Busbee, Shirlee

by Lady Vixen

  Equally businesslike, Robert replied, "Swords. Yours is there above the mantel. I already have mine. As you may not have noticed, it has served me well once already this evening."

  Christopher's lips moved in something that might have been called a smile. "I had noticed. But where do we. finish this farce? Here?"

  "Why not? The furniture can be pushed aside."

  Both men set to work with deadly amiability, shoving the heavy furniture against the walls of the room until a large empty space was cleared. Still without speaking, both men sat down and removed their boots and stockings, each wishing for the extra balance and mobility afforded by bare feet.

  His boots off, Christopher strode over to the mantel and plucked down the remaining sword, running it lightly through his hand, checking the perfection of the blade, the weight in his hand. Turning to Robert, now also with a sword in his hand, he said in a level tone, "Your choice in weapons is to be applauded. This is an uncommonly fine blade."

  Robert bowed mockingly and answered with a sneer, "Did you ever know me when I did not have the finest? Be it swords or women?"

  A cold light entered Christopher's gold eyes, making them glitter in the firelight. Deliberately he murmured, "But do you have her, Uncle? Or rather I should say . . . can you keep her?"

  It was a studied insult, and Robert's hand tightened around his sword, his mouth thinning with fury. "By God, you'll pay for that!" he spat. "En garde!"

  Christopher met Robert's attack eagerly, their blades singing in the air. Instantly disengaging his sword and leaping nimbly away from Robert's maddened thrust, Christopher taunted, "Come now, Uncle, you'll have to do better than that! After all, this time we are evenly matched. Or is it that you only show to advantage when your opponent is relatively unarmed?"

  Robert's teeth ground together in rage, but he held onto his temper, guessing that Christopher was consciously infuriating him. Smiling grotesquely Robert hissed, "Brave words for a man who runs before my sword. Come closer, Nephew, and we shall see the truth of your taunts."

  Christopher made no reply; his expression was deceptively lazy as almost contemptuously he parried Robert's furious lunge and danced easily away from the older man.

  "Damn you! Come to me and fight!" Robert snapped, breathing heavily.

  "I will, Uncle, I will, have no fear of that," Christopher replied coldly, and then suddenly reversing his defensive actions, he charged Robert, his blade flashing in lightning strokes, driving the other man before him.

  They fought grimly and silently, except for the soft thud of their bare feet on the carpet and the occasional clash of their swords, the firelight gleaming on the flashing blades. There was a deadly atmosphere in the room that increased by the second, as time after time, Robert was just able to turn aside the swift and wicked thrust of Christopher's blade. But Robert was tiring and he knew it—knew too that there was no escape from this attack, that this was no fencing master's display, no polite duel with its punctilious niceties.

  For each of them nothing existed except the other, and the hatred they shared; nothing was real except the other man's sword, always feinting, thrusting, and parrying, each always avoiding the one little lessening of the guard that would allow this inevitable meeting to end. They were two tall men, two handsome men, evenly matched in many ways, and the rage both had contained for too long was now in full blaze, racing uncontrollably through their veins.

  Their breathing was quick and hard as the fight continued. Robert barely parried a lunging thrust aimed at his heart. He moved too slowly, and Christopher's blade clashed against his, before sliding over his guard and slashing along his arm, leaving a long, welling, bloody slit.

  With a tigerish smile on his lips, Christopher muttered softly, "I owed you that, Uncle!"

  And because this was no simple duel to be decided by a single hit, to be ended by first blood, neither checked, but each relentlessly wielded his sword against the other. Hard pressed, Robert feinted in high carte and thrust in low tierce, hut his blade met only the opposition of Christopher's.

  Breathlessly, but very clearly, Christopher asked, "Where is she?"

  It was Robert's turn to smile. "Upstairs in my bed . . . where else?"

  He regretted the words instantly, for Christopher's blade easily and deliberately stung him on the cheek. "And how does she arrive there? What was Edward doing here?"

  Robert had no strength remaining to waste on attack; he could only parry the increasingly dangerous thrusts of Christopher's sword, his arm aching from shoulder to wrist, the sweat rolling off his face.

  "Answer me! How does Nicole find herself here and with Markham?"

  In a gulping, panting gasp, Robert spat, "Markham abducted her and I got the story from her maid. I overtook them and brought Nicole here."

  Christopher could figure out most of the gaps in Robert's story, but not all. And his eyes narrowed in grim concentration; his point flashed under Robert's guard, checked, and withdrew. "And your bed?"

  Tauntingly Robert panted, "Have you ever known me... to boast... of my . . . conquests?"

  It was the last thing Robert Saxon ever said. He had no breath left with which to speak; all his energies were concentrated on avoiding that final deadly thrust he knew would finish this struggle.

  A moment later Robert saw it coming—a straight lunge aimed for his heart; he made a desperate attempt to parry it, but was too late to deflect the fatal thrust. Unerringly, Christopher's point sunk deep and deadly into Robert's heart, ending forever the duel between them.

  Unemotionally Christopher viewed Robert's body, surprised to discover that he felt nothing. Robert had been someone he had hated and despised for almost his entire life; to win against him should have given a sense of victory, but he was empty, numb, indifferent to the body lying there on the floor.

  He must have stood there for several moments, and what it was that eventually roused him from his queer blankness he never quite knew. Perhaps it was the crack of a burning log on the hearth or the crash of a breaker on the beach. At any rate he gave himself a mental shake, realizing at last that the monstrous hatred between him and Robert was finally over—but at a horrible and bitter price.

  The chiming of the clock on the mantel roused him still further, made him more aware of the passing time, of the ship that was waiting for him beyond those same breakers pounding on the sand just below Robert's house. Grimly he surveyed the scene, Robert dead at his feet, and Edward's body stretched out on the floor not four feet away. It was the proximity of the bodies that first gave him the idea—that and a deep-rooted desire to save his grandfather more grief. Robert's death would be a blow enough without the added knowledge that his grandson had killed his son. His mind made up in a lightning flash, he walked over to Edward's body and deftly substituted his own sword for the sword cane, unconsciously thrusting the sword cane into his waistband.

  It took him but a moment longer to unroll his sleeves, put on his boots, and slip into his greatcoat. He glanced once more around the room, increasingly conscious that he must leave—the tide was on the turn and time was passing swiftly. But the thought of Nicole sleeping soundly in Robert's bed upstairs would not leave him, and he knew before he could depart, he had to see her, to see for himself that she was indeed the lying jade he had damned her for being.

  A timid knock interrupted his thoughts, and swiftly he crossed the room to press himself flat against the wall near the door. The knock came again and after a brief hesitation the door opened slowly.

  Somewhat cautiously Galena entered the room, her soft brown eyes wide with apprehension and worry. What she was doing was unheard of, but nearly sick with worry about her rash young mistress, she had whipped up her courage and was now intending to confess to Master Robert what Miss Nicole had done. She had wrestled unhappily with her conscience, but her concern for her mistress had won. Perhaps, she told herself staunchly, Miss Nicole had misunderstood the situation. Surely Master Robert was not in the same mold as that
wicked Mister Markham. And besides, she excused herself, if she didn't do something, Miss Nicole was likely to freeze out there on the beach with no cloak, no pelisse.

  Galena had taken not more than two steps into the room, when Christopher, moving with that pantherlike grace of his, shut the door with his shoulder and swiftly clamped a hand over her mouth.

  "Hush!" he ordered softly in her ear. Shooting a sharp glance over to where the bodies lay, he noted with satisfaction that from this angle, they were hidden by one of the couches. Quickly he hustled a petrified Galena over to Robert's desk and, still holding a hand against her mouth, spun her to face him.

  Her eyes opened even wider if possible, and silently her lips formed his name.

  Placing a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, he slowly removed his hand.

  "Master Christopher!" she breathed with a sigh of relief. "I knew you would come!" Then recalling instantly her reason for being there, she cried, "Oh, Master Christopher, you must save her! She has run away down the beach. You must find her and bring her back!" She added irrelevantly, "She has no cloak to keep her warm."

  Christopher thought quickly, mistakenly assuming that Nicole had somehow learned of his presence and was even now racing away to escape the retribution he would undoubtedly deliver. Spying a piece of paper and a pen on Robert's desk, he quickly scrawled a note to his grandfather.

  Grandfather,

  I write to you in haste—leaving for France immediately as planned. I have Nicole safe—but at a terrible price!

  Christopher

  Snatching up Nicole's pelisse, he dragged Galena from the room, deliberately making certain she had no view of the bodies, and hurried her along the path he had followed such a short time ago. Reaching his horse, he literally pushed Galena into Nicole's pelisse, pressed the note into her hand, and tossed her up onto his mount.

  "I sure as hell hope you can ride, Galena," he said with a grin. "You're going to go to Lord Saxon's and give him this note. Don't worry about your mistress—I'll take care of her." He hesitated, then he said slowly, "Galena, I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone but my grandfather that you saw me here tonight. If anyone asks, you slipped away all by yourself. Understand?"

  Like one in a trance Galena nodded; then Christopher slapped the flank of the horse, and she clutched the reins as the animal sprang forward. Christopher watched until she was well on her way and then turned and leaped down toward the beach, his one thought to find Nicole and when he did . . .

  Miss Nicole Ashford was at the moment in a very unhappy predicament. She had grown careless in her confidence and had to her disgust managed to stumble over a half-buried rock in the sand and twist her ankle badly. The pain was excruciating, but that was nothing to the burning humiliation she felt at being stopped by such a silly and feminine accident. Fuming, she sat in the sand, having nearly given up her futile attempts to climb to the small cottage just a short way above her. Her ankle would not hold her weight, and beyond crawling on her belly, there was little she could do except smolder at such an unkind fate. She was determined to continue and had seriously considered traveling on her hands and knees when she noticed a flash of blue coming from the ship she had seen earlier. Mystified, she glanced back up at the cliff, and in the moonlight she could make out the shape of a man.

  For one wild second she thought she recognized the shape but dismissed it as fancy. Higgins wouldn't be out here at this time of night exchanging signals with a strange ship. Or would he?

  Suddenly she jerked upright, remembering Christopher's mention of a cottage near the sea—that and the fact that he was leaving. Intently, she stared out to sea, not at all surprised when a few minutes later a small boat was lowered into the water and the men aboard her began to row toward the beach.

  Higgins's appearance coming down from the cliff top not a second later she viewed almost with amusement. Tonight was certainly her night for stumbling into one scrape after another. Christopher would kill her if he found her here, she thought with a half-hysterical giggle—but she would rather Christopher throttle her, than live as Robert's wife.

  Higgins was just even with her, when she called to him, "Higgins! I know this is an awkward time for me to call, but would you please tell Christopher that I am here."

  Higgins not unnaturally nearly jumped out of his skin. "Miss Nicole!" he said in an agitated tone, when he squinted in the moonlight and recognized her. "Whatever are you doing here? Christopher is out looking for you— in fact, he is going to miss the ship, because he is looking for you!"

  With something like horror, Nicole regarded Higgins's extremely apprehensive face. "Oh, Lord!" she muttered softly, realizing precisely what must have occurred. The thought of Christopher murdering her was no longer very funny, especially since there appeared a very definite possibility that he would do exactly that when he caught up with her.

  Biting her lip, she watched as the small boat drew nearer. "What are you going to do?" she asked at last. "Tell them you aren't going?"

  Higgins shot her an uncertain glance. "No. I am returning with them. This ships sails for America, for New Orleans, and Christopher has given me orders to make it without fail."

  "I see," she answered slowly, seeing a great many things she would rather not. This rendezvous must have been planned even before he had left New Orleans, and the t ought that she was the cause of his failing to keep it filled her with dismay. But damnit, she thought rebelliously, it isn't my fault! I didn't ask him to go haring off all over the countryside looking for me!

  "Look!" Higgins cried excitedly, interrupting her thoughts, and with a sinking heart Nicole recognized instantly the long-legged figure striding so furiously down the beach. It took him only a moment to reach them, and there was a curious expression on his face when he looked at Nicole, still seated on the sand.

  "Well, well," he drawled sarcastically, "what have we here? A maiden in distress? Or my uncle's runaway mistress?" Giving her no time to answer, he swooped down and pulled her to her feet.

  Warily, she eyed him, ignoring the stabbing pain of her ankle. Almost meekly she said, "I hurt my ankle, or I wouldn't be here. And Christopher," she went on with quiet desperation, "I didn't mean for this to happen."

  Christopher stared at her silently, a victim of so many conflicting emotions that he wasn't certain what he felt. He had thought the only emotion she could arouse was disgust and lust, thought he had said his final good-bye to her in the library. But he discovered that some other indefinable feeling for her was tearing him apart.

  There was a stiff breeze blowing now, lifting the sable-fire curls and tumbling them wildly about her shoulders, molding the thin material of her dress against the slim body, making Christopher remember things he wanted to forget. He didn't want her, he told himself savagely. She was trouble—had been trouble since he had first discovered her in that cove in Bermuda—and now she had nearly been the undoing of months of planning. As the moments passed and still Christopher said nothing, Higgins, with a discretion that further endeared him to Nicole, left them and walked down to the surf to wait for the nearing boat to make it through the breakers.

  Nicole swallowed, slightly unnerved by the hard, unrelenting features above her. For once her temper had fled before the tightly leashed fury that emanated from Christopher, and falteringly she said, "I... I..."

  "You what?" Christopher snapped explosively. "You're sorry? Isn't it a little late for that? Two men are dead because of you! Jesus Christ, Nicole, I leave you alone for less than a month and what do I find? Chaos and mayhem. And now what am I to do with you?"

  Her eyes a stormy topaz in the moonlight, she flared back, "You aren't going to do anything with me! I've managed to get this far by myself, and I sure as hell don't need any help from the likes of you! Meet your damn ship!"

  She spun away momentarily, having forgotten the injury to her ankle. But a shaft of tearing agony reminded her forcibly of it, and smothering the gasp of pain that rose in her throa
t, she took another stumbling step before Christopher's hard hands closed around her shoulders.

  A shout from Higgins jerked Christopher's head around before he could continue further, and with a low, vicious curse he swung a kicking, fighting Nicole up in his arms and carried her down near the surf. Standing her none too gently on the damp sand, he snarled, "Now you stay here and you listen to me! Robert and Edward are both dead! And if you didn't do the actual deed yourself, you are directly responsible for their deaths." He finished bitterly, "You are so like your mother!"

  Nicole's face went white, her eyes huge enormous pools of darkness. The news of the deaths was a staggering shock to her, but what stunned her most was that Christopher was blaming her! She had known he would take the worst possible view, but this? It was so damned like him, she thought with a burst of blazing fury, to couple her with her mother, to think that they were alike! "If I were a man, you'd not say that! And if I were a man, you'd meet me on the field of honor before the sun rises. How dare you! How dare you condemn me! Condemn me without a hearing, without even knowing what happened. You arrogant beast—I hope your bloody ship sinks!" It was a childish taunt, and Nicole bit her lip in frustrated fury, wishing she could command a blistering attack that would leave him speechless.

  There was just enough justice in her words to give Christopher pause, but there was no time—no time for further conversation, no time to settle the disagreements between them. Harassed, torn apart by emotions he could not name, or would not name, he was for the first time in his life swayed by indecision. And this one woman was the cause of it all. There was no denying that he still wanted her; even now, knowing Robert had lain with her, had tasted that sweet mouth, he still wanted to feel her slender body naked against his, to feel that exciting quiver her body gave when he entered her. And unbidden the thought leaped in his mind—why leave her behind?

  It was madness even to think it, but once the idea was born he could not shake it, and consideringly he gauged the nearness of the boat. It had reached the breakers, and now within seconds he would have to make a move. Higgins was already beginning to wade out into the foaming surf to meet it and he must join him any moment. He turned back to stare down into Nicole's tempestuous features, his eyes lingering on the ripe fullness of her mouth. And in that second Christopher Saxon vanished, leaving only Captain Saber.