In Bed with the Duke (36 page)

One of his men said, “My lord!”

This time Jean-Pierre wasn’t so imprudent as to dismiss that urgent tone of voice. He looked up to the top of the hill behind them . . . and there, chasing a noble carriage, rode the Reaper.

This time the Reaper would pay.

As Jean-Pierre galloped at the head of his troop, whipping his horse up the rise, Durant’s words echoed mockingly in his ears.

Jean-Pierre cursed smug Michael Durant and deceitful Prince Sandre, who had so artfully
not
told Jean-Pierre of the event tonight. He cursed whoever had planned a masquerade party this night, and every blasted nobleman in the country.

Someday they would all pay for their neglect and prejudice against Jean-Pierre. He would make them pay.

Like a bullet, he aimed his ire at the pale, masked Reaper. Shouting, he spurred his horse onward.

The Reaper made a squawking noise. He tried to turn his mount, aim the creature back down the road.

With a roar of fury, Jean- Pierre launched himself out of the saddle, tackling the Reaper, knocking him to the ground. The two tumbled end over end, and when they stopped, Jean-Pierre tore off the villain’s white mask—and found himself on top of and staring at a terrified Lord Nesbitt. “My lord. What are you doing here?”

Lady Nesbitt’s sharp, high voice sounded behind his left shoulder. “What is he doing? What are you doing, you upstart excuse of a de Guignard peasant?”

Jean-Pierre turned and snarled.

“Don’t you dare speak to me in such a manner.” Her face was covered in pale powder, and she, too, wore tattered white lace similar to a shroud, but there was no mistaking Lady Nesbitt’s finger as she shook it in his face. “You attacked my husband!”

“What is he doing dressed like this? What are you doing dressed like this?”

“We’re going to the prince’s party.”

“What?” Jean-Pierre loosened his grip on Lord Nesbitt’s cravat.

“The prince’s party. His masquerade party. Tonight. I thought you were Prince Sandre’s cousin and body-guard, but obviously you know nothing.”

“The invitation. Do you have the invitation?”

“Why? Do we need it to get into the palace?” Lord Nesbitt’s voice quavered.

“No, we do not!” Lady Nesbitt’s voice rose. “We are Lord and Lady Nesbitt. Even the prince knows that!”

“I want to see the invitation,” Jean-Pierre repeated. “Do you have it with you?”

Something of his urgency must have penetrated Lady Nesbitt’s righteous anger, for she observed him more closely, then nodded regally. “I do. Come with me.”

Jean-Pierre stood and gestured to his men. “Get Lord Nesbitt cleaned up and on his feet.” He followed Lady Nesbitt to the carriage.

She reached inside, pulled out her reticule, and found a stiff piece of paper. Jean-Pierre tried to take it, but she pulled it away, gestured to her outrunners to come close, and by the light of their torches, read, “ ‘To celebrate the success of our pursuit and capture of the Reaper, by the order of Prince Sandre, come to the palace for a masquerade, and wear your rendition of the Reaper’s costume. Stamped with the royal seal, this eighteenth day of September, 1849.’ ” When she was finished reading, she extended the invitation to him.

Taking it, he reviewed the words with disbelief. This party . . . the
prince
was giving it? Without a word to Jean-Pierre, Prince Sandre had invited every nobleman in the entire country to come to the
palace
? To come dressed as the
Reaper
? Then he sent Jean-Pierre out onto the roads to apprehend them?

No. That didn’t make sense.

But the royal seal looked authentic.

And what about Michael Durant? He had mentioned a party, a masquerade, but he was dressed in a buccaneer’s clothing. He carried a weapon. He . . . Jean-Pierre looked over the countryside, to the road where he’d apprehended Durant . . . the road that went to the palace. Realization of the truth overwhelmed his rage, and he saw his mistake.

“My lady, I suggest you go home. The invitation is a fake, and if you go to the palace tonight, all you’ll see is horror and bloodshed.”

Her mouth dropped open.

With a bow, he handed her the invitation, mounted his horse, and rode to the palace—where he intended to kill Michael Durant.

As Lady Nesbitt stepped into the carriage, she told the driver, “Whip up the horses. We’re going to the palace. This should be very interesting indeed.”

M
ichael stood at the gaping black entrance to the dungeon . . . at the entrance to the abyss. The exhilaration of defeating Sandre and leaving him to his fate was subsiding, and in its place came a creeping paralysis, a fear of darkness and cold, of slime and rats and a death so gradual a man could pass from this life to the next and never realize he had changed domains.

He took the first step down the stairs. He wasn’t even to the first gate, yet the familiar scent of dirt and mildew filled his lungs. He could scarcely breathe, yet he took another step, and another.

Emma was down in this place, in this dungeon where hope had died.

Would she be alive?

Of course. Sandre took no pleasure in killing. He lived to torment, and he had his special pets. For them he reserved the royal cell, and Michael knew that was where he would find her.

Slowly he descended, down, down, finally reaching the first level, where Gotzon sat dozing, a hound of hell.

Michael leaned over him, shook his shoulder, said, “Gotzon, let me in.”

Gotzon snorted and woke, stared at Michael, and grinned. “I knew you couldn’t stay away. Not with that pretty girl in the dungeon.”

“That’s right.” Michael lifted Sandre’s keys. “I’ve come to take her.”

Gotzon laughed, a big, jolly laugh, like some perverted St. Nick. “You can’t. Tomorrow she’ll marry Sandre or she’ll hang. Tonight, if she doesn’t yield to Sandre, I get her. We all get her. It’ll be a lovely party, and I’m not going to miss it by opening the door to—”

Michael stuck his knife into Gotzon’s soft belly.

Gotzon’s mouth moved and his eyes bugged in surprise.

Michael pulled his knife free and wiped it on his handkerchief.

Gotzon collapsed on the floor. “You,” he whispered. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he died at Michael’s feet.

Michael stepped over the body and took the ring of a dozen keys off the wall. He tested the largest; the third opened the first gate. He started to discard them. But no. He dared not take the chance someone would come behind him and lock him in.

So with Prince Sandre’s personal keys in one hand, and Gotzon’s keys in his pocket, he descended.

Torches smoked on sconces set high on the walls. He grabbed one and walked along the dark steps, the puddle of feeble light moving with him valiantly battling the grim darkness. Dampness dripped from the ceiling. Panic closed Michael’s throat, making it hard for him to breathe, to swallow. Each step echoed along the stone walls, and landmarks appeared and disappeared like truth encased in nightmares.

There
. Sandre had placed the brand on his shoulder.

Michael’s steps slowed.

There
. Rickie had lashed him with a whip until blood ran down his legs.

This place reeked of horrors.

There
. Gotzon had wrapped a rope around his neck, flung it over the rafters, and hanged him. Sandre and Rickie laughed while Michael kicked and clawed at his throat. Then he passed out. Then when he awoke, they did it again. And again. And again.

In all the time since he’d left the dungeon, he had been focused on his corrosive hatred of Sandre. He hadn’t realized that the place where he’d been imprisoned still held his soul in thrall.

The dungeon was too deep for any but the most loathsome insects, and not even the largest palace cats would attempt to kill one of the rats that slid furtively along the walls.

Emma was down here. Down here somewhere.

Still the corridor extended downward into the depths, and he walked in an unending nightmare.

“Michael.” A soft voice whispered his name.
“Michael?”

With a start, he turned toward that beloved sound. “Emma?”

“Here!”

Her voice, so eager, yet so quiet, rasping as if . . .
Dear God.
Had they hanged her, too? Cut her down and hanged her again?

“Say more.” He waved the torch down the row of bars and doors.

“To your right and back. Please. Please, Michael. This time, don’t be a dream.”

He followed the sound of her desperation, thrusting the torch at the bars until the feeble illumination touched her, a small, dim figure huddled on a cot against the far wall.

The sick bastard had placed her in the royal cell—the same cell Michael had inhabited for two long, despairing years.

Using Prince Sandre’s keys, he thrust first one, then the other into the lock. The second turned; the door opened with a creak. He beckoned her. “Come on. Hurry!”

Chains rattled. “I can’t.”

They had shackled her. Of course they had.

He closed his eyes in a single moment of anguish for her. For her helplessness.

Then he opened them. The anguish remained, tasting sour in the back of his throat.

It tasted like fear.

“Michael?” Her voice trembled. “You have the keys.”

“Yes.” He held Sandre’s keys in his hand. He pulled Gotzon’s iron ring from his pocket. They were heavy and cold in his hand, and he was in the grip of such horror he couldn’t move.

How could he walk into this dark womb of earth where hour followed hour, day followed day, without light, without heat, without the sound of a human voice or the warmth of a human touch? Where every moment dragged on for an eternity, until all too soon, Sandre came and had him dragged out, and gave him to Rickie like a mouse to a cat?

“Michael. I need you.” Emma’s voice was barely a breath.

Emma. Unless he moved, she would die.

He took a step into the cell. Terror brushed his skin like cobwebs. Another step. The familiar smell of mold and damp filled his head. Another step. His mind shouted,
This is a trap. A trap!

Then the torch flame illuminated Emma’s upturned face. She looked thin and tired, but she watched him, eyes shining, as if he were brave and strong.

“Stop,” he muttered.

“Stop? Stop what? I can’t move.” Her wrists were chained to the wall, her ankles chained together, then chained to her wrists.

Falling to his knees, he carefully placed the torch on the floor and used its light to search for a smaller key on Gotzon’s ring, a key that would fit her shackles. “Stop looking at me like that. Like I came fearlessly to save you.” He found the key and tried to fit it into the lock at her ankles.

His hands shook, and the key clinked against the metal.

“Sandre told me this was your cell. He told me what he did to you. Oh, Michael.” Her hand lifted. She tried to touch his cheek, but the chain clinked as it reached its limit inches from his face. “You knew when you came down here what they had done to you. You knew you could be captured and tortured once more. You knew you could be killed. Yet you came anyway. I hope you came for my sake, but also—I know you came because you always do the right thing.”

Once again he tried to put the key in the lock, but his tremors were too violent. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t make the final gesture to free her.

He was a failure.

“I don’t do the right thing,” he said in a low voice. “I do what I have to.”

She laughed. She actually laughed—a sound that had never been heard down here before, a sound that chased away the darkness. “You didn’t
have
to do any of this. After you were released from this dungeon and discovered your way out of your cell at Lady Fanchere’s, you could have gone home to England. Who would have blamed you? Instead, you donned the costume of the Reaper and rode for justice. When you discovered I had been captured—captured after you told me not to ride—you could have let me take the punishment meted out to me. Instead you faced this horror. Right now, you have to be petrified, yet you came in; you came after me. Honor is a choice. Bravery is a choice. And you are the bravest man I know!” She tried to touch him, but again she reached the end of the chain. “I wouldn’t have stayed sane, but I always knew you were coming after me.”

As she spoke, the shaking of his hands eased.

He opened the shackles, her feet first, then her hands.

He wrapped her in his arms for one minute, only one, for he kept in mind the barred door on the cell, the long corridor they had to traverse, the stairs, the gate, and the palace full of the prince’s servants and the prince’s soldiers.

He and Emma had to get out of here before the prince was served.

But,
oh
. That one minute when he held her and she held him . . . it was life and light and love renewed.

“Can you stand?” he asked.

“Yes.” She hobbled to her feet. “I just . . . When I fell off Old Nelson I bruised myself, and I haven’t healed well.”

“Of course you haven’t.” He kept his voice soothing, but if he had known . . . would he have been able to restrain himself? Or would he have killed Sandre when he had the chance?

He picked up the torch, moved to help her, but the iron rings with their heavy keys hindered him. He stared at them, wanting to fling them away, knowing such a move would be stupid. Before he and Emma were out, he might need them. . . .

“Here.” She lifted the dirty, thin mat that Sandre mockingly called a mattress. “Put them here.”