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.A note arrived early the next day from Stafford that he would need two days to make arrangements, and to expect further word within that time.Madame Martand must have accepted after all, Nate thought, since the note made no mention of a change in plans.For some reason this didn’t annoy him at all; quite the contrary.“I’m going to have another look at Madame Martand,” he said, pulling on a long gray coat and taking up a plain black hat.It was a cool, cloudy day, so he also grabbed an umbrella for extra concealment.Prince gave him a long, speaking look, a wicked grin curling his mouth, but went back to his experiments without a word.Nate ignored the look and left.He found his way back to her house in good time.Retracing a path through a city, with so many more fixed landmarks to note, was always easier than retracing a path through the forest, and Nate was rather good at doing that.Fortunately for him, she lived in a quiet area opposite a small park, where he could linger out of sight for hours, if necessary.Not that he hoped to; staring at her house wouldn’t give him much idea of what kind of person she was or what she would be like to work with.He tied up his horse at a nearby shop and went to scout the area.But she helped him out by leaving the house.Nate had barely taken a turn around the street when a hired carriage rattled up and stopped in front of her house.Almost at once the front door opened, and the lady herself walked down the steps, demure and prim in a gray traveling dress and black bonnet.She stepped lightly into the carriage, pausing only to speak to the sturdy-looking maid who followed her out to the street.The maid nodded, the carriage started off, and on impulse Nate slipped quickly back to his horse and followed.He didn’t know what he expected to gain by doing so.He’d been too far away to hear what she told the driver.Perhaps she was going to have tea with a friend or going shopping for new gloves, and he would waste an entire day that could be better spent tracking Jacob Dixon’s movements.But too much depended on his knowing her, this odd French spy who worked for the English and seemed perfectly at ease offering to cut his throat.His entire enterprise now rested on how well he could manage her, and she was a complete enigma.He had rather be safe than sorry, he told himself as he drifted into the swelling stream of traffic and kept one eye on her carriage.They headed out of the city, around the wide expanse of Hyde Park and then west on the turnpike.With his rudimentary knowledge of London geography, Nate was reduced to reading signposts as they passed through villages and toll gates, and still traveled on.Where the devil was she going—and why? He hadn’t seen any luggage, so hadn’t thought she would go far or stay long.But as he rode on, hanging back to avoid being seen, he began to think this had been a damned foolish idea.He should have stayed in London and taken advantage of her absence to knock on her door and chat up the servants.Servants always knew pretty well what sort of person employed them.After almost two hours, the carriage finally turned into an inn yard at one end of a small town.Nate reined in his horse at once, dismounting and pretending to tighten the saddle girth as he watched from the corner of his eye.After a few moments Madame Martand walked out of the yard and headed down the dusty lane on foot.Curiosity had long since overtaken Nate’s mind, so he walked his horse to the inn and stabled it.He noticed the carriage driver had retired to the taproom, presumably waiting for his passenger to return from whatever her errand was.He didn’t feel too conspicuous, leaving the horse there—no one would recognize it as his—but he did school his voice into clipped British tones just in case, silently thanking his Hertfordshire mother for raising him to speak “proper English,” as she called it.Madame Martand had vanished from sight by the time he walked back out of the stable yard, but it was a straight road that followed the dip and rise of the land.He strode briskly along until her slight figure came into view, and then moderated his pace to stay far behind her.With every step his curiosity grew by leaps and bounds.After a while she turned and went south, climbing a stile over the rock wall into a meadow with a thin dirt track through the middle.A local shortcut, he thought; she’d been here before.He left the road, moving into a small wood that ran alongside the meadow.He hung back behind the trees, staying close to the shadows and stepping soundlessly through the thicket.He flexed the muscles of his abdomen, controlling his breathing until it was long, deep, and silent, as he had learned to do in the forests of New England.Giving oneself away there could be fatal, and given her threat the other day, it might well be the same here with this woman.But Madame Martand evidently had no idea he was there.For a while she strolled through the meadow, picking wildflowers as if she had not a care in the world.Nate wondered what she was thinking about as she wandered aimlessly through the tall grass, reaching out from time to time to run her gloved hand over the rustling tips.Nate began to feel foolish again, and then puzzled, as she let herself into the graveyard behind the small church at the top of the hill.She wound her way through the graves and then seated herself on a stone bench.She made a lonely figure in a sea of wild heartsease, her dark bonnet and gray dress stark against the sun-bleached grasses and the colorful little flowers that swayed and bobbed against her skirt.Nate shifted through the woods until he was only a hundred yards or so away; the trees grew thin, and he inched dangerously close to exposure, but still couldn’t see her face.The bonnet shielded her expression, and he wondered why she was there.Despite the location and the quiet air of her pose, there wasn’t much of mourning in it.There was something very…still, but so alert, about her; he had the impression she had come to think instead of to pay respects.After a while a woman came out of the rectory at the side of the church.She was short and plump and simply dressed, with a basket over one arm.The rector’s wife, he guessed.She made her way to the woman on the bench, whom she greeted with a smile and a bob of her head.They chatted for a few minutes, and the rector’s wife gestured toward the rectory with one hand.Madame Martand stood up with a nod.She scattered the meadow flowers she had picked atop a grave in front of her, and went with the plump woman around the church into the rectory.In the shadow of the rustling trees, Nate narrowed his eyes.She came to visit a grave? Everyone was entitled to sentimentality, he supposed, even the most capable spies.Part of him felt a bit ashamed, that he had followed her on such a somber mission, but part of him also wondered how somber it was.And by far the largest part of him was curious enough to wait it out and see what she did next.Chapter 4Angelique lifted her teacup to her face and breathed deeply.No one prepared tea quite like Melanie, with a hint of lemon and mint in it
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