England's Assassin (16 page)

“No. I’m not leaving Paris.” He lifted her from the floor so that he could reason with her, calm her. “I’m in no more danger than I was five minutes ago. You’re the only one who knows who I am. What I am, and I’m fairly confident that neither of us will be blabbering the circumstances of my birth to the French.”

The lady’s mind was turned inward as her eyes studied his chest.

“The safest course of action for us both is to finish this assignment and make our way back to England together. Now, can you perform the assassination any sooner?”

Nicole Beauvoire was composed now, thinking clearly.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Empress Bonaparte’s Toussaint feast is the perfect opportunity to perform the assassination.”

“You realize the missive ordering that the assignation take place at the feast was most assuredly written by the French.” Daniel reminded her, hoping that she would change her mind.

“I know.”

“So why not just kill the minister now?”

She sighed as if explaining addition to a stupid child. “Ideally, an assassination would be performed in isolation. However, Minister LeCoeur is a very careful man who keeps his bodyguards very close at hand. If I were to attempt the assassination prior to the Toussaint feast, their attention would be focused entirely upon me.

However, the feast provides the perfect distraction for the assassination. His bodyguards will have their attention focused outward, waiting for the assassin Scorpion to arrive rather than watching the woman standing beneath their noses. Minister LeCoeur will find confidence in the precautions taken and feel protected by the crush of guests.”

“And how will you escape?”

Mademoiselle Beauvoire smirked, tired of their discussion. “Lord DunDonell, I have escaped from assassinations nine times over. Might I suggest that you worry about your own safety?”

In many ways Daniel admired this woman, the cold confidence of competence bolstered by previous successes. Nicole Beauvoire was intelligent, capable and would forever be underestimated by the men she would kill.

Had killed.

But as Daniel looked at her beautiful face, looked at her shimmering hair as it engulfed her silky shoulders, he could not help but remember the vulnerable woman that he had just taken to bed. He could not help but remember the woman that had clung desperately to him as he made love to her, the woman that had given herself as she made love to him.

The woman he preferred, the women he would protect.

“Goodnight,” Mademoiselle Beauvoire said, having nothing more to give.

They were ten minutes late, but that only helped to increase the anticipation Evariste Rousseau felt as he watched the carriage holding the traitor Lord Cunningham inch down the dark alleyway and directly toward him.

He stared from around the corner, savoring this moment. The moment just before the game begins, when he is the only one who realizes there is a game being played.

His eyes followed the wheel of the conveyance as it dipped into a puddle to the right of the heavy landau. Water splashed over the narrow cobble stone street that eventually led to the back entrance of Newgate prison.

The rhythmic pounding of hooves spurred his excitement and Evariste Rousseau took a deep, relaxing breath then stepped out from the shadows. He raised one of two pistols, shooting the guard seated to the right of the driver. The driver turned, gasping with surprise, but his breath caught, stuck there by one of Evariste’s many daggers.

The black gelding reared as the driver fell to the street, taking the leather reins with him. The two guards at the back of the conveyance jumped off their perch and were crouched down as they inched toward him from either sides of the carriage. But Evariste had slipped back into the shadows and they were having a difficult time locating him through their panic.

“Where is he?” The larger man asked, his hand resting on the haunches of the horse as he attempted to calm the animal.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” The guard closest him scanned the alley, but unfortunately for him, failed to locate Evariste a mere ten feet away.

Evariste felt the rush of danger for one second more before spinning from his hiding place, his greatcoat flaring behind him. 

The guard fired and an orange spark illuminated his face, giving the guard a glimpse of his murderer just before Rousseau slit the man’s throat.

The corpse collapsed to the filthy street and he withdrew his second pistol rounding the carriage and approaching the remaining guard from behind. The man was peering beneath the black gelding that was more spooked by the smell of blood than it had been by the gunfire.

The horse stomped and snorted, his harness jingling, making the guard’s ears utterly useless. The man saw him the instant before Evariste grabbed him from behind, placing the cocked pistol just below the guard’s right ear.

Wisely, the man lay down his firearm and raised both hands, admitting defeat. Evariste smiled to himself, his crooked teeth hidden beneath the dark shadows of his face.

“Quiet,” he warned as he shoved the guard in the back and toward the darkened carriage. The guard breathed heavily, his chest filled with fear, but Evariste scarcely noticed as his eyes were firmly fixed on the silver handle of the conveyance door.

He listened for sudden movement within the carriage, but between the agitated horse and the cowardly Englishman, he could hear nothing. They reached the left side door and he released the guard, his pistol still trained on his head.

Evariste pressed his back against the black lacquer landau, his muscular legs stilling in readiness. He jerked his head toward the carriage door, indicating that the guard was to open it.

The man hesitated, his thoughts very nearly audible. The guard licked his lips and he threw the door open, shouting, “Colonel—“

But his words were cut off the moment the bullet entered his forehead, knocking him back against the alley wall. Evariste spun into the void where the guard had been and before the colonel could regroup, Evariste fired. Killing the man where he sat on the squabs opposite his primary target.

Evariste felt a swell of pride when Lord Cunningham’s blue eyes widened with fear the instant the gentleman saw who it was that had ambushed their transport. His shackled legs kicked out, but Evariste was on him, using his weight to drive the larger man against the squabs.

The traitor cried out, the shackles behind his back cutting into his wrists as Evariste grinned down at him in triumph, saying, “Bonjour, Lord Cunningham. The Emperor sends his regards.”

***

Lord Barksdale had been late collecting her for their evening at the opera and Juliet Pervill discreetly glanced at her watch, afraid that they would arrive after the opening curtain.

“I’m sorry, Juliet,” Robert said, shaking his head in frustration.

She smiled, wanting to ease his anxiety and feeling guilty that she had added to it by looking at the hour.

“It’s alright, Robert. Nothing you could do about a lame horse. The poor thing had to be changed out.”

“My coachman assures me that he can get us to the theater in time for the opening curtain via these back alleys.”

“I’m sure that he will, and if we miss the opera,” Juliet said, smiling. “We shall just have to find something else with which to occupy ourselves.”

Lord Barksdale’s head snapped round so fast that it made her giggle. “Like what?”

“Really, Robert,” Juliet rolled her eye and then he was bending his head to kiss her.

“I knew you would be like this,” Robert whispered, kissing her again.

“Like what?” Juliet leaned back and raised a brow.

“Intoxicating,” the amorous young lord stared into her eyes, his arms banding around waist.

“How?” Juliet wondered, knowing full well that she was not a beauty like her cousin.

Felicity was far more beautiful than she could ever hope to be and Juliet could never quite comprehend Robert’s preference for her rather than the stunning Lady Appleton.

“How, what?” He nibbled on her ear and Juliet pushed on his chest so that she might look into his midnight eyes.

“How did you know I would be ‘intoxicating’?”

Robert let out on exasperated breath, saying, “Juliet, you are forcing me to be rather blunt.”

“Do be blunt, Robert.” Juliet nodded, looking at him as she impatiently awaited his response. “Why is it when most men are enticed by a beautiful woman that you are enticed by… well, me?”

“My dear, you have been in your cousin’s shadow for far too long.” Robert placed the back of his fingers on her cheek, his eyes heating as he tried to explain. “I don’t want a docile woman warming my bed, Juliet.”

They stared at one another, both envisioning the marriage bed.

“Oh,” Juliet whispered, finally grasping his meaning.

“Exactly,” Robert chuckled, bending his head to kiss her deeply this time and she could not help but think how proficient he was at kissing.

Lord Barksdale must have liked it too because his right hand was traveling up her ribs and toward her breast.

“Perhaps we should just drive around the park a couple of hundred times?” he breathed, hopefully.

“Why would I want to do that,” Juliet teased, stopping his ascent with the touch of her fingers to his wrist. “I’ve heard
Fidelio
is quite moving.”

Robert grinned seductively, saying, “It could not possibly be as moving as what we are doing—“

But his voice was cut off by a blood curdling scream that pierced their romantic thoughts and forced them to turn in the direction of the horrifying noise.

Juliet shuddered, sure that a man would only make such a desperate cry when in the arms of death. She waited, listening and hoping never to hear that sound again for the rest of her days.

“There is a carriage just down the alley, my lord,” the coachman shouted down. “But I see no driver atop.”

Robert glanced at her, giving her the option, she knew, of continuing on or stopping to help the distressed conveyance. Juliet nodded and he squeezed her hand, saying to his driver, “Stop and ask the gentleman in the landau if he is in need of assistance.”

Their carriage stopped at the head of the alley and Robert’s coachman descended with the footman at his heels. Juliet watched through Robert’s window as his two men approached the quiet carriage with pistols drawn.

She squeezed Robert’s hand and he squeezed back as they waited.

Then coachman fell to one knee, shouting, “Their all dead,” his tone holding his disbelief.

“How many?”

“Four. Guards they look to be, my lord.”

“Guards?” Robert asked his brow furrowed as he spoke in the direction of his coachman.

“Could have been transporting a prisoner to Newgate. A dangerous fellow, if they were in need of four—“

“Jesus!” Juliet tensed at the sound of the young footman’s voice. “It weren’t no prisoner what did this. The man, or what’s left of him, is still shackled inside the landau along with another gentleman.”

Lord Barksdale’s head snapped round and Juliet knew that he remained in the carriage because of her.

“Go, Robert,” she jerked her head in the direction of the alley. “There is no one loitering in the alley or the villain would have confronted your men by now.”

“Are you sure?” Juliet could see his indecision as he was torn between his duty to her and his duty to those unfortunate men.

“Yes, the sooner you assess the situation the sooner we can send for the night watch.”

“Two minutes,” Robert kissed her hurriedly and then stepped down from their conveyance.

Juliet sat in the darkened interior of Lord Barksdale’s landau, trying to believe everything she had just told him. She stared down the alley on her left and watched the four men looking over the gruesome scene. So her attention was on Robert when Juliet glimpsed something from the corner of her eye, a movement in the shadows to the right of her door.

The hairs on her neck stood on end and Juliet turned slowly toward the building nearest her side of the carriage just as a figure was born of the dark. But rather than the filthy footpad she expected, this handsome, young man was meticulously dressed in a tailored gold waistcoat and black jacket.

Their eyes met and Juliet froze, staring into ebony eyes with no light in them. The gentleman glanced in Robert’s direction and back toward her, a knife suddenly appearing in his right hand. He held it up and grinned, offering her a choice; scream and he would kill Robert or remain silent and he would disappear into the shadows of London.

The nefarious apparition lifted a gloved finger to his full lips, but rather than being white, his gloves where dripping red with the blood of five men.

“Shhh,” he whispered, making his surreal image all too really, all too threatening.

Juliet shivered then nodded once, knowing that a man who could kill six men, would easily kill one.

Mademoiselle Beauvoire had spent the entire morning writing a letter with detailed instructions that would be sent to Honfleur and eventually on to London.

She shook her head as she folded the completed missive. How could Falcon have been so careless as to send a viscount to extract her?

Particularly, this viscount
.

Viscount DunDonell was unforgettable; enormous, handsome with distinctive coloring and carriage. All it would take is one meeting with a person of minimal memory whom had visited London prior to the start of the war to throw suspicion on Viscount DunDonell if not land him directly in prison.

Nor was the McCurren clan one to be forgotten. Nicole had met the viscount’s parents when she was a child. His father, Malcolm McCurren, Earl of DunDonell was a mountain of a man with a thick, dark beard and a thundering voice that had frightened her no end.

Yes, she could most definitely see the similarity in size and facial features to his handsome heir. The earl was himself a handsome man, but it was his mother from whom the viscount had acquired his stunning turquoise eyes and auburn hair.

The countess she recalled very clearly. Lady DunDonell had been very kind when Nicole’s mother had died when she was but eleven years of age. The Earl of DunDonell and his beautiful wife had stayed in Nicole’s home on several occasions over the years, but it was this visit that she remembered most.

Lady DunDonell had been the only guest present to acknowledge Nicole’s pain, acknowledge the loss a child felt for her mother.

The kindly countess had done what she could, had spoken to Nicole’s tutor, excusing her from her lessons. Lady DunDonell had even played cards with her on the eve of her mother’s burial. Yet the Earl and Countess were merely acquaintances, nothing more, and by the end of that horrible week Nicole was once again alone.

Her impetuous father had never spent much time with her and why Nicole had expected him to comfort her after her mother’s death she did not know. It just seemed to her as a child of eleven as something a father ought to do for his offspring.

Comfort, protect.

Oh, her father loved her very much, but he was a vain man incapable of showering affection on anyone but himself. Nicole resembled her father in appearance and she suspected that his pride and vanity bonded him to her in some peculiar way. He was forever telling Nicole how pretty she was or how beautiful she appeared riding her mount so well.

But even his cursory interest in Nicole had waned when the Earl of Bansbury had meet Lady Langston a mere three months after her mother’s death.

Lady Langston was even prettier and appeared even more beautiful as she rode at her father’s side.

Looking back with the eyes of an adult, Nicole could now see that they had become lovers almost immediately upon meeting. But they had waited the requisite mourning period, as one was forced to do, before announcing their engagement.

Her father had been so happy that night. Nicole smiled as the picture of her father standing with champagne glass in hand bubbled up from her memory.

The Earl of Bansbury was not a dreadful man, quite the contrary. Everyone liked her father. He had been kind to her, kind to the servants and had been a great deal of fun for his friends.

No, he was not a dreadful man. Her father had just been lacking in depth and incapable of --

“What are you doing?”

Nicole flinched in her delicately carved chair. She turned and looked at the man that had consumed her thoughts all evening. He was so perfect of face and his form… Her eyes descended down his exceptional body and Nicole blushed quickly turning to look at her letter lest the man realize her lecherous intentions.

“I’m writing my sister.”

Not that the man was unacquainted with lustful looks. Undoubtedly, the handsome viscount had hundreds of ladies throwing themselves across his path. And the prowess with which he had made love to her indicated that he had taken quite a few up on the offer.

She had not thought of that, had not wanted to think about the countless women he had taken to bed. For one sublime moment, Nicole had felt the most precious woman in all the world and she would forever be grateful for that illuminating instant.

She heard the viscount walking toward her and Nicole leaned so close to her parchment that one might suspect that she required spectacles.

“And what will you tell your sister?” the viscount whispered, intentionally seductive.

His left palm pressed to the oak desk and Nicole stared at his hand, remembering the heat, the power of it on her body.

“Nothing,” she was inarticulate, slow of mind.

He was leaning over her, peering over her right shoulder. “Will you tell your sister about last night?”

“No—“ Her words stuck in her throat the moment his searing lips pressed to her neck. Nicole let him kiss her again. Just once more and then she would stop him. “Tell her what?”

Oh, god yes, another
. She could not breathe.

The air of his soft laughter tickled her nap. “Tell her about us, tell her how we made love.” He kissed the sensitive skin at the base of her neck and her spine tingled with wanting.

Nicole leaned to the left, pulling back. “Why should I tell her about our evening together?”

“You’re absolutely right, lass.” The viscount looked down at her smiling. “Best your family—“

“It won’t happen again.” Lord DunDonell’s brows furrowed as she continued to talk. “I’d no idea when we…”

“Made love,” he nodded angrily, finishing for her.

“Yes,” Nicole spoke to the desk. “I’d no idea when we made love that you were a viscount.”

“What bloody difference does that make?”

She lit the sealing wax and watched the red liquid drip on the back of the veiled letter.

“It makes a great deal of difference.” Nicole pressed her ring to the paraffin and then rose, careful not to meet his striking eyes. “Last night, I thought you a fellow patriot offering his services to the crown.”

“I am!”

“But I now know,” she continued, ignoring him. “That you are a viscount with enormous wealth and responsibility.”

“So?”

“Who came to Paris on a lark.” Nicole picked up the communiqué, her reticule dangling from her left wrist.

“What bloody business is it of yours why I came to Paris?”

“Ahh, I’ve so missed the aristocratic arrogance of Britain’s haute ton.” He was angry, defensive as she stared into his icy eyes, thankful that their sensual subject had been averted. “Very well, why did you come to Paris, Viscount DunDonell?”

This viscount’s jaw set. “My reasons are my own.”

“I’m sure that they are and I shall leave you to them as I have things to which I must attend.”

Daniel watched Nicole Beauvoire walk toward the front door. He watched the way she held her head, her shoulders and then he was sure of his suspicions.

“Well, lass, I may have my reasons for coming to Paris, but you’re not exactly being truthful.” Now that he had her attention, he kept it, walking toward her. “Only ladies of the haute ton ‘miss the aristocratic arrogance’ of its gentlemen.”

The woman saw her mistake and he could see her lovely eyes spinning a tidy lie. “I could have been a maid or a governess—-“

“With your education, your comportment? I think not Lady… Come now lass, make the proper introductions. Lady…” Daniel smiled down at her, the idea of their equal status decidedly intriguing. “I know we’ve never been introduced.” He tilted his head, his eyes staring into hers as he teased her with the possibility of a kiss. “I would have remembered,” Daniel breathed.

His lips fell to hers and she tasted as sweet as she did last night. His fingers slid around the silky skin at the base of her neck, just below her morning bonnet.

The lass was like a fawn ready to jump at the first opportunity so and he constantly reassured her with gentle caresses. Daniel moved closer, deeper and his right hand went round her waist as he slowly coaxed her against his body.

The heat of her flooded him with memories of last night and he was hardening with renewed desire. There lovemaking had been languid as Daniel took the time to explore her exquisite body and ease her fears. But it was that time, the delaying of pleasure that had culminated in a climax that shook him body and soul.

And he wanted to feel the shake of it again.

“Oh, I would have remembered you.” Daniel whispered to himself, but she had heard him.

The lass hit him in the chest with both palms, but it was their mouths that punctuated their disentanglement with a wet dislodging of lips.

“You could not have known me in London.” The lady stared at the floor then spun, deserting the apartment without a backward glance and leaving Daniel to wonder who the hell she was and what the hell had happened to her.