Chapter Ten
The Ashleys and Ramseys had taken a house together north of the Steine. While in Brighton, the four usually stayed at the Old Ship, but this week, perhaps because the weather was so fine, the hotel was filled to capacity.
Many British—despite the threat of the Grand Army across the Channel—had recently come to Brighton to be near the prince regent and his entourage.
Many thought it their last chance at a brief holiday on the coast this summer.
In Dover, Ramsgate, and other towns and villages along the Channel, residents had already packed up their belongings and headed inland.
Fear of an imminent French invasion was rampant.
Army troops, such as those stationed at Preston Barracks north of Brighton, and volunteer home guard swamped the towns, adding to the simmering anxiety.
Giselle hurried along the stone walkway to her friends’ rented house.
They had insisted she take a hired carriage back to the hotel yesterday—and she had allowed it.
However, she had insisted that she walk this morning.
The exercise and sunshine added a sparkle to her day.
Her dashing marquis was responsible for most of it.
Dinner last night with Carlisle, his sister Terese, and their friend Lord Langley had been an experience she’d not enjoyed in many years.
The three of them were not only comfortable in each other’s company but downright friendly.
They seemed to have no conflicts with each other, merely differences of opinion.
About those, they did not argue. Acceptance was the rule of the day.
The two hours Giselle had spent with them reminded her of her parents’ easy relationship.
That was what those two had taught by example to their three children.
Giselle had not known such tranquility in her own marriage.
That union had been a battleground in the salon—and in bed.
The refreshing quality of dinner had been one she told Carlisle about as he stood at her door when they’d parted for the night. “I must thank you for a very pleasant evening. I have not had such a delightful experience since my parents died.”
“It was but a simple dinner.”
“Not to me,” she’d whispered, and, on impulse, rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.
The lightning response in his silver eyes had remained as he invited her to call him by his given name. Risky as it was to accept such largesse, she had agreed with a twinkle in her eye. “My kiss invited that.”
“Invite me to do more, my dear. I will not fail you.”
She had believed him. He was the first man who had ever been so forward and so sweet about his regard for her. She had left him, but through the night she dreamt of walking in sylvan glades full of flowers in the sun.
Her golden memory of her dreams brought her smiling to the door of her friends.
“Good morning,” the hired butler bade her, taking her gloves and pelisse. “The Ashleys and Ramseys await you upstairs. Please follow me.”
Gus and Amber rushed to embrace her while their husbands politely kissed her cheek.
Lord Ashley, whom Giselle had come to know over years of friendship by his given name of Kane, had led Scarlett Hawthorne’s mission to France soon after the Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802.
His responsibility there had been to enlarge the circle of espionage agents throughout the Continent while continuing to perform diplomatic and financial duties as cover for his actions.
Here in Britain, he kept up his network with his wife, Gus.
Their contacts here and on the Continent continued to be crucial to information about Bonaparte’s regime.
Giselle had benefited from those in the circle, including Corsini, Kane’s former majordomo, and their contact and smuggler, Jacques Durand, who had sailed her across treacherous waters to safety in Britain.
“I am delighted to see you again, Giselle.” Ashley was a tall, debonair man, dark of hair, jovial, a true diplomat by nature.
“You look well, Giselle. I am glad,” said Kane’s friend, Amber’s husband. Godfrey DuClare, Lord Ramsey, was a different sort of fellow. Commanding in his presence, with a swarthy eminence to him, he was quick to act, quick to smile, focused always on the prize. Today, that was information.
Giselle had it for all of them.
“Will you have tea?” Gus asked her, and led her toward the assembly of settees and chairs arranged for their discussion.
“Yes, I will. Thank you.” Now here with her friends, Giselle was totally relaxed.
Walking north along the Steine was not a challenge to her this morning.
Gus had assured her yesterday that they would assign a man to act as her guard, investigate what had happened to her other man, and search for the fellow she thought she’d seen in Hastings.
“As long as I have a new guard by tomorrow morning,” she had told the two women yesterday, “I would prefer to walk to meet you. All of that exposure adds to my ability to draw the city accurately…and inaccurately.”
Her argument that she doubted anyone would hurt her in broad daylight had been met with skepticism.
The use of a carriage back to the hotel was the result.
But today, coming here, she had felt the presence of others interested in her.
She wondered if they all spied upon each other and inspired an unusual parade!
Now, Gus and Amber sat on the settee to either side of Giselle. The two men stood, Ashley motionless behind one facing chair, Ramsey breaking his stillness now and then to prowl the room.
“We have no word yet on what has happened to your first guard,” Ashley told her.
“We have two men investigating that,” Ramsey added. “We hope for news later today.”
“How is the new man?” Gus asked.
“Attentive,” Giselle said. “I walked the beach early this morning and felt his presence. Benevolent. I am pleased.”
“Does the fellow who resembles one from Hastings follow you today?”
“I think so.”
“Shall we hire an additional guard?” Amber asked.
“No. One is enough.” Provided nothing happens to him. “You will tell me what happened to my first man, I do hope.”
Ramsey frowned. “I won’t have you frightened, Giselle.”
She was not his wife and not a child. “I want to know.”
Ramsey acceded to that. “As you wish.”
“And what happened to Jacques Durand’s messenger that he did not appear the other night? Do you know?”
Ashley winced. “He was arrested hours before he was to meet you.”
“Bow Street Runners took him?”
“No,” Ashley said. “Revenuers who tracked him from Durand’s schooner offshore.”
Giselle took her tea from Gus’s hands and sipped.
That news was not good. She liked Durand, his crew, and his canny ability to outwit the French and British blockade.
She had sailed with him last September from Le Havre to Dover.
He had been good company on their many days at sea.
They’d even discussed the construction of the French fleet in La Rochelle and Le Havre, both ports Giselle had investigated before she met Durand in an inn in Le Havre.
He was a skilled sailor, and Giselle would not see him harmed or hurt.
Now she was worried not only about Durand but also their friend and agent in the encampment of the Grand Army in Boulogne.
Bonaparte assembled most of the flat-bottomed boats of his invasion fleet there in sight of his army generals to encourage them for the future crossing.
“Durand is vital to us. He will look for his man and rescue him, I hope.”
“Of course,” Amber assured her with a touch of her hand.
Giselle knew that meant if and when Durand could get in and out of whatever Channel port he currently hid inside.
“We need all our links unbroken,” said Ashley.
“And the information flowing. However,” Ramsey said with a frown, “we have to tell you of our other challenges.”
Giselle put down her cup and saucer on the small tea table.
“Your last drawings that we had you place in the book in that store in Hastings remain there.”
“No one has picked them up?” She tipped her head, surprised.
All her other postings had been carried off as planned by those they suspected as French agents.
They had proof of that from other agents, and the actions of the French confirmed their belief in Giselle’s false drawings. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“We have no idea,” Ashley admitted. “We can only wait to see if someone comes to take them away.”
Giselle grew uneasy and put a hand to her brow. “Do you still believe the one who will buy the book is a double agent?”
Ramsey nodded. “We do. We have planted the lie among those we think are double agents that good drawings of the town are in that book. We have a list of those whom we suspect send information of our troop numbers and movements to Boulogne.”
“That list comes from Lord Appleby’s wife Vivienne?
” Giselle had never met the lady but had heard her life story from Gus and Amber after she had arrived in London months ago.
All four of them here had met the woman who had imitated her older sister in order to return to France and learn the fate of their middle sister.
What Vivienne had learned from René Vaillancourt’s lips was that her sister was not only a French spy herself, but she ran a network of them here in Britain.
“It does,” Ramsey said. “Viv has been very helpful in that. Her older sister sent her a list of names before she died.”
Vivienne’s older sister, Charmaine Massey, had been a famous Drury Lane actress. As Charmaine made her way into the bedrooms of British politicians, she had also sent to Vaillancourt all the news she collected.