Glamorous Illusions (31 page)

CHAPTER 35

~Cora~

We pulled up in front of the chateau. Will and I exchanged a worried glance when none of the servants opened the door or came to greet us. The monstrous chateau felt ghostly, grim, and full of shadows without the warmth of people buzzing about. Will carefully wound the reins through a metal ring in a post outside and then grabbed his walking stick from the buggy, reaching for my hand with the other. “Stay beside me until we make certain everything is all right. Understood?”

I nodded, my heart hammering in my throat, glad for the comforting warmth and strength of his hand. There were few lights on inside. It was terribly quiet. Something was dreadfully wrong—we could feel it. What had happened?

We moved up the marble front stairs, and Will pressed on the latch to open the massive door, wincing as it creaked. He peeked around the corner and then abruptly dropped my hand, running to a man on the floor. The somber butler. Blood pooled from behind his head, and I looked away when I glimpsed the gray pallor that I knew could only mean death. While Will frantically felt for a pulse, my eyes searched the empty hallway before us, the abandoned parlor to our left, the stairs to our right. Where were the rest of them?

Will reached out his left hand again for me, and I took it, walking slightly behind him as if he were a human shield. He gripped his walking stick in his right hand, and I drew comfort, remembering how he'd faced the three men in Butte. But how many were here? What sort of force would it take to storm Chateau Richelieu, with all its servants and all its occupants?

He listened at the closed door of another sitting room and then slowly opened it. A maid was tied to a chair, gagged, eyes wide. We rushed over to her, and Will loosened the gag while I worked on the knot at her wrists.

“Who are they?” Will asked in French, his hand on her shaking shoulder. She was weeping from relief at the sight of us. “How many? What are they after?”

“Six men,” she said, her voice cracking. She shook her head. “They didn't say who they were after, only to remain here and be quiet if I wanted to live. They killed poor Henri…” She dissolved into weeping.

Will frowned and leaned close to her. “Only six? Are you certain?”

She nodded quickly, wiping away her tears.

“How long ago did they arrive?”

“Ten, fifteen minutes ago. I'm not quite—”

“Where are the Kensingtons and Morgans?”

“Some in their apartments. Mademoiselle Vivian and Monsieur Andrew were in the gardens, the last I saw them.”

“Where is the nearest phone?”

She shook her head. “They cut the line. We tried, before they found us.”

He took her by the shoulders. “If they wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already. I want you to run for help. Call the constable. Understood?”

Again, she nodded, and the three of us moved toward the door. After scanning the empty hallway, we crept back to the front foyer and past Henri, which sent the maid into another fit of sobbing. When Will was sure there were no intruders outside, he sent the maid running for the nearest neighbor, a half mile distant.

“You should go too, Cora,” he said, scanning the vast, empty lawn.

I shook my head. “What if they're out there?” I whispered back. “I prefer to stay.”
With you
, I thought.

Will frowned but nodded. We were once again in the foyer. “Take off your shoes,” he whispered.

I immediately understood. They were making a clatter on the marble flooring. I bent to unlace and pull them off, along with my monstrous hat, and set them on a chair. He took my hand again, and we scurried down the hall, looking left and right, until we reached the kitchens and found five more bound servants. We quickly untied them. “Grab some of those,” Will said to them, nodding at a rack of cast-iron pans. “And if those men come back in here, you beat them senseless.”

They stared at him in confusion, and Will stared back in frustration.

“Will, you're speaking English,” I hissed.

He took half a breath, comprehension softening his features. Quickly, he repeated his instructions in French.

Wide-eyed, the servants all nodded, and we peered out the windows. We could see no one in the gardens. One of the maids said she thought everyone was upstairs by now. Will was asking about routes upstairs, the best I could decipher.

“How do you say it…?” he muttered in agitation, rubbing his temple. “Passage secret?”

The servants exchanged heavy glances, obviously nonplussed at the idea of disclosing such household secrets. But we were in the midst of uncommon circumstances.

The first footman, gripping a fire poker in his right hand, immediately led the way, moving into Pierre's library. One wall, thirty feet high, was dedicated to nothing but priceless books of antiquity, as well as many dime novels. I'd teased him earlier over his passion for the American Westerns, wondering if part of his fascination with me might have been born in those pages. There were narrow walkways on each of the upper levels, as well as rolling ladders.

The servant moved toward the nearest ladder and rolled it two-thirds of the way down of the wall. Then he climbed, gesturing for us to follow. Just as I reached the top, he pulled a golden bookend in the form of a lion outward, and we heard a click.

“To your left, please,” he gestured, urging us out of the way. Then he swung it open and entered.

We were in a tiny passageway that smelled heavily of dust and mildew. Gray unpainted wood, so out of place in the Richelieu chateau, stretched twenty feet forward and then turned. We glanced back at the servant.

“This will give you access to the entire west wing, all the apartments and sitting rooms,” he said. “It weaves back and forth around each suite, at times above or below windows.”

“Will you come with us?” Will asked when we'd entered.

The footman hesitated. Will raised his hand. “It's all right. Return to the others.”

The footman nodded. “To enter any of the rooms, flip the latch beside the peephole. To open from the other side, you must find the latch, which is unique in each room. A bookend, a mantelpiece, a vase, in some cases.”

We left him then, and a chill ran down my back as he clicked the bookcase shut behind us. We were alone, and unless the constable arrived quickly, it was up to us to save the others. Will didn't hesitate. He moved down the narrow hallway in the near pitch-black, not pausing until we were halfway down. I understood then. He knew we were all housed in the front portion of the chateau; we were making our way to each apartment.

That was when he began checking peephole after peephole, listening. At the third, he peered through twice. We could hear a man's muffled shout and knocking, as if through several walls.

I resisted the urge to beg him for a chance to look, concentrating instead on staying out of his way. Pausing a moment, motionless, he flipped the latch, and we both held our breath at the sound, which to us sounded like thunder cracking. But inside, the sound of a gasp gave me hope. I pressed through, right behind Will, and spied Nell and Lillian, arms around each other, crying in a corner.

“Girls, come!” I hissed, frantically waving them over as we heard something bang against the door. They ran for me, and I rushed them through the doorway as we heard another crashing sound.

“Go, stay hidden,” Will said grimly, shutting the door in my face, sealing us away in relative safety before I could say another word.

The girls nestled under my arms, whimpering, whispering desperate questions, but I stood on tiptoe and peered at the empty room. What was Will doing? Could he find his way back in here if he wanted to?

“Will he be all right?” Nell whispered.

“What if they get in? Will had no weapon but his walking stick!” Lillian added.

“Shh, shh, let me think,” I said. “The police are on their way. We only need to make it another fifteen or twenty minutes, I'd wager.” Silently, I lamented the chateau's distance from her neighbors, from the city. Was I guessing right? Only fifteen or twenty? Or longer?

I considered my choices. Sit here and wait for Will. The police. But the risk was that those who were after us might figure out how two whimpering girls had been exchanged for one grown man. Or we could move on and see if we might save others who were under attack too.

The girls were sobbing now, gulping huge, noisy breaths. I gripped Nell's and Lillian's hands. “Shh, girls. Shh. You must get ahold of yourselves. Now. Our siblings are depending on us. Don't ruin their chances.”

The girls sniffed, and I could almost sense them wiping their faces, though I could not see them. “Who was next door to you?” I whispered.

“It's a men's sitting room,” Nell said. “The armory. Remember?”

I did. “Right. Follow me.” I squeezed past Lillian and took her hand. I assumed she took Nell's, in the dark. As we crept along, we heard men shouting, screaming at each other. A cry about girls escaping…

At the next peephole, I stood on my tiptoes and looked. I could see nothing but an elaborate red-and-gold settee, a fearsome medieval ax above it. I listened, but I couldn't tell what might be coming from inside or what was happening out in the hall beyond. “Come along,” I whispered, pulling the girls with me again.

“Do you remember who was in the next room?”

“Andrew,” Nell said. “He and Vivian had just returned from their stroll in the gardens.”

I peered through the hole and thought I glimpsed Vivian pacing. I pressed my ear against the wall, trying to discern if she was alone or if others were with her. But if the door had been breached, would the intruders be allowing Vivian to pace? Unlikely. Holding my breath, I pulled the lever and watched in awe as the entire fireplace and mantel swung a foot askew.

Vivian gasped. I peeked around the corner. Andrew and Vivian blinked in shock at the sight of me, dusty and covered with cobwebs. I frantically waved them inward, pleased that Andrew had taken a sword from the wall. It was probably a hundred years old, but at least it was a weapon.

“I wondered why Henri said that fireplace didn't function,” Andrew said, pressing by me.

“Oh, Cora!” Vivian cried, giving me a swift hug. Someone was trying to get into this room too, ramming and ramming the door. Heart hammering in my chest, I reached up to grab hold of the heavy fireplace door and pull it shut. But it only moved an inch. The men rammed the door again, just steps away. If they came through now, they'd see us all. Know where we were.

“Help me,” I whispered, sending a frantic glance up to Andrew.

He leaned over me and took hold of the door's crossbeam and pulled. But it was still stuck.

“Vivian,” I whispered frantically. “The latch! It's jammed. Flip it again!”

She was closest, and spying what I referred to at her shoulder, grabbed hold of it and yanked. We heard the click again, and just after it, the crash as the doorjamb gave way and men stumbled into the room. I glimpsed coats, hats, three feet away, the men finding their footing, rising.

“Pull,” I grunted to Andrew. And together we rammed the massive fireplace back into place. But there was no way our attackers had missed the movement.

“
Ils s'enfuient! A travers une porte secrète! Trouvez le loquet!
” yelled one, ramming the wall.
They're escaping!
It sounded like he was directly in front of me.
Through a secret door! Find the latch.
Find the latch!
he screamed.

“They're after the girls,” Andrew said in a whisper to me. “The youngest of both families. We have to get them out of here.”

“All right,” I said. “The other way. At the far end, you'll reach Pierre's library. The police have been summoned.”

Andrew turned and told Vivian and the girls to run, run for the end of this passageway. We could hear the men inside his room, shouting, scrambling, knocking over everything to find the secret latch that would open our doorway again. “How many men are there?” he asked over his shoulder. “Here, take my hand.”

Gratefully, I found his hand in the dark and followed behind. “Six. I think they're all down here at the end, trying to get to you.”

“Where's Will?”

“I don't know. He stayed behind to stop anyone who tried to chase me and the girls. What about Stuart and Antonio?”

“Stuart retired to bed. I don't know where Antonio was.”

A crack sounded behind me, and I glanced back. They'd given up on finding the latch and were attempting to break through the wall. I could see light from Andrew's room coming through. “Hurry, Andrew.”

We scurried faster down the narrow passageway, gaining on the girls, when an ax ripped through the wall ahead of us too, barely missing my hand. I recoiled, staring in horror at the massive medieval ax that I recognized from the armory wall. Another one came through, a foot away, driving me farther backward. In the slanted slivers of light, I glimpsed Andrew's face, his frown of concern, the desperation. Perhaps I could distract them, make them think I was one of the younger girls, buy them time to escape, or the police to arrive.

“Go,” I whispered to Andrew, hooking my thumb in the opposite direction. If I could get past those behind me, who were trying to break through with lesser tools, perhaps I could find shelter in one of the empty rooms. The first ax disappeared and, a moment later, came crashing through again. I whirled and ran, slowing only when I reached the hole that the men were making in the plaster of the first room.

It was about four and a half feet up and a foot wide. I could see men's hands reaching in to grab hold of the edge of plaster and pry it back. I lifted my skirts and went to my knees, crawling past as quietly as I could. I winced as broken plaster bit into my skin, but continued to move forward. I could hear them talking, urging each other on in rapid French, wishing I could understand all they said.