Pale Moon Rider (53 page)

Two of the Volunteers who were not mesmerized by the spilled jewels guffawed as Roth’s face flushed a deep red. He took several jerky strides forward, and raised his blade, bringing the tip to rest at the base of Tyrone’s throat. Over the bright slash of steel he peered intently into Hart’s face trying to see something familiar in the nose, the mouth, the pale, almost colorless eyes. The lanterns on the ground were throwing the shadows upward, distorting the present, confusing the past, but it was the eyes, at last, he settled upon, staring into them, seeing the same cold hatred he had seen seven years ago.

Roth grinned, slowly and maliciously. “Well, well, well. We do seem to have traveled a full circle, have we not? You had a different name then and you were … stealing cattle, were you not? Cattle and cabbages and crusts of bread. Now it is diamonds and rubies and pearls, by God. Still a thief but one with pretensions of being a gentleman.”

He swished the blade away from Tyrone’s neck, leaving a bleeding nick behind.

“At least I manage to fool the general population into believing it,” Hart said, “which is more than you have been able to do.”

Roth had already turned away, but in response to Tyrone’s taunt, he spun around, slicing out and up with the sword, carving a mark in Hart’s cheek to equal the wound on his own. Tyrone flinched back, cupping his hand over the wound. Blood oozed instantly through his fingers and ran down his wrist in shiny red rivulets, soaking the cuff of his shirt.

“They used to brand thieves with red hot irons,” Roth hissed. “A pity the custom went out of fashion. They used to geld bastards, too, to prevent the corrupted bloodlines from procreating.”

He lunged, thrusting the blade forward, but Tyrone anticipated the strike and was able to deflect the blade onto his thigh. It cut through his breeches and slashed the muscle, drawing an involuntary grunt of pain from between his clenched teeth.

“From what I heard, Roth, you might as well be gelded. It’s really only the soft-faced boys who make you feel like a man, isn’t it? Soft-faced boys and whores who take the blame when you aren’t able to perform.”

Roth’s next move came with the swiftness of a viper’s tongue, a thrust and slash that caught Tyrone’s right hand and forearm, laying both open to the bone and sending him to his knees with the pain and shock.

“Sir—”
Marlborough
started forward to object. “Mr. Hart is unarmed! He has surrendered himself into our care!”

“Stay out of this, Cor
poral, and stay out of my way!”

“But sir, he has surrendered himself into
my
care, and I have given my bond—”

“I said, stay out of it Corporal!”

With fury mottling the whiteness of his complexion, Roth waited until Tyrone had staggered to his feet again, then brought his blade arcing across the lantern light, intending to leave yet another red stripe in the gore that was already spreading across the front of his shirt. Once again Tyrone anticipated the strike and turned so swiftly, the colonel stumbled over a rut in the road as he tried to recover from the follow-through.

The faux pas only infuriated him more and he slashed out with a decided lack of finesse, catching Tyrone high on the shoulder, hacking through cloth and flesh with enough force to send the wounded man to his knees again.

White-faced,
Marlborough
leaped forward, placing himself between Roth and Hart. The colonel’s outraged eyes focused on the young officer’s face, then on the fully cocked snaphaunce he held outstretched in his hand.

“I will not stand by and let you attack an unarmed man, sir. You will set down your sword or suffer the consequences!”

Roth tilted his head in disbelief. “You are defending this man? You are protecting a thief and a murderer? A man you are pledged to see brought to justice?”

“This is not justice, sir. This is murder.”

Roth’s grin did not waver by the smallest degree. “Mister Hugo, if you please!”

One of the Coventry Volunteers raised his musket and pulled the trigger. But
Marlborough
swung his pistol around in time, firing through the glare of two lanterns and catching the militiaman high and square on the chest. Being unaccustomed to the sensitivity of the double serpentine triggers, he caused both barrels to discharge almost simultaneously, the double blast tearing a gaping hole in the man’s torso. The nose of the musket flew upward, the shot exploding harmlessly into the air, while the Volunteer toppled back off his saddle, dead before the echo of his scream faded.

Marlborough
scarcely batted an eye as he cocked both hammers on the second snaphaunce and raised it threateningly in the direction of Roth and his phalanx of five remaining Volunteers.

“I am sorry, sir.” His voice, if not his body, was trembling with integrity. “I cannot and will not allow you to murder an unarmed man.”

“You only have two shots left,
Mister
Marlborough,” Roth snarled, “and I have five armed men, each of whom will earn a handful of whatever they choose from the saddle pouch when they bring you down. On my command! Fire!”

There was no sound, no movement and Roth spun around, glaring at the Volunteers. “I said fire, you stupid bastards! Fire!”

But none of them was looking at Roth. None of them was even looking at the jewels or
Marlborough
or the bleeding highwayman. They were all staring at the side of the road where a string of shadowy figures had emerged from the mist and the trees, pistols and muskets in hand, the muzzles trained on the remaining militiamen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T
o Renée, it seemed as though her heart had stopped several times while Maggie Smallwood told her of the agreement Tyrone had made with Bertrand Roth. It was nearly stopped again now as she held the heavy gun in both hands, her finger curled around the trigger, her eyes daring the flat-nosed militiaman to move his musket so much as an inch. She knew where she was, she knew why she was there, but the blue and white uniforms of the Coventry Volunteers were so much like the blue, red, and white uniforms of the
Paris
gendarmes, it seemed as if all the injustices of the world had come together on this damp and dark stretch of road. The five burly men were no different from the guards who had attacked her mother—they were no different from the zealots who roamed the streets of Paris looting and burning in the name of
liberté égalité, et fraternité
, or the cheering beasts who marched innocent men, women, and children up the steps to the guillotine and forced them to lie on a blood-soaked plank of wood.

She would gladly have pulled the trigger. She was no longer afraid to fight, and, as she had told Maggie, she was tired of the people she loved making sacrifices so that she might live to have her heart broken another day.

The wagon that was supposed to carry them to the rendezvous with Finn and Dudley on the road to
Manchester
had brought them here instead. They had intercepted the coach not five minutes after it had abandoned Tyrone to his meeting with Roth, and even though Robbie had given Hart his solemn word to drive on and not look back, there was no argument strong enough to turn the women around. The Brown Bess that Maggie thrust into his hands prompted him to switch loyalties instead and he led them through the woods, all of them armed and determined to save Tyrone Hart from his own reckless bravado.

Renée was closest to one of the lanterns and Roth recognized her at once by the strands of blond hair that escaped her hood.

“Well, if it isn’t the little French whore herself. I was hoping to have the opportunity to see you again, mademoiselle, but this is too rich. Too rich by far.”

Renée heard his ugly laugh but she had eyes only for Tyrone. Half of his face was wet with the blood that ran down his cheek and throat, his right arm was cradled against his chest, the ruined hand limp and dripping. His expression, when he whirled around and saw her standing there with Antoine, Maggie, Dudley, and the stalwart Mr. Finn, was a mixture of horror and disbelief.

“Renée! For God’s sakes, what are you doing here? You were supposed to be at the rendezvous!”

She kept the pistol trained on the militiamen as she edged carefully closer to where he stood. “Waiting for whom, m’sieur? For you? If so, we would have been waiting a very long time,
n’est-ce pas?”

“Renée—”

“Non!
When Maggie told me of this foolishness, I could not believe my ears! I could not believe this was the same man who boasted he had no conscience, no sense of obligation, no desire to revenge himself upon the world.”

“Renée, you don’t understand—”

“Non! I
understand perfectly what Roth has threatened to do. I know he has threatened to send Edgar Vincent’s
salopards
after Antoine and me, but I do not care.” She cast a scathingly contemptuous glance in Roth’s direction as she crossed in front of a lantern. “You have managed to thumb your nose at men like this for seven years, and I would rather spend the next seven weeks or days or hours running and hiding with you,
mon capitaine
, than seventy years living without you.”

She was close enough now for him to see the defiant jut to her chin, the fierce determination burning in the depths of her eyes. He saw the same ferocity in the eyes of the other motley rescuers and knew he did not have the strength—or in truth, the desire—to fight them all.

His shoulders sagged as he reached out with his one good arm and drew her against his chest. “You intend to deny me my one noble gesture, do you, mam’selle?”

“Be assured I do, m’sieur, for noble gestures do not keep me warm at night. Only your heart and your body are able to do that.”

He closed his eyes briefly and pressed his lips to her temple, but in the next instant, the sound of loud, mocking applause caused her to lift her head from his chest and nervously raise the cocked pistol in Roth’s direction again.

He had tucked his sword beneath his arm and was clapping his hands together slowly and deliberately in response to the tender exchange.

“How very, very touching,” he declared dryly. “I vow it makes my heart swell to hear such sweet, sentimental pap. Unfortunately, it will probably not affect a magistrate or a court of law the same way, for you are still a wanted man, Hart, and you, Miss d’Anton, have now voided any prior arrangements for leniency by attempting to interfere at gunpoint with a formal arrest. Seven hours? I should think you will be lucky to enjoy seven minutes together on the gibbet before they hang you both for your crimes.”

“Then it should not matter if we add one more,” Tyrone said, taking the gun out of Renée’s hand.

Roth was quick to laugh again, quicker to cast his sword to the ground. “By all means, add the murder of an unarmed officer of His Majesty’s government to the already impressive list of charges. You will undoubtedly have to deal with Corporal Marlborough’s rigid code of honor, but then what is honor to a man whose word is not worth the spit expended to pledge it?”

Renée felt Tyrone’s body stiffen beside her. She also saw the look on
Marlborough
’s face as he turned, clearly torn between his sense of revulsion for Roth and his obligations as an officer and gentleman.

Tyrone’s eyes narrowed. “We needn’t put the Corporal through such angst, Roth. We needn’t trouble a court or a magistrate or waste the cost of a hangman’s noose either if we agree to settle our differences here and now, once and for all.”

“A duel?” Roth arc
hed an eyebrow. “To the death?”

“But you are hurt,” Renée gasped. “You cannot fight: him!”

In this,
Marlborough
concurred. His gaze went from Renée’s horrified expression to Tyrone’s right hand, which was bleeding and held tightly against his chest. “Miss d’Anton is right, sir. It would not be a fair fight. Your hand is useless and you can barely balance any weight on your leg. You would not survive the first party.” He glared across the lantern light to where Roth was standing. “You crippled him deliberately, sir, a blatant act of cowardice and cruelty that
will
be reported, you may depend upon it.”

“He still has one good hand he can shoot with,” Roth said through the gleam of his teeth. “And you may be sure, Corporal, that when I finish dealing with him, I will deal with your insubordination in a manner which will forever define the word ’cruelty’ for you.”

Marlborough
paled further, but stood his ground. “Might I suggest you leave now, Mr. Hart? I cannot guarantee how much time I can give you, but I would be in your debt if you could remove Miss d’Anton to safety.”

Roth’s grin widened. “Indeed, Hart, take the corporal’s advice and run. You won’t run very far, and you surely will not be able to hide behind your lady love’s skirts for very long, but by all means, take your chances and run.”

“Do not listen to him,” Renée begged, pulling on his sleeve. “He is only trying to bait you the way you baited him.”

“And he’s doing a damn fine job,” Tyrone murmured.

Roth laughed and held up his hands. “I would not want to be accused of taking unfair advantage. Listen to your little French whore, Hart. Run while you have the chance. Run while your belly is yellow enough to light the way.”