Teresa Grant Read Free Page B

here.”
    Suzanne turned her gaze to the door. Lady Caroline Lamb had entered the room, clad in one of her trademark clinging gauzes, her feathery curls clustering close to her delicate, pointed face. Beside her stood a woman Suzanne had never seen before. She was not particularly tall, but she held herself with a presence that somehow radiated across the room. She wore a gown of claret-colored silk, cut close to her body and veiled in black net drapery. Stark and dramatic among the pastels of the other ladies. Her bright gold hair was dressed in Grecian ringlets and threaded through with a diamond filet that caught the light from the branches of candles framing the door.
    “Why are you surprised to see her here in particular?” Suzanne asked. Society in Brussels was popularly held to be looser than that in London.
    “Because her husband’s one of Wellington’s officers,” Georgiana said. “Harry Davenport. I don’t think they’ve set eyes on each other for four years.”
     
    Davenport dragged La Fleur off Malcolm. Malcolm drew a ragged breath and fired off a shot from his reloaded pistol. He reached toward La Fleur and felt the spreading sticky warmth of blood. He yanked at his cravat, undid the twists of linen (there were advantages to favoring simple styles), and pressed the fabric to the wound in La Fleur’s chest.
    “Don’t worry ’bout me.” La Fleur’s voice was a hoarse rasp. “Get the bastards.”
    “Got it covered.” Davenport fired off a shot. A scream sounded from beyond the garden wall.
    Another hail of fire came from the wall. Another scream sounded, this time from above, startlingly high-pitched.
    Malcolm could feel blood seeping through the folds of linen. The sickly smell choked the air. Davenport jammed fresh powder into his pistol, but the garden had gone almost eerily still. Crashing sounded from the underbrush beyond the wall, not approaching but retreating.
    “Made ’em run,” La Fleur said in a faint voice. “Good for you.”
    Malcolm increased his pressure on the wounded man’s chest. Blood welled between his fingers. “Don’t waste your energy.”
    “Done for in any event,” La Fleur muttered. “Listen, Rannoch.” He switched to his native French. “The Silver Hawk.”
    “The what?”
    “Be careful. Don’t trust—”
    La Fleur’s head fell to the side. Even in the murky moonlight, Malcolm saw the life fade from the other man’s eyes. He put his fingers to La Fleur’s neck for confirmation. No blood pulsed beneath his touch.
    “Poor blighter,” Davenport murmured. “Though at least he’s out of whatever the rest of us bastards are going to be up against in the next weeks.”
    “If he hadn’t flung himself over me—” Malcolm stared down at the still features of the dead man in whose place he could so easily be lying. Suzanne’s and Colin’s faces swam before his eyes. Fear squeezed his chest. Sometimes he thought he hadn’t known the true meaning of fear until he was a husband and father. “Why in God’s name—”
    “Don’t waste time questioning it, Rannoch. Just be grateful that if La Fleur had to be an idiot he was the sacrificial sort. You’re lucky.”
    “Damned lucky.”
    “Not that.” Davenport picked up La Fleur’s pistol and stowed it in his pocket. “You’re lucky that you actually care whether you live or die.”
    Malcolm cast a sharp look at the other man, but Davenport was looking down at La Fleur. “What’s the Silver Hawk?” Davenport asked. “It sounds like something out of a lending library novel.”
    “I don’t know.” Malcolm closed La Fleur’s eyes, as he had closed the eyes of too many soldiers and civilians in recent years. He glanced up and saw the light still glowing behind one of the French windows on the first floor of the château, illuminating the balcony before it. A pale mass lay behind the wrought-metal filigree of the balcony railing, a mass that had not been there when he arrived. The stir of blue