Chapter Twenty
Halsey House
Mayfair, London
The next morning, Inès moved from their bed.
Their suite. Told Mary to place her clothes in a small, vacant bedroom upstairs intended for a maid.
There she would be away from the family.
Away from Evan. She had ordered the girl to ask no questions and to go to the housekeeper to ask for reassignment.
When Evan was out at his meetings, she closed the door and sat on her new bed, unmoving.
She needed to be alone, away from all he had given her and offered her, to plan her next actions.
She would not remain long. The temptation to return to her husband was a magnet she could not resist for days on end.
She took scissors and clipped the thread on the hem of her pelisse.
She removed the little vial, set it on the top of the old table, and stared at it.
Killing a man took ingenuity. She had avoided thinking of it and now she had to fix all the details in her mind.
Of course, it would be best if she remained here, where the prime minister would surely come once again.
But she could not allow her plan to implicate her husband, his family, or his servants.
She had to find another way—and do the deed soon. Tomorrow would be best.
Evan returned home early. It was two o’clock when Mary ran upstairs to alert her. Inès had asked her to do that. The girl was sad, puzzled, and yet did her duty.
“He’s home and yells at Davis, ma’am. He wants to know where ye are…”
Below, Inès could hear him bellowing her name, opening and slamming doors, searching for her. Totally unlike him to be a madman.
She cringed at how she hurt him.
“Ma’am,” Mary said, “I’m afraid that the master will send me away.”
“He will not. I am the one who has done this.”
There in the open doorway stood the man Inès adored. The man she had married and promised never to leave.
He stared at her. “You may go, Mary.”
True to his nature, Evan watched the girl depart, then shut the door to stand, cross his arms before him, and wait.
Inès had not thought much of this through. She knew only that she had to be firm and brave. She would destroy him, but chose her words ever so carefully. By them would he remember her—and forget her.
“You married me,” he said in his low, ravaged voice, “to live with me.”
“I did.” She could not look him in the eye, but stared at the buttons on his waistcoat.
“What reason do you have to remove yourself up here?”
She lifted her face to gaze at him. He deserved that she tell him with her eyes on his, firm and resolute. “I am”—not myself; another whom you do not know—“ill.”
His face paled. “How so?”
She shrugged. “Not well.”
“Are you with child?”
She had not considered that. She might be, and she would count the weeks since her last flux later. But even if she were, she could not stay for him or the child or herself. “No.”
“You had your last monthly beginning the day before Christmas.”
He was right. He had kept track. Being with child was possible. But she said nothing.
He let out a strangled breath. “It is cold up here.”
She remained mute.
“You don’t like the cold.”
She shuddered.
He came to his knees before her. As he had the night she told him of her actions in Boulogne, he caressed her cheeks. “My darling, this is torture. Why have you left me?”
“I must. You must not ask me more.”
“Why not?” He brushed a tear from her cheek.
She took a huge breath. “I love you and I will not ruin you.”
“Oh, my darling, the only way you can ruin me is if I live without you.”
She shook her head.
“Come back to me.”
“No.”
“Do you plan to remain up here indefinitely?”
“No.”
“You will leave?” He narrowed his gaze.
She nodded.
He grabbed a breath. “When?”
“Soon.” As soon as I can devise a plan that works.
He got to his feet, put his hands to her shoulders, and kissed her on the crown of her hair. “I pray that day never comes.”
#
She took her tea down in the kitchen. Peggy had tried to get her to reveal her problems. The cook even asked if the encounter with the lady in the shop were her problem.
Inès declined to speak. The whole house knew the master’s bride had sequestered herself in the servants’ attic.
She avoided them all as much as she could.
“They must not blame him, Peggy.” The idea that the staff would turn on Evan appalled her. “He has no fault in this. I am the one who cannot be a good wife to him.”
“His valet, Simms, says he walks the floor like one from Bedlam. He coughs, too. We think he has a sickness.”
“Take him broth and lots of chamomile tea, Peggy. He needs to be strong.”
“Why don’t you take it to him, ma’am?”
“Oh, Peggy. I cannot. He is too wonderful and he would use his words to lure me back. I cannot go.”
“And if you have a babe? We all know ye were his true wife. If ye were in his bed for seven weeks, me lady, then…”
“I was.” Inès closed her eyes, remembering her husband’s touch, his kiss, his care.
She gulped and pushed the dazzling memories aside.
Instead, she sat, reaffirming that Evan had been correct that her last flux was before Christmas.
Since then, she and he had often celebrated their growing love for each other.
She hated the idea that she might be with child and still have to leave the man she adored.
Chances were slim, weren’t they, that she was pregnant?
She told herself it had to be so. Had to be… “I am not now his devoted wife.”
#
Hawthorne Trading Company
1 Clements Lane, Lombard Street
London
“I must speak with Scarlett and you. Now.” Evan had barged into the Hawthorne Trading Company offices minutes after watching his wife of seven weeks tell him their marriage was finished.
Todd Carlton arched two long, dark brows and extended a hand in welcome. “A problem?”
Evan nodded. “One.”
“We are always ready to help.”
“You and Scarlett may be the only ones who can.” He eyed the man who was Scarlett’s watchdog, assistant, adviser, and all else except her lover. “I abide by your code. You do by ours. Now I need to breach it. My wife is in danger.”
Carlton spun around and gave one knock to the door.
Not a moment had passed before Scarlett swung wide her door. A quick assessment of Evan’s demeanor was all it took for her to step aside. “Please.”
The two men strode in. She offered chairs.
Todd remained standing.
Evan was right beside him. “Inès is tortured by her past. I must know what that was. In detail, please.”
Scarlett strolled to her window, composed as ever.
Schooled in England, France, and Switzerland, she was her parents’ only child.
An elegant beauty who spoke three languages, she had inherited her father’s—and before him, her grandfather’s—merchant shipping company.
Rich as Midas, lovely as sin with auburn hair and porcelain complexion, she had a wickedly sharp mind.
What she did not know, Carlton did—or he learned.
Today, she was dressed in the latest fashion, a creamy gown of finely wrought Bengali muslin so airy it flowed over her curvaceous body like silk.
“Has she told you anything about her actions in the past?” she asked him. Her only sign of nerves was that she fingered a paperweight of crystal.
He blew out a breath. “She began as a runner for Lady Ashley and Lady Ramsey. She may be known to other Paris runners in your network. Perhaps even your Paris chief of staff, Magnus Corsini. Not long ago, she went to Boulogne. There she was instrumental in the duping of the French Admiralty in the construction of their amphibious boats for Bonaparte’s attempted invasion of Britain. ”
Scarlett regarded him with wary forest-green eyes. “She has been invaluable to us.”
“I agree.”
“But now?” She cocked her head. “What has happened?”
“She prepares to leave me.”
Scarlett smarted at this news. “The problem is not between you, then.”
He shook his head. “You were at our wedding. You saw her with me. No. Nothing stands between us…except whatever this is.”
She glanced at Carlton. “Love binds them well. So what is this?”
Carlton spoke up. “Has anything happened to Inès lately that causes this?”
“Not that I know. Not that she has told me,” Evan replied. “I expect you have had protection for the Ashleys, Ramseys, the Fourniers, as well as for Giselle.”
“Yes. But Carlisle,” said Carlton, “took that over for Giselle when she and he married.”
Evan recalled that that had happened earlier than Carlton thought. “Carlisle had done it himself in Brighton when he saw her stalked by men he did not know.”
“And you?” Scarlett tipped her head. “You have had Inès followed since your wedding. We saw that.”
“Did you dismiss your men when I took up the reins?” Evan asked.
“We did,” she told him. “To have too many creates a marker the enemy can easily spot.”
Carlton folded his hands together, his mouth grim. “Does Inès know that Giselle and her husband Carlisle recently saw the French agent La Mère at the theater?”
Evan nodded. “Yes. Giselle told you, I imagine?”
“She did,” Carlton said. “The next morning, both she and Carlisle came here.”
“Carlisle’s guards were not able to track the woman out of the theater,” Evan told them.
“He told us.” Carlton sniffed. “We all are worried about La Mère.”
“This relationship between your group and ours,” Evan added, “is working well. But now I need to know more.”
“I agree,” Scarlett said, gazing at Carlton then Evan. “Your wife has done us a great service. What she accomplished was a delicate operation, which she carried off brilliantly and with more positive results than we ever expected.”
Evan winced. “She pretended to be Vice Admiral Rossard’s lover.”
“He preferred men,” Carlton said. “He used her as a cover. We were fortunate in that.”
“So was Inès,” Evan added. “But she grew to care for him. She mourns that he took his own life. I wish I could help her absolve herself of blame for what happened to him. The man was doing what he thought was his duty. But now, God help her, she is well known to the French general staff and the admiralty.”
“More than that,” Scarlett said, her lips thin with worry, “she is known to Joseph Fouché and René Vaillancourt.”
Though he knew that, the confirmation nearly sent Evan to his knees.
“Both are ruthless,” Carlton murmured.
“But Vaillancourt does Fouché’s dirty work,” said Scarlett. “Especially with women.”
Carlton checked Scarlett’s eyes. “He resents that Ashley got the better of him years ago. Ramsey walked out of his house with Amber and humiliated him in front of Paris’s most powerful. Since then, no female agent of ours is safe from him. We do the best we can to protect them.”
Now Evan had to know the ultimate in secrets. “You spirited Inès out of Boulogne, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we had to.” Scarlett took her chair behind her desk, her gaze dark with dread. “Vaillancourt pegged her as the one who encouraged Rossard to give Giselle’s drawings of the coastal towns to the French shipwrights. We told Corsini to arrange it. He succeeded.”
“What I do not understand,” Evan said with dismay, “is why she finds it necessary to leave me.”
“She may be afraid for your safety,” Carlton offered.
That confounds me. “Someone would have had to have threatened me. But that is not so. Unless only she knew? But that seems so illogical that I cannot imagine it. She has done nothing. Nothing. We have been happily married for many weeks. Why suddenly would she move to the upstairs servants’ quarters? ”
Scarlett locked her eyes on Carlton. “There is one more aspect to her life that you should know.”
Carlton faced him. “Her brother Luc is in La Force. Taken there by order of Vaillancourt.”
“She has asked us to get Corsini to get him out,” Scarlett said. “He has tried. Twice. And failed.”
Evan put a hand to his forehead. “Could she be blackmailed for something her brother did?”
“Anything is possible,” Scarlett added. “What else would they want from her? Money?”
“She has not asked me for any.”
“She has a stipend from us,” Scarlett added. “But it is not an amount that would serve her well if someone wished to ransom the brother or blackmail her.”
Evan thought on that. “She does not meet anyone at odd hours. She does do many of the household errands and… Do you suppose someone has made contact with her?”
“Ah.” Carlton raised a finger in the air. “What does your man guarding her say?”
“I saw him an hour ago. He has seen nothing unusual.”
“Has La Mère found her?” Scarlett asked, her gaze sweeping to Carlton. “Or Faucon?”
Evan felt ice flow through his veins. “I would hope she would tell me. Let me help her…” He knew not what to do, where to go. “I must leave. Return to her and try to talk her from this precipice.”
“One more thing before you go. Please.” Scarlett put up a hand.
“Anything.”
“Have you heard from Putney Green that Pitt is very low in his bed with fatigue and stomach complaints?”
“Yes, I had a note from Durham, who is with him at his bedside, hours ago.” He swallowed his fears for the man who had led them all for eighteen months.
The prime minister’s dedication was killing him.
“The physicians say they are not worried. Durham? Well, you know Durham. He thinks our man is on his deathbed.”
“Is he?” Scarlett was pale with apprehension.
“I pray not.”
“We will know soon enough,” Carlton said, and went to Scarlett to take her hands in his. “Go. Save your wife and your marriage.”