Pale Moon Rider (44 page)

“He was here?” Paxton demanded, looking suddenly faint himself. “Starlight was in this house?”

“That, we have yet to discover. And we will, by God, before the night is through.” Roth stood aside and signaled to Marlborough and another gentleman, who dragged Finn out of the door between them. One side of his face was awash in blood from a crease in his forehead. He had been struck hard enough to lay the flesh open to the bone, and even though he was stunned and too unsteady to stand on his own, he made several feeble attempts to do so and to shake off the hands of the two men who held him. He also attempted to speak, but Roth’s voice rose above the hoarse whispers, issuing orders to his men to search the grounds, pressing the male guests to make use of Lord Paxton’s fowling pieces and hunting dogs to help search the stables and adjoining woods. He handed the cannon-barrelled pistol to
Marlborough
, declaring it to be evidence, then gave orders for the prisoner to be taken away, to be put into a coach immediately and driven under heavy escort to the barracks gaol in
Coventry
.

On his own, without a weapon of any kind, there was little Tyrone could do but watch as Finn was unceremoniously dragged past. The old valet seemed to catch his foot in the edge of a carpet as they drew abreast and for a brief moment, the eyes of the two men met. The contact was quickly broken when Roth saw Tyrone standing against the wall and strolled casually over to join him.

“You are looking a little damp about the temples, Hart. I could have sworn I saw you being carried off with the other fainthearted ladies.”

Tyrone removed his handkerchief from his cuff and dabbed his temple. “I readily confess neither the hunt nor the kill are m’ forte, Colonel, though I must say, the thought alone is rather debilitating, that the fellow should have been right here in the house while we were playing at charades. You don’t suppose he took offense and thus became homicidal?”

“What the devil are you on about?”

“Can you have forgotten already? Dash me if I was not assigned the task of playing Captain Starlight. No one guessed it. Not even you. Suppose he was hid behind a curtain watching?”

This drew a few more murmured speculations from the crowd but Roth did not allow for more than a contemptuous sneer. “If he was watching you portray him, sir, I rather think it would be you he shot.”

“Well!” Tyrone sniffed and looked around for sympathy as Roth strode away. “No wonder he has had no luck catching the bounder. I warrant he could be standing right beside the rogue and never know how close he came to being run through.”

It was almost another full half hour before Tyrone was able to slip away unobserved. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he made his way into the belly of the ancient keep and exited through the old escape tunnel. He had to walk most of the distance doubled over to avoid scraping his head on the ceiling, and somewhere between the tower and the canal, he lost his wig and discarded his cravat. The smell of dampness and fresh, cold air assailed him about twenty feet from the last bend in the passage and for that he was grateful. The chill cleared his head and gave his strength a boost for what lay ahead.

Dudley, Renée, and Antoine were waiting at the mouth of the tunnel. It was raining again, falling in sheets that increased and decreased with the strength of the wind. Tyrone had doused the candle he had brought with him from the cellar and as he came quietly up on the entrance Renée’s was the first silhouette he saw. She was pacing anxiously back and forth, her skirts and cloak dragging across the rough earth underfoot. Antoine was seated on a rock, huddled in a blanket for warmth.
Dudley
stood leaning against the side of the earthen wall, looking well planted as a deterrent against what must have been repeated attempts to go back and find out what was keeping Finn and Hart.

“Tyrone!” Renée saw him first and ran to greet him. The smile of relief on her face passed before the silk of her cloak had stopped swirling around him. “Where is Finn?”

There was no easy way to tell her. “He has been arrested.”

“Arrested?
How? By whom? On what charge?”

“Roth is charging him with the murder of Edgar Vincent.”

“Murder!”

Dudley and Antoine both came to attention.

“What condition was Vincent in when you left him?” Tyrone asked.

“He was alive,” Renée insisted. “Antoine hit him fairly hard, but he was alive.”

“Well, he is very dead now. And Roth is claiming it was Finn who shot him.”

“Shot him?” Renée gasped. “But he had no gun!”

“Roth is also claiming Vincent interrupted you in the midst of a robbery. He pointed out that you and the boy were gone, along with the rubies, and he even managed to suggest it was part of an elaborate scheme all along; one you had conspired to commit with the help of Captain Starlight.”

Renée shook her head and started to go back into the tunnel. “I must go to him.”

“And do what?” Tyrone asked, catching her gently by the arm. “What can you do for him?”

“I—I can tell the truth. I can tell them what really happened.”

“What really happened? How do you know?”

“Finn did not kill M’sieur Vincent!”

“I’m sure he didn’t. But that only leaves him and Roth in the room, and who do you suppose the people back in that house are going to believe?”

Dudley
had only allowed a small, hooded light for a reference point, not enough to clearly read the expression on her face, but Tyrone could see the fear welling in her eyes.

“I cannot just abandon him! I cannot just leave him behind.”

“You are not abandoning him and you are not leaving him behind. Roth has already had him removed to the barracks in
Coventry
, and if you do go back now, you will only end up in the cell beside him.” He tilted his head to one side, catching the faint sound of dogs braying in the distance. “It could very well happen anyway if we don’t get the hell out of here and back to town before the militia arrives.”

“We can give the rubies back,” Renée declared, resisting Tyrone’s efforts to steer her toward the mouth of the passage. “We can trade them for Finn.”

“I very much doubt a handful of pretty stones would be enough to soothe Roth’s vanity at the moment,” Tyrone said grimly.

“But sir,” it was Antoine, stepping forward. “M’sieur Vincent said they were worth two hundred thousand of your English pounds. Surely he cannot think Finn is worth that much.”

Tyrone stared at the boy a minute, thinking perhaps he was more exhausted than he realized. “Two hundred thousand? Where did you hear that amount?”

“I have learned to listen very well, m’sieur. And when I heard shouting in Renée’s room, I put my ear to the door and I heard him say you—you ’must be damned good for two hundred thousand pounds’ worth of baubles.’”

Tyrone frowned and looked at Renée. “Do you know anything about this?”

She was staring into the blackness of the passageway and had to forcibly redirect her attention before shaking her head. “No. When he first gave them to me, arrogant goat that he was, he made a large point of bragging they were worth fifty thousand pounds, as if I had never seen a jewel in my life and should die of awe over his generosity. Had they been worth more than that, I am sure he would have told me.”

“Did he tell you he had a duplicate set made?”

“Duplicate?”

“Glass. Very good imitations, but practically worthless.”

“No,” her voice fell to a shocked whisper. “No, he did not tell me this. How do
you
know he did?”

“Robbie overheard them talking in the coach the other day. Apparently Vincent wasn’t prepared to risk the real rubies on another of Roth’s schemes. Or maybe he realized he had made a mistake when he gave them to you.”

“Then … the jewels I wore tonight are worthless,” she said in horror, “and we have nothing to trade for Finn?”

The sound of the dogs was drawing closer, prompting
Dudley
into taking command of the situation. “We’ll have nothing at all in a few minutes if we don’t get moving. The boat is tied up to the scrub and loaded. How are the ribs holding up?”

“They will feel a hell of a lot better when we get out of here,” Tyrone agreed.

With
Dudley
leading the way, they climbed carefully down the shallow embankment to where the boat was tied. The current in the canal was swift and strong from the recent storms and the current downpour was adding still more runoff, making it muddy and turbulent. The banks of the river seemed to streak by, most of the landmarks blurred by the rain and darkness, but
Dudley
kept a firm grip on the tiller, and drawing on his experience from his smuggling days, moved them through the gloom like wraiths.

Renée, huddled with Antoine under the blanket, barely heard the two men whispering back and forth, scarcely noticed the time or the bridges or the lights they slipped past as they approached the city proper. Once,
Dudley
signaled a halt and they pulled up under a wooden bridge, waiting while a patrol of four dragoons rode by, the hooves of the horses clattering like thunder overhead. At the very next bridge, they moored the little skiff and climbed up a steep flight of steps to a street lined with tall, narrow houses, the upper storeys jutting out over the road, the roofs steeply pitched and seeming to lean into one another for support. It smelled of fish and dampness and slime-filled gutters. Each building had a wooden sign creaking above the door carved with a name and picture; some had lights in the windows and noise spilling out of the crowded taprooms, but
Dudley
hurried past, guiding them down one alley and up another until the sounds faded and the stench eased. A coach was waiting down one of these side streets and while
Dudley
slipped a few coins to the faceless, shapeless shadow who stood watch over it, Tyrone assisted Renée and Antoine inside.

They were all soaked and chilled to the bone. The shock of Vincent’s attack, the race through the tunnel, the news about Finn, and the rocking, lurching flight along the canal was finally taking its toll on Renée and she felt physically ill. She had been fighting a continuous battle with the contents of her stomach since they left Harwood, and it was only by the slimmest margin she managed to hold on through the wild boat ride and equally breakneck course the coach took through the twisted lanes leading to
Priory Lane
.

Dudley
drove straight around to the back of the house and pulled up in the small cobbled courtyard. While he put the coach away and stabled the horses, Tyrone ushered Renée and Antoine inside. Maggie Smallwood was waiting there with hot tea, broth, and biscuits, but she took one look at Renée’s pale, battered face and whisked her away up the stairs. Renée was stripped of her sodden clothes and chafed dry with a thick, warm towel. Maggie stoked a fire and left her bundled in several layers of quilting while she hurried back down the stairs to fetch hot water for a bath.

It was only then that Renée stopped fighting. She leaned over an enamel basin and wretched. She wretched and sobbed and convulsed until there was nothing left in her stomach to void, and when she was finished, she sagged gratefully back into the strong arms that were waiting to scoop her up and carry her to a warm seat in front of the fire.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“
I
am hurting you,” Renée exclaimed.

“You’re fine.”

“But your wound,” she said, trying to struggle upright.

“My wound is fine,” Tyrone reiterated, “as long as you refrain from wriggling about like a worm.”

She stopped and looked at him, nose to nose, then melted slowly back into the warm crook of his shoulder. His arms settled around her again, blankets and all, and she felt his lips brush her forehead. She snuck one hand free of the woolen folds and rested it against the curve of his neck, feeling slightly ashamed that he should have found her helpless and nauseous but somehow comforted and content to be held so protectively in his lap.

She tried, surreptitiously, to inspect her surroundings. When Maggie had ushered her up the stairs, her head had been spinning far too wildly to notice much more than dark wood paneling and high, ornately plastered ceiling, but she realized now she was in an elegantly masculine bedroom, with heavy mahogany furniture and dark velvet draperies. The fireplace was wide enough to fit a five foot log, the floors underfoot were thickly carpeted with Persian rugs. For a public servant cum notorious highwayman he possessed very expensive tastes, not the least of which was reflected in the Italian marble mantelpiece and enormous tester bed. She was not exactly certain what she should have expected to see in the way of living quarters—something spare, utilitarian, impersonal as befitting someone who might have to flee the city, the parish, the country at a moment’s notice. Or something completely foreign, gaudy, flamboyant, gilded in fakery like the caricature he presented to the world.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For … this. For not being very strong.”