Fire at Midnight (25 page)

“You know I would do anything to save my brother. I know of nothing more than what has already been returned to you! Please!” Her voice broke and she made another attempt to take the baby from Simon, but Emerald shoved her away with a snarl.

“Perhaps Falconer did not tell you where everything is hidden, but you insult me when you claim that you took only the ledger and my personal mail. The Frenchman himself said there was more!”

“He lied!” This was Sebastién’s fault! For all she knew, Sebastién and Victor had collaborated all along and the discovery of the evidence had been staged for her benefit, to make it easier for him to lead her into this trap. “You will have to come to terms with the Frenchman on your own,” she said finally. “He is no friend or ally of mine!”

Victor studied her for a long moment. His blue-gray eyes widened, and he flashed a perceptive smile, followed by a throaty laugh. “I won’t deny the Frenchman anything that is due him. Shall I relay a message on your behalf the next time I see him?”

“Yes. You can tell him I hate him and he can go to hell.”

Without lifting his eyes from her face, Victor folded his arms over his chest and summoned Simon and Emerald to his side. His next words were said with deliberate clarity.

“Take James down to the beach and drown him.”

Rachael screamed and lunged for Simon, but he sidestepped her, grunting with the effort, and she fell to the floor, desperately latching onto his boot. He dragged her several paces before Emerald bent down with an oath and wrenched her hand free of its grip on Simon’s boot. The boy hauled Rachael to her feet and flung her away from the door with a strength that stunned her.

She stumbled and fell backward, the hard landing leaving her breathless. Victor drew his knife and held it to her throat, forcing her to huddle on the floor at the point end of the blade while Simon and Emerald slipped out into the windstorm with James.

“Never claim I am incapable of mercy,” Victor said. “If I had given your brother to Emerald, it would not have been a quick death.”

Rachael screamed in outrage and cuffed his hand, dodging the blade. Victor lost his grip on the weapon, and it hit the floor with a metallic clatter. When he sprang to retrieve it, Rachael rolled away and bounced to her feet.

As Rachael fought to free herself from Sebastién’s heavy cloak, she remembered the pistol. It was useless as a weapon, but Victor did not know that. She snatched it from the pocket and aimed it at him, hand trembling.

He froze, lips flattening into a white line.

“Drop the blade and kick it to me,” she demanded, waving the pistol for emphasis. The knife hit the floor and made a scraping sound as it was booted in her direction.

“I think you should shoot him. I certainly would.”

A noise of relief escaped Rachael as Mrs. Faraday entered the room. The housekeeper’s left cheek bore a livid bruise, and she directed a vibrant look of malice at Victor.

“I need to tie him up,” Rachael whispered. “Is there something I can use to bind him?”

The older woman promptly lifted her skirts, stepped out of her petticoat, and began to tear the garment into lengths.

“Sit,” Rachael told Victor, indicating the hard chair she had occupied.

Victor grunted in discomfort as Mrs. Faraday anchored his left wrist to the chair arm with the first of the crude ties. “Pity it isn’t around your neck,” she said.

Once he had been secured, Rachael deposited the pistol within the pocket of the cloak and ran to the door. She struggled against the wind to open it, the portal groaning in protest, then paused in the open doorway, hair flying, clothes lashed by the force of the gusts.

“The rest of your property is hidden in the lighthouse,” she told Victor. “The Frenchman betrayed you.”

What better revenge than to set them at each other’s throats? She would savor her uncle’s reaction later, after she had found James.

Simon and Emerald stumbled down the rough trail to the beach, making their way toward a light in the distance. The baby’s tireless screams had made both men edgy and in the right frame of mind to carry out Victor’s order.

As they rounded a corner and descended to the beach, they found themselves at the center of more than a dozen men. The leader of the regiment held the light that had beckoned them.

Simon recoiled at the sight of the officer’s face. The man looked like the wounded Frenchman they had left at the Eddystone Light. But this man was clean-shaven and uninjured. Emerald dropped to his knees in the sand, staring at the Frenchman’s double with a look of awe.

Jacques Falconer calmly sat his horse while he assessed the two men, eyes flickering with shrewdness over the bawling infant Simon held in his arms. He rested his hand on his hip and serenely inquired, “Which one of you is the mother?”

Sebastién maneuvered the boat into port against tremendous odds. The force of the gales drove ships into one another, making the harbor almost as treacherous as the open sea. Ships were being ground to matchwood or swept over flooded river embankments into the fields beyond.

The number of vessels beached atop stone quays, ready to sink once the winds and rough seas subsided, was astounding. The wind had veered southwest and had grown in intensity, rising from an unearthly scream to a pitched, sustained bellow approximating the sound of thunder. There was no rain; only intermittent flashes of lightning lit the gray sky.

They dashed toward the village, dodging debris as entire houses fell apart under the weight of collapsing chimney stacks. A hail of tile and slate fragments pummeled them when fragile buildings were blasted as if made of paste and parchment. More solid structures were dismantled piece by piece until cottage and castle alike were reduced to piles of rubble.

The wind veered from southwest to west with a wail of warning for those unfortunate enough to be caught in its path. The tempest forced them to retreat toward a barren wheat field where a lone windmill whirred with dizzying speed. They dropped to the ground as the sturdy old oak they had sought for cover was uprooted by the wind and heaved through the air, as if flung by some unseen, mighty arm.

Trees were destroyed by the dozens. The cries of birds rent the darkness as the creatures collided in midair or were thrown against buildings, where they fell to the ground to die in heaps. Livestock caught in the open were lifted and deposited yards away. A man herding his animals to safety was plucked up by the demon wind and hurled violently to the ground.

Sebastién shouted to Tarry over the howl of the wind as they raced across the field, his eyes locked upon an old church. It was the only structure that had not yet buckled or collapsed completely under the onslaught. The wind had stripped the long forsaken place of worship of several decorative spires and the lead lining of its roof.

They rushed inside and forced the massive wooden doors closed behind them. At the entrance, they found candles and a generous supply of sulfur. After a struggle to light the first candle, they placed others throughout the old building.

The stale air within the church commingled the faint scent of crushed flowers with the acrid smell of smoke from candles, the mustiness of the moors, and the lingering odor of countless unwashed congregations. The pews were dusty. Spiders had woven intricate web doilies into every crevice. Stained glass fragments were scattered in corners, statues had been defaced, the pulpit overturned. A number of empty wine flasks were strewn about the floor.

“Do you suppose Rachael is safe?” Tarry asked.

Sebastién did not have a chance to reply; he and Tarry spun toward the door when they heard the sound of someone struggling to open it against the strong suction of the wind.

Sebastién blocked Tarry’s impulse to rush forward by extending an arm to bar his way then shook his head circumspectly while his eyes remained on the door. His free hand dropped to his sword.

A blast of frigid air swept the building as the door opened fractionally and someone stole inside. The new arrival put a shoulder to the heavy door and gave a determined push, forcing it closed. The light from the candles at the entrance died in the draft. A muted glow from the remaining candles bathed the church in muddy yellow light.

The wretched sound of a woman sobbing echoed in the cavernous interior. The woman leaned against the wall and continued to cry, body shaking with the force of her grief. As Sebastién approached the slender form enveloped by a hooded cloak, the hood fell back, revealing the face. It was Rachael.

S
ebastién rushed toward her with a hoarse, inarticulate cry, arms outstretched. Rachael whirled in surprise and sidestepped the embrace with a sound of dismay.

“Don’t come near me.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Sebastién stopped, the expression of accusation and horror on Rachael’s face making it nearly impossible for him to breathe. His arms dropped to his sides and he stared at her, his expression desolate. When Tarry stepped forward, she walked into his arms with a choked sob.

Sebastién stood by, helpless, feeling the sting of rejection with greater acuity than he had ever felt it in his life. He watched as Tarry gently ran a finger along Rachael’s torn lower lip and quelled the urge to demand to know the name of the man who had struck her. Things had changed between them; he no longer had any right to ask.

“You’re safe,” he said softly. “Thank God.”

She pierced him with a look of loathing. “I am sorry to disappoint you after all your splendid effort to deliver me to my uncle.”

What did she mean by that? He had expected anger to follow her discovery that he had lied about holding her brother hostage, but nothing like this.
“Au contraire,”
he said. “The sight of you is balm.”

Rachael’s face contorted at the earnest declaration. Her eyes traveled over Sebastién’s swollen, blackened eye and the liberal swaths of blood that streaked the collar and shoulders of his shirt. She inclined her head toward the contusions on his face and his bloodstained clothing. “I do hope that is your blood.”

“Rachael!” Tarry gasped, shocked.

Sebastién held her with his gaze. “Rachael, if you will remember, I tried to tell you about James—”

The mention of her brother’s name prompted an explosion of rage, and Rachael launched herself at him like a wild thing, leveling a vicious slap at his bruised cheek and clawing at his hair as if she meant to extract it by the roots. She pounded her fists against his hands when he halfheartedly sought to shield himself from her blows.

Tarry caught her and closed an arm around her waist, half-lifting her into the air as he dragged her away from Sebastién. He struggled to subdue her when she fought to renew her attack.

The sudden explosion of breaking glass startled them when a heavy stone hurled by the violent wind shattered a nearby window. The pane crumbled and fell away in shards as the crazed moan of the wind invaded the church. Tarry lost his grip on Rachael and she retreated a distance from them, looking cornered and wild.

“If you ever speak my brother’s name again, I will kill you,” she told Sebastién. “I swear it.” She had to shout to make her trembling voice heard above the wind.

It was the first inkling he had that something terrible might have happened to the baby she had believed to be her brother. “Why? What happened?” he asked.

Her face was gripped by a spasm of deep grief, and her upper lip quivered as she brushed away tears with the back of her hand. “Victor had James killed.” She began to weep again, an inconsolable lament that broke Sebastién’s heart.

He took a hesitant step in Rachael’s direction, overcome by the need to console and reassure her that James was still alive.

“Keep him away from me, Tarry,” she shrieked. “I cannot bear to be in the same room with him.”

He held up his hands in a tacit promise that he would not press her, but when she suddenly bolted for the door, he pursued her with a speed and agility born of desperation. Sebastién slipped between Rachael and the door she had managed to partially open then put his back to it and slammed it shut with a backward step, facing her while he made himself the barrier to her only means of exit.

“Get out of my way, Frenchman.”

He did not budge, nor did he take his eyes from hers.
“Non.
It is too dangerous outside.” Rachael refused the hand he extended. Her eyes glittered in the shadowy light, and he saw fear and distrust in their depths. He had hoped to never see her look at him that way again.

“Let me pass,” she demanded.

“Make no mistake, I will force you to remain here, if I must,” he said, his gentle tone at odds with his words. The look of hatred she leveled at him wrenched through him to his very core. “Your brother is alive,” he said.

For a moment, he thought she might attack him again.

“Liar! Victor told Simon and the boy to drown him. I searched the beach, but I found no one. I was too late!”

She shoved hard at Sebastién’s chest and attempted to push past him, but he seized her by the shoulders and held firm. He was desperate and close to violence himself, struggling for control.