Geoffrey had been hesitant at first about joining Charlton on Setford’s mission, but had been convinced, and now seemed glad of the chance to do something constructive. Much to Charlton’s frustration, whilst he had spent more painful hours at cards, and in conversation, with de Vierzon, he had not yet been invited to join the Comte’s coterie of plotters. But perhaps it was for the best. Setford had asked them to be here, dressed inconspicuously on this day, and they had spent a few boring hours already, awaiting his final message, which would give them the location and precise time at which de Vierzon’s meeting was to occur. He prayed that it would be close enough to reach in time, once they knew the location.
Finally, as midday approached, a scruffy, nondescript boy ducked into the room, dropped a note on the table, and ran off. Charlton lifted the paper, which was a bit crumpled, and somewhat worse for wear from its travel in the boy’s grasp, and eased the seal open. He read it, and then read it again, praying that his eyes deceived him, but sure they did not.
He groaned, and passed it to Geoffrey, who read it, groaned himself, and met Charlton’s eyes.
“The house next door to Mary’s.” Charlton whispered, knowing, now, why the address of the house had seemed vaguely familiar. “We’ve barely time to get there. At least the side he’s allocated us to watch is Mary’s house. But the risk… what if something happens, and we can’t protect Mary and the child? Rose won’t be there – she’ll be at Pendholm House, fitting Harriet for yet more Ball gowns.” The anguish in Charlton’s voice made it sharper than usual.
Geoffrey nodded and looked at him. “We’ll just have to make sure we can protect them. No choice about it. Now, we’d best move, or we’ll not be there in time.”
Charlton stood, and despite his horror at the situation they were about to go into, he smiled – for, before his eyes, Geoffrey had transformed. Gone was the depressed man who had been doing little but drink and womanise – here was the man he knew, the skilled soldier, the swordsman par excellence, whose reflexes were always sharp and whose attention to the world around him never wavered.
The sight gave Charlton hope – hope that, between them, and Sefton’s men, they could capture the conspirators, and still protect Mary and the child.
They reached the house with but a quarter of the hour to spare. Dobbs, in the kitchen eating his luncheon, was shocked to see his employer, dressed more like a common labourer, slip quietly in through the servants door, accompanied by a large man he had only seen once before.
“M… My Lord?”
“Quietly Dobbs. I need your co-operation. No questions, just please do what I say – I’ll explain later.”
Dobbs nodded, completely puzzled, but willing to do as asked.
“Yes Sir!”
“Good man. Now, there are some dangerous men in the house next door. We are helping some others, in His Majesty’s service, capture them, before they can do more harm. For now, we just need to watch that house. Where are Mary and Sylvie?”
“Upstairs, my Lord, in the nursery. Miss Sylvie can be stubborn about going to sleep for her nap in the afternoons.”
“Good. The longer they stay up there, the better. And you must not, under any circumstances, tell them that we are here. Now, I’m going to tuck myself into the store room here, where I can watch the back of next door out the little window. Please be so good as to show Lord Geoffrey here where he can hide himself in the front servants parlour down here, to watch the front of the house out that window.”
Dobbs nodded, beginning to be a little excited by all of this, and waved Geoffrey towards a door at the front of the room.
“This way sir.”
Settling into their uncomfortable spots to watch, Charlton and Geoffrey had to trust that Setford had the others in place. With ten minutes to go, Charlton was startled to hear the doorknocker. Who could be calling at such an inopportune time?
Moments later, he heard voices, as Dobbs greeted the newcomers, and ushered them into the hall. Voices that he knew well, he realised with dawning horror. Voices that belonged to his mother, to Lady Odette, and to Lady Farnsworth. What madness was this? Why on earth were they here, and NOW?
He heard the parlour door close, above him, and the sound of Dobbs footsteps as he went up the stairs – to fetch Mary and Sylvie, presumably. He felt a sense of helpless terror, which brought a cold sweat to his brow. So many of the people, that he cared most about in the world, were right here in this house, now, in the path of danger.
For, once Setford’s men moved in through both front and back doors of that house next door, who knew what might happen?
~~~~~
In the parlour, oblivious to the danger around them, Lady Farnsworth and Odette looked around them, nervous about what the next few minutes might bring, but also charmed by the scatter of well-loved children’s toys in the room, and the plain, but pretty décor. It was clear that this house was appreciated and well maintained.
Lady Pendholm settled into a chair, happy to be here again, and looking forward to seeing Sylvie. She was delighting in having a grandchild to spoil. Moments later, Mary entered the room, with Sylvie, looking a little tousled and sleepy, in her arms. The instant that Sylvie saw Lady Pendholm, she stretched out her arms to her. Lady Sylvia took her and hugged her, before returning her to her mother.
“Good day to you Mary – both you and Sylvie are looking so much better! A few months of good food and warmth make such a difference – every time I see you, you look more beautiful!”
Mary blushed at Lady Sylvia’s words, which only served to demonstrate that they were true. Odette was immediately taken with her, feeling that this girl was honest and genuine.
“May I introduce Lady Farnsworth, and her niece, Lady Odette.”
Mary dipped them a curtsey, as Lady Sylvia went on, “I am sorry to intrude on your day my dear, but these two Ladies needed to meet you, and to hear your story from your own lips. You see, they have been told, by some annoying scandal monger, that you are Charlton’s mistress, and that Sylvie is his child. I wanted them to hear the truth from you.”
Mary looked at first shocked, then responded exactly as Lady Sylvia had done – she burst into laughter.
“Oh no, my ladies, it’s nothing like that, I assure you. I have the greatest respect for Viscount Pendholm, he’s done so much to help us, as has my Lady here. But that’s all it is. There’s nothing more between us.”
Mary watched Odette with interest, as a blush spread across her cheeks.
“My darling Sylvie isn’t his child. Her father was his brother – and a nastier man I never met. Sylvie’s the only good thing that came of him. Lord Michael trapped me in my little room in the attics one day, and gave me no choice. Said he’d see me dismissed if I said anything, or didn’t do as he wished. He used me, and he beat me, and, in the end, I ran away, once I knew I was expecting. I wanted my baby to live.”
The simple, unadorned truth, from Mary’s own lips, utterly removed any remaining doubt that Odette may have felt. Mary spoke with an edge of defiance, as if thinking they would have expected her to stay, and do as Michael had wished – for many of the aristocracy might have said just that.
When Odette clasped her hands and smiled at her, praising her for her courage in running away, the defiance melted from her, and she returned the smile.
“Even so, for a while there, I thought I had been a fool to run, that we would die, or that I would have to… to give myself to men for money… when the coal ran out, and there was no food left. But Lady Sylvia and Viscount Pendholm came and found us, and brought us here. The Viscount now – he’s an honourable man, as different from what his brother was as can be. Some days I still can’t believe that we are here, and safe.”
At that moment, as if to prove that pronouncement wrong, a loud noise, alarmingly like gunfire, echoed from the street – or was it from the house next door? They all stopped, frozen in shock, and then looked around, bewildered.
When no-one came throug
h either door of the parlour, and there was no further noise, they began to relax – but for a moment only. For suddenly there was a loud pounding above them, and, seconds later, the back parlour door was slammed open, and three men rushed in, flicking the door shut behind them.
Gasps filled the room, for one of the three men was the Comte de Vierzon. His gasp, upon seeing Odette in the room, was loudest of all. He looked, Odette thought, completely unlike himself. His cravat was disordered, his hair was wild, and his eyes were wilder. He clasped a pistol in his hand. Odette took a tentative step towards him, and stopped, unsure.
A footstep sounded in the hall, and the Comte looked around wildly. He seemed to come to a decision.
“Seize them” he commanded, waving in the direction of the women.
The other two men turned and, before the ladies could react, had stepped behind them, one grabbing Mary with one arm and scooping up Sylvie with the other, the second man flinging an arm around the neck of each of the older women, clamping his hold so tightly that they could barely breathe.
Everyone froze – the ladies in terror, Odette in total confusion, the men waiting on the Comte’s further order, and the Comte watched the back parlour door, his pistol at the ready, waiting to see if the owner of the footsteps would enter.
~~~~~
The gunfire echoed in the house next door, and Charlton prayed that Sefton’s men had them pinned down, with no casualties on their side. Moments later, to his horror, he heard sounds above, then footsteps thundering down the stairs. They must have gone over the roof, from that house, into this one!
He wanted to run, as fast as he could, straight to the parlour. What if they hurt anyone? But he knew that would be foolish, calling on all of his training, and finding this quite the hardest mission of his life, he crept cautiously out of the store room and up the stairs. He heard the parlour door shut, hard, as he went, and cursed. He found Dobbs, unconscious but breathing, in a crumpled heap at the foot of the servants stairs. Leaving him there, he crept towards the back parlour door. As he did, from the corner of his eye, he saw Geoffrey, as carefully as he, creeping towards the front parlour door.
Charlton signalled that he would go in first, and Geoffrey nodded. At that moment, a voice in the parlour, again, familiar, sickeningly so, cried out “Seize them!”. Charlton leapt forward, and opened the door, stepping into the room, to find the Comte, with a pistol pointed directly at him.
For Charlton, time seemed to stop. Inexorably, his eyes were drawn to Odette, who stood to one side, the only one of the women not restrained. She stared at her father, then at Charlton, seeming shocked, confused, unable to act. He forced himself to look away – he could not afford a moment of inattention now. His blood boiled as he realised that the lowlife who held his mother and Lady Farnsworth was nigh on choking the life out of them.
Little Sylvie began to wail, and Mary, distraught, tried to move, but the man holding her twisted her hand cruelly, and warned her to stay still ‘if she cared about the child’.
The Comte, seeing Charlton look to his daughter first, reached out a hand – “Come Odette, come to your father.” His voice sounded odd, but Odette, not knowing what else to do, did as she was bid. The second she was in reach, the Comte grabbed her, and swung her in front of him, pressing his pistol to her side. She gasped in horror, her eyes, despairing, going to Charlton’s.
“So, my Lord Viscount, am I to take it from this that you are not, after all, ‘like minded’ with myself and my ‘friends’?” The Comte’s voice was hard, and a little wild.
“You are, m’sieur le Comte, correct. I must disappoint your hopes in me, for I find that my loyalty to my birth quite overcomes my resentment of the ton’s treatment of me.”
Charlton, as he spoke, was relieved to see the front parlour door ease slowly open, to reveal Geoffrey, a pistol in each hand. Everyone else in the room was facing Charlton, so his appearance was not detected. Keeping his face calm, Charlton continued his conversation with the Comte, relieved to see that he had dropped the pistol away from Odette’s side, although he still held her tightly.
“A pity. For now you are an obstacle in my way. For at this moment, my most pressing need is to leave this house. And you, and these delightful ladies, are making that somewhat difficult. I fear I must do something distressing, if I am to escape this place.”
The Comte’s meaning became immediately clear, as he raised the pistol to point directly at Charlton. Anguish twisted in Charlton’s breast – for the man held Odette in front of him – Charlton could not attempt to shoot him, without risk of hurting, or killing Odette. Odette - who he realised, with the alarming clarity that comes in battle, was the woman he loved.
And then everything seemed to happen at once.
Geoffrey, taking precise aim, and employing every ounce of skill he possessed, raised both pistols at once, and sighting with the greatest care he had ever employed in his life, shot both of the men who held the women. Each developed a neat hole at the top of their spine, just where it joined their neck, and crumpled to the ground, their limp hands releasing the women as they fell. Mary grabbed the crying Sylvie, and flung herself behind the couch. Lady Anna and Lady Sylvia, gasping great lungfuls of air, crawled after her.
The Comte, startled, glanced behind him, and realising that his hopes of escape were slipping away, spun back to aim, again, at Charlton. As he began to squeeze the trigger Odette finally came out of her horrified, terrified stupor. All was clear. Her father had become a madman, and was about to shoot the man she loved. She could not permit it. She could not live, if Charlton died.
Odette twisted wildly, dragging herself from her father’s grip, and flung herself towards Charlton, attempting to shield him with her body. Charlton caught her, and pushed her behind him – he was no more willing to let her die, than she was willing to allow him to.
The Comte, sneering, regained his balance, and again raised his pistol.
“Well, ma cherie, I am disappointed indeed. But, if that is where your loyalties lie, so be it.”
The Comte’s finger tightened again, then, just as Charlton expected the gun to fire, a strange look came over the Comte’s face, and the gun dropped from his fingers. The tip of a sword appeared, in the centre of his breast, and he toppled to the floor, pulling himself free of the sword as he did. Geoffrey stood, holding the now bloodied sword, a look of great sadness on his face.
Into the sudden silence, Odette’s scream rang loud, bringing a still dazed looking Dobbs in through the parlour door, to stare in amazement at the scene before him.
Odette flung herself down on the floor beside her father, taking his hand. It felt cold, and unnatural in her grasp.
“Papa?” she whispered.
“Odette, ma fille. I do love you, no matter what I said... sorry, so sorry. Adieu.”
Blood bubbled from his lips with the last words, and a final sigh left him as his life ended.
Charlton, after a moment of shock, acknowledged Geoffrey’s saving his life (yet again) with a bow, and went to Odette.
Gently, he uncurled her fingers from her father’s dead hand and gathered her into his arms. He lifted her, and carried her to sit, holding her, on the nearest chair. She looked at him blankly, then, when he gently kissed her brow, she began to sob. Great, heartrending, body shaking sobs, as all of the misery of the last weeks came out of her, along with her shock and grief at her father’s passing.
Stroking her gently, he let her cry, taking the handkerchief that someone passed him, and wiping away her tears. Eventually, the sobbing eased, and she looked at him again, her eyes full of sorrow and uncertainty.
“He is gone.” Her voice was shaky, a tiny thing in the silence surrounding them. “What will I do now?”
Her blue violet eyes, still sparkling with tears, beseeched him. She was, in that moment, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“Marry me, Odette? Because I love you, utterly. When I thought you might die, I could not bear it. P
lease, marry me?”
“You love me?” Her voice was filled with wonder. He nodded, and she smiled. “Then yes, my Lord, I will marry you. For I love you, with equal desperation.”
The words rang in the silence of the room, somehow a blessing, wiping away the horror of the last few minutes. All stood, considering, watching the lovers before them, before everyone spoke at once, congratulating them.
Leaving Setford’s men with the clean-up, everyone departed for Pendholm House.
~~~~~
Lord Geoffrey Clarence sat in Lady Pendholm’s parlour, hiding in plain sight. He had seated himself in the chair furthest from the centre of the room, near the window with a view of the garden.
Whilst everyone else was talking, going over the events of the day, explaining everything, in alarming, and possibly exaggerated, detail to Lady Harriet and Rose, who were both wide eyed and awed at the drama that they had missed, he was simply sitting, staring out the window, and thinking.
He had killed again. And now, more so than on the battlefield, it had saddened him. He was torn. He had hoped for no more killing, yet all of his skills were with weaponry and its most effective use.
He had fallen into a deep gloom these past months, seeing no way to resolve the two facts, seeing no practical use for his skills in civilian life, missing feeling useful, yet not wishing to kill.
Today, although it had involved killing, albeit in defence of those he held dear, had shown him a new possibility. For this was civilian life, yet, obviously, there was a battle still to be waged. And Setford, it seemed, was the commander.
Geoffrey resolved to seek Setford out, and discover if there might be a use for his skills, after all. He had never really considered the life of a true spy – he’d left the intelligence gathering to Charlton, the analysis to Hunter, and the planning of missions to Raphael.
Intriguing the Viscount: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 2) Page 10
