Page 19 of Duke of Disguise (Ladies of Worth #4)

Over the following week Avers had to resist the temptation to send a message to Mademoiselle Cadeaux to ask after her welfare. Not trusting the servants of Mademoiselle Cadeaux’s household, as they were likely in the Comte’s pay, he had no way of getting a note to her without fear of interception.

In lieu of direct contact, he visited both the Champs-élysées and the Jardin des Tuileries every day in the hopes he would find her there walking Lutin. He did not.

On Friday afternoon, Avers bade his valet pack a small trunk, and set off for Dartois’ hunting lodge. He was fortunate that the Tremaines kept a stable in Paris in spite of the irregularity of their visits, so Avers was conveyed beyond the bounds of the city in a crested chaise and four, two pairs of smart, matching greys carrying him forward.

The first leg of the journey was easy enough. The roads were fair and the weather on their side. That was until they reached Chaville. At that point, a storm that had been threatening finally broke, and the less well-travelled roads became a quagmire. The pace was reduced to a crawl in order to prevent laming the horses, and Avers could not see more than ten yards away from the carriage window, thanks to the torrential rain.

After a time, they passed Versailles and beyond this point the traffic lessened considerably and the roads worsened at an equal pace. Three miles further along the road, they entered a settlement of less than ten houses.

Avers felt the coach come to a halt and the vehicle creak sideways as the driver climbed down off his box. Were they here? He could see no grand house, just a few cottages and a run-down inn.

When the driver knocked on the window, Avers dropped it down, the rain lashing inside before the coachman filled the gap.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace, but the horses may lame if we keep going in this weather. Begging your pardon, but I would as lief wait out the rain for half an hour in the hopes the ground will soak it up, rather than risk getting stuck on the open road. There’s a coaching inn just here we can stop at.” The coachman gestured to the questionable looking establishment.

Avers had no idea where they were. Neither did he like the idea of frequenting that inn. But there was sense in what his driver was saying and the sight of the sodden man helped make his decision.

“Very well, Hendricks—until the rain eases. But if it doesn’t let up in half an hour, we’ll have to try the rest of the journey at a crawl.” As soon as he saw the coachman nod, he threw the window back up to keep out the rain.

Hendricks was quick about climbing back onboard and in the next five minutes the carriage was pulling off the road into the swampy courtyard of the coaching inn.

It took Avers less than a minute after descending from the carriage to realise his decision to shelter in this place had been a mistake. The building before him was dreadfully run down, its roof patched, and cracked plaster across its facade no doubt letting in the rain. It was doubtful this was a hostelry well-frequented by Avers’ class. The lack of other carriages and horses in the courtyard gave it an unnerving feeling and he wondered whether this establishment made its money from catering to travellers or less legal means.

“Hendricks, come here if you please,” Avers commanded.

A youth, no doubt the landlord’s son, appeared from the stables and came to the horses’ heads. Despite this, Hendricks hesitated. He looked at the horses, the boy, and then back at his master.

There might at least be a stable boy to tend the horses, but Avers could not ignore his gut. There were plenty of inns in England who made their living from thieving off unwitting travellers.

The coachman came reluctantly over to where Avers stood. “Yes, Your Grace?”

“I’ve changed my mind. I think we should carry on, even if it’s slowly.”

“But Your Grace—” Hendricks looked back at the boy who was staring at them. Then at the inn, then back at his master.

Avers was just about to give the man a tremendous scolding for failing to obey his orders when the heavens re-opened. Rain came down in heavy sheets, lashing across the courtyard, forcing Avers to run to shelter by the wall of the inn beneath the overhanging roof.

“Very well!” Avers shouted across the downpour. “Stable the horses and then come dry yourself off by the fire.”

If this place had a fire.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Hendricks said immediately, running off to tend the horses.

Following the wall to keep out of the worst of the rain Avers headed for the inn’s door. On trying it, he found it locked. Not a good sign. He rapped on the wood.

A middle-aged man, presumably the landlord, finally opened it to a rather vexed Avers.

“Good day to you,” said Avers in passable French. “A room, if you please, in which I might partake of a modest repast?”

Droplets dripped from the brim of his hat and despite wearing his roquelaure with its high collar up around his face, he felt moisture over his cheeks.

The landlord did not immediately greet him. Instead, the beady eyed individual peered around Avers at the coach in the courtyard. There was the flicker of a smile across his face and then he focused back on Avers and bobbed his head.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

That was an exceptionally good guess at Avers’ title from a brief glance at the crest on the Tremaine carriage.

“But there is no cook on the premises.”

Of course there wasn’t. Avers’ stomach rumbled.

Behind him, the sound of the carriage wheels turning on the wet cobbles indicated that the stable boy was helping the coachman to unhitch the horses.

“I have a room with a fire lit that you may have,” said the man, head nodding vigorously. “You must come in and dry yourself.”

That was more welcoming than Avers had so far experienced.

“And some drink you might rummage up?”

“Oh yes, yes, come in, come in.”

From no greeting to practically pushing him into the hostelry. This was an odd little man indeed. But by now the rain had seeped its way through the gaps in Avers’ clothing and that fire sounded very appealing.

They crossed a dimly lit and dirty floored passage into a taproom of sorts. A few men were dotted here and there. They glanced over at the newcomer and several whispered behind tankards to each other. What had he walked into? Avers thought of the blunderbuss beneath Hendricks’ seat on the carriage and wished he had it about his person right now.

At least the landlord had understood his request for a private room. He took Avers through this public space into another passageway and finally through a creaking door into a tiny, rudely furnished boxroom with a small dusty window set high in the wall.

“A candle perhaps?” Avers requested. “And what drink you have.”

“Oui.” The landlord bowed away, leaving Avers to take a seat on an uneven chair as the latch of the door fell into place with a resounding clunk.

It did not fill Avers with confidence. He was hard pressed not to imagine he’d just been locked in and was immensely relieved when the landlord returned with his requested candle and drink.

He was once again shut into the room, but this time felt less like the prisoner he had before. Passing an uncomfortable half-hour in what Avers was fairly sure was a storeroom and not a private parlour, he tried his best to drink the acidic ale he’d been served. He stomached it for the sake of his parched throat and was thankful that at the very least he’d determined their location from the landlord—a small hamlet called Buc.

When the coachman finally knocked on the door to tell him the rain had lifted, Avers was the most thankful man in all of France.

Hendricks went on ahead while Avers settled his bill. Leaving a third of his drink untouched, he paid what he was sure was an inflated sum to the innkeeper, and donned his cloak with gusto. Leaving the questionable establishment in his wake, Avers entered the courtyard once again, expecting to see Hendricks and the coach waiting.

He saw neither.

Looking right towards the yard entrance did not reveal the Tremaine vehicle or the smart greys waiting on the road. Just as he was about to turn back into the inn, the door slammed in his face. He tried the handle. Locked.

An involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

Releasing the door, all his misgivings coming to the fore of his mind, he slowly turned to face the deserted stableyard again. An unnatural silence greeted him.

Rain dripped from a broken gutter into a pile of sodden hay, the sound oddly muffled, but aside from that nothing stirred. The lack of human presence in a place which should have been bustling with activity fed the uneasy feeling in Avers’ gut.

He considered calling out for Hendricks, but thought better of it, checked by the feeling in his stomach. Instead, he headed to the stables to discover what had become of the missing greys, carriage and driver.

The cobbles and muck beneath his boots clicked and squelched alternately. The pattering from the gutter into the hay slowed. The abnormal quiet continued.

Arriving at the entrance to what passed as a stable he peered down the long passage formed by the lean-to tacked onto the side of the ramshackle inn. No natural light penetrated the interior passage which Avers assumed was home to several looseboxes for the horses that were regularly stabled at the inn. Thanks to the heavy rain clouds, the lack of any artificial light, and that dusk was now falling, Avers could make little out in the darkness.

He was debating whether to venture into the gloom in search of Hendricks or a sign of the horses when someone grabbed him roughly from behind.

Avers was thrust forward into the darkness, forcing him to stumble and flail to catch his balance. Just as he saved himself, a second set of hands reached out from the darkness to Avers’ left and pushed him into an empty loosebox. He was sent careening downwards, mercifully onto a freshly made bed of straw. Scrambling, Avers turned to face whoever was attacking him, his mind struggling to catch up with the sudden turn of events.

“Tell us what you know of the Comte de Vergelles,” a voice hissed through the darkness at the same moment a flint was struck and an oil lamp blazed into light.

The glow revealed three men, heavily garbed in greatcoats, faces half-obscured by mufflers. Each looked at Avers with the eagerness of a pack of hounds staring at a cornered fox.

Avers played for time, gaining his bearings and surveying his captors as he brushed several strands of straw from his cloak, which had become horribly tangled up around him. “I shall do no such thing, after being manhandled by strangers.”

His apparent nonchalance seemed to wrong-foot the men. There was a moment of hesitation. Avers thanked God that while he might be seriously shaken, he had an uncanny ability to present a calm front.

“You will do as we say,” repeated the man who had spoken before, this time in English. His accent was rough and common.

“What are you about—manhandling me in such a way? It’s not the done thing, not at all.” Avers was trying to make out their features, but the one who held the lamp must have seen him squinting for he raised it higher, dazzling him.

“You will tell us what you know about the Comte de Vergelles and his dealings.”

“The Comte de what?” Avers now sat cross-legged like a naughty schoolboy looking up at them.

“Don’t play games.” The third man came forward and levelled a pistol at Avers’ forehead. “Tell us what you know.”

For a moment, Avers’ words failed him. His breath came quick and shallow. The barrel of the gun looked as dark and ominous as the passageway of the stable had done.

“About this Comte fellow?”

Who were these men? And how on earth was Avers going to get out of this mess? Whatever the Comte was involved in was not over as Wakeford’s superiors might hope. It was very much still happening and very much still dangerous.

“You’re trying my patience,” said the man with the gun, his accent definitely provincial. “I suggest you stop doing that. We know you have dealings with the Comte. You will answer our questions in the name of the King.”

That brought Avers up short. The King?

“You’re working for Louis?”

“Oui—we work for His Majesty against all enemies, including those from within. Tell us what you know.”

What on earth? Avers’ mind sped back and forth over the last few weeks trying to work out how the French government might be involved in the Comte’s spy ring. More importantly, why had they targeted the faux Duke of Tremaine? And how had they known he’d be here?

“A dead English Duke means nothing to us,” hissed the man with the gun, pressing its cold barrel against Avers’ forehead.

“Are you sure? I imagine it’d be the devil of a thing to explain away if my body should show up in a backwards inn at Buc.”

“Perhaps the silly English lord stopped at the inn and got set upon by ruffians.”

The coldness of that barrel against his head brought a great deal of perspective. Suddenly the melancholy he’d felt since Miss Curshaw had thrown him over seemed like a colossal waste of time. Not only that, but what of those he’d leave behind—his dear Cousin Sophy and Aunt Goring? What about Wakeford and his papers? What about… Mademoiselle Cadeaux?

Mademoiselle Cadeaux… It had only been her, the Comte’s circle and Wakeford who knew of his departure from Paris. And would French agents really be willing to kill an English Duke?

Avers had an idea. A wild one. What if this wasn’t the French government at all, but rather the Comte’s men? No. Surely not. And yet…

What had Avers got to lose by testing his theory? He already had a gun to his head.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do your worst—for I have no idea what it is you think I should know—but I do know that I don’t know it.”

The confusing sentence hung in the air. Two of the men exchanged glances, but the third, who held the gun, kept staring at Avers.

Then something unexpected happened. The man with the pistol began to… laugh. Avers blinked, thinking he misheard the sound from beneath the man’s muffler, but sure enough, the man was actually laughing. It started as a bark of laughter, rolling into a chuckle, and quickly deteriorating into something akin to a crazed cackle.

Avers watched the gun bobbing up and down in the man’s hand. He clutched at the straw beneath him, holding his breath, unblinking—as though each of those actions might have some control over staying the lead bullet from travelling down the barrel of the gun.

At any moment his unhinged captor might pull the trigger by accident.

“Well, well, well, Your Grace. Très bien. We never thought you would pass my test—the Comte was convinced you would fail—but here we are.” The provincial accent fell completely away and in its place the smooth and precise accent of the upper ranks.

Avers recognised that voice.

Realisation that he had been right brought with it not relief, but horror. The man with the gun pulled down his muffler to reveal a charming smile.

“Dartois!” Avers finally let out the breath he had been subconsciously holding.

The Marquis threw back his cloak, a suit of aquamarine shown in the lantern light, and swept a low bow before Avers. The pistol still dangled from one hand.

“Oui! It is I. And a fine joke I have made of this.” The Marquis waved the loaded gun around to take in the other two men and the dank domain of the stable. “Did you really think I might shoot you?”

“I hardly thought you’d hold me at gun point,” said Avers, the shock quickly giving away to abject fury, “so who’s to say?”

Dartois burst into laughter again. The sound still held that edginess which suggested someone not quite in control of their faculties.

“The courage in this one—” Dartois gestured towards Avers with his pistol as he looked around at his men. “Impressionnant, non?”

The fear for his life now in full retreat, Avers pressed his lips firmly together to prevent himself from saying something he’d later regret. He chose instead to focus on standing and brushing the straw from his person. That and smothering the desire to throttle Dartois.

He tugged his cuffs down one at a time before saying, “Pray tell me, what have you done with my poor coachman?”

“Ha!” Dartois exclaimed, his gleaming eyes quickly seeking out Avers’ own once again. “As cool as a winter lake.” The Marquis smiled, the lamplight catching his teeth and giving the impression he was bearing them at Avers. “You need not worry. Your little coachman has been paid handsomely for stopping here and has been enjoying the landlord’s ale while we’ve been having our little chat.”

“As long as he is rested—”

Dartois broke into a laugh, and it was just as well he did before Avers spoke his mind about the duplicitous Tremaine coachman. Hendricks had used the rain as a ruse to bring him here and known exactly what Avers was about to face. The Tremaine servants were proving overly susceptible to the Comte’s bribes.

“And this little play act—” Avers continued, now focusing on brushing the stable dust off his sleeves. “I presume it was to test my ability to keep a secret.”

“Oui. But don’t be angry, my English Duke,” Dartois said jovially. “We thought it the ideal place to have a private tête-à-tête.”

“Paid off the owner, did you?”

“A waste of money—no, Sebastien knocked him out cold and locked him up in the inn.”

Dartois had not put the pistol away. From the feverish excitement in the Marquis’ eyes, Avers had the uneasy feeling that—had he not passed the so-called test—he would have witnessed the weapon going off.

For the first time since this whole adventure began, Avers could no longer feel the ground. He was out of his depth. And that was not a pleasant feeling at all.

“Are we to stay here all night?” he asked, raising a single brow and doing his best to hide his anger.

“Non,” Dartois replied, looking even more amused. “That would never do. Let no one call me a poor host. Come, we can still make my hunting lodge by nightfall and my chef will have a feast ready for us when we arrive.”

Avers followed Dartois out of the stable, the other men coming behind like jailors, and the Marquis chattering all the way about what his chef would have prepared for dinner. A mere five minutes ago Dartois had held a loaded pistol at Avers’ head—now he discussed favourite jellies. It was enough to leave Avers questioning the Marquis’ sanity.

The entourage made its way out of the courtyard and around to the other side of the inn where the Tremaine coach was located. Hendricks would not look Avers in the eye when his master approached and the latter chose not to address his disloyalty in the present moment.

Installed back in the carriage, Hendricks atop, and the Marquis and his men in their own chaise, the party set forward together. Avers was thankful for the mercy of an empty carriage for the remainder of his journey. He needed the time to regain his composure and process the ordeal he had just been through.

He should perhaps have felt relieved at knowing he had passed the Comte’s test. Instead, as his mind ran over what had happened, a sense of foreboding grew within him. With every mile they gained, Avers felt closer and closer to being thrown into the lion’s den.

A den in which Mademoiselle Cadeaux already dwelt. Avers wondered what tests the Comte’s mistress might have been subjected to. More than that, he wondered exactly what Vergelles’ business dealings were that they required levelling a pistol to test loyalty. And at an English Duke no less. It took a brazen man to risk such a thing and Dartois had done it with a smile.

This dramatic episode in Buc did not bode well. No, it did not bode well at all.