Chapter 28 #2
“No. You were keen enough to unfasten them, I assume.” Bey stood with a folded sheet. He studied the seal in the light of the one candle, then opened the piece of paper.
“See?” said Lord Randolph, folding his arms again.
He wasn’t a stupid man, Diana thought, but one blinkered by arrogance and self-importance. He truly thought the king’s favor was real, and would save him.
“Indeed I see. An excellent forgery. The king will be even more outraged.”
“A forgery!” Lord Randolph stepped forward and snatched the letter. “It has the king’s own seal.”
“Fabricating a seal is even easier than copying handwriting.”
“Someone sent me a letter in your handwriting,” Diana said. “That was cleverly done, too.”
“I apologize. I should have thought to set up some code to verify such things.”
Diana gathered his coat closer around herself. “If you try to take the blame for this, I’ll shoot you. Despite illusions on the subject, you are not God.”
He laughed briefly, but Lord Randolph exclaimed, “His writing? You thought the note from me.”
“No,” she said, “I didn’t.”
“You strumpet!”
Bey backhanded him so he staggered back into the wall.
“You are a fool, Somerton, and the world would be better off without fools. You deserve to die for what you did here, but that is in Lady Arradale’s hands. But if you say one word more that is less than respectful, you will meet my sword.”
“Perhaps I would win,” the man blustered, hand to his face.
“You must be extremely good then, because not only am I skilled, I hunger to drive a blade through your heart.”
At the calm but chilling words, Lord Randolph’s face turned a bizarre mottling of terror and rage. “I won’t meet you! You can’t make me!”
“Then I would kill you where you stand. Now, tell me how you received the message from the king.”
“It was slipped to me. I don’t know how! I thought it was real!” He was shaking now, eyes darting between Bey, Bryght, and Diana. Weak though he was, she almost felt sorry for him.
“And you wrote a letter inviting Lady Arradale to the tryst? And sent it where?”
“As instructed. To Mistress Mannerly’s. You will see in the letter that it says so!”
Bey looked at the letter again, and read it completely. “You are indeed a fool, Somerton, to believe His Majesty would go to these lengths.”
“I didn’t know.”
“So, what of de Couriac?”
“Who? I don’t know a de Couriac!”
“The Frenchman who helped you.”
“Dionne. He’s called Dionne. I met him at Lucifer’s. He turned up at my rooms just after I received the note … I suppose I must have spoken of it. He offered to help. For a little money. I took him up on it though. I’m short of cash at the moment. It was a false name?”
“Very similar to D’Eon,” Diana remarked.
Bey folded the note and put it in his pocket, then gently drew Diana to her feet. “Come here, Lord Randolph, and lie upon the bed.”
The man went white. “By God, what do you intend?”
“That you do as you are told. If you live, you have many lessons to learn, and obedience can be the first.”
“Go piss yourself.”
Diana glanced at Bey wondering what he planned, and how he was going to enforce his will. He simply looked at the younger man, and after a time of silence that seemed almost unendurable, Lord Randolph staggered toward the bed. “What are you going to do?” he asked, but in a broken whine.
Bey pushed him quite gently on the shoulder so he sat, then again so he was lying. “I have no designs on your beautiful body,” he said, picking up a strip of cloth. “Stay still.” He began to tie Lord Randolph’s wrists to the bed. “Diana, if you wish, you may do his feet.”
Diana put down her pistol, appalled by this calm application of terror. It didn’t stop her fierce satisfaction at tethering her tormentor’s trembling feet to the bed so he ended up as helpless as she had been, his floppy private parts exposed by his open breeches.
“What are you going to do?” he asked again, white-edged eyes darting around the room. “For God’s sake, Rothgar, Malloren …”
Bey looked down at him. “I am going to do nothing. We men are going to leave you at Lady Arradale’s mercies. If you survive, I will send people at dawn to cut you free and put you on a boat for the Americas. Your father has property there, I believe. Do not return.”
“No! Look, I never meant her any harm. We were to be married! You know what women are like … !”
The door shut behind the two men, and Lord Randolph stared up at her. He tried a weak smile, fighting his bonds. “You don’t want to hurt me. I didn’t really hurt you.”
She leaned forward and slapped him, just hard enough to sting.
He grinned a bit. “There, see. You feel better now, don’t you? Hit me again if it helps.”
She thought of fondling him, but whether he’d like it or hate it, she couldn’t bear to touch him there. She remembered her need to kill him, but now he was a broken, pathetic thing, her loathing had shrunk to a nugget. He wasn’t worth it.
She picked up the knife still lying on the floor, and laid it against his flaccid penis.
“No,” he choked. “Don’t. Don’t …”
“Just remember,” she said, looking into his terrified eyes, “for the rest of your life, remember that any woman you meet might be like me. We’re clever at hiding our strengths, we women, so you’ll never really know.
And no man can guard himself day and night forever, especially not from a lover or a wife. ”
She stroked the tip of the blade up and down him.
“If you’d completed what you planned, I would have killed you at the first opportunity.
But before I killed you, I would have gelded you.
Remember that. Remember me, and treat all women with the fearful respect we deserve.
” She pressed the blade into his flesh, then, just enough to cause blood to run.
He cried out and twisted up to look at himself, then collapsed back again, weeping. Probably with relief.
She dropped the knife on the floor. “Goodbye, Lord Randolph.”
With that, she left the room.
Bey was waiting and she went straight into his arms.
“How is he?” he asked, as if it was of little concern.
“Intact. Are you disappointed?”
“Not unless you were merciful out of weakness.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t want anything about him to linger on me, not even his death. Can we go now?”
“Of course.” He made a gesture and a man rode forward and dismounted to offer his horse.
She saw that as he’d said, there were men around on guard.
Even so, she said, “I think I was bait. I think de Couriac’s out here, trying to kill you.”
“I suspect not, or not yet. I was supposed to be here much later. But we should leave. Can you ride?”
“Of course.”
Bey helped her mount, adjusting the stirrups and arranging her skirts as decently as possible, then he mounted his own horse.
“Slow or fast?” he asked.
“Fast. Fast riding makes a poor target, and it’s what I need.”