by Fran Baker
“Thank you,” Vincent responded with a half-smile.
His father, who had been avidly following this by-play, fixed him with a stern look and demanded, “Did you abduct this girl?”
“If I had, do you think I’d have given her over to Julianne’s keeping?”
“But then how did m’granddaughter come to be traveling under your protection?” Sir Arthur blasted.
“When she determined to return to England, I offered Miss Greybill my escort.” A mask of boredom descended over Vincent’s features.
“This is what I do not comprehend,” Mme. Tallien pronounced. “She was on her way to Paris, not from it! I must know what happened in Amiens, and though it is not at all what I should like, if it is necessary, M. Vincent, you shall marry ma petite!”
All eyes focused expectantly on Vincent. He was weighing just what he could tell them of his meeting with Antiqua when Fillmore threw open the doors to announce Oliver Fawkes.
Hat in hand, looking like an overgrown schoolboy, Fawkes waited.
He was greeted with the rap of a word. “Well?”
“’Twas no trace of ’em, Master Jack, on any of the main roads.”
“They didn’t take the Great North Road?” The question was put in a tone of seeming disinterest.
Fawkes studied the calm, expressionless features of his employer before replying. “No, sir, that they did not. ’Tis certain ’tis no marriage over the anvil for them.”
“And what of the lesser roads?”
“Now there is something o’interest. A hired hack traveled toward Easton this night.”
“Speak plainly!” shouted Sir Arthur. “Has m’granddaughter gone to Easton?”
“Well, sir, not as I can say. Neither the young miss nor his lordship were seen in the hack, but the ostler at the Three Swans reported some rum doings to our lad Jed.”
“Yes, man, get on with it!” Sedgwick huffed impatiently.
“This particular coach was closed up tight, according to the inn man, your Grace, and mighty odd he thought it when he went to tap the coach-door, to see if a glass or two might be wanted, you understand, and a rough-looking jarvey jumped down from the driving box to send him readily about his business. Some rare goings-on there, says the ostler to our Jed.”
“You said west toward Easton?” Vincent asked.
“Fawkes ran a stubby forefinger down the nub of his broad nose. “Yes, sir, somewhat in the direction of Balstone Hall, that be.”
Vincent had not lingered to listen. He spun past his servant and, with a slight shrug of apology to the company, Fawkes pivoted to follow him. The savage set of Vincent’s jaw as he strode through the assembly kept them wordlessly immobile fully half a minute after his steps faded away. Then, as if on cue, pandemonium exploded as each exclaimed at once.
“Eh, what’s this? Balstone Hall?”
“Humph! Balstone’s ruin of an estate!”
“But, voyons! What is this ‘Balstone Hall’?”
“Oh, Giles, he looked perfectly murderous! You don’t think William Allen can be mixed up in this, do you?”
“I’m very much afraid, my love, that Vincent believes so.”
“But where the devil’s that young fire-eater of mine going?”
The Duke’s young fire-eater was at that moment mounted in his high-sprung curricle-in-four racing westward.
Oliver Fawkes did not have to see the twitch in the muscle of Vincent’s cheek to know how violently dangerous was his mood. Knowing well that the taut rein governing Vincent’s temper was stretched to its utmost limit, Oliver sat mundanely as the vehicle cut a dash through the trafficked London streets. Nor did he comment when, upon leaving the city behind, Vincent opened out his leaders to racket perilously over dark and rutted country roads. He occupied himself with pondering how he might keep his young master from dealing out the sure death writ so clearly in those gelid blue eyes and resigning himself to his certain failure.
* * * *
While Oliver Fawkes and his master were thus occupying themselves, the Marquis of Rosewarren and his companion had been busily making plans for marriage in the one case and for escape in the other. Later, both energetically devoted themselves to the destruction of a fine pewter bowl. Now they waited, hearts pounding in frantic unison, steeling themselves for the re-entrance of the Viscount Balstone.
Footsteps sounded within the hallway. The two could scarcely breathe as they heard another door kicked open, then the clear stamp of boots halt before their own. Signaling for Antiqua to be quiet, Archie poised himself to strike, his hands fisted together and raised with menacing intent. The steps passed on. He lowered his fists,, casting a puzzled look at Antiqua. The wood of the door smashed into his shoulder, hurling him against her. They toppled to the floor. The door snatched wide, silence rang and a soft, but fluent, oath brought the pair of them to their feet.
“V-Vincent!” Antiqua stammered.
“What the devil!” Archie exclaimed.
Vincent eyed them both. “You’ve come to no harm?”
Disbelief and relief rushed through Antiqua upon seeing him. The wonderment she had known over her misjudgment of the Viscount paled beside that which she now experienced. Knowing Vincent to be quite innocent of all the treachery she had laid at his door brought an inner trembling. She suffered an intense stab of guilt coupled with humiliation. She attempted to cover her uncomfortable self-reproach with an assured lift of her head.
Archie rubbed his shoulder. “Nothing of consequence. How did you discover us?”
“The pink of Miss Greybill’s gown was visible through the crack of the door. I’m sorry about slamming it into you, Archie, but I thought she was being held by another.” Vincent knew a wave of enormous gratitude upon finding her unharmed. There was much the lady had to answer for, yet, but for the moment just knowing her safe was enough. He captured Antiqua’s hand and led her toward the settee. Sweeping the dust cover from it, he gallantly bade her to be seated.
“What I meant was, how did you know where we are?” Rosewarren persisted. “We don’t even know where we are!”
“If you do not wish, dear boy, for me to intrude upon your schemes, you should in future make certain just where the Humperdinks are engaged before including them in your tales,” Vincent cautioned. “The sight of Miss Emma Humperdink at the Theatre Royal, in white tulle and ostrich plumes, quite ruined the evening for Lady Julianne.”
A guilty glanced passed between the two at this eloquent set-down. With a sigh that approached a laugh, Vincent added, “You find yourself in what remains of the once-grand Balstone Hall.”
All this while, Fawkes had been lighting the few candles he was able to find, and he now pointed to the trussed-up Weasel. “Look here, sir!” With a nod from Vincent, he hoisted Weasel upon his shoulder and bore him like a sack of meal from the room.
“You have been busy, haven’t you?” Vincent inquired in his drowsy way.
“You needn’t talk to us in the toplofty manner!” Antiqua said, her discomfiture finding an outlet in pique. “We didn’t mean to get into such a scrape, you know, and our reasons were quite honorable.”
“But, perhaps, foolish.” He silenced their protestations with a raised palm. “Where is Balstone?”
His somber tone brought an instant reply. “He was here, Jack, but he left some time ago,” Archie said. “Said he’d be back, though, and mind you, he meant us no good. Set his two watchdogs on us and I’d about given up on things when Antiqua had this ripping notion of playing sick—”
“One of Miss Greybill’s most renowned talents, to be sure,” his brother dryly interjected.
The unfriendly frown that earned him from the lady was ignored.
“Yes, but she was first rate and we were able to overpower them,” Archie summed up. “When we heard your steps, we thought it was Balstone returning.”
“Has the Viscount seen the blank pages in the packet?” Vincent asked.
“There was one painfully numb mome
nt before Archie exclaimed, “But only we knew—”
“How did you know?” Antiqua cried as she leapt to her feet.
“It was I, of course, who placed the blanks within the packet,” Vincent admitted “The real documents regarding the Bonapartist activities have been in the care of the proper authorities since my return to London. Thomas Allen did his work well. Because of him, Napoleon shall in all probability live out his days on St. Helena.”
“And Antiqua would have it that you were a damned traitor! I told her she was nothing but a cloth-headed—”
“But how did you come to be possessed of all his information?” Antiqua demanded of Vincent, ignoring Archie completely. “How did you effect the change in papers? Why didn’t you tell me what you were about?”
“I suggest you sit down,” Vincent directed her quietly.
She sat. She had learned long since not to disobey that particular tone of his, but it rankled just the same. He had played her for a fool all along! He smiled and she silently seethed.
“I knew in Calais, my dear that you had fallen into some deep doings. I had the packet from your maid—”
“Lucy! But Lucy swore she’d said nothing to you.”
“Lucy told me nothing. But she had sense enough to hand over the messages you were carrying. The documents unfortunately did not reveal the identity of the English agent employed by the Bonapartists and I knew my only hope of discovering him was to let you finish what Allen had instructed you to do. I may be excused, I believe, for not realizing then just how difficult protecting you would be. Being better acquainted with you now, I would of course keep you under lock and key.”
That he should use her in such a shabby manner infuriated her. Even the gentle stroke beneath his matter-of-fact explanation could not lessen Antiqua’s mounting rage. Her inimical stare seemed only to amuse him further, however, and the corners of his lips lifted slightly as he mused, “And what now, I wonder, shall I do with you?”
Antiqua was prevented from informing him that he’d have nothing whatever to do with her by the re-emergence of Fawkes. Rolling Elton from behind the settee, he heaved the burly weight across his shoulder with a grunt of effort and carried him out with a grin of triumph. Vincent responded with a slow smile of his own.
The diversion thus created allowed Archie to muster what dignity a youth could after being outwitted, kidnapped, thumped, tied up, and lectured to as if no more than ten. But standing erect, he faced his brother and said firmly, “There’s no need for you to concern yourself, Jack. I’ve already told Antiqua I’ll set everything to rights. I mean to say, I realize I oughtn’t to have gotten her into this fix, and I mean to see that her reputation is not discredited.”
“Ah . . . forgive me, but I fail to see the point you are making,” Vincent said after a brief pause.
“But I’m telling you I’ll marry her, of course,” Archie explained.
Chapter 18
“Though I dislike having to contradict you, little brother, I am afraid I can only tell you that in no circumstances will you marry Miss Greybill.”
Vincent turned to remove his great-coat as he spoke, so neither of his listeners could see the closed cast of his features.
“But, Jack, surely you see the necessity of our marriage,” Archie protested.
“The only necessity I see if for the pair of you to be promptly spanked and sent to bed without your supper.”
This flippant reminder of their childish mischief hurled Antiqua to the end of her restraint. “How dare you!” she stormed, not deigning to notice Archie’s frenetic signal to stop. “Of all the insufferable things you’ve said and done—”
“Too numerous to catalogue, I fear.”
“—this tyrannical attitude of yours is the worst! We are not children playing at spillikins! I will marry Archie—”
“You will?” queried her surprised fiancé, whose last memory of her views on this subject had been quite otherwise.
“I will,” she insisted devoutly, “and there is nothing, nothing your brother can do to stop us!”
“No?”
The lazy question was dismissed with an airy snap of her fingers. “No! And when I am Marchioness of Rosewarren, you shan’t speak to me in such tones.”
“Rid yourself, I beg, of the notion that you will ever be a Marchioness, Brown-eyes. As my wife, you shall simply be Mrs. Vincent.”
“Your wife!” Archie exclaimed, not without relief.
“Forgive me, but as I was the first to compromise Miss Greybill, mine is the prior obligation to make reparation,” Vincent stated in an indefinable tone.
“Obligation!” Antiqua choked, barely able to speak through her fury. She gripped the back of the wooden chair and raged through clenched teeth, “Understand this, Mr. Vincent! I do not intend to marry you. I’ve accepted Lord Rosewarren’s kind offer—yes, I have, Archie!—and when I am married to a Marquis—”
“Ah, yes,” Vincent broke in harshly. “You have made your ambitions perfectly plain, my dear. Nothing but a title will do for you.”
The brusque words slapped at her. “Oh, I don’t require a title, sir! An honest name is all I seek—”
As soon as her words struck the air, Antiqua wished them unsaid. She hadn’t meant what came out, but though she longed to erase them, it was, of course, much too late.
Vincent tore through her with his cold gaze. “Rosewarren, leave us.”
The Marquis obeyed the curt command without hesitation. Antiqua did not even see him quit the room. She could not strip her gaze from the naked fury on Vincent’s face. She had seen him drunk and sober, cool and warm, kind and contemptuous. But what she saw now robbed all color from her cheeks and painfully drained all feeling from her heart. She flinched beneath the whip of his angry voice.
“I will not permit you, my little actress, to marry Rosewarren. You’d play him false long before the wedding night was out.” His lips parted in a sensual smile that played the very fiber of her soul like a bow on a violin.
She tried to speak, but before the first syllable was out, he had taken her in his arms.
“Do you think,” he inquired in a voice of velvet, “that as Marchioness, you’d be kissed like this?”
She thought she would never draw another breath after the instant his lips besieged hers. Commanding, consuming, constricting, his kiss irrevocably claimed her as his. She was faintly conscious of her mantalet sliding from her shoulders to the floor, of Vincent’s fingers releasing the top buttons of her gown. Like a candle set too near dry kindling, his passion enflamed her dormant womanhood.
Without fully understanding what she did, Antiqua cradled his head between her hands and brought the intensity of her hunger to his mouth with a slow, complete demonstration from her own. In her newfound greed, she coaxed his lips open to meet the demand of hers. Needing, wanting to be as close to him as possible, she curved her supple body to his muscular mold.
The unexpected eagerness of her response penetrated Vincent’s conscience. His hands continued to caress her, his lips skimmed over her jaw before swerving to the soft curl of her earlobe.
“Antiqua,” he murmured so hoarsely it echoed a moan, “I need you.”
“Ah, how the fates reward you, Vincent,” observed a voice full of irony. “To be the one chosen to pluck such a rose.”
Antiqua stiffened and then took a step back to free herself from Vincent’s embrace. His hands clamped on her shoulders, preventing her from leaving and, as she looked up into his face so suddenly void of expression, she ceased to resist. Together, they turned to face the intruder.
“I must confess, Balstone, that I have much anticipated our meeting again,” Vincent drawled.
The Viscount stood nonchalantly on the threshold, his amber eyes hooded by half-lowered lids. “I think you will find, Vincent, that I am better prepared this time.”
“Then you must be prepared for death,” Vincent responded with silky softness.
Balstone’s lips pulled
back in an ugly sneer. “So you’ve come to regret the little act of generosity.”
“Infinitely. Choosing the sword thrust which allowed you to live brought about Thomas’s death, and that is a guilt I do not bear easily.”
“Perhaps we shall remove your guilt tonight.” The Viscount detached himself from the shadowed doorway.
Antiqua gasped at the sudden glimmer of candlelight over the steel of blades.
Vincent remained impassive, remarking only, “You did indeed come prepared.”
What passed for a smile crossed Balstone’s face. “The ancestral hall has at last been worth something to me. I had these beauties from above the mantel in the Great Hall.” He laid the twin foils across the top of the dusty buffet.
“Forgive my curiosity, William, but what have you done with my brother and my servant?” Vincent spoke lightly, but Antiqua could feel the tension radiate from his tensed form.
“Fraternal concern?” Balstone mocked.
“If you wish.”
The Viscount’s laugh was mirthless. “I merely helped them to a short nap. Absurdly easy to knock them both out from behind, then bind them together. What I shall do with them later, particularly with the pretty Marquis, is something I have not yet given myself the pleasure of deciding.”
The menace in his jeering tone sent a shiver through Antiqua’s innermost depths. Vincent looked down at her, intensely scanning her face. Then he firmly set her aside and wordlessly began to prepare.
He stripped his velvet jacket from his shoulders and with one yank removed his cravat. After carelessly tossing these articles away, he perched on a chair’s edge and pulled his feet free of his hightop boots.
With the same grim determination, Balstone shed his restrictive cloak and jacket, folding them over the back of Antiqua’s wooden chair, then set about tugging off a pair of elegantly champagned boots.
Numbly, Antiqua watched these deadly preparations. She longed to scream out a protest, to beg them to leave off, but she knew such an action would not only be utterly futile, but would also result in her instant banishment from the room. Above all, she knew she must remain to see the adventure played out to its inevitable conclusion.
