A Night Of Secret Surrender. Sophia James

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       Chapter Two

      Shay counted down the seconds following Celeste’s departure, wanting to place a good amount of time between them. Safety depended on careful observations and well-planned escape routes.

      McPherson would have to be warned, of course. The net was closing in day by day, but he hadn’t yet done what he’d hoped to since coming to Paris. He had passed military and political intelligence through McPherson to Wellesley, good intelligence that would inform the strategists and policy makers. But things were coming to a head now and he did not want to miss the last battles of the campaign.

      Napoleon and the Grande Armée were Russia-bound and General Wellesley was moving east towards France, chasing the last of the remaining French troops under General Soult out of Spain.

      He would quit Paris for the Spanish north. In disguise, he thought, and his heart sank. In all the weeks he’d been in France he had worn his uniform, as he had promised to do. Never before had he broken his promise to stay under the protection of military clothes.

      Celeste Fournier was another problem. If she had come to him, then others were probably watching, too, and her vow of help was beguiling. He would like to understand why she had left Sussex so abruptly. He would like to know why she had never made contact with him, why she had slid into the Parisian underworld of subterfuge and sacrifice instead.

      A small hole in the canvas allowed him to slip into the backstreet behind the restaurant and up through a series of alleyways that led to Montmartre.

      McPherson’s apartment was halfway up the hill on the Rue des Abbesses and he was home, setting a substantial diamond in a gold ring.

      ‘The secret police and the War Office have us in sight. You will need to pack up and leave.’

      Grey eyebrows shot up. ‘Cunningham implied as much when I saw him last. The White Dove warned him.’

      ‘The White Dove?’

      ‘A woman who transfers cachets for us sometimes and one who goes by so many names I have lost the truth of her real one. It is rumoured her father was murdered six years ago by the English.’

      ‘Where was the daughter when this happened?’

      ‘Here in Paris. Another lost soul of the Empire.’

      Shay felt unaccountably sick. Was this Celeste he spoke of? Had she been with her father when he had been killed? Had she seen the murder?

      ‘Who does she work for now?’

      ‘Nobody and everybody. I pay her well for things pertinent to the security and success of Britain and her causes. Sometimes she slips in red herrings so even that loyalty is questionable. At heart I imagine she works for one of the clandestine and dangerous underground agencies set up by Napoleon’s less salubrious captains. Like everybody else here she needs money to survive.’

      My God, such revelations turned all he had once known of Celeste on its head. Spoiled. Impetuous. Arrogant. Brittle and beautiful like her mother, but in a far more spectacular way.

      Why would she come to his rooms and risk exposure? Why had she shadowed him? There was something he was missing and he could not quite put it together. The disguises she had sported each time he had seen her made no sense either, for August Fournier had been wealthy and his daughter’s gowns the veritable talk of the county. She could have retired into an elegant lifestyle with her looks and her money. She could have married anybody she’d desired and done well. Yet she plainly had not.

      McPherson hadn’t finished, though, and after a moment he continued speaking. ‘The thing is that there is a certain fineness about her that one understands only by degrees. She brought me medicine when I was in bed with a bad chest last winter and only a few days ago she played a role in trying to save the lives of a family caught in the crossfire of politics.’

      Now he knew it was Celeste, for she had spoken of the same blunder.

      ‘How?’

      ‘She warned them of the danger. They were about to leave Paris when they were killed.’

      ‘What was their crime?’

      ‘The father had shot a man who threatened his wife, but honour in Paris has many complex layers and most people are entangled in some way or other with government strategy. For all the freedoms Napoleon promises, he keeps a tight rein on divergent thinkers.’

      ‘Which Felix Dubois was?’

      ‘Ah, so you had heard of the fracas? The White Dove has her own thoughts on justice and if I know of her involvement, then others will, too. There were documents found in the Dubois house which heralded British sympathies. Some say they came from her hands. If she is not careful, it will be she who will feel the wrath of suspicion next, if she still lives.’

      Shay swallowed and hoped the bread boy had made it to ground safely.

      ‘I have had word that my identity is on the verge of being discovered. Your name has been mentioned as well. Cut your losses now and come home with me to England, James, for Cunningham is already gone. We can leave on the morrow.’

      The older man only shook his head. ‘To do what? There is no place left for me in Scotland now and I have been here in France for so long it has become my home.’

      ‘A home that is more and more unrecognisable. The causes here are as lost as Napoleon will be in a few short years and your name is certain to be found on the list of those who will be interrogated...’

      ‘If I knew from the start just how it would end, I still would not have changed a thing, Shay.’

      ‘Because you believed in Napoleon’s promises?’

      ‘No. The cause I believed in is long since dead. СКАЧАТЬ