The Sinner Who Seduced Me (25 page)

“It’s of no concern now,
je vous assure,
” James said reassuringly to Iris, even attempting a small smile though he was clearly in a great deal of pain.

“I’ve put plenty of horses back together, Mademoiselle Bennett. At least Monsieur Rougier here won’t kick me,” Thomkins said, then smiled. “That is, I hope not.”

“Come, mademoiselle, you look exhausted,” Clarissa
urged, taking the girl’s hand and all but dragging her to the door. “I’ll see you to your room and find a maid to assist you to bed.”

Iris set the fabric down on a grain barrel and looked back at James. “Not that I am doubting your skills, Thomkins, but I would be more than happy to call in a proper surgeon.”

“That will not be necessary, Mademoiselle Bennett, but thank you for your kindness,” James replied, his voice resolute.

Iris looked as though she would continue to argue, so Clarissa pulled her out as quickly as she could. The darkness, save for the small sliver of light from beneath the stable doors, greeted them as they began their short journey back to Kenwood House.

“Was it worth it?” Clarissa knew that she shouldn’t have asked. She sensed that even Iris, such a formidable, headstrong, obstinate girl, could not bear the question. It was spiteful, asked out of pain and guilt. But she asked it all the same. The shock of seeing James injured and the realization that Pettibone presented a far more urgent threat than she’d thought had been too much.

“I could have died in that gaming hell—should have, really,” Iris responded, her voice oddly distant. “If not for Monsieur Rougier …”

The moon was enough to dimly illuminate Iris’s face. She wasn’t crying. No, she was staring straight ahead as if she could only see the gaming hell and nothing else.

“I don’t know why I do the things I do, St. Michelle,” she continued as she pulled the hat from her head. “Do you ever feel that way?”

Clarissa’s problem was the exact opposite of Iris’s. She knew far too much about why she did the things she did. It presented its own set of challenges, but she
didn’t see the point in saying so. “What do you mean?” she countered, the girl’s demeanor softening Clarissa’s anger.

Iris unwound her heavy braid of hair and let it drop against her back, her fingers combing through a few tendrils that had escaped to curl about her face. “I’m driven to do these things as though they mean something. But they don’t. Not really. All my life I’ve perfected whatever it was that someone told me I ought to do. And then I grew bored and went looking to hone my skills at something stupid and dangerous. It makes me sound ridiculously shallow, does it not?”

“Not at all,” Clarissa assured her in a softer tone than she’d intended. She’d been there once, a daughter with certain expectations and responsibilities. She’d been lucky, though, to have possessed a personality that could endure. And she’d had her painting.

And then James.

Clarissa wanted to reassure the girl with a motherly arm about her shoulders, but refrained, offering the crook of her arm instead as any man would. “I cannot imagine the pressure placed upon a girl in your situation, mademoiselle,” Clarissa continued, the outline of Kenwood House coming into view. “It would be difficult for the most agreeable of girls. But you? You have spirit, which, in my opinion, is a good thing. But it makes it harder for you—not impossible, but definitely more challenging.”

“He could have died,” Iris whispered, the weight of her words not lost on Clarissa.

“But he did not, nor did you. Take what you’ve learned from tonight and never forget it, Mademoiselle Bennett,” Clarissa urged, knowing that whatever they faced in the coming week, it would not be easy.

“I will, monsieur. I promise.”

Clarissa smiled, though she hardly felt like doing so. “I’ll keep you to it.”

“He’s alive,” Brun said flatly, his mouth a grim set line.

Pettibone folded his arms over his eyes as his already minuscule quarters seemed to shrink even further. Marlowe had done him the service of going after the foolish girl just as he’d hoped, then failed to die. Hate burned in Pettibone’s belly.

He hated the feel of the cheap woolen blanket at his back upon the rough, lowly cot that served as his bed. He hated the pillow upon which he’d placed his head for the last several weeks, the stink of whomever had used it before him still lingering in the molding feathers. He hated the clothes he was forced to wear every single day, the cut inferior, the fabric coarse and badly dyed. He hated the wretched English food he was given to eat. He hated the chattering, stupid servants that he had to pretend to like. He hated the Canadian girl and her money. He hated the English woman and her painting. He hated the English man and his ability to stay alive.

But most of all, he hated his father. For it was his father who was responsible for all that was wrong in his life. Without his father, all of it would simply have been a bad dream. He would be the leader of Les Moines, and he never would have been foolish enough to accept Napoleon’s plea for help.

And for that, he would make the man pay.

“Thank you, Brun. Your services are no longer needed,” Pettibone replied, sighing deeply.

“What will you do now?”

Pettibone stiffened with annoyance. He’d grown weary of the caliber of men that his father had supplied him with for this mission, Brun being particularly irritating.
Oh, the man had readily agreed to do as he’d asked as far as Marlowe was concerned. Even agreed to cooperate for much less money than Pettibone had been willing to offer. But still, he grated on the nerves.

“That’s hardly your concern,” Pettibone answered, not even bothering to address the man with a direct gaze. “I suggest you leave the grounds at once—while there’s still time.”

“What do you mean, ‘still time’?”

Pettibone would have killed the man for his insolence right there, in the tiny, ill-appointed room, but he couldn’t be bothered. “Miss Bennett will surely ask where you took yourself off to while you were supposed to be protecting her—as will Marlowe. How do you plan on explaining your absence?”

“I’ll return to Paris, then,” Brun replied, his voice confident.

Pettibone unfolded his arms and turned to look at the man. “Will you? And what will you tell Durand?”

Brun looked hard at Pettibone, clearly offended. “I’ll tell him that you sent me home.”

“No,” Pettibone said simply. “You see, that would suggest that I’d deviated from Durand’s very specific plan—and we both know what he’d think of such a move.”

“Where would you suggest I go, then?” Brun pressed, his temper rising.

Pettibone sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. “I don’t really care. You’re not my problem. But I would suggest steering clear of Les Moines.”

“I could go directly to Durand and tell him about you, you know.”

Pettibone sneered at Brun’s attempt to threaten him. “Please, we both know what the old man would say to such a thing. You’d be dead within an hour. At least
making a run for it buys you a bit more time than that.”

Brun could not argue, a fact that made Pettibone smile. “Now go. The rest of the household will be up and about soon enough.”

Brun raised his fist as if to punch Pettibone, then lowered it. “You’re not worth it,” he lashed out, adding, “Durand will discover what you’ve been up to—and then you’ll pay.” He walked to the flimsy door and opened it, the wood floor creaking as he stepped across the threshold. He looked back at Pettibone and scowled, then closed the door silently.

“Now,” Pettibone said to himself, drumming his fingers on his knee. “What am I to do?”

This was a golden opportunity that he wasn’t willing to forgo. His father had not trusted him. Therefore, he needed to be shown that his son could—and had—proven himself worthy. His attempt to kill Marlowe had not worked. And he’d hardly be able to blackmail the man into leaving as he’d essentially just done with Brun. If he could not remove Marlowe and complete the mission himself, then perhaps foiling the plan altogether would be worthwhile.

He stood abruptly from the rickety cot and crossed to the dilapidated trunk he’d brought with him from Paris. He lifted the hinged lid and let it rest against the wall. Mr. Bennett had made use of him some weeks before in relation to the money that would be paid to St. Michelle for the portrait. A letter had been sent to an Edinburgh bank with whom Bennett did business. Funds were to be withdrawn from his account and sent to the Banque de France in Paris. It had seemed simple enough, though Bennett had added an interesting requirement: The funds would be deposited in a safe. The combination to the safe would be locked in a strongbox. And the key to that box would be sent to Bennett.

He’d actually thought Bennett quite clever when he’d forced open the letter and read the contents before re-sealing it and handing it off to a messenger.

But when the envoy had arrived at Kenwood House and turned over the key, Pettibone had not been privy to the exact location of its hiding place. He’d searched the house every night since but had no luck.

He fingered the extra clothing he’d brought along, lifting a second pair of boots then a pair of breeches before deciding there was nothing here he needed.

Bennett would present the key to Clarissa when the portrait was finished. All Pettibone had to do was wait for the woman to complete her work, then the key could be his.

And with the key, he’d secure not only the fortune, but his father’s long-awaited fall from power. It would be easy enough to concoct a story that proved Marlowe’s ties to the Corinthians had not been cut as he’d led everyone within Les Moines to believe—something Pettibone thought might even be true.

The money and a turncoat captured, all by his hands. His father’s position would be his. And the first order of business would be to kill Durand for all he’d made his own son endure over the years.

Pettibone closed the trunk and reached for his coat, which hung on the back of the only chair in the room. Then he swept some spare coins from the lone night table and pocketed them.

He’d steal away, the hope being that Marlowe and Lady Clarissa would assume he’d given up and retreated back to Paris. If he was lucky, they’d let down their guard a bit. And when the time was right, he’d retrieve the key, then leave this godforsaken country, never to return.

He lifted the candlestick and opened the door, turning
to look back at the rat hole of a room one last time. “
Bon débarras,
” he said under his breath, sure that such accommodations were nearly in his past. He could feel victory in his bones—and this time he’d not allow anyone to stand in his way.

James could not wait any longer. He’d endured Thomkins’s ministrations, no less than three knife wounds sewn back together by the skilled and thankfully incurious man. Afterward, he made his way as quickly as possible to Kenwood House, the pain in his gut and thigh stabbing him with each step.

And he’d waited for Clarissa. He’d moved a comfortable upholstered chair closer to his door and sat, listening for her footfalls in the hall. Then he’d taken to standing just outside her door.

When that proved fruitless, he’d let himself into her chamber and sat on her bed, needing to rest for only a moment. The night had been, by far, one of the most exhausting of his life. It seemed so long ago that he’d marched across the lawn, soaking wet and suddenly far smarter than he’d been before diving into the lake. It was at that very moment he’d decided to say to hell with the past and his long-held grudge against God and everyone else—especially Clarissa—for love.
Love
. Love had sent his heart soaring, dropped it like a boulder in the deepest sea, and finally forced him to realize that there was nothing more important in life. Love was a demanding master, but every last trial was worth it if it meant Clarissa could be his.

He’d laid his head on the pillow, the unique scent that was only Clarissa’s filling his nostrils and tightening his groin. He needed to tell her exactly how he felt, the
sooner the better. The men who had attacked him behind the Eagle’s Nest had claimed to know nothing of Les Moines. He supposed that the dying man could have been lying, but after years of service within the Corinthians, James had become a good judge of such things. Besides, they’d fought like common ruffians, their base moves hardly the polished and honed fighting techniques James would have expected from seasoned French agents. He felt sure that the man had told him the truth. In which case, Pettibone had reached outside Les Moines for hired help. Why would he do such a thing? Daphne’s information only served to complicate the already tangled truths and half-truths that James faced now. Pettibone had wanted Iris to go to the gaming hell. Had he assumed James would discover the girl gone? And if so, was James Pettibone’s end target?

He knew Pettibone disliked him, that fact was crystal clear. But threatening James put the entire operation in jeopardy. Perhaps Pettibone was not as devoted to Napoleon’s cause as Les Moines believed him to be.

James closed his tired eyes and savored the feel of the smooth silk coverlet against his bruised face and torn body. He and Clarissa could not stay at Kenwood House much longer. Pettibone was becoming too menacing of a threat. And without Corinthian support, James would have a difficult time protecting Clarissa and Iris—not to mention Mr. and Mrs. Bennett and the rest of the household. Well, James was never one to back down from a challenge, that was for sure.