The Hunger (5 page)

“Sounds promising. I’m sure our intrepid compatriots in the navy picked them up.”

Barlow’s shaggy brows snapped down. “His name is Dupré.”

“Your interrogators are very good at getting Frenchmen to ‘parler.’ ” John took a sip of brandy and watched Barlow. The old man was really quite agitated.

“When you question a man rigorously you get false information. It won’t do.”

John didn’t want to think about Barlow’s definition of “rigorous” questioning. That was part of the business. The poor French sod would be singing like a canary, naming everyone and anyone. John drew on his cheroot and watched the smoke curl up toward the ceiling. “You want me to gain his confidence and ferret out his secrets.”

Barlow nodded. “You’ll pose as a fellow prisoner. Your French is perfect.”

John’s mind clicked ahead. “It can’t be anywhere prisoners are kept in separate cells. It would take too long to get close to him. How about a prison hulk in Portsmouth harbor?”

Barlow leaned forward eagerly. “Excellent idea! You’d be housed together under nominal guard. Easy to get him to trust you . . .”

“If I can find out what you want to know, you needn’t interrogate the wretch at all. That will conceal that there has been a leak, which will preserve the secrecy of our effort.”

Barlow’s smile was that of a predator crouched over his prey. “Exactly.”

“Where is he now?”

“Somewhere in the Atlantic making his way back to England. I got the news from a navy cutter. The frigate will be a week behind. A week to get the prisoners settled in the hulk . . . Expect to hear from me in a fortnight.”

John gulped the last of his brandy and stubbed out his
cheroot. “I’ll be ready. Portsmouth in April. Sounds like quite a little vacation.”

Barlow stared at the end of his cheroot. He had something else to say. John remained, one leg stretched out before him. “I don’t think we have ever had a man in the field who knew quite as much of the overall picture, the positions of various agents, as you do.”

John schooled his face to impassivity. “Your agents don’t normally last long enough.”

Barlow nodded, thoughtful. “You are a precious commodity. Perhaps we shouldn’t send you after this particular information.”

John held his breath. “So either you think I would become a double agent, or that under torture I would reveal too much.” There were two answers to that problem for Barlow. Barlow could retire him or kill him. John didn’t like either of them.

Barlow’s old eyes rose from the tip of his cheroot to John’s face. “It is a danger.”

“I’ve a fair tolerance for pain.” He wouldn’t answer the question of being a traitor.

“All men break, boy.”

“But you have no one better. So shall we save this conversation until after we find the center of this French web?” John sauntered to the door. “I shall expect to hear from you.”

“You will,” Barlow muttered behind him.

John slid down the back stairs of the club. He was glad he hadn’t told Barlow about the footpads. It would have given him another excuse to send someone less capable than John. The truth was, he only felt alive with the adrenaline of a mission pumping through him.

His thoughts glided back ten years, twelve. When had he become what he was? After traipsing around the Continent, fleeing from the world’s derision and from Angela, life seemed empty. Then, while drinking an archduke under
the table in Vienna, he had come into possession of some very interesting information. When he woke the next afternoon, he realized his country might well have use for that information. John grimaced. Langley, volunteer spy. He had vowed to spend his life loving his country if he could not bring himself to love women. Painful, how romantical he had been even at what, twenty-seven? He thought having sex with women instead of loving them made him callous. What did he know then? That was before the killing, before he realized he was an expendable commodity to his government, before he knew what dragging oneself through the dregs of humanity could do to you.

He wondered what he would do if Barlow ever retired him. He couldn’t imagine how flat life would be without even this slender purpose.
If
Barlow left him alive . . .

Beatrix alighted in front of the imposing façade of Bessborough House, escorted by a young colonel of the Twelfth Light Dragoons, Fredrick Ponsonby, who just happened to be the son of the Duke and Duchess of Bessborough. Friday had been positively interesting. Only one night to procure an invitation to an exclusive engagement whose hostess was notoriously picky about the
ton
of her guests. Beatrix always made it into mainstream society in the end, but the duchess and her ilk were the last bastions to fall. A challenge. In fact, her focus on Langley’s dare had kept the memories at bay for almost two days.

The only real risk had been the time frame. She had risen at dusk and sent for her dresser. Betty hardly needed prompting to provide more information than Beatrix could ever want about the duchess. When Beatrix found she had a callow if courageous son, the plan was set. A personally worded note to his rooms, an evening of solo attention; so simple really. Men just liked to be appreciated. A sighed disclosure that she was not to be of the
party the following night, and . . . the card of invitation had arrived at ten in the morning Saturday.

A courtesan in such a situation had two choices. She could seek to blend into the crowd, looking more demure, more
acceptable
than anyone. Or she could choose to stand out, and damn the eyes of those who thought she shouldn’t be there. Beatrix always chose to stand out.

Now as she ascended the stairs to the great stone portico of Bessborough House, Beatrix exuded calm. Her sable cloak and muff were proof against the raw March wind. Underneath, she knew her deep russet gown of heavy satin would be the envy of every woman in the room, no matter how spitefully they whispered that the color was too deep to be fashionable. She did not care for the tiny puffed sleeves in fashion, so she had her dressmaker lengthen them to the elbow, and slash them as was the fashion in the sixteenth century, with creamy lace peeking out at the slashes. The tiny rim of lace at a square neckline so décolleté she looked in danger of spilling from it at any moment echoed the slashes. She wore garnets, rust red and spread in a net of gold over her breast, and in pins winking in her hair and at her ears.

She let the footman take her wrap.
He
might not be here if he had not recovered from his wound. A niggling worm of disappointment wound through her. She pressed it down. She was here because it amused her to accept his challenge. If he happened to see her, he might appreciate the opportunity he had refused the other night, but that was nothing to her. Of course, she could not really hold his refusal against him if he thought himself too weak to do his part. Did that mean she would grant him another chance? She and Ponsonby ascended the staircase.

“May I present Beatrix Lisse, Countess of Lente?” Ponsonby made the introduction to his parents just inside the doorway to the great first-floor ballroom. Beatrix could feel the duchess’s disapproval. But Beatrix had been
disapproved of by better women than the duchess. She smiled at the woman, once beautiful, an intimate of the Prince Regent, and let her gaze rove over the Pomona green robe and feathered turban. She inclined her head in a curtsy just pronounced enough not to be rude, but hardly obsequious.

“Lady Bessborough,” she murmured. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

The duchess looked stunned. Beatrix could feel Ponsonby redden. Of course his mother hadn’t known. “Do enjoy yourself,” Lady Bessborough said, her mouth a moue of disapproval.

“Thanks to your so dear son, I’m sure I shall,” Beatrix murmured and moved on. Let the good duchess worry about that one for a while. From the doorway, she surveyed the crowd while Ponsonby stuttered his excuses to his mother. She did not see the tall form she was looking for.

Wait! There he was. Over in the corner, watching, though most people of dancing age were engaged in the center of the room. His eyes were just as cynical and green as she remembered. She saw him glance toward the entrance without expectation, as though he had been glancing there all evening, and had the satisfaction to see his gaze arrested in recognition. She stared boldly back. Touché. She was here.

Ponsonby stepped to her side, following her gaze. “Langley,” Ponsonby cried and raised a hand. He turned excitedly to Beatrix. “I saw him make hash of three bruisers in Hay Hill Street Thursday night. Pluck to the backbone. Might we inquire after his health?”

“Of course,” Beatrix murmured. “I am quite interested in his health.”

Ponsonby shepherded her across the floor toward Langley. “Langley, I say, did you survive your ordeal? I’ll wager you had the devil of a headache!”

“Nothing to speak of.” He bowed. “Lady Lente.” His
forehead sported a colorful bruise under his careless lock of hair.

“Surprised to see me?” she asked, one brow raised.

“Not at all.” He made his mouth quite serious. “I have been expecting you this hour.”

But Thursday he thought she wouldn’t have a card. Suddenly she realized that if he knew she had procured one just to meet his challenge, it put her at a disadvantage. How maddening that she was predictable!

“I say, Langley, how do you know the countess? You have been out of town for a month!” He looked from one to another. “Berkeley Square . . . You can’t mean you were on your way to . . . when you were—”

“I was promised to the countess that night,” Langley agreed.

“Actually he was promised Tuesday and was two days late,” Beatrix observed.

“I did move heaven and earth to keep the engagement.” Were his eyes laughing at her?

“No. You only moved three thugs by Ponsonby’s account.”

Langley’s eyes shifted lazily to the younger man. “So, you are Bessborough’s son.”

Ponsonby clicked his heels and bowed. “Your servant.”

“I hear the Twelfth Light may be leaving for the Peninsula shortly.”

“I haven’t heard those orders,” Ponsonby said, startled. “Not but what I’m eager to see some action. Our boys would love to be in the thick of it with Wellington.”

“He shows promise as a general,” Langley agreed. “Not that anyone in the government seems to care. They keep him short of specie and supplies, and he gets half the men he needs.”

“Not everyone understands the important role of the Peninsula in the overall strategy of the war,” Ponsonby exclaimed. “If we show Europe Boney is not invincible,
insurrections will bloom across the Continent like May flowers, and the alliance with Russia must surely collapse.”

“But if the puppet regimes are brought down, what will replace them? Weak governments in exile or awkward coalitions . . .” Langley shook his head shortly and was about to continue.

Beatrix clapped her hands. “
No
politics.” They started. “Politics bore me.”

“And is that the measure of a subject’s worth?” Langley drawled, recovering.

“Courtesy should prevent your wanting to bore your companions,” Beatrix observed.

“Perhaps,” Langley said to Ponsonby, “the weather will turn fine tomorrow. Do you expect wind?”

Ponsonby glanced nervously to Beatrix.

“I expect very windy conditions, if tonight is any indication,” Beatrix observed dryly. The orchestra struck up a waltz. She could feel Ponsonby gathering himself. Taking the offensive, she turned to Langley. “Is your shoulder sufficiently recovered for a waltz?”

She saw with satisfaction that she had disconcerted him, if not for brazenly asking him to dance, then for the fact that she had ferreted out his secret wound and he wasn’t sure how.

“I am always game for a waltz.” He extended his good right arm, while Ponsonby gaped.

She laid her hand on his forearm. The fabric of a shirt, her glove, and his coat lay between them. Yet it seemed she could feel his strength, the warmth of his body, the physicality of him, all in forearm laid to forearm. Dear God, but he felt male!

Langley led her to the floor, leaving Ponsonby looking about himself. Langley nodded, amusement lurking in those green eyes, and clasped her waist with his right hand. He held his left out resolutely at the correct angle, though Beatrix noticed the twinge of pain he masked so
carefully. Beatrix stared up into his eyes as she laid her left hand on his undamaged shoulder. Couples whirled around them as they stood, a still center to the music. Almost lazily, she placed her right hand in his left. He held her gaze as he stepped into the dance. His carriage was erect but not stiff, as graceful as she knew he would be. What was it she liked about waltzing? Was it that the steps were not predetermined as they were in country dances? One had to feel them. If one was a woman, one had to follow. Perhaps that was what fascinated her. What other time did she give herself over to the direction of another?

But here, whirling in the dance, she followed him, floating on the music. He was a skilled dancer as she knew he would be. He held her rather closer than was usual, but that was not unpleasant. She felt the music lifting them, his hands on her body, more intimate than was ever allowed in public otherwise. She could smell him, that clean, human male smell. He wore no scent other than the soap he had used to wash and shave. His wound was healing again. There was no smell of blood, thank God. Blood would have been too much for her, close as she was. She closed her eyes and felt his body guiding her. He glided between the other couples, and she ceded all her cares to him. The room whirled. The other couples drifted away until it seemed as though the room and the music belonged to them alone.

“Can we not even speak of weather, then?” he whispered, bringing her back to herself.

“There is no weather here.” Beatrix was trying just to breathe.

“No,” he agreed and held her infinitesimally tighter still. “Perhaps I should engage in gallantry. I admire your scent. Spicy. It is exotic.”

“Cinnamon,” she said. “And ambergris.” There, she had told him a secret. Why? A constriction rippled through her. What was she thinking? They were practically from
different species. The Companion changed everything. She pressed down some half-formed longing and gazed up at him. His purpose was to keep the darkness at bay. That was enough.