Honour's Debt

by Joan Vincent

  Alarmed by her distraught look, he gently shook her. “You helped me. Let me help you. Will you give me your hand in marriage?”

  Maddie yearned for different circumstances. For trust. For words of love. She longed to share the threat to Jessamine and Malcolm but Petit’s warning was too dire; it even threatened Quentin. But with her father’s death known, Sanford was the more immediate danger.

  “You know I am right, Maddie,” Quentin said.

  He is, she thought. Together we can shield the children and Aunt Prissy from Sanford. Then I shall find a way to keep the children and Quentin from harm. “Yes.”

  “Good,” Quentin said with relief. He kissed Maddie gently and then pulled her to her feet. Something in her look made him uneasy, but he brushed it aside.

  “I’ll send Miss Benton to you. She will explain what is to happen in the morn.” Quentin caressed her cheek, hesitated, then walked to the door. Turning, he saw she had not moved. “Try to sleep when your aunt leaves you. Everything will be better after the morrow.” Quentin waited a moment, but Maddie stared ahead lost in thought.

  “Then goodnight.” After one last look, he strode out of the room, doubts and fears clenched about his heart.

  * * *

  Sunday Nearing Midnight

  The cool night air held the seductive scent of roses. The scent that would always remind him of Maddie. Forcing his mind away from her, Quentin glanced up at the light in her father’s chamber. Lundin and Maves were taking turns keeping watch as much to spike mischief as to keep the custom of a death watch.

  Acclimated to the darkness, Quentin strode, as the note had instructed, toward the stand of trees beyond the hedge. He took his bearing and, though the moonlight was dim, made for the meeting at the mausoleum.

  Though alert, he saw nothing, heard nothing as he neared the mausoleum. Quentin worked his way closer and circled the building. When he came around to the front again, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.

  Broyal crouched, peered from left to right. A flicker of a reflection to his left caught his eye. He pressed the reassuring swell of the blade in his right boot. Rising silently, he waited a moment, then stepped toward the bench.

  A heavily French accented voice to his right snarled, “Took ye long enough to get here.”

  Quentin stared but saw only black shadows in a colourless landscape. “Whom do you seek?” he asked.

  “Yer name better be Broyal,” Letu taunted.

  “If it is?” Quentin watched a dark outline appear from the shadows.

  Letu snickered. He moved the blade in his hand so that the pale light glinted off it. “Then ye’d better have the proof the monseigneur wants. Let’s see it.”

  “Do you bring the proof I need?” At a slight sound behind him, Quentin froze.

  Letu hastily glanced around. “Ye first.”

  Quentin heard the man’s uneasiness. His throat tightened at the memory of Maddie in Sanford’s hands. He could not fail. “I will now reach inside my jacket and remove the documents.” He handed them over. The man tossed a paper at his feet.

  “There’s the proof you were promised. If the monseigneur is satisfied with yers, he’ll pay for the remainder of the information. The price is writ on the papers. He said to tell ye there were ta be no ne—negoting.”

  Letu glanced to the left and right. He lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “I will meet ye tomorrow. Midnight. By that burnt forked tree on the road to Folkestone. Ye know which one I mean?”

  Quentin, certain he heard something or someone, scanned the shadows. “Yes.”

  “Don’t be late and don’t think of tryin’ tricks. I won’t be alone.” Letu sneered a chuckle and faded into the shadows.

  Crouched in the darkness under the unpleasant cover of thorny bushes, André, Baron de la Croix, watched them. Information gained that afternoon at Mol’s had sent him to Lambert’s house, Prescott House. He had chosen on a whim to follow the man he had crossed paths with on his way there.

  Fortune has indeed smiled on me, André thought. He is French. I’d bet a pony the large one is the elusive Viscount Broyal. The snap of branches close by alerted him to another’s presence.

  Quentin picked up the papers and waited. His first instinct was to follow the Frenchman but he did not because he suspected that he was watched. Best to lead whomever it is away from Hart Cottage.

  On his third step, a voice called out. “Halt in the King’s name!”

  Quentin heard the clack of rifles raised. He dropped into a crouch and scuttled into the underbrush.

  At that shout Baron de la Croix knocked the legs out from under the Preventive man nearest him and sent him sprawling among his fellows. He eased away and followed the path taken by the Frenchman.

  Baffled by muffled curses and thrashing sounds, Quentin moved faster. A voice he thought Medworth’s rent the air.

  “Fire!”

  A rifle report reverberated, then a second.

  “After him, damme you.”

  Rolling further under the brush, Quentin flattened his body against the earth. He swallowed his breath when they crashed through the brush around him. When the tramping faded away, he crawled free. Certain he was now alone, Broyal worked his way back towards Hart Cottage.

  * * *

  Prescott House May 29th Monday 2 AM

  The long nailed fingers beat a tattoo on the desktop beside the creased document Letu had placed there. The peruke-coifed head turned toward the swarthy man whose suppressed arrogance negated his servile stance. “You are certain Medworth did not mean to catch you in his net?”

  Letu shrugged. “He would not have minded getting hold of me if he had known who I was. But he meant to get Broyal.”

  Porteur steepled his fingers. “Yet Broyal escaped. Who aided him?”

  “No one.” Letu swallowed. “There’s none clumsier than Preventive men. They tripped over each other.” Prodded by his master’s scepticism he added, “I swear there was no one. Who could there be? You think that little runt—”

  The long white fingers snapped. Letu froze. “Everyone who knows anything is dead. Tarrant said no one—”

  “Do you think Tarrant sprang from nothing? Like you?” Donatien’s contempt forced Letu’s gaze downward. “We will take no chances. Kill Broyal tomorrow after you have the information.” He refolded the papers. “Garrotte him.”

  Letu’s eyes flicked to his master and then he nodded.

  “Check the mausoleum in the morn and set a watch on Medworth. He and his men may have to be diverted earlier than I intended. Are arrangements made for the transfer to the cove?”

  “I have men who won’t object to iron ingots shipped to France as long as they’re paid in gold,” Letu snickered. “They won’t tell anyone after steel slits their throats.”

  “I really must deprive you of that pleasure,” Donatien said, his voice iron. “I will return to these shores. There must be no tales which interfere with acquiring assistance. Be satisfied with Broyal.

  “We move the gold Tuesday night.” He flicked his hand in dismissal.

  * * *

  Hart Cottage Monday Morning 2 AM

  Quentin smiled, relieved that none of Medworth’s men awaited his return. The front door locked, he made for the balcony. As his head cleared the top of the trellis, Quentin looked into the barrel of a pistol.

  The candle Lundin brought from behind his back fluttered. “What in God’s name are you doing climbing up here like a thief?”

  “The front door was locked,” Quentin said. He threw a leg over the balustrade and heaved onto the balcony. “I went out to clear my head after my ... my discussion with Miss Vincouer.”

  “Did she agree?” Lundin asked with a commiserating look. When Broyal nodded he continued. “Not much choice for her, was there?” Back inside, he set the candelabra on the coffin. “I heard shots in the direction of the mausoleum.”

  “Medworth and his men were out.”

  Lundin raised an eyebrow.<
br />
  “Go to bed. I’ll awaken Maves if I need to be spelled,” Quentin told him. After the steward left he drew the papers he had picked up out of his jacket. Holding them up to the light, he sucked in a breath. The writer knew of his meeting with the captain of the French vessel the week past; was quite specific about what had been discussed.

  The creek of a floorboard in the hall caught Quentin’s attention. He thrust the note into his open sabretache lying on the bed and then shoved it beneath the bed. Rising, he went to investigate.

  Maddie tiptoed from behind the bed curtains. She had hoped to speak with Quentin only to find him and Henry on the balcony. Uncertainty had kept her in place while Quentin read the note.

  When she heard him go down the stairs, Maddie walked to the bed. She knelt down and looked under it. Seeing the leather case Maddie pulled it to her. Sitting back on her heels she threw up the flap and pulled out the paper. After a moment, she stood and, carrying the sabretache and the letter, she went to the burning candle.

  For several moments she fingered the missive, and then unfolded it and read. Half way through her hand began to shake. Maddie thrust it back into the leather case. She hurried back to the bed but paused when she was beside it. Slowly Maddie opened the sabretache and removed the letter. After a brief hesitation she laid it on the bed and groped inside the case. Feeling a bundle of papers, Maddie withdrew it.

  A bundle of letters—love letters? More hesitantly now, she untied the ribbon around them. When she turned the top one over she almost dropped all of them. They are addressed to Jamey, Maddie thought in disbelief. This is my handwriting, was her next stunned thought. How does Broyal come to have them? Why has he not mentioned them—shown them to me?

  Anger flared at his duplicity and then she recalled the missive that hinted Broyal worked with traitors. Stifling a sob, Maddie retied the bundle and shoved it back into the sabretache, then replaced the letter. Blinking back tears she fled.

  Back in her room, Maddie flung herself on her bed. Bewildered and dismayed by what she had discovered she stared at the ceiling in disbelief.

  It cannot be true. He is not that sort of man, she told herself. Maddie turned over, hugging her pillow tight. Her heart refused to let her mind consider Quentin and treason together.

  But Jamey’s letters—why would he not tell me about them? Thoughts flew to her father whom she had never properly mourned, of the mystery of Jamey's disappearance in Spain, and to the man who now had his letters. Cold fear swept over Maddie. Had Quentin had something to do with Jamey’s disappearance? Why else not tell me about the letters?

  With that flood of woe came the hovering danger to Jessamine and Malcolm. Maddie surrendered to almost overwhelming fear and sobbed into her pillow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hart Cottage Early Monday Morning

  “Maves, where is the Major?” Lundin asked the butler. Excitement thrummed in his voice.

  “At this hour? In the master’s dressing room shaving,” Maves answered. “Though how he can stand that smell,” the butler began but the steward ran up the stairs.

  In the bedchamber, Lundin hurried around the door into the dressing room. “Are you alone?” he hissed.

  Halting the straight edge razor at midcheek, Quentin eyed him, then continued the downward stroke. “Jenks is the only one near,” he said and swiped the lather-shrouded razor against a towel. “Is Vincouer’s coffin moved?” He looked back at his reflection in the shaving stand mirror, puffed out his cheek, and neatly scrapped the razor across the last swath of lather.

  “Oh that. Yes,” Lundin acknowledged. He held up a small hemp sack, his face filled with glee. “You’ll never guess in a thousand years what I found under his coffin.”

  Quentin towelled the last wisps of soap from his face. “Do you intend to tell me?”

  “Just look.” Lundin shoved the sack into Quentin’s hand. “I want to see your face when you see what it is.”

  The sack’s heavy weight was unexpected. Quentin almost dropped it. His curiosity tweaked, he settled it in one hand and fumbled it open. He held what he withdrew from it out to Lundin. “An iron bar?”

  “No. Wait.” The steward turned the bar over. A yellow track glistened in a furrow gouged into the dark covering.

  “It can’t be,” Quentin protested. “Gold?”

  “Yes. There are many more,” Lundin insisted.

  “Where did you find it? Not in the mausoleum?”

  “If you needed a place no one would disturb, where better? You wouldn’t even have to dig it up when you wanted it back,” Lundin chortled.

  Quentin grimaced. “There’ll be hell to pay whenever who put it there learns Matthew Vincouer has died.”

  “I suppose,” Lundin shrugged, “but how will they know for certain we found it? I wouldn’t have discovered it except that this one was jarred lose when we pulled the coffin from its place. It fell,” the steward explained. “I thought it was iron until I picked it up. Even iron isn’t that heavy.”

  “Who helped with the coffin?”

  “My brother. I didn’t say aught to him about the gold. He was too agog at the task we were about to notice anything.” Henry raised his hand. “He’ll say nary a word about what was done. Swore to it on our family’s honour.

  “But what do you make of this? What should we do?” Lundin asked as he took back the sack and ingot.

  “Set someone to watch the mausoleum,” Quentin told him. “Have him warn us if anyone comes sniffing around it.

  “I’m to see Medworth this afternoon. He may know the gold’s origins.” He buttoned his shirt, attached his stock. “Is everything ready for the service? The flowers? The cart?” he asked as he shrugged into his jacket.

  “All is as you wanted,” Lundin answered. “I didn’t like the havey-cavey way we buried Mr. Vincouer those months past. Least we can do it up right this time.”

  At the sound of steps he looked over his shoulder and moved to the dressing room door. “Good morn, Miss Maddie.” Observing the uneasy look the about-to-be-wed pair exchanged, he could not resist adding, “My felicitations to you both.”

  Maddie started, then glared at him.

  “Lundin, place that item in the office,” Quentin ordered. “Then make certain everything is ready. Balfor said he would come with the vicar at ten.”

  “Yes, sir.” The steward winked and edged past Maddie. He gave a comforting thump on the coffin for Jenks as he passed it.

  Maddie walked back to the coffin. She wrinkled her nose at the odour. She sensed Quentin behind her a moment before he laid his hand on her arm. “Is your man in this? Why would he do such a thing?”

  Quentin put his other hand on her shoulder. “Jenks will be on his high horse for months after this.”

  The note she had read the past night still darkened Maddie’s thoughts. She could not believe Quentin a traitor; she could not despite the proof to the opposite. A man despicable enough to commit treason would not be saving her and her family from Sanford Vincouer. But what about the letters to Jamey? Why did he not tell her about them?

  Leaning back against him, Maddie found, despite her doubts and questions, that his strength comforted, reinforced all she believed about him. For a moment she forgot the danger that swirled around her and Malcolm and Jessamine. “Why do it at all?”

  “Jenks has some misbegotten notion he owes me his life. Nonsense of course,” Quentin told her. He savoured her pliant body against his. A jolt of desire shot through him. Clenching his jaw, he dropped his hands.

  “Let me see you to the dining room,” he said offering his arm. The flare in her eyes said she was as affected as he. His heart tripped; he wrestled only briefly against comprehension of why he insisted upon their marrying. He struggled to insist lust alone filled him; that duty alone drove this decision. Quentin gazed into her eyes and could not deny his love. He tightened his hand over hers.

  “Maddie, I will be able to explain everything on the morrow. Trust me just one d
ay more? Say you will.”

  “Quentin, I—”

  “Billing and cooing with your father still warm, coz?” a sarcastic voice washed over them.

  Sanford’s statement proved sal volatile for Maddie. It brought her back from a fall over the yawning precipice of acknowledging her love. She looked at her cousin and found satisfaction in the purplish bruise on the right side of his face. But she saw continued contempt and disdain in his stance. A cruel desire to wound flickered in his eyes.

  Why does Quentin want to save me from this worm? Does it matter? her heart murmured.

  Not if he loves me. Though uncertain of him, Maddie admitted in that moment that she loved Quentin. Her heart soared free for the first time since her father had become ill.

  Quentin had asked for trust. Her father had advised her to trust where she loved. Maddie cast aside her doubts and turned to Quentin with a new confidence.

  Sanford peered at them through his quizzing glass. He read love in their silent exchange. His anger intensified, he turned malicious. “Mother told me she remembers something, Broyal. Said there was an unpleasant article in the Gazette about your father, Viscount Broyal. She will recall what it was soon enough,” he hissed. “Is your father run off his legs? You are worse than a fool if you think to find fortune here.”

  Only Maddie’s foot wrapped around his ankle behind the screen of her skirts kept Quentin beside her. He looked down at her, then back to Sanford. “There’s a greater fortune here than you shall ever know.”

  Sanford lowered his quizzing glass. When Quentin took a step toward him he snapped his mouth shut, turned on his heel, and strode out of the chamber.

  Maddie faced her betrothed, certain of her decision. “There is one thing you must do as—as soon as fath—as soon as the coffin is laid to rest.”