The Spy's Reward

by Nita Abrams

Genres: Medieval Romance; Viking Romance

Synopsis

As news of Napoleon's escape from Elba reaches England, a legendary spymaster discovers his own heart has become a battlefield...
The Risks
When Nathan Meyer agrees to escort a young woman home from France, he discovers too late that his family has been matchmaking yet again. He has no interest in the flirtatious and pampered Diana Hart, but when Napoleon escapes, Nathan seizes the opportunity to spy on advancing Bonapartist forces. As for romance, Nathan is much more interested in Diana's mother, Abigail, an attractive widow with a clever wit and sharp tongue, who suspects Nathan is up to something much more dangerous than getting them safely back to London.
. . .And The Rewards
After following Nathan one evening, Abigail accuses him of putting innocent lives at risk. Yet even as she confronts him, she fights her own fierce attraction to his courage and fire. As the tides of war lead them into a dangerous and unexpected alliance, Abigail and Nathan find themselves confronting their greatest enemy: their own pride.

Release date: November 20, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

London, February 1815

Eli Roth stopped dead in the doorway of the breakfast room at the sight of the elegant form of his brother-in-law sipping coffee in a chair facing the window. It was half-past seven, and the waxing daylight revealed that Meyer was not only up but dressed for a formal morning call—his jacket pressed, his neckcloth carefully folded, and a heavy gold ring (a gift from the Duke of York, which he rarely wore) gleaming on his left hand.

“Nathan!” said Roth, startled. Meyer rarely breakfasted before nine these days. “This is certainly an unexpected pleasure. I had not thought to see you until this evening.”

“I have an appointment.” The dark head was bent over the coffee cup, eyes half-closed.

Roth wasn’t deceived. His brother-in-law was at his most dangerous when he looked sleepy. “Whitehall ?” he queried, hoping the government was not going to frustrate his plans at the last minute. “More trouble in Austria?” In theory Nathan’s service as an unofficial intelligence courier for Wellington was over. But as Roth himself had pointed out to his fellow bankers only a few days earlier, peace was sometimes as dangerous and unpredictable as war, and Meyer had already been to Vienna twice to “assist” the British delegation at the Congress.

“No, nothing of any importance,” said Meyer, still gazing into the unfathomable surface of his coffee. “A courtesy call.” His tone was pleasant, but discouraged further prying.

Roth narrowed his eyes and considered this response for a moment. Then, apparently changing the subject, he said, “Did you by any chance have time to consider the matter we discussed last night?”

“Good morning, Louisa,” said his brother-in-law courteously, rising and turning as Roth’s wife entered behind him.

“How do you do that?” Louisa Roth waved him back to his chair with an irritated gesture. “I could have sworn I made no noise at all, and you were talking to Eli with your back to this door!”

“Your elegant perfume,” suggested Meyer, beginning to smile. “It preceded you into the room.”

“I do not wear perfume during the day, as you know very well.”

“The whisper of your silk skirts.”

“Wool,” she pointed out, spreading the soft maroon fabric out for inspection.

Still standing, he bowed. “On you, my dearest Louisa, it glows like the finest satin. Hence my misapprehension.”

“Your misapprehension,” she said tartly, “consists of the belief that you must be on the alert twenty-four hours a day, lest some French villain attack us here in the heart of London nearly a year after Napoleon abdicated.” Without pausing to acknowledge Meyer’s wry grimace, she turned to her husband. “And what, pray, were the two of you discussing last night?”

“I beg your pardon?” hedged Roth.

“I saw you giving Nathan those little glances after dinner,” she said, folding her arms. “The I-must-speak-with-you-alone glances. I therefore obligingly retired early. But now I see Rodrigo is upstairs counting Nathan’s clean shirts, a postboy has just left a message in the kitchen about a vehicle for Wednesday morning, Nathan is at breakfast two hours earlier than usual, and you are interrogating him about some mysterious proposal. I assume all these events are connected.”

Roth brightened at the mention of the postboy. “You’ll do it, then?” he asked, turning to Meyer.

“I don’t see why not.” Meyer picked up his cup and drained it. “It will be a bit dull, I expect, but traveling in France under my own name still has the charm of novelty. I’ll come round to the bank this afternoon and you can give me the particulars. For now though, I must beg both of you to excuse me. My appointment is in less than an hour, and the gentleman who awaits me is greatly enamored of the virtue of punctuality.” He bowed slightly and vanished.

Louisa Roth stared at the now-empty doorway. “Where is he going?”

“Whitehall, I would guess,” said Roth slowly, putting all the pieces together. That was not what she had meant, of course.

His answer did serve to distract her for a moment. “He denied it—I heard you ask him.”

“He was lying.” Recollecting his brother-in-law’s precise words, he amended this statement. “Or rather, speaking disingenuously. I suspect the courtesy call is on Colonel Tredwell at the Horse Guards.” He stepped over to the table and pulled out a chair. “Some coffee, my dear?”

“No, thank you.” Distractions rarely worked on Louisa Roth for more than a minute. She moved to face him, and since he was rather short, her piercing blue eyes looked straight into his. “When I asked that question, I meant where was he going on Wednesday. France, it seems.”

“A quick trip. Nothing dangerous, no intrigues or burglaries, I promise you. I got word from a friend that a kinswoman of his was stranded south of Grenoble without a suitable escort. I thought Nathan could use a bit of mountain air, a change of scene.”

He could see from her expression that she no more believed his story than Nathan had last night.

“Eli, you are matchmaking again,” she said flatly.

“Nonsense.”

She sighed. “Nathan can fool me when he lies. You, however, cannot.”

“Well, what if I am matchmaking, as you call it?” he asked, exasperated. “You are just as eager as I am to see him remarry.”

“No, I am not. Eli, I believe this has become something of an obsession with you. I know that having Nathan in residence here, still unmarried after so long, is a daily reminder of his loss—and yours. But he has proposed moving out several times since the war ended, and perhaps you should agree the next time he does so. It might help you to remember that he is a grown man, that you are not responsible for his happiness.”

“I do not believe I am responsible for Nathan.” He scowled at his wife. “And I thought you enjoyed having him lodge here with us.”

“I do,” said Louisa, unruffled. “What female would not?”

It said a good deal for his relationship with his wife that he had never had a single qualm about housing his brother-in-law, even after Nathan’s children had left the house. Eli was short, round, balding, and nearsighted. Nathan was tall, slim, dark-haired, and possessed of a commanding pair of nearly black eyes.

“But,” she continued, “pleasant as I find Nathan’s company, I will have to dispense with it if every time you see him you feel an overwhelming urge to drag him under a wedding canopy.”

“Louisa, my sister died more than fourteen years ago. It was understandable that he should grieve for a bit, but his refusal to consider taking another wife after so long is absurd, especially since he and Miriam were wed so young that he is still at an age when some men are marrying for the first time. I admit that our attempts to find him a bride have miscarried a few times—”

“More than a few,” muttered his wife.

“The situation is different now.” Roth gestured at the newspaper lying neatly folded and unread by Meyer’s abandoned cup. “While the war was on, he distracted himself with his work for the army, with disguises and ciphers and forgeries and midnight landings on hidden beaches. But now the war is over. He no longer even has a father’s responsibilities to occupy him; Rachel and James are settled in households of their own. He is bored and restless, ready for a change. I could see it in his eyes last night when I proposed this little jaunt to him. And observe: he has already agreed to go. He did not even take a day to think it over.”

She still looked skeptical. “Who is this friend of the family he is supposedly rescuing in the mountains of France?”

“A very suitable prospect,” he assured her. “A cousin of Joshua Hart, well educated, eager to travel, said to resemble her mother, who was a great beauty. Of course, I did not tell him that Miss Hart was an eligible young woman. I believe I gave him the impression that she was a bit of an invalid, taking the waters at Digne-les-Bains for her health.”

“He’ll see right through your little plot the moment he meets her.”

“I think not.” Roth gave a satisfied smile. “This is one of my better schemes. After all, even Nathan is not omniscient.”

“Oh?” said his wife. “Then how is it that between ten last night and seven this morning he has recalled his most trusted servant from Kent, arranged for a post chaise, and scheduled an appointment at Whitehall, where he will no doubt offer to carry confidential messages to France? Or are you going to pretend that he knew nothing of this request of yours until nine hours ago? That Rodrigo’s return and Nathan’s meeting with the colonel are happy coincidences?”

Roth drew himself up magisterially. “I will not deny that Nathan is uncannily observant. Clearly he got wind of this somehow last week, when I first received Hart’s letter. But anticipating a voyage to France on the strength of gossip at our bank is not the same as anticipating what will happen when he gets there.”

“I know what will happen,” she retorted. “He will be his usual courteous, impenetrable self, he will escort Miss Hart back to England as quickly as possible, and then he will stalk in here and raise his eyebrows at you just as he did after your other attempts. If I am lucky, the disappointed bride-to-be will not fall desperately in love with him, as two of the others did, and I will not have to spend months avoiding her and all her relatives.”

“We shall see,” said Roth, turning back to the sideboard. “I am two moves ahead of him this time, my dear. And matchmaking is not a game familiar to Nathan.”

She frowned at him. “You are keeping something from me.”

He did not respond, but picked up the coffee pot.

“Are you afraid I will tell Nathan?”

“No,” he said, pouring her a cup and setting it at her place. “I am afraid you will say ‘I told you so’ if it doesn’t work.”

Not for nothing was Louisa Roth the wife of a financier. “What are the chances of success, in your estimation?”

“Something like one in ten.”

“Well,” she said, settling into her chair, “for an affair involving Nathan and a marriageable female, those are quite respectable odds.”

France, February 28

Digne-les-Bains was larger than Meyer had remembered. His previous visit, if one could call it that, had involved skirting the town by night with a terrified royalist partisan as his guide. He had slept in a hollow beneath a large rock and had dined on water and two-day-old bread. He was therefore unacquainted with the town’s inns and dismayed to find there were over two dozen such establishments. His informant, a stout porter at the main post house, told him proudly that several new hostelries had opened recently.

“All very superior, monsieur, and patronized by foreign gentlewomen such as the one you seek. Times are good here now, by the grace of God.”

“Digne did not prosper, then, under Bonaparte?”

“Bonaparte!” The man spat reflexively. “He nearly ruined us. Who comes to take the waters when all of Europe is under siege? But since the tyrant’s abdication, it is a different story. Every room at every inn is taken, even now, in winter. I have made more money in pourboires in six months than in the past three years. This means, of course, that I carry dozens of portmanteaux every day, and as I also direct most of the visitors who arrive on the diligence to their lodgings, I have too many clients to remember one English lady. The town is full of English ladies.” The mention of pourboires suggested to Meyer that the porter’s memory might be assisted by a small coin. The man pocketed it with effusive thanks—but still could not recall an ailing Englishwoman who had arrived three weeks ago with a companion and a servant. “Well,” said Meyer, producing another coin, “where would a wealthy invalid from London be likely to stay? She is taking a treatment at the baths, of course.”

The porter thought for a moment. “Hôtel du Petit Paris, by the cathedral. Or perhaps . . .” He paused, clearly hoping for another coin, but something he saw in Meyer’s face made him resume hastily. “Hôtel d’Angleterre, just inside the Porte des Bains. If she is very wealthy, the Auberge des Cygnes.”

“And what is the attraction at the Auberge des Cygnes?” asked Meyer, finally producing the long-awaited third coin.

“It is very well appointed, monsieur. The emperor’s own sister stayed there several years ago.” The porter seemed to have temporarily forgotten that Napoleon was a villain and a tyrant. “And it is the only inn near the baths, which are a league east of town. I can guide monsieur, or I can procure a gig and driver, or perhaps monsieur would like me to call the ostler back before he stables monsieur’s horse.”

“Thank you, no.” Meyer was already scanning the rooftops of the town, looking for the cathedral. If only Rodrigo were here. Somehow his manservant always knew just which inn to try first. But Rodrigo was many hours behind him, bringing up the carriage he had hired in Barrême. Meyer might not have remembered how big Digne was, but he had certainly remembered the appalling state of the roads, and had concluded that it would be prudent to hire the first vehicle he saw which seemed sturdy enough to have a chance of reaching the coast with all four wheels intact. For a moment he toyed with the idea of sitting down to a long, leisurely meal at the post house. Let Rodrigo canvas twenty inns for news of the woman. But after hours in the saddle, he needed a walk in any case. He gestured towards an elaborate ironwork bell tower some distance away. “Is that the cathedral?”

“Indeed, monsieur. Take the first turning to your right and continue up the hill and you cannot miss it.” Meyer reflexively spun him a fourth coin and set out for the center of the little town.

Naturally, there was no Miss Hart at the Hôtel du Petit Paris. Nor was she nearby at the Angleterre, in spite of its name. They did have a room available, however, and he booked it as a precaution. With a weary sigh, he retrieved his horse from the post house, dispensing yet another coin to the porter, who evidently acted as an intermediary between the inn’s grooms and their customers. At this rate he would dower the porter’s daughter before he found Eli’s damsel in distress.

He could, of course, have tried the other hotels in town first, but something about the description of the Auberge des Cygnes made him think it very probable that Miss Hart would be there. He pictured her, from Eli’s vague description, as one of those perpetually ailing maiden ladies who drift from spa to spa, always certain the cure for their infirmities is just ahead in some yet-untried hot spring or some newly compounded tonic—the more expensive and fashionable, the better. She was probably around thirty; Eli had mentioned an older woman, a companion, and if Miss Hart were herself elderly she would likely have someone younger, to run errands and fetch shawls. She would wear a cap, he thought, and look a bit faded and pinched. To him she would be civil, and speak in a low, fluttering voice, but in private, with her companion, she would be shrewish and demanding.

He had no illusions about Eli’s purpose in sending him here. His brother-in-law was once again attempting to find him a wife. He was not sure who was more embarrassed by these futile episodes—Eli, Louisa, the potential brides, or himself. Luckily the attempts were relatively infrequent. Eli put forward only candidates who met his own demanding requirements as a replacement for his late sister: cultured, well dowered, reasonably attractive women of his own faith. Meyer was not in danger of falling for someone who enjoyed languishing at spas, however, even if she was an heiress. No matter how wealthy she was, he was wealthier. And the more Eli had emphasized Miss Hart’s money, the more he had insisted that she was not really ill, the more certain Nathan had become that Eli must be losing his touch. It was in part, then, out of amused pity for his brother-in-law that he had agreed to go—pity, and, he admitted to himself, curiosity. Why not return to France?—the country he had, in some small way, helped in its battle to expel the usurper. Admittedly, wearing his own clothing and traveling under his own name made him feel exposed and vulnerable, but even that anxiety had its own charm. It was pleasant to feel reckless, after years of caution and secrecy.

His reflections were interrupted by a sudden jolt. His horse had stopped. They had been ambling up a wide thoroughfare along the river valley, and now the road suddenly forked. To the left was a long building tucked underneath the low cliffs that rose behind the river. The domed roof and classical porticoes proclaimed its therapeutic function. He saw an old man in an invalid chair being wheeled along the colonnade by two uniformed attendants, and a matron shepherding her children into the central hall under the dome. The right-hand fork led to a handsome stone inn. The wrought iron gates into the yard were decorated with swan medallions, and the drive swept up to a porch flanked by two statues of swans.

“Auberge des Cygnes,” Meyer told the horse, giving it a nudge. He had hired it in Barrême, but it was either very knowledgeable about the inns of Haute-Provence or it preferred the smell of hay and oats to the smell of mineral-laced steam. It turned right obediently and trotted up to the gates. A very supercilious ostler raised his eyebrows at the sight of the shaggy animal. “Hold him,” said Meyer curtly. “I may only be here a moment.” He swung off the horse and strode into the building, ignoring the boy’s stammering protests.

The interior of the building was even more richly appointed than the exterior. The floors were black-and-white marble, and a massive staircase led up to a gallery beneath a central skylight. To the left was a dining room. Liveried servants were laying the tables for dinner with silver and crystal. To the right was a glassed-in terrace overlooking the river. Elegantly clad guests were sitting at small tables or strolling by the windows. Meyer scanned them idly, wondering if his quarry was there. He saw a number of ladies in bath chairs, most of whom were dozing. They were quite elderly, and their attendants seemed to be younger. There were two women of the right age talking at a table near the entry, but they were speaking Italian. At the far end, closest to the river, were several older couples and a large family. In the center of the room, surprisingly, was a group of lively young people—or rather, a group of six young men, surrounding a petite, fair-haired, young woman who was startlingly pretty, and clearly well aware of that fact. She was flirting with all six admirers simultaneously, her posture and expression so blatantly inviting that for one moment Meyer wondered if she might be a courtesan. No, he decided, she was too tastefully dressed. And she had a chaperon, of sorts: an older woman, some sort of superior servant, sitting stiffly in the corner with her eyes fixed on the coquette in fascinated disapproval.

A cough at his elbow announced the innkeeper. He was even more supercilious than the ostler, and his profound regrets that all of his rooms were spoken for were offered in a very perfunctory manner. His eyes lingered expressively on Meyer’s riding clothes. Clearly the guests of the Auberge des Cygnes were expected to arrive in carriages.

“I am not seeking accommodation,” said Meyer. “Not yet, at any rate.” His tone was perfectly pleasant, but the innkeeper shifted nervously under his stare. “I am seeking a countrywoman, a Miss Hart, who is having a treatment at the baths.”

“Ah—Mademoiselle Hart.” The innkeeper coughed and looked even more nervous.

Good. He would not have to canvas twenty-one more inns. “So she is staying here?”

“Yes, indeed, monsieur.”

“I am expected, I believe.” He handed the innkeeper his card.

“Of course, of course.” The man was steering Meyer back to the central entryway, peering quickly over his shoulder as he did so. “I will send your card up at once, monsieur. If you would care to wait in one of the salons? A room has been reserved for you, near the suite occupied by the ladies, but it is not yet made up.” He beckoned urgently to a servant and sent him running off with the calling card while herding Meyer toward the staircase. “And I wish to assure you that mademoiselle has been attended at all times—at all times, monsieur. You need have no concern. Many English believe that we here in France have no care for the proprieties, but I can promise you that is not so, especially here at the Auberge des Cygnes. This is a place where any young lady may confidently make herself at home, may even—dare I say it?—indulge in some youthful high spirits, secure in the knowledge that her elders are watching over her to check any rash impulse that might be misunderstood.” He gave another anxious glance back at the terrace.

Meyer added two and two without much difficulty. He stopped, shook off the innkeeper’s tug on his sleeve, and turned back to the terrace. “That, I take it, is Miss Hart?” he asked, gesturing towards the blonde Jezebel holding court in the center of the crowd. She was not wearing a cap, and she was most definitely not an invalid. In fact, she looked to be bursting with health. Eli must have thought it a great joke to send him here expecting a sickly spinster.

The innkeeper’s mouth made a little O of surprise. “But—monsieur is not the cousin of the young lady? You are not acquainted?”

“I have never met her, no. I am a family friend. I had business in Nice, and her kinsman asked me to escort her home when she became stranded here with her companion.”

“Stranded?” repeated the innkeeper, bemused. “Companion?”

“I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding,” said a woman’s voice in English behind him.

“Ah, madame,” said the Frenchman with obvious relief. “Here is Monsieur Meyer, who says he is expected.”

Meyer turned, startled, to find a slender, green-eyed woman gazing at him warily and holding his calling card at the end of her fingers as though it might burn her. This woman was, in fact, wearing a cap—a very expensive one, edged with Brussels lace. But judging by the thick, light brown hair under the cap and the color in her cheeks, she was not an invalid either. She took in his windblown hair and riding boots and the slight frown on his face. The red in her cheeks deepened, but she did not lower her eyes.

“I must apologize, Mr. Meyer,” she said. Her tone was not apologetic. It was embarrassed and not a little annoyed. “You have traveled all this way, evidently in some haste, for nothing. My cousin can sometimes . . .” She paused, and began again, more courteously. “I do not know how you came to be so misled. Far from being ‘stranded,’ as you put it, we have been ready to set out for England for over a week. Joshua wrote me that he would be in Grenoble and would like to travel back with us. We have been waiting here for him to join us. Only this morning did I learn that you—a complete stranger—were coming instead.”

He looked over at the laughing group in the terrace room. The girl was reading aloud from a piece of paper—a love letter, perhaps, or a poem. Then she rolled it up and tapped one of her admirers on the cheek in mock reproof.

“You are saying that Miss Hart does not require an escort.” A brigade of duennas, perhaps, but not an escort.

Her eyebrows went up. “She is with me.”

Eli had not mentioned the companion’s name. “Ah. Yes. Mrs. . . .”

“Hart,” she said impatiently. “Abigail Hart, Diana’s mother. And if you think her own mother insufficient protection, perhaps it will ease your mind to learn that we are traveling with two maids, a footman, a coachman, and a courier.”

Meyer shot another glance at the girl, then back at the woman. Her mother. The same fine features, yes, the same smooth forehead and level brows. There was a glint of gold in the light brown hair under the cap. Not as pretty as the daughter; her face was sterner, quieter. The eyes were compelling, though: green edged with black, very clear. At the moment th. . .