Lady of Seduction (19 page)

“I thought as much. But I stole your dragon housekeeper’s keys from the kitchen.” Caroline heard Victorine rattling the keys.
“
Sacre bleu,
such a lot of them! I will try this one.”

After several tries, with Caroline’s heart beating faster at every one, Victorine finally found one that worked. The door
flew open to reveal Mademoiselle Muret standing there in her travel cloak, a victorious smile on her face.

“At last!” she said. “Such a nuisance. Come, mademoiselle, we must hurry.”

Caroline knew the need for haste very well, yet she hung back cautiously for a moment. Victorine surely had no love for her
or for Grant, after what happened here. She was French. This could very well be a trap, a game of LaPlace’s.

Victorine tapped her boot impatiently against the floor. “What now? Do you
wish
to stay here?”

“Why have you come for me?” Caroline said tightly. “Did LaPlace send you?”

Victorine gave a most unladylike snort. “LaPlace! That
cochon.
If not for him, my Michel would be alive and my father would be safe at home. LaPlace decided to drag us all here to this
hellish place. I would no more work for him than I would a snake. By helping you I thwart him in one small thing, yes?”

Caroline carefully studied the woman’s face. There was anger there, and a hardness that transformed her fashionable prettiness
into something fearsome, like the Celtic goddess of death Morrigan after the demise of her lover. She certainly did bear a
hatred for something.

And Caroline really had no alternative but to trust her. It was better than staying in this room waiting for something terrible
to happen.

“Let’s go,” Caroline said.

“Very wise, mademoiselle. My father did say you were very clever. But grab your coat, it will be quite cold on the water.
And you will have to be quick. I must take my father down to the boat, while you get Monsieur Grant and meet us there. We
must make haste, or we will miss the tide.”

Caroline snatched her coat up from the chair and slid it over her shoulders. As she checked to make sure she still wore the
precious locket with her niece’s picture, Victorine closed and relocked the door.

“Where is Grant?” Caroline demanded. “Is he—hurt?”

“Is he alive, you mean? He was the last time I saw him, as LaPlace locked him in that dungeon. LaPlace won’t want him dead,
for then Grant wouldn’t be able to answer his questions.”

In the dungeon? Caroline thought of the stench of smoke down there, the damp, and the rats. Even if he was alive now, how
long would he last—especially if LaPlace had “questions”?

“And where is LaPlace?” she asked.

Victorine smirked. “He is secure for the moment. I locked him in the icehouse with my poor Michel. But he won’t be there for
long.” Victorine gave Caroline the heavy ring of keys. “Hopefully one of those will open that dungeon door. Now go, and meet
us at the boat as soon as you can!”

Caroline had not a moment to lose. She ran as fast as she could toward the corridor leading to the old tower, her heart bursting.
Grant wasn’t dead! He lived, and she had
to find him. But what shape would he be in when she did? She remembered his body on the stairs, lying so still.

“I’ll just have to find a way to move him,” she whispered. They had to get away from there. Together.

Caroline slid around the corner to the narrow old corridor, lined with the archways of old windows that were now empty of
glass and looked out on a narrow stone ledge and then the rocks below. The wind swept between the arches, cold and damp. It
stung her skin, but she kept running. She was focused on only one thing—finding Grant.

Only to be brought up short when a figure stepped from the deep, purplish shadows near the door. It was LaPlace, escaped from
the icehouse. His handsome face was bruised from the fight with Grant, and probably from Victorine, but his smile was as bright
as ever, relishing yet another fight.

“I knew you would find a way to free yourself, my intrepid mademoiselle, just as I have,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for
you.”

He had obviously learned nothing about her at all. She preferred her nice, quiet bookish ways—but she could fight when she
had to, and her blood was definitely up. When she looked at LaPlace, she saw Grant’s body falling down the stairs, Michel’s
body, even that crazed, bloodstained soldier who tried to rape her sister in the heat of the Rebellion. Anna had killed that
man for what he did, and they were not sisters for nothing. A Blacknall never let anyone hurt her or the people she cared
about.

Caroline remembered the way LaPlace threw her over his shoulder earlier. Perhaps she could push him down and thus crack his
head on the stone floor. He watched her with that horrible smile, and he seemed to think she
would try to flee. Instead, she ran forward as fast as she could with a loud shout.

She caught him by surprise. She had only a fleeting glimpse of his smile fading as she pushed him hard in the midsection with
her shoulder. She pushed harder, with all her weight thrown against him. He lost his balance, just as she had hoped, and he
fell backward. He couldn’t regain his equilibrium, and his own weight carried him the rest of the way.

He fell through one of the archways with a shrill scream—and then there was only the sound of the wind.

Caroline ran to peer down. He lay still on the stone ledge below, his limbs sprawled out.

“Diolain,”
she whispered. She had killed him. For the first time in her life, she had killed someone.

A sickening feeling seized her stomach, and she pressed her hands hard against that cold knot. There was no time to think
of it now, no time to dwell on what she had done—what was necessary. She had to find Grant.

She backed away from the archway and dashed toward the old tower and down the stone stairs to the dungeon below. The farther
down she went, the stronger the smell of stale smoke. It hung heavy in the humid air, choking and acrid, mixing terribly with
the sickness she already felt. What if LaPlace was not really dead? The walls seemed to press in on her, but she kept going
forward. Time was flying by, and she had so very little of it left.

The iron-bound door to the cell was locked fast. “Grant!” she shouted as she tried first one key then another in the thick
latch. What if the housekeeper had no need of a dungeon key, and it wasn’t here? What if LaPlace had the only key, and now
he lay dead out on the cliff? Her hands were
shaking so much that she could hardly fit the keys into the lock, and worse, she could hear nothing beyond the door.

“Grant!” she called again. “Are you there? Can you hear me? Please say something!”

At last she heard a scraping noise, like something dragged against stone, and his voice answered, “Caroline? Is that you?”

Caroline sagged against the door in a rush of sheer, warm relief. “Yes, it’s me! I have Mrs. McCann’s keys. I’ll get you out
in a moment if I can just figure out which one…”

“There’s a cross etched at the top,” he said. His voice was muffled through the door, but it was definitely him, alive and
conscious. Now if they could both stay that way in time to get off that cursed island! Grant could recover away from here,
someplace safe and peaceful. And Caroline had to get home. “How did you get away from him?”

“With the help of an unexpected friend,” she answered. She found the key with the cross. The lock was old and rusty, and it
took all her strength to turn it, but at last, the barrier cracked open and Grant was there.

Caroline fell into his arms and held on to him as if she would never let him go. He was so warm, so alive, under her touch.
She ran her hands over his arms and his ribcage to make sure nothing was broken. The sleeve of his shirt was torn away, and
the linen was stained with blood, but he seemed whole.

She framed his face in her hands as she scanned every bruise and cut. She damned LaPlace for every one and wished with all
her might that she could push him off the ledge again.

“Thank God you are alive,” she said. “I was so afraid!”

He kissed her hard. “As was I. I’ve been going insane thinking of what might have happened.”

“I was locked in my room until Victorine found a way to get me out.”

“Victorine?” he said incredulously. “But where is LaPlace now?”

Caroline shook her head, trying to blot out the image of LaPlace’s still body. “There’s no time to talk now. They’re waiting
for us at the boat. I think it’s time we were away from here for a while.” She took Grant’s hand and pulled him with her toward
the stairs.

He went with her, but his hand was tense in hers. She glanced back to see that his face was set in that implacable expression
she had come to know too well. It meant he had taken a position and would never be moved from it. “I must do something first.”

“There is no time!” Caroline shouted. “We have to go. Please, Grant, come with me now.”

He studied her carefully for a long moment. Whatever plea he saw in her eyes seemed to convince him. He nodded and held her
hand to lead her out of that frightening place. He went not back to the stairs but to a narrow door half-hidden in the rough
stone wall. It led to a dank, narrow passage, much like the one Caroline once followed from the library.

The passage was dim, lit only by the door they left open behind them, but Grant seemed to know the way. The door at the other
end opened into the vast, deserted kitchen, pots and dishes tossed around in the servants’ haste to depart. From there he
took her to the library and headed straight for a small painting hung beside the fireplace. It was an unremarkable seascape,
one Caroline hadn’t noticed before.

“Grant!” she protested. “We have no time.”

“One moment, then we will go, Caroline.”

He took the painting off the wall to reveal a small hidden safe. As he opened it, Caroline watched him in growing impatience.
Every tick of the hands on the mantel clock seemed inordinately loud in her ears, counting off every moment that passed. She
wanted so desperately to be away from this place!

“Take a deep breath, Caro,” Grant said without looking at her. He swung open the safe and seemed far too calm for all that
had happened. “We’ll make it to the boat. But I can’t leave without these.”

“What are they?” she asked. She peered over his shoulder into the safe, but all she could see were stacks of small boxes and
bags.

“Money, for one thing.” He handed her bundles of notes and a clinking bag of coins. “Put them in that valise over there. We
can’t get to Dublin without money, can we? Unless you want to walk every step of the way.”

“Are we going to Dublin then?” She packed away the money as Grant took out a thick stack of papers wrapped tightly in oilskin.

He added them to the notes and said, “Of course. I now know that time is of the utmost essence. Events are progressing much
faster than I expected.” He took out a carved, shallow box and handed it to her. “We should take this as well.”

Caroline peeked inside and gasped when she saw the soft, worn green leather cover tooled in a pattern of Celtic knot work
that formed a dragon. “
The Chronicle!
You
do
still have it.”

“Certainly I do.” Grant shut the safe. “It seems I’ll need
your help to keep it secure.” He took the box from her and packed it in the valise before he snapped it shut. He grabbed a
coat that lay draped over the desk chair, tucked the valise under his arm, and took Caroline’s hand in his.

Without another word, he led her into the hidden passageway, and they made their way in silence to the cave’s entrance. The
wind blew against her face, harsh and cold, but the rain had stopped. A faint, pinkish-gray light was spreading out from the
horizon, a sign of a new day. And the boat waited for them down on the beach, the larger ship anchored offshore. A sailor
was helping the vicomte and his daughter into seats in front of the oars, and they waved up at Caroline.

She and Grant ran down the pathway to the beach. She was on her way home at last, though not in any way she could have imagined.
Who knew what lay ahead?

As the boat pushed off into the surf, she dared to look back at the old tower. And LaPlace’s body was nowhere to be seen.

C
aroline closed her eyes as she lay very still on the narrow ship’s berth. She felt the sway and heave of the sea under her,
choppy and rough, but it seemed oddly soothing. It meant a change, an escape. They moved farther and farther from the island
with every moment. Her whole body ached with a deep weariness, yet her mind was far too awake.

She listened to the murmuring voices of the vicomte and Victorine as they talked together in French. He lay in the berth across
from Caroline’s in the small cabin, while Victorine knelt beside him. Grant stood by the open porthole, staring out in silence
at the endless, empty sea.

Caroline opened her eyes and studied him as he stood there as the watchful sentinel. His fists were braced on the wooden wall,
his alert gaze always searching. She had thrown in her fate with him, for fair or foul. She had spent the most intimate moments
that two people could share with him. Yet at moments like this, she felt as if she knew him so very little. He kept so many
dangerous, dark things hidden from her.