The Return of the Prodigal (18 page)

Deny’s screamed once more, but at a quiet word from the
Comte,
he went silent.

The door was kicked shut, and there was nothing left but a cold, terrifying silence as Leon roughly pushed her to the ladder and then dragged her toward the manor house.

R
IAN USED UP EVERY CURSE
word he could remember and even began making up some of his own to punish himself with as he and Jasper had relocated the caravan a good mile or more in entirely the opposite direction from the manor house. A distance of less than three miles, covered in a circuitous route, and all taking time. Too much time.

And all that time spent thinking of Lisette, of her smile, her voice, the way she goaded him, scolded him, lay down beside him, loved him.

He’d tied her up, for Christ’s sake. Just as he didn’t trust her.

Being a Becket, growing up a Becket, had made him careful, cautious.

But he’d made himself stupid!

He looked up at the stars, the generous moon, and remembered the last time that moon had been full.

A quiet night, warm, so warm that Lisette had suggested she take his pillows and blankets out onto the small balcony outside his room, to take advantage of the cool night breeze.

“Only if you come with me,” he’d told her, he remembered, and she’d grinned, pulled a second pillow from the bed.

Together, they’d piled the pillows low against the wall, so that they could sit facing out over the grounds, listen to the night sounds that were so different from the sound of surf and the call of gulls at Becket Hall, but no less evocative.

They’d talked, nonsense talk, meaningless talk, and then, finally, he’d turned his head to her, kissed the soft, fragrant skin behind her ear.

God, what a night that had been, a voyage of discovery, a slow, deliberate lovemaking beneath the moonlight.

“What now, Lieutenant, sir?” Jasper asked as he completed the task of securing the oxen once more. “On the other side of midnight, Jasper thinks. It’s goin’ to be headin’ on to morning soon.”

Rian shook himself back from his memories, praying they wouldn’t be all he’d have to sustain him after tonight. “I know. And I wish I had a better answer for you than to say I don’t have a damn idea what to do next, but I don’t. Except…Jasper, can you run?”

“Run, sir? Jasper, sir?”

Rian shook his head. “Change of terms. Have you ever been on a forced march?”

“Yes, sir, that Jasper has. On the peninsula—”

“A story for another time, I’m afraid. I truly don’t believe he’ll kill Lisette, Jasper. Not if she’s who she told us she was, and most especially not if she’s his daughter. Not because he loves her—a man like Beales doesn’t understand the term—but because he needs her. Hurting her, demanding she tell him our location…? That I believe him more than capable of doing, and I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting not taking her along with us tonight, even though it made such good sense to leave her behind.”

Jasper nodded, seeming to understand. “He’ll be scoutin’ out our lay. Where we was. If she told him.”

“We can only pray to God she did, and didn’t try to be stubborn. He won’t find us where he goes to look for us, so that leaves him with holding her hostage, knowing we’ll come for her.”

“Some might not.”

Rian lifted his chin. “If he so much as thinks he knows who I am, who raised me, he also knows I’ll come for her,” he said quietly. “We don’t leave any of our own behind, alive or dead. That’s part of the Code.”

“The Code, sir?”

Rian rubbed at his forehead, wishing the romanticism out of what he’d say next. “The formal Articles of Piracy, Jasper, that many privateers live by as well. Good laws that Ainsley added to on his own, including the one I just cited for you. But, again, a story for another time. Suffice it to say that our friend the
Comte
is aware of our practices.”

“So if he’s really thinkin’ you’re who he maybe thinks he’s thinkin’ you are, then that means he knows we’ll be comin’. Jasper ain’t too bright, but he doesn’t think that helps us much.”

“It helps Lisette, but only for as long as you and I stay alive, Jasper. The other thing we have in our favor, my friend, is you. The
Comte
can’t know I’ll be arriving with my own not so small army, and I doubt very much that Lisette will share that information with him. Now, about that forced march? We need three rifles with bayonets, powder and shot. I’ll take two pistols if you’ll be kind enough to rig them together so I can drape them around my neck. I’ll keep the sword I’m wearing now, and you can—”

“Knows which swords he wants, Jasper does, thank you anyhow, Lieutenant, sir,” Jasper told him, heading for the door to the caravan as Rian grabbed the leather flask filled with water from the barrel strapped to the side of the equipage and slung it around his neck.

If he’d ever missed his left hand, now was the time that put all the other times in the shade.

“Jasper will take that for you, sir,” the big man said, lifting the water container by its strap and lowering it over his own head. “Jasper’s old sergeant? He said Jasper could be a pack mule if all the rest got shot.”

Within the space of five minutes, the two men were outfitted as if they were off to face an entire army.

“One more thing, if you can handle it, my friend,” he said, and Jasper shifted both the rifles to one large-fingered hand and took a shovel without comment. “But don’t worry. If my plan works out the way I hope, someone else will be doing the digging.”

They set off at an easy trot, the sort that could be sustained for long miles, Rian refusing to so much as remember that, as late as two days ago, his thigh had been giving him hell. Still gave him hell. He’d consider it penance.

He figured they had about four hours until the first streaks of dawn, at least one of them to be eaten up in their cross-country forced march, and the sky was still fairly dark when they approached their former camp from the rear, sliding out from behind the shadow of the church, into the trees.

Now, they waited.

L
ISETTE PULLED HERSELF
back up onto the chair and dabbed at her cut lip, her hands shaking, which made her angry, because she didn’t want the
Comte
—he insisted she address him as
Monsieur le Comte,
as would any of his dependants—to see that he had hurt her.

The slap had been unexpected, or she surely would not have raised her chin as she told him that she would never, never ever again address him as her
papa.

She’d been jerked sideways from her chair at the force of the open-handed blow. But she refused to waver. She would not tell him what he wanted to know: the whereabouts of Rian Becket.

And then she braced herself for another blow, one that did not come.

Instead, the
Comte
walked out of the room, and she could hear him give a sharp order to someone in the hallway. Then he returned, poured himself a snifter of brandy and sat himself down, one long leg crossed over the other, as if prepared to wait patiently for whatever would come next.

Five minutes later the double doors blew open into the room and Denys was dragged in between two widely grinning men who held him beneath his arms, his head hanging low between his shoulders. They tossed him to the floor, where the man lay sprawled, his face in the carpet.

“Oh, for the love of Heaven, gentlemen,” the
Comte
drawled, moving his right hand slightly so that the brandy swirled in the snifter, “be careful with the creature. We wouldn’t want any harm to come to our good friend Denys, now would we? Denys, stand up if you will, in the presence of a lady. Show my devoted daughter what good care we take of you.”

Lisette wanted to leap out of her chair and go to the servant, but something told her she would do the man more good by staying where she was. Her hands drew up into fists, and she remained silent.

Slowly, Denys pushed himself to his feet, and Lisette let out a small, anguished cry.

The man’s nose had been sliced with a knife, both nostrils laid open for the full length of it. Clotted blood showed black, and Denys was breathing heavily, noisily, through his mouth, his eyes wide and terrified as he gasped for air.

“Bastard!” Lisette shouted at her father, turning to glare at him, prepared to attack him.

But he was still sitting at his ease on the blue velvet couch, presently cleaning beneath his nails with the tip of a small knife stained with blood. Denys’s blood.

“This so suddenly once more intriguing Becket, my darling daughter,” he said. Purred. “Denys would greatly appreciate it if you were to tell me where he is hiding. Wouldn’t you, Denys?”

“Twice the bastard! Dare to touch him again and I’ll kill you!”

The
Comte
smiled. “And that’s your answer? Tsk, tsk. Too bad, Denys. It would appear the lady has no compassion. Gentlemen, take him to the kitchens. I don’t wish to ruin the carpet.”

Denys was lifted up beneath his arms and dragged backward toward the hallway, his nearly inhuman screams of terror causing Lisette to clutch her stomach in very real pain.

“Wait! Wait!” she cried out. And then she told the
Comte
about the area behind the cemetery, praying she’d given him enough time, and that Rian Becket was no longer there. She had thought of lying, just for an instant, but the danger to Denys was too great to chance such a thing.

But she didn’t tell them about Jasper. Let them think Rian was alone, a barely recuperated wounded man with one arm, easily overcome by a small force not expecting a battle.

“See how simple that was? Thank you, my dear,” the
Comte
said, getting to his feet. “You will, of course, remain here until your lover joins you, with the good and currently nauseatingly smug Loringa watching from her corner.” He walked past her, past Denys, and paused for a moment in the doorway. “This pitiful wretch is of no further use to us, and he had the audacity to bleed on my carpet. You may kill him now, thank you,” he said, as if ordering a plate of cakes.

Denys howled and writhed like a wild animal caught in a trap as the two men dragged him away and, moments later, Lisette threw up on the carpet the
Comte
so greatly treasured.

If she hadn’t cut herself free. If she hadn’t come back to the manor house. If she hadn’t gone to Denys. Poor, poor Denys.

If she had only trusted Rian more. But she had been lied to so much that she hadn’t been able to trust him. Hadn’t trusted herself, her own instincts.

Her fault. All her fault. A man’s death…her fault. Rian’s death, Jasper’s death? Please God, no. No more, no more.

Mentally, Lisette began to recite her rosary.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…

But she gave that up a few minutes later, unable to concentrate, even on such simple, well-known prayers. She could do nothing but think of Rian.

How would he approach the house? Because he would come for her, she had no doubts in that quarter.

Would he remember the balconies outside of the rooms that faced the rear of the manor house? His room was on the third floor, but there were balconies on the others floors as well. If he climbed the wall, approached through the trees as far as possible? Took cover behind the fountain for a few moments? Sprinted toward the house with Jasper to help lift him up to the first balcony, and then up to the second, the third? Did he remember that the lock was broken on the French doors leading from that balcony, into his room?

And then, against all reason, Lisette giggled, remember how that lock had come to be broken.

It had been a warm September night, and Rian had been restless, unable to sleep. He didn’t tell her that his arm still bothered him, but she saw him try to reach for his covers with his left arm, as if he could still grab those covers with his fingers, so she knew that the hand, the hand that wasn’t there, either itched badly or otherwise bothered him, so that he’d momentarily forgotten his injury.

What was worse, she’d wondered. To have the arm and hand gone, or to still feel them?

She’d grabbed at the covers, pulled them from the bed and carried them out onto the balcony, and then asked his help in taking out pillows for himself.

He’d told her to bring more pillows, so she could join him.

Yes, yes, she would think of that. Think of that night.

Just the two of them, alone in the world, or at least that’s how it seemed. The breeze wasn’t quite cool, but it stirred the trees, brought the sweet smells of the garden up to them in the dark.

She could have sat there beside him all night, just to have his arm around her, just to be able to lay her head against his shoulder. Two people, both of them troubled, suddenly finding themselves on an island of peace. Safe. Together. No yesterday, no tomorrow.

But then he’d kissed her.

Lisette closed her eyes now, tipped her head to one side, almost able to believe she could feel the warmth of his lips against her skin, experience again the delicious tingle running through her body as she lifted a hand to his cheek and guided him toward her mouth….

R
IAN BEGAN TO WONDER
if he’d guessed wrong, that the
Comte
hadn’t been able to convince Lisette to tell him where the caravan had been camped.

He refused to believe she would have told him willingly, in any event.

And he wished she wasn’t so damn stubborn.

“Could have come and gone, Lieutenant,” Jasper said, shifting his weight, for they had been crouching in the bushes for nearly an hour, afraid to move as they watched the clearing.

“We swept the entire camp with branches, remember? There’s absolutely no hoofprints, no new footprints anywhere near, Jasper. We were a good twenty yards from the lane, and they couldn’t have seen the caravan unless they were nearly on top of it, into the clearing itself. We wait another hour or so, and then the sun will be up and our chance of surprise greatly diminished.”

“Jasper’s been thinking, sir,” the big man said, scratching behind his ear. “Could have just left the caravan where it was, and hidden out here, waitin’ for somebody to come lookin’. Not that it wasn’t a fair treat and all, marchin’ across the fields with you, sir.”

“And take the chance of losing that fine armory of yours, Jasper? No, we hit and run, live to fight another day. My brother Spence told me all about how the American Indians fought larger forces to good advantage. Attack from cover, hit hard, use the element of surprise, eliminate some of the enemy and then disappear until the next attack. And, if we’re lucky, we’ll also get ourselves a prisoner. I need to know how many people are at the manor house, precisely where Lisette is being held. Everything I can learn will help her.”