Virtue's Reward Page 21

  Helena helped him to gather together the necessary papers and replace the others. She was thinking furiously. Madame Relet’s letter made clear what she had long ago surmised: only Harry had the motivation to try to murder Richard. Garthwood might be a villain, but in spite of the smuggling and Richard’s attempts to save some of the girls in Paris, he had no cause to harm the viscount.

  In which case, unless Harry was involved, that still left the attempts on Richard’s life unexplained—as was Harry’s friendship with Garthwood. Yet Richard had ignored that and would continue to ignore it. He had pursued Garthwood and done what he could to save the girls in Paris, while shrugging off the attacks against himself.

  It seemed a terrible and incomprehensible bravery.

  She was so preoccupied that a second letter in the desk almost slipped from her attention, but one glance told her it was from Edward. She turned it over and looked at the front. It was addressed to her. Why on earth should her cousin have kept one of Edward’s letters and not sent it on to her?

  Something moved in the hallway.

  Helena slipped Edward’s letter into her pocket as Richard put a finger to his lips.

  He signaled her to the place in the paneling where the hidden door to the underground passages still stood open, then doused the light. They groped their way into the opening in the dark.

  Helena closed the door softly behind them and Richard put his ear to it.

  “There’s a peephole,” she whispered.

  The faintest glimmer of light shone into their hiding place from a pinhole in the wall. Richard looked through it for a moment. Then he took her hand and guided her silently back down the passage.

  “It was only a servant,” he said at last. “Though I’m not happy that he’s about this late. I think we have enough to hang our friend, though not to draw and quarter him as he deserves. Let’s get out of here.”

  They continued down the dark passage until they at last saw the dim phosphorescent gleam of water. They were almost back in the cave.

  It was some faint instinct, perhaps, honed by his years operating under the noses of the French army, that caused Richard to stop just before he stepped out into the open. He pulled Helena behind him.

  In the next moment there was a blaze of light as half a dozen torches were lit at once.

  “And so we are nicely trapped,” he whispered. “For as we noticed, they are stirring in the house as well.”

  “We can go back through the other passages—take the one to the lane.”

  Something thumped. Helena strained to listen. No doubt Richard had heard it, too.

  “No, I don’t think we can,” he said softly in her ear. “Someone comes down that very conduit, and so all retreat is cut off. I’m afraid, dear wife, that we have been outwitted. I can’t tell you how sincerely I hope you aren’t a party to it.”

  Helena had been clinging to his hand, but she forced herself to let go. If it came to a fight, Richard would not want to be encumbered with her. As for his last comment, there was no time to think what he might have meant.

  The noise of footsteps in the passageway behind them was getting louder. She peered around Richard and looked into the cave. There were several rough-looking fellows climbing out of a boat that lay bobbing in the water. None of them were men from the village or anyone she recognized from her childhood. Nigel Garthwood sat alone on a barrel. His head was cocked to one side as if he were listening.

  “You might as well come out, my lord,” he said loudly. “I have loyal servants in every pathway. There’s no escape.”

  “Do you suppose we should go out to face him?” Richard said. “Or continue to skulk in the dark? It’s obvious which would be the nobler course, but in spite of carrying the blood of earls, I’m damned if I’m feeling terribly noble.”

  The light from the opening danced for a moment across his features. He was grinning!

  Helena thrust herself back against the wall as Richard drew his pistol.

  “Stay here,” he whispered.

  He stepped past her and ran lightly up the tunnel they had just left, directly toward their enemies storming down from the house.

  Clinging to the damp wall, Helena watched his silhouette as he sped up the passageway. Her heart hammered. Her knees wanted to buckle, weak as saplings. Richard!

  But before he reached the first bend, he leaped up and disappeared.

  A moment later the outline of a man carrying a torch appeared in the same spot. The flame flared red, glimmering over the rough walls of rock.

  A darker shadow dropped from the passage roof and knocked the torch to the floor.

  The scuffle was entirely silent except for a sudden grunt and a dull thud as Richard’s pistol cracked into a skull and the man fell back unconscious.

  Helena ran to Richard’s side.

  “ ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friend,’ ” he said, and laughed.

  Taking her hand, he began to lead her back up the passageway toward the house.

  They were too late. More men had poured into the conduits from the other passageways and were racing down toward them.

  Richard stopped, jerking Helena to a halt. She glanced back to see more torches and more men. They were trapped.

  An unpleasant-looking ruffian glanced down at his supine comrade, then stepped forward to thrust a torch in their faces. He grinned broadly in spite of Richard’s raised pistol.

  “Caught,” he said, and spat.

  There was no hope of escape, even if Richard were to start shooting. The smugglers bristled with weapons. Their antagonism poisoned the air. Helena thought for one dreadful moment that her husband would try to fight his way free against impossible odds, but he tossed his pistol down in front of the man with the torch and laughed.

  “Don’t I recognize you from London?” he asked. “Decided to take up full-time employment?”

  The man grabbed the weapon up from the floor and spat again, then leered at Helena.

  “I surrender, sir,” Richard said quietly. “I trust you won’t take unseemly action in front of the lady?”

  His answer was a blow across the face that sent him staggering backward.

  “Mr. Garthwood wants a word first,” the man said. “Otherwise it might be unseemly enough. You left one of my friends dead back there in town.”

  The man viciously bent Richard’s arm behind his back, and Richard and Helena were jostled back down to the cave. The smugglers thrust them out into the blaze of torchlight.

  At a signal from their master, they allowed Helena to sit down on an outcropping of rock. She quietly obeyed, sick with fear, while two of the men dragged Richard to stand before Garthwood. The rest of the smugglers arranged themselves around the cave, grinning. They were guarding both the boat and the exit tunnel to the beach.

  “So you came down to make your claim, my lord?” Garthwood said. “I should have thought you’d have come during daylight hours with your man of business, rather than with your little wife. This is rather a havey-cavey way to go on for a member of one of England’s first families, isn’t it, breaking into folks’ houses at midnight?”

  “Alas, sir, I have appallingly sorry manners, as you no doubt noticed at Acton Mead.”

  “Ah, yes! Acton Mead, pretty in the autumn. I tried to find the unfortunate document then, of course, but you had hidden it. After that, it seemed simpler to get you out of the way.”

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Garthwood?” Helena said. What did the man mean—‘make your claim?’ “Do you mean to tell me you walked unannounced into Acton Mead before your Christmas visit? To look for something—what, pray?”

  “He hasn’t told you, has he?” Garthwood said. “I thought not.”

  “So it was you,” Richard said with a smile, “who searched my room in September? I suppose I must commend you for having the nerve to enter my home in broad daylight. Can you ever forgive me for accusing you, Helena? I must have been out of my wits.”

  “I forgot i
t long ago,” Helena said. So she had been wrong, too, in thinking that had been Harry.

  “I’m sure a great many people think the world would be a better place without my insufferable presence,” Richard said to Garthwood. “But why you in particular?”

  Garthwood shrugged. “Who else can Helena turn to, if you should meet with a sad accident?”

  “Like a stray bullet in the wood, or a fall from a horse, or even an unpredictable elephant at a fair?”

  “Alas, yes! So unfortunate! She would be left destitute and alone in the world once more. Perhaps then she would accept my suit? Thus to put you out of the way seemed my best first course of action. Surely you can see that?”

  “But she would not be as penniless as you seem to imagine, sir. Upon my demise, Lady Lenwood will inherit Acton Mead, along with a considerable independent income. Whether she would entertain your suit I cannot say, but she would be under absolutely no financial compunction to do so.”

  Helena looked at him in amazement. This was getting more confusing by the minute. Garthwood still wanted to marry her? Why? Was he insane? And did Harry know about Richard’s will? Harry might eventually get the earldom, but there would be no immediate financial benefit to him. In which case, what motive could Harry have had?

  “But I thought your brother would inherit from you,” she said.

  “Did you, my dear? I should have told you.” Richard’s jaw was beginning to color where he had been struck. “Until I married, he was my heir, of course. But didn’t you realize that I would change my will to provide for you? Harry knew I had done it.”

  “I never thought about it,” she said.

  But the knowledge lit a small fire of courage. Richard had cared enough to leave her Acton Mead in his will—though she would far, far rather he stay alive!

  She looked from her husband to her cousin. “But I can’t see, Mr. Garthwood, why you would wish still to marry me, if you thought I brought no dowry.”

  “I have to admit, sir,” Richard said, “that I am wondering the same thing.”

  “Are you, my lord? I can hardly believe it. And that is why you have to die, and your knowledge with you. You are otherwise no more than a nuisance. It’s been a devil of a task to keep track of you these last months. The dye was a clever idea. Madame Relet eventually saw through it, of course, but by then you had already left again.”

  “And here I am, wretchedly still alive,” Richard said dryly. “Do you suppose I lead a charmed life?”

  “If so, I think that has finally come to an end. But I shall not leave my poor cousin alone very long. It was a difficult day for me, when you whisked her away from this house and left me to my wounded sensibilities. After all, she was just about to accept my offer at the time.”

  “Please don’t pretend there is any affection between us,” Helena interrupted with considerable heat, “for there never has been and never will be. You are wasting your time to kill Richard, if you are under any insane illusion about my feelings, for I will never marry you.”

  “Thank you for that, at least,” Richard murmured to Helena.

  “I had thought of that,” Garthwood said, ignoring him. “In which case you can simply follow your husband to his watery grave.”

  Fighting nausea, Helena leaped to her feet. “So that Harry can inherit Acton Mead, after all? Is that what this is all about? Harry has been your accomplice from the beginning? Did he promise you a share of the proceeds from Richard’s wealth? Aren’t you satisfied with the profits from your unconscionable racket here?”

  “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 po
nies 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.