What a Hero Dares (11 page)

“Then I suppose I should thank you now, as we’d be in fairly dire straits if you and your crew hadn’t stepped in when the Coopers showed their true colors.”

Zoé was feeling neglected, left to do nothing but ask obvious questions. “You’ll be in charge of those watching the Towers?”

“They’re spread over too many miles of the coast for us to manage them all if the attack is scheduled for the next smuggler’s moon, so we’ve already quietly removed thirty of them from Bonaparte’s side of the ledger. There are no more than ten or twelve men needed for each Tower, and it’s only a matter of identifying them and eliminating them.”

“Capturing or killing them?” she asked, then wondered why she cared either way. She was getting soft, and that wasn’t a good thing.

“We haven’t yet thrown them a fete, no, but for the most part they’re still breathing.”

“But there are over one hundred Towers, aren’t there?” Zoé was mentally calculating how long it would take to secure the rest of them.

Max slammed his fist into his palm. “One hundred and eighteen, once those now under construction are finished, and to hear my brother Valentine tell it, they’re being built only because the Society managed to hoodwink Perceval with false information. That means over one thousand men crossing the Channel in the past year or less, some of them landing on Redgrave land, undoubtedly sheltered on Redgrave land by the Coopers. And all while we knew nothing—and while the prime minister dismisses us as hysterical old ladies. Or worries we’re traitors. If it all goes publicly sideways for Bonaparte and the Society, they’ll all simply disappear, and it will be the Redgraves left to be tried for treason.”

“That would about sum up your dilemma, yes,” the stranger said, and Zoé was fairly certain he was smiling behind his handkerchief. “You might imagine my own frustration, as I lack even the opportunity to approach the government without possibly exposing my true identity and putting my head into a noose. But such is life, as I’ve learned. What we do, we do swiftly, quietly, and bury the bodies, and the secrets, where they fall.”

“That’s succinct enough,” Zoé muttered, scuffing her booted toe in the dirt. “We’re fighting a secret war, and either we win, or we hang. Lovely.”

“Quite. And now I’m off. If you need me at any time, put a word in Jacko’s ear, but my hope is that we each solve this distasteful problem at our own ends. You to destroy this devil Society plaguing you, and me to prevent the possibility of invasion. I’d rather we weren’t tripping over each other in the process. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Max said, holding out his hand. “Captain.”

The man acknowledged the title with a handshake and a bow of his head. “One thing more. I already outstay my welcome, as my sons will begin to fuss if I tarry any longer. The Cooper children and women are scattered in small pocket villages along the Royal Military Canal, between Ruckinge and Warehorne, being watched over by a few old men. I don’t think we need concern ourselves with them. Just the one, Billy’s fishwife.”

“And the men?”

“Nowhere to be found and, frankly, I’ve already spread my men more thinly than I care to do. I can only suggest you concentrate on the woman, her male companion and this former compatriot of yours. Cut off the head, and the rest of the fish dies. An old saying, I grant you, but still a true one. How clever is this Boucher of yours?”

Max and Zoé exchanged glances before she said with all the conviction she felt now that the two of them were working together again, “Very. But he has his weaknesses.”

Another bow, this one to Zoé, and the pirate was gone, melted back into the trees. Moments later he appeared again on horseback, flanked by two other riders. They all crashed out of the woods and set the horses to a gallop across the wide expanse of fallow ground. She watched as a pair of horsemen rode out to meet them from the other side. They waited, their mounts dancing in an eagerness to be off, then turned and headed back into the trees, the pirate and his companions following, all four of the other men clearly keeping the pirate protectively in their midst. Were they the sons he spoke of?

“Damn it. Three. Not one voice, seemingly traveling, but three, thoroughly tricking us. And their horses with them? We can’t forget the horses.”

“And we heard nothing, not even a jingle of harness or a stray whinny. Not only are we out of practice, Max, but that pistol shot saved at least one of us some extreme personal embarrassment. We won’t see him again? I can understand that. It would be he who saw us first. Do you wonder how much faith the pirate has in us now?”

Max took the blue-lensed spectacles from his pocket and slipped them on once more. “Do you think I could blame you for distracting me?”

“You might as well,” she answered, rather inelegantly plopping herself down on the blanket. “After all, I was going to blame you. Or perhaps the fact that I still haven’t had anything to eat.”

CHAPTER SIX

M
AX
EXPLAINED
THE
rest to Zoé as they returned to their
picnic,
deftly slipping in apologies each time she frowned, letting him know there were things he could, should, have told her sooner. As in before they’d left Redgrave Manor.

She now knew the full history of the Society, going back to its inception with his grandfather, its resurrection via his father, and this third incarnation thanks to the Coopers, longtime loyal employees of the Redgrave family.

She’d asked no questions when he described what they knew of the Society: its rites, the perversions, the recruitment and then blackmail of members brought in by the inner circle, the Devil’s Thirteen. In fact, she’d said nothing at all until he’d told her about the fires...the one Simon had set to obliterate the hidden chamber of treason and vice beneath the dower house, and his brother Valentine’s destruction of a smaller such gathering place elsewhere.

It was only then that she said, “Anton must be distraught over their loss. If I were to attempt to
recruit
someone like Anton, I believe success would be a simple matter of indulging his tastes, just as you say the Society has always done.”

Max picked up the half-empty bottle of wine and looked into its mouth, contemplating his chances of asking the question that burned inside his head...and the possible consequences. “Did he—”

“Never,” Zoé answered before he could finish. “He tried during his first visit to my cell, I’ll give him that. But by then I’d decided he needed me alive more than he wanted his satisfaction, or else I’d already be dead. I warned him I’d kill myself if he touched me, even if I had to chew through my own veins.”

“He believed you?”

Zoé shrugged. “He’d already told me you were dead. I had nothing to live for, nowhere to go even if I somehow escaped my cell. Anton can be as practical as any Frenchman. I believe he weighed the reason he was keeping me alive against a
pleasure
he only need delay until I was no longer necessary to some plan. He even ordered my rations increased. But would I have done it? Killed myself?” She shrugged again. “I wouldn’t know that until I was actually put to the test, would I? I’d like to think I would.”

“Well, don’t,” Max said, his temper rising. “Don’t think it, don’t ever choose it, no matter how you’re forced or tempted. There’s always a chance, Zoé, if we just look for it. A chance to survive, another way out, right up until our last breath. Don’t ever give up on yourself and, much as I don’t deserve the right to say this, don’t ever give up on me.”

“You’ll never change, will you? Always believing you’re the one in charge. So I say the same to you. Your grandmother told me you’ve become too reckless these last months. I believe our new pirate friend’s surprise appearance proves her point. We both need to rein in our passionate natures.”

“All of them?” he asked, feeling a different sort of recklessness within him.

“You already know the answer to that, Lord help us both. Now, tell me more about these Coopers.”

He began with the recent attempt on Trixie’s life by one of the younger Coopers, Liam, and her later conversation with the boy’s grandfather. The Coopers had been with the estate even before his grandfather’s time, and it was Trixie’s conclusion that her husband had made promises to them in order to gain their help with his planned treason. Such help naturally included the initial construction and subsequent maintenance of the caves and the ceremonial rooms themselves.

“Of course. He would have needed help from somewhere, wouldn’t he? And your father, as well, when he followed in his sire’s footsteps? He would also have had to make promises. I imagine every hellfire club needs someone to dust and polish the sacrificial altar, empty the Exalted Leader’s chamber pots.”

“You’re a cruel woman, Zoé Charbonneau,” Max said, tossing her the last strawberry. “The only real wonder is that none of us had ever before thought of the logistics of constructing and maintaining a devil’s pleasure den.”

“Clearly somebody did. And that thought may have led that somebody to the Coopers, who would have known anything and everything about the workings of the Society. There can be no real secrets, not with servants in the house. I’d lay my money on the woman I saw in Ostend, were I you. Much as you won’t want to hear this, it’s women who consider the details while you men are more concerned with the larger picture, such as conquering the world. Naturally, those details would have led her straight to the Coopers.”

“I agree. Highly sexed from your description of her, and hearing what the captain’s man told him, clearly the one issuing orders.”

“The man could be explained as the brawn behind her orders. Big, not too intelligent, but necessary to her in some way. Sex and power, power and sex. You men never get bored with either. It’s the rare woman who turns the tables, seizes the power. Not that I applaud this particular woman, considering her treasonous goal. Remember, schoolgirl French. We’re dealing with an Englishwoman. And with Anton involved, possibly at a direct order from Bonaparte, I imagine that at the end of the day these Coopers of yours are in for yet a third great disappointment. Kings and emperors aren’t known for paying their bills.”

Max had picked up the now reloaded basket and poured away the last of the wine before the two of them, together, folded the blanket. “Angus Cooper informed Trixie that Redgrave Manor belonged to the Coopers as much as it did to us. They’d built it, maintained it, and had been told it would all be theirs, the entire estate, if they did as they were told. After all, my mad-as-hatters ancestors truly believed they and their supposed Stuart blood would one day sit on the English throne.”

“With help from the Louis, before the father died of his dissipations and the son lost his head to his. But now there’s Bonaparte, and the Society has risen again. We can only hope the third time isn’t the charm. So, enough talk. Where to now, Max?”

“We’re all business again?” He watched as she deftly strapped the rolled blanket to the back of his saddle. He hadn’t expected her to tug him down on the blanket so they could seal their tenuous new relationship in a more physical way. Not here. But he had considered moving the two of them to another spot on Redgrave land, a leafy bower he’d first been introduced to by, of all people, one of the Cooper women when he’d been no more than fifteen.

Zoé shot him a rather knowing look. “When were we ever all business?”

Laughing, he helped hoist her onto the sidesaddle, complete with a playful swipe to her rump as she lifted her foot into the stirrup.

They both had a long way to go, and he was certain she knew that, as well, but in time, two years of spending nearly every waking and sleeping moment together surely had the power to banish the last eight months from their memories. He knew he had a lot of making up to do, but they had the rest of their lives for that.

“The tide’s out,” he told her as he mounted his own horse. “I’d like to see this man-made cave in the daylight. Gideon believes it once was farther inland, and built by the Romans as a sort of fort or outpost. Centuries of storms and a shifting coastline must have eventually chewed away at it, leaving behind only what we see now.”

“You hope to find something, or is this simply curiosity?”

“Simply curiosity, I’d say,” he admitted as he pointed toward the waters of the Channel, laid out below them. They rode in silence, each looking deceptively relaxed even as they were all vigilance, not about to be taken by surprise again. Redgrave Manor’s grounds were vast, the West Run incredibly wide and long, leisurely leading down to the water, their progress broken up by strategically constructed hedgerows and stone walls.

The run ended at a wide but navigable cliff, the cottages below them and to the left of the stone jetty, the familiar jumble of huge boulders to the right of it. The receding tide had left behind bits of mast and curved boards ripped from the hull of the ship they’d traveled in last night. An old woman, probably one of the cottagers who had chosen to live out their retirement from service on this spit of Redgrave land, was busily loading wood into her apron, undoubtedly to dry out and use in her small fireplace. For cooking, to help tide her through the wintry days to come. The poor wasted nothing.

“Those four cottages?” he said to Zoé as they looked down at the scene. “Gideon leases them to the odd fisherman, or simply allows former Redgrave servants or laborers to live in them.”

Zoé nodded, holding down the shako hat as the stiff breeze coming off the Channel threatened to dislodge it. “That’s where we came ashore last night. Do you think the horses can manage this path?”

“They can. But before we do that, I want you to look at the stones and boulders to your right. What do you see?”

“I see stones and boulders, quite the opposite of the sand and shingle of the beach on the other side of our stone tunnel,” she answered. “What am I supposed to see?”

“According to what Gideon and Simon told me this morning, we’re to see what’s left of a defensive maze carefully constructed by some ancient people—again, most likely Romans. Imagine the Channel at least seventy-five yards farther from the current shoreline, and the wall containing the pass-through cave, gone now, but if intact, curving around until it met the cliff.”

“A fort. You’re saying if we were to dig deeply enough, there’d be another stone wall just about here. Possibly once complete with parapets, the tops of the walls their first line of defense, their archers stationed there—and up here, right where we are.” Zoé looked at the ground just ahead of them. “Yes, I can see it.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? The Channel taking some of it, the rest covered up by those who cleared the West Run, disposing of hundreds, perhaps thousands of tree roots and boulders by dragging them down here and pushing them against and over the now actually man-made cliff, obscuring the original structure. The grassy mound to our left also probably covers a large section of stone wall. At one time, this seeming jumble was a complete square.”

“An ancient Roman fort. To hear you tell it, Redgrave Manor already has everything...and now you can add a Roman fort to the list, as well. My congratulations. But what does any of this have to do with us now?”

“I’m not certain it has anything to do with us, unless we found ourselves facing a French landing party, as it’s too treacherous to land anywhere but on the cottage side of the fort.”

“Because the underwater walls succumbed to the battering of the tides, but parts of the maze remain intact just off the shore, ready to rip out the bellies of any vessel attempting to land? Amazing. I can almost see the sun shining off the polished armor of the soldiers.”

She was standing in the saddle as her gaze traveled left to right, and then back again, her expression rather rapt. Max had always loved seeing the world through her eyes.

“Simon supposes the Romans used the cave as a stables or storehouse, but also as a convenient back door should the fort fall. That maze on the other side was built to slow attackers, protect Roman fighters as they retreated either to or from the fort, and to hide behind as their archers cut down pursuing enemies forced to come through the cave, setting themselves up as easy targets. You’re right, Zoé, it had to be fairly amazing, in its day. That got me to wondering if we might use the cave in the same way.”

“So all this is your way of saying the Romans built us an extremely clever mousetrap or hidey-hole, if we’re ever caught out here in the open.” Zoé smiled appreciatively. “One could even call it our rather singular Martello Tower. In that case, yes, we should go down there and figure out how Richard Borders managed to locate the cave entrance
.
”

“And exit.” Max led the way down the steep path before helping Zoé dismount. They waved to the old woman, who waved back before scurrying up the steep steps to her cottage. “Obviously not a Cooper,” he remarked as they crossed the slippery shingle liberally mixed with the sand, looking for the place Richard had brought them to last night.

Zoé pointed to the ground. “See that? The shingle appears to have been scraped back over the sand a bit here. I imagine another few tides and we wouldn’t be able to see that, but we can now. Oh, would you look at that. The poor old thing must have put some of that wet wood on her cooking fire.”

Max turned about to see the thick grey smoke rising from the chimney of the woman’s cottage, shook his head, and went to work on locating the correct stones, Zoé joining him.

They poked about in the same way Richard had done, and were soon rewarded. Max worked his fingers between the large stones and pulled. The door opened, not very far, but far enough. He stepped inside, leaving Zoé behind to ask, “Can you feel anything, are there handholds on the other side? If closed, do you think it possible I could push the door open again from the inside? There’s several loose boulders out here. All it would need is to roll one in front of the door, and—what do you see, Max?”

Her recently acquired fear of being enclosed, locked into the darkness. Damn. He’d forgotten about that. He stepped back into the sunlight and told her he’d go around the jetty at the shoreline, to open the other end of the tunnel, as well. “Just stay here,” he warned.

“You don’t have to ask me a second time. Be careful. Anyone could look down and see us here.”

Max didn’t know if the bell inside his head began to clang at the same time as Zoé’s did inside of hers—the smoke, high, billowing smoke anyone could see a mile away as it rose above the cliff—but before he got to the end of the stone jetty he had whirled about and was running toward her, just as she was flinging herself up onto the sidesaddle, his stallion’s reins clamped between her teeth.

He was in the saddle within a heartbeat and they were both racing toward the end of the stone jetty, around it to the other side, staying to the shoreline, their mounts’ hooves kicking up sprays of seawater as they galloped on, until they’d gone well beyond the maze.

They both pulled up, looking around them. “Now what?” Zoé asked.