Tempted By Fire

by Thea Devine

  "Ah, such a long, long memory, Mademoiselle Beaumont. I am flattered and if there were time, I would be interested. But I have travelled long and hard and at great risk to get the boy, and I will have him."

  "He is not to be had; no one knows where he is, least of all me."

  "A very nice story. Mademoiselle, but tell me, who was nose to nose with her father the traitor all these months? How could you not have discovered his whereabouts?"

  "You may as well shoot me," Jainee said angrily. "He never told. The boy's whereabouts remain a secret from me and from the emperor as well."

  "Indeed, it is the one thing we do not want: the boy must be presented to the Emperor and soon, or else it will be too late. Now, Mademoiselle—"

  "I cannot tell you what I do not know, Monsieur."

  "You would not tell me, you mean. Of course. Of course, in that case, I have only two choices: I can force you if I do not believe you. Or I could kill you, just as I eliminated your troublesome mother, who was costing my mistress so much pain and money."

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  He had not forgotten then, and neither had she. But the curious use of the word "mistress." She could not factor it into her memory of the event or why it should be the money of the mistress and not the emperor of which he spoke.

  She needed to buy a moment's time. There was nothing likely in the room she could use as a weapon except perhaps the candlestick—and her wits. She didn't understand anything. She sensed more hours had elapsed since she had left Southam Manor, and she was certain something awful had happened to Marie.

  The mare had reared and just taken off: the cart had toppled over—there had been a shot . . . Marie had slumped over—the cart had toppled and she had hit her head. Yes Marie . . . Marie could be dead.

  And now deVerville and more threats. "Who is your mistress?" she said finally because she could not think of a single thing to say in the face of her imminent death. He could do nothing else: she could tell him nothing.

  "My dear Mademoiselle Beaumont, surely you knew that your mother had very craftily applied to the empress to take care of her wants and needs rather than the husband. What a hold to have over Josephine—the Emperor's first blood. My mistress desperately wanted to protect it to use it for herself when the need arose and now the time has come. The emperor seeks a divorce and an heir, and my lady can provide him with the one to save herself from the other. You will provide me with the boy."

  "And if you kill me — "

  He smiled, a taut, evil smile. "I will find him anyway, Mademoiselle. I will tear up this countryside, and I will toss everyone to the dogs. The boy must be found."

  So there was no hope anyway, she thought desperately. He didn't need her; his search might be more efficient without her. She could sense already that he was losing patience with the game of trying to coerce information out of her. She had to move, she had to attack. Soon . . . soon.

  "Then you must find him," she said brazenly, her heart screaming with fear that she was deliberately goading him.

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  Immediately, he rose up, looming over her and shoving the nose of the pistol right into her face. "I think not, Mademoi — oof!"

  She pushed him, she pushed him hard, with an upward thrust of both of her hands and he went down heavily, futilely as the pistol went off and she simultaneously jumped off of the bed and reached for the candlestick.

  She had one moment —a moment in eternity as he began to pick himself up and she, fool that she was, flung the candlestick onto the bed and ran for the window.

  She heard the whomp of the flame catching the bedclothes and deVerville's scream as he attempted to Cut across the room and catch her.

  She dived out the window, not knowing if it were ten feet above the ground or one. The flames roared like a waterfall behind her. She fell through space like an angel, secure of her place in heaven.

  ******************

  At dawn, she crept away from the copse of trees and bushes in which she had found shelter for her battered body.

  At dawn, she could just see the charred ruin of the house where deVerville had imprisoned her. She did not know if he had survived the fire or had perished within. She was certain Marie was dead, but at dawn at least, she could see where the threats from her enemies were coming from.

  She felt as if she had no vigor within her; she could have liked to have just put her head down and gone to sleep forever, in the forest, alone with the angels.

  But there was Nicholas—and the boy.

  She found a road and began walking, tiredly, dispiritedly, with no hope, no hope anyone would come along anytime soon.

  A kindly farmer picked her up several hours later, distressed by the hopeless sag of her shoulders and the frailty of her frame, curious about the torn and slightly burned hem of her fashionable dress.

  There was nothing she would explain. He agreed to take her to

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  Southam Manor somewhat dubiously, and only on the promise of some reward.

  "You live around here?" she asked him after a while.

  "Certain, ma'am."

  She felt a pinprick of interest. "I was looking for a boy," she said suddenly.

  "Lots of boys hereabouts, ma'am."

  She smiled faintly. There wasn't much more to distinguish him from lots of boys hereabouts but his age. She felt a disheartening sense of futility.

  "Perchance has he got a name, ma'am?"

  A name? A name? A name . . . how had she not thought about a name? "His name is . . . Luc," she said hesitantly, "and he is seven or eight years old."

  "Luke . . . Luke . . . ummm — Luke. You don't have the surname, ma'am?"

  "The—" she said faintly. Whose name? Not Dunstan's. Perhaps her father's? Her heart began pounding. What if it were— what if? "I believe the name is, it's Dalton . . ."

  "Ummm—Luke Dalton, Luke Dalton — sounds familiar ma'am. Maybe it's the Goodstones' boy—they took in a boy a long time ago, or Mrs. Colethorp's boy—she lives over Hickham way, beyond Southam Manor in the other direction. One of those would be your boy, I'm thinking."

  One of those . . . your boy . . . your boy......

  ******************

  She fell into Nicholas' arms and into a deep exhausted sleep, and there was nothing anyone could do about it except thank the farmer and pay him handsomely.

  She slept, and three days later, she awakened to find Nicholas by her bedside and Mrs. Blue hovering nearby.

  "My lord?" she said dangerously, and it seemed to him that she had never gone away. "We have work to do. Mrs. Blue—I am so hungry. I need a wash, a fresh dress. I have much to tell my lord. Hurry, hurry."

  She smiled faintly as Mrs. Blue scurried from the room, and

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  then she turned to Nicholas. "Listen you, we must find the boy, and I think perhaps I have a clue . . ."

  "My dear Diana," Nicholas said exasperatedly, "I don't give a damn about the boy."

  "Of course you do, my lord. I will tell you the whole in time."

  "I want the whole now, huntress; you were reeling in hell when the farmer delivered you to the door."

  She nodded. "I myself cannot comprehend: I went for the boy and Marie came with me, and what does it prove but that she is seeking the boy too—just as my mother predicted," she added darkly. "She is an agent of the Murat, and now, I am confident, has paid with her life for her sins. The man who killed her is the very man who murdered my mother and followed me, as he must have done, to England to also obtain possession of the boy. They all wanted the boy, Marie to kill him, and deVerville to return him to France, and the empress who would use him to secure her place as the emperor's wife and provide him with an heir.

  "And so—the rest is inconsequential, except to say they both made the mistake of thinking that because I had tracked down my father, I knew the secret of the boy's whereabouts. I did not—then. Perhaps . . . perhaps I do now."

  The important thing was the boy—he could see that, bu
t he felt absurdly disappointed that she did not wish to resolve the problems concerning them.

  It could wait—it could. She had returned, and he would not question it.

  He knew his mother was smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  "Mrs. Blue, you must tell me—do you know of a family Goodstone or a woman named Mrs. Colethorp?"

  "The family Goodstone . . ." Mrs. Blue mused, pleased to see Jainee had indeed gotten dressed and removed herself to the library where she had settled in a comfortable chair by the window with a cup of tea and some buns.

  "Umm . . ." she said finally. "Yes—they are new ones, lately come, five years or more along. They live down by the Hungerford mill. Now the other—the other—yes, I know of her, my lady, and why do you wish to know?"

  "Why do you not wish to tell me?" Jainee asked curiously, her interest piqued by Mrs. Blue's peculiar phrasing.

  "Mrs. Colethorp is not a lady, my lady."

  "I see." Better and better, Jainee thought. "Perhaps you might just tell me what you know about her."

  "She lives alone, with her son . . ."

  Yes! Jainee thought wildly, hardly able to contain herself. "Go on, Mrs. Blue."

  "And they say she derives an income from certain favors she granted his majesty, the king, in the time before his illness overset him. She does not mingle, my lady. I know nothing more about her."

  "It is enough," Jainee murmured. "And her direction, Mrs. Blue?"

  "Over Hickham way, my lady."

  "I am so grateful," Jainee whispered, hugging the information close to her heart.

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  * * *

  "We have come to the end of the story," she said as Nicholas guided the barouche through the town and on to the road to which he had been directed.

  "We have come to nothing," Nicholas said dourly. "This may well be a wild chase. It is based on no pertinent information and a clutch of unsubstantiated guesses —and your faith, I might add. You will be sadly upended if the boy does not prove to be here."

  "One must try," Jainee said philosophically. "See there—that must be the house. How modest a living for the courtesan of a king." She felt a spurting excitement as though every answer awaited her beyond the door of the half-timbered house a hundred feet beyond.

  But what if there were nothing there but the disappointment of her life? She refused to think about it and determinedly climbed down from the carriage before Nicholas could come around to help her.

  "This is the place," she said firmly, and knocked on the door.

  A moment, two moments later, it swung open and Jainee looked into a pair of bright blue eyes, so similar to her own.

  "This is the boy," she whispered, and reached out her hand. / have found him for you, Therese. He is alive—he is loved.

  "Who are you?" a harsh voice demanded, and Jainee looked up.

  The woman was not visible—she was just beyond the door, lurking in the shadows as if she did not wish to be seen.

  "I am Lady Southam," she said resolutely and stepped inside the door.

  She knew Nicholas was behind her. The boy had moved backward to accommodate the fact she was moving forward, and the room, contrary to what she expected, was flooded with light. The woman, who was not young, was bathed in a halo of sunlight.

  She saw all this —and the boy reaching for the comforting hand of his mother to ward off the threat of the strangers—and

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  she had a fleeting impression of the elegance of the surroundings, before she heard Nicholas' voice behind her, harsh, bloodless and utterly devoid of emotion.

  "Well, Diana—let me make you known to Mrs. Colethorp— the woman who is my mother."

  ******************

  It wasn't the house—the house had been someplace else in that long-ago time. It was the scent and sense of the things with which she lived, the enfolding homecoming he felt when he walked through the door, and then the rage of comprehension that she had always been so close.

  Dunstan had known.

  Presumably, Lord Henry had known.

  Her face mirrored her fear, and perhaps a little relief as well? He couldn't tell, he didn't want to know.

  He looked at the boy and he looked at Jainee, and he saw nothing but the eyes, and the firm true face of a youth who knew nothing but the comfort of his life with his mother.

  But so had he done—just not with this woman.

  She knew him—she almost stepped toward him, her hand reached out to him as if the touch could span the years with which he had lived without it.

  He made no move toward her and her hand dropped to her side. Her eyes implored him to be kind, and flickered away to Jainee, who stood shocked and helpless, with no words to assuage the wounds.

  "Please sit down," the woman finally said because she had to do something, and she watched with a mother's eyes as Nicholas moved sinuously into the room and prowled around it as if he knew every inch of it, every piece of furniture, everything, all.

  Oh, my mama has pretty silver things like that, . .

  —Like that. . . . . .

  ......and that—

  —and that......

  He paced them off like a treasurer in his counting house, laying the memory against the weight of the years lost and his

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  child-self diminished, and there wasn't enough silver in the house to pay the price of what he had lost.

  "It is time for Mrs. Colethorp to tell us the story," Jainee said finally, seating herself by the window where there were several chairs set around to provide a spot of intimacy in the large room. "Nicholas . . ."

  He heard her speak his name from afar.

  "Nicholas—you must listen. Please sit down. Please." God, the bitterness in his face, she might never be able to wipe it away.

  He sat, poised like a lion on a pedestal on the arm of one chair.

  Mrs. Colethorp drew the boy with her and sat down in one of the others.

  "Since you found the boy," she said, "you must know as much as I can tell you."

  "Dunstan brought him to you."

  "Yes."

  "It was no accident," Nicholas said suddenly, angrily.

  Her body sagged. "No, it was no accident. But it was not immediate either, Nicholas. You must believe me. Your parents had no idea where you had come from until many years later, and then it was most imperative that we hide the origin of your birth from you, most urgent. Your father agreed, we all agreed, Nicholas, that it would be for the best. You know why. You must know."

  "I know nothing," he said, his voice raspy with anger. "Tell the whole, madame. Lay everything out on the table that I might understand why I was so precipitately abandoned by you."

  Her face seemed to dissolve before his eyes. She had been so pretty, and on her better days she was well able to maintain that imperious air of a well-loved mistress, proud that she had been retired to the country, and willing to live in the background now her sovereignty was over.

  But anguish bloated her face now, and the creamy skin was mottled with sadness, her firm lips turned downward with guilt, her black eyes so like his own sodden with unshed tears.

  She was a slender woman, too, but his sudden appearance

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  added weight to her shoulders that made her body seem as if it were sagging from carrying a burden too heavy for her to bear.

  Only the boy stood by to comfort her: he had known no other care.

  "It was an accident, Nicholas. You wandered away in spite of all caution, and that demon Slote got hold of you. And we were all so scared, for we knew he had been out and about and stealing unencumbered children. I will never know if you were a direct target or if he happened upon you, but when we finally realized you were gone and raised the alarm, it was too late. No one had seen you, and Slote could have been fifty miles beyond Dorcombe by then.

  "I can't tell you," she said beseechingly to his hard, hard face, "how I cried, how I searched: We had dogs, we had friend
s, we had spies trying to track down Slote, and he was too clever to be found because he had snatched ten little boys that day. Ten, Nicholas. Ten mothers bereft of their reason for living. Ten! Oh, it was unbearable, unbearable...…”

  She began to cry, and the boy handed her a handkerchief. "In a while, however, after you had been with your father for several months, he began to be curious about your parentage, and he began making inquiries. He was just highly enough placed so that he could gather some information, and some gossip and add the sum together, and soon enough, he found me, and he told me he had you, that his Lady Eliza had fallen in love with you when you toppled down the chimney and they meant to keep you and raise you as their own.

  "How could I protest? What had I in comparison to Lord Henry, except a reputation and a son who would be considered baseborn in spite of his blood. He had paid me the courtesy of telling me, but he did not expect me to contest his decision. He wished only that I would remove all tell-tale objects from the house in the unlikely case you might find me and recognize them.

  "I do not know whether he confided in Dunstan, or whether Dunstan found out himself, but by and by, he came around to me and we were friends. He moved me closer to Southam Manor

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  that I might watch the progression of your youth, and years later, he asked me to take the child. Lord Henry never knew that I was as close as Hickham, and Dunstan never told me where the child was from. I was only to take care of him, to raise him as my own.

  "It was like getting another chance with my son. I love the boy, and I have never stopped loving my son. But my son will never forgive me," she ended, tears staining her voice once again.

  "Your son must think about it," Jainee said unhesitatingly. "There is so much to understand, and so little time. The boy could be in danger. And it is the reason I have sought him out. I am Jainee Beaumont, and I am his kin. Dunstan was my father. My mother bore the boy who is in much the same position as was Nicholas when he was a child. And now you must listen, as carefully as we did to you . . ."

  ******************

  She was not helpless at least: Nicholas was cogent enough to understand they were not fighting some nameless Slote—it was something bigger this time, and something that required bold action.