Louisa Rawlings (41 page)

No. No! How could she think that way? He’d been her tender lover, her sweet companion. She’d seen the dark part of his soul, true enough. Angry, vengeful. But not
evil.
Sweet Virgin. Not the man who’d charmed her in the moonlight, who’d stolen her heart with his warm laughter.

But he was a Chalotais. What was it Adelaïde had said?
The Chalotais men can be charming, when they want to be.
And they had no shame when it came to money. Lucien himself had once told her that the Chalotais men liked to marry well. Wasn’t that what
he
had planned? Like his father. Like his uncle.

No! She clapped her hands to her ears to still the ugly thoughts that whirled in her brain. She winced. Her fingers touched the sore spot on her head, where the mill arm had struck her. Ave Maria, was there no end to her fears and doubting? Lucien had tried to make light of it, claiming that the wheel couldn’t have turned. But what if somebody had connected it
deliberately
?

She forced herself to recall every detail: how the mill had looked this morning, what Lucien had said afterwards. If she hadn’t heard the sound of the arms as they turned, and ducked, the blow would have hit her squarely on the head. It might have killed her. It would certainly have knocked her out. And then what? Over the side of the cliff to the rocks below? She shuddered. He could have been hiding in the mill, could have engaged the wind shaft just as she turned her back. She was still dazed when she looked for his message inside; he could have been behind the door, and she wouldn’t have noticed.

His message. To meet her, so he could tell her something meaningless about Farigoule, whom he’d heard from days ago. Why had he waited to tell her? For that matter, was it important to begin with? Or had he used the handkerchief, the message above the door, merely as a lure? And then, when she didn’t die, he’d had to conjure up a plausible reason for his summons.

And there was something else. He didn’t seem to believe she was Véronique. He seemed quite certain about that. Véronique won’t return, he’d said. How did he know that? Had
he
been responsible for her disappearance? And what if she truly
was
Véronique? He’d looked at her so strangely, when she’d told him that her memories were returning. He’d wondered what the child Véronique thought of him. Perhaps there was something that he feared she’d remember.

“Oh, Lucien,” she sobbed. It couldn’t be so. It
couldn’t
! She sniffled and wiped at her nose. What was it she always told the Givet little ones?
Pick yourself up.
She couldn’t help herself by crying. It was important to
think
, to get herself out of this predicament, if she could.

What to do? There was no one to rescue her. Only Lucien was aware of this tunnel, as far as she knew. She could wait here until the candle burned itself out, then die in the darkness and the cold. And it
was
cold down here, a chill that seeped into her bones. She eyed the candle in the lantern. Another hour or so, she guessed. No more. But perhaps when Lucien had removed the spare lanterns at the grotto, he’d left the tinderbox. She’d fetch it, bring it back here, before the candle died. She’d burn her slippers for light and warmth. If need be, she’d burn her night shift as well.

She gasped as a thought struck her. By Saint Christophe, she might even be able to burn down the door! She jumped to her feet. Why not? The beams were old and dry. And even if Lucien had taken the tinderbox from the grotto shelf, there was still the shelf itself to use as fuel. She picked up the lantern and started back along the passageway.

Something on the ground caught her eye, at a spot where the tunnel curved. Small, easy to overlook, unless she were watching the ground as she walked. She stooped and retrieved it. Lucien’s penknife. She opened it up, stared at it, thinking. If she tried to burn the door, she might suffocate on the smoke long before she’d managed to make a hole big enough to get through. And how could she be certain that the foul air of the tunnel was enough to fuel a blaze in the first place? It was risky. But with this knife… The door was old and rotting, the hinges rusty. She might be able to loosen them, pry out the bolts, push the door open a crack so she could squeeze through. She went back to the door, put the lantern on the ground, and set to work.

It was painfully slow. The knife was small. And though she was able to gouge out chunks of the soft wood alongside the hinges, the chunks were very small. But she worked as quickly as she could, one eye on the dwindling candle. If it should go out, she’d have to work in the dark. At last she loosened one of the hinges, pulled it away from the wood, cursed as it tore a fingernail. She sucked at the painful finger for a moment (
Damn you, Lucien!
); and then attacked the next hinge.

The candle had begun to sputter by the time she’d removed the last hinge. Because of the bolt on the other side, she’d have to pull the door open, not push it. Using Lucien’s knife, she. pried at the door. The tip of the knife snapped. She swore again, and slipped the broken blade between the door and the jamb. This time she was able to pull the door forward enough to get a grip on it with her fingers. She strained, tugged, pulled. Her night shift was damp with sweat.

The door yielded just as the candle flared up, then died. She squeezed through the narrow opening and groped about in the dark. She found the steps leading to the tower trapdoor, and the shelf that held lanterns.
Thanks be to God!
The villain clearly never expected her to escape that part of the tunnel: he’d left the spare lanterns here. She lit one, made her way to the library steps. She had a moment’s terror, fearful that he might have blocked that exit as well. But when she pulled on the lever, the bookcase door opened and she stepped into the dark library. She murmured a prayer of gratitude and hurried to her room. At the last moment, feeling a twinge of fear, she locked the door to her boudoir. Let her maids knock for entrance in the morning.

She awoke once at the close of the night. She thought she heard the rattle of her doorknob. “Go away, Lucien,” she whispered. “Go to hell.” She pulled the coverlet about her ears, lay down, and slept again.

She took breakfast in her room in the morning, and sent a note to Léonard, telling him she’d be ready for their picnic at half after eleven. She spent the morning hours in a turmoil, torn between love and suspicion, hope and fear. It
couldn’t
have been Lucien. Yet there was no other explanation.

She dressed in light linen clothes for the picnic. The breezes blew warm at her window; it would soon be hot July. She hurried to the kitchen to get the food basket that had been prepared, then ran to the gardens to wait for Léonard.

“Véronique.”

She turned. Lucien stood in the shadow of a rose arbor. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

He beckoned. “Come and talk to me.”

Did he think she was mad? “Not there, Lucien. Here, in the open, where we can be seen.”

His eyebrow lifted at a quizzical angle, but he stepped out of the arbor and came toward her. “I wanted to talk to you about yesterday afternoon.”

“Why did you call me Véronique, just then? Do you believe me?”

He smiled sheepishly. “I’m not really convinced. But I thought it would please you. And, despite my rather crude behavior yesterday, I
do
want to please you. Though you probably mistrust my motives.”

“A quick marriage? With a compliant Véronique? Is that it, Lucien?”

“I do want to marry you. For many reasons.”

“How charming you can be. A Chalotais trait, no doubt. It’s only a pity that you can’t make up your mind. First you charm me. Then you try to kill me. And when that doesn’t work, you try charm again.”

“
Kill
you? Have you become such a pampered darling that when a man tries to take you against your will it’s akin to murder?”

“Very clever and amusing,” she sneered. “And what about the mill? Was that just an accident?”

He muttered a curse. “I told you that was just your imagination. I even went back to the mill to find out for myself. As I thought, the wind shaft was disconnected.”

“Do pirates learn to lie with a silver tongue, as well as to kill and cheat? And how do you neatly explain away the tunnel last night? Were you hoping I’d die there? And guarantee your inheritance by my death?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I should have saved your note for the police. It might have been amusing to see you worm your way out of
that
.
Your lure, to get me to the tunnel and lock me in.”

He frowned. “I never sent you a note.” He reached out to take her by the arm.

“Damn you, don’t you touch me!” she shrilled. “I still have your knife.”

“My knife? I lost it days ago.”

“And it was your undoing. And my salvation. It’s a pity the blade snapped when I pried open the locked door. But it still serves. And this time I’ll not give it back to you.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“I’m on my guard now, Lucien. If you ever try to kill me again, I’ll drive your own blade into your black heart!” She snatched up her picnic basket and raced off to where Léonard was waiting.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lucien stared at the girl’s retreating form. Kill her? What madness was that? Not content with turning his world upside down, with making him doubt—for the first time!—the rightness of his hatred, the little imp now accused him of trying to kill her! It just seemed to get worse. Nothing made sense anymore.

Once, he’d known what he wanted. To steal the Chalotais money. To get his revenge. To enshrine his hatred in his heart so he’d never forget what had been done to him. But these last few weeks with the girl…he’d seen all his neat plans crumble. All his certainties turn to dust. He’d felt lost, bewildered, confused. Wondering why he’d begun the whole stupid thing. He’d start to yearn for home, dreaming of sunny Guadeloupe; then a vision of the girl’s radiant face would appear before him, and he’d scarcely remember what his island looked like. She invaded his thoughts, tangled his heart, until he thought he’d go mad. He didn’t understand her. Lord, he didn’t understand
himself
anymore.

And now she said he’d tried to kill her. At the mill. In the tunnel. He couldn’t believe that. Hadn’t he gone back to the mill yesterday to see for himself? Everything there was as it should be. And now the tunnel? It was absurd, but perhaps he should find out what fantasies she was weaving now.

He went down through the park to the grotto. He didn’t want to chance entering the tunnel from the library. Not in the morning, when the château still bustled with servants at work.

He arrived at the grotto, ducked under the overhang, and reached for the stalactite. “
Merde!
” he said aloud. The stalactite was gone, snapped at its base, leaving a small gear visible, and nothing more. It couldn’t have been an accident: There were no broken bits on the ground. Whoever had done it had removed the mechanism and taken it away. He pushed at the door in vain. Without the mechanical release, it would take half a dozen men to budge it.

He frowned. The girl said she’d been locked in. And lured to the tunnel by a note that she thought was from him. Could it have happened that way? Concerned now, he turned about and raced for the château. He’d have to take a chance on being seen in the library; he had to know the truth.

He slipped through the bookcase door and made his way into the tunnel. Lifting his lantern as he neared the inner door, he cursed aloud. Just as she’d said. It was still bolted, though it gaped on the hinged side. He even saw the tip of his knife in the dirt. He shivered. Someone had lured her here last night. Someone had followed her, waited until she was past this door. Then thrown the bolt. She would have died here, but for the accident of finding his lost knife.

But surely whoever had done it would have known
he’d
go looking for her. How could he have been kept from the tunnel? Unless his life was to be forfeit, after she was gone. A cold dread clutched at his heart. Someone wanted her dead. And it wasn’t the first time. The windmill arm
had
nearly killed her. It wasn’t her imagination. He realized that now. When he’d gone back, he’d seen that the arm was disconnected, sure enough. But the dust on the floor near the controlling lever had been disturbed, as though someone had stood just there. And engaged the gears so the arm would strike her? What a fool he’d been! He’d ignored the evidence of his own eyes. Just as he’d ignored everything. He’d been deaf and blind to everything but his own revenge, his own hatred. Even after all this time, he was still no better than the savage pirates he’d roved with.

He groaned. And he’d ignored the truth she’d tried to make him see. She
was
Véronique. By some bizarre coincidence, their paths had crossed. And he’d brought her back. Not to reunite her with her family, not to bring joy to her, to Adelaïde. But to use her. He cursed his blind selfishness. And now he’d put her life at risk.

Even at this moment, she might be in danger.
Oh, Lord, protect her
, he thought. He felt the sweat on his brow, despite the cold tunnel. He hurried back to the library. He had to find her.

He was just closing the bookcase when the library door opened. Bonnefous came into the room. The solicitor raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised to see you here, Monsieur Renaudot.”

Lucien contrived to look bored. “I
do
read, monsieur. Even bastards read.”