The Shadow of the Eagle Read Online Free PDF Page A

night-visitor was not on the staff of the Bourbon prince, and with a hammering heart, turned on his heel and led the way, nodding to the marine sentry at his door as the soldier snapped to attention. The French officer had removed the ridiculous shako to pass between decks, but held it in such a way that it masked his face from the marine’s inquisitive stare. He was still half hiding his face behind the plume as Drinkwater, closing the door behind them, crossed the cabin and held up the candelabra on his table.
    ‘You come by night like Nicodemus, but you are, if I mistake not, Hortense Santhonax.’
    She lowered the shako and shook her head, not in denial of her identity, but to let her hair fall after its constraint beneath the shako. Drinkwater recalled something else about her. In the imperfect illumination, her profusion of hair still reflected auburn lights. She dropped the hat on a chair and unclasped her cloak. For a moment they both stared at one another. She had half-turned her head away from him, though her eyes were focused on his face. Her hair had pulled over her right shoulder, revealing her neck.
    It was a quite deliberate ploy and as his eyes wavered towards the disfigurement, Drinkwater saw the twitch of resolution at the corner of her mouth. The scar ran down from under her hair, over the line of her jaw and down her neck. It was not the clean incision of a sword cut, but marked the passage of a gobbet of molten lead.
    He took her cloak and without taking his eyes from her, laid it on a chair behind him. It was warm from her body and the scent of her filled the cabin. He reached out his left hand, gently lifting the hair off her right ear. It was missing.
    Hortense Santhonax made no protest at this presumption. He let the hair drop back into place. ‘I knew of your injury at the Austrian Ambassador’s ball, Madame,’ Drinkwater said kindly, ‘and I am sorry for it.’
    ‘When a woman loses her looks,’ she said in her almost faultless English, ‘she loses everything. Thereafter she must live on her wits.’
    Drinkwater smiled. ‘Then it makes them more nearly men’s equals.’
    ‘That is sophistry, Captain.’
    ‘It is debatable, Madame, but you are no less lovely.’
    She spurned the gallantry, raising her hand to her neck. ‘How did you know … about this?’
    ‘Lord Dungarth acquainted me of the fact some time before his death.’
    ‘So, him too.’ She paused, and then seemed to pull herself together. ‘Men may acquire scars, Captain, and it does nothing but add credit to their reputations,’ she remarked, and was about to go on when Drinkwater turned aside and lifted the decanter.
    ‘Is that why you have assumed the character of a man, Madame?’ he asked, pouring out two glasses.
    She looked at him sharply, seeking any hint of malice in his riposte, but the grey eyes merely looked tired. He saw the suspicious contraction of the eye muscles and again the tightening of the mouth. She accepted the glass.
    ‘Pray sit, Madame; you look exhausted.’ He took in her dusty hessian boots, the stained riding breeches and the three-quarter length tunic. There was nothing remotely military about her rig. ‘I presume you stole the shako,’ he remarked, smiling, handing her a glass.
    ‘There is a deal of convivial drinking in Calais tonight, Captain. A lieutenant of the Garde du Corps is going to find himself embarrassed tomorrow morning when the king leaves for Paris.’ She returned his smile and he drew up a chair and sat opposite her. He felt the slight contraction of his belly muscles that presaged sexual reaction to her presence. By God, she was still ravishing, perhaps more handsome now than ever!
    Was it the wound that, in marring her beauty, somehow made her even more desirable? Or had he become old and goatish?
    ‘That is the first time I have seen you smile, Madame.’
    ‘We have not always met under the happiest of circumstances.’
    ‘Is this then, a happy occasion?’
    She