by Georgie Lee
‘No one gathered here tonight is innocent and all of you will get what you deserve.’
Moira touched her throat. ‘What do you mean?
‘Haven’t you figured it out yet?’ The evil in Lady Camberline’s eyes increased as the terrible realisation dawned on Moira.
‘The gunpowder is here.’
‘It is. And pretty soon all those useless men drinking my port and bragging about their accomplishments on the Continent will be dead and you will be, too. You will pay for betraying your lineage and me.’
Panic almost stole Moira’s voice, but she forced the words through her tight throat. ‘You’re going to destroy your own house and your son’s legacy just to see your sick plan enacted?’
‘When the Grand Emperor marches into London, he’ll reward me with a larger house and estates, perhaps even your family’s.’
‘You won’t succeed.’ Moira glanced at the door, waiting for the moment she could dash out and warn the others, including Bart’s man. They had to get away from this house before this wicked woman brought it, and the Government of England, down around them.
Lady Camberline shifted to block the entrance. ‘If you think you’re going to warn them then you’re mistaken. Bursting into my sitting room screaming about me destroying my own house will only make you look like a fool. They’ll never believe me capable of such an outlandish thing and would view your ramblings as those of a madwoman related to a mad father and a mad brother.’
Moira sucked in a sharp breath. The secret about the family Aunt Agatha had feared escaping had finally done so and it now trapped Moira. ‘How could you betray the country that saved you from the Reign of Terror?’
‘Saved me?’ Lady Camberline screeched. ‘England ruined my life. My parents could have escaped from the Revolutionaries. My mother wrote to Queen Charlotte, a woman she was related to by marriage, begging for help, but she received nothing except silence. She wrote to every contact she had in England, including some of those very men sitting in the dining room, and not one of them dared to intercede on our behalf except Lady Elmsworth, and her only offer was to insist my parents send me to her, to rip me from their love and cast me on to her cold charity. I never saw my parents again. They died at the hands of Madame Guillotine and our entire fortune, legacy and estate were lost, centuries of tradition and lineage wiped away, and with it the only happiness I’d ever known.’
‘All of England is not to blame for the mistakes of a few.’
‘No one here cared about me. I was the poor French aristocrat everyone pitied and no one wanted to pay for. Lady Elmsworth bundled me into a marriage with an old man whose preference for young ladies made him overlook my lack of wealth. You don’t know what I had to endure at Lord Camberline’s hands. My son was the only good thing to come of it and even he has turned against me, courting Mademoiselle de Troyen behind my back. The only person who ever cared about me was Lady Lefevre, Lord Lefevre’s mother. She used to sit with me as I cried my heart out in my misery. Then one day, she told me how I could have my revenge. She explained how I could steal my husband’s papers and pass them to her to give to Napoleon.’
‘But it wasn’t enough for you, was it?’
‘No. I didn’t want to simply provide useless or old information, I wanted to act and do something and I will. I’ll see this country destroyed, the royal family ripped apart just as my family was, and Napoleon crowned at Westminster Abbey. When it’s done, he will return to me all the property stolen from my parents, all my childhood memories fouled by greedy peasants. My son will reign over his ancestral lands here and in France. He will be given one of Napoleon’s nieces for a bride and become a member of the Emperor’s family. I’ll see it all done and I won’t let anyone, not you or Mr Dyer, stop me.’
Lord Lefevre burst through the door, a slick sheen of sweat decorating his wide brow and moistening his cravat. Lord Moreau followed behind him, eyes wild with panic.
‘Our plot has been discovered,’ Lord Lefevre announced, slamming the door closed behind him and locking it.
Lady Camberline’s wicked smile dropped. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Mr Flint’s men are coming up the drive. They’ll surround the house and trap us. We must leave at once, reach Mr Dubois and slip away to France before they catch us.’ Lord Moreau dashed to one of the windows leading to the garden and slid it open. A cool breeze rustled the curtains on either side while the shouts of men on the drive converging on the house silenced the night birds. Moira’s heart leapt. Bart had uncovered the plot. He was here.
Lord Moreau crawled through the window and into the garden, not giving the other two a second thought as he bolted off into the darkness of the grounds.
Lord Lefevre stepped up beside Lady Camberline, more level headed than Lord Moreau. ‘He’s right. If we don’t leave now, they’ll hang us for treason. I’ve sent Madame Bernard for the carriage.’
Lady Camberline didn’t even look at him, but continued to sneer at Moira. ‘No, I will have my revenge.’
Moira gaped at the woman. She was on the verge of losing everything, including perhaps her life, and still hate drove her on.
‘If we’re captured, it will help no one. If we escape, we can find another way to support Napoleon, to see our plans at last made real,’ Lord Lefevre tempted, trying to coax her away.
‘There will be no other way. We must set off the cask, finish our plan and do what we can to pave the way for the Emperor. We’ll light the fuse, then we’ll leave.’
‘What about her?’ Lord Lefevre nodded at Moira.
‘Bring her with us. She can die like the rest of them.’
He baulked. ‘She’s a woman. It doesn’t seem right.’
She turned on him. ‘You knew all along what was involved in this. Don’t become faint of heart now.’
‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’ Moira prayed Bart and his men would reach the house and her before these two could implement their plan, or kill her first. She didn’t doubt Lady Camberline would strangle her with her elegant fingers if it suited her plans. Moira didn’t want to die, not with Bart and freedom so close. He might have rebuffed her this morning, but he’d promised to protect her and she believed in the strength of his vow and his honour. He would save her.
‘Yes, you are.’ Lady Camberline snatched the dagger letter opener off the table beside her, grabbed Moira by the arm, and pressed the sharp end of the blade into Moira’s side.
Moira sucked in a breath at the sting, shifting away to keep the dagger from slipping through her stays and deep into her lungs.
‘Come along and don’t think to cry out or I’ll leave you to bleed to death in the passageway before I ignite the fuse.’
Lord Lefevre took one of the candles nestled in a brass holder off the mantel and lit it with a reed from the fireplace. He went to the door on the other side of the painting of old Lord Camberline and pulled it open, revealing a plaster-lined passageway used by servants to enter the room and light the fire without being seen by guests.
Lady Camberline, her fingers digging into Moira’s upper arm, pulled her into the passageway and Lord Lefevre followed, closing the door behind him. The light from his candle danced in the breeze of his movements, twisting their shadows on the plain and rough walls.
He slid past them and led the way. The deeper they crept inside the building, the more Moira struggled to keep from panicking. There was no way Bart could find her in this maze of passageways leading to some strange place hidden within the house. At last, they reached a set of stairs leading down into a basement. The smell of onions and damp and mouldering wood permeated the air.
We must be near the kitchen cellar.
It gave Moira some hope. Perhaps a servant would see them, or in checking the building Bart and his men might find her. Moira considered calling out, but she didn�
�t doubt Lady Camberline would kill her the second she did. The woman possessed no remorse, pity or goodness. She was driven only by her wickedness and a craving for revenge.
Down in the dank room, Moira caught the same acrid scent of gunpowder she’d smelled in the sample at Mr Transom’s.
‘The cask is in the corner. I’ll light the wick and we’ll run.’ Lady Camberline shoved Moira and the knife at Lord Lefevre and took the candle from his hands.
‘What about Lady Rexford?’ Lord Lefevre asked, as unsure of the plan as Lady Camberline was determined.
‘She stays here. Tie her to a post.’ She yanked a yard of twine off a nail and handed it to him.
‘It doesn’t seem sporting to leave her to die like this,’ Lord Lefevre protested, his grip on Moira’s upper arm loosening.
Moira thought of wrenching free and running, but if he decided to chase her, he would catch her long before she reached the stairs, and then who knew what her fate would be.
Lady Camberline marched up hard on Lord Lefevre, causing him to step back and tug Moira with him. ‘I said tie her to a post. No one gave my parents a sporting chance before they murdered them and who here in England cared when they did? Instead, they turned their backs on them, allowing them and thousands of others, including your father, to die. They deserve to feel the same pain.’
Lord Lefevre didn’t argue, but took Moira’s hands and placed them on either side of a pillar, then began to tie them together.
Moira glanced over her shoulder to where Lady Camberline stood beside the cask, her candle casting a flickering light over the deadly barrel. On the floor snaked a long white fuse.
‘When I light this, we’ll have only a few minutes to leave and they’ll have no way of stopping it.’ Lady Camberline picked up the end of the fuse. The diamonds at her ears sparkled in the candlelight, giving her a strange ephemeral air in the midst of the eerie darkness of the basement. ‘This is a special fuse. Once it’s lit, it can’t be put out and Mr Dubois made sure it’s well secured to the cask.’
‘You won’t escape,’ Moira said. ‘Bart will find you and everyone involved in your plot and you’ll face the noose.’
‘Neither he nor you will be alive to do so. When the powder catches, it will bring down the house and anyone near it.’ She turned to her Lord Lefevre. ‘Is she secure?’
‘Yes.’ Lord Lefevre loosely slipped the ends of the twine one over the other but he didn’t tighten them. Instead, he left them to dangle by Moira’s fingers. Lady Camberline, with Moira’s back to her, couldn’t see what he’d done. He looked at her and then the twine.
Moira nodded slightly, understanding he was giving her a sporting chance to get away once the fuse was lit.
A spark and a flash lit up the room. Moira looked over her shoulder to see the end of the white string burning. Lady Camberline hurried up beside her. ‘Now you’ll feel the same panic my parents did when they faced the guillotine knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it. You and many others will suffer like they did.’ She took Lord Lefevre’s hand and pulled him to the stairs. ‘Come, we only have five minutes until the cask explodes.’
Once their footsteps disappeared down the corridor, Moira untangled herself from the ropes. She rushed to the fuse and stomped on the flame, but it wouldn’t go out. Casting about, she searched for anything sharp she could use to cut the burning end off, but there was nothing except root vegetables and old furniture. There wasn’t even a bottle for her to break and pour over the spark or to use to saw through the fuse. She took hold of the fuse and tugged at it, but it wouldn’t budge from the cask. She tried to snap it, but it held fast.
She dropped the wicked thing, realising there was nothing she could do except get out and warn as many people as she could of what was about to happen. She grabbed the candle from where Lady Camberline had left it and hurried up the stairs, coming to a stop at the top. The passageway split in two directions, each of them leading off into darkness and who knew where. She couldn’t remember which one they’d come down and had no idea how to find her way back to any part of the house. From down in the basement the hiss of the burning fuse continued. She couldn’t stand here, helpless, but had to make a choice. She bolted off to her right, thinking this was where they’d come from earlier. Even if it wasn’t, it must lead to somewhere inside the house. She would find her way and get to Bart. She was certain, despite this morning, he was nearby. She held on to her belief in his honour as she stumbled down one passageway and then another, searching for a door or any way out, but finding nothing. The white plaster seemed to stretch on for ever and fear threatened to choke the breath out of her, but she beat it back. She would be strong and brave like Bart and escape. She would have her life and love and a future.
* * *
‘Everyone out of the house. There’s a cask of gunpowder in the basement prepared to blow this place to pieces,’ Bart shouted as he and his men and Mr Flint’s flooded into the Camberline sitting room. Behind him the rest of his men fanned out, a few of them rushing to collect the servants while the others searched the house for the gunpowder.
The gathered gentlemen and ladies stopped their card games and their chatter to stare at him, dumbfounded. Bart scanned their shocked faces, searching for Moira’s, but she wasn’t there. Neither were Lord Lefevre, Lord Moreau or Lady Camberline. He braced himself against the onslaught of guilt and worry, the same one which had seized him when he’d approached Lady Fallworth’s carriage and seen the stricken face of her driver while he’d talked to Bart’s men.
Prince Frederick, grasping the seriousness of the situation, was the first to move. ‘You heard the man, out now, unless you all want to meet your maker.’
He hustled the ladies and the reluctant gentlemen along.
‘Your Highness.’ Bart rushed up to the Prince while his men led the bewildered guests through the halls towards the front door and the collection of carriages waiting on the drive to take them to safety. ‘Where’s Lady Rexford?’
‘I don’t know. She was with us at dinner, then went through with the ladies. I haven’t seen her since.’
Bart darted back down the hallway towards the centre of the house, hoping he wasn’t too late, that the fuse had not been lit and he and Moira were not now about to be in the midst of an explosion capable of bringing down the house. Thankfully, the house stood in the middle of an extensive garden, mitigating the possible damage to the streets, houses and people surrounding it.
‘Moira! Moira!’ he called as he ran, passing footmen and maids being ushered out of the house by his men. If he didn’t find Moira, he’d see to it the people responsible for her death were drawn and quartered, their titles and privileges be damned. He wouldn’t allow their rank to protect them this time.
He stopped and asked more than one guest if they’d seen Moira, but none had. Dread began to build in his chest, like the time he’d watched a regiment cut down by a French ambush during a battle. He and his soldiers had ridden as fast as they could to try to help them, but it’d been too late.
Then, through the throng of hurrying people, he spied Joseph.
‘Have you seen Lady Rexford? Did she go out with the servants or another way?’
‘No, I haven’t seen her.’
‘I have to find her.’
‘This house is like a maze. If you get lost, and the fuse has been set, you may not make it out in time.’
‘I won’t leave her to die.’ All chance of claiming the happiness he’d imagined in her arms last night, the one he’d tried to throw away this morning, would end if he didn’t find her. He couldn’t allow it to happen or for her to die thinking he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life with her.
‘Mr Dyer.’ One of Mr Flint’s men rushed up to him. ‘We caught Lady Camberline and Lord Lefevre outside, along with Lord Moreau.’
‘Was Lady Re
xford with them?’
‘There’s a young lady with them, yes. Blonde and small, wearing a red dress.’
‘Moira.’ They must have taken her with them when they’d tried to flee, intending to use her as a hostage or some other guarantee against capture. It hadn’t worked.
A group of servants flooded past him and out the front door, Mr Smith following behind them. ‘That’s the last of the servants, sir.’
‘Then let’s get out of here.’ He ran from the house followed by his men. There were no more carriages, so they bolted across the wide grounds towards the wall at the far end, running fast to place as much distance as possible between them and the house.
They reached the large iron gate at the end of the drive and jogged through it. Their footsteps echoed down the street as they ran to where Mr Flint and the others from the Alien Office waited. They pushed back the crowd who watched the great house in the distance, waiting to see if the scare had been for nothing or if there was indeed a bomb inside that would detonate.
‘Where are they? Where did they take the traitors?’ he asked Mr Flint’s man.
‘To his carriage.’ He pointed to the dark green carriage behind the crowd. In the flicker of the carriage lanterns, he caught site of Moira’s blonde hair. She stood with her back to him near Lord Lefevre, Lord Moreau and Lady Camberline.
Bart pushed his way through the crowd to reach her, to hold her and kiss her lips. He didn’t care who was watching or what they saw. He would be hers and he would give her everything she desired, a home, children, and his heart. He rushed up to her, took her by the arm and spun her around, letting go of the woman the moment she faced him.
‘What are you doing?’ Madame Bernard screeched, her eyes red from tears. ‘Why is Lord Lefevre in shackles? He’s innocent, we both are!’
‘Where’s Lady Rexford?’ Bart demanded.
‘She’s in the house,’ a female voice with a French accent hissed.
