The Shadow of the Eagle Read Online Free PDF

lifted the wine to her mouth and shook her head. ‘No, I wish it were so, but…’
    Drinkwater left her a moment to her abstraction. He was in no mood for sleep now and there was something of the extraordinary intimacy that he remembered from their last charged meeting, in the house of the Jew Liepmann, on the outskirts of Hamburg. [4] But there was something different about her now. He sensed a vulnerability about her, a falling off of her old ferocity. Either he was a fool or about to be hood-winked, but he sensed no scheme on her part to entrap him. Even had she sought to suborn him, she would never have allowed him to lift the hair from her scar in an act that, even now, he could scarcely believe he had accomplished.
    She sighed and stirred. ‘I have ridden a long way today, Captain Drinkwater, and we are no longer young.’
    ‘That is true. Forgive me; you must have something to eat…’ He rose and brought her a biscuit barrel, placing it upon the table beside her. She hesitated a moment and he watched her carefully. She was tired, that much was clear, and had undoubtedly lost her former confidence. Was that due to exhaustion, or the consequences of her scars? Had she been abandoned by those friends in high places she had once boasted of: Talleyrand for instance? Even now the ci-devant Bishop of Autun, foreign minister and Prince of Benevento, was conducting the government of France during the inter-regnum which would shortly end when Louis was restored fully to the throne of his ancestors. In these changed circumstances, a mistress like Hortense Santhonax would be an embarrassment which the calculating Talleyrand would drop like a hot coal.
    He watched, fascinated, as she began to eat the biscuits, swallowing the wine with an eagerness that betrayed her hunger. The soft candle-light played on her features and he felt again the urgent twitch in his gut. He recalled the group of fugitives he had rescued off the beach at Carteret years earlier; Hortense and her brother had been among them. Later, at Lord Dungarth’s instigation, she had been put back on a French beach once it was known that she had thrown her lot in with a handsome French officer called Edouard Santhonax. Drinkwater remembered, too, the earl’s injunction that they should have shot her, not let her go. [5] Since then she had risen with her husband’s star until he was killed, when her name became linked with that of Talleyrand. Such a beauty was not destined for a widowhood of obscurity. Hortense had been present at the Austrian Ambassador’s ball, given upon the occasion of the Emperor Napoleon’s marriage to the Archduchess Marie-Louise, and this confirmed she was still welcome at the imperial court despite imperial doubts about her husband’s loyalty. Now the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy threatened to set her world upside down again, and while the Bourbons could not avenge themselves upon the whole of France, they would undoubtedly visit retribution upon the vulnerable among Napoleon’s followers.
    ‘Do you fear the restoration? Surely as a friend of Monsieur Talleyrand, whose position, I believe, has never been stronger, you are safe enough?’ She looked up at him, and he saw the effort of will it cost her to set her thoughts in order. ‘Or are you seeking my protection and asylum in England?’
    She almost laughed. ‘Talleyrand … Protection … ? Ah, Captain Drinkwater, I can count on nothing further from the Prince de Benevento, nor would I presume,’ she paused for a moment, appearing briefly confused. Then she drew breath and seemed to steel herself, resuming in a harsher tone. ‘M’sieur le Prince prefers the Duchesse de Courland these days, but I have not come here to beg favours, but to warn you. King Louis may have returned, but his presence in France guarantees nothing; France is in turmoil. Three weeks ago the senate which Napoleon had created passed a resolution which blamed the Emperor for all of France’s