Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 05] - Nanette

by Patricia Veryan

  Sanguinet's eyes widened at the epithet. "I think," he murmured, "you will regret that insult. And I think also that you dare not shoot, poor fellow, for my men they would hear."

  "Perhaps you should not refine overmuch on that either." The drawl was lazy but the glitter in the green eyes almost gave Sanguinet pause until he recalled that he held all the cards in this deadly game. "You can do nothing," he shrugged. " Délicieux, is it not? Even have I do everything you and my lovely Annabelle suspect, I am the diplomatist. I represent a government with which your Foreign Office is of an anxiety to improve relations. They do not risk the international incident for merely the foolish little tragedy you tell them."

  "Governments be damned!" Harry flashed. "You'll answer to me for your crimes! And your sword can speak for you—not your glib tongue!"

  "Allons, done! Allons! How may you accuse me of a crime when you are already totally without the credit? Can it be possible, monsieur, you have not yet see my posters? Your England is very full of them—all having your likeness and naming you the kidnapping rapist who have steal my so-loved daughter." He chuckled softly. "Ah, but how pale you are become, mon ami—and with reason—for truly you are a marked man. Do any of your so-upright British peasants lay the eye upon you and you are hung by your heels before two words you may speak!"

  Cold fingers shivered down Harry's spine, but he said scornfully, "Gammon! You'd not do so, for it would ruin Nanette completely, and—"

  "And do but think, Redmond, how gallant I shall then seem in the eyes of the world—to take this shamed girl and give her my noble name."

  "You filthy scum!" Harry's finger tightened on the trigger. "You would ruin her—just to force her to—"

  Perceiving belatedly that his gloating had carried him too far, Sanguinet said sharply, "Kill me, and it shall but lend the credence to my posters!"

  Nanette, who had stood in stunned silence, now intervened, "Harry! Do not! I think I have found a way to prove some of our suspicions, at all events! Papa's coach has folding inner walls which can be closed to conceal the centre. They are very cleverly painted so as to indicate empty seats and a far window, and to anyone casually glancing inside, the carriage would be apparently unoccupied. We have only to tell the Bow Street people, and—"

  "By God!" Harry exclaimed exuberantly. "So that's how it was done! We—"'

  A branch crashed against the windows and glass shredded into the room. The draperies billowed inward, the wind blowing out all the candles. Nanette gave an involuntary cry of shock, and Harry's anxious glance flashed to her. Untroubled by a concern for any but himself, Sanguinet snatched up a candelabrum and with a savage swipe, smashed the pistol from Harry's hand. In an instantaneous reaction, Harry's left hand clamped around that flailing wrist and twisted; the candelabrum went clattering down. Sanguinet wrenched away and darted for the long library table. A smallsword lay on that table, the jewelled hilt winking in the fire light. He whipped the blade from the scabbard and spun about, the steel whistling through the air in a deadly arc that forced the pursuing Harry to leap desperately aside.

  "En garde.'" cried Sanguinet, and advanced, the sword circling.

  Harry retreated, his eyes probing the dimness for something with which to defend himself.

  "Papa! I beg of you!" Nanette implored. "He has no weapon!"

  Her stepfather stopped at once and, slanting a teasing glance at her, asked, "You will wed me, then, do I spare this one?"

  "Yes…" she said in anguished helplessness. "Anything! Only—"

  "Only—hell!" grated Harry and, vaulting the sofa, snatched a poker from the hearth, then flung himself clear of the blade that flashed not an inch from his ribs.

  "Sottise, man petit chou!" cried Sanguinet gleefully. "You will wed me irregardless!" Even as he spoke he was swaying away from Harry's powerful thrust. "How sad—is it not sad, Anabelle? His weapon is ill chosen—it is too short. Voila!"

  Like a streak of white fire his point shot for Harry's chest. Harry twisted with lithe ease, and if the sword ripped through his sleeve, his poker struck home also, slamming down across Sanguinet's out-flung left hand so that a shout of pain was drawn from the Frenchman.

  A thunderous barrage rang out. The door to the hall shook, and anxious voices cried, "Monseigneur! M. Guy has been beaten! Monseigneur!"

  "Break down the door!" shouted Sanguinet. The amusement had vanished from his face, for what he had imagined a comfortably one-sided game had lost its charm. His hand hurt, and M. Parnell Sanguinet did not like to be hurt. "I have deal with your papa," he snarled, "and your so-foolish impertinence of a brother. With you, Monsieur le Capitaine, I shall be less kind!"

  He was no mean swordsman and his fierce attack sent Harry reeling back, deflecting the flurry of thrusts as best he might. A sustained pounding from the doors rivalled the occasional peals of thunder, but those doors were old and solid… With luck they might hold until he triumphed—for triumph he would, by God! He was at a slight disadvantage, perhaps, but he must win, for Papa, and Mitch, and to free his beloved from this insane satyr!

  Appalled by the ferocity of the fast-moving struggle, Nanette disregarded both the cacophony of the mounting storm and the assault upon the doors, her entire concentration on that murderous smallsword and Harry's hopelessly ineffectual poker. She marvelled at his skill, his sure and agile movements, his unyielding defence and occasional attack. Time and again he eluded death by a whisper. Time and again the sword was beaten aside, the fierce lunges evaded. She pressed her hand to her mouth, praying the outcome was nor inevitable, and running clear when the deadly battle swept towards her.

  Sanguinet fought mostly in sexte, only occasionally switching into quatre. He was very skilled, but had they been equally armed, Harry felt he would have had a good chance. He soon discovered, however, that his opponent possessed one inestimable advantage: He could see in the dark! The strange eyes that had been so narrowed by day were wide now, the movements swiftly unerring, whereas Harry-was unfamiliar with the new furniture placement, and the flickering light of the fire cast deep shadows, which added to his peril. Again Parnell was attacking, the thrust almost catching his side. At the last instant he struck the blade upward but, leaping in for what might have been a telling blow, tripped over an unseen footstool, tumbled heavily, and only saved himself by a frantic roll to the side. He sprang up on the instant, but he was panting; and scanning his face, Sanguinet laughed softly. "You have hurt your arm, yes? And only look at how the hand it is swollen. I wonder, mon ami—could it, do you think, have… mortified . . ?"

  Thunder shook the house and a new barrage rattled the doors. Sanguinet's lunge was blindingly fast, and a long rent appeared in the side of Harry's jacket, his jump back having been just a shade too slow. Nanette thought frenziedly, "My dear God! He is getting tired!"

  The flash of lightning was very close and a vivid blue-white; Sanguinet blinked, his eyes squinting. Harry jumped forward; his poker smashed the blade down, then rammed hard under the Frenchman's ribs. Sanguinet's mouth flew open, his eyes started out, and he doubled up and went to his knees, the sword tumbling from his hand.

  With a cry of triumph, Harry tossed the poker away and scooped up the smallsword. He was breathing hard, sweat streaked his face, and his arm throbbed mercilessly. But he was elated, and as Nanette ran to him, sobbing her relief, he swept her into a brief, fierce hug.

  Both arms folded across his middle, choking for breath, Sanguinet straightened slowly, to find the point of his own blade at his throat and beyond it the pale, grim face of a man who had every reason to kill without mercy. "Please!" he gasped. "Please… do not! I will . . pay you . . !"

  "Fool! What price would you put on my father's life? My brother's self-respect? You are a murdering, slimy apology for a human being—say it!"

  Sanguinet wet dry lips. "I am… a murdering… slimy apology for…a human being! Anything! What do you want? Name it! I do not wish… to be dead."

  Harry had not expected such a
craven display and said with a curl of the lip, "You whining cur! My brother has more courage in his little finger than—" He checked as a shot roared above the howl of the wind and the wood of the door splintered, but the bolt held. "Devil take you," he gritted. "I would dearly love to watch you hang, but—I'd just as lief kill you by my own hand! And I will— does that door fall!"

  Death glared in his eyes, and Sanguinet yowled a frantic command so that at once his men ceased their efforts.

  "Paper and pen, little one," said Harry. "Quickly, now." She ran to obey, and he went on, "I want a written confession, Sanguinet. Everything! My father, and Schofield— How did you entrap Barney?"

  "He w-was devoted to his wife… May I please get up now?"

  Harry said inexorably, "We were, I believe, discussing Grace Schofield."

  Sanguinet whimpered, "She—she adores that… miserable weakling of a son."

  "Yes. Probably even more now that he is blind—poor devil."

  "He—m-misappropriated funds… from the Officers Club.—No! Do not! I have help… Schofield! I swear, by le bon Dieu.I help him keep it quiet!"

  "And your price was my father's life!" snarled Harry. "You damned nail! That scandal would have destroyed Grace, and Barney worshipped her! I knew it had to be something like that! By thunder, but you don't deserve to live!"

  Sanguinet cringed back, but was reprieved as Nanette brought a Standish and paper. "Up—foulness!" Harry gave the kneeling man a hard prod. "We—"

  The lightning this time lit every corner of the room with an unearthly blue glare. There was an ear-splitting explosion. The house shuddered to a tremendous shock, and the entire front wall burst inward. Harry was conscious of a heavy odour of sulphur, and glass and bricks raining down. In that split second he knew that the great oak had been struck and was crashing into the room. His reaction was instinctive. He grasped Nanette and pulled her away from the hail of branches and debris. In an equally instinctive reaction, Sanguinet whipped a small pistol from a desk drawer, only to be sent sprawling as the room became a ravening chaos.

  With arms tight about his love, Harry saw a dark mass hurtling at them and shoved her violently away. Icy wet leaves whipped about him; twigs raked down his face. A staggering shock; a great weight driving the breath from his lungs. The darkness became absolute.

  The smell of smoke was heavy in the room, and Sanguinet's voice, shrill and hysterical, keened through the darkness. "You cannot escape me! This I swear!" Dazed, Harry muttered, "Are we… in your realm then? Don't seem… hot enough…"

  "Harry!" A soft hand slapped gently at his cheek. "Oh, Harry… please… I cannot move it. Please, wake up!"

  He responded at once to the note of panic in that dear voice and strove to rise, but in vain. A branch across his shoulder pinned him on his left side and something was grinding into his back so that he could scarcely breathe. The lightning's next flare revealed Nanette bending over him, her hair tumbled and thick with dust, the dirt on her face channelled by tears. He also caught a glimpse of Sanguinet digging himself from under a pile of rubble and the sheer disaster that was his papa's so-loved library, with books and furniture scattered and buried under branches, splintered wood, and bricks. When the thunderclap died away, he commanded, "Nanette, go quickly! Is the door clear?"

  "No. They tried to get in, but it is quite blocked. And I will not leave you!" She tugged at the branch desperately.

  After a wracking effort, Harry panted, "It is—no… use. If they've half the brains… God gave 'em, they'll come in through… the wall. Nanette—stop! Can you not understand? If we are both caught, we are both doomed. If you get away, he will not dare—

  "I won't! I won't! Harry—try! I beg you! Try!"

  "He will but waste the time!" yowled Sanguinet, scrabbling frantically about. "Do not imagine, Redmond, that you live to boast of tricking me into having kneel at your feet! For that you die slowly—by my soul, I swear it!"

  A muffled sob escaped Nanette. "There! It gave a little, I think! Push!"

  Harry's back was commencing to regain some feeling, which was miserably unfortunate, but he strove until the sweat ran into his eyes. "For the love of God—go!" he gasped out. "We're fairly at Point Non-Plus, little shrew. Get to Cancrizans Priory—it's near a village called Pudding Park, in Dorset. I have… good friends there. They'll know what to do."

  She put one hand to her brow, weeping in so distraught a fashion that he forced a harsh, "Blast it all! Do you want him to murder me? With you safely away, he won't dare! Go!" She bent above him and he caught a faint vestige of perfume as her lips brushed his cheek; then she was gone. But the next flash revealed Sanguinet staggering to his feet and beginning to search about, and knowing for what he sought, Harry gritted his teeth and fought madly to escape.

  "Do not so distress yourself…" A lurid glare was beginning to flicker through the darkness, and by that glow Sanguinet looked quite crazed, covered with grime, hair awry, lips drawn back from grinning teeth, eyes gleaming redly. And in his hand, a small black pistol.

  Harry abandoned his futile efforts. "Another—perfect crime?"

  "More, shall I say—'tidy' at the least. Permit that I tell you, Redmond. To the very last I think your papa he will elude me. My scheme, he is meticuleux, but almost I am foiled! At the finish, I have him, though! He was, dear my friend, quite aware when I aim the pistol. Just as I now do. He is paralyze from the drug, but he have watch me and see what is coming…" His giggle sent a blazing rage through Harry, but sensing that such an emotion would gratify his tormentor, he said with cool aplomb, "Poor chap. Your loft is really full of maggots, isn't it."

  The hand holding that black and deadly pistol jerked. Sanguinet said purringly, "Insouciant—how admirable. But think on this while you lie here and wish to be dead—I shall find my Annabelle… Ah, that take away your smile, no?" His finger tightened on the trigger. "In the spine, I think, will give you sufficient time to repent…" He took careful aim. Harry felt sick; he had seen men die from such a wound and could only pray he'd not make too much of a cake of himself.

  The explosion was sharp and deafening.

  Sweating, his teeth gritted tight, Harry felt nothing more than the misery he presently endured.

  An expression of unspeakable dread was on Sanguinet's face. He coughed and, striving to raise the sagging pistol, choked horribly, sank to his knees, and pitched forward.

  For a long moment Harry gazed disbelievingly at his huddled shape. Then he looked up. Nanette stood very still amid the wreckage, Guy Sanguinet's silver pistol dangling from her hand.

  The wind howled, the rain drummed, and from somewhere outside, fire sent an ever brighter glare filtering through the smashed wall to play upon three people who moved not at all.

  A crash and a flurry of distant shouts roused Harry. Nanette must not be found here! He called her name, but she made no response, continuing to gaze with that awful concentration at her stepfather. "Nanette!" he pleaded. "little one… my shrew!" The last term drew her wide gaze to him, the horror in the big eyes giving way to an agony of despair that wrung his heart. "My brave girl! Never look so—he was not worth one instant of your grief!" But her expression was unchanged, save that now she shuddered violently. "Help me," he cried urgently. "Little one—I need you!"

  She came at once to stand looking down at him, keeping her head turned from Sanguinet. Harry waited out a deafening peal of thunder, then asked her to find something to use as a lever. She obeyed numbly and, returning with a bookshelf trailing behind her, heaved at it until she was able to thrust it under the branch, then threw all her lithe young strength against it. Harry strove mightily, and at last, with a twist that made him groan under his breath, was able to crawl clear.

  The branch crashed down as he scrambled to his feet, but Nanette stood unmoving, her eyes once again upon her stepfather. Harry tottered stiffly to take the bookshelf she still held and toss it aside. He pulled her into his arms and she clung to him, whimpering, "What a ghastly, gh
astly… thing . . !"

  He had expected the shot to result in an immediate resumption of the assault on the door. That it had not done so he attributed either to the fact that Sanguinet's men were making their way around to the front of the house so as to enter through the wreckage, or that they were all occupied with the burning tree. In either case, to leave the library by way of the break in the wall might well be to walk into a vengeful reception. He glanced to the hall door, but it was hopelessly blocked. Certainly, to stay where they were would be disastrous… He knew the girl was watching him and, not wishing to further frighten her, replied calmly, "Yes. Well, I rather think we should toddle off, little one. We have likely outworn our welcome here… "

  She neither responded nor followed as he turned away, but when he reached back and took her hand, accompanied him meekly. He guided her carefully through the rubble, his way lighted by the lurid glow that grew ever brighter. When they reached the shattered wall, he told her to wait in the deeper shadows while he reconnoitred and was inwardly astounded by the placid quiet with which she obeyed. He clambered stiffly through the ragged aperture and was at once plunged into a maelstrom of wind and rain, the howling gusts interspersed by a deal of confused shouting. The oak tree had always seemed large, but stretched on the ground it was enormous. It was not burning as he had supposed; the upper floor of Moire was ablaze. Mitchell's room must have been struck by the same bolt that had felled the tree. A bucket brigade had been organized, and many men strove frenziedly against the roaring flames. For a second, Harry stood motionless, his heart twisting; then he swung quickly back to lift Nanette over the wall and into the fortuitous screen of the branches.

  She made no attempt to protect herself from the lash of wind and rain, and he wrapped his jacket about her and gently placed her hand on the front to hold it closed. Peering at her through the leaping red glow he saw a faint, remote smile on her dirty little face, and fear touched him. He slipped his arm protectively about her and, shivering, led her down the slope towards the Home Wood. For as long as he was able, he kept the bulk of the downed oak between them and the fire fighters, but soon they were crossing the pleasure gardens, the glare of the fire all about them, and no concealment at hand. With every step he expected they would be seen, but their luck held from one taut moment to the next. They were almost to the river when he heard a howled, "Murder! Monseigneur's been shot in the back! Look for Redmond! Murder!" He swore under his breath and pulled Nanette into a run over the old stone bridge… shot in the back . . !' Lord! What a mess!"