Lord of Fire (52 page)

 

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

While Peg kept Harry entertained on the floor with a quiet game of spillikins, and the formidable Lord Damien paced back to the window, keeping guard in stony silence,
Alice sat with
Weymouth on the couch in the elegant drawing room of Knight House, trying to console him.

“How can she be gone? Oh, my sweet, beautiful sister. How could anyone hurt her?”

Alice
rubbed his bony arm in wordless sorrow. Her own eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but she wished that the unkempt viscount would get himself under control before he upset Harry. She had received the terrible news of Caro’s murder about an hour ago. She had feared this outcome from the moment she had heard Bardou take her sister-in-law hostage back at the house in

Upper Brooke Street

. Though she had long had premonitions of disaster for Caro, it still came as a horrible shock. As soon as she had regained her composure, she had sent for
Weymouth as Caro’s next of kin.

Unfortunately, the opium clouding the viscount’s wits made it all the more difficult for him to absorb the shocking news. If only for once he were not intoxicated. As
Weymouth went on sobbing uncontrollably,
Alice was tempted to shake him. He was taking the blow worse than Harry had, but in truth, she admitted, the three-year-old had no comprehension of what death meant. Perhaps this was a blessing.

Fighting tears,
Alice had explained to Harry that Mama had gone to live in heaven with Papa and the angels. Harry seemed to think that it was just another occasion of the baroness leaving him again. As long as Harry had his Nanny Peg and his Aunt Alice, he seemed content, at least for now. Though
Alice was trying to be strong for Harry and for the pitiful Lord Weymouth, she could barely keep control of her emotions with Lucien still missing.

An hour ago, at about
five o’clock
, Kyle, Talbert, and the others had returned to Knight House in defeat. They had explained to her how they had quickly caught up with Ethan Stafford’s fleeing carriage and how they had found Caro murdered inside. Bardou had escaped. They had handed
Stafford over to the constable. For Alice, somehow, even worse than hearing the news of Caro’s murder was the sight of Kyle leading Lucien’s black horse in through the gates of Knight House, riderless. Kyle had told her that they had become separated from Lucien somewhere in the
East End. Now that she had seen the unfeeling cruelty of which Bardou was capable, the fact that the Frenchman and Lucien were both missing made her blood feel like ice in her veins.

The lads had gone back out to look for him in the area where they had found his horse. This time Marc had joined them, abandoning his orders, since a man with Damien’s years of combat experience surely did not need any help protecting
Alice. And yet, ever since the Guy Fawkes fireworks had begun exploding through the night sky, she had noticed that Damien had started to seem . . . strange. He seemed to be on edge, pacing restlessly.
Alice noticed that he jumped each time the salute cannons boomed in the distance. She could not account for it. If anyone were used to the sound of cannonfire, she thought, surely it would be the battle-hardened colonel.

When she looked at him again, she could see the tension bristling in the broad lines of his shoulders. When another cannon roared in the distance, he flinched.

“Damien?”

He turned to her abruptly, as though she had startled him.

A shudder ran through him. When he glanced at her, the look in his gray eyes was ferocious, yet miles away. His face was quite pale and streaming with sweat.

She stood up and took a step toward him. “Damien, are you all right?”

He cast about as though confused for a second.

She moved toward him. “Maybe you’d better sit down.”

“No—I—I’m—fine. Would you excuse me,” he mumbled, then stalked out of the room.

Harry waved cheerfully. “Bye-bye, Lucien!”

Alice
glanced from Damien’s retreating back to her nephew. Unable to quite absorb the concept that the twins were two separate men, Harry could not figure out why this “Lucien” seemed so remote and unwilling to play with him, unlike the friendly man who had given him the prism back at the townhouse. As
Alice glanced in the direction Damien had gone, she still was not convinced that he was well.

“
Weymouth, would you excuse me?”

“Harry will keep me company,” he said with a sniffle. “Come to Uncle Weymouth, Harry.”

Alice
hurried out of the drawing room while
Weymouth went on trying to get Harry’s attention.
Damien had looked feverish,
she thought as she marched down the corridor to the gleaming entrance hall. She hoped he had not fallen ill. When she reached the entrance hall, she saw Damien standing midway up the stairs. He was just standing there staring at the ground, his back to her. He looked so unsteady that she thought he was on the verge of passing out with fever, so she started to run up the steps after him to try to stop him from falling. Hearing her footfalls, he suddenly spun around with lightning speed.

“Stay back!” he snarled. He was wild-eyed, panting. He had a large knife in his hand and was holding it with a white-knuckled grasp.

Alice
froze with a gasp.

They stared at each other. She did not dare move. The creature she saw in his eyes was not the same stoic, controlled colonel who had proposed to her in
Hyde Park.

“Damien? What’s wrong?” she asked, her heart in her throat. She began inching back down the steps as though backing away from a wild animal.

Another cannon boomed in the distance, and his glance darted in the direction from which the sound had come. His face was taut with fierce concentration.

“Less than a mile off. Look sharp, boots. Pull up camp. They’ll be here in minutes.”

“Who will?” she asked faintly, paling at the glittering madness in his eyes.

“Boney’s coming. He’s just over that rise.” He pointed up the staircase with his knife, then laid his finger over his lips. “Don’t make a sound. We’ve got to get the artillery in place.”

Before
Alice could react, he glided up the stairs, keeping low.

She stood stock-still, her hand clapped over her mouth in shock.
Oh, my God.

For a long moment, she just stood there, not knowing what to do; then she jumped with fright as a loud banging reached her from somewhere upstairs. It sounded as though the colonel was barricading himself into one of the upper rooms. Her heart pounding in dread,
Alice rushed down the stairs and began frantically searching the mansion for Mr. Walsh, the unflappable butler of Knight House. Surely he would know what was to be done. She glanced into the duke’s elegant library at the end of the hallway, when suddenly, Peg screamed her name.

“Miss Montague! Lord Damien! Stop him! Stop him!”

Alice
picked up her skirts and ran back to the entrance hall, where Peg was standing beside the open door, pointing. “He took him! Hurry! I tried to stop him; he’s taken Harry—”

“Bardou?”
Alice cried.

“No,
Weymouth!”

As she rushed out into the cold night, she could already hear Harry crying.

“
Weymouth!”
Alice screamed in rage, racing after him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Clutching Harry in his arms, the viscount started to step up into his waiting carriage, but
Alice barreled over to him and fought him, trying to take Harry from him.

“Get your hands off him!” she ordered through gritted teeth, trying to be heard above Harry’s wailing screams and the booming fireworks. The bonfires and torches lit up the rowdy festival in the adjoining park, throwing a dim glow upon the austere face of Knight House. “Don’t cry, Harry—”

“Auntie!” The child got hold of her hair and would not let go, but
Weymouth yanked Harry’s hands down.

“Give him back to me!”
Alice shouted.

“I’m taking him,
Alice! It is in Caro’s will.
I
am Harry’s legal guardian.”

She stared at him, aghast. She had not thought that far in advance, but she realized he was right.

For a moment, she was so stunned by the realization, she did not know what to do.
Weymouth refused to listen to her, and she had no legal grounds to stand on. “But—you can’t! You can’t take him,
Weymouth! He barely knows you, he’s terrified, and you don’t know the first thing about caring for a child!”

“No, I don’t, so would you please tell his nurse to stop dawdling and come with us? She will look after him.”

“
Weymouth, you are not taking that child! You are an opium eater and a drunkard! Now, give him back to me or I will call the constable!”

“He is
my
ward. I’m the one who can call the constable on you,” he muttered, turning to put Harry into the carriage.

“Noooo!”
Harry wailed, reaching for her. He began throwing a hysterical tantrum, screaming and thrashing.

With all her might,
Alice reached for him again, but
Weymouth turned around in sudden fury and shoved her hard. She stumbled backward and tripped on the hem of her gown, falling onto her backside on the graveled drive.

“Have you no feelings?”
Weymouth cried, glaring down at her. “I lost my sister today! Harry is the one little piece of her that I have left! Now, if you’ll excuse us, I’m going home and I’m taking Harry with me.”

She started to get up, cursing at him, when a flicker of motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned and glanced toward
Green
Park
—and then her blood ran cold.

Von Dannecker—or rather, Bardou—was standing just on the other side of the wrought-iron fence, peering through the bars at her, with
Green
Park
at his back.
Alice froze, paralyzed. Her stare locked with his. She ceased hearing the sounds of the festival; time stopped. Bardou brought up a rifle and smoothly aimed it at her.

Her eyes widened as a rider on a white horse came streaking out of the park as though he had burst out of the roaring bonfire itself.

Lucien!

He leaped off the galloping horse onto Bardou, tackling the big man to the ground. The rifle went off, the bullet zooming high up into the trees where it startled a hidden flock of roosting birds. They fluttered up out of the branches with indignant cries.

Still clutching Harry tightly in his arms,
Weymouth let out a shocked oath and went over to see what was happening, but
Alice stood rooted to her spot, watching their fight, all of her awareness focused on Lucien. He had told her it would be a struggle to the death, and she saw now what that meant.

They fought like two wild predators, rolling over the pavement, Lucien slamming Bardou against the ground. The Guy Fawkes illuminations gave her only glimpses of their faces, casting both men—snarling, feral—in a primal glow of firelight, molded by shadow. Neither seemed to feel the blows each rained on the other; both seemed unaware of anything else around them. Their concentration was total. Lucien pinned Bardou to the ground, punching him again and again in the face, then Bardou reached up and grasped Lucien’s throat, starting to strangle him. Lucien reached toward Bardou’s open rifle case, feeling about with his hand while the Frenchman kept squeezing the life out of him.