Fire at Midnight (8 page)

“I … I was quite carried away,” she said, her face flushing crimson. “You must think me quite wanton. I hope my behavior did not lower your opinion of me.”

“My opinion of you has not changed.”

“Perhaps we can begin again as friends, when my brother is safe?”

He inclined his head in a noncommittal response, narrowed gaze following her as she fled the room. Her womanly scent lingered like an apparition. As he listened to his own harsh breathing, he reached out and swept the chamberstick to the floor in a sudden explosion of temper.

“Oui, we will begin again,” he vowed.
“When you know who I am.”

D
espite the admonition to remain indoors, Rachael decided to take a stroll along the beach. She hoped the brisk sea air would clear her head and calm her restlessness.

The fascination she felt for the mercurial Wyatt had left her shaken and confused. She had never behaved so wantonly and was aghast over her own lack of restraint. Had her base behavior led him to believe that she was unworthy of his esteem? How would she face him again, after the way she had behaved?

Rachael approached the door with candle in hand and was astonished to discover that the handle would not turn. She smiled. Wyatt might have guessed that she would test the limits he had imposed, but he had not reckoned on her resourcefulness. She removed one of the wooden hairpins from the vanity top and inserted it into the lock. Following a faint click, the knob turned freely.

Outside, the air was redolent with the promise of rain, and moonlight spewed in a riot of silver. The southwesterly wind extinguished the candle she carried and tugged at her hair. Rachael lifted her skirts and inched her way down the steep path that cleaved the garden and descended toward the beach, the unseasonably warm weather giving her an urge to run barefoot along the deserted shore.

She was halfway down the path when a sudden, bright burst of light caught her eye. The intermittent flash of yellow originated to her left, almost level with the beach.

Afraid movement would reveal her and divulge the hidden cottage path she traveled, Rachael crouched, waiting for the light to flare again. With senses heightened by fear, she became aware of noises in the distance: the distressed nicker of a horse and the voices of two men.

Peering out from behind the dense growth of thorn, Rachael watched as the men secured a lantern around the horse’s neck. Its forelegs had been bound together, forcing it to hobble. The animal tried to shake free of the lamp, but the crude metal box remained fixed securely. Satisfied, the men abandoned the horse and ran down the beach.

Rachael felt revulsion and terror wash over her when she recognized the ploy. The horse would hobble along, causing an up-and-down movement of the light. A ship’s captain would assume the light was a beacon and would be duped into sailing too near the rocky coast. A gang of shipwreckers would be lying in wait on the beach.

Plantagenet law provided that the cargo of a ship adjudged a wreck belonged to the inhabitants of the coast where the wreckage washed ashore. The law further decreed that if there were survivors, it would not be adjudged a lawful wreck. In effect, the law promoted murder. Rachael had no fear of fairtraders, but wreckers were a different breed altogether.

Her limbs trembled as she crept farther down the path for a better view of the sea. A square-rigged vessel drifted near the rocky shore and Rachael looked on in horror as the ship’s crew recognized the danger too late.

The ship bounced and eddied before it crashed into the rocks with a force that sent the dull crack of rending wood echoing in the night. The beach came alive with shouts of triumph as more than two dozen men suddenly converged on the beach, running into the foaming surf.

The thought that there might be survivors propelled her toward the beach, where Rachael knelt behind a large boulder and looked on with mounting horror at the chaotic scene. The gang was intent upon clean work with no witnesses, and she had to shove her fist into her mouth to hold back her screams as cries of terror and pleas for mercy were brutally silenced by intermittent flashes of steel in the moonlight.

The gang stripped the ship of her cargo and every item of value with practiced efficiency, including the timber forming the vessel, the ropes from her rigging, and the copper that sheathed her hull. They transferred their plunder into several waiting ships and then headed up the beach in her direction.

One man forged ahead of the others as they marched. Every nerve in Rachael’s body thrummed with the awareness of danger as the leader drew close to her and the murky light edged out the shadows hiding his face.

Victor Brightmore stood no more than fifteen feet from her. Rachael ducked, feeling her heartbeat quicken as a flush of coldness flowed over her. Why hadn’t she listened to Wyatt and remained at the cottage?

“Well done,” he said, praising the group. “A rewarding evening, as befits my return after so long an absence.”

Rachael shuddered at the sound of his voice, feeling as if she could not draw air for breath as the assembled men raised their weapons in salute and cheered. Victor sheathed his sword then continued up the beach.

Rachael abandoned her position behind the boulder and scrambled toward the cottage path, keeping to the shadows. Ascending the steep path, her heart pounded in her ears, and her limbs quaked.

The briar and bramble clutched at her and Rachael stifled an anguished sob. What had Victor done with James? Was her uncle merely occupying his time until he could be certain she was out of the way, or had he put his diabolical plan into action?

She heard the sound of a scuffle at the foot of the path and pressed her fist to her mouth again to hold back a scream. Two or more men had stumbled upon the hidden walkway, and an altercation was underway. Rachael sought to distance herself from it, but stopped short when she heard her name.

“Rachael!” The caller hissed, low and urgent, as if he also feared discovery. “Rachael, stop!”

She half turned in the direction of the voice and stumbled and lost her footing, sliding backward in the bramble. Hearing the renewed sounds of a struggle, and the audible grunt of fist meeting flesh as one opponent felled the other, she chewed her lip and clawed her way up the incline, sensing with blunt terror that the winner had turned his attention her way.

Rachael screamed and instinctively fought to defend herself when she was seized from behind and spun around. She met her attacker in a blind frenzy, biting, clawing, and kicking.

The attacker stunned her with a controlled slap to her cheek and enveloped her thrashing limbs in a crushing embrace, increasing the pressure of his hold until Rachael abandoned her futile attack, unable to breathe.

“Did I not tell you to stay
inside
?” a harsh voice grated in her ear.

John Wyatt stared down at her like a dark angel expelled from the depths of hell and looking none too happy about it. It was the first time it occurred to her to be afraid of him.

Rachael cringed when he lifted his hand, and he froze as if surprised by her reaction before gently brushing his fingers against her wet cheek. She had been crying without being aware of it.

“I … I’m sorry,” she stammered. “You warned me to stay inside. I should have listened.”

“Sorry? You might have been dead,” he scolded.

“My uncle leads them.” Rachael noticed then that he carried an ominous broadsword and his clothing was wet. A small cut over his left eye still trickled blood. A lump formed in her throat and she tried to back away from him, but he still held her, and seemed uninclined to let go. “What have you been doing?”

“You must return to the cottage.” He took firm hold of her elbow.

Rachael hung back. “Who were you fighting?” she asked, refusing to be coaxed to move, despite the increasing pressure on her arm.

“You are too inquisitive.”

“Why did you call out my name?”

“I did not—” He stopped himself and glowered at her as if she had wrung a confession out of him. “You must return to the cottage.
Now
,” he insisted.

“If you didn’t call me, who did?” she demanded.

Rachael wrenched her arm free and backed away, eyes fastened upon something he held in his hand: a piece of jewelry. He slipped the trinket inside his vest, meeting her horrified expression with an unrepentant scowl. She continued to back away.

“Who
did
call my name?” Rachael repeated.

Sebastién took a decisive step in Rachael’s direction but stopped when a voice interrupted the tense silence.

“I called your name, Rachael.”

A bruised and bloodied Tarry Morgan stepped into view. He held a pistol pointed at the Frenchman’s broad chest.

“Falconer,” Tarry said, as if in greeting.

“Falconer?” Rachael echoed. She uttered a sound of bewilderment, sensing the Frenchman was focused on her reaction to the name.

He bowed. “At last, a formal introduction,” he said. “Sebastién Falconer, at your service,
mademoiselle
.”

“Your name is not John Wyatt? You’re not Tarry’s friend?”

Tarry grunted and looked at her as if she had indeed gone mad.

“Let us dispense with games,
Mademoiselle
Penrose. You risk no reprisal from me at the moment; your young friend holds a pistol on me. Pray, be candid.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She looked from one man to the other in confusion, heart sinking at the enmity on the Frenchman’s face. His eyes held hers as if communicating a dare. “I don’t understand.”

“How dare you use John Wyatt’s good name?” Tarry broke in. “How dare you abuse this girl?”

“No, he has been kind to me, Tarry,” Rachael objected. She was baffled when both men gaped at her in surprise. “I thought he was your friend John.”

“John Wyatt is dead,” Tarry snapped. “He was murdered the night he helped you escape.”

Rachael recoiled at the words.

“Falconer abducted you. He believes you are the Customs informer who ruined him and planned to avenge himself against you. He charged me to prove your innocence and said he would not release you without proof.”

“Proof you obviously cannot provide,” Sebastién commented, arching his brow.

“Is it true?” Rachael asked Sebastién.

He shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ve known who you were since the first night. Have I harmed you?”

Have you harmed me?
He believed she was a Customs informer. How he had come to such a conclusion, she had no idea. Had he attempted to seduce her as a means of revenge? Had he intended all along to expose and disgrace her? If that was true, then he felt nothing for her other than hatred. He might not have stolen her maidenhead, but he had robbed her of her innocence.

“Believing as you do, the masquerade must have been quite an ordeal for you,” she said. “Yet you never lost the advantage, did you?” Even in her inexperience, Rachael knew he had wanted her. There were moments when he had struggled for control. She noted, with a small measure of satisfaction, that his jaw went rigid at her remark, and his eyes flashed with anger.

“We’re leaving,” Tarry told her. “I have a horse waiting down the beach.”

“I trust you left your horse in the open so the wreckers would have an additional reward?”

Tarry’s jaw dropped and the pistol wavered in his hand.

“I thought as much.” Sebastién shook his head in disgust as Tarry fixed a look of pure malice on him.

“We’ll find another horse,” Tarry said.

“And what if the wreckers stumble upon the two of you,
enfant?”
Sebastién asked. “How will you protect her? With your wits?” He shook his head. “You go about unarmed.”

“You forget that I hold the pistol,” Tarry said through clenched teeth.

“The pistol you stole from
me.
I should warn you, it has no shot left. Unless you choose to employ your sword, you have no weapon.” Sebastién smiled unpleasantly. “Other than your wits, of course.”

“You bluff. You would not have been held at bay by a pistol with no shot left.”

“It suited my purpose. I wanted to hear what the
mademoiselle
might say when her guard was down,” Sebastién replied.

Tarry raised the pistol as if to fire it. “I can prove otherwise.”

“Oui,”
Sebastién sensibly agreed, “and if I lie, you will alert the wreckers to our presence.”

Tarry muttered a curse and unsheathed his sword. Lunging forward, he attempted a savage blow to Sebastién’s chest that glanced off the Frenchman’s skillful parry and sent Tarry tottering backward.

“Who instructed you in the art of fencing,” Sebastién taunted, “your nanny?”

Flushing to the roots of his hair, Tarry launched himself at the Frenchman. So skilled was Falconer with the blade that his actions appeared effortless, while Tarry began to show signs of tiring after only a few minutes.

The Frenchman seemed intent upon wearing his opponent out rather than killing him. Rachael hopped out of the way with a gasp when Tarry’s blade almost pierced her shoulder as he stumbled under the Frenchman’s relentless assault.

She fell to the ground when Sebastién shoved her out of harm’s way and pressed his attack, scoring a flesh wound to Tarry’s wrist.

Tarry dropped both sword and pistol.

Sebastién speared the sword hilt and flung Tarry’s sword out of reach as Tarry dove to reclaim it.

Sebastién lunged forward, pressing the point of his blade into the soft flesh of Tarry’s throat. Keeping his eyes on Tarry as he probed for the sword with his boot, Sebastién gave it a fierce kick, sending the weapon skittering down the steep path.

Tarry’s eyes were huge with the realization the fight had ended and he had lost. The echo of his convulsive effort to swallow was visible in Sebastién’s sword grip. His eyes followed the cautious movement of his opponent when Sebastién stooped to retrieve the pistol with his free hand.

Sebastién smiled genially. “I found the idea of being killed with my own pistol somewhat repugnant,” he confessed.

Rachael dashed to his side and tugged at his arm, intending to plead for Tarry’s life.