Winter Dreams, page 27
Bella was amused. “You think I would be so foolish as to risk being discovered in such a connection? No, I was on my way to Saint-Cloud. I asked Lucien to take your English mare, and he failed, but I forgive him because tonight he is going to take me to safety.”
“And once at Saint-Cloud, when your attempts to win Bonaparte’s heart and Joséphine’s place beside him failed, you came to London to tell as many of his secrets as you could.”
“Napoléon thought he could bed me and then reject me, so I taught him a lesson. Believe me, Daniel, he is not invincible.”
Daniel was anxious to know more in the time that was left. “What was O’Reilly doing in Milan when he recognized you at La Scala?” he asked.
“Oh, poking and prying, for that was what he was good at. No one in Morlaix liked him. The Minister of Police, Fouché, was an idol to him. O’Reilly reveled in secrets and intrigue, and would stoop to any means to an end. Fouché sent him to Milan as a courier, but O’Reilly was set upon by brigands who stole his secret documents. After that, Fouché would have none of him, so O’Reilly turned upon the government that Fouché served. O’Reilly’s cousin, Georges Cadoudal, was a Bourbonist, and when he was caught and executed for plotting against Napoléon, O’Reilly stepped into his shoes. He wished to complete what his cousin had started, and so he approached the British.” Bella smiled. “I think you know much of this, do you not?”
“Some,” Daniel admitted, “although as you can imagine, Louis O’Reilly painted himself in rather different colors.”
“But of course.” Bella glanced toward the Requin. The rowing boat was halfway to the shore, and still everything seemed quiet. “It was no accident that he demanded to have British help for a plan that commenced in Lisbon. He was intent upon blackmailing me again. He said that unless I helped him to get to Saint-Cloud, and assisted him in killing the emperor, he would expose my bigamy to the world. Well, I am much wiser now than I was all those years ago in Milan. When he demanded that I meet him secretly on the night of my farewell concert at the Teatro do São Carlo, I kept the appointment, took a knife with me, and stabbed him in his maggot’s heart. He did not escape retribution a second time.”
Daniel gazed at her. “So you killed him, not the French?” he said for the benefit of the eavesdropper.
“Yes. The French knew nothing of who he was or what he was plotting until I told them afterward. Sérurier was very pleased with me for ridding them of such a threat to Napoléon’s life. I was paid very well.” Bella smiled. “Murder can be very lucrative.”
“Except when it has a witness,” Daniel pointed out.
“Ah, yes, the tiresome Mr. Nicholls. He had to be disposed of, before he presented me with difficulties. It was in vain, as it happened, because I am hounded anyway. The stakes are too high now, and I must escape to begin another new life. I am going to America, and I will persuade Lucien to come with me. We will be husband and wife again.”
Daniel knew then that she intended to kill him. She would not mention her future plans and leave him alive to tell the tale.
Bella smiled at him. “How is your Mrs. Callard? Does she satisfy you in bed as I did?”
“There is no comparison,” he replied ambiguously, knowing that Bella would take it as a compliment.
“Oh, Daniel, Daniel, if only things had been different. You and I should have been together. You know that, don’t you?”
From the corner of his eye Daniel could see the rowing boat as it reached the bar. Several French sailors leapt out to drag it ashore. There were mere seconds left now before the deserted beach became a battleground.
Bella continued, “But you have chosen another, and in so doing have thrown away what might have been. Well, that will not do, Daniel. Tonight I have told you things that I do not wish anyone else to hear, and so, my darling, I am afraid that we must part. Forever.” She steadied the pistol.
Daniel was aware that from only a few yards away it was surely impossible for her to miss, but he was also aware of a shadow emerging from behind the gorse bushes. Judith! She moved silently, like an apparition, and the scissors in her hand glinted in the moonlight.
Like Jamie, Bella knew nothing until the scissors pressed against the tender skin of her neck, but unlike him, they did not end her life in an instant. “How does it feel to know you are to die, Bella?” Judith breathed, her voice tight with loathing.
Bella’s eyes widened, and as she hesitated, Daniel dove forward to grab her by the wrist. A shot resounded through the silence of the night, but not from Bella’s pistol. The prima donna gave a short, choked cry, and fell to the sand, where she lay, her eyes wide open in death. There was a bullet wound in the very center of her forehead.
For a moment Daniel thought Judith had somehow killed her, but almost immediately he realized the fatal shot had come from another direction. Whirling about, he saw Ferron.
The Frenchman smiled. “I always do my duty, my lord,” he said softly, but then the smile was dashed from his face as there were sudden shouts from the bar. The British infantry and revenue men had begun to swarm out of hiding to take on the crewmen who’d landed from the privateer. The shouts were accompanied by bursts of rifle fire, and then came one or two screams as shots found targets.
Lucien Maudy had been taken by surprise but soon recovered his wits. He could be heard yelling orders, and in what seemed like only a few seconds the Requin’s cannon shattered the darkness. The whine of the balls was terrifying, as were the explosions as they struck the shore, sending plumes of shingle and sand into the air. Terrified seagulls took flight all around as the explosions echoed inland, seeming to be flung back from the hills like answering fire.
There was hand-to-hand fighting on the bar as the Frenchmen put up a valiant defense. Some of them had managed to shove the boat back into the gentle surf, but although they shouted and gesticulated for their companions to get on board, the number of British was too great.
Then cannon sounded in the bay beyond the privateer as the Tireless began to come in closer. Maudy knew that unless he acted swiftly and decisively, the Requin would be taken. He seized a speaking trumpet in order to be heard above the din, and screamed orders at the top of his lungs. “Bring her around! Bring her around!” he shrieked in French, then began to call his crew every vile name under the heavens as they struggled to obey but weren’t fast enough to suit him. Again and again he could be heard screaming at them, his coolness under fire seeming to have deserted him at the very time he need it most.
The Tireless was closing the distance, having somehow gained the wind gauge. She was coming up on the privateer’s stern starboard quarter, and would soon be within range to swing around and deliver a decisive broadside that would blast the sloop out of the water.
Daniel had hurled himself at Ferron the moment the first shouts were heard. They rolled over and over, struggling and kicking, but Daniel was stronger and fitter, and it was not long before an upper cut to the Frenchman’s chin brought the fight to an end.
Judith remained where she was, in a state of shock, frozen, helpless, the scissors slipping from her numb fingers. She would have killed Bella, and in that had shown herself to be no better than the singer. Murder was murder, no matter at whose hand it was committed.
The servants from Penventon came running to tie Ferron with ropes, and Daniel was reassured that everything Bella confessed had been heard by at least three people. But he listened with only half attention, for his worried glance had gone to Judith, who was as still as a statue. Leaving the gaggle of servants around Ferron, he went to her. “Judith?”
She heard his voice as if from a distance. She saw him through her daze. “Daniel?” she whispered.
He caught her to him, and held her tight. “It’s all right, my darling, we’re both safe,” he breathed, and they stood there in each other’s arms, watching the battle in the bay. The combat on the bar was at an end, the British having overcome the French sailors who’d come ashore, but the conflict between the Requin and the Tireless was only just beginning.
Lucien Maudy was a ferocious opponent, and had not lost his quick wits and flair. Even so close inshore, he was prepared to risk firing first at the Tireless. The force of the privateer’s cannon would swing her toward the bar, and the surf, idle as it was, would do the same, maybe to the point of driving her onto the treacherous shingle. It was a dangerous gamble that the French captain was prepared to take. Again he screamed orders into the speaking trumpet. His desperate crew obeyed, and the privateer’s bows swung sharply around. The canvas slapped against the rigging, the hull scraped against the shingle, but she came around. Now she too could deliver a broadside, and did so a fraction of a second before the Tireless could also be brought to bear.
The Requin’s cannon seemed to stop the very air. The seagulls were silenced, the men on the bar became still, and a great cloud of smoke drifted slowly on the wind. Everyone watched the Tireless, and the British cheered as the French broadside fell just short, splashing yards in front of the frigate, which had now swung around as well and had the privateer in her sights.
Those onshore heard the distant shout of the frigate’s captain, and then the night was shattered by another roar of cannon. Maudy’s luck had run out, for the British ship had the perfect range and elevation. The broadside struck the Requin with the force of a hurricane, shattering her rigging and felling her masts like trees. The effect upon the French crew’s morale was catastrophic, for the privateer had led an almost charmed existence, all previous damage paling beside this onslaught.
The Tireless fired again, this time hammering into the Requin’s hull. Flames began to flicker on the privateer’s decks, and Maudy shouted himself hoarse as he tried to muster his men’s fighting spirit. But even he knew it was all over, and after a while tossed the speaking trumpet aside.
Daniel and Judith were still in each other’s arms, and Daniel smiled. “If I’m not mistaken, the Requin is about to haul down her colors. Yes, indeed, it is well and truly done!” There were shouts and cheers from the watching British as the tricolor was hauled down from the crippled mainmast, which had split almost in half and was leaning at a sickening angle toward the land.
The coastguard cutter was already coming in close to board the crippled vessel. All the Frenchmen onshore were now in shackles, and it was clear that the ambush had been a complete success.
Daniel drew Judith away from Bella’s body, which a gardener covered with an old blanket. Smoke drifted on the air, and there were shouts from the Requin as flames took greater hold and Maudy and his men realized the privateer was going to perish. The shark was a shark no more.
Daniel led Judith to a quieter part of the beach, then made her look at him. “I owe you my life, Judith,” he said quietly. “If you had not come when you did, Bella would certainly have shot me. Judith?” He put his hand to her chin and raised her face so he could look fully into her eyes. “It’s over, my darling, and we are the victors.”
“I . . . I thought it would feel so different, that Bella’s death would avenge Jamie, but I just feel empty. . . .”
“Perhaps it is grief for your brother, Judith.”
Was that it? Bella’s death had left a deserted stage onto which sorrow now stepped forward to utter its long soliloquy. “I was prepared to kill her, Daniel. I was prepared to thrust the scissors into her neck, just as she did to Jamie.”
“I know, but murder is not for you, my darling.” He pushed the hair back from her face. “I adore you, Judith Callard, and I respect you as I respect no other. You are loyal, proud, spirited, and utterly beguiling. Bella knew she had lost from the moment she saw you.”
“I do not think Bella was so easily discouraged,” Judith replied.
“Whatever has gone before, you and I are free to live our lives. Do you still wish to be my wife?”
“That is something that has never changed.”
He tilted her lips to meet his, but before kissing her he paused. “And another thing. A messenger arrived while you were sleeping—or rather, pretending to sleep, for I realize now that you did almost forget yourself just before I left you to come here. The message was from Chris. Rachel has had a little boy.”
“And she and the baby are safe and well?”
Daniel nodded. “And what’s more, they have decided to call him Jamie. Jamie Oscar Nansloe.”
“Jamie would be so proud.” Judith smiled. “And there is to be an Oscar after all.”
“It would seem so, poor little soul.”
“And—”
“Enough,” Daniel whispered, and stopped her words with his lips.
Shortly afterward, as they walked hand in hand back to the house, something made Judith turn. Jamie was standing where the lawns met the sand. The flames from the burning Requin leapt and danced behind him, and wreaths of smoke curled inland to drift over the dunes like a thick incoming mist. The twins smiled at each other, and Jamie blew his sister a kiss, then turned and walked into the haze of smoke.
“What can you see?” Daniel asked, pausing to look back as well.
“Jamie,” she said softly.
“Ah,” he murmured, and drew her hand to his lips. “And is he content that justice was done tonight?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said, then added, “I won’t see him again.”
“You can be sure of that?”
She nodded. “Yes, as I can also be sure that we will have four children: three boys and a girl—two sets of twins.”
“Will they be clairvoyant too?”
“I fear so.”
He pretended to be aghast. “But not, I trust, to the extent of always knowing what is going on in our bedchamber?”
“Certainly not.”
He grinned. “Thank heaven for that,” he said, and kissed her again.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Sandra Heath, Winter Dreams
