Page 42 of My Gentleman Spy
She would be his wife for the rest of his life, but she would have to come to terms with the fact that Yvette had held his heartfirst.
“What happened toher?”
He had practiced the lie of Yvette’s death for so long, that at times he almost forgot thetruth.
“She became ill and the doctors could not save her,” hereplied.
The lie was better than trying to explain how an operation in the streets outside the Great Arsenal in Paris had gone horribly wrong, resulting in the deaths of four British agents and two French royalist supporters. No one in polite society needed to hear how Yvette had been stabbed by an assassin and left to die on the side of the riverSeine.
“I am sosorry.”
“Thankyou.”
He moved to the back of the bed and sat up against the wall. He held his hand out to Hattie, smiling as she came to him. She lay back in his arms and rested her head against hischest.
There would be time enough in the future to talk of his past. To slowly reveal the truth of the life he had onceled.
They sat silently together and watched out the window as the first rays of the morning sun heralded thedawn.
