A Christmas Charade (25 page)

The French agent. Clive had instantly recognized the voice, as must have Chamberlain. They had encountered him before. Jean-Pierre Duval, the wiliest, most ruthless of French agents, originally trained as a police spy by Josef Fouché, the notorious French Minister of Police. If Duval realized what a trump he held in Lord Nicholas Mackay, it would be very difficult to bluff him. Impossible, if he recognized Chamberlain or Clive.

Clive touched his coat pocket beneath the concealing smock, but made no attempt to withdraw the small gun hidden there. It could serve no purpose.

He saw Chamberlain whisper to the tall freetrader he had pointed out as Beamish. When the innkeeper stepped slowly forward, Chamberlain retreated into the ranks of the smugglers.

“That is quite far enough, Beamish,
mon ami
.”

The Frenchman’s right hand remained hidden behind Nicholas’s back. His left pointed a pistol at Beamish.

“It’s a pepperbox pistol,” whispered Chamberlain, stopping at Clive’s side. “Eight blasted shots. That’s what has everyone petrified.”

The innkeeper from East Dean took one more step. “Put up your barking irons, Duval. That’s one of my men you got there. One of the guards I posted for your protection.”

“Ah, well. In that case, I think, ’e will not object to boarding the sloop with me,
n’est-ce pas?
”

“Not in the least,” said Beamish. “But I do not see what good he would do on the boat. He’s a land-smuggler.”

The pistol in Duval’s hand prescribed a circle. “As are most of your friends, eh?”

“Aye. We’re expecting a cargo in an hour or so.”

“Not with this gale,” the Frenchman said softly.

“We’ll wait however long it takes. But if the
Louise
has arrived, you ought to prepare to sail. The tide’s turning.”

Clive nudged Chamberlain. “Let’s go. I’ll warn Nicholas.”

“Will he react quickly enough?”

“He had better,” Clive said grimly.

Swiftly, the two men pushed forward. As they reached the front line of smugglers, who had not moved or made a sound, an excited, unmistakably female voice cut through the night.

“Monsieur Duval! Wait! I have another dispatch for you.”

Clive knew the voice did not belong to Elizabeth, yet for a moment he stood paralyzed. He did not like females in this business. Never had. Never would. Even Chamberlain was caught by surprise and hesitated.

Waving a folded paper, a slender, cloaked figure swept past them.

“Here you are,
monsieur
. I am so glad I was in time.”

“
Sacre-bleu!
” Duval took a hasty step backward. “Get out of the way,
mademoiselle
.”

She kept going despite the Frenchman’s threatening gestures with his pistol.

Clive and Chamberlain started to move toward Duval at the same time.

“Nick!” shouted Clive, but the warning was lost in a sudden uproar of voices and the blast of pistol shots. Three shots.

He had seen one flash from Duval’s pepperbox but neither knew nor cared who had fired the other two shots. For, etched in his mind as he leaped at the Frenchman and pinned him to the ground, were two voices rising above indistinguishable shouts.

He had heard Nicholas exclaim, “Gabrielle! Great Scot! I must be going mad.”

And he had heard Elizabeth, her voice fierce if a little breathless. “I am sorry, sir. But I
cannot
let you shoot that spy.”

Elizabeth, who was supposed to have stayed hidden behind the boulder until he came for her.

“
Bête!
” Duval struggled weakly. “Get off, you fool. Do you not know that I am ’urt?”

The clamor at Clive’s back rose to a crescendo. Fear for Elizabeth, who for some reason was in the smugglers’ midst, twisted his insides. But he must keep his attention on the French agent. Chamberlain would have to look after Elizabeth. And after Nick, who should have been somewhere nearby but wasn’t.

Clive eased his weight off Duval, but kept the man’s arms pinned to the ground. “Where are you hurt?”

“My shoulder.”

“Your grace.” Beamish, innkeeper, mayor, and constable of East Dean, dropped down on one knee beside them. “You can let him go. I’ve got his pepperbox and he knows I’ll gladly use it.”

“He had two guns.”

Beamish stepped around them and after some groping in the dry marsh grass found the pistol Duval had held at Nicholas’s back. He pointed that gun also at the Frenchman.

“Chamberlain explained, your grace. I won’t let him get away, I swear. And you needn’t fear neither that I’ll blow his brains out. Although,” he added ruminatively, “it’d give me great pleasure, it would.”

Clive waited no longer. He sprang to his feet and swung around, his eyes anxiously searching among the smugglers. The shots—or the downing of the French agent—had released the men from immobility. They tromped about, shouting and arguing like merrymakers at a fair and making it difficult to pick out the one person he sought.

He saw Nicholas standing off to the side with the cloaked woman. But not even the startling sight of his friend’s hand beneath the woman’s chin and his arm around her waist made Clive forget his purpose.

And then he saw her. Elizabeth. She knelt beside the prone figure of a large man, whose upper torso was supported in Chamberlain’s strong arms.

In a few long strides he was at her side. He gripped her shoulders, pulling her to her feet.

Her eyes widened. “Stenton! How you startled me.”

“You deserve worse.” His grip tightened under an onslaught of jumbled emotions. “Elizabeth, are you all right?”

“Yes, of course I am. It is the gentleman who is injured.”

“Nothing but a scratch,” said the corpulent man on the ground. “I’ll be fine as soon as I’m on my feet.”

Clive took a good look at the fleshy face, the broad forehead topped by a full head of longish gray hair which gave the man a leonine appearance.

“Sylvester Throckmorton! I’ll be damned!”

“You know him?” Elizabeth faltered. Had she made a mistake? Perhaps it was not the stout man, after all, Annie had warned her about. “Was he not, then, trying to interfere with your business, Stenton?”

Chamberlain answered. “He was, indeed, Miss Gore-Langton.”

To Stenton he said, “Meet Anthony Morton, the gentleman from the Crown and Anchor who took such care not to be seen by anyone. Very clever. Had I caught a glimpse of him, I’d have recognized him as Mr. John Smith who engaged me in late October to trace a certain young gentleman in France.”

“Help me up!” demanded Throckmorton.

His mind seething, Clive gave him a distracted look. Sylvester Throckmorton was the man who had lured Nick’s latest flirt away, the young French lady, the diamond of the first water. Sylvester Throckmorton had friends in the Horse Guards as well as the Admiralty.

He said, “You have some explaining to do, sir. But let’s get you to the castle first. Explanations can wait until the physician has seen you.”

“Don’t need a physician to quack me. The ball only grazed my hand. Duval’s doing, I suppose. He’s a damned poor shot. Reason I’m down is that Miss Gore-Langton
pushed
me.”

“You were going to shoot the spy,” Elizabeth said indignantly. “Even though I explained that Stenton must take him to Whitehall.”

Chamberlain grinned appreciatively. “Well done, miss! Don’t you agree, Stenton?”

The painful twist of fear for Elizabeth still sharp in his memory, Clive was in no mood to praise her for what he considered ill-judged interference. Yet he could not help but acknowledge that she was as resourceful as she was willful.

He met her quizzical look. “No doubt I would agree—had there been a need for such heroics.”

She took this in good part. “You’re miffed,” she said, smiling a little, “that I did not do as you bade me.”

Despite himself, his mouth twitched. “That is something we shall discuss later.”

“Take the advice of an older man,” said Throckmorton. “Don’t have anything to do with a hurly-burly miss who doesn’t think twice about knocking a man down. Caught me off balance, she did, for I never expected anything like it. Now, will somebody help me up?”

Clive gripped him under the right arm, Chamberlain under the left, and together they hauled him to his feet.

“Duval is hit.” Clive looked at Chamberlain. “Do you think one of Beamish’s men will fetch Dr. Wimple from Seaford?”

Throckmorton gave a grunt. “So I got him, did I? Well, I hope I hit a vital spot.”

“No, you didn’t get him,” Chamberlain said curtly. “I did”

He turned, saying over his shoulder to Clive, “Couldn’t risk having him lose more shots out of that pepperbox. Aimed for the left shoulder. I trust that’s all I hit?”

“You hit a shoulder, and if it isn’t the left, it’s the first time you missed what you aimed for.”

Chamberlain nodded. “I’ll see what I can do about the physician. No doubt about it, though. The men would as soon drown Duval as render him assistance.”

Throckmorton, who had been peering about him in some agitation, asked, “Where is Gabrielle?” He wheezed in a quite alarming way. “Mademoiselle de Tournier—if anything happened to her—”

“Nothing happened to her,” Elizabeth assured him. “She is coming this way with Lord Nicholas Mackay.”

“Mackay, eh? Planned to offer her
carte blanche
, the young dog!”

“Sylvester, my friend!” Gabrielle, with Nicholas in tow, pushed through the throng of smugglers. “Nicholas says I must confess all to the Duke of Stenton. And he also tells me that it would not at all be proper to shoot Duval. What do you think? It seems to me a great piece of nonsense—”

“Hush, child!” Throckmorton spoke with such severity that Gabrielle for once did as she was bid. “
I
will make the explanations. But first, let us remove ourselves from this damnably cold and damp place.”

“Well spoken, sir,” said Nicholas. “Never could abide a beach. Too much sand and water.”

“And gales. Blasted wind took my hat before I’d gone ten paces from the Crown and Anchor.”

“Nick.” Clive’s voice had an impatient edge. “You brought the horses, I take it?”

“Left ’em at the end of the carriage track, just as you told me.”

During the next few minutes, while Clive instructed Nicholas to place two of the horses at Gabrielle’s and Mr. Throckmorton’s disposal and to accompany them to Stenton, while he conferred with Chamberlain and with Beamish, who still held two pistols trained on the French agent, and while the main body of smugglers huddled together in a debate of some kind, Elizabeth felt very much
de trop
.

Not one glance did Stenton spare her. She did not doubt that he was annoyed with her. Gentlemen never liked to have their orders ignored. But, surely, he might have suggested that she leave with Gabrielle.

She watched his strong profile, the straight nose and square chin exposed against the night sky. His shoulders shook a little; she supposed he was chuckling at something the innkeeper from East Dean said to him. From Chamberlain’s talk with the stout man who answered to three different names she understood that Beamish was the smugglers’ leader, and why Stenton should be amused by anything
he
said was more than she could see.

The icy wind plucked at her skirt and at the shawl around her head. Her feet and hands grew numb, and her temper rose. She did not expect gratitude from Stenton, but he could at least show her the consideration he had shown Mademoiselle de Tournier. And a little respect would not hurt either. After all, she
had
spoiled Mr. Throckmorton’s aim when he leveled his pistol at the spy.

Resolutely, she turned her back on the men and started northward, in the direction of the landing stage and the carriage track. Stenton had not said she should
not
leave.

She regretted the impulsive act before she had gone twenty paces. It was so very dark and so very lonely with the gray shadows of the cliffs to her right and the churning waters of the Cuckmere estuary to her left.

When she had ventured down the cliff path earlier, she’d been driven by a purpose, and although she had been fully aware of the danger, she had not been frightened—except for that brief moment when she believed one of the smugglers was climbing up to meet her.

And neither was she frightened now, she told herself. It was the northern gale sweeping unimpeded down the Cuckmere valley that made her shiver since the heat of temper had cooled. It had cooled sufficiently to make her wish Stenton would call her back.

Slowly she walked on, dividing her attention between the ground and the chalk cliffs on the right. If she kept close to the looming gray wall, she could not possibly miss the way.

Once, she stopped to look up at the sky. Most of the stars had disappeared. Behind clouds? If that were so, the twins would have their white Christmas.

Since she was walking into the wind, she did not hear the men until they had caught up with her and suddenly appeared beside her, two on the right and one on the left. Her heart seemed to stop for a sickening instant when the man on her left gripped her elbow.

“Dash it, Elizabeth! Why didn’t you wait?”

Her hand, balled in a tight fist, stopped in midair. She could not speak, for now her heart sat in her throat.

“So you would have slugged me again.”

She heard the laughter in Stenton’s voice. Firmly, he pushed her hand down.

“I fear Throckmorton was right,” he said, still sounding amused. “Behind that very prim and proper exterior hides a hurly-burly miss.”

“You have a habit of startling me that is not at all endearing.” She tried to be stern. “Why did you not warn me?”

“I called out, but you did not hear.”

The grip on her arm which had frightened her almost out of her wits, now soothed and reassured. She hoped he would not let go.

She glanced at the other two men. She recognized Chamberlain and Duval, the spy, whose left arm rested in a sling.

“Will you take the spy to Whitehall immediately?” she asked as the other two men drew ahead.

And how long will you be gone? she wanted to add.

“Chamberlain will take him to London as soon as the physician has dug the ball from his shoulder.
I
have unfinished, important business here at Stenton.”