The Counterfeit Mistress

by Madeline Hunter

  She waited for the telltale signs of horse hooves or bootsteps that said members of the army approached. She knew exactly how they would sound. Another memory flashed through her head, of hiding in the brush before, so terrified of those horses and boots that she silently wept.

  The sounds never came. She parted the grass and peered through. A cart rolled into view, pulled by one ox. A man walked alongside the animal. He looked like a young farmer. No one else walked with him or followed.

  She scrambled to her feet. Kendale reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her down again. “What do you think you are doing?” he whispered angrily.

  “I am going to find out if that path is how I remember. You stay here. There is no danger from this man. He will only see a woman from this region, which is what I am.”

  He hesitated, then released her, muttering a curse. She looked back once while she walked up to the road. She saw he had his pistol at the ready, just in case.

  Marielle walked down the road toward the cart, hailing the farmer in her native dialect. Kendale heard the cart stop, then start again. Now as it approached the patter of conversation accompanied it.

  While they passed within several feet of his head, the farmer said something to her that caused her to snap a terse response. The fellow laughed and muttered what Kendale translated to “you cannot blame a man for trying.” Marielle rattled off a response so rapidly that he could not make it out. He trusted she put the farmer in his place, but he readied himself for fast movement if necessary.

  The cart kept going. The conversation did not. When he heard nothing more, he ventured a look. The cart could be seen in the distance, heading to the coast. Marielle came skipping down the road.

  “He says it is as I remembered,” she said.

  Mr. Travis, Angus, and the other men joined them on the road.

  “The little lane breaks away just around that bend.” She pointed east. “Then it crosses through the fields and snakes through the forest.”

  “Did he not think it odd that you needed directions if you live here?” Mr. Travis asked.

  “I told him I am on my way to visit my sister, who is in service at the château, and she told me of this faster way but I could not find the road. I told him I am from a farm a day’s walk south of here.” She began walking west. “Perhaps we can be through the forest before nightfall.”

  The men looked at him. Kendale nodded. “Let us go. Hopefully we can not only avoid curious travelers but also save hours from our mission.” He strode toward Marielle.

  She paused and waited for him, then fell into step alongside. A quarter mile beyond the bend they found the unmistakable start of a broad path. It split through the field. Crops rose on either side, and hoofprints and wheel ruts marked the uneven, rough dirt.

  Marielle wrapped her knit shawl around her like an ermine cloak, and stepped onto that path as if it were covered in red velvet. She glanced back at him, her eyes alight with triumph. “I told you that you needed me on this mission. Oh, the farmer told me something else. Lamberte is indeed not at the château. That is good news, no?”

  “It is, assuming the gossip this farmer heard is not two months old.”

  Her expression fell. “I suppose we will not be sure until we enter the gate.”

  “That is the unfortunate sum of it. In the meantime, I will hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.”

  “Mark this spot, gentlemen.” Kendale stood in the deepening twilight on a low rise of land several hundred yards behind the road that passed the château. From up here they could see that manor house. Its high-pitched roofs marked its French pedigree, as did its fine-boned classical details mixed with medieval turrets and long windows. English country houses did not look like this.

  Marielle stood near the crest of the hill, out of hearing distance. She gazed at the château as if it were not quite real. He wondered what thoughts and memories worked in her mind. From the dull lights in her eyes, he guessed they were not good ones.

  Angus and the others studied the terrain, noting landmarks that only each one would notice or remember.

  “I have it,” Angus said. The others nodded.

  “If we are separated, this is where we meet. If things go badly, you get out and come here if you can. Wait one hour at most, then go back. Make your way to the coast and the ship. Mr. Stanton has orders to sail at dawn, no matter who is or is not there, so do not delay.”

  Mr. Travis looked down at the château. “How do you plan to get in there? I see no subtle approach. We have to walk up that lane and there are two men at the end of it. They are sure to see us coming.”

  Kendale looked over at Marielle. He hated to admit it, but she had been right. They did need her. “The lady will help us to get in. You will keep the others beyond the lane, out of sight. Angus and I will accompany Miss Lyon to the door.”

  Mr. Travis laughed and shook his head. “Did you bring your calling cards?”

  “Just be watching, Travis. When those two men are gone, bring the others up.” He left the men and joined Marielle. “We will go down shortly. It will be as we planned while we walked here. Are you ready?”

  She did not respond at first. Then she shook off her reverie. “Of course.”

  He slid his arm around her back and pulled her to his side. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “To be here again. To see that building. It all comes back, very clearly.” She paused. “Everything.”

  He wished he could erase the worst of the everything. He wondered if tonight would at least allow it to dim again.

  “Thank you for allowing me to come,” she said. “Thank you for allowing me to do what I could.”

  He could think of nothing to say to that. He took her hand. “Let us go.”

  Mr. Travis kept the men hidden in the night beyond the lamps that lit the lane. Kendale and Marielle began the long walk to the door, with Angus in their wake like a servant.

  He looked over at her. She did not hide the airs that her girlhood hours in this château had given her. She walked with the elegance that had long ago become second nature. She had released her hair from its plait and removed the cap so her hair fell in fashionable abandon. The knit shawl might have been made out of silk from the way it fell around her lithe form and flowed with her steps.

  The two men saw them coming. On alert at once, but curious, they came together and walked down the steps of the château and into the circle where carriages would stop. The flames in the lamps around that circle showed their consternation that three strangers approached so boldly in the late evening hours.

  Marielle walked right up to them. She gave each a good, long look, then smiled one of her devastating smiles. Both men immediately appeared taken aback. She spoke in French to them. Parisian French.

  “I am Marielle de Lyon. I must see Monsieur Lamberte on a matter of great importance to him. Take me to him at once.”

  “He is not here. You must leave, madame.”

  “He is here. He must be. I have traveled a great distance in very rude circumstances. Send word to him that I am here. I promise you that he will want to see me.”

  They looked at each other, confused by her insistence. One, presumably the leader, sighed with exasperation and explained yet again that Lamberte was not at the château.

  “Then let me in so I can leave something for him. It is a document most important that he will certainly want to have.”

  “That is impossible. We cannot allow a stranger—”

  “I am not a stranger. He knows me well. I can see, however, that you will not help me to help him unless—” She held out her hand to Kendale. He placed four gold coins in her palm. Their value probably exceeded what these men earned guarding this door in a year.

  She held it out. “Allow me in. A half hour at most, and I will be gone. I only need to leave the document where I know he w
ill find it, but others will not.”

  The second man only had eyes for the gold. The leader also gazed at it longingly. While both men contemplated their duty, Angus moved until he stood by Marielle’s other shoulder.

  “No,” the leader said gruffly, shaking his hand and all but pushing the gold away. “You must go now. Leave, madame, before I wonder too much why you are even here.”

  “Now, sir?” Angus asked Kendale.

  “Yes.”

  In one instant the guards were peering at gold and lovely Marielle. In the next they were peering into the ends of Angus’s two pistols. Angus made sure those ends were very close to the spots between their eyes.

  “You should have taken the gold,” Marielle said while Kendale relieved both men of their own weapons.

  Angus stepped forward. The guards stepped back. They kept at that until they were out of the light in the carriage drive and under the eaves of the entrance. Angus placed the pistol right on the forehead of the second guard. “Ask him how many like him are inside.”

  Marielle translated. The leader cursed at his comrade to keep silent, but the pistol spoke louder. Two more guards manned the donjon, they were told.

  The shuffles and sounds of boots grew louder on the lane as Travis and the others hurried forward. They set about tying the guards up.

  “Went sweetly, sir,” Angus said. “Not a shot and barely a sound. There’s light above, but no one looked out.”

  Marielle came over to him. The excitement in her eyes glinted like stars in the night. “Only two more, too. That should not be hard.”

  “So he says. He could have lied.”

  “Do you think he did?”

  “I think there are more than two of Lamberte’s men in this house. Perhaps not guards. They could be footmen or retainers or even relatives, but they will not allow an invasion without a fight. I do not anticipate strolling in and out without being challenged.”

  The guards now sat on the ground, trussed and gagged. With a gesture Kendale told Angus to move them out of sight and away from the entrance.

  When all was secured, he gathered them all in the shadows. “You two will stand here as they did. If anyone in the house looks out, let him see two men at their posts. Mr. Travis, you and the others will come with me. Angus, I want you to take Miss Lyon back to that hill. Remember my orders. You wait one hour, then you go.”

  Marielle froze. When Angus went over to her, she slapped his guiding hand away. Angus turned to him, none too pleased to be the object of her displeasure.

  Kendale went to her. “I do not have time for this now. You will go with Angus. I am grateful for your help thus far, but you are not going inside where we do not know what we will face. There will be no arguments now. No persuasion. Do you understand?”

  She hesitated, then nodded, her face hard with anger and worry.

  “After one hour, Angus, you leave. Carry her if she resists. Do not wait if we have not returned.”

  “I expect to see you before that, sir.”

  “And I you. However . . .”

  Angus nodded.

  He turned to Marielle again. “You know I am right to do it this way. In your heart you do. Let us not part in anger.”

  Her expression broke. “No. Not in anger. I want to come so I know you are safe, not wait on that hill wondering.”

  “I will be safe.”

  She looked past him to where his men waited. “Can I kiss you?”

  “I do not believe anyone will be surprised, after this morning.”

  She rose on her toes to give him the kiss. “May God go with you. Know that my love does too.”

  He resisted the urge to kiss her long and deeply then. He walked over to the others while Angus led her back toward the circular drive.

  He realized he had forgotten something, and strode after them. “Marielle, what is his name? It would not do to bring you the wrong man.”

  “John. His name is John.”

  “Jean Lyon. Very good.”

  “No. John. And not John Lyon. His name is John Neville.” She waved and followed Angus into the shadows that flanked the lane.

  John Neville?

  Damnation. Her father was English.

  Chapter 22

  They paused inside the reception hall and listened. Muffled sounds from above drifted down the grand staircase. Sharper ones came from below.

  Kendale gestured for the others to follow him. Pistol at the ready, he walked down the passageway to the stairs that would take them below. The chateau might appear a manor house, but its foundations had been constructed for defense. The stone stairway wound tightly between thick stone walls. They filed down its spiraling curve. He went first, and the curve of the stairs left him blind to what lay ahead.

  A loud shout from in front of him made him freeze. A laugh responded to the shout, and two male voices began talking. Other sounds, of doors closing and boots walking and metal scraping indicated they had found the servants quarters, just as Marielle had remembered. If her map was correct, the kitchen was at the far end of this lower level, and the donjon lay one floor below.

  Slowly, with soft footfalls, they continued down the stairs. No lamps illuminated the way now, although a dim glow eked up from below. Dampness on the walls indicated they were underground now.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Travis stepped down beside him. The other men pressed close. Kendale looked around the stair wall. Two men sat on stools flanking a crude table in the long, dark passage stretching to the right. One lamp hung on the wall near them. They spoke in low voices to each other.

  “Too much to hope they would be asleep,” Travis muttered.

  “We are left to pray that they are cowards,” Kendale whispered. He raised both of his pistols and took the last step so he could see the guards clearly. Aiming one pistol at each man, he claimed their attention by telling them in French not to move.

  The man farthest away was having none of it. He overturned the table and dropped below its shield. While his comrade scrambled to join him, he fired his own weapon. Mr. Travis answered in kind. Lead balls started flying.

  They took turns on the bottom step, moving back up while reloading. The two guards took turns too, from behind their table.

  “Sir! From above.” The sharp warning came right when Kendale fired. He switched positions with the man who uttered it, and proceeded to reload. This time he stayed in place and waited for the boots coming slowly down the stairs.

  A head peered around the curve of the wall. Kendale made sure the eyes saw his gun. “Allez,” he said. He fingered a gold coin out of his pocket and threw it around the curve. It clattered against the stone, out of sight. “Plus d’apres.” He was not sure he said it correctly, but he assumed the message would be understood. When the boots started trudging up, not down, he knew it had been.

  “I just wounded one,” Travis said while he pulled out his powder. “The other can’t do this alone without cover while he reloads. He will give up soon.”

  In fact he gave up immediately. The blasts stopped and the donjon became a silent cave. Kendale stepped out of the stairwell and around the stone wall. One of the guards stood behind the overturned table, with his weapon balanced atop its edge. The other sat next to him, holding his shoulder with bloody fingers.

  “Have someone tend the wounded one, but tie up the other,” Kendale told Travis. He reached out for the keys that hung on the wall near the lamp. He looked the standing guard in the eyes and gestured to the doors. “English?”

  The guard pointed to the door nearest the stairs, then reached over and pointed to the correct key.

  Kendale set the key in the lock and swung the door wide. Inside a thin, white-haired man looked up in surprise from where he sat on a cot.

  “John Neville?”

  “That be me. Are you English? I could
have sworn I heard my mother tongue coming through this door.”

  “You did hear English.”

  “What in hell are you doing here? Is the war over?”

  “We are here for you, Mr. Neville. I am Viscount Kendale and these are my colleagues. We were sent by your daughter.”

  “My daughter?” He stood and walked to the door and looked out at Travis and the others. He shook his head, then smiled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  John Neville trudged beside Kendale along the path in the forest. Other than a request for reassurance that his daughter fared well, he had not spoken a word since they left the donjon.

  A thin man of middle height and years, his hair and beard had grown while in that donjon. Kendale worried that his sight had failed too, which was common, but the man walked like he could see where he was going. A bath was in order, soon, but on the whole Mr. Neville’s appearance probably would not shock Marielle too much.

  He trusted they would find her with Mr. Stanton on the yacht. With the very first shot fired he had thanked God that he had not allowed Marielle to enter that house.

  The adventure had taken longer than anticipated, due to the unexpected tenacity of the guards. They had left both of them locked in Mr. Neville’s cell. With luck the gold would buy the servants’ indifference until daybreak, but they could not count on that. Every man understood that they needed to return to the inlet as quickly as possible.

  “You must think I am an ungrateful man, not saying much like I am,” Neville said.

  “I expect you are too surprised to have much to say,” Kendale replied.

  “Isn’t that. I’m trying to accommodate the ironies of the situation.”

  “Take your time. I do not require conversation.”

  “Don’t you now? Good of you, sir. Viscount Kendale, I believe you said you were.” He sighed. “In all my living days, I never thought to be rescued by the likes of you.”

  The last words were not spoken with admiration.

  “The likes of me were all that was available. Would you have preferred not to be rescued at all?”