“I see. Mrs. Marley, I presume, was only too glad to switch loyalties?”
“I owed it to David.” Her soft accent made a caress of his name. “After using him as I did—” She broke off and large, misty tears filled her lovely blue eyes. “And after seeing what Felicity thought of me—”
“Felicity?” Belmont broke in. “What the devil has my sister to do with this?”
“She came to me, the morning after I tried to confirm a rumor with Lord Linton, and begged me to tell her I was not a traitor.” Mrs. Marley shook her head. “I had never thought of it like that, never seen myself through her eyes.”
“Felicity,” Belmont repeated. “She warned you.”
“Not on purpose!” Mrs. Marley held out her hand toward him then drew it back. “You must not blame her. She could not believe me capable of…of such treachery. She only wanted me to deny it.”
Recovering somewhat, he shifted his hold on the pistol, still not lowering it. “So you and Warwick concocted this scheme to redeem yourselves?”
David’s lips twitched. “There, my dear Belmont, you have it in a nutshell. Riki and your sister already knew about Marie, and we guessed Linton would shortly be telling you the whole, so Marie had to get out of England. And I wanted to make up for the unintentional damage I’d done.”
“You trusted Mrs. Marley?” Belmont demanded, his eyes narrowed, still not believing. “After the way she’d been tricking you, turning you into a traitor?”
David’s eyes flashed. “I’m an American, not British, I’ll thank you to remember. And that was only at first. She didn’t try to ‘use’ me after we came to know one another.” He transferred his gaze to Marie and his expression softened. “What she did was her job.”
“A mission I came to hate once I met you.” She raised his hand and gently pressed his fingers to her lips. “It was to betray my own heart.”
“Why didn’t you stop?”
Riki cast Belmont a nervous glance. Marie had been not so much a traitor to England as a patriot to France. Belmont, though, was not about to see it in that light.
“I had no choice.” Marie still clung to David but she raised huge, miserable eyes to Belmont. “They would not let me.”
“You could have come to us, confessed and named the traitors.”
“Ah! You do not understand, du vrai! How could I do anything so foolish? I am French, an émigré. I would have been shot.”
To that Belmont did not seem to have an answer. He returned to the basic facts. “You are a spy, you used my assistant for your treachery.”
“Non! Not any longer.”
“You left England when you knew you had been exposed and you went directly to where you could do the French the most good.”
“I told you why we came.” David straightened his shoulders as if squaring off to fight with his former superior. “I gave the French no aid, though they asked.”
Belmont allowed his lip to curl in a sneer. “I saw you at Badajoz, in the company of an officer.”
“I was under arrest! Dammit, we’d just been caught blowing up—” He broke off under the coldness of the viscount’s expression and his lip twitched derisively. “I suppose I should be glad that damn colonel hustled me away. What did you intend to do, shoot me?”
“Yes.”
David closed his eyes for a moment. “Contrary to what you think, I spent my time figuring out how to do the right amount of damage to the French, not in helping them. The approach of the British assault troops was seen without my intervention.”
“Are you trying to tell me you weren’t even tempted to aid them?” Belmont didn’t relax his rigid stance.
David shook his head slowly. “My God, it was—” He broke off, searching for the right word. “It was unreal. I knew I could help them win, that I could change history! Imagine that, Belmont. To know the future of the entire world lies in your hands. I could have made Napoleon emperor of all Europe—and England—by the end of next year. But I didn’t.” His gaze met and held the viscount’s.
“Why not?” Belmont didn’t sound the least bit impressed, merely skeptical.
David gave a half-laugh, and the visions of grandeur he’d painted the moment before faded into oblivion. “God, it sickened me.” He raised a suddenly haggard face to Riki. “To reenact the battles…” He shook his head. “It wasn’t real, any of my miniature world. It was just a game. Recording casualties and counting the wounded—they were nothing but metal figures. They didn’t matter—they’d just be reused in the next battle we staged. And they didn’t bleed or have their faces torn open or their arms and legs blown off.”
He lowered his face into his hands. “That gate…it was awful. The French soldiers—I actually killed them. A whole unit! I—” He broke off, too choked up to speak. He looked at Riki with eyes that had seen too many unspeakable horrors.
Riki took his free hand, knowing there was nothing she could say to ease his misery.
Belmont regarded the trio with an icy glare. “Spare me the Cheltenham tragedy, Warwick.”
David paid him no heed. “God, Riki, it’s enough to make you sick.”
“I know. I entered Badajoz.”
He looked up quickly, his eyes flashing in anger at Belmont. “How could you let her? Damn it, that’s no sight for her.”
“He didn’t know,” Riki broke in. “I followed him—to make certain he didn’t haul off and shoot you.”
David smiled weakly. “That was decent of you, Riki, considering what you thought I was doing.”
“Had your fill of real war?” Belmont’s sneer sounded more pronounced.
David met that angry glare and didn’t look away. “We both have.” He glanced at Marie and she nodded, her eyes wide with remembered horrors. “We traveled with the so-called ‘ambulances’. Reading—even studying in detail—about the Peninsular Campaign couldn’t have prepared me for the reality. To have taken part in it, even in mock re-creation, now makes me sick.”
“It is true,” Marie whispered. “Never have I done more than pass information from the so very elegant drawing rooms of London. It was a game, as David says. But now— I want no more part in aiding such savagery to continue.”
David’s fingers closed protectively over hers.
“What now?” Riki asked, holding her breath.
David met her searching gaze steadily. “I want to go home, back to my own time. With Marie.”
Belmont stared at him, speechless.
“I can’t leave her,” David said simply.
Riki glanced at the other young woman and recognized the adoration in her expression as she gazed at David. “Gil?” She laid her hand on his arm.
“No!” The word exploded from him. “You can take your precious cousin, he doesn’t belong here. But Marie Marley is guilty of spying and she’s not going to escape.”
“Would it be so dreadful?” She clutched his arm, shaking it slightly in her urgency. “Let Marie go with David—she will only be shot by the British if she remains.”
“Damn it, Riki!” Belmont shifted his grip on his pistol again in order to pull her hands from his upper arm. He held them tightly. “I shouldn’t be letting Warwick go. Do you think I’m not having to struggle with my conscience?”
“I didn’t betray the British.” David spoke softly, the pain of his wound strong in his voice.
“But Marie Marley did!” Belmont glared the others down then addressed himself to Riki. “I will not permit you to turn me into a traitor as well!”
David rose shakily to his feet, thrusting Marie behind him. “I won’t leave without her.”
“Then you may consider yourself under arrest.”
David squared his stance, wincing as he moved his wounded leg. “You’ll have to take us then.” Threatening, he raised his fists. “Or do you intend to shoot an unarmed man?”
Belmont’s mouth tightened. He set the pistol aside and began to unfasten the buttons of his coat.
“Gil!” Riki grabbe
d his arm but he shook her off. “For heaven’s sake, Gil, he’s been wounded! And so have you.”
“Stay out of this.” He thrust her aside and she staggered back.
“Run.” David hissed the order to Marie then took an unsteady step forward, placing himself strategically between her and Belmont.
“I cannot leave you.” The fear-filled cry came from Marie’s heart. She backed away a step but made no move to escape.
Belmont cast his coat across a chair and raised his fists, wincing at the strain to his barely healed rib muscles. David tensed.
The door to the tavern burst open before he could launch his attack. Half a dozen British soldiers barged in, their rifles in their hands, with the captain who led the patrol at their head.
The officer stopped dead five paces into the room and took in the tableau with one glance. “You’ve captured them, m’lord! Well done.” He jerked his head at his men. “These are the spies. Take them outside and shoot them.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“No!” Riki screamed. “Gil—?” She turned to him, horrified.
Belmont took an unsteady breath. “No,” he confirmed. “Take them into custody but I don’t want them harmed. Yet,” he added, holding David’s gaze. “They are to return to England for trial.”
“Gil—!” Riki broke off under the fury of the gaze he directed at her. In silence she watched her cousin and Marie Marley shackled.
Belmont remained where he stood, his rapid, shallow breathing betraying his rigid control. David cast them one last, unreadable look before he and Marie were marched out between the soldiers.
“How could you?” Riki cried as soon as the heavy door closed behind the dismal little procession. Shock and fury overcame her. “How could you? You betrayed me, you gave them David!”
Belmont caught her hands, gripping them until she flinched from the pain. “Be quiet! Damn it, Riki, I had no choice.”
“But David isn’t a traitor!”
“We only have his word for what he did. What did you expect him to say when he’d been caught?”
“But what if he’s telling the truth? You can’t be so certain, Gil. The only thing we do know he’s guilty of is talking too freely over his wine with a superior in the War Office.”
Belmont drew a long, steadying breath. “There is no doubt about Marie Marley. I’ll help Warwick because I promised you, but not that French—” He broke off whatever choice descriptive term he had intended to use. Dropping Riki’s hands, he straightened. “I already told you, I will not permit you to turn me into a traitor as well by releasing her.” He swung about, picked up his coat and strode from the room, his booted footsteps echoing on the floorboards like a death knell.
He was right, Riki realized, her heart sinking even lower. Even if Marie Marley had assisted David to make amends, that didn’t erase the years she had spent serving as a spy. By begging Belmont to forget that, Riki asked him to behave in a manner less than honorable by his standards. She averted her eyes from his stiff, retreating figure. They truly were of different worlds.
She started after him, her steps dragging. At least he wouldn’t make David stand trial for treason. He wouldn’t dare, not with all that her cousin could blurt out. She probably ought to be thankful witch burning was no longer a craze.
Outside in the now-quiet street, the British soldiers rounded up the French prisoners. David, limping badly, fell into line with them, Marie at his side.
Riki stomped off to where her gelding stood with the other horses in the charge of the grooms who rode with the unit. Grasping her reins, Riki led the animal toward the prisoners. The first of the guards stepped forward, stopping her.
“One of the prisoners is wounded and can’t walk,” Riki snapped at him. Her furious glare defied the man to stop her.
“Against orders, miss.” He stood his ground, his gun raised diagonally across his chest.
He made no move to point it at her but she sensed the threat. “Viscount Belmont!” She shouted his name in clipped, determined accents.
Belmont, who stood with the captain and a lieutenant, deep in conversation, turned a wary eye on her.
“This prisoner is unfit to walk. Have you not the common decency to permit him to ride?”
He strode over, his dark brows lowered over his hawklike eyes. “These two are not to be kept with the others. They are to ride with me.”
“And your escort,” the captain nodded. “They’re too dangerous for us to run any risk of their escape.”
“As you say.” Belmont nodded.
Riki glared at him, furious, but kept her lips together. At least David would ride.
She glanced back to where two soldiers assisted David to mount a horse. Disillusionment mingled with the pain on his normally animated countenance, and her heart cried for him. Poor David—he had been such an eager, naïve little boy over his favorite pastime. He’d been granted his dearest wish, to see the Peninsular Campaign in reality, and he’d never again be able to think of it with innocent pleasure. Now he saw his hobby as a thin veil covering the real horrors of war. Her spirits sinking even lower, she rode in silence as they began the long journey back.
In the three days it took them to reach Lisbon, Riki spoke not one word to Belmont. He rode at a distance from her, both his rigid posture and grim features defying her to approach. She made no attempt. What they had shared, she realized, was over.
The city, somewhat to her vague amazement, remained unchanged. They had been gone only a little more than two weeks yet it felt like an eternity.
Belmont left his party under the care of the lieutenant and went immediately to make arrangements with Admiral Berkeley. Preparations for their departure began at once and took depressingly little time. The morning following their arrival in the city, they boarded a British supply ship returning to England with the wounded.
Belmont’s expression remained rigid, unbending, and he steadfastly avoided Riki. Did his promise to her mean nothing anymore? She watched his distant figure as he conversed with the captain. Had he become so determined to administer punishment that he closed his mind, willingly sacrificing David along with Mrs. Marley? Or did he actually want to destroy his assistant who had caused him so much trouble—who had been the cause of bringing Riki into his world? That last thought hurt unbearably.
The voyage stretched out, long and lonely, as Riki sought some way to soften his mood, to make him see reason. She could think of nothing.
Nor was she permitted to speak with David or Marie, who remained secured in their separate prison cells deep in the hull, smothered in darkness and the vile smells of pitch and tar. Menchen, allowed more freedom than she, brought her word that they did as well as could be expected. Their jailer, though, he warned, did not permit his giving them anything from her.
She entrusted a message of hope for her cousin to the ex-groom and turned away, only to see Belmont striding in her direction. As he neared, he looked up and saw her. Deliberately, he headed a different way.
Her temper flared. Probably he was ashamed to face her! He’s betraying me. She repeated that thought over and over and found it more painful every time. She loved him, yet he wouldn’t spare David.
And Belmont loves me too—doesn’t he? He had said so once—when barely out of the throes of a fever. And he had proved it, so very eloquently, that one night they’d shared together. Now, though, the memory must be a constant source of embarrassment. Gilbert Randall, Viscount Belmont, was not one to wear his heart upon his sleeve.
Good heavens, I’m even beginning to think in the terms of his time. She leaned against the rail and stared bleakly out to sea. Whether Belmont loved her or not would make no difference to his decisions. He was a man of honor, and as such he would never let his infatuation with a woman interfere with his duty. For once she could not count on his aid.
That gave her something new about which to be depressed, and she proceeded to indulge to her heart’s bitter content. The sooner she return
ed to her own time, she decided, the better it would be. And instead of brooding over the irritating, frustrating behavior of men in general, she had best concentrate on rescuing David.
By the morning of the seventh day out, the already rough seas churned and darkened with an approaching storm. Waves slammed against the hull and the sailors ran to their posts, securing the sails against the wind that set Riki staggering as she stood in the bow. Salt spray stung her face, whipping wet, clinging tendrils of auburn hair into her eyes, blinding her as she stumbled toward the sheltering causeway.
Sailors bustled past, some offering a steadying hand, others too intent on their errands to do more than sidestep to avoid plowing through her. The deck lifted and dropped with a relentless thoroughness that left her stomach somewhere riding the crest of the last wave.
She pulled her cloak closer about herself as she stood in the doorway, reluctant to go below, where the smells would be her undoing. Determinedly, she refused to think of her cousin and his fair but treacherous love locked in the bowels of the ship. She felt ill enough here on deck, where the icy wind and spray kept her senses from dissolving in nausea.
Boats and I aren’t getting along lately. The voyage out to Portugal hadn’t been bad, merely endless, of course, but the one before that, when she and Belmont had set forth in her ketch…
She shivered, but not with the cold, as the pitching of the deck brought forth vivid memories of that lashing, thundering storm…the storm that had brought her back through time. There was only one way to save David, she had known that from the start. She had to take him forward two hundred years. And for that she needed an electrical storm!
She left her shelter in one surging motion, running to the starboard side where she clung to the rail to keep from being flung overboard by the erratic lurches of the heaving deck. Her intent gaze scanned the charcoaled skies, willing an elusive flash of lightning to break the darkness. None came but she did not give up hope.
Her mind whirling, searching for ideas, she scanned the ship. Could a vessel of this size make the nearly impossible voyage across time? As far as she knew the boats involved had all been small, holding no more than five people. Somehow she must get David transferred to some small ketch or yacht before they reached England.
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