Fortune's Lady

by Patricia Gaffney

  “No! No.”

  “Well, that’s definite enough,” Wade chuckled. He kept stroking the younger man’s neck. “Tell Cassandra about your special talent, John. I’ll bet she thinks all you do is Riordan’s drudge work. Tell her what a ready hand you are with a pistol. Especially at close range, indoors, with no distractions.”

  “What are you going to do?” Cass breathed, horrified, when Walker didn’t speak.

  Finally he looked at her. “I’m going to kill Edmund Burke.”

  There was a look in his eyes she’d never seen before, a bright, hard purposefulness that was all the more frightening because it was perfectly sane. She held his gaze, searching for a way to connect, to make contact. “John, you can’t. Think! This is murder, cold-blooded and cruel. He’s an old man, a decent man—”

  “He’s the enemy!” Walker interrupted hotly. “If it weren’t for him the English would have sided with the French patriots long before now. It’s his lies and slanders that have brought our countries to the brink of war!”

  His savage tone told her further argument would be a waste of breath. She hardly recognized the soft-spoken, retiring secretary she’d known in this grim, violently committed revolutionary. So he had been the leak. She tried to absorb it, but it was almost impossible to believe. Still, his presence was the proof. She remembered the day he’d given her Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France in Riordan’s library, with instructions from his employer to read it. How ironic the situation must have seemed to him.

  She knew it was hopeless, but she tried again. “Please listen to me. Killing Burke now won’t accomplish anything. He’s already done his work, it’s too late to change popular opinion. If anything, you’ll make a martyr of him and only do harm to your cause. Oh, John, listen to me! It’s insane to think this can—”

  “You’re wrong. Burke’s working on a new diatribe now. Riordan’s got a copy of it and I’ve read it. He calls the Jacobins atheists, murderers, and barbarians. For men like us he advocates exile and death. He’s a cancer! He has to be silenced! He’s—”

  “And tomorrow he will be,” Wade interjected smoothly. “As he rises to attack your dear husband’s reform bill, darling. As Riordan’s clerk, John will be an inconspicuous nobody in the venerable Chamber, he’ll be able to get as close to Burke as he likes.”

  Cass was aghast. “But they’ll catch you, John! You’ll never get away!”

  “Not at all,” Wade insisted, “we have an excellent plan for—”

  But Walker interrupted him firmly. “That may well be true. But you see, I’m willing to take the risk.”

  Cass rested her head against the post she was tied to and fought back tears of desperation. What could she say to him, what could she do? He was determined to go through with this regardless of the consequences, and she could think of no other arguments that would sway him. She watched as Wade ran his thumb across Walker’s lips, and for a second she thought they would kiss. Naive as she was, it was finally obvious even to her that they were lovers.

  “Doesn’t it bother you,” she burst out recklessly, “that you’re taking all the risks while he sails safely away to France?”

  Wade’s eyes gleamed with malice, but Walker only shook his head as if he pitied her. “Good-bye, Miss Merlin. I’m sorry you came here today.”

  He was leaving. Panic engulfed her. “Wait, don’t go! John, please—oh please, help me!” The pleading note in her voice appalled her, but she couldn’t help it.

  He wouldn’t look at her. He stood with his back to her in the doorway and said, “I told you. I’m very sorry.” And he went out.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Wade called after him, then moved toward her. “I wish I could stay and chat, love, but you’ll appreciate that this is a busy, busy day for me. Moving, you know; such a bore. Still, I’ll see you in an hour or so, I promise. I have one more tiny little surprise. To see what it is, you’ll have to go down to the cellar with me. Too bad you aren’t dressed more warmly, isn’t it? Ah, well, you won’t be there long enough for it to matter. This surprise will be over very quickly.”

  She jerked away when he tried to kiss her. “Bastard!” she spat. For once her hatred was even stronger than her fear of him. “Animal! Rot in hell, you murdering son of a bitch! You may kill me, but you’ll never get away with murdering Edmund Burke. They’ll track you down and catch you, and then they’ll hang you! You’ll never—”

  “Oh, Cass, you guessed!” he interrupted with mock dismay. “Now the surprise is ruined. How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Why, that I’m going to hang you! My, you are a clever girl.” This time when he kissed her she didn’t react at all. “’Bye for now, darling, I must run. Oh, and be as quiet as a little mouse, won’t you? Entre nous, I think Annie would as soon bash your head in with that poker as not. Ta!”

  XVIII

  RIORDAN BROUGHT HIS FIST back and hammered it as hard as he could against the scarred oak door. His breath came fast from taking the steep steps to Quinn’s flat three at a time. The exertion and the pain in his knuckles eased his need to do violence, but did nothing to dampen his rage. When the door didn’t open soon enough, he kicked it savagely with his riding boot. He still wore his spurs; they made a delicate, jingling counterpoint to the harsh sound of hard leather smiting wood.

  “What’s the meaning of—Philip! For heaven’s sake—”

  Riordan shouldered past him without a word and slammed the door shut.

  “This is a surprise,” Quinn said after a second’s hesitation. “I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow.” He was in his shirt and waistcoat; the remains of a grim-looking meal lay on a table pulled close to the meager fire.

  “I’ll bet you didn’t.”

  “How is poor Claudia?”

  “Recovering.” Riordan spoke through his teeth. His fury was reined in but obvious. That Quinn was ignoring it only made him angrier.

  “I’m glad to hear it. Sit down, won’t you? Will you have some—”

  “Enough!” Riordan slashed the air with his hand, then dug into his pocket and drew out a wrinkled piece of paper. “I want to know what this means. Take it. Read it!” Quinn took the note. When he didn’t read it out loud, Riordan read it for him, his voice vibrating with furious accusation. “ ‘Quinn told me everything. I will never forgive you. Cass.’ ” He grabbed the letter back and crumpled it in his fist. “Explain it, Oliver! I’m waiting!”

  Quinn ran a long-fingered hand through his thinning hair. “Oh dear,” he said with sincere-sounding regret, “this is most distressing; no wonder you’re upset. And it’s my fault, I admit it. When I was visiting with Cassandra yesterday—you recall I asked if I might look in on her?—I, ah, accidentally let it slip that you were in Somerset, not Cornwall. It was purely a slip of the tongue, but she caught it immediately. After that it seemed better to tell her the whole truth. I’m so sorry, Philip. Does this note mean she’s left home? I must say, I’m surprised. I never thought she’d—”

  “Stop it! You’re lying!”

  Quinn’s thin nostrils flared. “I’ve apologized for my carelessness. I will not be insulted.”

  “That won’t work this time,” Riordan snarled. He pulled something else from his pocket. “Recognize this? It’s the note I sent Claudia by messenger. How do you suppose Cass got it?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. What are you implying?” But his pale face had gone paler and his tone was unconvincing.

  Riordan’s temper exploded. “You gave it to her!” he roared. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who told Cass we weren’t married! Admit it, damn you!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Calm yourself, this isn’t like you. I would hate to see you revert back to the kind of—”

  Riordan’s vicious growl cut him off as he came at him, but at that moment someone knocked at the door. Scarcely able to hide his relief, Quinn went past him and opened it.

&nb
sp; It was a young man in a dirty coat. “Got a message for a Mr. Quinn, from Beekman Place,” he announced. “You him?”

  Quinn took the note. “Yes, I’m—”

  “Who gave it to you?” Riordan cut in, shoving Quinn aside violently.

  “A girl,” answered the messenger, backing up.

  “What girl? What did she look like?”

  The young man blanched. “Pretty, young—”

  “Black hair?” Riordan thundered.

  “No—yellow!”

  “I’m having the house watched,” Quinn said quickly when Riordan turned on him. The messenger saw his chance to escape, and ran. “I tell you, Philip, I have a girl inside the house. This is from her!”

  “You’re lying. Give me that.”

  “No.”

  “Give it to me!”

  Quinn turned away, but Riordan spun him around by the shoulder and grabbed the note out of his hand. For a moment they were both shocked by his violence. Seeing the look on Riordan’s face, Quinn stopped sputtering and took a step back.

  Riordan recognized the handwriting immediately and his body froze. Oh Jesus, he thought. Oh Christ Almighty. With numb, nerveless fingers, he opened the letter and read. When he finished, he looked up at Quinn, and there was murder in his eyes. “You bastard,” he said in a rabid whisper. “You sent her to him, didn’t you?”

  Quinn shook his head over and over, swallowing. “I didn’t, she did it on her own.”

  “Read it, you lying son of a bitch.”

  “Philip, listen—”

  “Read it!” He forced it into his hand.

  Quinn read. Suddenly his face relaxed. “At last,” he breathed softly. He looked up. “This is it, Philip. Finally. We have him now. He won’t—”

  Riordan seized him by the shirt and slammed him against the near wall. “I don’t care about Wade!” he roared. “I should kill you for this! But you’re not worth it. But I’ll do it anyway if Cass is hurt!” His voice lowered; his eyes narrowed malevolently. “You never cared a damn about me, did you? It was an act from the beginning. All those years I idolized you, prayed that you’d come back, you never thought of me once. You wouldn’t even have remembered my name if you hadn’t thought of a way to use me!”

  “That’s not true.” Quinn’s voice shook. “I always wanted what was best for you.”

  “You’re a liar. You don’t know how to tell the truth.”

  “I admit I thought your marriage was a mistake, but—”

  “So you destroyed it.”

  “I thought you’d come to your senses soon and realize she was beneath you. Philip, she’s impure, she’s not the woman for you, don’t you see? Claudia was supposed to be your wife, she was—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Riordan’s face was ugly; his grip tightened viciously. “What did you think would happen if you succeeded? Did you think she would disappear into thin air?”

  “She had money. She was going to leave the country!”

  He bared his teeth in a savage snarl and shook Quinn like a dog. “Who do you think you are? God? This is my life! You thought you had a damned puppet, didn’t you? A lapdog for the king and his ministers, someone you could rely on in Parliament to always do the right thing. You even had my wife picked out for me!” Quinn didn’t deny it. “You’ll have to tell your employers the truth soon, Oliver, because they’re in for a rude surprise. Tell them that because of your arrogance and stupidity they’ve lost their pawn.” He shook him again. “It doesn’t matter anymore what you did to me, my friend, but you’re going to pay for hurting Cass. I swear it.” He shoved him hard against the wall and released him, then headed for the door.

  “Wait! You can’t go there. Stop, you’ll ruin everything!”

  Riordan turned around in disbelief. “What?”

  “If you go there now, Wade will only call off the plan again! We’ll be back where we started!”

  Riordan almost laughed. “Do you think I care about that? He’s got Cass, you son of a bitch. He’s a murderer and he’s got my wife!” He started again for the door.

  “Stop.”

  Something in his voice made Riordan pause with his hand on the knob. He turned around slowly. He flinched, but wasn’t really surprised to see the pistol in Quinn’s hand, leveled at his midsection. Something inside him shifted painfully; something hardened; something was lost.

  “You can’t go now. She’ll be all right. We’ll arrest him tomorrow when he tries to board his ship. I’m sorry, Philip, but it has to be this way. She’ll be all right.”

  Oddly, he felt no fear, and noted with interest the veiled panic in Oliver’s face. “I’m going to her, my old friend. You’ll have to kill me to stop me.” Without hesitation, he began to walk toward Quinn.

  Quinn held the gun higher, taking aim. “I’ll shoot, I swear I will. Don’t come any closer!”

  Riordan never slowed his pace. “Shoot.”

  Quinn’s gun hand was shaking, his face perspiring. “I’ll have to! Don’t make me!”

  “Do it, then.” He stopped a foot away, the gun inches from his chest. He could hear the jerky sound of Quinn’s breathing, see the sweat beading under his nose. Very slowly he put out his hand and surrounded the cold barrel with his fingers. He gave a tug.

  Quinn let go.

  His face collapsed. “Damn you, Philip, he’ll get away. We’ve lost him again.”

  “I thought that was all you cared about,” Riordan breathed, suddenly feeling weak in the knees. “Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”

  For a long time Quinn didn’t answer. Color returned slowly to his bleak, bony features. “Perhaps I’m not altogether the monster you think I am,” he said with shaky dignity, straightening his shoulders. “I said I’d always wanted what was best for you. Among all the lies, that at least was true.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s only that your cowardice is even stronger than your fanaticism.” He held out the pistol, and Quinn’s eyes flickered in surprise. “Here. Take it, I have my own.” He patted his waistcoat. “Put your coat on, you’re coming with me.”

  “What?”

  “There may be trouble getting Cass out. I need you, and there’s no one else. But I want to see you in front of me this time, not behind. It makes me feel safer.”

  “Philip—”

  “Your coat, Oliver. Get moving.”

  Quinn remained motionless a few more seconds. Something in Riordan’s face must have told him that to refuse would be dangerous. He put his pistol in the waistband of his breeches and went to get his jacket.

  “Cold, darling? Not much longer, I promise. Let me tighten this a bit here, like so. There. How’s that?”

  It wasn’t the cold that made Cass tremble, though the damp stone cellar was almost freezing. Splinters from the rough wooden wine cask she was kneeling on cut into her shins, but she didn’t feel them. She was past feeling anything now except despair.

  “This is fitting, don’t you think? First the father is hanged for a traitor, and now the daughter follows him for the same crime—and in the same manner. For you, of course, a guillotine would have been more appropriate, but I didn’t have time to make one. They’re not as straightforward as you might think, by the way. One has to do all sorts of tedious calculations with balance and distance and who knows what, or they simply don’t work. Or not at first, I should say. One must try and try again, and it really gets quite gruesome. This will be ever so much better, I promise. What was that, darling? Did you speak?”

  The top of the empty cask on which she knelt came almost to his shoulders. She had to look down to see him, but the noose he’d knotted around her neck was already so tight, she could scarcely turn her head. He’d slung the rope across a beam directly above her and secured the slack to a wooden post to her right. Now he gave the taut line a playful tug, making her rise up even higher on her knees to keep from choking. With her hands bound behind her back, she had no way to keep her balance; if she toppled off the wine cask
, she would choke to death in seconds.

  “I invited John to come and watch, you know, but he declined. Odd, isn’t it? He has no qualms about shooting Mr. Burke, but he can’t bring himself to witness the simple execution of a traitor.”

  “Colin,” she got out. If she arched her back and craned her neck high, she found she could speak. “Please. Tell me. Why did you betray my father?”

  “Who told you that? Quinn,” he guessed, when she couldn’t answer. “He’s a liar—he must’ve said that to get you to help him. I liked Patrick, actually. He and I wanted the same things. I was sorry when they hanged him.”

  She tried to absorb this, but new thoughts were already crowding her mind. “Colin,” she said again, trying not to whimper.

  “Yes?”

  “What will you do with my body?”

  He came around to face her, his look of malicious whimsy deserting him for a moment.

  “I’d like to be b-buried” she had to swallow to keep talking—“with my father. Please. Don’t just—throw me away.”

  “Bloody hell,” she thought he muttered.

  There was something else she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She tried to clear her head. It was important to her that she die consciously, not in a thoughtless, panicked daze. But she was so frightened. Would her neck break when her weight snapped the rope tight? Would there be terrible pain, or only a gradual blackening and then nothing? She prayed for the strength to be brave, whatever happened. And she wished she had her clothes. She hated being half-naked in front of Wade when she died. Frivolous, perhaps, at this dire hour, but she felt it strongly.

  She remembered what she wanted to tell him. “Colin,” she choked out. “I forgive you.” The words made her cry, she wasn’t sure why. It was time to pray for the forgiveness of her own sins, but her mind was too full of chaos. Wade had gone behind her again. She heard him curse her and then give another savage pull on the rope. Her head jerked up and her breath caught in her lungs. Would it be now? Was this the last second? Was this?