The Deception (Baron 3)

He smiled at her and took a step closer. “Yes.” He handed her a thick envelope. “Here are my instructions. I was told that I am to give you time to read them.”

Instead of returning to the cave, Evangeline knelt down on the beach, lighted a match, and quickly read through his letters of introduction. He was to become an assistant to the powerful Rothchild in London. Dear God, she couldn’t begin to image the political access it would provide him.

She dropped the burned match, quickly wrote her initials on the bottom of the paper, and rose. “Very well, Monsieur. It grows late, you must make haste. Oh, please take this with you. You will see that it gets to the Lynx.”

He frowned but then nodded. “Very well. Here are your next papers.”

He handed her two envelopes. One she recognized as her next instructions from Houchard; the other was a letter from her father.

“It won’t be long now,” the man said, “before your position takes on new and special meaning. The emperor will engage the allies and their English Iron Duke within these next several months. You will be more valuable than ever to us.”

Evangeline’s hand fisted about the envelopes. She had assumed that it would be over for her and her father once Napoleon had taken the reins of power firmly in his hands. She’d been a fool. She’d believed Houchard. If he were here with her, she’d kill him with no hesitation, with no regret.

“Go,” she said, and quickly retreated toward the cave. She pictured the duke, his dark eyes on her face, telling her that he would give her time to think. There had been nothing else she could have told him, and it had been a lie. Once she got word from Edgerton that she was free, she would join her father in Paris. She would never see him again. She was despicable, and there was simply nothing she could do about it. She knew her letter to Edgerton would bring him here or at least bring a message from him. She would have to wait, but not much longer, she just couldn’t.

Suddenly two shots blasted loud in the night, up along the cliff. There was a man’s cry of pain. Then another shot and a man’s yell. Another cry of pain. She whirled about, looking upward. She heard shouts from the cliff. For an instant she froze, unable to move or to think. They’d been discovered. Oh, God, they’d been discovered. She crouched low and dashed to the cave, her eyes straining to see in the darkness. In the distance she heard the tramping of heavy boots and loud, excited voices. She turned and saw black-cloaked men rushing down the cliff path to the beach, cutting off her escape.

She heard a cultured gentleman’s voice above the others. “Search the beach, every inch of it. The other man must be nearby. He’s the English traitor. Don’t let him escape.” It was Lord Pettigrew.

Evangeline ran to the back of the cave, her mind clogged with fear. She would be killed, or worse, captured. She thought of her father. He would die with her because she’d failed. And the duke—surely no one would believe him guilty of being a traitor to England.

She sat huddled into a small ball at the back of the cave, waiting for them to discover her. She heard the muted splashing of water and men’s voices drawing closer. She sat there watching the cave entrance. Then she pictured Edmund in her mind. Her boy was shrieking with laughter when he’d happened to say something that made her double over with laughter. Her boy could die if she was discovered. Edgerton would still be free. He would kill Edmund. No, she wouldn’t let Edgerton hurt Edmund. She had to stop him. She ran toward the cave entrance, only to draw up short when she heard men talking.

“Damnation,” she heard one man shout. “We can’t get past this point. The tide’s coming in. The man couldn’t have come this way, else we’d have seen him.”

“You’re right. The cliff nearly meets the water and it’s sheer. Let’s go back the other way.”

She heard them pause, then splash their way back up the beach.

The incoming tide. She had a chance now. Water was already lapping at her ankles, so cold, yet she hadn’t felt a thing until now. She dragged her feet slowly through the rising water to the entrance, listening for the English soldiers, but there was only the sound of the sea.

She forced herself to wait for what seemed an eternity, until the rushing water licked about her thighs. Her legs were at last nearly numb. It was time. She couldn’t wait any longer, or else the tide would be too strong for her to swim against. She pushed with all her strength forward. Just a few more feet, she chanted to herself, and she would be able to swim outward.

A wave crashed unexpectedly upon her, throwing her off her feet, pulling her under the water, throwing her against the rocks at the mouth of the cave. She felt a sharp pain in her ribs, and for an instant she couldn’t draw breath. Edmund, she thought, Edmund. She grabbed frantically at an outjutting rock, struggling against her heavy, sodden clothing, and pulled herself, rock by rock, toward the far side of the cave. When there were

no more rocks to ground her, she swam until the water shoved her against the wall of the cliff. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked upward at the sheer cliff above her. There was no way to scale that cliff, no way at all. Then she thought of Edmund and knew she had no choice. She had to get to the top. But not here, it was impossible. She drew a deep breath and swam outward, fighting the waves with all her strength. When she simply couldn’t fight any more, she stopped struggling and fell forward in the freezing water, and let the sea wash her back to shore. When she felt coarse sand and sharp stones, she felt no pain, but she knew they’d torn her. No, all she felt was tremendous relief. She wasn’t dead yet.

She lay facedown on the beach and vomited salt water onto the wet sand. Finally she knew she had to move; she had to get to safety. She pulled herself to her feet and stumbled, hunched over, toward the cliff. She heard muted voices up the beach, beyond the out-jutting land, beyond the cave, near the cliff path. She looked up. What had seemed utterly sheer really wasn’t. There were rocks worn away more deeply than others. There were roots. She could do it, she had to. She grabbed a rock and pulled herself upward, reaching for the roots that were sticking out some feet above her head. She prayed they’d hold her weight. They did. She found another rock small enough for her to hold firmly and pulled herself up. She paused, then. Where could she climb now? She’d nearly given up when she saw a huge rock sticking out of the cliff, long and narrow. She knew she could use it to pull herself up, and yes, there was a deep indentation in the cliff, a bit beyond her reach, but she could make it, she had to. She was thirty feet above the beach when suddenly, with no warning, no shifting of rock or dirt beneath her feet, the ground gave way beneath her. She hung there, scrambling madly to find purchase. Finally, finally, she found a rock sticking out just enough to hold one of her feet. She lay against the cliff as loose rock and rubble fell over her. It sounded like an avalanche. Then there was silence. No more falling rocks, no sound of men’s voices. Finally, she saw the edge of the cliff above her, and pulled herself up.

She rolled onto the even ground and lay flat on her stomach, not really believing that she’d managed to climb that damned cliff. But she had. Slowly she rose. She tried to stand upright and discovered she couldn’t. Her ribs hurt too badly.

She saw Chesleigh in the distance, its few lighted windows pinpoints of white in the dark night. She ran toward it, crouched over, her wet clothes slapping her legs.

She heard a shout in the distance. A man yelled. “Wait, I see him. Stop!”

Evangeline fell to her knees and crawled forward. She heard a shot, then another, but they weren’t close to her. Thank God, it wasn’t her they’d seen. There were more shots, coming from an even greater distance away. She hauled herself to her feet and ran to the line of lime trees bordering the gravel drive that circled around to the north face of Chesleigh. She pulled herself up and slumped against a tree. She could barely breathe, there was a stitch in her side, and her ribs felt as though someone had caved them in with a cannon ball.

From a great distance she heard a man’s shout, “No, it’s this way, men. I saw the bloody bastard over there, near the road.” Lord Pettigrew’s shout was frantic. “Don’t kill him. We’ve got to have him alive.”

She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her cheek against the rough bark of the tree. She heard their heavy booted steps moving back toward the road. She forced herself to remain still, waiting as long as she dared.

She crawled through the thick hedges that bordered the drive, and rose to her feet only when she was facing the north wing. She drew the key from her pocket, sucked in a deep breath, and ran, bowed over, to the castle. The stone walls shadowed her as her numbed fingers fought to insert the key. “Come on, get in there, damn you.” Then the key was in, and she twisted it frantically. It wouldn’t move. She leaned against the castle wall, so exhausted both in mind and in body, she wondered if they’d just find her here in the morning, propped up, her eyes open, but quite dead. “Open,” she said, cursing the key until finally it clicked into place. She pushed the door only wide enough for her to slither through. When she stood safely inside, she leaned heavily against the thick door, then quickly turned to lock it. Upstairs, she thought, she had to get to her bedchamber. She walked bent over, holding her ribs, her heavy breathing the only noise breaking the silence in the castle.

She lit a candle in her bedchamber and turned to stare at the torn and filthy shadow in the mirror. She was sodden, her hair plastered against her head, with cuts and scrapes everywhere. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking. She stripped off her wet clothes, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ribs. She pulled her nightgown over her head, pulled on one of Marissa’s thick velvet dressing gowns. Still she shivered and quaked, her teeth chattering. She burrowed beneath all the blankets on her bed. Although she gradually warmed, she couldn’t stop shaking. At least she could think more clearly.

She’d won, she’d truly won.

She could still hear the shouts of Lord Pettigrew’s men when they believed they’d seen her. Maybe they had. Maybe she’d just beaten them. Soon they could burst into her room. In a frenzy of anxiety, she bounded from her bed and stuffed her wet clothes under the armoire. She stumbled back into bed and forced herself to close her eyes. There was, quite simply, nothing more she could do.