Amanda Scott (28 page)

Mademoiselle Sophie Beléchappé, despite her sojourn in prison, was an appealing young woman with baby-soft brown curls clustered about a velvety, pink-cheeked face. She was small and rounded, wearing a dark cloak over a crumpled green woolen gown that had seen better days and that was totally unsuited to riding, and when she tilted her head now to look at her brother, she reminded Diana more of a child than of a woman. But moments later, when the others entered the room, Sophie’s gaze came immediately to rest upon Lord Roderick, and her gentle brown eyes blazed with sudden shock.

“M’lord!” she cried, rushing to kneel at his side. “Oh, heavens, m’lord, what has befallen you?”

He reached out with his good arm to touch her face. “’Tis naught,” he said quietly. “Fortunately your brother has not my skill with a pistol.”

“Bertrand!” She turned to glare angrily at her brother. “You did this to him? You!”

“Silence,” de Lâche said harshly. “He will live. You must understand, Sophie, that his wound is as nothing compared to regaining Beléchappé. The emeralds will secure it to our family once again.”

“You are a fool, Bertrand,” said the woman who had entered behind Sophie. There was sadness in her eyes and distaste, as well. She was nearly as tall as her son and thin, too, but she carried herself with great dignity. Although her clothing was as mussed as her daughter’s, madame la Comtesse de Vieillard stood as regally as though she wore smooth satin and ruffled lace instead of creased and muddied sarcenet beneath a muddied woolen cloak. Her dark hair, free of any sign of gray, was neatly confined in a frilled snood at the back of her head. Diana decided she was perhaps in her late forties, but it was hard to guess age when one was fascinated by the sharp, elegant features of madame’s noble countenance and the intelligence in her fine gray eyes. “To think,” Madame de Vieillard said in a full, melodious voice that seemed to fill the little cottage, “that your respected father had the right of it, that I spawned one who would actually seek to ally himself with that pig in Paris.”

“Be silent,” de Lâche said, glaring at her much as a child would who has had his fun spoiled. “You know nothing at all about the matter.”

“You would give away your sister’s dowry for nothing,” she said. “Indeed, I believe now, though I did not wish to comprehend your behavior at Versailles, that you would have sacrificed your sister’s honor to your cause.”

He would not look at her. Instead, his temper flashed again and he ordered them all to sit, pushing Darby, who still clutched at his head, toward the hearth, where Pétrie had turned her attention from the new arrivals once more to her half-hearted business with the coals. “Find some rope,” de Lâche ordered the sailor in English. “You will tie these people up with good sailor’s knots, and if they persist in speaking you will gag them.”

“Wha’ did ye do wi’ me dagger, ye bastard?” muttered Darby thickly. “I’d like t’ kill ye fer this knot on me ’ead, I would.”

“No doubt, but I tossed your little knife into the shrubbery, so you’d do better to do as I told you.”

De Lâche had dropped the empty gun on the table, and Diana realized that he had no more bullets on his person. But he still wore his sword, and she was nearly certain there was nothing she could do to disarm him. She could have kicked herself for not thinking to retrieve the poker while he was engaged outside. She glanced quickly around the room. Rory and Darby were incapacitated, but perhaps if all four women were to attack de Lâche at once, they might be able to overcome his superior strength. At that moment, however, de Lâche signaled Darby, who had found a roll of crude twine, to tie her first, and Diana had nothing to do but glare at them both in frustrated silence.

There was only enough of the twine to tie their arms. When de Lâche indicated that Darby should next tie the comtesse, he explained smoothly that he was taking precautions to protect them from any rash action they might choose to take against him.

“I do not want anyone to get hurt,” he said. “Do not bother with his lordship, man,” he said, still in English, when Darby moved as one only half awake to tie Lord Roderick. “There is too little string, and he will cause me no difficulty. Not with his right arm incapacitated as it is.” When all the women but Pétrie were tied and pushed down to sit upon the floor against the wall opposite the hearth, de Lâche took the remaining twine from the sailor, broke it in half, forced him to turn around, and bound his hands behind him like the others. Then he pushed him to the floor near Lord Roderick. “I am desolated to rush you, mademoiselle,” he said then to Pétrie, “but if you have not placed those emeralds in my keeping within a space of five minutes, you will sorely regret the fact.”

Pétrie looked at him, decided he meant what he said, and scraped the rest of the coals to one side. Then, fetching the poker from the floor by the wall, where it had landed when Rory knocked it from de Lâche’s hands, she inserted the pointed end between two of the stones on the blackened floor of the hearth. Pushing downward, she pried one stone loose. It was much thicker than one might have expected it to be, and more time was required to work it free. She then pried up one more, revealing a deep space more than a foot square.

Pétrie gestured toward the opening. “The jewels are within, monsieur. Shall I remove them, or do you wish to do so yourself?”

“Get them,” he ordered. His voice grated as though he no longer had much control over it, and his excitement was nearly tangible in that small room. The others watched silently as Pétrie, using her apron to protect her hands, knelt down, reached into the black hole, and drew out a square, gray marble box. Setting it upon the floor in front of her, she touched it experimentally with a bare fingertip, then lifted the lid. But when she would have removed the contents, de Lâche stepped forward. “Get over with the others,” he said harshly.

Obediently, Pétrie moved away. Diana saw the girl’s eyes drift toward the poker, which she had propped up against the stones of the fireplace. As de Lâche knelt swiftly beside the marble box, Pétrie reached for the poker, only to shriek with pain when de Lâche, striking like a viper, clamped a hand of steel around her wrist.

“Oh, no,” he said softly. “Not with the end in view, my dear.” With a vicious twist he sent her reeling toward the others, then plunged his hand into the marble box and removed a dark cloth bag. Diana half expected it to crumble at his touch, but it did not. Opening the bag, he withdrew an ornate necklace. The stones were dull-looking, needing to be cleaned, but when he rubbed one or two against the sleeve of his coat, the glowing green of the emeralds could easily be seen. There were other stones in the bag, but de Lâche was satisfied. He replaced the necklace. The comtesse sighed but did not speak.

De Lâche got to his feet and, with the last bit of twine, tied Pétrie’s hands behind her. Then he picked up his cloak, slipped the bag of jewels into a spacious pocket in the lining, and swirled the cloak up and over his shoulders. His fingers moved automatically to the tiestrings, and when he realized they were broken, his gaze came to rest upon Diana. There could be no doubt of his annoyance, but she could not repress a saucy grin. He shifted his look to Pétrie.

“You have made difficulties for me once too often, my dear,” he said. His tone was milky smooth again. “I have no time to attend to you now, but quite soon, when I am in favor in Paris, I shall have all the opportunity I require to deal with you as you deserve.”

The girl bit her lip, but the comtesse was unimpressed. “When you are in favor in Paris,” she repeated sarcastically. “Regard, my son, the likelihood that you will find that favor at the feet of Madame la Guillotine. You soil the honor of Beléchappé. I spit upon you.”

The vidame laughed. “Take care, madame. In half an hour, perhaps a little more, the soldiers will come. You will be glad then, when you are charged with crimes against the state and with escaping from prison, to remind them of your relationship to me. You speak to the next Comte de Vieillard, you know, and I doubt I shall now have to await my so respected father’s demise before that honor becomes mine.” He picked up his pistol from the table and slipped it into another pocket in the cloak, then with a last glance around the room, he made a cocky gesture of farewell and pulled open the door, only to stop stock still upon the threshold, all his muscles tensing in shock beneath the velvet cloak.

“Well, well, what have we here?” inquired the Earl of Andover gently, adding when de Lâche took a step backward, “Nay, nay, my friend, do not retreat. I see that the cottage is already a trifle crowded, and dark, as well. I prefer to discuss certain matters with you in the light of day.”

“We have nothing to discuss, my lord,” said de Lâche, “not when I have nearly reached my goal. Not you, not anyone, can stop me now.” He shrugged off his cloak and reached for his sword.

“As you wish,” said Simon as gently as before. Then, in a louder voice, he called, “Rory!”

“Here,” shouted his twin. “Speed the devil to his own, Simon. He had the dashed effrontery to put a bullet through my best coat, and incidentally, through my shoulder, as well.”

Diana, who had gasped at the sound of Simon’s voice, barely stopped herself from calling his name and shrank instead a little closer to her brother-in-law, grateful that he had not mentioned her presence. Simon’s anger with de Lâche over the wounding of his twin would be as nothing to his anger if he knew Diana was inside the cottage as well. And she knew that while a little anger might serve to give a man an edge, too much could blind him to his work. When that work was swordplay…

She could not see Simon now, but she watched de Lâche step from the cottage, his sword held loosely yet purposefully in his hand. Then she glanced at Rory. His lips were drawn together in a tight line. The sound of steel on steel rang out, and Diana closed her eyes, biting her lower lip. Her heart seemed to leap into her throat. She knew Simon had a formidable reputation as a swordsman, but that knowledge did little to assuage her fears.

“Simon will win,” said Lord Roderick softly beside her, interrupting her tense thoughts. Sophie, on the other side of him, seemed perfectly relaxed, content to be where she was, looking not at all as though her brother’s fate concerned her. The comtesse, too, maintained her calm dignity. Only Pétrie betrayed excitement. Her eyes were alight, and despite her tied hands, she managed to get to her feet and moved to the doorway to watch. Diana, unable to stand the suspense, tried awkwardly to clamber to her feet too. “No, Diana,” Rory said, “he mustn’t see you.”

“I know, and he won’t,” she said grimly, “but I must see him. I cannot bear not seeing.”

He said nothing further, and she made her way carefully to Pétrie, keeping behind the girl but positioning herself so that she could see the action outside. Tensely she watched as the two men danced backward and forward in the muddy clearing, their swords crossing and recrossing with nerve-jangling swiftness, the blades ringing together, then disengaging with a metallic, grinding sound that chilled her teeth. At first Simon seemed to be moving always backward, his sword meeting de Lâche’s wherever it chanced to dart, parrying each stroke as it came but returning no thrusts of its own. Then, suddenly, just when she had begun to wonder if Rory could be wrong, if de Lâche might be the better swordsman, there was a noticeable change in the rhythmic pace of the clanging swords. The sounds came faster. And Simon was no longer defensive. He had changed his stance slightly and was thrusting with a quickness and precision she had not seen before. And now de Lâche was retreating, his steps not so agile as they had been before, his swordplay heavier handed.

He slipped suddenly, and she saw Simon shorten his thrust, letting the other man regain his balance. But when de Lâche, with a murderous look on his face, lunged immediately forward, Simon raised his wrist to the height of his face and, with a swiftness and agility that made the other man’s moves seem clumsy by comparison, deftly turned the oncoming thrust aside and plunged his blade into de Lâche’s breast. The thin man’s eyes widened in shock, and he crumpled to the ground.

Diana realized she had been holding her breath and let it out in a long whistling sigh. She wiped clammy hands against her skirt.

Beside her Pétrie murmured, “Magnificent. He is a man, that one.”

At the same moment, Diana saw Simon turn toward the cottage. Involuntarily, she stepped backward toward the hearth, but there was no escape. Seconds later, his large figure filled the doorway.

He glanced about quickly, blinking. It was darker in the cottage than outside, so it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he was looking at his twin, but his gaze shifted immediately to the comtesse, then to Sophie, and then, at last, it came to rest upon Diana. Their glances seemed to collide, then to lock together, and she licked her lips, feeling her courage desert her as she watched his face go white with shock and fury.

T
O DIANA’S SURPRISE, SIMON
didn’t say a word to her. Instead, with what appeared to be a wrenching effort, he turned to Lord Roderick. “How badly are you hurt?” he asked tersely.

“My shoulder aches like the devil,” his twin replied. “Like I said before, there’s a damned bullet lodged in it. More to the point, however, de Lâche said there were soldiers on the way, that they would be here within the hour. I thought he meant to call them up himself, but that may not be the case.”

“Then the bullet will have to stay where it is a while longer, I’m afraid,” Simon said, untying Pétrie’s hands, then bending to release the comtesse, Sophie, and Darby. “I don’t doubt there are soldiers in the vicinity. I ran into a French patrol late this morning—about a dozen men—along the Paris road between Ébeuf and Louviers. That’s how I come to be here instead of at the Tuileries. Discovered they were searching for an Englishman and two Frenchwomen who had escaped from prison in Paris.” He glanced at Sophie, who had rushed to his twin’s side. “Do you see if you can get him bandaged up to travel, mademoiselle.”

“The French arranged our escape,” Lord Roderick said. “I should have guessed how it was when they didn’t even relieve me of the money I was carrying when they arrested me. Seemed providential, though, when we were able to make our escape.” He broke off with a groan when Sophie, having removed the cloth which Diana had used, pushed a wad of muslin torn from her petticoat inside his shirt to cover the wound, which still bled sluggishly. Gritting his teeth, he went on to explain all that had taken place before Simon’s arrival.