What a Hero Dares (17 page)

Zoé lowered her head, her voice dropped to a near whisper. “And what do they mean? Surely nothing good, not by your reaction to the question.”

He worked his jaw back and forth, wishing he didn’t have to tell her. “The ceremonies. Most of them included wives and prostitutes brought in to play unwilling virgins. But from time to time, certain members were given true virgins, vestal virgins as they called them, presented to them on one of their sacrificial
altars
. Each man who then brought a bud into
full bloom,
was given one of those roses, and the poor woman was then handed over to the remainder of the Thirteen. As I said, Barry had at least two dozen of the things.”

“Not just pinned to a sash,” Zoé said, going down on her knees. “Look, there are more of them, worked into the tiles. Running down the center of the corridor. When did you say the portrait gallery was built?”

Max bent down, running his fingertips over the rose design, then moved along the corridor, the light from the candles illuminating another rose, and then another. “Much too long ago to believe them connected to my father, or my grandfather.”

“But easily adopted by them as some sort of symbol?”

He raked his hands through his damp hair. “We’ll probably never know.”

“No, you won’t. And it’s getting late. We can’t solve every puzzle, Max, much as we might want to.”

CHAPTER NINE

N
EITHER
OF
THEM
spoke again until they had climbed the servant stairs and retired to Max’s chamber...the one not containing a waiting servant charged with settling her mistress for the night.

Zoé grabbed up a cashmere throw left on a chair by the fireplace, and wrapped herself in it before taking a seat. Max simply sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the meager fire.

“There has to be a way to put an end to this without making widows and orphans of half the Coopers,” he told her, rubbing at his forehead as if to summon an idea. “I wish Angus were still alive. He served as a patriarch of sorts to all of them.”

“But they took his grandson. He couldn’t stop them. Isn’t that why he was living in that cottage? Unable to change what was happening, equally incapable of watching it happen?”

Zoé felt certain they had enough puzzle pieces to put at least half of the puzzle together. They just couldn’t seem to align any of them in the right way.

Max resettled himself, putting his hands to the fire. “Let’s go over everything we know, starting at the beginning.”

“Excellent suggestion. Let’s begin at the beginning, and you’re sure to come up with something brilliant. I’ve always loved watching your mind work,” Zoé said, slipping onto the hearth rug, eager to listen. And watch. “Your eyes seem to light up when you’ve solved a problem, and you look very much like a pleased Jack Horner, who’s just pulled a plum from his Christmas pie. You begin.”

They knew about the Society, didn’t need to discuss its origins, the reason behind Trixie’s offer of money to any Coopers that would leave Redgrave Manor, and probably any of the other cottagers and house servants and laborers who could have been one of her husband’s bastards. They knew some of the Coopers had gone and some had stayed.

They knew Barry had grown up to repeat his father’s actions, from resurrecting the Society to impregnating what could have been a dozen or more Cooper women.

“Including, we can safely assume, the man you saw in Ostend, the hooded figure Val and Daisy saw with the woman during their adventure into the Society.”

“Clearly she needs a Redgrave for at least part of her plan, just as she needed cooperation from the Coopers in order to be able to use Redgrave land for landing troops, for smuggling opium in and gold out. Are we decided yet on precisely why she needed you?”

“No, but I suppose I was chosen to be the earl, once Gideon was dispatched, as I’d remain next in line until Gideon and Jessica had a son. Enter Anton, both to make certain I stayed alive, and to gain my trust, until the time came she felt ready to have him bring me to her. I also imagine, if I balked, they planned to use you to convince me to cooperate.”

“Which would also mean, horribly, that none of your family would have survived whatever she planned, because that would have been too dangerous. She was relying on what Anton told her about you and me to ensure your cooperation, especially since she’d already figured out that, although she needed your half-brother, this
Scarlet,
to keep the Coopers content, his bastard status wouldn’t help her reach her ultimate goal.”

“But now it’s all falling apart. You escaped from your cell. Richard and Tariq saved me from capture the other night. An overly zealous idiot murdered Angus. Gideon and the others not only exposed them for attempting to disrupt supply lines to the Peninsula, but have managed to intercept the Society’s last two smuggling runs.”

“Meaning no opium to sell, no gold flowing across the Channel to Bonaparte. She must find you Redgraves all thoroughly annoying. I can see the beginnings of a happy glimmer in your eyes. Go on.”

“
Happily
. For all we know, they might be aware some of their carefully positioned French troops have begun to disappear, thanks to our pirate friend. Bonaparte’s troops could be less than weeks from their covert invasion, or else the emperor is ready to discard the entire plan as a failure. The Exalted Leader’s failure. Perhaps even Anton’s failure.”

“Even more delicious,” Zoé purred. “Although trapped animals can be exceedingly dangerous. How can we make things the worse for them? All while avoiding as much Cooper bloodshed as possible, taking your sensibilities into account.”

“We know where the women and children are. I’m certain I can get a message to Gideon before he leaves London. We’re still avoiding Perceval, but Gideon should have no trouble finding other help. Quietly remove the wives and children, and the Coopers will lose half their heart for fighting. I know them, at least half of them. They’re good men at heart, and losing Angus must have crushed them.”

“And everyone here? What about their safety?”

“We’ve got our own pirate crew, we’ve got the gates, we’ve got the moat.”

“I beg your pardon. The
moat?
I saw the gates as we rode out this morning, but I’d hardly call the ha-ha that joins gate to gate a moat. With the sun shining on it, it was actually rather pretty. Colorful.”

“You must have been too dazzled to be with me again to not notice. The ha-ha, that sunken fence, does more than keep sheep from wandering loose. It’s deeper than most, for one. The bottom of the thing might be lacking water, but the top of the stone wall that’s level with the Manor lawns is embedded all over with broken glass, not pretty stones. It only looks innocent, and yes, colorful.”

“But the Coopers know that. It wouldn’t deter attackers for long.”

“Some of them. I doubt they’re all as committed as their leader would wish them to be. Once their families are gone, I think the Exalted Leader will have a desertion problem on her hands, if not an outright mutiny.”

“And while she and Anton are struggling to control what they’ve built, you and I will destroy them. Have we figured the
how
of that yet?”

“I’m rather hopeful they’ll be panicked enough to do that for us.” Max helped Zoé to her feet. “Try to sleep. I’ll go downstairs now to pen a letter to Gideon and hunt down Val and Simon. I think we can trust the defense of Redgrave Manor to them.”

“And what are you and I going to do, other than hope?”

“We can’t hide behind the safety of these walls, that’s for certain. So we’re going to do what we do best, go on the hunt. You and me, together. I’ll locate your leathers. Be ready to leave before dawn.”

“Finally!” she said, putting her hands on his shoulders and giving him a hard, bracing kiss. “We are who and what we are, Max, and it’s time we came to peace with that.”

* * *

A
NTON
B
OUCHER
and the woman reclined on a fairly tattered, deep red velvet chaise longue. Naked, finally sated, they passed the small ivory opium pipe back and forth between them. “I hate cellars. I can’t believe you let that marvelous ceremonial chamber burn,” he said. “I only saw it the one time, enjoyed it the one time, but the memory will never leave me. Money and unconventional appetites make for clever companions.”

“We’ll build another, even better than the first. Besides, you said you hate cellars.”

“The lowest level of a magnificent dower house is hardly a cellar.
This,
” he said, looking at his surroundings, “is a cellar. Dark, damp, smelling of candle smoke and sweated bodies. A sad imitation, madam, much worse than that idiot Mailer fellow’s Fernwood and those bloody standing stones you all thought so perfect for your devil-laden gibberish.”

“Yes, I think Post had second thoughts about constructing the circle and altar just before he died. Have you ever seen a man hanged, Anton? I’ve heard it said they often die appearing fully aroused, just as Post conveniently lifted himself to my knife. I know I was stirred to my depths just before I struck, but had his fear turned to anticipation?”

“We might want to give that possibility more study. I suggest your idiot as our first candidate.”

She turned in his arms, handing him the pipe. “So jealous, Anton. You’re rarely here. I have needs. Besides, once we have your lost sheep back in the pen, I’ll take care of Niall. I think about it all the time, whenever I’m with him. So handsome, so well set up, yet still a bumbling ox, but necessary for now.”

“I’ll have the girl shortly. I wasn’t so stupid as to leave myself without a trump card, and only had to wait until it was brought to me. It has to be now, as I know their habits. They believe the best way to victory is to move fast and make up their plan of attack along the way. Especially him. I don’t think he understands fear. I had his only weakness in my hands, and I lost her, yes. I’ll have her back.”

“Because of this supposed trump card.”

Anton put down the pipe and levered himself lower on the cushions, to begin lightly biting the woman’s skin. Watching her nipples tauten as his bites came closer, closer. Draw it out. Make her squirm, begging for more. Then the pleasure. Then the pain. She asked too damn many questions. It was time to remind her yet again that he was the one in charge.

“Your last question, bitch. Yes, it’s being delivered now.”

He raised his head, smiled up at her unblinking, opium-befogged eyes. Then he lowered his head once more and moved on....

* * *

Z
OÉ
QUICKLY
DROPPED
her leathers to the floor and kicked them beneath the bed. “Oh, it’s you, Magret,” she said when she saw the maid. “Again, I apologize that Mr. Redgrave woke you and ordered you to bring my leathers to me at this ungodly hour.” She bent down and retrieved them. “What has he bothered you with this time?”

Magret scratched at the hairs on her chin. Her rough-cotton dressing gown made her into a man-o-war in full sail, but then most anything would. Magret certainly didn’t hide behind the door at mealtime. “Don’t know as I can say for certain it came from him. One of the lads guarding one of the gates brought it to me before he was off to bed, all sealed up everywhere and everything. Think there’s somethin’ in it. Here you go. I’m for m’bed myself, and this time to stay there. Morning comes sooner now than it used to.”

Taking the offered square-folded paper, Zoé thanked the maid and then took herself over to the fire, breaking the seal and unfolding the single sheet. Something fell to the hearth. She only glanced at the letter as she went down on her knees to locate whatever had dropped.

She located the golden object by its shine, thanks to the fire, and held it in front of her for a long time. Her mother’s wedding ring. Her father had worn it on his little finger ever since her death.

Another cruel stab at her heart, delivered by Anton Boucher. He knew where she was, he knew how to reach her, and most of all, he knew how to hurt her.

But that’s all it did. The cross, now the ring? Both were probably taken at the same time, with Anton holding on to the ring if he thought he ever needed it. In reality, it meant nothing.

Then she remembered the letter. And recognized her father’s bold, distinctive handwriting, and his use of her favorite form of endearment,
my little jewel
.

Do not come,
ma petite bijou.
My fate is mine, not yours. I implore you, do not believe anything this heinous creature tells—

The rest was nothing but a trail of black ink, as if the paper had been pulled away before her father could finish.

Below these words, Anton’s usual chicken-scratch slanted across the page.

I graciously allowed him to write whatever garbage he wished, Zoé,
ma cocette,
as long as he would write. As the clock strikes three, be at the gate you and your lover used this morning. Tell no one. You and I, we have matters to discuss, a bargain to be struck. Shall I be conspicuously dramatic, and say your dear papa’s fate hangs in the balance?

Zoé’s hands were shaking so badly that the ring dropped once more, and she jumped at the faint sound it made, clinking against the hearth, nearly rolling into the fire before she could retrieve it.

She read the single page one more time, and then yet another.

She knew what she should do. She should immediately go to Max, tell him. Show him the letter. Let him see that he was right to be hopeful.

The last thing she should do was anything Anton ordered her to do. The very last thing. She could be walking into a trap, a web of his making, and when Max found out he’d come searching her, all caution thrown to the wind. Because he believed he loved her, she would be risking his life, as well.

And her father? How could she disobey her father? But how could she obey him and live the remainder of her life knowing obeying him had meant his death?

He’d been lost to her. She’d finally begun to accept that.

But now...?

Zoé rubbed at the tears streaming down her cheeks, touched the ring to her lips and kissed it, telling herself the warmth she felt wasn’t from the fire, but still held her father’s body heat. She held the ring, and held her father.

The clock on the mantel struck out the hour of two. If she was to be at the gate in an hour, she had to make up her mind. If she was going to tell Max, argue with Max, even plan with Max, she would be late and, knowing Anton too well, her father would die.

The paper went into the fire, Zoé watching as it turned black and fell into ashes. When she explained, if she lived to explain, Max would understand.

“Perhaps,” she told herself.

She had to get on the move, and quickly stripped off her dressing gown before climbing into her leathers. Her hands continued to shake as she wrapped the blade of the stiletto in a strip of white linen ripped from one of her borrowed petticoats, and slid it into her left boot, because Anton would expect it to be in the sleeve in her right boot. She didn’t bother with her throwing knives at all, as she wasn’t about to hand them over in any case. She didn’t plan on leaving her side of the gates.

If he asked, she’d tell him that Max had taken her knives. That he’d believed the truth when she explained it, but still wasn’t about to trust her with her weapons. Yes, that was plausible. Anton could believe that lie.