One Wicked Sin

by Nicola Cornick

  She had expected to see Theo, but it was Jacques Le Prevost who stood there. Lottie let out her breath on a gasp of combined shock and relief. “Oh, m’sieur, you startled me.”

  For once Le Prevost made no showy bow and paid her no extravagant compliments. Instead, his gaze was so keen on her face that it made her feel quite uncomfortable. As she blushed and drew back he looked down at the piece of paper in her hand—and held out his own as though to take it from her.

  “What do you have there, madame?” His voice was quiet and expressionless.

  “I… Oh…” Lottie felt hot. Though Le Prevost was French she had no wish to confide in him that she had discovered Ethan’s plans, for surely he would try to persuade her to hand them back. She felt trapped, torn. She crumpled the sheets between her fingers. “Nothing. A letter from a friend.”

  Le Prevost smiled but his eyes were cold. “You are a poor liar, madame.”

  Lottie looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Le Prevost did not take his eyes off her face. “I have looked everywhere,” he said. “I should have known that St. Severin would hide it here. I thought of it—but then I thought he would not put your life at risk.” His eyes gleamed cold. “It seems that I was mistaken—and that he cares nothing for your safety, madame.” His brows snapped down. “Where did you find it?”

  Lottie’s mind was whirling, full of darting thoughts and suspicions. Le Prevost, the foppish colonel who lavished those fulsome compliments on the ladies, who cared for no more than the set of his coat… Could he be an informer for the British? Had he been searching for Ethan’s plans, too? Suddenly she remembered the night she had followed Ethan to his rendezvous up on the Lambourn road and the messenger who had died. She had known it could not have been Ethan who had murdered him, but on that night she had glimpsed another man strolling out of town. She had thought it was Le Prevost and had assumed that he was engaged in a dalliance….

  Perhaps he had had an assignation with death rather than with a lover. She shivered.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. The papers rustled as she clenched her fingers about them. “You were looking for these? But I thought that you—” She stopped. “You’re French,” she said foolishly. “Surely you must support Ethan’s plans—” But she stopped again before she had finished the sentence because she could see in Le Prevost’s face how naive her words were. And then she saw the pistol in his hand and the sword at his hip, and knew that her worst suspicions were true.

  “You are a renegade,” she whispered. “You work for no one but yourself.”

  Le Prevost shrugged. “I support whichever cause offers me the most,” he said.

  “Because he has no honor and will sell his comrades and his enemies equally if the price is right,” said a soft, deadly voice from behind them.

  Lottie spun around to see Ethan lounging in the doorway. There was a cold, hard light in his eyes as he looked from Le Prevost’s face to the pistol in his hand.

  “Isn’t that right, Jacques?” Ethan continued. “British, French, American, it is all the same to you if the money is good. I knew someone was betraying me.” He took a breath. “I should have guessed it was you.”

  The atmosphere sparked and tightened. Lottie saw the flare of hatred in Le Prevost’s eyes before he shrugged, an ugly smile on his lips.

  “We cannot all be heroes like you, St. Severin,” he mocked. “Besides—” he gestured to Lottie “—if you speak of betrayal then surely it is your chère amie whom you should be reproaching? She sold you out to her brother.”

  Ethan turned to look at Lottie and her insides shriveled. “I am sorry,” she whispered. “I had to do it, Ethan—”

  Ethan smiled then with such tenderness that she caught her breath. “I don’t reproach you, Lottie,” he said. “I would have done exactly the same.” His smile deepened. “Though I confess I was surprised to discover that you possessed a moral code after all. And disappointed that you discovered it at such a confoundedly awkward moment.” He turned back to Le Provost.

  “Whereas you, Jacques…” His voice was ice-cold and level. “You possess neither principle nor conscience.”

  “Mon Dieu.” Le Prevost was laughing. “My conscience is always quiet when I am paid enough.” He spun around on Lottie. “The letter, if you please, madame. Your brother and I have gone to a great deal of trouble to try to obtain it.”

  “Theo?” Lottie said. She glanced at Ethan. His face was dark and set. She saw a muscle pulse in his jaw. “But I understood he worked for British intelligence,” she said. Her world was falling apart, tearing at the seams. “Oh no, not Theo, too…” She could hear the pleading note in her voice.

  “Madame is still such an innocente for all her experience,” Le Prevost said contemptuously. “Your brother and I have worked together secretly for several years, to our mutual benefit. We deal in information.” He gestured toward the papers. “When there is intelligence like this to buy and sell we auction it to the highest bidder.”

  “No,” Lottie said. She gripped the back of the chair more tightly, her fingers digging into the wood. “Oh no.” She thought of Theo coming to her in London, claiming to represent the British authorities when he had in fact been planning to double-cross them all along. He had appealed to her to betray Ethan, offered her empty promises and dreams. He had exploited her most fundamental fears and desires to achieve his aims, but it had not been out of patriotic duty. He had used her for no more than his own gain. She felt sick and anguished to think of it.

  “Theo lied to me from the first…” she whispered, and felt her last shred of faith in her brother vanish like mist when she saw Le Prevost nod.

  “Your brother sought you out in London so that he could persuade you to help us with our plans,” Le Prevost said. “He knew he could trade on your trust in him.” He smiled unpleasantly. “And so it proved.”

  Lottie felt Ethan shift slightly. She glanced at him. There was compassion in his eyes.

  “I wanted Theo’s love,” she said painfully, speaking directly to Ethan as though Le Prevost was not there. “He was the only one who cared for me since childhood and I wanted to please him.”

  There was such a gentle smile on Ethan’s lips that she could feel her heart breaking. “You do not need to justify yourself to me, Lottie,” he said softly. “You chose to inform your brother of my plans to protect what you believe in. The fact that you chose to trust an unworthy man is not your fault.”

  Lottie bit her lip hard. Oh, she truly had chosen the wrong man in whom to invest her love and her trust. In the beginning she had wanted Theo to be her white knight, to save her from the trouble she had brought on herself. It had made her vulnerable to her brother’s manipulation. Ethan was right that in the end it was her principles that had prompted her to act; those wholly unlooked for, wholly unexpected and indeed completely unwelcome moral values that had forced her to betray him for the greater good of her countrymen. She could not regret her actions. But she deeply regretted that she had trusted Theo when he now proved himself a traitor.

  And yet in some ways she and Theo were two of a kind, she thought bitterly. Both of them had seen their world crumble when they were no more than children. Both of them had grown up knowing they had to fight for everything they wanted. They had both sold themselves for money and security. They were more alike than she wished to admit.

  “Most affecting,” Le Prevost mocked. “Give the plans to me, madame.”

  “No,” Lottie said. “If you want them you will have to take them from me.”

  Le Prevost shrugged. “If you wish to make it difficult. It makes no odds, madame. I shall have the information I seek and then…” A slight gesture with the pistol underlined his meaning.

  “You cannot kill me,” Lottie said. “I am Theo’s sister! He would never countenance it!”

  Le Prevost’s lips curled into a smile. “Alas,” he said, “you know too much, madame. Your brother will understand why I have to act
as I do. Leave no witnesses, no hostages to fortune. You will both die—” He bowed ironically to Ethan. “I will have the plans and will sell them to the British at a very high price. Enfin—” his eyes gleamed “—so simple and so profitable.”

  “I challenge you for the papers,” Ethan said. His voice cut through the thick tension that blanketed the room. He straightened up, strolled forward for all the world, Lottie thought, as though he was the one holding the pistol, not Le Prevost. Then she saw that he was armed. He must have picked up the sword they had taken from Gregory’s house that night in London, which had subsequently been left in the umbrella stand in the hall.

  “Show some honor for once,” Ethan said to Le Prevost. “Take the challenge.”

  Le Prevost threw his head back and laughed. “A good try, St. Severin,” he said, “but I have chosen my weapon and I am holding it. I would be a fool to accept the challenge of a man who bested me only last week on the practice field.”

  And then Lottie heard a very faint sound outside beyond the orchard, the creak of wood as someone crossed the stream from the fields and stepped on a loose board on the bridge. She tensed, straining to hear. Was someone coming? And if they were, would it not simply be Theo, come to finish what Le Prevost had started? Le Prevost was taking aim now, his gaze holding Ethan’s, that terrible, triumphant gleam still in his eyes.

  “A poor end for a man who was such a hero,” Le Prevost murmured. “How amusing that I should do the British such a favor as to kill you, St. Severin, and for this they are not even paying me.” He jerked his head toward Lottie. “Any last words for your inamorata? A moving farewell?”

  There was the sound of the chink of metal from outside. It could have been no more than the chain on the well stirring in the wind, or it could have been someone brushing past it as they approached the house. This time the men heard it, too, for they froze. For a split second Le Prevost’s attention was distracted. He turned his head and in that moment, with a strength borne of terror, Lottie picked up the chair she had been clutching and spun around. It caught Le Prevost under the chin and he fell backward. The pistol exploded and Lottie felt a sharp pain through her shoulder and grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself. Her legs suddenly felt as weak as water, slipping away from her. The light in the room wavered and dulled as her head spun. She fought desperately to hold on to consciousness.

  There was the hiss of steel as Ethan drew his sword and Le Prevost scrambled to his feet. The blades rang against each other in a swift thrust and parry. There was desperation in Le Prevost’s strokes, controlled fury in Ethan’s. He forced Le Prevost back and back against the wall. Le Prevost grabbed the candlestick from the mantel and threw it at Ethan’s head. Ethan ducked. Le Prevost followed up with a punch that just missed Ethan’s jaw.

  Ethan stepped back, recovering his breath. “You fight by no rules I recognize, Jacques,” he said silkily, “but then we knew that, did we not?”

  Le Prevost’s response was a renewed attack but he was losing focus and skill now, and Ethan repeatedly beat back his blade. Lottie saw his guard falter, saw Ethan press the advantage, and suddenly the swords locked together, the men chest to chest, and she cried out as the blades wavered, then Le Prevost lunged forward with a mad shout and as Lottie watched he seemed to impale himself on his own blade and for a moment he hung there before he fell. She gave a cry as his body hit the ground and rolled over to lie against the grate.

  Ethan discarded his sword and ran over to her.

  “Lottie!” He caught her in his arms and she could feel him shaking as all the fear and tension and relief fused into one and he pulled her close. His mouth was pressed against her hair and he was murmuring endearments and she wanted to hold him tightly and hold him forever, but it hurt, it hurt so damnably badly that she could not repress a slight moan and he loosed his grip at once. In the firelight she could see his fingertips smeared with her blood.

  “Lottie.” His tone had changed. “You were hit—”

  “Just a scratch,” Lottie whispered. The room was wavering again. She felt light-headed and faint. Ethan was tearing up strips of some material—hopefully not her pink spotted muslin gown—to make a rough bandage. She could hear him swearing under his breath as he worked, as though if Le Prevost were not already lying dead on her carpet he would have sent the man to his maker a second time over. He ripped the dress from her shoulder before she could protest and wrapped the pad around and under her arm, pressing it down and tying it tight, which seemed to hurt all the more. Lottie felt horribly sick.

  “I have to get you to a doctor,” Ethan said.

  “No.” Lottie struggled to sit up. Her head might be spinning but there was one thing that she knew with absolute clarity, and it was that Ethan had to get away. For his sake, and even more importantly for Arland’s he had to go now, before it was too late.

  “Theo is coming,” she whispered. “You will be trapped, Ethan—if we tried to turn him in to the British no one would believe our word against his that he is a traitor. And I cannot let you kill him.” Her head felt so heavy; she rested it against Ethan’s shoulder and wished she had not for it felt so natural to be there in his arms, to curve into the protective shelter of his body. It felt so right, when she knew she had to give him up now once and for all.

  “The British will hang you now,” she said. “You know they will. Either for conspiracy—” she gestured toward the plans, blood-spattered and crumpled on the floor “—or for murder. You have to get out whilst you can. Go now.”

  Ethan had heard her out in silence, his eyes burning dark in his face. He bent to scoop her up. “If I go then you come with me,” he said, and his tone was uncompromising.

  Lottie held him off. It was the hardest thing she had ever done when she wanted to cling to him. “No,” she said. “You know I cannot.”

  He made a move toward her. “You can and you will.”

  “I would slow you down,” Lottie said. She gestured toward her bandaged shoulder. “Be sensible, Ethan! We would not get beyond a few miles! Besides, they would be looking for us. A man and a woman and a boy traveling together—we would be spotted at once.”

  Ethan’s jaw was set in the obstinate way she recognized. “I am not leaving without you.”

  “You must,” Lottie said. She struggled to her feet. The room spun about her like a top. Her legs felt weak, trembling. “I cannot travel,” she said softly, “and I have no reason to run. But you…” She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart beat against her palm. “Not only do you have to go for your own sake, Ethan. You know you have to do it for Arland’s sake.”

  There was a silence. Ethan was looking at her and there was stubbornness and tenderness in his eyes, and she thought of all the men who had left her from her father to her husband to each and every one of her lovers, and she looked at this man who would not leave her and she felt her heart turn over out of love for him.

  “You told me…” Her voice was husky with tears. “You told me that you had failed him,” she said. She clenched her hand against his shirt front. “This is your chance, Ethan. He is a boy. He needs you. You cannot fail him now.”

  Ethan’s arms came about her and this time she did not wince. “Lottie,” he said. His touch was full of love and anguish and gentleness, and she knew his decision was made.

  “I will come back for you,” he said fiercely. “I swear it.”

  “I’ll come back for you,” her father had said on that golden summer morning so long ago, and she had believed him. Now Lottie looked at Ethan and wanted to believe with all her heart. She felt the hope within her, the hope she had thought had been quite extinguished by the cynicism of experience, flicker and not quite die out.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you will.” She forced her lips into a smile. “Now go.”

  The words had barely left her when there was a rapping at the door.

  “Lottie!” It was Theo’s voice. “Open up!”

  Lottie gestured
toward the window. “He’s alone. You go that way. I will keep him here to give you a good chance of escape.” She put a hand on his arm and felt the unendurable tension in him.

  “Ethan,” she said.

  He covered her hand with his, swift and sure. She could sense his eagerness, knew that he hoped she had changed her mind about going with him, even as they both knew it was hopeless.

  Oh love, how shall I live without you…?

  “Pass the letter to me,” she said steadily. “And also my pistol from the desk drawer. I will feel more confident when I speak to Theo if I have that in my hand.”

  The hammering at the door was increasing and Theo’s shouts growing louder in volume. “I will break down the door!”

  Ethan hesitated. “What will you do with the plans?”

  “You know I cannot allow it to happen,” Lottie said. She met his gaze very directly. “I am sorry, Ethan.”

  There was a small spark of warmth and laughter in his eyes and she felt it, too. So odd, when her heart was breaking.

  “I understand,” he said. He crossed to the desk and took out the pistol, laying it on the table. She watched as he bent to pick up the papers. He did not hand them to her. He thrust them into the fire and watched the flames take them, watched them curl and burn and shrivel to ash.

  “I am sorry, too,” he said, “but I could not betray my comrades. It will not happen now anyway. Not if I am not here to give the word.”

  There was the sound of breaking glass. Lottie stood on tiptoe and kissed Ethan. For one long, endless moment they stood in each other’s arms and then there was the sound of rapid steps in the hall and Lottie stepped back.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I love you, too.”

  It was cold, so cold, without him beside her. Lottie picked up the pistol. It slid comfortingly into her hand. The door shuddered back on its hinges as Theo ran into the room. The window slammed behind Ethan. Theo’s gaze went to the lifeless body of Le Prevost and lifted slowly to meet Lottie’s. He made an involuntary movement toward the window and Lottie raised the pistol and he kept still.