Petals in the Storm (41 page)

"When I stopped the horses a mile down the road to introduce myself and assure her that she was safe, she pulled a pistol on me. It had been hidden in her saddlebag. I'll never forget the sight: her hands were shaking, her face was so bruised that her own mother wouldn't have recognized her, and she'd been through an ordeal that I wouldn't have wished on Napoleon himself. Yet she was unbroken." After a long silence, he added softly, "She's the strongest person I've ever know."

Rafe realized that he was pacing around his end of the cell, hands clenched, his eyes unseeing. Never in his life had he had a stronger desire to be alone, to assimilate the horror of what had happened to Margot.

To see her father murdered in front of her eyes; to have had her sexual initiation as the victim of a gang of brutes ... How had she kept her sanity? Yet she had not only survived, but developed into an extraordinary woman. The thought of the strength and resilience that required staggered him.

On top of the helpless pain he felt on her behalf was the crushing knowledge of his own guilt. If he hadn't hurt Margot so badly, she would not have been in France. No wonder she had accused him of being responsible for her father's death. It was true, and there was no way on God's earth that he could ever make amends for the catastrophe which he had indirectly caused.

The frantic energy churning inside him was unbearable. Rafe, the quintessential civilized man, burned with the need to do something physically violent— preferably kill Margot's assailants with his bare hands.

Accurately reading Rafe's expression, Andreville said, "If it's any comfort, most of the men who joined the Grand Armee that long ago are probably long since dead. One can only hope that each of them died slowly and painfully."

"One can only hope," Rafe said thickly. He pictured one of those anonymous men being flayed alive by Spanish partisans; another dying of gangrene after ten days with a bullet in his belly; a third slowly freezing to death on the plains of Russia.

The visions didn't help much.

Muscle by muscle, he forced himself to relax. If he didn't, he'd go mad.

Andreville had returned to his corner and sunken into the straw. The emotions of his story were etched on his face and shadows showed under the blue eyes. Since he also loved Margot, this must be harrowing for him to speak of.

When he had reestablished a fragile control, Rafe said, "I suppose that after that, things had to get better."

"Yes, though it was a bit of a quandary for me. I could hardly abandon Maggie in the middle of France, but I was engaged in some vital business. When I explained, she said that she had no reason to return to England, so why didn't I take her with me? So I did.

"I took a flat in Paris. Because of our similar coloring, we claimed to be a brother and his widowed sister. She became Marguerite to the world in general, and Maggie to me, because she no longer wanted to be Margot Ashton." Forgetting his injured arm, Andreville started to make a gesture with his left hand, then winced. "Even before we reached Paris, I asked her to marry me so that she would have the protection of my name. Also, of course, if something happened to me she would be a considerable heiress."

Rafe swallowed, then said woodenly, "So you are actually husband and wife."

"No, she refused, saying that we shouldn't marry merely because of some unlucky circumstances. Instead, she offered to become my mistress if I wished."

So that was how it had begun. Rafe said, "I'm amazed that she could bear to let a man touch her."

"I was amazed, too, but she said that she wanted some happier memories to replace the bad ones," Andreville explained. "I had some doubts about the arrangement—remnants of a proper upbringing, no doubt—but I agreed. I was only twenty years old myself and didn't really want to be married, yet only an absolute fool would reject such an offer from a woman like her."

Though Andreville was glossing over what he had done, Rafe knew that it must have taken infinite kindness and patience to help Margot overcome such a shattering experience and become the passionate woman she was now. Rafe was profoundly grateful that she had had such a man to help her. With equal intensity, he resented the fact that he himself had not been the one; when she had needed him most, he had not been there.

Needing to acknowledge what the other man had done, he said, "She was fortunate to have you."

"We were fortunate to have each other." Andreville turned his uninjured hand palm up. "We've worked together ever since. I would move around Europe as necessary, often for months at a time. I've traveled with armies, crossed the Channel with smugglers, and generally did a lot of other harebrained, uncomfortable things that seem like great adventures when one is young and foolish." He smiled wryly. "As a child I rebelled against staid English respectability, but I must say that rebellion has lost its appeal since I turned thirty.

"Anyhow, home was wherever Maggie was living. Usually that was Paris. She led a quiet life, not like now when she's playing the countess and moving in society. She developed her own network of informants, and turned out to have a really spectacular talent for gathering information. The rest I think you know."

Rafe sighed. 'To think that I had decided that you must be the spy in the delegation."

"Oh?" Andreville's eyebrows arched.

Rafe explained how he set up his own watchers, and how he had discovered that Andreville visited Margot, Roussaye, and Lemercier. He also mentioned the inferences he had drawn from the amount of money that Margot had received from her partner in spying.

"Even though your conclusions were wrong, you do have talent for this work." Andreville observed. "In retrospect, it would have been better if you'd known about me from the beginning, but as I said, secrecy becomes a habit. You know why I was communicating with Roussaye. As for Lemercier, I was trying to find out what he was up to, since I was sure that he was involved with the conspiracy."

"What about the money? It was the strongest evidence against you."

"Maggie didn't know how much Whitehall paid for information, so she accepted whatever I gave her without questioning," Andreville explained. "I never told her that most of the money came from me because she might have gotten all prickly and independent if she knew that I was supporting the household, even though it was my home, too. Also, since she wouldn't marry me, I wanted to insure that she had enough to live on comfortably if my luck ran out."

"You could have made her your heir even though you weren't married."

"I did, actually, but there was a good chance that I might simply disappear, with no one knowing how or when I died. In that case, my estate could have been tied up indefinitely. And of course my English executor would never have been able to communicate with Maggie while the war was on." He gave Rafe a curious glance. "Did you ever mention your suspicions of me to Maggie?"

When Rafe nodded, Andreville asked, "How did she react when you tried to convince her that I was a traitor? She knows almost nothing about my background, and there was strong circumstantial evidence against me."

Rafe said ruefully, "She flatly refused to believe it, and threw me out of her house at gunpoint. And if you are thinking of pointing out that she could teach me a few lessons in loyalty, don't bother—I already know." He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. "Thank you for telling me so much. I needed to know."

Rafe settled down on the straw and tried again to master the grief, guilt, and anger that threatened to overwhelm him. Now that he understood the strength of the bond between Andreville and Margot, he realized that he had never had a chance of winning her.

It was amazing—and humiliating—to remember how he had arrogantly assumed that he could use seduction to bend her to his will. The only reason she had turned to him for a night was because of the horrific memories aroused by the mob in the Place de Carrousel. Now that he thought about it, the unusually passionate embrace in the carriage after the theater riot must have had the same cause.

He had wreaked havoc in her life, and he could think of only one small thing that he could do to atone: make damned sure that Andreville never learned of the night Margot had spent in Rafe's bed. Even the most tolerant of men would not be happy to learn that his mistress had lain with another man, and Rafe did not want to be a source of discord between Margot and the man of her choice. He had already hurt her too much.

Though the restraint had half killed him at the time, he was profoundly glad that he had done what he could to prevent her from conceiving. Now that the wars were over she might want to start a family, but a black-haired baby would have been hard for her to explain to Andreville.

Rafe closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall. It was bitterly ironic that in helping Margot forget, he had found a magic and a memory that would always torment him. If she had ever wanted vengeance, she had achieved it. Wearily he said, "If we all get out of his alive, are you going to marry her, Lord Robert?"

After a long pause, Andreville said, "I certainly intend to ask her again. Incidentally, I'd rather you didn't call me Lord Robert. That name belongs to another life, just as the woman who is Margot to you will always be Maggie to me."

"What do you prefer to be called?"

"My friends call me Robin."

Were they friends, then? Rafe wasn't quite sure, but there was certainly a bond between them composed of respect, shared danger, and love for the same incomparable woman.

"I'm usually called Rafe." He smiled a little. "The actual name is Rafael, but as Margot said when I met  her, naming me after an archangel was singularly inappropriate."

His cellmate laughed, and the silence that followed was a comfortable one.

"The Count de Varenne will want to see me," Oliver North wood assured the decrepit Chanteuil butler.

The servant looked doubtful, but turned and hobbled into the depths of the castle. Not wanting to give the count time for too much thought, Northwood quietly followed. When the butler entered the library to inform his master of the visitor, the Englishman stepped inside also.

The count was seated at a desk covered with stacks of papers full of figures. He narrowed his eyes at Northwood's entrance. "Do we know each other, monsieur?"

"Of course we do, Comte le Serpent. Or shouldn't I call you that in front of your servants?" Northwood said boldly. He intended to be accepted as a valuable associate, not the lowly pair of hired hands that he had been in the past.