The Return of the Prodigal (16 page)

She threw her head backward in sudden rage, painfully hitting her head against the wood. But she didn’t care about the pain. She threw her head back again, and then a third time, hoping they could hear her wild struggles, and feel ashamed of themselves.

At last, because banging her head against the strong wooden walls did her no good, she stopped. She sat very still, and she allowed her wet, stinging eyes to become accustomed to the near dark, the only light coming from some small chinks in the walls of the caravan.

And then she realized something. She was surrounded by weapons.

And not all of them were dull.

J
ASPER WAS ABOUT
as capable of stealth as Hannibal and all his men lumbering across the Alps on their force of pachyderms.

What was worse, each time Jasper stepped on a downed branch and snapped it, or startled a small animal from its resting place, he complicated the problem by issuing an apology.

And the concept of a whisper was, apparently, entirely beyond the man’s comprehension.

Crr-a-c-k.

“Oops! Jasper’s sorry, sir.”

Rian motioned for the man to go low, down on his haunches, and did the same. “Jasper,” he whispered after a few moments of listening, to make sure they hadn’t been discovered and were about to be set upon by sentries the
Comte
might or might not keep posted on the grounds, “this isn’t working quite as well as I’d hoped.”

Jasper hung his head. “No, Lieutenant, sir. Jasper supposes not.”

“Tell you what we’ll do. You stay here, and I’ll go ahead. If there are any sentries, I’ll mark their locations, and we’ll find another way to get closer to the house itself—which is entirely in the open, sans even shrubberies at the walls. Only when I return will you join me, all right?”

“But if you were to meet up with one of them sentries, sir? You’d need Jasper.”

“And I’ll shout out good and loud for you, trust me on that,” Rian said, grinning in he darkness. “And I am armed.”

Jasper looked at him from beneath his beetle brows, his gaze on Rian’s shortened left arm. “Well…”

“Point taken, friend,” Rian said, and then touched the hilt of the fine French sword sunk into a leather belt and scabbard around his waist. “But I do know how to wield this pretty thing, I promise.”

“All right then, Jasper supposes,” the big man said on a sigh that might, at a stretch, be termed full of motherly concern. “But you’ll give a yell if you need Jasper’s help?”

“Like a stuck pig. But only figuratively, I hope,” Rian told him, still holding the scabbard as he rose to a near crouch and moved forward once more, still heading in the direction of the lights he could see burning in the windows of the manor house.

Their approach had been easy enough, until Jasper’s large feet had encountered the surprising amount of debris beneath the trees ringing the manor house. The
Comte
clearly didn’t have aspirations to be known for the beauty of his grounds. Or else the underbrush was supposed to deter invasion—or at least make that invasion a noisy one.

Because he didn’t know what to expect from a man who had successfully tricked even the brilliant Ainsley so many years ago, Rian felt it best to expect anything. He placed each foot with care, testing the ground in case there might be pits dug out beneath the deep layer of leaves. He hadn’t survived Waterloo, survived this long, to end up shot through with wooden stakes at the bottom of a death-drop such as the ones he had been shown as a boy on the island, and warned to avoid.

The manor house rose in front of him after another thirty feet of slow progress; three stories of mellow yellow stone, the top two floors dark, the bottom lit brightly, at least on the side Rian approached.

He looked to his right, believed he could see where the gravel drive had been located, and decided he was on the west side of the house. In the months he’d been in residence, he’d been mostly confined to a chamber on the third floor, and taken down the servant stairs to the gardens once he was able to navigate that far. He’d never seen the second floor, which he assumed to be made up of at least six bedchambers, or the first floor, elevated a good ten feet off the ground, the cellar windows large, but barred.

As Lisette had teased him, he knew he could not simply walk up the stone steps to the front door, knock and demand entry. And he didn’t expect to gain entry to the house, not tonight. Tonight was for reconnoitering, assessing possibilities, identifying problems, areas of risk.

The idea was a good one. The reality was that there would be no easy way into the manor house. Fifty feet or more of cleared land stood between the last tree and the stone walls, ground no man could cover without being seen, not if there were sentries, guards, patrolling the grounds.

But, oh, God, Rian did want a look at the man!

He was about to risk discovery, bolt across the open space and make his way around the perimeter of the walls, searching for the weakest link—an unlocked door, an unlatched window—when the sound of voices carried to him over the night air.

English voices, not French.

He pushed back into the concealment of the bushes—damn, the one he chose had inch-long thorns—and listened as the voices grew louder, and he could hear the crunch of boots on gravel. Coming from the front of the house, and heading his way.

“Saw him m’ self, Willie,” Rian heard one of the pair of men he could now see as shadows in the dark. “Slapped the black bitch, told her she should have known the girl would betray him, an’ for nuthin’, for a stupid woman’s belief in ghosts wot wasted his time for too long. Stood back, I did, Willie, figurin’ she’d strike him down, turn him into a toad, or sumthin’. But she just stayed there, the ugly old thing, kneelin’in front o’ him, beggin’ he listen to her. That there was still time an’ she could still
fix
things. That she knew she was
right,
whatever that was a’ posed to mean. One o’ her damn spells or sumthin’.”

“Never done seen that, Leon—him hittin’ her. Not in all these years. This don’t bode no good for none o’ us, I’m thinkin’.”

The two men stopped no more than ten feet in front of Rian, their backs to him as they leaned on the barrels of their long rifles. He could see that they were not young men, and they had more the look of sailors than they did soldiers. Something about the way they had walked toward him,
rolled
toward him. Lord knew he’d seen that particular rolling gait enough in the men who lived now in Becket Village. A man can leave the sea, but if he sails it long enough, the sea never quite leaves the man.

“Ever since Boney threw the spanner in the works, Willie. That’s when it all started comin’ apart for him. Got him back, tried again, and another loss what cost us terrible. Nope, not the same since Boney’s gone, for good this time. Put his eggs in the wrong basket.”

“Not the Cap’n, Leon, he’s not so dumb, that one. Eggs all over, that’s wot the man lays. While you’ve been lamentin’ how bad things is, I’ve been keepin’ my ear closer to the deck. We’re goin’ to Lunnon, Leon, within the month, I’m bettin’, not a moment too soon to suit me, I tell yer. And I’m not one what will miss these damn, diseased Frenchie whores. Too many years since I’ve had me a real Covent Garden dolly up agin’ the wall.”

“London, is it?” The man who answered to the name Leon snorted. “And who wuz it what tol’ you that clunker?”

“Said it, Leon. Nobody tol’ me. I heard it, keepin’ m’ ears open. Leavin’ here tomorrow, mayhap the next day, with some left behind to crate everythin’ up and ship it off. We go to Paris, do the same there, and follow the Cap’n to Lunnon, or somewheres close by. You know, Leon, ain’t seen m’ mam in more’ an five and twenty years. Haven’t thought of her, neither, fearsome old besom that she was. Probably dead, right? Hope so, or else she’ll box my ears fer me, believe it.”

They moved off then, still speaking, but Rian couldn’t make out anything else they said.

Seamen. English seaman. English crew from a privateer, under the command of Edmund Beales?

There was no other reasonable answer, was there?

Ah, yes, there probably were other explanations. Maybe dozens of them.

But Rian was sure he was right. Behind those stone walls, probably sipping fine French wine beside a roaring fire, sat Edmund Beales. Nathaniel Beatty. The
Comte
Beltrane. The
Cap’n.

Rian realized he had been clenching his jaw tightly and probably had been since hearing that word: Cap’n.
Ainsley
was the Cap’n, a term of respect. Edmund Beales was nothing but a greedy, covetous, duplicitous, cold-blooded murderer.

Fifty feet away from him.

The distance might have been that of the ocean that stretched between the island and the coast of England.

He turned and made his way back to the spot where he’d left Jasper, to find the man sitting on the ground now, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“Well, now, it’s nice to see an experienced soldier, one who can relax ahead of a battle,” Rian whispered, and Jasper sat up all at once, the pistol in his hand cocked and ready to be fired. “Jasper, no, it’s me. The Lieutenant.”

Jasper uncocked the pistol and slipped it back into the waistband of his trousers. “Sorry, sir. Figured Jasper was still behind the worst of it, out of the line of fire. We goin’ now?”

“I’m afraid there’s really no way to go forward, my friend. There are guards, at least two of them, and they’ve been nice enough to join up as they patrol the perimeter, but access to the house itself remains a problem. Worse, the
Comte
could be leaving for Paris as early as tomorrow morning.”

“Now that’s too bad, Jasper’s thinking. Gog and Magog’d ne’er be able to keep up with a fine coach and six. Not with a pony cart, neither, come to think of it. Oxen ain’t built for speed. So it has to be tonight, or nuthin’?”

“And it may just be nothing, damn it all to hell,” Rian said, absently rubbing the handle of the sword. “I’m sorry, Jasper. It all seemed much simpler when we were on the road, coming back here. But he is our man. I’m sure of it. And, according to what I overheard the guards saying, he’s planning a move to London, complete with all his belongings. He’ll be on our side of the Channel. That’s good information to have, so our trip here wasn’t actually wasted.”

Jasper nodded, and then showed Rian that he was more than big, more than loyal. He knew how to think. “Keepin’ men at the ports, watchin’, waitin’, that should do it.”

“A lot of ports to choose from, Jasper, but I agree, it’s a start. I’d say Dover for the
Comte,
perhaps, and the London docks for his belongings. If I live long enough to get back to Becket Hall and set things in motion. That said, let’s get ourselves out of here, all right? I don’t do anybody any good by staying here, just to take a look at a man others will be able to recognize when they see him.”

They made their way back through the trees, Jasper helping Rian over the five-foot-high wall that surrounded the grounds, and they were back on the dirt lane that led to the churchyard. The night was clear, not unreasonably cool, and Rian felt as if he could reach up and pick for Lisette one of the stars that blinked so brightly above them.

“You should see the sky over Romney Marsh, Jasper,” he said as they walked along. “Clear like this, sometimes. But a moody sky, prone to change. Some days the clouds hang so low a man like you might want to bend your head or else feel like you’ll touch them. Sometimes the clouds go by so quickly that watching them is enough to make you dizzy, make you want to hang on to something, sure that the world is turning too fast. And the sunsets? Ah, Jasper, when the sky is all pinks and reds over the water, along the horizon, and the gulls, all chattering and soaring, dipping, getting in one last feed before nightfall? Then there’s not a more beautiful place on Earth.”

“Sounds pretty, Lieutenant. You’ll be wantin’ to get back there.”

Rian smiled sadly. “I didn’t think so, not for some months now. But, yes, Jasper, I do want to go home. I can’t imagine now why I was avoiding it.”

“The arm, sir? Begging your pardon.”

“I’d deny that, if I could. I’m a vain man, it would seem, Jasper. When I first…well, when I first became aware of what had happened to me, I wanted noting more than to die. You can’t imagine it, Jasper, and I would never want you to, looking down at yourself for the first time when you wake up, seeing that some of you is gone. It’s…it’s an odd feeling. Especially when there were times, many times, when I could have sworn I could feel my fingers, my hand drawing into a fist. But it wasn’t there anymore, so that was impossible. I think I…I went a little mad there for a while. Confined to a bed because of my leg, the slice someone took across my belly a festering wound for long weeks—the hand. No, going home, showing myself like that, was the last thing on my mind.”

Jasper was silent for some minutes as they picked their way along the rutted lane. “Miss Lisette, she helped you, didn’t she? Got you well again?”

Rian had a sharp mental picture slam into his brain, one of Lisette, so young, so beautiful, climbing into his bed, lying down beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. Telling him he was better, he would be fine. Telling him his wounds were healed, but his body needed him to get up, to walk in the sun, to look at life again because it was all out there, outside his window, the entire world.

But the world he wanted had just lain down beside him….

“Lisette probably saved me, Jasper. From my injuries, and from myself. Even so, I seemed to…to
float
through so many days and weeks, content just to sit and stare, think about nothing much at all. I look back on those days now, and I wonder what was wrong with me. I wonder what sort of medicines Lisette was pouring into me every day.”

“Jasper is a simple man, Lieutenant,” the big man said quietly. “But it’s thinkin’, Jasper is, that you and Miss Lisette have some talkin’ together to do. She can’t help it, Jasper thinks, that her Da is a bad man.”

Rian smiled in the darkness. “Not her father, Jasper. The
Comte
—we’ll call him that until I’m sure of his identity—isn’t her father. What
father
sets his own daughter out to seduce a man?”

“A very bad one?”

Rian looked up at the big man walking beside him. “Out of the mouths of babes and giants,” he said, shaking his head. “Which one of us decided that the
Comte
had borrowed her father’s surname when he went to London? Me? Or Lisette? I can’t remember, not for certain, but it may have been her. Or me, and she simply jumped at the idea. A simple explanation. Logical. But, God, Jasper, if you’re right, if she’s actually the
Comte
’s daughter, Edmund Beales’s
daughter,
Lord help us all. The things I told her about the man? I can barely think…hardly conceive of how she’d react to such information. Hurt, anger. Stupid, Jasper, I’m so bloody stupid not to have thought of this possibility myself! His daughter. No wonder she lies to me, even as she believes me. How do you begin to take it into your head that your own father is a monster? Pick up those big feet of yours, Jasper. We have to get back to camp.”