The Dowager's Wager (21 page)

“Alain? Whatever for?” Isabella cried in shock. She
looked to Tristan for a plausible explanation, but it was
Beatrix who spoke.

“All he had to go on was a physical description of the
intruder who’d broken into the town house and whatever
physical characteristics he could recall from the melee at
the docks. I believe your brother matches the description
ideally.”

“So do numerous other men!” Isabella retorted. She followed Beatrix’s gaze as it moved to Middleton.

“Exactly,” Beatrix purred in satisfaction. “As you’ve
guessed, Middleton and Wickham are of the same height
and general features as my brother. But Alain made the mistake of visiting Moreland’s town house and actually showing
interest in the cards. He even took some one evening when
Moreland was away. Your brother made it easy to frame him
by spending so much time away at undisclosed locations. It
would have been lovely to actually see Tristan send his dear
friend and his betrothed’s brother to his demise, but we
needed the cards for ourselves. So we’ll have to settle for
having swiped the information and upsetting Tristan’s marriage plans.”

Isabella’s stomach churned at the story Beatrix spun.
Surely, Tristan hadn’t really thought the informant was
Alain? Beatrix was cruel. It was not beyond her to fabricate
a story to fit her needs. Isabella stiffened her spine. She
would not give Beatrix the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort. “Why are you doing this? I think you risk much for
very little in return.”

“There is nothing little about revenge!” Beatrix shot back.
“He murdered my brother and he foiled plans to put the
rightful emperor of France back in power.”

Isabella turned to the silent Middleton. “What of you, sir?
What do you stand to gain by abetting such treason?” Middleton said nothing but Isabella could guess. He was
besotted with Beatrix. He had hardly taken his eyes from
her. He probably promised to marry her and make her his
countess. Isabella couldn’t imagine why Beatrix would consent to marry a man whose pockets were to let. Then she
recalled the information in the coded cards. They weren’t
collecting it for their own use, they were collecting it to sell
to someone else.

“I am rich,” Isabella said, mostly for Middleton’s benefit.
“Sell me the information for three times the price your connection was paying you.”

“Why would you want it?” Middleton asked curiously, his
interest piqued by that sum of money.

“I don’t want it. It means nothing to me,” Isabella said
with a casual air. “But you need money, both of you do. If
you sell the information to me, I’ll destroy the cards and
there will be no threat of being caught and tried for treason.
There will be no proof.” She could see Middleton weighing
the possibilities. She could practically read his mind. He
could afford to marry Beatrix and he could stay in England.
No doubt they would have to start up somewhere else after
this latest deal.

“No. That is not the plan,” Beatrix said sharply to
Middleton. “That information is needed to help free
Napoleon. We need the shipping schedules.”

Tristan joined the verbal fray. “What if the information
is false? Then you will be hunted by those you are trying
to help and you’ll have turned down a great sum of
money.”

Middleton bolted upright from his lazy pose at the desk.
“What are you saying? Have you been feeding false information?”

“Perhaps, but then again it might all be true. Beatrix stole
information from me before. She knows the information in
the `love notes’ was true once.”

Beatrix pressed the knife hard against Tristan’s skin, breaking it. Blood welled. Isabella stifled a scream. If she
screamed Tristan would be dead before help could reach
them. “Tell them the truth, Tristan,” she urged.

“Wait” A malicious grin spread across Middleton’s face
as he stepped forward. “You’re going around it all wrong,
Bea. When hunting, one learns that animals only give themselves up to save their young or their mates. Gresham here
will never tell you the truth if it’s only his neck at risk. But
the lovely Lady Westbrooke’s is another story.”

Beatrix’s hand relaxed on the knife hilt. She gave
Middleton a flirtatious look. “That assumes he cares a whit
for her.” She turned her gaze on Isabella. “Do you think
Tristan will rescue you? Does he love you enough to pick
you over his duty to his country? It may be that he only pretended to care about you in order to get close to you. Maybe
he thought you’d let something slip about Alain that would
confirm his suspicions.” She left Tristan’s side and moved to
Isabella, where she bent to Isabella’s ear. “If I had to pick
between his neck and mine, I’d pick mine. Tristan’s a lost
cause, my lady.”

“Ah, my Beatrix, you weave a web like no other!”
Middleton applauded. “But we must go before anyone
begins to miss the pair of them. They have a betrothal to
announce tonight, if I am not mistaken. That is, if the lady
will still have the scoundrel.” Middleton made a clucking
noise through his teeth. “It is a shame to wed someone you
can’t truly trust, my lady.

“What shall it be, Beatrix, shall we take the money and
turn the information over or shall we gamble on it?”
Middleton inquired.

“We shall gamble on it. My only regret is that we are not
slitting Moreland’s throat.”

“Bea, he’s slit his own throat and saved us the trouble,”
Middleton laughed as he raised the window sash and helped
Beatrix climb through. “Now you, Lady Westbrooke. We
need some insurance that Tristan won’t come after us. You’ll
not be harmed, merely inconvenienced, unless Tristan decides to play unfairly.” Middleton waved a pistol casually
as he gestured towards the window. “Give us two hours,
Moreland. After that, we’ll leave the lady at an inn with
coach fare to a destination of her choice. But it will go poorly for her if you decide to play the hero, assuming you get
out of that chair any time soon”

Isabella had no choice but to go with them. She climbed
through the window and shot Tristan a parting glance. She’d
hoped to see some sign of emotion in his face, but his
demeanor was stoic and unreadable.

Three horses were waiting outside. Middleton gave her a
leg up on Hellion and a warning. “Don’t think to use his
speed to escape. I have no love for this horse and his temper. I’ll shoot him out from under you, make no mistake
about it.”

Beatrix cooed evilly in the darkness. “She wouldn’t want
to miss the fun, George. We’ve handed her the ultimate litmus test. If Tristan breaks the rules and comes after her,
she’ll know he loved her more than his work. If he doesn’t
come, she’ll know where his true motivations lay.”

The trio rode in silence, all of them with their ears trained
on the sounds of the night. They listened for the thunder of following hooves. None came. Isabella did her best to keep her
thoughts away from the cutting remarks Beatrix had made.
Mrs. Smallwood was wrong. The Tristan Isabella knew was a
deeply honorable man. He had not used her to get to Alain. She
strained her ears for any sound of his horse behind them. She
told herself that there were many reasons why Tristan would
not follow, especially since her safety was at stake.

An hour into the ride, reality set in. She could not trust
Beatrix and Middleton to keep their word about her safe
return. Beatrix was a conniving woman who covered her
tracks. Why would she allow Isabella to go free when
Isabella could show others the course they’d taken and make
a good guess as to where they would go? If she could figure
that out, Tristan could, too. That meant he would come. But
he did not.

In the end, Isabella saw an opening to save herself.
Beatrix and Middleton stopped at a Y in the road and began
arguing about the route. Isabella kicked Hellion hard and
took off cross country in the direction from which they’d
come. She no longer had any fear of Middleton’s pistol.
They meant to do away with her anyway. She would rather
be shot trying to escape than to simply wait for the
inevitable.

Hellion surged beneath her. Despite the danger she faced,
Isabella reveled in the strength of the stallion beneath her.
He could run for hours. She had sensed it earlier that day
during the hunt. She hazarded a glance behind and saw
Middleton in pursuit. Middleton rode a fresh horse that
hadn’t hunted that morning. The bay was a prime goer, but
with Middleton’s weight, the gelding couldn’t race forever.
Isabella urged Hellion on to greater lengths. She didn’t
worry about Middleton ever catching up and pulling alongside, but she did worry about Middleton getting close
enough to fire a shot.

Isabella’s route paralleled the road. Now, as Hellion
pounded forwarded, a stone fence and stile loomed in the
near distance. There was no question of stopping to go
through the stile or riding along the fence until an opening
appeared. The only course of action was to go over it. This
was the chance Isabella had been waiting for. She had
jumped Hellion twice during the hunt, although the jumps
hadn’t been as high. But she knew the strength of his legs. He
could take the fence. She was certain the gelding would not
be able to clear it. She gave Hellion the signal with her knees,
felt his powerful haunches bunch and they were airborne.

With a whoop of glee, Isabella and Hellion landed solidly on the other side and kept running. A last glance behind
assured her that the wall had stopped Middleton on his gelding. She slowed Hellion to a canter. A mile later she met the
rescue party which had set out from The Meadows. Alain
was among them, riding neck-or-nothing in the dark and risking his prized hunter. All she could think about when she
slid off Hellion into Alain’s brotherly embrace was that
Tristan had not come.

She was furious and devastated. Her mind gave free rein
to the doubts Beatrix had so skillfully provoked earlier. She
could not go back to The Meadows. She begged Alain to
take her to a nearby inn.

As she had expected, sleep would not come as her mind
replayed the whole ghastly evening from the moment
Tristan had smiled up at her from the staircase. Hours later
as the pink fingers of sunrise stroked the dark sky, she trembled violently, not from the danger of her gallant ride but
from the overwhelming betrayal she’d suffered at Tristan’s
hands. She had been petrified to see him tied to the chair
with a knife pressed to his neck. He had apparently not
shared her fear.

She sat by the window of her room for hours, dazed and
still dressed in her muddied ball gown until Alain came to
report the denouement of the evening’s spectacle to her. She
listened dispassionately to his news.

Beatrix and Middleton had escaped them under cover of
darkness, the search party having lost ground when they had
stopped upon finding her safe. The riders who continued on
ahead could not catch Middleton and Beatrix who had spied
them in time to keep a considerable distance between them.
Worse, it appeared that they had split ways. They were both
at large.

Alain volunteered no news of Tristan and Isabella was too
dejected to ask. She rallied her last resources of strength.
She washed, called for a private post chaise and before going
back to London, returned Hellion to The Meadows with
Alain. She took nothing with her but her small valise and her
misery. She would go back to London for the Season, stay
long enough to not look as if she were running away and
then retire to the country, perhaps for good. Inside, she felt
dead.

Tristan pushed his horse the last three miles to London,
relief coursing through him as the outskirts of town came
into view just as dusk fell. He’d ridden hard the moment the
last of his guests had quit The Meadows. His departure
hadn’t been soon enough to suit his tastes. He had not slept
since the night before the hunt. Exhaustion threatened to
claim him but he wouldn’t concede to the physical limits of
his body until he saw Isabella.

Alain had told him Bella had taken a post chaise back to
London when he’d returned at noon with Hellion. Since
then, Tristan had hurried his remaining guests out the door
and saddled the freshest horse left in his stable.

Tristan turned the horse towards Westbrooke House. He
would have to report to Whitehall also before going home to
sleep. That could wait. Isabella could not. Many things
needed explaining. Not the least being why he hadn’t ridden
out after her with the rescue party. The knock on the head
he’d suffered had rendered him too dizzy to ride and the
tightness of the bonds about his legs had effectively numbed
them. When he’d risen to join the search party, he’d collapsed into near unconsciousness. Only Alain’s firm grip
had kept him upright. Isabella had to know that and the myriad of other things he’d waited too long to tell her.

Tristan slid off his mount’s back and bounded up the steps
to Westbrooke House, impatiently seizing the knocker.
Regis answered. “I am here to see Lady Westbrooke,”
Tristan said, nearly breathless from his efforts.