Fire at Midnight (29 page)

He landed a fist in Sebastién’s midsection, and Sebastién doubled over, winded and in agony. The other man recovered and the two set upon their shackled prisoner, beating and kicking him viciously until he slumped between them, bleeding and barely conscious.

Once his men had quashed his brother’s rebellion, Jacques made his way down the stairs. Sebastién hung limply between the two guards.

Jacques came face to face with his twin and stood looking at Sebastién as if puzzling over an enigma. Sebastién became aware of his brother’s scrutiny and stiffened, standing rigidly under his own power.

“Englishman,” he said, “you are a trespasser here.”

“This property now belongs to The Crown,” Jacques informed him.

“Oh? When did you offer me a price I could not refuse for it?”

“Such high spirits for a man under arrest,” Jacques said. “I wonder what your mood will be the day we hang you.”

A board on the upper floor creaked. Rachael came as far as the edge of the landing and stopped, staring aghast at Sebastién. The sweep of her eyes took in the shackles and the new injuries suffered at the hands of Jacques’s men. She looked at Jacques, expression filled with censure.

“Tarry is delirious,” she said. “I fear his injuries are far more serious than a broken leg.” She directed a look of indictment at Sebastién.

His troubled gaze lifted to her, and he was dismayed that she remained rooted to the top stair. He had no intention of trying to pacify her while in the presence of his smirking twin. “Where is Victor?” she inquired in a low voice.

“Dead.”

Her face twisted with impatience and frustration. “Do you really believe I can accept your word for it?”

“He drowned. His body was washed away. The lighthouse is gone.” He could forgive her cynicism, but he stiffened in outrage when she and Jacques exchanged knowing glances.

“Oh, Sebastién,” Rachael sighed, voice hitching as she shook her head.

“Go and see for yourself,” he snapped. “The tower was swept away.”

“At least his lies are colorful,” Jacques muttered.

“My lies?” Sebastién sputtered. “You were the one who convinced her that I had taken her brother hostage. Apparently someone hated you even more than I. A baby girl was left on my doorstep so that I would know a trap was being set. James is safe. You know that.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

The possibility of what Jacques might be planning suddenly occurred to him. “For what crime am I being detained?”

“Murder.” There was malevolence in Jacques’s tight-lipped smile. “And you are not being ‘detained,’ as you put it. You are to be tried and summarily executed.”

“You have no proof I am a wrecker.” Jacques conceded the point with a nod. “It is impossible to prove you guilty of wrecking. You are to be tried for the murder of James Eaton Penrose.”

“Impossible,” Sebastién countered furiously. “You will never find his body.”

Rachael made a strangled sound, and when he looked up, she had disappeared. Had she interpreted his words as a confession? Determined to go after her, he struggled against the men who held him.

Jacques signaled for his men to shackle his brother, and both men fell to the ground on top of Sebastién as he fought against this new indignity. They dragged him up again, slamming him into a wall and winding him in the process.

Jacques barked a curt order, and Sebastién’s tormentors stepped away. He was left leaning against the wall for support.

“I meant to say that his body will not be found because he is alive. Let me explain to her.” When Jacques did not respond, his temper exploded. “You know her brother is alive. If you refuse to acknowledge it in her presence, at least admit it to me!”

“She would never believe it now,” Jacques said. “She is convinced she saw James taken from the cottage by Victor’s men. Who am I to try to convince her otherwise? Moreover, why would I want to?”

“Then how do you plan to execute me? You cannot prove me a wrecker. You may as well claim that I killed my housekeeper as claim that I murdered James Penrose.” It was the most outrageous thing he could think of in the heat of the moment. His tongue flicked over his bloodied lip. “If your goal is to kill me, Englishman, you had better succeed.”

“I don’t plan to fail,” Jacques said, locking eyes with his brother. “I will not make mistakes such as the one you just made.” At his brother’s stony look of inquiry, he obligingly added, “Your housekeeper will be compensated for her assistance.”

“You will learn that there are those who cannot be bribed.” Let Jacques look for Mrs. Faraday; she could support his claim that the baby left on his doorstep was female.

“Everyone has a price,” Jacques glibly replied.

“The lady is a sharp judge of character, and you are not so difficult to read.”

“The lady has never met me. I may make a positive impression upon her.”

“You will not fool Mrs. Faraday—”

Sebastién’s eyes widened in surprise as Jacques suddenly bellowed in outrage and lunged at him. He was unprepared for the attack and took the full impact of the blow on the concave underside of his jaw, grunting in surprise and pain as the force of it drove him to his knees. His shackled ankles threatened to topple him when he shifted his balance in an effort to rise.

Jacques drew back his arm and dealt Sebastién another savage blow. He fell to the floor amid a clanging of chains, the fetters rendering him prone and vulnerable. The shattered glass from the broken windows pierced his clothing like thrusts from a thousand knives.

“Where is she?” Jacques screamed at him.

Jacques grabbed him by his bloodied shirt and hauled him upright, nearly choking him with the violence of the action. “By God, I will kill you!”

Sebastién clumsily raised his chained hands to block the assault, but the blows were too numerous to defend against. Jacques flung him away in a rage, and he tripped over the length of chain.

Sebastién fell against the wall with a grunt of pain as the stitches in his head broke loose. He dragged air into his lungs, and a sharp stab of pain jarred his rib cage. The pain repeated with each subsequent breath he took.

“I will give you one chance to tell me,” Jacques warned. “Where is your ‘housekeeper'?” He looked crazed. A lock of black hair fell over one eye, and his teeth were bared in an ugly snarl.

“Why should it matter to you? A poor widow from the coast would mean nothing to you.”

For the first time since the curtain of rage had descended over him at the mention of the housekeeper’s name, Jacques paused to look carefully at Sebastién’s face.

“How can you not know?” Jacques asked, incredulous. A hardness settled around his mouth and he made a derisive sound. “Is the name Eleanor Faraday Falconer more familiar to you?” he prodded with cruel simplicity.

“Faraday was our mother’s maiden name.”

Upstairs, Rachael gasped at the soul-wrenching outcry as Sebastién’s howl of rage seemed to spring from the very foundation of the cottage. The porcelain bowl she held slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor, and she stepped over the shattered mess, shoes grinding remnants of the bowl into grit as she ran from the room.

Rachael heard the cry again when she reached the landing, and the sound was so terrible that it destroyed her resolve to remain upstairs. Running down, she found herself on the perimeter of activity centered around Sebastién and froze at the sight of him, her exclamation of dismay lost in the din.

Two of Jacques’s burly men grappled to subdue him, and although chained at the wrists and ankles and brutally beaten, he was possessed of uncanny strength. She had witnessed such strength and singleness of purpose before, in the more violent inmates at Bedlam. She could not imagine what had precipitated such behavior in Sebastién, but rushed forward blindly, determined to pull him back from the brink.

Sebastién fought to wrench free of the men who held him while keeping his eyes fastened upon his objective: his brother. Jacques stood a safe distance away, staunching the flow of blood from his nose with a handkerchief, wary gaze upon his raging brother. Jacques was marked by a strange pattern of red-white welts across his face and along one arm; welts that bore a telling resemblance to the chains worn by Sebastién. Jacques shouted for a pistol in a raw, authoritative voice.

“What do you intend to do?” Rachael shouted in alarm.

“Defend myself.” Jacques pushed her aside, grabbed the pistol from his aide, raised the weapon, and took deliberate aim at his brother.

Rachael had no doubt that Jacques would murder his brother in hot blood. Sebastién inexplicably continued to bait his twin, and after a quick glance at their faces, she uttered a sharp cry and thrust herself between them.

“Non,
Rachael!” Sebastién shouted.

“You will not do this!” she spat furiously at Jacques.

“He attacked me!”

“If you do so much as touch him again, you will answer for it!”

“He means to kill me if he gets loose.”

“A threat from a prisoner does not justify killing him.”

Jacques’s eyes blazed with resentment. “He’ll die soon enough,” he muttered.

Rachael shuddered at the palpable hostility that flowed between the two men.

“You had better pray I find your witness, alive and in good health, or you will see me again before you meet the hangman.”

Sebastién lifted his chin and looked at his brother with open scorn. “If I am the mad dog you think I am, perhaps she is already dead.”

Jacques needed no further provocation. He slapped the pistol into his aide’s palm and barked: “Confine this animal! Get him out of my sight!”

As Sebastién was ushered to the door, Rachael noticed his stiff, cautious movements and the wince of pain that fleetingly crossed his face before he adopted the guarded expression that had become all too familiar to her. The urge to speak to him tugged at her, but she did not know what to say. She felt corrupted and confused by the strength of her emotions.

If he was guilty, his crimes were unpardonable. The Dane had found proof that he had been unjustly accused of leading the wreckers. Had Sebastién kidnapped her brother and indirectly caused his death, or was Jacques responsible? Had he allowed Victor to go free? His claim that the lighthouse had been swept away was easy enough to prove or disprove. When he had been uncertain of
her
guilt, he had been willing to assume she was innocent until proof to the contrary had been found. He deserved no less.

As the men led Sebastién from the cottage, Rachael ran to his side and took his hand, possessed by an indefensible need to comfort him.

He studied her face, and then raised his free hand, moving his fingers slowly over the slope of her cheek. She felt the cold tingle of metal links against her flushed skin, and her uncertainty exploded into raging doubt. Her eyes filled with tears when she opened her mouth to assure him that she had not judged and abandoned him.

Sebastién’s fingers formed a barrier to prevent the words from spilling from her parted lips. He did not smile, but nodded somberly in understanding.

“Out!”
Jacques shouted, and his men shoved Sebastién through the door before any words could pass between them.

“How easily you forget your brother,” Jacques sneered at her as he slammed the door.

Rachael leveled a look of antipathy at him. “How easily you forget your own.”

“How else can I put an end to the wrecking? If the gang loses their leader, it will be like severing the head of a bloodthirsty beast.”

“Sebastién has never been a wrecker.” Rachael studied Jacques a moment. “Did Sebastién kidnap my brother?”

She found her answer in the hesitation before he replied.

“Sebastién is guilty of many things,” Jacques said evasively. “I have arrested him for the crime that will be the easiest to prove.”

“Don’t you mean to say, the crime for which proof has already been assembled?”

His jaw tightened at the accusation. “Your brother is dead,” he cruelly reminded her. “Do you want the man responsible to go free?”

Rachael canted her head and considered Jacques, eyes narrowed in speculation. “I want the man who actually took James—or had him taken—punished. That man is either Sebastién or you. God help you if you’ve killed my brother as a means to destroy your own.”

Jacques’s eyes searched Rachael’s face, and he suddenly grew angry and defensive. “He will not escape justice this time! You’re a fool to believe whatever he wants you to believe. You have no proof he is innocent!”

“Proof!” Rachael cried. “I will show you proof!”

She stormed out of the room, and when she returned a moment later, tossed the shipwrecking ledger at him. When he made no attempt to catch it, it struck the tabletop and fell open to a random page.

“This is proof that you have been wrong about your brother. You cannot prove Sebastién is a wrecker, and you will have a difficult time proving him responsible for what happened to James. I will leave you to your reading. I fancy a walk along the beach. I’d like to see if a landmark is missing.”