Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (2 page)

Dorothy shook her head. “Yes—here, in Virginia. But
France is a foreign country, and you’re—“

“An American whose father taught her well,” Beth concluded. “And remember, I speak the language. There’s nothing to worry about.” She smiled as she kissed the older woman’s soft cheek. “It’s settled. I’ll go on the first ship sailing for France.”

Mrs. Beaulieu rose and restlessly began to pace about her daughter’s bedroom. She was torn between a mother’s protective love and a wife’s growing concern. “Elizabeth, I really don’t believe that you should go. These are dangerous times, especially for a young woman. And I—“

Beth placed her hands on her mother’s shoulders. As Dorothy looked into Beth’s eyes, the young girl shook her head.

“You’ve nothing to say about it, Mother, so please don’t trouble yourself with arguments I won’t listen to.” A resigned smile lifted the corners of Dorothy’s mouth. As with her father, when Beth’s mind was made up, there was no changing it. “Someone has to find out what has happened to Father.”

Beth let her hands slip from her mother’s shoulders as she took a deep breath. “I’m the logical choice.” They
both knew that Dorothy’s health had been failing for the
last few years. “You’re not well enough to endure the journey, and we’ve already dismissed the girls as being far too young. That leaves me.” Beth smiled warmly at her mother to assuage the fears she saw in the other woman’s eyes. “And I’m equal to the challenge.”

Dorothy smiled. With light fingers, she touched Beth’s
cheek. Sometimes, Dorothy wondered who was the daughter and who the mother. Beth had always seemed so much older than the others, so sure of the path she was taking. It grieved Dorothy deeply that Beth hadn’t
gotten married and started a family of her own, the way other girls her age had. Perhaps it was her fault, Dorothy
thought. She depended on Beth far too much.

“I never really told you before, but you were every
thing your father ever wanted.” Dorothy smiled, remem
bering. “He used to look at you when you were a little girl while you slept and say to me, ‘This one, she will do great things. Wait and see.’ “ Tears filled Dorothy’s eyes once again and threatened to choke away her words. “He loved you very much.”

Beth refused to accept such a fatalistic attitude.

“Loves, Mother, he loves me very much. Father is alive.” She squeezed her mother’s hand tightly, making a promise. “And I will find him for you. For us. And bring him home.”

She knew her father would not be pleased about the request, the demand, really, but there were things he owed to his family ahead of his native country.

“The noble cause can go on without him.” Beth had been barely eight years old when her father had fought in the American battle for independence, but she re
membered it vividly—waiting up by candlelight, won
dering if tonight was the night her father was coming home. “I think that one revolution is more than enough for any man.”

Dorothy nodded. She knew that look on her daughter’s face. It mirrored one she had seen on Philippe’s time and again. They were a stubborn pair, she and Philippe. “All right. But you’ll take Sylvia with you.”

Beth thought of her former tutor. The woman had
stayed on to teach the twins. Alone, with no family, Syl
via resided now at the Eagle’s Nest as her mother’s companion and confidante. Beth was horrified at the thought of taking Sylvia with her. Protests sprang to her
lips, mingling until they merged into a single strangled
sound of protest.

“Mother.”

But Dorothy Beaulieu could be just as stubborn as her daughter and husband if the situation required it. She shook her head.

“I won’t hear of anything else, Beth. You must have someone with you to protect you.” Dorothy watched Beth’s mouth open in protest. She held up her hand to
stem the flow of words. “Please. I will feel better about
letting you go.” She looked into the deep blue eyes that reminded her of her husband’s. “For me?”

Beth sighed deeply. If nothing else, she had learned
that there were times when concessions had to be made.
“All right, for you.”

But she wasn’t going to like it.

And she didn’t. Sylvia was a dear, sweet woman who was afraid of almost all of God’s creatures. They both knew that she belonged back home in Virginia, not aboard a merchant sailing vessel, nor on a swaying
coach bound for yet another seaport. Rather than a help, Sylvia had been a hindrance, requiring more than a little
care on Beth’s part.

Beth would have preferred not to have to worry about
the woman, her seasickness, her queasiness on the coach, her fearful start at every noise. She wanted her
mind free to concentrate on rescuing her father if he in
deed needed rescuing. In the single trunk she had brought, tucked away inside the false bottom, was enough money in gold to ransom Philippe, if ransom was what was necessary. And within her breast was enough courage to face any challenge she might encounter while attempting to free her father.

Sylvia’s snores droned on as the horses’ hooves plodded along the muddied road.

Faster, Beth thought impatiently, staring at the land through a curtain of fine mist. Faster.

Beth prayed that she would not arrive too late.

Chapter Two

The coach jolted to a halt a moment before the crack of a pistol being discharged rang out in the stagnant
summer air. Beth stiffened, her body tense, rigid with
nervous anticipation. She heard a guttural moan, followed by a sickening thud. Something had fallen from the top of the coach and had hit the ground.

Sylvia’s tiny black eyes snapped wide open, darting from side to side like loose berries as she attempted to comprehend what was happening. Her earbobs swung back and forth like huge silver pendulums in the wind.

Frightened, Sylvia grasped Beth’s arm tightly. “By all
the saints, what was that?”

Highwaymen. The single word echoed in Beth’s mind like a dark, foreboding chant. Her heart began beating
madly in her chest. Yet she gave no outward sign of ag
itation as she looked at Sylvia. One of them had to keep her head.

“It wasn’t any saint, I can guarantee you that much.”

A deep, raspy voice that sounded as if it was coming
from the depths of a whisky barrel sliced through the air and dispersed any further speculation. “You there, in the
coach, step down.”

Sylvia’s eyes were opened so wide, they appeared ready to pop out. “What are we to do?” Fear surrounded each whispered word.

Beth fervently wished now that she had kept her pistol with her, instead of packing it in her trunk. Her father had taught her how to load and shoot both musket and pistol, but the skill was meant for sport, not protection. Never in his wildest dreams had Philippe imagined that his oldest daughter would need to know how to protect herself. He believed that all his daughters would
always be safe, nestled in the midst of a genteel Virginia
society. The physician had felt confident that all the hor
rors which had been unleashed by the war for indepen
dence were over. Nothing ugly would ever touch his family again.

She glanced about the coach for a weapon, something to throw, to gouge with—anything.

There was nothing.

“Step down,” the man ordered again, “or the next bullet will be through the coach, instead of your driver!”

The driver. He had shot the driver, Beth thought, filled with horror. Her concern immediately shifted away from the money at the bottom of her trunk. Had he mortally wounded the man? She had to see if she could do anything to help him.

“We’ll step down,” Beth called out.

Sylvia trembled. Huddling, she looked as if she was vainly attempting to shrink into her seat. Beth opened the coach door and stepped out. The heel of her shoe sank into the mud.

She was not unaware of the highwayman’s appraisal,
singeing her skin like hot coals. His eyes all but ravaged
her where she stood. Struggling to ignore him, she looked around for the driver. The man was lying on the ground a few feet away, his face smashed into his tricor-nered hat. Beth swallowed the gasp that rose in her throat. With determination cloaking her, she took a step toward the driver.

“Don’t bother, he’s dead.” The highwayman’s smug words assaulted her ears. “And so might you be, if you don’t mind what I say.” The man leered. “Be a pity, though, to shoot something as comely as you.” He ran
his tongue over his greenish teeth in anticipation. “Right
away, at any rate.”

Beth struggled to keep the cold shiver from sliding down her spine. She couldn’t let this man see that she
was afraid. Raising her head, she kept nothing but con
tempt in her eyes as she looked up at the man.

The highwayman was attired in filthy clothes, with a
ragged cloak slung over one shoulder. In each of his large hands he held a pistol. Looking down at her from atop a large bay, he brandished the left pistol as he spoke.

With her trembling hand wrapped about the door for support, Sylvia slowly descended from the coach. Her eyes never left the man on the horse. Horror was imprinted on her broad, open features.

“My Lord, it’s the devil himself.” Sylvia pressed a hand to her large bosom as her very breath felt as though it was backing up within her lungs.

Oh Mother, why did you force me to bring this woman with me
? “Don’t you dare faint,” Beth hissed between her teeth, hoping a sharp warning would jolt the other woman into gathering her senses together.

The highwayman used the tip of his pistol to push his hat further back on his head. He wanted a better look at the young prisoner. His eyes all but glowed as he mentally tore the woman’s clothes away from her shapely form. He licked his lips, completely ignoring the quaking cow behind her.

“It’s a fair treasure I see I’ve found today.” His lascivious look grew as the grayish stubbled cheeks spread in anticipation. He leaned forward, his elbow on the pommel of his saddle, his gaze burning into Beth. “What is it that you have for me, wench?”

“Nothing but the utmost contempt.” Her cold demeanor belied Beth’s growing fear. She spat on the ground before the highwayman’s horse.

His laugh, dark and evil, tainted the air. “Oh, a spirited one. Those are the best for bedding. Usually.” There was a warning in his words. He motioned to her with his pistol. “Come closer.”

Beth raised her chin, her sapphire eyes darkening. “No.”

Duncan Fitzhugh looked over his shoulder at the snow-white horse calmly following in his wake. “Fine time to throw a shoe, you miserable nag. We must be five miles from the manor. Couldn’t you at least have done it when we were closer?”

The horse snorted.

Duncan had the distinct impression that the animal was laughing at him. He had to admit that despite these last few years, which he had spent landlocked, he had never gotten used to horses. A ship was the only thing he felt comfortable traveling on, not a four-legged nuisance that ate hay and did what it wanted to, when it wanted to. A ship knew who was master.

Duncan sighed as he fondly remembered his privateering days.

But all that was behind him now. He was the acting agent for the absent Earl of Shalott. In exchange for his duties, he had the run of the manor, food and shelter for the extended family he had come to care for during his years on the London streets and on the high seas, and more comfort than he had ever dreamed of.

A little too much comfort, actually. It was all a bit too
tranquil for him, too easeful. Duncan couldn’t help yearning for his old life. Trapped within a respectable position, he felt a longing burrowing through his innards, a longing for the excitement he had once known. There was no danger to pit himself against, no test of courage to endure.

It could easily turn a man soft, he thought disparagingly.

He pulled his shoulders closer. His wet shirt stuck to him like a leech beneath the vest he wore. It was too hot, too wet. Duncan’s humor was fouler than the weather.

His trip into the small township just beyond the manor had been far from satisfying. These last few months he had been keeping company with a pretty slip of a thing. Elaine. Elaine, of the ripe hips and the ruby
lips. She had informed him this morning that they were
either going to come to an agreement about their future together, or he could just take himself and his smooth tongue away.

Duncan smiled unconsciously, remembering how she had looked, her hands fisted at her waist, her dark hair thrown back as she waited for his answer. Elaine, he
knew, had been confidently counting on his capitulation.
She had warmed his sheets more than once and proved to be a very satisfying bed partner.

But it would take more than a warming of the blood for him to give up his freedom. She must have been a little daft to think that he would willingly place his head
in a noose to be led around like some lamb by a woman
with shapely hips and a sharp tongue.

Only honey dripped from Elaine’s lips. Until this morning, of course.

He laughed to himself. This morning, after his refusal, she had shown her true colors, reviling him with
a razor tongue she had kept hidden till now. All women
developed sharp tongues; it was a basic law of nature. They developed sharp tongues just as surely as they developed breasts, and while he enjoyed the latter, the former was too great a price to endure for being allowed to fondle them.

He had left her rather quickly, letting the rain soothe his fevered brow—and various other fevered parts of him as well. Freedom, he had learned long ago, often came at a high price. But high or not, it was dear, and worth any sacrifice.

The crack of the pistol in the not-too-far distance brought Duncan instantly to life. It was like the explo
sion of warm whisky in an empty belly. All his senses
immediately sprang to attention; he was alert, eager.