“What are you going to do, starve me into submission?” As long as it had been since she’d eaten, she thought it was probably a good strategy.
“Starve is a harsh word,” Sandre said kindly. “But I do know how to use food as encouragement for good behavior.”
She spit in his face.
In less than a minute, she was back in the cell, alone, but this time her arm was chained to the wall.
By the next time the light appeared down the corridor, she definitely understood what Sandre meant about food encouraging good behavior. She had been sipping water off the slimy wall, and was so hungry that when Jean- Pierre came in to get her, her legs collapsed, and her arm hung limp, cold and numb from the wall. He had to carry her into the corridor over his shoulder.
She thought Sandre was smiling.
Jean-Pierre carried her all the way up to the prince’s personal quarters and placed her in a chair before a table of bread and cheese.
But when she reached for it, Sandre slapped her hand. “I’ll feed you,” he said. And he did.
She let him because her hands were shaking so much she didn’t know if she could get the food to her mouth. And no matter the temptation, she didn’t bite his hand.
She’d had only a few tastes when he pulled back. “That’s enough.”
She glared like the wild creature she had become.
“Go change your clothing,” he told her. “You reek, and I’m not going to look at you in that ridiculous attire.”
She glanced down at the filthy, damp remnants of the Reaper’s costume. “This seems an appropriate outfit for the dungeon.”
Sandre leaned down and smiled at her. “You don’t have to stay in the dungeon.”
If she hadn’t known the truth, she would have seen only the kind, urbane, princely image he projected. “Yes, I do.”
He straightened. “You can change yourself or I can do it for you, but you’re going to wear a woman’s proper outfit.” He pointed at the screen in the corner. “The clothes are there.”
She stood.
Jean-Pierre said, “But first—”
He wanted to see her bare shoulders.
She refused.
So they wrestled her to the floor, both of them, uncaring of her aches and her bruises. She burned with mortification as Sandre held her face down on the richly colored carpet while Jean-Pierre examined her skin.
“She might be a Reaper, but she’s not the Reaper. I shot the Reaper.” Jean-Pierre dusted his fingers with satisfaction. “She probably knows who he is. With your permission, Highness, I could get the information out of her.”
“No. No torture. It’s not necessary.” Sandre brushed her hair off her neck in a parody of loving kindness, and helped her up off the floor.
Holding her costume over her breasts, she scuttled behind the screen, sickened by his touch.
“There’s a comb, and a basin of water and towels,” he called. “Avail yourself of those before you dress.”
The petticoats were thick, the chemise fine, and the gown that waited for her was a serviceable dark blue wool. These clothes would be good in the dungeon . . . which meant Sandre expected that she wouldn’t yet yield.
He was a bully, holding all the trumps in his cruel, jeweled hands, and he relished this struggle, and her eventual downfall, all too much.
Then what would happen? She would rail against the necessity, but in the end, he would prevail. She would marry him, and the years that would follow would be lived one miserable moment after another. She would shudder in his bed. She would cower under his whip. She would know he lived off gullible gamblers, killed and tortured innocent people, and all the while, she would be helpless to stop him. Finally, her very self would wither away, and she would kill herself.
She leaned against the wall.
Kill herself? Unlikely. No, he’d kill her first.
She had only herself to blame. She’d heard how Aimée died. She’d lost her temper. She’d ridden out and been captured by the prince’s guard.
She wished she could tell Michael how sorry she was, what a fool she’d been. She’d put herself in this mess, and she knew it . . . but every minute that she was down in the dungeon, she prayed that someone—she, Michael, Raul Lawrence—would get revenge for Sandre’s murder of Aimée.
She wanted to see Sandre burn in fire and brimstone.
“Miss Chegwidden? Are you ready?” the prince called.
She was as ready as she would ever be. She walked out looking more like herself, with a renewed defiance . . . although her gaze lingered on the table where the food was still stacked.
Sandre held out her chair. “Sit down and eat, Miss Chegwidden, while I tell you our plan.”
She didn’t hesitate, but seated herself at once.
Yet she flinched when he put his hands on her shoulders, then held herself perfectly still and rigid with rejection.
He pressed his fingers into her flesh, digging them into her muscles; then, when she squirmed, he laughed and let go. “Tell her our plan, Jean-Pierre.”
“You know who the Reaper is, Miss Chegwidden,” Jean-Pierre said.
“Yes, I do.” She ate a grape, then another, and drank a glass of clear water and sipped at the wine. Glancing up, she saw how the men waited for her next comment. “I’m the Reaper.”
She thought they would remove the food now, but Jean-Pierre turned away in disgust while a slow smile curled Sandre’s lips.
“I told you she wouldn’t yield, Jean- Pierre.” Sandre pushed the bread closer to her elbow. “We’re watching your friends. Brimley is a good choice, we think, and that footman, Henrique. Jean-Pierre thinks it’s Fanchere, which I think is patently ridiculous, and he thinks it could be Michael Durant, which is a possibility, but not a good one. I still say he’s a broken man, too ashamed to even write to his father to bring him home.”
She ate a triangle of Brie and drank more water.
“But whoever it is,” Sandre said, “we know he’s got to be perturbed that you’ve been captured.”
“What about Lady Fanchere?” Emma wondered what her kind patroness was doing without Aimée or Emma. “Isn’t she perturbed?”
“She isn’t well,” Jean-Pierre said.
Emma dropped the bunch of grapes. Loose ones rolled across the table and onto the floor, but she didn’t care. “Is it the baby?”
“So we’re told.” Jean-Pierre looked different than he had when he’d visited the Fancheres’ château. His pale eyes were paler, almost as if the soul within had escaped, leaving only the bits and pieces of a man inside.
“If you’d been a good girl, you’d be there to help dear Eleonore,” Sandre told her.
“If you hadn’t killed Aimée, she wouldn’t be ill with grief,” Emma retorted.
Sandre grabbed her braid and yanked her head back. “Miss Chegwidden, you are asking for trouble.”
“No, I’m asking for justice.”
“Take her food away,” Jean-Pierre advised.
She crammed what remained of the bread into her pocket.
Sandre handed her an apple. “Listen to me. Jean-Pierre and I have told the world that we captured you in costume. We’ve said we’re going to hang you on Sunday.”
A chill ran up her spine.
“We’re not really going to hang you on Sunday,” Sandre assured her.
“We’re not?” Jean- Pierre grabbed an apple, too, and crunched into it.
“No, we’re not. Be civilized, Jean-Pierre,” Sandre reproved. Turning back to Emma, he said, “You’re bait. We think the real Reaper will try to rescue you, and then we’ll have him. Simple!”
“It is simple,” she said. “But it won’t work. There’s no one to rescue me. I’m the Reaper.”
“Have you ever seen a hanging, Miss Chegwidden?” Sandre asked in a conversational tone. “Very entertaining. If done right, it can go on for hours.”
“Thank you for letting me know.” Her heart beat slowly, chilling with her blood.
> “Actually, we don’t have to hang you. There is another alternative.” Sandre sounded so charming.
She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears.
“You can marry me on Sunday instead.”
“Marry you? A coldhearted murderer of his own family? Of a dear, sweet, kind woman whose only sin was silliness? No. No. Believe me, Sandre: I may be only a paid companion, but I would never stoop so low.”
When she was back in the dungeon with both hands chained to the wall, she wished there were a way to hurry this along. Eventually, she knew, Sandre would grow tired of her defiance. She knew he’d do to her what he’d done to Aimée, and someone would find her body broken on the rocks below the palace terrace.
The sooner, the better—because like Sandre and Jean-Pierre, she knew the Reaper would come to rescue her, and he could attack the royal palace and Prince Sandre . . . but he couldn’t win.
Durant had already escaped from this hell once, and she never wanted him to have to return.
Next time, he wouldn’t come out alive.
Chapter Forty-three
It was late Saturday afternoon when Prince Sandre walked into Jean-Pierre’s rooms, holding a paper pressed with a red seal, and frowning.
Jean-Pierre straightened from his concentrated examination of a Moricadian map, bowed, and said, “How may I help you, Your Highness?”
“I have here a letter from our cousin Eleonore, saying she has heard rumors that tonight the Reaper will appear to the people of Moricadia and raise a rebellion against me sure to shatter my control.”
“Your Highness, we’ve heard that rumor before.” Jean-Pierre had ignored those rumors, choosing instead to search the nooks and crannies of Moricadia, seeking the Reaper’s hideout.
“Eleonore is most insistent and most concerned for my safety, and she is not a woman to take alarm without reason.”
“Shall I send someone to bring her to the palace so we may question her?”
Sandre tapped the letter against his fingertips. “No. Eleonore’s the only one who . . . No, I can’t question her as if she were a criminal.”
Jean-Pierre understood why Sandre hesitated. He’d killed Aimée and insulted Eleonore to her face, and he had feared that at last he’d lost Eleonore’s love. This letter was a sign she still believed Sandre was a good man, much maligned, and in the depths of Sandre’s corrupt soul, he needed her to continue in her innocent faith.
Personally, Jean-Pierre thought she was an idiot.
“Shall I go visit her home and question her?” he asked.
“No! Fanchere would take that ill, very ill.”
“Why should you care?”
“He’s quiet, but powerful. I don’t choose to anger him.”
Jean-Pierre’s nimble mind had considered Fanchere as a prospect for the Reaper, and now he considered him again. Fanchere spoke so seldom, he was certainly silent enough to play the role. “Then what are your orders, Highness?”
“Take your men. Ride the roads. See if you can find the Reaper. See if there is any truth to this rumor.”
Jean-Pierre wanted to point out how much more useful he would be ferreting out suspicious behavior among the rich. But Sandre continued to shackle his hands, citing the income brought by affluent gamblers and partygoers, and Jean- Pierre had not yet secured his position as Prince Sandre’s right- hand man, and the fortune and influence that accompanied it. To do so, he had to discover who harbored the Reaper, and he would—after he had searched the roads this night. He bowed. “As you command, my prince.”
As Michael rode Old Nelson toward the palace, he smiled beneath the black mask that covered the upper half of his face. It was Saturday night, the full moon floated in a cloudless sky, lighting the road like a benediction, and he heard the sound of many hooves galloping toward him.
The palace guard was on the move.
Eleonore’s plan was in motion.
Michael dared not falter now.
Around the bend, a dozen horses rode toward him, surrounded him, and Jean-Pierre de Guignard pointed his pistol at Michael’s heart. His voice was cool, his hand steady. “Reveal yourself or die.”
Michael pushed his mask up onto the top of his head, then left his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “What’s wrong, de Guignard? Is it now a crime to attend a party in Moricadia?”
“A party?” Jean-Pierre looked him up and down. “What party do you attend looking like that?”
Michael glanced at his outfit—black riding breeches and riding boots, ruffled white shirt opened halfway down his chest, a black cravat tied at his throat, and a black knee-length riding coat. He looked down at Old Nelson, done up with bows in his braided mane and white ruffles sewn onto his saddle blanket. “What’s wrong? I thought my costume very dashing, and my horse’s, too.”
Jean-Pierre all too obviously believed not a word. “Dashing, yes, if you’re dashing out of the country.”
“I thought you were Prince Sandre’s top man . . . now that Rickie is dead?”
That barb dug smoothly under Jean- Pierre’s skin, making his eyes glow white with an inner fury. “I am.”
“Then how is it you don’t know about this party? Everyone was invited.”
Jean-Pierre paused for a long moment. “Apparently not.”
At Michael’s jibe, the guards grew nervous. Their horses sensed their disquiet and moved restlessly. The riders tried to quiet their mounts’ agitation.
The men—indeed, everyone at the palace—feared Jean-Pierre. Feared him and hated him.
On that fact rested the success of Eleonore’s plan.
“I’m sure your invitation was lost—you know how careless servants are—or perhaps it was simply an oversight.” Michael started to lower his arms.
Jean-Pierre cocked the pistol.
Michael hastily raised his hands again. “You can invite yourself. It’s a masquerade. No one will know you slipped in without an invitation.” He used a soothing tone, all the while aware he prodded Jean- Pierre like a foolish boy prods a rabid dog.
But he needed Jean-Pierre angry enough to take action thoughtlessly.
For Michael’s part of the plan to succeed, he needed time.
More important, he needed to behave as if time didn’t matter.
“Where is this party taking place?” Jean- Pierre asked.
Michael flopped his hands as if they were dying fishes. “My arms are getting tired. Please may I put them down? I’m not fool enough to try to run. You’ve got a dozen firearms fixed on my chest.”
Jean-Pierre glanced at his men, then at Michael, and nodded shortly. He did not, however, lower his pistol.
Michael dropped his hands with a groan, and rubbed his upper arms as if they ached.
“Where is this party taking place?” Jean- Pierre repeated.
“Would you like me to show you the invitation?” Michael patted his bulging saddlebag.
Jean-Pierre didn’t even take a second thought. “Yes. Show me the invitation.”
Michael tugged the leather flap open. The strap slapped Old Nelson across his rump, and, right on cue, he danced sideways across the path.
Jean-Pierre snapped, “Control that horse.”
“I am!” Michael made a play for grabbing the reins, wavered in the saddle, righted himself, and patted Old Nelson’s neck until he calmed. “He’s aging and cantankerous, and I’m not the horseman I was two years ago . . . before my imprisonment.”
“I don’t care about your lack of skill or your stupid horse,” Jean-Pierre said. “I want to see that invitation.”
“I’m trying!” Michael pulled a wool shawl out of the bag.
“What’s that for?” Jean-Pierre asked.
“A gift for my hostess.” Michael spoke slowly and carefully, as if Jean- Pierre were a social dolt not to know such a thing.
One of Jean-Pierre’s men spoke in a low, urgent tone. “My lord.”
Michael pulled out a leather holster and a pistol.
“Is
that also a gift for your hostess?” Jean-Pierre asked.
“Not everyone I might meet on a dark road is as charming and kind as you, de Guignard.” Now Michael allowed himself sarcasm. “Some are actually robbers and thieves, and, of course, there’s the legend of the Reaper, with his habit of hanging noblemen.”
“My lord,” Jean-Pierre’s man said again.
“Shut up, Quico,” Jean- Pierre snarled in his direction. Then to Michael he said, “You don’t believe the Reaper is a ghoul?”
“Of course not. I’m not a child or a fool to believe the ghost of a long-dead king roams the roads of Moricadia.” Michael’s black leather hat was wide brimmed, shading his face and keeping his expression private, even under this full moon. “The Reaper is most definitely a man.”
“So you don’t believe the Reaper is Miss Emma Chegwidden?”
Michael locked gazes with Jean- Pierre. “How would a woman with the build of Miss Emma Chegwidden hang a man the size of Rickie de Guignard?”
“Yet she rode in the Reaper’s costume, and we will hang her tomorrow for the crime.”
“So I hear.”
“You know this Englishwoman. She seemed fond of you. Don’t you want to save her?”
“Of course I do. But do you really think I would descend into that dungeon to free her?”
“My lord!” Quico sounded desperate now.
“What?” Jean-Pierre turned ferociously on Quico.
Quico pointed soundlessly up the road.
Galloping down the road toward them on a large white horse was . . . the Reaper.
With a shout, Jean- Pierre and his men spurred their horses toward the ghostly, fearsome figure.
Michael watched long enough to see Jean- Pierre launch himself out of the saddle and bring down the Reaper.
Then, quietly, quickly, he stuffed the pistol and Em-ma’s shawl back into his saddlebags and rode hell- for-leather toward the palace.
Chapter Forty-four
Michael lifted his gaze to the palace rising out of the rocky outcrop like a giant, medieval stone crystal growing from the earth. Within its narrow, towering walls, stairways wound up from the kitchens at ground level to the communal areas above that, and to the royal living quarters above that.