Stormfire (97 page)

He looked at her while
Mei
Lih worked. "Not until I relieve Kit of a bad bargain."

"You made me a bargain too, remember?" she returned harshly. "You're no good to me dead. You go after Amauri and it's all off."

He smiled faintly. "You know your trouble, Leine? You have no faith in men." Hie eyes went dark as a muted cry came from the other room. "Go to her, Madeleine," he said softly. "I must keep a promise to myself first; then I'll keep the one to you."

Amauri and Fourquet stealthily crept through Madeleine's garden toward the house. The moon cast an uneasy light through breeze-stirred pear leaves, which mottled the stableyard and garden. From the shadows came a potpourri of scents—hawthorn, violas and primroses, parsley and shallots. And an incongruous sound of munching. A massive black shape nuzzled the herbage where the shade of the garden's wall obscured his presence. A prickling across Raoul's neck warned him to turn, pistol drawn, to face a crouching figure, a quicksilver streak of moonlight along the gun barrel near its center. "Stalking alley cats, General?"

Raoul
was momentarily speechless. Finally, he said carefully, "I've come to offer a way to settle our differences."

"Is there more than one way?"

"I see we're in agreement. Will pistols suit you?"

"Anything you like."

"Emile
and I will meet you in Mother's garden directly. You'll agree it might be awkward for Madeleine if one of us was to be shot here." As warily as retreating wolves, they parted.

Raoul
reached the mansion just ahead of Sean. His mother was unsympathetic.
"Bonne
chance,
mon fils.
I hear he's an excellent shot."

"I can handle myself,
madame.
All I ask is for you to be present. Napoleon must be satisfied we took no part in Culhane's intrigue."

Her beringed fingers drummed lightly on her
cigarillo
box. "Very well. Wait in the garden. I'll join you directly."

The grounds behind the Amauri mansion were patched with moonlight under massive chestnuts. Between them and the Faubourg
Sainte Germaine
with its light, late- evening traffic of lantern-dotted carriages, the house windows gleamed silver. "The moonlight seems bright enough to do without lanterns, gentlemen," the
baronne
observed, her white hair sculptured, her dress catching cold light in its folds. "I see no need to draw the servants' attention to this affair." She looked at the tall, dark man who silently waited as Fourquet loaded the pistols. "Have you no second, sir?"

"No,
madame."

"Will I suffice?" She continued implacably as
Raoul
and Fourquet stared. "I am ill-suited to support your defense, but seconds serve essentially as witnesses, do they not?"

"I'd be honored,
Baronne."

"May I ask your grievance against my son, monsieur?"

"There is more than one,
Baronne;
most of them, I believe you know. Most recently, he brutally beat my sister- in-law and tried to abort her child."

The baronne's face went gray. "I see. How is she, monsieur?"

"She is in a safe place,
madame,
but the child is coming even now. It may be stillborn."

Her lips trembled slightly. "I am deeply sorry." Then, refusing to look at her son, she stepped back and ordered coldly, "Proceed, gentlemen."

Fourquet offered the pistols, first to
Raoul,
then Culhane. The Irishman shook his head. "I'll use my own gun."

The doctor started to protest, but Amauri waved him aside. "It doesn't matter. Let's get on with it."

As Fourquet turned away with the pistol case, the
baronne
held out a hand. "You may give me the remaining weapon, doctor. I've been called here to ensure the fairness of this fight, have I not?"

The two men took their places, back to back, guns lifted, then paced in opposite directions as Fourquet counted. At twelve, he ordered them to turn, then take aim. At the order "Fire," Amauri squeezed his trigger a shade faster than Culhane, but instead of standing his ground, the Irishman twitched aside and shot his opponent between his incredulous, horrified eyes. Even as Fourquet leveled his gun with a cry of, "You filthy swine!" Culhane whipped the knife from his sleeve and sent it into the man's throat. He straightened and turned, unsurprised to find the white-faced
baronne
aiming the gun he had rejected at his heart.

"You're no gentleman, Monsieur Culhane!"

"No,
madame,
but neither was your son. You can fire, but I'll wager you'll not hit me, whatever your skill."

"Are you saying this weapon has been tampered with?"

"My guess is that
Raoul
was no more willing chance losing than I was."

"You wager your life on that guess, monsieur." She fired and the gun jerked slightly to the side, its charge missing him by a good yard.

"Fourquet pared the ball," he said quietly.

She tossed the gun in its case and drew a small pistol out of the shawl looped over her arm. "It appears I should have been forced to kill
Raoul
if you had not." Her chin lifted and he glimpsed a glisten of tears on her face. "Thank you for relieving me of that obligation."

"You enjoy the honor your son and I lack,
madame.
I'm sorry that virtue has been so ill-rewarded."

"Honor often covers weakness . . ." She turned to look at her son. "And there lies mine."

Madeleine brushed a straggling lock of hair out of her face with a perspiring forearm and muttered, "Christ, this is hard work. Push, girl, push!"

Her teeth sunk into the monkey doll, Catherine strained against
Mei
Lih's hands.
Fouché's
guard had arrived. Bored with wandering the street, he smoked a cigar in the garden.

Suddenly,
Mei
Lih said urgently, "Here it comes! There's the head!"

Catherine dazedly saw the women bending over her somewhere beyond the barriers of pain, but she had known worse pain after her accident in Ireland, and fiercely, she bore down, knowing she was stronger than this pain.
Thè
powerful final seizures gripped her and she felt the last gush of agony as her body expelled its burden.

Madeleine held it up, her hands bloody, her black silk rolled up past her elbows. The baby was silent, a tiny pink form glistening with blood and protective coating from the womb. Too exhausted to lift her head, Catherine stared at it in growing panic.
Mei
Lih, who had assisted many a birth in the pavilion in Saigon, abruptly smacked the child on the buttocks. A gurgling cough, then an angry bellow of surprising volume answered the indignity and Catherine's eyes lit. Madeleine handed the roaring baby to
Mei
Lih to bathe. "He's a Culhane, that one!"

A month passed before Sean knew he had a son. Under an assumed name, he had written Madeleine from Belgium, then a carefully worded note to Catherine via his agent in Hamburg. Catherine's reply sent his heart soaring. He spent the day on a rented yawl off the coast near Brussels, getting roaring drunk with the captain and singing about sea sirens with wild, black hair.

Shortly, Catherine and her hostesses felt a comradeship against the world. She knew the part they had played in Sean's life, but uneasiness and jealousy had been subdued.
Mei
Lih informed her privately that to disabuse Madeleine of the impression Sean was her brother would be unwise. On the other hand, knowing Catherine might show telltale aversion to the Frenchwoman,
Mei
Lih told her nothing about Madeleine's association with Amauri and her marriage bargain with Culhane.

Madeleine found Sean's attraction to his sister only another of his unpredictable aspects. She was certain he would not go so far as incest—until three months later when she caught the first hints of emerald in the baby's eyes. Knowing Sean's brother to be a blue-eyed blonde, she felt fury begin to rise. She had sheltered the bastard's incestuous whore! Even encouraged her to stay because
Fouché's
intensifying investigations made it dangerous to leave, even though the police had come to the house twice and taken
Mei
Lih once for questioning. Madeleine had corroborated
Mei
Lih's
story
that they had both been working with Amauri and that
Mei
Lih would have been returned to Antime's if she had betrayed her employer. Mention of Antime's had turned the tide; the women had not been bothered since.

Damn the bastard! She cried hoarsely, sloppily. Disgusted rage was still in her eyes when the other women, hearing her weeping, came into the room. "That's his bastard," she grated, almost choking, then more stridently, "That's your brother's brat, you lying bitch!"