The Shadow of the Eagle by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online

boat and took a frightened émigrée off the sand?’
    ‘Yes. It was the first time I saw you.’
    ‘What was the name of your commandant? Griffon … ?’
    ‘Griffiths.’
    ‘Ah, yes. Do you recall who else came with me in the barouche?’
    Drinkwater cudgelled his brains. There had been a handful of them, then the light dawned: ‘The Comte de Tocqueville, a man called Barrallier who afterwards built ships for the navy and, of course, Étienne Montholon, your brother!’
    ‘Of course. He is now a colonel of chasseurs.’
    And he is privy to this plot?’
    ‘Yes. He has been aide de camp to Caulaincourt and commanded his escort.’
    Drinkwater frowned; fatigue and the disagreeable consequences of excess had robbed him of the ability to think through this maze of intrigue. He made an effort to clear his mind and focus his tired eyes upon her, mentally repudiating her obvious allure, so spiced as it was by her propinquity. ‘But you are betraying him, Hortense? Are your circumstances so reduced that you would play the traitor to,’ he floundered, gathering the catalogue of betrayal, ‘to your brother, to Bonaparte, to Talleyrand, to France?’
    She was weeping now, shaking and sobbing with tears running down her cheeks and revealing the dust that lay upon them.
    ‘If it had not been you, Nathaniel,’ she began in a choked voice, ‘I should have taken passage in one of these ships and found my way to England. As it is, I may slip back to Paris unnoticed. Talleyrand is no longer interested in me, I was repudiated by the Emperor and the Bourbon will not want women like me to clutter up his court, nor, would I wish to do so.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I am a drab, Nathaniel, and like most camp followers, my end will not be an easy one. Your help might at least mitigate my fate.’
    She swayed and Drinkwater stooped forward and gently held her by her arms. He was unconvinced, but her hands were on his arms too, and her body touched his, light as a feather, and then with more weight.
    ‘Do not underestimate the risk I have run to tell you these things,’ she breathed, and added as he remained silent, holding her, ‘They are like boys, Nathaniel, these conspirators; they would set the world alight again. Is that what you want? Do you not most desire to go home to your wife and children?’
    ‘That is an odd question to ask at a moment like this,’ he said, ‘or are we two in sudden accord?’ He smiled, the twist in his mouth conveying an intense sadness to her, though he spoke to encourage her. ‘Come, Hortense, courage. You have lost none of your beauty …’
    ‘I have lost an ear!’ Her tone was petulant, as though she could betray her world for this disfigurement, and she lowered her face. ‘And I am tired of conspiracy and intrigue.’
    ‘Then it makes us the more equal,’ Drinkwater said again. It occurred to him that she had received some unbearable humiliation. ‘Suppose this plan of Talleyrand’s and the Tsar’s worked; suppose Napoleon Bonaparte, sent to exile in the Azores, was sprung from his prison and spirited across the Atlantic; suppose your brother commanded a division of trappers and mountain men in the army of New France, eh? Wouldn’t you want to be a part of that? A great lady of Quebec, or Montreal, or even Louisbourg if it was rebuilt? Yet you expect me to believe you would hazard all that against a pension of forty pounds per year?’
    He was looking down at her hair, the scent of which rose from its auburn profusion. She raised her face and stared up at him. Her yielding body had become rigid.
    ‘I have nothing, nothing!’ She hissed, desperation in her tone. ‘Why should I come here, tonight, eh?’ She pulled away from him, holding him at arm’s length as she might have remonstrated with the son she had never had. ‘Why should I not sit in Paris and wait for an invitation to become La Reine de Louisbourg, eh?’ She threw the tide at him in French like striking him with a