gone with this woman to wait for smugglers’ weather on a Channel isle.”
“I am the Comtesse Marceau, madame.”
“Interception seemed the best strategy, because I’ve been puzzling over something I read when held captive in Martinique by Leon Martel,” Astiza carried on. “The Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris is the best place to research.” She shrugged. “So I have joined your conspiracy.”
“You rescued me to go to a library?”
“To read about medieval attempts to divine the future.”
Being widowed is bad enough, but learning that all the grieving was for nothing is disorienting. Not to mention that my resurrected wife chatted about medieval lore with my archenemy, kept strict tabs on my movements, and got to France faster than I did. I was uncharacteristically incoherent. I was the recipient of a miracle? Who now stood before me like a visiting saint? By thunder, marriage is complicated enough without being confused as to whether your spouse even exists or not. I suppose I should have . . .
What?
“Monsieur, it is your wife who has saved us?” a puzzled Captain Butron finally asked, snapping me back to the present.
“Yes, she turns up like a penny and has a knack for rescuing me from myself. I think my boy is here as well. Harry, is that you?”
Horus, a real armful at nearly four, clung to my bride as if worried I’d leave him with the Chiswicks again. “Mama came for me,” he said with reproach in his voice. I’d first given him hope after the hurricane that his mother might live, and then told him she apparently was dead. “After you left me,” he added. Hell’s fire, now I looked like the world’s worst father.
There was an awkward silence that the kindly captain finally broke. “I think, American, that you should take a moment to kiss your reappearing wife.”
Of course! I limped forward, with all the grace of a plowman—I hate accurate assessments of myself—took the woman in my arms, Harry mashed between us, and gave her a buss on the lips. Astiza was real all right, warm and ripe, and familiar as a favorite shoe, the mash of mouth and teeth and tongue a brand that brought back sweet memory. I kissed her with relief, exaltation, and near disbelief, positively poleaxed by fate. For all my luck at cards, this was the biggest pot I’d ever won. I thought myself cursed by any number of voodoo, Egyptian, and Greek gods, and yet here was my bride, as beautiful as I remembered and little worse for wear. Her face was cold—it was stormy, after all—but her breath was as invigorating as brandy.
We broke for air, gasping. Catherine gave us a little clap of approval, looking at me with new interest, and Butron raised his sword in salute.
I kissed my boy, too.
“I don’t like the Chiswicks, Papa.”
“Well, then, you’d better stay with me. Frankly, I didn’t like them, either; I should have shopped around. In any event, I’m eager to play with you again, Harry.”
His eyes were wide in the dark. “We shot the bad men.” My boy had already been in as many scrapes as a Guard grenadier. “And I’m wet. It’s raining.”
“We’ll look for puddles to splash in.” I addressed Astiza. “How did you find Harry?”
“I went to Sidney Smith, asking where he’d sent you. He explained that you’d joined his cabal of spies and conspirators and that Horus had been deposited for safekeeping. The Chiswicks wouldn’t believe I was his mother, even though he ran to me, because you told them I was dead. So I kidnapped my own son in the night. I hope you haven’t paid them yet.”
“I gave half in advance. I finally sold the emerald.”
“I’m hungry,” Harry interrupted.
“The emerald!” Astiza exclaimed. “I thought we’d lost it.”
“I swallowed it in the Caribbean for safekeeping. We’re rich, Astiza. We can retire because I’ve invested our fortune with brilliant London advisers who are going to double our money in less than a year. Once we figure out how to return you to England, you can retrieve the fortune and hunt for an estate. Look for something with modern fireplaces and a stable to keep the horses I intend to buy. And you must return, of course. I can’t risk the two of you here.”
“But I will not risk you here, either.” She glanced at Catherine, who’d wrapped her arms around herself and was studying us with speculation. “Not without me.”
I looked at the bodies. “Our entire situation is dangerous.”
“Then why did you come