Confessions of a Little Black Gown (27 page)

“Do you think there is more amiss here than meets the eye?”

“Considering Lord Larken is also gone, yes, I do,” the duke said.

“Larken?”

“Yes. He’s here to find Dashwell.”

“So all the talk of his escape—” Gossett’s speech came to a halt as he added up all the pieces. “Oh, dear God. I had rather hoped—”

“Well, so had I, but it appears we are both about to be sorely disappointed. Or worse, disgraced.” He bowed to a passing matron. “I would appreciate your discretion as I go discover what trouble my wife and her relations have brewed up under my roof. I know you are the local magistrate, but—”

“You have my word on the matter, but only if you let me assist,” the viscount said in all earnestness.

He nodded, and they made their way across the crowded ballroom as quickly as they could.

A faraway argument roused Larken from the blackness where he lay. At first he couldn’t remember
where he was or why his head hurt like the very devil. From the smell of the rough ground in which his nose was stuffed, he knew he wasn’t home in London after a long night of carousing.

He took another sniff, and this time the sweet scent of blood filled his nostrils.

He was bleeding, he knew that, for his head had that heavy, thick feeling of being clouted. But it wasn’t only his blood he smelled, for when he cautiously opened his eyes, he discovered Mr. Hartwell lying nearby, his blank stare looking heavenward.

Larken didn’t need to see the deep, dark claret stain across the man’s chest to know he was dead. He’d seen that look on too many men’s faces to know they were looking toward a light that only the dead saw.

Beside him, Dash was trussed up like a Christmas goose, and across the stable, just on the other side of the lamplight, stood a woman.

Her.

Suddenly the entire evening came back to him in dangerous clarity.

“Now what do you propose to do, Aurora?” Dashwell was saying with his usual devil-may-care coaxing tones. “Kill Larken as well? Hardly sporting and will most likely bring the entire Foreign Office down on your head.”

Larken opened his eyes cautiously, considering the nature of the debate happening overhead.

“If you think to frighten me, Dashwell, with tales of English prowess at capturing their enemies, I and my brethren have eluded them for three centuries. Those pompous fools in London have never believed they could be outwitted by mere women.”

“You make an excellent point, Aurora,” Dash agreed. “But you have no sisters left to protect you,” he said softly, coaxing. “No one to shield you from disclosure. You are the last of your kind, and it is a sorry day to see it coming to an end.”

The lady flinched as if she’d been struck by Dashwell’s quiet bit of truth, but she rallied quickly.

“An end?” she mocked. “I see the situation rather differently. I have you in my sights, and Larken as a hostage. When my servant returns with the carriage, we’ll drive away without any notice—that was your plan, was it not?”

Dash acknowledged her question with a slight nod.

“And then when we are out of earshot, I fear you will become the victim of your own fame. Shot while trying to get to your true love nearby.” She paused. “My only regret is that your untimely death will add a sadly romantic twist to your infamy. Give your demise a pitiable, tragic air that you hardly deserve.”

Dash shrugged and then looked her right in the eyes. “And how unfortunate your part in the story will be lost in history, as your sacred Order will be naught but dust.”

Oh, excellent strategy, Dashwell,
Larken thought.
Prod the madwoman into shooting you.

Not while I still have a breath in my body.
He’d promised Tally that Dashwell would live. And demmit, the arrogant bastard would, if he had to give his own life to see his wretched friend live.

With every bit of wherewithal he possessed, he struggled up, his hands bound behind his back. Never had his life hung by such a tenuous thread,
but then again, he knew that all too soon, Hollindrake and Temple would arrive.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he managed to say, as he wrangled his way up into a sitting position beside Dash. “But I believe you are the bitch who murdered my father.”

“Well done, Larken,” Dash applauded. “With such manners it is a wonder you can even get a whore to pay attention to you, least of all a lady.”

“As if you have ever noticed the difference,” Larken replied.

Dash managed to look affronted. “Kind words from the man who came to kill me.”

“Failed to kill you,” he pointed out.

“Ah, but it appears this dear lady intends to remedy your shortcomings.”

“Silence, both of you,” Aurora said, coming into the light.

And for the first time, Larken looked into the eyes of the woman he’d sought for all these years.

She was a striking beauty still, her hair as black as her heart. And there was something about the way she smiled that was strangely familiar, as if he’d seen that smug turn of the lips before…and recently.

“You take after your father,” she said. “How unfortunate you will share his fate.”

“I’ll see you dead before that,” Larken said. “You’ll pay for your crimes.”

“My dear boy, you are as naïve and foolish as your father was. He thought to reform me, and you think you can stop me.” She waved her pistol at him. “You are but a hair’s breadth from seeing him again, so do not tempt me to hasten your reunion.”

But her threat was lost when the carriage drove into the old stables. The great barn of a building had been constructed so that wagons and carriage could be driven directly inside and the horses, harnesses and traces removed under cover.

Aurora’s servant sat up in the box, hat drawn down and cloak around his figure.

Was Larken mistaken, or did the man look smaller? And then the driver tipped the brow of his hat just so and winked at him.

Tally! He glanced up at Aurora to see if she’d noticed, but she was too busy opening the door and motioning her pistol at Dash for him to get in.

Larken took this opportunity to get a better look. While at first glance he had assumed it was his Tally, he now saw how wrong he’d been. That wasn’t Tally up there, but her sister.

The duchess?

So where the devil was Tally? Larken’s heart was nearly wrenched in two. But he didn’t let any of it change his countenance. And if Dash had noticed the switch, he gave naught a clue.

Larken struggled against his bindings, furious at Hollindrake that he would let his wife drive into danger like this.

And then he realized what had really happened after he’d left Tally in the study. She’d never gone to Hollindrake. Had ignored his instructions completely.

And whatever harebrained scheme she had in the works, it was putting her life, and that of her sister’s, in danger.

All of them in danger.

Larken ground his teeth together, ignoring how that added to his already throbbing skull. When he got out of this mess, he was going to kill her.

That is if Hollindrake didn’t beat him to the punch.

Then his nightmare became only too real as Aurora looked inside the carriage and said with gleeful delight, “My, my, my! What have we here?”

Hollindrake, Gossett, and Temple stood in the shadows and watched as the shadowy figure donned the great coat from the man lying at her feet, tucked on his hat, and climbed gingerly up onto the carriage, catching up the reins and driving it right into the open causeway of the old stables.

“Is that who I think it is?” Temple asked.

Hollindrake nodded. “Yes. It’s Felicity.” The duke would have shouted at his wife, cursed her roundly and soundly, if it wouldn’t have alerted whomever she was trying to deceive inside the stables.

“And we have another puzzle,” Temple said, nodding behind them, where from the house, Pippin was coming, tramping across the lawn, prodding a furious-looking Mrs. Browne before her. The matron’s muttered protests were met with yet another poke from the pistol in Pippin’s hands.

Gossett stepped out of the shadows before either Hollindrake or Temple could stop him. “Lady Philippa, that is as far as you go.”

The duke wanted to groan, but then again the love-struck viscount had never served his country, either in the war or through the Foreign Office, and hadn’t the experience to act with some measure of restraint.

Temple though, was another matter. He acted quickly, pulling the ladies into the cover of the hedge, and then yanked Gossett back out of sight as well.

“Your Grace!” Mrs. Browne said indignantly. “Your wife’s cousin has gone mad.”

Pippin snorted. “Aunt Minty caught her stealing gold and identification papers from the trunk that Tally got by mistake. She’s helping a French agent murder Dash.”

“I would never—” Mrs. Browne began to protest, but Hollindrake cut her off by covering her mouth with his hand, and then reaching with his other to take the pistol away from Pippin.

“Mrs. Browne, I would like you to listen carefully to what I am saying. Your daughter is inside a carriage that my wife just drove into that stable—”

The lady’s eyes grew wild, rolling in that direction and then turning to beseech the duke. Her words were mangled, but two of them were very clear. “Oh, no.”

“Who are you helping?” he demanded, and when he pulled his hand from her mouth, she willingly revealed all.

“My sister.”

This made no sense, but then again, neither did Temple’s quiet question. “Madame, is your sister a member of
L’Ordre du Lis Noir
?”

She glanced down at the ground, and then nodded.

“Demmit.” Temple raked his fingers through his hair. “Larken was right all along. If he’s still alive, he’ll never let me or Pymm hear the end of it.”

“So this Order,” Gossett asked. “Are they dangerous?”

“Deadly,” Temple said. “At least that is what legend has said.”

“The Order is no legend,” Mrs. Browne snapped at him. Then she sighed and explained it all. “Aurora is the last of our kind and she wants Dash dead to hide any connection to her. She’ll dispose of him later, once they are far enough away. She blackmailed me into helping her, sent me upstairs to retrieve her money and papers from the trunk, but you must stop her. For if she finds she has my Sarah, she will not release her and I’ll never see my daughter again.”

Hollindrake looked from the stables to Temple, who shrugged and jerked his head in that direction.

The message was clear.
Time to end this. Before it is too late.

Larken gaped as Aurora pulled Miss Browne from inside the carriage. The girl’s hands were bound, as was her mouth.

“Well this is an enchanting surprise. However did you manage this?” Aurora asked her driver.

His heart stilled, as Felicity just nodded to the woman in a servial gesture.
For you, my lady
, it said.

“Excellent work,” Aurora replied, barely giving the driver any notice, fixed as she was on her new prize. She was about to pluck the gag off the girl’s mouth, when another voice rang out.

“Madame, it is over.”

The Frenchwoman swiveled in that direction like a cat, pulling Miss Browne in front of her and prodding her pistol into the girl’s head. She’d moved so fast, so quickly, Larken marveled at her deadly in
stincts, for indeed she was trapped, but with an innocent hostage as her shield.

At one end of the stables stood Temple and Hollindrake, and between them, a pale and drawn Mrs. Browne.

The matron spoke. “Let Sarah go. Please, Aurora, you have no desire to harm her, I know that. Let her go and your life will be spared. I have their word.”

Both Temple and Hollindrake nodded, and inside Larken rebelled. They might have agreed, but he certainly wouldn’t rest until this woman was on her way to the gates of hell.

At this generous offer, Aurora scoffed. “You think some misplaced maternal wellspring is going to save her, Aveline? I didn’t care what happened to her in Paris, why should I now?”

Paris…
Larken’s head nearly exploded with memories, the throbbing from where he’d been struck nothing compared to the cacophony of images as they arose, his father’s voice piercing his pain.

What of the child…

Larken’s gaze wrenched up. Aurora and his father hadn’t been talking about him that night, but of another.
Their child together.

He stared at the frightened, bewildered miss being held against her will, and saw what he’d all but missed before. The resemblance was startling. Miss Browne held an uncanny likeness to a portrait of his grandmother that hung in his London house, as well as to the woman holding her.

This is was his sister. His half-sister.

“You cannot stop me,” Aurora said, backing up
and pulling Miss Browne along with her. “I cannot be stopped. Never.”