What a Hero Dares (16 page)

She whirled around to face him, her wet hair slapping against her cheeks. “Yes, yes. All right, Max. He told me that day. My father dead, Georges and the others lying in front of me, your life in my hands, safe only if I obeyed Anton, but forever lost to me. I had nothing left, do you understand that?
Nothing
. Anton took it all.”

“I’m sorry, Zoé. I’m so damn sorry.” Max wanted to throw something, break something, kill someone. Kill Anton Boucher. Kill him a thousand times over. His anger remained under control only because that sort of wild, unbridled fury would get him nowhere, wouldn’t help Zoé.

“All because of the Society. All because of what my family began. Why did he involve you? Why was it you he picked to be punished for Redgrave sins?”

“Let it go, Max. I have. Otherwise I would have gone mad a long time ago. We can’t change what we can’t control.” Zoé had finished dressing and used the hem of her skirt to wipe at her damp cheeks. “Besides, I was his instrument, never his real target. You were, from the beginning. You probably still are.”

“But why not Gideon, the head of the family? Why not the others?”

“I don’t know. It’s only clear he wanted you alive until he and that damn Society needed you, and I could suppose, because he knew we were lovers, he planned to use me against you in some way. Perhaps to make you do something he wanted you to do. We’ve talked about this.”

He bent down and helped her on with her slippers, attempting to wrap his mind around scattered pieces of fact and roll them together into some sort of understandable shape. “He knew I’d grown suspicious of him, and used you to show he was loyal. Poor Anton, losing his only nephew to a cold-blooded murderess. But to murder your
father?
He’s gone to a lot of trouble, Zoé. He has to believe he’s got one devil of a fine reward coming his way at the end of this.”

“Not to mention indulging his penchant for cruelty in the interim. And his obsessive appetite for women. I think that becomes more important now that we know what else the Society does. Orgies, perversions of all kinds. And don’t look at me like that—Kate brought me one of the journals when I was in my bath. She said she thought I should know. It was, uh, interesting reading.”

“God’s teeth. That child needs discipline.”

“That
child
is as strong as any of you. Your grandmother did not raise any simpering fools.”

“No, I suppose you’re right. It’s just damn difficult to accept she’s grown up now and has had to face so many uncomfortable truths.” He ran his spread fingers through his damp hair—to cover his ears? Certainly not! “You’re ready to go back?”

“Only if we can enter through the kitchens and use the servant stairs.”

“If you think that will keep Trixie from finding out, you’ve missed the mark by a long chalk.”

“Yes, but at least she’ll be made to work for it, or have to pay for it. I’m not going to simply walk in the front door and make it easy for her. She wouldn’t like that.”

Despite everything he’d learned again tonight, Max couldn’t help but laugh as he slipped his hand into hers and they turned back toward the Manor. “You’ve barely met her, and yet you already know her so well. Are you quite sure I don’t love you? Because I think you may be wrong.”

Zoé rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t smile. “You didn’t ask me how I knew Anton was telling me the truth about my father, that he wasn’t lying.”

Max squeezed her hand. “I felt it best to take my cues from you. I know you’ll tell me when and if you decide you want me to know.”

‘I...I want you to know. Anton produced my father’s gold cross, the one he wore every day for as long as I can remember. The entire front was embedded with diamonds, and our names were engraved on the back. His,
Maman’s,
mine. No matter how straitened our circumstances, he refused to sell it. Anton showed it to me that day, was careful to point out the dried blood embedded in the chain, and then smashed it under the heel his boot. Ground it into the dirt...”

Max had to struggle to find any words. He knew how to offer her passion, but not comfort. He felt a wave of shame crash down over his head. He knew so much about her, yet so little. Maybe she was right.
God, please don’t let her be right.

So he offered what he could.

“As you said, Zoé, he’s yours. I didn’t believe you should be so obsessed with his death, but I’ve changed my mind.”

She stopped just as they’d made their way beyond the trees, out of the near-dark beneath them and back into the moonlight, and turned to face him. “Do you remember what I said at the dinner table? That you might hesitate if faced with the woman,
because
she’s a woman?”

“I do. You’re saying I was raised as a gentleman. I think you’re forgetting that most of those lessons didn’t exactly stick.”

“But enough of them. You could hesitate, and that could mean the death of you.
I
could hesitate when faced with Anton, hating him so much, needing to know more about my father, not wanting to give him a quick, easy death. We both know that when it comes time to kill, you must strike at that moment, or the moment could be gone.”

“And the tables reversed. We’ve been at this entirely too long. I don’t think normal people calmly discuss who is going to dispatch whom to hell.”

“Only one last mission, Max. Then I’m done. I hope you will be, too. We’ve given enough.”

“One last dance with the devil, and with everyone I hold dear in jeopardy.” He saw her shiver, and put his arm around her. “Are you cold? Do you want to go to your chamber now, or will you grant me yet another favor, and go with me?”

“You can’t possibly still be—”

“Hardly. I need both of us thinking straight tomorrow.”

“And walking straight,” she responded, and her unholy grin was just what was needed. Or meant to divert the subject away from her father. How had they both grown so adept at avoiding uncomfortable subjects? “Yes, we need to concentrate on the Society.”

“I’m glad you agree, because I’ve just had an idea. I don’t know if it will confirm what we’ve been thinking, but we’ll probably sleep better if we can be positive of our conclusions. Or perhaps you’ll slumber, blissfully happy we were proved right, while I won’t be able to sleep at all.”

“That sounds ominous. Where are we going?”

“To the portrait gallery. It’s mostly a long hall, wide enough for the ladies to manage their enormous skirts as they took their daily exercise there on inclement days. The portraits and busts and truly grotesque bits of art were put there to entertain them. Trixie always said it was a good place to avoid. I always thought she worried we might be frightened, but now, of course, I’m not so certain. If she was ever going to be haunted, that would most probably be the place.”

“Wonderful. You certainly know how to pique my curiosity.”

They entered the Manor via the kitchens, not even rousing the sleeping footman who had been left to mind the banked fire, and tiptoed to the library, where Max made short work of lighting one of the heavy silver candelabras, knowing the portrait gallery was never lit at night, for fear the ancient, dried-out canvasses could go up in flames.

“There’s three steps leading up to the doors, so keep your attention on the floor,” he told Zoé. “The doors themselves are solid copper, another of Gideon’s ideas, and meant to keep any fire at bay until it can be extinguished from outside. But there are windows lining both sides, also to entertain the ladies with glimpses of the grounds. Connected to the rest of this pile only via that one set of doors, build atop massive arched pillars that allowed for a more open walkway below, using the floor of the gallery as a sort of roof.”

“I’ll want to look at it all again in the daylight. But why are you telling me all of this?”

Max held the candelabra lower, to better illuminate the stairs, and then pushed open one of the doors. “I don’t know,” he said, but then sighed. “Yes, I do. I want you to know the Redgraves weren’t all monsters. My great-great-grandfather ordered the gallery built, designed it himself. Gideon favors him, I think. The plans he drew are framed and hung inside as a matter of fact.
His
son experimented with different breeds of cattle and sheep, as well as flowers and trees and seeds brought from America and the Caribbean, Africa, most of Europe. He tried his hand at tobacco, even wine—wine was the greater success. The only crime he committed was to smuggle tulip bulbs out of Holland, which in those days was actually a fairly serious offense.”

Zoé placed her hand on his forearm. “Max, it’s all right. You don’t have anything to prove to me.”

He put down the candelabra. “Maybe I’m trying to prove something to myself. Blood can’t be denied, Zoé. Trixie always protected us, did her best to keep the taint away from us, but she also clearly believed I would be her greatest challenge. She recognized the...the
fire
in me and found a way to channel it, I suppose. She kept me on the Continent, always watching me, and I was the last to learn everything about the Society. Why? I don’t delight in killing, but I do it, and I don’t second-guess myself or lie awake trying to deal with regrets. Even now, you tell me what we have between us is some sort of lust, not love.”

Max turned to look at her, intent on her reaction. “Are my siblings like our ancestors, their better half? Is there some dark animal inside me? Am I the one who is most my father’s son?”

“Do you rape women?”

She persisted. “Do you enjoy inflicting pain? Have you dreams about power, and enormous wealth? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to get them? Did you ever—”

“All right, all right, I see your point. No, I don’t crave any of those things. I’m more than adequately well-off, thanks to Trixie’s careful management of some inheritances, but I’m rarely ever at my estate, and see no need of a residence in Mayfair as long as Gideon agrees to open the mansion to all of us. And only an idiot would want the crown. But—”

“Let it go, Max. You know you’re not your father, or your grandfather. You fight to protect your country. You kill when necessary, but never when it’s not. You’d probably hand Anton over to the hangman unless he left you no other choice. The only dark demons inside you are the ones you put there. You’re an honorable man, and honorable men always act so brave and strong, while inside, you’re all wasting your efforts questioning yourselves. I think that’s called your conscience. Madmen don’t possess a conscience, and they most certainly never question themselves. So I think you’re safe.”

When he told himself these things, he couldn’t be sure. Hearing them from Zoé must have been all he needed. He pressed a kiss against her hair.

“The practical French. Thank you. But about this seemingly overwhelming lust I have for you...?”

“Yes, there is that. I think we may have to speak about that in more depth once we’ve saved the world, or at least this small part of it. I’ve been having questions myself.”

Max felt something tight and painful at last uncoil within him. “We can be celibate until then, if that helps? I don’t want to confuse you.”

“I imagine it hurt to say that,” she said, looking relieved now that he’d left off being so damnably maudlin...something he never thought he could be. “But, yes, that would be for the best. I broke my own rule.”

“I helped you break it.”

“Taking blame again now, Max, or credit?” she asked, picking up the candelabra, to begin looking at the portraits, slowly walking past one ornate frame after another. “Where are they? Your father and grandfather? I know they were English, and you all seem to favor your Spanish mother, but the dress in these portaits is all wrong. I should be looking for powdered wigs and satin coats.”

“Barry refused to wear wigs or powder. He was too proud of his own hair.” He relieved her of the heavy candelabra. “This way, down to the end. Gideon is soon going to have to enlarge the gallery, or else start packing some of the old boys and their wives away in the attics. There’s really only room left for him and Jessica. All right, here we go. Charles always amazed me with his chosen pose. He appears in profile, as if he planned to have the image struck in gold coin...which perhaps he did, now that I know more about him. And this last one, of course, is my father. Gideon has yet to sit for his portrait.”

He waited, holding up the candelabra, but Zoé only looked at Barry Redgrave’s full-length pose, and said nothing. The longer he waited, the more he knew his worst fears had been realized. It had been one thing to discuss the possibility, make assumptions. But it was another thing entirely to
know
.

At last she spoke. “It’s really rather remarkable. The same hair, the same eyes. They’re even about the same age, about the same as your brother Gideon, I imagine. There’s some resemblance you all carry of your father, mostly around the mouth and chin, but this? This is nearly an exact likeness. And there’s your answer, Max. This consort, this man we’re all looking for—the man you all want to destroy, the man who clearly wants to destroy you all—is most probably your half-brother. That’s really what you wanted to know when you brought me here. Well, there he is,” she said, pointing to the portrait. “Not to be dramatic, but
there’s
your real monster.”

“Or the Exalted Leader’s necessary dupe. She couldn’t chance revealing herself and her plans to any of us, so it turned into choosing any Redgrave in a storm, so to speak?” Was he being too forgiving, was he hoping to avoid even the idea of fighting against his own blood? Yes, he was. This half-brother had poisoned the minds of Coopers, sent Angus’s grandson out to be killed, then had Angus destroyed, as well.

“Whoever he is, he’s firmly under the woman’s control, to the point where he’d stand back and allow her to bed another while he waited on the street like some lost puppy. Can we leave here now? It’s cold in here, and my hair is still wet. Oh, wait. Lift the candles again, please. I wanted to ask—what’s that he’s got pinned in his cravat?”

Max didn’t bother to raise the candelabra. He didn’t have to look. “A golden rose, depicted in full bloom, with a small diamond at its center. To hear Simon tell it, Barry had enough of them to fill a sash draped across his chest.”