Hope felt the damp break out beneath his arms and along the edge of his scalp; if he didn’t feel ill before, he definitely did now. Though he knew the answer, he asked the question anyway.
“Why?”
Marie smiled. She let down her sleeve, resting her hands on the arms of his chair.
“And you.” She bent over him and brushed her lips to his ear. “Do not play stupid. These things I do not want to say. Don’t make me say them, Thomas.”
He winced. It was all wrong, that name on her tongue. Thomas belonged to Miss Sophia Blaise.
Thomas was dead.
He looked La Reinette in the eye. “Answer the question, Marie.”
The movement behind the madam stilled; she turned and murmured something soothing in French. After a beat, Cassin resumed his sinister doings, and Marie turned back to Hope.
He sensed her hesitate when she met his eyes; for a moment her own went blank, as if she were lost, under a spell.
“My God,” he breathed. “You can’t still—no. Not after all these years. Surely there have been others.”
Marie blinked; her eyes went hard again. She rocked back on her heels, gaze trained on Hope’s feet. “You. You I loved from that first time we met. There has only been you.”
Understanding rolled hard and heavy through him. “Marie. I made clear to you my feelings—”
“Your feelings.” She scoffed, meeting his eyes. “That is it, you see. You never had them for me. Not the feelings I had for you.”
Hope swallowed. The bindings at his wrists and ankles felt unbearably tight. “I’m sorry, Marie. I am. We had a jolly bit of fun, you and I, I thought we were partners, friends, even. I gave you everything I could—”
Her eyes flashed with anger now; for the first time ever he saw color rise to her cheeks. “What about that time, in the, how do you say? Vignoble.”
“Oh, God, Marie, that was one time. We were drunk. I was drunk. I should have never—”
“Yes. You should have never. I will make you regret it, Thomas. Tonight. You will regret what you did to me.”
Hope let his head fall back, closing his eyes. “It was a mistake. I apologized for it. I regret what I did, I do. Christ, Marie. Out of all the men who have loved you all these years. Kings and princes and tsars—you could’ve had any man you wanted, and still you wanted me?”
Again that wry twist of her mouth. “Ah, yes. I am always wanting what I cannot own. And you know the tsar, he was, how do you say it?” She made a pinching gesture with her first finger and thumb.
“Tiny.”
“Ah, yes, tiny.”
Hope swallowed for what felt like the hundredth time. He straightened, opening his eyes. “We could’ve never been together, you and I. We were partners. An entanglement . . . it would’ve gotten in the way. I had a job to do, Marie. You knew I was running for my life. Mr. Lake saved me, but only on the condition that I help him—”
“Mr. Lake. Do not use him as the excuse, Thomas. No. You used me, my brain, my body, as if I was nothing to you, the dirt under your boots. My heart, you broke it. And so I decide to make the score even, make you bleed the way I bleed.”
Hope glanced over her shoulder. “So you went to Cassin. Allied with my enemy, plotted my demise in the most epic and medieval fashion you could think of, cursed my black soul. All the usual tomfoolery, yes? Except you didn’t kill me. You could have, right then and there in that room in Paris, and been done with the whole business. Why wait until now?”
La Reinette’s smile deepened. Turning to the shelf, she asked, “Wine?”
“Thank you, Madame.” Hope rolled his eyes. “But my hands are, at the moment, otherwise occupied.”
Madame shrugged, pouring red wine into a fine Murano glass tumbler. She brought it to her lips, her dark eyes dancing with glee. Damn her, she was enjoying this a tad too much.
“I wait all this time,” she said, “because I believe in taking, what is the expression? Two eyeballs?”
Because it appeared he would not have them to roll much longer, Hope rolled his eyes again. “Eye for an eye.”
“Ah, yes, eye for an eye! I have been waiting all this time for you to fall in love, to love someone as deep as I loved you these years. I bide my time so that I might take from you what you take from me.”
Hope started, his vision blurring as rage engulfed his carefully practiced nonchalance. He gave his bindings a vicious tug, hardly feeling the rope as it scalded his ankles and wrists.
“Leave Sophia out of this,” he growled. “She did nothing to deserve your wrath. She is innocent. Punish me if you must, but leave Sophia alone.”
The viciousness of his defense of her, the wild pulse of his blood, the violent urge to do violent things to keep her safe—it shocked him. He loved Sophia, had loved her since he pressed her body against his in that dreadful closet; but now he suddenly, devastatingly knew just how much he loved her.
“She did nothing!” La Reinette threw back her head and laughed. “Nothing but steal the heart that was meant for me! No, Thomas. If I cannot have you, no one will. Especially not that silly girl Sophia.”
At the sound of her name on La Reinette’s poisoned tongue, Hope lurched forward, straining against his bindings with all his might. So wild was his assault that Hope would have toppled the chair if Marie had not reached out a hand to steady him.
“It all was so perfect, yes,” she said. “Cassin at last was in London, here to seek his own revenge against you. And then you fall in love! It is too perfect. The missing diamond, I did not plan that, but it was, as you English say, the ice on the biscuit.”
Hope didn’t bother correcting her. “Cassin is a traitor and a murderer, Marie. When he has his way with me, what the devil do you think he’ll do to you?”
As if on cue, Guillaume Cassin’s unshaven face appeared over La Reinette’s shoulder. His wolfish grin revealed slimy green teeth—really, did the French practice any sort of dental hygiene at all?—and when he spoke, his cigar-ravaged voice raised goose bumps on Hope’s arms and the back of his neck.
It was him. Understanding unfurled as Hope thought back to that first night in Mayfair, the night he and Lake had gone out looking for the French Blue.
It had been Cassin who’d given Hope and Lake chase; Cassin, who’d followed Hope up to La Reinette’s rooms in The Glossy. Hope recalled La Reinette distracting Cassin as he and Sophia escaped. Now Hope understood that Marie had merely told her partner in crime to hold back, be patient, wait for the right time to strike.
Cassin, who’d penned that nasty note to La Reinette to throw them off her scent. He imagined them, heads bent over the page, cackling gleefully at their savoir-faire as Cassin scrawled his filth.
“He-llo, Meester Hope.” Cassin stepped forward around La Reinette. He was bigger than Hope remembered; his teeth blacker, skin sallow. “What I am going to do to you, I have been saving, for only you. It has been many long years, after all. Many years to plan your pain, Meester Hope. You kill me, you kill my man. And I now—haha! You know the rest.”
He held something that glinted silver up to the low light, reverently fingering its surface as he would a woman’s body. For a moment Hope was blinded by a metallic flash; blinking, he made out the long, pointy shape of a French-style rapier, complete with overly bejeweled handle that swooped out in a series of gilded loops and swirls.
Hope swallowed. Again. And somehow managed to muster a scoff. “Ah, monsieur, I admire your sense of humor! Does it have a name?”
Cassin swung the sword through the air in a high, dramatic arc; the weapon made an equally dramatic whoosh whoosh! noise as he did so. “Of course. In France, our weapons are like our women. Beautiful, lithe, very deadly. This one I have given the name Bernadette.”
“Bernadette?” Hope wrinkled his nose. “You’re really going to kill me with a sword named
Bernadette? Surely you can do better than that.”
Cassin pursed his lips, offended. “You insult her,” he said, polishing the blade of the rapier with his cape, “and you insult me. En garde!”
The Frenchman squatted into a lunge, and before Hope knew what he was about, Cassin charged forward, bringing the blade down on his face so quickly he hardly felt it slice through his cheek.
Hope did, however, feel the sting of the cut a moment later, followed by the warm drip of blood down the slope of his face. He smelled its sickly sweet scent above the must of the pantry; it filled his nostrils, thick, nauseating.
Two cuts, in nearly the same place: first La Reinette’s hedgerow, poking his cheek that night weeks and weeks ago; and now Bernadette, making mincemeat of his face.
Maybe Cassin would poke his eyeballs out next. Soon Hope and Lake would be twins.
He would’ve laughed at the thought if panic didn’t slam through him. It struck him, suddenly, that he faced death; he would die here, tonight. Before it had been petty games and witty banter, trading barbs with La Reinette as she told her tale of woe.
But now.
Now the diversion was done, leaving only the vengeful hearts that beat in the bodies standing before him.
Hope was going to die, and by a rapier named Bernadette, no less. No honorable death for him; no battle-scarred sword to the neck. Cassin would kill him and throw his body in the Thames, and that would be that.
It was a rather sobering thought.
He closed his eyes against the rage, the regret, and the hurt that welled up inside him. All he could think of was Sophia; all he could see in the vast blackness behind his eyelids was her face, the tender indent in her bottom lip as she bit down on it. More than anything he wanted to see her one last time, to tell her that he loved her above all things, above the bank and his grief and the family he left behind.
To tell her that she was his family now. That they should start one of their own.
To tell her he should’ve never let her go. That he couldn’t bear the thought of another man, no matter her dreams of a brilliant match, touching her, having her, marrying her.
God, what he would give to kiss her one last time. He remembered that first kiss in Princess Caroline’s puce-colored drawing room, the way Sophia had yielded to him, invited his touch. Her sense of adventure, her wit, and her honesty.
While his heart was glad to have known her at all, to have loved her and held her when he did, he cursed himself for never telling her. For letting her go.
And then his brothers—why did he never apologize, try, and try again until things between them were right and good? They were the only family he had left, and Thomas had kept them at arm’s length, virtual strangers.
He would go to his grave regretting these things.
Hope opened his eyes. Cassin was raising his rapier, his dark eyes gleaming with malice. He swung Bernadette in the air, winding up for the deathblow.
Sophia, he pleaded silently. Sophia, I am sorry.
Cassin brought down the blade. Hope flinched, his heart lurching in his chest.
Was it to be heaven or hell for his soul? Probably hell, all things considered; surely the devil enjoyed his liquor more than all the angels and saints . . .
“Stop!”
There was a great racket by the door; Hope’s eyes flew to the threshold to see a disheveled lump of a man dart into the pantry, tossing his ridiculous feathered hat to the side as he launched himself at Cassin.
The Frenchman’s eyes went wide; and then all Hope could see was a tussle of a black cape and long, shining curls, Cassin grunting and La Reinette screaming and Umberto falling face-first to the ground just inside the door.
Bernadette fell, too, with a scraping clatter that did not bode well for its bejeweled handle.
Cassin had somehow managed to take the man by his curls, tugging him viciously against his chest so that the intruder now faced Hope, his head caught in the crook of Cassin’s rather massive arm.
“Sophia?” Hope breathed. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Yes.” Cassin panted. “Yes, what is she doing here?”
La Reinette swooped down and retrieved Bernadette, placing her in Cassin’s outstretched hand. “Guillaume, it is perfect. We will kill them both, and poof! All our problems, they are gone.”
Hope’s blood surged as he watch Cassin pull Sophia against him, holding the blade of the rapier at her throat.
“You foolish girl,” Cassin murmured into her ear. “You think you might save him, all by yourself? Haha! You make us laugh.”
Sophia’s eyes were wide; she grasped Cassin’s forearm as if that might keep him from slitting her throat. For a moment she met Hope’s gaze; he could not tell what she was thinking. There was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go. They were done for, as good as dead.
Without warning, Sophia winked—at least he thought he saw her wink. And then she let out a hot, distraught sigh, her hand moving from Cassin’s arm to her face before she crumpled against him, eyes rolling up into her head before they closed altogether.
Dear God. She’d swooned.
And she’d looked just like her mother as she’d done it. Learned from the best indeed!
Cassin froze; La Reinette drew back, brow furrowed.
It was just enough of a pause for Sophia to leap into action. Her eyes flew open as she slammed her elbows into Cassin’s gut, and he doubled over with a shout of pain. His rapier once again clattered to the floor; at once Sophia and La Reinette dove after it.
With his heart in his throat, Hope watched the women wrestle each other to the ground, Sophia yelping as La Reinette tugged at her hair. His own limbs pricked to join the fight, to shield Sophia from the madam’s wrath.
La Reinette got the better of Sophia, rolling on top of her as she drew back her fist and slammed it into Sophia’s cheek. Hope burned with white-hot rage, tugging at his bindings with a viciousness that made his wrists bleed in sympathy with her bloody lip.
Cassin was still rolling on the floor, whining meekly in unintelligible French. Sophia continued to struggle, but La Reinette had the clear advantage. Pinning her to the ground between her knees, Marie reached over Sophia’s head and snatched the rapier from the ground.
She climbed to her feet, breathless, and held the point of Bernadette to Sophia’s throat.
“Don’t,” Hope snarled. “Leave her be, Marie.”
Marie ignored him, using the rapier’s tip to tilt Sophia’s chin. “So pretty,” she murmured. “So very, very pretty. I see why he loves you, mademoiselle. Your charms are many.”
Sophia glanced toward Hope. She held her hands by her ears in surrender; but as he watched, she lowered her right hand slowly, very slowly, toward the waist of her suspiciously enormous black-satin breeches.
“Marie.” Hope turned to face La Reinette. “Point your blade at me. I am the one deserving of your anger. Besides. Disposing of one body is one thing; but two bodies is a different matter altogether. Isn’t that so, Cassin?”
Cassin moaned his consent.
La Reinette met Hope’s gaze. “Before, yes, I to—”
Sophia pulled the gleamingly ornate pistol from her breeches and held it in her right hand, releasing the safety as she pointed it at La Reinette.
Hope’s heart went to his throat. Out of all the things Sophia could have been hiding in those breeches, he never guessed she’d hide an antique dueling pistol that looked to be a relic of Queen Elizabeth’s court; but the trick worked.
La Reinette stumbled back in horror, Sophia rising to stare down the barrel of the gun at Marie’s pale face.
Sophia nodded at the rapier. “Drop it.”
Marie did as she was told. Holding up her hands, she said, “Mademoiselle, listen to me. Listen, yes? I let you go. We let you go, forget the go
ssip sheets and the memoirs, we forget everything we did to you. Keep your honor, your reputation. Marry whatever lord you pick. I give you this if you give me him.”
Hope’s pulse stilled at her words. He glanced at Sophia; he could not tell what she was thinking. But La Reinette was offering her everything she ever wanted: the peace to pursue her marquess, and marry him without event, her reputation and her pride intact.
His throat tightened. At least he got to see her one last time.
It was too enticing an offer. Sophia should take it and run. She was on the verge of making her dreams come true; this one last push, and it would all fall into her lap.
Sophia should leave Thomas and never look back.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she said, “Untie him.”
“But, mademoiselle, I—”
“Untie him,” Sophia thrust the pistol against La Reinette’s temple, “or so help me God I’ll put a bullet through your head. I am not a soulless lightskirt like you; I won’t leave Thomas. I can’t leave him.”
After a beat, Marie stooped before Hope, head down as she went to work at the ropes that bound his ankles.
Relief washed through Thomas as she untied one leg, then the other. Perhaps he would make it out of here alive; perhaps he and Sophia had a fighting chance.
He glanced up to meet Sophia’s eyes. They were hard, still full of alligator tears, but hopeful.
Venturing a smile, Hope opened his mouth to speak when a flash of movement behind Sophia caught his eye.
Too late did he see Cassin rising to his feet, reaching through the gloom with his broad-fingered hand for Sophia’s throat.
Thirty-six
It all happened so quickly Sophia hardly had time to think. She was pulled, hard, from behind, a hand wrapping around her neck and squeezing shut her windpipe. Cassin’s warm, foul breath filled her nostrils as he tugged her around to face him.
The Millionaire Rogue Page 32
