The Return of the Prodigal (19 page)

Jasper sniffed. “That’s why you’re the Lieutenant, sir, and Jasper the one with the broad back. Be enjoyin’ himself, Jasper would, if it weren’t for that little girl. Shouldn’t have tied her up like that, sir, no matter what you said. Makes Jasper feel that bad.”

“We’ll take turns kicking each other in circles once we have her back safe, Jasper, all right?”

They lapsed into silence once more, each of them thinking their own thoughts. Jasper, being Jasper, was probably thinking of his stomach, and when next he’d be able to feed it.

Rian’s mind went back to thoughts of Lisette. Was she all right? Had the bastard hurt her? Did she know they were coming for her? Was she being brave?

He smiled in the darkness. Of course she was being brave. He could only hope she wasn’t being
too
brave, or else she might get herself into even more trouble.

Like that night on the balcony.

He hadn’t planned to make love to her like that. She was young, inexperienced, and he felt certain she would be embarrassed, feel too vulnerable and exposed out there on the balcony, especially with the
Comte
’s men patrolling the grounds beneath them, as he knew they did.

But then he’d given in to the soft night and all its temptations, and kissed her. Just one kiss, a promise, a prelude to who knew what, and she’d captured his cheek in her hand and pulled him toward her…and
he
had been the one to suddenly feel vulnerable, in so many ways.

He opened his mouth to tell her they should go inside, to his bed, back into the complete darkness where he could love her without thinking about his damn arm.

But now she’d begun to loose the buttons on his shirt, one by one, his right arm still caught behind her body, his left…well, his left as ineffectual as possible. And the moonlight? It wasn’t the noon sun, but if she slipped his shirt off his shoulder, if his arm came out of the sleeve, she would see the still angry, red stump, damn it. Damn, damn, damn! Why did that bother him so much?

Well, maybe not
so
much, because she was kissing his chest now, her hand clasped on his shoulder as she seemed to embark on a timid, yet extremely effective exploration of his upper body, and he was fast forgetting who he was, let alone how and where he was….

“Hear that, sir?

Rian listened for a moment, and then nodded. Yes, he had heard something, possibly the jingle of a harness. It was time to stop thinking like some besotted fool and begin to think like a Becket.

They held their breaths. And then Rian heard it again. Jasper as well, for the man was swiftly and quietly affixing a bayonet to one of the rifles.

Three barely outlined figures on horseback moved into the clearing and stopped.

Rian heard one of them curse in French. Neither he nor Jasper spoke more than a few words of the language. He didn’t want that one. That one could die.

A second rider had dismounted, was now walking his horse in a circle, looking down at the dirt, and then remounted. “We saw the wagon tracks down the lane. Fresh, and heavy into the dirt. This is the spot, but he’s gone, trying to clean up after himself, but not good enough. Run away like a coward. But a stupid coward. We’ll just follow the wagon tracks back the way we came, all right?”

That one. Rian wanted that one. He tapped Jasper on the shoulder and pointed. Jasper nodded, then pointed to himself, then to the third man, sliced his forefinger across the front of his throat, and then looked at Rian questioningly.

Rian Becket nodded. He had no argument with that. None whatsoever. They needed one prisoner, only one.

Jasper raised his rifle, sliding the long barrel through the still leafy branches of the bushes they had taken cover behind. Took careful aim, his finger on the trigger, and then looked once more to Rian.

Rian’s rifle was slung over his back by its strap, to help steady it, but he knew when he fired he’d probably spend a few moments flat on his back before he could regain his balance. But a pistol, at this range, would be less than useless.

“Left for you,” he mouthed, “and right for me. On my count, Jasper. One…two…three…
fire!
”

When he picked himself up from the ground, it was to see two riderless horses and one man still mounted, trying to control his mount as it bumped into one of the other horses.

He couldn’t be allowed to escape.

Screaming the way Spence had told him the American Indians yelled—and he had actually practiced at the shoreline during long, boring evenings a winter ago—Rian ran into the clearing, his sword drawn, even as Jasper followed, his bulk making him move more slowly.

The rider had managed to dig a pistol out of his waistband and was brandishing it, although his nervously dancing horse kept him from taking careful aim.

In the matter of a heartbeat, Rian had struck the pistol from the man’s hand, using the flat side of the sword, for he had a use for this man’s hands, and Jasper finished the thing by the simple maneuver of grabbing the man by the front of his jacket and tossing him, as if he weighed less than a feather, onto the ground.

“Well done, Jasper!” Rian shouted, his blood singing with the thrill of battle. He lowered his sword so that the tip pressed lightly into the downed man’s throat, warning him to stay very, very still. “You will secure the horses, if you please, Private Coggins.”

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant!” Jasper shouted, already grabbing at trailing reins, more than able to subdue mere tons of horseflesh, and then tying those reins to stout branches as he stepped over the bodies of the two extremely dead men on the ground. “Come in handy these will, sir, correct? Jasper’s not feelin’ too much in a hurry to walk back the way we came.”

“You know how to ride, Jasper?” Rian asked, still riding himself, high on the euphoria of victory.

“No, sir, Jasper don’t. But Jasper will learn. Need any help, sir?”

“With the knots, as usual, I’m afraid. How do you put up with me, my friend?”

“Mayhap because you call Jasper ‘friend’…sir,” Jasper said, pulling their captive to his feet. The man took a swing at him, and Jasper grabbed the flailing arm and gave it a twist before pushing him back down in the dirt once more, hard, so that the man lost all his breath and began gasping for air as he rolled around, holding his shoulder. “Beggin’ the lieutenant’s pardon, but Jasper likes his prisoners knowin’ who’s in charge, sir.”

“I think you proved your point. And we’ve got another hour before daylight, I believe. You get him up again, without breaking any of him, please, and I’ll fetch the shovel.”

By the time he’d returned to the clearing, their captive, looking suitably subdued, was standing with his head down, looking at the body of one of his companions.

“Your name, if you please,” Rian said smoothly.

The man said something in guttural French.

Jasper knocked him down again.

“Once more,” Rian said as the man lay sprawled on the ground. “You’re English. I heard you speak. And, for your information, being English is the only reason you’re still alive. So—speak. Your name?”

“Thibaud,” the man said, and then spat. “I go by Thibaud.”

“A wasted effort, Thibaud. You could have called yourself Talleyrand, and been no more French. Get up, you’ve got some digging to do. And, while you dig, some questions to answer.”

“I’m not digging anything, you damn cripple.”

Rian smiled. “Thibaud, cripple—I could arrange it so that you could be called either. Your master has my woman, Thibaud. There will be no pity, do you understand? None.”

“Your woman? Ha! Your
whore!
”

This time it was Rian’s boot that helped reacquaint Thibaud with the dirt, but when he was pulled to his feet yet again, it was with a look part belligerence, part terror in his eyes. “Are you done being stupid, or do you wish to play again, hmm?”

Jasper held out the shovel and Thibaud took it.

“Pray, Thibaud. Pray very, very hard that you are about to dig up four strangers to me, or else you will then dig your own grave.”

The man’s knees buckled for a moment, but Jasper was kind enough to hold him upright.

Then they marched him, at gunpoint, to the very rear of the graveyard.

L
ISETTE ALLOWED
the room to fall away, preferring the safety of her reminiscences as she waited for Rian Becket to rescue his princess in the tower…

It was so quiet on the balcony, save for soft night songs, and the sweet sounds of Rian’s shallow, controlled breaths.

She was on a journey of discovery.

When she kissed him
here,
his breathing became more rapid. When she kissed him
there,
he let his breath out in a rush.

And when she kissed him just
there?
Then, he didn’t breathe at all.

Amazing, the feeling of power that sang in her blood as they lay side by side on the satin coverlet high above the ground, floating, filled with feelings, sensations, that only intensified when the night breeze whispered over them, when the jingle of one of the guard’s ridiculous spurs passed beneath them as he made his rounds.

She was so curious, and the majority of that curiosity centered below the buttons of Rian Becket’s trousers. She’d felt him, in the dark, felt his power as he slid into her, but she had no conception of just what…how…

“For the love of God, Lisette…”

“Shh,”
she warned him, slipping the third button from its moorings. Only two more to go, and then she’d know. “If we were discovered, I’d be punished.”

“So, instead, you’ll torture me?” Rian asked her, tangling his fingers in her hair.

She chuckled softly, aware that her own breathing had become shallow. When had she become so daring? She wasn’t a brave person, had never been a brave person. But Rian needed her and, in so many ways, she needed him, too.

She needed him strong, in mind as well as body. She needed to rouse him from this lethargy he seemed to allow to take him over every time she thought he was getting better, was healing. She needed him to be ready to leave this place, take her with him.

And no longer for the reasons she told herself, gave to her
papa.
It was time she admitted that, at least to herself.

She wanted Rian Becket’s smile. She wanted his arm around her. She wanted her name on his lips as he held her, made sweet love to her body until she had to bite her lip to keep from crying, begging him to love her, please love
her.

She needed an island of sanity in a world that had gone so mad.

The last buttons slid open, and she slid her hand inside. Found him. Held him. Like warm silk.

She sighed aloud.

“Stupid girl, sitting there, mooning over your lover.”

Lisette opened her eyes all at once, astonished that Loringa should know what she was thinking. “Don’t speak to me,” she said sharply, realizing that she was breathing too fast. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“I have things to say to you, little fool. The enemy of your father is your enemy.”

Lisette kept her head facing forward, refusing to turn around, look at Loringa. The woman frightened her, much as she tried to tell herself that she was just an old woman who believed in strange things that could not be true.

“He is one of them,” Loringa went on in that deep, raspy voice that could have been the Herald of Doom. “I knew, the moment I was told the name.
Becket.
A goose walked over my grave at that moment, and I felt her again after so many years. Odette, the evil one.”

“
You
are the evil one!” Lisette then winced, wishing she’d learned to keep her mouth firmly shut, ignore the woman who was deliberately goading her.

“Evil is good, good is evil. Who says which is which? You, convent girl? You, who has known nothing all of your life? What does it take to survive? Do you know?”

“He ordered Denys killed. For no reason!”

“A man of no consequence who had been a younger man of no consequence. Cutting out his tongue for speaking out of turn should have made him a smarter man, a more careful man. God punishes the stupid.”

Lisette couldn’t remain silent. “No,
God
had nothing to do with it. The
Comte
meted out his own punishment, and I hope he rots in Hell for it.”

“So tiresome. Your mother’s child, in looks as well as mind. Weak, watery. I warned him. No good can come of a union with such a one. Strength, fire! The other one,
she
had the fire.”

Lisette bowed her head, closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear her mother spoken of this way. She didn’t want to ask about
the other one.
She didn’t need to. She knew. Isabella Baskin.

Lies. Lies piled atop other lies. Sins heaped on other sins.

“He hasn’t come back. Obviously I’m of no further use to him. I’m leaving,” Lisette said, getting to her feet. “Try to stop me, Loringa, and I will show you how
weak
I am.”

“She had become demanding, and her
papa,
suspicious. They had to be done away with,” Loringa said, and Lisette whirled toward the dark corner. “She had served her purpose. So sad, little girl, little motherless girl.”

“Stop it! I will
not
listen to you!”

“You dream of her. I see your dreams. Dancing in sunlight. Oh, so pretty, so happy. So foolish.”

Lisette began backing toward the door. She had no time for this. Her father had been gone for a long time, and Loringa was an old woman. She should have made her move sooner. It didn’t matter if the
Comte
had posted guards just outside the doorway, or that she had nowhere to run, that he would chase her and find her and bring her back. She could not just sit here, waiting for her fate.

“He saw her in New Orleans. She smiled, and he thought himself smitten. For a while. Ah, but then he saw the grand house, the money, the jewels on her mother’s scrawny neck. Only then was he
truly
smitten. Yes, he would leave the sea. Yes, he would work in her father’s auction house. Selling people, little girl. Your mother’s father, he sold people so that his pretty white daughter could dress in fine silks. But he told them yes. Yes, and yes again. Like his so fickle
partner,
he would leave the sea. Perhaps it was time for other adventures, other ambitions.”