Brenda Joyce - Persuasion

Lafleur stared. “Why aren’t you declaring your innocence?”

“Will it help my cause?”

“No.”

“I did not think so.”

“You are the Viscomte Jourdan’s third son, and your redemption has been a lie. You do not love la Patrie—you spy! Your family is dead, and you will soon join them at the gates of purgatory.”

“There is a new spymaster in London.”

Lafleur’s eyes widened in surprise. “What ploy is this?”

“You must know that my family has financed the merchants in Lyons for years, and that we have extensive relations with the British.”

The radical Jacobin studied him. “You vanished from Paris for a month. You went to London?”

“Yes, I did.”

“So you confess?”

“I confess to having business affairs in London that I had to attend, Lafleur. Look around you. Everyone in Paris is starving. The assignat is worthless. Yet I always have bread on my table.”

“Smuggling is a crime.” But Lafleur’s eyes glittered.

Finally, he let his mouth soften and he shrugged. The black market in Paris was vast and untouchable. It was not going to end, not now, not ever.

“What can you get me?” Lafleur demanded softly. His black gaze was unwavering now.

“Didn’t you hear me?”

“Are we speaking about bread and gold—or the new spymaster?”

Very softly, he said, “I have more than business relations in that country. The Earl of St. Just is my cousin, and if you have properly researched my family, you would have realized that.”

He felt Lafleur’s mind racing.

“St. Just is very well placed in London’s highest circles. I think that he would be thrilled to learn that one of his relations has survived the destruction of the city. I even think he would welcome me with open arms into his home.”

Lafleur still stared. “This is a trick,” he finally said. “You would never come back!”

He slowly smiled. “I suppose that is possible,” he said. “I suppose I might never come back. Or I could be the Enragé I claim to be, as loyal to la Liberté as you are, and I could return with the kind of information very few of Carnot’s spies could ever attain—priceless information to help us win the war.”

Lafleur’s gaze was unwavering.

He did not bother to point out that the gains to be made if he did as he said—move within the highest echelons of Tory London and return to la République with classified information—far outweighed the risk that he might vanish from France never to return.

“I cannot make this kind of decision by myself,” Lafleur finally said. “I will bring you before le Comité, Jourdan, and if you convince them of your worth, you will be spared.”

He did not move.

Lafleur left.

And Simon Grenville collapsed upon the pallet on the floor.

CHAPTER ONE

Greystone Manor, Cornwall

April 4, 1794

GRENVILLE’S WIFE WAS DEAD.

Amelia Greystone stared at her brother, not even seeing him, a stack of plates in her hands.

“Did you hear what I said?” Lucas asked, his gray eyes filled with concern. “Lady Grenville died last night giving birth to an infant daughter.”

His wife was dead.

Amelia was paralyzed. There was news every day about the war or the violence in France—all of it awful, all of it shocking. But she had not expected this.

How could Lady Grenville be dead? She was so elegant, so beautiful—and too young to die!

Amelia could barely think. Lady Grenville had never set foot in St. Just Hall since their marriage ten years ago, and neither had her husband. Then she had appeared in January at the earl’s ancestral home with her household and two sons—and a child obviously on the way. St. Just had not been with her.

Cornwall was a godforsaken place in general, but even worse in January. The region was frigidly cold and inhospitable in the midst of winter, when gale winds blew, and vicious storms swept the coast.

Who would come to the farthest end of the country in winter to give birth to a child? Her appearance had been so terribly strange.

Amelia had been as surprised as everyone else in the parish to hear that the countess was in residence, and when she had received an invitation to tea, she hadn’t even considered refusing. She had been very curious to meet Elizabeth Grenville, and not just because they were neighbors. She had wondered what the Countess of St. Just was like.

And she had been exactly what Amelia was expecting—blonde and beautiful, gracious, elegant and so very genteel. She had been perfect for the dark, brooding earl. Elizabeth Grenville was everything that Amelia Greystone was not.

And because Amelia had buried the past so long ago—a decade ago, in fact—she hadn’t once made the comparison. But now, as she stood there reeling in shock, she wondered suddenly if she had wished to inspect and interview the woman Grenville had decided to marry—the woman he had chosen instead of her.

Amelia trembled, holding the plates tightly to her chest. If she wasn’t careful, she would remember the past! She refused to believe that she had really wished to meet Lady Grenville in order to decide what she was like. She was horrified by the comprehension.

She had liked Elizabeth Grenville. And her own affair with Grenville had ended a decade ago.

She had dismissed it from her mind then. She did not want to go back in time now.

But suddenly she felt as if she were sixteen years old, young and beautiful, naive and trusting, and oh so vulnerable. It was as if she were in Simon Grenville’s powerful arms, awaiting his declaration of love and his marriage proposal.

She was stricken, but it was too late. A floodgate in her mind had opened. The heady images flashed—they were on the ground on a picnic blanket, they were in the maze behind the hall, they were in his carriage. He was kissing her wildly and she was kissing him back, and they were both in the throes of a very dangerous, mindless passion...

She inhaled, shaken by the sudden, jarring memory of that long-ago summer. He hadn’t ever been sincere. He hadn’t ever been courting her. She was sensible enough to know that now. Yet she had expected an offer of marriage from him and the betrayal had been devastating.

Why would Lady Grenville’s terrible death cause her to remember a time in her life when she had been so young and so foolish? She hadn’t given that summer a single thought in years, not even when she had been in Lady Grenville’s salon, sipping tea and discussing the war.

But Grenville was a widower now....

Lucas seized the pile of plates she was holding, jerking her back to reality. She simply stared at him, horrified by her last thought and afraid of what it might mean.

“Amelia?” he asked with concern.

She mustn’t think about the past. She did not know why those foolish memories had arisen, but she was a woman of twenty-six years now. That flirtation had to be forgotten. She hadn’t wanted to ever recall that encounter—or any other like it—again. That was why she had dismissed the affair from her mind all those years ago, when he had left Cornwall without a word, upon the heels of the tragic accident that had killed his brother.

It all had to be forgotten.

And it was forgotten! There had been heartache, of course, and grief, but she had moved on with her life. She had turned all of her attention to Momma, who was addled, her brothers and sister and the estate. She had genuinely managed to forget about him and their affair for an entire decade. She was a busy woman, with strained circumstances and onerous responsibilities. He had moved on, as well. He had married and had children.

And there were no regrets. Her family had needed her. It had been her duty to take care of them all, ever since she was a child, when Papa had abandoned them. But then the revolution had come, the war had begun, and everything had changed.