Fortune's Lady (49 page)

The top of the empty cask on which she knelt came almost to his shoulders. She had to look down to see him, but the noose he'd knotted around her neck was already so tight, she could scarcely turn her head. He'd slung the rope across a beam directly above her and secured the slack to a wooden post to her right. Now he gave the taut line a playful tug, making her rise up even higher on her knees to keep from choking. With her hands bound behind her back, she had no way to keep her balance; if she toppled off the wine cask, she would choke to death in seconds.

“I invited John to come and watch, you know, but he declined. Odd, isn't it? He has no qualms about shooting Mr. Burke, but he can't bring himself to witness the simple execution of a traitor.”

“Colin,” she got out. If she arched her back and craned her neck high, she found she could speak. “Please. Tell me. Why did you betray my father?”

“Who told you that? Quinn,” he guessed, when she couldn't answer. “He's a liar—he must've said that to get you to help him. I liked Patrick, actually. He and I wanted the same things. I was sorry when they hanged him.”

She tried to absorb this, but new thoughts were already crowding her mind. “Colin,” she said again, trying not to whimper.

“Yes?”

“What will you do with my body?”

He came around to face her, his look of malicious whimsy deserting him for a moment.

“I'd like to be b-buried” she had to swallow to keep talking—“with my father. Please. Don't just—throw me away.”

“Bloody hell,” she thought he muttered.

There was something else she wanted to tell him, but she couldn't remember what it was. She tried to clear her head. It was important to her that she die consciously, not in a thoughtless, panicked daze. But she was so frightened. Would her neck break when her weight snapped the rope tight? Would there be terrible pain, or only a gradual blackening and then nothing? She prayed for the strength to be brave, whatever happened. And she wished she had her clothes. She hated being half-naked in front of Wade when she died. Frivolous, perhaps, at this dire hour, but she felt it strongly.

She remembered what she wanted to tell him. “Colin,” she choked out. “I forgive you.” The words made her cry, she wasn't sure why. It was time to pray for the forgiveness of her own sins, but her mind was too full of chaos. Wade had gone behind her again. She heard him curse her and then give another savage pull on the rope. Her head jerked up and her breath caught in her lungs. Would it be now? Was this the last second? Was this?

But no—he was beside her again. “Listen to me, bitch,” he snarled, “I don't need your forgiveness. I'm your executioner. I'm ending your life because you committed crimes against the Revolution.” Suddenly his voice lightened. “You've given me an idea, though. I had planned to leave your corpse right here, but now I think I'll dump it on Riordan's doorstep.” He smiled at her choked-off gasp, then laughed. “Best would be in his bed, where you've spent so many happy hours of late, but I haven't time now for the kind of ingenuity that would require. If only you'd come a few days earlier, darling, John could have helped me arrange it.”

“Please,” she whispered, “for the love of God—”

“Shut up! Yes, the bed would've been ideal, but the doorstep will do perfectly well. He'll find your carcass there tomorrow morning when he returns from visiting his lady friend in Somerset.”

Through clenched teeth, her low moan of desolation filled the silence between them. She only stopped when, past a blur of tears, she saw him go behind her again. Now, she thought. It's now. She took one last breath. Oh, dear God—

From over her head came a loud but muffled noise. Of what? The walls and ceiling were so thick, it was impossible to tell. Could it have been a shot? Fresh sweat broke out all over her. The possibility of rescue multiplied her terror a hundredfold. Now there was scuffling, perhaps running footsteps. Wade came around her slowly, listening as intently as she; in each hand he held a cocked pistol.

“No one can get in the house,” he said aloud, although to himself. “It's impossible.”

But the footsteps were louder now. Cass's bloodshot eyes strained on the cellar door at the top of the curving stone steps twenty feet away. All at once a heavy crash sounded as the door slammed open against the plastered wall. Wade went down on one knee and took aim with both pistols.

But the first man on the stairs was John Walker. His hands were behind his back. Quinn had one arm around his neck and the barrel of a gun in his mouth.

Wade lowered his arms. He jumped up suddenly and darted back to Cass's wine cask, raising his booted foot high and resting it on the rim. She felt the cask wobble under her and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Riordan was coming down the steps behind Quinn.

He halted when he saw her and went dead white. Her heart stopped beating. She could see her own shock and horror reflected in his eyes. He leaned against the wall at the bottom of the steps, never taking his eyes from her, a pistol in his hand, and a chaotic mixture of hope and new terror pulsed through her.

“Don't come any closer or I'll kick this cask out from under her! Back off!”

“Move away from her, Wade,” Quinn shouted back, “or I'll shoot this man!” He was fifteen feet from Wade. He'd taken the gun out of Walker's mouth and put it to his temple.

For eternity, no one moved or spoke. Riordan stood as if paralyzed, watching the indecision in Wade's face, the pistols pointed at him and Quinn, the boot on the edge of the cask.

“Drop your guns, both of you, or she's dead!” Wade yelled again. He flexed his knee a fraction and the cask wobbled a second time. Cass couldn't control a gasp of panic.

But that horror paled when she saw Riordan toss away his pistol and walk slowly toward her, arms at his sides.

“Philip, no!” she tried to shout, but it came out an incoherent croak.

“Get away from her, Wade,” he said softly, moving steadily.

She screamed when Wade's gun fired. But instead of Riordan, it was Walker who crumpled to the floor, leaving Quinn standing alone. Wade was wild-eyed, his remaining pistol moving back and forth between the two men on their feet in front of him, his foot still poised on the rim of the cask.

Cass saw it in Riordan's eyes the second before he made his move, and groaned low in her throat in abject terror. With a hoarse shout, he sprang. Wade's gun hand whipped around toward him and there was another explosion.

Riordan dropped to his knees, holding his bloody shirtfront.

Cass screamed again, but the sound turned into a grotesque gurgle as Wade shoved hard at the cask and she toppled off into darkness. The roaring in her ears was so loud, she didn't hear the firing of the final shot. Before the rising blood blackened her vision, she saw Riordan pitch forward, one hand clutching his chest, the other stretched out to her, his face contorted in agony. Her last thought was that it was no consolation at all to know they were dying together.

S
HE WASN'T DEAD.
Unless she was in hell, she couldn't hurt this badly and be dead. Her head felt as if an explosion had gone off inside, leaving nothing in its aching shell but worthless debris. There was shooting pain down the length of her spine whenever she moved any limb. Her hands and feet were numb, her stomach persistently nauseated. Worst of all was her throat. It was sheer agony to swallow, and speaking was out of the question. It was as if she'd been strangled, as if someone had tied a—

She opened her eyes wide; only the pain in her back prevented her from sitting straight up. She remembered.

Part of it, anyway. The very last part, as the blackness in her head had thickened and she'd thought she had ceased to exist. But unless she was mistaken, above her head was Colin Wade's ceiling, and she was lying in his bed. Had everything been a dream? The tears spilling down her cheeks when she tried to swallow told her it had not. And then a new version of the blackness descended, and she slipped back under it.

The next time she surfaced, someone was holding a cup to her lips and trying to make her drink. Unthinkable. Somehow she made her arms work enough to bat the cup and the woman's hands away—she thought it was a woman—before it was time to sleep again.

Blackness and pain. Light and pain. Blackness again, with its constant companion. Now it was food they were torturing her with. She wanted to cry out her fury and frustration, but making even a tiny sound was excruciating. Please, please, leave me alone! she pleaded silently, using all her feeble strength to fight them off and finally achieving success, of a sort. The blackness returned.

But now a dream was trying to penetrate it, trying to pull away the kindly shroud that curtained her from reality. Her silent screams were futile; she could not wake up. Time after time she had to relive the agony in Philip's face as the bullet struck him and blood spread out across his chest like a blossoming poppy. She was drowning in her tears, breaking apart inside from unbearable pain, but the dream wouldn't stop.

And then a miracle. Someone was shaking her by the shoulders, speaking shrilly in her ear, and at last the awful image receded and she swam up into the light.

“Miss Merlin. Miss Merlin!” Two round blue eyes peered down at her anxiously. “Are you awake now? I'm Dora; Mr. Quinn hired me to look after you. Are you awake?”

Cass nodded, and was surprised when the movement caused only a flickering spike of pain down her spine.

“Then let me run and get Mr. Quinn before he leaves—he was just here to see you, but you were sleeping.”

The woman named Dora scurried away, out of the line of her vision; vaguely she heard her diminishing footsteps along the hall and then on the stairs. She was going to get Quinn. Cass's mind tried to absorb what that meant while she waited, gazing vacantly around the room. She lifted her hands and looked at them. Her wrists were chafed from being tied, but there was hardly any discomfort now when she moved her arms. She tried her legs, bending her knees tentatively. A shooting pain, nothing more. She wasn't paralyzed.

But it was difficult to care. She was alive and Philip was dead, and she wanted it to be the other way around.

Did she have to stay awake for Quinn? She was too exhausted even to cry, and she was unspeakably grateful for this fatigue that was keeping anguish at bay. But there he was, gliding toward her silently across the carpet. He looked tired. He was dressed all in black. She wished she could sit up; lying flat on her back in front of him made her feel helpless. But she had no strength to move.

He drew up a chair and sat down close to the bed. “Thank God you're awake. We've been very worried about you, Cassandra,” he said in grave, priestly tones.

She wondered who “we” might be, but asked instead, “What day is it?” Her voice came out a whisper, like a dry wind blowing across dead leaves.

“Sunday.”

Sunday. She found it faintly interesting that she'd been sleeping for three days.

There might have been a long pause before he spoke, or there might not; she couldn't tell. “You're a very lucky lady, you know. Two things saved your life—the rope was already pulled so tight, there wasn't enough slack to snap the bone in your neck, and your body weight was insufficient to cause you to strangle before I could get to you, lift you, and cut the rope.”

She blinked at him feebly. “You saved my life?”

He raised his brows and his lips pulled apart in what she imagined he intended for a smile.

“Then I'm grateful.” With an effort, she stretched her hand toward him; but he either didn't see it or pretended not to, and she let it fall to the coverlet, empty. “Is Colin dead?” she asked presently.

“Yes. Walker, too—by Wade's hand.” His face grew even more solemn. “I sincerely thought you would be in no danger, Cassandra, and I apologize most sincerely for my error. But thanks to you, the king is no longer in any peril, and we—”

“It wasn't the king he was planning to kill,” she whispered, on the brink of exhaustion. If only he would go away. “Walker was going to shoot Edmund Burke in Parliament. On Friday. The letter I sent you about the king was a trick. He told me afterward it was to be Burke.”

Quinn's black eyes were huge. He sat back in his chair and stared at her, his mouth open, his arms hanging down at his sides. “Burke!” he managed to say finally. “Yes. Yes, it makes sense. Good lord. Walker was going to do it? He'd have been cut to ribbons, but of course, by then it would've been too late. Good lord,” he said again. He leaned toward her, his eyes gleaming with intensity. “Cassandra, you saved Burke's life!”

She shrugged and looked away.

“I still can't believe it! I can't wait to tell Philip—he'll be even more grateful to you than if you'd saved the king,” he chuckled, rubbing his hands. Quite frankly, Philip hasn't much affection for the monarch.” His smile faded. “My dear, are you ill? You're so pale, shall I—”

“He's alive?” she choked out, straining toward him, her face bloodless and drawn. “Philip is alive?”

Quinn looked disconcerted. “Yes, of course he's alive.” He seized her arms and tried to ease her back down to the pillow. “Good heavens, I thought you knew! He was wounded badly, but he's recovering.” He paused. “Claudia's taking care of him in her home and he's improving every day—oh, my dear. I beg your pardon.” He lapsed into silence.

Cass covered her face with her hands to muffle a sob of joy, while her heart broke into a hundred new pieces. He's alive! She thanked God over and over, but couldn't stop the tears that spilled past her fingers and made a hellish burning in her throat. In her fevered brain she heard a low, cultured voice reading to him, saw slim white hands soothing him. She pressed her palms to her heart, but the pain was intolerable. But he's alive! she sang to herself, and it brightened the edges of her darkness.