failed her daughter settled over her. Duret might pretend to be giving her an option, but Elle had no choice in the matter.
She turned to him. “Who is this gentleman you wish for me to seduce secrets from? How would I make myself known to him without arousing suspicion?”
He chuckled. “That is the beauty of it, my dear. You already know him quite well.”
A sense of foreboding shivered up her spine. “I do?”
“Absolument! It is Monsieur Naismith, and you will do whatever is required to learn his secrets. All for the greater glory of France.”