Stormfire (96 page)

"Mon Dieu, Général!"

Raoul
jerked around to see Antoinette's horrified eyes staring up at him. With a witness, the game was up. He bent over his moaning wife and rasped, "I'll kill Culhane just like his brat! You'll have nothing!" He hurtled down the steps and pushed past Antoinette into the library for pistols before racing out the door. Catherine barely heard him go. The first contraction tore through her even as Antoinette knelt by her head.

The three policemen searching Culhane's quarters snapped to attention as Police Minister
Fouché
entered the room, a lieutenant of police behind him. "As you were, gentlemen. Moulin, have you anything to report?"

"No, sir. We've found nothing personal in his belongings: no letters, no addresses, not even money."

"A man of remarkably pristine habits."
Fouché
walked slowly about the room. "There has to be something. Even if Culhane's alive, he wouldn't have risked returning here after his fight with the Venetian."
Fouché
fanned through papers on the desk. "This is no longer a matter of apprehending^ duelist, gentlemen, but a spy. I want this place taken apart, even the floorboards. If you find anything immediately, I'll be at 15
Ile de la Fraternité."

Mei
Lih seized Culhane's hand and dragged him into Madeleine's house with surprising strength. She peered out at the darkened street, then swiftly shut the door. "Minister
Fouché
just left. He had only one man with him; otherwise, I'm sure he would have left a watch on the house."

"Napoleon heard of the duel quickly enough."

"It's not the duel he cares about now.
Fouché
has a warrant for your arrest as a spy!"

The Irishman swore under his breath. That meant his drawings had fallen into the wrong hands and his courier was probably dead.

Madeleine's angry voice floated down from upstairs as she leveled a pistol at his chest. "I don't thank you for this,
Culhane.
How dare you sell out my country while you enjoy my hospitality!"

"I haven't betrayed France, Leine; just Napoleon," he shot back coolly. "The Terror was nothing compared to the blood France will spill for that vainglorious runt. You know he doesn't give a damn for the Republic. You're more pissed than patriotic."

Tears of rage streaked the kohl around her eyes. "Oh, you
canaille!
You
cochon!
You . . ."
She hurled the gun at him and stalked off in a swish of black silk.

Culhane eyed the scar the gun had made in the wallpaper, then headed up the stairs. He silently went up behind Madeleine as she poured absinthe with a shaking hand. His familiar hands closed on her shoulders and she swore, starting to swing the bottle. Instantly, his grip slid down her arm to her wrist. "Put it down, Leine. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Go to hell!"

"Directly, ma'am, if that's what you want." He kissed her neck. "I'll do anything you want if you help me, even surrender to the police."

"What!" She spun. "What are you talking about? Get out of here!"

"Not until Kit's safe," he said flatly.
"Fouché
can work up a nasty case against her now. He has bits and scraps he can twist to look like a Bourbon conspiracy; piled on top of her association with a known spy, the evidence is more than enough." His hands tightened on Madeleine's shoulders. "I swear on my life she's innocent, Leine. She has no love for Napoleon, but she doesn't want the Bourbons back in France any more than you, and she knows nothing about my work here."

"What in hell do you expect me to do about her?"

"Hide her until the baby's born and she can travel."

"Hide her?" Madeleine threw up her hands. "Where? Under the bed?"

"You survived the Terror, Leine. I know you have a place," he cajoled softly. "I'll keep you covered in diamonds for the rest of your life."
          
-

She looked at him with hostility and began to pace nervously, finally stopped and bit a nail. "Would you marry me?"

"If you want," he said slowly.

"You love her that much?"

"She's my sister." He knew better than to tell her the whole truth.

She blinked, surprise incongruous on her jaded face. "The hell you say!" She swept a quick look from him to
Mei
Lih and back and her lips tightened. "You never mentioned a sister."

"You never mentioned a son." His eyes held hers levelly. "Think, Leine. If we were lovers, would I have let her marry Amauri?"

The tension was abruptly broken by a violent pounding on the door downstairs and they all froze. Carmine lips a blotch in her chalky face, Madeleine pushed the Irishman toward her bedroom. "In there. Hurry!"

Quickly scanning the dark garden below for police, Sean threw the bedroom window open. As he flung a leg astride the sill, he heard a strange woman's voice cry hysterically, "Madame, you must help! He may come back! I don't know what to do!"

Then Madeleine's voice, sharply pitched. "Control yourself, Antoinette! You're making no sense at all. What are you talking about?"

"The general beat Madame Amauri. The baby's coming now! No one's with her and he may come back!" She choked in mid-sob as Sean slammed into the room, his face terrible. "Monseiur Culhane!"

Sean wheeled on Madeleine. "Leine?" he pleaded hoarsely, desperately. She hesitated, then nodded and he was gone.

The front door of the Amauri mansion was unlocked, and Sean, pistol drawn, eased into the foyer. Flickering candles in wall sconces cast uneasy shadows that made the rooms seem more eerily deserted. Silently, he mounted the stair, wondering which door to try; then a faint cry told him.

Catherine lay on her bed, sweat-damp hair fanned over the pillows, face contorted, her belly a swollen bulge under her hands as she pressed at it, gasping between pains. Suddenly, her teeth clenched and she tried to draw into herself, then went limp, panting. As Sean moved toward her, her far hand came up with a pistol even as her head turned, eyes determined, only to flare wide in horror. "Oh, God . . . why are you still here?" She struggled to push him away as his arms closed around her. "No! Run! Run, or it will all have been for nothing!" Beginning to sob with frustration, she ineffectively pommeled his chest as his arms tightened.

He held her until she quieted, his lips brushing her temples and cheeks. "Hush little one. I'll go, but first I'll take you to a safe place."

"There's nowhere to hide. No time." A spasm stole the words and she turned her face away, gasping, "Too quickly . . . it's coming . . . too quickly."

Swiftly, he wrapped blankets around her and scooped her up in his arms. He had left Madeleine's carriage by the stable at the rear of the house. Depositing Catherine in the carriage depths, he drew the blankets high. As she leaned her head against his shoulder, he whipped up the horses, praying
Fouché
had not yet sent a guard to Madeleine's. He kept to dark, labyrinthine streets, taking them at a perilous pace that caused the wheel hubs to spark against stone as the carriage careened around building corners that jutted like misplaced teeth. Tensely, he counted the minutes between Catherine's pains. She made no sound; only the stiffening of her body indicated the spasms. At this rate, the baby would come within an hour or two. Seeing no suspicious loiterers about Number 15, he drove the carriage into Madeleine's stable, then swept Catherine from the carriage and headed for Madeleine's back door.

Mei
Lih showed no curiosity about the woman whose hair fell as black and long as her own over Culhane's arm as he carried her into the hallway; but upstairs, Madeleine scrutinized the Englishwoman like a hawk.

Catherine, through waves of pain, was only vaguely aware of the starkly beautiful woman who led the way into a storeroom adjoining the upstairs sitting room. A dress mannequin amid a jumble of clutter brushed Sean's elbow as he ducked the low, sloping ceiling. Madeleine twisted the knob of a large
armoire;
it swung back with a creak. Inside was a tiny alcove with a cot prepared with heavy layers of linen. Catherine suddenly cried out and pressed her face against Sean's shoulder.

"Quickly, put her down." Madeleine pushed blankets aside as Sean laid the writhing woman on the bed.
"Mei
Lih, see if the water's boiling."

Catherine gripped Sean's hands as the contraction became more violent. When it passed, she gasped, "Go. For God's sake, go. Raoul's looking for you. He has a gun. Please . . ."

Madeleine touched his arm. "She's right. You can do no more here. Go, drag that great black goat of a horse out of my garden and ride."

"Coming," he replied absently, but did not move, just brushed the damp hair from Catherine's face and gently
blottèd
the seeping blood from the corner of her mouth where Amauri had struck her. Her glistening eyes in the candlelight were dark pools of torment as they locked to his in farewell, her lips compressed as she fought to hold back another scream. He kissed her hand, then pressed a small figure into her palm. "Hold on to this, little one. It's a gift for the child. Kiss him for me."

"Go with God," she whispered. Her azure eyes told him the rest as Madeleine dragged firmly at his shoulder. As he followed the Frenchwoman back to the sitting room, Sean looked back once to see Catherine staring blindly at him, clutching, as if it were a crucifix, the crude little monkey he had carved.

Instead of leaving, Sean caught up a brandy decanter in Madeleine's sitting room and took a long draught to dull the ache in his shoulder.
Mei
Lih, having noted the slight stain of blood on his shirt as he had carried Catherine up the stair, slipped a linen pad under his shirt and secured it under the bandage as he leaned against the sideboard. Madeleine eyed him bleakly. "You're not leaving Paris, are you?"