“Be very careful,” Alaina whispered nervously. “The steps are narrow and curving. Just put your hands on the wall and feel ahead with your feet. You may feel something scurrying around. The mice are terrible down here.”
They made their way downstairs very slowly. Around the last curve in the stairway, Colt could see a glow of light just ahead. From directly in front of him, Alaina explained sarcastically, “Gavin sends someone down here regularly to make sure the torch is burning. I suppose he doesn’t want her to hate him too much, not if he’s planning to make her his mistress.”
Colt decided the whole pack of them were crazy. He didn’t give a damn about Alaina’s resentments over her lover, but the intricacies of these relationships might explain how he and his family had been swindled.
Alaina stepped into the cellar, Colt right behind her. As he took in the ghastly sight before him, he gave a low growl and sprang forward.
Briana lay on a pallet on the rough floor, ankles bound with rope, arms stretched above her head and tied. A kerchief was wrapped tightly around the lower part of her face, muffling her cries. Above the kerchief, her eyes were wide with shock at the sight of Colt kneeling before her.
He jerked the kerchief away, demanding, “What in hell’s going on? Are you all right?” He slipped his knife from inside his boot and cut her ropes.
As soon as her hands were freed, Briana began to massage her sore wrists to start the blood flowing.
Tears shimmering in her eyes, presenting a misty image of his beloved face, Briana could only shake her head and whisper, “Not now. We must get away from here. Gavin’s a madman, and this one”—she nodded toward Alaina—“is his lover and just as mad.”
With Colt’s help, Briana struggled to stand. Her legs were cramped from enduring her position on the floor for so long. “Believe me,” she told Colt, looking into his eyes and shuddering at the loathing she saw there, “I will tell you everything once we’re out of here.”
He nodded curtly. “Let’s move.”
“Wait.” She stepped away on stiff legs toward Alaina. “I’m taking my brother with me,” she declared staunchly. “Where is he? Is he at our cottage?”
“No,” Alaina said impatiently. “Get out of here now, before Gavin catches you.”
“Where is Charles?” Briana demanded.
“You didn’t think I was going to tend to a crippled child, did you?” Alaina asked, exasperated. “I had him taken to an orphanage near Paris. Find him yourself.”
Briana lunged at her, but Colt grabbed her. “There’s no time for this, God damn it.”
He slung the sobbing Briana aside, then grabbed Alaina by the arm and threw her to the floor, in the place where Briana had been tied. He yanked her hands up and tied them.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
Colt put the kerchief over her mouth, saying, “Sorry to have to do this, Alaina, but I’m not sure this isn’t a trick. If it is a trick, I can’t worry about you sounding an alarm.
“If it isn’t”—he paused and winked—“then Gavin won’t know you betrayed him. He’ll think I forced you to take me to Dani, then tied you up. You see, I’m only helping you.
“Let’s go,” he commanded.
Briana gestured toward the shadowy area beyond the wine kegs. “There! The gold Gavin got for selling your property. It’s all there. I watched his men bring down the crates.”
Colt decided to take a moment and check. Grabbing the torch, he carried it to where wooden crates were stacked. It took him a moment to examine the contents of one and see that it did, indeed, contain gold—his family’s fortune.
He went back to face Briana. “So Mason double-crossed you and decided to keep all the money for himself. I’ve got a lot of questions, and you’d better come up with some damn good answers.” He pushed her toward the stairway. “Move!”
Briana said nothing as they made their way up the stairs, taking the torch with them, leaving Alaina in darkness. Her muffled cries faded as they moved toward the top of the hatchway.
Colt extinguished the torch, whispering to Briana to wait. Then he slowly lifted the heavy wooden door and carefully peered out into the night. There was no sign of the guards. He reached for Briana’s arm and gave a tug, signaling that she should follow.
They ran through the night into the sheltering vines of the grape arbor, the decaying foliage rustling in the breeze.
Colt gripped Briana’s wrist as he led her all the way through the arbor and out the other side. When they reached a small stone wall that stood between the arbor and a road, she pulled back.
Colt jerked around to stare at her.
Quietly she said, “I must tell you something. Now.”
Colt eyed her warily. “I imagine, dear Sister,” he said in a voice that chilled her to the marrow, “that you have plenty to tell me. And I want to hear all of it. But I want to put a little distance between me and Mason before we talk. There’s no need for anybody to get killed over this.”
They jumped over the wall and ran a good distance down the road before he said, “Tomorrow, you and I and the local law will come back and get my share of the gold. Then you and Mason and Charles, whoever he is, can all go straight to hell.”
“Charles is my brother.”
Colt’s hand fell from her wrist. He blinked.
“I said, Charles is my brother,” she repeated.
Colt laughed harshly. “Maybe you’d better tell me the rest of it.”
Dear God she cried silently, help me.
She took a deep breath and then said simply, “I am not your sister.” As he stared down at her, his face unreadable, she rushed on. “Your sister, Dani, is in a convent in the mountains. She became a nun. And I…” She couldn’t go on.
Colt closed his eyes momentarily.
“As I said,” he told her in the coldest voice she had ever heard, “I imagine you have a lot to tell me. And I want to hear every goddamn word…”
He jerked her along behind him, pulling viciously as they ran down the dirt road.
Gavin finally extricated himself from the fleshy woman who had been clinging to him for the past half hour. Lord, how he hated fawning females, especially blubbery ones. But it was important, for now, that he make a good impression on the locals.
For that reason, too, he had ordered Delia to remain upstairs during the party. She was furious, but he was getting better and better at handling women’s tantrums. A rough hand once in a while did its share of good, he mused. That brought Alaina to mind. Where the hell was she? She’d better not be off someplace getting drunk, he thought furiously.
He left the smoke-filled parlor and made his way down the long hallway to the kitchen, where he found the three women cooks he had engaged for the evening, the deBonnett servants having all been let go when the Count’s money ran out. The women were sitting at the long wooden worktable. Kettles of food sat on the big black coal-burning stove, and the air was pungent with the odor of many delicacies. “Where is the Countess?” he demanded, speaking in French.
The two younger women looked to the older one, who was apparently in charge. She shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. She was here about an hour ago, but I haven’t seen her since.”
“Well”—he glared—“did she tell you when to serve dinner? It’s getting late.”
“She took a tray of food and a bottle of wine and left, saying she would return soon, and that dinner would be served when she got back.”
Gavin was getting angrier with each moment. “What the hell do you mean? Who did she take the tray to?” Damn, but he was mad. The servants were not to know about Briana being held prisoner in the cellar. Alaina knew that—just as she knew that he, himself, took care of feeding Briana. Twice a day he sent food down, and a guard untied Briana while she ate.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know who she took it to, monsieur.”
Gavin strode out the back door and onto the porch. There, on the stone steps leading in
to the rear courtyard, was a tray with two empty plates on it, and a wine bottle.
What in hell was going on? He hadn’t told Alaina to feed anyone, and Alaina never did anything on her own initiative.
He rounded the corner of the house, breathing furiously. Ahead, in the faint light from the windows, he saw the two guards leaning against the hatchway, giggling. Al was picking his teeth with the tip of a knife.
“God damn you,” Gavin bellowed, “you aren’t getting paid to have a party when you’re standing watch. Where’s the Countess?”
The two men straightened, exchanging nervous glances: They had heard stories about “the Snake’s” temper, and neither wanted to see it. Al spoke first. “We didn’t ask for nothing. She came out here with a tray for us and told us to go eat on the back porch, so we did.”
“No harm done,” Lem assured him anxiously. “We weren’t gone over fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Gavin was ready to explode. What was Alaina up to? He knew how angry she was with him lately—over Delia, and his plan to leave for Greece without her. He’d tried to coddle her in other ways, such as not raising hell when he found out she’d sent Charles to an orphanage without asking his permission.
His gaze went to the hatchway. Briana. Alaina hated Briana almost as much as she hated Delia. “Open it!” he commanded, and the men rushed to obey.
Gavin did not like making his way down the narrow steps without light, but there was no time to stop and get a torch. Just as that thought went through his mind, his foot touched something solid. He bent and retrieved the burned-out torch. He tossed it aside, suddenly terribly anxious. “Hurry up,” he urged Lem and Al.
The three took the stairs as fast as they dared. Before reaching the cellar, Gavin heard the muffled sounds.
He groped in the dark, found the struggling woman, found her face, the kerchief that silenced her, knew before he even yanked it away that he would hear Alaina’s voice in the black pit…not Briana’s.
She gasped, then cried hoarsely, “Colt! He took Briana!”
Gavin’s scream of rage reverberated along the stone walls like the cries of a hundred demons.
He whirled around, toward the stairs.
“Don’t leave me!” Alaina screamed. “Don’t leave me down here, Gavin, please—”
But Gavin was scrambling up the steps as fast as he could, his men right behind him.
Panting, he gave them orders. “Round up the others, and tell them to meet Hollister at the stable as fast as they can get there. He will give them further instructions.”
Al reminded him, “Hollister never comes out of that shack…not since that wildcat burned him.”
“Let me worry about that,” Gavin roared. “Do as I say!”
He started toward the little cottage where Hollister lived, Briana’s family’s house. But then he turned back toward the big house. There were guests to be taken care of, and he didn’t want them to hear the commotion. How he wished now he had never given the party, had not yielded to the desire to let everyone know the family was no longer destitute.
He called to Al, telling him quietly to return to the cellar and free Alaina and tell her to go to the kitchen at once.
He returned, briefly, to the party and apologized to his guests, telling them that something had gone very wrong in the kitchen. Hoping they were all too drunk to care about the delay or his absence, he went to the kitchen where he was relieved to find Alaina. She was terribly shaken, but he calmed her quickly enough to keep her from babbling in front of the servants.
He dragged her into an empty room and then, stammering with shock, she sobbed out her story. She’d felt sorry for the guards, and taken them a tray. On her way back inside, Coltrane had assaulted her, threatening to slash her throat if she made a sound. He made her show him where Briana was, and he’d tied her up so she couldn’t sound an alarm when he made off with Briana.
As she finished her story, Alaina flung her arms around Gavin’s neck and pleaded, “Don’t be angry with me, please. He forced me.”
Gavin endured Alaina’s embrace, so as not to upset her further. “Did he know Briana wasn’t Dani?” he asked furiously.
She shook her head. “No. At least…he didn’t say anything to make me think so. But you know she’ll tell him everything.”
“No doubt,” he murmured grimly. He pursed his lips thoughtfully. There was only one thing to do, he knew that much.
He issued orders quickly while Alaina listened, nodding. The guests were to be called to dinner, served, and then ushered out of the house as politely but as quickly as possible. Excuses were to be made for his absence. A sick friend would do.
He left and hurried to the cottage, where he found Dirk Hollister sitting in the shadows before the cold fireplace, his head wrapped in a cocoon-like tourniquet, sunk in misery. A single candle offered scant light.
Gavin drew up a chair and sat down beside him, but Dirk didn’t even speak. He continued to sit, huddled, staring into the ashes of the hearth.
Gavin reached over and touched his knee. “Hollister?” Hell, did the man even have his sanity anymore? Gavin had been too busy to visit him. Maybe he was worse off than anyone realized.
Without turning around, Dirk mumbled, “Leave me alone.”
“I can’t,” Gavin was quick to inform him. “We’ve got trouble, big trouble. I reed—”
“Trouble?” Dirk cried in fury. “You think you’ve got trouble? I’ll show you trouble…” He pulled away the bandage around his head and turned so that Gavin had a full view.
“This,” Dirk declared, voice trembling with rage and pain, “is trouble! I’ve got to go through life looking like this…a goddamn dried-up grape!”
Usually, Gavin was hard-pressed to find sympathy for anyone. But in that moment he genuinely pitied Dirk Hollister. Here was a once-handsome man, who’d been turned into a side-show freak.
Dirk Hollister looked like a slab of overcooked bacon. His flesh was red and yellow and shriveled, and the doctor had bluntly declared that it would always be that way. He was scarred for life.
Dirk lifted red-rimmed eyes to Gavin. “I want you to know, you’d better keep me away from that bitch. Because if I ever lay eyes on her again, I’ll kill her, and nobody will be able to stop me.”
“No one will try,” Gavin said.
Dirk was surprised. “You mean that?”
Gavin quickly told him what had happened. With each word, spirit returned to that broken man.
“Your men are waiting for you to lead them,” Gavin said slowly. “I am going to make arrangements for a ship to take us to Greece. As soon as we can, we’ll load the gold and set sail.
“I want you,” he went on, placing an arm around Dirk’s shoulders, “to find Coltrane and kill him. Bring the girl to me and—”
“No!” Dirk cried furiously. “I want her. I’ll make her beg to die for what she’s done to me.” His body trembled with fury and longing.
“Bring her to me. Don’t touch her,” Gavin ordered. “When I’m done with her, I promise you can have her.
“Do it my way, he continued emphatically, and I will see to it that you leave France a rich man. You can do whatever you want with Briana later on. And you’ll never have to worry about money again.” He paused. “Do we have an agreement?”
Dirk held out his hand and Gavin took it. Their bargain was made.
They left the cottage and hurried out into the night…and whatever the night would hold for them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Branch met Colt and Briana on the road, and the look he gave her made her cringe. He, stared at her with pure contempt, as though she had betrayed him. She couldn’t bear it.
Brokenly she whispered, “I did not want it to be this way. I swear I had no choice, Branch.”
He stared at her wordlessly.
Colt mounted the horse Branch had waiting for him, and then pulled Briana up behind him. “We’d better put some distance between us and Mason,” he to
ld Branch. “There will be plenty of time to talk later.” He related only that Dani was, indeed, in a convent, and the woman behind him was an imposter.
“It was all a hoax, a swindle,” he explained, voice cracking.
Briana dared to speak up. “I will tell you all about it as we ride.”
Colt jerked around in the saddle and glared at her. How he wanted to hit her, the lying, conniving bitch. “Just keep still until I tell you to speak.”
After they’d ridden for a while, Colt demanded to know where Dani was. “I want to see my sister and find out what, if anything, she knew about all of this.”
“She knew nothing,” Briana told him.
Then Branch interjected, “Who the hell are you, girl? And how did you get involved in all this?”
“My name is Briana de Paul,” she said calmly, grateful for the chance to tell them even a little. “I worked as a servant for the deBonnetts. My father was their caretaker until he died, and we lived in a small cottage on the estate.” Then she rushed on to explain about the deBonnett money being lost, and Dani becoming a nun, and Gavin’s plan.
“The letter from Dani’s father,” she added, “came at just the time Dani was to leave to enter the convent. She knew nothing about the letter, so of course she knew nothing about Gavin’s scheme to claim her share.”
Tentatively, when they didn’t stop her from talking, she said, “I did as I was told so as to save my little brother. He’s crippled, and…” She trailed off, in tears, feeling that they didn’t even believe that much.
Colt insisted on riding to the convent, and Briana explained that it was situated on a mountain called Jaune, near the Italian border. She didn’t bother telling them that the mountain was thus named because in the spring and summer months the slopes were covered with bright yellow wildflowers.
“Going there would be a waste of time,” she warned. “It is a severe cloister, an order of nuns who remove themselves from the outside world and never leave the convent. They never allow visitors. Dani told me all of this. It is a very strict sect, and you will probably not be permitted to see her. Besides, she knows nothing about this, I promise you.”
Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 Page 27