England's Assassin (3 page)

Daniel McCurren was drunk and had been for a year.

He scratched his chest where his heart should have been and stared through the countless ships floating on the Seine, wondering how the bloody hell he had come to be in Paris.

Damnation, he was not even their first choice!

Of course, he had been foxed when Falcon proposed this little excursion, but that was no excuse for poor judgment. No, he had known precisely the danger he was getting himself into and if he were truthful, he knew why he had volunteered.

“Monsieur Damont?”

Daniel nodded, his attention drawn toward the approaching captain of the ship that would carry them to Honfleur. The sturdy man trudged down the gangplank, his large hand curled around a whalebone pipe as he removed it from between lips obscured by a dense gray beard.

“Oui.”

“Welcome to
Les Helios
. I believe you have secured passage for three?” the captain asked, scouring the docks for his wayward travelers.

“Your remaining guests will be joining us shortly.”

“Bon.” The captain of the ship snapped his thick fingers and a boy of no more the fifteen appeared at his side. “Please, allow me to stow your luggage in your cabin?”

The boy made a move toward the trunks and Daniel stilled his progression with a slight lifting of his right hand. “I prefer to await my companions.”

“As you wish, Monsieur Damont.” The captain inclined his head then turned his mind to the harried activity on deck, leaving Daniel alone with his thoughts.

Curious thoughts of this strange British assassin, Scorpion.

It was quite ingenious of the man to lodge in a women’s boarding house. The establishment would never be searched, never be watched by the French army. The only danger lay in being seen by one of the female lodgers and that could be explained away with one seductive smile, one wink from a healthy young buck visiting his beautiful mistress in the dead of the night.

Daniel shifted his weight, uncomfortable with the vision of Nicole Beauvoire forming in his mind. He crossed arms over his chest and his eyes narrowed as he considered her small burgundy trunk to the right of his brown Hessian boot. It was not so much the chipped paint or dented hinges that peaked his interest, but rather the size of the trunk itself.

In all of Daniel’s twenty seven years, he had never met a woman with a wardrobe so small. It had taken him no more than ten minutes to pack the girl’s earthy possessions and place them in the shoddy trunk. She had no jewelry, no hair combs, not even a miniature portrait of her family to take back to England with her.

He shook his head in disgust, wondering what sort of man would provide his lover so few comforts. The woman was obviously educated, beautiful…

Stunning, really
.

His mind returned to the moment she had opened the door in nothing more than a tattered bath sheet. Those unusual violet eyes widening with surprise, her black hair falling around her shoulders as if she had just made love.

The thought made his mouth go dry and Daniel realized that it was the first time he had been enticed by a woman in well over a year.

He felt the familiar burn of envy for men with a woman to welcome them home. A woman to greet them wearing nothing more than a damp bath towel that clung to every exquisite curve of her luxurious body.

Men like Scorpion, men like… Glenbroke.

Censuring himself, Daniel closed his eyes and filled his murky mind with thoughts of seducing the tantalizing girl. She would respond he knew. He had seen the spark of attraction in her lovely eyes, had felt the pull of the hunt coursing through his veins.

However, that would hardly endear him to Scorpion, the crown’s most effectual assassin. An assassin, it would appear, unable to satisfy his beautiful paramour. Daniel chuckled at the irony and tried to put the alluring Mademoiselle Beauvoire out of his lecherous mind whilst he waited for her deadly lover to arrive.

***

Nicole took one last look at the unmistakable figure of Daniel Damont before slipping from the shadows of the noisy dockside tavern, Le Grotto.

She had followed him from her apartment and then on to his lodging, but not once had her escort veered from their arrangements. There were no French soldiers, no ruffians waiting to carry Scorpion off the famed Parisian prison, Conciergerie. He had, in fact, done precisely what he told her he would do and for some incomprehensible reason, she was pleased.

Surely, it was her accurate assessment of his honorable character that gave her pleasure, not the thought of spending several days alone on a ship with such an attractive emissary of the British government.

A man so brave he endangered his life to deliver a warning to an English assassin operating deep within enemy territory, a man so captivatingly handsome he was undoubtedly a rake and a rogue who would try to seduce her at every opportunity.

The thought was not unappealing. 

Hell’s teeth!

This was not the time to be distracted by a pretty man. Lord knows, he could have come to her apartment to kill her and all she could do was stand there gawking at how magnificently constructed he was like some addle brained schoolgirl attending her first ball.

Nicole lengthened her strides as she traveled toward Andre’s apartment, her irritation punctuating every step. No, this was the time to weigh her options, to decide if she was going to board
Les Helios
and face her fate in England.

Andre Tuchelles was the only person in France who knew her true identity, the only person who knew what she risked by going home. As she approached his apartment building, Nicole prayed that he had the opportunity to leave a communiqué advising her of the threat the French posed. Andre would know if this recalling of British agents was merely precautionary or if there was indeed a credible danger.

A danger strong enough to risk going home.

Glancing up, Nicole saw that Andre had left a candle burning in the loft of his fifth floor apartment. A smile pulled at her heart when she thought of her dear, sweet Andre.

He was the son of an English vicar, who, unlike her, had enlisted in this war from his deep, moral conviction that it was his duty as a Christian to fight the tyranny which the French government inflicted upon the people of Europe. It was his conviction that standing by and watching the atrocities take place, yet doing nothing, was a mortal sin, an affront to God and to all of humanity.

Andre Tuchelles was light and knew nothing of the darkness of man. He assumed that, given the choice, man would choose to do good, would choose light over darkness.

She knew better.

Nicole scanned the third floor corridor of Andre’s building and then slipped, unseen, into his apartment. She leaned her back against the door, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dim light that fell from the bedchamber loft.

She walked to the first step leading to the modest room and bent down, hoping that he had affixed a note beneath it, some small goodbye so that she did not feel so completely alone.

However, when her fingers caressed the bottom of the step she felt nothing but a sinking disappointment. Her eyes swept over the empty room and she wondered if she would ever see her dear friend again. The candle light flickered in Andre’s loft, beckoning her up the wooden stairs.

Nicole smiled, wondering if he had left a farewell note atop his desk. She envisioned what he would say, wondered if he would confess, in parting, his tendre she knew he felt for her but had never had the courage to express.

She climbed the steps not expecting to find anything because Andre Tuchelles was the sort of man to take his heart’s desire to his grave. Never voicing them, never daring to presume that a lady would return his all too worthy affections.

She looked down, lifting her skirts as she neared the top of the steep staircase. The heel of her black ankle boots sounding on the wooden floor and she raised her head then gasped at the sight of Andre Tuchelles asleep at his desk.

He has missed his ship.
She told herself.

“Andre,” Nicole whispered, glancing at the trunk to the right of his tidy bed. “Andre.”

But he did not move.

Her breath became short and she was feeling lightheaded, causing the room to dim and then brighten beyond bearing.

“Andre?”

She crept over and placed her gloved hand on his right shoulder, shaking him. But rather then awaken, he fell limp to the floor.

It was then that she saw his face. The bruising, the broken nose, his eyes swollen shut… the blood oozing from the left side of his olive colored jacket.

“No!” Nicole dropped to the carpet, stripping her gloves so she could caress his cheek with the back of her bare hand. She took care to move gently over his horrifying injuries. “Not Andre.”

Her anguished sobs turned to whispered tears as Nicole searched in vain for a portion of his face that she recognized. She looked down and suppressed a surge of nausea the moment she saw that his beautiful, long fingers had all been broken.

“Not Andre,” she breathed, knowing it was her fault, knowing that Andre Tuchelles had been tortured to get to her.

To get to Scorpion.

She glanced at his desk and saw his brass seal then remembered the hasty scrawl of his communiqué. ‘Trust no one. Tell Scorpion that the French are closing. Tell
him
.’

Her mind leapt to the enormous Scot, a man perfectly capable of overpowering Andre, of torturing him until he wrote the short missive.

Just before…

She closed her eyes, praying that his death had been swift, but knowing that it had not. Even in death Andre had protected her. The Scot had come to her apartment thinking Scorpion a man. It was undoubtedly the reason that she was still alive. He needed her, needed her to deliver Scorpion to the French before ‘he’ was able to perform ‘his’ next assignment.

She rose and stared at the man that had given his life so that she could perform that commission. And she would, killing Joseph LeCoeur at the Empress’ Toussaint feast in three weeks' time.

And then… she would kill the Scot.

“I am sorry, Monsieur Damont, but we must depart.”

Daniel glanced up at the captain of
Les Helios
, saying, “I’m grateful to you for delaying your journey as long as you have and offer my most sincere apologies for the tardiness of my companions.”

“These things are often out of one’s control.” The older man gave a sympathy shrug before dismissing the matter and boarding his frenzied vessel.

“Bloody hell,” Daniel muttered as he watched the mooring being cast toward the ancient Parisian docks.

Young sailors scurried to retrieve the heavy lines and he stared at the ship, knowing this was his last chance to board her, knowing that he had no other means of getting home.

But he could not leave without Scorpion.

Falcon’s instructions had been dead simple: warn Scorpion’s contact, Andre Tuchelles, that they were in danger and being called back to England. Then deliver Tuchelles’ missive verifying those orders and escort Scorpion back to London. 

‘A simple errand’ Falcon had said.

Daniel smirked.
Simple.
He had been standing on this bloody dock for the past three hours awaiting an English assassin and his lover. Had no idea where the lass went nor how to contact Scorpion, and he now had no transportation back to England even if he did.

He should have gone with her, but something in those large, violet eyes had seemed so incapable of deception. To be fair to himself, there was no logical reason to doubt her word. Both Scorpion and Nicole Beauvoire were in danger and he was providing a means of escape. Why then would they not have met him at the appointed time? There was only one explanation.

Something had delayed them.

Daniel curled his lower lip over his bottom teeth and whistled to one of the dock workers who ran over, eager to earn a bit of extra blunt.

“Keep an eye on these trunks,” he said, handing the man a generous amount of coin, adding, “I’ll double your fee when I return to claim my possessions” with a menacing tone that made clear the consequences of absconding.

“Merci, Monsieur.” The man bowed, removing a black woolen cap.

But Daniel did not hear him. He was already running in the direction of Mademoiselle Beauvoire apartment, hoping to find anything to indicate where she had gone. Apprehension turned his belly sour when he considered that if the French military was already watching Scorpion, he may very well have just pushed the unsuspecting girl into the enemy’s proverbial lap.

He had to find her.

Daniel glanced up at the lightening sky, an unwanted confirmation that he would have very little time in which to conduct his search. He slipped into the boarding house through a back window then quietly made his way to Mademoiselle Beauvoire’s decrepit room.

The bedchamber was just as he had left it, cold, dark and empty. He lit the single candle and held it up, illuminating the only items remaining in the room; a chair, a bed, the armoire and a small side table.

Starting with the simplest objects, Daniel lifted the chair with his left hand and peered under it, studying the legs and seeing that they were indeed solid. He then moved on to the side table and bed, mattress and armoire.

Nothing
.

He stared at the floor boards and knew that he would only have time for a cursory examination, determining that the best course of action would be to interview the other residents of the boarding house.

A women’s boarding house, where a concerned brother…

He paused, his thoughts returning to Scotland and his eccentric uncle William. Daniel stared at the armoire’s simple ornamentation, remembering that his uncle William had taken to hiding his jewels from the British in a hollowed out compartment beneath a decorative finial.

This armoire had four.

He tugged at the first two finials, thinking himself as mad as his uncle William then reached for the third and the finial gave, not much, but it moved none the less. Daniel stepped toward the wall and gently lifted up, careful not to pull too hard lest the dowel break, sealing the contents within the surreptitious compartment.

His heart was pounding as the soft scrapping of wood continued until, with a sudden jerk, the finial was in his hand. He tossed it on the bed and stared at the floorboards as his fingers probed the small compartment, closing on a bit of curled parchment.

He pulled and the document unwound like a paper spring, recoiling into its scrolled form the moment it broke the confines of its hiding place. Daniel grinned at his success and sat on the bed, reaching for the candle.

He unfurled the parchment with his left hand and anchored it with the base of the wooden candleholder in his right. He stared down, wondering what secrets the lovely Mademoiselle Beauvoire held as the candle light danced across the blackened words. Words, he could see had been written by Andre Tuchelles’ hand.

Words that irrefutably pronounced, he had just been played for a fool.