The Heart That Wins (Regency Spies Book 3) Read online

  Edmund motioned for her to sit. Reflecting again on the state of her clothes, she remained standing. She turned slightly so that he could see the extent of the mud. His lips curved up a little and he and Herr Schröder remained standing. She had never managed to convince Edmund that she would not be offended if he sat while she stood. John had always been easy enough in her company to do so, until today. Noticing that they were looking at her, she struggled to remember why.

  “Bad news” prompted Edmund.

  “You were right. I can only be a few days ahead of Bonaparte.”

  Edmund put his arm around his wife’s waist and Mary placed her hand over his. The gesture made Sophia’s heart lurch with a sense of loss.

  “Everything is ready,” said Edmund. “We will leave tomorrow.”

  Now Sophia looked at Mary properly for the first time. She was clearly pregnant.

  “Don’t worry, Sophia, I am strong enough to travel,” said Mary.

  “I know. I recall other journeys when you were in this condition.” Sophia smiled. “I have asked John to come here tonight,” she continued. “He didn’t believe that Bonaparte could become emperor again. I knew the two of you could persuade him.”

  “I don’t think that will help,” said Edmund. “I’ll go to him now.”

  Sophia was surprised, then she remembered Edmund’s friendship with John’s family. Although not close to John himself, Edmund was close to Lady Caroline, John’s mother, as well as Lord Meldon, John’s uncle.

  “He believed me and went to tell the acting ambassador,” she said.

  “I owe it to his mother to make sure he leaves in time,” said Edmund.

  It had not occurred to Sophia that John might not want to leave, but he had a strong sense of duty. It would be like him to put the needs of others above his own.

  “Please make him see that he must leave,” she said.

  There was no need for her to hide her feelings from Edmund and Mary. Herr Schröder would have to make of them what he would.

  “He’s not a boy any more, but I will convince him,” said Edmund.

  Sophia was satisfied. Edmund could be persuasive when he chose.

  “I must bathe and put on some clothes that don’t make me look like a boy,” she said.

  “I do not think you could look like a boy whatever you wore,” said Herr Schröder. He looked at her appreciatively and Sophia smiled despite herself. In all the tales about the tall Prussian Edmund had told, he had never mentioned how handsome his colleague was. The man was about thirty, fashionably dressed, despite his dark hair being cut unfashionably short. He had a scar about three inches long on his left cheek that Sophia knew was the result of a fight with a French officer who had tried to stop him setting sail from the Low Countries with some French refugees. It did nothing to detract from his beauty, but rather made him seem mysterious and remote. His accent was heavy and she guessed he must usually speak German with Mary and Edmund, who were both fluent in that language.

  “You are kind,” she said.

  “I think, Miss Arbuthnot, that I shall always speak kindly to you.”

  Sophia blushed and was grateful for the dirt on her face, as she had no intention of encouraging him.

  “Sophia, please, for it seems we are all friends here.”

  She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. It was true that Edmund and Mary kept an informal house, but on a day when even John had called her ‘Miss Arbuthnot’ it seemed wrong to allow someone she had known for less than an hour to use her name.

  “I have known Edmund for many years, but it is only recently that I have learned that he has another name, so I must use the one with which I am familiar.”

  “I have many names, Franz, as have you,” said Edmund. “One evening we will tell one another the tales about how we gathered them, but it seems that that evening must be in Brussels.”

  “Brussels?”

  Sophia had thought that he meant to return to England. Brussels was the last place she wanted to go. Her mother lived there with her lover and Sophia’s two half-brothers.

  “That’s where the largest army in Europe is stationed,” said Edmund. “Bonaparte must either take the risk of engaging the allies in the Low Countries or he must allow them to invade France.”

  Mary crossed the room to take Sophia’s hands in hers, but Sophia barely noticed. She was not sure which frightened her more: the idea of seeing her mother again or of John going back to fight.

  Sophia did not think Edmund would let her return to England if she wanted to go. He was her commanding officer and she had sworn obedience to him. Smiling weakly at Mary, she stood straighter. She had already faced worse things than her mother for the love of John.

  “There will be work for us, then,” she said.

  “There will indeed be work for us,” said Edmund.

  Sophia made an effort to turn her thoughts away from John and back to what should have been her main concern.

  “If you want to know where an army is, you should have someone in it,” she said.

  She had learned this from Edmund himself and from the Earl of Meldon, who had fought in Spain, in the days when following the war had been an intellectual exercise for her and not a matter of life and death.

  “Surely the difficulty is communicating that information,” said Mary.

  Sophia was used to her friend joining in discussions of this nature, but Franz was surprised. Sophia wondered if he had forgotten she was there. It was a mistake people often made. Unlike her husband, Mary was dark, plain and quiet. She preferred listening to conversations to participating in them. Before they had married, Edmund had made the decision to share everything with her. Sophia had wondered at first whether this had just been pragmatism, as Mary was intelligent and would work out that he was a spy. A better understanding of his character, however, showed her that, as he was not an habitual liar. lying did not come easily to him and he lied only when he must. It was important to him that he tell his wife the truth. Mary knew more of Edmund’s plans than Sophia did.

  “That is why there must be two of us,” said Sophia. “One to get the information and the other to bring it back.”

  The three of them had discussed this often and Sophia had her own ideas about how this might be achieved.

  “Perhaps you and I could be a French soldier and his wife,” suggested Franz.

  Sophia bit her tongue to prevent herself telling him exactly what she thought of that idea.

  “Your French is terrible,” muttered Edmund.

  “There are enough German speakers in the French army...” He paused and looked at Sophia, with that smile back on his face. “No, I’m afraid you could not convince anyone that you belong among the camp followers. You are right, however, that the only way to know where an army is is to be in it.”

  Edmund shrugged. He had never been a soldier and had a surprisingly limited understanding of what an army did. His service had been covert and mainly concerned with the removal of key people, the provision of misinformation or the gathering of information about strategic plans. Presented with a prospective battlefield, he could not identify which features made it defensible or not. All he could say was that certain parts of it made good hiding places for living men and other parts were good places to hide the dead so that they would never be found, or would be unrecognisable if they were. Since John had joined the army Sophia had made it her particular study to find out how an army worked and how battles were fought. No soldier she came across was safe from her questioning. Now she understood things that Edmund, and, it seemed, Franz, did not.

  “Franz, if you can’t be sensible, we should let Sophia go to her bath and I should go to Captain Warren.”

  “Of course, the dashing Captain Warren.”

  Franz was dismissive.

  “You know him?”

  Sophia was curious to know how John had come to make such a bad impression on a man she had held in high esteem before she had even met him. She wo
ndered how long Franz had been in Paris and whether he had met John. John said he had been to the house to pay his respects to Edmund and Mary. He had probably dined here several times. Her thoughts faltered. If John had dined here, Edmund and Mary would already have convinced him of the dangers presented by Bonaparte’s return. Something was wrong here.

  “Everyone knows him… or of him.”

  Sophia did not like the way Franz spoke about the man she loved. Neither Edmund nor Mary had defended John, and that worried her more.

  “Sophia has known John Warren all her life,” said Edmund.

  Sophia knew she was not meant to see the slight shake of his head as he warned Franz, but Edmund’s training had been too good, and her observational skill matched his own.

  “I doubt he is the same man you knew,” said Edmund. He sounded sad, no, disappointed. “You should bathe and probably sleep, you look exhausted.”

  Sophia did not doubt she looked exhausted, for she was. She did, however, want to know what Franz, and Edmund and Mary, it seemed, knew about John that was so much to his detriment. John was a man driven by duty. She had never known him to do anything mean or dishonest and she trusted him completely. It was true that Edmund and John had quarrelled in London, although Mary had not told her any details, but neither was a man to bear a grudge.

  “That can wait, I’d...”

  “Sophia, dear, if we’re to leave tomorrow, you should rest.” Mary squeezed Sophia’s hands. “Your luggage was never unpacked, but you might want to take some clothes out of your trunk, as we won’t have time to wash or repair anything you’ve brought with you.”

  Mary was gentle, but forceful and Sophia realised that she was not to learn anything more about John for a while.

  “I won’t even get to see what they’re wearing in Paris,” she said inconsequentially.

  It would not hurt to let Franz think she was an empty-headed fool. Her only thoughts about Parisian fashions were governed by a desire for John to see her at her best.

  Mary took her arm.

  “Then I think you will be happy with some purchases that I’ve made for you.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  In truth Sophia was no more bothered about fashion than Mary was. Any gowns that Mary had had made for her would have been made at the suggestion of her maid, a young woman with a good eye and taste. Agnes also believed that Sophia did not display her body to her best advantage, so Sophia knew that whatever awaited her upstairs would be so revealing, especially of her décolleté, that she would be embarrassed to wear it, except in front of John, on whom, of course, it would have no effect.

  “There was little point buying anything for myself,” said Mary and Sophia wondered how many trunks of clothing she now had.

  “And I haven’t even seen the children yet.”

  “They’ll wait. Come, we can look at your new gowns while we wait for the water.”

  Sophia allowed herself to be led away. There were so many thoughts going round her head that she was a little dizzy. John was here and coming to dinner and… Would he be bringing his wife?

  Chapter Two

  John sat unmoving at his desk for over an hour. Untended, the fire had gone out again and the ink had dried on his pen.

  Sophia had been here in this room. After months with no news of her, she had been here, with him. Despite the breeches and the greatcoat and the mud, she was as beautiful as he remembered, more beautiful, in fact. Every night since he had last seen her he had dreamt of her. In his dreams she shared his bed. Coming to him willingly, she would kiss him and touch him, then laugh at him so that he awoke shaking with lust and shame. Today he was exhausted, for the girl in his bed last night had kept him awake and dreams of Sophia had made the little sleep he had managed to get restless.

  It was the cold that finally brought him to his senses. He had known cold in the Peninsula, but the cold in the embassy seemed all the crueller for being unexpected. Even though he should get up and do something about the fire, he could not move. Sophia had been here and she had called him Captain Warren. Nothing could have prepared him for that. However badly he had imagined their first meeting would go, and he had always imagined that it would go badly, since she had turned down his proposal so forcefully without even thinking about it, he had always assumed that they would still be on first name terms.

  The memory of her in breeches returned to him. Unlike most of the women he knew, Sophia had never used cosmetics to hide or enhance her features. Even her freckles were beautiful. Another woman would have tried to hide them, but Sophia made no attempt to pretend they were not there. It was, however, the contrast between her pale skin and her flame coloured hair that made his breathing shorten and his pulse quicken. The thought of her made the cold room seem warm.

  A pile of papers sat unread on his desk and he began to look through them listlessly.

  With no warning, the door flew open and Edmund Finch strode into the room, followed by an apologetic servant. Shocked out of his thoughts, John dismissed the servant and stared at his visitor.

  “Uncle Edmund, a pleasure to see you,” he lied.

  Rising, he bowed stiffly.

  Edmund Finch was the last person he wanted to see just now. Always impeccably and fashionably dressed, Finch looked as if he had stepped from his valet’s hands into John’s office, oblivious to everything that had come between. John was not sure how long he had hated him, but it was long enough to know that he did not want to deal with any problem that Finch had brought him.

  “If I hear you’ve been anywhere near Sophia again I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

  John flinched, more from surprise than the force of Finch’s anger, which was as powerful as it was unexpected. John had never seen Finch angry or even heard that he had ever been angry. It was ridiculous. Finch was the most mild-mannered man John knew and he was far too stupid to be angry.

  “Do you understand me?” Finch repeated.

  John realised his mouth was open and closed it. Then he gave rein to his own anger.

  “You’re not her father or her brother. When you had the chance to marry her, you chose someone else,” he said.

  John walked round his desk and stood over the older man. He had often used his superior height to intimidate other men and Finch was not tall.

  “I’m responsible for her,” Finch continued as if he had not noticed.

  “How?”

  “I’m Perseus.”

  How could Finch be Perseus? John had been told that he was in Paris, but had not believed it, since the man had never presented himself at the embassy as he was required to do. His reputation as a killer went before him, however, and Finch could not be that man. He was a fool whose visits to John’s parents’ house had always annoyed him.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  “Believe or don’t believe, that’s up to you, but stay away from Sophia. I will kill you if you allow your name to be associated with hers.”

  John swallowed. This did not sound like a vain threat.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” he said

  “Really? Then you’re a fool.”

  For the first time John saw real intelligence in the other’s eyes. The slightly vacant look that he had always seen there before had disappeared. He also saw something very familiar in them and was quite prepared to believe that Finch had killed. Physically Finch was not imposing, but he was not running to fat as men of his age and wealth tended to do. Now that John looked at him he thought him quite muscular. John reconsidered. If Edmund Finch was not Perseus, he was a man very like him.

  Forcing himself to be calm, John said, “I won’t harm Sophia’s reputation. We were friends too long for me to want to do that.”

  Finch appeared to be considering what John had said.

  “Sit down, John. Better men than you have tried to intimidate me and failed.”

  John leaned his hip on his desk.

  “You will keep away from her?” asked Finch.<
br />
  “Yes. My word is still good.”

  Finch looked doubtful, but John held his look until the other nodded.

  “Sophia said that she had asked you to visit us tonight.”

  “She wished to persuade me to her view of Bonaparte’s future. Of course, I shall not take her up on her offer.”

  “We leave tomorrow.” Finch regarded his immaculately gloved hand. “On reflection, it might be better if you came to us. Sophia would want to say goodbye.”

  “You think to gain something by it.”

  No gentleman would invite John to dine with his wife and a young unmarried woman. Only a man with Finch’s reputation would even think he might be able to carry it off.

  “Of course. Sophia will see you in company again. She will see how little you have changed and how much she has.”

  “How dare you!” John pushed himself away from the desk.

  “I dare because it’s true. Some time ago you told me that you wanted to be a man and I told you to be careful or you might become something she could not love. Your reputation is known all over Paris. If you think that killing a few soldiers and sleeping with...” He stopped, unwilling to name what it was that John did. “If you think any of it makes you a man...”

  “You are mistaken. Of course I know that Sophia cannot love a man like me.”

  Sophia had not even been able to love the man he had been; the man he was now would repel her.

  “Then come tonight and convince her that you no longer love her.”

  John hesitated. This could hardly be necessary, as Sophia clearly had no interest in him. Her coolness earlier today had convinced him of that. Nonetheless he nodded.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked, knowing he was beaten.

  “Come to the house and say goodbye to Sophia. They believe I came here to tell you to leave Paris as soon as possible.” He paused. “I do recommend that you leave, John, before Bonaparte gets here.”

  “Then you’ve done your duty.”

  John was dismissive. He might as well die here as anywhere else. He had thought he would die in Spain, but had survived. He would probably survive this, too.