For the briefest instant, Sebastian frowned. How unfortunate, thought Valmont, if he should start to crumble so quickly: the Marquis wanted to extract the maximum amount of pleasure from this game. “What is your sequence?” he asked.
“Three, to the knave.”
“Ah,” Valmont smiled. “Quarte, to the queen.” He couldn’t resist an incline of his head in Jeanne’s direction. Her eyes were sparkling and she quickly lifted her fingers to her mouth, her action betraying an instance of nerves.
When the sequences were finished and sets announced, at last the two of them engaged in play, discarding their cards. As he had expected, Valmont won on points. He watched as Marie slid Sebastian’s pile of chips towards him.
“Never mind, Sebastian,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck this time.”
“At least I get to deal this time,” Sebastian responded with a shrug. Taking up the cards, he swiftly flipped cards faster than Valmont could watch, a whirl of suites that was intended to display his virtuosity. As agreed, each of them placed twice the amount as a wager and then Sebastian passed the deck to Marie who, in turn, allowed the Marquis to cut.
“It’s a shame that Eloise couldn’t be with us tonight,” Sebastian said, his face even more impervious this time.
“A great shame,” Valmont agreed blandly. “Perhaps next time.” He worked hard to prevent his face from betraying any thoughts. Why had Sebastian said that?
“That’ll be hard, I would have thought,” Sebastian observed quietly.
Fighting the urge to curse, Valmont stared into a pair of hard, blue eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Oh, haven’t you read the papers? She was found yesterday. She died of a heroin overdose, apparently.”
“That is sad,” Valmont replied, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. “She had gone away to visit friends for a while… I had wondered why I hadn’t heard from her, but then, I’m hardly her keeper.”
“But that’s exactly what I thought you were,” said Sebastian, his voice clearly ominous now. “Her keeper.”
“Sebastian!” Jeanne hissed and then flashed an apologetic smile towards the Marquis. “Clearly Donatien doesn’t know.”
“No,” Valmont lied. “I wasn’t aware.”
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Sebastian responded ironically. “Perhaps you’d like to call off the game—we can pursue it another night, when you’re not so emotionally affected.”
“I’m very sad to hear about the passing of an old friend, but despite what you believe, Monsieur Rider, I was not her keeper. Eloise had some unfortunate habits that I did my best to help her with. In the end, they seem to have got the better of her.”
“An old friend!” Sebastian muttered under his breath as they began the rounds of call and counter-call. He was clearly angry but, to Valmont’s annoyance, he still won the hand when the points were eventually decided. Jeanne seemed disturbed by the turn of events and placed a restraining hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off.
“This is thirsty work,” he said at last, his hard eyes fixed on Valmont who began to wonder what was going on. “Do you mind if we get a drink?”
“Of course,” Valmont replied, his charm masking his inner thoughts. As they proceeded through each of the following two hands, Sebastian regularly sipped from a martini: it only seemed to help him once, however, as he lost two of the hands and only won the third. Nonetheless, as they had agreed that the stakes would double for each round, now it meant that everything was on the table for the sixth and final hand.
Sebastian was clearly fighting hard to control his anger now, and Valmont couldn’t resist a chuckle as he dealt the cards.
“You know you’ve lost, Sebastian,” he said before turning his attention to Jeanne. “I shall very much enjoy our time together.”
For some reason, she seemed to have lost her sense of enjoyment in the game. She still smiled and made flirtatious nods in his direction, but Valmont could clearly see that her eyes were betraying her nervousness. So, in the end she was as much a whore as Eloise, if perhaps a slightly more clever one: all she had ever wanted was his ten million—but Valmont had never intended to part with that.
As the hand continued and the cards were to be overturned for a final time, she leaned closer to Sebastian’s ear. It didn’t matter what advice the ignorant bitch was going to offer her poor lover, Valmont thought: Sebastian was so far behind in points now that he would definitely lose—and she with him.
“Do it, Sebastian,” she said. “For Safiyah.”
For a moment, Valmont frowned. Then a sharp, icy feeling filled his limbs. “What did you say?” he asked.
Jeanne ignored him. “Just get this over with,” she said to Sebastian, her voice filled with tenderness.
“I don’t want to,” he growled, looking at her with eyes filled with pain. For a man who had shown himself more than able as a professional gambler, Sebastian Rider was now revealing a storm of emotions across his face. Unfortunately for Valmont, all these signs told him nothing.
When he turned back to the Marquis, however, those blue eyes were filled with cold hatred. “It’s over, Valmont. You win. Except that you don’t, not really.”
“Monsieur le Marquis is the winner with cent et un des points,” Marie declared.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Monsieur Rider,” Valmont said, extending one arm in Jeanne’s direction. “Madame Duval, if you would please take my arm?”
Now her eyes were flickering between him and Sebastian. When they alighted on him, Valmont saw with some surprise that they showed a moment’s disgust before she managed to control herself.
“Jeanne!” he said imperiously this time. Again she refused to take his hand, instead her fingers moving towards her head nervously In anger, he reached across and yanked hard on her lobe, tearing the earring from it as Sebastian, his eyes blazing, stood up and intervened. As he started to push away from the table, Latour started to lumber towards the group and Marie—looking disconcerted—was moving her hand beneath the table, obviously pressing a panic button.
“What is this?” Valmont whispered.
“It’s finished, Valmont,” Sebastian said, slowly pushing Jeanne behind him. “We know about Safiyah Sidi—and the others.”
That name turned the Marquis’s blood to ice. “Who are you?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jeanne said. “You won’t get away with this.”
For a few seconds, Valmont stared at the pair of them. It was pathetic, really, the way they clung to each other. Sebastian—or whoever he really was—clearly thought that he was going to change the outcome of the game in some way, while Jeanne’s revulsion for the Marquis was clear. Not that that mattered. In some ways, it would make the night ahead much more interesting. It didn’t matter what they knew, or thought they knew, about Safiyah Sidi. Valmont as usual was going to get his way.
“Take her,” he told Latour. “You lost the game, Monsieur Rider. Accept the outcome like a man.”
“He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be!” Jeanne shrieked, making no attempt now to preserve a French accent. That caused Marie and even Latour to stare at her in astonishment, but Valmont began to laugh, bouncing the diamond earring in his hand.
“Whoever you really are, I’m going to enjoy this.”
“You’re not going to touch her!” Sebastian shouted, pressing her backwards as Latour advanced on them. As the hulk reached out to shove him aside, he threw a punch against the giant of a man which, to Valmont’s surprise, actually made his manservant stagger backwards slightly.
“You had no intention of paying, did you Valmont!” Jeanne hissed. The Marquis now recognised her accent as Irish.
“I’m impressed,” he said, moving forward as Latour and Sebastian began to struggle together. Although the Englishman was giving a good account of himself, it was clear that he was going to lose the fight as he’d just lost the card game. “You had me fo
oled. Indeed, had you not disappeared so quickly, Jeanne, I would never have realised.”
“You never intended to part with the money,” she continued, her eyes shifting between her lover and him, ignoring his comments. “But it doesn’t matter now. You couldn’t pay if you wanted to.”
That caused him to pause. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice becoming like a razor of ice.
“You’re finished, Valmont. Wiped out. We just needed to keep you busy long enough to get away with it.”
Thinking this a joke, the Marquis looked. But the look in those determined, fierce eyes, eyes full of hatred towards him, convinced him that Jeanne believed she was telling the truth.
As Latour and Sebastian continued to fight, he ran forward and grabbed hold of Jeanne’s hair. To his horror, she jabbed a sharp stiletto into his thigh and rabbit punched him in the throat, making him stagger back. He recovered quickly, though, and when she turned to run away, half tripping on those same heels, he leaped forward and swung his fist as hard as he could into the side of her head. With her yell cut off she crumpled immediately.
“Karla!” Sebastian shouted, and with a roar launched himself away from Latour. That was a mistake. Seeing his chance, the other man turned more swiftly than would have been expected for someone of his bulk and brought his thick forehead into contact with the back of the Englishman’s skull. It was Sebastian Rider’s turn to fall unconscious.
Two security guards were running into the room and stared in consternation at the scene before them.
“Monsieur,” one of them said in French. “What has happened?”
“Take that man,” Valmont said calmly, rubbing his knuckles. He’d hurt himself when he’d hit Karla who was now beginning to stir on the floor, shaking her head.
“The police are on their way,” the guard continued, unsure what to do at the sight of a man standing over a groaning woman.
“Do you know who I am?” Valmont said, his voice dropping a few degrees in temperature. The guard gulped.
“Yes, Monsieur le Marquis.”
“Good. That man is a thief and an imposter. Take him away.” The guards looked towards Marie who nodded tersely then began to drag the prone form of Sebastian towards the door.
“Pick her up,” he told Latour, gesturing towards Jeanne, “and let’s get out of here and find out what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Sixteen: Karla
A violent motion woke Karla.
For a second she panicked, thrown around without any clear sense of where she was or what was happening to her. Her head hurt like hell and her body was being crushed and suffocated, her legs twisted awkwardly and painfully beneath her, her ears filled with a roaring noise.
When she lifted an arm to try and protect herself, it hit something hard and cold in the dark just above her head and she was thrown to one side again.
Calm down! Calm down! she almost screamed inside her head. From the way she was being tossed from side to side, she must have been in the boot of a car. She couldn’t remember what had happened and she had no idea how long she’d been out, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that Valmont had taken her.
Valmont.
Her panic was replaced by a deep and utter sense of dread.
She tried to take deep breaths, but in the confined space she felt stifled. Her fingers scrabbled against cool metal and a fingernail broke as she attempted to gain some purchase on the smooth surface, all to no avail. She barely felt any pain as fear filled her stomach, a sick, visceral terror.
Oh God! What was going to happen to her? Hayden—help me!
She was close to breaking down into a mess of tears and horrified self-pity, but instead she cursed herself and dug a broken nail into her arm, forcing herself to remain calm. Snivelling wasn’t going to help. Her grogginess wasn’t aided, however, by the throbbing ache in her head. Had she ever been hit that hard? Who’d done it? Latour? No—he’d been struggling with Hayden. She’d seen him. It had to be Valmont.
For a second that made her feel even more miserable. He’d not even thought twice about hitting her, and she felt desperate as she remembered how hard she’d pushed Hayden in the past, how she’d wanted to hurt him—and how much he had restrained himself.
Oh God, Hayden, will I ever see you again?
That did it. Tears burst from her and she hammered her fists against the metal above her, howling and shrieking. It did nothing to help her escape, but at last—exhausted—she collapsed into a calmer, analytical frame of mind.
As her fingers began to search along the edges of the boot, looking for anything that might release the door or help her break it open, she forced herself to concentrate on what had happened, to try and build up a clear picture of the evening before. It didn’t matter that she might fall from a speeding car: anything was better than being taken by Valmont. At the same time she fought down the fear that she didn’t actually know where they were heading—and thus if Hayden and Uncle Coilin would be able to find her. She fought against the panic inside her. Stick to what you know.
The problem was, she realised, that she didn’t know enough. She didn’t even know for certain that the first part of their plan had worked. Hayden’s brother, Toby, had assured them that the run on Valmont’s fortune would happen at a certain time, but she was trusting a stranger simply because he was Hayden’s brother. She’d trusted her own Uncle to arrive at the right time with the police, but that hadn’t happened. There had been too many ifs and buts and maybes, and now it was clear that at least part of that plan had failed—and that she was going to pay the price.
She dreaded that they might be heading to Chateau de Tour, with all its terrible secrets. But even more she dreaded that Valmont might be taking her to somewhere completely different, another place that she knew nothing about? How would Hayden find her then?
She didn’t know how long she lay there, her breath coming in short sobs, her body wracked from the journey, but at last she heard the road change beneath her and the car eventually skidded to a halt. There was an angry, muffled voice and then suddenly the metal coffin opened and she was blinded by a bright torch.
“Take this slut inside,” she heard Valmont say and felt large, heavy hands on her shoulders, dragging her from the car. She fought immediately, viciously, kicking out, biting a finger that strayed too near her, but one of those massive plates of meat slapped her casually across the face, a lazy motion as though swatting a fly, and her eyes lost their focus as shimmering lights flashed before her.
For a while she was too dazed to do anything as Latour manhandled her, lifting her onto his broad back, but when her senses returned she began kicking and screaming, fury mingled with her fear now. The mute, evil giant didn’t care, however, but simply strode on up the steps she recalled from their previous visit.
Karla vaguely recognised portions of rooms as she was carried through the chateau, still yelling and fighting her captor, refusing to give up. None of it helped, and at last she was dragged through a doorway built from old, cold stone. She gripped it with all her strength, trying to prevent Latour from carrying her through, but his relentless steps forced her to release her hold as though she were a child holding onto a rag doll. She could hear Valmont cursing and swearing somewhere ahead of them as she was hauled up an ancient stairwell.
At last they came to a standstill and, before she could renew her desperate efforts against Latour, she felt his huge hands on her waist, lifting her up before dropping her to the hard, granite floor. Wincing in pain from the fall, she only gradually became aware of her surroundings.
The terror returned.
Valmont was standing before some kind of vaulting horse, with huge metal staples in its side. He was pulling on a pair of black, leather gloves, ignoring her for the moment and concentrating instead on various implements on a table which she couldn’t quite see. She knew this room, and the recognition almost made her vomit with revulsion.
The video had been dimmer, not as clear,
the perspective very different as though looking down, but she recognised the table and the horse as well as the iron bed behind it. This was where the Marquis indulged his vilest secrets, his most disgusting and perverse acts. This was Bluebeard’s hidden chamber.
More from desperation than courage, she flung herself upwards and began to run for the door, but Latour’s huge hand grabbed hold of her, yanking her from her feet as though she were a piece of chaff. At this, Valmont looked at her, his face twisted and ugly.
“So, Jeanne Duval,” he almost spat out the name she’d assumed. “Here we are at last. How very different it might have been.” His smile was evil, calculating. “I could have been interested in your pleasure, but not now.”
She struggled in Latour’s grasp but it was fruitless. Slowly, Valmont came towards her. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Does it matter?” she asked, lifting her head and attempting to stare at him defiantly, and she no longer even pretended to maintain a French accent. His smile assumed a different form at this, becoming more reflective.
“Before tonight, I would have treated that as an interesting question—a philosophical speculation. Who are we? What are we doing here? Where are we going?” Without warning his hand shot up and he gripped her face between his leather-clad fingers. “But tonight I need to find out who you are so that I can get back what’s mine!”
He released her face and took a step backwards, his face grim and stern now. He nodded tersely in the direction of the horse and Latour began to drag her towards it. She tried to dig her feet into the floor but it was no good. At last, he forced her one arm next to one of the staples and Valmont slipped a leather strap through it, buckling it around her wrist.
As they tried to move her arm across the back of the horse, which had a strange, horrible smell to it, for a second Karla’s hand came free and she managed to rake her hand across Valmont’s face, her fingers tearing into his skin. He staggered back slightly but then, with a fierce, animalistic snarl he punched her hard again and the shock of that made her go limp, allowing him to bind her other hand in place.
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