A Worthy Wife (27 page)

“Good for Andrew.” Kenyon was helping Aurora down from their carriage, some distance away from the inn. They’d walk, rather than arrive in the crested coach, hoping to catch the abductors unawares. “But of course the innkeeper would not listen to his pleas for help after that. This DuBois shows a modicum of cunning.”

Wesley disagreed. “If DuBois is so wily, why is he just sitting in the parlor taking tea, when he knows you’re on his trail?”

“Because he knows I would not enter the parlor with my pistols blazing, not with Andrew in the room. Bullets have a nasty habit of missing their targets, so remember, there is to be no shooting.” Despite his words, Kenyon checked the dueling pistol in his greatcoat pocket, and the smaller one in his waistcoat. Wesley felt behind him, where his own weapon was tucked into his waistband under his coat, and nodded. He left to take up a position outside the partially open window of the Frenchmen’s parlor.

Kenyon tried to get Aurora to wait near the carriage or outside the inn. Then he tried to convince her to stay in the inn’s lobby, the public room, or an upstairs bedchamber. Finally, he tucked her arm into his elbow, and together they walked into the inn.

“Monsieur DuBois is expecting us,” he told the bowing innkeep. “You do not need to announce us.” He tossed the man a coin for minding his own business, and they went down the hall to the room Wesley had described. “You stay here until I say to come in,” Kenyon instructed Aurora, who nodded, then followed right behind him as he kicked open the door and strode in.

The three men were sitting at the table, but Andrew was in the corner on the floor. He jumped up and ran to Aurora, who gathered him in her arms and her skirts and her tears. Kenyon, meanwhile, was inspecting the men. Even with his glasses on, he did not recognize any of them, but he did recognize the pistol in the longhaired servant’s hand, aimed at Andrew’s head. He bowed slightly and said, “I do not believe we have been introduced,” in English.

The man who appeared to be in charge smiled, stood,
and bowed, as if they were at an embassy dinner. “In good time,
mon ami
, as soon as you have put down your weapon.”

Kenyon shrugged and placed the Manton on the table closest to him. “You are no friend of mine.”

“No, and for that I apologize. If times were different…who knows? Would you like to sit?
Comtesse
,
can I offer you tea?”

Still clutching Andrew as if he would fly away if she didn’t keep a tight hold, Aurora shook her head. Her stomach lurched at the thought of making polite conversation with these monsters who would threaten a little boy. Now was not the time to be sick, though. She did take Andrew to a sofa against the wall, trying to place the two Frenchmen at the table between them and the man holding the gun. She kept her arms around the boy, ready to shield his body with her own if she had to.

Kenyon did not sit. “Your intentions, sir?”

The Frenchman studied the cup of tea he held between blue-veined hands. “They say you are a formidable negotiator, my lord. I have a—how do you say it?—a deal I wish to make with you.”

“I do not bargain while you have a gun pointed at my son’s head.”

DuBois smiled again, flicking his fingers at the servant, who lowered his weapon but did not put it down. Then he said, “But is he your son? That is the question.”

Kenyon was losing patience. “Who the devil are you, and what do you want?”

“You really do not know?”

“And I really do not care.” Kenyon reached into his pocket—the servant’s gun came up again—and pulled out his wallet. He threw it on the table, and then opened the velvet pouch and tossed the Windham diamonds alongside the money. “There, that is all I have. Take it or leave it, but my wife and my son and I are leaving. If you think you can stop us, you might want to look out the window.”

When all three Frenchmen turned, Wesley waved, his pistol in his hand.

“And my coachman is at the rear of the inn, and my groom at the front. All armed.”

“Ah, you have misunderstood the nature of the bargain I wish to make, no?” DuBois reached into his own breast pocket—Kenyon took a step closer to his pistol on the table—and pulled out yet another drawstring pouch. He upended it next to the diamonds. Rubies, emeralds, and pearls spilled out, a pirate’s bounty.

“What the devil?” Kenyon stepped closer, picking up a ruby pendant. “This looks familiar.”

“It should. Your wife brought it to France, hoping to buy Napoleon’s favor. You were asking about your family heirlooms just last month, no, while you were in Paris? Here they are. The sapphires would complement the
comtesse’s
blue eyes, no?”

Kenyon pounded the table, then winced as his injured hand throbbed. “Enough. Tell me what you want and have done with this fustian nonsense. My wife is tired, and the boy is upset.”

“
Tres bien.
Let us begin at the beginning. I am Rene DuBois,
si’l vous plait,
and this is my brother, Jean-Claude. Our sister was Nicole DuBois, who became the wife of Raoul, le Duc D’Journet, your wife’s lover.”

“Nicole died in childbirth.”

“But her son, Henri, lived. Henri is now the duke, of course, not Raoul’s usurping cousin Lucien who is this very moment claiming the title and the estates.”

“But Henri died in the crossing to England. I wrote Lucien, and I know he received my message even with the war going on, for Henri’s name was inscribed on the family tomb. I went to check when I was in Paris.”

“
Oui,
we know you did, and that got us to thinking,
n’est ce pas
? Perhaps you went to pay your respects to the memory of your own dead son. Or out of guilt, for claiming the duke’s
son
for your own.”

“What?” Aurora gasped. “My lord would never do such a heinous thing. Andrew is his son!”

The earl finally sat down, letting the ruby pendant swing from his left hand. “But now I understand. If you can produce Henri, then you can have yourself named as trustee and get your hands on whatever remains of
D’Journet’s properties, or what you can steal back. And you thought I would trade these”—he grabbed up a handful of necklaces and brooches—“for the boy.”

DuBois nodded. “
Exactement.
Everyone knows you despised Genevieve and Raoul for the scandal, and everyone also knows you never acknowledge the boy. This is the first time you have seen him in, what, six years? In your heart you do not think he is yours,
monsieur
,
do you? But these,” he said, shoving the Windham diamonds closer to the pile of other treasures, “these are yours.”

Kenyon swiped his hand across the table, sending the jewelry flying. “How dare you think to barter for what is mine, with what is mine. Andrew is my son, do you hear? My son. Even if he were not, I would not give him to a fool who’d think the paper-thin peace will hold. Napoleon is not finished, and what happens to the duke’s estate then? France will never go back to the way it was, with soulless aristocrats like you in command. The people will never let that happen. You do remember the people, don’t you? The starving masses who had to overthrow the king just to eat? I would send no child to such a living hell. And I would never trade my flesh and blood for these cold stones.”

“Prove it,
mon ami.
Prove you are the boy’s father. He does not resemble you. He did not run to you when you so gallantly rode to his rescue. You would not look at him since he was an infant.”

All his doubts, all those years of wounded pride and willing negligence were coming back to haunt Kenyon. Still, “He is my son,” he insisted.

Aurora spoke up. “A man does not have to prove he fathered a child. Can you prove you are brothers, Monsieur DuBois? You do not look alike, yet your birth records would show your parentage, the same as Andrew’s shows his.”

“But we have a sailor who was on the smuggler’s ship, ready to swear that the boy who drowned was Windham’s heir.”

Kenyon muttered, “What did you trade for his lies, his mother’s life?”

“Look,
monsieur.
”
She took Andrew’s spectacles out of her pocket and put them on his face. “You see? He has his father’s eyes.”

DuBois smiled as he picked up the fallen jewelry. “The priest at my church wears spectacles, and he did not father this child either. Poor eyesight proves nothing.”

“Very well, then, listen to this. We have locks on the grates of the nursery fireplace at Windrush. I noticed them when I was having the rooms refurbished for Andrew. Do you know why?”

Windham didn’t know why, or if the locks actually existed. He nodded encouragement to his plucky little wife anyway.

Aurora did not wait for DuBois to ask. “Because when he was learning to walk, Andrew knocked against the screen and fell into the fire. He was burned on the foot, and has a scar to this day.”

Kenyon glanced toward the boy’s feet as if he could see through the sturdy boots Andrew wore. “He does? That is, he does.”

“Yes, he does. I saw it myself when he was recently ill, and the nursemaids can verify the rest of the story.”

“The ones who Genevieve did not dismiss for being so careless,” Windham added. “But enough. You cannot prove that Andrew is Henri without my cooperation or you would have taken him away.”

“But you will give this cooperation, this consent, no?”

Three pistols were aimed at Andrew suddenly. Kenyon could not chance going for his own weapon. He made sure Wesley did not fire by holding both of his hands up.

DuBois went on. “You will sign the paper here, that you knew Henri survived, but adopted him as yours since he could not go back to France.”

“I regret that my writing hand is too injured.” Kenyon made sure DuBois saw the bandages, and made sure the weasel understood that hell would freeze over before he signed such a document.

DuBois gave a Gallic shrug, without lowering his weapon. “We are at an impasse, no?”

“No!” Andrew burst up from the sofa and raced over to Kenyon. “He is my father! No one else is. I will not go with you, and I will not tell those lies you told me to say. My father loves me, he does! Otherwise he wouldn’t have cared if I got trampled, and he wouldn’t have come after me.”

“Then why did you run away from home?” DuBois asked.

Andrew raised his chin. “Because I have the Warriner temper, the same as he does, and the same as my Aunt Brianne! Uncle Christopher is too sad about his arm to be angry, but when he recovers, you better watch out, ’cause he’s a hero who’s already killed lots of Frenchmen. And if you don’t let us leave here, I am going to become very, very angry. Besides, if you shoot me, not only will my father and Wesley kill you, but you still won’t have any heir to bring to France.”

While Andrew was speaking, Aurora had reached under her skirts for Brianne’s pistol strapped there above her garter. “Andrew, stand aside,” she said now, directing the gun’s sight right between Monsieur DuBois’s eyes, she hoped. “I have heard enough. This boy is no blood relation of mine whatsoever, and I would never claim otherwise, but he is as dear to me as any child of my womb could be, and I am not leaving without him. Kenyon, pay the men for the jewels if you want them back, or not. I do not care. But I shall shoot the first man who blinks. If you are thinking that I will not pull the trigger,
monsieur
, understand that I have already shot the man outside once”—Wesley tapped his pistol lightly against the open window—“and I can shoot a man again.”

*

Kenyon did not put his son down until they were at the carriage. He handed the boy up to Wesley and turned to hug Aurora, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around. “You were magnificent, madam wife, with the merest tinge of green in your complexion. But my stomach was in my own mouth, to think of you carrying a loaded pistol like that!”

She smiled. “Who said it was loaded?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They stayed overnight at an inn near Sleaford, about halfway home. Kenyon took two rooms, one for him and his wife, and one for Wesley and Andrew to share. Andrew needed one of his parents nearby, though, Aurora declared, ordering a cot prepared for him in her room.

Kenyon was still grumbling about it the next morning. He might owe the highwayman a heavy debt for his assistance, for guarding their backs as they left the Frenchmen, but the earl would be hanged—like a highwayman, b’gad—if he wanted to share a bedroom with the fellow, let alone a bed.

“What are you complaining about, Windham?” Wesley asked, tying his horse to the back of the carriage. “You’re the one who snores.”

“I do not snore!”

Aurora giggled, a sweet, girlish sound that had Windham wishing the Frenchmen had kept Andrew and Wesley both, so he could have his wife alone, for once. “Such disloyalty shall not go unpunished, wench,” he growled, though they all knew Aurora had proved her loyalty and her bravery and her love, many times over. She giggled again and winked at Andrew.

Kenyon shook his head. “Nor such a lack of respect. As the head of this household, I hereby issue the following command to all of you: there will be no more escapades or alarums. I swear my hair will turn gray before my next birthday, otherwise, if I should live so long. I cannot survive more panicked palpitations of the heart. I will have peace in my household. Is that understood?” If he attained a degree of sanity and serenity, it would
be for the first time since the day he’d met Aurora. He did not regret that day, not in the least; he just wished havoc did not follow her around like Nialla’s cat, waiting to pounce.