Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] (29 page)

“I have no idea,” he told her, squinting into the distance, slowly turning, squinting again. “Well, damn me for a tinker. That’s why he went riding off, to see what we didn’t see.”

“What?” Kate looked at him, saw his smile and then looked in the same general direction. At first she didn’t see anything, but as she looked deeper into the distance, she did. “The foaling stable. My God, Simon, it’s on fire, too! Look—the grooms are leading the horses to safety.”

“That’s probably a good idea, although it’s smoking, but not on fire. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? Kate, you said your grandfather had the foaling stable built on the foundation of the dower house. The
first
burned dower house. There had to be another tunnel leading to the new dower house, one I didn’t discover, one that didn’t collapse. Or a branch of the tunnel we did find—
something.
Something that’s now acting as some sort of chimney for the smoke.”

He picked her up and twirled her around and around. “He said we would need all the luck we could find, and even pointed some out to us. Kate, my darling, my sweet, my torment and only love—we just located the tunnel entrance!”

EPILOGUE

T
HE
MASSIVE
DOOR
was no more than twenty yards
from the entrance to the tunnel that disappeared into the darkness ahead of
them. The tunnel itself had been cleverly located behind a false wall in the
foaling stall, separated from the main stable by a stone wall with only a single
door.

As the stable was only used during the spring foaling season,
and occasionally to separate a sick horse from the others in the main stables,
it would be easy enough to lead a group of terrified, blindfolded women into the
area and through the opened panel, into the tunnel itself.

Clever man, Charles Redgrave. His grandsons had inherited his
intelligence, but thankfully, not his perverted ways...although they might have
had he lived, had his son, Barry, lived.

Clever woman, Trixie Redgrave. Clever woman, Maribel Redgrave.
Clever, desperate and willing to risk everything, even hellfire, to protect
their children.

Kate squeezed Simon’s hand tightly as they approached the stout
wooden door on their right, hung with thick metal bars secured by large brad
spikes. There was a handle and a keyhole, but the door opened easily, as if they
were expected.

“I want you to wait out here,” he told her as Richard Borders
stepped forward, holding up the lantern.

“But I—”

“Came with us this far because you wanted to help locate the
tunnel,” Simon reminded her. “At which time you promised to remain in the
foaling stable, remember?”

She nodded. “Reluctantly. I agreed reluctantly.”

“Happily, reluctantly or only at the point of a pistol, you
promised.” He shoved his lantern at her so she could light her way. “Now take
yourself back to the foaling stable.”

“There’s such a thing as revenge, Simon Ravenbill,” she called
over her shoulder as she stomped off, her hips moving provocatively, although
she probably didn’t realize that. Then again, she probably did.

“I’m looking forward to it!” he called after her, and her laugh
echoed in the tunnel.

Their initial elation on believing they’d found the tunnel
entrance had been quickly tempered by what they might find inside, but Kate had
determinedly chosen to be pleased, to feel victorious. Soon it would be over,
their part in helping hunt down the Society a complete and utter success.

They’d discussed all of this last night, or early this morning,
as no one at Redgrave Manor had climbed the stairs to their beds much before
dawn. Not giving a damn to what anyone might think, Simon had entered Kate’s
chambers with her and then locked the doors to both the hallway and the dressing
room. Not that Senorita Click-Click was inside, as she had still been in the
kitchens, helping to prepare food for the house and estate workers who’d been
monitoring the blaze, employing a bucket chain to keep the shrubberies nearest
the terrace wet.

They’d discussed, they’d held each other, they’d discussed some
more and then Kate had fallen asleep while Simon kept her cradled against his
body, wondering if he could ever dare to let go of her again.

When he woke up, it was to her kisses, her provocative, roaming
hands and a mutual urgency that was quickly satisfied. As she’d commented as
he’d helped her slip on her riding boots, she was now probably the most
compromised woman in all of England, and he the last man who’d ever be allowed
to escape the parson’s mousetrap.

Kate had a way about her, a way of saying she loved him without
saying she loved him, and once this damn tunnel was examined, he was going to
take her back to the Manor, order her a tub—the largest, deepest tub in that
larger-than-life household—and show her without saying so exactly how much he
loved her.

But right now, she was in the way.

“Ready?” Richard asked, holding the remaining lantern higher as
he stepped in front of the door. “If what you told me yesterday is anywhere near
what we’re about to see, Trixie can never know. Agreed?”

“More than agreed,” Simon told him, and reached past the man to
push the heavy door aside.

Beyond the door was a room. Not a tunnel used as a room; a
high-ceilinged room, a chamber, a gentleman’s study. Marble floor, wood-paneled
walls lined with bookshelves, crystal chandeliers marching in pairs across the
ceiling; when lit, there wouldn’t be a dark corner anywhere.

But all they had between them now was the single lantern, so
they began at the beginning, advancing slowly, noting everything they could see
within the small circle of light in the otherwise pitch-dark blackness.

There were large globes in stands, racks and racks of maps.
Carefully drawn diagrams depicting Parliament meeting rooms, a detailing of
possible routes to the prime minister’s offices themselves, with all the twists
and turns to exits marked with crosses. Another depicted the king’s routes to
Westminster, to the theatre, to Hyde Park, with notes telling of the expected
number of outriders to usually accompany the coach. A rough depiction of the
cortege, the coach, the outriders, had one of those soldiers marked with a drawn
circle, the word “ours” scribbled beside it.

All the royal children were listed in individual journals; all
their residences. Even Octavius and Alfred had journals, and they had died in
the early 1780s.

A framed letter from Maximilien de Robespierre, written to
Barry Redgrave, hung in place of honor below another, this one also penned to
Barry, but from one Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, then a prisoner
in the Bastille.

“They were deadly serious madmen, weren’t they?” Simon said,
tossing down yet another diagram, this one of Traitors’ Gate at the Tower of
London.

“Did you notice something, Simon my boy?” Richard said, holding
up the lantern over the long trestle table that was the largest piece of
furniture in the room; probably where the Society met for council sessions.
“There’s some dust, a few dozen cobwebs, but not a patch on what we found
beneath the dower house. Somebody’s not only been here, they’ve done a little
housekeeping while they were here.” He took the lantern and walked down the
length of the table, stopping abruptly when the light illuminated what lay
beyond it.
Who
lay beyond it. “Sweet Jesus, Mary and
Joseph—look at this!”

Simon made his way to Richard’s side, stopped and cursed.

At the end of the table was a semicircle of marble stairs,
leading up to a dais of sorts with pride of place given over to a gold gilt,
high-backed throne, its massive arms made to look like lion paws, the Stuart
coat of arms carved atop the high back.

On the steps were three fully-clothed skeletons, posed on their
stomachs, their arms frozen in the act of reaching out; supplicants,
handmaidens. One wore what had to be Saltwood livery, a periwig still on its
skull. The other skeletons were encased in servant gowns and aprons, mob caps
tangled in with bits of long, dark hair.

They’d found the servant Burke and his family.

Above them, seated on the throne, were the ghastly, smiling
remains of their
king.

Their well-tended monarch, Simon saw as he climbed the stairs
with the lantern. The skeleton had been cleaned, and then carefully wired
together, secured to the throne. The crown was still on his head. A jeweled
scepter topped by a huge golden rose with a diamond as large as a pigeon egg
stuck in its center still clutched in his right hand. A Stuart tartan draped one
shoulder and flowed over his lower body, a golden sash over the other shoulder;
small golden roses pinned to it in rows. Simon stopped counting at twenty.

They’d found Barry Redgrave.

Simon nearly jumped out of his skin when a resounding crash
echoed inside the room.

“Sorry, son, I didn’t see it until I was on top of it,” Richard
said, bending to attempt to right what seemed to be a short marble pillar with a
large V top clearly meant to hold a book. A large tome, such as a bible.

“The bible?” Simon asked, careful not to step on any of the
skeletons as he brought the lantern with him to the place Richard was kneeling,
reaching his hands out over the floor.

“No, worse the luck. But there is this,” he said, handing up
what looked to be a single folded page. “Looks new compared to what we’ve seen.
There’s some writing, just above the seal.”

“‘Turner Collier, A Last
Confession,’”
Simon read. “The sonofabitch was here before he was
murdered. Now what are you doing?”

“I’m not sure. Look at me, it’s as if I toppled into the
fireplace grate. Somebody burned something here.” Richard held up two fistfuls
of ashes. “You don’t think it’s the bible?”

Simon had already broken the seal of Collier’s
Confession.
“Take the lantern, and hold it up,” he
ordered Richard, and then began to read.

I am a dead man, speaking to you from the
grave. Behold my king, for I am his loyal subject, just as they are his
servants, who were always destined to accompany him across the Rubicon.
Those were the rules as set down by him, and as I followed them.

They know I continued my journal. They
know about the bible, so I have destroyed it. I am the Keeper, and I know
the rules. They are no more than base imposters. One of them now lies in the
tunnel, having dared to follow me on my last, most holy mission, but I
cannot kill them all. I should die here, but coward that I am, I take my
wife and flee, while sure I cannot escape them.

Find them, destroy them. At first, I
believed, but no more. They pay no honor, they disobey the rules. Their
leader no king, but the devil incarnate.

Barry, dear Barry, you were always my
true love.

“Well, that’s that, isn’t it, Richard? Let’s get out of here
before the sound of that crash overrides Kate’s promise to remain outside.
Gideon can decide what to do about everything else when he gets here, God help
him. As far as Kate and Trixie are concerned, we found nothing but the ashes of
the bible.”

“And the tunnel?”

“It ended at the rubble from the dower house, forever blocked
now,” Simon improvised quickly. “Here, take the damned confession for now. Kate
wouldn’t dare to poke about in your pockets.”

“She’d poke about in yours?” Richard asked, chuckling. “And I
think you meant the
confession of the damned.
I may
have nightmares for months, while the thought of taking up the religion I put
down so many years ago holds some sudden appeal.”

Simon nodded, his mind already concentrating on how he was
going to nail the tunnel entrance panel shut with boards and nails strong enough
to keep Kate out.

* * *

T
HE
DOWER
HOUSE
smoldered for several days, and Trixie more
than once remarked the smell just might be her new favorite scent. But that was
all she’d said on the subject, probably all she would ever say. By the third day
she and Richard had departed for Brighton, the pair of them looking so happy
Kate would have put her mind to finding out why...except for the fact she felt
fairly certain she looked more than moderately besotted herself.

Once they’d promised not to behave themselves (“Unless you’ve
no other choice, my pets”) until Gideon and Jessica arrived, and waved their
goodbyes to the departing coach, she and Simon repaired to the drawing room.

Consuela had thrown up her hands the night of the fire at the
idea she could continue in her role of duenna, and was once again back to
harassing the upstairs servants.

Kate immediately sat herself down on one of the soft couches,
slid down so that the back of her head rested on the pillowed back of the couch
and plunked her riding boots on the low table in front of her, crossing her legs
at the ankles.

She then turned her head and batted her eyelashes provocatively
at Simon as he sat himself down beside her.

“Go on, Simon—do it,” she teased.

“Do what?” he asked, but the corners of his mouth twitched
slightly.

“
Relax,
silly,” she told him. “If
you’re going to spend the rest of your life routinely in the company of us
rascally Redgraves, you either learn to relax, or stick out like a vicar in a
house of ill repute.”

“I don’t even want to know where you heard that charming
saying,” he told her, but then slid himself down so that he was sitting low on
his spine, lifting his legs so that his boots also now rested on the table. He
loosened his neck cloth slightly, unbuttoned his jacket. He then turned his head
to look at Kate. “You’re right. This is better.” He slipped one arm around her
shoulders. “And now immensely better. Shall we relax, inspect the chandelier
hanging over us, or dare I steal a kiss?”

“I think you could probably dare,” Kate told him, loving him so
much she felt she might burst with that love. There were still questions and
probably terrible answers. But those were for other people. She and Simon had
done their part—brilliantly, she believed—and for the first time in her life she
was not overwhelmed with curiosity about anything, determined to ferret out
every secret.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Trixie, it would seem, has
friends everywhere. She’s promised a special license within the week, at which
point she and Richard will return. She allowed, however, that we may enjoy being
illicit
to the top of our bents, as the
experience will be short-lived.”

Kate giggled. “I wonder who tells Gideon.”

“Dearborn, probably,” Simon said, pulling her closer.

“Ahem!”

“Speak of the devil,” Kate whispered as Simon withdrew his arm.
“Yes, Dearborn?”

“If you’d recall my express plea to spare the maids and the
wood, my lady?”

Kate sat up, reaching behind one of the pillows, to draw out a
length of padded velvet. “Lift your boots a moment, Simon, if you please,” she
said as she spread the length of cloth on the tabletop. Sparing a grin for him,
they then both sat back and lifted their boots onto the cloth. “Happy now,
Dearborn?”