Page 10 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
“Three years ago.”
He scoffed. Scarlett’s admission proved he’d been right that she knew St. Antoine very well. Had the two girls played together when Scarlett lived in France as a young child? “How did St. Antoine manage that? A woman so young? Twenty-one when she began to give information to her country’s foremost enemy? She must be the most…ingenious woman.”
He cleared his throat. One did not disparage the likes of women, friend or foe, in the presence of their supremely savvy spymaster. Miss Scarlett Hawthorne, wealthy, wise, and welcome in many Society homes, was the fiercest Amazon a man could encounter. She brooked no foolish ridicule of the fairer sex. He inhaled, regrouped his thoughts. “What else do we need to know?”
Scarlett frowned at him. “This job requires more than a few days. Weeks—months, most likely. I recommend to all of you to put your estates in order. Including your wills.”
The three Englishmen stared at her.
“No, surely not,” said Ram, recovering his shock first and giving a false laugh.
But no one dared to do the same.
“Monsieurs, not to worry.” Pelletier lifted a hand, nonchalant. “I am there to assist.”
Carlton stepped forward, grim as ever. Scarlett’s man had never smiled a day in his life. The scar that ran from his left cheek up to his black leather eye patch had long ago cut the muscle beneath. “Today, post a few thousand in your accountswith Rothschild. Tomorrow to each, I will add another twenty thousand. More follows.”
Dirk whistled. “Mein Freund, what are you funding? The rest of our lives?”
But Kane liked the idea of more money than he’d had in his lifetime. “Carlton, hear me, I don’t have thousands. I’ll take whatever you give me, of course. I could not be more pleased at the donation. I need every penny. But do know, I have at most a hundred. Still, I’ll gladly take your twenty thousand, and be prudent. But I don’t even have a court wardrobe. I’ll need time to have it sewn.” He stared at Scarlett.
“Find a good tailor in Paris.” She brushed off his concern with a flip of her hand. “Spend what you must.”
Ram was dubious. “You are too generous, Scarlett. You give me the impression we are expected to die.”
“Of that,” said Dirk, who had sat still as a corpse since the money was announced, “I am not interested unless you tell me I am killing Fouché with my bare hands.”
Kane licked his lips as the thought of the demise of the French minister of police or his deputy. But he too had no taste for blood. Not since he’d seen how Fouché’s deputy had brutally gutted his friend Brussard in the forest that bright June day in Malmaison.
Scarlett inhaled and glanced up at Carlton. When he nodded, she pursed her lips. “With the disappearance of St. Antoine, we have lost more than one person useful to our cause. She was our key in the north of France. My crux. I must have her back, in place, or I must know to what extent her work has been compromised.”
She stared at her hands, then at Kane. “Since long before the tumbrel rolled to the guillotine, we had information from our agents. But my problem, my father’s problem, always was lack of ability to organize all details in a timely fashion. It takes so damnlong to travel with news, and you cannot tell if the gossip in a café cancels the word of a chevalier in a port. But at least we had information. Plenty of it. Now with this lack of one person who had coordinated so much in France—Kane, God help me—I am blind.”
Kane had no idea Scarlett was so crippled these past few years. He had refused so many of her missions. He had not volunteered to help her more. He should have.
She licked her lips. “Know, Kane, that there is to be no killing. There is no planning to take a life. Only planning, organizing, to save one life and millions more. If St. Antoine is gone, then we will establish a new center. If she has revealed all our friends, you three with Pelletier and a few more whom I send will create a new network. Fouché may have destroyed our web. Him, however, you will leave to Bonaparte and God. That is your challenge. Above all, you will keep patience as your watchword and prudence as your guide.”
Ram sat forward. “Not to fear. We keep our brains in our heads.”
Scarlett placed both of her elegant fingers to the gleaming mahogany of her desk. “We begin.”
“Do I have a contact? A correspondent? Anyone left in Paris you trust?” Kane wanted the name of a collaborator so he could finish here, then go home and have old Friendly pack a trunk for him.
“Not our friend, but St. Antoine’s. Miss Augustine Bolton.”
Another woman. The name meant nothing to him. “I do not know her.”
“She is Nugent’s niece. Close to Josephine and her ladies. She also speaks excellent French.”
Kane snorted. The famous mistress’s niece was better than no contact at all. “How well do you trust her?”
Scarlett Hawthorne, who was not one to hedge, did it once more today. She pursed her lips, formulating her answer. “She is our best source.”
Which told him to be cautious with Miss Bolton.What a stew!Well, he had once planned coups on less. He would have to summon the wherewithal to navigate the lady’s reliability.
“Kane?” Scarlett caught his attention with her summons. “Bolton is attractive, the court’s darling…entertaining.”
His brows shot upward. Gone were the days when he bedded every woman who appealed to him. “She is loose?”
