No one was in sight. Enough light came from the burning shed in the main yard to show four horizontal slit windows for the dungeon cells. Grey dropped down by the nearest slit, which he guessed was for his old cell. “Père Laurent?” he called, keeping his voice low. “Madame Boyer?”

“Grey, can that be you?” the priest replied in a startled voice.

“It is, and we’re here to get you out.” As he spoke, Grey tested the bars. They were set too solidly to be worked loose. “You’re there with Romain and André?”

“We’re here,” Romain said softly. “Viole and Yvette are in the next cell.”

Cassie had been investigating the other slit windows. To Grey, she said, “We’ll never loosen these bars in time. We need to blow up this window, which is farthest from the prisoners.”

Knowing she was right, he said to the men, “Protect yourselves. We’re going to use a grenade to enter the farthest cell.”

“A grenade?” It was Viole’s voice from the next window. “So that is what we’ve been hearing! Come, Yvette, we will burrow into a corner like foxes.”

Another round of explosions was coming from the forecourt as Grey lit a reduced-powder, short-fused grenade Cassie had built for this purpose. Luckily, the flame in the lantern hadn’t gone out during their exertions.

As soon as the fuse was burning, he set the grenade by the fourth window, which led to an empty cell. Then he and Cassie withdrew behind a nearby stone buttress.

The grenade went off between the explosions of two others in the main yard. Though theirs was modest compared to the others, there was still an ear-numbing blast and debris rattled all over the yard.

“I should have used less gunpowder!” Cassie said with mad humor as they raced to the blown-out window. There was now a pile of rubble and a gap wide enough to admit Cassie, though without much room to spare.

Grey had another rope. He wrapped it around his waist several times, then dropped the other end through the hole. Cassie crawled backward through the shattered window. When she was inside with one hand on the rope, he handed her the lantern. “I’ll work on widening the hole.”

“Right.” She disappeared down into the dark, dank cell.

Grey pulled the short crowbar from his pack and went to work prying loosened stones from around the window opening. So far, everything was going according to plan.

It couldn’t last.


Chapter 46

Cassie landed on loose rubble below the blown-out window, twisted her ankle, and almost fell. Grey’s strength on the rope kept her upright.

She tested her ankle, decided there was no real damage, and opened the lantern door to release some light into the Stygian darkness. She crossed the cell to the door and was glad to find it unlocked.

Breathing thanks that she wouldn’t have to pick the lock, she stepped into the corridor. Light came from the slit under the door to the guard’s office. She raced down and tried the door. Locked, no sound audible from the other side. Praying that the guard had gone outside to deal with the attackers, she pulled out her lock picks.

The lock was old and simple, and it took her less than a minute to open it. Nerves taut, she opened the door cautiously in case there was a guard waiting to shoot her. The room was empty. And blessed be, the key ring hung on the wall! She grabbed the keys, along with the larger lamp that had been left burning on a hook.

It took three attempts to find the right key to the men’s cell, but finally it swung open. “Madame Fox?” Romain said, startled. Beside him was his wide-eyed young son and Père Laurent, looking less frail than the last time she’d rescued him from this hellhole. Both the men needed a shave, but on the whole, they looked to be in good shape.

“None other,” Cassie said, realizing that her dark scarf had fallen down around her neck to reveal her features. “We’ll leave from the cell at the end where the window has been enlarged and there’s a rope. André, you’re the lightest. Your father can help you up and out. Then you and Sommers can pull out Père Laurent.”

Romain looked stubborn. “I won’t leave without my wife and daughter!”

“By the time André and Père Laurent are out, your womenfolk will be free, too. Now move!”

She handed Romain the larger lantern, then went to work on the door to the women’s cell. Again, it took excruciatingly long moments to find the right key. As soon as the door opened, Viole and Yvette tumbled out. Viole hugged Cassie. “Mon ange!”

“I’m no angel!” Cassie briefly hugged back, relieved that her friends seemed to have survived captivity well. “Come along now. The sooner we leave, the better.”

They moved to the escape cell and found that Père Laurent was being bodily lifted by Romain and dragged from above by Grey. It had to be painful and difficult, but the priest doggedly contributed what strength he had and didn’t complain.

As Père Laurent disappeared above ground, Romain grabbed his wife and daughter in a fierce embrace. “Yvette, you first,” he said huskily. “I’ll help you up. Then take the rope and let Sommers and André pull you through.”

“Oui, Papa.” The girl picked her way through the rubble, then reached up as high on the rope as she could. Romain boosted her so that her hands were almost to the opening. A moment of scrambling, and she was through.

“Viole, you next,” Cassie ordered.

She was heavier than her daughter so Cassie helped with the lifting. Viole’s pleasantly rounded hips barely made it through the expanded gap. “You now, milady fox,” Romain said. “It will take everyone’s strength to get me up.”

Knowing he was right, she let him lift her. The relief on getting outside and not seeing armed guards pounding down at them was enormous. She squeezed Grey’s arm with heartfelt relief. “Do you think Romain can make it through that space?”

“It will be tight, but he’ll fit.” Grey unwound the rope from his waist and held it out to the others. “Everyone who feels strong enough can help.”

Cassie and all the Boyers grabbed on to the rope. Père Laurent said ruefully, “All I’m fit for is praying.”

“Pray away, Father!” Cassie felt Romain’s weight on the rope. He had to be lifted from the bottom of the cell, and his broad frame and farmer’s muscles made him heavy.

Romain’s head appeared, then his shoulders. A very tight fit indeed, but as he worked his way through the ruined window, Cassie gave a sigh of relief. Almost here …

Relief was premature. Romain had just crawled onto solid ground when a booming voice echoed off the walls. “Wyndham! I knew you’d come!”

Cassie looked up to see Claude Durand swaggering toward them, his dark cloak flaring against the torches of the half-dozen armed guards he led.

Cassie and Grey had run out of time.

Grey hissed to Cassie, “Get everyone else out the postern while I distract him!”

She made an anguished sound but didn’t argue. “You be careful, damn you!”

“I’d much rather be a live coward than a dead hero,” he assured her. But as Grey turned to Durand, he realized that he might not have a choice. Fate had turned full circle and brought him back to this place and this enemy.

Grey guessed that the darkness behind him prevented Durand and his men from seeing the escapees. If he could keep their attention focused on him, they might not notice Cassie shepherding her charges to safety.

Time to provide that distraction. He pulled down his scarf, revealing his face. As retreating footsteps sounded behind him, he strolled toward Durand with the arrogant confidence of an aristocrat, guessing that would focus the man’s attention.

“Of course I’m here, Durand,” he drawled. “Very bad of you to imprison innocents to lure me back to France. You could have killed me anytime during the ten years I was here. Better that than play these childish cat-and-mouse games.”

“That’s a mistake I’m going to rectify!” Durand raised a pistol and cocked it, his hands trembling from rage.

What were the chances that the pistol would misfire or Durand would miss his shot? Didn’t really matter since Durand was backed up by half a dozen soldiers carrying rifles, and they were professionals, not crazed amateurs.

“Why do you hate me so much?” he asked in a conversational tone. “I could have understood if you’d shot me at the beginning. A crime of passion, very traditional. But why throw a foolish boy into a dungeon for ten years?”

“I wanted you to suffer!” Durand looked more than a little mad, and he was gripping his pistol as if savoring the moment, not wanting to shoot too soon. “Spoiled, selfish aristocrats like you brought France to ruin. I would have sent you to the guillotine, but that would have made death too easy, and everything in your life had been easy. You deserved to die a difficult death.”

“You’re right, I was spoiled and selfish, but at least part of that was simply being young, not my most noble blood.” Grey halted twenty paces from the other man. He was trying to think of a really good insult so he could go down like a fearless, insouciant Englishman. Strange that events had brought him back here to die. But he’d had the best weeks of his life since Cassie rescued him.

That gave him an idea. Instead of an insult, he said lazily, “It will horrify you to know that I’m not only a much better man for my imprisonment, but in the months since I was freed, I’ve had a lifetime’s worth of happiness.”

“You’ll have no more!” Durand stared down the barrel of his pistol with narrowed eyes. “Shall I shoot you in the knee so it will take you days to die in screaming agony? Or should I put a bullet in your heart and end this nonsense?”

“You’re giving me a choice? How gentlemanly of you.” Grey gave a brief, ironic bow. “I’ll have to think about this. Though I might survive being shot in the knee, if I don’t, it’s a nasty way to die. But being shot in the heart is so very final.”