The Spy's Reward (11 page)

She looked up, startled.

He pointed to a spot just below his left shoulder. “Dog bites. He thought they were knife wounds.”

“Dogs? You had dogs set on you?” Her eyes were enormous.

“I have been chased by dogs. I have been stabbed, shot at, sliced at, and imprisoned. I carry several sets of false papers. I travel very well armed, and have already replaced the knife in my boot that was confiscated this morning. I am an excellent liar. These are not the usual credentials of the ‘family friends' recommended to you by your cousin. You are owed an explanation.”

She frowned. “I am not sure that I am. Let us not forget that I began our acquaintance by dismissing you very rudely after you had traveled quite a distance out of your way to do us a service. Then, the moment I needed help, I suddenly came running back to you, disrupting any plans you might have made. I am not blind, Mr. Meyer. It was perfectly obvious to me that whatever your intentions that first day in Digne might have been, by the time you saw us again in Barrême, Diana and I were an encumbrance.”

It was true. It was only later that he had begun to perceive the advantages of having two women—genteel, attractive women—in his party.

She set down her wine cup and smoothed her skirt. “You are right that I was perturbed by what I saw this morning. I meant to ask you about it earlier, but I lost my nerve.” She smiled briefly. “It is not easy to confront someone who carries a knife in their boot.”

“I would never,
never
harm you or Diana,” he said, horrified. “You must believe that.”

“Oh, I do,” she assured him, “now. Because once I was calmer, and had thought about everything carefully, it occurred to me that the explanation was really very simple.”

“It did? It is?”

She nodded. “The first thing was the pigeons.”

He had prayed she would not connect them with his other activities. He had already admitted to himself that he would have to tell her about the past. There was no avoiding it. It was the present he wanted to conceal. Apparently he was going to have to confess everything. Or, more accurately, listen to her formulate his confession for him.

“This afternoon, when we stopped to give Mr. Roth a hot drink, I—” She stopped, then continued determinedly, “I went to find Mr. Santos. Rodrigo. I began to ask him questions about you.”

What did this have to do with pigeons? “He mentioned something of the sort.”

“I am very ashamed of myself,” she confessed. “But I was upset—to see Diana in the hands of that rabble! And then, when they searched you, and found all those terrifying, inexplicable things! I was angry; I thought you had deceived us.”

“I
did
deceive you. You were right to be angry.”

She ignored him. “When I left, I walked by the gig, and Mr. Roth's pigeons were cooing. That reminded me of what he had said about the bank's courier system. That was the first piece.”

She still thought the pigeons were Anthony's. He gave a little sigh of relief.

“And then, just before dinner, I remembered the second piece. The most famous loan your family bank has ever made: the Roth-Meyer Bank smuggled gold through France, right under Napoleon's nose, to pay Lord Wellington's troops in Spain. Is that not correct?”

Puzzled, he nodded.

“A very dangerous, very difficult undertaking. Surely the bank did not entrust an operation of such magnitude, of such delicacy, to ordinary employees.”

Right again. Meyer's brother, Jacob, had coordinated the entire affair from his house in Paris, and the shipments were escorted by two trusted subordinates.

“You never looked to me like a gentleman of leisure,” she said vehemently. “The moment I met you I should have been suspicious of Joshua's description. You were not retired from the bank at all; you were their chief courier in France, supervising the currency smuggling. Naturally you would need to carry false papers, need to learn to handle weapons.”

He sat back against the satin cushions of the sofa, stunned. Her reasoning was perfectly logical. Her conclusion was utterly false.

“I admire you,” she said. “I want you to know that. I disapprove of war, as many women do. I think it is immoral; I think it corrupts those who practice it. Not all wounds are physical. But I do admire you. Your bank made a pledge to England, and honored that pledge under nearly impossible conditions. You risked your life to make certain that your family stood by their word.” There were tears in her eyes.

“Mrs. Hart.” He took a deep breath. “I do not know what to say.” He looked down at his shoes. No dagger, alas. Perhaps he could stab himself with the buckle.

“I apologize for my rudeness to you, for my suspicions, for everything. I was mortified at dinner, to think how I had misjudged you. I could not even look you in the face. You were willing to let that dreadful French guard humiliate you this morning to protect my daughter, and I repaid you by deciding you were the lowest sort of criminal. Please forgive me.”

Now it was his turn to explain that he was, in fact, the lowest sort of criminal. But, as was natural for a criminal, he thought better of it. If she wanted to take all that damning evidence and turn him into a hero, who was he to contradict her? “You exaggerate my contribution,” he said finally, raising his eyes to meet hers.

There was a long silence. At some point, without his noticing, the horn quartet had stopped playing. The music room was empty. Neither one of them moved, or looked away. A few renegade strands of hair had, by some miracle, escaped from her cap; they fluttered slightly at her temples. Her face was open, unguarded. He knew, knew with total certainty, that he could kiss her. That he wanted to kiss her.

He also knew she would eventually hate him, and herself, even more if he did. Perhaps he wasn't the very lowest sort of criminal after all, because instead of kissing her, he got up, offered her his arm, and escorted her back to the safety of the hotel's well-staffed reception room.

12

“How is he?” asked Rodrigo before even dismounting. Meyer had intercepted him in the alley leading to the stable.

“Anthony? Not well. He is still asleep, but very restless and feverish.” He glanced at the sky. “It is what, half-past six? He has been sleeping for twelve straight hours.”

Rodrigo swung off the horse. “Did you send for a doctor? Mrs. Hart seemed to think he needed one.”

“She may be right,” he admitted. “He is in no shape to cross the Col Bayard, that is obvious. Perhaps we should stay here in Gap another day.”

“That might not be wise.” They had come up to the stable door. Rodrigo handed the horse to a sleepy ostler, and the two men headed around the side of the building to the enclosed yard where guests' vehicles were stored.

“Why? What did you find out? Wait, have some of this first.”

His servant took a long drink from the bottle Meyer handed him. “Well, first I went south, and nearly ran into Bonaparte's advance force. They will arrive here late this morning at their present rate. It is even possible—not likely, but possible—that Napoleon and the rest of the troops could reach Gap by midnight tonight. They are moving very quickly. That is why I say it might be imprudent to remain here.” He took another swallow. “On the other hand, there is the pass. I went north for a few miles to see what conditions were like.”

“And?”

“Poor. Snow at the top, more snow likely today, by the look of things.” He handed back the flask.

Meyer took another look at the sky and frowned. “Scylla and Charybdis. What do you think we should do?”

“Why consult me?” Rodrigo pulled the pigeon crates out from under the seat of the gig and began tipping grain from a little sack into the feeding box. “Surely the decision should be left to Mrs. Hart. Especially if you want to persuade her to trust you again, now that she knows the truth.”

Meyer said nothing.

Rodrigo straightened up, grain dripping unheeded onto the dirt. He looked hard at Meyer and then swore softly in Spanish. “You told me you were going to speak with her last night.” He stabbed one finger at Meyer's chest. “Right before I left, right here, in this very spot, you promised that you would explain everything to her. That you would not leave her wondering about what she saw at that roadblock yesterday morning.”

“Oh, I talked to her.” He laughed shortly. “Or rather, she talked to me. She is very clever—perhaps you have already realized that. She was suspicious long before yesterday morning. She even noticed the pigeons, and drew her own conclusions. We have come to an excellent understanding.”

“You have?” The servant suddenly noticed the little pile of grain at his feet and righted the sack. “She—she was not angry?”

“Quite the reverse,” Meyer assured him. “She admires me. She despises soldiers, of course, and war, but she thought it was very noble of me to help smuggle gold to Wellington in order to honor the contract signed by the Roth-Meyer Bank.”

“What?” The sack dropped onto the floor of the gig. “You told her that you were covered with scars because you had been delivering
loan monies
?”

“No, no.
She
told
me.
I was getting ready to confess the truth, and she interrupted and started begging my pardon for misjudging me. She saw the pigeons—which, by the way, she still believes to be Anthony's—and that reminded her somehow of the bank's role in funding the British troops in Spain, and she put two and two together and came up with seven.”

“What happens when she recalculates and comes up with four?” Rodrigo asked.

Meyer shrugged. “We will never see each other again after this week. What does it matter?” He looked down at the crates. “If those pigeons eat any more, they won't be able to fly,” he observed.

Rodrigo hastily brushed the spilled grain out of reach of the birds.

“Get some sleep,” Meyer said. “I will consult Mrs. Hart—I can do that in my capacity as former hero of the banking world—and if she agrees, we will stay here another day. I do not fancy the thought of dragging my feverish nephew over the top of that mountain.”

 

 

He was badly out of practice, or perhaps distracted by his concern for Anthony and the women. Why else would he have returned from the stables by the back way, instead of going around on the street, where he would have seen the soldiers and the sweating horses? Why, for that matter, had he selected the largest, most ornate hotel in Gap, a place which would be the obvious choice to lodge a former emperor, should he happen to come to town? But he had chosen the Auberge du Marchand. He had returned through the courtyard. He had not paid attention to the noises he heard, noises suggesting the arrival of a large party of guests. He had not asked himself who would be arriving at a hotel in Gap before seven in the morning. He therefore entered the hotel through the back hallway and emerged into the main reception area just as a hawk-faced man in the uniform of the Old Guard came in from the opposite direction, followed by three mud-spattered officers and a very disdainful young man dressed in evening clothes.

Too late, old habits reasserted themselves. He allowed his glance to pass in an unhurried way over the new arrivals, gave a puzzled nod to the hawk-faced man, who looked as though he was trying to remember something, and walked purposefully, but not hastily, to the nearest staircase. The minute he was out of sight Meyer began frantically searching for a way to get out of the hotel unseen. The staircase he had chosen ended half a flight up at two locked doors; he cursed under his breath and debated. Right or left? He chose left, and picked the lock. The room was empty, thank God. He opened the shutters. Wrong side of the hotel; he was looking down on the street, where twenty more soldiers were stationed. Back out into the hall. The second room, too, was empty. It was a drop of ten feet to the courtyard; he swung out over the ledge and let go, hoping no one in the building opposite had been looking out their window at that moment. Then he headed back to the stables.

Rodrigo was still out in the stable yard, cleaning the pigeon crates. “What happened?” he asked, dropping the crate. The pigeons, crammed into the other container, gave an angry squawk as it landed on top of them.

“I ran into an old friend,” said Meyer grimly. “You underestimated Cambronne's pace. He is in the reception hall of the hotel at this very moment, no doubt bespeaking rooms for two thousand men.”

“Did he see you?”

“I am afraid so. And Raoul Doucet was with him. They only glanced at me, and I did nothing to attract their attention, but the odds that neither one of them will remember me eventually are very small. If I were Doucet—and he is, after all, one of my counterparts in Napoleon's old intelligence service—I would, sooner or later, think to look at the hotel's list of guests. I am registered under my own name.”

“Do they know your real name?”

“Doucet does.”

“We are leaving, I take it.” Rodrigo closed up the crate.

“Yes, but we must not appear to be leaving,” Meyer said. “Take the birds and whatever else you must have with you, but make sure there is still a crate here in the gig and clothing on your bed. Order a carriage and two horses for tomorrow morning, to travel south. Then find some other stable, one as far from here as you can, hire two mules and four horses, and meet me half a mile north of the edge of town in one hour. I will get Anthony and the ladies; we will go for a morning walk.”

“Can Master Anthony walk half a mile?” the servant asked, worried.

“I devoutly hope so. Otherwise, we will have to leave him behind.”

 

 

Abigail was a very light sleeper, especially when she was worried about something. When the door to her room opened, therefore, she woke almost instantly, and sat straight up. It was Meyer, and he had one finger on his lips in an imperative gesture for quiet.

She slid out of bed and went over to the door, which he closed behind him very, very carefully. She was going to say something clever—“Wrong room again, Mr. Meyer?”—but the expression on his face stopped her.

“Speak as quietly as you can,” he told her, in a voice which provided an admirable model. She could barely hear him, and she was standing right next to him. “Remember, sound from this room goes to at least one other bedchamber.”

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“Napoleon's advance guard arrived ten minutes ago. They are here, in this hotel. You must be prepared to leave in twenty minutes. You must dress for a long, difficult day outdoors, riding and walking, possibly in snow. We will be pretending to go for a constitutional; therefore, you may bring only what a lady would carry on a morning stroll. Any spare clothing must either be worn or carried in some inconspicuous manner. You must behave as though you plan to return—order luncheon, send laundry out. I will come to fetch you. Once you leave this room, you must appear unconcerned, as though you know nothing about the troops.” This was all delivered in a calm, barely audible monotone without any pause to allow questions or objections, and the next moment he turned, apparently intending to leave.

Abigail grabbed his arm and turned him around again. “Do you make a habit of bursting in on ladies at sunrise and giving them inexplicable commands to abandon all their possessions?” she hissed angrily.

There was a strange glint in his dark eyes. “Only when I believe them intelligent enough to understand that I would not do so without a very good reason.” He glanced at the chair next to Diana's side of the bed, buried under a confused heap of stockings, shawls, gloves, and underthings. “I will of course replace the items you cannot bring with you at my own expense.”

“Mr. Meyer, I am not complaining about the cost of a few frocks! We already lost the majority of our luggage when we joined you in Barrême. This is not about money.” She was finding it very difficult to be angry and whisper at the same time, and anger was winning.

He sighed. “No. But money is what I can offer you.”

“I want more than that. I want to be treated like a reasonable adult, someone who is entitled to be informed about risks and choices. I want to know what made you walk in here and order me and my daughter to behave like fleeing assassins.”

“I
was
going to consult you,” he said, leaning wearily against the closed door. “My nephew is very ill. When I spotted the troops I was on my way to your room, in fact. I intended to ask you whether you would be willing to stay in Gap today, in spite of the likelihood that Napoleon's army would be here by midnight tonight. Anthony should not be traveling at all, even in the most luxurious carriage, let alone riding over an ice-covered mountain on the back of a mule.”

“But you changed your mind.” She folded her arms. “You were prepared to remain here, in the face of Napoleon and his entire army, but at the sight of a few soldiers from the advance party you panicked?”

“Two particular soldiers. Officers. They recognized me from . . . an earlier encounter.” He pushed his hair back from his forehead. “I would go on alone, but it would not do any good at this point. You have all been traveling with me; our party was registered here at the hotel under my name. None of you will be safe.”

She opened her mouth to tell him that officers would not threaten a sick man, or two innocent women. Then she remembered the roadblock. The man with the helmet had been some sort of officer.

“What sort of officers? How do they know you?”

“Twenty minutes,” he said, opening the door. “I must see to Anthony.”

Before they had been on the road two hours, Abigail knew that something must have frightened Nathan Meyer very badly indeed to have convinced him that it was safer for Roth to go than to stay. “Very ill” had been no exaggeration, and today's journey might well change very ill into deathly ill.

After washing his face with cold water and gulping some extremely strong coffee, Roth had managed to walk out of the hotel on his own two feet. The minute they were out of sight of the soldiers, however, his legs had started to buckle, and Meyer had been forced to support him on one side. Sweat had glistened on Roth's face as he staggered determinedly on, and Meyer had ended by half-carrying him the last quarter mile. Once mounted, Roth had barely managed to keep his seat, even on the placid white mule. Every few minutes he had been slumping forward, then jerking himself back upright, and just now, at the first halt, he had collapsed into Meyer's arms upon being lifted out of the saddle.

“I'm not much better on a mule than I am on a horse, am I?” he said, with a faint smile. Meyer had propped him up against the massive remains of a fallen tree. “Sorry to be such a nuisance.”