Christien would have to face Theodore with this threat hanging over him. He dare not use his full skill for fear of reprisal against Marguerite. With the lingering effects of his injury, he would be at a double disadvantage.
Could he surmount the difficulty so as to snatch some form of triumph from the meeting? Or must he accept the denial of justice for Vinot’s daughter and, yes, the danger of dying on Theodore’s sword?
Between the safety of lover or child, there could be only one choice for Reine. She would allow Christien to stay his hand, would accept that sacrifice from him if she must.
The question was whether she could live with the consequences.
23
“He has your rapiers.”
It was Gavin Blackford who made that observation as they stood in the wooded clearing with the great oak tree, waiting for Pingre and his seconds to get ready. The English swordsman should recognize them, Christien knew. The beautifully wrought dueling swords had once belonged to Ariadne, Gavin’s wife, before she sold them to Christien, and had been purchased by her in Paris and brought to New Orleans. It was unlikely there was another pair like them in Louisiana.
“I can’t say I’m surprised,” he answered.
“Like the frog with the fly stuck to its nose, it does rather leap to the eye. They were lost on the night you were shot from the ambuscade, therefore…”
“Therefore, I am to be killed with my own weapon as I refused to oblige Pingre by dying from that injury.”
“Only if you accept what he offers. Others are available.”
That was certainly true. Every former maître d’armes present had his sword at hand this morning, from habit if not necessity. Gavin and Caid had brought theirs as a matter of course since it was always possible that some mischance or display of temper during a duel would require their forceful intervention. “I see no reason to object. They would have been my choice if still in my possession. Could be poetic justice will be served.”
“His thought, as well, or so I would imagine.”
“Then we are equal.”
“Unless he has altered the blades in some manner.”
Christien lifted a brow as he met his friend’s bright blue eyes. “Your province, I think, to see that no such mischief occurs.”
“Oh, yes, and I will govern it as I can, but he’s a wily beast and bent on execution.”
“He’s welcome to try.”
“Oh, all my piastres would be on you, except for the minor handicaps of a great bloody rent in your side and a child’s life hanging in the balance. Tell me, should I chance it?”
Despite the brutal obscurity of their phrasing, Gavin’s words usually had a point to them. Christien had learned to take note. “If you’re asking whether I’m fit, the answer is yes, within reason. If you want to know whether I can ignore the welfare of Madame Pingre’s daughter in any degree, you should know better.”
“No, no, you mistake me,” the English sword master said with the ghost of a smile. “I inquire only for how you will neutralize the danger to the innocent while still, and inevitably, belaboring the guilty.”
“I haven’t decided,” Christien said with a frown. “When I do, I’ll let you know.”
“Excellent,” Blackford answered with fine cheer, “as long as you have it in mind.”
Christien had thought of little else from the moment he read the note from Marguerite’s father. The problem had been clearing the rage from his mental processes.
That Pingre would use his daughter as a shield was beneath contempt. It was also of a piece with his night attack on the man who dared propose a second marriage to his wife. He had been content to remain safely dead while she was the grieving widow in retreat from clacking tongues. He might care little for her as a woman, but she represented his name, his heritage, his value as a human being while she still mourned him. The prospect of a new life for her he viewed as a betrayal, one as cutting to his pride as deliberate adultery. He could not allow it.
The reaction was not unexpected. What they had not counted on, he and Vinot, was the lengths Pingre would go to in order to remove his rival. They had looked for him to surface in order to reclaim his rights as a husband, even at the risk of a meeting over his past deeds. They had planned no defense against attempted murder, had not imagined he would hold his own daughter hostage to protect his miserable hide.
It was a costly mistake for which Christien took full responsibility. His task now was to make sure the price wasn’t more than Reine could pay.
Gavin and Caid laid out the piste, removing any broken branches, twigs, briars and vines that might trip the unwary and marking the boundary lines with powdered lime dribbled from the bunghole of a wooden keg. By rights, the task should have been overseen jointly with Pingre’s seconds, but they had declined the office. They were sure the former sword masters had a better grasp of the requirement than they did. More than that, they were unlikely to dispute with such dangerous gentlemen if it was not to their liking. They were quite free to do as they pleased.
All was done, rather, with the greatest of fairness, the lines being drawn so neither man would have the rising sun in their eyes. Pingre was allowed to call the toss of the coin for position. To Christien went first selection of the two weapons presented. They took their places as the sun came up, striking through the trees, sending their long shadows slipping ahead of them over the grass.
A warm breeze stirred the leaves overhead to a soft murmur, like an audience waiting for the play to begin. Birds whistled in the distance. A grasshopper left the area with a clicking sound, as if its knees were popping. Somewhere a dog barked and cattle lowed, waiting to be milked. The sky overhead was rinsed to palest blue by heat and sunlight.
Pingre was sweating, Christien noted. For all his base preparations, he was still nervous of the outcome. As well he should be.
The man’s gaze moved over the gathering, from the few distant neighbors to the swordsmen and on to Paul, who stood to one side. Chalmette drooped next to him, his long face hangdog and lost without little Marguerite. The man’s eyes settled on Vinot, a thin, dark form in the forefront of the gathered spectators. It seemed Pingre felt the need to keep an eye on the father of the young woman he had wronged. That was also wise of him. Not that Vinot would interfere at this point; he was far too experienced in these affairs for that kind of error. Yet neither would he permit the slightest deviation from the rules of conduct.
In the pitiless light of day, it was easy to see one reason Pingre had elected to remain hidden from society. To a man of overweening pride, vain of his appearance and his attractiveness to women, the destruction of his face must have come as a blow. Healing would have taken months; the scars would never go away. Pingre’s beard concealed some part of the damage, but its unkempt state added to the feral, not quite human, look of him. It was no wonder Marguerite had seized on the name she had given him.
“Salute,” Gavin called.
Christien swept up his blade in crisp respect for an enemy in this ritual form of combat. Pingre’s movement was sloppy, with a derisive edge that plainly showed respect for nothing and no one, least of all himself.
“En garde!”
Their blade tips came together with hard purpose. They watched each other above them, gauging will, strength and purpose.
“Begin!”
Christien allowed Pingre the first attack, deflecting it with a parry in quarte and a riposte that taught a quick lesson in caution. He would not attempt a lightning coup, would not essay a crippling blow, but neither would he be easily touched. They settled then to a series of small passages to see precisely what each was made of.
Pingre was a competent swordsman. At a guess, he had spent much of his time practicing over the past two years. How had that been accomplished if he seldom ventured into town?
“You are to be congratulated on your skill,” Christien said conversationally. “Who has been your maître d’armes?”
“No one you w
ould know.”
“Try me. You might be surprised.”
“A gentleman sent from Paris by my mother, Monsieur Thibaut. He was with me for a year.”
“Long enough to instruct you in the finer points, yes, and perhaps instruct a sparring partner.”
“As you say.”
The answer was short, though not merely because Pingre was reluctant to admit he was right, Christien saw in the middle of an adroit parry. He was also growing winded. He might have practiced, but it was without the dedication that builds endurance.
It also came to him in a flash of memory who Pingre’s partner must have been, the only man it could have been.
“To kill your sparring partner was somewhat rash. What did Kingsley do to deserve it, I wonder? Oh, but permit me to guess. He failed to kill me but demanded to be paid regardless.”
“Greedy bastard deserved to die. He tried to blackmail me. Me! We fought. He went into the river.”
“An accident, was it? I had thought it a duel.”
Pingre made a sound that might have been a grunt or a laugh while parrying in his turn. “Oh, yes. Naturally.”
“Though like Vinot and myself, you did not consider Kingsley a gentleman, I believe. Your standards seemed to have undergone considerable revision.” His opponent obviously felt he could get away with his ridiculous claim. What then did he intend to say was behind Christien’s own death? The right of the cuckold husband to defend his honor? It would not be the first time such a defense was used.
“A man doesn’t choose his enemies.” Pingre hurtled into another attack, this one with more brawn than finesse, as if made bold by his own rhetoric.
Christien, defending, was aware of the growing strain in his side. He thought the scab covering it had broken for he could feel a warm trickle inching into the waistband of his trousers. “And there is no enemy like family, is there? I say that because I heard a rumor Kingsley was your uncle.”
“That lout was no kin of mine.”
“No? Your honored grandfather may have thought differently. But say he wasn’t, one need not feel bound to uphold all the honorable conventions with such opponents, yes? What ruse did you use to defeat him?”
Contempt twisted the man’s misshapen mouth. “He was a cowhanded farmer pretending to be a swordsman. I needed no ruse.”
“I am a different proposition, apparently.”
“So you are.”
“Yet to drag a child into the business is a drop down the scale, even for you.”
“When you are a maître d’armes? Not knowing your level of expertise, I arranged extra protection. I think now I could have taken you without my little safeguard.”
It was exactly what Christien wanted Pingre to think. Toward that end, he had done little more than skirmish while keeping his more expert stratagems in reserve. “Do you indeed?” he inquired, all affability. “Or do you only contemplate some underhanded trick like a shot in the dark or a slash in the back? I should warn you the Brotherhood is more than a name or a handful of men fighting in the dark against those who choose to become bestial. It’s a circle of friends dedicated to hardihood, prowess and honor, each one of whom stands ready to resent injury to the others to the last red drop of his blood.” He smiled in deadly earnest. “We do choose our enemies, you see.”
To one side, where stood Dr. Laborde, come from town that morning, his seconds, Gavin and Caid, looked at each other. Behind them, where Pasquale and the Conde de Lérida stood, there was a similar shift. Though Christien had scant attention to give them while parrying rapidly in tierce, he had the impression that they came to attention like soldiers awaiting battle, a lethal phalanx of friends. And he heard the quiet hiss of blades being drawn.
“Fine lot of good that will do you when you’re dead,” Pingre, unheeding, answered with a sneer.
“Oh, but I didn’t tell you all of it,” Christien answered without raising his voice. “They each adore their wives and children and cannot suffer them to feel fear or pain. This tenderness is extended to every child anywhere who cries in the dark. Learning of an injury to the one, they draw their swords against the man who caused the hurt. And they will not rest until every single tear that falls from the sweetling’s eye has been avenged.”
Counter threat to threat against Marguerite; it was the best Christien could do. Hard on the words, he sprang forward into an attack with his most polished ruse behind it and every ounce of his will. His blade clashed with Pingre’s, slid edge to edge in a shower of sparks, slithered past guard and handle and reached warm, yielding flesh.
Pingre screamed in shock and rage as he fell back with his free hand clamped to his neck. Christien dragged his rapier free with a wrenching pull, stepped back out of guard position.
Gavin moved forward with sword in hand, a bulwark between Christien and his opponent. Turning toward him, he asked, “Are you satisfied, Monsieur Pingre?”
Murder shone from the eyes of Reine’s husband, even as blood appeared on the collar of his shirt, soaking it, running down the sleeve to drip onto the sword still in his hand. He wanted to answer in the negative; that much was clear. It was also plain to be seen that he lacked the expertise to gain the victory he craved or the nerve to go on without it.
“I’m satisfied,” he said in guttural defeat.
Christien waited for relief to take the tension from his muscles. It didn’t come. His bow was stiff, his movements almost jerky as he turned away.
Pingre growled low in his throat, the sound erupting into a roar as he sprang forward. Whipping around, Christien saw the bared teeth, the twisted lips, blood-streaked sleeve and raised blade. Taken unawares by trust in unwritten rules, he flung up his sword even knowing it could not meet Pingre’s blade in time.
There was no need.
The attack was stopped by a mighty, ringing clang with myriad echoes as four men leaped forward, Caid, Gavin, Nicholas and Rio, swords upraised in their hands. The movement set them between Christien and his enemy, a ring of steel between him and death. So they stood, holding Pingre’s blade aloft, their cold, implacable faces turned against him. Then as one, they heaved him backward.
Gavin snatched the man’s rapier as he stumbled, falling to the ground. As Pingre scooted away on his haunches, putting distance between him and his judges, the Englishman flipped the retrieved sword back toward Christien. It landed upright in the grassy earth, waving slowly back and forth, shining and bright in the morning sun.
Christien watched it an instant, then looked up, looked toward where Reine’s husband had lain sprawled, cursing with liquid rage in his eyes.
He was up and running.
Pingre was sprinting through the woods toward the old playhouse where his ancient nursemaid, Demeter, lived, running toward his family land, his old family home. He was running toward the one place where he might keep a small child locked away from sight.
He was running toward Marguerite.
24
River’s Edge was deathly quiet. The men had left before dawn, departing without breakfast, with no fanfare or word of farewell. A duel was not usually an affair to the death, and to treat it so was like asking for ill fortune; still, that careless sangfroid seemed to fly in the face of reason. Or perhaps, Reine thought, she was simply pained that Christien had not kissed her goodbye.
She could not bear to think of where he was going or why, much less of what might happen. Dread consumed her. She was torn between visions of Marguerite confined somewhere, crying in terror or pain, and Theodore hacking at Christien while knowing he could do little more than defend himself.
Oh, but was that true? Christien had never agreed to stay his hand completely. He had exercised great patience in his quest for vengeance. Might he not feel it took precedence? What if he decided a fatal, or near fatal, injury for Theodore was more likely to remove the danger to Marguerite than letting him return to wherever she was being held?
Where was Marguerite while this duel was taking place? Who was holdi
ng her? Who did Theodore expect to injure her, possibly even kill her, if he was defeated? The questions revolved endlessly in Reine’s mind, had since the moment Theodore’s note was put into her hand.
There was only one answer that she could see. It had to be in the same place, with the same person who must have hidden him away so long. And who should that person be, the only human being who loved him, had always cared for him as if he was her own?
Who else except Demeter?
He could not think his old nurse would harm Marguerite. No, not even at his direct order. If Marguerite was to pay for any harm inflicted upon him by Christien, then he must exact the price himself.
Surely he would not hurt his own daughter? She was so tender and innocent, so trusting. And yet she had called him a loup-garou, a monster of the night.
Reine flung out of bed with her mouth set in a straight line. She dressed with haste, pulling on her riding habit. She could not depend on the outcome of this dawn meeting, refused to sit with her hands folded while others decided the fate of her child. There should be time while the duel was in progress to get to Demeter’s cottage and back again. She could not take the back way, for that led past the site of the duel, but there was another, longer route. If she could not snatch Marguerite away from such a feeble jailer, then she had no right to call herself a mother.
Scant minutes later, she was leaning over the neck of her mare, racing down the drive. At its end, she turned onto the river road that ran past the Pingre plantation on its way to New Orleans.
Bonne Espèrance was shuttered, the covered door openings like empty eyes as it sat at the end of its overgrown drive. The whitewash on its walls had turned gray with mold and mildew, the canvas on the gallery floors had begun to rot and dead leaves lay in drifts on the steps and before the front door. Reine trotted past, ducking under a tree limb broken off in the recent rainstorm but still hanging from one of its shading oaks. Beyond the house was order of a sort, as the land was still being worked, but drainage ditches were clogged with weeds, barn and stable doors sagged and a miasma of stagnant water and outdoor privies hung in the hot morning air.
Triumph in Arms Page 25