Lady of Seduction (17 page)

Once they had cleared away, Grant saw the source of the cries. Monsieur Michel and the vicomte were huddled in the corner,
slumped on the floor.

“Arnaud!” LaPlace shouted and ran over to kneel beside his cousin. “
Foutre
, what are you doing here?”

Caroline followed him and bent down to examine the vicomte. “Monsieur,” she murmured. “Monsieur, are you awake?” She dipped
her handkerchief into a puddle of water and carefully wiped at his brow.

Grant knelt beside her. The surge of strength from fighting the fire subsided, leaving sadness and a cold anger. What were
these men doing here? Had they set the fire for some unfathomable reason? For he was quite sure it
had
been set. That driftwood was not here before, and there were the remains of dry straw and paper along the edges of the walls.

The vicomte came awake with a sputtering cough. He tried to sit up, his eyes full of terror, but Caroline gently pressed him
back. “Careful, monsieur, you have had a shock,” she said.

The vicomte clutched at her hand. “Is it gone?” he whispered.

“We need to move them out of here,” Grant said. He slid his arms around the vicomte and lifted him up. The older man was thin
and frail and racked by coughs as Grant carried him out of the smoke and up into the relatively fresh air of the corridor.
LaPlace followed with Michel’s bulky form over his shoulder.

The bell clanged in the distance, and he could hear the clatter of the servants arriving with more water. As Grant
directed them down to the dungeon, Caroline sat by the vicomte on the drawing room sofa where Grant placed him, bathing his
face and murmuring with him in quiet French. Once all was settled and quiet again, with the only remains of the fire the lingering
smell of smoke in the air, Grant returned to kneel beside them again. The vicomte’s eyes were closed, and his breath labored,
but at least he breathed.

“Is he well?” Grant asked Caroline quietly.

She nodded as she dabbed at the vicomte’s forehead with another damp cloth. “He will be, I think, if he rests quietly for
a while. The fire was a great shock to his system. But I fear Monsieur Michel might not be all right.”

“Michel?”

“LaPlace carried him up to his room a few minutes ago. It looked as if he wasn’t moving.”

The vicomte stirred at her words. He opened his bloodshot eyes to stare up at them. “I am sorry for it,” he said. “Especially
for my Victorine. She was in love with him, I fear, though I am not sure why.”

“By Hades, what were you two doing in the dungeon of all places?” Grant said tightly, trying to rein in his anger. The force
of his fury would only grind the man down even further, and he would never have his answers then.

“I was looking for the book, of course,” the vicomte said.

“In the dungeon?”

“You would not show it to me yet, monsieur, nor even tell me where it was kept. I fear my yearning overtook me, and one of
your servants mentioned you spend a lot of time in this tower. I asked Monsieur Michel to help me look around, to see if perhaps
you stored some treasures there.” The vicomte paused. “I found that you do not.”

Grant rubbed his hand over his face. He was weary of subterfuge, of always being on high guard, but this was an old battle
that had no end in sight. He couldn’t trust anyone or let down his armor for an instant.

Caroline watched him over the vicomte’s head. Her brow was furrowed in a suspicious frown.

“And the fire?” Grant said.

The vicomte closed his eyes again. “I don’t know, monsieur. We must have knocked over a lamp as we searched those crates,
yet I have no memory of it.”

“Those crates should not have been there,” Grant said low under his breath. The old dungeon had long been empty—or so he thought.
Once the smoke cleared down there he would have a thorough look around. “Which servant told you I spent much time in the tower?”

“I cannot remember,” the vicomte said with a shrug. “A young bearded man. I did wonder why you would employ such a person,
but I am sure it is hard to find servants in such a place. He seemed most insistent I should look there.”

Grant frowned. “Come,” he said. “We need to get you to your bed, monsieur le vicomte. I fear there is no doctor on the island
at the moment, so we will have to do what we can to see you well again.”

“I am sure Mademoiselle Black is a most able nurse,” the vicomte said. “As well as a pretty one. You are a fortunate man,
Sir Grant.”

“Or a cursed one,” Grant muttered. He slid his arm around the vicomte and helped him to his feet. The man coughed again, but
he managed to hobble along. The foyer was empty again, all the servants having scurried back to their quarters below stairs
to speculate on all the
strange events of the night. By morning his reputation on the island would be even blacker than it already was.

A wail suddenly floated down from the landing, high and thin like the mournful cry of a spirit. Mademoiselle Victorine appeared
above them, her pale silk robe glowing in the shadows.

“He is dead!” she screamed. “And it is your fault!”

C
aroline hurried up the hillside toward the ruins of the monastery. The bleak, gray sky threatened more rain, but she didn’t
care. She had to be gone from the castle, with its terrible miasma of smoke and death and secrets, and be out in the fresh,
cold air, alone. She needed to be in the world she understood, the world of history and legend.

She didn’t understand
this
world at all.

The castle was in chaos this morning. Maeve had fled home to her mother, and most of the other servants were packing to leave
as well. Even Mrs. McCann seemed flustered and unsure. The vicomte was ill in his bed, still asking for the book, while his
daughter sobbed in grief. Monsieur Michel was laid out in the old icehouse behind the castle’s kitchen garden, LaPlace was
in a fury, and Grant…

Caroline had not seen Grant all morning. The last anyone could tell, he had disappeared down to the dungeon at first light,
and she couldn’t quite bring herself to follow him down there yet.

The castle and all its weird occupants were on the edge
of some fatal precipice, she could feel it. One tiny breath of wind would send them right over and into disaster.

Caroline paused at the crest of the hill. From there she could see so much. The rugged green fields bisected by gray stone
walls, whitewashed cottages, and the conical ruins of old beehive huts. A few shaggy sheep were the only living beings that
she could glimpse. The cliffs stood out pale and jagged, beaten by the ceaseless stormy waves, and she could just glimpse
the edge of the village down by the shore.

Were they harboring the “ghost,” the mysterious figure who seemed to have started the fire? And what was the purpose of such
an act? To drive away the French visitors?

Or to drive out the castle’s owner, once and for all?

She remembered Maeve’s tear-streaked face as she hurried out the door with her hastily packed valise under her arm. “I’ve
had enough of this place,” she had said. “I just want me mum. And you should get away, too, my lady, quick as can be, before
it’s too late.”

Caroline thought of her own mother Katherine, of her calm smile and cool touch, and her quiet, sensible air. She wanted
her
mother in that moment, just as Maeve did. She wanted to feel Katherine’s arms around her and hear her sensible advice—even
though Caroline rarely took it. But Katherine was far away in Switzerland with her new husband, visiting Caroline’s eldest
sister Eliza and her family.

And Caroline couldn’t run away. She couldn’t leave Grant, not until she knew what danger he was in. It was as if some invisible
but unbreakable tie bound their fates together, and they could not escape it. They were always borne back to each other, as
if on the eternal ocean waves. Even when she fought to swim away from him, even when she hated him, she was bound to him.

“I should have left him tied to the bed until he talked to me,” she whispered. But even then the infuriatingly stubborn, arrogant
man would probably tell her nothing.

She kicked out at a rock with her boot. She wore her boy’s clothes again, but they gave her no sense of freedom this time.

Caroline spun around and hurried down the other side of the hill. The monastery was deserted—there weren’t even any birds
crying in the old cloister. There was just the cry of the wind around the ruined spires. The ghosts of the monks were in hiding.

She sat down on the crumbling bench inside the church’s nave where she had sought shelter last time with Grant. The wind was
cold on her face and tore at her hair, pulling it from its pins, but she liked the silence. She could think inside of it and
feel more like herself again.

Obviously
The Chronicle
was some kind of excuse for this French visit. No matter how eager the vicomte seemed to have it, surely they would not have
come now to fetch a mere book unless it was a cover for something else. Who were they spies for—and was Grant their ally or
their secret enemy?

Could he truly still hate his cousin so much that he would resort to treason to ruin all Conlan stood for—an independent Ireland?

She heard a sudden thud, like a stone falling to the ground. It was even louder and more startling in the sacred silence of
the church. Caroline jumped to her feet in panic.

“Wh—who is there?” she called. “Show yourself!”

A man’s face peered around a corner of the jagged wall, no ghost at all. Caroline studied him as she reached for the hilt
of the dagger tucked into her boot.

He was young but hard faced, his green eyes blazing with anger. His long black hair and beard were tangled, and he wore rough
clothes. He looked like a pirate or a brigand, yet he stared back at her with just as much caution as she held for him.

She suddenly remembered the vicomte’s description of the strange servant who lured him to the tower—rough and bearded. Could
this be the “servant”? Why would he wish to create such a diversion?

“Who are you?” she demanded. “Are you following me?”

“Why would I do that?” he said. His Irish accent was very thick. “I came here to be alone.”

“Do you live in the village?”

“I did once, afore my girl died, and I went to work on the mainland,” he answered grudgingly.

“Your girl died?” Caroline remembered what Maeve’s mother told her, about poor Bessie’s heart-broken suitor. “You must be
Mick, then.”

“Aye, Mick O’Shea. And you must be the fine lady staying at the castle. I’d get away from there if I were you, milady.”

“And why is that?” He was the second person to give her such a warning today, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. She took
a careful step toward him. He didn’t back away or rush forward to attack her, but his face tightened.

“Because people die there, that’s why. It’s an evil place. First my Bessie, then what happened last night. No telling who
might be next.”

“Word travels fast I see.”

“It’s a small island is Muirin Inish. And we look after our own.”

Caroline’s glance fell on Mick’s shirt sleeve. The pale
linen was gray, as if streaked with soot. She took a cautious step closer and caught a whiff of sharp, stale smoke on the
wind.

Her fingers tightened on the dagger hilt.

“And take revenge for your own, as well?” she said.

Mick scowled and tucked his arm behind his back. She saw that he wore pistols strapped to his waist.

“You’re just a stranger here, so you don’t know what it’s like,” he said. “We live our own lives and don’t bother no one,
so we don’t want them to meddle with us. The English, the French—they all just need to keep away. We won’t let anyone else
get hurt like Bessie.”

“I’m not here to meddle with anyone. And I’m certainly not here to mess about with politics.” She had quite enough of that
in the Rebellion.

“I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t care,” he answered. “Just consider this a warning. It won’t be that old dungeon
destroyed next.”

“Consider me warned then,” she said.

He gave a brusque nod and spun away from her. Caroline watched cautiously as he disappeared over the crest of the hill. She
let her breath out in a great rush, and her hand fell from the dagger. She had to get back to the castle.

The narrow road was just as empty as the monastery, and the first cold raindrops were falling just as she ran up the stone
steps into the foyer. All the tumult of earlier had vanished now, and all the servants were gone. Not even Mademoiselle Victorine’s
sobs could be heard. Caroline had to find Grant and demand some long overdue answers—and then persuade him to leave the island
with her right now.

She went first to the vicomte’s chamber to look in
on him. He seemed very pale and frail in the middle of the vast bed, propped up on the bolsters. An untouched breakfast tray
sat on the bedside table. It was no time to ask him about the servant who sent him to the tower.

His eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping quietly, so Caroline started to leave. But as she eased the door shut, his
eyes opened and he said, “Mademoiselle Black! Is that you? Do come in, please.”