What a Hero Dares (13 page)

Angus Cooper was gone, perhaps to be reunited with his beloved grandson, and Max was racing after Zoé, his eyes scanning the rocks and cliff above him.

“They’re on top of the jetty. Two of them, both with bows. We go into the cave, and then out the other side, take cover in the maze. Zoé—go!”

She was standing in the narrow opening, but not moving, using the ancient door for cover. “No, the other side looks to be closed. It’s a trap, Max. They know about the cave and they want us to go in there. I won’t. I can’t.”

An arrow hit the ground, striking between Max and Zoé.

Max flattened himself against the stones. She could be right. The archers may have seen the opening and pushed it shut. He looked toward the nearest cottage, gauging the distance. He looked toward Angus’s wagon, and the nearly somnolent mule, his mind whirling with possibilities. There weren’t many, and Zoé wasn’t going to like either one he settled on. But she could only berate him for what he was about to do if she lived that long.

He squinted up at the stacked boulders at least twenty-five feet above them and thought he could see a soft-soled leather boot tip protruding out over the edge. He had no clear shot with his pistols; he had to get them down, on a level with him. At least one of them.

“Do we have a choice? They still want us alive. Any of those arrows could have gotten me, but that doesn’t mean they’ll just let us simply walk away. I swear to you, Zoé, the other end of the tunnel is open. I opened it myself. Let’s go.”

Zoé turned to look behind her. Into the darkness, the damp, the memories of her Paris cell. “You’d damn well better be right,” she told him, and stepped completely inside.

He deftly relieved her of one of the throwing knives tucked into the waistband of her skirt, and pushed closed the door behind her. Either the other end was still open, or after he disposed of their attackers, he was going to need to be rescued from her.

He began running, crouched down and zig-zagging his way until he could launch himself in the air, dive headfirst beneath the wagon. Laboring to catch his breath, he knew he’d just created a stalemate. He couldn’t move from where he was, but nobody could get to him, also because of where he was.

Simple logistics.

Zoé might be trapped inside the cave, but she was armed. Anton would have warned anyone that the beautiful blonde Frenchwoman was never unarmed, that she was more deadly than any man with her knives. No, they’d leave her where she was for the moment, out of the game, and concentrate on capturing him.

This alone put their attackers at a disadvantage, the order to capture their quarry alive.

He’d give them five minutes to make up their minds, hoping they would be too embarrassed by the mess they’d made to summon reinforcements.

Now, what would he do if presented with the same situation? Discounting Zoé as his partner, because there was no one else like Zoé.

All right. He’d backtrack, leave the jetty entirely, and approach from another angle. Archers, not swordsmen, most probably not trusted with firearms because they were considered by someone as not bright enough to aim and fire, or too stupid not to panic and shoot. After all, if they’d been set to do nothing but cool their heels somewhere nearby while watching for smoke from one of the cottages, it wasn’t as if they were the best men the Society had in their employ.

The smartest plan would be to have one of them going for help, the other left to guard the area. He’d already crossed that one off his mental list. The second best thing, if no help was close at hand, would be to separate, one to make his way to the Channel end of the ruined fort, remaining above the wagon, the other to scale down the cliff and make his way along the side, to come around the end of the jetty in an effort to surprise his quarry.

Stupid men would stay together, for comfort, and both attempt to attack via the end of the jetty.

Having convinced himself he was dealing with dunces, Max slipped Zoé’s throwing knife into his boot, made sure his pistols remained secure in his waistband.

It was time.

The tide was beginning to come in, and the sound of the surf would block out any noise made by boots slipping on the shingle. Theirs, or his. Max took in three deep breaths, and pushed out from his hiding place to run toward the ruined wall of the Roman fort, hitting it at its lowest point, the wall no more than ten feet high.

No arrows hit the sand near him. The two were on the move, just as he’d hoped. How bloody cooperative of them.

Up he went, just as he had as a child: hand over hand, his boots occasionally slipping, but never losing his grip. He steadied himself once at the top, looked over the edge and smiled.

Seconds later, Zoé’s knife between his teeth, a pistol in each hand, Max launched himself into the air.

His wasn’t quite the landing he’d hoped for, as he lost his footing on the shingle and ended up on his rump a good ten yards in front of the approaching men. Even from this ignominious position, he knew himself to be in charge, although his teeth hurt after landing so heavily with the blade still between them. He dearly hoped he hadn’t chipped a tooth, or else he’d never hear the end of it from Zoé.

He leaned to his left, opened his jaws so that the knife fell harmlessly to the ground. That left him with the pistols, which he had already cocked.

And yet one of the archers struggled, with shaking hands, to ready an arrow.

“You must be funning me, sir,” Max said, getting to his feet even as he retrieved the knife and stuck it into his waistband. “Put that thing down, unless you think I can’t aim accurately at this short distance. Both of you, toss away your bows, and then lock your fingers together behind your heads. Ah, that’s better. Now, turn around, and move forward until I tell you to stop.”

Once they were abreast of the ancient opening, he ordered them to sit down where they stood, keeping their hands crossed behind their heads. Damn if they hadn’t pushed the stones back into place. With one pistol directed at them, he fumbled his way around edges and angles of rocks until he located the handholds.

“You. Yes, you, the one nearest to me. You shut it, now pull it open again if you please. But then I’d step back, were I you, and quickly take a seat once more. She wouldn’t kill an unarmed man.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I’
D
INQUIRE
as to the whereabouts of my hat, but since the rest of the outfit is already leagues past repair, I suppose it isn’t necessary. I am curious, however, as to how you lost it.”

Zoé, brushing her long, still-damp blond hair as she sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace, smiled at Lady Katherine Redgrave as the young woman took one last look at the jacket of the green riding habit, its golden-braid trimmings now sadly ripped or missing, before letting it drop to the floor. She looked just as Max had described her: always curious, definitely exotic and with lively eyes that spoke of a love for mischief. He hadn’t mentioned how remarkably beautiful she was, but then brothers never notice the obvious.

“Didn’t Max tell you, when he told everyone the rest?”

Kate sighed deeply. “The rest. Yes, he did. Poor Angus. Trixie was quite upset and has already ordered his body brought here, to be buried beside Liam. Liam was his grandson, you know. You do know, don’t you?”

“I don’t know that I know
everything,
but I believe I’ll catch up. Has anyone recognized the two we brought back with us?”

Kate shook her head, her loose dark waves catching any bit of sunlight coming in through the window beside her. “I’m rather glad we didn’t.”

Zoé thought she and Lady Katherine might be much alike in many ways, except that the younger woman, for all the Redgraves’ current troubles, seemed to have a love of life surrounding her, a sort of innocent glow Zoé couldn’t remember ever possessing on her own.

Except when she was with Max.

“I want to thank you for the loan of your clothing,” she told Kate as she stroked a hand over the soft lawn of the dressing gown and matching night rail she’d donned after her bath. “Hopefully, nothing else will meet with disaster. Although I wouldn’t count on that, if I don’t get my leathers back,” she ended, muttering under her breath.

Kate dismissed the thanks with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry about that, we’ve lots to give you. Since my shoes seem too large for you, I’ve had a few of Jessica’s put in your dressing room. Daisy and her sister are still building their own wardrobes, as they both came to us rather— Well, Max will tell you about that, too, I’m sure. You’ll see Daisy at dinner, but Rose still prefers to eat in her rooms most times. She’s recovering from...from an illness.” Then she leaned forward on the slipper chair she’d been occupying. “Are you and Max friends again? Trixie said it would be a world of help to all of us if you were.”

“Out.”

Both Zoé and Kate turned toward the sound of the voice coming from the now open doorway leading to the hall.

“Oh, Max,” Kate complained, although she had gotten to her feet. “We were simply getting acquainted.”

“By way of an interrogation, Kate? You may be all grown up, even betrothed—Simon a clear example of that business about love being blind—but you’re still a pest. I repeat—
out
.”

“Brothers.” Kate rolled her eyes comically at Zoé, and then brushed past Max on her way out of the bedchamber. “You always were the bossiest one. Except for Gideon.”

“Yes, and Val has always been soft clay in the palm of your hand. I know. Now go.” Max followed her, turning the lock behind her before approaching Zoé.

He looked marvelous, as always, whether clad in his finery or dripping with mud. Although he could benefit from a shave. She wondered if he’d still trust her with a straight razor.

“Are you all right? We really didn’t have a chance to talk while we were herding those men back here, or since.”

“That would depend,” she said, putting down the brushes. “The splinters are gone, the burrs, as well, and the scratches will heal in time. Then there are the small, itchy bumps, although the lotion Magret applied to them appears to be helping with the itch. That cave is filled with sand fleas, in case you’re wondering. You saw Magret?”

“I suppose so, if you mean that woman I passed by in the hallway. Lovely creature.”

“In her own way, yes. She hasn’t had an easy life.”

Ah, she seemed to have managed to pull his interest away from the opening of her borrowed dressing gown. “She’s with the pirates? What did she tell you?”

“That she had a daughter, long ago, with hair the color of mine. But the child died, and then
everyone
left and sailed here, to England. Her man dug a grave and filled it with Dolly’s clothes and toys, and fashioned a headstone with her name on it, just for his wife. She and the children they’ve had since still keep fresh flowers there. Many others did the same thing, just so they’d never forget, and the cap’n makes sure all those otherwise empty graves are well tended.”

“Christ. I wonder what happened.”

“As do I, but neither of us is going to ask.”

“No. We’re not. Do you forgive me for locking you in the dark?”

“Actually, Max, I should thank you. I panicked, I won’t deny it. I couldn’t breathe, not even to scream, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I thought about the tide coming in, what it would be like to drown. But then I thought of you, out there, with nobody to guard your back, and that made me angry enough with your recklessness to conquer my fear. I’d just located the interior handholds when the door was pulled open from the other side.”

He approached her and sat down behind her, cross-legged, reaching around to lift the brushes from her lap. “Well, I’m gratified I proved useful, and possibly ecstatic that it was your concern for me that replaced your fears. No more being afraid of the dark?”

“I was never afraid of— Yes, and no more fear of locked doors. Although picturing seawater swirling around my legs, climbing to my chest, rolling into my mouth as I was at last forced to take a breath? That won’t be so easily forgotten.”

“But also forgiven?” he asked as he raised the brushes...which was just as she turned about and planted her fist in his belly.

That was better. “Oh, yes. Completely forgiven.
Now
.”

Max dropped the brushes and clutched at his abdomen, desperately attempting to draw in air.

She grabbed at his shoulders. “Max? Max, are you all right? I know you weren’t ready for it, but I certainly didn’t punch you
that
hard. Did you sustain another injury when you went overboard? Why didn’t you tell me? Max, for God’s sake—breathe.”

He was on her in a heartbeat, his injury clearly feigned. Together, they rolled away from the fireplace, onto a large plush carpet.

Still grasping each other, trying to get to each other with their mouths, their hands, their entwined legs.

“Let me,” he gasped as she went for the buttons on his breeches.

“No, I can— Max! I promised your sister I wouldn’t ruin any more of her— Oh...oh, yes.”

He was ravaging her with his lips, his tongue, taking hungry nips of her even as she reached inside his now opened breeches, to be as ever amazed by the strength of him, the sheer heat of him.

He knew her every secret, and exploited several of them even as she managed the last button, released him to rear up, and then bring herself down on him, covering him, taking him in.

“Now,” he said, rising to meet her, beginning the long, deep strokes that would bring them both to their goal, meld them, join them, satisfy their bodily hungers even as their wounded souls stood off, watchful, hopeful there someday could be so much more than this wild, excruciating pleasure. More than simply mating, like animals in the wild.

With one last long, low moan of pleasure, Zoé collapsed against him, her head in the crook of his shoulder, her breathing labored, her body still quivering.

Beneath her, Max was also attempting to recover his breath, lying nearly limp against the carpet, his manhood still inside her.

“Well...” he said finally. “Now that the inevitable is out of the way...”

“Wretch,” she managed as she pulled back, looked down into his face, her long hair brushing against him. “But yes, now that that’s out of the way—now what?”

“I hate to say it—loathe it, actually—but as it has been so many times, it’s back to work. Unless you have nothing else to cover yourself with, which might delay that business for another few minutes.”

“Methinks thou might overstate thy recuperative powers, good sir,” she teased as she rolled off him, using the ruined dressing gown and its underlying night rail to tidy both of them. “Magret is a woman of the world, but we’ll nevertheless burn these,” she said as she stripped off her clothing and got to her feet. “Here, do the deed while I search for something else to wear. But first either stuff that thing back inside and button your breeches or prepare for attack.”

Max laughed, ducked out of the way of the nightclothes, and propped himself up on one elbow, clearly intending to watch as she searched the wardrobe. “You’ve no shame, do you?”

She looked back at him over her shoulder. How little he knew. How she longed to return to his arms, rain kisses all over his face, rest her head on his chest just to listen to his heart’s steady beat. She would happily lie like that for hours. “With you? No. Should I?”

“Never.”

There was so much emotion in that single word, so much intensity in his gaze. She had to turn away, and busied herself locating a simple, modest night rail never meant to be seen by a lover or a husband. She doubted Lady Katherine had harbored any regrets in passing it along to her, now that she’d met her Simon.

She slipped the thing over her head and turned around in time to see Max slowly feeding strips of the ruined linen to the fire.

“You’ve questioned our two captives?” she asked, picking up what was left of the dressing gown.

“Here, give me that. I don’t want to smother the fire by dumping everything in there at once. I think you’ve had enough smoke for one day. We’ll just let that lot burn while I help you with those tangles. I love your hair as it is, but wish it longer, like before.”

She went down on her knees on the hearth rug, her back to him once more. “Head lice,” she said, wondering at the expression on his face now. “I refused to shave it, and rescued quite a bit, but ended in cutting much of it off. From prison lice to Redgrave sand fleas. Do you think that’s progress?”

“Zoé, I—”

“No, don’t apologize. Not ever again. I managed a return to my father’s foundry before I left Paris for Salzburg. Bonaparte’s crest hangs above the door, and the entire place, every last structure, was alight, even in the dead of night, with the forges burning hot, clearly to supply French troops. But I could still make out where the king’s crest once had hung against the brick. Everything changes, everything remains the same.”

He retrieved the brushes and set to work. “And the same poor sots who serve them generation after generation, all dying for an ambitious man’s dream. How many times did we wonder why we do what we do, Zoé? Look what that brought us to. There’ll never be an end to war, because there’ll never be an end to man’s selfish ambition.”

“Never an end to the sort of man who seems to know just what to say, just how to say it, to get others to blindly believe, blindly follow. Our pirate friend is right, as far as he went. Cut off the head, and the rest of the fish dies, true. But there will always be another ambitious fish rising to take over even the smallest pond.”

“And to kill all the ambitious fish would give rise to nothing but anarchy, so we are left to choose between bad and worse. Were the Stuarts less of a hazard than the Hanovers? Is Bonaparte a better choice than bringing the Bourbons back to the throne? We can’t know, can we?”

Zoé turned, took the brushes from him, put them down, and settled herself comfortably, her arms wrapped around her bent knees. “All we can do is our best, Max. Wasn’t that always our conclusion?”

“It was. I just never thought there could be such evil ambition within my own family, this
poison
that corrupted those we believed our servants and friends.”

“Promises of glory and money and rank, coupled with the irresistible lure of sexual pleasure. Looking back at history, hardly original. You have to know your grandfather wasn’t the first to employ such methods. You and your family have a lot on your plates, I agree, but you all need to get past the shame of the thing before you can truly put a stop to a horror that clearly reaches beyond just you Redgraves. You, all of you, have to remain objective.”

“We Redgraves,” he said, sighing. “You asked about the two men we caught today. They told us
they’re
Redgraves. Bought off or thrown off the estate by Trixie, of all people, when my grandfather died, and thus denied their rightful inheritance.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, my dear, that their assertion is that Trixie was never legally my grandfather’s wife. That he’d declared his love for one of the Coopers, and married her. Put more than one child in her belly, only to go to the altar with Trixie, ashamed of his first choice, who could never be considered royal enough to be queen of England. Meaning those banished Coopers of long ago have somehow convinced those who remained on the estate that what they’ve worked so hard to build and maintain is actually
theirs,
although some resisted joining them, Angus among them. To those two men, he was the enemy. The fact that he was seen speaking with me sealed his fate.”

“My God,” Zoé said quietly, even as her mind raced. But this was good, this was she and Max at their combined best. Between them, they’d always been able to solve any puzzle...save for Anton Boucher. But now they had a second chance. “The blond man. That’s why he’s tolerated. He must be the one carrying the most direct Redgrave blood. That’s why she keeps him, that’s why she needs him. Max, we’ve got to find the woman, the pair of them. Everything hinges on them.”

“And Trixie? Do you think at least part of the story is true? Was our father a bastard? Is this blond imbecile you saw actually the true Earl of Saltwood? No wonder he took the code name Scarlet. Scarlet, for red. For Redgrave. Both Charles and Barry used the same name.”

She could see the moral struggle in his expression. “Did anyone else hear their confession?”