“None of that matters to a man’s liberty under English law.” Martín glanced at Valerie. “Or to a woman’s liberty.”
“Ahh, that might be true. But what will English law do when they learn you are also a murderer?”
Martín’s head jerked up.
D’Armand’s reptilian smile grew. “Ah, yes, now I have your attention. English law will not look so fondly on your presence here when they learn who you killed. They take the murder of a peer very seriously.”
“How do you know?”
The Frenchman flicked a dismissive hand. “What does it matter?”
“You have no proof of anything.”
D’Armand made a tsking noise. “Oh, Bouchard, you have been away a long time. Many things have happened in so many years.” He pivoted and went back to his desk, drawing out a folded sheaf of papers with an official-looking seal. He waved it in front of Martín’s face.
“The authorities here will not stop me from taking you back when they see this.”
Martín reached out a hand, stopping d’Armand in mid-rant.
“What? You wish to look at this? What good would it do you? There are no pictures.” D’Armand laughed.
“I can read.”
The Frenchman’s eyebrows inched up his forehead. “Has someone been teaching you tricks? How precocious.” He advanced on Martín. “Of course you may see it, not that it matters. You will find yourself on a ship heading back to New Orleans before you can even blink. You killed a peer, Bouchard, not some sailor in a bar fight. I could have had you clapped in irons already.”
D’Armand resembled a snake in speed as well as demeanor, and the papers were a white blur that made a crack like the rapport of a gun when they struck Martín’s face.
Martín lunged, but was stopped by something hard pressed against his sternum.
“You. Killed. My. Father,” d’Armand whispered, pushing the gun into Martín’s chest. “He might not have been much of a father, but he was the head of my family. A family that can trace its lineage back to Charlemagne. And you?” He shook his head, hatred rolling off him in waves. “Now. Step back.”
Martín recognized the white-hot rage in the other man’s eyes and complied.
The Frenchman tossed him the papers, took a step back, and tucked the pistol into the back of his breeches, where it must have been all along.
Martín looked at the mass of copperplate writing before extracting a pair of spectacles from a pocket on his coat. His eyes quickly found the word murder, and he read enough to know the Frenchman had somehow found out what had happened that night.
“I would exercise this warrant right now, but your friend Ramsay has already told me he will know where to look if anything untoward happens to you. He is a truly powerful man and related to half the English peerage. I prefer not to dodge him and his annoying band of associates all the way back to New Orleans. I could hand this paper over to the right person, and you would find yourself in the deepest cell in Newgate. But lucky for you, Bouchard, I will not tolerate having this matter dragged before the courts—either here or in New Orleans.” D’Armand’s sneer deepened, and he leaned back against his desk, crossing his arms.
“Particularly when there is a better, quicker way of settling the issue. I have the right to avenge my father in a duel. When I kill you, it will be a matter of honor. I will lose your stud services, of course, but I suspect you would have proved intractable and ultimately . . . unprofitable.”
“And what will I get for killing you?” Martín asked.
D’Armand laughed. “So much fire! I can see why my father enjoyed making you kneel.” He raked cold eyes down Martín’s body, the look calculated and insulting. “You will not kill me, but I will still make you an offer. I will give you your deed.”
Martín snorted. “That is unnecessary. But you will give me Valerie’s and the boy’s.” He would take her and Gaston away from d’Armand with or without the papers, but their lives would be far easier if they had them. Martín turned to the woman. “Are there any others?” he asked, not bothering to explain what he meant.
She gave d’Armand a long, inscrutable look before shaking her head.
“I will want their papers and your word you will release them into Ramsay’s care—no matter what happens. In exchange, I will deed everything over in advance, and you will not have to wait to get your hands on my ship and my property. If you do not agree, you will get nothing. I will deed it all away to Ramsay, and you can try to fight him for it.”
D’Armand’s breathing quickened, and Martín wondered if the man would shoot him right now and be done with it.
But d’Armand wanted his pound of flesh, so he shrugged. “Very well—but I will give the warrant to the authorities here. If you live, I will not have you go on with your life as if you’ve done nothing wrong. No, you will be punished for what you did. That is the only offer I will accept.”
So, there it was. He would have to kill d’Armand, grab Valerie and the boy, and leave England immediately after the duel. That would mean he couldn’t—
“I said very well to your terms. Do you agree to mine?” d’Armand said when Martín made no response.
“I agree.”
“Excellent. Now, how do you prefer to die?”
Martín would have liked to choose fists, but knew that would not be an option: d’Armand wanted blood and death. “I choose pistols.”
Again, d’Armand shrugged, as if it didn’t matter one way or another. “I assume Ramsay will be your second?”
The last thing Martín wanted was Hugh getting involved and telling his wife, who would no doubt tell Sarah. “No. The Marquess of Exley will second me.”
D’Armand’s eyebrows rose. “Such august friends you have. Oliver Chenier will call on Exley, and we will meet in the morning, before first light.”
“I will require some time to get my affairs in order.”
D’Armand’s mouth twisted. “Such an important man of business. Very well. The day after tomorrow and no later. I have no desire to waste any more time on you.”
Martín ignored the insult, instead thinking about Exley’s nosy little wife. “I do not want this matter sullying my friend’s house. Exley will call on your man. Now, I want a few moments with Valerie. Alone.”
The only sign that the Frenchman was annoyed at being ordered around by his slave was a very slight flaring of his nostrils. “By all means. There is no spiriting her out of the house—I have more men than you have seen. In any case, I have the boy.”
Martín ignored the threat and went to sit across from the woman. He waited until the door closed behind d’Armand before he spoke.
“How old is he?” he asked in French, looking into a pair of dark eyes he recalled well.
“He is thirteen.” Her voice was low and sultry and fit her person.
“You have had no others?” He could not believe d’Armand would have resisted his base urges.
She looked down again. “There was a girl. He sold her a year ago.”
Martín stared. “Good God—she could not be more than—”
“Yes.”
Martín was not surprised; after all, his own father had sold him. Here was yet another man who treated his own children like livestock.
“D’Armand needs money—he is barely one step ahead of the law himself.”
“I am sorry I never came to find you after I escaped,” Martín said, speaking words that had caused him shame and grief for over a decade.
She gave a laugh that chilled him. “You were in no position to save anyone—not even yourself.”
“I could have tried,” he persisted.
“And how is that? Did you know it was the marquis who bought me?”
“No, but—”
“You knew nothing and could do nothing, Bouchard. You were given a chance to escape and you took it. I would have done the same as you. Besides, you could not have known about the child.”
He hadn’t known, but he sh
ould have guessed. Madam Sonia had not been shy about putting them together.
“Do you know how d’Armand found out it was me who killed his father?”
But Valerie was not interested in small talk now any more than she’d been fifteen years earlier. “He will kill you.” She spoke the words with a quiet certainty that made every muscle in his body tense.
Martín bristled. “I am no mean hand with a pistol.”
“It doesn’t matter what you choose. He has killed many men. That is all he enjoys—killing. Blades, pistols, it does not matter; he is a killer.”
Her stoic acceptance of d’Armand’s superiority with weapons was annoying, but Martín chose to ignore her lack of faith in him.
“After I kill him we will have to leave immediately. You can never go back home. You know that?”
She stared at him with her unnerving, dead eyes. “I have no home.”
“I have a property in Italy that will be suitable. I have money. You will not want for anything, and neither will the boy.” Again she shrugged, the gesture so fatalistic it made him boil inside. “Do you have no desire to escape him? Or have you come to enjoy his attentions?” He knew the question was cruel before it left his mouth.
This time he saw an expression: raw hatred that made him recoil. “Only death offers an escape. Had I been stronger I would have killed Gaston, the girl, and myself long ago. But I was pitiful and weak.”
Bile rose in his throat. How could she survive such bleakness? How had the boy survived? Martín would not rest until he found her daughter.
“I will find your girl. Even if he kills me tomorrow, I will leave instructions and money. I know men who will rip the world apart for her. They will find her, buy her freedom, and bring her to you.”
She laughed, the sound so bitter and hate-filled, Martín felt as though she’d raked her nails across his face.
“You will only need a shovel and a little patience to find her.”
Martín stared.
“He sold her to his nearest neighbor. She was only there a few months before she died of some disease that killed everyone on the plantation. I begged him to wait, to—” Valerie stopped abruptly, her face once again impassive, as though she’d never divulged such unbearable horror. That was when he realized she was little more than a beautiful shell, a vessel with nothing other than hate to fill it.
He stared at his hands, which were clenched so tightly his knuckles were white. As white as the man who claimed to own him. A hand like delicately carved ebony covered his clenched fists, her touch cool and as light as a feather. He looked up, stunned by the comforting gesture. But there was no tenderness in her face; she was not seeking to comfort or to be comforted.
“I will attend tomorrow, as I have done several times in the past. It arouses him to have an audience to his violence. He likes to display his skill and take me after.” Her hand fell away. “See that our son is cared for.”
Martín’s head throbbed with rage. He wanted to grab and shake some anger into her, but he could see she had already retreated back into herself.
He stood. “Make sure the boy is ready to leave when this is finished. And yourself, too.”
* * *
Adam de Courtney, the seventh Marquess of Exley, looked at Martín without speaking. For the second time in one day Martín found himself looking at a person who gave away very little. With Valerie, it was because she had nothing left to give. With the marquess? Well, who knew what the man was hiding?
He had listened to Martín’s story without asking a single question or making even one comment. When Martín finished, he rose and poured them each a second glass of brandy.
Exley resumed his chair, his posture so rigid it made Martín sore just looking at him. The marquess took a sip of brandy and met Martín’s eyes.
“I saw d’Armand shoot at Manton’s some years ago. He lived in London for a while before he went to America. I shot against him on four occasions.”
Martín hated to ask, but he had to. “And did you best him?”
Exley gave Martín the arctic stare that made it so difficult for some members of the ton to forget his notorious nickname.
“We run even as of our last match.”
Damn! He should have chosen blades.
Exley took a sip and gave a slight smile, as if he could hear Martín’s thoughts. “He is even more dangerous with a short sword.”
Martín nodded and sighed. “You will second me?”
Exley’s bizarrely pale eyes blinked at the question; Martín thought it might have been the first time he’d seen the man exhibit even mild surprise. “I would have thought you’d ask Ramsay.”
“Ramsay has been acting like an old woman since his marriage. He would tell his wife, and she would find some way to stop me.”
Exley sat as still as a cat, his cold stare enough to make any man jumpy. “And you believe I will not tell my wife?” he asked, both his expression and his tone incurious.
“If you recall, I once helped you keep a matter of some importance from Lady Exley. You owe me.”
“Ah, I see. Giving you Oak Park was not enough to clear the ledger?” He did not wait for an answer to his sarcastic question. “I will act as your second, and I will not tell my wife.”
Martín suddenly felt weak with relief. Exley might be an uncomfortable man to be around, but at least he was straightforward and not overly emotional. Unlike Ramsay. Martín grimaced at the thought of the mercurial ex-privateer learning about this duel.
“As your second it is part of my duty to urge you to seek reconciliation. I will only ask you once, Captain Bouchard. Is there no other way out of this?”
“No. He wishes to kill me. Whether it is for the money or for revenge”—Martín shrugged—“I don’t know.”
“Very well,” Exley said, unperturbed. “If you kill him, you must have plans to leave the country immediately. And if you don’t kill him? Well, you must still have plans for the woman and boy.”
“I have agreed to sign over my ship and properties—including Oak Park. In exchange for that he has agreed to free Valerie and the boy. If he kills me and seems unwilling to keep his word to me, offer him money. I have a great deal of money tucked away, far more than d’Armand can possibly know about.”
Exley grimaced. “It is a wretched coincidence we only took care of the deed to Oak Park recently.”
Martín would have called it something far worse. “Let’s hope he doesn’t get anything from me.”
Exley’s blank stare said what he thought of such wishful thinking.
“Ramsay knows about the money I have hidden and he will help you . . . after, if I am no longer able.” Martín’s mind spun as he tried to consider every eventuality. “Put the boy and the woman on Ramsay’s ship. I will leave Ramsay a letter and ask him to make arrangements to take them to one of his foreign properties. He will protect them.” Martín looked into the hard, pale face across from him. “You will see to this for me, if I am gone?”
“Yes, I will see to it. You should go now,” the marquess said, opening a drawer and taking out a sheet of paper. “You have matters to see to, and I must send a message to d’Armand’s second.”
When Martín reached the door to the study, he turned around to thank the man for his help. But Exley was already bent over his desk, the scratching of his quill moving across paper the only sound in the large room. Martín swallowed his words of thanks and quietly left the room.
Exley was correct; he did have matters to see to. One of those matters was a letter to Sarah.
Chapter Thirty
Sarah closed the door to her Uncle Septimus’s study and leaned against the glossy brown wood to catch her breath. The meeting with her uncles had not been as bad as she’d feared. In fact, her uncles had seemed almost resigned to her plans. Her Aunt Anna on the other hand, had been appalled.
“You’re going to do what?”
“I’m going back to Africa to build a school and an orphanage,”
Sarah repeated.
The older woman’s eyes were wide and almost crazed. She turned to her elder brothers.
“Can you not do something? She cannot do this foolish thing if she has no money to do it.”
Septimus smiled, and Sarah’s heart hurt at the pain she saw in his eyes.
“We settled her inheritance on her outright, Anna. We did not want to use the promise or the threat of money to make her stay. It was our hope she would remain in London, but Barnabus believed she would probably wish to return to Africa. She is, after all, from there, Anna.”
His words had made Sarah blink. Her staid, proper uncles—the same men who’d wanted her to marry Mies—had believed all along she might leave?
The realization that they had believed such a thing yet treated her so lovingly had made her weep. Indeed, she was still crying. She brushed the back of her hand across her damp eyes and straightened away from the study door.
The deed was done, and she had told her family. The only thing left to do now was to finalize her plans. She squared her shoulders and strode toward the smallest sitting room, an unused chamber that she’d claimed as her sanctum.
Sarah’s mind went from the meeting she’d just left to her immediate future. She’d already set her plans in motion. Paul Cuffe had helped her, and the Manton sisters had promoted her cause among their wealthy donors. She had acquired—
“Miss Fisher?”
Sarah squeaked and spun around.
A footman was behind her. “I’m sorry, miss. I didn’t mean to startle you. A letter came for you.” He held out a thick cream envelope.
She looked at the envelope and froze. She knew only one person who possessed such bold, almost outrageous handwriting.
It was from Martín.
Her eyes swept over the writing again and again, as if to convince her brain they’d not misled her. She reached out to steady herself against the wall.
“Are you all right, Miss Fisher?”
Sarah looked up from the envelope and gave the footman a reassuring smile. “Yes, thank you, Charles.” She watched the man depart before making her way down the hall on legs as unsteady as a toddler’s.
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