A Scoundrels Kiss

by Shelly Thacker

  But she didn’t hear any sound from the tiger.

  “Nicobar?” she whispered. She could only pray that he wouldn’t pounce on her. She couldn’t slow down. She kept moving, quickly, deeper into the foliage.

  Then she heard the metal door open.

  She froze. There was no other sound.

  No click of the door closing.

  But she heard footsteps…stealthy, almost silent footsteps.

  The man was stalking her. She bit her lip to stop a cry of terror and darted into the middle of a stand of bushes. Crouching down, she strained to hear. To figure out which path he had taken. But she couldn’t.

  He was moving too quietly.

  She prayed he wouldn’t see her in the darkness—

  Glancing down, she tensed in panic. Her nightdress! The white cloth was as bright as snow against the dark foliage. Especially with the pinpricks of starlight gleaming down on it.

  She hunched lower to the ground, huddled into a ball. Tried to conceal herself.

  Then she heard the footsteps again—only a few paces away.

  She forced down a whimper of terror. She had never felt so alone or so frightened.

  Max. Dear God, she wished he were here.

  But she was glad he wasn’t here. Glad that he was in London. That he was safe.

  A twig crunched beneath a boot. The man stopped in his tracks. She could hear him breathing.

  Her heart pounded wildly.

  “I know you’re in here, Mademoiselle LeBon,” a deep, smooth voice said in French.

  She covered her mouth with one hand, trying not to scream. It sounded like he was standing right beside her.

  But why had he called her Mademoiselle LeBon?

  “You’ve made for a most amusing hunt, mademoiselle, but it’s over. I suggest you come out now, before my employer joins us. He’s not in the best of moods.”

  She held her breath, her heart racing. She had no way to defend herself. And if he took one more step toward her—

  One of the peacocks made a raucous cry. The man spun, his movement a loud crash against the foliage.

  Before Marie could run, she heard another noise—from behind her. Something hurtling through the undergrowth. With a startled cry, she threw herself to the ground.

  She heard Nicobar’s growl and felt a whoosh of air as he sailed over her, bounding straight at the intruder.

  The man uttered a startled cry. His pistol went off, the explosion like a flash of lightning in the darkness—and Nicobar’s playful growl became a roar of pain and fury.

  The intruder screamed. Marie heard him run but knew he had no chance.

  In here, in the darkness, the tiger had the advantage. Nicobar chased him, snarling.

  She leaped up and pushed her way out of the bushes, running for the exit, filled with hope and terror. She would flee to the stables. Take a horse. Escape.

  The metal door loomed before her, wide open.

  She darted through.

  Only to find herself face-to-face with another man.

  He grabbed her in a painful hold before she could even cry out, his hand grasping the nape of her neck. He jerked her up against him. His right arm was red with blood.

  “Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he said with a cruel twist to his lips. “A pleasure to finally make the acquaintance of my country’s most renowned scientist.”

  Marie screamed. The man shoved her backward against the wall, hard, knocking the breath from her.

  “There’s no one left to hear you, Mademoiselle LeBon.” There was a vicious gleam in his blue eyes. Inside the greenhouse, Nicobar was still roaring and snarling. “Sacrément, it sounds as if the owner of this odd place has an odd menagerie as well. What a pity that my associate should meet such an untimely end.”

  He reached out and pulled the metal door shut.

  Then he grabbed her arm in a painful grip. Marie fought to break free, striking him with her fists. “Let me go!” she cried, refusing to surrender to the panic rising. “My husband—”

  “Is dead.” He stuffed the pistol he held into the waistband of his breeches and grasped both her wrists. “And he never was your husband.”

  “No. No!” Marie kept struggling. She would not believe his lies. “He’s safe. He’s—”

  “Lying in a coach outside with a bullet through his heart.” The man took a length of rope from inside his coat and bound her wrists tightly together in front of her.

  “No!” Marie kept resisting, twisting, kicking. “You’re lying! You wouldn’t kill Max! You need him to make the chemical you want—”

  “You try my patience, mademoiselle.” His hand closed around her throat, choking her. “You are the scientist who invented the chemical we want. The man you knew as Max LeBon was Lord Maximilian D’Avenant. An English spy working for the British Crown. Sent to abduct you and pretend to be your husband and bring you here to England.”

  No! She opened her mouth, gasping for air, finding none. He was lying! He was mad! Her vision began to blur at the edges.

  “You are France’s most brilliant chemist,” he assured her, relaxing his grasp just enough that she could breathe. “And I’ve sacrificed a number of good men tonight to get to you. A shame to pay such a high price, but they died for the greater glory of France.” He reached into his coat again. “Now, mademoiselle, rather than risk the chance that you might slip through my fingers once more, I’ll wait no longer to take what I want.”

  She stared into his eyes with terror as he withdrew a metal object from his coat.

  But it wasn’t a weapon; it was a shiny gold disk at the end of a short chain.

  “I want that formula and I mean to have it. Now.” He held the disk in front of her eyes. “Tell me, Mademoiselle LeBon, have you had any flashes of memory at all?”

  She refused to answer, refused to help him in any way.

  But instead of making him angry, her reaction only made him smile.

  “Your silence makes me suspect that you have. Many weeks have passed since your accident. I would guess that your head injury is well healed by now. It might be only a matter of time before your memory returns on its own. Or…” His smile widened. “It might require only a nudge to set it free.”

  He started spinning the circle of metal. It created a dazzling blur of brightness that made her dizzy. Marie shut her eyes.

  “Keep your eyes on the disk, mademoiselle,” he ordered sharply.

  His fingers tightened around her throat to enforce his command. She choked and sputtered. Only when she opened her eyes did he relax his hold. At least enough so she could breathe.

  “Better.” His voice dropped to a low monotone. “Now, I want you to keep watching the disk…keep watching…watching…watching…”

  She was helpless in his grasp, unable to look away or even turn her head an inch. No more sounds came from inside the greenhouse. The entire cottage was deathly silent. She could only stare in confused terror at the shining, whirling object he held directly in front of her eyes.

  The dizzy sensation returned. Stronger than before. She blinked. It felt like the entire room was spinning. Faster and faster.

  After a few minutes, her body began to feel limp.

  “Very good,” he said in that odd, slow voice. “And now your eyelids are feeling heavy…so heavy that you cannot keep them open…heavy…heavy…”

  She fought to ignore him, utterly confused by what he was saying and doing. But her eyelids…began to feel…heavy.

  “Yes…that’s right. Heavier…heavier…you want to close them…and you must close them…now…”

  The whirl of gold filled her vision, made her head feel strange. Thick. Her eyelids began to droop.

  And his voice seemed to come from far away.

  “You cannot resist. It is only a matter of time, mademoiselle. Everyone else is gone and I will take as long as necessary…”

  She could not fight the heavy feeling that dragged her downward. She could sense minutes passing, each slow
er than the last, and she lost track of time altogether.

  Then she became aware of his voice again.

  “And now you will remember, mademoiselle…You will remember…you will remember…”

  Though she could hear him, she still seemed to be falling. Falling asleep, yet not falling asleep…

  Falling into the shadows.

  “And now you will remember…remember…”

  The dark unknown enveloped her, heavy and frightening and complete. She plunged into the shadows and could not pull back. Could not fight. Could not resist. She had no strength. Her body felt so lax.

  “Remember…”

  She was falling…deeper…further…alone.

  “Remember.”

  Suddenly light burst through the darkness.

  Like the sun exploding at midnight.

  She opened her eyes with a terrified gasp as she saw it all—a torrent of images. As if the man had ripped a black bandage from her eyes. Her whole life flashed through her mind in a single shattering blast.

  It struck her with the force of a mortal blow. Her entire body recoiled and she crumpled. She cried out in shock. In fear.

  She saw everything. Everything.

  Images from her childhood. Her mother. The manor. It all came rushing back. Grandfather. Armand. Every moment. Every detail. Her laboratory. Her experiments.

  Véronique.

  …at the window.

  The chase. The pistol shots. The fire.

  Her sister’s…

  …broken body…

  Lying beneath…

  …the wheels of the carriage.

  Marie screamed with raw anguish wrenched from her very depths.

  Max hovered at the edge of consciousness, trapped beneath crushing waves of pain, until a scream in the distance pulled him forcefully to awareness.

  It was a shrill feminine scream of terror and grief, slicing through the night, ripping into his heart like a jagged blade.

  It was the sound of a soul in agony. Marie’s soul.

  He fought his way upward through the fog of searing pain and rage. He didn’t have the strength to raise his head. Barely managed to open his eyes.

  He lay on his back, slumped on the floor of the coach. The ceiling overhead whirled and tilted crazily in his vision. Agony gripped his chest, radiating outward in waves. He’d been shot. Fleming had shot him. He remembered the hot steel ripping into his body.

  But he was still alive. How could he still be alive? He could feel blood soaking his clothes. Could smell it in the air—sharp and metallic. The bullet had not missed. It should have killed him.

  Then some distant corner of his mind told him what had saved him. It was almost comically ironic.

  The very training he had received from Wolf and Fleming had saved him: the steel blades concealed within his waistcoat, sewn into the lining. One of them must have deflected the path of the bullet, just enough.

  Or perhaps not enough.

  His life’s blood was seeping out of him. Too fast. He was already so weak that he didn’t have the strength to move. He tried to get up—only to fall back with a groan of agony.

  Then he heard another scream.

  Marie.

  From somewhere inside him, he found a power and a will he hadn’t known he possessed. He shoved himself up, ignoring the pain. He made it out the open door.

  But his sudden move made the ground and the sky trade places in a stunning spin. He hung on to the coach door to steady himself on his feet. For a moment, it was all he could do to breathe. To stay conscious.

  The bodies of his men lay strewn across the grass in the darkness. Fleming. Damn his traitorous soul to hell. It had all been an elaborate trick. The noble rescue at the tavern. The gunmen—Fleming’s own hirelings.

  The bastard must have instructed one of them to shoot him in the arm. Then allowed all of them to be killed. Purely to make it convincing.

  More accomplices could have followed the coach in the darkness. Waiting for the right moment to pick off the guards one by one from a safe distance.

  And Max had brought them directly here.

  To Marie.

  No more screams came from the cottage. His heartbeat was irregular, his gut twisted with nausea. If Fleming had hurt her…

  Fury pumping through him, he let go of the door. His vision was nothing but a dark haze. Pain raked him. His left arm had gone completely numb. But he focused his mind, reached back into the coach.

  And picked up the pistol he had dropped when he was shot.

  Forcing his muscles to respond, he started toward the main entrance of the cottage, not even pausing long enough to attempt to bandage his wound.

  “Welcome back from your past, Mademoiselle LeBon,” the man said, his tone silky and callous. “Or should I say to your past?”

  Marie had slumped to the floor against the wall, sobbing, her throat raw from screaming. He had released his hold on her, letting her fall to her knees.

  She covered her face with her bound hands. It felt like she was being torn between two worlds, two lives, two separate versions of herself at once. Painful memories twisted around painful memories, who she had been before the carriage accident crashing up against who she had become since.

  That was the cruelest part—she remembered everything. Not only her past but everything that had happened since the moment she awakened at the asylum in Paris.

  “Why?” she sobbed brokenly. “Why? Why?”

  She was shaking with shock and betrayal and horror so overwhelming, they made anything more than that one word impossible.

  But the man—someone she didn’t remember, had never seen before in her life—reached down and yanked her to her feet. “I have no interest in your questions, mademoiselle. It is you who will answer my questions. Quickly, if you value your life. Tell me the formula for your chemical.”

  She stared at him. His demand forced her shocked, reeling mind to a halt.

  The chemical. Her fertilizer. The one Armand had sold to the French military. They had used it as a weapon. Had come to the manor seeking more…

  It was her invention he wanted.

  And he might kill her as soon as she gave it to him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she lied. “Who are you? What—”

  “My name is Fleming and what I want is that formula.” He drew his pistol and pressed the barrel against her temple.

  It was still hot from having been fired recently.

  She went still, not struggling against him.

  Then she suddenly brought her knee up, quick and hard—a trick her grandfather had taught her long ago.

  But Fleming twisted sideways and slammed his body into hers, pinning her against the wall. Marie cried out at the painful impact.

  “No tricks,” he snarled, moving the gun lower, pressing it into her arm. “You know I won’t kill you—you’re too valuable for that. But I will have that formula. If I have to damage you to get it, so be it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she insisted desperately. “I don’t remember—”

  He cocked the gun, ready to shoot her.

  “All right! I’ll tell you!”

  “Don’t attempt to deceive me, mademoiselle,” he threatened. “I know more than you could guess about chemistry.”

  She didn’t know whether that was a lie.

  But there was no time to debate it. No time to think.

  “One part phosphorous,” she said tremulously. “One part ammonium. Two parts dried seaweed ash. Three parts water.”

  “Very good.” He nodded in approval. “You’ve just done your country a great service. Now let’s go. I’m sure you’re eager to return to your homeland.”

  He relaxed his hold and levered his weight off her.

  But no sooner had he moved away from her than the explosive report of a pistol shot cracked through the entry hall.

  Fleming shouted in pain and fell backward, his gun flying from his hand and skidding acr
oss the marble floor.

  Screaming, Marie flattened herself against the wall and looked at the doorway, where the shot had come from.

  “Max!”

  He was leaning against the door. Even as she shouted his name, he slid downward, a smoking pistol falling from his fingers.

  He was covered in blood.

  She started toward him—but a curse from Fleming made her freeze and turn around.

  Max’s shot hadn’t killed him. He was getting to his feet, one hand grasping his leg, blood running through his fingers.

  And he was looking toward his gun.

  Marie acted without thinking, running across the room to reach the gun first. She grabbed it, lifted it in her shaking hands.

  And positioned herself between Fleming and Max, the gun pointed toward Fleming.

  He glared at her, breathing heavily. “You won’t shoot me,” he taunted. “You don’t even know how to hold a pistol properly.”

  Marie was trembling with fear but stood her ground. “Scientifically speaking,” she replied unsteadily, “I don’t need to be a marksman to blow a hole in you at this distance.”

  Fleming’s gaze flashed from the gun in her hand to her face and back again.

  Then he made the one move she didn’t expect.

  He turned and fled. Running, limping, he went straight for the French doors at the back of the entrance hall that led onto the terrace outside.

  Seized by a terrible moment of indecision, Marie didn’t know whether to shoot or let him go. She had never purposely harmed another human being in her life.

  Within seconds, it was too late to decide. He was gone.

  Still holding the gun in her bound hands, she turned, her chest heaving, emotions rioting through her in waves that threatened to send her to her knees.

  Max lay slumped in the doorway, unconscious.

  She stared at him, gripped by so many feelings that logic was impossible. She didn’t know what to do. Where to turn.

  Where she even was.

  England. She was in England. At an isolated house in the countryside. And he was…

  Lord Maximilian D’Avenant.

  An English spy working for the British Crown.

  Hurt and outrage and fury suddenly obliterated everything else. He had kidnapped her. Pretended to be her husband. Deceived his way into her life. Into her bed.