“He was somewhat excited, but it seems he suspects the Frenchman of attempting to assail your virtue, against your will. Is that why Monsieur Monselle contrived to get you out of the room during the interval, my dear?” She obviously had images of Sir Anthony interrupting the attempted rape of his wife by a dissolute foreigner. Was that what Alex wanted everyone to think? To hell with him, thought Beth. He could not expect her to read his mind. If he wanted her to play a part, he should have told her what that part was to be.
“No, of course not. He had a message for me from the king, as he said.” She did not elaborate on what it was, to Lady Winter’s obvious disappointment. “We merely went for a short stroll. The door was open when Anthony found us talking. He is over reacting, as usual. Monsieur Monselle has not the slightest interest in me, nor I in him, as Anthony will realise when he recovers from his hysteria. I am sure he will not risk his life for what is clearly a misunderstanding. Did Monsieur Monselle agree to this charade?”
“It would appear so. He would have to, or be branded a coward. Although I can reassure you that I doubt your husband’s life is at risk. Sir Anthony has agreed that he will be satisfied when first blood is drawn. I am sure a flesh wound is the worst that will result from the encounter.”
“I see. And do you know when and where this duel is to take place?” Beth asked disinterestedly.
“At dawn, of course, as is traditional. There is a small clearing in the trees to the south of the palace. Bartholomew tells me that is the normal venue for duels, although of course duelling is frowned upon, and so the meeting places are not made public.”
“Well, then,” said Beth, gently freeing her hand from Anne’s grip and getting to her feet. “I had better prepare.”
“Oh my dear child!” exclaimed Lady Winter, eyes dancing. “You are surely not thinking of intervening to stop the fight, are you?”
“Of course not,” replied Beth coolly. “If my husband wishes to spend the morning making a fool of himself, I will not prevent him. I merely intend to assemble needle and thread, and bandages, for when he returns.”
* * *
In the clearing, sheltered by overgrown shrubs, brambles and saplings, frost lay heavy on the ground, as yet untouched by the weak rays of the winter sun, which had risen only a few minutes before. The grass was crisp underfoot, the frost melting when stepped upon, and the men’s green footprints showed clearly as they moved quietly about the clearing. A few birds sang intermittently in the bare branches of the trees. The air was cold, clean, bracing. It was Christmas Eve. Today all over France, people would decorate their houses with evergreens, and later would go to confession in order to celebrate the mass of the Lord’s birth at midnight with a clean conscience.
Henri, who was not generally troubled by matters of conscience, had fought two duels when young and hot-headed, one to the death, and had never thought to fight a third. He made his preparations quickly and efficiently. He had dressed practically for the occasion, in dark woollen hose and breeches, and plain linen shirt unadorned with lace, which could snag a weapon. His shoes were of stout leather, his sword sharp, functional, and sheathed in a plain scabbard. He wore no wig, which could fall over his eyes and blind him, and his thick black hair was tied back and clubbed to ensure it would not come loose during the fight. He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and performed a series of stretching exercises designed to loosen the muscles, while he waited for his opponent to ready himself.
The baronet had clearly never fought a duel in his life. He entered the clearing as though for a ball; sporting full make-up and neatly curled wig, he still wore the magenta satin breeches and silk shirt of the previous evening, embellished with costly Brussels lace. His shoes were ridiculous smooth-soled pink satin confections. By the darkening of the material, Henri could see they were already soaked; the fool would skid about on the slippery grass as though on ice. Sir Anthony took off his coat and handed it to his servant, then arranged the lace at his wrists carefully over his cream leather-gloved hands. The young blond man who Henri found so attractive stepped forward, murmuring something in his master’s ear. The baronet smiled, foolishly.
“Ah. Of course,” he said. He rolled up his sleeve, no more than a couple of inches; his forearms were still covered. Henri had hoped to see his adversary’s bare arm; one could ascertain whether a man was a swordsman or not from the over-developed muscles of the right arm. Beth, had she been present, and Angus, if he’d had a mind to, could have told him that both of the baronet’s forearms, as well as his biceps and shoulders, were knotted with heavy muscle due to years of practice, not just with sword, but with dirk and targe, axe, and any other weapon that came to hand in an emergency. But Beth was not present in the clearing, Angus kept silence, and Henri had no reason to suspect that the baronet was other than he appeared to be. He felt no apprehension regarding this contest. The clumsy way he drew his ornate jewelled sword with difficulty from the scabbard told Henri that Sir Anthony carried it as decoration, no more.
Henri felt a mixture of pity and derision for the pathetic fool. What had prompted the Englishman to issue a challenge was beyond him. Maybe he felt his lack of manhood, and was hoping by this ridiculous display of misguided chivalry to gain his wife’s respect. All he would gain was a ruined and bloody silk shirt, Henri thought contemptuously. The right arm, perhaps, just below the shoulder. That would satisfy honour and prevent Sir Anthony from issuing any more hasty challenges until it had healed, by which time he would be safely back in England. It was a shame that the fight was not to the death. It would be a pleasure to release the lovely Elizabeth from her bondage to this moron.
The two men moved forward into the middle of the clearing and presented their swords to the scrutiny of their opponent’s seconds, who declared them to be acceptable. It was reiterated that they would fight only until first blood was drawn, after which the duel would be over. There would be no retaliation. The men agreed, and took their positions.
Sir Anthony was visibly nervous, and made no move at first to engage his adversary’s weapon. It was left to Henri to move forward and make the first thrust, forcing the baronet to parry. To Henri’s surprise the fop then suddenly sprang into action, charging forward, flailing wildly with his sword and causing the Frenchman to jump back in surprise. He fended off the other man’s panicked swings with insulting ease, although this was not any technique he recognised. It was not any technique at all. Henri continued to parry, allowing the baronet to tire himself. Then he would wound him and retreat to a very welcome breakfast in a warm room.
After perhaps a minute of this frenzy, Sir Anthony drew back, breathing heavily. Henri contemplated for a moment whether to allow the man to continue for a while longer, enabling him to boast to his lovely wife that although he had lost, it had been a close thing. No. End the tiresome affair now. It was cold and he had more important and interesting things to do with his day.
The point of the baronet’s blade was drooping downwards as he fought to regain his breath. Henri moved in to finish the duel.
He was within an inch of his target when the Englishman’s sword shot up with remarkable speed, screeching along the other man’s blade and wrenching it from his hand, sending it curving through the air. It had been a lucky blow, and Henri cursed himself for his carelessness. Sir Anthony smiled gleefully, danced forward, eager to deliver the winning blow, aiming for his opponent’s upper arm.
At least it was the left arm, Henri thought gratefully as he resigned himself to losing, against all the odds. This would take some living down. He smiled ruefully, watched the baronet skid at the last minute, slip and sprawl on the grass, throwing his arm out as if to save himself and missing the shoulder, the blade instead moving forward and down as he fell, driving into the Frenchman’s chest with all the force of Sir Anthony’s falling weight behind it. Henri staggered backwards, keeping his balance with difficulty.
A look of utter horror disfigured the painted face, and Sir Anthony, scram
bling to his feet, pulled back his arm in panic, as if by removing the sword he could somehow turn back time, undo the terrible wound he had accidentally, certainly accidentally, for there could be no doubt of the man’s incompetence, inflicted.
A red flower blossomed on Henri Monselle’s shirt, unfolding its scarlet petals with alarming speed. He sank to his knees, stared into the eyes of his enemy, saw the satisfaction momentarily flicker in the sapphire depths and knew his mistake. Then his green eyes glazed and rolled back in his head, and he toppled sideways onto the grass.
The small figure dressed in drab brown, who had watched the scene unfold from the nearby shrubbery where she had concealed herself an hour earlier, waited until her husband, sobbing hysterically, had his back to her, before she carefully backed her frozen body out of the bushes and made her silent way to the hotel, passing the four men dressed in the king’s livery making their way along the road without registering them, or what they might signify.
Silently she made her way up to the room, responding with only a distracted nod to the sleepy greeting of the chambermaid she met on the stairs. Silently she packed, selecting only the essential items for a journey which could be carried in one bag, and left the building, locking the door behind her and leaving the key at the desk with no explanation.
An hour later she was on the stage coach, along with eight other people bound for Calais, and home, wherever that might be.
She responded to the attempts of her fellow passengers to engage her in conversation with polite monosyllabic answers, at first because she was numbed and incapable of more, and later, as she recovered her wits, because she wished to be left alone to think.
She thought.
Until the moment she had seen Henri drop to his knees, fatally wounded, Beth had been prepared to give Alex the benefit of the doubt. She thought he had maybe challenged the Frenchman to a duel as a delaying tactic, to prevent him returning to his bedchamber until the incriminating letter could be discovered. Maybe he had insisted she return to the hotel so that she would not be implicated in his actions in any way.
After witnessing the outcome of the duel however, she could no longer believe that. Henri’s death was deliberate; Beth was in no doubt about that. Alex was brilliant, devious and manipulative. He had never intended that Henri be imprisoned. He had wanted him out of the way permanently, and could not take the time to find a way of disposing of him privately, so had instead contrived a way to do it publicly without being accused of murder. If Henri had been arrested, there was still a chance that he would somehow get a letter to England, or that Louis would release him early enough for him to get to England before the invasion force was ready. The only way to be sure Henri posed no threat was to kill him. She understood that now, and realised that she had been naïve to think that Alex would settle for anything less.
What she could not understand was why he had not entrusted her with his plans. But then, he had not trusted her with the information that plague was raging in the Mediterranean, nor with the situation regarding Jeannie MacGregor, whatever that was. She was certain now that Angus was right. Alex would have killed both Henri and Katerina had he been in the hothouse, and had not trusted her enough to admit that, either. He had not trusted her to resist King Louis’ advances, initially.
He did not trust her.
How could you love someone and not trust them? What had Angus said? It was all about trust and loyalty. The whole clan system was based on it. Whatever Jeannie MacGregor had done, she’d broken the trust of the clan, and Alex had acted. Now, knowing him better, she could make a fair guess as to what the hard decision had been. She did not expect to meet Jeannie if she ever went to Scotland.
She had loved him and trusted him, and now no longer knew what the words meant.
She racked her memory all the way across France, across the English Channel, across south-east England, trying to think of what she had done to betray his trust. Nothing. She had done nothing to endanger him. But still he did not trust her. He was her husband, her chieftain. His distrust put her outside the clan, made a mockery of her marriage.
Because she was grieving, although she did not know it, the death of Henri and the possible death of her marriage, and had no one with whom she could share her troubles, her exhausted, overwrought mind ran wild. Why hadn’t he killed her, if he didn’t trust her? She knew enough to send him and half the MacGregor clan to the gallows. Maybe he had intended to, after the duel. Maybe he was even now galloping across the countryside to intercept her before she could get to the authorities and denounce him. Had he written to Iain and Maggie to warn them she might be coming home, that she was no longer to be trusted? Would they be waiting for her when she knocked on the door, dirks at the ready?
By the time she got to the door in question, ten gruelling days later, she no longer cared what reception she received. She had used the last of her ready money to pay for the carriage from Dover, had not even had sufficient funds to pay for a hackney from the terminus in Fleet Street and had walked over a mile to the house, changing her bag from hand to hand with increasing frequency as her tired muscles protested.
She dropped her bag on the step, knocked on the door and waited, swaying with exhaustion, for Iain to open it, his face set in the superior footman’s expression.
After a short time the door opened. A man appeared. It was not Iain, and he was not wearing a superior expression. Beth found herself looking into the face of the man she had last seen when she had been trying to murder him, over a year ago in Manchester. On Christmas Eve.
She knew immediately who he was, although he did not have the exceptional height of his brothers, or the beautiful slate blue eyes. But he did have the athletic, muscular build, and the sensual mouth that turned up at the corners, threatening always to break into a smile. And he also had the impossibly long sweeping lashes, framing eyes of a clear grey, which now flickered over her shoulder, scanning the square before returning to her.
Alex had not written then, to warn them of her coming.
“Duncan, I presume,” she said, before he could introduce himself. In that second, as the familiar mouth curved upwards in a smile, she could see in her mind’s eye the way it should have been, Alex and Angus standing behind her grinning at her mortification as she discovered that the brother she had been so eager to meet was the man she had almost killed. Now she knew why they had refused to describe him. In other circumstances she would have felt embarrassed, blushed, apologised, then rounded on her laughing husband and his brother, threatening dire revenge. Now she was too tired to feel anything.
Duncan MacGregor moved forward onto the step and took her hands in his.
“Fàilte, mo phiuthar,” he said.
Welcome, sister.
She looked into his eyes, saw only welcome, acceptance, trust. Trust. She opened her mouth to respond, uttered instead an inarticulate moan of despair, and was drawn quickly into the hall, into the strong, comforting embrace of her brother-in-law, where she broke down, completely and utterly.
She found that she was not too tired to feel anything, after all.
It was to Duncan’s credit that he let her cry, helplessly and noisily like a child, clinging to him until the wails had given way to sobs and the sobs to hiccups, and did not press her to tell him the reason for her distress, although he had expected his brothers to accompany her, and they were not here, and he did not know why.
When she finally calmed down enough to become aware of her surroundings, she was in the kitchen sitting on Duncan’s lap, her face buried in his shoulder, which was very wet. One hand stroked her hair, the other was warm on her back. Over her head his troubled grey eyes met those of Iain, who was sitting opposite, his thin face pinched with anxiety. Maggie, ever practical, poured a large measure of whisky into a glass, then sat with it in her hand, waiting for Beth to recover sufficiently to drink it.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Beth faltered as soon as she could speak, her voice muffled by Duncan’s s
hirt. She looked round sheepishly, saw Iain’s expression, understood, felt the glass thrust into her hand.
“They’re all right,” she said, and swallowed the contents of the glass in one gulp, coughing and grimacing, then feeling the warm glow begin to spread downwards to her stomach. “At least they were all right the last time I saw them.”
Iain closed his eyes and let the breath he had been holding out in a rush.
“When was that?” Duncan asked quietly. He had stopped stroking her hair, but his hand was still splayed across her back. She needed the physical contact badly, but he was a stranger, and must be mortified at having this lunatic throw herself at him. She made a move to get up, and his arm wrapped round her shoulders, restraining her gently. “It’s all right, a ghràidh, bide a while,” he said. His voice was deep, soothing and warm, like the whisky. He didn’t seem embarrassed. She stayed where she was, resisted the urge to snuggle into him, felt her eyes start to close and opened them with an effort.
“Ten days ago,” she answered his question. “I’m sorry I frightened you. I’m tired, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong. With them. They should be on their way back by now.” The whisky, taken on an empty stomach, was starting to make its presence felt already. “I’m sorry,” she said again, looking up at her brother-in-law. “What you must think of me, I have no idea. The first time I meet you I try to stab you, and the second time I try to drown you.”
“I’ll be ready for ye the third time,” he said, smiling. “Dinna fash yourself, lassie, I’m no’ so easily got rid of.”
She sniffed, and smiled weakly. The whisky was rendering her pleasantly fuzzy. Her eyes started to close again. It was warm in the kitchen. There were bunches of festive greenery hung around the fireplace. She remembered sitting on another knee, in another kitchen, worried voices murmuring around her as Thomas, Jane and Graeme tried to ascertain how she had been injured. There were no voices around her now, but the atmosphere held the same tension. She struggled awake again, opened her eyes.
The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) Page 27