Chapter Three

      Lucien woke in the night to a small and quiet noise. He had been trained well to know the difference in sounds and knew that the louder ones were those less likely to kill you.

      This one was soft and muffled. He tensed into readiness.

      The door opened and a candle flared as Alejandra’s father came to sit on the small stool near the bed, stretching his long legs out before him and grimacing as though in pain.

      ‘You sleep lightly, Capitán.’

      ‘Years of practice, señor,’ Lucien returned.

      ‘Put the knife away. I am only here to talk.’

      Lucien slipped the blade beneath his pillow, angling it so that it might be taken up quickly again if needed. He did not think the man opposite missed the inherent threat.

      Alejandra had brought him the weapon on his second evening here, a quiet offering in the heat of his fever.

      ‘For protection,’ she had said in warning. ‘I am presuming you know how to use it. If not, it is probably better...’ He’d simply reached out and taken it from her, the insult smarting given the wounds on his back.

      Tonight her father looked weary and he took his time in forming the message before he spoke.

      ‘It has come to my notice that you are a peer of the English aristocracy, Capitán Howard.’ The ring Lucien had been wearing lay in the older man’s hand when he opened his fingers, the Ross family coat of arms shining in the candlelight. He thought it had been lost for ever. ‘Lord Lucien Howard, the sixth Earl of Ross. The title sits on your shoulders as the head of your household and you wield a good deal of power in English society.’

      Lucien remained silent for he was certain that there would be more to come.

      ‘But your family seat is bankrupt by all accounts. Poor investments by your father and his father, it is said, and now there is very little in the Howard coffers. Soon there will be nothing.’

      Well, that was not a secret, Lucien thought bitterly. The penury of the earldom of Ross was well known. Anyone could have told him of it.

      But his attention was taken by a sheaf of papers the other man lifted into view. He saw his own face on the front cover of The Times, a black-and-white copy of a likeness his mother had once commissioned of him, smiling as if he meant it. My God, it seemed an age since he had done so with any sincerity.

      ‘You have a good number of brothers and sisters and a mother who is heartbroken because you are presumed dead.’

      Lucien imagined her grief. The Countess was neither a big woman nor a particularly robust one. If this killed her before he managed to get back...

      ‘So I have a further proposition for you, my lord.’ The last two words were coated with a violent dislike. ‘I could slice your throat open here and now and no one would ever know what had happened to you, or...’ He stopped.

      El Vengador was a man who used theatrics to the full extent, Lucien thought and humoured him. ‘Or...’

      ‘Or as an earl you are well placed to offer us even more.’

      Lucien closed his eyes momentarily. This guerrilla leader was a dangerous adversary and a man who would not make an easy ally. He was also holding all the cards as far as Lucien’s life was concerned. Oh, granted, he knew that he might take a good handful of men with him if he were to fight his way out of here, but he was weak and he was also, to some extent, in debt to the man for his life.

      But there were things that were not being said. Lucien was sure of it. He looked the other man straight on.

      ‘Why me? Why not someone integrated into the fabric of English society, someone from here? It seems you have agents there already. Why not use them?’ Lucien’s eyes turned to the papers and the ring.

      ‘But we could not access the places you do, my lord. We could never hope to be within earshot of a king.’

      ‘Society and the monarch do not write the law. England has a democracy and a parliament to do that.’

      ‘And one of the Houses of Parliament consists of peers of the realm. Your name is included in that representation, is it not, Lord Ross?’

      Finally he was gathering the sense of this assignment. If he had not been titled, he would probably have been disposed of by now and this conversation was a warning of it.

      El Vengador held men in London, dangerous men, men with dreams of a Spanish free land in their hearts and the means to ensure it had the best chance of fruition.

      England and Spain might be on the same side of the fight against Napoleon, but each had their own reasons for victory and the milksop version of democracy held by the Spanish army and the splintered juntas was a very different one from that offered by the guerrilla leaders. ‘The little war’ was the translation, but Lucien had heard tales of the French being killed in their hundreds by the partisan bands roaming the rough and isolated passes of the northern countryside, and many of those deaths had not been a pretty sight.

      ‘The guerrilla movement might strike terror into the hearts of the French troops, but you also frighten much of the Spanish population with your forced conscription and looting.’ He refrained from adding savagery and barbarousness to the list. ‘What makes you think I would want to help you? I do not wish to be the person who facilitates the death of my countrymen should a battle be badly lost and you have all the personal details of each commanding officer.’

      A movement of the door had both of them turning. Alejandra came in. She had been asleep. He could see the remains of slumber in the flush on her cheeks and in the tangle of her hair.

      God. She slept fully clothed and with a knife as close as his. The silver of her dagger glimmered in the candlelight. He was surprised she had not sheathed it when she saw her father in the room.

      ‘I am not here to kill him, hija.’

      An explanation of intention that underlined her presence. Lucien frowned. Did she sleep near? To protect him? Her eyes did not meet his own as they took in the papers and his ring sitting on the table to one side of the bed, giving him the notion that she had known of her father’s quest. And of the danger.

      ‘You will take him to the boat in a week, Alejandra. No later.’

      ‘Very well.’ Her answer held the same edge of hardness as her father’s.

      ‘Find another to travel with you. Tomeu, perhaps?’

      She shook her head. ‘No. I shall take Adan. He has people to the west and good contacts.’

      ‘Then it is decided.’ El Vengador’s fingers drummed against his thigh as he stood. ‘I do not expect you to do this work for Spain without reward, Lord Ross. A sum of money shall be deposited into a bank of your choice as soon as any business between us is conducted and I am satisfied with the intelligence.’

      A fait accompli. Perhaps El Vengador was not used to having men turn down his offers of assistance. Still, he was in the lair of the tiger, so to speak, and it would be unwise to annoy him.

      ‘I will think carefully on what you have proposed.’

      A hand came forward, grasping his own in a surprisingly firm and warm way.

      ‘For