Outraged, Isabelle started toward the fighters, but the armed man from the front door had followed them and commanded, “No! Do not go in.”
Lily clutched Isabelle’s arm, though whether to prevent Isabelle from moving or to try and hold herself back, wasn’t clear.
“You’re French,” Isabelle said blankly to the gunman, thinking aloud without even looking at him. Instead, her attention was fixed on the duelists in the taproom.
In the early days of her marriage, Isabelle had watched a fencing demonstration, a fascinating dance of agility and speed performed with courtesy and panache—and buttoned foils so that no one got hurt. This fight was nothing like that. For one thing, they did not use rapiers but swords that seemed, like their owners, to have fought in many a battle before this. It was rough and brutal, and Steele’s face both grim and desperate.
Black, on the other hand, seemed actually to be smiling. She even heard him laugh, breathless but definite. His wild eyes shone with fierce enjoyment. His every move seemed imbued with something very like relief.
And then, as he spun around, he caught sight of Isabelle in the doorway. For the tiniest instant, his gaze held hers, and that moment of inattention was enough for Steele to break through his guard. Black managed a last moment partial deflection, but Steele’s sword still slashed through his sleeve.
In suddenly refocused fury, Black drove his opponent back and back, giving him no opening, no defense but retreat until he stumbled over the fallen table. With a sudden twist of the wrist, Black’s sword wrenched Steele’s free, sent it flying and tumbling to the floor. His weapon followed through inexorably, sliding into his foe’s shoulder.
Steele cried out, his knees buckling. Oddly, it was Black who caught him in his free arm and dragged him across to the nearest intact bench where he let him slump.
Black whirled around. His sword swept through the air, along the huddle of appalled people at the back of the room, until it pointed straight at Mrs. Villin.
“You. Look after him, if you please.”
Mrs. Villin, after a quick glance at her husband, edged past Black toward the wounded officer. Distractedly, Black wiped his sword against his coat and slid it back into the scabbard that had clearly been hidden beneath, even when he’d thrown himself through the coffee room window. When he dragged his sleeve across his sweaty brow, he left blood behind, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Only then did he really regard the alarmed but outraged Englishmen huddled together, glaring at him in indignation for daring to defeat their champion. He laughed.
“I should have fought you!” Sir Maurice Ashton said with a mixture of grandeur and bitterness.
“One day, maybe.” Black didn’t appear to be listening. Instead, his frowning gaze was on Isabelle and Lily who had crept into the room unnoticed.
Isabelle decided to take charge.
Shaking Lily off, she swept into the middle of the room, drawing all eyes. “What in God’s name is going on here? None of you should be armed in this place!” She halted in front of Black, glaring at him and holding out her hands. “Give me your weapons. Now.”
Vaguely, she was aware of the reactions around her. At least one of Black’s allies grinned. Sir Maurice’s mouth fell open. Several eyed her with alarm. But she let neither her gaze nor her arms waver.
Black seemed almost stunned. Then an appreciative gleam lightened his eyes. It might even have been admiration.
“I am almost tempted to obey, madame. Be so good as to sit.” He took one of her outstretched hands and tugged her unexpectedly toward a chair which she almost fell into.
He turned to the door where one of his armed allies had reappeared. “Anyone else?”
The man shook his head and only when he replied in French, did she realize Black had addressed him in the same language. “No. I locked the back door from the kitchen.”
“Hmm.” Black frowned, then sighed. “Very well. Boucher, you and Caron, fetch everyone out of the bedchambers and bring them to the coffee room across the hall. In fact, let us all repair to the coffee room, so we need not guard both places.” He regarded Isabelle with a quirk of his expressive lips. “I’m afraid your solitude is over, madame.”
*
Noir had a problem. Several problems. A wounded naval officer who might die and a collection of resentful captives whom he couldn’t release in case word of his presence got out with them. And no escaped prisoners to take back to France. And the boat would not wait for him forever.
Having poked around the other ground floor rooms, he found an empty parlor—hired by Ashton who had, presumably hoped for a cozier evening with his lover. While his men extracted the guests from their bedchambers, he took another walk around the grounds of the inn, hoping for any sign of the men he had come for. He walked as far as the road, even knelt down with his ear literally on the ground in the hope of hearing horses’ hooves, but there was nothing.
Wiping off his ear and his clothes, he strode back to the inn. The slash in his arm was hurting, and he knew he should deal with it. However, a new thought struck him. The innkeeper had been angry about the fight, but he hadn’t been surprised. And if Noir and his companions had been recognized as French, wasn’t it perfectly possible that the escaped prisoners-of-war had also been recognized? The innkeeper could be holding them, hiding them until the authorities came.
Which would be another huge problem.
He marched back into the inn by the back door and locked it with one of the keys extracted from the innkeeper and his wife, then continued through the kitchen and the hall into the coffee room—where he found another problem.
“A child!” he groaned, staring at the boy of about three years old asleep on his mother’s lap. “Why would anyone bring a child to this benighted place?”
“Presumably his parents had not heard it would be overrun by French cutthroats,” his beautiful émigrée said with sarcasm.
Noir scowled, which seemed to terrify the child’s mother and seriously alarm the spectacled man beside them, who might have been a schoolteacher or a clergyman. So, he hastily transferred his attention to the émigrée.
It annoyed him further to see she sat beside her lover, the pair of them looking as elegant and sophisticated as though attending a royal ball instead of being herded at gunpoint in the coffee room of an isolated inn with the common unwashed. On her other side sat the pale figure of Lieutenant Steele, glaring at him with acute dislike.
“Not dead yet, my friend?” Noir said cheerfully. “Excellent.”
Steele blinked.
“Since none of us are dead yet,” the lady said, “let us keep it that way while we can. Lieutenant Steele needs a physician. Your friends are not here, so you should go before our soldiers arrive.”
“Our soldiers,” he mocked.
To his surprise, she flushed slightly, though her chin tilted. “I have lived here since I was three years old, monsieur. It is the only home I know. Lieutenant Steele here would like you to stay and be killed or taken. I, being less patient, would advise you to flee before what you fear actually happens.”
“And what is it I fear?” he asked with interest.
“Discovery,” she shot back. “Why else fight with swords rather than simply shoot your enemy? Why lock the doors and windows and keep us here except to prevent the news of your presence spreading? You’re afraid this is a trap, aren’t you? You’re probably right.” She gave him a wintry smile. “I don’t believe spies are treated with the same courtesy as military officers.”
He curled his lip at her, but he couldn’t deny to himself that her words hurt.
“He’s no spy,” Steele said unexpectedly. “He’s a soldier, and he fights like one. His men call him captain. Captain le Noir, I believe.”
Noir regarded him thoughtfully. “And the lady?”
“I have not been introduced to the lady.”
Again, the lady’s chin came up. Her gaze met his with unnecessary defiance. “Isabelle de Renarde.
”
Renarde. The name with which Steele and Ashton had caught him out. She was the traitor’s widow.
No wonder she was vulnerable and lonely enough to consider Maurice Ashton.
He spun away from them, irritated for once by the distraction. He needed to concentrate on the task. Pacing across the room, he drew all eyes. Everyone regarded him in dubious silence.
He halted abruptly. “We came to meet some friends of ours. I would like to know if they have called in here.” His roving gaze fell on Villin, the innkeeper, and his lips quirked. “French émigrés, like ourselves.”
“Madame de Renarde is the only émigré I’ve seen here in weeks,” Villin said.
“Let us just say foreigners, then.”
“Only yourselves.”
The Frenchman transferred his thoughtful gaze to Mrs. Villin and Lily. “Perhaps you see more? Or differently?”
“No,” said Mrs. Villin uncompromisingly.
“Yet none of you seemed very shocked when the lieutenant challenged me. You were not, I think, surprised by our presence.”
“We’re not surprised by much,” Villin growled.
“No, I can see that. But I smell a trap, Monsieur—Villin, is it?”
“Villin it is, and if you feel trapped, please make use of the front door!”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure. But I need my friends.”
“They’re not here.”
He frowned at the Villins for a few more moments. “I don’t believe you,” he said at last. “And yet there are no soldiers battering at your door to take us captive. I think we came too early for you. I think you have my friends hidden, and the soldiers have not yet got here.”
“If that’s what you believe, you should run while you can,” Villin retorted.
Noir swept up the vacant chair from Madame de Renarde’s table and sat facing the innkeeper. “Where do you keep your smuggled brandy?”
Villin blinked. “Nothing smuggled here,” he said self-righteously. “Everything pays proper duty.”
“Liar. But you must have a secret room, a cellar, perhaps, to hide it from excisemen.”
“Never had trouble with such,” Villin maintained.
“Why? Do you bribe them?” Noir asked wryly, though he did not expect an answer and got none. “Look, I know you have a hidden store. I don’t actually know if the foreign gentlemen made it here, but I think they did. Since there are no soldiers waiting for us, I can only assume they are still here. You see my reasoning?”
Villin scratched his head. “I see it. But I don’t understand it.”
“It’s flawed,” Madame de Renarde pointed out.
Noir transferred his gaze to her. If she feared him, there was no sign of it in her brilliant, haunted eyes. More likely, she despised him.
She said, “You have no evidence your friends were here. You only think they should be because, presumably, of some communication that must be days old. Lots of things could have happened in that time. You only want Villin to have hidden them because that would make your life simpler.”
“Izzy, Izzy,” Sir Maurice murmured beside her. “Don’t antagonize the…gentleman.”
“I’m not a gentleman,” Noir snapped, stupidly annoyed by the Englishman’s familiarity with her. “Therefore, I have no hesitation in asking this lady if she suspects where I should look for my friends.”
“How could I possibly know that?” she countered. She considered. “Which direction were they coming from?”
“I don’t believe I need a road guide. Mr. Villin.” He swung suddenly back to the innkeeper. “Here is what will happen. Either you show me your secret room, whether or not it contains my friends, or my men and I shall look for it ourselves. We will not be as gentle as you.”
Villin stared back at him. Mrs. Villin and Lily exchanged glances, then lowered their eyes. No one spoke.
The Frenchman shrugged. “Very well. Boucher. You and Lefevre go down the cellar stairs from the kitchen and start looking. Investigate the walls and the floor, if necessary. You needn’t be too careful of the bottles and barrels that get in your way. Speed is of the essence. I’ll join you shortly.”
He stood and walked out of the room. Purposefully, he crossed the hall and entered the empty taproom. There, he peeled off his coat and examined his wound with some annoyance. It really needed a stitch or two, or at least a good clean to get the fluff from his shirt out of it. However, he had no time for that. It no longer bled much, so he simply tore both the sleeves off his shirt. The right sleeve took a heroic effort and a lot of grimacing, since it made the wound hurt like the devil. However, he made a pad out of the bloody one and tied it on with the clean one. He was just pulling the knot tight with his teeth when Isabelle de Renarde walked in.
He scowled at her. “How did you get in here?”
“I walked. Since you locked all the doors and windows and we can’t get out, there is really no point in forcing us all to stay in one place. Don’t worry—your man threatened me most ferociously.”
“Not ferociously enough, apparently.”
“Well, I told him I was going to attend to your wound.”
“Why?” he asked in surprise. “You have something to tell me?”
She stared. “No. I just told you. I’ve come to attend to your wound.”
“A mere scratch,” he said suspiciously. “And already tended. Though I thank you for your…surprising care.”
“So you should,” she agreed, walking behind the counter and returning with a jug of water and the medicine box Mrs. Villin had already used on Lieutenant Steele. “Sit,” she commanded.
When he stayed where he was, she merely walked up to him and began untying the rough bandage he had just applied. Her shining, gold hair smelled of summer flowers. The touch of her fingers was light and deft, and so he merely watched her, letting her work. She could, he supposed, overcome him by tearing savagely at his wound. Or stabbing him with those vicious little scissors in the medicine box. Curiously, he waited to see if she would.
She only drew in her breath at the sight of the gory injury. Surrounded by dried blood which had trickled down his arm, it looked worse than it was. He hoped.
“Hold out your arm,” she instructed.
Still curious, he obeyed, watching with faint amusement as she poured water from the jug over the wound, sluicing out all the linen threads and fluff. With a soft cloth from the box, she dried up around the gaping edges. He couldn’t deny that it looked better, so he said nothing.
She was rummaging in the box.
“What now?” he asked. “Are you not going to bind up my wounds once more?”
“Not until I have applied something to prevent infection.”
“Use the brandy,” he advised. “It’s quickest. And most effective.”
“It will hurt.”
“I’m aware.”
“Is that why you didn’t use it yourself?”
“No, I couldn’t be bothered with the fuss.” He walked over to the counter, found the brandy bottle, and brought it back. He could have poured the brandy over the hurt himself. But he chose to hand her the bottle and watch her face as, after a quick, apologetic glance at him, she splashed brandy over the wound.
His flesh cringed with the pain. His breath hissed. But he fixed his gaze on her face and didn’t move. He could feel the warmth of her so close to him, the gentle touch of her fingers as she wrapped an entirely different bandage around his arm.
“I ruined my best shirt for nothing,” he observed.
“Sew the sleeves back on,” she challenged.
“Don’t think I won’t. Aren’t you afraid they’ll think you a traitor?”
“They already think I’m a traitor,” she said sardonically. “Tarred, as it were, by my late husband’s brush.”
“Then why do you risk helping me? Why are you here?”
She let her hands fall from his arm, and he missed them. But she didn’t yet stand back, simply raised her gaze to hi
s face. “To ask you again to go. I don’t believe your friends are here. The Villins are used to strange goings-on in their house. That is why you don’t see the depth of surprise you think you should.”
“Perhaps.”
She frowned. “You are stubborn. And wrong.”
“Who knows? I may be stubborn and right. Thank you for your ministrations. You will now return to the coffee room, and I shall join the search in the cellar. Unless you wish to join me there?”
“No, I would rather wait up here while you bury yourself in falling masonry, and when the British soldiers come, I shall show them your bodies.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he said flippantly.
For a moment, neither of them moved, as though that might be construed as a sign of giving in. In reality, Noir enjoyed standing so close to her. She was tall for a woman, and he wouldn’t have to lower his head very far to—
He blinked and stepped aside, inviting her to go before him. She went, unhurriedly and with her head held high.
Chapter Four
For some reason, the encounter with Captain le Noir left Isabelle shaken. Concentrating on tending his wound had been hard enough, feeling his intense gaze on her face the whole time she worked. But when she’d finally raised her gaze to his… He did not have easy eyes to withstand. Hard, yet intense. Giving nothing away. Which didn’t mean there was nothing there. He looked too much at her, saw too much.
But it was more than his eyes, more even than the handsome face they were set in. Standing close to him…disturbed her. He was the enemy, a dangerous, unpredictable enemy.
When she returned to the coffee room, he left her at the door—after glaring at the guard who had failed to prevent her leaving. The soldier—she presumed they were all soldiers—merely shrugged apologetically without noticeable alarm. They all knew that Isabelle walking from one room to another made no difference to anything. The doors were locked, and she could not have got out without a couple of strong men and a battering ram.
The Broken Heart Page 3
