by Eloisa James
“Sakes alive, a virgin,” Madame said with a twist in her smile. “Isn’t this my lucky day?”
Olivia spun to face Bessette. He turned out to be a burly man with a large head and ears that stuck out like pink flower petals. “You!” she said furiously. “Monsieur Bessette, you must undo these ropes from my hands at once!” Then she turned her back to him and waggled her fingers in his direction.
To her satisfaction and relief, she felt him fumbling at the twine.
“The mushroom,” Madame commanded. The boy poured a thin stream of foul-smelling, cloudy black liquid onto the bubbling yeast and began mixing it.
“Treat her gently!” Madame barked, apparently referring to the yeast, not to Olivia.
When Olivia’s hands were free, she shook them for a moment, trying to restore their circulation, then folded her arms over her chest and turned back to Madame. “Am I to suppose that you make a habit of kidnapping women at your whim?”
“Not unless they are worth some money.”
“How much money do you want?” Olivia demanded.
“For what?”
“I assume I am to pay for my freedom.”
“Your French is too good for a mere English maiden,” Madame stated, narrowing her eyes and ignoring Olivia’s comment. “You’re a spy.”
“You said it yourself: there’s nothing here to spy on.”
“True. Then . . . you’re spying on me.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Believe me, Madame, no one I know would have the faintest interest in you and your kitchen, though it would serve nicely in an exhibit of primitive cooking amongst savages.”
“Not so!” Madame said, slapping her hand down on the floury board so that a cloud rose in the air. “All the great bakers of Paris and London want my recipe for bread. And you—you have come here, straight to the place where I am, because you know of my great talent.”
“I know nothing about bread,” Olivia stated.
“Then you are the savage! The great Napoleon himself said my bread was blessed by the gods. And I share the secrets of my putain with no one. No one!” Her voice rose to a shriek.
Olivia stood her ground. Although it might seem rather paradoxical, she was feeling quite calm now. Marauding gangs of lustful soldiers were terrifying, but battles with a lunatic cook were a routine part of running a large household. “If you think anyone would try to steal the recipe for that disgusting concoction, you are quite mistaken.”
“She is a spy,” Madame announced. “A cookery spy. And a terrible liar, which is true of all the English.”
“I am not,” Olivia snapped.
Madame ticked off the presumed lies. “A virgin? I don’t think so.”
Olivia opened her mouth and shut it.
“Betrothed to a duke? Also unlikely. You’re well enough, but you’re no beauty. Betrothed to a draper rather than a duke, I’d guess.” She turned and hauled on a bell cord hanging at the wall. “She’ll have to go into the catacombs until Le Capitaine wakes up. How much did he drink last night?”
One of the boys turning a spit looked up. “Two bottles, Madame.”
She snorted. “He’ll not wake before evening, then.” She pulled out a ring of keys. “Put her in the far end, Petit.”
Olivia gave the boy a look.
“She’s a lady,” he protested. “Ladies don’t belong in the cells.”
“She’s damned lucky they’ve put the Guillotine to rest,” Madame replied, finishing her wine. “They used to do it properly in Paris. People made a living, just whacking the heads of aristos like I might a bean row. Bessette, go along with them.”
“I demand to speak to whoever is in charge of this establishment!” Olivia said furiously.
“I am,” Madame stated.
“You! You’re a servant, not the commander of a garrison.”
“Wine!” Madame bellowed. One of the boys trotted over and poured her more red wine. “It’s me whenever Le Capitaine is drunk or asleep, which gives him about one hour to my twenty-three.”
Olivia eyed her red wine.
“Strengthens my blood,” Madame said, grinning. She reached into a sack of flour and sprinkled some on the table. “Give me a bit of that putain. I’m starting over.”
Bessette grabbed Olivia’s arm, holding it hard. “It’s in the back with you. Do I have to tie you up again?”
Olivia shook her head, glaring into his pale blue eyes. “My fiancé will likely kill you when he finds how you have treated me.”
Bessette grinned, showing blackened teeth. “Won’t be the first who tried. I hope you don’t mind if I keep your cloak. I can sell this for ten sous.”
“There’s no need to wrench her arm,” the young soldier said, stepping forward.
Madame didn’t look up from the flour she was delicately sifting over a small pile of frothing yeast. “English putain, don’t think you can seduce the poor lad into giving you the key to your chamber. The only way out is through my kitchen, and I don’t leave my bread. Ever.”
Twenty-nine
Lost Treasure
Quin had woken Togs and Paisley from a sound slumber, knowing already that they had no idea what had happened to Olivia. There was no point in tearing into the exhausted Englishmen; how could they be blamed for sleeping through her disappearance, after all they’d been through? Now they milled about like sleepwalkers.
Quin’s heart was beating in his throat so violently that he could hardly form words. He dispatched them back to the schooner, with instructions to send Grooper back with the rowboat to wait at the top of the inlet.
He paused to get his bearings and to work out the exact location of the French garrison in relation to the hut. He started off at a steady jog, Lucy trotting at his side. Either the French soldiers had captured Olivia, or he would force them to assist in locating her.
As he ran steadily up the bank and then through a scrub forest, he turned over the various possibilities in his mind. Yes, England was at war with France, but that meant different things to different people—and he wasn’t entirely convinced that a provincial garrison would feel much desire to capture an English lady.
Though the odds of one English duke’s subduing an entire garrison of French soldiers, bristling with everything from pistols to bayonets, were not good. It wouldn’t be helpful to Olivia if he ended up skewered on a bayonet in a valiant but failed rescue attempt.
Just then a hare bounded across his way, and he heard a surprisingly deep bark in response. He looked down to find Lucy still running along beside him, as fast as her stubby little legs would carry her.
Quin paused just long enough to scoop up the dog and took off again. By his reckoning, he should be very close. Indeed, a moment later the scrub gave out at the edge of a raked-gravel yard, on the other side of which, behind walls, stood a brick structure.
The garrison did not give the impression that it was prepared for military action. The gravel had been raked with no regard to a few wildflowers sprouting up here and there, waving gently in the area that appeared to have been designated for formation drills. A sentry sat at the front gate, fast asleep. Quin walked straight past him through the courtyard and ran up the steps to the main entrance, Lucy under his arm.
Inside, he put Lucy down and poked his head into a dusty receiving room, an unused office, and a long mess hall. Toward the back he found a room that showed signs of heavy use. Open crates holding rifles lined the room, suggesting it was an armory, but he’d guess that the worn billiards table in the center received the most attention.
He headed up the staircase without meeting a soul, the click of Lucy’s toenails only making the silence feel more profound. The first bedchamber he looked into, however, was occupied. For a moment Quin stood in the doorway, assessing the situation. A large and rather malodorous man was snoring loudly, facedown on a bed whose sheets had seen better days. A table at the far wall of the room glittered with a row of brandy bottles, the same sort he’d given Rupert in the schooner. T
hrown on the chair was a stained captain’s coat.
A small pistol lay on a side table; he removed its bullet and tossed the bag of powder out the open window. Then he put it back where he’d found it, caught up the back of the captain’s shirt, and shook him.
The man snorted and rolled on his back. Quin recoiled as a breathful of rancid brandy reached him.
Half a minute later the captain was awake and the bed was sopping wet; Quin had been forced to empty a water pitcher over his head, and it was only the threat of the chamber pot that actually got the man on his feet.
“Who the devil are you?” he said, his face pale gray in the sunlight, his eyes red-rimmed and dull. He reached out, steadied himself against the wall.
Quin pointed one of his pistols at the man’s head. “I have come for my fiancée. She’s English and was abducted on the shore near here a few hours ago.”
Ignoring the pistol altogether, the captain sat down, shuddering like an ear of corn in the wind. “No Englishwoman would be here. We’re at war with you, if you didn’t notice.”
“Did your men capture her?”
“I doubt it. Most of them are too young to find their own winkles without a map. I need sleep. Get yourself the devil out of here, will you?” He sank back down onto the soggy bed and closed his eyes.
Quin looked around and saw a half-drunk bottle of brandy. He upended this too over the captain’s head, who lurched upright, his face contorted. “What the devil?” he croaked. “You’re a madman.”
“Find my fiancée,” Quin said, keeping his voice even. He raised the pistol and shot the first of the brandy bottles lined up on the far table, causing Lucy to flinch and then bark. Glass shards and brandy rained down onto the floor, and its heady aroma filled the room.
“Stop!” the captain screamed. “You’re insane. All you English are mad as spring hares.”
Quin switched pistols and shot the second bottle. “I’m the madman who will have you arrested as a smuggler if you do not send your regiment out to find my fiancée. I don’t care how young your men are. You will find her or I’ll destroy every bottle in the place, and I’ll make sure your cozy smuggling operation dries up as well.”
“And how would you do that, being a benighted Englishman?” But the captain was just blustering. He was a weak and feckless type, who would always choose the path of least resistance. Sure enough, he hauled on a bell cord.
A minute or so later a very young soldier poked his head in the room, wrinkling his nose at the odor. “Oui, mon capitaine?”
“Is the regiment out on patrol?”
“No, sir. Everyone is still resting.”
Quin finished reloading and shot a third bottle.
“Get them up and send them down to the shore!” the captain screamed, to the sound of glass tinkling to the floor. “Find this man’s woman. Une anglaise. Mon dieu, my head is killing me.” He fell back onto his bed.
The young soldier saluted his moribund captain and then looked to Quin. “We’re about to patrol the shore in search of smugglers, as we do every morning and afternoon,” he said, without betraying by the blink of an eyelash the fact that they were standing in a smugglers’ haven. “We will look for your wife, sir.”
“Good,” Quin said, biting the word off. He was aware that he was in a state of barely modulated panic. If these soldiers hadn’t captured Olivia—and obviously they hadn’t—then where in the bloody hell was she?
He started down the stairs. He would check every house in Wissant, and then return here to see if the patrol discovered anything.
The damnable thing was that he knew this particular sensation. It fell on his shoulders like a familiar but loathed garment. He had felt it when he realized that Evangeline had taken Alfie and headed for the Channel. He had tasted it, bitter on his tongue, as he galloped toward Dover, hoping to intercept them on the pier.
It had driven him half-mad once he was there, watching the water. And he felt it now. It wasn’t safe to love someone.
His mother was right about that.
But it was too late to avoid the condition.
Thirty
The Princess and the . . .
Bessette, followed by Petit, marched Olivia through a door and down a damp and chilly vaulted brick passage. It went on, wound to the left, its walls broken occasionally by solid doors with barred openings at shoulder level.
“What is this place?” Olivia asked.
“The catacombs,” the young soldier answered. “They built the armory on top of them, and decided to use the catacombs for the kitchen and cells. You’re at the far end. She’s given you the best cell—it’s got a hole in the corner.”
Bessette shoved open a door to reveal a bare stone room with one rickety wooden chair, lying on its side. Sure enough, there was a stinking hole in the far corner. A high, tiny window, also barred, revealed sky and a bit of grass; she was, for all intents and purposes, underground.
“You cannot leave me here,” Olivia said, grabbing his arm. “My fiancé is a duke. And I am a lady.”
“I hate le ducs,” Bessette said, grinning at her again. “I’m not fond of Napoleon either, but I really hate you aristos.” He shoved her in and slammed the door. He pulled the key free and handed it to Petit, who had trailed them all the way down the passage. “Don’t let this one seduce you into giving up the key,” he advised. “Madame Fantomas is not a pretty sight when she’s angry. Think about her rolling pin.”
“It won’t matter what Madame thinks by the time my fiancé gets through with you,” Olivia shouted.
The only response was the sound of footsteps receding down the passage.
Olivia took a deep breath, which was a mistake; she nearly gagged at the stench coming from the hole. Presumably she would grow accustomed to the smell in a few minutes. Or perhaps fresh air would blow through the window. Perhaps pigs would fly.
One had to think that by now Rupert had either rallied or . . . not. Which meant that Quin would have returned to shore and must now be looking for her. He would be frantic.
Her situation wasn’t as terrible as the dire possibilities Quin had envisioned. After all, she hadn’t fallen into the hands of a garrison of soldiers thirsting for English blood. A mad breadmaker and a boozy captain didn’t strike fear in her heart; if she died of anything here, it was likely to be the stench.
She turned the chair over and dusted off the seat with the hem of her ruined gown, placing it in such a way that, once seated, she could see out the window. The grass bent at one point and she stood on the chair to see if someone was passing, but it was only a black cat, nosing along in pursuit of a mouse.
By the time the key rasped in the lock again, the light had grown stronger and taken on a yellow hue. The same young soldier, Petit, poked his face around the door. “Mademoiselle,” he whispered, “we’ve prepared something better for you. At least until mon capitaine wakes. I’m sure he’ll let you go once he realizes you’re here. But no one can go against Madame Fantomas, except for him.”
“I would appreciate anywhere that doesn’t include a hole,” Olivia told him.
Petit was probably about sixteen, though he seemed even younger. His eyes were the color of robins’ eggs. “We decided that French honor would not allow us to leave a lady in a room such as this, even if you are a spy.”
She laughed. “I promise you that I’m not.”
“As you have seen, Madame is rabid,” he said, holding open the door. “We don’t cross her because there’s no point to it, and besides, she weighs twice as much as any of us. A man named Oboe pinched her once and she struck him on the side of his head with a rolling pin. He never recovered his hearing in that ear.”
He escorted her a short way to another cell, which had no hole, and therefore no stench. But the more salient distinction from the first cell was that against the wall under the window there was a stack of mattresses—each covered in a different rough linen ticking. The covers were striped and flowered, which made them look
absurdly incongruous in the dank cell, and the stack actually reached as high as her head. A little stepladder leaned against it.
“We each brought our mattress down here for you,” Petit said, waving at the stack. “There’s twenty of us, and we hauled down fourteen. We thought that was enough to keep the damp off.”
“That was astonishingly nice of you!” Olivia exclaimed. “In truth, I was beginning to be very fatigued.”
“Ladies don’t belong on the ground. Maman would have killed me. May I help you?” He moved next to the stepladder.
“Merci beaucoup,” she said. She took his hand and climbed the ladder, toppling onto the highest mattress when she reached it. She came onto her knees and looked over the side. Petit’s nose was level with her perch, and all of a sudden it felt rather precarious.
“You’d better lie down,” he said, frowning. “You could crack your head like an egg if you fell off.”
She nodded in agreement. “Do you happen to know whether my fiancé, the Duke of Sconce, has come looking for me?”
“We’re not allowed outdoors at this hour. I can find out at four in the afternoon when we go out for patrol.”
“Merci,” she said, but there was a noise down the passage and he backed out, slamming the barred door firmly behind him.
For a moment she just sat, her head close to the stone ceiling. She was so weary that she felt dizzy. The mattresses were lumpy and uneven. But they put her on a level with the small window, which in turn was level with a patch of bright grass outside.
Finally she lay down, facing the window, and watched the grass sway. Despite the fact that there were so many mattresses, they were remarkably uncomfortable. It felt as if there was a lump at her back, as if somehow a rock had gotten mixed into the stuffing.
She turned this way and that, trying to find a comfortable position that avoided the lump and would allow her to fall asleep. In the end, she curled around it, willing herself to lie very still. In her sleep, she relaxed and so woke, hours later, with something hard poking painfully into the middle of her back.