Brigitte swallowed, the type of work available to a girl in this industry too unbearable to imagine.
“No one leaves my employ without permission,” he snapped.
“I’m not in your employ and never have been.”
Something calculating and methodical moved behind his eyes. “No, you’re family.”
She cringed at the word. “My husband’s dead. That eliminates any connection between you and I.”
“It would, had I not five grandchildren whom you keep from me.”
“With Henri dead, the children belong to me, and I’ll not allow you to employ them in your wretched schemes. I’m not my husband.”
“No, you most certainly are not.” Alphonse ran his eyes slowly down her, his gazing lingering until revulsion flooded her body. “You claim you want to leave Calais, and let’s say, just for the moment, that you have the money and means to do so. What do you intend to do? Where do you intend to go?”
To Reims. To my family.
She’d never be free of him if she said such things. He’d track her down and find her, taking her two oldest sons when they came home from the navy. Or he’d tell her she’d need to house his men and store his goods when one of his minions was in the area.
“Did you know, Brigitte, I have a rather marvelous memory?” He watched her through those hard, death-colored eyes. “It helps when one runs a business such as this.”
A business? He spoke as though his smuggling success was some legitimate form of trade.
“For example, I seem to recall when you and my son first met. You were living in Reims, were you not? Acting as a governess?”
“I...” He couldn’t remember where she came from and who her family was. Wouldn’t use them as threats.
“I remember well, but every so often my mind fails me.” He snapped his fingers, and one of the guards stepped forward, a sheaf of papers in hand. “I’ve learned to take excellent notes, you understand.” He took the papers from the guard and flipped through them. “Ah, yes, everything is here. You’re the niece of a seigneur, and your elder sister married a seigneur’s third son. Your father has passed on, but your mother apparently maintains good health and resides in your childhood home. I wonder how your mother and sister have fared, what with the Révolution and all.”
She gripped the edge of the table, her nails digging into the aged wood. “How dare you.”
“When my informants tell me you plan to leave Calais, that you hide away money and slowly pack your things, I ask myself, where might my dear daughter-in-law go? And why might she go there? And then it comes to me, where you hailed from, who your people are. Then just as I feel a spark of compassion and think that perhaps it’s time for you to return to Reims, I remember my sweet grandchildren. Grandchildren who are useful to me.”
“I won’t let you touch them.”
“I’d always intended for Henri to run my enterprise after I passed on.” He continued on as though her words meant nothing. “’Twas a natural decision, you see, with him being my only son. But now that he’s dead, one of your boys shall have to take over.”
The breath whooshed out of her, and the air surrounding her grew thick and heavy. He couldn’t get to the older boys. They were safe in the navy.
Weren’t they?
“So which shall it be? Julien or Laurent? Julien would be advantageous in that—”
“What do you want?” She spit the words between them.
He winged an eyebrow up.
“That’s why you brought me here, isn’t it?” She toyed with the ends of the shawl lying in her lap. “To ask something in exchange for letting me move to Reims?”
He laughed, a soft, cruel sound. “Very astute, Brigitte. You always have been, you know. ’Twas why I was so in favor of Henri’s marrying you from the first.”
“I’d not have married him had I known he was a smuggler.”
That cruel smile curved his lips yet again. “Which was why you made him such a perfect wife. You faithfully stayed home and bore his seed, not luring him away from his duties with words of love and flattery. Oui, you were perfect. Too dutiful to leave, yet too angry with his work to distract him.”
“You’re evil.”
“It serves me well, does it not?” He took a sip of tea. “But let’s begin negotiations. I have a certain task in mind, one that would perfectly suit a widow with three children to tend. You fulfill your assignment, and I let you and the children return to Reims. I’ll even give you money to buy a house there. A nice little cottage near your sister, perhaps?”
She drew in a long, slow breath. Only one job, and then she and the children would be free. The proposition seemed almost too good to be believable. But then, he hadn’t yet said what he wanted in exchange. “If I do your bidding, Julien and Laurent return to me in Reims when they reach port. They don’t come to you.”
“Of course.”
“And I won’t kill for you.”
Alphonse’s smile turned from cruel to dangerous. “Don’t worry, ma chère. I seek only a spy. And justice. For the man who killed your husband.”
Justice from a man like Alphonse? The very thought made her shiver. But what other choice had she?
Chapter One
Near Abbeville, France, July 1795
The children. She was doing this for the children.
Brigitte Dubois surveyed the countryside. The brilliant blue sky where two birds twittered and flirted with each other, the lush green forest to her right filled with a host of insect sounds, and the rolling fields stretching beyond the farmstead ahead and into the golden horizon.
Serene. Peaceful. A pleasant change from the grimy streets of Calais.
She must have the wrong house.
She’d never before given much thought to the soldier who had dragged her husband away in the night to execute him for his crimes. Had never wondered where he lived, what he did, if he had a family. But farming?
She forced her feet up the curving lane, climbing the little knoll to the cottage. A man stood near the stable, stuffing vegetables into an old wagon.
Her husband’s alleged killer?
Surely killers didn’t farm the pristine countryside or load vegetable wagons on sunny afternoons. They skulked about in the dead of night, meting out death and destruction.
“Bonjour, Citizen.” She neared the stable where the vegetables waited, stacked neatly in crates and sacks.
The man’s forearms bulged as he hefted another crate, his shirt straining against wide shoulders and a torso thick as a tree trunk. He would tower over Alphonse’s guards, and he was so thick of chest her hands wouldn’t touch if she wrapped her arms around him.
Powerful enough to drag a man like Henri from his bed. Strong enough to beat her dead if he learned what she was about.
“If you’re wishing to buy food, I sell it at the market, not here.” The man didn’t stop his work but reached for another sack.
“I’m not in want of food, but a post.” Not that she wanted to work for a possible murderer, but truly, Alphonse had left her little choice.
He turned to her and paused, his hands gripping a crate filled with turnips. Harshness radiated from his being, with eyes so dark and ominous they were nearly black, and hair the color of the sky at midnight. His chin jutted hard and strong