The Duke Is Mine

Quin’s heart was beating in his throat so violently that he could hardly form words. He dispatched them back to the schooner, with instructions to send Grooper back with the rowboat to wait at the top of the inlet.

He paused to get his bearings and to work out the exact location of the French garrison in relation to the hut. He started off at a steady jog, Lucy trotting at his side. Either the French soldiers had captured Olivia, or he would force them to assist in locating her.

As he ran steadily up the bank and then through a scrub forest, he turned over the various possibilities in his mind. Yes, England was at war with France, but that meant different things to different people—and he wasn’t entirely convinced that a provincial garrison would feel much desire to capture an English lady.

Though the odds of one English duke’s subduing an entire garrison of French soldiers, bristling with everything from pistols to bayonets, were not good. It wouldn’t be helpful to Olivia if he ended up skewered on a bayonet in a valiant but failed rescue attempt.

Just then a hare bounded across his way, and he heard a surprisingly deep bark in response. He looked down to find Lucy still running along beside him, as fast as her stubby little legs would carry her.

Quin paused just long enough to scoop up the dog and took off again. By his reckoning, he should be very close. Indeed, a moment later the scrub gave out at the edge of a raked-gravel yard, on the other side of which, behind walls, stood a brick structure.

The garrison did not give the impression that it was prepared for military action. The gravel had been raked with no regard to a few wildflowers sprouting up here and there, waving gently in the area that appeared to have been designated for formation drills. A sentry sat at the front gate, fast asleep. Quin walked straight past him through the courtyard and ran up the steps to the main entrance, Lucy under his arm.

Inside, he put Lucy down and poked his head into a dusty receiving room, an unused office, and a long mess hall. Toward the back he found a room that showed signs of heavy use. Open crates holding rifles lined the room, suggesting it was an armory, but he’d guess that the worn billiards table in the center received the most attention.

He headed up the staircase without meeting a soul, the click of Lucy’s toenails only making the silence feel more profound. The first bedchamber he looked into, however, was occupied. For a moment Quin stood in the doorway, assessing the situation. A large and rather malodorous man was snoring loudly, facedown on a bed whose sheets had seen better days. A table at the far wall of the room glittered with a row of brandy bottles, the same sort he’d given Rupert in the schooner. Thrown on the chair was a stained captain’s coat.

A small pistol lay on a side table; he removed its bullet and tossed the bag of powder out the open window. Then he put it back where he’d found it, caught up the back of the captain’s shirt, and shook him.

The man snorted and rolled on his back. Quin recoiled as a breathful of rancid brandy reached him.

Half a minute later the captain was awake and the bed was sopping wet; Quin had been forced to empty a water pitcher over his head, and it was only the threat of the chamber pot that actually got the man on his feet.

“Who the devil are you?” he said, his face pale gray in the sunlight, his eyes red-rimmed and dull. He reached out, steadied himself against the wall.

Quin pointed one of his pistols at the man’s head. “I have come for my fiancée. She’s English and was abducted on the shore near here a few hours ago.”

Ignoring the pistol altogether, the captain sat down, shuddering like an ear of corn in the wind. “No Englishwoman would be here. We’re at war with you, if you didn’t notice.”

“Did your men capture her?”

“I doubt it. Most of them are too young to find their own winkles without a map. I need sleep. Get yourself the devil out of here, will you?” He sank back down onto the soggy bed and closed his eyes.

Quin looked around and saw a half-drunk bottle of brandy. He upended this too over the captain’s head, who lurched upright, his face contorted. “What the devil?” he croaked. “You’re a madman.”

“Find my fiancée,” Quin said, keeping his voice even. He raised the pistol and shot the first of the brandy bottles lined up on the far table, causing Lucy to flinch and then bark. Glass shards and brandy rained down onto the floor, and its heady aroma filled the room.

“Stop!” the captain screamed. “You’re insane. All you English are mad as spring hares.”

Quin switched pistols and shot the second bottle. “I’m the madman who will have you arrested as a smuggler if you do not send your regiment out to find my fiancée. I don’t care how young your men are. You will find her or I’ll destroy every bottle in the place, and I’ll make sure your cozy smuggling operation dries up as well.”

“And how would you do that, being a benighted Englishman?” But the captain was just blustering. He was a weak and feckless type, who would always choose the path of least resistance. Sure enough, he hauled on a bell cord.

A minute or so later a very young soldier poked his head in the room, wrinkling his nose at the odor. “Oui, mon capitaine?”

“Is the regiment out on patrol?”

“No, sir. Everyone is still resting.”

Quin finished reloading and shot a third bottle.

“Get them up and send them down to the shore!” the captain screamed, to the sound of glass tinkling to the floor. “Find this man’s woman. Une anglaise. Mon dieu, my head is killing me.” He fell back onto his bed.

The young soldier saluted his moribund captain and then looked to Quin. “We’re about to patrol the shore in search of smugglers, as we do every morning and afternoon,” he said, without betraying by the blink of an eyelash the fact that they were standing in a smugglers’ haven. “We will look for your wife, sir.”

“Good,” Quin said, biting the word off. He was aware that he was in a state of barely modulated panic. If these soldiers hadn’t captured Olivia—and obviously they hadn’t—then where in the bloody hell was she?

He started down the stairs. He would check every house in Wissant, and then return here to see if the patrol discovered anything.

The damnable thing was that he knew this particular sensation. It fell on his shoulders like a familiar but loathed garment. He had felt it when he realized that Evangeline had taken Alfie and headed for the Channel. He had tasted it, bitter on his tongue, as he galloped toward Dover, hoping to intercept them on the pier.

It had driven him half-mad once he was there, watching the water. And he felt it now. It wasn’t safe to love someone.

His mother was right about that.

But it was too late to avoid the condition.

Thirty

The Princess and the . . .

Bessette, followed by Petit, marched Olivia through a door and down a damp and chilly vaulted brick passage. It went on, wound to the left, its walls broken occasionally by solid doors with barred openings at shoulder level.

“What is this place?” Olivia asked.

“The catacombs,” the young soldier answered. “They built the armory on top of them, and decided to use the catacombs for the kitchen and cells. You’re at the far end. She’s given you the best cell—it’s got a hole in the corner.”