Awakening His Duchess (38 page)

“Does this man have your son, beautiful mountain?” asked
Mazi.

Beau read, each word striking like a whip across his back.
The marriage to Lord Beaumont was mere trickery of a spoiled young man intent
on seduction and wasn’t legal, but her marriage to Henri was real and true marriage.
Henri would forgive her for seeking shelter wherever she could find it. He’d
taken his son because she had no right to keep him from his father.

Henri thought he was Etienne’s father.

Beau’s right leg buckled and he crashed against the counter
while still reading. His first cognizant thought was relief. A man who thought
he was taking his own son had to be concerned about the boy. It was better than
thinking Etienne was lying somewhere on the estate, injured, unconscious, or
dead.

“Yes, he has Etienne.”

“Then your son is alive,” said Mazi in his slow rumble,
voicing the fear that all of them had refused to let pass their lips.

Beau nodded. His interest was back on the letter, looking
for a destination. He had to find the man. With the power and money of the
dukedom behind him, as long as Henri and Etienne remained on English shores he
could find him. Then once Henri saw that Etienne was
his
son...but
legally, Beau wasn’t the father. If his and Yvette’s marriage wasn’t a real
marriage then under the law a child belonged to his mother’s husband.

Beau’s thoughts swirled and bit their tails. Etienne would
have told Henri about his true parentage, wouldn’t he? The boy wouldn’t have
wanted to leave Yvette, even if he had been mad at him.

A thought like an ice shard stabbed through Beau’s brain.
Etienne had told Danvers he was meeting his father. Dear God, had he meant
Henri? Cold fear clawed at Beau. Perhaps Etienne wanted to go with the man who
had raised him for the first years of his life.

Mazi was staring at him, his dark eyes both pained and
patient as if he knew he would be needed to pull Beau back from the edge of
madness as he’d done before. “What does it say?”

Beau started to hand Mazi the letter and then pulled it back.
When they were shackled together he’d shared everything with Mazi, but this
letter was personal to Yvette. And it seemed oddly more intimate than Beau had
been with her, as if the man knew her thoughts, knew her feelings, knew her
heart. It was one thing to share his memories and thoughts with Mazi, but
another thing entirely to share Yvette’s private life.

There were references to a night when they saw a shooting
star. A time when their son had managed to climb on the table to get a banana.
They were marks of a shared life, a history he and Yvette didn’t have. There
were reminders of when she’d sworn her affection and devotion to her husband.

The reminders of her nice life while he was slaving away in
the cane were like stabbing wounds. She had had a marriage and family she
apparently cared a great deal about. But for the revolution, she never would
have come to England.

What did he know of her?

If she loved Henri...or had it all been some horrible game
to make him or his father pay to get Etienne back? Was she in cahoots with her
husband the whole time? Was that why she didn’t want more children?

His chest squeezed and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He knew
he shouldn’t trust her. “Yes, he has taken my son, and he wants my wife, too.”

Henri had Etienne and he wanted Yvette to run away with him
tomorrow. Every time he trusted her, his world was destroyed. “Whatever it
takes, I’m going to get him back.”

 
*~*~*

Yvette read through the letter, aware of Beau stiffly
watching. But each word was like a new knife in her. She felt no relief at
knowing Etienne was with Henri but only a new overwhelming terror now that the
fears of a thousand things that might have happened to Etienne became centered
on what Henri might do. “I have to go as he asks.”

“I will go with you.” Beau folded his arms over his chest
and looked at her with accusation in his eyes.

“
Non
.” Her throat tightened.

“When he sees me and Etienne together, he will know he’s my
son.” Beau’s tone was impatient as if she were a fool to not see the obvious.

“He knows.” She turned to the side. Didn’t he? Why had Henri
taken Etienne? But the answer came to her as fast as the question. To force her
hand, force her to come after her son, force her to return to him. Her voice
was shaky as she said, “He has to know.”

“You told him?”

She shook her head. “We never spoke of it, but he is
intelligent enough to know.” Desperation clawed her insides to ragged shreds.
How could Henri do this to her? He knew, had known from the beginning that
Etienne wasn’t his. She’d been two months gone when she married him. He would
have known the pregnancy was too far advanced to be his. He’d already had
children before with his first wife. His first wife who’d had the strange black
discolorations on her skin before she died.

“If you want to go with him, fine. But you’re not taking my
son.” Beau’s glare cut through her.

Her head spun and the world went cold and gray. “I do not
wish to go with Henri.”

“Don’t you?” Beau hissed. “Did you meet with him in the last
few days? They said he has been coming here.”

“
Non
. Do you so wish to be rid of me?” She bit her
lip. Her stomach felt as though she’d been punched. After what they’d shared,
she would have thought Beau would know he was the man for her, had always been
her true love. But as she asked the question it sounded much like the kind of
affront Henri could pretend. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

Oh God, she could not go back to living with Henri, but she
had to be with Etienne. She strove for the calm she needed. Only one thing was
important right now. “I only wish to get Etienne back.”

Beau’s eyes narrowed on the letter containing the penned
words which spoke of her shared life with Henri. They painted a rosy picture
that had little bearing on how it really was.

She’d never told Beau how she felt about Henri. How in the
beginning she’d thought him kind and understanding, especially when he’d told
that he wished her father would have let him marry her when she turned sixteen
just to spare her the heartache she’d gone through with Beau. But that had
changed. She’d sworn her devotion to Henri a thousand times because he demanded
it. Not because she’d loved him. “He is warning me to do exactly as he says.”

“I’m going with you,” Beau said in a flat staccato.

“You do not know of what he is capable.” She shook her head.
The warning was not overt, but it was clear. “The night we saw the shooting
star he dragged the slave I was treating out of his hut and whipped him for the
accident of touching me improperly.” The man had been insensible with fever;
his hand brushing her breast hadn’t been deliberate.

Beau stared at her, his gaze so icy she shivered under it.

“I could not save his life with the additional injuries.” He
might have died from his illness anyway, but being whipped had ensured his fate.
“This was a warning.” But Henri had couched it in obscurity so he could pretend
surprised shock that she took it so.

Beau clenched his fist. “We have to go.”

“Non.
I have to go alone,” she whispered. “The ruins
of the abbey where he has asked to meet are surrounded by woods. He will be
able to see me approach. But I shall not be able to see him. If I am not alone,
we will never see Etienne again.”

Beau gave her a harsh look. “I will follow on horseback
then.”

Her blood felt like the coldest of spring waters and she
shivered as it coursed through her. The thought seemed to pop in her head out
of nowhere. “He will kill you.”

“Stop it, Yvette. He isn’t trying to kill me, and if you
never told him Etienne wasn’t his—”

“You don’t understand.” Pieces clicked into place. The spots
on the slaves and their deaths that had led to her father’s near bankruptcy,
the spots on Henri’s first wife, the black marks on the duke. “I think he is
trying to kill your father.”

“That is insane. How could he kill the duke? Why would he?”
Beau demanded. “He doesn’t even have access to the duke.”

“Because if everyone between Etienne and the dukedom is
gone...” It made perfect sense when Beau was thought dead. After the duke died
and Henri showed up, she would have had no choice but to acknowledge him as her
husband. But Beau wasn’t dead. “You cannot go. You have to stay safe here.”

Beau paced away. Then sat hard on a chair and fisted his
hands in his hair. “I cannot. He thinks Etienne is his son. He will not harm
him.”

He would if Etienne was no longer useful to Henri. Yvette
stared through Beau. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’?”

Memories swirled in her mind, of Henri saying Etienne would
be their salvation, they must guard him well. The words had seemed off at the
time. She’d thought them lies to her to make her feel better, not that she’d
believed because Henri had an older son and then a younger son.

“I have to go to him alone. It is our only chance of getting
Etienne back.”

“Is it, Yvette? Is that why you did everything you could to
avoid conceiving a child with me, because you knew he was coming for you? What
is it you want, money?”

He stared at her as if she were a soiled thing.

She felt dirty, used. She’d despised Henri, but at the same
time she pitied him. “I will go to him because I know of no other way to get
Etienne back.”

“I am coming too. And that is that.” Beau’s mouth flattened
as if in this his mind was made up and he wouldn’t change it.

But she had to make him understand. If she didn’t follow
Henri’s instructions there would be dire consequences. She knew this as well as
she knew her name was Yvette. Her hands and neck prickled with a deep
foreboding. “You cannot. I know him. If I do not follow his instruction exactly
as he says” —she waved the letter at Beau— “he will leave and take Etienne with
him. He cannot tolerate being crossed.”

Beau’s mouth flattened and his eyes drained of life as if he
thought she meant to trick him, leave him. Her chest hurt. “Beau, you must
trust me.”

“I do not think I can,” he said quietly and walked to the
door.

 
*~*~*

Beau loaded pistols and shoved them in a satchel. He had
demanded every small firearm in the place and had a stack of pistols and a
smallish fowling piece. It had been years since he had fired a gun and never
left-handed so he was taking as many as he could. And he was really hoping that
Henri would require shooting, as bloodthirsty as that was. For three reasons:
one, he’d dared to take Etienne; two, he’d had Yvette; and three, he’d
mistreated his slaves.

She wasn’t going alone, but the meeting site was perfect for
an ambush. A good seven miles away from the castle, the abbey ruins sat on a
rise. Anyone approaching could be seen for some distance although there was a creek
and woods running off to one side as well as a long row of overgrown hedges on
another side allowing for cover to get away. Yvette was right in that he could
be falling right in Henri’s hands if he meant to eliminate him.

Yvette burst through the door. “I have an idea to make this
work. We will take the curricle.”

“Fine. I’ll order it brought round.”

“No. I already told the servants we shall fetch it from the
stables.” She crossed the room and stared in the satchel. “I will put my
clothes on top of these so he thinks it is my intention to join him.”

“The guns will do me no good if I cannot get at them,” he
said to the air as she flew out of the room. And why would Henri think she was
joining him if he was with her?

She returned less than two minutes later, her arms full of
clothes. She shoved them haphazardly in the satchel with no regard for order.
“I told Danvers to pack clothes of Etienne’s. He will be down in a few
minutes.”

She was moving in the quicksilver way he remembered her. Her
eyes flashing and her hands nimble.

His heart pounded. “You want to tell me this plan you have?”

“Danvers and Digby think it will work. I will say whatever I
have to say to Henri, but know that I am only saying things to get Etienne
back.”

She was out the door before he could object. Why had she
consulted his valet and former tutor about this plan instead of him? Of course
he had been laying his own plans. A half-hour after they left, several of the
footmen would be dispatched with messages to detain any man with a child at the
nearest harbors. He wouldn’t let Henri get out of the country with Etienne.

Beau shook his head and picked up the heavy satchel. He
hurried toward the stables. Surprised to find the curricle was still inside the
outbuilding and not harnessed yet, he ducked inside and found all the grooms
and the stable master circled around the vehicle. Danvers, holding a satchel,
stood among them.

Yvette stood in the box with the seat up. She was thrusting
things out of the compartment into a waiting groom’s arms. The compartment
underneath the seat was big enough to hold the two satchels, the fowling piece,
and likely the assortment of robes, extra reins, an umbrella and a tool or two
that resided there. “You don’t need to take those things out,” he said,
swinging the satchel up into the box.

Digby stepped forward. His hair was streaked with something
dark. Axel grease? He took the gun filled satchel then handed it to a groom who
placed it on the boot and secured it. A second one was strapped beside it.

“What are you doing here?” Beau asked.

“I’m here to help you change. I’ll change into your clothes
and walk back into the house in case anyone is watching, my lord. I have fresh
clothes for you here.”

A chill ran down his spine. He was starting to suspect her
plan. “Yvette.”