Chapter Thirty-Three

Thirty-three

S ebastian's nose crinkled as an acrid stench wafted toward him. Prudence must be cooking breakfast, he thought. He would have to ride down to the village and hire her a cook. He'd much rather have her snuggled beside him, her head nestled in the crook of his arm, than struggling over an ancient hearth. Why, if she were next to him, he could nuzzle her throat, stroke her until she was purring like a kitten beneath him, and…

He sniffed. Eggs? Where had Jamie pilfered such ill-smelling eggs? From a bloody dragon? Over the reek of sulfur came a pungent whiff of ammonia that brought tears stinging against his heavy lids.

He struggled to lift them. A fractured eddy of sunlight swirled before his eyes.

Broken images assailed him. A rough-hewn window. Slats of azure blue between bud-laden branches. A breeze drifted through the open window, rife with the promise of spring. Sebastian knew where he was. The old crofter's hut. Pain shot through his ankle. Perhaps the last year had been but a dream, he mused. If he closed his eyes, a girl might kneel next to him, her fragrant hair swinging close enough to brush his chest, her cool fingers touching his brow with loving concern. If she did, he would carry her far away with him and never once be fool enough to look back.

Metal clinked against earthenware. Sebastian's vision sharpened. He muffled a groan at the sight of D'Artan hunched over a brass scale that sat on the scarred table. His grandfather measured out a paper cone of metal shavings, then bent to the hearth to stir them into the bubbling contents of a small iron kettle. Sebastian hoped it wasn't breakfast.

He wiggled his fingers. A stabbing tingle shot up his arm. With his returning awareness came a myriad of other discomforts. His hands were bound at the small of his back, his bad ankle bent at an awkward slant. His shoulder hurt like hell, and that might have something to do with the blackened bloodstains spilled down his shirt. A bitter taste lingered at the back of his throat. He knew that taste only too well. Just how much opium had D'Artan forced on him?

He still felt a bit giddy and almost laughed as he watched his grandfather scamper between hearth and bench like a frenzied monkey. D'Artan muttered something under his breath. A French monkey, Sebastian amended.

He'd never seen his grandfather so ruffled. D'Artan's gray hair clung to his head in wisps, as if he'd combed it with agitated fingers. The heat from the fire flushed his smooth cheeks to pink. Sweat stained his long apron.

Sebastian watched with detached interest as D'Artan carried the small vat from hearth to table with gloved hands. He dipped a silver spoon into the mixture. It hissed and bubbled. When he lifted the dripping spoon, it was nothing but a twisted, smoking mass. Sebastian swallowed.

"I'd prefer kippers and eggs if you don't mind," he said.

D'Artan jerked at the sound of his rusty voice, almost overturning the acid. He steadied it, his hands trembling with annoyance.

With alarming speed, a sunny smile replaced his frown. "You don't have to choose the menu. We're expecting company for breakfast."

Sebastian lifted an eyebrow, studying the table. It was spread with gunpowder, two pistols, a knife, and the vat of bubbling acid. "Who? Lucretia Borgia? Your old card-playing friend, the Marquis de Sade?"

"Wrong again. Your own loving wife. I sent her an engraved invitation."

A lusty roar of laughter burst from Sebastian. D'Artan's smile faded.

"My wife won't come. After the way I treated her at our last meeting, she wouldn't spit on me if I were ablaze."

D'Artan stood up and advanced on him. Sebastian held himself rigid, refusing to betray so much as a flinch. "Perhaps you underestimate your charm." His grandfather swiped a lock of hair from his brow with a tender hand. "And your prowess."

"Perhaps I overestimate it. As my father did when he abducted your daughter and expected her to fall in love with him."

A dark red suffused D'Artan's face. His snarl drew his skin taut over aristocratic cheekbones. "Make no mention of that savage to me. The past is done. I care only for the future."

Sebastian closed his eyes in mock boredom. "And a long dull future it will be if it's just you and I sitting here for all eternity, awaiting a lady with a formula."

D'Artan leaned close to him. "If she does not come, only my future will be long and dull. Yours will be very short indeed."

D'Artan's eyes glittered like shards of flint. Sebastian's hope that misplaced sentiment might stop his grandfather from killing him died on a stale and fruity breath.

D'Artan flitted back to the table, rubbing his palms together. Drops of spittle caught on his lips. He held a glass vial up to the sunlight. "I never did see what attraction our proud Miss Walker held for you. I can't wait for the severe little creature to stumble in, weeping and wringing her hands, babbling her precious formula to save your life. How I shall delight in her histrionics!"

"You coldhearted son-of-a—"

Sebastian's oath was cut off by a deafening pistol blast. The thunder of hoofbeats shook the hut.

The vial slipped from D'Artan's hand and shattered on the hard-packed floor. "If that pinched little chit has dared to bring the law…"He drew a German pocket pistol from his apron. His boots crunched the broken shards of glass as he went to open the door a furtive crack.

Sebastian had to know what was going on. He shifted more weight onto the leg folded beneath him. The devil dug a bony claw of pain into his shoulder. Sweat beaded his brow. He had to do this quickly or he would lose the courage to do it at all. His teeth sank into his lower lip as he flung himself up and around onto his knees, slamming his injured shoulder against the windowsill. Sunlight and agony blinded him. He tasted the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

As D'Artan bit off a profane curse, Sebastian gazed out the window. Smoke from the pistol blast drifted through the trees. He blinked, seeing the vision before him through a fractured prism of pain, then gave his head a hard shake. Perhaps so much blood had trickled out of his shoulder that there was none left to feed his brain.

But Prudence was still there, armed and straddling MacKay's gelding as if she'd been born to the saddle.

Her voice rang out in a singing brogue that would have done Jamie proud. "Open the door, ye bloody bastard, before I blow yer French arse from here to kingdom come."

Sebastian slumped against the windowsill, banging his head and wondering if it would hurt more to laugh or cry.