Marie glanced out a window. The day had been overcast, and night was falling quickly. “There’s just enough time for you and your companion to have a bite before you go down to the cove. I’ll send Antoine to the boat to tell them passengers are coming.”
As Antoine closed his book, several horsemen arrived outside. Cassie said in a low voice, “It’s possible my companion and I are being pursued.”
“Or it may be customs officers arriving as they do all too often.” Frowning, Marie said, “Antoine, go to the cove and tell the men there may be trouble here.”
“Oui, tante.” Moving quickly, he went back through the kitchen and outside.
“Time for us to become two boring women having a bit of a chat.” Marie poured white wine into two heavy glass tumblers and slid one across the bar to Cassie. “Will your companion know to keep out of sight?”
A good question. Grey was hard to predict. “I hope so.” Cassie took the wine and settled onto a stool across the bar from Marie.
The front door was thrown open and five gendarmes swaggered in. All were armed and they had the truculent expressions of men looking for trouble.
As an experienced tavern owner, Marie recognized the look as readily as Cassie did. Her eyes were wary, but her voice relaxed as she said, “What can I do for you, Citoyens? I’ve some good fish stew and fresh bread in the kitchen.”
“We’ll be having some of that and a bottle of the best cognac in the house,” the sergeant in charge said. “But what we really want is escaping spies.”
He pulled a folded flyer from his coat. “An old man, an old woman, a younger English man with light hair, maybe traveling with others. Anyone like that been by here? They’re running like rats for England.”
Marie set five tumblers along the bar. “Can’t say they sound familiar. The only old women who come by here are local.” She reached under the bar for a bottle of cognac. “I’ve not seen any English spies that I know of.”
“Bet you’ve seen plenty of smugglers, though,” one of the men sneered. He grabbed the bottle of cognac from Marie’s hand and took a swig. “How much will you give us to ride on to the next coastal tavern without searching this place?”
“Isn’t it against the law to try to bribe a gendarme?” Marie asked coolly. “I’ve naught to fear from a search. There are no smugglers here. Only food and drink.”
“And women.” A tall, heavyset man who looked like a bear pointed toward Cassie. “The flyer said the old woman had no distinctive identifying marks. Neither does this one.” As he gazed at her with hot eyes, the atmosphere thickened with menace.
“That’s not a kind thing to say, Citoyen,” Cassie said mildly, shifting on her stool so she could reach the knife sheathed on her thigh. But she hoped it didn’t come to a fight. Two women had little chance against five brutal armed men. “I may be heading toward old, but I’m not there yet.”
“Old enough that you should be grateful a real man is willing to roger you,” the bear man said with a snort. “Not that I’d touch either of you ordinarily, but for lack of anything better, you’ll do.”
As he moved closer, Cassie reached for her knife. Before she could grasp it, he lunged unexpectedly, crushing her in his beefy arms exactly like a bear. His breath reeked of cheap brandy.
“Let me go!” she snapped as she struggled furiously, but he had the advantages of size and strength. He shoved her down to the floor and straddled her.
The leader of the group leaned over the bar for Marie. She bashed him across the face with a bottle. Swearing, he staggered back, but a third man circled the bar to grab her and pull her into the center of the room. Her scream cut off abruptly.
If Cassie weren’t pinned down, she could have immobilized her attacker, but with his weight on top of her, she was almost helpless. She hoped to God Grey didn’t hear the disturbance and charge in. Though he was a fighter, the gendarmes were armed and far more likely to shoot a man than a woman.
Praying that Antoine would bring the sailors from the cove quickly, she sank her teeth into her attacker’s earlobe, tasting metallic blood. He bellowed with rage and reared up to clout her on the side of the head.
She turned her head to avoid the worst of the blow, at the same time fighting to free one arm. If she could jab his eyes …
A blood-chilling shout reverberated through the taproom as Grey charged through the door, eyes wild with berserker fury. In two steps he was beside Cassie and hauling her attacker off her. There was a hideous crack as he broke the bear man’s neck.
Behind him, another gendarme swiftly primed and aimed his pistol. “Look out, Grey!” Cassie cried as she scrambled to her feet.
Grey whirled and dived at the man. The gun fired deafeningly but Grey didn’t even flinch. He wrenched the empty pistol away from the gendarme and used the wooden hilt to club him into unconsciousness.
Since he could handle himself, Cassie turned to Marie. Her friend was pinned to the floor by a man who had one hand clamped over her mouth while the other clawed at her clothing. Cassie moved behind him and savagely jabbed her thumbs into the pressure points that would knock him unconscious in the space of a few heartbeats.
He collapsed forward with a strangled gasp. After dragging his limp body off Marie, who was shaken but seemed unhurt, Cassie turned to Grey.
He fought like a dancer, his movements swift and grimly efficient as he smashed and kicked at his opponents. But dear God, blood was pouring down the left side of his head! He must have been grazed by the pistol ball. Surely it wasn’t serious or he couldn’t fight so furiously? But so much blood!
Her heart constricted as she saw the last two gendarmes retreat and aim their pistols at Grey. She swore the filthiest curse she knew and hurled her knife at the closer man. It caught him dead center in the throat with a gush of blood.
As the man collapsed with a bubbling scream, his companion swung his pistol toward Cassie. “You bitch!”
She dived to her left, wishing for a barrier to protect her. Then Grey’s broad shoulders blocked her view of the last gendarme. Growling like a wolf, he leaped at the same instant the gendarme’s pistol boomed.
Undeterred, Grey clamped his powerful hands around the man’s neck. The two of them went down together.
Dear God, more blood, this time streaming from Grey’s right side! Yet his viselike grip didn’t loosen. By the time Cassie reached them, the gendarme was dead. Grey’s expression was savage, and he didn’t seem to hear when she spoke his name.
Cassie caught his shoulder, her nails biting into his shoulder. “Grey, it’s all right, we’re safe. Let him go so I can look at your wounds.”
He still didn’t react, so she said more sharply, “Grey, let go!”
Long seconds passed before he released his grip and sat back on his heels. The red rage fading from his eyes, he turned toward her. “Cassie? Are you hurt?”
“You’re the one bleeding all over the floor,” she said wryly. “I need to examine your wounds.”
“Thank God you’re safe!” Then he slowly keeled over.
Chapter 21
Biting her lip to keep from having strong hysterics, Cassie knelt beside Grey and did a swift examination. The head wound was bleeding ferociously into his hair and beard but didn’t look deep.
The second pistol ball had raked his side. Though the ribs didn’t appear to be broken, still more blood was pouring out of him. How much blood could a man lose before he died?
“Take these.” Marie pressed several folded towels into Cassie’s hand. “This wild man of yours is magnificent,” she added admiringly. “Without fear. I could not believe how he kept fighting even when shot twice.”
“Fearless or mad,” Cassie said grimly. “I need brandy to clean the wounds.”
Marie quickly produced a bottle of spirits. Cassie applied pressure to the head injury until the bleeding slowed, then poured a trickle of brandy over the open wou
nd.
Grey gasped and tried to pull away. “Hold still,” she ordered, thinking it was a good sign that he wasn’t unconscious. “I’m almost done.”
He was trembling, but he held still as she tied a crude bandage around his head. She was working on his wounded ribs when half a dozen local sailors burst into the room, the leader calling, “Marie!”
Cassie recognized him as Pierre Blanchard, Marie’s brother and captain of the smugglers. He’d carried Cassie across the channel several times. He skidded to a halt and surveyed the fallen bodies. “Seems we weren’t needed.”
“Madame Renard’s friend fought like a man possessed to save us from being raped and worse.” Marie frowned at the carnage. “A great deal of cleaning will be required.”
“We’ll take care of the bodies and the horses,” Pierre promised. “These cochons will simply disappear. Madame Renard, is your friend well enough to sail tonight?”
“Better that than to risk staying here,” Cassie said as she bandaged Grey’s ribs. He needed a real surgeon, but that could wait for England. Durand’s noose was tightening, she could feel it. “Grey, do you think you can walk to the boat?”
“Yes.” He drew a shuddering breath. His face was white against the bloodstains. “Will … need help.” He pushed himself up with his right arm, giving a hiss of pain. Silently Pierre helped him to his feet.
With so many bloodstains drenching hair and clothing, Grey looked more dead than alive. Cassie moved under his arm to help support him.
“We have saddlebags in the stables,” Cassie said to Pierre, not wanting to leave Grey.
As the captain sent a man to collect their possessions, Grey whispered, “Régine. Don’t forget Régine!”
“A third person is in your party?” Pierre asked.
“Régine is a dog he adopted,” Cassie explained.
Pierre said with amusement, “I didn’t know English spies collected mongrels.”
“Monsieur Sommers is not a spy,” Cassie said wearily. “He was a young Englishman who bedded the wrong woman, and spent ten years in solitary confinement.”
The captain’s brows arched. “I hope she was worth it.”
“She wasn’t,” Grey muttered.
Pierre gave a very French shrug. “One never knows until it’s too late. But now we need to make haste or we will miss the tide.”
Cassie could barely support Grey as they moved toward the door, so Pierre moved in to take her place. As soon as they stepped outside, Régine galloped up and began twisting around her master’s legs, very nearly tripping Grey.
“Are you sure you can make it down to the pier?” Cassie asked worriedly. “You can be carried if necessary.”
“Would … walk … on water …” he panted, “… to get back to England.”
Cassie drew Régine away from Grey so they could proceed down the rocky path to the cove. At least Grey now had one possession to bring home from France.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made …
Shakespeare’s words floated through Grey’s misery. Drowning and suffering the ultimate sea change sounded rather good about now. He wasn’t usually seasick, but he’d never crossed the channel in a small boat with two bullet holes in him, either. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the pain, the nausea, or the fact that the boat was saturated with the stench of fish.
His stomach had been fairly empty to begin with, but that didn’t stop the violent nausea and dry retching. He slid in and out of consciousness. Awareness was bad because he’d never felt so ghastly in his life.
Grey, Cassie, and Régine were huddled in the bow of the vessel under an oilcloth sheet, which helped keep off splashes of water, but wasn’t much help against the biting cold. Sometime during the endless night, he rasped, “Toss me overboard, Cassie. I think I’d rather be dead.”
“Nonsense.” Her voice was brisk but her touch gentle as she wiped his damp face with a cloth. “You have to stay alive until I turn you over to Kirkland. After that, you may drown yourself if you like.”
It hurt to laugh, but he did anyhow. “My ever practical vixen. No need to worry. I haven’t the strength to cast myself into the sea without help, and once I’m on dry land, the impulse will surely fade.”
“Not long now,” Cassie said quietly. She pulled him closer so that the unwounded side of his head rested on her soft breasts. “You’re warm. Feverish, I think, but it makes you useful on a cold, wet night.”
“Don’t worry about fever,” he mumbled. “I heal very well, or I wouldn’t have lasted this long.” His mind veering in another direction, he asked, “What’s your real name? Before you became Cassie the Fox?”
After a long silence, she replied, “Once I was Catherine.”
Catherine. It suited her, but in a very different way from how Cassie suited her. Catherine was a gentle lady. Cassie the Fox was quick, clever, and dangerous. Perhaps Catherine was who Cassie would have been if war and catastrophe hadn’t intervened.
He sought her hand and held it, thinking how lucky he was to have this extraordinary woman, even if only for a while.
But God in heaven, how would he ever be able to let her go?
It was not the most comfortable channel crossing Cassie had ever made, but it was one of the fastest, with a hard wind pushing the fishing boat north. Pierre and his crew would have a much slower journey home against the wind. They were inured to the sea and its vagaries, though. Grey and Cassie were creatures of the land, and the sooner they returned to solid ground, the better.
After endless miserable hours, she saw a faint white line gradually forming on the horizon. She waited until she was sure before saying softly, “The white cliffs of Dover, Grey. Home.”
He jerked out of his doze and pushed himself up to stare over the gunwale. “Home,” he said in a husky voice. “I never thought I’d see England again.”
His eyes glinted with unshed tears. She blinked back some of her own. Even after all these years, the sight always moved her.
Together they watched the approaching shore, the white cliffs a beckoning ribbon of hope. Dawn was breaking when Pierre brought them into a sheltered cove with a weathered pier. The cove belonged to an English seafaring family named Nash, and there was a long and profitable relationship between them and Pierre’s family. Cassie knew both families well.
Pierre sent a man to the nearby Nash house to gather help in unloading the illicit cargo. He personally helped Cassie get Grey out of the boat and onto land.
Grey was weaving but grimly determined. Once they were ashore, he shook off his helpers, then alarmed Cassie by falling to the ground.
Her heart clenched until she saw what he was doing. Incredulous, she asked, “Lord Wyndham, are you kissing the ground?”
“Damned right I am.” Grey struggled to rise again. “Both because it’s solid land, and because it’s England.”
The French captain asked with interest, “What does English sand taste like?”
“Much like French sand, I suspect.” He turned to Cassie, his face ablaze with joy under his bloodstained bandage. “I’m never leaving England again!”
“Won’t you want to travel to Rome or Greece or some such place when the wars are over?” she asked.
“I reserve the right to be inconsistent.” Grey wrapped an arm around Cassie’s shoulders, sagging against her. “What next, milady vixen?”
Several Nashes were heading down to the cove to help with the contraband. Cassie said, “We go to the house and ask Mrs. Nash if she has any broth to feed you. Then we hire one of their sons to drive us to Dover, where we’ll find an inn and call a surgeon for you.”
“Please,” he said in a rough whisper. “Take me home.” She frowned. “Your family seat is in Dorsetshire, isn’t it? That’s too far. You need treatment before then.”
“Not Summerhill,” he said with effort. “The Weste
rfield Academy. It’s not far, just off the London road.”
She hesitated, thinking it would still be several hours of travel, and the sooner she got him into a clean bed and called a surgeon, the better.
“Please!” he said, his voice raw.
The school had been his home for years, she realized. A place where he’d made lasting friendships, and where Lady Agnes welcomed all her wandering boys, no matter what sort of trouble they’d been in.
“Very well,” she said. “We’ll go to Westerfield.”
The coach Cassie had hired in Dover rumbled to a wet stop in front of Westerfield Manor. Grey had been silent on the ride, suffering stoically. As the coach driver opened the door and let down the steps, Cassie said quietly, “We’re here. Are you awake?”
As he ground out an affirmative, Régine leaped out, ready for a new adventure. She’d put on weight even better than Grey had.
Cassie descended and helped Grey out of the coach into a rainy and very English night. “Can you manage him, ma’am?” the driver asked.
“We’re fine,” Grey mumbled. As Cassie paid the coachman with the last of her money, Grey headed unerringly toward Lady Agnes’s door. He’d told Cassie that Lady Agnes used one wing of the sprawling manor-turned-school as her private quarters, so there should be room for unexpected visitors.
Saddlebags over one arm, Cassie caught up with him as he wielded the large brass knocker. Grey swayed while they waited for the door to open, so she moved beside him, an arm around his waist. The end of this mad adventure had arrived.
The door was opened by Lady Agnes herself. She wore a practical but elegant gown that was perfectly suited to a headmistress of noble blood.
Her brows arched when she saw the ragamuffins on her steps. “If you go around to the kitchen door in the back of the house, someone will give you food.”
“What, no fatted calf?” Grey said unevenly. When Lady Agnes gasped, he said with a crooked smile, “The prodigal has returned.”
Durand reached Boulogne to find the district commandant wondering what had happened to a squad of his gendarmes. Five experienced men, all former soldiers, had been patrolling the coast looking for smugglers as well as Durand’s runaway spies.