by Laura London
“Pierre, open the window. Not that one, fool, the one toward the sea.” A clean salt breeze swept through the room and I could feel my skin cooling. “Much better, eh, Elizabeth?”
I stepped back uneasily as he advanced to stand in front of me.
“What a shy creature you are.” His smile was serpentine. I could see that now more than ever. “Merely, I am going to help you to sit down. Regard the wooden chair to your left. Yes, the appearance may be a trifle unstable, but it should hold your slender form with no trouble.” His hands pressed cruelly down on my stiff shoulders until I was seated. “Now,” he continued, “you must school yourself to sit quietly while Pierre and I conduct some little business. I must caution you, my dear, to behave very well. If you are a trouble, I’m afraid that it will be more convenient to… dispatch you to your Maker. Ah, I see that you can see reason. What a delightfully intelligent girl.”
Only for now, you ghoul! The more passive I was now, the less they would be on their guard. Oh God, I had to escape. Please, please, let there be help for me somewhere. Suddenly I thought of Mrs. Goodbody identifying my lifeless body. Her face would be—no, I couldn’t imagine what it would be. Where had I been in heaven when they were handing out brains—out picking berries?
Dr. Brent (I wondered what his name really was) and Pierre sat together at the rickety pine table. Brent pulled out some papers and they gazed at them, talking in French, their voices rising and falling rhythmically with the surf washing outside. I watched through the window behind them as a black thunderhead sailed in majestically and began to overwhelm the late-afternoon light, brilliant rays shooting high into the sky as the sun made a futile effort to stay alive. Sacre Bleu lit a candle and the conspirators’ faces took on an even more sinister aspect. The bumps and craters in Sacre Bleu’s cucumber nose were accentuated in the wavering candlelight, and a gold tooth glinted as he talked. Dr. Brent’s face seemed carved out of marble. Their voices were drowned in a clap of thunder, and, as if making amends for my own unwillingness to cry, the sky began to weep torrentially. I sympathized.
The former arid heat of the chamber was soon replaced by a clammy draft and I was to find that cold was added to my other physical miseries. After a while my bound wrists became mercifully numb, but the burning throb in my limbs was increasing. My afternoon in the saddle was catching up to me with a vengeance. I wondered whether the ache in my stomach was hunger or fear. A piercing pain bit at my temples and my stiff neck felt inadequate to hold up the satiny heaviness of my head. With a dismal clarity I recalled the time I had followed Sacre Bleu into the woods, the blow on the head, the aftermath in the arms of Lord Dearborne. I had laid my head against his chest as he carried me home in front of him. Jupiter’s strides had slid like silk over silk. I remembered, too, the shamed realization that the marquis’s touch had aroused those first stirrings of pleasure in me. His flirtations under the honeysuckle bush, the moment at Lady Catherine’s ball when he had pulled me against him, his light friendliness on the hillside on the way to London; these were times of glowing sensation for me, however little they had meant to Lord Dearborne. Heart-stricken, I realized that these might be the only such moments I would ever have. I felt a sudden bright warmth under my eyelids.
A clatter on the stairs far below us indicated the approach of a visitor. Dr. Brent and Sacre Bleu heard it also, and without a word Sacre Bleu stationed himself behind the door, wielding a wicked-looking truncheon. The steps continued their advance.
“Rest easy, boys, it’s only me,” said Thomas. Sacre Bleu relaxed his stance as Thomas burst through the door, shaking water from his greatcoat like an unruly dog. “Put down the club, Pierre. If you knock me on the head, you’ll get no victuals.” He appraised my condition, but made no remark. Placing my box of maps on the floor, he produced a loaf of bread, a wheel of cheese, and a bottle of wine from out of his coat.
“Why in the devil’s name did you bring those maps along?” said Dr. Brent.
“I thought we might be able to use them,” he said defensively.
“Can’t you give the boy some credit?” said Sacre Bleu. “If he had left them someone might have found them.”
“Forget it,” said Dr. Brent with an impatient wave. “Your methods of operating are beyond me. Let’s have the refreshments. Pierre and I have had a hard afternoon of intrigue while you have been running about the countryside getting wet.”
The three of them sat down again around the table and began scattering crumbs as I watched. I’d be damned if I was going to ask for any. Suddenly Dr. Brent looked in my direction and feigned great surprise, slapping himself on the forehead.
“Elizabeth, my dear, I completely forgot about you.”
“I wish you had,” I muttered.
“But you must be starving.” He sauntered over to my corner and crouched down beside me, brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen across my face.
“Don’t touch me.”
“But I was going to untie your hands so you could eat. Since you wish me not to touch you, I may have to have Pierre untie you. But Pierre is busily eating, so I will just ignore your desires. You must eat,” he said, roughly freeing my hands from behind my back. “That beautiful body of yours will otherwise become but a fence post.” Dr. Brent tore a crust of bread and a rind of cheese and tossed them into my lap. I rubbed my wrists and winced involuntarily as the blood came rushing back. He smirked slyly at my pained expression.
“I thought you were married to the Hippocratic oath,” I flashed angrily.
“Ha!” Thomas grinned nastily. “He is a hypocritical oaf and as for his doctoring, I would not trust him to pull a splinter from the paw of a dog!”
I took a small bite of the bread, though it almost choked me as it lodged halfway down my dry throat “But how did you fool all of your patients? And Dr. Lindham? You were his assistant.”
“Dr. Lindham knows even less about medicine than I do, for all his distinguished appearance. My father was a doctor, and I know what a farce it is. All you have to do is nod your head and look wise, use large Latin words, and when I ever had to treat anyone, I just gave them opium. You should be glad the marquis contacted me to treat your overdose, for it is one thing I am expert at. Any other ailment and he would have been on to me for sure. Dearborne is no fool.”
“But why pose as a doctor?” I asked him.
“Because I get to poke around the countryside and gain access to people’s secrets. Mudbury is centrally located, close to the coast of France, and populated with yokels. Who is going to suspect me, no matter who they see me talking to?” The rain drummed steadily on the roof.
“Thomas,” he said. “Leave off your chompings and keep watch for the ship. It should be along any moment, and we don’t want to miss the signal.” Thomas did not leave off his chompings, but instead took a large hunk of bread and stood by the window. Sacre Bleu and Dr. Brent resumed their desultory French conversation, Dr. Brent keeping an eye on me while I finished choking down my food.
“There now, all finished,” he said. “I must tie your hands again, my dear.” He stood behind me and performed the task, adding an extra twist before he left off. “Now go back to your corner. I will bring you some wine.” I went back to my corner and sat with my back to the wall, so I could gaze enviously at the gulls wheeling in the storm. The cliché “free as a bird” gained new meaning.
“Here you are, dear,” said my captor. “The wine I promised you.”
“You don’t expect me to drink that,” I said.
“You’ll drink it or I shall require Pierre’s assistance to hold open your lovely mouth,” he said, affecting a frightening aspect.
“Pierre will be minus his fingers,” I shot back at him.
“Such spirit,” he said. “No, I was joking. This is just wine. See, I will drink half of it myself.” He did so, but I still did not trust him. “So be thirsty,” he shrugged, finishing the bottle. “I will talk to Pierre. He is more interesting than you.”
Distraught with misery, I gazed out at the storm and wondered if I could reach the window sufficiently ahead of my captors to throw myself out. I tried to imagine what my last moments of life would be like, twisting and turning, the wind rushing through the dark as I plummeted from the tower. There would be a blinding flash of pain as I collided with the rocks far below; then I would be one with the gulls and the storm. I was trying to raise my courage, to shed my hold on life, and was about to make the attempt, when I heard something. Wait and listen, I told my disbelieving ears.
Through the crying of the gulls, the thundering of the wind and surf, the rattle of the rain against the roof, the ticking of the clockworks, and the talk of my captors, came a sound that, thin and low as it was, sounded to me like the clarion call of a thousand bugles. Dear and familiar to me from a hot summer day, it was a sound which brought hope rushing back into my heart like a cavalry charge.
The marquis was blowing a grass whistle, unless my naughty sisters had left their beds to rescue me. It had to be him; only he would know what the sound meant to me, from our moment under the honeysuckle bush. He was close to me, probably in the wood at the base of the tower, and I would bolt from them when we left. Better to die in the attempt than to be dragged across the English Channel with a half-mad spy.
“I see the signal,” shouted Thomas.
“He’s right, for once,” said Dr. Brent, leaping to the window. “We will soon be treading the Champs-Élysées. Pierre, get the pistols.”
He turned to me. “And you, my dear. It is time to begin our journey. You will walk behind Pierre, I will walk behind you, and Thomas will bring up the rear, carrying our baggage like the pack mule he is. And one more thing. Don’t try to flee. It is a deserted area and no one will hear your screams when I catch you and beat you with the buckle end of my belt.”
I staggered to my feet as best I could with my hands tied behind my back. “I can barely walk,” I said. “How am I going to flee?”
He gave me an ugly smile and pushed me in front of him. “Let me help you,” he said. “Thomas, bring the candle.”
We were making our way down the staircase, the sounds of the storm ringing hollow in the interior of the tower. Our shadows cast giant grotesque shapes on the far wall as we spiraled downward. We reached the bottom of the stairs and paused for a moment, Dr. Brent cocking an ear.
“Snuff the candle and we will be out,” he said. Thomas obeyed his orders with a quick motion. “As a precaution, we will cock our pistols.” Three clicks rang ominously.
“Well, Pierre, open the door. Are you waiting for Christmas?”
We were out in the open, a windy drizzle was prickling my skin. Dr. Brent halted us again. If we could only be underway. He listened and shrugged.
“Let’s be off,” he said, pushing me again. Five steps, I thought to myself. Five more steps. Two… three… four…
I took a deep breath and ran as hard as I could into the darkness at my left, my bound hands bumping uselessly behind me.
“She’s there!” shouted Thomas.
“Elizabeth, get down!” came the marquis’s voice. By way of obedience I tripped on the wet grass and fell to my face with such a jar that my wind was knocked out of me.
“Now!” shouted the marquis.
A dozen lamps were uncovered at once, and the three scoundrels were standing in a brilliant circle of light.
“Damn your eyes, Dearborne,” shouted Dr. Brent. He crouched down with his companions and a blistering crossfire opened up over my hapless head. The noise was deafening, but in a few moments it was rocketing away over the cliffs and gone, leaving only the plaintive cries of the wheeling gulls.
The three friends of Napoleon had sung their last Marseillaise.
Chapter Eighteen
Before I had even caught my breath, I was dragged ruthlessly to my feet.
“Elizabeth, you little idiot, what in the hell possessed you to gallop across the green like a bolting sheep? Good God, did those bastards tie your wrists? Quit wriggling, damnit! There. You can thank God, whichever one you’re worshipping now, that you’re already covered with bruises or so help me I’d beat the hell out of you.” Lord Dearborne was in a royal temper and it sounded to me like the singing of an angelic choir; under the rough anger there was the pure, unmistakable undertone of a caress. He slid his satin-lined cloak around my shoulders, tying it at the neck with impatient fingers. “Lesley? Good. Take her to the coach and take care that she doesn’t break her silly neck tripping over the damned cape.” Lord Peterby took my arm and pulled me along behind him.
“Come on, you little wretch, you’ve only got a few dozen yards to walk.” After Dr. Brent, even Lesley Peterby seemed like a pussycat. “What a limp! What in God’s name did they do to you?”
“Nothing. At least, not much more than tell me they were going to take me to France. Oh, and they tied me to a chair and gave me rancid cheese and stale bread for supper, though I can’t say I felt much appetite anyway.” I tried to match my stumbles to Peterby’s long strides. We were walking in the direction of the nearby side road.
“I should imagine not,” returned Lord Peterby drily. “Why did you tear away from them like that? Don’t you realize that was precisely the provocation they needed to gun you down?”
“Of course, but anything was better than going with them to France. And when I heard Nicky whistling on the blade of grass, I hoped… I hoped…” I broke off in confusion, it was the first time I had ever called my august fiancé by his pet name.
“Nitwit. He whistled so that you would avoid panicking. As though we didn’t spend the entire afternoon concocting plans to separate you safely from your so charming companions. There is practically a regiment of soldiers from here to the beach, ready to perform a gallant and safe rescue. Then you ruin the whole thing by taking off like a hare before the hounds. And if Dearborne hadn’t been so quick on the trigger… Brent almost got the chance to send a bullet through you.”
We had reached the coach and I was happy to see it was Lord Dearborne’s discreetly luxurious traveling chariot and not Lady Peterby’s bouncing laudet. I don’t think that I could have endured another jolting trip that day. Lord Peterby lifted me in and I leaned back against the velvety pillows.
“But Lord Peterby, how did you know that I was in there?”
I could see Lord Peterby’s grin in the glow of the oil flambeau. “Half the town saw you riding hell-for-leather after a grizzly stranger and a wagon, mounted precariously on Jupiter. Those facts, added to a somewhat rueful knowledge of your generally reckless and impulsive character, led Nicky to the correct conclusion. Unfortunately, by the time he got here, you had already been taken.”
There were so many things that I couldn’t understand. “But Lord Peterby…”
“Lesley,” he interrupted.
“Oh, all right then, Lesley,” I said with crabby obedience. “How did he know to come to Dyle?”
“Dearborne has known for some time about their rendezvous here. The man you followed here is a notorious agent who was identified several months ago by one of Christopher’s servants. We identified Thomas, too, after Christopher’s firecracker turned out to have more of a bang than he intended.”
“But why not arrest them then?”
“Because Dearborne hoped that they would lead us to their leader. The eel has been slipping in and out of England for years, creating havoc, and it wasn’t until this afternoon that they found out that Dr. Brent was the disguise of one of Napoleon’s cleverest operatives.”
“Lovely. And in the meantime letting Thomas and Pierre terrorize a lot of innocent citizens,” I cried indignantly.
“Nonsense. There wasn’t any danger if you had only obeyed a few simple rules. Thomas was watched every moment. And there were a couple of full-time men on the trail of your Sacre Bleu.”
I gasped. “And which of your wonderful men was watching Thomas the night he decided to burn down Barfrestly Manor?”
Le
sley frowned. “Our man had no idea of Thomas’s intentions in that instance. He was thought to have been going to another rendezvous with Pierre, so the tail was much too loose. When he finally got down to business, our man was too far behind. Mistakes like that are too common in our business.”
“Our business? You work in the War Department as well? I shall never sleep soundly again.”
“I am not actually employed in the War Office, so rest easy. I just help Nicky out occasionally. I know my way around London’s brothels and low-life casinos. It is a knowledge which Nicky finds useful.” There was some shouting and commotion outside the carriage. “I should go, Nicky will need some help with the details,” he said. He opened the door.
“Wait, L-Lesley,” I reached out and touched him on the shoulder. “I never did thank you for getting me out of the slums.”
Lord Peterby took my outstretched hand and raised it to his lips.
“Thank me by refraining from sauntering off on more perilous expeditions in the future.” A bright ironic smile lightened his features, and he paused on the carriage steps. “Nicky is getting a rare handful in you.” And he was gone before I could decide whether or not to acquit him of double-entendre.
Exhausted, I leaned back in the plush seat of the coach and yawned. My wrists were aching, and far away I could hear men talking. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Through the window of the coach I saw the clouds part to let through a brilliant full moon, which seemed to wink at me confidentially. It was near two o’clock in the morning.
I must have dozed off, for I was returned into half-consciousness by the forward lurch of the coach. Careful, efficient hands were propping the pillows more comfortably beneath my drowsy head and tying the slipping cloak more securely around my neck. I peeped surreptitiously beneath my drooping eyelids to glimpse the pure classical profile and shining red-gold hair. Lord Nicholas Dearborne, Marquis of Lorne, was leaning back against the opposite side of the coach, his long legs stretched out in front of him. I noticed that his hands were stuffed firmly into the pockets of his jacket.
