She chortled. "Oh, he had his faults. But at heart, yes, I think he was a wise man, a good man. Come"-she tapped the ceiling of the carriage with a handle of her cane-"let us return. It is almost time for lunch."

I was close now, I thought, as we returned to Queen Square. "I have something I want to show you before we dine," she said as we drove, and I wondered, could it be the letters?

At the square the coachman helped us down, but then, instead of accompanying us up the steps to the front door, returned to the driver's seat, shook the reins and was gone, clip-clopping away into a curtain of fine mist that swirled around the wheels of his vehicle.

Then we walked to the door, where Jennifer pulled the bell once, then with two more quick jerks.

And maybe I being paranoid, but . . .

The coachman's leaving like that. The bellpull. On edge now I kept the smile on my face as bolts were drawn back, the door opened, Jennifer greeting Smith with just the faintest nod before stepping inside.

The front door shut. The soft hum of the square was banished. The now-familiar sense of imprisonment washed over me, except this time mixed with a genuine fear, a sense that things were not right. Where was Helene? I wondered.

"Perhaps you would be so kind as to let Helene know I have returned, please, Smith?" I asked the butler.

In return, he inclined his head the usual way, and with a smile said, "Certainly, mademoiselle."

But did not move.

I looked inquiringly at Jennifer. I wanted for things to be normal. For her to chivvy along the butler, but she didn't. She looked at me, said, "Come, I wish to show you the games room, for it was in there that my father died."

"Certainly, mademoiselle," I said, with a sideways look at Smith as we moved over to the wood-paneled door, closed as usual.

"Though I think you've seen the games room, haven't you?" she said.

"During the last four days I have had ample opportunity to view your beautiful property, mademoiselle," I told her.

She paused with her hand on the door handle, then looked at me. "Four days has given us the time we needed, too, Yvonne . . ."

I didn't like that emphasis. I really didn't like that emphasis.

She opened the door and ushered me inside.

The drapes were shut. The only light came from candles placed along ledges and mantelpieces, giving the room a flickering orange glow as though in preparation for some sinister religious ceremony. The billiards table had been covered and moved to one side, leaving the floor bare apart from two wooden kitchen chairs facing each other in the middle of the room. Also there was a footman who stood with his gloved hands clasped in front of him. Mills, I think his name was. Usually Mills smiled, bowed and was as unfailingly polite and decorous as a member of staff should be to a visiting n.o.blewoman from France. Now, however, he simply stared, his face expressionless. Cruel, even.

Jennifer was continuing, "The four days gave us the time we needed to send a man to France in order to verify your story."

Smith had stepped in behind us and stood by the door. I was trapped. How ironic that having spent the last few days moaning about being trapped, now I really was.

"Madame," I said, sounding more fl.u.s.tered than I wanted to, "I must be honest and say I find this whole situation as confusing as I do uncomfortable. If this is perhaps some practical joke or English custom of which I am unaware, I would ask you please to explain yourself."

My eyes went to the hard face of Mills, the footman, to the two chairs and then back to Jennifer. Her face was impa.s.sive. I yearned for Mr. Weatherall. For my mother. My father. Arno. I don't think I have ever felt quite so afraid and alone as I did at that moment.

"Do you want to know what our man discovered there?" said Jennifer. She had ignored my question.

"Madame . . ." I said in an insistent voice, but still she took no notice.

"He discovered that Monica and Lucio Albertine had indeed been making a living from their language skills, but not enough to afford staff. There was no local girl either. No local girl, no wedding and no children. Certainly not an Yvonne Albertine. Mother and son had lived in modest circ.u.mstances on the edge of Troyes-right up until the day they were murdered just four weeks ago."

iv I caught my breath.

"No." The word was out of me before I had a chance to stop it.

"Yes. I'm afraid so. Your friends the Templars cut their throats as they slept."

"No," I repeated, my anguish as much for myself-for my fraud laid bare-as it was for poor Monica and Lucio Albertine.

"If you'll excuse me a minute," said Jennifer and departed, leaving me under the gaze of Smith and Mills.

She returned.

"It's the letters you want, isn't it? You all but told me on Rotten Row. Why do your Templar masters want my brother's letters, I wonder?"

My thoughts were a jumble. Options raced across my brain: confess, brazen it out, make a break for it, be indignant, break down and cry . . .

"I'm quite sure I don't know what you're talking about, mademoiselle," I pleaded.

"Oh I'm quite sure you do, Elise de la Serre."

Oh G.o.d. How did she know that?

But then I had my answer as in response to a signal from Jennifer, Smith opened the door and another footman entered. He was manhandling Helene into the room.

She was dumped into one of the wooden chairs, where she sat and regarded me with exhausted, beseeching eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. "They told me you were in danger."

"Indeed," said Jennifer, "and neither did we lie, because in fact you are both in danger."

v "Now tell me, what does your Order want with the letters?"

I looked from her to the footmen and knew the situation was hopeless.

"I'm sorry, Jennifer," I told her. "I truly am. You're right, I am an imposter in your home, and you're right that I hoped to lay my hands on the letters from your brother . . ."

"To take them from me," she corrected tautly.

I hung my head. "Yes. Yes, to take them from you."

She brought two hands to the handle of her cane and leaned toward me. Her hair had fallen over her gla.s.ses but the one eye I could see blazed with fury.

"My father, Edward Kenway, was an a.s.sa.s.sin, Elise de la Serre," she said. "Templar agents attacked my house and killed him in the very room in which you now sit. They kidnapped me, delivering me into a life that even in my most fetid nightmares I could never have imagined for myself. A living nightmare that continued for years. I'll be honest with you, Elise de la Serre, I'm not best disposed toward Templars, and certainly not Templar spies. What do you suppose is the a.s.sa.s.sin punishment for spies, Elise de la Serre?"

"I don't know, mademoiselle," I implored, "but please don't hurt Helene. Me if it pleases you but please not her. She has done nothing. She is an innocent in all of this."

But now Jennifer gave a short, barked laugh. "An innocent? Then I can sympathize with her plight because I, too, was an innocent once.

"Do you think I deserved everything that happened to me? Kidnapped and kept a prisoner? Used as a wh.o.r.e. Do you think that I, an innocent, deserved to be treated in such a way? Do you think that I, an innocent, deserve to live out the rest of my years in loneliness and darkness, terrified of demons that come in the night?

"No, I don't suppose you do. But you see, innocence is not the shield you wish it to be, not when it comes to the eternal battle between Templar and a.s.sa.s.sin. Innocents die in this battle you seem so eager to join, Elise de la Serre. Women and children who know nothing of a.s.sa.s.sins and Templars. Innocence dies and innocents die-that is what happens in a war, Elise, and the conflict between Templars and a.s.sa.s.sins is no different."

"This isn't you," I said at last.

"What on earth can you mean, child?"

"I mean you won't kill us."

She pulled a face. "Why not? An eye for an eye. Men of your stripe slaughtered Monica and Lucio, and they were innocents, too, were they not?"

I nodded.

She straightened. Her knuckles whitened as her fingers flexed on the ivory handle of her cane and watching her gaze off into s.p.a.ce reminded me of when we'd first met, when she'd sat staring into the fire. The painful thing was that in our short time together I'd come to like and admire Jennifer Scott. I didn't want her to be capable of hurting us. I thought she was better than that.

And she was.

"The truth is, I hate the b.l.o.o.d.y lot of you," she said at last, exhaling the words at the end of a long sigh as though she'd waited years to say them. "I'm sick of you all. Tell that to your Templar friends when I send you and your lady's maid . . ." She stopped and pointed the cane toward Helene. "She's not really a lady's maid, is she?"

"No, mademoiselle," I agreed and looked over at Helene. "She thinks she owes me a debt."

Jennifer rolled her eyes. "And now you owe her a debt."

I nodded gravely. "Yes-yes, I do."

She looked at me. "You know, I see good in you, Elise. I see doubts and questions and I think those are positive qualities, and because of that I've come to a decision. I'm going to let you have the letters you seek."

"I no longer want them, mademoiselle," I told her tearfully. "Not at any price."

"What makes you think you have a choice?" she said. "These letters are what your colleagues in the Templars want and they shall have them, on the condition, firstly, that they leave me out of their battles in future-that they leave me alone-and, secondly, that they read them. They read what my brother has to say about how Templar and a.s.sa.s.sin can work together, then maybe, just maybe, act upon them."

She waved a hand at Smith, who nodded and moved over to panels inset into the wall.

She smiled at me. "You'd wondered about those panels, hadn't you, I know you had."

I avoided her eye. Meantime, Mills had moved to the wall panels, triggered a switch so that one of them slid back and taken two cigar boxes from a compartment. Returning to stand beside his mistress, he opened the top one to show me what was inside: a sheaf of letters tied with a black ribbon.

Without even looking, she indicated them. "Here it is, the sum total of Haytham's correspondence from America. I want you to read the letters. Don't worry, you won't be eavesdropping on any private family matters. We were never close, my brother and I. But what you will find is my brother expanding upon his personal philosophies. And you may-if I have read you correctly, Elise de la Serre-find in them a reason to alter your own thinking. Perhaps take that mode of thinking into your role as a Templar Grand Master."

She pa.s.sed the first box back to Mills, then opened the second. Inside was a silver necklace. On it hung a pendant inset with sparkling red jewels in the shape of a Templar cross.

"He sent me this, too," she explained. "A gift. But I have no desire for it. It should go to a Templar. Perhaps one like you."

"I can't accept this."

"You have no choice," she repeated. "Take them-take them both. Do what you can to bring an end to this fruitless war."

I looked at her and, though I didn't want to break the spell or change her mind, couldn't help but ask, "Why are you doing this?"

"Because there has been enough blood spilled," she said, turning smartly away as though she could no longer bear to look at me-as though she was ashamed of the mercy she felt in her soul and wished she were strong enough to have me killed.

And then, with a gesture, she ordered her men to carry Helene away, telling me, when I looked like I might protest, "She will be looked after.

"Helene didn't want to talk because she was protecting you," Jennifer continued. "You should be proud to inspire such loyalty in your followers, Elise. Perhaps you can use those gifts to inspire your Templar a.s.sociates in other ways. We shall see. These letters are not given lightly. I can only hope that you read them and take note of the contents."

She gave me two hours with them. It was enough time to read them and form questions of my own. To know that there was another way. A third way.

vi Jennifer did not bid us good-bye. Instead, we were shown out of a rear entrance and into the stable yard, where a carriage had been asked to wait. Mills loaded us inside and we left without another word.

The coach rattled and shook. The horses snorted and their bridles jangled as we made our way across London and toward Mayfair. In my lap I carried the box, inside it Haytham's letters and the necklace I had been given by Jennifer. I held them tight, knowing that they provided the key to future dreams of peace. I owed it to Jennifer to see that they fell into the right hands.

By my side Helene sat silent and badly shaken. I reached for her, fingertips stroking the back of her hand as I tried to rea.s.sure her that everything was going to be all right.

"Sorry I got you into this," I said. "I'm so sorry, Helene."

"You didn't get me into anything, mademoiselle, remember? You tried to talk me out of coming."

I gave a mirthless chuckle. "I expect you wish you'd done as I'd asked now."

She gazed from the gla.s.s as the city streets tumbled past us. "No, mademoiselle, not for a second did I wish otherwise. Whatever is my fate it is better than what those men had planned for me in Calais. The one you saved me from."

"In any case, Helene, the debt is paid. When we reach France you must go your own way, as a free woman."

The ghost of a smile stole across her lips. "We shall see about that, mademoiselle," she said. "We shall see."

As the carriage trundled into the tree-lined square at Mayfair I saw activity outside the home of the Carrolls some fifty yards away.

I called to the driver to stop by banging on the ceiling hatch and as the horses complained and stamped, I opened the carriage door and stood on the footboard, shielding my eyes to look toward the distance. There I saw two carriages. The footmen of the Carroll household were milling around. I saw Mr. Carroll standing on the steps of the house, pulling on a pair of gloves. I saw Mr. Weatherall come trotting down the steps, b.u.t.toning his jacket. At his side hung his sword.

That was interesting. The footmen were armed, too, and so was Mr. Carroll.

"Wait here," I called to the driver, then peered inside.

"I'll be back soon," I said to Helene softly. And then, picking up my skirts, I hurried to a spot near a set of railings from which I could see the carriages more closely. Mr. Weatherall stood with his back to me. I cupped my hands to my mouth, made our customary owl sound and was relieved when only he turned around, everybody else being too embroiled in their tasks to wonder why they could hear an owl at that time of the early evening.

Mr. Weatherall's eyes searched the square until they found me and he shifted position, drawing his hands across his chest, a.s.suming a casual pose with a hand covering one side of his face. He mouthed to me, "What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Thank G.o.d for our silent conversations.

"Never mind that. Where are you going?"

"They found Ruddock. He's staying at the Boars Head Inn on Fleet Street."

"I need my things," I told him. "My trunk."

He nodded. "I'll fetch it and leave it in one of the stables round back. Don't hang around; we're leaving any moment now."

All my life I've been told I'm beautiful, but I don't think I'd ever really used it until that moment, when I returned to our carriage, fluttered my eyelashes at the coachman and persuaded him to fetch my trunk from the mews.

When he returned I asked him to sit up top while, with a feeling like greeting an old friend, I delved into my trunk. My proper trunk. The trunk of Elise de la Serre rather than Yvonne Albertine. I performed my customary carriage change. Off came the accursed dress. I slapped Helene's hands away as she tried to help. "You're hurt, get some rest!" Then I slipped into my breeches and shirt, pummeled my tricorn into shape and strapped on my sword. I shoved a sheaf of letters into the front of my shirt. Everything else I left in the carriage.