“To avenge you by killing Napoleon. I suppose my quest is somewhat obsolete, since you don’t seem to need avenging.” I struggled for a plan. “Maybe we’ll explain the misunderstanding to the authorities and take a holiday in Italy. I’ll tell them the reason I helped wreck a coastal cutter and shoot through a gendarmerie patrol was love. The French understand these things.”
“No, they don’t,” Butron said.
Astiza looked at me fondly. “I’m flattered you wanted revenge.”
“None less than bringing down their government and that Corsican schemer.”
“Mama helped shoot the bad people,” Harry said. He’d encountered more bad people in four years than most of us do in forty, and each of my attempts to shelter him had completely come to naught.
“Your mother can be quite determined,” I confirmed.
“But I think they’ll likely guillotine us, Ethan, not send us to Italy,” Astiza warned. “You’ve been as foolish as you’ve been brave.”
She had a point.
“Nor has my survival changed the strategic peril,” she went on. “We’ve allied with both France and Britain at times in the past, as was expedient for love and family, but this time you can’t abandon your mission. The French still want to cross the Channel and, by conquering England, conquer the world. Our fortune waiting in England may become a French spoil of war. Napoleon needs to be thwarted.”
“Your grasp of the stakes involved is exemplary, madame,” Catherine approved. “As is your grasp of both politics and men.” The two women seemed to be bonding over my failings.
“Moreover, I see the hand of fate,” Astiza said. “I’ll search out medieval archives in Paris while you spy.” She liked nothing better than a great library with half-forgotten cellars of dusty tomes, spotted with mouse droppings and improperly filed, so she could organize things.
“But apparently, some of our intended allies are already in prison,” I said. “Captain Butron here reports there have been arrests.”
“This is true, madame.” He cocked his head, clearly fascinated by my wife and taken with her beauty. I’m used to men paying her such attention, accepting it with a mixture of pride and annoyance. “Can I ask how you arrived in France ahead of your husband?”
“Smith arranged for the daring Captain John Wesley Wright to bring me with a shipload of rebel arms.”
I’d heard of Wright. He’d escaped years ago from a Paris prison with Sidney Smith, making them both famous. He sneaked about like Tom Johnstone, but with a naval commission.
“Wright found fog to hide in and told the rebels receiving the weapons that I needed to meet you here. We’ve been waiting three days for the storm we knew would blow you in.”
“Yet the French coastal guards were waiting, too,” Butron said.
“Somewhere there’s a traitor,” concluded Catherine. “The danger is grave. But now we have new opportunity, too.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“It would have been hard to convince Parisians I’m in company with a lowborn opportunist like you. Our habits are too different. But now I’ve lost my money. To return with your bride is perfect. After this skirmish and betrayal, we must creep into Paris and determine where our conspiracy stands. Having a family makes you less suspicious.” She was as brisk as Bonaparte.
“Certainly not. I won’t risk Astiza and Harry again. Good heavens, I just got them back.”
“Ethan, we have no choice,” Astiza said. “We watched Napoleon try to suppress the slaves of Saint-Domingue. He wants to conquer England. His goal is mastery of the world, and he needs to be checked. If we keep our wits, we’re in a unique position to infiltrate French society and report what we learn. Let’s upset his invasion, win a peace, finish my research, and then retire.”
“You’re a little more martial than I remember.”
“The word is payback, is it not?” She looked lovely when vengeful.
“We conspire with Harry?”
“Let’s put an end to things and keep together as a family while we do. Napoleon can’t last. Meanwhile, we start teaching Harry to read.”
“And to spy,” I mused. “I suppose it could be a lucrative profession for him someday.”
“I think he’ll learn to be anything but a spy.”
“I want to go to sleep,” Harry protested. I took him, and he nestled into my shoulder. Good heavens, he weighed as much as a keg of powder.
“All right.” I began to cheer up. “And maybe we can make another one or two just like him in Paris. The city is quite romantic, after all.” The thought of my wife’s flank in bed gave me something