by Lisa Chaplin
Banging sounds came, and the stable door jerked open. Fulton was his usual disheveled self, wearing the stained smock, his hair a mess, spectacles askew. “Why don’t we call Elise by her real, English name?”
He’d expected this since Fulton’s invasion of his tent. “She’s Elizabeth Sunderland, daughter of Sir Edward Sunderland of Barton Lynch in Norfolk. If you don’t want to come, I won’t force you, but I assure you Miss Sunderland will come with me, no questions asked.”
Fulton frowned. “Miss Sunderland? Is she not married? Hold—” His eyes widened.“Is she really Sir Edward Sunderland’s daughter?”
“Yes, she is.” There, he’d handed Fulton the key to saving her from ruin. “I will explain it all later. Right now you’re both in danger. Will you come or not?”
Fulton hesitated, still frowning. “She truly is in danger?”
Duncan nodded. “Her son’s father is Fouché’s man and possesses the same proclivity for giving pain. He doesn’t know she’s working for us yet, but when he does . . .” Deliberately, he trailed off, leaving the rest to Fulton’s imagination.
Fulton paled. “Fouché . . . ah, I see.”
“If he discovers she’s working for us here, close to Boulogne, seizure of your work would become a priority. Fouché would send Miss Sunderland to a brothel. He does that to women he has no use for.” Duncan looked at his timepiece. “My ship is at your disposal. You can go wherever you wish, no fear of seizure. Your work will remain your own, if you’ll accept my word.”
After a moment, Fulton said, “Whatever our differences in ideology, you are a gentleman. And . . .” He lifted a brow. “I’ve worked on Nautilus for weeks, but she isn’t ready. However, I’m sure you know about Papillon, my smaller, lighter submersible. It is roped underwater in a cave north of Audresselles Beach. It can easily be towed to your ship by a six-man rowboat. I’ve been coaching Elise—ah, Elizabeth, in its use for the past four weeks. She’s become quite proficient.”
Duncan sagged in relief. “Thank you.”
The American said, “Let me be clear. If I do this, it’s on the condition that Elizabeth is sent home, her child returned to her.”
Duncan’s eyes narrowed. “Her son’s rescue is not contingent on her success.”
“I take leave to doubt that—as, I believe, does she,” Fulton said, smiling in a way Duncan didn’t like. “Elizabeth will receive Papillon as a deeded gift from me, to do with as she wishes, on the written promise that her son will be returned to her safe and whole.”
The commander burned to ask, Why not just offer both to her as her betrothal gift? Instead he simply bowed.
“Is she married? She believes she is,” Fulton pressed.
“Did you hear me? She’s in danger. I don’t have time to forward your courtship,” he snapped, but he saw the writing on the wall. In moments Lisbeth had gone from potential mistress to prospective bride, thanks to three words: Sir Edward Sunderland.
Zephyr had taken Fulton’s measure on accurate scales. Fulton was either a closet snob or just a pragmatist. The world turned on money and influence. If he hoped Eddie would welcome him to the family and fund his work in exchange for Lisbeth’s redemption, he’d be right.
Duncan turned away. “Horses and carts are coming for the heavy lifting.”
“Nautilus is heavy. Even roped down, it will need two men to hold it in place.”
“My brother will see to it. He’ll be here soon. I’ll go to Lisbeth.” Duncan’s use of the name implied an intimacy she hadn’t given and he hadn’t earned. It wasn’t fair, but he wasn’t in the mood for fairness.
“Perhaps it’s best if I go to her.” Fulton flushed and mumbled, “She’s probably having an afternoon nap. I’ve worn her out with work by day and teaching her how to work Papillon by night. She’s so tired, with, ah, a great deal on her mind.” His cheeks grew even brighter, if it was possible; so red, Duncan wondered if he’d broken his word to stop importuning her.
“Never mind. I know where her room is.” Duncan ran for the house, meeting Alec on the way. “Help Fulton. I have to go to Lisbeth.”
Alec’s brows lifted, but he nodded. “Cal’s here, too. I left your orders with Flynn.”
“Good.” Duncan strode in, up the stairs and to her room, hoping he didn’t frighten her with the rude awakening—
She wasn’t there.
He checked the attic, in case she’d taken the chance to search without Fulton’s knowing; it was cold and dark, and fear as remorseless as the day he’d just endured cut him with a pointed tip. He searched every room in the house, but each was empty. He paused a moment at the kitchen before running back to the stable. This time he noticed the fort on the beach was blazing with light. At the door he snapped, “Lisbeth’s been taken.”
Fulton gasped, and Alec dropped his end of a long steel contraption. Cal looked up sharply from unwinding rope. “What the hell—?”
Duncan cocked his head at his brothers, and they crossed the stable to him. “It has to be Delacorte. I believe he was the one who killed my man Peebles in Boulogne. He must have forced some information about our mission from Peebles. Then he came here, set himself up at the fort, took your men hostage last night to keep us busy with the Boney assassination, and came for her.”
“Bloody clever,” Alec muttered. “But he hasn’t reckoned with us, lad. We’ll get her.”
Fulton stammered, “But how . . . I was right here! Why didn’t they take me?”
“There are several boot marks by the back door and across to the path, going in and out again.” Duncan stared hard at Fulton. “They didn’t want you—yet. They passed right by you.”
The inventor’s cheeks were chalky. “W-when I’m working I tend to block out everything else. My family says a battle could erupt around me and I wouldn’t notice . . .”
Turning his back on Fulton, Duncan looked at his brothers. “Taking only Lisbeth proves that Delacorte’s behind this. He’s probably hoping to frighten her into giving us up, and leading them to Fulton’s inventions.”
Cal said quietly, “There are other reasons why he’d feel it was imperative to take her, lad. He probably wants her dead before certain truths about his personal life come out.”
“She doesn’t know those truths yet,” Duncan growled, knowing exactly what he meant.
“Aye, but Delacorte doesn’t know that, and he can’t ask her without incriminating himself.”
Abandoning the topic that would only cloud his mind with anger, Duncan pointed down the hill to the beach. “Fort Vauban’s lit up. She’s still here.”
“Aye, for now, but not long,” Alec said. “He’ll want to take her to Boney at Villa Pont-de-Briques. Boney would love to blame British spies for the assassination attempt, and Delacorte must know the man rarely sleeps. He’d want to take her by night, to hide his part in all this.”
“He’d want her unable to talk.” Urgency grabbed him. “We need lots of ammunition. I have rifles and pistols stored behind the stable, but we’ll need explosive devices.”
“I have only pistols here. Other weapons are at the farmhouse.” Alec made as if to run.
“No, wait. I have barrel bombs here, and something better.” Fulton raced to the other side of the stable, to a covered mound in the corner. He pulled out something shaped like a porpoise but with porcupine spikes. “These are torpedoes—sticky bombs with a timing device. Push the spikes into any wood, and use the timer button to make them explode. There are six. Take them all. Just save Elizabeth. If she . . . I’ll never forgive myself if they hurt her.”
“We’ll get her back,” Duncan vowed, just as quietly. She wouldn’t be another Símon, another Peebles. “Take only what can’t be replaced—and keep on the watch. They’ll come for you, Fulton. If you see them coming, leave everything and go.”
The protest on Fulton’s face vanished. “Just save Elizabeth. Nothing else matters.”
“We will,” Alec and Cal said together, both looking at Duncan, the knowled
ge and the determination there. Damn it, they were doing it for him. Playing at big brothers. Trying to force him into the family—but he had no time to think about it.
“When my men come, use only those you absolutely need. Send the others to the fort with all possible firearms.”
Fulton nodded. “Go.”
As one, Duncan, Alec, and Cal turned and ran.
CHAPTER 36
Fort Vauban
COLONEL LEBRUN LEANED BACK in his chair, looking warm and comfortable by the fire. “It’s said LeClerc followed you home, expecting certain favors you gave him on regular occasions.”
No longer knowing if she could trust the commander’s lessons, Lisbeth shivered. But cold, vulnerable, and tired, a young girl was more likely to blurt out stupid things: Leo had taught her that the day Papa dragged her from his carp pond and left her wet and miserable until Leo whispered, Just admit your fault—and when Papa sent her to bed without supper, Leo smuggled bread, butter, and milk upstairs for her. Fooling the captors is what Papa calls the first lesson of capture, but it works just as well at home. Admit to the lesser sin of fishing, making sure you look sad and wretched, and Papa won’t think to blame you for riding his stallion.
Thinking of that long-ago day she said, trembling, “He followed me on several occasions, but on the night in question . . .”
“We have a witness who states that the man who called himself Gaston Borchonne shot LeClerc,” the colonel interrupted smoothly.
She almost gaped. She’d forgotten Tolbert . . . silly, forgettable Tolbert, LeClerc’s acolyte. “Yes, he did, in the foot. From that time M. Borchonne was constantly in my sight. He had no time to return and shoot M. LeClerc—”
“So now you admit to knowing Borchonne. Why should I believe anything you say?”
Think, just keep thinking. The violent headache and shivering were the only things keeping her from falling into exhausted slumber. She felt as if she’d been running from the day she’d arrived in France, unable to take a breath without Alain’s control. He was the demon she couldn’t exorcise.
“Madame, why should you lie, if you’ve done nothing wrong?”
She held his gaze. “I was taken in my kitchen by a ruse, hit on the head, and brought here without a cloak, sitting far from the fire. I’m cold and I’m scared. I-I thought my husband might have come for me . . .”
“I assure you he is not here, madame.”
From her time with Alain, she knew how this worked. The colonel had reassured her; now she must give something back. “Not everything I said was a lie. I am nineteen. I was raised in the country, and my father would die before training me in espionage. My husband uses violence on me, and he stole my baby. The last time he was near me, he gave me this.” She pointed at the scar on her face. Looking in Lebrun’s eyes, she said, “The owners of Le Boeuf tavern, Messieurs Mathieu and Luc Marron, will confirm that in the year I worked there I never went upstairs with any man, never allowed M. LeClerc any intimacy. M. Luc Marron even gave me a knife to defend myself.”
There was a look in the back of the colonel’s eyes, some trace of doubt or pity. “So LeClerc tried to rape you, and you fought him off?”
“Not that last night, though I assume it was what he wanted.” She looked in his eyes. “I met the man I knew as Gaston Borchonne a week before. If your witness was M. Jacques Tolbert, he was the one holding me down as LeClerc tried to rape me. M. Borchonne arrived and threatened to shoot them, but let them run away. Why would he do that, only to kill him a week later? Would he shoot him in the foot and warn him off, and then kill him?”
“Madame, how can I believe you?”
Her hands twisted around each other in her lap. “Would you want your sister to lie to strangers if she thought her violent husband was after her again?” To add emphasis, she touched her scar. “Ask Luc Marron. I am no whore. My husband made it up to set the town against me. I don’t know why. I can only assume it’s to gain public sympathy over his abduction of my son.”
“Luc Marron is dead,” the colonel said, still in that conversational tone. “He died the night you escaped from Abbeville.”
She gasped, couldn’t catch her breath, and hiccuped. The colonel handed her a glass of water and, after a few moments, a clean handkerchief: another kindness for which, by the invisible rules of interrogation, she’d have to give something in return.
After she’d composed herself, she said, with tears in her eyes, “Pardon, Colonel. Luc was my friend. You can see this scar is new. My husband shot the window next to where I was sitting, breaking glass all over me. I believe he tried to kill me when his plot to have me guillotined for LeClerc’s murder failed. I don’t know why he hates me so much. I never understood it.”
Lebrun frowned. “Can you prove any of these accusations?”
The quiet, unmoved tone left her with no choice but to take the offensive against Alain. “The man who gave you the information on me—was he in his early thirties with blond curly hair, bright blue eyes, and a large mole on his right hand? Did he dress with the air of a gentleman and speak with the accent of the ancien régime?”
At the colonel’s startled look, she drew a hard breath and began muttering to herself. “He’s allowing you to conduct this investigation, but he’s in the next room, listening and sending notes, telling you what will hurt, upset, or weaken me. He wants to force me to admit to being part of the assassination attempt today. That’s why he didn’t take Monsieur Monteaux. He can’t afford to have any reputable witnesses to prove my innocence in the assassination. He can’t be involved because I’m a nobleman’s daughter, and Napoleon can’t afford yet to have the European Tribunal investigate my death. He wants me dead, but he wants you to do it for him.”
The colonel opened his mouth, and it hung open. “Who is he?” It came out a whisper.
Lisbeth threw him a bleak smile. “My husband.”
Breathing too fast, feeling sick, all she knew was that she was trapped in this locked fortress, and Alain would walk in at any moment.
Ambleteuse Beach
“There are only two men on the ramparts, probably only two by the gate. That means there are probably no more than a dozen men in the fort in total.” Alec shook his head. “This is a sloppy operation.”
“The lass can take advantage of it. She seems a clever girl,” Cal said.
“Nothing Boney or Fouché does is this disorganized.” Duncan nodded. “This whole plot has echoes of Abbeville. This is Delacorte’s work on limited funds. He’s running on fury.”
“Unless it affects Lisbeth’s rescue, lad, let’s stop talking and start doing.”
Duncan snapped, “You’ve been out of the game too long if you think it doesn’t affect it.”
Alec grinned. “That I have. You’re in charge, lad.”
At last it stopped snowing. Duncan drew in a breath and expelled it, seeing its thin white fog in the dark. “Lisbeth will be helping us already, if she’s able to think beyond her fear.”
“She has no reason to trust anyone,” Cal agreed.
“Apart from you . . . and Fulton, it seems,” Alec added.
Duncan growled, “Let’s get on with it.”
“Aye, right.” Cal pulled a sticky bomb from the sack.
When Cal was going to put the sack down, Duncan grabbed it from him. “We need to use two bombs.”
There was a brief silence. “These soldiers didn’t do it to her, Duncan.”
Duncan sighed. “Look at the gates, Cal. They’re old and thick. We need to make sure the gates blow apart the first time and disable the guards.”
Nodding, Alec reached in and handed Duncan a second bomb.
Using their cloaks as covers, the three men moved over the wet pebbles of Ambleteuse Beach toward the fort. Three feet from the gate, Alec fanned his cloak wide as a cover while Duncan pushed the spikes into each gate at its base, near the inner edge. Then he lit the fuses and set the timer, and they bolted back down the ramp and across the beach, leapi
ng into the scrub at the top of the old seawall.
Fort Vauban
“You say the blond man has an interest in seeing you dead?” the colonel rapped out.
At last they were getting somewhere. Lisbeth’s gaze flittered around the room as if it held monsters. “My husband will kill me to keep my mouth closed about his murdering LeClerc. I—”
Her open mouth froze when Alain stepped into the room. He leaned heavily on a cane; beneath his curly hair his face was as scarred as hers. He had the same damaged warrior look as the commander now, except his beautiful eyes glittered with hate. “Ma chère, how loyal you are to a man you claim to be a stranger, yet so disloyal to me, the man you vowed to be loyal and obedient to for life . . . until death us do part. Perhaps that time has arrived, before you feed the poor colonel any more lies—”
BOOM! A massive explosion shook the fort; a halo of fire and wood splinters filled the window on the side of the fort facing the town. Startled shouts came over the sound. Thin lines of smoke drifted in through the cracks in the walls.
Alain’s face whitened. “What have you done, you stupid bitch?” he snarled in English.
Before she could begin to think of an answer, a second boom made the windows rattle. Another series of shouts came, and masculine screams filled with pain.
The colonel ran from the room. Lisbeth faced Alain alone.
CHAPTER 37
SCREAMS FILLED THE NIGHT, howls of pain and terror.
Flames leaped above the smoke, and Fort Vauban’s gate blasted in the center. Duncan ran up the ramp to the fort, pulled out two loaded pistols, aiming at the gates. Alec and Cal were beside him in moments, weapons primed. “Let’s give the fire something to chew.”
The ball shot exploded in the wood, weakening it. Gunpowder sent the flames higher. Fire filled the gate, and pieces of it flew in all directions, but not enough to get through.