The Sherbrooke Bride - Catherine Coulter [18]
Douglas wore a private’s uniform, new and shining but three days before, and now appropriately soiled and wrinkled. He’d been scouting about as he’d waited for Cadoudal to contact him, gleaning information from the loose-mouthed officers and enlisted soldiers in the neighboring taprooms. All he could do was wait. His French was flawless, his manners just as they should be—commiserating with the enlisted men, joining in their complaints and grievances—and listening to the officers from a discreet distance, exhibiting due deference. All the talk was of an impending invasion simply because Napoleon had visited the many encampments along the coast two weeks before, assuring the men that soon, very soon now, they would cross that dismal little ditch and teach those English bankers and merchants that it was the French who ruled the land and the sea. Fine words, Douglas thought. Did Napoleon really believe that the English peasantry would rise up and welcome him as their liberator when and if he managed to cross the Channel, smash through the English navy, and land at Dover?
Two days passed. Douglas was bored and restless. As it turned out, he got Georges Cadoudal’s instructions from a one-legged beggar who sidled up to him, stinking like rotted cabbage, and poked a thick packet into his coat pocket. The blighted specimen managed to get away before Douglas could question him. He read the letter twice, memorizing the precise instructions, then carefully studied each of the enclosed papers and documents. He sat back, thinking now of what Cadoudal expected him to do. He shook his head at the complexity of it all, the sheer heedless arrogance of it. Georges Cadoudal was imprudent at all times, outrageous upon occasion; he was at once brilliant and feckless; failure chaffed him and as of late, he’d known few successes, as far as Douglas knew.
It was obvious he’d spent hours formulating a plan to rescue this damned girl, this Janine Daudet. However, since Cadoudal was the brain behind the plot to kidnap Napoleon and create insurrection in Paris, setting the Comte d’Artois, the younger brother of Louis XVI, promptly on the throne, and since he held more than a million francs from the English government, Lord Avery was inclined to meet his demands. Obviously Georges couldn’t take the risk of attempting a rescue himself. Obviously he knew that Douglas was an expert on General Honoré Belesain and that was why he’d asked for him specifically. Obviously, he believed Douglas would succeed. Douglas wondered if Georges knew of Belesain’s scaly reputation with women. Damnation.
The following morning Douglas was fastening the buttons of his unfamiliar britches and straightening his stark black coat. Once he reached Boulogne, he would become an official functionary from Paris, sent by Bonaparte himself, to oversee the preparations for the English invasion. He devoutly prayed that Cadoudal’s papers were in good order. With all the English money he’d gotten, Georges could afford the best forgers. Douglas didn’t want to be discovered and shot as a spy.
At precisely twelve o’clock, looking every inch the officious functionary, whose authority in all likelihood exceeded his brains and his manners and his breeding, he made his way to Boulogne to the residence of General Honoré Belesain, not a difficult house to locate since it belonged to the mayor and was the largest mansion in the entire city. The general was the good mayor’s guest. The good mayor, upon further inquiry, hadn’t been seen in over three months.
Douglas did know just about everything about General Belesain. Nothing the general did could surprise Douglas. He was a brilliant tactician, a competent administrator, though most details were attended to by aides. He was vicious to both his prisoners and his own men, and he was more than passing fond of young girls. He fancied himself both the epitome of a military man and of a lover. Douglas knew that his wife, evidently long-suffering, was well ensconced in faraway Lyon with their four children. The general