Lord of Fire Read online

“But, my good fellow, young ladies delight in dealing out such torture as this,” a deep, silken voice said suddenly from out of the darkness.

  Alice nearly shrieked with surprise and whipped her hand out of Roger’s light grasp as Lucien came sauntering out of the shadows in all his deadly elegance. His swagger was a touch unsteady as he took a swig from the bottle of burgundy in his grasp. His cravat was askew, his hair rumpled, and to her astonishment, he appeared quite drunk.

  “I beg your pardon, sir!” Roger said hotly, his smooth cheeks flushing. “I would like some privacy!”

  “I’m sure you would, but I have come as your guardian angel,” he said with a slight, tipsy bow.

  Alice narrowed her eyes and scowled at him for all she was worth, but her heart was pounding recklessly with the sheer thrill of his presence.

  “Are you quite sure you’re ready for marriage?” he asked Roger, turning on his dazzling charm. “And are you sure you really know her?”

  “You drunken lout!” Roger said, his embarrassed blush deepening by the second. “You’re the other Knight twin, aren’t you?”

  “Whatever gave it away?” Lucien asked with an insolent smile.

  “I don’t care who you are, if you do not hie yourself off this instant, I shall call you out!”

  “Roger, you will do no such thing,” Alice cried, aghast.

  “Do you doubt my skill?” Roger asked her indignantly.

  “Of course not. You—you cannot fight this man. He is obviously drunk. It would not be honorable.”

  “And ladies so like honorable men,” Lucien drawled.

  Roger huffed and grasped her arm. “Come inside, my dear. This cretin has no proper feeling for the tenderness of young ladies’ sensibilities.”

  “Yes, run along, Miss Montague. If you plan on marrying him, you’d best get used to doing as he says,” Lucien advised bitterly, his silvery eyes raking her with angry scorn mingled with desire.

  “How dare you address her?” Roger barked, releasing her. He stepped in front of her and faced Lucien, who suddenly grabbed him by his lapels and yanked him off his feet.

  “You little prick, I’ve half a mind to throw you through that window,” Lucien snarled, casting aside his urbane facade.

  “Lucien, no!” Alice cried.

  He instantly released Roger, who in turn gave Alice a stunned look. “You know this man?”

  It was a moment of truth.

  She stared at Roger, unable to speak. What he read in her eyes in that moment, she would never know, but he shook his head in shocked anger, pivoted, and slammed the door behind him as he stalked back inside. She flinched at the bang, then turned to Lucien.

  “You villain,” she spat. “Snake! What are you doing, spying on me now?”

  “Oh, did I interrupt your new romance, Alice? I’m terribly sorry! How would you have answered if I hadn’t interfered? Would you have said yes to his proposal?” he demanded in fury, his aura of drunkenness vanishing at once—another ruse.

  She shook her head at him in contempt. “It’s none of your affair.”

  “The hell it is. You’re mine. I’m warning you, if you think to marry someone else behind my back, you sign that man’s death warrant.”

  She thrilled to the ferocious possessiveness he displayed, but hid her hungry reaction. “More bloodshed, Lucien? Is that your answer for everything?”

  “What are you doing in London? I told you not to come here! Where the hell is McLeish?”

  “I don’t know where he is, nor do I care. As for what I’m doing, obviously, I am getting on with my life—without you.” She shoved away from the balustrade and marched back toward the French doors, but his hand clamped around her arm, yanking her back to him.

  “Get your hands off me!”

  He pulled her hard against his chest and claimed her mouth in a punishing kiss of scorching want. Her body cared naught for her anger, responding to him with a will of its own, but she fought his black magic, refusing to succumb to his power.

  “You still want me,” he whispered. “I can feel it.”

  She pulled back violently in his embrace, planting her hands on his chest to hold him back. “How dare you kiss me?” she hissed, her bosom rising and falling rapidly.

  “Maybe you’d rather if Damien did,” he snarled. “Are you going to throw yourself at every man you see tonight, or only the ones in my family? Why stop at my brothers? There’s always Damien’s regiment.”

  With a cry of rage, she slapped him hard across the face before she could even think.

  The low, angry laugh that came bubbling out of him was an animal sound of pain. “Is that all you’ve got? Hit me again, Alice. Harder.”

  Her blazing eyes filled with tears at the hurt they both had suffered.

  Lucien took in the sight of her tears for a second, then stepped back and with a wild growl, hurled his half-full wine bottle across the broad veranda, shattering it on the stone balustrade, just like he had shattered her heart. The red wine stained the gray stone as it spread and dripped like blood. He turned back to her, his silver eyes glittering with fury and pain.

  “Do you think I want it this way?” he whispered harshly. “Do you think I don’t dream of you every damned night?”

  Then why didn’t you choose me? she almost cried out, her heart twisting in her breast, but she bit the words back out of pride and simply glared at him.

  “Leave London,” he ordered, visibly steeling himself. His eyes glittered, and his angular face was taut.

  “I don’t have to listen to you. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist.”

  “Hate me if you wish, but don’t be a fool. It is too dangerous for you to be here.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’re an expert in lies. Maybe you just don’t want me getting in the way when you choose your next victim to seduce and abandon.”

  She saw her cold words strike their mark as he flinched and looked away, then lowered his head and was silent for a long moment.

  “I want you out of here," he said gruffly.

  “My Lord, I don’t give a damn what you want.” Pivoting away from him, she stalked toward the French doors, burning too hotly with anger to feel the cold night’s chill.

  “At least—at least swear to me that you’ll stay home tomorrow on Guy Fawkes Night. Alice, I am begging you. That man I told you about—we expect him to make his move tomorrow night. I don’t know where. It could be anywhere.”

  At the weary note of defeat in his voice, she paused and glanced back at him warily. There was a haunted look in his eyes.

  “Will you promise me?”

  “All right. But there’s something I want to know. Whom besides Damien have you told about us?”

  “I didn’t tell Damien. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  She closed her eyes in vexation. “Yes, you did, Lucien. Just tell me the truth, please, so that I don’t have to walk onto any more buried mines.”

  “I didn’t tell anyone,” he repeated sharply. “Are you saying he knows?”

  “Why else would he seek me out?”

  “Because you are the most beautiful woman in the room. By far.”

  She rolled her eyes and started to open the door.

  “Alice.”

  She shot him a questioning glance over her shoulder, wariness in her eyes. His hands were in the pockets of his black trousers. Moonlight gleamed on his white cravat and along the broad lines of his shoulders, while the night breeze stirred the tousled, wavy locks of his hair. The emotion in his eyes was veiled beneath the sweep of his lashes.

  “By far,” he repeated wistfully. “I’ll get you back, you know.”

  She stared at him, feeling a lump rise in her throat.

  A few soft words, his melting stare, and she was powerless. Even now, she had to hold herself back from running to him and throwing her arms around him. Even after he had seduced her and cast her aside, she had to fight against his magnetic pull upon her soul with all her strength. No. By God
, she would never be his plaything again. She steeled herself against his haunted stare.

  “Stay out of my life,” she ordered, opening the door with shaking hands. She hurried back across the ballroom to Caro’s side. The baroness was holding court amid her usual band of depraved-looking scoundrels.

  “I want to leave,” Alice said tersely in her ear. “This is excruciating.”

  “Oh, all right,” Caro answered after a moment’s deliberation, fluttering her fan. “Von Dannecker is coming over tonight. I suppose I could use a little time to freshen up before he comes.”

  “Tonight? It’s already half past eleven.”

  “Yes.” Caro slipped her a wicked glance behind her fan. “Don’t pay him any mind when you hear him leaving in the morning.”

  “But you can’t have him stay the night with Harry at home, under your roof—”

  The baroness rolled her eyes and shrugged off Alice’s protest, rising with a lavish smile to say good-bye to her dissolute admirers.

  Claude Bardou knew that Lucien Knight had returned to London a few days ago and was tearing the city apart trying to find him. He thought it amusing. He felt very much in control of the game and was enjoying the thrill of his duel of nerves with his old foe. The one thing that worried him was that there was still no sign of Sophia. He had been sure tonight would be the night she would return. He had waited since suppertime in his hotel room, pacing and jittery, smoking a cigar out on the balcony as he searched for her face in the river of people flowing by ceaselessly on Piccadilly. Though he needed her to reappear in order to escape England with him after the deed was done tomorrow night, he refused to worry and focused his mind instead on the last remaining details of his plan. The time was so close.

  He had rented a little cottage fifteen miles east of the city. He was taking Caro there in the morning; she would be the bait to lure Lucien Knight away from the city. Meanwhile Bardou would launch his attack. He calculated it would take only about fifteen minutes to carry out the destruction he had in store for London. With church bells thundering and celebratory cannons being fired throughout the city for the annual festival, the drunken, rowdy mob enjoying their stupid English holiday would scarcely realize there was molten fire raining down on them from the sky until it was too late.

  Bardou’s eyes danced when he imagined the riots there would be in the streets tomorrow night as the stampedes of terrified people fought to flee to safety. There would be no safety for them. His cannon had a range of a thousand yards, and his hardened, veteran gun crew could fire two round-shot a minute. Hot shot was a siege weapon. When one of the furnace-heated cannonballs slammed home, anything wooden that it touched would burst into flames. If it lodged in an enemy’s fortress wall, it would smolder for many hours, too hot to be quenched by water. He had seen hot shot doused with water only to burst into flames again minutes after it had been submerged. He mused over his targets. . . . Parliament, of course. The Admiralty, where the war offices were housed. The Bank and the Exchange. The East and West India Docks, whose ships brought the English such a lion’s share of their riches. St. James’s Palace. Carlton House. . . . So many choices.

  When all two dozen of their balls had been fired, as well as a few canisters of shrapnel for good measure, he and his men would flee in separate directions. With London in flames, Bardou would race back out to the cottage for his rendezvous with Knight and finally, at long last, finish the bastard off. He would send a note to Lucien at Knight House advising him when and where to meet him if he wanted to rescue Caro.

  Once Knight was dead, it was merely a matter of getting back on the boat and sailing away with his Irish colleagues, who hated England as much as he did. That was why he had to reunite with Sophia now. Tomorrow night, he would have to flee England. If she did not come back soon, they would be separated once more. She should have finished by now. By the time the light died and night descended and still Sophia did not appear, Bardou could no longer escape the sickening certainty that something had happened to her.

  He had an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had unwittingly sent her to her death. Rollo Greene could not have killed an assassin of Sophia’s expertise, but Lucien Knight could. According to the last message she had sent Bardou, she had been tracking the American to Lucien Knight’s country house. What if Knight had captured her? Destroyed her? What if Knight had won her over to his side? The thought made his blood run cold. By God, she’d better hope she was dead, for if she had betrayed him, he would kill her himself. He felt his taut self-control dissolving at this possibility.

  Damn Knight! He couldn’t stand it anymore—this hiding, this stealth! He stalked back in from the balcony and looked around at his hotel room, wild-eyed, his chest heaving, his control hanging by a thread. He was sick of waiting for the right moment, being patient.

  All this time, he had been expecting Sophia’s imminent return, but Lucien Knight had known she was not coming back. Either he had destroyed her or stolen her. It did not matter so much to Bardou which it was; what mattered was that, once more, Lucien Knight had bested him. He was probably laughing at him. Bastard! Something inside of him snapped. With a hellish oath, Bardou picked up the delicate console table by the graceful French balcony doors and smashed it against the wall in rage. To hell with biding his time! Hiding from Lucien Knight was unspeakably degrading. He could not bear it a moment longer. He knew where Knight lived. That arrogant aristo son of a bitch did not deserve to live another day. You thought I gave you pain before. You don’t know yet what pain is, my friend.

  He dropped to his knees and reached under his hotel bed, dragging out his leather rifle case. He checked his ammunition and slammed out of his hotel room, his short, blond hair tousled, his clothes askew. Careless, reckless, he stalked across the elegant lobby of the hotel, making no attempt to keep up his charade as von Dannecker. The discreet rifle case hung from his grasp like an odd-shaped portmanteau. A few minutes later, he went tearing out of the hotel livery stable in Stafford’s carriage, leaving the groom behind and handling the reins himself.

  The drive was not long. Bardou had learned that the ducal family’s chief residence in Town was the imposing Palladian mansion on Green Park, Knight House. Behind a high, black, wrought-iron fence with wicked spikes atop it, the lawn was neat and green. Bardou noticed half a dozen guard dogs trotting around the premises as he drove by slowly. The mansion’s towering white facade rose in haughty austerity, gleaming in the moonlight. Passing the property, Bardou slapped the reins over the horses’ rumps and drove around the block into Green Park.

  The park was deserted, so he drove right up onto the grass, pulling the carriage into the cover of a coppice of small trees. The chilly wind whispered through the bedraggled autumn branches, but Bardou’s eyes glittered with anticipation as his scanning stare homed in on the veranda on the back of the house.

  Lucien Knight was sitting there smoking a cigar, all at his leisure, his booted heels propped up on the stone balustrade. Hatred pulsed through Bardou at the sight of his enemy. The single lantern by the door provided all the illumination he needed for a clear shot. At approximately 150 yards, he was well within firing range, but far enough away that the dogs did not pick up his scent and sound the alarm at his presence. He walked away from the carriage, crouched down behind the trunk of a large tree, and opened the case. Working in quick, efficient silence, he assembled his Jäger rifle, glancing up repeatedly to make sure that Knight did not go inside. The long silver bayonet gleamed where it lay in the open case, but Bardou did not need it. He dropped the prepared cartridge into the muzzle and rammed it down in simmering violence. Then he crept down onto his belly, braced his elbows on the cold ground, and took aim. Enjoy your cigar, mon ami. It will be your last.

  His heart pounded with anticipation. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His finger curled over the trigger.

  All of a sudden, the veranda door flew open and the other Knight twin came out with a drink in hand. Bardou furrowed his
brow.

  He stared at one, then the other, unable to tell them apart. They were dressed the same, both rid of their coats and cravats at the end of the night, their waistcoats unbuttoned, white shirtsleeves rolled up. Whichever one of them was the colonel, he was not wearing his scarlet uniform jacket.

  Which damned one of them was Lucien? he thought furiously. To be sure, he would have been almost as happy to kill the war hero, but there was one problem. Though he knew he could hit one of the brothers, he had no doubt that the second he fired, the other one would be over that fence and after him with all those dogs in the blink of an eye. It would jeopardize the beautiful mission he had so carefully planned.

  He filled his lungs with a deep breath of the cold night air, then mentally cursed as he lowered his head. This was too easy a death for that English bastard anyway, he thought, rubbing his forehead in agitation. He wanted Knight alive so that the man could see the devastation of London after Guy Fawkes Night, see what he had failed to avert. Then Knight would know that even if Napoleon’s armies had lost the war, Bardou had won the private battle between the two of them.

  The chill in the air brought him back to his senses until he had his emotions tightly under control once more.

  He was no amateur. He would follow his plan and not risk making a mistake out of hot-tempered impulse. When he had Lucien Knight in his power, he would find out exactly what the man had done to Sophia and punish him for it.

  He made a mental note to save one of his cannonballs to obliterate Knight House and everyone in it, then pushed up silently from the ground, picked up his weapon’s leather case, and returned to the carriage, his rifle propped on his shoulder.

  Lucien was on the verge of giving up. He did not know where else to look or what more to try. Failing all else, his main concern had been addressed—Alice had agreed to stay at home on Guy Fawkes Night. The stubborn chit should have stayed safely tucked away at Hawkscliffe Hall or at least in Hampshire, but she refused to leave London and when it came down to it, he had no real authority over her.

  Standing at the balustrade with the night wind rippling through his hair, Lucien gazed out at the night-clad grounds of Green Park. He thought he detected a distant flicker of movement in the shadows, but he shrugged it off, too obsessed with his thoughts of Alice to pay much attention. He took a drink of his brandy, then glanced over his shoulder at Damien, who slid him a wary look in return, sitting there idly smoking his cigar.