Petals in the Storm

Chapter 25

The details of the ride were never clear in Maggie's mind afterward. She had waved reassuringly at Helene as they dashed by the gatehouse, but hadn't stopped for explanations. There was a mad exhilaration in racing toward Paris with the two men she loved most in the world. They had survived one set of horrors, and for the moment she felt invincible, as if no amount of gunpowder on earth could harm them.

Though they made excellent time through the countryside, the heavy afternoon traffic around the city slowed them down. Rafe was in the lead, setting the fastest possible pace. Maggie kept a concerned eye on Robin. He rode with grim determination, never slowing the other two.

As they got closer, Maggie's earlier exultation faded, leaving exhaustion, and a fear that tightened her nerves like steel wires. When they finally cantered down the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, their horses sweaty and shaking with fatigue, she heard a church tower clock striking four times, proclaiming that the fatal hour had arrived.

They jolted to a halt in front of the embassy and swung off their horses, leaving the reins for any street boys close enough to grab them. They raced up the steps, Rafe helping Robin with a hand on his good arm. He ordered, "Margot, when we get inside, you go up to Castlereagh's chamber and get them to evacuate.Give me Northwood's keys so Robin and I can reach the gunpowder."

She nodded and tossed him the keys. Wryly she recognized that his gentlemanly instincts were still functioning-upstairs, she would have a better chance of surviving an explosion than he and Robin. If they died, she wasn't sure she would want to go on living, but this was no time to argue the point.

The guards at the door recognized them in spite of their dishevelment. As the corporal in charge saluted, Rafe snapped, "There's a plot to blow up the embassy, and the explosion will go off at any moment. Go with Countess Janos and help her clear people from the area of the bomb."

Maggie ran through the foyer, the befuddled corporal gamely following.

'To the left," Robin panted. With a superhuman effort that showed on his face, he began to run at a speed that nearly equaled Rate's. They bolted past startled embassy servants, not stopping for more explanations.

Down a stairwell. Left, right along a passage, through a door, left again. Without Robin's guidance, Rafe would never have been able to find his way.

"Here," Robin said tersely, stopping beside a door.

Rafe had studied the keys as he ran, and he shoved the most promising one in the lock. Precious seconds were wasted while he tried to make the key turn, but it was the wrong one. He tried another. The pungent scent of a guttering candle was noticeable. How much longer-minutes? Seconds?

Damnation! Another wrong key. At least if the flame reached the gunpowder before the closet was open, they would be dead before they knew they had failed.

Eureka! The third key was the correct one. Rafe twisted it savagely, then yanked at the doorknob. As the door moved toward him, the tendril of flame fluttered in the draft from the door, men lazily dipped toward the mound of gunpowder only a fraction of an inch below.

Moving as smoothly as if they had rehearsed, Robin dived into the closet the instant that Rafe wrenched the door open. As he hit the floor, he swept his right arm across the line of gunpowder. The flame touched the explosive and flared down the powder trail faster than the eye could follow, scattering into burning particles when it hit his arm.

For a minute both men slapped furiously at the red-hot sparks that flew around the closet. The odor of sulfur permeated the air, and clouds of eye-stinging smoke billowed around them.

Then, with startling anticlimax, there was no more fire. It was over.

Robin crumpled to the floor, struggling for breath, while Rafe leaned heavily against the door frame. He could scarcely believe they had made it in time, and that they were alive and reasonably well.

Several members of the embassy staff had followed them and were drawing near, their voices murmuring in confusion. Rafe said to one who looked as if he had authority, "You can tell the ministers that the evacuation isn't necessary." The man nodded and turned to go upstairs.

Robin looked up, a wry smile on his drawn face. "I'm ready for a new career. I'm getting too old for this kind of excitement."

Rafe returned the smile tiredly. "I think I was born too old." He felt an intense sense of comradeship with this man who was both friend and rival.

No, not his rival, for that implied the issue was in doubt; Robin was not a rival, but the victor. Well, Rafe would try to live up to his own standards of sportsmanship. He helped Robin up, steadying the other man when he swayed. Now that the crisis was over, Robin was half dead on his feet.

Margot forced her way through the onlookers. The wheat gold hair was disastrously snarled from their ride, her green dress had taken such a beating that it was barely decent, and her face showed the same exhaustion that the two men were experiencing. Rafe thought that she had never looked more beautiful.

She mutely put her arms around both men, burying her face between them. Rafe wrapped his free arm around her waist, desperate for the feel of her.

All too soon, Margot raised her head and stepped away from Rafe. He was painfully aware that she kept an arm around Robin. Needing to say something, he said, "Did you manage to clear Castlereagh's chamber?"

She made a face. "It's a good thing you got to the closet in time-I hadn't even persuaded the guard to let me in, much less gotten any of the august personages to move. Considering how long it's taking them to agree on a treaty, they would have been debating whether to evacuate from now until Twelfth Night."

The onlookers parted and another man joined them. The Duke of Wellington was of only average height and the famous hooked nose was more striking than handsome, but even the dullest of mortals would know immediately that this was a man to be reckoned with. "I understand that you uncovered the conspiracy in the nick of time, Candover."

"I deserve very little of the credit," Rafe replied. "My companions here were the ones who managed it."

"We could never have gotten here in time without the Duke of Candover," Robin said. "If not for him, the day would have ended in disaster."

Rafe considered introducing his companions to Wellington, but he had no idea what names they would prefer, or even if introductions were necessary. Wellington solved the problem by offering his hand toRobin. "You must be Lord Robert Andreville. I've heard of you, sir."

Robin looked startled, but nowhere as much so as Margot, who shot an incredulous glance at her partner.

Wellington turned to her. "And surely you are 'Countess Janos.'"

Margot smiled. "I have been called that."

Wellington bowed, then said, "Lord Strathmore was right."

"About what, your grace?"

"He said that you were the most beautiful spy in Europe," the duke responded, a twinkle in his light blue eyes.

Margot Ashton, dauntless in the face of death and disaster, blushed a most becoming shade of rose.

Wellington's tone turned serious. "There is no way to overestimate the importance of what you have done. Besides Castlereagh, Richelieu, and myself, all of the Allied foreign ministers were upstairs, plus," he lowered his voice, "King Louis and his brother, the Count d'Artois."

They all gasped. If the explosion had killed the king, his heir, and the chief ministers, France would have been ripe for chaos indeed. Varenne might well have emerged a victor in a struggle in which all Europe would be the loser.

Wellington continued, "None of our visitors know that anything was amiss, and perhaps it's best that way. We wouldn't want anyone to feel unsafe in the British embassy, would we?"

"We spoke to several soldiers and staff members on our way in," Rafe said.

"I'll talk with them myself," the Iron Duke said. "When I get through, they'll understand the importance of keeping their tongues between their teeth."

Rafe didn't doubt it.

Wellington surveyed the three of them. "Castlereagh will want to see you, but tomorrow will be soon enough. Get some rest-you all look rather the worse for wear."

He started to turn away, then stopped as another thought struck him. "I must return to the conference, but there is one other thing. The foreign minister was concerned that one of his aides, Oliver Northwood, might have been involved in this affair. Is that true?"

Rafe hesitated and glanced at his companions. Robin's face was noncommittal while Margot's smoky eyes were trying to convey some message. Picking his words with care, he said, "Northwood apparently had suspicions that something was amiss and came out to Chanteuil to investigate. His timely intervention was instrumental in foiling the plot, and his was the hand that felled Count de Varenne, the man behind the conspiracy. Unfortunately, Northwood died of wounds inflicted by the count."

Wellington's keen eyes studied him. "That's the story?"

"It is," Rafe said firmly.

Wellington nodded, then left.

"Getting some rest is the best suggestion I've heard in quite some time," Robin said wearily. "A month or so of sleep would be a nice start."

"You, my lad, are not going back to that dismal little hole you call home," Margot said forcefully. "I'm taking you to my house so you can be waited on hand and foot."

Robin gave her a lopsided smile. "I defer to your superior will."

With sudden, searing pain, Rafe felt the bond that had connected the three of them shiver and dissolve. Once more he was on the outside.

Her expression uncertain, Margot asked if Rafe wished to come back to her house with them. He declined, saying that he must send a message to Chanteuil, write a report for Lucien, and a thousand other things.

As he had promised himself, he didn't say a single word, or make a single gesture, that could alert Robin to the fact that Rafe and Margot had been more than friends. He had shattered her life once; he would not do it again.

Margot looked at him for a moment with some indefinable emotion in her eyes. Surely it couldn't have been pain. Then she turned and left, her arm around Robin.

Watching them walk away together was the hardest thing Rafe had ever done.

An embassy carriage was detailed to take Rafe back to the Hotel de la Paix. As he rumbled through the streets, he felt a curious kind of numbness, except for his heart, which seemed to have been hacked into small pieces with a dull knife.

Yet even though he had discovered Margot again only to lose her, he had been left with something of great value: learning the truth about the past had given him back his faith in love. For that, at least, he was profoundly grateful.

At his hotel, he walked unseeing through the foyer, wanting only to get to the privacy of his apartment. He didn't even notice the tall blond man talking to the concierge, until a familiar voice said, "Rafe, what the devil has been going on?"

Rafe's eyes snapped into focus, and he saw a travel-stained Lucien standing in front of him. "What are you doing in Paris?" he asked stupidly.

"Your reports got me so worried that I asked St. Aubyn to take care of my work while I came here myself." His friend raised his brows at Rafe's disheveled appearance. "If you're a Fallen Angel, you must have hit the ground hard and bounced a few times."

Rafe closed his eyes for an instant; it was immensely good to see a friend. Gesturing for Lucien to accompany him to his rooms, he said succinctly, "Plot foiled, the wicked destroyed, while the virtuous, including your agents Maggie and Andreville, have survived. Beyond that…"

As they entered his drawing room, Rafe drew a shuddering breath. "Don't ask me to explain anything more before tomorrow. Care to join me while I become exceedingly drunk?"

Lucien studied Rafe with shrewd, compassionate eyes, then briefly laid a hand on his shoulder. "Where do you keep the brandy?"

As soon as she returned home, Maggie settled Robin and called a physician to properly set his injured hand.

Before she could rest herself, she had to break the news of Northwood's death to Cynthia. Besides giving the official story they had tacitly agreed to, Maggie also recounted the facts. Oliver Northwood could be a hero to the rest of the world, but Cynthia knew better, and deserved the truth.

After Maggie had finished speaking, Cynthia bowed her head, her fingers restlessly twisting the fringe of her shawl. "I didn't want it to be like this. I never wanted to see him again, but I didn't want him dead." She looked up at Maggie. "That may be hard for you to believe after the way he treated me."

"I think I understand," Maggie said quietly. "He was part of your life for many years. Surely there are some good memories."

Cynthia closed her eyes for a moment, a spasm of grief crossing her features. "There are some-only a handful, perhaps, but yes, there were some genuinely good times. For all the things he did wrong, Oliver was not really an evil man, was he?"

Maggie thought of Northwood's act of casual malice that had brought so much pain to her and Rafe. It had changed her life forever and it was done from the meanest of motives.

Was that evil? By Northwood's actions she had lost Rafe and gained Robin, and she would rather not judge if her life was better or worse for the path Northwood had forced her to take. "His intervention helped bring off a fortunate result. Perhaps, at the end, he was trying to make amends for what he had done."

"Perhaps." Cynthia smiled sadly. "It was generous of you and your friends to give him the benefit of the doubt. It will make things easier for his family, especially his father."

"Blackening his reputation would have done no good, and saving it does no harm." Maggie gave Cynthia a sympathetic hug, then withdrew.

Alone in her own chamber, she wearily fell back onto her bed without changing from her ragged dress. She thought of Rafe, then closed her eyes against the sharp sting of tears. The way he had embraced her when he thought she had been shot by Varenne implied that he still cared for her a little.

But it wasn't love. The brief moment of time when they had loved each other was as dead as the flowers that had bloomed in that long ago spring. It was mere unlucky chance that those feelings had never really died in her.

The future stretched ahead of her, achingly lonely. Perhaps she should ask Robin if he would marry her; though he hadn't really wanted a wife at twenty, the idea might be more appealing now. If she asked him, she knew that he would agree from the same sense of responsibility that had made him offer when she was nineteen.

Yet even as the thought passed through her mind, she knew that she could not ask. Robin deserved a woman who would love him heart and soul. After all he had done for Maggie, she could not deprive him of the chance for that kind of love.

With a sob, she rolled over and buried her face in the pillows. In the future she would not let herself weep over the injustice of it all. She had learned to live without Rafe Whitbourne once before, and she would again.

But for this one hour, she would allow her tears to flow unchecked. She had earned the right to that much self-indulgence.