Virtue's Reward (27 page)

“It is my—I prefer to call it a business venture—my business that I wish to protect, dear Helena. Viscount Lenwood understands.”

At which Richard began to laugh. “I’m damned if I do, sir! Madame Relet doesn’t seem to think I’m worth bothering about. Yet you’ve gone to a considerable amount of effort, it would seem, to murder me.”

“It’s on this end that I can’t have you interfering, of course.” Garthwood gestured to the two men who held Richard. “Kill him!”

The man holding Richard’s left arm pulled out a long knife and swung it up at his captive’s throat.

Helena screamed.

Richard kicked hard. His spurred heel buckled his assailant’s knee, then crushed his instep. The man screeched and collapsed. His blade clattered harmlessly onto the rock. The other ruffian crumpled with a grunt as Richard’s free hand chopped into his neck.

Yet the wounded man lurched up again, his weapon once again in his hand. Cursing and staggering, he stabbed the knife at Richard’s back, but his intended victim had already dropped and rolled away out of reach.

Richard sprang immediately to his feet and ran toward the entrance to the tunnel that led back to the house. He held a hand out for Helena as she raced toward him. The smugglers surged after him. They were almost at the rock face when Richard was arrested as if he had run into a wall. His pursuers ground to a halt behind him.

The passage was guarded.

The man who stood there smiled as he raised his pistol.

“I hope I’m in time, brother,” he said, and tossed back an errant lock of black hair that had fallen over his forehead. “You seem to have the parti-colored look on your cheek this time. How the hell is the family’s name for elegance to be kept up if you will keep appearing in public brindled like a cow?”

Helena stumbled on as if she were in a nightmare. She could never run faster than a bullet, and not only Harry had a weapon trained on Richard. One of the ruffians guarding the boat was also taking aim at her husband.

“For God’s sake, Helena! Get down!” Richard cried.

The cavern resounded with the sound of two pistols fired at once, then exploded into a cacophony of gunfire. Men poured out of the dark passage behind Harry to leap down into the cave. Yells and grunts echoed as flesh thudded into flesh. Screams resounded as bullets and knives found their mark. Ignoring them all, Harry steadily kept priming, firing, and reloading, until he ran out of lead.

With her hands over her ears, Helena cowered against the base of the cliff.

The smugglers fell back and tossed most of their torches hissing into the sea. The air filled with smoke and noise. Nothing could be made out except dark shapes and leaping shadows.

She saw only one thing clearly before chaos took over. The ruffian by the boat had dropped like a stone. His bullet struck harmlessly into the water as he fell. The other smugglers had instantly made Harry their target. Yet Harry’s expert aim had found its mark.
Harry had just saved Richard’s life
.

“Take care of her this time!” Richard’s voice said from the darkness. “Get her out of here as soon as you can. And for God’s sake, leave the rest to the soldiers! You’ve done your bit already—rather well, as it happens!”

“Yes, my lord!” Harry said. “Though I admit it was a damned close-run thing. Thank God I went back for the revenue men!”

Richard disappeared as Harry pulled Helena out of danger. They crouched together behind an outcropping of rock as the fighting surged back and forth.

“You shot that man,” she said. “The one who was aiming at Richard.”

“Well, I’m damned if I’m going to let some rickety fellow like that shoot down my brother. He would probably have half-missed and made a mess out of it. It’s the one advantage of having decent eyesight. You’ve a slightly higher chance than the next fellow of hitting your target cleanly. Are you all right? You won’t faint, will you? Richard will skin me alive if anything happens to you.”

“Will he?” Helena said. “No, I won’t faint. Who are all these men?”

“His Majesty’s excisemen, of course. I told Richard about Garthwood seeming to have an inexhaustible source of excellent liquor. I have been buying some from him, as a matter of fact. It was just a hunch that he was using Trethaerin for bringing in brandy. Thank God it was the case, or we’d have looked like fools! As it happens, after getting thoroughly lost in your damned Cornish lanes, I came across a tidy little string of ponies hacking up the headland. I saw where the ponies were hidden and watched where the men came in, then I thought I’d better call in reinforcements. Seemed like too many fellows for Richard and me to take on single-handed. Here, get down!”

“Now, that,” Helena said, “isn’t humanly possible.”

She peeked past the rock. The cave was filled with fighting men. No one had space or time to reload any longer, so they had all moved into hand-to-hand combat. Richard fought in the thick of them, his hair bright against the backdrop of gloom. Somehow he had come into possession of a sword—dropped by a wounded excise officer, perhaps—and in his other hand he held the single remaining torch. He was fighting over its possession with one of the smugglers.

Others, including her cousin, had fought their way back to the boat and were piling into it. If the man could wrench away Richard’s torch and plunge the cave into darkness, Garthwood might yet escape.

Richard’s assailant made another lunge. He was armed with a long knife and a wicked-looking cudgel. He swung the latter in a long arc at Richard’s sword arm.

“Not again, sir,” Richard said. His clear voice was the only sound Helena could distinguish above the din. “But then, I was alone in London, wasn’t I? This time I have professional reinforcements. For God’s sake, dispatch him, officer!”

The smuggler glanced back for only a moment, victim of the oldest trick in a fighter’s arsenal. It was enough. Richard disarmed him and sent him to the floor with a blow from the flat of his blade. But then he had to give way before the combined onslaught of three other men.

With her heart in her mouth, Helena watched Richard fall back until he suddenly tossed the torch to land with a hiss on the barrels of brandy. The flame flickered and died for a moment, but then the flame blazed and the kegs caught fire. The cave lit up like daylight in a roar of blue. A shower of fiery barrel staves rained down as something exploded.

“Now’s our chance!” Harry seized Helena’s hand and pulled her with him into the unguarded tunnel entrance that led back to the house. “I must get you out of here. Orders!”

As he bent to grab a lantern left by the excisemen, Helena glanced back into the cave.

Richard had grabbed a flaming piece of debris and tossed it into the tar-soaked boat. The smugglers dived into the water. Yet Garthwood stood and raised his pistol—no doubt the only gun left that was still primed, loaded, and ready to fire.

Harry determinedly dragged Helena away and hauled her back up to the house. She fought back sheer panic
. Dear God, dear God, pray that Richard survive this night!

They reached the door to the study and stumbled inside before Harry released Helena’s hand. She collapsed shaking into a chair.

“Richard can take care of himself,” he said with absolute conviction. “Especially now you’re not there to worry about. Here, drink this!”

She took the small flask he offered, then choked over a fiery swallow of brandy.

“He won’t die,” Harry added earnestly. “Believe me! You mustn’t give way now. Talk to me, Helena!”

Richard was right all along about his brother. How can I ever make it up to them—if Richard lives, if he only lives!

She smiled and gave the flask back to Harry. The brandy burned down her throat, leaving a trail of comforting heat.

“How did you even know we were here?” she asked, amazed that her voice sounded so calm.

Harry dropped into the chair opposite hers. “Dickon left instructions in his room at Acton Mead. We arranged it beforehand. I followed Garthwood up to London and saw him safely settled in—or so I thought. When I realized he’d given me the slip and left town, I went straight to Acton Mead and climbed the ivy. Didn’t hit Sir Lionel this time, you’ll be glad to know. Richard’s note said you’d come down here to check up on our hunch about the brandy. I got here as fast as possible. You have to admit it was splendid timing.”

“I’d rather you didn’t cut it so close next time, Harry.”

“Well, I was expecting things to happen right after Christmas, when I first followed your nasty cousin to London. He left a man to watch Acton Mead. He’d had a man watching me in Oxford before, as well. Richard knew that. But we supposed he wouldn’t move until he got a message that you and Dickon had crept away in the night.”

“You mean Richard knew that Garthwood would follow us here? He walked openly into a trap?”

“He knew it was a possibility. But if Garthwood had waited in London for a message from Acton Mead, as we expected, you’d have had a couple of days’ lead. As it was, I suppose Garthwood got impatient and was already at your doorstep, then came down here on your heels. Richard knew it might happen. But my brother is a man who loves risk, Helena dear. Why else did he marry a lady he’d known for only two days? Though I don’t imagine he thought for a moment that Garthwood would harm you, or he’d never have brought you here.”

Has Garthwood found his target? Is Richard already gone?

“We couldn’t come any sooner. There was poison in the port you gave Richard for a present.”

Harry listened in silence as Helena described how John and Williams had been taken ill.

“The man is a devil,” he said fiercely. “I already know to my cost he has some depraved knowledge about drugs. I believe he slipped something into my drink the day I first met him, so that I would talk. No doubt I was garrulous enough, then I was sick as a dog.”

“When you first climbed the ivy? I thought you were drunk.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be too out of character, but actually I was just ill. Richard nursed me most of that night. I’m sorry, Helena, but I’m going to have to leave you here and go back to dispatch your cousin—with the butt of my pistol, if necessary.”

There was a small noise behind them. Helena whirled around.

“No need, sir,” a familiar voice said gaily. “His Majesty’s representatives have done it for us. It’s over.”

Richard!

He stepped into the study and smiled. His breathing was slightly disordered and his coat seemed to be torn, but he was otherwise perfectly calm.

Helena flung herself into his arms. “Thank God! You’re not hurt?”

“Might I take it that you’re really as pleased as you seem, sweet wife?”

He tilted her face up to his and kissed her without mercy.

Harry moved away to stare hard at the painting above the fireplace.

“Garthwood’s dead?” he asked after a discreet interval.

Richard pulled away from his wife and grinned at his brother. “He put himself in the way of an officer’s sword—though not the one I was using, unfortunately—before he could get off his last shot and put a bullet in my back, after all. I’m damned sorry, in truth, because now we’re never going to understand this insane coil.”

“What’s left to understand?” Harry asked.

“What Helena’s role is in all this, of course,” Richard replied.

“No,” Harry said. “First you must tell us what happened after we left the cave.”

“Simple,” Richard replied. “We won. The surviving smugglers were taken out through the tunnel to the beach and hauled away in chains. Garthwood and the other victims were trussed in canvas and carried out with them. Meanwhile, I have given the commanding revenue officer all the records that proved Garthwood’s history of smuggling brandy.”

“And the records about the girls?” Harry asked.

“Are not relevant to customs officers’ concerns.”

Helena watched him, his bright hair, his confidence and strength. Garthwood was dead. Yet neither Richard nor Harry had killed him directly, and she was glad of that. He had been her cousin, after all, and in spite of everything she now knew about him, he had been generous enough to her when he first inherited Friarswell and Trethaerin from Edward.

Harry dropped back into a chair. “So what now?”

Richard guided Helena to a seat and smiled down at her. “We still don’t know,” he said slowly, “why Garthwood so wished for my untimely demise, except that it would appear to have been something to do with you, my dear.”

“You surely don’t suspect Helena, do you?” Harry said indignantly.

“No, Harry,” Helena said instantly. “Of course I wasn’t involved in any of it, but don’t you see? We have cleared up nothing really. Mr. Garthwood said he wanted Richard dead so he could marry me, but that’s absurd. There was certainly no insane passion there. My cousin was as cold as a fish. What could he possibly hope to gain? He didn’t even know that Acton Mead would be mine. In fact, he was counting on my being penniless and turning to him for help. And then he implied that if he had succeeded in murdering Richard, but I had turned down his suit, he would have had no compunction in dispatching me, too.”

“If I had known that, I would never have brought you,” Richard said. “You will believe that, won’t you?”

“Then why?” Harry asked.

“He seemed to think that I knew something,” Richard said. “Something more than about Madame Relet or about the brandy smuggling. Something to do with Helena or Trethaerin. What is it? The answer to that question is the crux of the whole issue.”

“Helena doesn’t know,” Harry said firmly.

“Yes, Garthwood made that clear.” Richard gave Helena a smile that threatened to break her heart. “But he thought I did. What knowledge could I have about Trethaerin that Helena would not?” He began to pace the room. “Nothing in Paris or in England. Before that, then? Something he believed Edward might have told me, perhaps?”

“And what did Edward say?” Harry asked.

Helena realized that Richard must have told his brother about Sir Edward Blake long before.

Richard took a chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “That’s just it. Nothing at all! I thought he was trying to tell me something when he died, but all he said was Helena’s name.”