Tender Torment

by Meadowes, Alicia

  Colonel Dubois shifted uneasily before his foe’s verbal assault. He was torn between the desire to hold all three prisoner, and the desire to maintain the image he had of himself as a man of irreproachable honor.

  “Do not seek to maneuver me with clever words, monsieur. I will decide what is honorable or not honorable.” However, Dubois was visibly wavering. He lacked the imagination for playing both villain and hero, and finally opted for the more flattering role. “Very well, since you are so avide for this final parting from your lady…”

  “Dear God, no!” It was a cry torn from Marisa, who flew to Justin before she could be restrained.

  One of the guards grabbed her roughly by the arm, and Justin instinctively slammed his hand against the soldier’s arm, knocking him away from his wife. “Don’t you dare touch her!” Straeford snarled and clasped his wife to his side.

  “Don’t send me away, Justin. Please, I beg of you, let me stay with you,” Marisa pleaded.

  “Dearest,” Justin spoke urgently to her, damning the necessity that exposed his wife to the gloating eyes of his hated enemy. “Do not distress yourself this way. You must go with Edward now and be my brave girl.” He pressed her to himself. “Do not give the dog more joy. I implore you,” he whispered into her hair. “All will be well. Trust me.”

  “Ah, adieux are so sad, are they not? It breaks the heart,” Dubois exulted. “But enough. You, Monsieur Harding, take the lady now and go,” he snapped, suddenly weary of his sport and desiring to get to his disposal of Straeford. “I have other matters to attend to, and it begins to grow late.”

  Edward Harding came to Marisa’s side and took her arm in his hand. “Come, Lady Straeford. We must be on our way.”

  Briefly she hesitated while desperate thoughts crowded her brain with impulses to cling and scream and resist, but she could not betray her beloved husband. She knew he needed her to be strong, and with tears streaming down her face, she cast one last yearning look at him before allowing Major Harding to lead her away.

  The earl watched his wife’s departure, his face white with the pain of letting her go so cruelly—believing it might be their final parting.

  “Guards. Show our… guest to his quarters,” Dubois called to his men. “We must make him comfortable, n’est-ce pas?” The colonel could not restrain a laugh before dismissing his captive to confinement. “I plan some… after-dinner entertainment for us, Lord Straeford. Perhaps you would like to… refresh yourself before then.”

  Unwittingly, Dubois had played into Straeford’s hands. Had he, at that moment, got on with the interrogation, Lord Straeford would have been in no shape for the events that were to follow.

  Lord Straeford could not have been more pleased, therefore, than he was the moment the door slammed shut behind him, locking him in a narrow cell that had once been a monk’s austere chamber. He looked about, taking in the bare stone walls and the cot with its straw mattress. It was enough for his needs. He took out his pocket watch. Five-thirty. By dusk, Marisa would be safely ensconced with the Garcia family, and he would be ready for the final act of the drama. The French had not discovered the small packets of black powder concealed in his boots, nor the knife either. As soon as Straeford heard the explosion of the amunition dump, he would stage a small display of his own.

  Meanwhile Edward Harding was explaining to Marisa that her husband was not as hopelessly lost to her as she feared. He told her about the planned attack. If all went as intended, her husband would be restored to her that very night. Lady Straeford tried to draw comfort from Harding’s words as they rode away from the fortress, but in her heart were grave misgivings. What if the plan went awry and… she was unable to finish the thought. By the time they reached the valley, Marisa was barely able to maintain her seat on the swaying animal.

  “Only a short distance now, my dear lady. If you could go on to the villa with Lieutenant Drake, here, I should very much like to return…”

  “Yes, yes,” she insisted, “leave me and go to Justin. Oh, Edward, save him for me, I beg you.”

  “I promise you before this night is over, you and your husband will be reunited.” He kissed the hand she laid on his and spurred his horse toward the mountains again.

  Marisa watched him go, praying fervently that he was right.

  A thundering roar of explosions ripped apart the descending darkness just as Colonel Dubois was settling himself at a dining table laid with breast of capon and a bottle of chilled Chablis Blanc.

  As soon as he heard the noise Straeford went to work in his cell. He poured the black powder from his boots into a hip flask and stuffed his silk handkerchief into the neck of the silver container. Extracting a length of rope from beneath the lining of his jacket, he tied the flask to the padlock on the cell door and inserted a fuse into the flask which he trailed along the floor to the opposite end of the cell. Then he overturned the cot and crouched behind it while he lighted the fuse and waited until the lock blew, taking most of the door with it.

  The guard, who had run down the hall at the noise of the first explosion, missed the effects of the blast staged by his captive, for his life was soon dispatched by the sudden thrust of Straeford’s knife between his ribs. Snatching the soldier’s pistol and sword, the earl raced to find Dubois. It was the colonel’s frantic shouts that identified his whereabouts to Lord Straeford.

  “Sacré bleu! Qu’est-ce que c’est?” the stunned Dubois shouted, but his shout was drowned out by further blasts that seemed to mount in crescendo to the alarming accompaniment of ungodly screeches. Frenzied voices of French soldiers bellowing their shock and dismay filled the corridors inside the abbey while the courtyard outside echoed to the sounds of gunfire and the clatter of running feet. Two of Dubois’s officers broke into the room raving in confusion that the garrison was under attack from the north, east and west. Sentries were dead; fires were burning and the situation was desperate.

  “Impossible!” screamed Dubois.

  “Not as impossible as it seems, my dear colonel.” This last was spoken by the Earl of Straeford who stood in the doorway pointing a glinting pistol directly at Dubois’s heart. The pandemonium caused by the explosions and guerilla style screechings of the British soldiers had thrown the French into a total rout.

  “Diable!” Dubois roared, beside himself with rage.

  “Do not fret yourself unnecessarily, mon ennemi—that score you desire to settle is no less desired by me. Stand aside,” Straeford commanded the other two French officers. “Throw your weapons to the floor—now!” Straeford demanded as they hesitated, looking to the colonel for guidance.

  “Do as he says,” Dubois ordered.

  Just as the men were divesting themselves of their swords and pistols, Garcia appeared in the doorway behind Straeford in the company of Harding and two men in British uniform.

  “The fort is taken, Senhor Straeford,” Garcia exulted.

  In the split second that Straeford’s attention was diverted, Dubois lunged for a pistol and took aim at Straeford.

  “Look out, Justin,’ Harding yelled, and there ensued a mad scramble in which both French and English were firing at each other at close range, filling the room with the crackle of gunfire and a blue haze of smoke. Dubois’s aim was off and the ball merely creased Justin’s left arm. The earl threw himself on top of the colonel and the two rolled together in mortal combat amidst a melée of flailing bodies and shouted curses. Dubois heaved himself above Straeford and clenched his hands around his enemy’s throat, attempting to throttle the life out of him. Summoning superhuman strength, the earl maneuvered his knee into the colonel’s chest and pushed with a force that threw Dubois onto his back. With a lightning thrust, the earl plunged his knife through the heart of his nemesis.

  It all took less than five minutes. Dubois lay mortally wounded, and beside him lay two others dead—one French and one English.

  “Deus,” Garcia breathed in horror, while Straeford swore a string of oaths.

  “Dam
n his soul to hell,” Straeford ended grimly. “My only regret is that I was denied the pleasure of killing him in a duel of honor.” He paused. Then he knelt beside the body of the British soldier. “How many have we lost altogether, Lieutenant Garcia?”

  “Two others, sir.”

  “What about the French?”

  “Ten dead and two wounded—counting these.”

  “What about the woman? Did you find her?”

  “Sim, she is being held with the others.”

  “We have a total of twenty-five captives, Justin.” Ed Harding offered this information. “We’re holding them in the chapel.”

  For the first time in days, Lord Straeford allowed himself to smile. “At their last prayers, eh?” He turned to Lieutenant Garcia. “Raoul, I’ll leave you in command. You have proven yourself a first-rate leader, and I shall recommend you for a promotion when I return to headquarters. However, I have business elsewhere that I would not put off any longer. And I advise you to release the woman. She can do nothing further to harm us.”

  “Sim, vossa Senhoria. I will take care of everything here for you.”

  “Adeus, my friend. Come on, Ed. I need you to show me the way.”

  It was on the stroke of midnight that the earl once more enfolded his wife in his arms and showered her tear-stained face with kisses, their tender torment over at last.

  “Oh, my darling Justin. I have prayed so hard.”

  “Did I not tell you to trust me, my dearest?”

  “But the odds were so great.”

  “Hush, my heart. You are safe in my arms and it shall remain so as long as we both shall live, my sweet, sweet salvation.”

  Her family craved nobility, his desperately needed wealth.

  So Marisa’s moneyed father arranged to wed one of his daughters to the brooding, mystery-shrouded Justin St. Clare, Earl of Straeford, soldier and woman-hater.

  For although the Earl’s dashing good looks attracted every coquette in England, his mother’s secret and terrible deeds had driven him to total disdain for the opposite sex. Only to save his beloved Straeford Park—and to acquire an heir, would the Earl consent to marry.

  But to Marisa Loftus, the Earl was more than a purchased title. He was her lord—and even as Napoleon’s armies battled Europe’s bastions, so would she storm the armored fortress of his sealed heart to fight for their growing love, the love that was such

  Tender Torment