Pale Moon Rider

by Marsha Canham

  “So he took hostages?”

  “They were called dissidents.”

  “And they were held until the fortunes were turned over to the government?”

  “Yes, and then often executed anyway, under a charge of treason.”

  “So much for politically pure motives,” he murmured. “Did your grandfather have jewels and gold buried in the forest?”

  She shook her head. “I do not know. Papa cared very little for baubles and trinkets and if he knew of anything grandpère had hidden away, he would happily have given it up to the tribunal in exchange for the guaranteed welfare and safety of his family. I suspect that was why Antoine and I were not arrested sooner, for the d’Orlôns fortune was quite considerable and they may have been convinced papa knew more than what he was telling them.”

  “Are you suggesting Robespierre never got his hands on it?”

  Renée shrugged and sighed. “I honestly do not know, m’sieur. If it is buried under a tree somewhere in a forest, the truth of it went to the grave with grandpère.”

  Tyrone laid back and stared up at the drifts of cobwebs. He was missing something. There was a link somewhere and he was missing it. He tried to think back over everything Dudley had discovered about the honorable Lord Paxton’s dirty linens and tried to fit the pieces together, beginning with the scandalous elopement of Celia Holstead thirty years ago. The father had betrothed her to the Duke of Leicester, an alliance intended to unite their two families as well as their two financial empires. But she had eloped, on the very day of her wedding, with a young and dashing Frenchman, causing one of the largest scandals of the decade, not to mention the complete dissolution of any business mergers that had been forthcoming. Without that infusion of money and prestige, the Holstead fortunes had plummeted. The father had disowned the daughter and never again acknowledged her existence until the day he died. The brother had refused any attempts at a reconciliation, despite the fact the groom turned out to be a member of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in France. Had he been the eldest son and heir to the vast fortune, there might have been some leeway for forgiveness, but Sebastien d’Anton had not been worth the earl of Paxton’s notice or sympathy.

  All that would have changed, of course, when the revolution came along and the Duc d’Orlôns found more than just the lives of his family in jeopardy. He might have found the wisdom to seek, if not a reconciliation, at least a mutually beneficial business arrangement.

  “What if that tree was in England?” Tyrone asked slowly.

  “M’sieur?”

  “Was your grandfather the kind of man who would bury old hatchets and ignore past insults to his family if the safety and well-being of its future was at stake?”

  “I do not understand your question.”

  “The first night we met you told me your uncle had arranged your marriage to a man who profited from the blood of those who died on the guillotine.”

  “Yes. That is the truth.”

  “You also said there were a number of terrified aristocrats who paid him enormous sums to smuggle their wealth out of France before men like Robespierre could confiscate it in the name of liberté, égalité, and fraternité. According to you, he took their jewels and promised to safeguard their treasures until the arrangements were made for their escape.”

  Renée felt a chill brush down her spine. “Yes,” she whispered. “That is the truth also.”

  “But then, you said he placed it in the vaults of his own bank until he received word the family was executed, and then he claimed it as his own.”

  “Forgive me if I do not understand, m’sieur, but—”

  “Edgar Vincent is not the one who owns the bank. Your uncle does.”

  “My uncle?”

  “It is not something he might brag about in genteel company, but Lord Charles Holstead, earl of Paxton, owns one of the larger banks in London. In his father’s day it was also one of the most reputable, but after the merger with Leicester failed, it was forced to seek the business of a different kind of clientele. Slavers, black-marketeers”—-he had the grace to offer a rueful grin— “thieves. His managers ask no questions and tell no secrets … for a price of course.”

  Renée was mildly astonished. “And how do you know these things, m’sieur?”

  “In my line of business, my life depends on what I know. For instance, I know Roth and Vincent go back a long way. There was some trouble when the colonel was younger—something to do with a young woman who was rather savagely beaten to death if I recall correctly—and his family bought him a commission in the army, hoping to hide him away for a while until the stink blew over. Vincent, who I suspect was somehow involved with procuring the evening’s entertainment, suddenly found himself with a small windfall of cash—a payoff for his silence, perhaps—and was able to branch out to bigger and better things in the black market. Your uncle, meanwhile, was gambling away his fortune and running himself so far into debt he had no choice but to start stealing from some of his accounts. Vincent was one of them.”

  She looked about to interrupt again and Tyrone held up his hand. “Humor me a moment longer. Suppose, when Roth is sent to France to fight for the noble cause of preserving the monarchy, he finds himself in the midst of a flood of wealthy, panicking aristocrats willing to pay almost any amount to see themselves and their families out of Mme. Guillotine’s reach. He talks to his old friend Vincent, who has smuggling barks that regularly cross the Channel carrying perfume and brandy. Subsequently, Vincent talks to Paxton, who has a bank with nice deep vaults and a larcenous weakness to exploit. It’s a good scheme, charging a percentage of what they smuggle out, and provides a steady flow of money, even adding a bonus now and then when the aristocrat who hired them never makes it out to claim his treasure.”

  “But that is—”

  “Thievery?” he provided, when she stopped to grope for a word. “They probably viewed it as more of a finder’s fee. I mean, really, what else are they to do with unclaimed gold? Give it back to the French government? Give it to our government? Either option would expose their tawdry little smuggling operation and while everyone knows it is happening, it would not do for Lord Paxton to appear to be profiting off the war in any way. Not with him being such a vocal ally of William Pitt. And probably, if not for my untimely appearance on that misty, moonlit road five months ago, they could have kept on smuggling and stealing with impunity.”

  Her eyes held his like magnets. Dark blue magnets that pulled the truths from him like little metal shavings. “The night I robbed your fiancé, you see, the brooch was not the only thing I took. He also had in his possession a rather impressive assortment of trinkets, gold and such, probably transporting them out of London to a safer place, away from the scrutiny of any agents who might be starting to wonder where all these unclaimed fortunes were vanishing. After the robbery, I tried to dispose of a few pieces and the next thing I knew, the dealer with whom I did business was dead and my intermediary, when he discovered it was Edgar Vincent who had the dealer ’questioned,’ refused to handle any more of the jewels. Within the week Roth had himself transferred to Coventry, hell-bent on running me to ground, vowing to use any and all means at his disposal to rid the parish of the scourge known as Captain Starlight.”

  “And instead of staying out of his way, you torment and taunt him so that he becomes obsessed with catching you? So obsessed he threatens to hang my brother for a crime he did not commit and uses me to lure you out into the open so you can both try to kill each other. Very enlightening, m’sieur, as always, to know how much more civilized and mature you English are.”

  “Ouch,” he murmured. “That is quite the dagger you wield, mam’selle. And me a mortally wounded man.”

  She glared at him as he held his hand over his heart and appealed for sympathy.

  “If what you say about my uncle and the others is true, why can we not just go to the authorities and expose them?”

  “We?”

 
“Me,” she corrected hastily. “Antoine and I.”

  “What would you tell them? That you suspect your uncle, Lord Charles Holstead, the earl of Paxton, honorable member of Parliament, has been opening his bank vaults to French aristocrats attempting to prevent their worldly possessions from falling into the greedy coffers of the revolutionary government? Will you tell them Colonel Bertrand Roth, a wounded hero and veteran of the war in Flanders, has profited from the misery of fleeing émigrés? Or that Edgar Vincent, the man who insures a steady supply of French cognac and Lyons lace to half of London society, is guilty of wanting to marry you because you are destitute, orphaned, and beautiful beyond measure? Without proof, that is all they are guilty of, mam’selle. And even with proof, you would be hard-pressed to find too many juries—filled with men whose sons are most likely on a battlefield somewhere fighting and dying at the ends of French muskets—willing to convict. I could be wrong, but the law does seem to turn a blind eye to thieves who steal from enemies of the state. Some are even encouraged to do so—unofficially of course.”

  “Have you, m’sieur?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Been encouraged to steal from your country’s enemies?”

  “You mean has it been suggested—unofficially or otherwise—that to stop a French nobleman on the road and rob him down to his garters is not so dreadful a crime as halting some fat English burgher?” He smiled and his eyes glittered faintly. “No, mam’selle. I’m afraid I cannot even offer that as an excuse for my actions, regardless how determined you appear to be to find one, or”—his voice softened noticeably—“how much I would like to oblige you by providing it. God knows I haven’t had this many appeals to my conscience in more years than I can recall, but the plain truth of it is, I am exactly what you see before you. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “A thief who plays a piano faire les anges pleurer” she murmured as she stood. “A man who drinks fine Burgundy claret and plays the part of a buffoon because it suits his sense of humor to do so? If that is all you are and all you ever will be … then I pity you, m’sieur, for I have looked into your eyes and seen the possibility of so much more.”

  She turned and walked slowly to the door.

  “It would be another grave mistake, mam’selle, to think you know me. Or to wish you could change me.”

  His voice halted her briefly and she looked back at where he lay, sprawled like a fallen archangel in a pool of candlelight.

  “No, m’sieur.” She smiled somewhat sadly. “I would never make that mistake, I promise you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Renée had already closed the door behind her before she realized she had not brought a candle or taper with her to light the way down. She thought briefly about going back, but her exit had been made with such fine resolve, to return in search of a light to ward off castle ghosts would doubtless restore the mockery to his smile.

  She had walked up and down the narrow corkscrew staircase a dozen times or more over the past few days, so there was no mystery as to what loomed below. Nor was it: entirely pitch black, and she guessed that Antoine had left a candle burning in one of the sconces at the bottom. Nonetheless, it was a ghostly sort of glow that lost strength on every turn of the stairs and was thinned to a pale haze by the time it reached the landing where she stood. The more eerie darkness came from above and behind, from the additional turn that led up to the rooftop battlements. If there was an otherworldly being in residence, he was more than likely crouched up there in the utter blackness, his eyes glowing like two pinpricks of light, his breath cold and dank as it frosted out before him.

  Renée started moving swiftly down the spiraling stairs, the muslin of her long skirt catching on the steps behind and belling out like a white cloud. Because she was so intent on ignoring the rasping breath of the specter, who was by now lunging down the stairs after her, she rounded a turn and slammed fully into a tall, dark silhouette coming the other way.

  The shriek she gave off startled Finn almost as much as seeing a pale apparition floating down the stairs toward him. He raised the hooded taper he was carrying and gave them both a moment to verify the identity of the other before lowering it to waist level again.

  “Mad’moiselle Renée,” he said on a gust of relief. “I should think it a rather reckless business running down these stairs in the darkness.”

  Her heart was still squeezed against her rib cage and although she had a hand over her breast to keep it from bursting through, she still slumped back and leaned a shoulder against the wall.

  “You were not in your room when I went to fetch you, and Master Antoine implied you might still be here.” He paused to gulp at another breath. “There are carriages in the drive, mad’moiselle. Five of them. Your aunt and uncle have arrived along with Mr. Vincent and at least a dozen others I did not linger to identify. Lord Paxton was howling for wine and brandy, while his lady wife was giving instructions to that Pigeon woman to prepare a late supper. Ten o’clock, she proposed, and it has just gone eight now.”

  “But … they were not supposed to come until tomorrow.”

  “I gather your uncle decided the longer he had to partake of Lord Wooleridge’s hospitality, the longer he might have to offer it by way of reciprocation.”

  Renée turned so that her entire back was against the wall, not just her shoulder, and from somewhere out of a distant memory, she conjured an oath that was vulgar enough to have Finn lifting the lamp again and peering narrowly at her face.

  “I believe both you and the young master have been spending far too much time in that rogue’s company.” He angled the light even closer. “Has he said—or done-something to upset you?”

  “No. No,” she said, frowning, “but he has given me something to think about.”

  Without preamble, she relayed Tyrone Hart’s speculations concerning her uncle, Roth, and Edgar Vincent, and by the time she had finished, Finn was sitting on the step beside her, his brow similarly crumpled in a frown.

  “Frankly, I never liked your uncle very much,” he declared. “He was always sneaking about stealing coins from your grandfather’s office or running up enormous debts his yearly annuity could not cover by a fourth. And yes, his friends and associates were a scurrilous lot. Dirty fingernails and eyes too close together to suggest any real intelligence. And manners-faugh! Better suited to a brothel or a pig sty. Why, I remember once … no, never mind. It hardly warrants repeating except to say I would not be entirely shocked to discover there is some foundation for Mr. Hart’s speculations. After all, who better to judge a thief than another thief?”

  Renée was quiet so long and her gaze remained so unfocused, he leaned forward to try to catch her eye. “Mad’moiselle?”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “I heard you. I just … find it hard to believe there is nothing we can do about it.”

  “Well.” He sighed. “There, too, I find I must agree with the brigand. We cannot very well go to the authorities; it would be your uncle’s word against ours, and ours I’m afraid, would be the more suspect, especially with the warrant outstanding for Master Antoine’s arrest—counterfeit as it might be. Unfortunately the only way to punish men of this ilk in a way they understand is to strike where they would feel the pain the deepest—in the purse. And since our one attempt to do that appears to have failed so miserably, I would suggest we have no alternative now but to accept defeat, cut our losses, and leave this wretched place at the first opportunity.”

  “Or we could steal the rubies ourselves,” she said slowly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “We could steal the rubies ourselves,” she repeated and turned to look at him. “Ourselves?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?”

  “For heaven’s sakes, Finn, if you are just going to repeat everything I say—!”

  “If I am repeating it, mad’moiselle, it is because I cannot believe I am hearing you correctly. Steal the rubies ourselves? Have you been exposed to t
he noxious effects of camphor and mustard plaster too long? Or perhaps it is the air in this tower,” he said, glancing warily around. “It was said all Royalists were slightly mad to defy Cromwell in the heart of England.”

  “Perhaps it is long past time I was exposed to something,” she said. “Something that would not make me so afraid of my own shadow.”

  “Mary and Joseph,” Finn muttered. “Where would you come by such an absurd notion? You are brave beyond measure!”

  “I may act brave and bold in front of men like Roth and Vincent,” She insisted, “but that is all it is: an act. Inside I am terrified. I tremble like a small child and wish only that I could crawl under the bed with Antoine to hide.”

  “Well, good sweet mercy, child, we all shake and tremble inside in the face of adversity. You would not be human if you did not. Even he”—Finn gave his head a belligerent jerk toward the top of the stairs—“has likely felt his heart palpitate a time or two, I warrant.”

  She glanced up at the darkness and very much doubted it. “Nevertheless, Finn, if we do nothing and simply run away again, I have a greater fear that we will just keep running for the rest of our lives.”

  “But … what you are suggesting—”

  “What I am suggesting is that we cheat them at their own game. You say we have no way to prove they stole the gems, but if we had the rubies, we would have the proof, would we not? When he gave me the jewels in London, he made a great mistake by allowing me to wear them in public, for I know there were some Françaises, like the Comptesse de Trouville, who recognized the suite. If their testimony is not sufficient for the English authorities, it would surely be enough to interest the agents of the French government who care very little about English courts and laws.”