The Tide Watchers (11 page)

S
TILL BLOCKING THE DOORWAY,
Duncan stared at the body of LeClerc, sprawled across his doorstep: a mouse left by Fouché's cat. A crude bandage covered the foot he'd shot a few hours ago, but that wasn't the fatal wound. There was a new hole through his heart. His face was a ghastly gray, his eyes bulging, highlighting the violent bruising down one cheek and a broken nose. Blood trailed right down the garden path. Delacorte had dragged the body here while they'd sat in the parlor making their bargain. It had to be Delacorte. He wouldn't trust a minion for this, and the self-indulgent, unnecessary violence on a helpless man was characteristic of him.

Something moved off to the left. Torches were bobbing in the distance, coming toward them. More gendarmes would be closing in via the back lane.

Delacorte had overtaken them too fast. Duncan's velvet fist challenge had been answered with an iron glove. The manned rowboat on a disused dock only half a mile north was useless when they couldn't escape the house. His plans for removing Lisbeth and the child discreetly from Abbeville were in the dust.

Check and mate.
Vive le France.

Lisbeth pushed past him and gasped. He shoved a hand over her mouth to smother the rest of her shocked cry. He held on until she bit him. “Did you see the torches?”

Glaring at him, she nodded.

“He's bringing gendarmes to arrest us both.” He released her. “I hope you didn't have anything of value at the
pension
.”

She rose in his estimation by her simple shrug, but there was fear in her eyes, and youth. She was still so young. “Just protect my son.”

Pulling the door shut, he took her hands in his and looked into her eyes. “I swear it.”

Her face changed, softened. “Then we'd better get out of here.”

Duncan considered the options in seconds. “The back way will be covered. If we—”

He spoke to the air. Lisbeth wasn't there.

Bolting the door, he ran through the house to the back. Still locked and bolted, thank God; so she wasn't panicking. In the minutes they had before the gendarmes broke in, he searched the lower floor of the house.

He found her in a little, triangular storage room at the end of the hall beneath the stairs, a room with an odd-shaped door and no windows. In the shadowed light cast by the lantern set behind the door, she was tugging at a corner of a carpet that shouldn't be in such a tiny room. “Pull the curtains closed in as many rooms as you can. Alain will have all known escape routes covered, but the house is very old—”

He ran out and drew the curtains everywhere he could. “You think there's a tunnel.” He dropped to his knees, tugging at the carpet with her, making dust fly in all directions.

She nodded as she kept pulling. “Grand-mère's ancestor was a Huguenot in Catherine de' Medici's time. Tunnels beneath the stairwell cupboards were a favored means of escape from the wrath of the Church, especially in areas of soft soil like here, near the river. It meant easier digging, and Caen stone was used to reinforce the walls of the tunnels.”

He lifted his brows, impressed that she thought so fast in a critical situation. “If there's one here, it hasn't been used in years. The carpet's been laid on top.”

“I realize it's a risk. Lock the door, and don't make any tears in the carpet,” she hissed.

Bent almost double, he spread his hands wide at each edge of the carpet and tugged. It took repeated pulls and tugs before the dirt of a century began to give. A final tug, and it fell back in his hands.

Lisbeth peered over his shoulder and made a soft, hissing sound of
victory as they saw the square cuts to the floorboards, and a handle resting in its carved-out place in the wood.

“Don't get your hopes up,” he warned her. “The tunnel could have collapsed or filled with water a hundred years ago.”

“You're objecting because you didn't think of this plan,” she snipped, and he fought a grin. Bloody impertinent chit was right. “The tunnel
will
be clear because it's the only way you can save my son.” She stuck her knife in the cut floorboard in the farthest corner against the wall, sawing at the dirt. “Lay the carpet back over itself without making a crease. We want it to fall back in place when we go. Get one of the knives I'm sure you have hidden in your boots, and help me loosen the dirt.”

With grim humor he wondered who was the seasoned spy, and who the pupil. “You really are your father's daughter.”

Is it surprising? At her age you were in France, gathering information for Britain.
Yet though he'd been thoroughly trained, he doubted he'd have been so coolheaded on his first mission. Far more than Leo or Andrew, she'd inherited her father's phenomenal memory, and natural talent for espionage. Though Eddie would hate it, being a traditionalist when it came to women, right now Duncan would take whatever advantage he could get, and be bloody grateful for it. He took a knife from his boot and began working on the crevice on the other side.

“Hurry.” He looked up; her face was gray and creased with dust. “Patience isn't Alain's strong suit.”

He finished one side and dug the knife in around the corner.

A noise came from outside. “Turn down the lantern!”

“This will be the last place they look,” he whispered, to reassure her. Panic would kill them both.

Another noise, closer. They were checking windows. The closed curtains in the other rooms would create a delay while they worked out where to break in first. Clever girl, thinking of that. He got the last of the dirt loose. “Move back.” He pulled the knife from the crevice, grabbed the ring of the trapdoor, and put his whole force into yanking upward. Nothing. After twenty seconds, he drew in a harsh breath. “One, two . . .”

Again, it didn't give. He watched Lisbeth work the knife, stabbing along the crevices. Then she pushed both knives right in and wiggled them around. “Try again.”

He set every muscle in his body tense and hard and pulled with everything he had.

A deep voice yelled, “Gaston Borchonne, open up, in the name of the first consul!”

Again!
she mouthed without sound. She dug the knives in while he pulled.

With a groaning sound and a crack, the trapdoor at last lifted. “Hold your breath and move back. The air could be a hundred years old.”

Pounding on the front door. Muffled yells from the back.

“We can't wait.” She pulled the edges of the carpet up. “Hold the carpet at the corners of the trapdoor, so they fall back together.” She picked up the lantern, wrapped the edge of her cloak over her nose and mouth and around her head like a Bedouin woman, and stepped into the hole. “Follow me.” She swarmed down.

A shriek of cracking glass—the front sitting room. A muffled yell. “Gaston Borchonne, open in the name of the first consul!”

Holding his breath, Duncan turned and found the steps with his feet.

Thuds came harder, faster. Glass crashed inward. The fifth stair down was cracked partway through, sagging in the middle and he swayed, leaning forward to stop from falling. Seasoned sea legs helped him hold balance.

Lisbeth was at the base of the old ladder. “Grab the rope to pull the door down. Make sure the carpet falls with it.” She turned the lantern up, and he saw she'd dropped her cloak from her face. “This seems to be a side tunnel leading to a wider one. The walls of both tunnels are bricked, and they've been mortared recently as well. There's fresh air circulating here.”

He found the rope hanging beneath the trapdoor. “Thank God for that. Lift the lantern higher—yes! Here's a latch.” He pulled the door down and shoved the rudimentary bolt-and-latch across. It was
rusty and groaned in protest, but it moved. “Thank God for that, too. An inch is all we need. Hopefully it will take hours to find another entrance to the tunnel.”

“Do you attend church, mon—um, Gaston?” she asked softly, a little laughter in it.

“I do at home.” He joined her at the base of the ladder, grinning. “I've learned to be grateful for unexpected miracles in this line of work. And no need to call me Gaston. Delacorte's ended any chance of my passing as Borchonne. We can't stay in Abbeville.”

“My son,” she murmured, in sharp anxiety. “I won't go without him.”

“I understand, but we have no choice. Delacorte will kill us both. Best if we disappear and leave my men to it. My orders are already in place to take Edmond.”

She must have understood there was no choice. Her face hardened, but she nodded. “Which way?” she whispered, standing at the fork of the two tunnels. “There's no difference between them.”

“Which way has more air circulating?”

She turned her face this way and that. Lifting the lantern, she strode to the right.

A glimmer of a plan lit in his brain as they walked. “Let's hope we don't run into whoever made the tunnels their playground.”

“So long as it's not Alain and his gendarmes, I'll shake their hands in thanks.”

No hesitation in her voice or uncertainty in her walk. Thank God. He couldn't abide wailing females who expected a man to protect them from every little thing. “Can you see anything ahead?”

She frowned. “Not yet.” She kept looking right and left as she walked. “Do you think smugglers are using this? Or some religious group?”

Perhaps she kept asking questions from a need for reassurance. He didn't care. Whatever kept her going, he'd do. “We'll know when we see altars and icons, barrels, a fleur-de-lis, or the red caps of the Jacobins.”

“If Fouché's his master, Alain's a Jacobin.”

Right now she didn't need to be reminded Fouché owned every spy group in France, and they could be facing any kind of violence or weaponry at the other end of this tunnel. So he grinned. “Then we pray it's not them, and thank God when it's someone else.”

“I think I'm learning the religion of espionage.” Her soft laugh had the Norfolk lilt. It sounded nice. Like home.

The candle in the lantern sputtered. She turned, her eyes wide. “We need candles.”

“I have one.” He spoke with deliberate coldness. “Don't panic.”

She didn't reply, but her eyes flashed and her chin lifted, like Eddie when he was angry.

Opening the lantern door, he grabbed the candle stub and held it out to her. “Take this. It seems you need the reassurance.” He spoke with deliberate coolness.

The resentment in her eyes grew, but she took it.

He put his last candle inside the lantern. He'd have to find a way out, and fast. If she was nervous now, God knows how she'd be when they lost the light. “Would you like me to lead?”

“No.” She spoke through gritted teeth, and he fought laughter. At least she was a fighter.

They'd gone at least a mile, unless he'd lost his sense of distance. Were they even heading north? He didn't think the tunnel had turned. The bricks were no longer holding the walls up; the tunnel grew smaller, until they were on their hands and knees.

“Give me the lantern,” he said when she lost balance. She handed it to him without a word—but within a minute there was nothing but natural soil and rock in front of them.

“It ended. It just stopped,” Lisbeth cried. “Turn around. I have to get out. I-I think I'm-I'm going to be sick—”

“Lisbeth,” he said quietly. “Can you still feel fresh air on your face?” She made an odd sound. “We're still near an exit. Take a few breaths, you're exhausted.” He maneuvered himself so he sat, then he took the lantern and set it down between them.

She sat beside him, leaning against the damp wall of the tunnel. “I went past
exhausted
hours ago,” she said eventually. “You called me Lisbeth.”

“Yes, I did.” And in doing so, he'd proven his closeness to the family. Leo had told him they'd given her the nickname “Lisbeth” when she was little. She couldn't pronounce her name properly, but she wouldn't let anyone else introduce her. At first using it to tease her, they'd soon forgotten she was ever Elizabeth. Few outside the family called her that. Still less did anyone use her intimate nickname of Lizzy.

Last week, calling her madame had given her back her dignity, and the power of choice. Elise would be her cover name, since it was common in France. But she needed a friend now, and following her wiggling bottom for the past ten minutes mocked his attempts at distance. “I am Duncan, Lisbeth. I'm pleased to meet you.” Unable to bow, he held out a hand.

Her eyes were quizzical. “Is that your real name?” It was less a question than a demand. Needing something or someone to trust, to believe in.

“It's the name I prefer,” he said, giving her what truth he could.

She relaxed, smiled, and took his hand. “I'm pleased to meet you, Duncan.” Then she chuckled, again with that soft Norfolk lilt.

He grinned at her. Even pale and covered with dirt, the blind distance had vanished from her eyes; she looked vivid, alive, and strangely contented. “It is rather absurd. We were beyond politeness the moment we met.”

“But you made me laugh and stopped me from panicking,” she whispered, laying her hand on his. “Thank you for trusting me with your name at least.”

Odd that she'd seen his greatest flaw, when they'd only known each other a few hours all counted; absurd that a simple touch on his hand felt so intimate. He should have taken up the girl's offer at Le Boeuf
.
He'd been without a woman too long, and he couldn't afford weakness with this one. “It's past dawn. We have to leave the tunnel. Can you last a little longer?”

“I could sleep sitting up”—she yawned—“but to have my baby, I'd stay awake a week.”

He believed it. She'd do whatever it took to have her child safe with her.

“There was a tunnel branching off a short way back. We'll have to take the chance.”