The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (23 page)

It was, after all, the apocalypse. Word had reached them this morning that Napoleon’s army would be at the city walls within days, and all this wealth, all this freedom would be taken from them as cleanly and heartlessly as a trapper strips the pelt from an otter.

The rank air—full of the smell of cigars and drink and sex and fear—nearly gagged him. He’d already passed two pairs openly coupling in the corners of rooms, and it wasn’t yet midnight. Before another hour had passed, there’d be an outright bacchanal.

He wished himself back in that little bathing room in Rosa’s house, bright with candlelight and scented with lavender.

With Rachel.

But at least she didn’t have to be here, exposed to this.

An agent of Mawbry’s had come by Rosa’s as soon as he knew Sebastian had arrived, carrying reliable intelligence the Conde was hosting a masked entertainment tonight. The report also said that in the past two weeks, the Conde had taken a new lover—a golden-haired woman. Mawbry’s agent speculated it might be Victoire de Laurent under yet another assumed name, exchanging her beauty for the Conde’s extensive stores of gold. She might attend tonight to bleed off a bit more of his wealth before he lost it all.

Oh, how she must be exulting now.

Three months ago, she’d won a spectacular victory against the English—making fools of England’s most experienced agents and slaughtering one of them. And now her French master was poised to seize this city, and no doubt reward her handsomely for clearing his path to victory.

Had word reached her yet that the Marquess of Hawkesbridge was back on Spanish soil, once more assuming his identity as a wealthy but harmless Dutch merchant, and ripe for another round of humiliation at her hands? And the more critical question: had she heard that Salomé Mirabeau, whose murder she’d witnessed with her own eyes, whose murder she’d ordered, was still alive?

Unless he seriously missed his guess, that book Sal found was still dangerous enough to the French that Victoire would risk a great deal to get it back. Finding it might give him the opportunity to strike a serious blow at Napoleon before the tyrant sunk his hooks too deeply into the flesh of Spain.

He took the stairs to the upstairs gallery to get a view of the ballroom and main hall, but that showed him only greater numbers of carousers bumping and drifting through the rooms, filling the air with their desperately raucous laughter.

And then at last his quarry came into view. The Conde strode in first, pushing his way through a small throng of his guests, his booming voice unmistakable.

And then he saw the lady with him.

Hatred spiked through his chest.

No question: it was Victoire. Her beauty was unchanged, the gold of her hair as bright as ever, her slim body still as porcelain-white as it had been three months before. In his mind’s eye, she’d taken on the hideousness of a demon, her flesh scaled, her eyes turned to burning coals. It surprised him to see her still human.

She did have a spangled, deep-blue Venetian mask up over her eyes, so perhaps those had indeed transformed, just as he’d imagined.

In her gown of midnight silk, cut low at the bosom and narrow at the hips, and with her lips stained scarlet, she at least looked like the temptress she was. Not quite the innocent baker’s daughter she’d played for him.

How had he mistaken her youth and beauty for innocence? Why had he assumed he could manipulate her, rather than the other way around?

He saw her give a flick of her fan, her slim fingers splayed across the ivory handle. The same fingers that tore at his scalp in his nightmares.

Well, she was in his sights now. He’d track her from here tonight, follow her to the mouth of hell if he had to. He’d make her talk—make her tell him the name of every last agent who’d conspired in what happened the night Sal died. And he’d make her pay.

Rachel could stay safe at home, with Rosa and Evangelina, enjoying her bath.

They hadn’t needed her after all. Napoleon himself had flushed this quarry out of hiding.

Victoire walked on into the next room, out of Sebastian’s sight. He moved swiftly along the gallery, back down the stairs, ready to fight through the crowds blocking the way to the back rooms of the house.

And then he received a shock: at the other end of the corridor, pushing her way from behind a wall of drunken men, he glimpsed a very familiar auburn-haired beauty, in a familiar emerald-green gown.
Sal
.

His vision wavered; the air grew hot.

And then his reason reasserted itself. Not Sal.
Rachel
.

Dear God.

Rachel was
here
. Alone. With Victoire in the house.

His limbs went heavy as lead.
Damn it all
. Of course she hadn’t listened to him and stayed home. He’d underestimated her will, and her ingenuity.

Before he could muscle through the crowd, she vanished again.

No. No, no, no
. Rachel had no weapon with her. She shouldn’t be here. She’d been meant to lure Victoire into plain sight, with Sebastian right beside her to deal with the she-devil. Rachel wouldn’t know what to do if Victoire confronted her directly.

After what seemed like an eternity jostling through drunkards to search the interconnected maze of rooms, he was ready to tear the damned house from its foundations.

Rachel could be anywhere in these rooms. Victoire could have her already. She could be slumped in a lightless corner with her life’s-blood pooling around her. He shoved harder at the throng of bodies around him, working his way towards the back of the house.

At long last, as he was passing through a darkened music room near the back of the villa, the sound of low female voices suddenly carried from a connecting parlor, behind a half-closed door.

He crept forward in the shadows and looked in through the crack along the hinges.

A wave of horror swept over him: Rachel stood with her back to the door, and just a few feet beyond her was Victoire, her mask lowered, her blue eyes bright with hatred.

A far too familiar scenario.

His pistol was in his hand in an instant. A kick to the door, and he’d have a shot.

He waited, though—a heartbeat, two, three. The women were alone, tensed like pugilists, but not moving. Victoire had no weapon he could see. And her face was pale: Victoire looked terrified.

She was, of course, seeing a ghost.

Sweat prickled along his back, but he forced himself to keep still. Victoire might have a weapon concealed, and he didn’t want to startle her into using it.

And if the sight of Salomé Mirabeau unsettled her, who knows what she might reveal.

Rachel had volunteered for this. It galled him to admit it, but she deserved a chance to see what she could do. And as much as he ached for Victoire’s death, getting knowledge from her was far more important. At least for now. And to get that knowledge, he needed the witch alive.

“I don’t know what devil you made a deal with,” Victoire was saying in French, her voice marred by an unfamiliar tremolo. “You should be dead.”

“There were no devils involved,” replied Rachel in the same language, her tone admirably cool.
Good girl
—even to his ears, she had the sound of Sal. “Your assassins do sloppy work. I’ll carry scars the rest of my life. But I live.”

Victoire’s face darkened, shadowing with anger. “Not for long. I regret that I have come tonight with no knife. But I don’t fear you. If you knew how to use what you’ve got your hands on, you would have, weeks ago.”

Sebastian willed Rachel to answer carefully. If she misspoke, if she revealed she didn’t know any details about what Sal had gotten her hands on, she was dead.

“I was injured, remember?” said Rachel. “They took me to England, to heal. Away from my possessions.”

Good
.
Smart girl
.

Victoire flinched at her words. No, wherever that book was, Victoire definitely hadn’t retrieved it when she captured Sal. And that fact clearly angered her. So it was valuable, still. Dangerous to the French if decoded.

“For that time,” said Rachel, “I was quite useless. And I dislike feeling useless.” She took a step forward. “I promise you will regret inconveniencing me.” Dear Lord, she was goading Victoire.

His grip on his weapon tightened.

A look of scorn crossed the French spy’s lovely face. “You have had luck so far, but luck will not always hold. Had I been the one to wield that knife, I would not have held back so much as an inch of the blade.”

“Foolish of you, then, to let someone else do your work. You should find more trustworthy partners.”

“Trustworthy?” Abruptly, Victoire laughed. “You say that without irony? The spies of England speak so much of loyalty, yet betray the ones they love at the slightest provocation. I am not the fool here. I turned Robert Ehlert, the firmest of you. And I’ve turned others—you don’t even know whom. Men are easy to manipulate. Beware, Mirabeau, whom you make your bed with.”

Rachel stiffened. “I know enough to choose wisely.”

“Do you? Well, I won’t be the one to enlighten you. But you’ve just proved you cannot read what that book.
Le Merveil
has outdone himself, if even Salomé Mirabeau cannot break his cipher.”

Rachel’s nerves were clearly wearing thin—her hands clenched and unclenched behind her back. He could burst into the room now, take Victoire. Get Rachel the hell away from her.

But Victoire was not done talking. Her eyes glittered maliciously. “Perhaps you will learn to read that notebook after all, or perhaps the truth will dawn on you some other way before the French army arrives.” Sebastian knew that look. Victoire was calculating. She was setting a snare. “I hope so,” the Frenchwoman said, “so I can watch you suffer even before you go to the guillotine.”

Rachel’s fists clenched once more. “You forget how hard I am to kill.”

“Tell me something, Salomé Mirabeau,” Victoire said, her eyes narrowed. “You are a Frenchwoman. You were not truly born to the aristos, or you would never have come to sell your body as you do. So why serve those rich English dogs who care only about protecting what they own, who hurt the poor? You could still help your own people. Give me that notebook.”

“Why bother asking,” said Rachel, “if I can’t read it anyway? Are you so sure I can’t? I’ve only just come back to Spain to retrieve it, after all.”

Victoire’s eyes darkened. He saw fear. And calculation. Whatever was going to come out of her mouth now was a lie, and he prayed Rachel would recognize it. “Serve the Revolution,” said Victoire, “and I will see to it that you continue to live. With that mind of yours, you could help the cause.”

“Serve Napoleon, you mean? A tyrant if ever there was one.”

Surprisingly, Victoire shrugged. “Admittedly. But he is mortal. Our ideals will outlive him. Purer hearts will take his place—another Incorruptible, like Robespierre.” She lifted her chin. “Perhaps even a woman will lead this time. In the end, the true Revolution will not fail.”

“Such idealism, mademoiselle,” said Rachel, her spine straightening. “Most inspiring. Perhaps you shall lead, and build the guillotine in every town in Europe.”

“Perhaps. There is much cleansing to be done before all corruption is driven out.”

Rachel took another step toward Victoire.

Fear struck him like a wave.

Dear God, what was she thinking? His eyes were on Rachel, willing her to move back, and so he missed the crucial moment: he caught only the flash of Victoire’s arm. Before he could react, Victoire had a pistol in her hand, pointed at Rachel’s chest.

He had to fight the urge to kick through the door. Any sudden noise might push Victoire to pull the trigger. Instinct told him she was not planning to kill—her stance was a trifle too relaxed, the look in her eye too rational. And she clearly wanted that notebook.

“Calm yourself,” purred Victoire. “I won’t shoot you now unless I must. I’d far rather wait. I want that wretched book. And I want your service, if I can get it. Besides, you have a friend with you, isn’t it true? A
trusted
friend?” Her tone was barbed. “There is a weapon somewhere near, trained on my heart?”

“Most likely,” Rachel said. She probably believed she was bluffing.

“It will be easy enough for me to find you again. For tonight, I seek only to ensure my own escape,” said Victoire. “And you should think of yours. Listen to me, Mirabeau: your English masters don’t protect you. Not truly. They use you, and what do they give you in return—gold coins? Pretty gowns? And for that you kill your countrymen? You betray French men?
Poor
men, who want nothing more than the right to put bread in their mouths?”

“Is that what the French army is doing in Spain, looking for bread?”

Victoire scowled. “Your cynicism seals your fate, then. I swear to you, I will have that notebook from you. And if you remain a traitor to your homeland, then you have this vow as well: you will die, soon, and at my hand this time, if justice lives in the world. I promise to be most thorough with the job.”