My Wicked Marquess (10 page)

He watched Virgil walk away into the dark corridor that led off deeper into Dante House.

Left standing alone, his mood darkened by the news, Max shut his eyes and offered up a reverential silence for his friend. When he opened them again, Virgil's advice to start producing sons returned to his mind.
Why?
he wondered bitterly.
So they can get killed, too?

For God's sake, he had only just discovered what might well be the woman of his dreams, but he was far from married yet, and already Virgil seemed to be counting on his unborn sons as future knights for the Order.

No, he was not the first Rotherstone to have served in the Order, and would probably not be the last. But he could not fathom how he could ever knowingly hand over any child of his to be subjected to the same kind of life he'd had to endure. It was a hell of a thing to contemplate on the night he meant to celebrate the
end
of battle with his brother warriors.
Virgil's right. It never really ends
.

A curse arrowed through his mind.

Damn it, it had ended at Waterloo. He had to believe that. Had he not witnessed those bloodred fields with his own eyes? It
had
to be over. He couldn't take any more. After
twenty years of this, his very soul was starved for some new kind of life. Whatever that might be, at least he'd have the opportunity to try to find it, unlike Drake.

Suddenly, he could not shake off the shadow that had fallen across his heart. He walked restlessly into the club's vast feasting hall, where the walls were painted with a large, eerie, fantastical mural portraying Dante's trek through the various circles of Hell.

The dining room's massive Renaissance chimneypiece was worthy of any grand chateau. Ornately carved of alabaster, it had thick brass candelabras affixed to both ends of the mantel. Max walked over to the right side of the white mantel, glanced warily over his shoulder out of habit, then reached up and twisted the brass base of the middle candleholder, until he heard a low mechanical click.

At once, hidden gears beneath the floorboards rumbled faintly and there was a scraping
whoosh
; a rectangular section of brick in the back of the fireplace slowly rotated open, revealing a low doorway beyond which there was only darkness.

He ducked his head and stepped over the empty coal basket, going into the secret passageway. It was only one of many entrances into the labyrinth of hidden passages that ran through Dante House.

Once through the opening, he straightened up in the darkness, giving the hand lever on the wall a hard pull. Again, the heavy gears churned; the mechanical slate rotated back into place, and the fireplace hid its secrets once again.

Turning to his right, Max began moving confidently behind the wall toward his destination. The pitch-darkness and claustrophobic narrowness of the secret corridors were designed to confound anyone trying to navigate them, but he had memorized the maze years ago and did not need the benefit of light to find his way to the dank limestone cellars underneath the house.

Through several corridors, up a ladder, a left-hand turn, up another ladder, and then a right turn, all the way through the labyrinth, he thought about Drake and all the others who had died, and when the darkness seemed like it would over
whelm him, he reached like a drowning man for the memory of Daphne Starling.

Her golden hair, her radiant eyes, her luminous skin.

In his mind's eye, she glowed like a light.

Ahead, the faint flicker of a single torch led him out into the antechamber of the Pit, where a hole about eight feet wide gaped in the center of the stone floor. A single, thick rope hung down from the ceiling and disappeared through the hole into the darkness below. It was one of only three entrances to the Pit.

It had been a while since Max had indulged in these acrobatics, but he removed the velvet coat he had worn to the ball, threw it aside, then unbuttoned the wrists of his white shirtsleeves and rolled them up a cuff or two.

With three quick running steps, he leaped and grabbed onto the rope. He steadied himself, and in the next moment, was sliding down the line at a controlled glide.

His face was as grim as his thoughts as he landed square on his feet at the bottom of the dark shaft.

Releasing the rope, he dusted off his hands, then gazed ahead into the hollowed chamber they called the Pit. The old stone cellars beneath the three-hundred-year-old house had long served as the headquarters of the Order.

Max stepped out of the shaft toward the dark stone chamber ahead. It was dimly lit by flickering torches affixed to the walls. Immediately to his right, there was another arched doorway carved in the limestone.

Through there, he knew, a pitch-black corridor led down on a slight incline to the river gate and the small boats' landing area beneath Dante House. Agents could be ferried in from larger vessels arriving on the Thames or spirited away unnoticed as required, but when not in use, the arched entrance to their private docking area was barred by a jagged portcullis, like that which guarded the river gate inside the Tower of London.

Max's footfalls reverberated in the cavelike hollow of the Pit as he walked slowly into that familiar chamber.

To his left, he passed a small door in the stone-block foundation wall at waist-level. This was the secret dumbwaiter
by which supplies could be sent down to the men below. Beside it sat a weapons case, which always held a few guns and swords in case anyone needed extras.

Heading for the rugged wooden table and two plain benches on the other side of the room, he walked across the round floor medallion that bore the likeness of the Order's patron saint, the Archangel Michael.

The Byzantine mosaic had been taken from a church sacked by Saracens and rescued by the group of Crusaders who had been the first members of their clandestine Order.

Set into the center of the floor, it showed the heroic archangel with a flaming sword in his hand, trampling upon Satan.

A thick and weighty Maltese cross hung from the subterranean rock, suspended on a rusted chain.

A glass-doored cabinet with a few shelves held useful books, an array of poisons and their antidotes, a clock, and other sundries. A wooden coat rack stood by the wall, with one dripping greatcoat hanging on it. There was a small bank of bells on the wall like those used in servants' quarters; these allowed the men to receive signals, warnings, and alerts, from Mr. Gray upstairs.

As Max approached the table, the lantern there illuminated a large bottle of port with a few glasses waiting for the three friends' reunion. It was already opened, left to breathe.

He heard voices coming from the direction of the landing dock and turned, just as Jordan Lennox, the Earl of Falconridge, appeared under the arched doorway.

“Max!”

The instant Max saw him, some of the pain of Drake's death lifted. Thank God his closest mates had come home safe.

Jordan's short-cropped sandy hair was wet, and rain still dampened the clean, sharp angles of his face—Max gathered the travelers had been buffeted by the storm on their way up the river—but their expert code-breaker's ice-blue eyes glowed with his usual foxlike cunning, and with his pleasure at finally arriving home again.

“Jordan.” The two old friends strode toward each other and met at the edge of the floor medallion, where they clasped arms, laughing. “You made it.”

“Do you believe it? We finally got rid of those bastards!” Jordan exclaimed. “It's over! We did it.”

“We did, thanks be to God—and to Virgil.”

“And to us!” Jordan agreed heartily. “You got my message?”

“Damned right I did.”

The coded message from Jordan was what had put Max on the trail of the traitor lurking deep undercover right there in Wellington's headquarters.

In the guise of a British officer, a Promethean agent called Major Kyle Bradley had been under orders from the Council to assassinate Wellington there on the battlefield if things went badly for Napoleon.

Stopping him was the mission that Max had been sent to carry out at Waterloo.

Jordan's eyes gleamed with cunning wit. “I trust my information proved useful.”

“Very much so.” His polite tone belied the savagery of the private fight he and Bradley had waged in the forest not far from the raging battlefield.

The only witnesses to their brutal combat had been the local peasant families hiding in the forests while the armies clashed, waiting for it all to be over to see if there would be anything left of their farms.

“I trust you dealt with it handily.”

Max gave him a dry look and shrugged. “Wellington's still alive.”

Jordan shook his head, marveling. “Ah, you cannot imagine my envy of your witnessing that day. Waterloo!”

“You'd have been welcome company, believe me.”

“You must tell me all about it.”

“Gladly. You'd have appreciated the noble officers' haughty reaction to the Grand Tourist. It was rather amusing. So, where's Rohan?”

“He's getting his things off the boat,” Jordan said.

“Shall we go and give him a hand?” Max asked. They did
not use servants in their secret lair.

“You can try. He might bite your head off, though.”

“Ah, the Beast is in a mood?” Max inquired.

“Don't discuss me behind my back or I'll smite you,” a gruff voice echoed to them from the corridor a moment before the massive outline of Rohan Kilburn, the Duke of Warrington, appeared, with one of the vicious black dogs trotting tamely by his heels.

Max grinned. “Welcome home, Your Grace.”

Rohan growled and advanced into the room. The dog's chain ran out, so it retreated to its post guarding the docks, but Max watched in amusement as his other boyhood friend, now a towering warrior, swung the prodigious sack of his supplies off his mighty shoulder and let it clomp down onto the floor.

Max folded his arms across his chest with a sardonic look. “Pleasant journey, old boy?”

“It has fucking rained,” the duke declared, “the entire time since we left bloody Ostend.” He dragged a hand through his long, damp hair.

Jordan sent Max a wry glance. “I fear the weather has ruined his jovial nature.”

“I hate traveling,” Rohan muttered.

“Good news, then. Have you heard? Your wandering days are at an end. You can lock yourself up in that haunted castle of yours until you are old and gray, my friend. The whole damned business is done.”

“I'll believe that when I see it,” he said.

“Oh, come, this is no time for your superstitious nature,” Max chided. “We accomplished what we set out to do all those years ago, and now, God willing, we may be private men.”

“Whatever that means,” he replied.

“You're such a killjoy, Warrington,” Jordan remarked, but when Max offered Rohan a hand, the duke clasped it, then pulled him in for a quick, crushing bear hug.

The big knight clapped him once on the back, nearly breaking a rib, then released him with a sudden rugged laugh. “Midas Max! Everything he touches turns to gold!
Man, it's been too bleedin' long.”

“Two years.”

Max noticed the new, star-shaped scar above the outer corner of Rohan's left eyebrow. He nodded at it. “Like the new addition.”

“Oh, yes,” Rohan said with a snort. “I just keep getting better-looking, don't I? God, where can a man get a drink around here?” Rohan stepped around Max and headed for the bottle of port.

Before long, they were all seated at the coarse, sturdy table, laughing by the glow of the single lantern as they recounted various misadventures and close calls.

But when the second round of port had been drained from their cups, they drifted into silence as each began to ponder the realization that their battle days were truly at an end.

“So, here we are,” Jordan murmured at length. “Alive.”

“More or less,” Max said wryly.

“What of the others?” Rohan asked. “There's bound to be losses.” The question was directed at Max, since he was the Link, or leader of their team.

To protect the Order's overall security in case any agent was captured, only the Links were authorized to communicate with other team leaders.

The exception would be for some larger, special mission for which Virgil would summon as many trios as were needed to assemble and work together temporarily. But on those occasions, the talk was all business, and names were generally not used.

If an agent recognized a fellow knight of the Order in Society or elsewhere, he was to show no sign.

Max lowered his gaze. Drake, too, had been the Link for his trio of men. “One of our teams was completely wiped out.”

“God,” Jordan whispered. “Anyone we'd know?”

With the war over and the men dead, Max didn't think it mattered anymore if he revealed it to them. “I didn't know his fellows, but the leader was Drake Parry, the Earl of Westwood.”

“Westwood,” Jordan echoed. “I think I met him once. Black-haired. Welsh?”

“Yes.” Max stared into his cup. “Hell of a fighter. Good as Rohan, almost.” He nodded toward the duke, who slid Max a grim look in turn as he opened a second waiting bottle.

“We're sure they're dead?” Rohan asked bluntly.

“They'd better be,” Jordan murmured. “Better that than captured.” Then he noticed Max's silence. “You knew him well?”

“Fairly.”

After a long silence, Jordan lifted his glass. “To Lord Westwood.”

Max followed suit, nodding, trying to ignore the tight feeling in his throat. “To Drake and his men.”

“Better them than us,” Rohan muttered under his breath and tossed back a swallow of port in their honor.

A lugubrious silence descended as each man privately wondered how it was that he had managed to survive when equally worthy colleagues had fallen.

Max's thoughts turned to Daphne Starling once more, like a sailor searching clouded skies for Polaris, one distant light to guide him in the blackness.