CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“TAKE one more step, Sir, and I will kill you where you stand.” Rosalie had meant to sound commanding and confident, but the mortifying tremble in her voice betrayed her.

Tremble or not, the sight of her stopped the intruder in his tracks. For a second, shock and uncertainty played over his smooth features. Then, as he took in the silence of the second-floor hallway stretching behind Rosalie, the absence of any guards or companions rushing protectively to her aid, his face relaxed into a dismissive grin. “Good day, Mam’selle,” he replied with exaggerated courtliness. “I am afraid this is not a good time for archery lessons. You are to come with us.”

When the seas burn! thought Rosalie. Her voice might be wobbly, but her hands were steady. Steady enough. How steady did you have to be to hit a target straight on at ten paces? Just think of it as a target, she told herself. He has already killed at least once.

The man was muttering to his accomplice. Rosalie understood from their quick glance down the hall that he was sending the man to the back stairway. They would have seen it on the way in, she realized with consternation. He was out of her sight before she could gather her thoughts to act. Could she rouse the sleeping guards before she was sandwiched between the two men? You will have to shoot one of them—or both, she told herself sternly, though her mind recoiled from the coldness of it.

She kept her bow trained on the first man—the head, apparently, of whatever was going on here—holding him at bay, while her ears strained after the second intruder’s progress toward the back stairs. If she shot the one in the hallway the second he came into view, could she have the boss back in her sights before he reached her? She would do better, she knew, to shoot the one she had now, but she could not bring herself to hit a motionless man. She edged back a little into the hall.

He was talking to her, but she tried only to listen to the approaching footsteps. “There is no need for you to be hurt, Mam’selle. Simply put down the bow and come along with my colleague.”

Suddenly the back stairs thundered with running feet—he was coming for her, fast. Rosalie whirled about. The man was already charging down the hall at shocking speed. If she did not shoot now, he would have her. The bow twanged, and he fell, an arrow sprouting from his right shoulder. The sight of such a thing, in her own house, by her own hand, was paralyzing—yet she must move and now. Wrenching her eyes from the blood, pulling a fresh arrow from her quiver, she turned back to find the leader more than halfway to the top landing. She took two quick steps away, but could go no farther without losing her bead on his chest.

Once again they were at a standoff. Rosalie was light-headed with fear and shock, felt her arms tremble with it as she drew back the string. No doubt her assailant saw it too, for his elegant face regained its confident smile, and he dipped his head in mock admiration. His voice, however, was hard and commanding. “A lucky shot. I congratulate you. Yet it is time to stop this charade. You are outnumbered—the rest of my men are outside, awaiting my call, and you, young miss, are alone.” Behind her, Rosalie heard furtive movement from the wounded man, the sound of a knife eased from its sheath. I should have killed him, she thought. He’ll throw the knife, and that will end it. Pray heaven he is not left-handed.

A slight movement yanked her jittery attention away from her opponents. Rosalie watched, aghast, as the front door eased open. Not more! she thought, desperation rising to drown out her courage. I cannot hold off more of them.

The leader’s grin broadened as he saw Rosalie’s face stiffen in dismay. “You see. It is better you come now, before I must use my knife. You cannot hope to shoot us all.”

“She can definitely shoot you, though,” said Tristan affably. He had slipped through the unlatched door and was nearly to the first stair. Now the trap was reversed, the would-be captor caught between a bow and an advancing sword tip. Even as he turned, he raised his knife-arm for the throw.

“Try it, if you wish to die.” Tristan’s voice rapped out, hard and arresting. “Rosalie can bull’s-eye a straw man at fifty paces. I’d put you at less than five.”

For a long moment the man considered Tristan’s words. Then, with a grunt that sounded more vexed than afraid, he glanced back at Rosalie. This time the bold eyes took in her neat stance, the relaxed three-fingered draw. With an ironic smile, he lowered his arm, turned his knife and presented its hilt to Tristan. “Well played. I concede.” A second later, Normand barreled in.

A door clicked open behind her, and Rosie’s heart surged. Then André’s voice floated down the hallway, bleary with sleep.

“Rosalie? I heard voices. Is Tristan back?”

Dizzy with relief, Rosalie surveyed the scene below. Tristan looked so calm, but his blue eyes blazed at her. Cornflowers on fire, she thought. He can make a girl weak in the knees at fifty paces. Her own silliness made her laugh out loud.

“Yes, Father,” she replied. Her voice her own again, thank heavens. “Tristan is back.”

AN AGE CRAWLED by, it seemed, before Tristan was able to entrust the prisoners to Normand’s care and bound up the stairs to Rosie’s side. The off-duty guards had to be rousted out—incredulous, he was, at Rosalie’s sheepish admission that she had put them in the old servants’ quarters in the attic so they would be “less disturbed” by the noise of the household—the situation at the barn checked out, the grounds searched. The back-door guard, he was gratified to learn, had not been so easily duped, after all. Becoming suspicious about the source of the fire, he had left the water pump to other willing hands and investigated behind the barn. The night guards found him tying Thorn to the hitching post in the yard, both men coughing and red-eyed after a cat-and-mouse game through the smoke-filled building.

At long last Tristan and Rosalie sat together at the top of the stairs, arms twined about each other. She was perilously close to tears, he knew, but she would hold them back until the last stranger was out of her home. Now, as the dead guard’s body was carried outside, Tristan held her head against his chest and kissed her hair. He had been a good man, Brousseaux, conscientious and steady. Tristan thought of the man’s young wife—only a year wed, they were, with a baby on the way—and anger swelled in his heart that this man should escape the perils of war only to die under a countryman’s sword. How many other lives, he wondered, had LaBarque ruined over the years?

Dinner was delayed that night. The cook and maid had rushed with everyone else to fight the fire. When they came back, they were so unsettled to learn what had happened that it was some time before they could stop fluttering and exclaiming and begin cooking.

Tristan, Rosalie and André retreated to the parlor to wait. Rosalie and Tristan seemed unable to let go of each other, sitting nearly in each other’s laps on the sofa across from André’s easy chair as each recounted what had happened. Tea, and then tea with brandy, was brought in, and the bracing glow of it was so welcome that if not for the lurking fear of some new trap that might yet be sprung, they would all three gladly have drunk themselves silly. They were still piecing together the full extent of LaBarque’s malignancy when the bell called them to table.

“Come back with me to Chênier,” Tristan urged as they made their way to the dining room, “both of you. A little holiday will do you good after all this trouble, and frankly, I’d feel better knowing you were safe.”

“It sounds like you were in greater danger than anyone, today,” observed André. He looked at his daughter, her chair pressed tight against Tristan’s, and favored her with an uncharacteristically broad smile. “However, I’m afraid it would take a bonemender’s blade to separate Rosalie from you right now. And you’re right, we could both use a change of scene. Give me a couple of days to put things in order here, and I will gladly accept your offer.”

Tristan nodded with satisfaction. “That’s settled, then. And you should sleep at Dominic’s in the meantime, just in case. Unless you have some objection?” He nudged Rosalie in the ribs.

“No objection,” she confirmed sedately. But her eyes danced, and she blew a kiss of gratitude to her father.