Pale Moon Rider (43 page)

“I doubt he would take your advice on either count, old man.”

Finn whirled around. Colonel Bertrand Roth was standing in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb, his arms folded in a leisurely fashion across his chest.

Under his amused and curiously flat stare, Finn straightened and gave his jacket a prim tug to smooth it. “Forgive me, Colonel, I did not hear you knock.”

“I confess to the boorish indiscretion,” Roth said wanly. “Having noticed both the bride and groom absent from the company below, I thought I should come and insure they were behaving themselves. And here I find no bride, the room smells of a distillery, and the groom is trussed like a heifer about to go to the butcher block.”

“He was interrupted in the act of attempting to rape my mistress,” Finn said archly. “Rather violently so, I might add.”

Roth followed a thin, pointing finger to the evidence of the torn, cast-off silk Renée had discarded on the floor. There was more evidence—towels with blood on them and a piece of jagged glass she had picked out of her hair.

“I have sent her to safety in another part of the house,” Finn added. “I was trussing this—this vermin to keep him secure until I could fetch the proper authorities. The man is an animal. A drunken, fornicating creature of the devil and he should be hung as such, sir.”

In the corner, Vincent groaned and contorted what he could of his face, demanding a release from his bonds.

“Rape, you say?” Roth regarded Finn through narrowed eyes. “A serious charge.”

“Mad’moiselle d’Anton was quite seriously hurt. In her attempts to defend herself, she was struck several times—a heinous crime in itself to anyone who would consider himself even partially civilized. When I attempted to dissuade Mr. Vincent from his drunken course—to no avail—he left me no choice but to deter him with violence.”

“You did this to him?”

Finn lifted his chin. “I did. And I would most heartily do it again if the circumstances warranted it.”

“Smashing things over the backs of peoples’ heads seems to be a particular habit with you, Mr. Finnerty,” Roth said dryly. “Untie him.”

“But Colonel—”

“I said … untie him.”

“He could easily overpower us, sir, and if he does—” Roth reached beneath his tunic and withdrew a steel cannon-barrelled pocket pistol. “Lucky for us, I brought this along, then. It carries a small charge, but at close quarters, will stop a man of any size and nature. If you please—” He waved the nose of the pistol in Vincent’s direction and thumbed the hammer into half-cock for emphasis.

Left with little choice, Finn unfastened the bindings around Vincent’s ankles first, then his wrists.

“Help him up. Bring him in here.”

Again, Finn obeyed and despite Vincent’s clumsy efforts to push him away, he was hoisted up onto his feet and helped back into the main bedroom. There he slumped down into the vanity chair and cradled his head in his hands, groaning.

“Now then, old boy, is what Mr. Finnerty says true? Were you trying to ravish your betrothed?”

Vincent gargled an answer for a moment, then reached with disgust for the linens still crammed into his mouth and flung them aside. “I only wanted what I paid for. The little bitch was trying to sneak out on us. She had the jewels packed and was heading out the door when I got here.” He lifted his head out of his hands to squint up at Roth. “She had the brooch too. She had the damned pearl brooch; I saw it in her bag.”

Roth’s face hardened instantly. “The
Pearl
of
Brittany
? She had it? Are you absolutely certain?”

“I saw it,” Vincent hissed. “I held it in my hand and asked her where she got it, but then I figured there was only one place she
could
have gotten it, only one man who could have given it to her.”

Roth whirled around just in time to see Finn sidling toward the door. “Wherever the hell you think you are going, Mr. Finnerty”—he thumbed the hammer into the fully cocked position and aimed it squarely at Finn’s head—“I would not advise it. I am a crack shot and your fine gray hair makes an excellent target.”

Finn’s hand curled back from the brass latch and dropped back down by his side.

“Over here,” Roth snarled. “Away from the door.”

Finn obeyed the jerking motion of Roth’s gun and moved at a dignified pace to stand in front of the window.

“Is what he says true? Does Renée d’Anton have the Pearl of Brittany?”

“I am not kept apprised of
mad'moiselle's
personal possessions, sir.”

“It was on the bed,” Vincent said. “The last time I saw it, it was on the bed.”

Roth glanced over, but there was nothing on the bed or beside it. He looked sharply back at Finn. “Where is she?”

Finn pursed his lips but said nothing.

“We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” Roth warned.
“Where is she?”

Finn still said nothing and Vincent scowled up from his seat. “She was dressed and had a packed bag with her. My guess is she has gone to meet
him.
As usual,” he added, “you seem to have underestimated the strength and resources of your opponent, not to mention the fact that she must have been using us all along to get the brooch.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it, you arrogant bastard. If there is already a French agent in
London
sniffing around, asking questions about the Dragon’s Blood suite, she must have known its value from the moment I put it around her neck. I warrant she would have stolen it before now if it wasn’t for the fact that the brooch was missing. I’ll also wager my front teeth she has been playing along, biding her time, hoping we would lead her to the Pearl of Brittany, and we did, didn’t we. Or should I say
you
did.
You
led her right to it with your clever, fail-proof scheme to catch Starlight.” Vincent paused to wipe a dribble of blood off his neck. “You stupid bloody bastard. I told you you should have let me handle this my way, but no. You had to prove you were smarter than Starlight, smarter than all of us. Well who is looking smarter now? Who had the foresight to exchange the real rubies for glass imitations? Who do you think is going to laugh the loudest when the little whore and her road thief find out they went to all this trouble for a few bits of colored glass, and who do you think is going to keep the real rubies now?”

“We had a deal,” Roth said evenly.

“Had
… a deal. You lost Starlight, you lost the girl, and if it wasn’t for me, you’d have lost the rubies too. By my way of thinking, that makes them mine. And that makes you a fool …
again.”

Roth’s eyelids closed until there was just a shiver of white showing along the bottom lashes. In a move so shockingly swift it caused Finn to stumble back in surprise, the colonel lashed out, swinging the pistol hard and sharp against the side of Vincent’s face. Had the bigger man not been half-dazed by the previous blow to his skull, he might have seen it coming and been quicker to react, but he took the force of it fully on the temple and was thrown sideways, landing awkwardly against the delicate vanity table. Bottles, pots, jars went flying, crashing on the wall, on the floor, but Roth barely paid heed as he stalked toward the corner where Finn was standing.

“Is what he said true? Has she gone to meet Starlight?”

Finn merely glared in disdainful silence along the length of his nose and Roth’s eyes narrowed to yellow slits.

“By God, you know who he is, don’t you? You know who Starlight is and you know where he has taken her.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Finn declared. “And even if I did—”

“Yes?”

He looked down at his thin, age-spotted hands and scraped a bit of lint out from under one manicured nail. “I would still have nothing to say.”

“Your loyalty and bravado are commendable, old man,” Roth said, baring his teeth in a sinister grin. “But utterly and completely futile.”

With Finn staring calmly into Roth’s eyes, the colonel swung the gun up, squeezed the trigger, and fired.

Tyrone had been just about to edge the tapestry aside when he heard a tinkle of laughter on the other side. There was a flurry of whispers and breathless queries, followed by the patter of slippered feet and another laugh as the woman was caught and spun into her captor’s arms. There could be no mistaking the nasally whimpers of Miss Ruth Entwistle as she was swept up in the passion of the moment, though who her companion might be was anyone’s guess. It had been on the tip of his tongue last night to enlighten Renée to the fact that most men were not attentive to Miss Entwistle because of her intelligence. They were drawn to her because she would lift her skirts anywhere, anytime, and give them a rousing good ride in the process.

Under any other circumstances, Tyrone might have found the situation comical. Standing not two feet away, with only the width of the tapestry separating him from the lovers, he could hear the moist, suckling sound their mouths made and the whispered crush of linen petticoats as one body crowded another against the wall. Making matters worse, they could be no more than a few inches from the opening of the archway; one amorous roll and they would find out the wall was not as solid as they supposed.

A lusty groan brought renewed sounds of rustling garments and Tyrone leaned on the cold stones, cursing under his breath. If Finn was at the top of the stairs, he would be trapped there also until the lovers moved on.

“Can you not go and find a bed somewhere, for God’s sake,” he finally muttered after five minutes—each of them ticked off in long, agonizing seconds.

“Did you hear something?” the woman gasped.

Tyrone bit his tongue and mouthed another oath.

“No, no,” the denial came on a strangled moan. “I heard nothing.”

“I am certain I did,” Miss Entwistle whispered. “Listen … there it is again.”

Tyrone’s head was throbbing too much for him to hear anything above the pounding of his own pulsebeat, but the frantic suckling noises on the other side of the tapestry stopped, and he could picture them: two startled faces, mouths open and chafed from kissing, staring into the gloom, waiting for a shrill reprimand from an outraged chaperon.

The sound of a gunshot brought Tyrone’s head jerking forward off the stone.

“There!” Miss Entwistle shrieked. “You must have heard that!”

“Stay here,” the gentleman ordered.

“Oh! You cannot possibly abandon me!”

“I will only be a moment. Wait here, I beg you.”

The erstwhile lover’s boots scraped briskly on the stairs as he mounted them. The echo of the shot must have carried down the main hallway as well, for there were now shouts from the upper landing and the sound of running footsteps converging on the east wing. Out of patience, Tyrone expelled a short gust of air and thrust the tapestry aside, drawing another startled shriek from Miss Ruth Entwistle who was still standing frozen against the wall, not three paces away.

“Clever where they hide water closets these days, is it not?” he remarked casually, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “Am I mistaken, or did I hear a gunshot?”

Miss Entwistle shrieked again and whirled away in a cloud of pale blue holland. Tyrone barely gave a thought to her shattered modesty as he turned and took the stairs two at a time. There were half a dozen people already gathering outside the door to Renée’s bedroom and more coming by twos and threes. He was able to slip unobtrusively into their midst and to look as concerned and surprised as the others when Colonel Roth strode out of the room.

Lord Paxton arrived at almost the same moment, huffing and out of breath. “Someone said there has been a shooting?”

Roth held up the steel pocket pistol. “It appears the French have an odd way of showing their gratitude for being taken in, fed, clothed, treated like royalty. Edgar Vincent is dead. He has been shot. I did what I could to revive him, but alas—”

“Dead!” Paxton’s gasp was almost lost in the rumble of disbelief that went through the crowd of guests. “Vincent is dead?”

“Shot in cold blood by your niece’s manservant, Finnerty. Luckily I was close enough to apprehend the culprit before he could make good his escape. I found him standing over the body, the gun still warm in his hand!”

“My niece?”

“Gone. Your nephew too. And the rubies Vincent gave her as a betrothal gift have mysteriously gone missing with them.”

This last observation was obviously added for the benefit of the shocked audience, who reacted accordingly, raising their voices in outrage and disbelief.

Roth held up his hand to call for order. “According to Mr. Vincent’s dying gasps, he arrived unexpectedly at his fiancée’s chamber only to discover she was in the process of fleeing the premises. Moreover, he said the theft was accomplished with the help of the infamous Captain Starlight, with whom, it would appear, Mademoiselle d’Anton has had several clandestine meetings over the past weeks.”

There were one or two women in the hallway and at the mention of the highwayman’s name, they swooned and required immediate removal to couches or chaises.