Only With Your Love (Vallerands #2)(93)

“I didn’t believe…”

“It is true,” Max reassured him quietly. “She is alive and well, Philippe.”

Philippe slumped in exhaustion and murmured something incoherent. Max looked at Alexandre. “Get him whatever he wants, Alex. And send for Dr. Dassin.”

“What about Risk? Isn’t he rowing back here?”

Max’s gaze shot to the other bank. “I don’t know what that little one-eyed whelp is doing,” he muttered.

Justin fell to his knees as he was shoved to the ground. Someone cuffed him on the side of his head, making his vision blur and ears ring. When the sparks cleared away, he saw Legare standing in front of him, his lips drawn back in a saw-toothed smile. “By God, I’ve dreamed of this,” he said, and struck him again.

Justin tasted blood. He kept his head bent, deciding not to entertain Legare any more than necessary. Philippe was all right now. All Justin had to do was just stay alive until Aug reached him on the island and the attack began.

He heard Risk’s voice nearby. “…I should tell you,” Risk was saying.

“What is it?” Legare demanded.

“He claimed the woman might be hiding somewhere nearby. If ye choose, it won’t be difficult to sniff her out.”

Time seemed to stop. Slowly Justin raised his head and stared at Risk through a mist of hatred, realizing everything all at once. Risk had betrayed him. If he could no longer sail with Justin, he would choose to follow Legare rather than stand on his own legs. He’d tried to tell him before, and Justin hadn’t listened. “No,” Justin rasped. How much of the plan had Risk told Legare? Aug…what about Aug…

Risk met Justin’s eyes without shame. “I would of followed ye the rest o’ me days, Griffin. I would of fought for ye, died for ye. Ye were the one who ended it.”

Legare smiled in satisfaction. “Find Madame Vallerand, then, and bring her along,” he said crisply. “Captain Griffin seems to have a taste for her company.”

Before Justin could make a sound, there was a crashing pain at the back of his head. He fell heavily to the ground. Dazed, he tried to roll to his side. It took a second blow to bring him down, and then everything went dark.

Celia could not see the action on the other side of the water. She stayed hidden and watched as Alexandre lifted Philippe onto a horse, swung up behind him, and rode away from Devil’s Pass. Max remained by the water, staring at the opposite shore. Risk did not return. After a few minutes had passed, Max turned with a curse and strode to his horse.

Celia thought about approaching Max. Surely he must be going back to the plantation now. It would be safer for her if she rode with him. He would be furious to discover she was there, and would probably give her a blistering lecture, but she knew that deep down he would have sympathy for her. Picking her way through the muddy thicket, she took her horse’s reins and began to lead it out of the woods. Max was about fifty yards ahead. She opened her mouth to call to him.

Suddenly a hand clapped over her mouth and pinched her nose shut. She tried to scream. She struggled against a cruel grasp. Her lungs worked frantically, but she could draw in no air.

Jack Risk’s voice burned into her ear. “Ye’ve been his downfall every damn step o’ the way.”

She felt a moment of sickening dizziness, and then she fainted, plummeting into an endless chasm of darkness.

Lysette welcomed Alexandre and Philippe inside the house with a cry of gladness. She was like a small whirlwhind, embracing Philippe fiercely, asking countless questions without waiting for answers, checking him for injuries, giving instructions to the housemaids to begin heating water for a bath. Philippe declined to go upstairs to rest. “I want some decent food,” he said wearily, “and I want to stay awake for as long as possible, and try to make myself believe I am really here.”

Noeline rushed to bring a steaming bowl of gumbo and thick wedges of bread from the kitchen. Lysette dragged him to the cushioned settee in the parlor and hovered over him worriedly. Philippe seemed numb, not fully aware of what was happening around him. His stepmother was relieved to see that he had no serious injuries. But it worried her, the scarecrow-thinness of his limbs and the emptiness in eyes that had always been warm and smiling.

Taking his hands in hers, Lysette examined them and breathed a prayer of thankfulness that they were undamaged. It had been a particular worry of hers that the pirates might have injured Philippe in a way that would prevent him from resuming the medical practice he loved. Philippe’s long, thin fingers tightened over hers. There had always been an affinity between them. In many ways they were very much alike, genial and good-natured, the peacemakers in a family of volatile personalities.

“Where is Celia?” Philippe asked.

It was the question Lysette had dreaded. “She is not here,” she said. She had discovered Celia’s absence only a short time ago, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

“What?” Alexandre braced his hands on the back of the settee and leaned toward her. “Where the hell is she?” Alex demanded.

“I don’t know,” Lysette said, giving him a frankly worried glance. “She is not in the garçonnière and one of the horses is gone. Apparently she left without telling anyone where she was going.”

“You don’t think she tried to—” Alex began, and stopped as Lysette’s eyes flashed a warning. It would not be wise to upset Philippe with speculation.