‘Tea?’ she enquired, her voice tight with emotion.
They sat side by side in the drawing room while the maid brought refreshments.
Louise looked at him intently, then said quietly, ‘You never were the simple sailor, Mr Renzi, were you? What do you now?’
‘Je vais vous expliquer à un autre moment,’ he answered. Her English was greatly improved but his French was better.
She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure if I want to know the answer, but could you tell me this? What became of the young sailor, Tom Kydd, your friend? He gave up his own place in the boat for me,’ she added, with a catch in her throat. ‘Such a fine man and true.’
‘You may not believe me if I told you, Madame.’
‘Do, please!’
‘In English Harbour dockyard there lies a smart frigate, her name L’Aurore. Her commander is … Captain Thomas Kydd.’
‘Vraiment? Quelle merveille!’ she squealed, her hands working together. ‘What happened? You must tell me.’
‘Dear Madame, I rather feel that it were better told within the civilities of a dinner perhaps. Do you—’
‘This very evening. It shall be here, and I will prepare it myself. Do you object, sir, if it were we two alone?’ she added, with a coy smile in her eyes.
The fish was exquisitely cooked in a delicate sauce and the little dining room touchingly feminine with its carefully chosen pieces and faultlessly draped hangings in the soft gold of the candlelight.
Their converse was intelligent and attentive; they relished the courtly exchanges, the courteous deferences and gallantries of the old order.
Renzi recounted the epic adventures that had led to Kydd’s rise to eminence in his profession and his own calling of scholar, while Louise told a poignant tale of being wrenched from her homeland, her brother’s suffering under the guillotine and her quiet waiting existence in exile.
It called for a vin d’honneur and a promise that she would be allowed to meet Kydd once again at the earliest opportunity – and then Renzi knew it could not be put off any further.
‘Louise, ma chère, what do you know of the current perils that face us in the Caribbean as we dine together here so elegantly?’
She looked puzzled. ‘Surely the tyrant is now vanquished in these parts. He makes imperial decrees as he struts in the Tuileries, but they cannot affect us here, not with your great navy that prevails over all.’
Renzi let his expression sadden. ‘Dear lady, there has recently arisen a threat that is even now wreaking ruin all over the Caribbean. I would not trouble to mention it, save it is causing the gravest anxiety to Captain Kydd and his fellow officers. It is such a scourge as bears on all our spirits.’
‘How can this be, Nicholas?’
It was easily told, the ruinous losses, all unexplained – then, after he had extracted a promise of secrecy, the probability that it was the result of a clandestine naval operation by numerous small craft, which had to be centred and directed from French territory.
‘And you believe this to be in Guadeloupe?’ she asked shrewdly.
‘Just so.’
‘Then …’ she began uncertainly.
‘Louise, do you have family still in Pointe-à-Pitre? Or friends you may still talk with in other parts of the island?’
‘You want to learn if anything is known of this port de guerre there,’ she replied quickly. ‘And I have to tell you that, no, to communicate with them, ce n’est pas possible.’
‘There is no way you can get word to them?’
‘I know why you ask, and if it were possible I would try, but you must understand this war is like no other. Revolutionaries and islanders both live together in suspicion and hatred, and if by any means I could get through to any in Guadeloupe they would pay for it with their lives.’
There was no way forward – except one. Even before he spoke Renzi despised himself. ‘Louise … this leaves only one alternative. To land someone on the shores of Guadeloupe to see if such a base exists.’
Her eyes on him were still and luminous.
‘I wish with all my heart it could be me,’ he said, ‘but I am known to them and would not survive to bring back the information.’
‘And you want me to go there and be a spy. Now I know what it is you do. Is this why you came to me tonight, Mr Renzi?’
The sudden chill in her manner struck him to the heart.
‘There is none other I could think to turn to. Please believe me.’
She put down her napkin and spoke coldly: ‘Sir, I’m astonished – no, I confess amazed at what you’ve been saying. I thought you a gentleman of reputation, of learning and discernment, and I find you speaking of spying. And, what is more, to a lady!’