Hearing approaching footsteps, Edward hid behind a pair of russet drapes and watched with satisfaction as Robert returned and seated himself before the fire. His back was to Edward, and taking advantage of that fact, Edward crept across the room, until with the blade pointed at Robert’s neck, he said softly, “Don’t move! If you do, I’ll kill you!”
Robert stiffened, but remained still. “Is that you, Markham?” he asked, having recognized the voice.
Edward chuckled with malicious satisfaction. “Is that you, Markham?” he mimicked. Keeping the blade on Robert, he walked around in front of him. “Of course, it is! Who else did you think it was? Did you really believe that I would let Nicole escape me so easily?” Drunk with success, the blue eyes feverish, he taunted, “Not so eager to meet me now, are you? I heard what you said to Nicole out there on the Brighton Road—said I needed to meet a man. Well, I’ve met a man and what does he do, but sit there.”
Coolly Robert eyed him, taking in the bloodstained coat and the slight sway that told of a loss of blood. Politely he asked, “May I stand? If we are going to talk for any great length I would prefer to be nearer the fire.”
Suspiciously Edward stared at him. Deciding it seemed a harmless request and feeling magnanimous in his power, he graciously assented, watching with an owl-like gaze as Robert, a glass of wine in one hand, stood up and walked to the fireplace.
Civilly Robert asked, “Now tell me, Markham, precisely what it is that you want?”
Edward giggled, the blood he had lost making him light-headed. “I’ll tell you what I want,” he said thickly, waving the sword cane about erratically. “I want Nicole. You send for her!”
Robert took a sip from his wineglass and when Edward took a menacing step forward, flung the glass and its contents into his face. As Edward bawled with fury, Robert leaped for one of the swords crossed above the mantel, wrenching it free. Sword in hand Robert stalked Edward around the room, the sea-colored eyes queerly bright.
The situation had reversed itself so swiftly that Edward was reeling with shock as he stumbled away from Robert’s steady advance. Haphazardly he parried Robert’s attack; his short sword cane was useless against the long, deadly blade the other man wielded so effortlessly. It was like killing a rabbit in a trap, and Robert smiled to himself as he drove the sword into Edward’s unprotected throat.
There was an odd little gurgle from Edward, before he slid to the floor. Absently, Robert wiped his sword clean and looked broodingly down at the corpse. Now what the devil was he to do with a body? The sound of the sea caught his attention and he smiled again. Of course, the sea.
But as he reached down and began to pull Edward’s body toward the open glass doors, he heard an approaching horse. Tensely he waited for the animal to pass, but it did not.
Christopher had not meant to stop at Robert’s house again that evening, but he could not put aside the thought of Nicole. Where in God’s name had she gone, and why? Simon was right, though, he reminded himself grimly—where Nicole had gone made little difference to his plans—she would return home eventually whether he was there or not. That thought should have dispelled her from his mind, but it didn’t, and so when his horse approached Robert’s house, Christopher couldn’t withstand the impulse to satisfy his curiosity.
Dismounting and tying his horse to the post, he glanced over at the large coach horse standing near the corner of the house and wondered what the animal was doing here. The front of a gentleman’s residence was an odd place for it to be.
Everything was odd, he thought impatiently—Nicole’s going off like that, Robert’s walking out in the middle of an important discussion with Simon, and now a horse with no saddle, parts of its harness still strapped to the body, was cropping the sparse grass that grew near the house. His interest aroused, he walked over to the animal and ran his hands knowledgeably over the broad back, feeling the slight lingering dampness. Been ridden quite a distance, he concluded. He gave the animal one last pat and started to walk up to the front door, when he noticed the light spilling out from the side of the house.
It was obvious from the amount of light being shed that a door was open, and after a brief hesitation Christopher went down the same path Edward had followed, and halted just outside the pool of light, staring into the drawing room.
Strangely enough, when Christopher looked into the room, the first thing he saw was neither Robert, nor Edward’s sprawled body, but Nicole’s pelisse, lying carelessly on one of the chairs near the doors. He recognized it instantly, having selected it and paid for it in New Orleans. Little bitch, he thought savagely. He took an angry step forward and in that second realized that the room was not empty.
Robert was there and Edward Markham too. A very dead Edward Markham, he discovered, as Robert bent down once again and began to drag the body toward the open doors.
Christopher almost turned his back on the entire scene, revolted by the ugly conclusion that flamed across his brain. Nicole was obviously with her lover, and it appeared her lover had killed the rival for her affections. It was so tawdry and sordid it sickened him, and was just the sort of thing that Nicole’s mother, Annabelle, would have reveled in. Nicole, it seemed, was not much better. He took a step away but, remembering Simon’s worried face, decided to intervene not for Nicole’s sake, but for his grandfather’s—or so he told himself. What Robert did with Markham’s body he didn’t care to waste much thought on, but the apparent relationship between Nicole and Robert ate at him like acid, and fondly he imagined Nicole’s slender throat in his hands.
Christopher must have made some sound, or Robert, his nerves already agitated by the cold-blooded killing of Edward, sensed him standing there just outside the drawing room and glanced up. For a long timeless moment their eyes met and held. Then with a half-pleased, half-mad smile on his face, Robert dropped Edward’s arm and stood up.
“So,” he said, “it appears we will meet at last.” There was no need for explanations between them; each was aware that this night would see the final deadly battle between them. All the old wrongs, the ugly hatred between them would be settled…in blood.
Christopher nodded at Robert’s words and with a long, easy stride walked into the room. He didn’t look at Robert as he shrugged out of his greatcoat; instead, his gaze traveled almost idly around the room. Rolling up the sleeves of his white linen shirt, he asked briefly, “What will it be, swords or pistols? Here or on the beach?”
Equally businesslike, Robert replied, “Swords. Yours is there above the mantel. I already have mine. As you may not have noticed, it has served me well once already this evening.”
Christopher’s lips moved in something that might have been called a smile. “I had noticed. But where do we finish this farce? Here?”
“Why not? The furniture can be pushed aside.” Both men set to work with deadly amiability, shoving the heavy furniture against the walls of the room until a large empty space was cleared. Still without speaking, both men sat down and removed their boots and stockings, each wishing for the extra balance and mobility afforded by bare feet.
His boots off, Christopher strode over to the mantel and plucked down the remaining sword, running it lightly through his hand, checking the perfection of the blade, the weight in his hand. Turning to Robert, now also with a sword in his hand, he said in a level tone, “Your choice in weapons is to be applauded. This is an uncommonly fine blade.”
Robert bowed mockingly and answered with a sneer.
“Did you ever know me when I did not have the finest? Be it swords or women?”
A cold light entered Christopher’s eyes, making them glitter in the firelight. “But do you have her, Uncle?” he murmured. “Or rather I should say…can you keep her?”
Robert’s hand tightened around his sword, his mouth thinning with fury. “By God, you’ll pay for that!” he spat. “En garde!”
Christopher met Robert’s attack eagerly, their blades singing in the air. Instantly disengaging his sword
and leaping nimbly away from Robert’s maddened thrust, Christopher taunted, “Come now, Uncle, you’ll have to do better than that! After all, this time we are evenly matched. Or is it that you only show to advantage when your opponent is relatively unarmed?”
Robert’s teeth ground together in rage, but he held onto his temper, guessing that Christopher was consciously infuriating him. Smiling grotesquely Robert hissed, “Brave words for a man who runs before my sword. Come closer, Nephew, and we shall see the truth of your taunts.”
Christopher made no reply; his expression was deceptively lazy as he parried Robert’s furious lunge and danced away from the older man.
“Damn you! Come to me and fight!” Robert snapped, breathing heavily.
“I will, Uncle, I will, have no fear of that,” Christopher replied coldly, and reversing his defensive actions, he charged Robert, his blade flashing in lightning strokes, driving the other man before him.
They fought grimly and silently, except for the soft thud of their bare feet on the carpet and the occasional clash of their swords, the firelight gleaming on the flashing blades. There was a deadly atmosphere in the room that increased by the second, as time after time, Robert was just able to turn aside the swift and wicked thrust of Christopher’s blade. But Robert was tiring, and he knew it—knew too that there was no escape from this attack, that this was no fencing master’s display, no polite duel with its punctilious niceties.
For each of them nothing existed except the other, and the hatred they shared; nothing was real except the other man’s sword, always feinting, thrusting, and parrying, each always avoiding the lessening of the guard that would allow this inevitable meeting to end. They were two tall men, two handsome men, evenly matched in many ways, and the rage both had contained for too long was now in full blaze, racing uncontrollably through their veins.
Their breathing was quick and hard as the fight continued. Robert barely parried a lunging thrust aimed at his heart. He moved too slowly, and Christopher’s blade clashed against his, before sliding over his guard and slashing along his arm, leaving a long bloody slit.
With a tigerish smile on his lips, Christopher muttered softly, “I owed you that, Uncle.”
And because this was no simple duel to be decided by a single hit, to be ended by first blood, neither checked, but each relentlessly wielded his sword against the other. Hard pressed, Robert feinted in high carte and thrust in low tierce, but his blade met only the opposition of Christopher’s.
Breathlessly, but very clearly, Christopher asked, “Where is she?”
It was Robert’s turn to smile. “Upstairs in my bed…where else?”
He regretted the words, for Christopher’s blade easily stung him on the cheek. “And how does she arrive there? What was Edward doing here?”
Robert had no strength remaining to waste on attack; he could only parry the increasingly dangerous thrusts of Christopher’s sword, his arm aching from shoulder to wrist, the sweat rolling off his face.
“Answer me! How does Nicole find herself here and with Markham?”
In a gulping, panting gasp, Robert spat, “Markham abducted her and I got the story from her maid. I overtook them and brought Nicole here.”
Christopher could figure out most of the gaps in Robert’s story, but not all. His eyes narrowed in grim concentration; his point flashed under Robert’s guard, checked, and withdrew. “And your bed?”
Tauntingly Robert panted, “Have you ever known me…to boast…of my…conquests?”
It was the last thing Robert Saxon ever said. He had no breath left with which to speak; all his energies were concentrated on avoiding that final deadly thrust he knew would finish this struggle.
Robert saw it coming—a straight lunge aimed for his heart; he made a desperate attempt to parry it but was too late to deflect the fatal thrust. Christopher’s point sunk deep and deadly into Robert’s heart, ending forever the duel between them.
Unemotionally Christopher viewed Robert’s body, surprised to discover that he felt nothing. Robert had been someone he had hated for almost his entire life; to win against him should have given a sense of victory, but he was empty, numb, indifferent to the body lying there on the floor.
He must have stood there for several moments, and what eventually roused him from his queer state he never quite knew. Perhaps it was the crack of a burning log on the hearth or the crash of a breaker on the beach. At any rate he gave himself a mental shake, realizing at last that the monstrous hatred between him and Robert was over—but at a horrible and bitter price.
The chiming of the clock on the mantel roused him still further, made him more aware of the passing time, of the ship that was waiting for him beyond those same breakers pounding on the sand just below Robert’s house. Grimly he surveyed the scene, Robert dead at his feet; Edward’s body stretched out on the floor not four feet away. It was the proximity of the bodies that first gave him the idea—that and a deep-rooted desire to save his grandfather more grief. Robert’s death would be a blow enough without the added knowledge that his grandson had killed his son. His mind made up in a flash, he walked over to Edward’s body and substituted his own sword for the sword cane, unconsciously thrusting the sword cane into his waistband.
It took him but a moment longer to unroll his sleeves, put on his boots, and slip into his greatcoat. He glanced once more around the room, increasingly conscious that he must leave—the tide was on the turn and time was passing swiftly. But the thought of Nicole sleeping soundly in Robert’s bed upstairs would not leave him, and he knew before he could depart, he had to see her, to see for himself that she was indeed the lying jade he had damned her for being.
A timid knock interrupted his thoughts, and swiftly he crossed the room to press himself flat against the wall near the door. The knock came again and after a brief hesitation the door opened slowly.
Cautiously Galena entered the room, her soft brown eyes wide with apprehension. What she was doing was unheard of, but nearly sick with worry about her rash young mistress, she had whipped up her courage and was intending to confess to Master Robert what Miss Nicole had done. She had wrestled unhappily with her conscience, but her concern for her mistress had won. Perhaps Miss Nicole had misunderstood the situation. Surely Master Robert was not in the same mold as that wicked Mister Markham. Besides, she excused herself, if she didn’t do something, Miss Nicole was likely to freeze out there on the beach with no cloak, no pelisse.
Galena had taken not more than two steps into the room, when Christopher, moving with that panther-like grace of his, shut the door with his shoulder and swiftly clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Hush!” he ordered softly in her ear. Shooting a sharp glance over to where the bodies lay, he noted with satisfaction that from this angle, they were hidden by one of the couches. He hustled a petrified Galena over to Robert’s desk and, still holding a hand against her mouth, spun her to face him.
Placing a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, he slowly removed his hand.
“Master Christopher!” she breathed with a sigh of relief. “I knew you would come!” Recalling her reason for being there, she cried, “Oh, Master Christopher, you must save her! She has run away down the beach. You must find her and bring her back!”
Christopher thought quickly, assuming Nicole had somehow learned of his presence and was even now racing away to escape the retribution he would undoubtedly deliver. Spying a piece of paper and a pen on Robert’s desk, he scrawled a note to his grandfather.
Grandfather,
I write to you in haste—leaving for France immediately as planned. I have Nicole safe—but at a terrible price!
Christopher
Snatching up Nicole’s pelisse, he dragged Galena from the room, making certain she had no view of the bodies and hurried her along the path he had followed such a short time ago. Reaching his horse, he pushed Galena into Nicole’s pelisse, pressed the note into her hand, and tossed her up onto his mount.
“I hope you can ride, Galena,” he said with a grin. “You’re going to go to Lord Saxon’s and give him this note. Don’t worry about your mistress—I’ll take care of her.” He hesitated, then he said slowly, “Galena, tell no one but my grandfather that you saw me here tonight. If anyone asks, you slipped away all by yourself. Understand?”
Like one in a trance Galena nodded. Christopher slapped the flank of the horse, and she clutched the reins as the animal sprang forward. He watched until she was well on her way and before turning and leaping down toward the beach, his one thought to find Nicole and when he did…
Miss Nicole Ashford was in an unhappy predicament. She had grown careless in her confidence and to her disgust had managed to stumble over a half-buried rock in the sand and twist her ankle badly. The pain was excruciating, but that was nothing to the burning humiliation she felt at being stopped by such a silly and feminine accident. Fuming, she sat in the sand, having nearly given up her futile attempts to climb to the small cottage just a short way above her. Her ankle would not hold her weight, and there was little she could do except smolder at such an unkind fate. She was determined to continue and seriously considered traveling on her hands and knees when she noticed a flash of blue coming from the ship she had seen earlier. Mystified, she glanced back up at the cliff; in the moonght she could make out the shape of a man.
For one wild second she thought she recognized the shape but dismissed it as fancy. Higgins wouldn’t be out here at this time of night exchanging signals with a strange ship. Or would he?
Suddenly she jerked upright, remembering Christopher’s mention of a cottage near the sea—that and the fact that he was leaving. Intently, she stared out to sea, not at all surprised when a few minutes later a small boat was lowered into the water and the men aboard her began to row toward the beach.
Lady Vixen (The Reckless Brides, Book 3) Page 20
