Christian Seaton: Duke Of Danger

The Comte gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I thank you for your concern, of course. But I am sure your worries are unfounded and Madame Rousseau will have forgotten all about my flirtation with you by tomorrow.’

Lisette wished she could feel as confident of that. Unfortunately, she could not.

But she had done what she intended tonight, and if the Comte would not take her warning seriously, then there was nothing more she could do. ‘If I might prevail upon your generosity for the use of your carriage to take me back to the Fleur de Lis?’ She really could not bear the thought of travelling back by foot along the streets to the tavern.

‘But of course.’ The Comte gave a charming bow. ‘I will accompany you, of course—’

‘I would rather you did not.’ Lisette replaced and retied her bonnet before reaching for her cloak. ‘I will instruct your coachman to stop a street or two away from the tavern and make my own way back from there.’

Christian scowled his displeasure. ‘That is too dangerous—’

‘Nevertheless, it is what I shall do,’ she stated determinedly.

Not what she ‘intended’ to do, Christian noted with wry amusement, but what she would do. Lisette Duprée might be young in years, but she had a very determined and definite mind of her own.

No more so than he, admittedly, and if she thought he really intended to allow her to walk the Paris streets alone at this time of night, even for a short distance, then she was mistaken.

‘It is far too early for me to retire as yet,’ he informed her airily. ‘I can see you safely returned to the tavern on my way to other entertainments.’

Lisette looked up from refastening her cloak. ‘You are going out again...?’

‘But of course.’ The Comte waved a hand unconcernedly. ‘The gaming hells and...other clubs will only now be becoming interesting.’

Of course they would, Lisette acknowledged heavily. And no doubt the Comte would be luckier with the ladies in those clubs, as well as the cards, now that she had refused to entertain him for the rest of the night.

She had behaved the fool, she realised. A stupid, naive fool, to have believed for one moment that the Comte had any more than a passing interest in her—an interest that had obviously ‘passed’ now that she had made it clear she did not intend to spend the night here with him.

She raised her chin. ‘I am ready to leave now.’

Christian knew by the stiffness of Lisette’s demeanour that he had thoroughly succeeded in alienating her when he’d informed her that he intended to go out again. As had been his intention. His mission in Paris had been clear: to watch Helene Rousseau and make note of the comings and goings of the Fleur de Lis.

It had occurred to him earlier to use an interest in one of the tavern’s serving girls to enable him to observe Helene Rousseau and the movements of her co-conspirators. Unfortunately, his choice of Lisette as the focus for that interest seemed only to have antagonised the older woman, so bringing more attention to himself.

Helene Rousseau’s threats towards him, because of the interest he had shown in Lisette, now meant that his time in Paris was in all probability limited, if he did not want to end up dead in a filthy alley one night.

Chapter Four

‘Where have you been?’

Lisette, having just closed and locked the window behind her, after climbing back into the storeroom at the back of the tavern, now gave a gasp of shock as she turned to face her accuser.

Helene stood in the doorway in her night robe, her tall frame silhouetted by the candle left burning outside in the hallway, her hair loose about her shoulders, eyes glittering with her displeasure. ‘I asked where you have been,’ she repeated harshly.

Lisette swallowed, her lips having gone dry. ‘I could not sleep— I went— I thought to—’ She faltered as she realised that nothing she said was going to excuse the fact that she had obviously left the tavern sometime earlier tonight and was now sneaking back in again. Or change the fact that Helene had somehow discovered her disappearance. ‘I went for a walk.’ Her chin rose in challenge.

Helene reached for the candle in the hallway, bringing the light into the room to illuminate the stored barrels and sacks, as well as a defiant and no doubt dishevelled Lisette; how could she be any other when she had been climbing in and out of a window?

‘You went to Saint-Cloud.’ Helene’s nostrils flared with distaste. ‘Do not attempt to deny it; I saw you arrive back just now in his carriage.’

Lisette’s heart sank. She had told Monsieur le Comte, had in fact pleaded with him to let her depart the carriage in the street adjoining this one, but he would have none of it. Had instead insisted on bringing her to the back door of the tavern and waiting in his carriage until he was sure she had climbed safely back inside. She had seen his carriage depart as she closed and locked the window.

Well, the Comte was now gone, she was ‘back inside’, but the fury in Helene’s expression did not augur well for it being ‘safely’.

Helene carefully placed the lit candle down on top of one of the barrels. ‘I told you earlier that I did not approve of you associating any further with the Comte.’

‘I do not believe you actually told me not to—’

‘Do not contradict me, Lisette.’ The woman who was her mother glared at her furiously. ‘The Comte is a dangerous man.’

‘He has always behaved the gentleman towards me,’ Lisette defended, her cheeks burning as she knew that was not strictly true; after all, he had kissed her, not once, but twice.

Helene gave an impatient shake of her head at that telling blush. ‘You have not only openly defied me by meeting secretly with the Comte, but defiled your own reputation at the same time—’

‘I have done nothing wrong!’ she asserted heatedly.

‘I do not believe you.’

‘I do not care—’ She broke off with a pained gasp as Helene’s hand struck out at her face. Hard.

Lisette raised a shocked hand as she felt the sting of pain and then the flow of blood on her bottom lip, her fingers covered with the sticky redness when she looked down at them through tear-filled eyes.

No one had ever struck her before this. Not for any reason.

She kept her hand pressed against her bleeding lip as she glared her defiance at the older woman. ‘That was truly unforgivable!’

‘No more so than your own behaviour has been tonight.’ Helene looked at her coldly, unrepentantly. ‘I did not bring you to Paris so that you could whore yourself for the first titled gentleman to show you attention.’

‘Then why did you bring me here?’ Lisette challenged, chin held high. ‘You do not care for me. You do not even acknowledge me as your daughter,’ she added scornfully as she remembered what the Comte had said to her earlier. ‘What am I even doing here?’

Helene gave a snort. ‘What else was I supposed to do with you once I learned the Duprées were both dead?’

Lisette felt a fresh sting of tears in her eyes at this woman’s total lack of feeling for her.

If she had needed any confirmation of that, after Helene had just struck her without warning or sign of regret.

She straightened her spine. ‘In that case, it will be no hardship to you if I remove myself from here tomorrow.’

‘To go where?’ the older woman derided. ‘To your titled lover, perhaps? As if the Comte would have you! To a man such as he, you will either have been no more than a source of information about me—’

‘You flatter yourself, madame!’

‘—or a willing female body in his bed. If it was the latter, then I have no doubt he has already forgotten you!’

Lisette could not deny the truth of this last comment; that the Comte had gone out for further entertainment, after bringing her back to the tavern, proved that the kisses they had shared had meant nothing to him. As she meant nothing to him.

‘Do not assume everyone to have the same morals as yourself, madame,’ she hit back in her humiliation.

‘Why, you little—’

‘If you hit me again, then I shall be forced to retaliate!’ Lisette warned, her hands now clenched into fists at her sides as she faced the taller woman challengingly.

Helene fell back a step as grudging respect dawned in those icy blue eyes. ‘This is the first occasion when I have seen any visible sign that you are my daughter.’

‘And it will be the last!’ Lisette assured her scornfully. ‘I intend to pack my bags, such as they are, and leave here in the morning.’

‘As I asked before—to go where?’ The older woman looked at her coldly. ‘You have only the few francs I have given you since you arrived here; have no other money of your own. You do not own anything that I have not given you. You have nowhere else to go, Lisette.’

Another indisputable truth.

The very same truth Lisette had told Christian Beaumont earlier this evening...

‘If you choose to leave here, you will have no choice but to become a whore or to starve,’ Helene added cruelly.

‘Then I will starve, madame,’ she replied with dignity.

‘You are behaving like a child, Lisette,’ the other woman bit out impatiently.

No, what Lisette was doing inwardly was shaking in reaction to this unpleasant conversation, and her bottom lip now felt sore and swollen from the painful slap she had received from Helene Rousseau. Something Lisette still found difficult to believe had happened at all, when the Duprées, of no relationship to her at all, had shown her nothing but love and kindness for the past nineteen years.

Although that slap certainly made it easier for Lisette to accept her own lack of softer feelings towards Helene. Something she had felt guilty about until this moment. But no longer. Helene Rousseau was a cold and unemotional woman, and one Lisette found it impossible to feel affection for, let alone love. Now that she had decided to leave she did not need to bother trying to do that any more.

Helene was right, of course, in that Lisette did not have anywhere else to go, nor did she have more than a few francs to her name, but her pride dictated she could not allow that to sway her in her decision. She did not belong here. Not in the sprawling city that was Paris. And definitely not in this lowly tavern.

‘But not your child,’ she came back scornfully. ‘You do not claim me as such, nor do you have any right to do so after your behaviour tonight,’ she added as the other woman would have spoken. ‘If you permit it, I will stay here for what is left of the night and leave first thing in the morning.’ She gathered her cloak protectively about her.

Helene sighed wearily. ‘Lisette...’

‘Did you even bother to name me yourself before handing me over to the Duprées?’ Lisette challenged derisively. ‘Or did you leave even the naming of your child to strangers?’ She knew by the angry flush that appeared in the older woman’s cheeks that it had been the latter.

‘Surely you realise I could not have kept you here with me, Lisette—’

‘Could not? Or maybe you did not want to tarnish what is left of your own reputation by acknowledging me as your bastard child?’

Helene sighed heavily. ‘It is far too late at night for this conversation—’

‘It is too late altogether, madame.’ Lisette gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘Would that you had left me in ignorance in the country.’

‘To do what? Live off turnips and marry a local peasant?’ The older woman’s lip curled.

‘Far better I had done that than live in this place!’ Lisette retorted. ‘I will leave here as soon as I am able,’ she repeated wearily as she brushed past the other woman to gather up a candle and light it before walking proudly down the hallway and going up the stairs.

She made it all the way to her bedchamber before giving in to the tears that had been threatening to fall since she had received that slap on her face.

Tears that were long overdue, as she placed the candle carefully on the bedside table before throwing herself down on the bed and sobbing in earnest; for the loss of the Duprées and the life she had known with them, for the shock of discovering Helene Rousseau was her mother, for her unhappiness since coming to Paris, for the lack of prospects ahead of her once she had left this place.

For the knowledge that the lavender-eyed Comte had in all probability already forgotten her existence.

* * *

Christian had instructed his coachman to drive around and park the carriage a short distance from the front entrance of the Fleur de Lis, once he was assured Lisette had climbed safely into one of the downstairs windows of the tavern. He was determined, before leaving the area completely, to see that Lisette reached her bedchamber safely.

He had been lying, of course, when he told Lisette he intended to go on to further entertainment. Helene Rousseau, and the clandestine comings and goings to her tavern, was his only reason for being in Paris.

At least it had been.

The puzzle that was Lisette Duprée had changed that somewhat.

There was a mystery there he did not understand. Helene Rousseau had been so overprotective of Lisette earlier in the tavern when she held a gun to his back, and yet at the same time there was an obvious lack of familial feeling between the two women. A disconnection that surely should not have been there—

Ah, he had just seen candlelight behind the curtains in the bedchamber he believed to be Lisette’s, instantly reassuring him as to her safe return.

‘Drive on,’ Christian instructed his coachman before settling back against the plush upholstery, his mind still occupied with the relationship between Helene Rousseau and Lisette.

There had never been mention of André Rousseau having a daughter, and surely the other man could not have been old enough to have a daughter of Lisette’s age? And yet, to Christian’s knowledge, Helene Rousseau had no other siblings.

In any case, the discovery of Lisette was an unexpected vulnerability in regard to Helene Rousseau. One that Christian felt sure Aubrey Maystone would not hesitate to use against that lady. As the Frenchwoman had been involved in using other innocents as pawns in her own wicked games.

Christian frowned at the very idea of using Lisette in that way.

Another reason for not taking her back to England with him?

He found the whole concept of using her as a pawn in a game to be totally repugnant. Complete anathema to his code as a gentleman.

And yet there was no place for a gentlemanly code when it came to the defence of the Crown.

But to use Lisette in that way, no matter whether she was the innocent she appeared to be or something more, did not sit well with Christian—

‘We have company, milord!’ his coachman had time to call out grimly seconds before the carriage came to a lurching halt and the door beside Christian was wrenched open, a masked man appearing in that open doorway, a raised pistol in his hand.

Lisette’s earlier warning barely had time to register before there was a flash in the darkness and the sound of a pistol being fired.

* * *

Lisette sat up with a start, her tears ceasing as she heard the sound of an explosion of some kind ringing through the stillness of the night, followed by the sound of raised voices.

She rose quickly to her feet before hurrying across the bedchamber to look out of the window.

The street was poorly lit, of course, but she could see a carriage a short way down, and it appeared to be surrounded by a group of darkly clothed men. A carriage that seemed all too familiar to her, considering she had been driven back to the tavern in it just a short time ago.

The Comte de Saint-Cloud’s carriage!

Lisette gave no thought to her own safety as she ran across the bedchamber and threw open the door before running down the hallway to descend the stairs. She heard the sound of a second shot being fired and then a third, causing her fingers to fumble with the bolts and key as she quickly unlocked the front door of the tavern before throwing it open and running out into the street.

The carriage was still parked a short distance away, but there were no longer any dark-clothed men surrounding it, the street quiet apart from the horses snorting and stamping their shod feet on the cobbled road in their obvious distress.

Lisette stilled her mad flight at the sound of that deathly silence, her steps becoming hesitant as she approached the carriage, its door flung open and swinging slightly in the breeze.

In keeping with this lowly neighbourhood, no one else had emerged from any of the buildings in response to hearing those three shots being fired, and Lisette herself feared what she might find once she had reached and looked inside that eerily silent carriage.

She raised a shocked hand to her mouth as she drew nearer and saw a body lying on the cobbles beside the carriage, recognising the groom who had opened the door for her earlier tonight lying so still and unmoving, a bloom of red having appeared on the chest of his grey livery.

Which surely meant that the Comte de Saint-Cloud was inside the carriage still; otherwise Lisette had no doubt he would be out here now tending to his groom. Or perhaps, having discovered the man dead, he was off chasing the men who had attacked them.

She ceased breathing and her heart seemed to stop beating altogether as she apprehensively approached the open door of the carriage, so very afraid of what she was going to find when she looked inside.

In all possibility, the Comte, as dead as his groom appeared to be?

Her heart stuttered and then stopped again as she heard the sound of a groan from inside the depths of the carriage. Indication that at least the Comte was alive, if obviously injured?

‘Christian!’ Lisette called out frantically as she no longer hesitated but hurriedly ascended the steps.

‘Lisette?’ The Comte groaned uncomprehendingly, the lantern inside the carriage showing him lying back against the cushions, his face deathly white, a bloom of red showing, and growing larger by the second, on the left thigh of his pale-coloured pantaloons. ‘You should not be here,’ he protested as he attempted to sit up.

‘Do not move!’ Lisette instructed sternly as she stepped fully into the carriage to fall to her knees beside him and began to inspect the wound to his thigh.

‘They might come back—’

‘I doubt it,’ she snorted disgustedly. ‘Cowards. Half a dozen men against two—’

‘You saw them?’ Christian, grateful that he had the foresight to speak to Lisette in French, had now managed to ease himself back into an upright position, although his thigh hurt like the very devil with every movement.

Lisette nodded distractedly, her face a pale oval in the lamplight. ‘From the window of my bedchamber. At least half a dozen men. Are you hurt very badly?’ She looked at his thigh but did not attempt to touch him.

Christian’s jaw was clenched against the pain. ‘I believe the bullet has gone through the soft tissue and out the other side.’

Lisette’s face seemed to pale even more. ‘We should call for law enforcement, and you need a doctor—’

‘No—no doctor,’ he refused grimly.

‘You are bleeding badly—’

‘No, Lisette,’ he repeated determinedly. ‘My groom?’

Her gaze dropped from meeting his. ‘I fear— He does not appear to be—’

‘Damn it, they have killed him!’ Christian struggled to sit forward, intent on seeing his groom for himself. ‘Please move aside, Lisette, so that I can go to him.’

‘You must not move, Christian—’

‘Indeed I must, Lisette.’ He gritted his teeth as that movement caused his leg to throb and the blood to flow more freely over the fingers he had pressed to his flesh to staunch the wound. He looked at Lisette as she now sat on the other side of the carriage, a bewildered look upon her face. ‘I am afraid I shall need your help to get Pierre into the carriage.’

Her face lost any remaining colour at the mere idea of touching a dead body. Christian nodded approvingly as she nonetheless moved valiantly forward to follow as he stepped awkwardly down from the carriage, before limping over and going down on one knee beside his groom lying unmoving on the cobbles.

‘Not dead, and I think the shot has pierced his shoulder rather than his chest,’ Christian said thankfully after placing his bloody fingers against the other man’s wrist and feeling a pulse. ‘Help me lift him inside the carriage, would you?’

‘I— But— What are you going to do with him then?’

‘Return to my home, of course.’

Lisette felt totally perplexed by the Comte’s behaviour. Surely a doctor, at least, should be called for, even if Christian did not feel inclined to ask for the help of the police enforcement that had been established in Paris just five years ago.

The dissolute rake he had appeared earlier this evening was completely gone, Christian Beaumont’s eyes now sharp with intelligence and determination as the two of them struggled to lift the groom and place him inside the carriage.

Not an easy task when the Comte was injured and Lisette was so slight in stature.

It seemed to take forever as they struggled to get Pierre inside the carriage and lying on one of the bench seats, but was in fact probably only a few minutes. Both of them were smeared with the other man’s blood by that time, and Christian Beaumont’s own wound seemed to be bleeding more profusely too.

Lisette gave a dismayed gasp at how deathly pale his face was as he straightened. ‘I really must insist you are attended by a doctor—’

‘I shall consider it once we are returned to my home and I have been able to inspect Pierre’s wound more thoroughly.’ He nodded grimly even as he placed a hand against the carriage for support.

Lisette frowned her disapproval. ‘And exactly how do you intend doing that, when both your groom and yourself have been shot?’

A touch of humour tilted the Comte’s lips. ‘Did you ever drive a horse and cart on that farm you once lived on, Lisette?’

She gave him a startled look. ‘You are not suggesting that I should drive your carriage...?’

He gave a pointed look about the empty street. ‘I do not see anyone else I can ask, do you?’

‘But— Christian!’ Lisette stepped forward to put her arm about the leanness of his waist and the support of her shoulder beneath his arm as he appeared to sway precariously.

‘And I suggest that you do it soon, Lisette,’ he muttered faintly. ‘Whilst I am still conscious to direct you.’

She had never heard of anything so ridiculous as to expect her to drive the Comte’s carriage; it was nothing like the old cart they’d had on the farm, nor were the four horses pulling this elegant carriage in the least like the elderly and plodding mare owned by the Duprées. Indeed, these high-stepping animals might have been a different breed altogether from the docile Marguerite.

Lisette eyed the four black horses doubtfully as they still snorted and stamped their displeasure. ‘You are asking too much, Christian.’ She gave a shake of her head.

He nodded. ‘I would not ask at all if it were not important.’

Lisette looked up at him searchingly. ‘I do not understand,’ she finally murmured slowly.

‘And I do not have the time, or indeed the strength, to explain the situation to you right now.’ He sighed weakly.

Lisette glanced down to where his thigh was still bleeding freely, front and back. ‘Something needs to be tied about your thigh in order to slow the bleeding...’

‘Lisette...?’ Christian’s eyes widened as she did not hesitate to lift her gown before efficiently ripping a strip from the bottom of her petticoat, and then proceeded to crouch down in front of him to wrap and tie that strip tightly about the top of his thigh.

It was perhaps as well that there was no one on the street to observe them because Lisette, crouched in that position, looked very—risqué, if one did not realise she was merely applying a tourniquet to his thigh.