His lips twitched again into an infuriating grin. “Good to know you think so, as that is a more accurate description of what we do. Though I daresay he used intelligence from other sources too.”
“You do not understand. He lost his dearest friend to espionage. He hated the entire practice.” Though she felt the elder Lanes shift, she kept her gaze on Thad. “I heard him many times speak of the devastation of losing Major André.”
“It was quite a blow to us all.” Mrs. Lane’s voice slipped into the conversation quietly, gently. “André was a fine man, yet had he succeeded in his task, Benedict Arnold would have handed West Point over to the British. There would be no United States of America today.”
Something in her tone drew Gwyneth’s gaze to her face, where she read regret mixed with determination.
Mrs. Lane shook her head. “It can be a sad business indeed, and a dangerous one. Yet sometimes, my dear, it must be done for the greater good, for the greater calling. Much as he detested it, your father knew that. It is, in fact, how he met your mother.”
“No.” She couldn’t explain why the denial came so fast and hot, except that it grated against all she knew.
Thad eased a step closer. Had she any room to do so, she would have backed up a step in response. He held out a hand, imploring. “Think about it, sweet. What was a British officer doing in France on the eve of revolution?”
Why must they do this? Why must they make her question what had always just been? “France and England were not at war yet. He was…on holiday.” Yet the claim sounded so weak now, where it had always been undeserving of examination before.
“On holiday,” Thad echoed softly. “At Versailles? Paris, perhaps, I would believe, but the palace itself?”
A tremor swept through her. He must have been scouting, then. That was all. Scouting out the situation that everyone the world over knew was tense. Seeing…evaluating…oh, mercy. He had already reached the rank of brigadier general. Such mundane tasks would never fall to him, not unless there were a specific purpose that only he could fulfill. “You think my father went to France on covert business?”
Mrs. Lane released her husband’s arm and glided over to take Gwyneth’s hand. “I know he did. We came to London for the wedding, and he confided in us. He was sent in under the guise of a comte to whom he bore an especial resemblance, and who had been in British custody for many years. First he went to get a gauge of how things stood in the fracturing political system. And then he returned to help your mother and grandmother escape before the Revolution erupted, upon your grandfather’s request.”
A convulsion pulsed through her, made a cry try to rip from her throat, but she reined it in. “So you know, then, that it was my uncle.”
Mrs. Lane’s fingers squeezed hers. “He never said who sent him. But at this point it seems clear. Which I find terrifying. Because the one thing I remember about Mr. Gates from the two times I met him was that, under his polite smile, he hated us simply for being American.”
Mr. Lane followed his wife to Gwyneth’s side. No merriment sparked now in his eyes, only calculating sobriety. “Let us pray Isaac never confided in Gates, or it would be more than an ambiguous hatred he feels for us.”
Before she could wrap her lips around the question of why that would be so, Mrs. Lane sighed and tightened her grasp on Gwyneth’s fingers. “Your father knew of our part in the Revolution—that through a chain of well-trusted intelligencers I was feeding General Washington information. He cannot have known we revived the Culpers three years ago—”
“Give the man credit, Mother. ’Tis logical.” Thad drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite arm. “And I suspect he also knew I had taken over its primary function, given that letter he sent with you, Gwyneth. Not to mention the one two months earlier.”
She twitched to alert like a hound who had caught the fox’s scent. “My father wrote you before he sent me here? What did he say?”
“Nothing intelligible, but I will fetch it.”
A moment later he was out the door, leaving Gwyneth to stare at his parents. They looked, standing there with their quick-witted gazes, like any well-settled couple. Bound by love, comfortably situated, well but simply dressed. Handsome and pleasant.
Why could it not be so easy? “What am I to do with this information?” The question whispered out before she could stop it.
Mr. Lane’s mouth pulled into a half smile. “The same thing your father did, my dear. Accept us for who we are and follow the leading of the heavenly Father. You must do what He tells you, above all.”
Her gaze fell to the floor. “What if He tells me to turn you over to the British authorities?”