Lord Deverill's Heir by Catherine Coulter (best books to read all time .TXT) 📗

fingernails, a look of utter boredom on her face, until he stopped his laughter. “Ah, you’re finished? Good. No, you’re right. You won’t hurt me this time, comte, but my incarceration at the abbey was a bit too close for my liking, but I believe you were by far the more enterprising. Do not let me disturb your search.” He paused a moment, then shrugged, that damned Gaelic shrug that meant everything and nothing, yet it was always insulting. “Very well. You can witness my legacy.” He slipped his fingers into the small compartment. A bellow of fury erupted from his throat. “They are gone! No, it is not possible. No one knew, save Magdalaine, no one.” He was feeling in the small compartment frantically now, but there was nothing there, nothing at all. He was gasping with rage and disbelief.

Arabella drew back from his sudden rage. “What is gone, monsieur? What did Magdalaine hide in the compartment?” He seemed almost unaware of her presence. He was staring blankly at that empty compartment. “The Trécassis emeralds. Worth a king’s ransom. Gone, gone.”

For a fleeting instant Arabella pictured the smudged lines of Magdalaine’s letter to her lover that she had not been able to decipher.

She felt a sudden knot of anguish in her stomach. Her father had sent Magdalaine to France, in the midst of the dangerous revolution, to bring him back the emeralds. That was what Magdalaine must have meant in her letter to her lover about their becoming rich from her husband’s greed.

Magdalaine and her lover sought to escape Arabella’s father. Had Magdalaine been fleeing from Evesham Abbey, with perhaps Elsbeth in her arms, to meet her lover at the old abbey ruins? Had her husband caught them? Murdered Magdalaine’s lover? In his fury, had he also murdered Magdalaine?

She felt nauseous with the horror of what her father had done.

Gervaise had regained control of himself. He said in a more calm voice now, “My dear Arabella, I find it very curious that you are so superbly apprised of my affairs. Perhaps it is you who found the emeralds?” He took a step toward her.

“No, monsieur, I did not find your emeralds,” she said quietly, her thoughts still on her father and the violent deaths of so long ago.

“Somehow I do not quite believe you.” His hand shot out to grab her arm.

Arabella jumped back and drew the gun from the folds of her skirt. She looked at him with all the contempt she felt. “I am not such a fool, monsieur, as to face a murderer without protecting myself.” He eyed the gun, then stepped back. He splayed his fingers in front of him. He looked bewildered. “I promised you I wouldn’t hurt you. What is this about murder? Murder, madame? I, a murderer? It is absurd. Come, you are weaving this all together in your girl’s fantasies.”

“Oh no, Gervaise, I know that you helped poor Josette to her death. It was obvious. Why should she be wandering about Evesham Abbey in the middle of the night without any light to guide her? It was careless of you not to have left a candle near her. Why did you kill her, Gervaise?

Was it because I caught her in the earl’s bedchamber, her hands roving over The Dance of Death? You were afraid she would tell me about the emeralds?”

He made no answer. She added in a still-cool, precise voice, “Or perhaps she threatened to expose you, monsieur, to tell everyone that you were a bastard, that you were Magdalaine’s son? Did she tell you that your seduction of Elsbeth violated the very laws of nature? I only pray that Elsbeth does not ever discover that you are her half-brother. It would destroy her.”

His face had gone chalk white in the dim candlelight, his dark eyes blind with bitterness and anger. His voice was harsh and grating. “No, damn you, Elsbeth does not know. I did not realize I was Magdalaine’s son myself until that wretched old woman told me. Were it not for your damned interference, madame, and that of your wretched husband, I should be away now, free, with what is rightfully mine. None of it is my fault, none of it. I came here only to retrieve what is mine. Mine, do you hear?”

“What is rightfully yours, Gervaise? Most assuredly you’re not a comte of anything. You are not even a Trécassis. You are a bastard, nothing more, nothing less. If the emeralds do exist, they would belong to Elsbeth, for she is legitimate. Nothing here belongs to you.” He stood staring at her, his mouth working, his pain and rage so deep that he could find no words.

“Damn you, where are my emeralds?”

“I have no idea. Did it not occur to you that the skeleton in the old abbey ruins was your father? I know it for a fact, for after you so obligingly entombed me in that chamber, I found a letter from Magdalaine to him in his breeches pocket. There is no doubt, Gervaise. His name was Charles. He was your father.”

She saw it all come together in his dark eyes, saw the understanding, saw the string of events that had led to this day. He lunged at her. “Damn you to hell, your father killed him!” He was in a frenzy, taking her off her guard. His fingers tightened painfully about her wrist, and the pistol went spinning from her hand and thudded to the floor.

He flung her away from him, gasping, his breathing so harsh she imagined that he surely would collapse from it. She grabbed at the back of a chair to keep from falling. Arabella watched him pull the pistol from his belt.

She watched him pick up her father’s gun and lay it on a table beside him. His hands were shaking. Still she felt no fear of him, only anger at herself for being so foolish as to allow him to catch her unawares. If only she could