Seduced by a Spy (25 page)

Mano a mano
. The Frenchman was not used to losing a one-on-one fight to anyone, much less a female.

As she turned, she saw Jervis’s eyes still darting about in desperation. Spotting her pistol atop the curio cabinet, he made a run for it.

Damn
. There was no chance to catch him.

A whirlwind spin set her skirts aswirl. Whipping the knife from her boot, she threw it in the same deadly motion. A silvery blur, a lethal whisper—like a hawk, it flew through the air with unerring accuracy.

Thwack
. Its point cut through flesh and bone, pinning Jervis’s hand to the wood.

He screamed in pain and crumpled, arms splayed, upon the inlaid mahogany.

Shannon was on him in a flash. “Stop whimpering like a stuck pig,” she muttered, yanking out the still-quivering steel and hauling him to his feet. A shake of his collar strangled his moans. “You’ll live.”

“I am glad I did not decide to attempt any liberties with your person, Mademoiselle Sloane.” De Villiers shifted his stance against the stone, his expression unreadable. “I was not aware that hand-to-hand combat was part of the basic curriculum for English governesses. Perhaps the Prince Regent should consider forming a special regiment—”

“Save your
bon mots
for some other time,” snapped Shannon. She shoved Jervis toward the comte. “Bind up his hand, before he bleeds all over the expensive carpet.”

Talcott made a small retching sound and pressed his handkerchief to his quivering lips. “God Almighty. She is quite mad.”

“On the contrary, she is quite
magnifique
,” murmured the comte.

“I doubt you will think so in a moment.” She motioned to a set of heavy oak straightback chairs set along the wall. “Have a seat, all of you.”

They did as she ordered, though Talcott had to help a half-dazed Jervis to his place. Once there, Jervis slumped against his friend with a low groan—a sound promptly echoed by the other man. Shannon turned in disgust. She would get nothing coherent out of them for the moment, she decided.

The comte was a different story. He had remained remarkably cool throughout the fight. Perhaps too cool. It was time to test his Gallic
joie de vivre
—if he wished to live for another day, he was going to give some honest answers.

“Alors.”
Flicking with a lethal grace, her swordpoint sliced off the two tails of his neckcloth. As the linen floated to the floor, the steel kissed De Villiers’s neck. “How do you fit into this sordid plot?” she demanded.

The comte didn’t flinch. “As naught but an observer, mademoiselle.”

“You like to watch innocent children be murdered?” Her voice was deceptively soft.

He stiffened. “I have seen far too many people marched to the guillotine to take any pleasure in bloodshed, mademoiselle. The street of Paris were often awash in crimson—a sickening sight that any civilized man should be ashamed of.”

“So you deny that you are working with one of your countrymen—a man by the name of D’Etienne?”

“I am not familiar with the person in question. Who is he?”

“You are in no position to ask the questions.” Shannon drew the blade across his throat. “If you are not in league with him, or Lady Sylvia, then why did you come to Scotland?”

“To be honest, I was a bit bored in London. English Society is rather dull—the fashions are gauche, the food is terrible, and the ladies have little
savoir faire
.” He made a wry face. “When Lady Sylvia suggested I accompany her party to Scotland, it seemed like a chance for a little adventure.”

“So you claim you are innocent of any intrigue.” Though Shannon was inclined to believe him, she pressed the point. “Prove it.”

“I cannot.” De Villiers shrugged. “So I suppose you will simply have to go ahead and kill me.”

It was hard not to admire such
sangfroid
. “You seem awfully nonchalant about the prospect.”

“Merely a bit cynical,” he replied. “Having escaped from the Terror by the skin of my teeth, I consider that I am living on borrowed time. I should not like to shuffle off my mortal coil, but if I must, I shall try to do it with a show of grace.”

“I am not as ruthless as Robespierre.” She drew back her blade. “I shall give you the benefit of the doubt.”

He released his breath in an audible sigh. “
Merci
.”

“De rien.”

He laughed. “My previous offer still stands. In fact, I am tempted to make it a proposal of matrimony.”

“I’m married to my job,” she replied with a twitch of her lips. “But thank you all the same.”

“Teaching children their lessons seems such a sad waste of your talents, mademoiselle.”

She winked. “But as you see, sometimes I get to spank the naughty adults.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Orlov herded the distraught ladies into the drawing room, feeling rather like a harried border collie trying to keep a bunch of frightened lambs under control. The torrent of tears had made him appreciate Shannon’s stoic courage even more. For all their fancy airs and graces, highborn ladies could use a lesson in true nobility.

“Randall!” Lady Sylvia clutched at her sodden skirts. Her black hair, wet with rain, had come loose from its pins, and hung heavy around her pale face. She looked like a drowned crow. And sounded even worse. “Do something!” she screeched.

Jervis sank a bit lower in his chair.

“He’s not feeling up to polite conversation,” said Shannon.

“I need some laudanum,” he croaked. He held up the wrapping of blood-stained linen. “She nearly cut off my hand.”

“Only a finger or two,” she murmured.

Orlov’s mouth twitched as Lady Sylvia’s lips formed an O of horror. She sat down rather heavily on the chair next to her friend.

“Now that we are all together, milady, I suggest you tell me what is going on, and without delay,” said Orlov. “Otherwise, I shall have to turn the interrogation over to Miss Sloane.”

Lady Sylvia shrank back. “No, no, I’ll tell you everything!” She took a gulp of air. “I admit that we came here planning to kidnap the children. Randall helped me think of it…”

Jervis made a feeble protest.

“But I swear, we never meant them any harm. You two added an unwelcome complication. At first, we were not sure what to do. Then Randall came up with the idea of asking you to join the hunting party. He was to keep you out on the moors for the day while I found a way to spirit the children away from their grandmother and Miss Sloane.”

“Drugging an elderly lady was a dangerous move,” said Shannon. “You could have stopped her heart.”

“It was only a few drops,” said Lady Sylvia.

“Why go to all the trouble?” he asked, though he could guess the answer.

“I need money. Desperately.” She looked at Orlov with pleading eyes. “My debts in Town were mounting and my creditors were growing more impatient. You have no idea how clutch-fisted my aunt is. Just because
she
was shunned by Society, she has no sympathy for the great expense required to be part of the
beau monde
. I was left with no other choice.”

Sensing the coldness of his stare, Lady Sylvia left off the litany of complaints. After a moment of silence, she went on.

“It was all meant to be harmless. Disguised so that Helen and Annabelle wouldn’t recognize him, Randall’s valet was to stop the coach and take the children to an abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage that we discovered during our morning rides. A ransom note would follow, instructing Lady Octavia where to leave the money. The amount was not so very great—and by handling all the details of the exchange we thought to gain her good graces as well.” She bit her lip. “It all seemed so simple on paper. You must believe me that we never planned to use any weapons. I swear, I have never seen the fellow who attacked the carriage.”

“And yet, your coachman lies murdered in cold blood.” Orlov frowned. “It seems too much of a coincidence that some stranger chose your carriage out of the blue. Did anyone else know of your plans?”

A sudden hiccup from Annabelle drew his attention. An unpleasant sensation skated up his spine.

“Miss Annabelle?” he said softly. “Have you something to say?”

The girl looked scared to death by the mention of a killer. “No, no, no, it couldn’t be,” she stammered. “He’s
a gentleman
.”

Shannon swore under her breath, echoing his own sentiments.

“The gentleman you were secretly meeting in the woods? Lord… Nobody?”

Talcott roused himself enough to snarl at Helen. “
You
were supposed to be keeping an eye on the chit, not letting some Yorkshire looby lift her skirts.”

“I’m bloody tired of trying to keep scandal from our door.
You
try taking some responsibility for this mess, rather than reaching for a bottle of brandy or a deck of cards.”

They eyed each other with mutual loathing, too exhausted to continue the fight. No doubt it would resume again, now that the first overt salvo had been fired, thought Orlov. It was about time that Helen mustered the backbone to stand up for herself.

But that Talcott skirmish was not the main battle. He looked back to Annabelle and nodded for her to continue.

She dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes. “Y-yes. He said he wanted to m-marry me. But first he needed to wrest his rightful inheritance from that spiteful old bat, Lady Octavia. He never said anything about m-murder!”

“Lady Octavia?” repeated Shannon, her expression turning incredulous.

“Yes. You see, she is his grandfather’s sister, and a clutch-fisted miser who has kept a generous bequest from dear Stephen…” It took much stuttering and gulping, but the story finally came out—a woeful tale of an impoverished gentleman, denied his due by a rich, spiteful dowager. All her swain needed was his true love to help right a wrong in order to have a fairy tale ending.

“He was working out a plan to take the children, and then return them in exchange for the money that was rightfully his. So when I heard last night that Sylvia meant to bring the children along on our ride to the abbey, I left a note for him in our secret spot, telling him of the outing…”

Shannon’s disbelief grew more evident with each tearful word. “For god’s sake, you have been reading far too many horrid novels,” she finally snapped, cutting short the last, woeful wail.

“Stephen,” muttered Orlov, trying to sharpen the vague stirring of disquiet hovering at the edge of his conscious thought. “He called himself Stephen.”

“Etienne in French,” offered the comte. “Is that not the name you mentioned earlier, Mademoiselle Sloane?”

“D’Etienne,” said Shannon.

Everything suddenly snapped into focus.

“Damn! How could I have missed—”

Before he could finish, Orlov found himself thrown against a glass-front cabinet as a deafening explosion rocked the room. Shards crackling under his boots, he skidded across the floor to where Shannon lay wrestling with a large marble plinth that had fallen on her leg.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, though her face was a mask of pain. “The Tower—we must get to the Tower.”

He helped her up. Through the first swirls of acrid smoke, he saw that Jervis had been knocked unconscious by a section of ceiling molding. The ladies—for once mercifully silent—were huddled in a circle, while Talcott had taken cover under a chair. Only the comte, his face dusted with crumbled plaster, was making any attempt to clear away the debris.

“De Villiers!” cried Orlov over the rumble of a second blast. “The carriage is still outside. Gather your friends and servants and try to make your way to Boath. Alert the authorities there!”

The comte signaled his understanding.

“Alex!”

He jumped aside at Shannon’s warning, just as a ceiling timber came crashing down.

“Come on!” She paused just long enough to take down a small crossbow from the wall of weaponry. “This way!”

The corridor was filled with a black, billowing smoke. Mixed with the moonlight, it had a strange, otherworldly luminance. Beautiful but deadly. Tearing his gaze from the spectral sight, he saw Shannon was limping.

“It’s not so bad,” she said, catching his glance. “Bruised, I think, not broken.” She quickened her pace. “Hurry.”

“A moment.” Orlov caught her sleeve and spun her around into his arms. He held her for a heartbeat, brushing his lips to her cut cheek. She tasted of smoke and salt, of blood and valor. “
Ya lublu tebya
.”

Her singed lashes fluttered, hiding her eyes.

Had she heard him? The words “I love you” were so foreign on his tongue that he wasn’t even sure he had spoken aloud.

“We must hurry,” she repeated.

He took her hand and broke into a run.

The oaken door to the tower stairs was still intact and locked from within. A good sign, hoped Orlov, as he pounded on the paneling. “Lady Octavia! Open up!”

The deadbolt slid back. “About time, young man. I was beginning to think I would have to take matters into my own hands.” The dowager, her walking stick held at the ready, had possessed enough presence of mind to bring the children down to the first-floor parlor.

“It sounds like one of Uncle Angus’s experiments,” said Emma.

“Or the broadside of a pirate ship. Are we under attack, Mr. Oliver?” asked Prescott.

“Aye, lad,” he answered grimly. “But the boarders will soon see they are no match for our crew.” He felt his pockets. One pistol, and a blade in his boot. Added to the dowager’s stick and the medieval mechanism in Shannon’s hands, it was not much of a match for the enemy’s firepower.

As if reading his thoughts, Shannon said, “The first order of business is to get the children and Lady Octavia to a safe place.”

“Right.” Ignoring the dowager’s snort of protest, Orlov thought for a moment. “We’ll head back through the kitchen and out to the gardens. They can take shelter in the root cellar while we circle back to finish the fight.” He was already making a mental calculation of the distance. He should be able to carry both children and still help Lady Octavia, if need be.

But as he reopened the door, a wall of flames drove him back. “Bloody hell,” he swore over the heated roar of sparks. “He’s used naphtha.”

“Greek fire,” muttered Shannon. “Damn, we’ve no hope of extinguishing it. Not with the resources at hand.” She eyed the way leading back up to the dowager’s quarters. “We can’t stay here—the smoke and heat will soon be overpowering. Much as I hate to say it, I don’t see any alternative but to retreat to the upper floors.”

“Wait! There is a hidden set of stairs leading to the cellar behind the far bookcase,” piped up Lady Octavia. “The first laird was a Papist and built this castle with a number of secret priest holes and escape routes.”

“God bless him,” murmured Orlov, wiping the smear of soot and sweat from his brow. “Show me where.”

“All the doors in this section of the cellar are locked shut,” reminded Shannon. “We made sure no one could break in—or out. Even the connecting passages have been closed off. The forged steel is made to military specifications. It won’t yield to picks or hammers. Without the keys we will be trapped.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the dowager. “We will come out in the area Angus used as a workroom and wine cellar. If you shift the casks of ale, you will find an iron grating that can be removed with a knife blade. Behind it, there is an underground passageway that leads to a trapdoor by the edge of the lower terrace.”

“How on earth did you discover that?” asked Shannon.

“With two mischievous lads to keep track of, I daresay I know every nook and cranny of this place.” She tapped her walking stick on two of the intertwined acanthus leaves carved into the molding. “Press here, Mr. Oliver, and here. It takes a bit more muscle than I possess these days.”

He did as he was bade, and a section of shelving slowly pivoted on groaning hinges, revealing a sliver of space between the tiers of waxed wood.

“Quickly now,” urged Orlov. A noxious smoke was already seeping into the room. He helped the others to squeeze through, then hit the molding again and ducked inside.

Setting down the weapon she had grabbed from the medieval display, Shannon loosened her bodice and fumbled for the candle she had stuck inside her shirt. The layers of wool and linen were a cursed encumbrance. Her leg was aching, and the tangle of singed skirts was only slowing her down. As the wick flared to life from the spark of her flint, she stripped off her gown and tossed it aside.

Orlov paused in passing to eye her snug-fitting buckskins. “Has anyone told you how lovely you look in leather?”

“Stop ogling my legs and pry that lock off the gate to the wine cellar.”

“I would rather drink my fill of your luscious form.” His light laugh tickled at her ear.
Soft, sensuous
. Too sensuous. She needed to keep her mind on military tactics, not the way his lips had felt on her scraped cheek, whispering a few words. Strange, but for a fleeting moment back in the corridor, she thought he had said…

Amidst all the crackle and thunder, she must have misheard his murmur. Alexandr Orlov had made no bones about his aversion to emotional entanglements. They were friends, yes, and lovers. But when the smoke cleared, he would drift off to some new adventure, some new mistress.

She drew back. “Linger too long in flirtation, and we all may end up with our throats cut.”

“A sobering thought.” Orlov looked around the aureole of light cast by the candle. Spotting a length of iron lying among a jumble of old wood balusters, he grabbed it up and thrust it through the iron loop. A quick twist and the hasp snapped open.

“Scottie, come hold this flame aloft,” he called.

Shannon handed over the candle to the lad and moved awkwardly to Orlov’s side. Together they shifted the barrels of ale away from the wall. The grate was thick with rust and the tunnel entrance was covered in cobwebs and mouse droppings. Peering closer, she saw the passageway was barely more than a crawl space.

“When was the last time this was used?”

“A number of years ago,” admitted the dowager.

“I don’t like the looks of it,” she said slowly. “In a wet climate such as this, the earth is likely to be unstable. The smallest bump could cause it to collapse.”

Orlov loosened the last screw and set the metal covering aside. “It looks to be carved out of rock,” he called as he dropped to his belly and slithered inside. His voice sounded strangely muffled, as if swathed in silk rather than stone. “An easy traverse. The distance can’t be very great.”

“Alex, come out of there,” she snapped. It was, she knew, unreasonable to feel so uneasy. “At once.”

He reappeared a moment later, his hair matted with mud and several substances she did not care to identify. “What’s amiss?”

“I—I am not sure.” She shifted her stance, feeling a fool. Lud, her nerves were so jumpy that it seemed the earth was moving under her feet. She eased the weight off her injured leg, hoping to steady her thoughts. But the tremors grew more pronounced. An ominous rumbling, like the thunder of fast-approaching stormclouds, reverberated off the walls.