Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(61)
His own shock was beginning to fray, and stabs of guilt and anger poked through it like needles.
“Coward?” he said softly. He didn’t mean it as a question, but it seemed more courteous to say it that way. Eulalie snorted, and, looking up, Michael met the full charge of her eyes. No, not shocked any longer.
“You’d know, wouldn’t you,” she said, and it wasn’t at all a question, the way she said it. “You knew about your slut of a sister-in-law, didn’t you? And Babette?” Her lips curled away from the name. “His other mistress?”
“I—no. I mean…Léonie told me yesterday. That was why I came to talk to Charles.” Well, he would certainly have mentioned Léonie. And he wasn’t going anywhere near the mention of Babette, whom he’d known about for quite some time. But, Jesus, what did the woman think he could have done about it?
“Coward,” she said, looking down at Charles’s body with contempt. “He made a mess of everything—everything!—and then couldn’t deal with it, so he runs off and leaves me alone, with children, penniless!”
“Tell him not to do it.”
Michael looked to see if this was an exaggeration, but it wasn’t. She was burning now, but with fear as much as anger, her frozen calm quite vanished.
“The…house…?” he began, with a rather vague wave around the expensive, stylish room. He knew it was her family house; she’d brought it to the marriage.
She snorted.
“He lost it in a card game last week,” she said bitterly. “If I’m lucky, the new owner will let me bury him before we have to leave.”
“Ah.” The mention of card games jolted him back to an awareness of his reason for coming here. “I wonder, madame, do you know an acquaintance of Charles’s—the Comte St. Germain?” It was crude, but he hadn’t time to think of a graceful way to come to it.
Eugenia blinked, nonplussed.
“The comte? Why do you want to know about him?” Her expression sharpened into eagerness. “Do you think he owes Charles money?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll certainly find out for you,” Michael promised her. “If you can tell me where to find Monsieur le Comte.”
She didn’t laugh, but her mouth quirked in what might in another mood have been humor.
“He lives across the street.” She pointed toward the window. “In that big pile of—where are you going?”
But Michael was already through the door and into the hallway, boot heels clattering on the parquet in his haste.
THERE WERE FOOTSTEPS coming up the stairs; Joan started away from the window but then craned back, desperately willing the door across the street to open and let Michael out. What was he doing there?
That door didn’t open, but a key rattled in the lock of the door to the room. In desperation, she tore the rosary from her belt and pushed it through the hole in the window, then dashed across the room and threw herself into one of the repulsive chairs.
It was the comte. He glanced round, worried for an instant, and then his face relaxed when he saw her. He came toward her, holding out his hand.
“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, mademoiselle,” he said, very courtly. “Come, please. I have something to show you.”
“I don’t want to see it.” She stiffened a little and tucked her feet under her, to make it harder for him to pick her up. If she could just delay him until Michael came out! But he might well not see her rosary or, even if he did, know it was hers. Why should he? All nuns’ rosaries looked the same!
She strained her ears, hoping to hear the sounds of departure on the other side of the street—she’d scream her lungs out. In fact…
The comte sighed a little but bent and took her by the elbows, lifting her straight up, her knees still absurdly bent. He was really very strong. She put her feet down, and there she was, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, being led across the room toward the door, docile as a cow on its way to be milked! She made her mind up in an instant, yanked free, and ran to the smashed window.
“HELP!” she bellowed through the broken pane. “Help me, help me! Au secours, I mean! AU SECOU—” The comte’s hand clapped across her mouth, and he said something in French that she was sure must be bad language. He scooped her up, so fast that the wind was knocked out of her, and had her through the door before she could make another sound.
MICHAEL DIDN’T PAUSE for hat or cloak but burst into the street, so fast that his driver started out of a doze and the horses jerked and neighed in protest. He didn’t pause for that, either, but shot across the cobbles and pounded on the door, a big bronze-coated affair that boomed under his fists.
It couldn’t have been very long but seemed an eternity. He fumed, pounded again, and, pausing for breath, caught sight of the rosary on the pavement. He ran to catch it up, scratched his hand, and saw that it lay in a scatter of glass fragments. At once he looked up, searching, and saw the broken window just as the big door opened.
He sprang at the butler like a wildcat, seizing him by the arms.
“Where is she? Where, damn you?”
“She? But there is no ‘she,’ monsieur….Monsieur le Comte lives quite alone. You—”
“Where is Monsieur le Comte?” Michael’s sense of urgency was so great, he felt that he might strike the man. The man apparently felt he might, too, because he turned pale and, wrenching himself loose, fled into the depths of the house. With no more than an instant’s hesitation, Michael pursued him.