Wanton Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (15 page)

      
“If you ever decide to rid yourself of him, do remember that I should love to have him.”

      
Before Derrick could reply, his opportunity to pursue Bonaparte's mistress arrived in the person of Francisco Fiore. When her old friend asked for the honor of the dance, Derrick excused himself and quickly made his way through the press to find Napoleon's mistress.

      
As he slipped through the door and closed it behind him, Derrick did not see Captain Evon Bourdin watching him.

Chapter Eight

      
Derrick found himself in a small, lavishly appointed antechamber. No one was about, but the faint trace of her musky perfume indicated that the Polish wife had just passed through. Another door stood slightly ajar. He followed his nose down the corridor, hoping he could run Napoleon's mistress to ground before becoming hopelessly lost in the maze of the old palace.

      
Then, about halfway around the second turn, he heard women whispering in a Slavic language he took to be Polish. He paused in front of the door, recognizing Maria's voice. Improvising quickly, he knocked. Speaking in French, he inquired, “May I enter, my lady?”

      
“Who is there?” a soft voice inquired nervously in atrocious French.

      
Derrick opened the door and bowed politely. “Ramon DiMiglio, my lady, a member of his majesty's security.”

      
Maria was quite pretty in a pale blond way, with wide Slavic cheekbones and deep-set blue eyes, although her mouth was a bit weak. She motioned him inside uncertainly as her maid, a stolid Polish grandmother in a babushka, stood guard beside her chair. “I do not recognize you,” she said haltingly, obviously confused.

      
He gave her his most winsome smile as he saluted her tiny hand. “That is because my position requires that as few people as necessary know that I guard the king and queen.” He spoke slowly so that she could follow his words. Although he was fluent to the point of being able to pass himself off as a Parisian, her French was sketchy at best. “His majesty bade me follow you because he is concerned about your safety...and that of our emperor.”

      
At the mention of Napoleon, she grew agitated, biting her lip. “I would do nothing to endanger him,” she said, garbling the idiom because she was upset.

      
“The king knows that, but when he realized that her majesty gave you the emperor's message, then allowed you to leave with it, he grew worried that an English or Bourbon spy in the palace might harm you in order to steal it, thus jeopardizing the escape plan as well.”

      
“Ooh! No. I did not mean—that is—did not think,” she stumbled for the words, then, red-faced, she turned and retrieved the note from the bodice of her gown. “I should have...destroyed it, I know. It was”—she groped for the word—“sentimental of me, but it was written in his hand

      
And she has carried it against her heart
. Feeling a surge of pity, Derrick almost wished he could return the missive to her after reading it, but that was not possible. When she extended it to him, he took it, bowing once more. “His majesty profoundly regrets the necessity of taking it from you, my lady.” He turned and left the room.

      
As he walked, he quickly perused the message. Napoleon had sailed two days ago! His destination was the south coast of France.

      
Derrick's mind raced as he stared down at the almost illegible signature of the emperor. Even those fools in the Foreign Office would believe him when they saw this. He would have to leave at once, on horseback. Busy calculating how many days it would take him to reach Vienna, where the delegates for the peace conference were assembled, he did not see the guardsman. Bourdin had hidden behind a suit of fourteenth-century armor in a dimly lit section of the corridor.

      
The sudden prickling along the back of his neck, a sixth sense honed over the years, alerted him to the menace. He whirled around just as Bourdin's sword came hissing at him. Derrick jumped back, barely avoiding the powerful slash intended to decapitate him. Before the guardsman could lunge with the heavy saber, he moved out of reach, slipping the note inside his pocket with one hand while removing the dagger from his boot with the other.

      
“I believe you have something that belongs to his majesty,” Bourdin growled, scoffing at the uneven contest between his saber and Derrick's knife. ”I will return it and drag you before him right now, Englishman!”

“Twas you that night outside Santa Maria's, wasn't it? I recognize you by the way you strike...at a man's back,” Derrick taunted, careful to keep out of reach of Bourdin's slashing saber. Although much longer, it was a heavy and clumsy instrument intended to be swung from the back of a horse, not employed fighting in close quarters.

      
“You are a dog of a spy, running with your tail between your legs,” the Frenchman replied.

      
“I thought we had already established which of us crawled on all fours, my fine French cur. Besides, last time 'twas you who ran with my lead ball lodged in your right shoulder. Slows the sword arm down a bit, eh?” Derrick noted that Bourdin's strength was quickly waning and sweat beaded his forehead.

      
Come on, one more swing...waste it…yes!
As soon as his foe made another pass, Derrick used the instant's respite to shove the top-heavy suit of armor forward with all his might, toppling it over onto the Frenchman.

      
The crash echoed deafeningly in the deserted hallway as over a hundred pounds of rusted steel broke apart, striking Bourdin's body, knocking him to the ground and pinning him. Derrick would have taken the time to finish off his enemy, but Bourdin's right arm remained free and he reached inside his tunic for a small pistol before Derrick could get close enough to deliver a killing blow. As soon as he saw the weapon, the Englishman spun away.

      
This time Derrick was not able to move quickly enough. The ball sliced a savagely burning path across his right side,knocking him against the wall. He could hear Bourdin calling for help and struggling to get out from under the crushing weight of the armor. The pounding of footsteps sounded in the distance, coming from the direction of the ballroom. No time to lose; he must escape before the hall was swarming with guards.

      
He forced himself to run down the hallway, holding his side to slow the flow of blood.
St. George for England, help me find my way out of this maze!
He twisted and turned, opening doors along the way until at last he found one leading into the gardens. He looked back, checking the rug for bloodstains, cursing when he saw how clearly he was marking his own trail. He could hear yelling in French and Italian not far behind as he darted across the open grass and slipped behind a topiary hedge.

      
After running through the formal gardens for several hundred yards he stopped. In the darkness the trait of blood was not easily visible in the grass, but he would pass out from light-headedness soon if he did not staunch the flow. He probed experimentally at the ugly gash. There might be a cracked rib, but no vital organs seemed impaired. Unfortunately, the shot was just deep enough to cause a damnable lot of bleeding. He had been shot before, had the scars to prove it, scars that he had explained away to Beth as the results of his wicked life and history of dueling.

      
Beth.
How could he leave her this way? She remained in the ballroom, probably by now searching for him, wondering why he had deserted her. He doubted Murat would want it bandied about that an English agent had intercepted a message from Napoleon, so no one in attendance at the ball would know he was a fugitive. She would not know.
Small consolation,
he thought, forcing himself to concentrate on staying alive long enough to complete his mission.
 

      
Grimacing, he pulled off his jacket, then cursed some more when he saw that the pocket in which he'd shoved Napoleon's message was blood-soaked. He carefully extracted the slip of paper but could not ascertain the extent of the damage in the dark. All he could do was attempt to dry it out later. He removed his shirt and tore it into strips, using them to bind up his side as tightly as he could stand it, then put the jacket on once more and started loping toward the farthest perimeter of the garden. There was a wall, if memory served, which he could scale...at least, he hoped he could.

* * * *

      
“Where do you imagine Derrick could be?” Beth asked, chewing worriedly on her lower lip as she scanned the crowded room.

      
Vittoria made a noncommittal reply. Not too long after Jamison had excused himself, the contessa had heard the faintest echo of what might have been a shot, followed by angry shouting. Some sort of commotion had drawn away a number of the royal guards, and the king had left the dais after a terse exchange with his now grim-faced wife. All did not augur well for Derrick Jamison. ” 'Tis late and the press is thinning, moving into the dining hall. Do you wish to stay for supper?”

      
“Not if I must make my entrance without Derrick. I cannot credit that he would simply leave without explanation.”

      
“Well, it would appear that he has done precisely that,” Vittoria replied. “Come then, let us repair to the villa and I shall send Georgio to make an inquiry.”

      
“Derrick will have a deal of apologizing to do before I forgive this.”

      
“Perhaps he was summoned away on one of his mysterious trips,” the contessa suggested as they made their way through the crowd.

      
“Honestly, Vittoria, you are not still suggesting that he is some sort of spy?” Beth had scoffed in disbelief the first time her friend mentioned it, and she still found the idea absurd in the extreme. Her Derrick, an agent of the British government? Why, he had been forced to flee London with officers of the crown in pursuit. He was a rake and a wastrel who enjoyed the sybaritic life of idleness here in Italy far too much to be slinking about after Bonapartists. Of course, until a few months ago when the war ended, he could have been after Americans as well—
if
he were a spy, which, she stoutly assured herself, he was not.

      
Neither was he
her
Derrick, she was forced to concede. He made no claims on her, showing not the slightest hint of jealousy when she flirted with other men or spent inordinate amounts of time at Signore Pignatelli's studio. Even when she had let slip that she was again posing in the nude for the famous portraitist, Derrick had only raised one eyebrow sardonically, inquiring if he might attend one of the sessions as an observer. She was forced to admit that she had done the unthinkable—she had deliberately baited him, as if she were a green miss fishing for a marriage proposal. Small wonder he had slipped away without a word tonight! He was teaching her a lesson, the rogue.

      
On the carriage ride back to the villa, Beth fell silent. Her thoughts were troubling. She reviewed the course of her relationship with Derrick, trying to pinpoint just when she had started attempting to make him jealous. She could remember the day, early in the new year, as if it were yesterday...

      
They had gone riding down the coast. She had been eager to show him the magnificent ruins at Pompeii, beneath the shadow of Vesuvius. After viewing the ruins they had found a small inn on the road to Amalfi, where they spent the night. Their hostess, noting the absence of a wedding ring on the finger of the foreigner, had been suspicious and unfriendly, in spite of Beth's fluency in the local dialect.

      
“Signora Varola thinks I am your kept woman,” she had said after the scowling matron deposited hearty portions of osso bucco simmered with winter vegetables on the small table in their upstairs quarters.

      
“Well, I did pay for this,” Derrick replied, grinning as he held up a meaty end of the veal knuckle, then licked his fingers with relish. “She may be a prude, but she is an excellent cook.”

      
“I shall pay for tomorrow's lodging and meals,” Beth said, her appetite suddenly gone.

      
He looked up, wiping his mouth on a much-mended but clean napkin. “Your greatly vaunted independence is duly noted, m'dear, but wholly unnecessary. I know I have no claim on you simply because I happen to have paid a simple night's lodging.”

      
She forced a smile. “Would I have a claim on you if I paid—is that what you fear?”

      
The barb must have struck home because he replied tersely, “Call it simple male vanity and leave be. A man does not allow a woman to pay his keep.”

      
“Even if he sleeps with her?” What had made her ask such a thing!

      
He threw down the napkin and leaned back on the crude cane chair, studying her intently with his arms crossed over his chest. “What is it, puss? Do I stand stud for you, hmmm?”

      
“Scarce that, since the purpose of a stud is to beget offspring.” The instant she blurted out the words, Beth wished to call them back. ”I—I did not mean—”

      
“For a woman who professes to want no leg-shackling, you have an odd way of looking at a bare fact of life,” he interrupted. “I've sensed for some time your unease when we began taking measures to prevent...an accident.”

      
She could not argue that stopping before they made love so that he could apply a “French letter” had broken the mood for her. Nor was it much better when she employed Vittoria's remedy, vinegar-soaked sponges inserted in the vagina. She shrugged helplessly. ”I know we must be careful, but it just seems so...so calculated. We didn't use anything at first and I did not conceive. I suspect I am barren.”