Chapter Two
David tapped lightly on Marguerite’s door. The encoded information he had received was important, something that might change the course of the war for the Anglo-Portuguese army.
She opened the door, her long, dark hair spilling about her, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
Without a word, she stepped aside, and he entered her cottage.
Looking around it, he knew this would be the last time he came here.
The final night in this village, where he had lived a double life as a spy for the British army.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, her dark brown eyes large.
“Only for you,” he said, capturing her waist and pulling her toward him. He gave her a long, slow kiss. Breaking it, he said, “Bed, now. Work, after.”
Marguerite had been a refuge to him. Her husband had died fighting in the war, and she loathed Bonaparte and the French with a passion.
She was but one in a network of spies he employed, but they had grown close over the time he had been here.
Now, he would never see her again. This long mission had come to an end.
Deliberately, he had dismantled the web he had created as he had gone through the countryside over the past ten days.
He was the key, knowing who the others were and what they had to offer.
No one was connected, other than a few in this village, and David would make certain they understood their part in the mission was complete.
And that he was never coming back.
Their lovemaking was frenetic, as if she sensed it was the last time they would couple.
When he reached his peak of satisfaction, David held her tenderly, savoring this bit of humanity amidst the horrors of war.
He would move on from this place, following orders again, having become a spy thanks to his language skills and keen intelligence.
Experience had shown he had a knack for being in the right place at the right time and making the most of the information given to him.
Though he lived in constant fear of being caught, he would continue to do his duty.
Marguerite leaned up and kissed him lightly. “Are you hungry now? There is stew.”
His sometime lover was all business now as she left the bed and quickly dressed.
He did the same and while she dished up some of the stew, he went to the rug in the center of the room and moved it aside, prying up the plank and reaching into the hole where he kept a copy of Rousseau’s The Social Contract.
The contents of the book went against the idea of a monarchy, and espoused that the general will of citizens gave them the right to legislate and rule themselves.
Lifting it from its hiding place, David replaced the plank and covered it again with the rug.
“I will hammer the plank into place before I leave,” he told her, his first verbal indication to her that their time had come to an end.
“When is that?”
“The patrols are out tonight, so I must stay with you until morning. I will leave sometime early tomorrow.”
“You will not be back, will you?”
Their gazes met.
“No,” he said softly, owing her that much.
Turning away, he put off saying their goodbyes, which would have to occur at some point.
What was important now, however, was deciphering the code which he had been given.
People had lost their lives, providing him with such information over the last seven years.
The last man who had given this to him told David what lay within the code might alter the future—in Portugal—and beyond.
He opened the book and began meticulously transcribing the message, using Rousseau’s book to crack the cipher.
When he finished, he read through it twice, committing all the details to memory.
He could not afford to carry an encoded message, much less one which had been deciphered.
And after having seen what the message revealed, he knew the urgency of getting the information to Wellesley as quickly as possible.
Marguerite urged him to eat the stew now that his work was completed, adding some crusty bread, which she had slathered in butter.
He took a bite of the bread and as he chewed, he went to the fire.
First, he fed the deciphered message into it, watching the page curl and burn.
Next came the encrypted version. Then, he ripped a few pages from the Rousseau and fed those to the fire, as well.
“You intend to burn the entire book?” she asked.
Nodding, he said, “It must be destroyed. If it were found, it would endanger many others, including you, Marguerite.”
She took it from his hands. “I will do that. Eat.”
He returned to his stew and cleaned the bowl, wordlessly watching as she tore out a few pages at a time and burned them.
When she had burned the last of the pages, she jerked the spine, rending the shell of the book into two separate pieces.
“These will take longer to burn,” she told him, placing the first half with the title upon the flame.
A knock sounded at the door, alarming them both. It was late, and no one should be calling at this hour.
“Hide,” she hissed, and he moved quickly into the bedchamber, the only other room in the cottage.
His heart beating rapidly, he listened as she opened the door.
“Joseph!”
“May I come in, Marguerite?”
“Of course.”
Footsteps. The door closing.
“Is David here? It is important that I speak with him.”
He appeared in the doorway as an answer. Joining them, he asked, “What is it?”
“Pierre and Andre. They have captured an English spy,” Joseph revealed.
His blood ran cold. No one knew he was English.
Not even Marguerite. He transitioned seamlessly from Spanish to French to Portuguese, speaking all three languages like a native.
No one suspected his origins. If someone along the chain of information in his labyrinth of spies had, they might have given him up for a price.
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
Joseph shook his head. “No. He has yet to give that up. I have heard he is in a bad way, David. He will be dead before morning. Unless you intervene. Who knows? He might be valuable to our cause.”
He didn’t think there was much he could do.
Andre and Pierre were brutal men. The French army officers terrorized this village, taking what they wanted, whenever they wanted it, knowing there would be no repercussions.
If they were interrogating this spy, they would get information from him.
Sooner or later, all men broke. It was simply a matter of how long it took—and what they were willing to give up.
Some captors would promise something as small as a sip of water or wine or swear the beatings would cease for a short while in order to encourage their captives to talk.
He had been extremely lucky in never having been caught and credited it to his language skills.
If Pierre and Andre had an inkling that David was English, much less a spy, they would have tortured him, enjoying every moment of it.
“If he has yet to give up his name, what information might he possibly have?” he asked, thinking the spy must be in possession of incredibly valuable information and was holding out as long as he could to protect it.
In the end, when he broke and gave his name and a few basic tidbits, his captors might believe that was all he knew.
Joseph shrugged. “That is why I came looking for you. Perhaps you might save him, David.”
The two men looked knowingly at one another, and he knew exactly what Joseph meant by saving this prisoner.
He wanted David to slip in and give the spy a humane death before his kidnappers cracked him open and stole what he knew.
If that proved impossible, then he would expect David to anger Andre or Pierre so much that they lost their temper and killed the spy before any information had been extracted.
It wouldn’t be the first time David had used the two men in such a fashion.
“I will come with you,” he said quietly. Looking to Marguerite, he added, “Finish what you started. Go to bed afterward.”
“No. I will wait up for you. They do not know to look for you here if they become suspicious of your actions.”
“All right,” he said, hoping he was not jeopardizing the fate of the Anglo-Portuguese army by going with Joseph now.
If he played his hand wrong and died by one of the French officers’ hands, the message he had for Wellesley would never reach the commander.
Still, a fellow Englishman and spy needed his help, and David was not one to walk away from someone in need.
They hurried through the night, the streets of the village familiar to him.
Reaching the two-story house where the French pair operated from, a house they had requisitioned from the town’s mayor, he said to Joseph, “Leave.”
His friend nodded, and David placed a hand on Joseph’s shoulder, squeezing it briefly. Understanding filled Joseph’s eyes.
“This is goodbye, isn’t it, my friend?”
“Take care of Marguerite. She is vulnerable, whether she thinks so or not.”
“I will do what I can. God be with you, David.”
Steeling himself, he entered the house without knocking, something he had done many times.
He saw Andre and Pierre hovering over a man lashed to a chair.
Andre struck another blow, causing the captive’s head to snap backward and then drop, as if the blow had rendered him unconscious.
He was dressed as a country farmer, and David couldn’t help but wonder if this man had been one of those risking everything in order to pass along information to him.
His network was large and overlapped other networks England had built, both here in Portugal and Spain, as well, the two places David had operated from during his time of service to the crown.
“My friends,” he said jovially. Holding up the bottle of wine he had thought to bring with him from Margurite’s cottage, he added, “A little bird whispered to me that you had caught a traitor in your trap. I am here to celebrate with you.”