What a Hero Dares (19 page)

“The same failings of my husband and son. A consequence for anyone of ambition to consider with care,” Trixie said. “I believe I can tell you the rest. In short and in long, she’s become an embarrassment as well as a danger, and clearly must be eliminated. I suppose, put in Bonaparte’s position, I would have concluded the same thing.”

“Gone rogue is how Boucher put it, Trixie,” Max added, hoping it was only the flickering light from the candles that suddenly had his always indomitable grandmother looking so very sad and old. “On top of everything else, to my understanding, things haven’t been going so brilliantly for her of late.”

Val smiled at Simon and Kate, and then looked somewhat smugly to Max. “You’re welcome. So, how can we help you now?”

Max reeled off what he needed. “I want this Charfield person brought to this room. Now, tonight. Richard is already doing that for us, after softening the man up a bit by rudely waking him, ordering him to dress, and plying him with wine, frightening him and reassuring him the entire time. With your help, Val, Zoé and I think we might have a way of loosening his tongue.”

“A-hem.”

“Yes, Trixie. You and Zoé and I believe we have a way to loosen his tongue. My apologies.”

Good. She already seemed to have recovered from whatever had made her look so defeated. That was Trixie. Down, but never out.

“And one thing more.” He looked at Simon. “Please allow me to finish before jumping up to break my nose, remember she is my sister, and that I love her dearly.”

“Go on,” Simon said, his jaw clenching.

“If Boucher no longer trusts the Society, I doubt the Society still trusts him. Kate, I need you to go upstairs now with Zoé, and put on her leathers. There’s got to be someone in the Society’s employ watching the primary gate, and I need that person to see Zoé ride out within the hour. Sooner, if possible. They’ll be opened for her and she won’t be questioned. If the woman is smarter than I begin to give her credit for, she’ll otherwise conclude Anton has betrayed her, and I fear for Zoé’s father if that happens.”

“Now look here, Max...” Simon protested.

Max held up his hand. “You’ll fit in the leathers, Kate, that’s one thing, but not the most important. You ride better than any woman I’ve ever seen, even better than Zoé, ride astride when you think no one’s looking. But for tonight, it’s the sidesaddle. You know the grounds, all the twists and turns in the drive, and could probably find your way blindfolded, at a gallop. You’re the obvious choice. God help us, the only choice. Simply move fast, and keep your face covered. The Society has to believe Zoé is on her way to London.”

He looked at Simon, whose face most resembled a thundercloud. Kate, however, was all but dancing.

“Simon, you have to leave now, careful not to be seen. There’s a mount already saddled and waiting at the foaling stable. A jumper, one the head groom assures me has routinely been able to clear the ha-ha from this side, so you can avoid the gates. But first, between you, pick a point of rendezvous no more than a mile from the Manor. Take a riding habit along for Kate to change into, stay at the ready until you’re certain Kate hasn’t been followed, which I highly doubt, as they’d be unable to keep up. Wait for dawn, and then proceed to the Eagle, to calmly order breakfast before returning to the Manor, making certain everyone knows you had taken your mounts out for an early morning run. Any doubt we’ve tried to fool them will be gone the minute they see her face. Are we agreed?”

Simon rubbed at his cheek. “Agreed. But, once this is over, be aware I’ve reserved the right to break your nose.”

Kate threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

* * *

W
ITH
Z
OÉ
AND
T
RIXIE
discreetly hiding behind the folding screen, Harold Charfield was ushered into the dressing room by Richard Borders. He was given a bracing clap on the back and a fairly menacing, “Well, boyo, here’s luck to you.”

When the door all but closed, with Richard now on the other side of it, Charfield was left to stand there in the near dark, his hands tied behind his back, a man clearly apprehensive about the future, and his place in it.

“Hel—um,
hello?
Is anyone here? I’m not frightened, you know.”

Zoé and Trixie exchanged looks.

And said nothing.

“I’m serious. You can’t frighten me. Lord Saltwood gave me his word. Civilized, he said. He’s civilized. Are you there, my lord? If you were pleased to show yourself? Civilized, that was it. My lord? Anyone?
This isn’t amusing.
”

If they kept quiet much longer, Zoé thought, the man was going to drop to his knees and burst into tears.

The same door opened again, and then closed. Val was in the room.

“Oh, I say, Burn, has your isolation caused you to become unhinged? I could hear you talking to yourself as I approached. Forgive me for forgetting your nervous nature. You haven’t pissed my grandmother’s carpet, I hope, as that would be a bloody shame.”

“You.” The man managed to turn that single word into an accusation, a curse and an admission of fear, all at the same time.

Zoé was rather impressed. It had already become apparent to her that there was more to Valentine Redgrave than he preferred the world to see, and now she definitely wanted to see what that was. She peeked out from behind the screen, to get her first look at Charfield, to watch Val at work...and wonder about the condition of Trixie’s Aubusson carpet....

“Yes, yes, congratulations on this talent for stating the obvious. It is I. So sorry I haven’t stopped by to see you in a few days, but I’ve been otherwise occupied. Have any of the servants told you? We managed to intercept this enormous shipment of opium the other night. Our second success in that area, you know. Anyone would have thought the smugglers wouldn’t use our beach again, but it’s true, I suppose—dogs always return to their vomit.”

“What do I care? I don’t even know what you’re babbling on about. Am I to stand here all night?”

“You don’t care about the opium? Strange. You had quite the supply and quite the obscenely carved ivory pipe in your guest chamber at Fernwood. Nasty stuff, opium. Still, would you like some now? As I said, we’ve plenty.”

Zoé watched as Charfield’s shoulders stiffened. “Would you—
no
. No, I would not. I know what you’re trying to do, Redgrave. First the wine, and now the opium. It’s painfully obvious. You want me willing to talk to you. But that’s impossible, because I have no answers for any of your questions.”

“Splendid, Burn, perhaps you’re not as stupid as you look. Still, I would like to chat. I must admit my curiosity is piqued about this Society of yours. How it works during those, you know,
ceremonies
. Do you really serve up virgin sacrifices?”

“Virgins?” Charfield snorted.

Val stayed silent, clearly waiting for that silence to become uncomfortable, a ploy that more often than not had someone in the room speak up, say the first thing that came into his mind, if only to break the growing tension.

Charfield wasn’t an exception. “I’ve never had a virgin, not even my wife, curse her.” And then: “She promised me one, you know, but it never happened.”

Zoé held her breath.
Yes, you baboon, let’s talk about the Exalted Leader, why don’t we?

“Never had one? Never got yourself a golden rose? Such a pity. We have a few dozen of them lying around here somewhere. Do you know what I think, Harold? I think the woman has been cheating you. Could we even stretch that to say
using
you? She’s a bit of a bitch, I’d say. Oh, and did I tell you your friend Mailer is dead? He’d made one too many mistakes, some of them cleverly manufactured by me, by the way, and she had him stretched out on that stone altar he’d ordered built, and personally sliced off his— Well, you can imagine. This makes me wonder, Harold. If she were to succeed, if the Society were to succeed, and she came marching in here to take possession of the Manor...how would she deal with your mistakes?”

“You’re lying. You would have said all of this before, if it were true. You’re only trying to frighten me. That’s all you had that day at Fernwood, much as you threatened and blustered, and that’s all you have now.”

“Yes, so you persist in saying. I can’t decide if you’re really that unimportant, or just too brick stupid to trust with more than your single job. Clearly the Society considers you expendable, or else one of the Coopers would have been ordered to poison your dinner. They’re gone, you know. Run like rabbits. We’ll have them, and all the Society by the end of the week. You can hang in London as a group. Won’t that be cozy, one last reunion—and even with hoods over your faces as the hangman pulls the lever.” Valentine pulled out one of the chairs, turned it and straddled it. Obviously his preferred way of seating himself. “Good fun, what?”

Zoé watched as Charfield, no longer asking permission, backed up until he could collapse into the chair Simon had been sitting in earlier.

Val rested his chin on his crossed arms. “Actually, I was trying to be kind. I also could have brought you evidence, I suppose, but I didn’t wish to go scrounging around the perimeter of the altar at midnight. You know,
searching
for the thing.”

All right,
Zoé thought impatiently.
Now I know how you do it, you’re just having fun now. Get on with it.

“Say anything you want. I’m done listening to you,” Charfield told him.

“My, you are the stubborn one, aren’t you. Almost confident. Why is that, Harold?”

“Your brother the earl promised me no one would hurt me. His solemn word. As a gentleman. As a gentleman yourself, and his brother, you’re bound to his promise.”

And that’s when Trixie began to chuckle softly, because Charfield had walked straight into the trap set for him.

“Is that so?” Val said, getting to his feet in order to light a few more candles. “And I suppose you’re probably right about me. I’d much prefer you spoke freely with us simply because we asked so politely. But tell me, Harold, have you ever met my
other
brother? The one who
isn’t
a gentleman?”

The door from the hallway opened one last time, and Maximillien Redgrave stepped into the room, powerfully striding straight up to stand a few feet in front of Charfield, his booted legs spread, his hands on his hips. Dressed all in black, his black locks hanging free and wild about his bearded face, those damn blue spectacles resting low on his aristocratic nose, even Zoé found him intimidating...although in her case, it was delightfully so.

Trixie had stepped out from behind the screen now, and was openly giggling. She might even have begun to applaud.

“You’re going to answer
my
questions, you spineless pig,” Max growled in a most menacing voice. Then he pulled a riding crop from behind his back and snapped it directly in front of Charfield’s nose.
“Aren’t you?”

Moments later, Val was standing over Charfield, the man’s body lying, unmoving, on the floor. “Well, ladies and not-quite-the-gentleman, that was a whacking great help, wasn’t it? I believe the object of our little farce was for you to frighten him into talking, Max, not to death.”

“Oh, shut up, Valentine,” Trixie said. “I was beginning to think you were attempting to
talk
him to death. Zoé, pet, please bring me that vase.”

Zoé did as she was asked, and watched as Trixie upended the vase to dump its contents, flowers and all, onto Charfield’s face. He came up to a sitting position as if propelled by magic, sputtering and coughing and spitting out at least one leaf.

Max went down on his haunches beside the man, leaning close to his ear. “Now, shall we try again,
hmm?
”

For all his air of menace, to Zoé at least, Max looked like a handsome, even beautiful, happy, but naughty little boy enjoying himself to the top of his bent.

And for the first time since receiving the note from Anton, she actually smiled.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“O
H
,
NO
,
not on my chaise,” Trixie declared as Val and Max helped Charfield to his feet, then looked around as they decided where to put him. “I’d have to have it burned, and it was fashioned for Versailles and given to me by a certain good friend who— Well, never mind about that. Those days are over, thank God, but that doesn’t mean I wish to part with any of my treasures.”

“You’re all rather insane, you know,” Zoé whispered in Max’s ear once Charfield was seated, half propped up on two straight-back chairs hastily pushed together. “And I believe I agree with Val. I don’t know what job that fool over there was assigned to by the Society, but I doubt he was very good at it. We may have just wasted an hour of precious time.”

“You’d rather we simply blindly ride out, hoping for some sort of miracle? A star in the sky, perhaps, shining down on the Society’s hiding place? Our best hopes lie with that wretch over there, and you agreed.” Max closed his eyes for a moment, then pulled her rigid body against him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. We’re going to find them, I promise, and your father is going to be safe.”

“I know,” she said quietly as she stepped back, her eyes once again shining with tears. “Thank you. I’m just...”

“I understand. I don’t remember either of my parents, but I’d be the same if Trixie was out there somewhere. Look, Zoé, you don’t have to do this. Val and I can handle it. Maybe this is one mission you shouldn’t—”

“No,” she said, cutting him off, which was probably a good thing.

He’d insulted her, had questioned her abilities in the face of her fears for her father. But, damn it all to hell, this wasn’t just another mission, and he had every right to worry. Didn’t he?

“All right. Let’s get on with this before Trixie decides to take over the questioning. I know she’s dying to do something more than watch, but I’m not sure we’d like her questions. Besides, she’s already managed to get hold of the riding crop.”

Zoé gifted him with a small smile, and they took up chairs in front of Charfield.

“Feeling more the thing now, Mr. Charfield?” Max asked, as if he cared a bent farthing about the man’s comfort. “Ready to answer a few questions?”

Charfield leaned slightly forward, his eyelids slitted, his chins, both of them, stuck forward defiantly. “You’re a monster.” But then he seemed to reconsider his bravado. “What do you want me to tell you?”

“I want to talk to you about the Society, of course. Oh, not the tawdry details, as I’m already disgusted enough, just having to speak with you, look at you. I want to know where it is.”

Charfield’s head came up. “Where what is? I don’t understand.”

Trixie pressed the flat of the whip against the man’s chest. “Mr. Charfield, you don’t want to make me angry,” she warned tightly. “I have lived the majority of my life dealing with the Society in one form or another. The plots, the traitorous schemes—they all rest on the success of satisfying filthy little men like you, horrid little minds like yours. Greed, ambition, whatever the reason behind the Society’s existence, the main attraction has always remained the same.
Sex,
Harold. Sex in all its most tawdry forms. And for that, you need places to meet. Tell me, Harold, or I’ll show you what I learned about little toys like this. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

Charfield looked down at his chest, and the riding crop, and then up into Trixie’s face.

There was no question in Max’s mind that she meant exactly what she said, and had said precisely what she meant. Even a fool would know that. Trixie Redgrave may have been a victim, but she wasn’t a victim now, and hadn’t been one for a long time.

“Fernwood. We meet at Fernwood.”

“That’s gone,” Valentine said, looking at his grandmother a little sheepishly. “But I did hear the Exalted One complain about
this
sanctuary being lost to them before she and her consort rode off from the place in rather high dudgeon, actually. That means there are more, doesn’t it, Burn?”

With a cautionary look to Trixie, Max took over the questioning. “One quite naturally being here, on or close to Redgrave Manor. That woman didn’t recruit the Coopers with her charm and a polite tea party. She’s trained them to want the masks, the women, the ridiculous hellfire rituals. The opium. That’s why you’re so enamored, isn’t it? Prancing about naked in your capes and puppet heads, hiding your faces while rutting with anyone or anything that had no other choice. Come on, Harold. You know it and we know it. There’s another sanctuary, and you’re going to tell us where it is.”

The man’s eyes had gone rather wild. All these people, strong, dangerous people, hovering over him, knowing his deepest secrets, demanding answers from him. He began to struggle to free his hands.

Max was growing concerned. Had they gone too far? The fellow looked as if, next time he went down, it wouldn’t be in a harmless faint.

“I can’t. You know what she’ll do to me. Don’t think Mailer was the first. I can’t. I can’t!”

Max motioned for everyone to back away, and they gathered in a corner while Charfield sobbed.

“We were right,” Trixie said. “There is something out there. Ceremonial meeting place, sanctuary, whatever they want to call it. The woman will be there. With all the trouble you children have caused her, she can’t chance being anywhere else, demonstrating that she’s still in charge.”

“Knowing it and finding it are two different things. We’ve only had our suspicions confirmed,” Zoé said. “That’s a far distance from finding her or Anton. Or my father.”

Max was in agreement. “I know. Let me try this again, on my own. Trixie, I love you past all bearing, but you’ve done enough. Please, go join Richard. I’m certain he’s worried about you.”

For a moment he thought she might fight him, but then she nodded and handed over the riding crop. “I’m too old for any more of this. All these years, over and over again. How I hate them for what they took from me. What they made me do, what they made of me. My husband, my own son... Yes, yes, I need Richard.”

Zoé leaned down to kiss Trixie’s powdered cheek, to give her a quick hug before the woman turned and slowly, almost painfully, headed in the direction of her bedchamber.

Max waited until she was gone before looking at Val. “We never heard anything she said tonight.”

Val looked toward the floor, took a quick swipe at his eyes before nodding his agreement. “You don’t... I mean, we really don’t think she— My God, Max.”

“First to protect her son, and then to protect us,” Max said as Zoé slipped her arm around his waist. “No. That’s impossible. And if it isn’t, we have to pretend it is. For her sake. We can only be glad she has Richard. Oh, for love of heaven—where do you think you’re going?”

He walked over to Charfield, who, on knees and nose mostly, was attempting to crawl toward the door to the hallway.

The distraction was something all of them needed. “What do you say, Val, how far should we let him go?”

“That’s probably far enough,” his brother answered, leaning down to one-handedly pick up their prisoner by the waistband of his breeches and haul him to his feet. “Come along, old boy. We’ve all seen enough of this room.”

“We’ll take him down to the music room,” Max told him. “Dearborn has covered those windows by now. I doubt anyone is still watching at this late hour, having seen Kate leave, but since Dearborn’s already gone to the trouble, we might as well.”

“Don’t want the old boy to think he’s been wasting his time,” Val agreed. “Come on, Harold, you were just about to tell us something, remember?”

This time, before they pushed him down onto one of the striped-satin couches, they untied his hands, Val having suggested this might make him think better. Or at least think. “A man who’d believe he could
crawl
his way to— Where the devil were you going anyway, Harold?”

“Trapped animals,” Zoé commented wryly, looking at the mantel clock. “He may have been heading to the attics.”

Max glanced to the clock, as well. He calculated that it was nearly dawn on the other side of the carefully draped windows. Another night gone, and little accomplished. No, a lot accomplished. Just not enough.

But then the unexpected happened.

“You really believe you can...you can beat her?”

Zoé whispered something in French. Max was fairly certain it was a short prayer of thanks.

“Yes, it’s only a matter of time,” he told Charfield. He took a chance: “She won’t be able to control you anymore.”

Freeing Charfield’s hands did seem to have freed his tongue.

“I didn’t know. You have to understand that. I didn’t know. It was a lark, that’s all. A bit of fun, and that was the end of it. Except it wasn’t. I went the first time, and mostly watched. I couldn’t believe what was happening.”

He took a long breath. “When I was asked again, I went back. By then...by then they knew my...my preferences. I couldn’t believe my good luck. I’m the fifth of six sons, you know. Not a prospect in front of me, only my employment as one of dozens of undersecretaries. But all that changed. Suddenly I was elevated in position. There was money, all my debts were paid.”

“How fortuitous for you,” Max said, having difficulty hiding his disgust.

Charfield looked at him hopefully. “Yes, yes, that’s it. Fortuitous. That’s precisely how I saw it. And the Exalted Leader. She allowed me to service her.” He shot a quick look toward Zoé. “It was a great honor,” he said sheepishly.

Was there any other man so pathetic? Unfortunately, Max realized, there were many more. Had always been many more, and probably always would be, as long as cockroaches roamed the earth.

“But then I was given my first assignment. I would do as I was told or else everything would go away. The position, the money...the ceremonies. Do you understand now? Nothing was my fault. I was forced to do what I did.”

“Yes,” Val drawled, “I noticed that about you the moment I first met you, while you were out hunting up a young boy for that night’s
ceremony
. Wretched, broken man, obviously a victim of the Society, even as you were raised up to the select Devil’s Thirteen.” He held out his leg toward Charfield. “Here, Burn, pull this one now, it’s got bells on.”

“You have to keep her away from me. I don’t want to die that way.”

“Few of us would,” Max agreed, knowing they were finally going to hear something of importance.

“I don’t want to be hanged, either.”

“I can’t prom—”

But Val cut him off. “That much is true. My brother can’t help you there, but I can arrange that. I’m very close with Perceval. Why, I was just at his house not that long ago. Go on, tell us what you know. Where’s this damn sanctuary?”

* * *

K
ATE
’
S
MARE
WAS
tied to one of the spokes of a large, flat, wooden wheel in the stableyard, and being walked in wide circles to cool her. Max had pointed that out to Zoé with some pride—and probably more relief.

“She’s very brave for a young lady of her, shall we say, pampered background. But your brother is incorrigible,” she told him as they pulled away from the stables on the rough plank seat of a farm wagon, wearing homespun brown cloaks with the hoods turned up to hide their faces. And to protect their noses, as the bed of the wagon was heaped high with manure.

Not many would care to come within a hundred yards of them, and certainly wouldn’t stop them.

“I don’t see why,” Max told her, as the mules drawing the wagon were urged toward the North Gate. “He promised the man he wouldn’t be hanged, and Perceval is bound to agree.”

“Yes, he’d agree to a firing squad. Very clever. Where is Val meeting us?”

“He’s not. He feels this need to speak with Trixie the moment she’s awake and ready to see visitors.”

She wasn’t sure that was wise. “He’s not going to talk about last night, is he?”

“No. He’s going to tell her he loves her. Val has the softest heart of any of us.”

Zoé considered this for a while as they moved along the track, heading for a destination that couldn’t be arrived at soon enough. “Are you angry with her?”

“I don’t know how I feel. What she did cost us our mother, but Trixie may have had her reasons for that. Barry was dueling with his wife’s French lover. But it’s as you told me, we can’t go back and change the past. I believe I argued that we could forget it, and look to what we have now, and to the future. How can I say any less about anything Trixie felt compelled to do?”

“She loves you all very much, and you’ve told me how she’s always protected you. When she saw history repeating itself she had to make a choice. She chose her grandchildren, and has fought for you ever since. There’s no dark animal inside you, Max. Trixie made certain of that.”

He looked away, toward the trees. “I know. We make ourselves. Charfield tried to blame the Society for his failings, but by returning a second time, a third, he’d already chosen the Society. He made his own life.”

“We either learn our lessons or learn to live with the same mistakes, over and over again. I’ve been a fool, haven’t I? I’d convinced myself that once something is lost it can never be regained. Yet here you are, and here I am. I don’t think I’ll ever want to be anywhere else.”

Max looked deeply into her eyes for a long, unblinking time. “After hoping with all my heart to hear you say those words, would it offend you if I suggest we discuss more about where we want to be forever only after we’re free of this wagon?” he asked her just as his smile squeezed her heart.

They were met on the road barely twenty minutes later by Simon Ravenbill, who had a handkerchief tied around the bottom half of his face. “God’s teeth, Max, I could smell you coming long before I saw the wagon come into view. There was nothing else?”

“It seemed a good choice at the time,” Max told him, setting the brake once he’d directed the mules to the side of the dirt track they’d turned onto, leaving the gravel drive behind them. “The wagon leaves every morning around this same time for the last several months. I understand Gideon has ordered its contents raked out and dried on the North Fields, then plowed into the dirt before the next planting. Gideon’s a fine custodian of Redgrave Manor. To the Manor born, some might say.”