"Would you prefer that I have my men strip you?" he inquired casually as her s.h.i.+rt tore apart beneath his hands. "They would take much pleasure in the task, I a.s.sure you." He examined her b.r.e.a.s.t.s through hooded eyes and Danielle lay still preparing herself for what she knew was to come. When he stripped off her britches she made no foolish futile movement of protest and received her reward in the clear disappointment in her tormentor's eyes. "So, you will not fight me?" His hands stroked lasciviously over her body. "Eventually you will beg me to take you, ma belle. When you can no longer bear your discomfort."

"Just tell me why?" Danielle summoned her last reserves of e,nergy. "What have I done to you that you should do this to mer St. Estephe chuckled. "It is nothing that you have done, ma belle. You are merely the instrument of my revenge. Many years ago your husband's father dishonored my family and I am pledged to avenge the insult. Your husband will come in search of you and when he finds you, you will be my willing submissive plaything. And I will kill him after he has seen what you have become."

Danny licked her dry lips again. "You have overlooked one thing, comte. My husband is dead. I heard the news from Pitt before I left England. You may use me as you please, but Justin will have no knowledge of your revenge."

The second blow smashed her head sideways into the mattress and, without a further word, the comte took the lantern and her torn clothing and left her, naked and alone in the darkness.

Chapter 22.

Justin's heart leapt as he rounded the corner of the steep path and at last saw journey's end. The long low house of Mervanwey glowed mellow in the afternoon light of this last day of October, and the trees bordering the path were a deep copper. One strong wind and they would lose the fragile leaves to the winter of gales and sea storms waiting in the wings. As he reached the head of the cliff he looked over the low stone wall into the rose garden and saw a sight that brought aglow of pride and love into his eyes. His son, turned sixteen months now, was running on st.u.r.dy legs across the gra.s.s, shrieking with glee, pursued by Maddy, the young nursery maid, growling like a lion.

Justin dismounted and vaulted over the wall. "Nicky?" Both child and girl stopped, and Maddy's rosy cheeks suddenly paled as if she saw a ghost.

"My Lord," she gasped. "Is it really you? You are alive then?"

"I certainly have that impression," he agreed with a smile. "My son, do you remember your papa?" Kneeling in front of the little boy, he took his hands.

"Papa?" Nicky looked at him seriously and then the small face split in a sunny beam. It had been six months since he had last seen this man but he still saw his picture every night before he slept, and everyone always talked to him about "Papa."

Justin laughed with pleasure and picked up the little figure, kissing the firm round cheek. "Come, let us go and find Maman."

"Maman . . . boat." Nicky pointed to the gray Atlantic ocean stretching into the distance.

"What?" His father frowned and looked at Maddy whose eyes were stricken. She gazed at the ground, apparently tongue-tied. "I will take Nicky with me up to the house," he told her and, hitching his son onto a hip, vaulted the wall again and remounted easily with one hand. Nicky squealed with delight at finding himself on the back of this great beast, an experience that he found not at all terrifying, held as he was by an iron arm against a broad chest. He babbled nonstop, a mixture of nonsense and baby words, pointing excitedly from side to side and bouncing up and down on the saddle. Justin responded with the right degree of interested encouragement although the p.r.i.c.k of unease was rapidly becoming a cold stab of premonition.

There had been something in the prime minister's att.i.tude that had puzzled him when he had made the detailed report of his mission immediately on his return. Pitt had appeared curiously evasive when Justin had asked him if he had news of Danny, and had said only that he believed her to be in Cornwall. Linton, in his eagerness to reach his wife's side, had hardly noticed the awkwardness until memory now came back with full force. Unconsciously he urged his mount into a canter as the path leveled off.

Nicky shrieked, and the earl instantly checked the horse, only to hear his son demand, '"Gain, 'gain." Definitely his mother's child, Justin reflected, obeying the instruction. Their arrival at the circular gravel sweep outside the house caused an extraordinary commotion. Justin tossed his son over his shoulder and swung to the ground in one movement, striding through the gaping gabbling throng of servants into the cool flagged hallway.

"Justin! Oh thank G.o.d! We have been certain that you were dead. There has been no news and . . ." Lady Lavinift flung herself weeping against his chest.

"It is a long story, ma'am," he said, patting her back helplessly as his son squirmed and wriggled in his upside-down position.

"Let the man get inside, Lavvy." Charles appeared from the library and took his wife's arm. "It is such a relief to see you, Justin," he explained, seizing his hand in a hard grip that spoke volumes. "Come into the library before someone starts charging a fee to witness this spectacle."

"Oh, what can I have been thinking of?" Lavinia scolded herself as her husband's words took effect. "What an unseemly display, and poor Nicky is quite scarlet."

Justin righted the child who wriggled and said imperatively, "Down."

"I wonder how long it's going to be before you learn to say 'please'?" Justin mused, setting him on his feet.

"Oh, he does already," Lavinia put in hastily. "But sometimes he forgets. Danielle is most insistent that he . . ." Her voice faded.

"Where is she?" Anxiety rasped harsh in his voice.

"Not in front of . . ." Lavinia gestured toward Nicky, who was pus.h.i.+ng chess pieces around on a board resting on a low table.

A cold s.h.i.+ver of apprehension raised the hairs on the nape of his neck. What news was there about the child's mother that they must keep from him? "Come, Nicky. You must go to Tante Therese for a short while." He scooped him up, ignoring the complaining wail, and bore him upstairs to the sunny nursery where Tante Therese evinced no apparent surprise at His Lords.h.i.+p's appearance and dealt with Nicky's incipient tantrum with serene firmness.

"Now." Justin faced the Earl and Countess of March. "What sc.r.a.pe does she find herself in this time?"

"If only it were just that," Lavinia moaned.

"Here, Linton, take a gla.s.s of sherry, and I will tell you the whole." Charles took over briskly, and Justin gave him a grateful if wan smile.

He heard Charles.out in complete silence, standing at the window, gazing blindly at the late autumn garden and the unfriendly gray sea beyond.

"This is the third time, you say, that she has made this journey?" he asked finally, turning back to the room and absently refilling his gla.s.s.

"Yes, but they have never been away this long. It has been well over five weeks and in another week, maybe less, the weather will turn and Dream Girl will be unable to make the return journey in safety. Jake is too good a sailor to risk his s.h.i.+p and he will have made it clear to Danny and the others that they must rendezvous in ample time. We can only a.s.sume that he is waiting until the last possible moment and therefore that something has happened to prevent their meeting."

"Yes," Justin agreed bleakly. "And it requires little imagination to think what may have happened in that city of mayhem and murder." He paced the room. "I should have foreseen this. I know well enough what she is like."

"We did what we could to prevent her," Charles said with a heavy sigh. "But I feel utterly responsible."

"Nonsense!" Linton cut him off abruptly. "You are in no way responsible, March. Stopping Danielle when she has her mind set is as impossible as halting the path of an avalanche. There is nothing we can do but await the return of Dream Girl. If what you say of your captain is true, he will return with or without them within the week. If he comes alone, then I must go myself. It will be possible to make landfall further up the coast throughout the winter."

How long had she been held in this way? Danny could no longer even estimate. St. Estephe's latest move had been to bind her eyes so she could no longer draw comfort from the thread of light beneath window and door. But she took one small comfort-blindfolded as she was the comte could not see the fear in her eyes. She would be alone for an eternity and then the door would creak open and close and sometimes, for hours it seemed, she would sense his presence but he would make no move until she wanted to scream-tell him to hit her again, anything but this black silence as she lay, naked and spread-eagled on the rough ticking, her ankles now also bound to the posts at the foot of the bed. Sometimes he would laugh and she would hear the door close again, and other times he would run his hands over her shrinking flesh and tell her in a soft sibilant whisper what he would eventually do with her when she begged him for release and he decided to grant it.

Jeanette's appearances were infrequent and brief. The girl was not allowed to untie the blindfold and Danielle had to accept her help in tending to her physical needs. She continued to refuse all but a mouthful of bread and took only a few sips of water. She was allowed to wash and to brush her hair, however, and could only a.s.sume that St. Estephe's interest in her body was genuine enough for him not to enjoy the sight of her dirty and bedraggled. It was bleak comfort, but at least she was saved the ultimate humiliation, although sometimes kept waiting for relief almost to breaking point.

The others would be safely back in Mervanwey by now, or at least on their way back. It was a three-day voyage but surely her captivity had lasted longer than that? She couldn't blame them for not coming to her rescue. Jake could not hold Dream Girl offsh.o.r.e for any longer than the last week of October as he'd explained bluntly on the voyage over. They had spent much longer in Paris than usual and the journey to the coast had been slowed by the moans of their pa.s.sengers. They had reached the cove on the last possible day that Jake had declared to be safe and if any of them were to get out of France before winter set in then they would have had to have left immediately.

It was all quite reasonable and understandable, Danielle told herself, as the hot tears stung her eyes and soaked the blindfold. If she cried her nose would run and she had no way of wiping it. She sniffed vigorously as the tears ceased instantly at the thought that St. Estephe must not see a sign of weakness.

In fact, it had been only thirty-six hours since Julian and his friends had watched the cavalcade of hors.e.m.e.n take off across the fields. In the meantime, they had found dry clothes (rough threadbare fishermen's garb that both parties were more than happy to exchange), retrieved the horses from the Legrand's pasture, and set off in search of information. The Breton folk were cautious about divulging anything to strangers, but the word had spread about these peculiar Englishers who came out of the sea and left by the sea, causing no trouble but leaving lavish expressions of friends.h.i.+p in their wake. The arrogant Frenchman, on the other hand, was a very different kettle of fish. He had first appeared some weeks previously with a group of henchmen who had paraded around the village, clear intent in their eyes as they looked over the young girls. As a result, every girl over the age of ten had been sequestered behind cottage doors and the murmurs of resentful hostility had spread.

Only the sour-faced miserly sonless widower Betrand Ville had listened to the Parisian, bloodshot eyes gleaming at the prospect of money that did not have to be torn from the seabed or wrenched from an unkind soil. He had three daughters, mewling whining useless creatures who had not the strength to fight the ocean with him, although they had learned to till and to sow the land, and they kept his house in the expected order; that they did so in constant fear of the studded belt he wore around his waist seemed only right and proper to Betrand.

He had offered the comte both the use of a small cottage on the outskirts of his land and his youngest daughter, fourteen years old and thoroughly obedient. St. Estephe had been well pleased, and the negotiation had been accomplished in great amicability. But Betrand was less than amicable when accosted by four hors.e.m.e.n as he stood at the backyard pump swilling the dirt of the fields from his face and neck.

Jules and his fellows were not prepared to be put off by the rough curses and the threats to set the dog on them. They had been sent in this direction by reliable sources and nothing they had seen so far of this wretched farm gave the lie to their informants. Betrand Ville, under the astonished eyes of his two daughters, was held under the icy stream of the pump water until, gasping and s.h.i.+vering, he told what he knew.

"Danny has a name for that breed," Westmore remarked as they set off at a gallop across the fields. "Can't for the life of me remember what it was, though."

"Canaille,'' Philip reminded him. "Not good to use in Polite Circles, y'know."

"No, no, to be sure," Westmore agreed. "Wouldn't dream of it me self."

"Danny would," Tony stated. "Never one to mince her words."

They rode on in silence until the landmarks Bet rand had been forced to produce came into view. "We go on foot from here." Julian broke the silence with quiet authority. "Counting St. Estephe, there are eleven of them, armed 'with muskets, and the girl. We can't discount her, not if she's anything like her father."

They tethered the horses a half mile from the cottage and crept as close as they dared. "We wait and watch," Jules said and they did so for long hours. The comte's men appeared to be housed in a long barn set at right angles to the cottage. Every four hours two of them went into the cottage and two others reappeared. A girlish figure in a shabby worsted gown and kerchief darted across the yard every so often to draw water from the well and to bring food to the barn. Ribald shouts greeted her when she did so and once or twice she was grabbed and mauled, her piteous pleas producing great gouts of laughter from the men. But they always let her go, unharmed, and the reason for this restraint became clear when St. Estephe appeared in the yard, eyebrows meeting as he paced back and forth, snarled at the girl who dodged instinctively as if in expectation of a blow, and spoke in a low voice to the men who slunk back to the barn.

The comte was becoming impatient. That stubborn little fool was still giving hardly an inch and she was too perfect, too well honed for the crudity of plain violence to give him any satisfaction. He wanted her on her knees, unmarked. But naked, bound, alone in complete darkness, pushed to the limits her muscles could hold tenure, still she would not yield. The information about her husband's death had driven him into an icy rage of frustration but did nothing to change his plans for Danielle, who was now a total obsession with him.

He gave a sharp order and his horse was brought from the stable. Riding the cliffs, St. Estephe decided, would clear his head of the anger that smudged the edges of his clear thinking. He took two of the ten with him as protection-these Bretons could not be trusted any further than one could throw them- and rode out of the yard, leaving eight men and Jeanette to guard the prisoner.

"It has to be now," Jules murmured. "Four to eight are the best odds we will ever get. Six out here and two in the house.

"I used to think as a child that it would be monstrous amusing to set a light to a haystack," Tony reflected. "Not to endanger the horses, you understand, but just to see it burn. November 5th par excellence." He chuckled and waited for the idea to take root.

"Remember remember the 5th of November, Gun powder treason and plot."

The old nursery rhyme rose easily to their lips. November 5th, guyfawkes day was a day of pure joy for the English child who gathered sticks for the bonfire weeks ahead and made effigies of the man who had attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The guy was set atop the bonfire and burned amidst the gleeful shrieks of adults and the cascading crescendo of fireworks.

"You have the right idea, Tony." Jules chuckled. "We set fire to the haystack and see how many roaches crawl out from the woodwork .. ." And then he froze. The girl appeared in a doorway, cast a scared glance toward the barn, and was off and running-across the yard to disappear behind a low wall. Philip went after her without further consultation, keeping his head low as he skirted the wall and then saw her running toward a small copse of stunted trees.

Jeanette heard the footsteps pounding at her back and ran like a small animal until a strangely accented voice said in her own language, "Stop, I mean you no harm. I wish to talk of the lady."

She stopped, panting for breath, and Tony came toward her, hands held open in friends.h.i.+p.

"What of the lady?"

Tony examined the white face, the wide candid blue eyes, the heaving bosom, and he gambled. "We wish to help her. Will you help us while the comte is absent?"

"They will kill me," the girl whimpered, her hands knotted in anguish.

"No, because we shall take you with us." Tony was playing his cards with a cool desperation he had never needed in White's. There, if he made the wrong discard, he paid only with money. Here, in this scrubby copse on the north coast of Brittany in revolution-torn France, Danny's safety hung on his skill.

"Out of France?" Jeanette's eyes widened at the terrifying scope of such an idea.

"Yes, out of France. Have no fear, little one, you will be well looked after." He held out his hand.

Jeanette had known no gentleness in her fourteen years. Her mother had died before she was three and her older sisters had had their own battles to fight. She had scrambled to maturity amidst curses and the thwack of a belt, had learned that the latter at least came less often if she kept a still tongue in her head and obeyed without question, but always she had believed, as a fierce talisman, that there was a world outside this mean grubbing for survival and the brutality that informed her environment. And here was someone, with a soft smile and a promise on his lips, someone who looked and spoke like that poor woman bound to the bed in the dark chamber; a woman who had never given Jeanette anything but smiles and instant comprehension of the girl's dilemma.

"What do you wish of me?"

"Information only. You can tell us how to effect entrance to the cottage where the lady is held and we will decide what to do." Tony took her hand.'"Come, you have little to lose and much to gain."

Jeanette went then willingly enough and answered the rapid questions. Milady was held in a chamber at the front of the house. There were two guards always at the door. She had not yet been harmed but she was weak because she had taken no food since her captivity and was bound in such a manner as to restrict all movement.... Her description of Danielle's captivity was accurate and matter-of-fact and the four men contained their fury and made their plans.

Jeanette gave them a detailed account of the layout of the cottage and the routine of the guards.

"Very well," said Jules when she had finished. "We can a.s.sume we have little time before the comte returns. You will set fire to the haystack and take the six guards. I will deal with the two on duty."

"Milord," Jeanette whispered. "I can perhaps help. I may distract the guards at the door . . . they have shown a certain interest . . ."

"Are you willing to do that, child?" Jules asked quietly.

"Mais oui, milord. You will be there also."

Julian nodded. 'Three to six, my friends. You can manage?"

"Without doubt and with much pleasure," Westmore said. "I will fire the stack now and you and Jeanette will make your way into the house under the cover of the smoke."

Danielle, stretched supine on the bed, heard the clamor as a confused tumult of shouts and curses. Smoke filled the yard and the six guards hurtled from the barn to meet no mercy from the outnumbered three who could afford to take no chances.

The guards outside her prison, a few minutes before the tumult broke out below, found the little maid, soft and inviting, curling herself around them. The comte was away; why not take advantage of what was offered? And she was a taking little thing with those nubile curves that she knew so well how to flaunt. As they pawed and patted and Jeanette offered her body with t.i.tillating little murmurs, Julian moved. He had only one knife and used it carefully but without compunction-no time for delicacy when Danny lay

beyond the locked door. The guards fell at his feet and Jeanette had the key almost before Jules could draw breath.

"What the devil . . .?" The figure on the bed writhed against her bonds, the voice amazingly strong.

"C'est toi, Jules?"

"Oui, c'est' moi." He tossed his cloak over her hastily, before unfastening the straps at wrists and ankles.

"Keep still now and for once just do as you are bid." It was a strange thing to say in the circ.u.mstances but in his anxiety he could not have cared.

"I am incapable of doing otherwise." She laughed weakly. "But please . . . my eyes!"

"d.a.m.n!" Jules untied the blindfold. "We have little time, Danny. I must carry you."

"D'accord, mon ami. But Jeanette, we cannot leave her here."

"Je suis id, milady," the girl said. "I have a change of clothes, if you will do me the honor. They may

be a little large but the winds blow strong."

"Va, vite." Danielle swayed on her feet, smiling at the girl as she clung to Julian.

Julian turned his back as she scrambled into Jeanette's best petticoats and gown, and then he picked her

up and ran down the stairs to where the others waited impatiently, horses stamping, nostrils flared at the