Fire at Midnight (34 page)

“I prefer her in the role of domestic to that of concerned parent,” he said coldly. “I suspect Jacques plans to accuse me of leading the wreckers as well as the kidnap of your brother. She will not challenge her favorite son for my sake.”

Rachael was silent as she recalled the outcome of her meeting with Eleanor. She had come to the same conclusion, but could not bear to share her insight.

“I will speak on your behalf,” she said.

An amused, indulgent glimmer lit Sebastién’s eyes and he reached out to affectionately tousle her hair, fingers gliding through the strands. He watched the play of her hair over his skin as if mesmerized.

“Non,”
he demurred. “The judge would find his evidence in the way we look at each other. Even the truth will seem like a lie.”

“We could petition the Crown …” her voice trailed off when he emphatically shook his head.

A tremor of alarm rippled through her. “I am the only one who knows you are in Black Head! Those who might come to your aid will not know where to find you!”

“You found me.” His smile was sanguine.

“But I would not have known where to find you if not for Father Porter. He was the one—”

His shocked exclamation stopped her. “This ‘Father Porter,’” he said, “how do you know him?”

“I don’t,” she replied uneasily. “He sought me out in London on your behalf.”

“Shall I describe him to you?” Sebastién inquired.

S
quire Porter and Father Porter are the same man,” Rachael concluded after hearing Sebastién’s description of his visitor.

“Squire Porter” had been his only visitor, and their two meetings had been conducted without Jacques’s knowledge.

Sebastién’s initial suspicion that Porter acted as Hugh Falconer’s agent was proven wrong when Porter’s offer of a brief respite from incarceration had come with conditions that bound him as securely as chains.

“When I told Porter that Jacques had destroyed Victor’s ledger, he suggested that others might have seen it.”

“I saw it,” she put in eagerly. “The Dane saw it—” He held up his hand to forestall Rachael’s enthusiasm. “Porter said my witness should be unimpeachable; one of my brother’s own men, or the like. Morgan told me he and his father saw the ledger. Some of the evidence against Brightmore was taken north by Phillip Morgan.” “Then others must have seen it, as well,” Rachael said.

Sebastién considered her words, and some of the strain left his face as he accepted the hope she offered. He drew her to him and kissed her, cupping the back of her head while he gently, leisurely explored her mouth.

He started to remove his shirt.

“What are you doing?”

“You demanded to see the mark,” he said, wagging his brows and winking, his playful manner more reminiscent of the man she knew and loved. “So, my beautiful English girl, I am going to show it to you. And a few other things, as well.”

Rachael laughed, her peal of amusement ringing out in the cavernous basement. He paused at the sound, a look of expectation on his face.

“I no longer need to see the mark,” she said. “You’ve just proven your identity to me.”

Sebastién paused and sent Rachael an inquisitive look. “Ah, the kiss,” he said. A self-satisfied grin warmed his face, but the look of self-assurance faded to puzzlement when she smiled and shook her head.

No one but Sebastién called her his “beautiful English girl.” She loved him so much that her heart swelled and ached with it, until it was almost painful. Her secretive smile turned saucy and she reached out to help him remove his shirt.

“I don’t
need
to see the mark,” she said, “but show it to me anyway.”

The ornate carriage stood out among the many brightly hued, yellow-wheeled flying coaches that littered the lane.

Jacques’s attention shifted from the busy roadway to the public hall where the proceedings against his brother would soon be underway. The hall was filled to capacity. A crush of spectators pressed into the entrance, making it almost impossible to enter or exit.

Expecting a sparse turnout, he had first been mystified, and then furious to discover that some unknown hand had posted bills throughout the southern coast announcing the trial. Anyone who knew the accused was encouraged to journey to Black Head. The bill, with its ambiguous promise of rewards for information, had guaranteed an overwhelming public response.

Sebastién was already inside the hall, guarded by a double contingent of sentries. His brother’s behavior in public had been decorous.
The stuff of which folk heroes are made.

The appearance of the handbills and Sebastién’s infuriating composure were not his only worries. The official who would preside over the trial was not the sympathetic, politically ambitious judge with whom he had previously aligned. He had been informed that an alternate magistrate was en route, no doubt one immune to bribery.

The late arrival of the magistrate’s replacement irked Jacques. The anxiety he felt was nothing like the sense of closure he had expected to feel on the day his brother was finally brought to justice for the murder of his fiancée, Adrienne, among others.

He kicked at the shiny black door panel of the expensive carriage. A long fissure appeared in the veneer, like a scar on a dark face. He stared at it before turning his back and leaning against the exterior of the carriage, the muddy heel of his right boot lodged along the step.

He was surprised to see Rachael threading her way through the crowd in his direction, hitching up her skirts to protect them from the mud as she crossed the road.

“If you’ve come to plead for him, you needn’t bother,” he shouted.

Rachael reached Jacques, breathless and rosy-cheeked from the chill air. Her thoughtful scrutiny of his face made him feel ill at ease.

“I don’t believe you are an evil man,” she said. “Only a misguided, bitter one. In fact, I pity you.”

About to utter a glib retort, Jacques stumbled forward with a startled exclamation as the door panel he had been leaning against was thrust outward, nearly throwing him to the ground.

He recovered his footing and spun around, ready to voice his indignation as the passenger alighted from the carriage and waited with elaborate patience for him to step out of his way. The epithet he had been about to hurl was replaced by a double take, followed by a stiff, pompous greeting.

“Judge Porter, sir—your lordship. We are ready to begin the trial.”

“Oh!” Rachael gasped. She blinked in surprise at the late arrival. “Oh!” she repeated, flustered.

The man’s brown eyes twinkled behind the stern spectacles when he briefly met Rachael’s gaze.

Jacques stood between them, looking from one to the other. “Do you know each other?” he asked sharply.

“He … reminds me of someone,” she said.

Porter lifted the hem of his magnificent scarlet and ermine robe, adjusted the tilt of the elaborate, powdered haystack of a wig he wore, and then moved with regal bearing toward the public hall. His only comment to Jacques was a pointed glance at the damaged door panel of his private carriage.

Rachael gawked as Porter ascended the stairs and disappeared into the building. She turned back to Jacques and smiled prettily before she broke into a run, hurrying across the lane and up the stairs into the hall. Frowning suspiciously, he followed.

Rachael entered the building and crept along a bench near the back of the hall, searching for Sebastién, who was seated at the front of the assembly. The fleeting look of astonishment that crossed his face when he recognized Porter was replaced by a rigid stare so potent that Porter soon stopped looking in his direction.

Porter instructed Jacques to declare the charges and summon his first witness. Simon and Emerald were led in together, Simon’s left leg bound to Emerald’s right by a length of chain. The pair shuffled noisily down the narrow aisle and sat down upon the bench facing the crowded hall. Simon looked around with a sullen expression while Emerald sat serenely, fathomless eyes roaming over the assembly with interest.

Rachael drew an unsteady breath when Emerald’s eyes locked with hers and recognition filtered his expression. His mouth formed the rictus of a smile, and a chill passed through her.

Jacques’s opening speech alleged that Sebastién had led the gang of wreckers responsible for the atrocities that spanned the southern coast of England, particularly Cornwall and Devon. Victor Brightmore was barely mentioned as a minor player as Jacques described the bloody swath the wreckers had cut across the land and the devastation they had wrought.

Sebastién stared straight ahead during Jacques’s meticulous assassination of his character. The crowd stole covert glances at the accused while they listened with rapt attention to the charges.

Rachael wanted to rail against the injustice being done. As if sensing her distress, Sebastién suddenly shifted his attention to her. He arched a brow and smiled sardonically before his brooding gaze returned to his brother.

Rachael glanced around the room at the multitude of curiosity seekers and almost failed to notice The Dane, who sat swathed in a flowing brown robe that gave him a monklike appearance. The hood was drawn up to conceal his shock of white-blond hair, and generous folds of fabric concealed his tattooed arms.

He acknowledged Rachael with a slight inclination of his head, and deliberately allowed her to glimpse a flash of steel beneath the folds of his robe. She recalled the escape from Tor Pub, and began to scan the crowd with a new awareness. Many of the same folk who had aided Sebastién in his escape from the pub were in attendance, strategically placed throughout the crowd. She wondered if Sebastién was aware of their presence in the crowded hall.

Emerald was called to the witness bench, and Jacques’s eyes rested pensively on the strange boy while the shackles joining Emerald and Simon were unlocked and the two men were separated. Jacques frowned slightly and withdrew a handkerchief from his coat pocket. The hall was drafty and cold, but beads of moisture dotted his forehead when Emerald pierced him with his oddly discerning gaze.

A brief, cunning smile animated Emerald’s face as the boy observed the Frenchman without expression, face blank as he looked from one brother to the other. The chilling effect of Emerald’s scrutiny prompted Sebastién to break eye contact with him and Jacques to turn his back on the boy.

Porter curtly ordered Jacques to begin questioning his witness. Jacques alternately mopped his brow and tugged at his cravat as he paced before the spellbound crowd. Emerald’s head followed the movement of the man before him with the precision of a pendulum swing.

“Is it true that you and Simon were members of the gang of wreckers led by my … by Sebastién Falconer?”

“Simon and I belong to the same gang,” Emerald said.

His pacing stopped at Emerald’s obtuse response. Jacques spun around.

Rachael’s faint smile at Jacques’s obvious misgiving drew Emerald’s yellow-green gaze. The boy then turned his attention back to Jacques, who had begun to pace again. Emerald visibly tensed each time Jacques edged closer to the bench upon which he sat.

The boy’s soft speech and placid manner were at odds with the gruesome description of his activities. The crowd listened to the flat drone of Emerald’s voice as he recalled his participation in his first wrecking, when he was fourteen.

“The gang didn’t want me—said I was too scrawny,” he recalled. “I knew I had only that one night to prove myself. It was my idea to tie the girl to the forward mast. She made a handsome human figurehead, she did, all twistin', pleadin', and screamin’ as the sea swallowed the ship and her with it.”

Rachael turned away in revulsion, but she could not block out his monotonous voice as it continued to drone above the shocked hum of the assembly.

“I chose her,” he said with pride. “The gang never doubted but what I belonged after that. We found out who she was from the ship’s log after the wreck, and he couldn’t believe his good luck. The trinket was part of my share, but he said he’d pay me triple what the locket was worth. It had more value to him ‘cause it had her initials. ‘A.L.A.,’” he blandly recalled. Emerald peered into his palm as if he still held the locket in his hand.