AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What do you want of the servants?”
“I intend to have them search the house and grounds. Seurat mig
ht have left behind something that will be of assistance in tracking him.”
“A beginning, but it is not enough,” Carlos said.
Philippe turned to his friend with a frigid glare. “Do you have a better scheme?”
“Meu Deus.” Carlos shoved his fingers through his hair. “We should have taken greater care. Raine should never have been left here alone. We failed her.”
Philippe turned back to gaze sightlessly at the fire. “No, Carlos, I failed her. I was the one to take her from her home and to put her in danger, not you. But I will get her back. Even if I have to take Paris apart brick by brick.” He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Go to Belfleur’s. I will join you—”
Carlos frowned as the clipped words were abruptly broken off and Philippe bent down to touch the floor.
“What is it?” Moving forward, he impatiently bent beside his friend, wondering if he had discovered something that Seurat had left behind. “Philippe?”
Wordlessly, Philippe lifted his hand and held it toward the fire. Carlos’s heart slammed to a halt as he caught sight of the unmistakable red stain at the tip of his finger.
Blood.
Carlos muttered a string of curses as he rose to his feet and then slammed his fist into the wall. The fierce blow knocked a small vase from the mantel and rattled paintings. Unfortunately it did nothing to ease his choking fury.
Clenching and unclenching his throbbing hand, Carlos turned back to Philippe. He was still kneeling before the fire, his face disturbingly pale as he stared at the sticky redness on his finger.
He appeared frozen in place, as if he might shatter if he so much as breathed. Carlos gripped his shoulder.
“It is no more than a drop, Philippe,” he said softly.
Philippe’s expression remained cold and distant, but Carlos could feel the fine tremor beneath his hand.
“She was hurt.”
“Do not leap to conclusions.” He gave the shoulder a rough shake. “You know Raine well enough to realize she would not go without a fight. That blood more than likely belongs to Seurat.”
There was a thick, choking silence before Philippe gave a nod and straightened.
“We will find her,” he swore in low tones. “And then Seurat is dead.”
RAINE STRUGGLED OUT OF the clinging sleep with a sense of dread. A part of her warned that she would be far better off to remain unconscious. In the thick darkness the heavy pounding in her temples was no more than a distant throb and she could pretend she was safely tucked in her bed at the cottage with no madman in sight.
Unfortunately, a larger part of her was far too sensible to allow her to remain so terribly vulnerable when she was in the power of a desperate villain.
She was no spineless coward. Whatever she had to face she would do so with her eyes open and her shoulders squared.
Her flare of courage allowed her to wrench open her heavy lids and to glance cautiously around the room dimly lit by the early morning sunlight. There was not much to see.
She was lying upon a cramped sofa that was set beneath a covered window. There was a matching chair in a distant corner and a wooden table that held a cracked vase. The floors were bare and the paneled walls were faded and stained.
There was an adjoining room that she suspected was a bedchamber, and from the rustling noises coming from the room she could only suppose her captor was busily preparing for the day.
They were precisely the sort of low-rent rooms that could be had throughout the city of Paris.
The knowledge briefly made her heart sink.
How was Philippe possibly to find her if there was nothing to indicate that this was the home of a man crazed by a lust for revenge?
Raine pressed her fingers to her throbbing temple before she was thrusting aside the pessimistic thoughts. Bloody hell. She did not need Philippe Gautier to rush to her rescue. She was no spineless coward!
