Chapter Sixteen

July 14, 1802

A mber climbed down from their fiacre, wild to have this interview done. Ram had sat opposite her, deathly quiet. She had no words either. What was there to say now that she would leave him?

She climbed the steps to Ashley's house and rapped on the door before Ram could raise his arm.

Ashley's swarthy majordom came at once. Ram asked for Ashley, and the butler told them he was in his study. He could announce them, he said, if they would please wait.

"I cannot," Amber told him. "Lead us to him, please."

The butler asked for their coats. She saw no need for him to take her pelisse. "No. I have no time for niceties."

The servant nodded and headed toward the stairs. Amber and Ram followed. After stopping briefly before an open door, she rushed around the butler and found herself gazing at a man as tall as Ram, dark and muscular, and with the same gravitas as the man she loved.

Behind her, Ram bade his friend hello.

"Good morning, Lord Ashley." Amber folded her hands before her and summoned composure. "Forgive the intrusion, but I know you will receive me."

Kane eyed them both, then came round his desk to approach her. "I am pleased to meet you, although, I do believe, not in these circumstances."

"You have that right, Whit." Ram bit off his words, sour as they were. "I have fought this, but she will not listen to me. I hope you can persuade her otherwise."

Frowning, Kane nodded. "Please sit down, Madame St. Antoine. Ram. Corsini, please ask my wife to join us."

"Yes," said Amber as she took a chair near the fireplace. She was chilled by her own actions this morning and gravitated toward a warmth that did not exist. Sitting on the edge of the chair, she intended to do this quickly, cut to the quick and leave. "Do summon Gus. I wish to see her, congratulate her on her marriage. I do hope, sir, this is a love match."

Ashley gave her a stiff smile. "None other than that, madame."

She flicked a hand. "Let us dispense with formalities. We are too much in each other's pockets to be otherwise. I am Amber. You are Kane. Save for Godfrey here, who remains Ram." She gave Ram a small, intimate smile.

She recoiled at the sight of his unrelenting bitterness. Lest she fly away to their home and run with him to anywhere on earth he wished, she cut to her purpose. "Let me begin by telling you that we've seen the scandal sheets. Our servants collect them each morning. It is how Ram and I have avoided the gendarmes of Vaillancourt. A very thorough job done on that man in those broadsheets today." News of very recent events, such as this of last night's attempt at abduction, meant someone with all the details had informed the publishers of the story. She wagered that had to be Ashley. "I assume the work is yours."

Kane admitted to nothing. "What you read in those sheets is rumor," he said as he braced his hip on his desk and crossed his arms. "Not all is to be trusted."

"Very well," she said, noting his failure to admit his actions. She knew that many in and out of Parisian Society paid the publishers on the left bank to print libelles, damning stories against anyone. Such methods had worked public sentiment against the Bourbons and now criticized the consulate and all who ran it. If the printed word weren't bad enough, balladeers strolled the Pont Neuf singing scandalous ditties and earning for themselves sizable remunerations. Amber had heard them singing as she and Ram rode here. "Define it as you will. I am not here to argue with you about your work."

Kane gave no quarter. "My work is to negotiate commercial contracts for British citizens and, when I can, to buy agricultural products for them."

"Of course it is," she said with the politesse of a smile.

"Amber!" Gus flew into the room, her morning gown of white muslin aflutter beneath her heavy purple damask banyan as she ran to her friend, arms out. "Oh, you look wonderful. Healthy. I was so worried about you."

She hugged Amber, who rejoiced at seeing her friend well. But she was here for reasons more vital than reestablishing a friendship. She braced herself for the argument she was undoubtedly about to create here.

Gus stepped backward, a bewildered look on her face at Amber's cool fa?ade.

Kane put his arm around his wife's waist. "Join us."

Amber resumed her chair. She had much to say here.

Gus welcomed Ram, who merely frowned. Then she took a seat across from Amber and said, "You come unannounced."

Amber pressed her lips together and glanced down a moment to trace the folds of her pale-yellow gown. Ram gazed at her, his dark hair falling over his brow, but could not cover the despair in his blue eyes.

Gus grew wary. "Tell us quickly why you are here, Amber."

"I know what happened to you last night."

Gus inhaled. "Newssheets on the street, I suppose?"

"A new song, too, tells the tale of the Englishman who married the comtesse's niece, both of whom were attacked by peasants hired by Vaillancourt."

Gus added nothing.

Neither did Kane as he sat beside his wife in his own chair, his gaze never wavering from Amber.

"This," she added, "comes on top of other reports that you, Augustine, did away with a fellow in Varennes. He, sad to say, died of a severe cut to his groin. He bled to death."

Gus held her tongue.

Amber grew testy. "I see neither one of you will admit to these acts."

"Why should we?" Gus replied. "You seem to have the facts you want."

Amber regarded Kane. "I have a plan."

Silence enveloped the room.

Very well. "I return to Society," she told them. "I open up my house again. Announce I am ready to receive once more. Then I send out my invitations to dinner parties and balls."

Gus set her teeth. "No."

Amber countered, "You have no say in the matter, Augustine."

Gus seethed. "The same way I had no say in your departure from Paris? Your extended absence? Your failure to perform your duties?"

"My duties," Amber blurted, "did not suffer."

Gus scoffed. "I beg to differ."

Oh, I am being a harpy. But I must be to push all of them from me. If they find one crack, they will find another…and stop me. "No catastrophe has befallen anyone in my group in the time I have been gone." A lie, but I must be brazen. "While I take no credit for it, I take no offense either. Neither should you."

"Oh, yes," Gus offered with sarcasm. "The only catastrophe is that the man in Varennes is dead…after he tried to kill Kane and me."

"Exactly," Amber said with vehemence. "And now nothing like that will happen again."

"You will stop such things from occurring?" Gus taunted her.

Amber gave them a secretive smile. "I will."

Gus fumed. "Even you cannot have the audacity to expect a dinner party and a ball will set any of us free from Vaillancourt's determination to have you as his own."

Ram, who had stood in the same spot throughout this scene like a marble statue, closed his eyes.

"No," Amber said. "It is the beginning."

"Of what?" Gus asked.

Amber had always known who she was and what she wanted. Today, what she wanted was far from her ability to obtain. Life and love with Ram would never be hers now. She had lived too long and worked too diligently for the overthrow of greedy, rapacious men. They now returned to destroy all whom she loved. Her friends. Her sister, in all but name. Anyone else she had worked with, they would kill. And now, given this chance, she would stop them. For if she ran, if she went away with Ram and turned her back, Vaillancourt would eliminate them all. By torture, by any means, the man was capable of the most heinous crimes. She would not allow that to happen. If she could stop him, delay him, at worst mollify him, she'd do it. She would find his list of her associates, steal it, destroy it. Then she would encourage any to run, to hide, to await his total destruction—or with her, to work toward it.

She got to her feet. To her dismay, she did so with a hesitation that gave away her despair at what she did now.

Ram saw it and growled at how she wavered. She could not allow him to see any more justification.

She licked her lips. "I will open up my house. Receive guests. Return to the work only I can do. Examine what is left, what needs repair, what needs addition. I will invite Society to my door."

She blanched, suddenly weak.

Ram cursed, then shot forward and took her arm. "Tell them. Do it quickly and we will leave."

Amber raised her head, blind to their outrage—and her own deathly fear. She would never tell anyone about the list. Only the means to obtain it. "I will become Vaillancourt's mistress."

Gus was out of her chair. "No."

Kane was beside her, ferocious in his disbelief. "Why that, of all things?"

"Because it is the only way the man will leave everyone alone. Because it is what he has wanted for years, even before Maurice and I met. I have refused Vaillancourt time and time again. He grows more ruthless as he grows more powerful. He will not be denied."

"Amber," Gus pleaded, "do not do this!"

Kane looked at Ram. "What say you to this?"

Ram stood, angry and hopeless. "Whit, whatever can be said, I have argued. To no avail. Amber refuses. In this matter, I am without power. Though I wish to God I had it all."

Amber looked each one of them in the eye, then turned and walked away. She could do no more. Say no more. Drained, she had to leave this house and all in it.

Behind her, she heard footsteps.

She had gotten to the landing when Gus caught her arm and spun her around. "Don't do this. Do not throw your life away. You are young. Vaillancourt will hurt you. Defile you. Destroy all you have built. Do not reappear. Someone will rebuild the network that you and I can no longer serve. Trust in that. Live your life. I detect Lord Ramsey wants you to live it with him."

Amber stood her ground, unable to stop the tears that silently streamed down her cheeks. "I would do it, too. Accept Ram's offer of…life and love. Especially love. But I know of what Vaillancourt is capable. You only know a small bit. I will not have you hurt."

Gus tugged at her. "He cannot hurt me now. Kane will not permit it."

Amber rounded on her. "Do not believe it. Where evil lives, it is capable of destroying the finest, the fairest, the worthiest of any of us. Each of us fights with the weapons we have. You have your own skills, your knowledge of what you and I and our network has done. You have Kane, who has another entire cadre to support him. Use it. Employ it. Never abandon it. As I will not abandon what I know, what I have, what I must do to strengthen the work I have done and what I will leave behind. I must fight as I can. For the love of a freedom I can only imagine. For you to live in the love that can bring you peace and joy."

"Amber, you told me once never to fail to take love where you find it."

She caught Gus close and ran her fingertips through her friend's hair. "I did."

"You can again."

"Could? Might. Should not. Cannot." She felt a stab of weakness and gazed back in the direction of the study and Ram. Oh, if she could have him and her good conscience as well, she would leave all others behind without a second glance. "Perhaps one day I might take the love I'm offered and live in peace. But that day is not this one."

She gave a final nod and took the stairs down.

At the last step, she stopped and turned to bid adieu to Gus. "I love you, sweet Augustine. You have been my dearest friend, my colleague, my collaborator, and my darling sister. Go seize your love and live in peace. You deserve Kane and all the happiness you both will find together."

Then she picked up her skirts and fled outside, beyond friendship, beyond love.

*

Ram stared at Kane, but saw nothing. "She does not listen to reason."

Kane looked as downhearted as he.

"I have tried everything."

Kane put a hand to his shoulder. "Find yourself."

Ram blinked. "What?"

"Find yourself and then you will find a way to help her."

"I doubt that."

"Don't," Kane insisted. "You will find a way."

Ram exhaled, dumbfounded. The one thing in his life he needed to change…and he had no means. "Never easy, is it, loving another?"

Kane winced. "Never. But then the rewards are more than you imagined."

Ram embraced his friend once more. He knew not how to claim those rewards. He knew not how to change her mind. That Whit could believe Ram could change even this was sweet, but foolish.

He would have to watch Amber leave him…and grieve that he knew not how to prevent it.