St. Raven (32 page)

He had been given no choice about his fate, but had always intended to bear the burden as well as he could. He had not expected public performance to be such a large part of it.

He wandered to the window of the parlor and found it looked out onto the street with a view of the staging inn. Excellent. He would be able to see Cressida’s coach arrive. He pulled out his gold watch and flicked it open.

Where was it? Had something delayed it? They did sometimes overturn, causing much injury. Sometimes wild young men bribed the coachman to let them take the reins…

He controlled what he knew was illogical panic. If he could not bear to let Cressida out of his sight for a half hour, what of the future? Perhaps he could install a servant in her Matlock house to report to him on her welfare…

He shook his head.

He was running mad.

More to the point would be to check on his bastard cousin’s rooms. Perhaps there would be some way to get the statue without putting Cressida at risk. Bourreau had two rooms, presumably a bedroom and a parlor. Surely he would practice his business in the parlor, and he might well have his loot stashed in the bedroom. Shame he didn’t know which was which, but he had a fifty-fifty chance.

He opened the door into the corridor and looked out.

The long passageway was deserted with closed doors on either side. His rooms took up the whole of this end, giving the largest spaces and the most windows. Bourreau’s, according to the innkeeper, were at the other end. A door there opened.

Tris moved back. A maid emerged, carrying a loaded tray. His food. Damnable efficiency. He closed the door and retreated to the window. So, that door led to the serving stairs.

After a knock, the pretty, buxom maid came in, dimpling and blushing, to lay out the food on the table. Cold pie, cheese, bread, butter, and a carafe of claret.

He thanked her and gave her a coin. She curtsied, blushing a deeper pink. “If that’ll be all, Your Grace?”

He hoped he misunderstood her invitation. “Yes, thank you.”

She pouted, but left—with a twitch of her buxom behind.

Rump.

Lascivious thoughts of Cressida washed over him in an embarrassing manner. He poured and drank a glass of the wine, checked the street for the coach, and then opened the door again. All was quiet.

The thing to remember here was that he was not, at the moment, up to anything illegal. If he wanted to stroll the corridor looking at the numbers on the doors, there was no reason why he shouldn’t.

With that in mind, he put action to the thought, even though he felt transparently guilty, especially as he crossed the landing at the top of the stairs that led down to the entrance hall of the inn. There were people down there, but none seemed to be looking up, thank goodness.

He realized something else they’d forgotten. How did Cressida find out which were Bourreau’s rooms?

Damnation! He could intercept her. Should he prepare for that, or continue with his mission?

Damnation again.

He’d better prepare.

He turned back toward his room, almost colliding with the innkeeper, who was leading some new guests upstairs—a prosperous middle-aged couple.

“Your Grace! Is something amiss, Your Grace?”

Tris could see his concern, but also his delight at being able to reveal his eminent guest so easily. The eyes of the couple had widened.

“Just taking a stroll,” Tris said genially. “Always do before eating.”

He nodded to the staring couple and sauntered back to his rooms. At this rate he’d soon be the “eccentric Duke of St. Raven.” Once inside, he went straight to his window—and there was the coach, swaying and rumbling down the street.

So much for stealing the statue before she arrived. He could at least get the room numbers to her. He pulled his small tablet of paper out of his pocket, slid out the attached pencil and wrote the numbers
16
and
17
. He folded the piece of paper small and left his room to go downstairs.

He didn’t encounter the innkeeper again, but he crossed the path of three inn servants who pressed out of his way in an awestruck manner. He strolled to the front door of the inn and outside, glancing down the street.

There she was, walking briskly toward him ahead of a stern, soberly dressed man accompanied by a servant bearing his luggage.

He noted with amused approval that she was wearing her spectacles. Another touch of disguise, and a distinct aura of dull respectability. She was carrying her hatbox, and that meant she’d look somewhat strange at an inn.

She saw him, but hardly hesitated in her approach to the door. He deliberately didn’t move so she had to brush against him. She gave him the sort of look a decent woman would at that maneuver, augmented by those round spectacles. He couldn’t help a smile, and quickly turned it into a lascivious leer as he pressed the piece of paper into her hand.

Her eyes widened and he thought she’d muff it, but then she swept on, head high.

His behavior let him watch her, watch for a glimpse of her luscious behind. No chance beneath that deplorably dull and full dress. He turned back to find the other passenger glaring at him with profound disapproval.

Knowing he was coloring, Tris turned and headed back into the building. Lord above, his reputation would be in the mud soon.

His
reputation
? When had he ever bothered about his reputation in matters such as this? It was his birthright to be wild.

He passed Cressida in the hall, waiting patiently for someone to pay attention to her needs. Dressed as she was, it might take some time, which was as they wished it.

In theory.

In reality, he wanted to grab one of the servants who groveled to him and command service for her.

Silently steaming, he returned to his room to set the plan in motion. The sooner this was over, the sooner she would be safe in her proper world. And he’d damn well find a way to teach her to demand more from it. She was clever, brave, and adventurous, but her training would trap her in Matlockian mediocrity for the rest of her life if something wasn’t done about it.

He yanked the bellpull with more force than he intended, and winced at the vision of the Duke of St. Raven’s clamoring for attention. In moments, the maid burst into the room, breathless.

“Is something the matter, Your Grace?”

A ducal tantrum seemed in order. “I’m tired of being kept waiting. Tell Bourreau that I must see him immediately.”

The maid gaped. “I think he has a client with him, Your Grace.”

Tris produced his quizzing glass and stared at her through it. “And that is supposed to take precedence over my wishes?”

The poor girl went pale. “No, Your Grace! Of course not, Your Grace!”

She whirled out, and Tris winced. He’d leave her a handsome douceur. Now, he supposed, he’d better decide what to say to his bastard cousin in this underplanned encounter.

A moment later, the door opened without a knock, and a man walked in, shutting it behind him.

“What need to terrify ze servants, Your Grace?” He was in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, and the resemblance was clear. Not too clear, thank heavens, for Jean-Marie Bourreau had brown hair and a more rugged build, but he reminded Tris a little of the face he saw in the mirror every day, and rather more of his uncle. In fact, he had quite the look of their ancestor, whose portrait hung at St. Raven’s Mount, complete with Cavalier hat.

“When did you visit St. Raven’s Mount?” Tris asked.

“In ze spring when you were still away.” Bourreau’s English seemed good, but was heavily accented.

Tris switched to French. “I’m tempted to say something dramatic, such as ‘So, sir, we meet at last.’ ”

“To which I reply, ‘Foul fiend, you destroyed my family.’ ”

Tris came
en garde
for a moment, but saw the humor in the other man’s eyes and laughed. How surprising. He liked—recognized, in fact—his bastard cousin. Was there something in the saying that blood is thicker than water?

He’d never felt close to his six female cousins, and his mother had been an only child. He had a bond with some of the Peckworths, but they were not blood.

He gestured to the wine. “Alas, I lacked the foresight to demand two glasses.”

His cousin strolled over to the washstand and appropriated the tumbler there. He poured wine into it and into the glass, offering the glass to Tris. An impudent rascal, but then, so was he.

He toasted Bourreau. “Your health! So, I hope for an explanation of your recent career.”

The Frenchman sipped. “Can it wait? I have a client waiting in my room.”

Tris froze, wondering how he could have overlooked that obvious problem. The innkeeper had said as much, then the maid had been specific, and he’d ignored it both times! What had turned his mind into a block of wood?

He knew. A woman with big gray eyes. He stretched his sense of hearing, seeking sounds of alarm from the other end of the corridor.

“Can he wait a little?” he asked.

If Cressida tried the bedroom, she’d be all right. If not, surely she’d find some quick-witted way out of the situation. She had quick wits.

“A little.” Bourreau seemed amused. “An explanation…” He regarded Tris from heavy-lidded eyes that must drive women wild. “Are you disposed to deliver me to the hangman?”

“God, no. I don’t think you’ve done anything to hang for, but once in court, there’d be nothing to stop you from throwing my family’s name in the dirt.”

How long did this need to last? They should have arranged some sort of signal. Truth was, neither of them had been thinking clearly.

“Then,” said Bourreau, “what will you pay me to keep your family’s name out of the dirt?”

Tris yanked his wits back to the matter in hand. So much for cousinly friendship. “Why should I pay anything? You cannot do harm without revealing your identity as Le Corbeau.”

“Perhaps.” But the Frenchman had a worrying smile in his eyes. “Tell me, Your Grace, why did you arrange for someone to pretend to be me?”

At least Bourreau didn’t realize who it had been.

“How did you know it was my doing?”

“Who else? I knew you would not want me to hang, for the reasons you gave. I was preparing to send you an encouragement to engage yourself on my behalf when— poof!—I am proved innocent and released.”

“Then you know why.”

“There were surely easier ways for a duke to obtain the release of a prisoner?”

“Are matters still so arbitrary in France, even after revolution? A duke in England has many powers, but riding roughshod over the law is not one of them. It would have been exhausting work, but more to the point, it would have revealed an uncomfortable interest in you. Now, why don’t you tell me exactly what you want—bearing in mind that you are in no position to demand anything.”

“Am I not, Your Grace?…”

Tris felt a prickling down his spine. He had no doubt that Bourreau was an old hand at risky games. He also had no doubt that the man thought he had a winning hand.

Cressida paused outside the door of number 16.

Her lowly garb had worked to her advantage thus far. What with Mr. Althorpe, the self-important scholar, and the separate arrival of a demanding couple, no one had leaped to ask her business.

She had realized too late, however, that she and Tris had not planned when each should do what. How could they have been so muddleheaded? Heart beating too fast for comfort, she had counted to a hundred while also watching the landing at the top of the stairs.

At the count of eighty-four she saw a man in shirtsleeves walk briskly across that landing. No guarantee that it was Le Corbeau obeying Tris’s summons, but he didn’t look like a servant, and who else would be moving about so informally dressed?

The hall was empty for a moment, so Cressida took a breath and walked toward the stairs as if she had every right to do so. Her heart raced so fast she thought it should be audible, and her feet longed to dash up into the concealment of the corridor.

She climbed the stairs primed for a voice calling for her to stop. When she reached the top she turned in the direction the man had walked from, halting to regain her wits. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt in her right wits. What was she doing here on this mad, criminal enterprise? She could end up in jail!

She took a series of steadying breaths, then straightened and set off down this side of the corridor, looking at the numbers on the doors. She reminded herself that she was an abandoned lover of Monsieur Bourreau, here to beg him to take her back.

Twenty, 19, 18. That must have been Bourreau. The plan was working. Sixteen and 17 were the two doors at the end on the left. There were two other doors opposite—14 and 15—which meant the door in between, the one facing the corridor, led to the service stairs.

For some reason, now that the time had arrived, she was terrified of actually turning the knob to one of the doors and going in. Well, not just for some reason. For an excellent reason. Once she did that, she was—in the eyes of the world—a thief.

They hanged thieves! Not often these days, at least not petty thieves of previously good character, but they whipped them, or transported them to Australia.

Clinging to the idea of her story, and to the fact that Tris was keeping Le Corbeau occupied, she turned the knob of room 16. If worst came to worst, surely the Duke of St. Raven could prevent her being hauled off to jail.

She opened the door, went in, and shut the door behind her.

She scanned the room—the bedroom—then froze, blind panic lancing through her.

A naked woman lay on the bed, staring back at her.

Idiotically, Cressida almost screamed the alarm. When the woman did nothing except raise her brows, her terrified brain noticed an easel and an excellent picture forming there, all pink curves and sinuous invitation.

Artist. Bourreau was an artist.

Model. Not quite the society portraits she’d expected.

The woman smiled. “Early for his next appointment, luv?”

Cressida managed to breathe, and leaped at the explanation. “Yes! I didn’t know there’d be…” She glanced at the woman, then away. “I mean, do you want me to wait next door?”