Evan predicted the poor woman had had all the wind knocked out of her in the prison. He was not so worried about her attitude as he was about her health.
Suddenly, a warden with a set of keys came his way. Evan slid into an old crevice, his body flat to the cold stones, his eyes finally adjusting to the hellish depths of gloom down here. The warden took his damn time, heavy-footed bounder that he was. What he was doing inspecting the cells at this hour dismayed Evan. They had been told that they could catch him at his post in the middle of the night. Instead, here he patrolled. Evan and Rafe needed no silliness tonight. It was bad enough to try to take one prisoner from this sordid place, but to take a woman, too?
If she even lives.
The countess had confirmation from her sources that Luc survived, although he had recently suffered from dysentery. As for the young woman, the countess had no idea where she was in the prison, or how she was.Rafe and I will search for her…unto our peril.But what crimes were committed on women and children in these places by craven creatures, Evan did not want to imagine. The words of Countess Nugent had been bad enough.
“Zephora is a plucky girl. All red hair and fire, she recites Homer one minute, and the next devises bawdy poetry. She reminds me too much of Gus and Amber when they were young and impulsive.”
“What is Miss Burton’s crime, madame?” Evan had asked her.
“She stole a little book in which Vaillancourt recorded names of those who owned him money in his casino.”
Evan had snorted. “He could not have that get out, could he?”
The lady gave him a gracious but baleful smile. “He clapped her in irons for her failure to give it to him. But Vaillancourt’s problem is that the contents did get out to the gossip sheets.”
Evan did not care who knew the contents now. He silently feared the girl suffered disease, at best, and at worst, was only a whiff of what she had once been. Rafe, blunt to the bitter end, expected to find “no bones, no skin, no breath of life.”
The warden stepped before a cell and bellowed at the inmate. The French he uttered was fast, furious, and beyond Evan’s ability to translate, so he just waited.
Then a warmth approached Evan’s side. Two taps on his shoulder and he knew it was Rafe who had joined him. In the gloom, he saw him move his fingers before his eyes. The signal was clear.Ah.Rafe had found the countess’s young lady and now pointed back down the way he had come. Evan nodded, then indicated with a swish of his hand that they had to look for Luc in this corridor. It was one of two they had left. If they did not find Luc here, the possibility of that man’s demise was great.
The warden finished his harangue and spun back the way he’d come. Evan and Rafe froze in place, eyes closed, Rafe with his hatchet and Evan with his stiletto behind their backs, pistols concealed in holsters at their sides. The warden paused and took a huge sniff of the air.
Rafe and Evan had taken great care the past two days to avoid bathing, cleaning their teeth, or combing their hair. Smelling like a gentleman of cologne and wine was not the way of the dungeon. Beer and whisky mixed best with sweat and mud and crusty clothes.
The man lingered and inhaled again.
Evan thought they were discovered—and about to die.
But the fellow muttered wild things to himself…and moved on.
Evan wanted to curse too. But held his English tongue. Then he pointed to one cell in the far corner. He moved forward on cat’s feet, Rafe right behind him.
The cell, unlike many others, was large. Its expanse, he could see, was the whole corner. He got right up to the bars and peered inside. Staring back at him was a set of large, wide eyes—and at once, the possessor of those eyes rose and charged against the bars.
“Qui es-tu? Who are you?” he seethed.
The man’s breath nearly blinded Evan. “Et tu?” he demanded of him.
The fellow scrambled backward, stunned.
Rafe whispered in a growl, “Your name, monsieur?”
“Bechard,imbécile!”
“Thank God,” Evan murmured.
“Let’s get that warden,” Rafe whispered to Evan. “Bechard, we will return.”
“But—” Luc objected.
Evan and Rafe were gone, on their way to the warden with the keys.
They approached the end of the corridor that led to two others as long, as dark, as silent, save for the moaning of those nigh unto death. Then the two implemented the plan they had rehearsed.
Evan charged out, grabbing the warden by the waist and throat. Hurrying him over to the man’s table, he bent him over it, spread out his fingers, and cooed to him about the sharpness of his hatchet. Before the fellow could answer, Rafe stuffed a woolen rag in his mouth.
