Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) (32 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

Duncan motioned Beth quickly back behind the tree.
Though there was brush in the way, he wanted her well hidden from the men below.

“Stay here, Beth.”

Her head snapped up to look at him, instead of at the men in the distance. He couldn’t be thinking of leaving her behind. She had made it clear that she was to be with him, step for step.

“I will—“

“Stay here,” he ordered. The words were more a growl than a statement. “You will stay here.” It was clear that he didn’t intend to argue the point with her.

Very well, she thought, as she folded her arms before her, her eyes smoldering as she watched him go. She would not argue.

But neither would she obey.

Beth waited until they were a little ways from her, and then stealthfully crept after them. The same foliage
that sheltered Duncan and Jacob from the thieves’ view
sheltered Beth from theirs.

She made her way carefully, wanting not to get in the
way, but wanting to be there should another hand be needed. He could not deny her that, just because her skin was softer than his. Just because she was not a man. She could not stay behind, to wait and worry and watch. That was for the faint-hearted, not her.

Duncan motioned for Jacob to position himself on one side of the encampment while he rounded to the other. Armed with his sword, his dagger, and most im
portant, the courage that had seen him through so much, Duncan softly crept up on the circle of men. He thanked
the powers which watched over him that he was downwind of the camp. The horses couldn’t scent him approaching. One of the men was off to the side, tending to the animals.

Luck and skill were with him.

Duncan surprised the man by pulling him into the brush. The man struggled, but had no chance. Duncan
was the more skillful. Swiftly, Duncan ran his adversary
through with his sword.

The man did not go to his maker silently. The scream that left his lips was like that of an animal being slaughtered. It instantly alerted the others to the presence of intruders.

“Now we’re in for it,” Jacob cried, leaping into the camp, his sword drawn and at the ready.

“How was I to know he’d yell like a woman?” Duncan retorted.

The battle was swift and bloody.

Having tasted victory by being among those who had burned down the estate, the three in the camp were still
in the grip of the frenzy that had seized them all. They
fought like men possessed. Duncan matched swords with first one, then two, as Jacob met the third. The sound of clashing steel rang in the air that was fouled
with curses which neither Duncan nor Jacob understood.

Beth abandoned her stealthy path upon hearing the first cry. She broke into a run, reaching the camp in time to see Duncan propel an evil-looking, wiry man away from him. The man had a scar that ran the length of his face and a voice that rattled the gates of heaven as he screamed obscenities at Duncan.

Crashing to the ground, his body arching over the un-tended campfire, he came down hard on top of the pistol
he had stolen from the estate. His eyes glittered as he raised it now and aimed at Duncan’s back.

“Duncan!” Beth screamed.

The death rattle from the thief’s throat had a fearsome sound. A startled look had entered his eyes as he’d pitched forward a moment after the sound of a discharging pistol exploded. The ball tore a hole in the middle of his forehead.

Beth’s scream had Duncan jerking around. He turned in time to see the man with the scar falling not far from him, his hand still gripping the silent pistol. The next moment, his attention perforce returned to the man he was dueling with. He was a younger man who obviously had some training with a sword. Twice he had nearly sliced Duncan’s shoulder and he had nicked his arm once.

Her heart hammering wildly in her throat, Beth scrambled forward to seize the pistol from the dead man’s hand. She had never killed anyone before, and the realization that she had made her ill and almost
dizzy. She forced the feelings away. This was no time to
be weak.

With the weapon in her hands, she rose and looked
first to Duncan, then to Jacob. Both battles were going
strong. Jacob looked more than well matched.

“Halt,” Beth shouted in French. “Or I shall fire at the head of the next man who moves.”

Neither Duncan nor Jacob understood her, but the two men did. They had but to look at their fallen comrade to
know that the woman meant what she said. Each fearing to be her next victim, they put up their swords, cursing her soul to hell.

Duncan was quick to cleave to Bern’s side. He threw his arm about her shoulders and pulled her to him, a hearty laugh echoing in the air.

“By God, woman, but you are a constant source of surprise to me.”

“As it should be.”

Jacob stood slightly apart, looking from the dead man to Beth. He had never known a woman who behaved in this manner and was clearly more and more in awe of her.

Beth looked at the two men who stood quaking before them, their hands raised high. Jacob hurriedly relieved them of their swords. He stripped the dead man of his shirt, and using his dagger, tore it into strips to use as binding. He and Duncan quickly tied the men’s hands and feet, then bound them tightly together, back to back.

Hatred shone in her eyes as Beth watched, the pistol still ready in her hands lest one of them moved. She prayed one of them would resist. These were the men who helped destroy a proud old woman’s home. Her hand tightened on the pistol.

Done, Duncan rose and laid a hand on hers. It was the one with the pistol in it. He gently forced it down. Beth looked at him in surprise.

“Beth, we need to ask them questions. I know how you must feel, but killing them won’t resurrect your house, or, more importantly, lead us to your father.”

She nodded. He was right. As always.

She sheathed the pistol in the waistband of her britches. For the moment, she sealed the ache in her heart away as well and thought only of what she had to do: save her father.

She stepped forward and looked from one man to the other. There was nothing behind their eyes save hatred. They hated her as much as she hated them. And before the hour, they had never even set eyes on one another.

It was the madness that fouled the air.

“Does either of you know where Philippe Beaulieu is?” she asked them, in French.

The smaller of the two men spat on the ground by her
boot, but neither answered.

Duncan drew out his sword and rested the tip against
the throat of the man who spat. “I know you don’t un
derstand a word I say, but I’d answer her if I were you,
you bastard, lest you look forward to having your head
separated from your body.”

Duncan punctuated his statement by pressing the tip of his sword further against the trembling white flesh at the man’s neck.

The sneering bravery fled, to be replaced with terror as the eyes grew huge in the dirtied face.

“Once more,” Beth repeated in French, her agitation
rising in her voice. She bent closer, though the stench of
fire clung to the man’s clothes. “Do you know where they are keeping Philippe Beaulieu?”

At first, the man could not answer. When Duncan pressed the sword further and a trickle of blood
emerged, the man cried out, nearly swallowing his own
tongue.

“No, no, I don’t know. I swear it, I don’t know,” he babbled to Beth.

His feet scraping madly against the ground, he tried to scramble back, but there was nowhere to go. His way was blocked by his comrade’s back.

“I am just a lowly farmer. They tell me nothing. But—but he knows.” He jerked his head toward the man tied to him.

“Coward,” the second man shouted. “Traitor! The
committee will hear about this and take their revenge on
your miserable hide.”

Beth watched as the first man shook. He was of no use to her, but the second one was.

“The committee,” Beth told him evenly, a malevolent note entering her voice, “is not here.” Calmly she drew out her pistol and aimed at his barrel chest. Her eyes were flat and her hand steady as she looked down at him. “I am. Tell me where they are keeping him.”

Duncan exchanged looks with Jacob. The look on Bern’s face was deadly. This was not a woman to be taken lightly, but he was afraid that she would be driven to kill the man on the ground before they learned what
they needed to know. That would be a waste. If need be,
there were methods he had learned that would separate a man from any knowledge he had. Duncan could readily employ those methods.

“It’s a lovely sounding language, but for the life of me I haven’t a clue as to what’s going on. Is he going to tell you?”

She nodded her head slightly, her eyes never leaving the Frenchman’s face. “Or meet the devil today.” She repeated her phrase in French for the man’s benefit, her voice eerily calm.

Duncan saw that Jacob hardly blinked as he watched Beth in silence. “You are a fearsome wench, Beth. Remind me never to anger you.”

A half smile raised one corner of her mouth as she continued to keep her eyes on the men on the ground.

“Don’t worry, I shall.” The smile left abruptly as her
eyes narrowed. “Well?” She cocked the trigger slowly.
Sweat was pouring from the man’s brow. “Are you prepared to die for the information you have?”

It was not worth it. At all costs, he wanted to survive.
Hatred glowed on his face as he told her.

“They are bringing Beaulieu to the Bastille today, him and several of the other aristocrat pigs the Friends of the People have herded together.”

She thought of the imposing edifice that had been the
scene of so much misery. To think of her father there ripped her heart in two.

“The Bastille?”

The man raised his head contemptuously. “We have
enough men to take it and free our own.” He would have spit at her if he had not been afraid that the big man would cut his tongue out for it. “Yours will go in their stead. To be buried alive, the way ours were.”

It was hard to restrain her emotions as she looked down upon the naked face of hate. Once more Bern’s hand tightened on the pistol. All that was needed was
one simple movement to discharge it and rid herself and
France of this vermin.

“Who gave you the right to play God?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

“The right of the people,” the man cried. A look akin to insanity glowed in his eyes as he strained against his ties. “The same God you thought was smiling over you, you aristocratic bitch.”

“That one,” Duncan said evenly, though the smile on his lips was tight, “I understand.” He moved his sword so that it cut a long, thin jagged line just below the man’s throat. The man gasped. “Mind your mouth. The next cut will be deeper.”

Though the Frenchman understood not a word, he un
derstood the language of the sword. Bravado fled as the man looked at Duncan in abject terror.

Beth laid her hand on Duncan’s arm. The urgency of her touch took his attention away from the prisoner.

“We have to go to Paris quickly.” She nodded at the man she had questioned. “That one said that they’re bringing my father to the Bastille today.”

Tears suddenly sprang, unbidden to her eyes. Had they been alone, she would have thrown herself into his arms and wept for joy. “Duncan, he’s alive. My father is still alive!”

“Aye.” He sheathed his sword once more, though he indicated for Jacob to keep his out. “And we must see what we can do to have him remain that way.” He glanced at the two men huddled against one another, their bravery vanished, now that there were consequences to be paid. “What do you want to do with them?”

She hadn’t thought that Duncan would leave it up to her to decide. “I?”

He spread his hands wide. “They’re your prisoners.” Though he would rather not have witnessed it, he knew that she had a right to her vengeance, a right to kill the men, if she chose. It went beyond the laws of man, to the one that nature had inscribed eons ago.

The temptation to order their deaths was great and the
words hovered on her lips.

But in the next moment, Beth let go of the madness she felt surging within her before it consumed her as it had others before her. Killing solved nothing.

“Leave them tied here. We have the horses. If they free themselves, then it’s the wish of Providence.” She looked at them one last time, then dismissed their existence from her mind. “If they don’t, then God has other plans for them.”

“Done,” Duncan laughed and motioned Jacob to follow them. He laid a hand across her shoulders as he led her off to the horses.

Behind them, the men railed and sent a shower of vilifications that only Beth understood. And chose not to hear.

Chapter Thirty-three

The streets of Paris were alive with excitement and
anticipation. The feeling pulsed in the air like an invisible being, consuming everything and everyone in its path. And growing larger by the moment.

The dogs of the Revolution had been let loose into the winds of war.

Beth looked about the faces of the people who were pouring into the city, drawn by a force that spoke to a
different level within them than decency and respect thrived upon. As she, Duncan, and Jacob approached, the paths became thick with travelers.

Everyone wanted to take part. Everyone wanted to be in the center of the city.

Beth felt afraid when she looked at their faces. There was something not quite human about the look in these
people’s eyes. It was as if they weren’t people any longer, but more like wolves that had gotten a taste of blood and craved more.

They wanted to feast on the not yet dead carcass of the monarchy.

Taking care, Duncan guided them to what appeared to
be a lesser traveled road. Paths were not converging
here, as they were elsewhere. They dismounted and held
their horses fast. Thieves overran the streets to a far greater degree now than ever before.