“Yes,” Marie replied softly.
Véronique kept right on talking as if she hadn’t heard. “We’ll be able to refurnish the manor. And buy back all our heirlooms. And we’ll have a town house in Paris and another in Versailles.” Her voice bubbled with excitement. “And we’ll even have servants again—real servants—instead of just having Madame Rouré come here once a week to throw up her hands in disgust and rail at the two of us for being incorrigible and hopeless.” She flashed her sister a mischievous smile. “I for one will never be hopeless.”
With a laugh and a graceful step to an uncluttered portion of the floor, Véronique spun into a minuet with an imaginary partner. “We shall have gowns and jewels and parties. And such huge dowries that every nobleman in the north of France shall come courting us. Troops of them! But you can have them all, because I’m in love.” She repeated it to the rhythm of her dance. “In love, in love, in love with the Viscomte LaMartine.”
Marie picked her way back to the far end of the table and began cleaning the glassware she had used to measure precise amounts of her compound and the water. Watching her sister swirl about, she couldn’t suppress a smile. Véronique’s optimism was as infectious as it was boundless.
It was almost enough to make Marie believe in the one thing she had never believed in: dreams.
Dowries and jewels held little appeal…but it might be nice to have some glassware without chips or cracks. And a lovely new bellows. And perhaps, if they were very wealthy, one of those portable Ayscough microscopes.
The thought made her smile wistfully. Oh, to have an Ayscough!
Breathless and laughing, Véronique ended her minuet and curtsied to her imaginary partner. “It’s all going to come true, Marie. I just know it is.” She danced over to where Marie stood. “We’ll be so rich, we’ll be positively swimming in handsome suitors.”
“You’ll be swimming,” Marie corrected, wiping a trace of phosphorous residue from a U-shaped piece of glass tubing. “From my observations, husbands seem to be terribly self-important, overbearing, controlling creatures,” she stated as if conducting a scientific lecture. “The longer I go without acquiring one, the happier I will be. Thus far, I have managed to reach the advanced age of twenty-three while successfully remaining a spinster. I mean to see how long I can make it last. Decades, perhaps.”
Véronique frowned prettily. “You only say that because you haven’t met the right man yet—and that’s only because you rarely meet any men. When you meet the right one, it’s…it’s…”
“Wonderful and charming and so romantic,” Marie supplied teasingly, with a breathy sigh and a flutter of her eyelashes.
“Yes,” Véronique said flatly. “All that and more.”
Smiling, Marie picked up a beaker and continued working in silence. As a scientist, she dealt in facts, and the fact was that even if she were wealthier than the Queen, she would not attract male attention.
To put it politely, she was plain. Plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, plain figure, plain. Her nose was too broad to be considered fashionable, her teeth a bit uneven, her chin rather squarish, with a small cleft in the middle. The features that looked so handsome on Armand were a complete failure in the feminine version.
But plain was perfectly fine by Marie. It was far better to be smart than pretty.
Her mother had always told her so.
“Someday, Marie,” Véronique said confidently, watching her work. “Someday you’ll—”
The compound in the box at the far end of the table suddenly made a hissing sound.
Both of them froze.
Before either could speak, the chemical ignited in a white-hot burst of flame. A second later it exploded, filling the room with an unnaturally bright light.
Véronique cried out and leaped backward. Marie threw up a hand to protect her eyes, but she couldn’t move away. Her breath and heartbeat seemed to stop. Light spots from the flash of blinding flame swirled in her vision.
Véronique grabbed her arm, pulling her back. “What was that?” she exclaimed, rubbing her eyes, blinking, coughing on an odd scent that filled the room. “I thought you were working on a fertilizer. What the devil happened?”
Marie couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even breathe. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved—or horrified. She managed to peel herself from Véronique’s grasp and rush over to the box.
Or rather the spot where the box had been. The fire had burned out just as quickly as it began—but it left nothing behind. Not even ashes. The wood, the seedlings, even the soil, were gone. There remained only a blackened, twisted, smoldering hole in the mahogany table.
Horror took over. She had used only a few granules and the explosion had lit up the entire room, brighter than the chandeliers overhead.
She turned slowly, utterly mortified, to look at the enormous jar of her “miracle” fertilizer that sat on the floor in one corner. She couldn’t allow this compound to be spread across fields throughout France!
She stood there, shaking, trying to be objective and assessing and scientific and logical…and instead feeling utterly ill.
How could she have created something so destructive?
“Marie? Are you all right?”
Dazed, she glanced at her sister. “Fine…I’m f-fine. At least I…I know what caused the combustion problem now. It was definitely the puddles of water.” She choked out a sound that didn’t come close to a laugh. “I just…have to find a way to fix the compound. Make it stable. I’ll…” She swallowed hard. “I’ll just have to start from the beginning.”
“Tomorrow,” Véronique suggested gently. “Why don’t you get some sleep and start again tomorrow?”
Marie shook her head adamantly. She had made some sort of terrible mistake. She couldn’t sleep with it gnawing at her. She picked up a metal basin from a nearby table. “No, I’ll stay up, but you—”
A tapping at the windows interrupted her. Startled, she spun toward the noise—and saw a figure looming in the darkness outside. A man. The basin slipped from Marie’s fingers. Véronique screamed.
He stood in the shadows outside the corner window, still and silent, then tapped on the panes again.
In the span of one heartbeat, Marie had the panicky thought that Armand had been right, that it was foolish for two women to stay in the manor alone, that they should have spent their last few sous on servants rather than her equipment—
Then suddenly, she recognized the man.
“Armand?” she cried, running toward the window. She unfastened the lock and threw it open, Véronique right at her heels. “What on earth are you doing out there? You nearly frightened us both to death!”
He leaped over the sill, looking disheveled and out of breath. “Marie, Véronique, thank God you’re both here! There’s no time to—”
“Why didn’t you just come through the front door?” Véronique interrupted. “And where did you get those expensive clothes?” He was wearing an embroidered brocade frock coat and breeches, a shirt frothy with lace, shiny new leather boots. “We don’t have money for luxuries like that.”
“There’s no time to explain!” He rushed across the room and grabbed Marie’s sketches and notebooks from their shelf near the door. “We’ve got to get out of here! I was followed—”
“Followed?” Marie echoed, watching him in puzzlement. Armand, like Véronique, had always been entirely too emotional. “Followed by whom? What are you talking about? Armand—”
“Marie, listen to me.” He ran back to the window where she and Véronique still stood, papers spilling from his grasp. “We have to leave here right now. Where’s the formula? Is it in one of these notebooks? We have to take it with us. It’s the only thing we might have to bargain with!”
Confused and frightened now, Marie attempted to take her precious papers from him. “Bargain with whom? Armand, are you drunk? Would you please explain yourself?”
He dropped everything on the floor, grabbed her by the shoulders
and shook her, shouting. “Where is the formula?”
“Armand!” Véronique gasped.
His desperation—and his steely hold on her—shocked Marie into answering his question instead of arguing further. “It’s in my head. There…there are only bits and pieces in my notes. But Armand, that doesn’t matter!” She nodded at the blackened hole in the laboratory table. “My fertilizer has proved distressingly unstable.”
“Yes, most distressing,” he agreed hotly, spinning her around and pushing her toward the open window. “I thought one of your crazy concoctions was finally going to make us a little money, but instead it has landed us in a great deal of trouble!” He left the notes on the floor, whirled to grab Véronique. “We’re in danger every minute we stand here arguing. My carriage is outside. Go through the window. Both of you!”
Véronique hurried to do as he ordered. “What sort of danger?”
Marie planted her feet indignantly. “Armand, I can’t possibly leave like this. My work—”
Before she could finish, they heard a sound from the far side of the house: someone was pounding on the front door. Pounding and shouting. Then came a booming, crunching noise.
As if they were trying to break down the door.
Armand went pale. He grabbed Marie and propelled her after Véronique. “Outside! Now. Run for the carriage!”
Marie didn’t need any more urging than that. She didn’t know who was breaking into her house—but the danger Armand had spoken of was obviously serious.
The three of them scrambled out the window and ran toward an expensive-looking open landau that waited a few yards away. Armand helped them both up and vaulted into the driver’s seat.
“Armand, what in the world is going on?” Marie clambered over the folded leather canopy, up onto the driver’s platform next to him as he snapped the reins. The horses—a pair of fine black stallions, lathered and prancing—leaped forward.
They raced away into the darkness, heading straight out over the hills instead of circling around to the road.
“W-w-where are we going?” Véronique asked, bounced about in her seat as the carriage jolted over the uneven ground.
“Hang on, Véronique!” Marie clung to the side of the landau with both hands. The trouncing ride knocked the air from her. “A-Ar-Armand, this vehicle was not intended for terrain like—”
“We can’t risk any of the roads. They’re full of people you do not want to meet!”
He cast a glance behind them and she followed his gaze. No one was following them. Yet.
“Who?” she shouted over the rush of the wind.
He snapped the reins again, urging the horses to go faster. Flashing her an apologetic glance, he explained as best he could despite the jolting of the carriage. “An older gentleman expressed interest in my—I mean your—new chemical,” he yelled. “Paid a handsome sum of money. All he wanted was a sample—”
“Oh, Armand, no,” Marie gasped. “You didn’t give it to him, did you? We have to get it back! There’s a problem with it—”
“I know there’s a problem with it! He—”
A gunshot sounded in the distance behind them. Armand struck the horses with the reins again, shouting at them, demanding more speed.
“That was a pistol shot, wasn’t it?” Véronique gasped from her seat. “That was a pistol shot!”
It was quickly followed by several more.
“They’re not shooting at us,” Armand assured them over the sound of the wind, casting an uneasy glance to the rear. “They want me alive. They’re shooting at each other.”
When he faced forward again, Marie stared at him. “Sh-shooting?” she stuttered. “Shooting! Armand, to whom did you give that sample?”
“Said he was a minister in the King’s cabinet. I didn’t ask which minister. Would’ve accepted help from the Minister of the Royal Chamberpot if I thought it would get us anywhere. I only found out later he was the Minister of the Royal Navy—”
“But why on earth would the navy be interested in a fertilizer?”
They heard more pistol shots behind them, drawing closer now. Véronique screamed and huddled down in the corner.
“Seems he heard about your field test!” Armand yelled. “I didn’t get suspicious until he came back. A few days after I gave him the sample.” His voice picked up speed until his explanation raced as fast as the carriage. “He wanted more of the chemical. Talking about patriotism. Dawn of a new day for France. Warned that I might have visitors. English visitors. Gave me a guard and a pistol. Told me to be careful—”
The carriage hit a hole and bounced over it, nearly tossing them all out.
Marie clung to the seat, terrified. “Armand, we’ve got to slow down! You’re going to get us all killed!”
“You don’t understand these people! What they’re capable of. They told me what they did with your compound. Marie, it’s horrifying. They—”
Another sound came from behind them, this one much louder than the others.
More like an explosion.
Marie looked back in the direction of the manor. A red glow filled the sky. “Fire!” she cried, outrage and fear clashing inside her. “They’re burning down our house!”
Armand uttered a strangled oath. “Sacrément, they’re not thinking! The laboratory!”
He said it in a tone of horror and yanked hard on the reins, trying to control the horses, trying to slow them down.
“Get down!” he shouted. “Down on the floor and cover your eyes!”
Before they could comply, a huge roar ripped through the night—a cataclysmic sound like all the world being torn asunder.
It was so loud Marie couldn’t even hear her own scream. But she could feel the blast. And see the unnatural glare that lit up the darkness. Could see it even though her eyes were closed and covered by her hands.
When she could hear again, it was the sound of the horses screaming in terror. The speeding carriage lurched sideways. She felt it falling away from beneath her. Crashing to the ground. Everything spinning, smashed into pieces. Something struck her head.
And she knew nothing more.
London
Come alone, the note had said.
Lord Maximilian D’Avenant stepped down from the hackney coach into the darkness of the wharf, his greatcoat closely buttoned at his throat, tricorne pulled low over his eyes, two days’ growth of stubble on his cheeks. He clutched a half-empty bottle of Madeira in one hand, and kept thinking that the blade tucked into his boot felt inordinately cold in contrast to the mild spring warmth.
It was a new moon, a night as black as the coat he wore—and he knew the date and the hour had not been chosen by chance. A knot of uneasiness clenched in his gut. The weight of his pistol, hidden in a secret inner pocket of his coat, made him feel a bit better.
But not much.
The cryptic note hadn’t insisted that he come unarmed. Even if it had, he would’ve ignored that particular request. Inexperienced he might be, but a fool he was not.
Inexperienced in matters of intrigue, he amended ruefully.
The hackney driver, who had opened the door, stood waiting, polite but clearly impatient to leave the vicinity. Forcing himself to move, Max reached into his pocket and flipped the man a generous guinea.
“Thank ye, yer lordship.” The driver tipped his hat. “Thank ye!” Shutting the door, he leaped up to his seat and the coach pulled away, its wheels clattering on the cobbles and splashing through puddles as it vanished quickly into the night.
Leaving Max alone on the murky, deserted street.
He paused for a moment to get his bearings in the gloom, then turned left and started walking, his pace measured, wary. In the two years since he had recovered from his illness, he had explored every corner of London, but only rarely had he been in this part of town. He knew the lavish East India Company docks well, but not the rougher Southwark docks.
He purposely stumbled as he moved along, trying to imitate a drunken young
dandiprat making the rounds of local alehouses. He had always harbored a secret longing to take up acting, he thought with a brief, grim smile—but this wasn’t the sort of role he had ever imagined for himself.
Pausing now and then to take an unsteady swig from the bottle, he kept his gaze sharp beneath the brim of his tricorne and looked for the tavern the note had named. And tried to notice everything and everyone around him without being noticed.
Flickering light fell in yellow pools beneath the streetlamps, but half were burned out by this hour. Only a scattered few sailors, drunks, and doxies passed by. Most went about their own furtive business without a glance at the sorry-looking figure stumbling among them. Max skirted the feeble glow of the lamps and kept to the shadows.
The moonless night felt oddly silent and empty. No raucous laughter sounded from the few establishments that were open. No bawdy songs carried on the salty air. It seemed that even here a feeling of hushed anticipation, of dread, of fear, clung to the city.
His grim smile returned. The war with France had been going so bloody well until a fortnight ago. The arrogance of victory had made the recent turn of events all the more shocking. And he had been no exception, to the arrogance or to the shock.
Even as he edged uneasily along the dark street and tried to keep his mind focused, Max felt almost painfully aware of that most beloved and British of all scents surrounding him: a mixture of brine and English oak, heavy on the air.
Ships and the sea.
He swallowed hard past a lump in his throat. The Thames lay calm tonight. No breeze blew from the Channel—as if even the wind and water had stilled in horror at the stunning act of violence that had taken place a fortnight ago. At the very mouth of London’s great river. To a D’Avenant ship.
Max suppressed the surge of emotion that cut through him. He needed to keep his wits about him, tonight of all nights.
Come alone. At first, he had barely glanced at the message brought by his valet on a silver tray, piled among the rest of the post. His family had received dozens of condolences in the past fortnight. He would have tossed the note aside with the others—but this one had been addressed to him personally. Not to his brother Julian or to his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Silverton…but to him.
A Scoundrels Kiss Page 2