Chapter Twenty
“I know this cottage.” Halsey reined in his horse.
“I had a man here last year,” said Kane. “We watched this cottage for months. Discovered nothing and no one.”
“I’ve been here, too. Four years ago,” Clive added as he gazed at the black-tiled structure with the old, thatched roof. “One of my agents told me about two Frenchmen wandering the beach. It came to nothing. We did not find them.”
Today, Halsey had been the one to take the four of them to this cottage on the beach west of Hastings. His two agents, Halsey told them, had spotted new activity here three weeks ago—and so they had continued to spy on the five people who had moved in.
Mallard and Watkins were the names of Halsey’s agents, and they knew Hastings like the backs of their hands.
Halsey said he had hired the two men three years ago to report any odd happenings in the town.
The two, forty if a day, were well known in Hastings.
William Mallard owned the largest tavern on the west side.
Jim Watkins was one of two blacksmiths in town. His cousin owned the other smithy.
Odds were that all who came to Hastings were known to these two.
Even the smugglers who ran ashore could not hide from them.
Mallard could tell when his competition took in wine from France or spirits from Holland.
The pub keeper offered his smuggled wares with a bravado that set Mallard’s teeth on edge.
Mallard and Watkins especially appreciated the way Lord Halsey paid them, too.
The door and shutters still held the ruby paint Clive recalled, even though the wood was chipped and battered from the salty wind and rain. “My father brought me here when I was perhaps…twelve? Fourteen? There is a small clearing of trees to the east.”
“No windows here on this side,” Langley noted. “How many to the other sides, Clive?”
“Only to the front. To the back is a door. A peephole too. A small window sits almost to the roofline so anyone inside cannot see out unless they stand on a chair.”
Langley grunted. “Here’s hoping they don’t think to use it.”
Clive snorted. “Or they are all short!”
Kane laughed.
Halsey tipped his head toward the road behind them. “I’ll ride back and tell our coachman to wait for a signal from one of us to advance.”
“He needs to get off the road,” Clive added.
Inside were four rifles and four more pistols. Kane had insisted on extra weapons. The others had agreed they were warranted.
“You worry others will come?” Halsey asked. “I agree. I’ll tell him.” And off he went back the way the four of them had come.
When he returned, Clive nodded toward the cottage. “Let’s take up positions to the east, back, front, and here. Wait until dark and reconvene.”
“Hopefully we have a cloudy night.” Langley said.
“Ten fifteen?” Clive took out his pistol from his holster and glanced at each of his friends.
*
In the great room, the three men and La Mère played cards. Drinking, too, since supper, they were boisterous. Having finished washing and drying the dishes, Giselle and Suzette readied for bed.
Giselle noticed that Suzette was tired of tying and untying her to take her outside. Giselle began to ask to go more often. That—along with her promise to the girl not to run—meant Suzette was more willing to remove the rope to both Giselle’s hands.
A small victory, but a good one. Giselle still could not access her reticule and the precious weapon she’d concealed there. But her release from her bonds even for a little while inspired hope. She just needed the right moment, the right advantage, to run.
She tired of this endless captivity. Two days had passed since Faucon had come and gone.
She was weary of the monotony. Her gown was gone, along with the coins she’d sewn into the hem.
Her reticule she’d not had access to. It sat, as it had from their arrival, on a stool by the front door.
Untouched by anyone. If she could only get to it, if Suzette would not see her grab it, even with her hands bound, she would find good use for her handy little stiletto.
Suzette called to Franchot to get his assistance to untie Giselle’s hands and bind one hand to her own.
This was how they went out the back door of the cottage a few times each day to relieve themselves.
Franchot always tied a double knot very tightly, leaving marks on Giselle’s wrists.
Running away, escaping her ties, was not a possibility.
Suzette was young and kind to Giselle, but was not inclined to run away with her, nor to cut her free and let her run alone.
But tonight, as Giselle and the girl relieved themselves amid the cover of the forest, Giselle heard the snap of twigs caused by other living creatures.
Upon a quick survey of the foliage around her, she noted a set of odd colors, shadowed in the moonlight.
She saw not just verdant summer green of shrubs and undergrowth.
Not just browns and beiges of tree limbs and bushes.
Not just blacks of rotting plants. But a flash of a human hand.
The wink of an eye. A sharp gray eye that focused on her and blinked twice.
Clive.
She breathed deeply. He had come. He’d found her, and she hoped to God he came with help.
To one side, she heard the scramble of a living thing in the brush.
Was it another man? A friend of Clive’s…or…?
She could not wait. Should not. Now was a chance!
She began to cough. “Suzette,” she cried with alarm, “I…I am ill. I…” She reached out to support herself against the trunk of a tree. “I had too much to eat at dinner or…or something was bad. Not good.” She doubled over. “Awful.”
The girl scrunched up her face. “I don’t feel sick. Are you sure?”
Giselle put a hand to her head. “Mine was bad.” She made herself gag.
“Oh! No!” The girl scurried backward. “Don’t do that on me!”
“Cut me loose. I-I can’t stand up. What did they feed me? They want to kill me and…and I-I see stars.”
The girl yanked on their joined hands. “Come inside.”
“No! Untie me! I’m going to lose my dinner.”
“Oh! Oh!” Suzette picked at the rope. “Don’t do it…don’t. Let me! Ugh.”
Suzette worked at the tie on her own wrist and picked it loose.
Giselle sank to her knees.
Clive sprang from the trees, Langley with him, and another man, too!
Suzette gaped at Langley, who grinned like a madman and, in one move, wrapped a gag around her mouth. Then he bound her with the rope she had loosened from Giselle’s wrist.
Clive had Giselle’s hand free.
“Hurry,” she pleaded with him, fearing for all their lives. “There are four inside.”
Suzette kicked at Langley, grunting, trying to pummel him. But he had the better of her.
From the corner of her eye, Giselle could see how their other friend crept to the back door.
“Three are men,” she told Clive.
“We’ll get them,” he said as he hugged her. “Stay here.”
“No! Have you a gun?”
“This!” He fished in his greatcoat pocket and pressed a small knife into her hand. “If you need.” Then he was on his feet, into the fray behind Langley.
“Q’uest c’est?” Franchot banged the little door open, and it screeched on its old hinges.
Paul was right behind him. “What gives?”
Not a second passed before Langley had Franchot on his knees…and Clive had Paul.
“Two more inside,” Clive told his friends as he clung to a gyrating Paul, but swung at him, knocking him senseless to his back.
Maurice cursed as he stepped into the doorway. It was the wrong move.
Kane swung in front of him, surprised him, and knocked Maurice flat on his back, tying his hands.
Clive rounded the doorway.
A shot rang out.
Giselle’s heart leapt into her throat. That came from the front of the cottage.
Clive wove, unsteady on his feet in the doorway. Was he shot?
Langley grunted and sank to one knee. Was he wounded?
Another shot rang out. Giselle turned her head. It came from the front of the cottage.
La Mère! It had to be she at the front door. But whom was she shooting at?
In the melee, Franchot pushed up from the slimy earth and began to run on all fours, like a monkey in a hurry.
“Get him!” Giselle yelled, but then he turned and headed for her. She threw her knife…and Franchot screamed, holding his bicep, the blood gushing even as he ripped the blade out and, teeth bared, headed for her.
He scrambled toward Giselle, his face warped in pain and hatred. He loomed over her.
Giselle kicked out at him, pushing back in the earth. Gaining no traction, she wrapped her fingers around a nearby sturdy stick.
Franchot growled. With the knife in one hand, he grinned like a madman and stabbed at her arms. Her legs, one, then the other. They stung, burned, and she flailed, aflame. Once. Twice more, he slashed at her legs.
She marveled, as if she floated up and away from her very self, and saw him cutting her, even through her skirts. And her blood, hot and sticky, soaked her skirts.
Pain shot up from her thighs. Blind with it, Giselle lost her breath as the man fell on top of her.
Pinning her down, Franchot squealed with success. “You die,” he promised in French as he fought to capture Giselle’s hand and sat on top of her thighs to raise her forearm. And there he slashed at her, cursing and aiming for her wrist.
Fury ran through Giselle like booming thunder. With her other hand, she hit at the man. His arm, his throat, his eye.
Of a sudden, Franchot stilled, mouth open, hands combing the air.
Giselle pushed away, out from under him, just as Clive stood above the crazed man who flailed, trying to pull the stick from his eye, yet crying and not daring to pull at it.
Giselle watched Clive. He leaned over the agent and saw his affliction. “I would not, if I were you, yank that out.”
The man blinked his one good eye. “This! This!” he screamed, flexing his fingers before his face. And then he fell, face first, into the cold, wet earth.
Clive rolled him over. The fall had driven the wood into his skull. “He’s dead.”
He went to Giselle and curled her close.
“My legs,” she said to him. “And…this…arm.”
He tore off his cravat, ripped up her skirts, and wrapped the cloth around one leg, cinching it so tight, she screamed.
“Langley, your stock!” He yelled to his friend. “She’s bleeding.”
“I don’t want to die,” she murmured to Clive as she plucked at his greatcoat.
“You won’t,” he ground out. “You’ll live!”
“With you.”
“With me,” he promised as he snatched Langley’s cravat from his hand and bound her arm.
Then the night went black and all pain died.