“It will be,” Solange confirmed with a nod.
All three men glanced to her. “What do you know about this?” Louis asked.
“Those papers I showed you,” she said. “The ones incriminating Lafarge. They weren’t the only papers he had in his trophy room.”
“His what?” Damien asked with a frown.
Solange’s back itched with impatience. There wasn’t time to explain every little bit of Lafarge’s plan every time someone new became involved. “Lafarge has kept things from all the people he has wronged,” she said, opting for the shortest possible explanation. “That includes documents, most of which could be used to destroy people if they were made public.”
“We have to destroy them,” Sebastian said. “We can’t let him get away with any of this.”
“We have to stop him from printing that special edition of Les Ragots first,” Damien said.
“We have to use the papers Solange took from Lafarge to bring him to justice,” Louis added.
“What papers?” Sebastian asked, seeming to hear what Solange had said for the first time.
“Letters,” Solange explained. “They detail Lafarge’s political ambitions. His treasonous, political ambitions.”
“You have to let Marshall know about this.” Sebastian stepped forward, placing a hand on Solange’s arm. “He and Dorothy are waiting outside. We have to let them know about all of this as fast as possible.”
“The faster we can end Lafarge the better,” Louis agreed, crossing to the sofa to don his waistcoat and jacket, then retrieving his and Solange’s coats from where they had tossed them when they’d first entered the apartment.
“I agree.” Solange gathered up the last bits of her clothing, sitting on the sofa to put her stockings and boots on. “This needs to end, and it needs to end now.”
As soon as they two of them were dressed, Damien and Sebastian led them out of the apartment and down to the street. Lord Reith and Miss Dorothy waited there, pacing anxiously in front of the door to the building. Dorothy broke away from Lord Reith as soon as she spotted Solange.
“Did Damien tell you?” she asked, gripping both of her arms.
“He did.” Solange placed steadying hands on her friend’s arms in return. “But I fear it’s worse than you imagine. Lafarge isn’t lying when he says he has incriminating evidence that could bring the entire McGovern family down.”
“We need to move,” Louis said. “The longer we wait—”
“Arrêtez vous là!”
Solange nearly jumped out of her skin, and all six of them turned to find half a dozen police officers speeding toward them from the end of the street.
“What do we do?” Dorothy asked, her fingertips digging into Solange’s arms.
“We can’t run,” Damien said.
“Let me handle this.” Lord Reith stepped forward, as if he were the spokesman of the group. “Gentlemen, what seems to be the—”
“Arrest them,” the lead police officer said, gesturing for his men to move in on their group.
Before any of them could do more than gasp in reaction, the police officers rushed to surround them. They grabbed Damien, Louis, and Sebastian, securing their arms behind their backs. Two grabbed hold of Solange and Dorothy, though they didn’t manhandle them as much. The lead police officer grabbed Lord Reith’s arm and twisted it behind his back, as though Lord Reith might run.
“For God’s sake, what is the meaning of this?” Lord Reith demanded.
“Are you Lord Reith?” the lead policeman asked with a heavy French accent.
“I am,” Lord Reith answered.
“And these are your accomplices, Lord Sinclair, Lord Gregory, Mr. McGovern, and these ladies?”
The fact that neither she nor Dorothy were worth mentioning in the lead officer’s eyes had Solange mad enough to stomp on the foot of the officer holding her.
“They are my friends,” Lord Reith said, struggling against the man.
“Then you are all under arrest,” the lead officer said, gesturing for his men to drag them all to a police wagon that had just pulled up on the street beside them.
“On what charge?” Lord Reith demanded.
The lead officer grinned. “Espionage,” he answered, then addressed his men. “Take them away!”
Chapter 8
“This is intolerable,” Louis shouted, as he paced the length of the small cell he had been thrown into, along with Marshall, Damien, and Sebastian, in the dreary prison in Grenelle. “C'est intolerable! I demand you release us at once!”
“Do you have any idea who we are?” Marshall added, marching to the front of the cell and gripping the bars as though he could bend them with the force of his anger alone.
“They aren’t listening,” Solange said from across the hallway that ran between the two sets of cells. She and Dorothy had been tossed in together with a trio of prostitutes whose attitudes ranged from bored to surly to highly interested in the spectacle unfolding in front of them. “They haven’t been listening for an hour.”
Louis rubbed a hand over his face in frustration. Fatigue was starting to take its toll on every muscle in his body, but rage overwhelmed his need to sit down and think things through. “Lafarge is behind this, to be sure,” he growled as he continued pacing.
“Of course, he’s behind it,” Damien agreed sullenly. He and Sebastian sat side-by-side, arms crossed in a twin show of quiet desperation, on one of the cell’s two benches. “Why else would we have been arrested for espionage.”
“That is only the beginning of the charges,” Sebastian added, his face pale.
Louis’s heart went out to the man. Sebastian had been in prison before, and for the most ignominious of reasons. Louis knew the story, even if he wasn’t Sebastian’s close friend. Judging by the haunted look in the man’s eyes, his previous experience had been a nightmare and he was waiting for their current predicament to turn into the same. Damien noticed and uncrossed his arms to rub Sebastian’s back. The gesture was sweet and supportive, but it betrayed everything between the two men. Given their current circumstances, that show of affection was dangerous.
“They cannot keep a collection of English nobility locked away in here forever,” Marshall railed on, red-faced, eyes blazing with anger. “Do you hear that?” he shouted toward the front of the prison. “We are Englishmen and nobles. You cannot hold us without charges or without allowing us to engage a solicitor.”
“Tais-toi, pour l'amour de Dieu!” an unseen man shouted from another cell, then muttered, “Anglais stupides.”
Louis clenched his jaw, wondering if whoever heckled Marshall would do the same if standing face to face with him. “The officer promised that he would send word of our arrest to the Château de Saint-Sottises,” he reminded Marshall, pausing his pacing to lean against the bars by Marshall’s side.
“Asher will be here soon,” Dorothy added from across the way. “He won’t stand for this.”
“I’m not sure he has a choice but to stand for this,” Solange said, the most grim-faced of the group. “We’re trapped.”