What a Hero Dares

“Give me your hand.”

“I can manage on my own,” she shot back, but the slates were becoming slippery with dew, so she only issued the complaint before tucking her hand in his. His touch devastated her, and for the first time she could see herself losing her balance and sliding off the edge of the roof.

“Steady, woman.” In a moment he had both her hands safely within his grip, and she was half lifted, half dragged over the windowsill, to end with her bare feet on the floor, the length of her body pressed up against Max’s lean strength.

She could see his dark features in the light from the fire and lit candles, just as she knew he could see hers.

How badly had the time in prison aged her? It had taken her months to fully regain her strength, the weight she’d lost. But even now she knew she would never be the same Zoé Charbonneau who’d been all but flung into that dank cell, the sound of a heavy key turning in the lock presumably sealing her fate. No matter if she bathed in milk and rose petals every day for the remainder of her life. If she had been able to lose the stink of prison that had clung to her, she could never be rid of the new shadows in her brown eyes or the nightmares that still plagued her.

“You look just the same,” Max said, raising his hand to run a fingertip down her cheek. “Life just doesn’t seem to touch you, Zoé.”

She turned her head away. “Now who’s the liar? You look like hell, Max. You probably need some sleep.” She disengaged herself and took several steps away from him, hanging on with her last fraying thread of resolve. “And a shave wouldn’t come amiss, although I’d admit the earring is rather interesting.”

Max touched his ear, and the diamond that winked there. “I don’t know why you women suffer these things. It hurt like hell for three days, having that hole punched in me.”

She sat in the only chair in the small servant’s room. She wanted him to leave, but at the same time she wanted him to stay, so she asked him: “It’s quite the stone. Is it real or glass?”

He stayed where he stood, the sloped ceiling of the room fairly well hindering him from moving too far in any but the direction of the door or single window. “You’d have to ask the man I cut it from about that. No self-respecting wharf rat is without one, I discovered, and relieving the fellow of his earring after I’d milled him down for looking at me too long established me in certain quarters.”

Zoé nodded. “It isn’t enough to dress the part, is it? You have to knock down at least one man before the others learn to mind their own business. Did you have to slice his ear?”

“I wasn’t going to kneel over him until he woke up, fiddling with the damn thing to figure out how to remove it. Besides, I’d already poked the hole in my own ear. Should I keep it, do you think?”

His rakish yet boyish smile curled her toes.

Suddenly the months disappeared as if they’d never happened. This feeling wouldn’t last, she knew, but the moment was too precious to waste. “I’d say no. It makes you much too memorable. If you haven’t had it stuck there too long, the hole should close up in a few weeks. After the swelling goes down, that is. I wouldn’t have made such a botch of the job if I’d done it for—”

The moment was over. There’d probably never be a time when they wouldn’t stumble over their past history within minutes of calling a temporary truce.

“Why were you following Anton?”

Very clearly over.

Zoé shrugged, as if the answer was obvious. “To see where he went, of course. Why did he try to knock you unconscious?”

“He didn’t tell you why he was going to do that?” Max said as he touched a hand rather gingerly to the side of his head.

“He didn’t know I was aboard. I didn’t know you were going to be aboard. If you can get anything into that thick head of yours, understand this—I do not work for or with Anton Boucher. I act on my own now. Trusting others is for simpletons.”

“So it was all one grand coincidence, the three of us crossing the Channel tonight in the same ship.”

Zoé pushed herself up and out of the chair. “You and Anton clearly were traveling together. You were the only coincidence. Taking Anton to meet your family, were you? That doesn’t seem like anything you’d do, especially considering it was your family that very nearly blew us out of the water. See, Max? You have questions, but so do I. My solution is for you to let me go, putting an end to those questions. It would seem you and your family have enough on your plates without attempting to wedge me into whatever is going on.”

He stared at her yet again, as if he could somehow bore a hole into her head and examine her brain for answers. “How do you survive? How do you live? How do you eat? You can’t work for the French or the English. Who benefits from your talents now, Zoé? You were always amazingly inventive, but you couldn’t have survived without some sort of help. Tell me about this arrangement.”

So much for bravado, for lies. Sometimes the only ploy that works is to tell the truth. “I already was halfway toward convincing the night guard I would make him a rich man if he let me go, when I had a visitor from a very unexpected corner. Bonaparte has as many enemies inside France as he does without. If I would work for this person, I would be released. I agreed.”

“Damn, we were right.” Max was suddenly leaning forward, as if he could somehow physically drag the words from her. “Who? An Englishman? Give me his name.”

“An Englishman? In Paris? Walking freely in and out of that terrible prison? The man introduced himself as Monsieur Périgord, but I believe that was only to test my intelligence.”

Max straightened, nearly hitting his head on the pitched ceiling. “Charles Talleyrand? No, that’s impossible.”

“But true, although he was careful to keep his face hidden beneath the hood of his voluminous cloak. Le grand négociateur, who’s turned his loyalties more than a poor man turns his shirt cuffs. Were I Bonaparte, Talleyrand’s head would be stuck on a pike at the city gates. The day will come when the new emperor regrets not ordering the execution.”

“Men like Talleyrand always land on their feet, one way or another.”

“I suppose so. In any event, he’d somehow learned of my skill with languages, and entrusted me to carry a verbal message to Austria for him. I didn’t ask how he knew. I was much more intent on his offer to free me. I traveled to Salzburg for him, paid well before I left because I was then to continue straight on to my second mission, which would take me to London.”

“But with money now in your pocket, you went hunting Anton instead?” Max shook his head as if attempting to shake some bit of knowledge loose. “Not me. Anton. Just as you said.”

“And so we’ve come full circle, only this time it would seem you believe me. Very good, Max. Now if you’d be so kind as to leave the door unlocked as you leave, by morning I’ll no longer be your problem.”

“I can’t do that. How long have you been following Anton?”

That question surprised her. “You’d trust any answer I’d give you?”

“I’ll measure any answer you give me, let’s settle on that compromise. If your answers prove helpful, I might allow you the freedom of the house, but not the grounds. With any key to your chamber in your own possession so that you don’t feel constrained to climb out on any more roofs.”

Zoé sat down once more, her mind busy. This was her chance to prove herself, and she knew it. What had mostly amused her at the time could be just what Max might want to know. “A rather one-sided bargain, but I suppose I have no choice. Anton is a creature of habit, as you already know, or you wouldn’t have found him—unless he found you?”

“No, I found him.”

“Because you’re so all-powerful, or because he let you?” Zoé asked, only because she couldn’t help herself. There had always been this competition between them, once a friendly sparring, but now she realized the game had lost all its humor. “But no matter,” she added quickly. “I haunted his favorite hotel in Ostend until he showed his face.”

“You were taking quite a chance, confronting him.”

“The opportunity never presented itself.” Zoé’s quick mind knew what was important and what was not, so she left any further telling of how she’d found Anton and told Max about the man’s dining companions. “He was seated at a table in the open air outside the hotel, joined by a man and woman. The woman dark-haired and past her first youth, but rather beautiful still. And a man—tall, muscular—ten or fifteen years her senior. Blond, strikingly so, and blue-eyed. He seemed...agitated. The woman had her hand laid on Anton’s forearm, while beneath the table she had slid off her slipper and was running her bare toes up and down his stockinged leg. Quite the coquette.”

“And you recognized neither of them?”

Ah, she’d said something important. Zoé shook her head. “I was most concentrated on Anton. He seemed to be in charge of the conversation, at times appearing angry, until the blond man pushed back his chair so that it tumbled to the flagstones and he stomped off, leaving the woman to make amends.”

She smiled. “After I’d cooled my heels for a good hour outside the hotel while Anton and the woman played upstairs, sipping some rather pleasant Bordeaux beneath my wide-brimmed bonnet and fairly hideous red wig, they reappeared, as did the blond man some moments later. He’d been propping up a lamppost directly across the street—clearly aware of what was transpiring inside the hotel. The woman teased him, kissed him, and then discreetly cupped his genitals as she flicked her tongue across her upper lip. Straight from one man’s bed and already seducing another. You can see why I haven’t forgotten her.”

“And the blond man?”

“Imbecilic over the woman. He raised both her hands to his mouth, kissing her overturned palms while, if I heard correctly, apologizing for his behavior. Anton laughed—we both know how indiscriminate he is about who he ruts or where—and within moments the three had entered a coach and been driven off toward the waterfront. I admit to being intrigued. I followed them. Once I was certain Anton was in his hotel for the night, I returned to the small warehouse they’d visited and took a look inside.”

“A dangerous move.” Max held up a hand. “Wait. The man and woman. Could you overhear anything they’d said? Were they speaking French, or English? Did they look French to you?”

“The woman spoke French in the way of a proper English schoolgirl, and the man didn’t speak at all until the end, and then spoke English. He had some sort of accent, a country-born accent, I’d say, definitely lacking in formal education. You know how I delight in languages.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

She wished to heaven she did, because Max’s interest was with the couple and she longed to know why. “No. Clearly they had business with Anton. That’s all. And, although you may not be interested, it would appear Anton has been dabbling in opium trading. At first glance it seemed to be the usual contraband bound for England, but when I opened one of the brandy kegs it was solidly packed with oilskin-wrapped opium. Our mutual friend is quite the enterprising fellow, doubtless a fervent admirer of my most recent employer, and willing to serve any number of different masters, as long as it’s personally profitable.”

“I can’t believe this,” Max said, looking pale in the candlelight. “Anton and the Society?”