Forever Young The Beginning (28 page)

It was near the edge of the city, a
vine and weed-choked place that appeared to be boarded up but for
an attic window. Leaving his carriage, he walked around the place
and found the boarded up window that had been kicked out from the
inside. He noted the size and thickness of the timbers. This place
was not just boarded up, but was done so in a way to truly
discourage all but the most determined person to enter, and only
with hand tools at that. His interest piqued, he climbed through
the damaged window.

He noticed some blood on the floor of
the kitchen and a deep gash in the wall just above knee height.
Rocketing upstairs at vampire speed he found nothing but that there
was very little dust in the center of the floor between the stairs
and the broken attic window. Rocketing to the main floor and then
down to the basement he saw the iron bars and the demolished door,
bent and broken. Nodding his head, he flashed upstairs then climbed
out through the broken kitchen window at human speed. He strolled
about out back until a dark spot drew his attention. Examining it,
he determined that the spot appeared to have been made by a hot
fire. Charred remnants of two pairs of boots lay there
nearby.

He returned to his carriage
satisfied that he now had a good picture of how the Francoise
‘cargo’ failed to reach its’ destination. He knew well that there
had been no transgression here, no penalty would or could be
imposed for what had happened. Knowing Henri Lafayette, he was sure
that he would make a full disclosure at the next meeting of
the
Council
. His
action would be hailed as a timely and properly handled
intervention.

He would report to
Francoise, but would leave the Lafayette’s name out of it. That was
too risky even for him. He knew full well the reach and influence
of the Lafayettes. Worse yet, Henri Lafayette himself was one of
the nine judges of the
Supreme
Council
. There would be no mention of the
Lafayettes. His report would include a recommendation that
Francoise just let it go. He was satisfied with himself, and
feeling smug. He had earned himself a handsome sum for only a few
days’ work. And who would ever know anyway?

***

Ian and Cosette had departed from
Paris that afternoon. They took six days to get to Brussels by way
of Amiens and Lille. Ian did the bank’s business in that same day
and the next day they were off for the Netherlands, arriving late
on the sixth day after leaving Brussels.

They went immediately to Ian’s
grandfather’s home. It was a massive place by Dutch standards, and
finely appointed. Jan and Mary were both at home and surprised and
delighted to see them. Cosette took a liking to the couple
immediately as they did to her. They told their carefully crafted
story as they had rehearsed it. Cosette noticed the sparkling
intense blue eyes of Jan Vandenoever and realized what side of the
family Ian had gotten his unique eyes from.

They had an enjoyable visit with the
Vandenoevers and Ian was able to persuade his grandfather to
endorse the draft-honoring partnership with Henri’s bank

He thought he could convince his guild
partners to try it being as drafts and credit were always a thorny
problem for those who were merchantmen. He was especially impressed
to learn that the Lafayettes were partners through a proxy in a
bank in Hong Kong as well.

Ian was sure that his grandfather’s
partners would all accept the offer. He and Cosette stayed two
weeks and at the end of that time, they had an agreement to take
back to Henri. At that time Cosette and he departed for Edinburg.
Warm good-byes were said. Passage had been arranged by Jan aboard a
two-mast merchantman bound for Edinburg.

It took six days to get there due to
heavy rough seas. Cosette had never sailed in her life, her only
sailing experience being the short trip on Elsie when they were
married. She thrived on it, roaming the deck by day with Ian no
matter the weather unless it was clear. Her parasol and hat would
do no good in the weather of the North Sea. She reveled in the
cloudy cool air and the relative absence of direct sunshine. At
night, she delighted in the rocking of the ship and the creaking
noises and sounds of the sea sliding by. She found it to be
somewhat of an aphrodisiac and that delighted both of
them.

They reached Edinburg and disembarked.
Ian soon had gotten a carriage to take them to the home of Angus.
They arrived and surprised Angus, Elsie, Mary and Ian’s little
brother Stuart. They had been waiting for days and were overjoyed
to see Ian and Cosette. She liked them the minute she saw them and
felt their love. Coming to Angus she hugged him and kissed his
cheeks and he hers. Ian came to his mother Elsie first and just
picked her up and swung her around like she was a little girl. He
did the same with Aunt Mary much to her delight. Then he grabbed
his little brother and simply tossed him over his shoulder and ran
back out the door running around the yard with him thrown over his
shoulder. Everyone was laughing at the sight.

All present wanted to hear their
story, so Ian just let Cosette tell it. He watched Angus as she
told the carefully rehearsed story of their meeting and falling in
love. There were lots of questions about France and about Marie and
Henri too. The conversation went on for some three hours until Mary
called a halt to it so that everyone could sit down to eat
supper.

At the table Ian got to
catch up on the local news. There were all sorts of news tidbits to
share. Ian spoke at some length of life at sea and of life at the
chateau. His brother pressed him to tell of the pirate battle so
Ian told a detailed account of that, carefully omitting any
reference to Alandra other than to say that she and Celita were
captives of the pirates. He also told them about the storm and how
he and the others made it through safely. They were enthralled at
all of the things that he had gotten to experience. Ian
thought
If only you knew the parts of my
adventures that I’m not telling you!

***

“
So you did find the house
where the five girls were being held?

“
Yes. There was no mistaking
it. There was a cell built in its cellar. I found some blood, so
there had to have been force used to get the girls away from
whoever was keeping them. The house did belong to LeBlanc, the man
found drunk and lying at the bottom of his steps with a broken
neck. He was a notorious drinker, so that might indeed have been an
accident. It took several days of looking through tax documents at
the courthouse hall of records to find the place.”

“
But the house you found,
there were no ‘accidents’ there?”

“
No Lord Francoise. Force
was used to get the girls away from that place.”

“
What do you make of
it?”

“
I think that someone
involved might have slipped up and said something while drunk. That
could have gotten back to one or more people who would find
kidnapping offensive enough to go and do something themselves.
Lacking any other information, it seems at least credible that it
happened that way. The good news is that the King’s Gendarmes think
that the girls ran away and were found.”

“
Where did they get that
notion?”

“
The headmistress at the
orphanage they were taken from turned that report in to
them.”

“
Does she know the real
truth?”

“
It seems not. She just
reported that someone she didn’t know brought them back to the
orphanage.”

“
There is more to this story
than that.”

“
Likely so, sir.”

Francoise tossed a hefty bag of gold
on the desk and said “Get me a name and I’ll triple that
sum.”

“
You want to know who it was
that claims to have found them, sir?”

“
Yes. That will be all,
Moreau.”

Moreau knew already that it was the
Lafayettes behind it. He could just wait a few weeks, then come
back and give the Lafayette’s name to him to make a lot more money
the easy way. He would surely back down when he heard the Lafayette
name. This would recover his recent gambling losses with some money
to spare. It was easy to make money when one was as smart as Aldric
Moreau. It was risky but easy. He was once again pleased with his
cleverness.

Their visit went quite well. Some days
Cosette remained at the McCloud home if it was sunny and other
cloudy days she was out all day seeing the sights with Ian. Ian
asked Angus to take a proposal to the Bank of Edinburg for a
limited partnership with the Lafayettes, so Angus agreed to do that
while he was there.

One night after everyone went to bed,
Cosette said “Aren’t you going to take me to see the highlands and
mountains?”

“
Yes. Do you want to go
now?

“
Yes, let’s run in the hills
of Scotland.”

They did just that. In an hour they
were sixty miles southwest of Edinburg and running full out. They
leaped gullies and streams laughing like children. Cosette caught
an unlucky fox and they paused for a bit to take
nourishment.

“
Ian it is wild, windy, and
beautiful just as you said. I can see why you love it
here.”

The days flew by only too fast it
seemed. The entire family was so completely taken with Cosette that
she felt as if she had been one of them for her whole life. The
McCloud home was one filled with love, as was the chateau of Marie
and Henri.

Only too soon though, they were
packing and saying their goodbyes to all. Three weeks had gone by
like three days.

They sailed from Edinburg to Dover in
England. Cosette had never seen the white chalk cliffs of Dover and
marveled at them. They disembarked in Dover for two days, and then
they took a large packet boat across the channel to Calais where
they began unhurriedly looking about at the sights.

***

It was late night in Paris.
At the
Angels’ Care
orphanage facility outside of Paris the children and staff had
long since gone to bed. Except for the usual sounds of a large
building with many occupants, the place was still. An occasional
cough might punctuate the silence, or the sound of a nightingale in
the woods nearby. Certainly the sound of a properly working window
in the bowels of the place did not intrude on the stillness of the
deserted hallways. Nor did the sound of a properly working door
make any impression. The whisper of stealthy sure feet along tiled
floors could not be heard from either the sleeping quarters of the
staff or the dormitories. Two shadows flitted along deserted
corridors as if only two puffs of smoke blown on an errant
wind.

At times they would leave the floor of
the corridor to instantly rise steeply up and over a wall of iron
bars and just as quickly drop silently down to the floor of the
corridor in the same heartbeat. If there had been human eyes to
witness their passage, the human might well have rubbed his eyes to
clear them thinking that surely they had just imagined what he saw
in that brief time.

Little Chloe lay sleeping on her bed
just inside of the dormitory entrance. She slept the sleep of an
innocent child, dreamless and deep. Suddenly she came awake but
couldn’t scream for the filthy rag jammed into her mouth. She was
held in two hands that felt like two steel bands. As she was
snatched from her bed, she was aware of the slight sound of her
bedding being pulled from her bed, a whispering sound. She was
rapidly taken down the hallway to be laid on the floor next to the
tall iron gate at the end of the hall. She heard the sounds of
cloth shredding and was rapidly and tightly bound.

Then as if she weighed nothing she was
lifted to be thrown across a shoulder. She then rocketed upward and
down again nearly as fast and the stairs she was descending went
past as a blur until again she rocketed upward and back down once
again in a heartbeat. The sides of the dim corridors flashed by in
a blur, and then she went down some stairs more narrow and nearly
in blackness. She rapidly approached a dim square of light and flew
through it and upwards at a dizzying speed.

She sensed that she was outside and
seemingly instantly she was at the end of the long brick wall of
the facility and then stopped, still lying draped over a shoulder.
The sound of iron quietly being dragged slowly interrupted the
sound of her heart hammering. She sensed a shadow rocketing towards
her, but then she rocketed away herself still slung over a
shoulder. The grounds of the facility flashed by at an unimaginable
pace and in seconds she was among trees, flying through the forest.
She thought she heard the gentle sound of water trickling as she
became airborne for a second, but other than that was only the
sound of two pairs of feet running swiftly.

It wasn’t long before she was out of
the woods but in seconds was flying through the air in the
moonlight and aware of a two very soft thuds as she seemed to see a
structure like a house gable looming overhead. She was instantly
inside of the structure and passed down a flight of stairs like the
wind and then paused for a door to be opened. In a flash, she was
at the bottom of the cellar stairs and was lying in some straw in a
corner with some other warm and squirming bodies. She could hear
panicked breathing and something like a whimper.