“Will you visit me?”
“You know I will.”
“And you’ll ask me for nothing?”
“I might ask, but I know you won’t tell.”
One of his hands moved, clasping hers and carrying it to his lips. “One day…” He smiled. “I’m glad I came.”
“So am I, and yet I wish you had not. I wish you were safe in France.”
“Safe,” he said disparagingly. “There are many more distractions here. How long do we have?”
“Until the soldiers come for you.” She smiled unhappily. “Again.”
“Don’t be here when they do. Say goodbye now.”
She leaned into him, meeting his lips. She tasted the salt of her own tears, and then a knock sounded on the door and they sprang apart.
Isabelle jumped to her feet, dashing the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m coming,” she called and walked out of the room without looking back.
Torbridge was waiting for her. Whatever she said now would feel like betrayal of someone or something, so she fell back on what she had always been taught. The truth.
“If you let him go, he will give you nothing. You might learn something from keeping him here and visiting him in prison, but I doubt it will be what you want.”
Torbridge nodded as though he wasn’t surprised. “It will be something,” he said. “Thank you, madame. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”
“You will see he is treated well?”
“I will.”
“Thank you. Excuse me.” She hurried away to the ladies’ cloakroom.
There, since she was alone, it would have been easy to give in to the rare bout of weeping still threatening in her throat. But she didn’t. It would help no one. So, she merely splashed water on her face and repinned Cecily’s tiara. Then, with her head held high, she returned to the ballroom in search of distraction, for he was right. She did not wish to see the soldiers, the constables, or whoever came to take him away.
Take him where?
Impulsively, she looked around the ballroom for Torbridge, but he was dancing. She moved among the throng until she came across Lord Overton and Mr. Lacey who was, in fact, a local magistrate.
“Tell me,” she said after their civil greeting, “where will they take Captain le Noir?”
“For tonight? Just to Finsborough jail,” Lacey replied.
Finsborough jail, where the escaped French prisoners were also kept.
Out of many possible courses, it’s the one I chose…
Where are your men? she had asked him.
I left them behind. He did not say where.
Dear God, you have not brought your men here to raid? she had asked when he had first appeared beside her and Steele.
Of course not. How stupid do you think I am? Because they were not raiding Audley Park. Of course they were not. Not when the prisoners were…
She found she was staring at Overton. “Finsborough jail. That’s where he wants to be!”
They blinked at her, then looked uncomfortably at each other.
“Don’t you see?” she said urgently. “He hasn’t given up. He never gives up! He’s still trying to rescue the prisoners!”
Overton closed his mouth. Lacey charged toward the ballroom entrance, Overton and Isabelle on his heels.
“Open the damned door!” Overton yelled, and the large footman charged across the entrance hall to obey.
As he flung the door wide, Isabelle’s heart plummeted.
The room was empty.
It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
Chapter Eleven
“How the devil…?” Overton strode behind the desk to the window and threw open the window shutters. They weren’t fastened. They had only been closed over. Like the window. “The window was locked! All the damned windows on the ground floor were locked this afternoon—against any opportunistic thieves, you understand.”
He and Lacey peered at the window, scowling at it, while Isabelle leaned against the wall, watching them.
“It’s been forced,” Lacey said grimly. “The lock is broken.”
“He had no tools to do that!” Overton objected. “We searched him, and there can’t have been anything in here. For God’s sake, however he managed it, would Gerard out there not have heard something? Most of the staff have spent every spare second peering through the dashed keyhole!”
“He must have done it earlier,” Isabelle said numbly. “Before he revealed himself to the lieutenant and me. I’m sorry. It made sense to me that he would persuade you to put him inside the jail.”
“Perhaps you’re not so far wrong,” Lacey said grimly. “Perhaps this is merely a detour. My lord, I hate to spoil your party, but let’s get together as many young men as possible and ride at once to Finsborough!”
*
Although Isabelle felt far too restless, her nerves far too frayed, to simply continue at the ball, there wasn’t much else she could do. She had no excuse to go to Finsborough with the men. But some other idea, still elusive, was pulling at her mind and vanishing before she could catch it.
Distraction, she remembered. And so, she donned her sociable face, as she had done so often in the past, ever since she had had to preserve her pride from Pierre’s very public neglect. No one had known in those days that inside the bright, seductive shell, she had shrunk like a kicked dog. And no one should know now that her heart had left with the Frenchman, how desperately afraid she was that she would be responsible for his capture or even his death. Even his escape would be bad because…because… Damn, she should know. Why couldn’t she think?
It was while she waltzed with Sir Maurice, that it came to her.
“You really are the most stunning creature,” he said, as though the words were wrung from him. In fact, for the first time, she noticed a rather dazzled look about his eyes.
“I hope my effect is not so severe.”
“Too late. Tell me, madame, may we not put the unpleasantness at the Hart behind us and begin again?”
“Begin what again?” she asked bluntly.
“Madame, I am at your feet.”
“No, you’re not. And truly, I never wanted a man at my feet. Certainly not one who has broken all trust by bandying a lady’s name about a public taproom.”
He flushed. “I never mentioned your name.”
“But you made it clear enough who you meant. You may be sure I was recognized on the strength of your not naming me. This will be our last dance, Sir Maurice. From now on, we may be civil acquaintances and discuss as many witty nothings as you like. But we will never be friends.”
He was too flabbergasted to do more than stutter, which pleased her vaguely before the turn of the dance brought young Matthew Lacey into her view. Despite his determination not to speak to her of Armand, he was one of those who had ridden off with Lacey and Torbridge for Finsborough.
“What is he doing back?” she wondered aloud, for it was far too soon for them to have made it to the jail and back, even without stopping.
“They probably met the men coming from Finsborough to take Noir into custody.”
She gazed at him blindly while everything dropped into place. Finally.
He hadn’t come here to see her on his way to Finsborough. He had come to be arrested, to bring him to Audley Park to collect those men who would otherwise be guarding their French prisoners. While Noir’s men, taking advantage of the guards’ absence, would break their countrymen out.
She stopped dancing. “Let’s go and find out,” she said, and there was little he could do but escort her across the floor to young Mr. Lacey.
“Not needed, after all?” Sir Maurice drawled.
Matthew Lacey shrugged. “No, there were loads of men from Finsborough, including Brandon and his soldiers, so only the really curious carried on!”
Isabelle thought he was relieved not to be in pursuit any longer, to be free, perhaps, of some conflict of loyalty. She could understand that only too well. “T
hen the Finsborough men just turned around and went back with your father?” Isabelle asked.
“And Torbridge,” Matthew said. He frowned at her. “Are you quite well, madame.”
“No. No, I think everything has finally caught up with me,” she said vaguely. Too late. They will be too late. “Excuse me, I think I must just find Lady Verne…”
Cecily saw her coming and immediately left her own court of admirers to meet her. “Isabelle, what is it? Are you ill?”
“I wonder… I wonder if you would mind my going home early? I would send the carriage back for you, of course.”
With her innate understanding, Cecily asked no more, except to wonder if she should not have company.
“To be honest, I would rather be alone,” Isabelle said. “I feel quite…overwhelmed.”
“Go then, fetch your things while I have them summon the carriage.”
“Thank you, Cecily. I’ll explain later.” Maybe. One day.
Ten minutes later, without fuss or escort, she walked toward the Vernes’ carriage with relief. The front terrace and the drive were brightly lit, but inside the carriage would be blessed solitude and darkness.
The coachman let down the steps and held the door for her. With her foot on the first step, she paused. “Directly south of here, there is a cove, is there not? East of the one by the Hart Inn.”
“Azell Cove?” the coachman asked.
“Yes, that’s it. Would you mind going back to Finmarsh House via Azell Cove and the coast road?”
“It isn’t exactly on the way, but I don’t mind.”
“Thank you,” Isabelle said and climbed in.
She huddled inside her cloak and dragged the blanket over her knees. She couldn’t prevent them leaving, but it might be some satisfaction to know that she’d been right about where they were leaving from.
The coach had bumped and rumbled for about ten minutes before she realized she was staring at a dark corner of the coach where there was often a pocket to be found containing a pistol with which to confront would-be highway robbers.
On impulse, she leaned forward and delved inside. Her fingers closed around something cold and metallic and pulled it out. An old but serviceable pistol.
And it was loaded.
Perhaps she could stop them after all.
*
The carriage slowed and stopped, and Isabelle opened the window to stick her head out. The coachman looked down at her.
“Can’t take the carriage any farther, ma’am. After this, the road is no more than a footpath. I’d never be able to turn the horses to come back.”
“Can you turn them here?”
“That I can.”
She opened the door and jumped down, the pistol hidden in her cloak. “Good. Then, I’ll just walk over the path for five minutes, while you do so.”
“Shouldn’t I come with you, ma’am? It’s pitch black.”
“Do you have a spare lantern?”
Apparently he did, for he lit it for her and by its light, she trudged along the last few yards of road which then narrowed considerably until it was no more than an overgrown footpath. She had come here once when Jane had been very small. She had even carried her down a natural cliff path to a sheltered beach, where Jane had tried to eat the sand while Isabelle had made elaborate castles. It had been gloriously isolated, with no cottages anywhere that she could see.
They had been late home, Isabelle remembered, and she had been scolded by both Elvira and Henry, who had told her the beach was used by cut-throat smugglers and she shouldn’t go near it again, let alone take his precious little niece.
“I can’t imagine they frequent it during the day,” Isabelle had scoffed, immediately sending Henry on to his high horse. Perhaps that was why she had remembered the place. She had already been wrong so often tonight, but this was, surely, the nearest beach to Audley Park for Armand and his men. They would find it easy enough and quiet enough to approach from Finsborough.
The path, the countryside, even the sea, looked different in the dark, quite unfamiliar. When she looked back, she could no longer see the carriage, just a faint glow from its lanterns in the dark. She plodded on, and there, at last, was the shape of cliffs she recalled. It was not far above the beach, not like the cove at the Hart. And there, by their own lantern light, she saw them.
Caron, Boucher, Lefevre, Dupont, and Captain le Noir himself, hauling a boat across the sand by ropes. Four other men watched them.
But despite their concentration and the lights already on the beach, her lantern must have made a difference, for every head turned in her direction.
She had one shot.
Armand released his rope, saying something she couldn’t hear. One of the waiting, escaped prisoners ran over to take his place. With peculiar detachment, Isabelle watched him stride across the sand toward the cliff.
She pushed back her cloak and raised the pistol.
“Captain, she’s armed!” someone shouted.
He must have heard, but he started climbing.
“I only have one shot,” she called in French. “But my aim is true, and your captain is nearest. Leave the boat and follow him up the path. Now. Or I will kill him.”
The men at the boat looked at each other and dropped the ropes and began to shuffle hesitantly across the beach.
Armand, however, did not pause until he stood at the top of the cliff facing her. His expression was unusually serious. “You said you would wait for me. Something tells me you haven’t decided to come home.”
“I have decided to take you back or kill you.”
He began to walk toward her once more. There was no fear in his eyes. “Why?”
She stepped back without meaning to. Damn him, why was there no fear in his eyes? She would shoot him if she had to. “Because you lied to me. You used me. And I don’t allow that anymore. Not from anyone. Armand, stand still or I will shoot.”
His feet didn’t even falter. He kept coming. “I didn’t lie. Out of many possible courses, this is the one I chose…The one that would let me see you again.”
Her finger curled around the trigger. “I’m warning you, Armand!”
“I know. But you won’t shoot me.” He came right up to her until the barrel of the pistol touched his chest. Had she forgotten his utter recklessness? His eyes, as dark and wild as they ever had been, showed no alarm whatsoever. But they glittered with hunger as he bent his head and kissed her.
She gasped into his mouth, and as the pistol dropped between them and slid to the ground, tears wet her face and trickled into their mouths.
“Forgive me,” he murmured against her lips. “I didn’t see it was selfish or hurtful. I just wanted to see you. Come with me.”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t.”
His mouth claimed hers again. Slowly, his hand slid along her arm to her hand. His other arm was around her waist, and he swayed and turned her as though they were waltzing. Her cloak, her gown billowed around him in the breeze.
“One more dance,” he whispered. “Until the next one.”
His lips left hers, crept along her cheek, making her shiver with awareness, especially when he reached her sensitive earlobe. “I love you,” he breathed.
And then he slipped out of her hold and was running down the path back to the beach. At his yelled orders, his men ran back to the boat.
With a surge of emotion that drowned all thought, all anger, she called after him, “Bon chance!”
She could barely see through the tears, but from somewhere, a glow of happiness grew within her. It could only have one cause. I love you.
God help me, I love you, too. She could not, would not be ashamed by that.
One day the war would end. Until then, she could wait.
She bent and picked up the lantern and the fallen pistol. The boat was in the water now, and they were all scrambling inside. Several hands lifted in salute. She raised hers in return, then turned resolutely and made her way back to the carriage
.
Chapter Twelve
Pierre’s little house was situated on the edge of fashionable London, behind Russell Square. When Isabelle had stayed there in latter years, it had been when Pierre was absent—apart from one brief, abortive attempt at reconciliation shortly before he died. Usually, she left the Holland covers over most of the furniture, occupying only her own bedchamber and the small sitting room on the ground floor. She saw no reason to change this habit, particularly since she was about to be evicted.
Depressingly, her search for a governess’s post was not going well. The agencies she had approached were less than hopeful.
“Nothing in the top rank of society will be available to you,” she was told. “You have no references. And then, your name…”
She was almost on the verge of giving in and asking Elvira for a reference, though she shuddered to think what her cousin would write in her hurry to distance herself from the traitor Renarde. Changing her surname back to her father’s had at least earned her two interviews with the families of wealthy merchants. One had dismissed her solely on the strength of her looks. The other had insisted she could not live with a foreigner in the house.
On the final morning of October, she sat at her desk in the cramped sitting room, composing a letter of application for a post she wasn’t even sure existed. She had heard of it from an acquaintance met by chance yesterday afternoon, who had said her cousin, who lived in Yorkshire, was hoping to employ a governess for her four children “soon.” By this stage, Isabelle felt her best hope was probably to get there first and save the prospective employer from the drudgery of a search. Especially if she dropped in the cousin’s name.
When a knock sounded at the front door, she paid it little attention. It was usually tradesmen unable to find their way to the back door to request payment. She left the answering to Mrs. Raisin, her housekeeper, who was more of a maid of all work.
However, a few moments later, the sitting room door opened and Mrs. Raisin, looking impressed, said, “Lord Torbridge asks if you’ll receive him, ma’am.”
The Broken Heart Page 11