Surrender Becomes Her (30 page)

He chuckled to himself, imagining Isabel’s consternation when she learned of his visit. She’d pay. She’d pay him anything to keep him away from the old man. Happy with his plans for the morning, and thinking he would enjoy some female companionship, he stood up unsteadily and staggered outside, calling for the stable boy to bring him his horse. An accommodating widow who enjoyed his patronage during his stay lived just a mile out of the village.

Whitley had been too engrossed in his drunken misery and vengeful thoughts to note any strangers in the taproom or the pair of intelligent eyes that idly watched his every move. If he had not been quite so drunk, he might have noticed the gentleman who had sat half-hidden at a table in the shadows by the stairs and have realized instantly that Collard had not told quite the truth about his trip to Cherbourg….

The stranger paid his bill and slowly wandered out of the inn, timing his progress so that Whitley had already mounted his horse and was riding down the road. He quickly reached his own horse tied out of sight at the side of the inn and, swinging into the saddle, discreetly followed Whitley.

He waited until they had left the village behind before he struck. Kicking his horse into a gallop, he bore down on his prey.

His brain befuddled by drink and lost in his thoughts, Whitley had no warning of danger until it was too late. He heard the approach of a horseman behind him, had only a moment to realize that the racing horse behind him was coming too fast and was likely going to collide with his own on the narrow track before his head exploded in a blaze of pain and blinding light.

W
hitley woke with a ferociously aching head and the scent of the sea in his nostrils. Groaning from pain, he glanced around, astonished to discover that he was in one of the many caves carved out along the shoreline by the powerful Channel waves. What the devil? He struggled to rise from the pebble-strewn floor of the cave and the first faint quiver of fear shot through him when he realized that he was bound hand and foot. And, as his gaze fell upon the gentleman leaning casually against the wall of the cave, that he was not alone.

“Bon!”
said the stranger. “You are awake at last.”

“Where am I?” croaked Whitley.

“It does not matter,
mon amie
,” replied the other man. “What matters are the answers you shall give me to the questions I shall ask,
oui
?”

Thinking feverishly, Whitley tried to get his bearings, tried to make sense of what had happened. He remembered drinking at the Stag Horn last night, vaguely remembered riding on his horse…

Whitley twisted around, squinting at the faint light that filled the front half of the cave. It was daylight, so some period of time had passed. God! He wished he could think clearly. If only the incessant pounding in his head would cease!

He glanced over at the stranger, taking his measure. The stranger, who regarded him with a cool smile, was tall, his build lean and muscular, and his clothes—from the nankeen breeches to the superbly fitted dark blue coat—were those of a gentleman. His features were even and not unattractive and his hair was dark, as was his complexion. From his speech, Whitley assumed he was French.

Excitement coursed through him. Dragging himself up into a sitting position, Whitley rested his back against the wall of the cave and muttered, “Collard
did
deliver my message, after all.”

The stranger nodded.
“Oui.”

Uneasy with his position, but feeling a little braver moment by the moment, Whitley demanded, “But why did he lie to me? And who are you? Why am I being treated like this? Charbonneau shall certainly hear of your high-handed actions, I can tell you that—and he won’t be pleased. We are good friends.”

“Monsieur Whitley,” said the stranger, “we will deal much better with each other if you allow
moi
to ask the questions.”

“I’m not answering any of your damn questions until you tell me what this is about,” Whitley blustered. “You’ve had the audacity to tie me up like a common criminal, and I don’t appreciate it one bit.” Frowning, Whitley demanded again, “Who the bloody hell are you?” The stranger’s brow quirked at Whitley’s tone, but he did not answer. More confident and angry, Whitley declared angrily, “This is an outrage! I am a British subject and this is British soil and you have no right to treat me this way. I insist that you untie me this instant!”

The stranger straightened from his languid position against the wall and walked to Whitley and calmly kicked him in the face. Whitley screamed from the pain, blood gushing from his nose and lips.

“First of all, I’m afraid that you are in no position to
insist
upon anything, and I did tell you, did I not,” said the gentleman in perfect King’s English, “that I ask the questions.”

Blinking from the pain, Whitley stared up at him in horror. “You’re
English
!”

The man smiled. “I am,” said the stranger, “whatever I wish to be. English. French. Spanish.” He shrugged. “Whatever the situation calls for.”

Confused and uneasy, Whitley sought to make sense of the situation. This man could not have come from Charbonneau. Which meant that his cleverly worded message to his longtime acquaintance on Napoleon’s staff had fallen into the wrong hands and that could only happen if…Fright bloomed throughout his body. “Collard betrayed me,” he said dully.

The gentleman nodded. “Collard and I have served each other’s needs well over the years,” said the stranger. “And when we met on his latest trip to Cherbourg, he mentioned you and said he thought you were up to something that might interest me. For a generous price he gave me your letter to Charbonneau.”

Whitley had been very careful in what he had written to Charbonneau, fearful of what would happen should his letter fall into the wrong hands. On the surface his letter had simply been that of one old friend to another. Thankfully, he had written no specifics, but he had alluded to previous mutually beneficial meetings, meetings that could be construed as only references to former pleasant times and leaving the door open to another, hopefully delightful, meeting with Charbonneau.

A surge of confidence went through him. This fellow may have read his message to Charbonneau and, while he might think that there was something in it for him, he couldn’t
know
anything.

“I’m afraid that I don’t quite understand,” Whitley said. “What could my letter have to do with you? I have known Charbonneau for years. We often correspond with each other.”

“Via a smuggler?”

Whitley flushed. “France and Britain are at war. The normal avenues of communication are not open to me.”

The words had hardly left Whitley’s mouth before his captor kicked him again in the face. Harder.

As Whitley writhed and howled on the floor in pain, the man bent lower and said softly in his ear, “Do not waste my time. Tell me what is so important that you sent a seemingly innocuous letter to a member of Napoleon’s inner circle. And do not tell me again that it was merely a note to an old friend.”

“Go to hell!” Whitley spat, scooting as fast and as far away from the other man as possible.

“I shall no doubt do just that,” the man said, pacing beside Whitley. He kicked him again, this time in the ribs, and added, “And if you do not answer my questions, I assure you that you shall be there before me.”

Whitley felt a rib snap and pain splintered through his chest. Breathless from pain, fear gnawed in his gut. He risked a glance at the other man and the cold glitter in those dark blue, almost black eyes terrified him, but greed overrode his fear. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he cried. “I swear to you, I merely wrote to an old friend.”

“Have it your way,” said the stranger and spent the next several minutes viciously applying his boot to any part of Whitley’s thrashing body he could reach. When he finally stopped, Whitley lay unmoving with his back to him, only a shuddering whimper now and then giving sign that he was still alive.

“Tell me what I want to know,” said the man in the same calm tone he’d used earlier. Whitley only mewled and struggled to wiggle away. The stranger sighed.

Removing his coat and lying it on a large boulder, he extracted a knife from his boot. He flipped Whitley over to face him. Squatting on his haunches, and with his face only inches from Whitley’s, he asked quietly, “Do you truly wish to die? Is what you have worth your life? Wouldn’t it be better to simply tell me…and live?”

Through his battered lips, Whitley managed, “Why should I? You’re going to kill me anyway.”

“Not if I like what you have to tell me.”

The man showed Whitley the slender-bladed knife he held in his hand. “I am very adept with this little instrument. I can keep you alive for hours, but before you die you
will
tell me,
mon amie
, what I want to know.” He smiled. “Of course, you could tell me now and save both of us time and pain.”

“If I tell you, you won’t kill me?” Whitley asked eagerly.

“I already told you I would not.”

His body one long shriek of agony, Whitley eyed the knife. How much more of this torture could he bear? Was it worth dying for? Sickly, he realized that there was no safe way out for him. If he didn’t tell, he would die. If he told, he
might
live. And so he told.

When he finished speaking, he held his breath. Would he live? Or die?

His thoughts turned inward, the stranger remained silent for a long moment. Then rising gracefully to his feet, he said, “You are a fool. Too foolish, almost, to live.”

When Whitley whined and shrank away from him, the man said disgustedly, “Oh, stop that. I have no intention of killing you.”

Leaving Whitley where he lay, he turned away and, after slipping the knife into his boot, he shrugged into his coat. He looked at Whitley and said, “I suggest that you consider another continent for your retirement. I understand that there are parts of America that remind one of England.” His gaze icy, he added, “Be aware that should you cross my path again or should I hear of any further meddling in things that don’t concern you, I shall make it my business to hunt you down and slit your throat—as I should do now. Understand me?”

Hardly daring to believe his luck, Whitley nodded vigorously.

The stranger swung on his heel and began to walk away.

“Wait!” called Whitley frantically, struggling against his bonds. “What about me?”

“I’ll send Collard,” the stranger said without slowing his stride or looking back. “He’ll set you free. And Whitley: I suggest you leave this area within the hour of being set free.” He glanced back at him. “If I hear that you have not…”

Whitley gulped and nodded and breathed a sigh of relief when the man disappeared. Alone in the cool, dim cave, despite the agony knifing through his body, Whitley fought to escape the ropes on his hands and feet. Had the man lied? Had he left him here to die?

The bonds held tight and, when the pain racking his body grew too great, Whitley simply lay there panting and exhausted, hoping the stranger had told the truth. He waited what seemed like hours, testing the ropes from time to time, but always ending up flopping back down flat on the rough surface of the cave, defeated. When he finally heard the sound of someone scrambling over the rocks near the entrance of the cave, he could hardly believe it.

“Collard! Collard! Is that you? I’m in here!” he shouted.

It was Collard and, seeing the man’s stocky form in the faint light filtering in from outside, Whitley had never been so happy to see anyone in his life. “Thank God you came,” he cried happily, forgetting that Collard had betrayed him.

Collard said nothing. He walked up to where Whitley lay and, taking out his knife, knelt down on one knee behind him.

Eagerly Whitley thrust his bound hands out for Collard to cut. Collard snorted, grabbed Whitley’s hair, jerked his head back, and sliced his throat as neatly as a butcher dispatches a goat.

Whitley bleated once, twitched and lay still. When he was certain Whitley was dead, Collard stood up, carelessly wiping his blade on his pants. “I don’t care what the man said,” he muttered to himself, staring down at Whitley’s corpse. “It never pays to leave behind a witness.”

The newlyweds heard nothing about Whitley’s disappearance until Saturday afternoon when Garrett came to call. Marcus and Isabel spent a pleasurable morning wandering through the stables and barns, Isabel pointing out the changes she wanted to make and, since he thought her ideas were excellent, Marcus nodding in agreement. They smiled and laughed often, their hands touching and their bodies brushing against the other’s as they walked. Anyone observing them could tell in an instant that they were lovers and deeply in love. When Thompson announced Garrett, Marcus was in his office trying to catch up with various estate matters and Isabel was closeted with the housekeeper, familiarizing herself with the routine of the household and discussing the few changes that having a boisterous twelve-year-old boy in residence would require. At Garrett’s entrance, Marcus threw down the sheaf of papers duly presented to him that morning by his bailiff with relief and rose eagerly to his feet, hand outstretched.

After the two men shook hands and exchanged warm greetings, they seated themselves in a pair of overstuffed chairs on the far side of the room.

“I do apologize for barging in on you this way,” Garrett said ruefully, “but I felt it was important that you know that Whitley has apparently disappeared.”

Marcus looked shocked. “Disappeared? What do you mean? He left the Stag Horn?”

“I mean precisely what I said, ‘disappeared.’ Whitley rode away from the inn on his horse very late on Wednesday night and no one has seen him since. Keating admits that Whitley was foxed when he left, but not too drunk to mount his horse and ride away. Most disturbing of all, his horse was in the stall when the stable boy woke Thursday morning, but there has been no sign of Whitley since then.”

Frowning, Marcus said, “I assume that no one has found him lying with a broken neck in a ditch somewhere?”

Garrett shook his head. “That was the first thing Keating did Thursday afternoon when he discovered that Whitley was not in his rooms. He was certain that was exactly what they would find, but a search found nothing. No body. No signs of anything amiss all along the road for a few miles in either direction. Of course, it’s possible that whatever happened occurred some distance further, but that doesn’t seem likely. Keating was fairly certain that Whitley had been going to visit Mrs. Halley when he left and, when they did not find his body, Keating then thought to see if perhaps Whitley had remained at Mrs. Halley’s longer than expected.”

At the mention of Mrs. Halley, both men smiled slightly.

Mrs. Halley was an accommodating widow of an uncertain age who lived in a tidy cottage a few miles from the village. When she had moved in five years ago, there was some speculation that “widow” was an honorary title, but since she was an amiable soul with genteel manners and plied her business very discreetly, she was accepted into the village by all but the most puritanical. While Marcus had never visited the widow, it didn’t surprise him that Whitley had been a client.

“I take it he was not there?”

“No. Mrs. Halley said that she had not seen him since last Sunday…when he had come to call.”

Marcus rubbed his chin. “The horse in the stables is troublesome. Someone returned the animal.”

“I agree.” Garrett leaned forward. “I don’t like it, Marcus. When I was at the inn last night and inquired after Whitley and learned what I did, I insisted that Keating let me see Whitley’s room. He did. The room looked like just what you would expect. His clothes, everything was still there. It looked like he had just stepped out and had every intention of returning. Keating has the wind up and I don’t blame him. Whitley had no reason to disappear and, if he was going to leave the area, why didn’t he pay his bill, pack his things,
mount his horse, and ride away? His disappearance makes no sense.”