Feather Castles (2 page)

Buchanan stiffened. “Yes. You've seen him?”

“Saw him fall. Sorry, Buck. The shell exploded directly above him. He's finished I'm afraid. Got him in the face, poor devil.” His rumpled blonde locks jerked to the northward. “Over there, somewhere. Have a care, old fellow. Vultures are among us.”

His heart aching, Buchanan took the time to ascertain that, astonishingly, St. Clair appeared unhurt and his pistol was indeed loaded. Then, he resumed his own sad quest.

*   *   *

They were close to the battlefield now. Scarcely daring to look about her, Rachel was shaking, her teeth chattering as with ague. Everywhere she turned were the dead and dying, and—more terribly—furtive, shadowy shapes that flitted about to dreadful purpose. Young voices upraised in painful pleading were cut off by the flash of steel, or rose into a choked screaming that turned her knees to water. Numbed with horror, she heard the groom explode harshly, “We never should've brought the young lady along, ma'am! Turn back, I say! We'll be lucky do we get away alive, even now! Turn back! 'Fore it do be too late for any of us!”

“No,” Rachel quavered staunchly. “We—must help the … the poor creatures. Oh, Lord!” Shuddering, she turned from the pile of half-naked bodies before her. “How frightful! Such savagery is—”

“Stand back there!” Andrews flourished his whip, but three tattered shapes leapt to the heads of the team. A fourth ran forward, and all turned their glowing eyes towards the two women.

Sister Maria Evangeline fumbled beneath her habit and brought forth a large horse pistol. “Get back, you spawns of Satan!” she cried, fierce and dauntless. “I've no wish to shoot, but—”

Another scavenger came at her from the side. The pistol was wrested from her hand. Struggling, Andrews was dragged from his seat, and Rachel gave a muffled shriek as she was torn from the phaeton and crushed suffocatingly against a rank and hairy chest. A man—more beast than human, she thought—was chuckling, nuzzling at her throat. And she was too overwrought to even attempt a scream.

A shot rang out, followed immediately by a gurgling cry. She was on her knees, but free! A large man, clad only in a torn and bloody shirt and tattered breeches, crawled weakly towards them, a smoking pistol in one hand. The three remaining looters raced for him, knives flashing, and even in that dim light, Rachel saw that their rescuer was already badly wounded, his face a mask of dried blood so that she wondered he could see.

The looters surrounded him now. He struck out valiantly with the pistol but, laughing, one of his assailants kicked the weapon from his hand, and another sent a knife streaking down at the arm he flung up in a feeble attempt to protect himself.

Rachel came to her feet. Sister Maria Evangeline ran to grab her hand and hiss, “Into the carriage! Quickly!”

“And leave him to die? No, I shall not!” Rachel scooped up the whip the groom had dropped, swung it out, and ran forward. The wounded man had crumpled to lie sprawled on the ground, and the looters, laughing, were bending above him.

“Filth!” Rachel cried shrilly, and brought the whip whistling around.

The first man, sword upraised to stab his helpless victim, gave a yowl of pain and shock as the lash cut across his back. His two friends spun about, crouched and ready for action, but seeing the girl and the whip already curling back for another swing, they grinned and, dodging that whistling thong, started for her.

“Question is,” drawled a lazy voice beside her ear, “which one o' ye I blows the gizzard out of, first?”

That lusting charge halted. The looters glared, cursed, and cursing still, melted into the darkness.

Sister Maria Evangeline's “Diccon!” was more a sob than a word.

Rachel threw a glance at the newcomer and had a brief impression of a tall, lean, youngish individual, with an unruly shock of curly hair. Then she was running to the still shape of the man who had so bravely defended them. Sinking to her knees beside him, she wrenched the rolled linen bandages from her pocket and tried to wipe some of the blood from his face.

A faint gleam told her his eyes were open. A breathless voice said in French, “So this … then, is not … Hades?”

“I wouldn't refine on that overmuch, friend,” came that deep drawl once more. The man Sister Maria Evangeline had addressed as “Diccon” slipped a hand under Rachel's elbow. “This is no place for you, miss. Come.”

“No!” Stubbornly, she wrenched free. “I'll not leave him! He saved us, and they've cut him badly. See how his arm bleeds! We cannot—”

“We'll leave the poor lad some water. It will keep him sane 'til dawn, which is more than could be said for most of these poor devils. Now—”

But again Rachel dodged that long hand and slipped her arm beneath the shoulders of the injured man, struggling to raise him.

“Go!” he gasped faintly, his dark head rolling against her shoulder. “Your friend … perfectly right. No place for—for blessed angel such as you.… Go!”

Looking up at Diccon, Rachel grated, “Help me lift him into the phaeton.”

The looters were coming back. Diccon swore under his breath. Sister Maria Evangeline said, “We'll manage. I will help. Oh, if only he were not such a big fellow! Andrews? Where are you? Come!” She clambered into the phaeton, urging, “Hurry! Hurry!”

Between them, Diccon and the groom lifted the soldier and disposed him in the phaeton so that he half sat, half lay across the seat with his head in the nun's lap. Rachel squeezed into the vehicle and knelt on the floor, attempting to quench the blood that welled from the wound in the soldier's arm.

The looters rushed then, two wielding swords, and one thrusting a rifle at Diccon, the bayonet gleaming wickedly. Diccon's pistol blasted Rachel's ears. The man with the bayonet howled and went down. Andrews sprang for the driver's seat. A slap of the reins and the frightened horses plunged forward. With a wild dive, Diccon caught the back of the phaeton. The looters jumped clear, and the phaeton was away.

*   *   *

They had been at sea for a very long time, and the storm was so fierce he was unable to hold himself steady in the bunk but was constantly flung against the side, each collision seeming to hurt his throbbing head more than the last. The portholes were closed because of the high running seas, and the tiny cabin was oppressively hot. Yet sometimes the spray managed to penetrate the closed ports and splash, icily refreshing, against his face. With stunning force he was hurled at the side once more and, crying out, awoke from his dream.

A cool hand touched his cheek. A blurred shape bent above him, and a sweetly musical voice said in lilting French, “Lie still, please, sir! You must not toss so.”

Puzzled, he stared at that indistinct form until the mists faded a trifle, and he saw again the girl he had thought to see in his dreaming. Gentle of eye, fair of skin, her face a vision of loveliness, her whole being the very personification of feminine grace and purity. Scarcely daring to breathe lest she disappear, he lay very still, but when she started to move back into the mists, asked faintly, “Am I now … dead, mademoiselle?”

A smile curved that pretty mouth. “No,” she answered gently. “You seem very much better, in fact. The road was hopelessly blocked and we could not get back to Brussels, but our groom found this cottage. It has been abandoned, so we pass the night here. Sir—we are greatly indebted to you. May we know your name?”

His name? He frowned painfully. A simple enough question. Tell her, you simpleton! But to think, hurt. And the harder he tried, the more it hurt, so that he sighed at last, “I will tell you, but—not just now, for … I cannot quite seem … to recall.…”

When he looked up again, the girl had gone. He was relatively comfortable, lying in bed in a room that held the echo of a sweet fragrance. Who was that lovely girl? And who, by heaven, was
he?
He closed his eyes, fighting to remember. That he was French, he knew, for he had a vague recollection of conversing with someone in that language, and of a scornful British voice saying, “He's just another ruddy Frog! Scrag the perisher!” But as to what had happened, why he was hurt, and where he lay, he had not the faintest notion. He certainly must have a name. A family. Yet all he could clearly recall was an Englishman sobbingly pleading not to be murdered. His brows twitched together. Murder? Good God! What dark past lay behind him? He moved agitatedly, and had to choke back a groan as that venture sent blinding waves of pain through his head.

Someone was urging him to drink. He begged not to be lifted, but a hand raised his head gently. A cup touched his lips and he forced himself to drink. A warm glow spread through him, and he slid easily into darkness once more.

He dreamed that light was creeping through the small window. He lay idly watching that square glow against the dimness, and as it brightened imperceptibly, noted that the panes were cracked and very dirty. People were talking quietly, but he could distinguish the words. A man, with a deep, cultured voice that was vaguely familiar, and a woman, probably the nun he remembered, who was saying in English, “… fear for the child. Had I dreamed we would be compelled to spend the entire night out, I'd not have brought her.”

“To have done so at all, was purest folly, ma'am, if you will forgive my bluntness. Did it not occur to you that she might see me?”

“Of course it did! Do you take me for a henwit? That is precisely why I allowed her to accompany me, for I am ashamed to admit I hoped to turn your meeting to good account. Diccon—she could be an invaluable ally.”

There was a faint hissing sound, as of breath suddenly indrawn. Then the man said mildly, “How easily I am deceived. It had been my thought you were quite fond of the chit.”

“Pox on you! Do not drown me in your vitriol! Of course I am fond of her. More—I love her dearly. But the cause is such as to justify any sacrifice. If you are there, and she knows she has someone to count on in an emergency…”

A brief silence, and the man said thoughtfully, “The risk would be horrible. If he so much as suspected, her life would not be worth a sou!” And after another short and obviously troubled pause, “What of this one?”

In his dream, the man on the bed knew they were discussing him. He lay very still, and waited.

“He can also be put to good account,” the nun replied. “If Guy comes, we will have evidence that we went to minister to the wounded.”

“Guy! Do you expect that young devil?”

“He escorts Rachel.”

Diccon laughed shortly. “A fine protector! I must take care not to allow him to ‘escort' any lady of my house!”

A chair was scraped back. Soft footsteps approached the dreamer, and he sensed he was being scrutinized. One of his hands was taken up, and he allowed it to lie limply in a cool clasp.

“A gentleman, from the look of these hands,” Diccon observed. “Who is he, I wonder? Has he said anything at all of himself?”

“I think he cannot recollect, poor man. With a wound like that he may never be right in his head again. And only see what it has wrought upon his face!”

“It has marked him, certainly. He must have been a handsome fellow. Pity. Is he French?”

“Probably. He looks it, don't you think? So dark.”

“Many of us trace our lineage to Normandy, ma'am.”

“True. But even in delirium he speaks the French tongue. An officer, certainly, but as to rank—who can say? His jacket and boots were gone. Had not his shirt been covered in blood and his breeches muddied and torn, they would have taken those also, I do not doubt. Diccon—what a
frightful
battle! It must go down in history as the most costly of all time. And so little caring for the wounded! So many lives lost for want of a mouthful of water, or a bandage or two. Oh, shall we never learn—”

Her impassioned utterance was cut off as Diccon intervened dryly, “Dear lady, I agree with you, but we have no time for philosophizing. I found my man and learned what I went to learn, and in the very nick of time, for he was impaled by a Prussian lancer moments later! Only by the grace of your friend, God, did not I end under one of those piles of corpses! Now I must leave you, for if Guy sees me I shall be undone before I start! If things go awry for me, remember that our answers lie on the top floor of that damnable palace in Dinan. Not much, but at least we have a beginning!”

“Very well. Take care, my dear. I've no wish for this beginning to be your ending! I will convey your warning to the Horse Guards.”

Diccon gave a cynical snort. “Much they will heed you! If General Smollet had his way I would be in Bedlam at this very moment!”

“He says that, I admit, but has not ordered you back home. Shall I try to reach the Regent's ear? Mrs. Fitzherbert might—”

“Little hope there, love. Prinny fancies my adversary his fervent admirer. Well, I must be off. Speak to your burnt offering if you wish, though I confess that to place a girl in such jeopardy goes against the grain with me.”

“Burnt offering, indeed! I have no more fondness for the scheme than have you. At all events, I'll not attempt to persuade her to it yet. She still supposes Claude to be her saintly benefactor. Poor deluded innocent!”

“Hmmmm. Is it possible she has not heard of his unlovely clan?”

“Very possible. Her youth was passed at the Convent School, and since her Papa died she has led a sheltered life, devoted to her sister's care. However, I mean to try and…”

The dream was becoming hazy, the words fading into an unintelligible muddle. The soldier sighed wearily and sank deeper into sleep.

*   *   *

Sister Maria Evangeline's voice, upraised in anger, awoke Rachel. She lay on a hard and uncomfortable sofa in a tiny parlour, and for a moment stared in confusion about the stark, unfamiliar room. Recollection came in a rush, and with it anxiety, and she sat up as the nun bustled into the room, neat as a bandbox, carrying a pitcher of steaming water and exclaiming cheerily, “Ah! So you are awake, my love. Can you credit it? That miserable groom of mine fell asleep, ‘Just for a bit' says he, wherefore our horses are gone, and the wonder is the phaeton was not taken as well.” She set the pitcher on a table that already held bowl, soap, and a towel, and added, “A fine pickle! Did you get any sleep?”