What the marquis of Cottrell thought of her lack of regard for an innocent young girl was clear in the slight curl of his lip and by his autocratic tone.
“Miss Nash and I are acquainted,” Ginny conceded. What else could she do? Any number of people must have fallen over themselves to inform the marquis of his sister-in-law’s choice of friends. She and Charlotte had anticipated the marquis of Cottrell’s interest. They had just not anticipated that it would be so soon on the heels of her having left for St. Lyon’s castle. Certainly neither of them had expected the early arrival of Colonel Kit MacNeill.
Having the two scouring the city in search of Charlotte was dangerous. Both men had a reputation of getting what they wanted, through whatever means necessary, and right now they wanted to find Charlotte. Their determination to do so spoke volumes about their affection not only for their wives but for the girl herself and Ginny could not help but empathize. Her sympathy notwithstanding, she could not allow them to know where she had gone. Charlotte needed—no, after all her sacrifices she deserved—as much time as possible to succeed in her search.
“Baroness Welton informed us that Miss Nash took care of you in her own home during your recuperation from an accident.” The huge Scots colonel strode across the room, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as though to keep them from finding Ginny’s throat. “You aren’t thinking of repaying the lassie’s kindness by keeping her family from her?”
A little trickle of sweat ran down from Ginny’s temple and was absorbed by her lace fichu. “Of course not. I wish I could help.”
“Oh, I am sure you can,” the marquis purred, flicking open a Limoges snuffbox and dabbing a pinch of snuff on his hand. He lifted his wrist and inhaled delicately, the dark eyes never straying from her, promising all sorts of retribution should she fail to answer to his satisfaction.
She hoped that Finn stood nearby, ready to act if she should give the signal. Though looking at the two tall, impressive-looking Scotsmen, she profoundly hoped that if her footman needed to act, he brought plenty of help. And a pistol.
The colonel swung around from where he’d been staring out the window. “You lived with Lottie. Tell me, this…this man she is rumored to have…” His face grew ruddy. “To have cohabited with, this Monsieur Rousse, you must know something about him.”
Ginny raised her hands in a simulation of helplessness. “I do not! Charlotte said she met him when she was a girl while she and her family were visiting Bristol.”
“Charlotte is still a girl!” MacNeill said roughly. “A stupid little girl. I cannot believe she would—Who is he?” he abruptly shouted, causing Ginny to shrink back in her seat. If these men ever discovered that Andre Rousse was Andrew Ross, she would not give odds of their onetime brother surviving that knowledge. She almost felt sorry for him, but then she recalled the steely resolve and easy strength of the man.
“A Frenchman,” Ginny stammered. “A Royalist? I don’t know! He and I did not spend much time together. He was utterly besotted of Charlotte and demanded all of her time.” She swallowed, not having to feign her fright. “Most of it alone.”
The marquis of Cottrell’s pale face tightened at this insinuation of how Charlotte had occupied her hours. He turned away and the colonel renewed his combative stance in front of Ginny.
What a pair they were, she thought. So easily taking up the other’s slack, so effortlessly working as one in their goal. The Machiavellian abbot Father Tarkin had fashioned them into a team.
“I believe that after Charlotte,” she bit her lip, her glance darting away as if she could not bring herself to meet MacNeill’s green glare, “sent Monsieur Rousse on his way, he took rooms in Bedford Square.”
“We’ve been there,” MacNeill said, his jaw bulging with frustration.
Cottrell had his emotions once more under his control. “To whom else have you introduced her?” he asked smoothly.
“Introduced her?”
“Please.” Cottrell’s handsome face twisted with derision. “Do not play coy. I do not ask what motivations could lead a woman, a woman who once had dignity and standing, into trying to ensnare a gullible girl in the same trap into which she has fallen, but I do ask that you credit me with enough intelligence not to believe your lies. You have embroiled Charlotte in your life. You would condemn her to your fate. We”—his quick glance garnered a curt nod from MacNeill—“shall un-embroil her. And you will help.”
The blood drained from Ginny’s face. She had never heard so blunt and cruel a condemnation of her and with such justification. More, she had never thought that anything any man could ever say to her would ever have the power to hurt her again. She had been wrong. Not that it mattered. She would not give Charlotte up. Not yet.
“I did not solicit Charlotte in any way. I am not a procurer. I am sorry if you do not believe me.” She lifted her chin.
Cottrell studied her for a long moment. “I do believe you. But there is something more you know. Something you are keeping from us.”
“I agree.” MacNeill’s green gaze narrowed. “And have no doubt, Mrs. Mulgrew, if I thought it would do anything but impede the speed with which we might find Charlotte, I would not hesitate to wring from you whatever knowledge it is you are holding back. But if we do not find Charlotte and quickly, I shall return and when I leave I will be satisfied that you have given me every bit of information you own.”
Her heart jumped in her chest and her mouth went dry. But courage, at least, Ginny had never wanted. She drew herself up and regarded the big Scotsman haughtily. “Are you threatening me?”
It wasn’t MacNeill who answered.
The marquis of Cottrell leaned forward, bringing his beautiful black-eyed gaze on a level with hers and purred, “Mrs. Mulgrew, you can count on it.”
“She was lying,” Kit MacNeill said as he followed Ramsey Munro through the front door into the Cottrell mansion.
“Yes. The only question is, about what? I believed she was truly offended by the suggestion that she had acted as Charlotte’s procurer—” He broke off and his jaw flexed with ill-contained emotion. “Dear God, Kit, I can scarce believe the words that have been coming from my own lips. ‘Seduced. Procurer. Courtesan’ and in relation to Charlotte. Our Charlotte. Our impetuous, wrongheaded, vivacious, and entirely honorable Charlotte. This will kill Helena.” He looked at Kit and seeing the dark savagery on his friend’s face, realized at once that he was not the only one who feared the injury this would cause the woman he loved. “I’m sorry, Kit. I know Kate will feel this just as deeply.”
“Kate won’t believe it. Nothing anyone says will ever convince her that Charlotte has opted for a life of a soiled dove. Charlotte herself could say the words, drag her latest paramour through our doors and Kate would only say that that there were things we did not understand going on beneath the outward appearance.”
Ram sighed. “Yes. I know. Helena, too, has shown decided tendencies in that direction.” Though, Ram conceded silently, his wife would not be as hard to convince as Kate. Kate had not spent the last three years witnessing Charlotte make a mockery of Society, her bold flirtations, or seen the company in which she traveled. Helena had.
“I’ll go see Baroness Welton again. Perhaps she has remembered more about this Rousse other than that he was French and seemed to have Charlotte in some sort of spell.”
“At least Charlotte sent this Rousse away,” Kit said.
“And within a few days both of them disappeared? It seems unlikely that the two are unconnected.” Ram closed his eyes.
“Don’t think it, Ram,” Kit advised, knowing the dark alleys down which his friend’s thoughts had traveled. His own had been there already. What if this Rousse had taken Charlotte, had her still, or worse, had, in the time-tested way of all scorned lovers, taken the ultimate revenge and killed her? Then Rousse had best kill himself next, Kit thought savagely.
With a visible effort to rid himself of the haunting possibility, Ram opened the door besid
e him and motioned Kit to precede him into his library. A footman appeared in the doorway, bowing as he offered Ram a silver salver upon which rested two envelopes. Distractedly, Ram accepted them and with a nod, sent the footman away. He looked down and at once recognized the handwriting. “ ’Tis from Helena.”
He opened the envelope and quickly read the short letter. He met Kit’s interested gaze. “They have anticipated us. Your wife and mine have gone to interview Baroness Welton again in hopes of divining some further information.”
Kit allowed himself a small, dry smile. “You didn’t really expect them to sit here and wait, did you?”
“No,” Ram answered, turning over the second envelope. There was no inscription on the outside. He pulled out a sheet of paper. His face grew still.
“What is it?” Kit asked.
“An anonymous letter saying that Charlotte is in Scotland at the Comte St. Lyon’s castle. As his ‘especial guest.’ ”
“St. Lyon?” Kit echoed.
“A French expatriate and a womanizer of some renown,” Ram replied, nodding, his expression troubled. “St. Lyon may be a debaucher, but he is extremely circumspect. He has far too great a love of Society to risk being evicted from it.”
“Which means,” Kit said gravely, “there is no longer any need to be circumspect where Charlotte is concerned.”
“If this bloody letter is even right,” Ram said with controlled ferocity. “It may be a prank or have some other purpose.”
“Aye. But we can’t afford to ignore it.”
“No. We can’t. I’ll go north, you stay here and continue searching.”
Kit shook his head. “Oh, no, Ram, my lad. I’ll go with you. You’ve hired agents aplenty to search the city. If there is anything to be found, they will do so. This is the first trace we’ve had of Charlotte’s whereabouts. I won’t sit in London while you go. Besides, I will doubtless want to add my…voice to any opposition you lodge with this St. Lyon should the rumor in this letter prove true.”
“All right,” Ram agreed. “I leave you to inform Kate and I shall do what I can to keep Helena from following after. We shall leave at first light, agreed?”
“Agreed,” Kit answered.
By now Ramsey and Christian would have gotten his letter. They would be beside themselves at the thought of their sister-in-law’s situation and in their haste to save her they would race to their destruction. He only had to wait. Everything was coming together with clockwork precision. Everything he had forfeited so many, many years ago would be returned to him tenfold. His reputation, his home, his consequence…his life.
He must not be prey to the same impetuous shortcomings as the others. He must bide his time. Still, the temptation to reveal himself was immense. He closed his eyes, mastering the self-destructive impulse. He was tired. Exhausted. Even with victory so easily within sight, he had not realized what it would cost him to be near to Dand and not be able to speak.
21
Comte St. Lyon’s castle, Scotland
August 12, 1806
“IF YOU HAD BEEN LADY of the manor two hundred years ago, this is where your enemies would await your judgment.” The comte, preceding Charlotte up the narrow spiral staircase on this, the last part of her private tour of the castle, emerged into the cold empty room at the top of the circular guard tower. He turned and offered her his hand. She took it, allowing him to assist her through the hatchway onto the dank slate floor.
“What do you think, Charlotte?” He spoke her Christian name warmly. “Would you be merciful, or would you extract the ultimate penalty…death?”
“It would depend on the crime,” she replied, shivering at the coolness.
She looked around. Open windows faced each other at the four compass points, allowing an unconstrained panorama of the surrounding countryside. From up here she could see the road upon which they’d arrived threading across the vast empty wasteland. To the west hunched the mauve-stained silhouettes of the mountains, while directly below them the river winked and glittered in the evening sun.
“It’s awe-inspiring,” she said, surreptitiously looking about. This room had once been used as an interrogation chamber. The blueprints claimed a very narrow passageway built between the thick stone walls led from the ground floor up to here, ending in a peephole where an unseen witness could view an interrogated man’s confession. But where? And did St. Lyon know about it?
Yesterday morning she had utilized Lizette’s uncommon talent for irritating the housekeeper Madame Paule with preemptive demands and seized the opportunity to search a few of the common rooms while her watchdog was occupied. Though she had found a priests’ hole concealed behind some paneling, it was empty.
Late last night, she had sneaked from her room and searched the comte’s library, cursing because though she suspected she was simply going over ground Dand had already covered, she could not take that chance. Dand and she had not communicated since her arrival and the library, aside from the comte’s quarters, was the most likely place for him to have hidden his letter. She had found nothing.
Now she faced her would-be paramour. “It’s beautiful in a lawless, ungovernable sort way.”
“Oh, it may look lawless, but I assure you it is most secure,” St. Lyon commented. “Though why the builders thought anyone would want to own this patch of nothing is a mystery.”
“Why did you want it?” Charlotte asked.
He shrugged. “Why the hunting, of course. Grouse in the heather and ducks on the river and that stand of forest far off to the south? Filled with deer and cunny.”
At her expression he laughed. “What? Did you think I bought the place for nefarious purposes? Perhaps I use it as a den of iniquity, a prison where I spirit away young ladies?”
He clasped her wrist and pulled her gently toward the wall, pointing to a series of iron rings fixed at various heights in the stone. With a hooded gaze, he lifted her arm and pinned her wrist near one of the thick rings. “Perhaps you think I keep them chained in this tower until they succumb to my desire?”
She was prepared. She did not recoil. She congratulated herself. She met his gaze with one equally as self-assured and sophisticated. “I do not think, Comte,” she answered, “that you would find such a practice at all necessary.”
He eyed her a second before smiling and letting her go. “I should hope not. But you, my dear, are presenting quite a challenge.”
“How so?” she asked. “I am here, am I not?”
“But so, too, is your former lover and he, my dear, could not help but put a blight upon what I’d hoped would be a blissful interlude.”
She had refused to think of Dand since her arrival three days ago, avoiding every occasion that might bring her into contact with him. When she was obliged to be in the same room, she acted as if he did not exist. Unfortunately, it was only an act.
Concentrate though she tried upon the task at hand, he was ever with her. The sound of his voice across the room brought a light flush to her cheeks. Whenever she looked up she found his gaze upon her, speculative or hard, pensive or angry. He was only pretending to be the wounded, angry lover. For her it was not an act.
She longed for him at the same time as she mentally castigated him for his deception of her and cursed herself for her stupidity. He had always been forthcoming in admitting that he would do whatever was necessary to achieve his goal. Sacrifice whatever was demanded. Or whoever.
“Send him away,” she demanded in the tones of a woman who is used to being indulged. “He disturbs me.”
“As I said,” St. Lyon replied in conciliatory tones, “he is here representing others.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean about his having ‘ecclesiastical associates’? He is nothing but a French émigré.”
“My dear.” He looked honestly surprised. “You really do not know who he is?”
“A Frenchman I met in Bristol many summers ago. A childish infatuation which I, unfortunately, did not have the common se
nse to recognize as such when we met again in London this summer.”
“But…did he not say who he was?”
Charlotte’s interest was piqued, but she evinced only slight peevishness. “No. What do you mean? I never liked guessing games. Tell me if you think I shall be impressed, who is he?”
“He is Andre Henri Rousse, cousin to the murdered Duc d’Enghein and great-grandnephew of Marie Therese of Austria.”
Charlotte almost laughed. God Lord, when Dand adopted a role, he adopted an impressive one, she must give him that. But the expression on St. Lyon’s face told her all she needed to know. St. Lyon, despite his recent adoption of the English values, still went in awe of his old regime. No wonder Dand had decided upon that particular alias.
“Yes, well, eightieth in line or eighth in line to a nonexistent throne is all the same, is it not?” she asked in a bored voice. “Certainly his exalted position has afforded him no comfort that I can see. For all that he looks well turned out, his tailor owns him. Hasn’t sixpence to scratch.”
“You are truly a most practical creature,” St. Lyon mused, and Charlotte feared she had misstepped.
Her role called for her to be mercenary but not so much so that St. Lyon would take a distaste of her. He must think that she desired him first and his pocketbook second.
“Of course,” she murmured as if to herself, “I should not have noticed his lack of means had there been other compensations.” She trailed off, leaving St. Lyon to imagine what particular attributes Dand lacked. “I do wish he would leave.”
“There, there, my darling Charlotte. He’ll only be here a few more days,” St. Lyon said soothingly, as though he were dealing with a spoiled and recalcitrant child which, Charlotte had become convinced, was exactly how St. Lyon thought of women.
“No parties. No masques. No society.” She pouted. “Like you, Comte, I am a woman used to a certain quality in all things. Beauty and gaiety are like bread and water to me. And there is a dearth of both here. Added to which,” she fixed him with an accusing stare, “you have not been candid with me.”
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