The Orchid Affair

Chapter 32

Gaston Delaroche never did anything by halves.

André identified the Cauchemar long before they reached it. It wasn’t just the tricolore flying from the mast or the uniformed guards standing sentinel on the pier or even the large, curling black script proclaiming the boat’s name. It was the size of the ship—double the size of the Bien-Aimée—and the fact that it was hung with lanterns, every single one ablaze.

The crews of the boats docked to either side must have just loved that.

Sarcasm kept André’s palms from sweating; sarcasm kept him from imagining what horrors Delaroche had in store for Pierre-André; sarcasm gave him the presence of mind to pretend to stay reasonably calm and nod in the right places when Lord Richard Selwick spoke to him.

He had never thought he would one day make common cause with the Purple Gentian. They had been adversaries not so very long ago. Courteous adversaries. If anything, André had owed the man a debt of gratitude—not just for the amusement value of some of his exploits, but for distracting Delaroche. Whether the Purple Gentian knew it or not, he had unintentionally facilitated more than one objective for the Comte d’Artois, simply by keeping Delaroche occupied elsewhere. False information had been passed, networks of informers assembled, plots plotted, all while Delaroche was busy chasing the shadow of a cheeky purple flower.

What was it they said? The enemy of my enemy is my friend. André had cause tonight to be grateful for that old adage. If the Purple Gentian helped him retrieve his son, he wouldn’t have another thing to say about gentleman adventurers and unpronounceable essays in botany.

There were five of them in the dinghy.

His Royal Highness, Charles Ferdinand d’Artois, Duc de Berry, was not one of the party. De Berry had offered to come, but without marked enthusiasm. He had been more than happy to be persuaded to stay behind to guard the women and children.

De Berry might not have been so sanguine had he known André’s real reasoning. De Berry was their bargaining chip, the only genuine leverage André possessed. Delaroche might want to wreak his revenge on André, but when it came down to it, a prince of the blood was a prize not to be missed—at least, not if one didn’t want to risk Fouché’s extreme disapprobation. No one wanted to risk the disapprobation of Fouché.

When it came down to it, if he had to, André would trade the prince for his son.

He hadn’t told de Berry that, of course. It was a last resort.

Daubier, unlike de Berry, had flatly refused to be left behind. “I have a grudge to settle,” he had said, displaying his hand to Lord Richard.

No one had argued with him.

André, Daubier, and Lord Richard had been joined in the dinghy by two of Lord Richard’s crew—one of whom appeared to be somewhat inexplicably dressed as a pirate, complete with a stuffed parrot on one shoulder. The parrot was held in place by an ingenious mechanism of straps, although it did list a bit to one side as the man rowed. It made André feel a great deal less conspicuous in the sagging remains of his Il Capitano costume.

There had been room for one more in the boat, a place that Laura had tried to claim as her own. She had desisted when Lord Richard had pointed out, apologetically, that her combat training was fairly rudimentary.

Combat training?

Who in the hell was this Laura? Not Laura, André reminded himself. Miss Grey. Miss Grey, who somehow knew the Purple Gentian—not only knew him, but was on terms of some intimacy.

She still looked the same, still dressed in her Ruffiana costume, the skirts kilted up so they wouldn’t trail, her hair scraped back so tightly that it made her eyes slant up at the corners. She had the same little curls at the nape of her neck, the same beauty mark at the corner of one eyebrow, the same eyes, the same nose, the same hands, the same lips that he had kissed again and again, and which, it seemed, had returned to him not just kisses, but kisses and lies.

André wondered just how much had been a lie.

Not that it mattered, André reminded himself, as the dinghy drew towards the brightly lit Cauchemar. It couldn’t be allowed to matter, not even if his guts felt like they had been wrenched out and used for garters. All that mattered was that they save Pierre-André.

“Right-ho,” Lord Richard said, speaking in a voice just barely audible above the sound of the boats rocking in the water. The wind had risen, and waves were slapping against the keels of the boats moored in the harbor. “Here’s the plan. I’ve sent two men along the pier. In precisely ten minutes”—Lord Richard consulted his pocket watch—“they will cut the ropes mooring the Cauchemar.”

Thus making it impossible for the guards on the pier to intervene. Unless, of course, they felt like a swim. André somehow doubted that they did. Delaroche seldom paid well.

“Then what?” André asked.

“As soon as the Cauchemar is floating free, we’re going to make a bit of a fire on the deck to draw off the guards.”

André saw one rather large problem with that. “What if the fire spreads?”

Lord Richard produced a wide and shallow bowl, in which someone appeared to have dumped a pile of greasy rags. “It won’t, unless some idiot is fool enough to overturn the bowl. If we do this correctly, it should produce a great deal of thick, black smoke but very little fire. It ought, however, take them some time to realize that. Nothing spooks a sailor like fire on board ship. Stiles?”

“Arrrrr?” said the pirate interrogatively.

Lord Richard rolled his eyes slightly, but forbore to comment. “I’ll expect you and Pete to be standing by. When the guards show any sign of returning to their posts, tackle them. Make sure they don’t make it below deck.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n!” The parrot wobbled as the pirate saluted.

Lord Richard looked pained. “Oh, and, Stiles?”

“Cap’n?”

“You might want to leave the parrot in the dinghy. Just a thought.” Turning to André, he said, “We three will seek out Delaroche and free the captives.”

“Your experience with boats is greater than mine,” said André. It would be impossible for it not to be; to his knowledge, he had never been on one. All his travel had been accomplished on land. “Where will he have them? And how do we get to them without being seen?”

Lord Richard nodded. “Despite its size, the Cauchemar seems to be a fairly simple model. There are two possible places that Delaroche might be holding your son. He could be in the main cabin, to the rear, here.” Lord Richard sketched a diagram on the planks of the dinghy with a finger dipped in water. “Or here, in the hold.” He sketched a second rectangle below the first. “If I know my Delaroche, he’ll have them in the hold. It’s the closest he can get to a dungeon.”

It sounded like a logical enough conclusion, but for one thing. “Delaroche doesn’t follow any known rules of logic these days,” André warned. “Your escape sent him around the bend. That, and being separated from his interrogation chamber. They made him pack up his Iron Maiden. It has rendered him . . . unpredictable.”

“You can certainly say that,” said Lord Richard slowly, squinting at the ship. They were drawing steadily closer, the muffled oars making little noise in the water. He pointed towards the deck. “Look at that.”

At first, all André saw were the guards—at least a dozen of them. There were four directly in his line of vision, playing a game that seemed to involve round discs and a mop. As one hit the disc in a broad sweep, the others followed, leaving André a clear view of the mast. The sails were furled, but that wasn’t what created the strange bulk at the bottom.

“What in the devil? . . .”

Two people had been tied to the mast, by the simple expedient of looping a rope around them again and again and again. One woman and one small boy.

“The devil, indeed,” Lord Richard agreed. “But a very obliging one. There’s no need to search for what’s been placed in plain sight.”

Daubier appropriated Stiles’s spyglass, shaking it open with his good hand. “Where is that Delaroche?”

“Somewhere nearby, unless I miss my guess,” responded Lord Richard. “Lurking. He’ll be waiting for you to make your appearance.”

“There’s an hour to midnight yet,” said André shortly, appropriating the glass from Daubier.

Even at this range, there was no mistaking the fury in Jeannette’s face. Someone had stuffed a gag in her mouth. Jeannette’s eyes bulged out angrily over the wide strip of striped cloth. It was the largest gag André had ever seen, and during his time at the Prefecture, he had seen quite a few. Someone was taking no chances. Having been on the wrong side of a few of Jeannette’s tongue-lashings, André could well imagine why.

Pierre-André, on the other hand, was fettered but unmuzzled. He appeared to be carrying on a spirited conversation with a sailor who had hunkered down next to him. From the way the man was pointing at various bits of rope, he was either threatening Pierre-André with hanging from the yardarm or explaining the intricacies of rigging. From the man’s relaxed posture, it looked like the latter.

No torture, then. At least, not yet.

André didn’t want to think about what Delaroche had planned for midnight.

“He’s made it harder for us,” André said abruptly. “By placing them in plain sight, he makes it impossible for us to creep up unseen.”

“There are twelve of them and five of us,” said Lord Richard. “I’d say good odds, wouldn’t you?”

There were times when that aristocratic, sporting attitude could be a damned nuisance. André would have preferred a bit of bourgeois common sense.

“Thirteen, if we count Delaroche,” André reminded him. “And we don’t know how many more men Delaroche has belowdecks.”

“Sure, an’ it be an ill omen, Cap’n,” contributed Stiles, tugging at his earring. “For thirteen ha’ e’er been a number that brings men to their doom.”

“Your accent is slipping,” said Lord Richard calmly. “Slight change of plan. Pete, set the fire right in front of the opening to the hold. It will draw the men away from the mast and delay anyone trying to come up from below. Stiles, I need you to open the hold. As the men come running, you might want to, er, help them along. We’ll soon thin their numbers.”

“What about me?” asked Daubier.

Lord Richard refrained from looking at Daubier’s malformed hand. “I need you to free the boy and his nurse. They know you, so they won’t kick up a fuss. Get them into the dinghy. Jaouen and I will cover your retreat.”

For a moment, Daubier looked like he might argue, then he caught André’s eye and subsided. He nodded at Lord Richard’s sword. “Give Monsieur Delaroche a good scratch for me, will you? Make it a painful one.”

“My pleasure,” said Lord Richard. “I still owe him for a memorable evening in his extra-special interrogation chamber.” He checked his pocket watch, then looked to the pier. “Ah, there go the ropes. Good lads!”

As the Cauchemar began to gently drift, Pete fastened the dinghy to the side of the ship. Lord Richard picked his men well. He scaled the wall silently, the large bowl of greasy rags clamped beneath one arm. Stiles followed, parrot bobbing.

A rope ladder flopped down in Stiles’s wake. A nice touch. It would be easier for Jeannette and Pierre-André than jumping. For that matter, it made it easier for the rest of them to climb up. André’s had been a desk job. Gymnastic feats weren’t in his line.

“Wait for it,” Lord Richard murmured. “One, two . . .”

“Fire!” shouted someone. There was the sound of pounding feet on deck.

Lord Richard swung onto the rope ladder. He was up and over the side in an instant. André followed suit, somewhat more clumsily but no less speedily, hoisting himself over the edge to find the deck engulfed in black smoke. From the thuds and yelps, Stiles was doing his job when it came to helping the crew into the hold. Holding a fold of his too-large doublet over his mouth, André elbowed his way through to the mast.

“Hang on!” he ordered Jeannette.

She narrowed her eyes in a way that would have been a sarcastic comment if she were able to make one.

The ropes holding them had been tied with a particularly complex nautical knot. It would probably be easy enough to disassemble if one had the training on a ship. André didn’t. Drawing his knife from his belt, André began slashing at the rope. If he could get one strand free, he could release the whole.

Pierre-André began to wiggle, making the task even harder. Someone grabbed André’s shoulder, hard. Without thinking, acting on pure reflex, André rammed his elbow sideways, harder. He heard a choking noise as his assailant doubled over, coughing.

He could hear the whisk of steel as Lord Richard drew his sword from its sheath, driving the remainder of the crew back with the point of the sword. There was a splash as Pete helped a sailor off the edge of the boat, then the vague sound of groaning from the hold.

Two strands snapped, then a third.

“Here!” Daubier came up on André’s other side, dodging just in time to avoid being kicked. “Let me see that knot.”

“I’ve got it,” said André, and the last bit of hemp came loose.

With his good hand, Daubier grasped the rope, unlooping it as quickly as it would go.

“Mmmph!” said Jeannette.

André plucked at the knot at the back of her gag. He was going to regret this, he knew. As Daubier freed Pierre-André and Jeannette, André yanked the cloth free. Jeannette drew in a deep breath, choking on the smoky air.

“Took you long enough,” she gasped. “My tongue was going numb.”

“Papa!” With less of him to free, Pierre-André shrugged out of the remains of the rope and flung his arms around André’s waist.

André gave his son a quick hug. “There’s a rope ladder just there, leading to a boat. Do you think you can climb down it?”

Pierre-André nodded, coughing. His eyes were red and watering from the smoke.

There was one last loud splash and Lord Richard appeared beside them. “That’s the last of them. No sign of Delaroche.”

“None?” André’s hand tightened on Pierre-André’s shoulder.

Someone, most likely Pete, tossed a blanket over the fire, abruptly curtailing the smoke.

“Not a whiff of him. And those were sailors, not soldiers,” said Lord Richard grimly. “Something smells wrong.”

“It was too easy,” André agreed.

Delaroche wouldn’t have left his hostages virtually unguarded. Unless, that was, he had another goal.

André turned rapidly towards Jeannette. “Where did he go? The man who brought you here?”

“You mean after he tied us to that thing?” Jeannette was not in a good humor. “And a fine lot of good you were, leaving us here for hours on end, and the little one like to take a chill.”

“Delaroche?” André prompted her.

“Him.” Jeannette’s lips pursed as though she tasted something nasty. “He strapped us up here and then went off to visit his beloved. Courting, I ask you! On a night like this!”

Lord Richard’s “His what?” clashed with André’s “Beloved?”

“That’s what he said,” said Jeannette stridently. “That’s where he went. To visit his bien aimée.”