Colin stopped his mount just outside a pair of open gates that looked in jeopardy of falling off their hinges. At the other end of a drive choked with brambles and weeds, a stand of neglected elms and twisted hawthorn half concealed a smallish manor of whitewashed brick. Darkened, dirty windows, a number of them cracked, stared blankly back. Colin neither saw nor heard signs of habitation.
“It appears deserted, sir.” Beside him, his valet, Kirkston, lifted his face in a houndlike gesture as if scenting the breeze.
“It most certainly does.” Caution put Colin’s senses on the alert. “The message said to bypass the house and go round to the stables.”
He clucked his gelding forward. Kirkston followed, a telltale click letting Colin know the older man held his pistol at the ready. Colin’s own weapon weighted his coat pocket.
To the rear of the house, overgrown shrubbery signified what had once been a garden. A long stone building with a broken slate roof squatted off to one side, its narrow windows shuttered with splintering, weather-warped panels.
“The stables,” Kirkston said unnecessarily.
Stopping in the concealing shadow of the terrace steps, Colin dismounted and fished his double-barreled percussion pistol from his pocket. “Watch over the horses,” he said.
His valet was off his own mount in an instant. “I’m very sorry, sir, but that’s one order I feel compelled to disobey. I’d prefer to watch over you.”
Colin regarded the man’s squared jaw, tight mouth, and most of all his obstinate gaze, and thought better of arguing. Leaving the horses to graze, he led the way past the ground floor of the house, passing dusty kitchen windows and storage cellar doors. Like the house itself, the stables were small, more befitting a prosperous country farm than an estate. Heaps of dead leaves and what might have been kitchen scraps lay moldering against the back wall of the structure. Using the unkempt foliage for cover, they crept close, taking only shallow breaths to avoid the stench. Moving to one corner, Colin flattened himself against the granite stones and attempted to peer through the closest window.
He opened the shutter slightly and had just put his eye to the gap when a thunk from inside sent him back around to the rear. He came to Kirkston’s side, and the valet put a firm hand at his elbow.
“Did you see anything, sir?” he asked in an undertone.
Colin shook his head, then eased forward again. To his mild annoyance, Kirkston grasped the hem at the back of his coat as if ready to pull him away at the slightest hint of danger. This time Colin heard no sound, and now that he thought of it, the original thunk might have been nothing more than a falling tree limb.
A snort reached his ears, followed by a soft whicker. He nearly set off at a run to the front of the stable. Kirkston, however, still held his coat.
“Prudence, sir,” he advised in a whisper.
Colin nodded, and the other man released him. Together they crept along the wall. As they went they heard more sounds of a horse inside, as well as a human occupant. The possibility of that person being Stuart Bentley raised spots of fury before Colin’s eyes, until the man inside spoke again.
“There, there, my good boy . . .”
Not Bentley. Colin couldn’t make out the rest, and it took him a moment to realize the man spoke in French. Then his brain began to loosely translate.
“We must return you to your rightful owner,” the man murmured, and received a whicker in reply.
Colin and Kirkston reached the stable yard and each straddled the low stone wall. A lone horse stood tied to a railing across the way, stretching its neck to munch the grass that had pushed between the stones. They moved soundlessly to the double doors. One stood open a few feet, admitting a triangle of light across the filthy, hay-strewn cobbles inside.
Swiftly Kirkston darted across the doorway so that they now flanked the opening. His vantage point giving him the better view, the valet leaned over to survey the scene inside. With his gun at the ready, Kirkston held up one finger to signal that he had spied a single man. He questioned Colin with a glance. Colin tightened his grip on his pistol and nodded.
Kirkston kicked the door wider. As it slammed against the inner wall, they strode inside, taking aim with their pistols at a tall, lean man who was about to feed the missing Exmoor colt a carrot.
“Put your hands above your head where I can see them,” Colin ordered.
The bright carrot floated upward in the dimness.
Colin raised the revolver higher. “Now turn slowly toward me, and make no sudden movements.”
The middle-aged face that met his gaze was that of a complete stranger. Somehow, Colin had expected to find someone at least partially known to him, a member of the racing world who coveted his success, perhaps even one of his recent guests. Colin took a moment to survey the colt, or what he could see of him above the stall gate. He noted the proud angle of the head, the forward, alert set of the ears, and the sharp gleam of the eyes.
With a tentative surge of relief, he returned his attention to the man. “Who are you?”
The Frenchman took a step forward. Kirkston held his pistol higher. “His lordship didn’t bid you come any closer.”
True, but something in the man’s stance prompted Colin to relax a fraction. Unless this Frenchman was the most practiced of assassins, Colin didn’t deem it likely that he would suddenly procure a weapon and start shooting. His lined features held a mild expression, as if holding his arms above his head were part of an amusing game.
“My name is Henri de Vere.” The accent intensified as he pronounced his name. “And I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lord Drayton.”
Colin narrowed his eyes. “How do you know me?”
The man smiled. “I know much when it comes to my Sutherland cousins.” The assertion sparked a jolt that ran through Colin from head to toe. De Vere’s eyes once more registered amusement. “Oui, monsieur, the woman you know as Holly Sutherland is my cousin, and I have spent the past year shadowing her, shadowing all four of them.”
Colin exchanged a quick glance with Kirkston; then he approached de Vere. “You can put your arms down. But start talking. How can you be connected to the Sutherlands?”
Chuckling, de Vere fed the carrot to the colt. “They are not the Sutherlands. Their name is Valentin.” He fell silent but turned back to study Colin closely, waiting for his reaction.
“Valentin . . . I’ve heard that name before. Wasn’t there a Roland de Valentin during the wars who—”
“Opposed Napoleon and worked with English spies to rout him.” The Frenchman nodded. “And for his pains, his own relatives plotted his death, and the deaths of his family.”
“Holly . . .”
“Hélène. That is her true name. But yes, she and her sisters were all meant to die in a fire that razed their manor in Artois to the ground. Their friends learned of the plot, but too late. They arrived in time to save only the children. The man they knew as their uncle Edward bore no blood relation to them. Only an undying loyalty to their father.”
“Then he was a British spy as well.”
De Vere nodded, and Colin’s pulse hammered as his mind worked through this information. “There is more to this story than the machinations of the war,” he said. “Otherwise, why murder innocent children?”
De Vere nodded wearily, his shoulders sagging. “That is a story that must now come out. But not here. The details are for the Valentin sisters alone.”
The colt snorted and pawed the cobbles, reminding Colin of his presence. His pistol pointing downward, he gave it a wave in the animal’s direction. “Why did you take the colt?”
“That was not me, monsieur. That was my brother, Antoine. His way of obtaining your attention, one can only suppose. I am here because I traced my brother to this property.”
“And which one of you shot at Holly and me on the road to Devon?”
He fully expected de Vere to implicate his brother, but the man surprised him. “That, regrettably, was me, but
I certainly did not aim at either of you. If I hadn’t frightened the two of you off the road, Antoine would have taken more than the colt. He would have murdered you and taken Hélène . . . Holly. You see, until a year ago when he encountered the eldest sister in Bath—”
“Laurel, now Lady Barensforth.”
“Yes. Until he saw her, he believed the sisters were dead. But Laurette resembles their mother, Simone, so greatly, there could be no mistaking the relation between them.”
“The night of the ball . . .” Colin murmured. When de Vere looked puzzled, Colin explained. “We held a ball at Masterfield Park last week, and a man accosted Holly in what appeared to be a fit of drunkenness. Could your brother have gained access to the house?”
“Easily, one would imagine. You had many guests that night, no?”
“What did he want from her?”
“That is for the sisters’ ears.”
Colin decided to let that go . . . for now. He narrowed his eyes. “You said you traced your brother here. What were you planning to do when you found him?”
De Vere’s smile chilled his blood. “For too long my brother has been a blight on this earth. I intend to protect the girls he wronged so grievously.” He jerked his chin toward the floor near the stall gate, and Colin saw what he hadn’t noticed previously, and what de Vere could have used against him if he’d wished: a small pistol he had apparently set down when he’d decided to feed the colt.
Unexpected revulsion pitched in Colin’s gut. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to protect Holly; if he had to, he knew he could kill to keep her safe. But his own brother? He thought of Bryce, of Geoffrey, and the notion of taking either of their lives raised bile in his throat. But then, he couldn’t conceive of either of his brothers ever doing anything as heinous as what de Vere described.
“You wanted my help,” Colin guessed. “Is that why you summoned me here? To help you kill your brother?”
For the first time, de Vere’s aplomb slipped. He frowned in puzzlement. “I did not summon you. I came expecting to find Antoine. Only Antoine.”
“You didn’t send me a message earlier?”
De Vere shook his head.
“Oh, God,” Colin whispered. “Then I’ve made a fatal mistake.”
Chapter 28
“Your sister seems to have abandoned us, Miss Sutherland. Where do you suppose she has gone?”
Holly and Mr. Verrell strolled between the paddocks toward the racetrack. Sabrina was busy overseeing the saddling of several horses, for it had been decided that she and the head trainer would display the animals before their guest.
Holly glanced over her shoulder to the stable yard. Where was Willow, indeed? Not to mention Bryce.
“Are you and your sisters close, Miss Sutherland?”
As he spoke, Holly frowned slightly in concentration as she tried to place his accent. French, or perhaps Flemish? She could surmise only that he’d originated or spent much time on the Continent. “Yes, we’re very close,” she replied. “I suppose it shows, doesn’t it?”
“It is most charming.” He paused, then asked, “Your other sister, she is not well?”
“Oh, no, she’s—” Holly faced forward again, suddenly struck by Mr. Verrell’s interest in Ivy and Willow. She had very nearly mentioned Ivy’s pregnancy, a detail far too intimate to be disclosed to a complete stranger, and a male stranger at that. Yet something about his manner as she had answered his queries about the horses had set her at ease, perhaps too much so, and only now did she sense that his amiability strayed beyond the proper boundary. And then she realized something else: although he had asked many questions about the horses, he hadn’t seemed to take much note of the answers.
“Mr. Verrell, may I ask you an impertinent question?”
His eyes twinkled kindly. “You may, my dear.”
They reached the wide elm that grew beside the racetrack. She glanced out across the course, the lush lawn at its center tinged gold by the late-afternoon sun. “Did you truly come here to purchase a racehorse, sir?”
He took a long moment in answering, his lips pursed as he regarded her. “No,” he finally said. Her stomach knotted even before he added, “I came here hoping to meet you, my dear.”
Her heart pounding, she took a lengthy stride backward. “Who are you?”
In the instant or two before he replied, she became aware of the clamor of a pair of blue jays squabbling overhead. She noticed it now because as she waited for Mr. Verrell to identify—truly identify—himself, everything inside her went still and silent with an impending dread she could not name.
“My name is not Verrell,” he said. She felt no surprise, only a vague apprehension at having ventured so far from the others with a man who had suddenly transformed into a complete stranger yet again. “It is de Vere,” he continued. “Antoine de Vere. And I am here to help you.”
The name echoed in her ears and propelled her back another step, until her shoulders struck a solid form. In dismay she realized she’d retreated up against the tree trunk, which held her trapped. “I know that name. Except . . . it wasn’t Antoine. It was Henri.”
Henri de Vere, a man with an enigmatic past who might have attacked Laurel in Bath last year, but who had disappeared immediately afterward, taking his secrets with him.
“Henri is my brother,” he said gently. “And he is an exceedingly bad man.”
“My sister Laurel . . . ?” Holly broke off, uncertainty clogging her throat with fear.
“If you speak of your eldest sister, then yes,” he said in that soothing way of his. “Henri might have killed her a year ago had the Earl of Barensforth not interrupted their struggle.”
Holly tried to move away from him, only to have the bark of the tree bite into her back through her clothing. “But why? Who are we that anyone would wish us harm? And you . . . what do you want with me?”
His smile both reassured her and left her unsettled. He stood too close, close enough to touch her should he raise his arm but a few inches. “Your name,” he said, “is Hélène de Valentin. You and your sisters, Laurette, Yvonne, and Wilhemine, are the direct heirs of a vast fortune. A French fortune seized by the crown at the close of the wars, and only now about to be restored into the hands of its rightful owners.”
“I don’t understand. We are English. Until my sisters married we were poor. We are orphans. We are nobody.”
His soft chuckle triggered an onslaught of memories . . . of having heard that very laughter before, in her very distant past. “You are indeed somebody, the last of a very great French family. You were orphaned because your manor was burned to the ground.”
“Yes, I—I have vague memories of running through the flames. Of my uncle lifting me into his coach . . .”
“He was not your uncle. He was your father’s friend, his comrade against Napoleon’s forces. He and I and the father of the young queen, and many more besides, worked secretly to bring the tyrant down. But before Napoleon fell, he learned of our network, and he sent a man who knew your father well, who knew your manor as he knew his own home, and who had much to gain in destroying your family.”
The world began to spin before Holly’s eyes. She shut them, only to feel the ground tip beneath her feet. At the pressure of a hand at her elbow, her eyes flew open, and with a gasp she pressed tighter against the tree. Far off—an impossible distance away—she saw the tiny figures of Sabrina and the head trainer leading the horses into the upper paddock. Sabrina would wonder where Holly and Mr. Verrell had gone. Would she see them here, or would the shade of the elm hide them from view?
Antoine de Vere released her, his hand dropping to his side. “Forgive me, my dear. I didn’t wish to startle you, but you seemed unsteady.”
“I’m all right.” Her fingers clenching, she drew a shaky breath. “This man sent to destroy my family . . . what did he have to gain by it?”
“My family, the de Veres, are cousins of the Valentins, and for over a century the two side
s have fought over the rights of inheritance to a great fortune, rights left ambiguous by the terms of the original will. Many times the battle has turned bloody, with cousin murdering cousin and the fortune changing hands like the ball in a tennis match. At the beginning of this century, your family stood triumphant. But then the wars started, and with it came chaos. My brother, Henri, decided to use that chaos to his advantage.”
“By murdering my parents . . . trying to murder my sisters and me? No, this cannot be true . . . Uncle Edward . . .”
“Saved your lives.” De Vere gave a deferential nod. “And now I am here to save you once again.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you turning up only now? Why not when we were children? Or even a year ago, when our lives were suddenly endangered again? Why have you kept this secret?”
“I have kept watch,” he said. “But I feared if you and your sisters knew of your legacy, your inheritance, there could be more bloodshed. I thought as long as you were cared for and safe, there was no reason to devastate you with such a truth. Why raise such sorrowful ghosts when you could simply go on being the Sutherland sisters?” He heaved a regretful sigh. “Forgive me, my dear, if I judged incorrectly.”
Fear closed around her as she thought of her sisters, of Laurel, whose child would soon enter the world; of Ivy, still months away from giving birth but so vulnerable; and of Willow, the youngest, who had yet to fully experience life and love. In truth, Holly didn’t know if she could forgive this man, this bearer of grievous tidings and a specter of her violent past. Perhaps it wasn’t his fault and she was being unfair, but how to pardon him for ripping away her very identity?
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