A Midnight Dance (46 page)

“My father had already borrowed a substantial sum from you. I couldn’t ask for more when there was no way for me to repay the original amount.” She took in a fortifying breath and let it out slowly. “I want you to know that I have always considered myself fortunate to have a man of your superior worth show interest in me . . .”

“Interested in you?” He laughed. “I don’t think you understand. The privileged treatment your father received was intolerable. I so despised his lofty airs and his unjust popularity that I decided soiling one of his precious daughters, whom he boasted would marry into the nobility, was not only a perfect idea, but just. I find it offensive that someone as common as you might outrank me through marriage. I thought being the whore of a nobleman was as high as you should rank. Sadly, you’ve already given your innocence to another. Whatever shall I do with you?” Though posed as a question, it wasn’t. He’d planned out exactly what he was going to do to her.

He moved his gaze down the length of her body, a nauseating leer. “You know, I’d forgotten how good you look in finery. I haven’t seen you dressed this way for some time.” He ran his finger along the top curve of her breasts, tracing the low neckline. “You have such pretty skin . . .”

She didn’t dare move. Barely breathed.
Deter him from whatever path he’s heading down
. “There’s more silver to be had, Leon,” she blurted. Appealing to his greed might distract him. “There are two more chests.”

“I know.” He didn’t so much as glance at her as he dragged his knuckles back the other way over her skin. “I intend to have it all. By now your lover is dead, as are his brother and everyone you were with at the courtesan’s home. I knew that once they noticed you were missing, they’d come looking for you. I had men waiting for them outside for their slaughter.”

“What . . .”
It was a breathy sound, his words knocking the air from her lungs.

He met her gaze, his expression both malicious and smug. “They’re all dead. Every last one of them,” he assured, “even the men at the Moutier camp outside Paris who were guarding the two chests. The silver should be arriving soon. You see, when I want something, I get it.”

No
.
No
.
No!
Jules was not dead. He wasn’t! And neither were Luc, Raymond, her family. She didn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it. It would be too much to bear. She needed all her strength to get out of this. Leon was a liar. There was no reason to believe anything he said. He was saying these things to break her spirit.

“Are you sad, Sabine?” he taunted. “How do you feel about me now?”

She loathed him. She loathed herself for being duped. For not seeing what he was sooner. For putting herself and everyone who mattered to her in such danger. “I am in awe of your accomplishments.” Careful not to move her arms and give herself away, she worked at the knots behind her back with determination.

“Really?” He looked suspicious. “What about the demise of your lover and family? No sense of loss there?”

Jules was a master swordsman and accurate shot, she reminded herself. He was all right. Everyone was all right. She was going to be all right, too. She’d see Jules again, her family and her sister. Stay strong.

She schooled her features and shrugged. “He was a means to an end. And Louise, Vincent, and Agnes are not my family. By ridding me of them, you’ve eased my burden.” She despised what she was forced to say. “Thank you, Leon. I’ve not sufficiently appreciated your many talents. I hope you’ll forgive me. You are truly a brilliant man.” Her fingertips burned as they abraded against the rope, desperate to loosen the knots. Time was of the essence. If she was to have a fighting chance, she needed her hands.

He grabbed her aching face. She froze. His fingers gouged into her cheeks. “I don’t believe your lies for a moment, but I will tell you about my
many talents
and just how great my achievements have been.”

“Please do,” she said, unflinching despite his severe grip. Painfully pulsing, her face felt bruised and swollen.

He released her abruptly and sat back, the corner of his mouth lifting. She braced herself, unsure of the extent of his misdeeds.

“I was behind the Marquis de Blainville’s arrest and ultimate execution. The man was despised by everyone. Yet none had the courage to do anything about him. Except me,” he proclaimed proudly.

She stiffened and thought of Jules. “Oh? How did you manage such a feat?”

“The aristocracy are by and large a corrupt lot. I knew sooner or later I’d discover some tantalizing bit of information that could be exploited. And I did. Blainville was plotting against the Marquis d’Argon. I told d’Argon and convinced him to turn the tables on Blainville.”

Marquis d’Argon? Kindhearted Valentin? The memory of seeing him at the masquerade flashed in her mind.

“You look incredulous, Sabine. I take it you’ve met d’Argon?”

“Yes. He seems too—”

“Weak to carry out such a scheme? I assure you, he went along with the plan willingly. He was dedicated to the end. It was an ingenious plan, really. Blainville hanged for the very same fraudulent crimes he was going to have laid against d’Argon. Poetic justice, don’t you think?” He laughed.

She reeled. Jules trusted Valentin. She didn’t know what to say. What to do. What to think.

“I even ensnared your very own sister into our plot.”

“Yes. I had her routine observed. From the woods near the servants’ outbuildings, she was seen smuggling items to her room. One afternoon, knowing she was alone, as usual, I paid her a visit. I told her that certain powerful men were intent on seeing Blainville fall. I told her I was being forced into the scheme, and if she didn’t use her skills in thieving to aid these men, terrible things would befall her, me, and you.”

She clenched her jaw to keep from screaming the hot words burning in her mouth. She had to swallow twice before she could speak. “You got her to put the letters in the couriers’ satchels?”

“Not only place them there, but press Blainville’s crest on each one.”

She quaked harder. “
Why?
Why did you pull her in? To get back at Father?”

He sat back in his chair. “Partially. Also, I needed someone within the household to take part in the plan. I knew I’d have to kill whomever I chose once they were of no use. She was the one I selected. When your bitch of a sister realized it was d’Argon and I behind it all, she tried to send letters warning you and Luc de Moutier. Fortunately, I interceded them. That was the day I decided she had to die.”

“No!”

He grinned. “Yes. Give up your delusions, Sabine. I locked her in her room myself and watched as my men set the outbuilding ablaze. She’s quite dead.”

She clenched her teeth. “You.
Lie
.”

He stood up abruptly, his chair scraping backward against the stone floor, and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet with a furious yank.

He stalked to one of the doors, his fingers cruelly biting into her flesh, opened it, and shoved her inside. She stumbled to the middle of the room and frantically looked around. The blood drained from her limbs, the shocking sight all but buckling her knees. Covering the walls were countless locks of hair. Various colors. From various people. Long tables along the perimeter of the room had various trinkets on display—bracelets, pins, combs.

Stock-still, she stood trapped in the horror of it, for it dawned on her immediately what the gruesome display depicted.

“This is my treasure room. There”—he pointed to the chest in the corner of the room under a table—“is the silver. These”—he gestured to the walls—“are from the whores who went before you.”

Among the items, a stack of parchments stood out. A morbid fascination gripped her. The lure was irresistible. She moved toward it despite the foreboding that darkened around her and the inner voice that warned her to stop.

The closer she got, the clearer the handwriting became, and the distinctive penmanship took on an undeniable, devastating familiarity.

Isabelle’s handwriting
. The sight knifed into her. She’d been wrong about everyone. Everything. Her instincts had failed her at every turn. She was wrong about Isabelle, too.

Isabelle was dead. She’d never see her sister again.

Her heart shattered.
“NO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!”
she screamed, doubling over in agony.

He bent and said near her ear, “At last you believe me. Your sister is gone.”

Tears flooded down her face.
“Isabel-l-l-l-le . . .”
Her knees collapsed under the weight of her misery. She pressed her forehead against the cold floor, wailing her grief.

“There’s no need to carry on. You’ll be dead soon, too. You’ll be joining her.” He dragged her to her feet and spun her around. Her vision obscured by tears, she didn’t know what he was about until he grabbed one of her long locks and sliced it off with the dagger she now realized he held. “A keepsake,” he said. “I’ve left a spot for you. I’ll put it beside your sister’s. I cut hers off her just before she died. She cried and screamed, like you. I liked it when she screamed.” He dragged the tip of the cold blade over the tops of her breasts. “All this pretty flesh . . . I intend to make you my greatest masterpiece, Sabine. Perfect markings and carvings . . . you’ll be my finest work. What a delicious encounter this will be. You’ll be in excruciating pain until I fuck you to death.”

She was already in excruciating pain. There was nothing he could do to her to hurt her more. Rage singed her skin from the inside out. Alone and bound, she knew he thought he’d rendered her helpless. He thought he’d won.

You can die
.
Or you can die fighting
. She’d be damned if she’d simply surrender her life. For all his wickedness and depravity—for what he’d done to Isabelle and Jules—the very least she could do was inflict some pain.

In one fluid motion she jumped back, leaned against the table behind her, and kneed him in the groin with all she had.

He howled, grabbing himself as he fell to one knee, the dagger dropping out of his hand. She kicked it away and bolted for the door. She made it only a few steps when he caught her gown and violently jerked her backward. Without her hands to break the fall, she hit the floor, her head slamming against it in a jarring collision.

She lay on her side, dazed, vaguely aware of him standing over her. He raged—but his voice was distant. His words, indecipherable.

She was going to die. At least then the emotional pain would end.
She’d be with ’Sabelle
. Her vision was slowly narrowing. She wondered if the encroaching blackness would mercifully claim her before Leon pierced her with the dagger.

Waiting for death, an odd calm washed through her until Jules’s face flashed in her mind. A single tear slipped out of the corner of her eye. “Jules . . .” She’d love him in this world and the next. Always . . . But she was wrong about him, too. He wasn’t her destiny. That was clear to her now. She was going to die.

An explosion suddenly reverberated in the room, then a heavy weight crushed down on her.

Something warm oozed over her belly.
Blood?
She’d been shot . . .

It was her final coherent thought.

The blackness pulled her under.

Jules threw Leon’s lifeless body off Sabine, and dropped to his knees. “Get him out of here!” Leon’s dead eyes stared vacantly at the ceiling. His abdomen was covered in blood.

Luc and Raymond dragged the corpse away, leaving a dark red smear across the floor.

Sabine’s face was battered. Her belly blood-soaked. A pool of blood near her side. So much blood. All around. Its very scent permeated the air. As did the smoky smell of gunpowder. Terror iced in his veins.

Quickly, he cut the rope around her wrists and gently rolled her onto her back. With a fervent prayer, he pressed his ear to her chest. The moment he heard the steady thumps of her heart, he all but wept with joy. Sweeping her up into his arms, he rushed into the other room and placed her with infinite care on the pallet. Sitting on the makeshift bed by her side, terrified she’d suffered a belly wound, which was almost always fatal, he used his dagger to slice open the front of her gown. Frantic, he peeled each sodden crimson-stained layer away until at last he saw her unmarred flesh. Weak with relief, he tossed his head back, closed his eyes, and let the air rush out of his lungs, realizing at that moment he’d been holding his breath. He looked at his bloody hands. It was all Leon’s blood—the blood on her dress and on the ground. Thank God.

Now all he had to worry about was what horrors the bastard had put her through.

She groaned, but didn’t awake. He wiped his hands clean on his breeches, ripped off his doublet and dressed her in it, then wrapped her with the blanket on the bed.

Slowly he laid her back down and carefully slid his hand from beneath her head. Across his palm were fresh streaks of blood. His heart lurched. Immediately he pulled her up to examine the back of her head and found her beautiful blond hair was matted and caked with blood. Touching the visible cut, he noted the large lump that had formed at the side of her skull.