If He's Wild (17 page)

“And I will still contact as many of the family as I can.” Argus looked at Aldus and Gifford. “You two can find what men you can and get them searching.”

The men quickly dispersed—Argus, Modred, and Iago to notify what kinsmen they could, and Aldus and Gifford to go and gather some men to help in the search for Hartley. That left Olympia and Alethea with the siblings. Alethea could see that Germaine and Bayard desperately wanted to believe what Argus had said, but sad experience had robbed them of the ability to hope easily.

“We
will
find him,” Alethea told them.

“Is that what you know or what you want to believe?” asked Germaine.

“It is what I have to believe.”

“Why would they take him if they did not plan to kill him?” Germaine studied Alethea and Olympia and then sighed, the soft sound unsteady as she held back her tears. “They want him to tell them something. They will try to make him tell them anything he might know, and to do that they will have to hurt him, will they not?”

“I fear they will, and there is nothing we can do about that. We can only pray that we get to him before he has to suffer too much pain.”

“Then find him fast, please. Use all your gifts, all your family, all the men those departments they work for can spare, and find him. I have lost too many. I will not lose him, too.”

“That is exactly what we plan to do.” Alethea leaned over and kissed Germaine’s pale cheek. “I cannot lose him, either. And we will make them all pay dearly for every moment of pain they have caused him.”

Hartley groaned as consciousness returned. His head throbbed, and it took him a moment to recall why it should. He started to raise a hand to check what wound there might be and tensed. His hand was secured to something. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and nearly cursed aloud. He was tied to a chair.

Taking several deep breaths to calm the urge to thrash about and strain against the bonds holding him firmly to the chair, Hartley fought to clear his vision. He needed to study where he was and assess any chance of escape. A small voice in his aching head taunted him for thinking he could escape when he was bound to a chair, but he ignored it. If he allowed it to win, he would lose all hope, and he knew he needed it to survive.

A few lanterns dimly lighted his surroundings, and there was nothing he saw that immediately told him where he was. All he was sure of was that he was not in a cellar or a house. Some place of business, he mused, although it could be an unused office in one of the many warehouses that dotted the city, especially along the river. He took a deep breath and tried to sort out the various smells that assaulted his nose.

Hartley was certain he was somewhere near the docks. Faint though it was, there was the rank odor in the air that was peculiar to the Thames. That could cause a problem for the people who were looking for him, and he knew there were some. If nothing else, one of the Vaughns or Wherlockes running freely in his house would have a vision or a seeing or some such thing that would tell them he had been taken. There were some advantages to finding oneself wedded into a family many people would run screaming from, he thought.

The thought of the family he now belonged to through marriage made him think of Alethea. He could still see her curled up in their bed, sleeping the sleep of the sated, a hint of passion’s blush still on her cheeks. That image gave him strength, and he used it to push back his fear of never seeing her again. Fate could not be so cruel as to give him what he needed to complete his life and then allow some murderous viper of a woman take it all away just so she could fatten her purse.

He shook his head, and a wave of nausea poured over him. Closing his eyes tightly and breathing in slowly and deeply, he fought the churning sickness in his belly. The last thing he wanted to do was vomit on himself. At least give him one of his enemies to aim it at, he thought. It would be a pathetic defense, but there would be some satisfaction in it.

It took several minutes to push aside the urge to empty his belly, but he knew he had succeeded when the cool, damp air in his prison began to dry the sweat on his face. Then the door opened and Claudette walked in, followed by five big men, and Hartley silently cursed. His luck had obviously not begun to improve yet. His sickness had passed, and here came the very targets he had hoped for.

“So, you are awake,” said Claudette and smiled as she stood before him.

“Why, I do believe I am,” he drawled. “How perspicacious of you.”

“Do not try my patience, Redgrave. I believe I hold the upper hand right now.”

She did, he silently agreed, but he had no intention of letting her see that he acknowledged that. Claudette looked so pleased with herself his palm actually itched with the need to slap her, and he had never raised his hand to a woman in his life or wanted to. He knew what she had planned for him. Alethea’s vision had warned him, and he was as prepared as anyone could be for what was to come. What disturbed him and made his skin crawl was the knowledge that this woman would enjoy it.

“For now,” he said and smiled when she frowned.

“No one knows where you are, Redgrave. You cannot be so foolish as to think they are all going to come riding to your rescue.”

He shrugged. “Not so foolish. I have married a Vaughn, after all, and with Alethea comes all of that family, including the Wherlockes.”

To his surprise, he saw the hint of fear briefly flash in her eyes. Claudette was one of those who believed in demons and witches, he realized. Her threat to Alethea had held some truth about her own feelings. Hartley would freely admit that a few of the gifts that family had made him uneasy, but he had yet to meet one he could dislike or actually fear. It also astounded him that, in this enlightened age of reason, anyone could still believe in such things as demons in human form and witches who cast spells or consorted with Satan. It was a shame that he only saw the fear Claudette held now, when it was too late to put it to good use. That did not mean, however, that he could not taunt her with it.

“A foolish lot of eccentrics and recluses who think they have some power,” she scoffed and flicked her hand in a dismissive gesture.

“But they do have power. A great deal, in fact.”

“Am I to believe then that the great rake Hartley was seduced by such a little country wench because she cast a spell on him?”

“In a way, she did. The spell of honesty and innocence. Two things I believe you have not been touched by in a very long time.” He could see her anger in the narrowing of her eyes and the flush upon her cheeks and knew he would pay for his remarks, but he did not care.

“You were to be mine,” she snapped. “I had chosen you.”

“As your next victim? Like Peterson and Rogers?”

“What do you speak of? I know no Peterson or Rogers.”

“Iago says different. He has seen their spirits around you. Them and the compte and his family. All angry and crying out for vengeance.” She paled a little, and he knew he had struck at a deep fear. “Children, Claudette? You felt a threat from a boy so young he did not even talk yet and a tiny girl of five? Did you think they would grow and take back the jewels you were so hungry for? I am surprised you can wear them, that the stink of that sin does not burn your skin each time you put them on.”

The slap she gave him caused enough movement of his head to bring on the nausea again. He actually considered letting it flow, but she was already out of reach, pacing in front of him with her hands clenched tight at her sides. Hartley fought to push the sickness aside again and fixed his gaze on one of the men who stood a little distance away from the others. He had the look of a man who found himself involved in something he no longer wanted a part of.

It was because of the talk of murdering children, Hartley decided. It was when he had spoken of the compte’s children that the man had taken a step back. Obviously the man was willing enough to take coin for beating, torturing, and killing a grown man, but the murder of children stirred what little conscience he had.

Hartley was just wondering what use he might make of that when Claudette whirled around to face him again. He watched as she nervously rubbed her hands over her arms as if trying to brush away something and nearly smiled. Claudette’s mind had accepted the talk of the ghosts of her victims clinging to her. A miasma of hate and fury, Iago had called it, and Hartley could almost swear he saw a faint glimmer of it.

“You talk nonsense,” she said. “The dead stay buried. It is good that Iago did not continue the affair with my sister, I am thinking. He is not right in the head.”

“He did not continue the affair with your sister because he felt her cold emptiness. A spirit like a soulless killer, he said. He felt she probably did not do the killing but did not care who died, mayhap even chose a few. No, once his lust cleared away, he could not abide to touch her. I do wonder why she wanted him, however. The two of you tended to pick lovers with ties to the government or the military. He had neither. I suspect your sister disappointed you a little there as she chose a man simply because he was handsome.”

“There is nothing wrong with Margarite. I will not listen to any more of this nonsense. You try to upset me and make me fear, but I am stronger than that. Stronger and far more clever that the lot of you.”

“Why? Because as a poor farm girl you have managed to get yourself accepted in society? Your face and body did that, and you know it. Foolish men who wished something beautiful on their arm brought you out of the gutter, naught else. But you will soon be back there. Even if you do as you intend to me, even if, by some miracle, my allies do not prove what a murderous bitch and traitor you really are, you will still never be accepted back in society.”

“You made a mistake when you turned away from me. You may have saved yourself all of this by making me your marchioness.”

“I would rather endure this than have you in my bed. And do not think me such a fool as to believe having anything to do with you would have saved me. This has been planned for me from the beginning. In fact, it was foretold by my wife. It is yourself you can blame for the fact that I found the woman I wished to marry. She came here to save me from you.”

“Then she has failed,” Claudette hissed. “I now have you, and you will tell me what I need to know. I may have lost my place in the pathetic group of idiots you call society, but I mean to leave this country with my purse full. You will give me the information I need to make that happen.”

“No, I think not. I doubt you got much off of Rogers or Peterson, either.”

“They were fools.”

“Why? Because they chose not to betray their country before they died?”

“Yes. Of what good is honor to a dead man?”

“Only a person who has none could ask that question.”

“Fool. I will ask you a lot more questions, and you will answer me. Mayhap I will even allow you to live.” She smiled. “Although you may not wish to when I am done with you. Still, you may consider the fact that if you die, you leave your little wife alone.”

Fear shot through Hartley, but he quickly conquered it. Alethea would not be alone, for her family would see to her safety and care. “No, she will never be alone. And you will not be able to enjoy whatever money you flee with. My niece and nephew will see to it that you are hunted wherever you go, hunted down and made to pay for killing their family on the beach that day. And they will have all the help my wife and her family can give her.”

“You but try to make me cower and run, but it will not work.” She stood up and brushed off the sleeves of her gown again. “First my men will soften you up a bit,
oui?
And then I shall start to ask you questions. You think you are such a brave, big man that you can stand firm beneath what I do? I think you are in for a very big surprise. Men, begin please, and do try to remember that I want him alive and able to speak afterward.”

Hartley watched one of her men roll up his sleeves. His arms were thick with muscle. When he clenched his hand into a fist, Hartley had to admit it was an impressive one.
This is going to hurt,
he thought as that big fist swung toward him.

An itch on her ankle was driving Alethea mad, but she remained still. She did not know how long they had been watching Margarite’s house, but she thought it had been long enough to begin to consider that this may have been a mistake. Olympia’s vision was undoubtedly correct, but they all knew that visions were rarely specific as to when the foreseen event would occur. Olympia would readily admit that her visions were more of a knowing, a certainty about something, and nowhere near as exact as Alethea’s could be. Her cousin was certain that Margarite would return to her home, but that did not have to happen today or even this week. The time of late in the day could be right, but which day? It could be next year, and all that would be left of Hartley was his bones.

A hand began to rub her back, and Alethea pulled herself free of the trap her fear for Hartley kept ready for her. She glanced over her shoulder at Modred. He was such a beautiful man, he looked odd hiding in a shadowed alley with her and the others, she mused, and then mouthed the word
sorry.
Modred did not need to be pummeled by her wayward emotions now, not when he was determined upon using his gift to get information out of women like Margarite and Claudette.

Alethea understood why Modred was so insistent upon helping. He needed to see that what he saw as a curse could actually be used to help someone, that there could be some good in it. She just wished he had not chosen women like these to do so. Nothing they had told him about Claudette and Margarite had changed his mind, however. She felt guilty that a large part of her was glad of that, for no one had a better chance of getting the information they needed to save Hartley than Modred did.

“There she is,” Argus whispered from where he stood in front of her.

In the dim light of a cloudy late afternoon, Alethea did not know how Argus could tell Margarite from any other heavily cloaked woman, but she did not ask. Although, she mused, not many women walked around with six big men. If Argus said this was Margarite, then it was. He was rarely wrong about such things. The fact that the woman went to the door of Margarite’s house and, with a quick, sharp movement of her hand, quickly dispersed the six men around the house, confirmed Argus’s opinion.

Alethea was almost able to smile. Those men were in for a nasty surprise. In the shadowy areas around Margarite’s home were an equal number of men, both Hartley’s and, to her surprise, Argus’s. She supposed she should have guessed by Argus’s highly efficient hunt for proof of Claudette’s crimes—and then for Claudette herself—that her cousin was doing the same sort of government work as her husband. She just could not recall anyone having said so explicitly.

When the signal came from one of Argus’s men that told him Margarite’s men were no longer a threat, Argus casually brushed himself off and strode out of the alley they had all been hiding in. Alethea, Modred, Olympia, Aldus, and Gifford had to scramble to catch up with him. The way Gifford and Aldus heeded Argus’s commands despite their higher stations told Alethea that whatever position her cousin held in the secretive branches of government, it was a high one. When this was all over she was determined to find out just how many of her family were lurking in the shadowy corridors of the government and the military.

“Are we just going to rap on the door and wait for her to invite us in?” she asked Argus when she caught up with him.

“Oh, my dearest cousin, I had not intended to rap first,” he replied. “Why announce ourselves after suffering all this discomfort to remain a secret?”

He took her hand as if he sensed that her fear for Hartley was beginning to get the best of her again. Her husband had left the house when the sun had just begun to rise. Now it was almost full set, and they still had not found him, did not even know where he was being held. She kept thinking of how much pain he must have endured by now and was not sure how much longer she could bear it.

They walked into Margarite’s house without making a sound. The woman had dismissed all of her servants, so there was no one to warn her of their secretive invasion. Alethea blinked in astonishment as she looked around at the somewhat garish décor. She looked toward Olympia, who just rolled her eyes. Having money, cunning, beauty, and power obviously did not prevent one from having extremely bad taste, Alethea decided.

Margarite did not see them at first. She was on her knees prying up a board in the floor of the parlor as, one by one, they slipped into the room. They had nearly encircled her before she sensed something was amiss. Whirling around, she stared at them in horror and then glanced behind them. A heartbeat later, she looked at each window. Alethea realized the woman was looking for her guards to rush to her rescue. By the time Margarite met their gazes again, she had begun to get control of her expression and just looked a little shocked, with a hint of confusion. Alethea hated to admit it, but she had to admire the skill that kept the woman from looking as afraid as she must feel now that she knew her guards were not coming to her aid.

“I am afraid your burly ruffians cannot help you now,” said Argus as he stepped over to Margarite.

The way Argus yanked the woman to her feet, dragged her to a chair, and shoved her into it shocked Alethea. Argus was a lot angrier about what Margarite and her sister had done than he had revealed before now. The look of grim satisfaction on Olympia’s face confirmed Alethea’s opinion that barely repressed fury was at work here. If Argus had some dark part of him that caused him to be rough with women, Olympia would have known about it. She would also have gelded the man by now, brother or not.

“You cannot come in here like this,” Margarite protested, her expression now one of righteous outrage. “You certainly have no right to treat me so roughly.” She rubbed the arm he had grabbed. “I am sure to have bruises.”

“If all goes as I wish it, madam, you shall have yet another bruise, a brilliant one around your neck caused by the noose you so richly deserve to wear. Now, where is your sister and, most importantly, where is Lord Redgrave?”

“I have no idea where my sister is, and, as for Lord Redgrave, I suggest you ask his little wife.”

Before Alethea could say a word, Argus bent toward the woman. He put his hands on the arms of the chair, and Margarite pressed into the back of it in a vain attempt to escape the furious man drawing so close to her. Alethea was glad she could not see her cousin’s face, for whatever was there leeched all the color from Margarite’s face.

“You will tell me what I wish to know, madam,” Argus said in a voice so cold it made Alethea shiver.

“I just told you that I have no idea where Claudette or Redgrave are. Why should I? Perhaps they have slipped away for a tryst. He has the wife to give him an heir,
oui?
So now he can play.”

Argus stepped back, put his hands on his hips, and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “Aldus, see what she is hiding beneath the floor.” As Aldus moved to do so, Argus looked at Margarite again. “I am curious to see what would have a woman on her knees trying her hand at ripping up a floor.”

Alethea was truly astonished by the woman’s control. Not by a flicker of an eyelash did Margarite reveal that she was in any way overset by the chance of Aldus revealing her secrets. It was very possible that the woman had not hidden anything that could get her or her sister hanged.

“I have nothing hidden there,” Margarite said. “I was but trying to fix a loose board.”

“By yourself? With six burly men roaming about outside? I become gravely insulted, madam, that you should think such weak explanations and excuses would be enough to turn me aside from what I seek.”

“You said you seek Claudette and Redgrave. I certainly have not hidden them beneath my floors.”

“Sweet heavens, but she makes me ache to slap her blind,” muttered Olympia in a quiet but very hard voice.

“I feel the same,” said Alethea in an equally soft voice so as not to disturb Argus. “You can almost smell the arrogance and conceit of the woman in the very air around her. I would like to believe that Aldus will find something of importance beneath the floor, but I cannot. Margarite is far too calm, cocky even, for someone about to be revealed as a traitor.”

“My guess is that there is money and jewels under there, enough to make for a very comfortable life somewhere safer for her than London is now.”

“If that is so, then why stay here once it did grow dangerous if she had the funds to leave?”

“Because for someone like her, enough is
never
enough. More, always more, is wanted.”

“Olympia, if you will work your magic on this hovel, I would appreciate it,” said Argus.

“Of course. Madam, if there is anything you wish to confess to, do it now, for it might be to your benefit to do so before I uncover the crime.”

“What
are
you talking about?” asked Margarite.

“Your secrets, your sins, leave their mark, madam,” Olympia said as she began to walk toward the fireplace. “The greater the crime, the heavier the sin, the longer that mark remains.” She shrugged when Margarite just stared at her as if she were mad. “Have it your way.”

The way Olympia strode directly to the fireplace told Alethea that her cousin had already been closely surveying the room for signs. Olympia’s gift was one she did not completely understand. Alethea understood Iago seeing the spirits of people, but how could Olympia see the spirits of events? However the woman did it, she did it well, and Alethea had no doubt that Olympia had already uncovered something Margarite would rather not have discovered.

“If I recall the drawings I was shown,” said Olympia as she ran her hand over the ornate marble mantelpiece, “that man Pierre Leon was recently here. That is who I see standing here.”

“That is no great secret,” said Margarite. “Of course he was here. He is my cousin. And most people stand by a fireplace when they first enter a room. He was probably cold or damp.”

“A very close cousin, too. You were lovers.”

Margarite began to look a little nervous, but she shrugged. “That is no crime, either. Pierre is a very handsome man.”

“And foolish enough to think he could trust you.” Olympia idly rubbed her hand up and down the side of the mantelpiece. “He thought you had accepted his failures, understood that he had done his best to kill Germaine and make Alethea run home. But you had not. Neither had Claudette. Oh, my. That is interesting. You were both with him.”

“How is that interesting? As I just told you, he was our cousin.”

Alethea saw the faint smile on Olympia’s face and knew why it was there. Margarite had slipped. She had said
was,
not
is.
No one showed that they had noticed that slip, however, and so Alethea struggled to keep her knowledge of it out of her expression. She knew that cracking a nut as hard as Margarite would not be quick and easy.

“And so very, very close to both of you.” Olympia shook her head. “Poor, poor fool. If he had not tried to kill young Germaine and beat my cousin, I might actually feel sorry for him. He did not realize that the moment he failed to do as you and Claudette wanted, he was already a dead man. Blood ties mean nothing to you or her.”

“Of course they do. We honor our family and are all very close.”

“Well, you and Claudette were certainly very close to him that night. He thought he was in for a very special delight. The fact that he felt no surprise at what was offered tells me that he had indulged before.” Olympia gave a dramatic shudder. “That is something I would rather not think about, and I am pleased the act was never finished here. No. As you, madam, kept him dazed with passion, your sister slipped her knife out of her sleeve and cut the poor fool’s throat. I believe if we look hard enough, we will find his blood around here somewhere. No one can clean up such a mess completely.”

“How dare you accuse me of such things!”

The protest was spoken with an admirable amount of outrage, but Alethea could see the glint of fear in Margarite’s eyes. The guilty might not understand how their secret had been discovered, but the very fact that it had been laid out in front of them, in detail, was often enough to unsettle them. Alethea had never seen it done to someone guilty of so many heinous crimes before, however. It was interesting to see that the control needed when faced with one’s sins was as hard to grasp in the most evil of criminals as it was in the petty ones.

“My dear, do not try to argue with our Olympia,” said Argus. “She just tells you what she sees.”

“By touching things? Do not think me a simpleton, sir. No one can see things by touching something.” Margarite spoke in a voice heavy with scorn, yet she never took her gaze off Olympia.

“Oh, but they can. Our Alethea is very good at that. You and Claudette left a handkerchief at Iago’s house, and it was very talkative.” Argus met Margarite’s startled look with a smile. “Farm girls. You are naught but lowly farm girls who reach far and above their station.”

That stung,
Alethea thought as Margarite glared at her cousin. “Chickens,” she murmured, knowing she was adding to the insult. “You slaughtered chickens for nothing, and very little of it.”

Margarite was starting to become afraid. Aldus sat on the floor looking through several small chests he had pulled out of a hollow beneath the board Margarite had been pulling up. The rest of her unwanted company stood around telling her things they had no way of knowing. Alethea was just surprised that it had taken the woman so long to lose her bravado.

Modred stepped forward, and Alethea tensed, wanting to know what he might discover and wanting to protect him from such evil. She clenched her hands at her side, fighting the urge to pull him back, away from what she saw as a danger to his heart and soul. He was a grown man, head of their large family, and he had the right to prove himself.

“She is as Iago said,” murmured Modred as he stared at Margarite, his head cocked slightly to the side. “Cold, empty.”

Margarite glared at Iago. “If I was cold, it was because you were such a poor lover.”

“No, you wanted him back,” said Modred. “You wanted him to be your next husband.” Modred glanced at Iago. “You would not have survived the marriage for long.”