Secrets of a Proper Countess (30 page)

I
t was so quiet inside the abbey that Phineas could hear the beating of his heart as he moved along the dark stone corridor. The pain in his shoulder dropped away as his senses sharpened, came alert, watching, listening for signs of trouble.

Ahead, light spilled from a wide archway, and he followed it.

The large room had likely once served the convent as a refectory, but it was empty. There were few clues to divulge the purpose the room was meant to serve now.

No carpets softened the stone floors, but the walls were draped in heavy red velvet. There was a dais at one end of the room, with a long oak table upon it. Pitch torches hung on the walls, reflecting red and gold on the polished surface.

Three carved chairs had been set behind the table, as ornate as ancient thrones, but they faced a plain wooden stool that crouched miserably in the middle of the floor.

In the corner farthest from the door, a bulky shape loomed tall and ghostly under a canvas drape emblazoned with an N surrounded by a crown of laurels.

Napoleon's crest.

His fingers froze at the ringing echo of boot heels on the stone floor of the corridor.

He had only seconds to slide behind the velvet drapes. He
clung to the wall, the cold seeping into his bones. He drew his pistol, cocked it, and waited. His eyes burned in the darkness.

“We'll take our places as soon as he is brought in.” Phineas recognized Charles Maitland's voice. “I'm sure you will agree, my lord, that since the matter is a fait accompli, there is no point in drawing it out. Given the circumstances, I think it best we leave this place as soon as possible. You have a ship waiting, I assume?” he asked nervously.

“Of course. In the cove,” Philip Renshaw replied. “That's why I chose Waterfield, for the easy escape it offers. But you already know that, don't you, since you use the cove for smuggling?”

“I—” Charles faltered, but didn't bother to deny Philip's charge.

Renshaw's tone grew darker, more dangerous. “That's why I had to change my plans and come back to England through London, risking discovery. I've had this place watched, you fool. On any given night a dozen men wait for your shipments to land in that cove. It's only when there's a full moon that they stay away. Like tonight. We won't have company, will we?”

Charles cleared his throat, the nervous sound loud in the stone room, and Phineas peered carefully around the edge of the curtain. Charles was pale in the torchlight, his eyes hollow. He shook his head soundlessly in response to the question.

“That is just one of a number of mistakes you've made,” Renshaw went on. “There was also the shooting at the inn, instead of a quick and discreet departure. And now we have others to dispose of, people who may have already repeated what they know.”

“But it will all be over tonight, and we'll be in France by morning, in Paris by dinner,” Charles said, trying for a light tone, though his voice shook.

Phineas listened to the slow cadence of Philip's footsteps as he roamed the room.

“This room, at least, is right.” Phineas watched him caress the carved back of one of the chairs, mere inches from his hiding place. It had been nearly a year since he'd last seen Philip. His face was harder, older than he remembered. Too old for a wife as young and pretty as Evelyn. The torchlight cast harsh shadows under the pouched eyes, the thin lips and heavy jowls sculpted by bitterness and hatred. Still, Renshaw exuded power and determination as he faced Charles.

“For your sake, I'm glad that you got something right, Charles.
L'empereur
is not a patient man. He detests mistakes, and the fools who make them. More so when those fools are English.”

“But you're as English as I am!” Charles protested.

Philip sniffed. “Napoleon has made me Comte d'Elenoire. It was my grandfather's title. I have renounced my English heritage.”

“But I will still be Earl of Ashdown, won't I?” Charles asked.

Philip laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Of course, my lord earl, but if everything goes well from this moment, you and I will go to Paris, present our prize to Napoleon, and you'll be rewarded far beyond a mere earldom.”

Philip waited until Charles relaxed and smiled before he leaned forward again. “But there must be no more mistakes. We must be the only ones to leave this place alive. Do you understand?” The unspoken threat echoed off the hammer beam roof.

“What about my mother?” Charles asked tightly, but Philip mounted the dais again and ignored the question.

“Shall we go over everything?”

“Of course,” Charles mumbled.

Philip paused behind the first chair. “As Earl of Ashdown,
you will take your place here,” he said. “I will sit in the middle, and Lady Honoria will take the last chair.”

He pointed to the stool at Charles's feet. “The pretender Louis will sit there.”

He walked to the draped structure, eyes alight, like a man going eagerly to his lover. He touched the crest on the wrapping, his fingers reverent, his eyes loving as he gazed at the golden N for a moment before turning back to Charles.

“I trust you read the account of the trial of Louis XVI?”

“Yes,” Charles replied. “Will we follow it?”

“To the letter. If the Duc d'Orleans wishes to pretend to be King of France, we will try him as his brother was tried. We will serve as his tribunal of judges, so history cannot accuse us of not following protocol.”

He pulled hard on the canvas and it fell to the floor with a growl. Torchlight gleamed on a deadly blade set in polished wood. Phineas stared at the guillotine, Philip's intended revenge now obvious.

Renshaw ran his hand over the polished wood, tested the grinning blade with his thumb. “I,” he said softly, licking the blood from his skin, “will be his executioner, for the glory of France, and in payment for his insult.”

Charles coughed. “We're going to kill him here? In this very room?”

Philip turned, brows raised. “Of course! If we transport him back to France alive, there is always a danger that he could be rescued by royalists sympathetic to his cause.” He picked up a small box, holding it up to Charles. “So much more efficient, don't you think, to merely take his head? There can be no doubt as to his identity, and no escape.”

Charles was silent for a long moment. “And my mother?” he asked again.

“She would hardly fit in at the French court. You know that yourself.”

Philip walked quickly toward the door, leaving no room for reply. “Come, Lord Ashdown, there's brandy in the library. Let's drink to our success.”

Charles did not protest his mother's fate. He just stumbled after Philip in silence.

Phineas waited until their footsteps faded. He rubbed a hand over the gritty stubble on his jaw. Time was short. The French king could arrive at any moment. Duty demanded he find Adam and advise him of Renshaw's sinister plan.

But honor was another matter. The woman he loved was a prisoner, one of the “mistakes” Philip intended to eliminate if there was no one to stop him.

He had a decision to make, and whatever choice he made, someone was going to die.

H
onoria climbed the dark stone staircase with the knife clutched in her hand. She felt sick, and the bone handle of Philip's weapon was slick with sweat.

How had it come to this?

She'd expected Charles to put Philip in his place, but he'd stood silently by as Renshaw demanded that
she
explain how things had gone so terribly wrong, as if it were her fault.

Isobel.

Her name dripped like venom in Honoria's mind. If not for Isobel, damn her, and Charles's incompetence, she wouldn't be in this position. She shivered. Philip Renshaw's eyes had been cold, filled with disgust. She knew then that things had taken a deadly turn.

She felt nausea rise again, and bone deep terror made her stumble on the steep stairs. She put a hand on the wall and pulled it away, shocked at the coldness of the stones.

Philip had rudely insisted that
she
clean up the disastrous mess that Isobel, Robin, and Marianne represented.

She knew by the look in his eyes, and the dagger in his hand, that there was nothing to do but obey if she wished to make it to Paris alive. When she got there, she intended to tell the emperor every detail of this disgusting insult, and then she would watch Philip tremble.

Surely Napoleon Bonaparte of all people would under
stand. She had tried to raise her fortunes. That wasn't so terrible, was it?

Charles was as ambitious as she was, with far greater sins on his black soul, but
he
was still downstairs, drinking with Philip.

She was an innocent, really. She had merely
suggested
to Charles that if Robert was to have an accident, then Charles might advance the family and himself faster. Robert had grown lazy and complacent with a wife, a fortune, and a son to content him.

Honoria hadn't expected Charles to shoot his own brother. Poison would have been so much more discreet.

She'd been the one to avert disaster after that mistake. She had forged a new will after Robert's death, one that kept Isobel's fortune in Maitland hands. If she'd been allowed to claim her money and all those rich estates, then where would that have left her?

Penniless.

She turned at the landing, glancing up at a stone cross carved into the wall. Henry VIII's men had managed to only partially destroy the icon.

She was like that cross, she thought, battered but unbroken. She had endured a life of near-penury after her husband squandered the entire Maitland fortune at the tables. Gambling was an unfortunate proclivity Charles seemed to have inherited, and like his father, luck scorned him with every toss of the dice.

It had been essential—and easy—to take control of Isobel's wealth. All it took was holding Robin hostage to ensure the widow remained obedient, quiet and unsuspecting.

Honoria had seen another chance to rise when Philip Renshaw asked for her help, needing a partner in his plan to make the French king pay for snubbing him, someone with an estate on the seacoast. She had always known Philip was
a dangerous man, but not like this. He'd once been a gentleman, and merely ambitious, like herself.

How had it come to this? she asked herself again.

Isobel was smarter than they'd thought.

She still could not believe the Marquess of Blackwood, a man who could have any beauty in England, would want Isobel. She had turned Isobel into a dowd that no one would want, especially a magnificent specimen like Blackwood.

She sniffed in disbelief, and the candle she carried, her only bulwark against the terrifying darkness that ruled the upper halls of the old abbey, flickered, and pitched grotesque shadows on the rough stone walls.

She tried to imagine the vivacious Charlotte Fraser here, in a former convent. Charlotte had been as bold as Isobel was timid, as vibrantly beautiful as her daughter was dull. Honoria's mouth tightened. She saw Charlotte's lovely face every time she looked at Isobel.

How she'd hated Charlotte! The beauty had dominated London society for years, casting every other lady into the shadows. She had been delighted when the woman fled, her glitter tarnished forever by the scandal.

It was a simple matter for her to convince Lord Fraser that his wife's affair would rise like a vengeful specter to torment him anew if he put his tainted daughter on the marriage mart. He'd turned her over to the Maitlands gratefully, along with his fortune.

Honoria was breathless. Was it yet another penance for the nuns, climbing endless stairs to the dormitories under the eaves? The uppermost cells had been converted to a nursery, where Isobel had once played, and Robin now awaited his fate.

Honoria leaned against the wall to catch her breath. She went over the instructions Philip had insisted she follow to the letter.

The leather flask in her pocket was filled with laudanum. Philip had the cook lace it with sweet fruit juice so the boy would drink it without protest.

“Do not give the boy the laudanum too soon,” he had told her. “Take him from the nursery and lead him to his mother. Outside her door, make him drink. See that he finishes all of it. Isobel will be pleased to see her child and will imagine he is sleepy because it is night.”

“Will it kill him?” she had asked.

He'd smiled. A hard, dangerous smile that made her blood run cold in her veins. “What do you think?” he asked.

She shut her eyes now, steps from the nursery door. She could hear the boy inside, singing some childish song Isobel had taught him about counting ducks.

She glanced over her shoulder. The looming shadows were stalking her. She felt unseen eyes watching, ghostly hands reaching for her, brushing her skin, making her shiver. A moan escaped her lips, startling in the silence, echoing through the abbey.

“Charlotte?” she whispered. The stones clutched the name to their breast, passed it down the hall like a summons. Honoria hurried to open the nursery door with shaking fingers.

The singing stopped. Her grandchild—no, he was Charlotte's spawn—turned, the copper flame of his Fraser hair gleaming in the candlelight. He didn't speak, just stared at her with Charlotte's eyes, as if he knew. Her flesh crawled.

“It's time to go. Your mother is here.” The false croak sounded too eager, but the boy's face lit.

“Mama?” he asked.

She touched the flask in her pocket, ensuring it was still there, and held out her hand.

“Come along.”

The boy hesitated before touching her, then slipped his soft hand into hers. She was glad of his company in the dark
corridor, a small, innocent shield against the ghosts that closed in, the accusing eyes that followed her.

Did Charlotte know what she was about to do? She shut her eyes, feeling the woman behind her, but not daring to look.

Sweat slithered down her cheek, and she swiped at it.

Once she had drugged the boy and turned him over to his mother, she would dismiss Marianne, tell her she was not welcome to stay, that her coach was waiting to take her back to London. Isobel would be too busy with Robin to object to her friend's departure. Marianne would be in a hurry to get back to London, to tell her husband everything.

She would never arrive, of course. Her coach was rigged for death. Honoria pictured the axle splintering as the coach took the road that ran along the top of the cliffs above the sea. How Marianne would scream as the coach careened over the edge. Honoria smirked. The woman talked too much anyway.

Sending Marianne to her death would be easy compared to what Philip had insisted she do next. She gasped now, and Robin glanced up at her. She could not meet his eyes.

Once the child was drugged and asleep, Philip wanted her to cut Isobel's throat.

“I cannot,” she whimpered again, just as she had in the drawing room, and felt the boy staring at her, another ghost in this accursed place.

Philip laughed at her protest. He'd hooked his arm around her neck, pulling her back against his body. She recalled the flash of the knife as he raised it, the reflection of her own terrified eyes in the polished blade.

“Like this,” he whispered in her ear, and drew the blade across her throat, a caress rather than a killing blow. She would have fainted, but he kept her upright, shoved the knife into her hand and pointed to the door.

“Don't fail, madam. Our guest will be arriving within
the hour, and nothing must distract us from our task here tonight.”

Charles had said nothing, done nothing, to stop Philip or defend her honor. She was left with no choice but to pick up a candle and go, her heart pounding against her bosom, making her gown, her very skin, too tight to let her draw breath.

Now she felt the dagger between her breasts, resting there, waiting, and she tightened her grip on the boy's hand.