Honour's Debt

by Joan Vincent

  “You dare too much. We all do. Isn’t Malcolm due home in a few days? You can’t hope to fob him off. How you have managed to succeed thus far is beyond belief.”

  “What choice did I have? Of course I will explain everything to Malcolm. I told you that from the beginning.”

  The anguish in the woman’s voice distressed Quentin. He forced his eyes open and, after a few moments, objects began to come into focus. The curtains, drawn at the foot, on the right, and partially on the left side of the bed, blocked his view. “Who is there?” he rasped. “Where am I?”

  Soft footfalls followed by heavier ones approached. A young woman replaced the cloth on his head and gazed down at him with concern-filled eyes. Quentin looked from her to the grim-faced man at her side. His head still throbbed and the pain in his side had increased. He moved his hand to it, touched the bandage. It was his left, not right side. He was not in Spain.

  The Preventive’s raid came back and the cave. Quentin blinked, realized who the young woman was. It seemed fate had played into his hands.

  “You are at Hart Cottage near Hayward. I am Madeline Vincouer and this is a doctor, Mr. Balfor. He treated your wound. We just—”

  “Do you have a name?” the doctor put in bluntly. “A man who makes it a habit of getting regularly cut and shot as your scars attest, should have at least one he can reveal.”

  Quentin ignored the sarcasm that dripped from Balfor’s words. He studied Maddie’s face and found it more beautiful than he remembered. “Vincouer,” he mumbled. The conversation he had just overheard puzzled him. One part of him urged him to tell the truth at once but the other wanted more information before such a final step.

  “You owe your life to this young woman,” Mr. Balfor told him sternly. “Can you at least tell us your name?”

  Good God, must Vincouers constantly go around saving one’s life? What a cursed repetitive lot, Quentin reflected ungratefully. He heard the word name and saw their expectant looks. What a damnable imbroglio this is.

  “Broyal. Quentin Broyal,” he said at last, consoled that it was not a complete fabrication.

  “Well, Mr. Broyal,” Balfor quirked a brow, his scepticism evident, “we’ve just finished changing your bandages. Your wounds are not infected. With God’s help they will stay that way. How did you come to be wounded?”

  “I cannot recall,” Quentin lied.

  “Hah!” snorted the surgeon in disbelief.

  Maddie pulled a blanket from the foot of the bed and tucked it around Quentin. “Mr. Balfor, he is too ill to be questioned. Mr. Broyal will explain everything on the morrow when you call to check on his progress,” she assured him.

  Balfor began placing his instruments and medicines into his medical case. “What about Captain Medworth?” he asked, his concern putting an edge to his voice.

  Maddie turned to him with a frown. “Can you tell him there has been a slight improvement but that it will be days before we know the outcome?”

  “You cannot drag this tale out long enough to suit the purpose,” the doctor warned. He snapped shut the latch on his case. “When you reach the end of this road, you will take the three of us down with you.”

  Quentin disliked the doctor’s tone. “Could I—could I have something to drink?” he asked to distract him.

  Maddie turned from Balfor and picked up a glass. Putting a hand beneath Quentin’s head, she tilted it to his lips.

  Watching her, the doctor’s lips thinned into a grim line. He stalked out.

  “I do not think he cares for me.”

  “Mr. Balfor has many things on his mind,” Maddie replied as she set down the glass. She massaged her forehead. Broyal was the name about which the captain had asked. She had to have time to think. Maddie adjusted the bed curtain leaving it half open to screen him from anyone who entered the bedchamber.

  “I am going to the kitchen to get you some broth,” she told him. “Please, if you value your safety, do not call out or make any noise,” she admonished.

  * * *

  Hart Cottage Late Monday Night

  On first awakening, Quentin thought he was on campaign in a tent. The softness of the bed beneath his back put lie to that idea. In the soft, golden light of a flickering candle he made out bed curtains drawn shut at the foot and on the right, and half drawn on the left side where he lay. He turned his head.

  There, asleep in an oak armchair, her head lolling to the right, sat Maddie Vincouer. With concentration Quentin pieced the bits of the conversation he had overhead with the exchange that had followed. Madeline, he mused silently. James Vincouer’s Maddie. No, he thought thankfully. Not Vincouer’s.

  Maddie stirred, shifted her weight, sought a more comfortable position. She frowned in her sleep.

  What does she dream? Quentin studied the tiny black tendrils framing her face. They made it youthful and vulnerable. Maddie had some of the square mould of her cousin’s face but her chin was delicate, he decided, and traced its gentle curve in his mind.

  She has deep, warm, sable brown eyes, Quentin recalled. Warm, reverberated in his mind and his body responded. Her high cheekbones are very attractive. His gaze rested on Maddie’s lips.

  Full, he thought. Lush. He flicked his tongue across his own as the word echoed, increased, and spread warmth that had little to do with fever.

  Quentin traced the slender column of her neck with his eyes, then the curve of her breasts, and finally rested his gaze on one of Maddie’s hands, palm down in her lap. He recalled her fingers on his face, her hand holding his. The warmth intensified, made him swallow hard.

  He returned to Maddie’s face and saw she had awakened. Questioning eyes held him spellbound. Quentin watched a smile curve her lips. A tendril of a hope he would neither admit nor accept unfurled in his heart.

  “How are you?”

  Her voice, husky with sleep, fanned warmth into flame. Quentin drew a sharp breath when she leaned forward and laid her palm against his cheek.

  The stubble of two days growth of beard tickled Maddie’s palm. Thankfully the skin beneath it was cooler. She became aware of that strange but pleasant sensation she had experienced earlier as she met his gaze.

  Unable to identify the expression in the deep pools of his cool blue eyes, she asked, “Are you in pain? Do you need the laudanum?” She found his eyes far from cool. The sensation of losing control, of drowning in their depths sent a frisson of excitement through her.

  “Maddie.” Quentin reached up and laid his hand atop hers which still cupped his cheek.

  She trembled at his touch.

  A lurch of hot lust shook him.

  “Mr. Broyal,” she whispered.

  Startled to sanity by the title she believed to be his surname, Quentin drew his hand away, closed his eyes. Emptiness flickered through him when she removed her hand. He heard the clink of glass on glass.

  “Drink this.” Maddie offered water. Then, realizing he was too weak, she bent over him, slid her free arm beneath his head to raise it.

  Quentin’s eyes fastened on the small vee between the silky white mounds that strained against the neckline of her gown. Inattentive to what she did, he choked when the water flowed past his lips. Coughing, he splattered water over her bodice.

  Maddie pulled the glass away. She pushed his shoulder up, rolled him away from her, and began to pound on his back.

  His breath came in gasps, pain flared through his side. “Enough,” he gasped. Quentin glared at her after she helped him lie back. His expression softened when he saw her white face and damp bodice. Raising his hand, he nodded toward the glass on the night table.

  Maddie groped for it and pressed it into his hand. She withdrew hers as if it were scorched when they brushed.

  Quentin drained the glass. He held it out and maintained his grip for a moment after she took hold. “How long have I been here?”

  “We found you in the tunnel on Sunday night. It is now Monday,” Maddie explained. She sat back in the armchair.


  Quentin became aware of a lump under his left side where the pain was the worst. He wriggled to get away from it, then started to push his hand beneath his back.

  “No,” Maddie took hold of his arm. “The ball went through. It is a bandage.” She released him, clasped her hands in her lap.

  They gazed at each other in silence. Maddie straightened in her chair, brushed back stray tendrils, bit her lip. “Did you serve in the 15th Hussars?” she asked.

  Quentin stiffened. He did not yet want to admit that.

  “You spoke about them in your ramblings,” she continued. “Barked orders rather.”

  “Does Captain Medworth know I am here?”

  She shook her head.

  Now why is that? he puzzled. Broyal brought the fuzzy memory of the cave into focus. She had to think he was a free trader so why hadn’t she sent for Medworth? Quentin ran his gaze along the wall he could see. For the first time he noticed a portrait of a young woman.

  “Whose room is this?”

  “My father’s chamber,” Maddie answered.

  An inner alarm clanged. “Your father?”

  “You need not worry,” she said. “He is not—here—at the moment.”

  Quentin saw sadness wash over her and watched Maddie push it aside. “How did I come to be here?” he asked out of curiosity of what her answer would be.

  “My steward and I encountered you in a tunnel on father’s property. How did you come to be there?” she challenged.

  “A tunnel?”

  “Why were you there?”

  “I think you know why, Miss Vincouer,” Quentin said quietly. “Especially if you have taken pains to keep my presence hidden from Captain Medworth,” he baited and saw her colour heighten.

  “Are you a free trader?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Why would you think that?” Maddie snapped.

  “You have not turned me over to the captain. I hardly think he will consider your action a kindness if he discovers you have been less than truthful about my presence.”

  Maddie glared at him for a long moment and then frowned. “Why have you joined their ranks?”

  “I do not dally with smugglers.”

  “Then you were in the cavalry?” she asked hopefully.

  On Castlereagh’s instructions he could not answer that question; he found he regretted it very much—too much. “I am very tired. I think I will sleep.” He closed his eyes. After he heard Maddie walk away and the door close Quentin tried to relax.

  You certainly have a lot in your dish, old man, he thought. Questions roiled in his mind. What happened to Lambert? Will he contact me if I can get back to the Black Bull?

  Where is Jenks? What is he up to? Quentin wouldn’t put it past Medworth to have checked on him at the Cherry Inn and cause problems for his batman.

  What did Maddie mean when she said her father was not here at the moment? Where was he? Vincouer had said Matthew Vincouer was not expected to survive past the new year.

  Maddie.

  The vision she presented asleep in the chair beside his bed filled his mind. The tightness in his groin he expected but thoughts of her also brought new unrecognised tenderness to his heart. Uncomfortable with the portent of such feelings, he grunted, “Lust, pure and simple. Get a hold of yourself, old man.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Ashford, Kent May 23, 1809 Tuesday Mid-morning

  The heavy breaths of the two men facing each other, circling in stocking feet as they parried and thrust, were baritone to the soprano of ringing steel. The taller of the two smiled, wielded his blade easily, his more mature frame a match and more for the slim younger man who now doggedly met each thrust. The older man’s last riposte, a flurry of strikes, beat the younger man back to the wall. With lightning speed he struck beneath the younger’s guard. His sword’s buttoned tip rested against the other’s thundering heart.

  Comte de Cavilon stepped back and lowered his sword with a flourished bow. “You improve but you still permit anger to drive you too hard,” he said, speaking in the French common between them. “One day—when I am truly an old man—you will beat me.”

  André Ribeymon, Baron de la Croix, wiped the sweat pouring down his face away with his shirtsleeve. He ignored the rebuke. “I begin to wonder if that day will ever come,” he said between ragged breaths.

  “It will come sooner than I would wish, mon enfant.” Cavilon picked up a lace edged handkerchief and daubed at his face. “The three and twenty years I give you will lead to my defeat before another ten passes.”

  “Ten?! Ha!” André grinned his disbelief. He laid his sword beside the decanter atop the table and poured two glasses of wine. He offered one to the man he viewed as an uncle as well as friend. “To old age,” he quipped, glass raised.

  “May we both reach it,” the other parried seriously. He watched angry sorrow flash through André’s eyes. His cousin, young Michelle Tarrant, had died in April shortly after Hadleigh Tarrant’s disappearance. Both events still troubled André deeply. Cavilon feared he would take desperate measures if his friend were not soon found. He bit back his protest against André’s involvement in the government’s secret intelligence affairs.

  Cavilon, like the young baron, had lost his family and estates during the Revolution. He understood what motivated André, had followed the same path before his marriage. He also believed the younger man did not fully comprehend nor appreciate the danger. At least André had not until Hadleigh’s disappearance.

  Understanding the baron’s belief in his own invincibility, Cavilon had tried to counter it by teaching skills that would ensure André’s survival. Despite his victory today, the comte knew better than the baron just how close he had come to defeat and André to victory.

  De la Croix refilled his glass and stared at the map beneath his sword. He had sketched it a month past after the disappearance of his friend, more a brother, Hadleigh Tarrant. On it were marked the original thefts of gold, one additional robbery since then and the last three places he had traced Tarrant before his disappearance at the end of March.

  “The trail ends outside of Horsham,” André resumed a conversation begun earlier. “Not a word from him since Hadleigh wrote that he had found something. I need to go back to Lewes again,” he insisted, “not to Folkestone.”

  Sympathetic, Cavilon joined André at the table. “Investigate the émigré guest of this fellow Lambert who Castlereagh wrote about, then go to Lewes.” He shrugged his tall frame, still trim at five and forty. “I would go but I cannot leave Elizabeth.”

  André grimaced, gave a negligent wave. The comtesse was due to deliver their third child any day. “I did not mean to imply you should.”

  “Tarrant knew the dangers going in,” Cavilon told him. He raised a graceful hand to stay the younger man’s protest. “He knew and he would not want you to waste time searching for him. You must realize there is very little chance he still lives.”

  Meeting the comte’s gaze, André blanched. He and Hadleigh had revelled in the tales told by the man whom they thought of as father, Adrian Tarrant, the Earl of Tretain, and the Comte de Cavilon. Marvellous stories of danger and daring acts in France, but none about death. His guilt was unrelenting. André, had persuaded Hadleigh to join the pursuit of the thieves.

  André could still recall the Cavilon he had met when a child—all satin and lace with powder and patch. In fact the comte and his wife referred to the home they had built near her uncle’s estate as Le Château de Dentelle—the House of Lace. Cavilon’s transformation into a mere shadow of his Ancien Regime sartorial grandeur had been put down by society to his wife’s efforts. The baron had realized in his late teens that it had been a disguise Cavilon had used to ensure no one connected him to his secret government work.

  André had formed his own guise, as a lark at the time, in a much more subdued form from this ideal. “I must leave in the morn. What is the name of this émigré?”

  “He is known as Porteur—maintains the old
style dress. He will not be difficult to find in a small village like Hayward.”

  “It is odd that I did not learn of him earlier when I visited Folkestone,” André said as he folded the map. “What do you know about Lambert?”

  “Porteur may well not have been there then. Was it the end of March?” The comte accepted the young man’s nod. “Lambert is involved with the free trade—makes arrangements to hide and transport smuggled goods inland. He is not thought a traitor, just a touch greedy.” Cavilon adjusted the short ruff of lace on his cuff. “Send word of what you find.”

  “Do I do so for you or pour mon père?” the baron asked with a hint of annoyance.

  “Adrian will have my head if something happens to you. I will not even contemplate what exquisite torture Julianne would come up with.”

  They both knew his Aunt Julianne, the earl’s wife, was not of a retiring nature. She had saved him and his sister from death or worse in France after the murder of their parents during the Terror. André grimaced, the still fresh sorrow of his cousin Michelle’s death tightened its hold on his heart.

  Mimicking André’s negligent wave, Cavilon added, “Perhaps you can find that fellow Castlereagh mentioned in his last letter. Broyal?”

  “Viscount Broyal,” de la Croix said, glad to be distracted. “What a chuckleheaded notion. He is inexperienced and from a cavalry regiment. God knows what he will blunder into.”

  “You are so experienced, n’est-ce pas?” the comte chided with an arched brow. He shook his head at André’s pique. “Smooth those feathers, bantling.”

  De la Croix bristled. “Do you know anything about him that makes this man fit to ferret out traitors?”

  Taking a sip of wine, Cavilon gave a small expressive shrug. “He is, perhaps, more suited to fighting our enemies on the field. You did know he was a major in the 15th Hussars? That he was with Moore in Spain?

  “But,” the comte bowed, “you are also correct. A field officer is not suited to delicate manoeuvres. I understand his father, the Earl of Margonaut, bearded Castlereagh in his office. Wish I could have been there.