Pale Moon Rider (54 page)

Tyrone blinked the sweat out of his eyes and pressed the gun back into Renée’s hands. “Here, take this. If the corporal has no objections, I prefer the weight and familiarity of my own gun.”

Renée shook her head. “Tyrone, no … please …”

“A new deal, Roth? We count out the ten paces and the others go free?”

Roth drew a triumphant breath, swelling his chest. “Agreed. I have no real interest in them anyway. It was always your head I wanted the pleasure of spiking in the town square.”

“Tyrone!”

“It will be all right.” He cradled her chin in his hand and gazed deeply into her eyes. “You did say you trusted me, did you not?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then trust me now.” He kissed her hard and fast then pressed his mouth to her ear. “Go and stand with Robbie and for God’s sake, don’t make the mistake of trying to shoot anyone with this gun. It isn’t loaded.”

She stared at the pistol then looked up into his face, seeing a completely incongruous twinkle of humor in the cold steel of his eyes. His mind was made up. There was nothing she could say or do to stop him. It was partially her own fault, she realized, for she had accused him of being a man without purpose or conscience, yet she had not seen that beneath the casual indifference he hid a strong sense of honor and pride, coupled with more courage than she thought she could bear.

“With all my heart, m’sieur, I wish you had remained a rogue and a scoundrel,”

Tyrone smiled and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek. “Be careful what you wish for, mam’selle. It has been a long time since I turned my hand to honest trade.”

“Just turn it to me. That is all I ask.”

He kissed her, softly, briefly, then steered her gently toward the edge of the wood. When she was safely back in the shadows he took out his handkerchief and started wrapping it around his injured hand.

“Corporal Marlborough,” he glanced pointedly at the heavy snaphaunce trembling in the young officer’s grip. “If you would be so kind as to empty one of the chambers. God forbid the tables should turn and I am later brought to account for having two shots to the colonel’s one.”

Roth smirked and began to unfasten the buttons down the front of his tunic. “You could have ten, Hart, you would still be dead before you pulled the first trigger.”

Marlborough
bowed his head and proceeded to remove the shot and charge from the lower chamber of the flintlock. He appeared to be clearly uncomfortable with all aspects of the situation, not the least of which being the fact that he should have been arresting Tyrone Hart, not aiding him in a duel against his commanding officer.

“The colonel is an expert marksman, sir,” he murmured. “I have seen him shoot the eye out of a fox at thirty paces.”

“Then I am well advised to keep mine firmly shut and cheat him of a target.”

Marlborough
looked up, startled.

“You are a good man, Corporal,” Tyrone said quietly. “I am grateful for what you did earlier. And I am still holding you to your bond. Whatever happens over the course of the next few minutes, I expect you to insure Mademoiselle d’Anton’s safety.”

The dark, earnest eyes searched the blood-smeared face and nodded slowly. “You may count on it, sir.”

Roth was waiting. Having removed his scarlet tunic, he wore a collarless white shirt beneath, with braces over the shoulders to keep his breeches snug about his waist. He ran his thumbs down both suspenders to adjust the tension, then retrieved his pistol from his saddle and checked that it was loaded and primed.

Tyrone did likewise, insuring the corporal removed the right priming charge from the right barrel, then, with the pain in his slashed leg causing him to limp slightly, walked forward to where Roth waited in the middle of the road. He stood half a head taller than the colonel and with his loose-fitting sleeves and shiny satin breeches, knew he would present a wide, clear target against the background of night shadows.

Marlborough
insisted on positioning the lanterns to provide equal advantage to both duelists, while the five militiamen were ordered to dismount and leave their weapons in a pile beside the road. When the corporal was satisfied there would be no ambush out of the dark, he fetched one of the pistols and stood with the two challengers.

“You will each count off ten paces. I will call one, two, three, and on three, you will turn, aim, and fire. Should both shots miss—”

“Both shots will not miss,
Marlborough
,” Roth said. “Back away.”

“Should anyone anticipate the count of three—”

“Mister Marlborough, you are going to have a difficult enough time as it is explaining your actions when this is over. I suggest you
back away. Now!”

The young man flushed, taking three long strides back toward the side of the road, and Roth grinned up at Tyrone.

“Well, Hart, I cannot say it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance … in either of your incarnations. But to prove my sincerity in wishing you a fond farewell, I shall aim low, for the belly, so that we can all enjoy hearing you scream your way into the devil’s hands.”

Tyrone smiled tightly and balanced the snout of the gun over his wounded hand while he wiped his left palm down his breeches and took a firmer grip on the stock.

Roth pursed his lips. “Do you need an extra moment or two to accustom yourself to the aim or balance? I should not want you to shoot a horse by mistake.”

“You’re too kind, Roth.”

The colonel laughed and turned, presenting his back. Tyrone was slower to take the set position and his strides were less even than Roth’s as they counted off the required ten paces apiece. He glanced up once into the brilliant canvas of stars, suffering the smallest regret that the moon was not riding high and pale in the sky. He glanced a second time to where Renée was standing, her hands clasped over her breast, her eyes wide and dark and shining with tears. He was not sure if she could see his face clearly, but he moved his lips anyway, saying the words he had been too stubborn to say before. He said them in English, then in French. He might even have shouted them had he not heard
Marlborough
begin to count off one … two …

On the count of three both men turned. They straightened their elbows and extended their arms and there were two flashes of powder, two explosive blasts that shattered the absolute stillness of the air.

For half an eternity, no one moved. Renée had covered her mouth on the count of three and her hand remained frozen in place. Antoine was beside her, his chest expanded with the pressure of a pent-up breath, his eyes round as saucers. Maggie clutched
Dudley
’s arm with one hand, Finn’s with the other, but the two men forgave the gouging pain of her fingers; indeed, they were barely aware of it. The militiamen looked from one combatant to the other, waiting for the haze of the smoke to clear. There was so much blood on Tyrone’s clothing already, it was difficult to see if there were any new stains appearing on his body, whereas they all saw the gleam of the smile that began to spread across Roth’s face.

Tyrone wavered. His shoulders sagged and he went down hard on one knee.

Twenty paces away, Bertrand Roth started to walk back toward his horse. He managed to go only a couple of steps, however, before his legs buckled like snapped kindling and he crashed face
down on the ground, landing close enough to one of the lanterns that the fresh new hole in the center of his forehead glistened red in the light.

Renée broke free and ran to where Tyrone was teetering, trying to maintain his balance. He had dropped his gun and both hands were folded over his belly now. With Dudley and Antoine a close step behind her, she skidded painfully onto her knees beside him, almost dreading to ask, dreading to see what horrible new injury had been inflicted. His head was bowed and the shaggy black waves of his hair fell forward over his cheeks. It took him a moment, but he responded to the soft plea in Renée’s hands as they cradled his face and begged him to look up at her.

“Is Roth dead?”

“Yes.
Yes, you shot him. He is dead.”

He offered up a lopsided grin. “Then you may rest easy, mam’selle, for if I was truly reformed and truly a gentleman, I would have told him from the outs
et that I was left-handed …”

“Tyrone!”

But he could not hear her. He had already toppled sideways, senseless in her arms.

EPILOGUE

R
enée leaned back in the chair and tried to keep her eyes from closing. She heard the door open behind her and sat a little straighter, offering up a tired smile as Antoine came into the cabin.

“Where is Finn?”

“Puking over the rails again,” he offered up cheerfully. “I came to f
etch him a clean handkerchief.”

“And M’sieur
Dudley
?”

“Puking right alongside him,” Maggie said, coming through the doorway behind Antoine. “You would think, for two such fierce brigands, they could hold their biscuits and ale through a few little swells. You should go and take a turn around the deck, miss. It really is a lovely evening, clear and cool, full of stars, and the moon so bright it paints a silver river on the surface of the sea.”

“I can see the moon from the window,” Renée pointed out. “And if I had to
watch
the ship going up and down I am afraid I might end up standing with Finn and M’sieur Dudley.”

Maggie peered at the wooden supper tray she had brought down earlier. “Well, I am glad to see
someone
has not lost his appetite. He ate all the meat, I see, and the cheese. Did he drink all the tea I brewed for him or has he been spilling it out the porthole again?”

“I drank every last wretched mouthful,” Tyrone grumbled from the bed. “I had no choice; the minx would have poured it down my throat otherwise.”

“So you’re awake, are you?”

“Awake and pondering the cruel circumstances that have brought me to this fate. Three weeks ago, I was happily unfettered, in full possession of my health, my faculties, my creature comforts, free to come and go where I chose, to do it with whom I chose, when and where I chose to do it. Now look at me,” he sighed, lifting the curved sweep of his black lashes to stare up at the lantern where it swayed gently from its hook on the ceiling. “Freshly quit of one set of bandages and bound in another, forced to flee hearth and home in the dead of night and take up residence in a berth no wider than a coffin, on board a vessel run by pirates—”

“Enterprising merchants, or so Robbie told me,” Maggie corrected him, “who prefer not to pay the exorbitant export prices for
West Indies
rum.”

“Pirates,” Tyrone reiterated, “and a pair of women who treat me like a recalcitrant child.”

Both Maggie and Renée frowned a moment over the meaning of the word recalcitrant, but in the end, decided he had said it with enough of a scowl to make it a compliment.

Maggie went to the bed and inspected the bandages on his hand. They were clean and dry, as were the strips around his arm and thigh. The cut on his face was healing to a thin red line, dotted with scabmarks where the stitches had been taken out the previous day. When they had first carried him on board ship, he had looked like a mummy, with bandages around his ribs, his leg, his arm, his hand, even slung diagonally across his chest. Roth’s bullet had caught him high on the right shoulder but Maggie had found it on the first pass of the knife. It was the deep cut across his palm that had worried her the most, although they had found a doctor in
Portsmouth
before they sailed who had inspected her stitchery and said he could not have done a better job. With care and vigorous strengthening exercises he would likely regain the use of the hand, though it was doubtful the grip would be as powerful as before. Tyrone was just thankful he could move his fingers and that the numbness of the first few days was gradually giving way to sensation, even though that sensation was pain.

Ignoring the frowns from all three observers, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and struggled to sit up. In the end, it took the combined efforts of Antoine and Maggie to haul him fully upright, but he wore such an inanely happy grin when they were finished, they forgave him his bullheadedness.

“Well, that’s me then, off to my berth,” Maggie said. “You too, Your Grace. Especially if you are to be up early to stand the morning watch. Badgered the captain, he did,” she added by way of explanation, “until the poor man agreed to let him drill with the crew.”

When Maggie and Antoine were gone, Renée found the pale gray eyes waiting for her, narrowed in anticipation of a protest.

“He asked me first, and I couldn’t see any harm in it. Would you rather have him comfortable and knowledgeable about the workings of a ship, or terrified and propped at the rail alongside Finn and Dudley?”

Renée, who’d had no intention of arguing with anything that served to bring her brother farther out of his shell, smiled and murmured, “Why did I know you would be a corrupting influence on him?”

“Turnabout is fair play, mam’selle. Why should others not suffer upheavals when I am but a mere shadow of my former self?”