The Spymaster's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the attempt.
    While that woman worked on Adrian’s manacle, he groped his way across the cell to Henri, who was, as she had said, breathing. The Frenchman was tied, hand and foot, with his stockings and gagged with his own cravat. A thorough woman. Checking the bonds was an academic exercise. There was indeed a secret pocket in the jacket. He helped himself to the papers, then tugged Henri’s pants down to his ankles, leaving him half naked.
    â€œWhat do you busy yourself with?” She’d heard him shifting Henri about. “I find myself inquisitive this evening.”
    â€œI’m giving Henri something to discuss with Leblanc when they next meet.” It might buy them ten minutes while Henri explained his plans for the girl. “I may eventually regret leaving him alive.”
    â€œIf we are very lucky, you will have an eventually in which to do so.” There was a final, small, decisive click. “That is your Adrian’s lock open. He cannot walk from here, you know.”
    â€œI’ll carry him. Do you have a plan for getting out of the chateau with an unconscious man and no weapons and half the Secret Police of France upstairs?”
    â€œBut certainly. We will not discuss it here, though. Bring your friend and come, please, if you are fond of living.”
    He put an arm under Adrian’s good shoulder and hauled him upright. The boy couldn’t stand without help, but he could walk when held up. He was conversing with unseen people in a variety of languages.
    â€œDon’t die on me now, Hawker,” he said. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

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    â€œM E, I SHOULD NOT BE PLAYING NURSEMAID TO a couple of English.” The woman shifted to take more of Adrian’s weight. “We go left here, English, if you are set upon coming to this place.”
    â€œIt’s the closest church?”
    â€œIt is indeed. There is the Church of St. Cloud midway down the hill, of course, which is a more proper church—in daylight you could see the steeple—but the chapel in the orphanage is by far closer, if you do not mind that it is ruined, which I suppose is a matter wholly indifferent to you. It was burned in the Terror. They are all gone now, the nuns and the orphans, to God alone knows where.”
    â€œIf it’s the closest church, there’ll be a message.” If he were lucky, his friend Doyle would be waiting for him.
    â€œThe English spies in Italy had a similar arrangement. I am all comprehension.”
    Night stretched unbroken on every side, lightless, but decent and clean after that cell. He took a deep breath. The possibilities seemed endless, under this sky, breathing this pure, empty chill. They’d come this far. He’d get them all to safety. He’d find a way.
    â€œI do not know why I am helping you. It is an example of disinterested benevolence, this.” He could imagine the resigned shrug. Already he knew her that well. “And therefore doubtless unwise. Ah, we have removed ourselves from the road slightly. We shall edge back. Yes. Thusly. Take care.”
    They supported Adrian between them while Annique tapped the path ahead with the broomstick she’d picked up in the chateau garden. She’d saved his life again and again tonight. It was Annique who’d counted out the steps of a complicated route through the maze of the chateau cellars. She’d known the secret of the door hidden in the back of a storage closet. In utter blackness, with assurance a cat would envy, she’d threaded a way past the unseen hazards of the gardens. She found water caught under leaves in a deep stone basin. As long as he lived he’d remember that water. He’d remember Annique cupping water in her hand and holding it to Adrian’s lips before she took a drink herself.
    He could never have lifted Adrian over that last wall alone. It had been an endless, agonizing ordeal, accomplished in uncanny silence,