Awakening His Duchess (39 page)

She looked at him with wide eyes. “You can fit in here. I’m
certain there is enough room.”

“No!”

Everyone turned and looked at him. But panic clawed at him.
He could not get into that coffin-like space.

“Henri will never know you’re there.”

“I won’t be able to breathe.” His chest was constricting.
The memories of being in the coffin clawed at him. His skin tingled as if
spiders were crawling all over him.

“I’ll cut a hole in the bottom, your lordship,” said Mr. Gates.
He crawled up in the box with an awl. “You’ll have air.”

Yvette climbed down. “Please, Beau, it is the only way.”

No, there had to be another way. But time was running out.
If he wanted Etienne back, he had to crawl into that confined space and have the
lid shut. Sweat trickled down his spine and he couldn’t breathe.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Can you hear me?” Yvette asked. “Knock on the panel.”

Beau’s heart was thundering. Riding in an unpadded box under
the seat was not exactly comfortable, but for the first few minutes all he
could do was hold himself still and not throw open the lid and send Yvette
flying.

“I can hear you.” His voice was louder than he expected, but
it burst out of him.

“You cannot talk, Beau. You will not know if Henri is near.”

He kicked the panel, although he was folded up like a camp
bed in the compartment, the fowling gun poking him in the ribs. He shifted
trying to get more comfortable.

“Beau,” Yvette warned. “You are moving the seat. And do not
knock so loud. If we are moving a tap likely will be mistaken for a noise of
the carriage.”

He wanted his nose up against the hole in the underside.
Yvette didn’t know what it was like when the air turned rotten. The sides of
the box pressed him in. The darkness swallowed him whole. He closed his eyes
trying to imagine himself somewhere else, anywhere else, but the terror of
being buried alive crowded his thoughts. For God’s sake his son had been taken
and all he could think about was his own fears.

“We are turning through the gate,” she said.

Lord above, he wouldn’t make it seven miles. With the horse
walking, it was likely to take well over an hour. He tapped his toe against the
front panel.

“Did you hear me?”

He rapped a tattoo with his knuckles. He could hear her just
fine. Her voice, even though it was strained and tight, gave him an anchor. She
knew he was in the box and in truth he could probably shove his way out if he
needed to. Certainly when no one was on the seat it was easy enough to push
open the lid. He’d tested it—or rather, he’d panicked a couple of times before
he gathered himself enough to stay concealed. Knowing he wasn’t nailed in was a
small comfort. “Keep talking.”

“He might see me and wonder.”

“People talk to their horse,” he muttered.

“What?”

Did she want him to talk or not? “Explain your plan.”

“I don’t have much of one other that getting you there
without Henri knowing. I will have to see what kind of mood he is in or if he
has Etienne with him.”

Beau breathed in as deep a breath as he could manage. Why
wouldn’t he have Etienne with him? “You think he will not?”

“He is cunning. I don’t know how he survived the slave
revolt.”

“Revolution,” muttered Beau.

“Of all the plantation owners I would have expected him to
be...a prime target.”

“How so?”

“Beau, you shouldn’t talk.”

“Kick the board with your heel if you think it unsafe for me
to talk. Kick it twice when you can see no one is close.”

She promptly kicked the board.

It was going to be a damn long journey if he couldn’t talk.
He shifted and then resigned himself to being uncomfortable and anxious for the
next few hours. He wouldn’t die from being uncomfortable, and certainly it
wasn’t as if he was in pain as he had been when he’d been whipped or worked for
eighteen hours straight day after day chopping cane. But right now he was
thinking he’d like to lock Yvette in the linen cupboard for a couple of hours
and ask her how she liked it.

Not that he would, of course. Instead he concentrated on
slowing his breathing with a silent calming talk.

A few seconds later he heard the rumble of a wagon. So there
had been a reason she had silenced him. He couldn’t see out the hole except
tiny patches of gravel passing by underneath the curricle. But when the wagon
passed, tiny bits of grit were flung up against the bottom of the curricle.

Her heel clicked twice against the board.

She was right in that he would have no idea if Henri was
close, although he couldn’t imagine that anyone could hear unless they were
within a few feet. A dozen feet, perhaps twenty.

“Beau, are you all right?”

He ticked off the facts in his head. He wasn’t in a coffin.
He wasn’t being buried. He was in a storage compartment that couldn’t be
locked. He had a source of fresh air. Then the fowling piece began to concern
him. What if it accidentally discharged?

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Mon Dieu,
do not scare me so.”

She was scared? Or scared for him? “Why do you think Henri
took Etienne if he doesn’t believe he is his son?”

“I do not know. If our marriage was not legal, he will not
have any use for him, unless, unless...”

“What?”

“Unless he wanted everyone to believe you and I were legally
wed and Etienne is your heir. Then when Etienne inherited, he could come and be
part of our life. I think he has been poisoning the duke.”

Her voice turned so small he bumped up the edge of the seat
just to hear her. The sliver of light coming in didn’t hurt either. But as her
words penetrated, his body tightened. “You think my father is being poisoned?”

“I do not know. His hands show marks that my father’s slaves
showed before many of them died.”

Beau dismissed the idea as absurd. But his thoughts cycled
around. How had both his brothers predeceased him? There was the oddness of
Arri’s death, and William’s death seemed peculiar, perhaps the result of
poisoning. Both had stood between him and the duchy. “How could someone get to
my father and poison him and not the rest of the household?”

“Something only he would consume? His brandy in the
library?” suggested Yvette.

Beau blanched. He’d drunk from the decanter and so had Mazi.
But Danvers had grown sick yesterday after sharing tea and a cigar with the
duke. Had he drunk brandy too? “But wouldn’t Mazi and I be sick if he was being
poisoned that way? We’ve had brandy from the library.”

“Poison can be delivered in small doses over a long time.
Actually the duke was deathly ill when I first arrived, but he has seemed to
get better only to have a new attack yesterday. I wish I understood or could
fit all the pieces together, but I am wary.”

Beau swallowed. She suspected Henri. She’d lived with the
man for several years, borne him children. “What did he do that makes you think
so poorly of him?”

“Everything had to go exactly as he wanted it.” Her
observation seemed minor, but the tone of her voice belied that supposition.
Her voice was very flat as if she had to divorce herself from her emotions to
talk about it.

And if things had not gone as Henri wanted? He had hurt her.
Obviously. How badly? “Did he beat you?”

She took a long time in answering. “Not exactly. He struck
me a few times, but he was more likely to take out his rage on the slaves or
the older children. I tried not to anger him.”

A perfect way to manipulate Yvette who tried to treat the
sick and weak. Beau ground his teeth.

“He just said things about Etienne, favored him, treated him
better than his other sons. It always scared me.”

“Yvette,” he breathed. “I would take it all away if I
could.”

“I wish you could, but I am afraid if he does not have
Etienne with him. I will have to pretend to be in love with him until we can
get to our son.”

“Do whatever you need to,” he told her. But dear God, he
sure hoped her plan didn’t include any physical affection. If the man believed
Yvette was his wife—Beau didn’t think he could remain hidden through Henri
kissing her or more. She was supposedly that man’s wife. No, Yvette was
his
wife.
He didn’t care what Henri knew or didn’t know about his marriage.

 
*~*~*

Yvette had shushed Beau before she turned into the overgrown
lane that led to the ruins of the abbey, but she had been sitting in the parked
curricle for what seemed like an eternity.

She could go no further as the lane—such as it was—ended in
what must have once been a courtyard to the ruins.

Had Henri left already? Was it a ruse to get her out of the
castle in the hopes that Beau would follow? She wouldn’t put it past Henri to
be lying in wait to kill Beau. The scenarios that tore at her mind all ended in
Beau’s death. She should have realized that sooner. But Henri would have to go
through her to kill Beau, and she wasn’t going to let him out until she knew
Henri’s intentions and knew where Etienne was.

Crumbling stonewalls blocked her view of the surrounding
countryside. An intact but roofless nave was before her. On the far side of the
ruins was a tower. If she had wanted to be certain she came alone, that was
where she would wait.

The seat thumped under her, reminding her that Beau was
still waiting as was she. She thumped her heel against the board, urging him to
be silent.

She kept swiveling around looking for a movement. “Henri?
Etienne?” she called for the thousandth time. “Where are you?”

No response.

The minutes ticked by. She counted to a hundred then two
hundred then a thousand, her mind screaming with a thousand things that Henri
might have done to Etienne.

“Please, Henri. I have missed you so. Please do not abandon
me now. I thought you were dead. You do not know how I mourned for you.”

She closed her eyes and felt tears leak out. Had she come
all this way for nothing? Oh God, where was Etienne?

“Henri!”

“You were to come on foot.”

Her heart jolted and the relief she thought she’d feel
splintered into an agony of fear. She’d forgotten how tightly she held herself
around him. She swiveled to find him in the shadows of the crumbling walls. A
hat was pulled low over his face, but it was Henri. She knew as much by the way
the hair on the back of her neck stood on end as anything.

“I could not. They would think it strange. I told them I had
to drive to Durham to fetch medicines for the duke. He is very ill.” She
watched carefully looking for an indication that the duke’s illness pleased
him. “I fear he will not live much longer.”

Henri had liked her to be vivacious around company, but at
times when they were alone he wanted her silent. She couldn’t read his mood
with his hat pulled so low.

“Will you not come closer? I cannot let go of the horse to
come to you. Oh, Henri, I wish I would have known you were alive. You could
have been here with me.”

“What about the man you are living with as your husband?”

“Beau? He just returned home. I wish he would have stayed
dead.” A trickle of moisture slid down between her breasts.

Henri shifted a bit closer and cocked his head as if listening.
“Were you not so in love with him?”

The right words were paramount.

“
Mon Dieu,
he was a childish infatuation.” Her voice
was too high and she struggled to bring it to a more normal tone. “I was so
stupid to think I loved him.”

“You did not think so then.”

“I do not understand what I saw in him. All those tears were
wasted. He is spoilt, unmannerly. Every time he takes Etienne out to ride, I
fear he will harm my—our child. He does not have the care of him that you do.
Where is Etienne?”

“Somewhere safe.”

She breathed deeply, her anxiety loosening a notch. But she
couldn’t go on and on about Etienne or Henri would grow irritated. “I am glad I
have you alone for our reunion. You are the husband of my heart. We shared
something so much more, children, a home, everything. I thought my life ended
the night of the revolt.”

She almost hesitated, waiting for Beau to correct her. She
infused her voice with the pain of losing her children. “You, you were gone.”

“You did well going to the duke.” Henri took a step toward
her. “He has taken care of you.”

“He has. He believes my marriage to his son was real. I let
him think this.” She gave a little shrug. “He claims Etienne is his grandson
and his heir. But Beau comes home and tells him the marriage was not real.”

Henri took a step toward her but then drew up stiff. He’d
said the marriage was not so. Did he think differently?

She didn’t wait for him to say anything, hurriedly
continuing, “But Beau had written his father of his intent to marry me and the
duke still wants Etienne for his heir, so he says Beau must pretend. If no one
from Saint-Domingue can say otherwise, the marriage will stand.” She eyed his
easing posture and willed him closer. “Henri, I so want to be with you.”

“Do you, really, Yvette?” He sounded unsure. She couldn’t
remember him ever sounding unsure.

“Of course, I do. I love you, Henri. We have shared so much
and lost so much.” The pretense came back. All the times she had reassured him,
not only that she loved him but that her world began and ended with him. “Every
day I wished you were here with me or I was with you. I have been a specter
without you. We belong together. Forever.”

“You did not even check to see if I was dead.”

“I did not think anyone could survive a machete attack. You
are a strong man to live through that. I am sorry I did not credit you with
such fortitude.”

“You should have been there to treat me.”

“I should have,” she agreed. “I wish I had realized, but I
was so afraid of the slaves. I just ran away. I was cowardly.” She’d tried to
reach her parents but she’d been too late.