The woman with the powerful grip was waiting for him on the deck. She had traded her morning dress for a dark and frilly tea gown. And this terrified him for some reason, that she would consider the terrible gift that had been left on his front step to be an occasion worthy of fancy dress. Now he saw the reason for her hard-soled shoes, and an explanation for why she had seemed to appear out of the harbor itself.
This boat, it was her home.
"Where is she?" Michel cried before he could stop himself.
"Calm yourself and you may come aboard," the woman said. Maddening, her superiority. He would have snapped her neck and thrown her into the ocean if he could. "We don't want to alarm her any further."
So she was here. This woman had somehow managed to bring his mother here. As a captive, surely, which meant she wasn't working alone.
The woman extended her hand.
She wasn't simply offering to help him on board. She was reminding him of the strength she'd shown him when they'd first met. Of course, he had no choice but to accept the offer of help, even though the touch of her skin sickened him.
Inside, the yacht was decorated as elegantly as the rooms at the Hotel de Paris. Brass fittings, sparse antiques, and pastel upholsteries, all of it bolted down in ways visible and invisible to keep it from being tossed about at sea.
Behind the wheelhouse, a long central cabin led to a more sunken room, behind which Michel saw a narrow passage leading to private cabins along a short hallway lined in dark hardwood.
In the center of this sunken room a woman of exactly his mother's size was bound to a chair. There was a sack over her head. She was flanked by two well-dressed men. One of the men was enormous. And while his long red beard was trimmed and fairly under control, it still gave him the appearance of a great Viking stuffed into what the British called evening dress. The other man looked positively spry by comparison. But they both regarded Michel with the same flat stare as the woman who'd brought him to this place.
Ghastly that they wore tuxedos and bow ties while executing a kidnapping. Ghastly and terrifying, for it suggested they were capable of committing such crimes without so much as snagging a seam.
"Good evening, Monsieur Malveaux," the smaller of the two men said.
"Let me see her." It felt as if someone had said these words through him.
The man removed the sack.
They had gagged his mother with a great loop of fabric tied around her head. Her gaunt and deeply lined face bore the fatigued expression she wore whenever she'd been exhausted by a crying fit. But when she saw him, her eyes widened and she made a desperate sound against the gag. In response, the giant man rested one massive paw gently atop her head. He stroked her hair. Did he have his female companion's strength?
Michel rushed to her, fell to his knees before her. They allowed him this display. And this terrified him further. They seemed so unafraid of anything he might do.
He placed his hands over hers. She cocked her head to one side, trying to convey some message through her eyes alone. He muttered apologies and assurances, even though he didn't know what events had brought them to this terrible juncture.
"Now," the woman finally s
aid, "do you find yourself somewhat more inclined to discuss the evening you shared with the Earl of Rutherford?"
"Yes." Michel shot to his feet. The woman stood right next to him now. When he turned in her direction, their noses almost touched. "Everything. I will tell you everything if you promise to let her go. Keep me here for whatever purpose you intend for as long as you like, but, please, let her go!"
"Excellent," the smaller man answered. "Let us hear your account, then."
Insane, the casual tone of this man's voice, as if they had brought Michel here only to give them tips on the best dining establishments in Monte Carlo.
"My mother need not hear this. She knows nothing of this man."
"Or your life here, I take it," the woman said.
The smaller man said to his compatriot, "Take her in the back. Get her some water. If our new friend proves forthcoming, get her some food. I imagine she's quite hungry after our trip."
The giant picked up the chair holding Michel's mother in both arms. He leisurely carried her and it down the hallway and into one of the private cabins.
How could he have made this request? Once his mother passed out of sight, fresh panic seized him. How could he have sent her away like that?
These people, they manipulated so much in him. His love, his shame, his need for secrecy. Who were these wretched monsters?
His mother was just a short distance away, but under present circumstances, it felt like miles of mountainous terrain. And so in a breathless rush, he told the story of his night with the Earl of Rutherford.
Never before had he discussed his life, his profession, in so much unguarded detail. But no judgments radiated from these people, just a cold calculation disguised as attentiveness.