Pale Moon Rider (35 page)

Renée started moving swiftly down the spiraling stairs, the muslin of her long skirt catching on the steps behind and belling out like a white cloud. Because she was so intent on ignoring the rasping breath of the specter, who was by now lunging down the stairs after her, she rounded a turn and slammed fully into a tall, dark silhouette coming the other way.

The shriek she gave off startled Finn almost as much as seeing a pale apparition floating down the stairs toward him. He raised the hooded taper he was carrying and gave them both a moment to verify the identity of the other before lowering it to waist level again.

“Mad’moiselle Renée,” he said on a gust of relief. “I should think it a rather reckless business running down these stairs in the darkness.”

Her heart was still squeezed against her rib cage and although she had a hand over her breast to keep it from bursting through, she still slumped back and leaned a shoulder against the wall.

“You were not in your room when I went to fetch you, and Master Antoine implied you might still be here.” He paused to gulp at another breath. “There are carriages in the drive, mad’moiselle. Five of them. Your aunt and uncle have arrived along with Mr. Vincent and at least a dozen others I did not linger to identify. Lord Paxton was howling for wine and brandy, while his lady wife was giving instructions to that Pigeon woman to prepare a late supper.
Ten o’clock
, she proposed, and it has just gone eight now.”

“But … they were not supposed to come until tomorrow.”

“I gather your uncle decided the longer he had to partake of Lord Wooleridge’s hospitality, the longer he might have to offer it by way of reciprocation.”

Renée turned so that her entire back was against the wall, not just her shoulder, and from somewhere out of a distant memory, she conjured an oath that was vulgar enough to have Finn lifting the lamp again and peering narrowly at her face.

“I believe both you and the young master have been spending far too much time in that rogue’s company.” He angled the light even closer. “Has he said—or done-something to upset you?”

“No. No,” she said, frowning, “but he has given me something to think about.”

Without preamble, she relayed Tyrone Hart’s speculations concerning her uncle, Roth, and Edgar Vincent, and by the time she had finished, Finn was sitting on the step beside her, his brow similarly crumpled in a frown.

“Frankly, I never liked your uncle very much,” he declared. “He was always sneaking about stealing coins from your grandfather’s office or running up enormous debts his yearly annuity could not cover by a fourth. And yes, his friends and associates were a scurrilous lot. Dirty fingernails and eyes too close together to suggest any real intelligence. And manners
-faugh
! Better suited to a brothel or a pig sty. Why, I remember once … no, never mind. It hardly warrants repeating except to say I would not be entirely shocked to discover there is some foundation for Mr. Hart’s speculations. After all, who better to judge a thief than another thief?”

Renée was quiet so long and her gaze remained so unfocused, he leaned forward to try to catch her eye. “Mad’moiselle?”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I heard you. I just … find it hard to believe there is nothing we can do about it.”

“Well.” He sighed. “There, too, I find I must agree with the brigand. We cannot very well go to the authorities; it would be your uncle’s word against ours, and ours I’m afraid, would be the more suspect, especially with the warrant outstanding for Master Antoine’s arrest—counterfeit as it might be. Unfortunately the only way to punish men of this ilk in a way they understand is to strike where they would feel the pain the deepest—in the purse. And since our one attempt to do that appears to have failed so miserably, I would suggest we have no alternative now but to accept defeat, cut our losses, and leave this wretched place at the first opportunity.”

“Or we could steal the rubies ourselves,” she said slowly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“We could steal the rubies ourselves,” she repeated and turned to l
ook at him. “Ourselves?”

“Why not?”

“Why
not?”

“For heaven’s sakes, Finn, if you are just going to repeat everything I say—!”

“If I am repeating it, mad’moiselle, it is because I cannot believe I am hearing you correctly. Steal the rubies ourselves? Have you been exposed to the noxious effects of camphor and mustard plaster too long? Or perhaps it is the air in this tower,” he said, glancing warily around. “It was said all Royalists were slightly mad to defy Cromwell in the heart of
England
.”

“Perhaps it is long past time I was exposed to something,” she said. “Something that would not make me so afraid of my own shadow.”

“Mary and Joseph,” Finn muttered. “Where would you come by such an absurd notion? You are brave beyond measure!”

“I may act brave and bold in front of men like Roth and Vincent,” She insisted, “but that is all it is: an act. Inside I am terrified. I tremble like a small child and wish only that I could crawl under the bed with Antoine to hide.”

“Well, good sweet mercy, child, we all shake and tremble inside in the face of adversity. You would not be human if you did not. Even he”—Finn gave his head a belligerent jerk toward the top of the stairs—“has likely felt his heart palpitate a time or two, I warrant.”

She glanced up at the darkness and very much doubted it. “Nevertheless, Finn, if we do nothing and simply run away again, I have a greater fear that we will just keep running for the rest of our lives.”

“But … what you are suggesting—”

“What I am suggesting is that we cheat them at their own game. You say we have no way to prove they stole the gems, but if we had the rubies, we would
have
the proof, would we not? When he gave me the jewels in
London
, he made a great mistake by allowing me to wear them in public, for I know there were some
Françaises
, like the Comptesse de Trouville, who recognized the suite. If their testimony is not sufficient for the English authorities, it would surely be enough to interest the agents of the French government who care very little about English courts and laws.”

“You would deal with those people? The same ones who persecuted your family and drove us out of our home?”

“If it were the only way to make them pay for their crimes, yes.”

“You propose a dangerous game, mad’moiselle,” he said quietly.

“Life is full of danger, Finn,” she quoted softly. “And precious little justice. Even if we only manage to steal the rubies, we will have the satisfaction of cheating them out of the fifty thousand pounds they are worth.”

“I would be happier cheating them out of our company,” Finn said grimly. “Something that grows more difficult to do the longer we remain in residence here. The wedding, if I might remind you, is but three days hence.”

“You stole my mother away from the altar an hour before the ceremony was to take place,” she reminded him. “At any rate, we have a way out now—the passage—and can leave at a moment’s notice, regardless how many soldiers Roth has watching the doors and windows. M’sieur Hart would even help us, I am sure.”

“Has he offered?”

“N—no. Not exactly.”

“Nor will he, not when his own neck is at risk. Rogues like him are always chivalrous when they are at your mercy. For all that he appears to have the fortitude of an ox, however, I should not anticipate his gallantry lasting beyond the hour of his departure.”

A faint hiss and sputter drew Finn’s attention to the lamp. The candle had been barely more than a stub when he had lit it and they had been sitting in the stairwell a fair half hour now.

“It will be nearing
nine o’clock
. I was dispatched to inform you that your presence, and that of your brother, would be expected at supper.”

She nodded and stood, and Finn shot to his feet beside her.

“Mr. Hart should be informed they are here,” Finn said, handing her the lamp. “Take extra care when you are exiting below. There are sure to be additional maids and servants running about and it would not do to have one of them see you emerge from a presumably solid stone wall.”

“I will hold the light while you go up.”

“I am quite able—”

“To break your neck or your leg or both in the dark,” she said flatly. “I will wait and hold the light. Tell
le capitaine
what he needs to know, then go to Antoine. See that he dresses in his very finest clothes. We must make a good and dutiful impression on our guests.”

Finn hesitated a moment, then took the uncharacteristic liberty of placing both his hands on her shoulders. “I have not agreed to anything yet. And if, at any time, I feel there is danger—”

“You will have to pick up your heels and run fast to keep up with Antoine and me,” she assured him. “Now go. Tell M’sieur Hart the ghost must be extremely quiet from now on.”

Renée followed her own advice and changed into a pale, rose-colored gown with a low-cut bodice and long fitted sleeves. Jenny arrived in time to dress her hair in a high crown of golden curls, and although Renée normally shunned the use of cosmetic aides, she dabbed a small amount of rouge on her cheeks and a touch more on her lips to relieve the bloodless cast of her skin.

It was precisely
ten o’clock
when she and Antoine descended the main staircase. While she had braced herself for the first meeting with her uncle in over five weeks, she faltered a moment on the landing when she heard a raucous burst of masculine laughter coming through the open doors of the main drawing room.

Antoine had stopped beside her. From his expression, she guessed he would rather run naked through a gauntlet than go any farther. He was wearing a light gray coat and dark breeches. His cravat was tied high and tight beneath his chin and his curls had been tamed into smooth blond waves. For the briefest of moments, she saw her father’s face imposed over Antoine’s, and as frightened as he was, she saw some of the same determination flex into the muscles of his jaw.

“Have courage,
mon coeur”
she whispered.

I would rather have one of the captain’s guns.

She gave him a startled look but he only extended his arm and offered Renée a shaky smile.

Edgar Vincent was standing by the fireplace, a drink in his hand, looking like a large black hawk in dark wool and contrasting whites. He was talking to two other men, both of whom seemed vaguely familiar, though their names escaped her. Lord Paxton and his wife, Lady Penelope, were at the opposite end of the wide hearth; her aunt was sitting and conversing with another woman of similar starched qualities, while her uncle stood to one side in a stance that conveyed his best parliamentary mien. He was a large man with a forthright belly and short, thin legs, all of which was pinched, girded, and stuffed into peacock blue satin. His reddish brown hair framed his face in short, well-oiled waves that flowed down each heavy jowl to form thick muttonchops whiskers. In the early days of the revolution, when King George had been suffering one of his fits and the cry was out to install the Prince of Wales as regent, Lord Paxton had backed Charles Fox and his fellow radicals in Parliament. Later, when the tumbrils had begun to roll through the streets of Paris and Fox had been depicted as supporting regicide, Paxton had quickly declared himself for William Pitt—a change many of Fox’s former compatriots had also made, but for valid political reasons.

If Tyrone Hart’s suppositions were correct, Renée could see why—now looking at her uncle with a calm and dry eye—it would have been expeditious to declare himself a monarchist, sympathetic to the plight of the fleeing French aristocrats. Who, indeed, would put their family’s welfare into the hands of a banker who believed in abolishing the crown?

“Mademoiselle d’Anton! How lovely to see you again!”

The shrill, nasal greeting had come from her left, where two younger women that Renée had not previously noticed were standing. She recognized the voice and the speaker at once, partly by the instant tightening of the skin across the nape of her neck and partly by the long, extraordinarily hooked nose that had earned Ruth Entwistle the unkind nickname of “Miss Beaker.”

Having established the one identity, it helped put a name—Sir John Entwistle—to one of the gentlemen speaking with Edgar Vincent. And it was Dame Judith Entwistle, Miss Beaker’s mother, who nudged Lady Paxton on the arm and whispered a less than discreet alert.

Noting her aunt’s cool response, Renée smiled and offered Miss Beaker a polite curtsy.

“How nice to see you again, Miss Entwistle, and how lovely of you and your family to visit. I trust the roads were not in too dreadful condition?”

“Oh my dear, they were simply appalling. I was just saying to my dear sister Phoebe that I have not been bounced around so much since I was an infant on papa’s lap. Even so, we should not have missed the festivities for all the rain in the world.” Small, feral eyes glinted in Antoine’s direction. “Gracious! I had quite forgotten how handsome, and mature, is your brother.” She dipped in a tastefully executed swirl of burgundy silk. “Your Grace. You do, of course, remember Phoebe?”