"Nice place you have here," I remarked graciously to the Duke, who had been standing before the fire, hands folded beneath his coattail as he watched me, an expression of wary amusement on the broad, florid face.
"Thank you," he said, in the piping tenor that came so oddly from that barrel-chested frame. "Your presence adorns it, my dear." Amusement won out over wariness, and he smiled, a bluff, disarming grin.
"Why Beauchamp?" he asked. "That isn't by chance your real name, is it?"
"My maiden name," I answered, rattled into the truth. His thick blond eyebrows shot up.
"Are you French?"
"No. English. I couldn't use Fraser, though, could I?"
"I see." Brows still raised, he nodded at a small brocaded love seat, inviting me to be seated. It was richly carved and beautifully proportioned, a museum piece, like everything else in the room. I swept my sodden skirts to one side as gracefully as I could, ignoring their liberal stains of mud and horsehair, and delicately lowered myself onto the primrose satin.
The Duke paced slowly back and forth before the fire, watching me, still with a slight smile on his features. I fought the growing warmth and comfort that spread through my aching legs, threatening to drag me into the abyss of fatigue that gaped open at my feet. This was no time to let down my guard.
"Which are you?" the Duke inquired suddenly. "An English hostage, a fervent Jacobite, or a French agent?"
I rubbed two fingers over the ache between my eyes. The correct answer was "none of the above," but I didn't think it would get me very far.
"The hospitality of this house seems a trifle lacking by comparison with its appointments," I said, as haughtily as I could manage under the circumstances, which wasn't all that much. Still, Louise's example of great-ladydom had not been entirely in vain.
The Duke laughed, a high, chittering sort of laugh, like a bat that has just heard a good one.
"Your pardon, Madam. You're quite right; I should have thought to offer you refreshment before presuming to question you. Most thoughtless of me."
He murmured something to the footman who appeared in answer to his ring, then waited calmly before the fire for the tray to arrive. I sat in silence, glancing around the room, occasionally stealing a look at my host. Neither of us was interested in making small talk. Despite his outward geniality, this was an armed truce, and both of us knew it.
What I wanted to know was why. No stranger to people wondering who in hell I was, I rather wondered myself where the Duke came into it. Or where he thought I did. He had met me twice before, as Mrs. Fraser, wife of the laird of Lallybroch. Now I had turned up on his doorstep, posing as an English hostage named Beauchamp lately rescued from a gang of Scottish Jacobites. That was enough to make anyone wonder. But his attitude toward me went a long way past simple curiosity.
The tea arrived, complete with scones and cake. The Duke picked up his own cup, motioned to mine with a lift of one brow, and we took tea, still both in silence. Somewhere on the other side of the house, I could hear a muffled banging, as of someone hammering. The soft chime of the Duke's cup against its saucer was the signal for the resumption of hostilities.
"Now, then," he said, with as much firmness as a man who sounded like Mickey Mouse could manage. "Let me begin, Mrs. Fraser—I may call you so? Thank you. Let me begin by saying that I know a great deal about you already. I intend to know more. You will do well to answer me fully and without hesitations. I must say, Mrs. Fraser, that you are amazingly difficult to kill"—he bowed slightly in my direction, that smile still on his lips—"but I feel sure that it could be accomplished, given sufficient determination."
I stared at him, unmoving; not out of any native sang-froid, but from simple dumbfoundedness. Adopting another of Louise's mannerisms, I raised both eyebrows inquiringly, sipped tea, then patted my lips delicately with the monogrammed serviette provided.
"I am afraid you will think me dense, Your Grace," I said politely, "but I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"Haven't you, my dear?"
The small, jolly blue eyes didn't blink. He reached for the silver-gilt bell on the tray and rang it once.
The man must have been waiting in the next room for the summons, for the door opened immediately. A tall, lean man in the dark habiliments and good linen of an upper servant advanced to the Duke's side and bowed deeply.
"Your Grace?" He spoke English, but the French accent was unmistakable. The face was French, too; long-nosed and white, with thin, tight lips and a pair of ears that stood out from his head like small wings on either side, their tips fiercely red. His lean face grew still paler as he looked up and spotted me, and he took an involuntary step backward.
Sandringham watched this with a frown of irritation, then switched his gaze to me.
"You don't recognize him?" he asked.
I was beginning to shake my head, when the man's right hand twitched suddenly against the cloth of his breeches. As unobtrusively as possible, he was making the sign of the horns, middle fingers folded down, index and little finger pointed at me. I knew, then, and in the next instant had seen the confirmation of my knowledge—the small beauty mark above the fork of his thumb.
I hadn't the slightest doubt; it was the man in the spotted shirt who had attacked me and Mary in Paris. And all too obviously in the Duke's employ.
"You bloody bastard!" I said. I leaped to my feet, overturning the tea table, and snatched up the nearest object to hand, a carved alabaster tobacco jar. I hurled it at the man's head, and he turned and fled precipitately, the heavy jar missing him by inches to smash against the door frame.
The door slammed to as I started after him, and I stopped in my tracks, breathing heavily. I glared at Sandringham, hands braced on my hips.
"Who is he?" I demanded.
"My valet," said the Duke calmly. "Albert Danton, by name. A good fellow with neckcloths and stockings, but a trifle excitable, as so many of these Frenchmen are. Incredibly superstitious, too." He frowned disapprovingly at the closed door. "Bloody papists, with all these saints and smells and such. Believe anything at all."
My breathing was slowing, though my heart still banged against the whalebones of my bodice. I had trouble drawing a deep breath.
"You filthy, disgusting, outrageous.…pervert!"
The Duke seemed bored by this, and nodded negligently.
"Yes, yes, my dear. All that, I'm sure, and more. A trifle unlucky, too, at least on that occasion."
"Unlucky? Is that what you'd call it?" Unsteadily, I moved to the love seat, and sat down. My hands were shaking with nerves, and I clasped them together, hidden in the folds of my skirt.
"On several counts, my dear lady. Just look at it." He spread out both hands in graceful entreaty. "I send Danton to dispose of you. He and his companions decide to entertain themselves a bit first; that's all well and good, but in the process, they get a good look at you, leap unaccountably to the conclusion that you're a witch of some kind, lose their heads entirely and run off. But not before debauching my goddaughter, who is present by accident, thus ruining all chance of the excellent marriage I had painstakingly arranged for her. Consider the irony of it!"
The shocks were coming thick and fast, and I hardly knew which to respond to first. There seemed one particularly striking statement in this speech, though.
"What do you mean ‘dispose of me'?" I demanded. "Do you mean to say you actually tried to have me killed?" The room seemed to be swaying a bit, and I took a deep gulp of tea as being the nearest thing to a restorative available. It wasn't terribly effective.
"Well, yes," Sandringham said pleasantly. "That was the point I was endeavoring to make. Tell me, my dear, would you care for a cup of sherry?"
I eyed him narrowly for a moment. Having just stated that he'd tried to have me killed, he now expected me to accept a cup of sherry from his hands?
"Brandy," I said. "Lots of it."
He giggled in that high-pitched way again, and made his way to the sideboard, remarking over his shoulder, "Captain Randall said you were a most diverting woman. Quite an encomium from the Captain, you know. He hasn't much use for women ordinarily, though they swarm over him. His looks, I suppose; it can't be his manner."
"So Jack Randall does work for you," I said, taking the glass he handed me. I had watched him pour out two glasses, and was sure that both contained nothing but brandy. I took a large and sorely needed swallow.
The Duke matched me, blinking his eyes at the effect of the pungent liquid.
"Of course," he said. "Often the best tool is the most dangerous. One doesn't hesitate to use it on that account; one merely makes sure to take adequate precautions."
"Dangerous, eh? Just how much do you know about Jonathan Randall?" I asked curiously.
The Duke tittered. "Oh, virtually everything, I should think, my dear. Most likely a great deal more than you do, in fact. It doesn't do to employ a man like that without having a means at hand to control him, you know. And money is a good bridle, but a weak rein."
"Unlike blackmail?" I said dryly.
He sat back, hands clasped across his bulging stomach, and regarded me with bland interest.