Page 33 of Mistress of Sins

Jean-Pierre returned with the chair and the rope, and hauled him from the floor before he tied him up. Catherine stepped back and kept the pistol leveled at his head the entire time, so Greystone didn’t try to resist. Once he had been secured, she tucked the pistol away and began rummaging through the cabinets.

“I will question him,” she told Jean-Pierre in French as she began assembling a collection of kitchen knives. “Go and collect the others, and prepare the horses. Then search the rooms upstairs. If you see the girl, do not harm her. Bring her to me.”

“Jacques wants a taste of her,” Jean-Pierre said in the same language, and gave Greystone a broad smile. “Maybe you let him do her on the kitchen table after you kill this one, eh? You know how you like to watch them cry and beg.”

Catherine turned around and regarded him.

Her lover lifted his hands. “I want you to be happy, that is all.”

“I will be happy when we are back in Paris.” She picked up a carving knife and used it to point to the door. “Go.”

Ignoring their gruesome hilarity required all of Greystone’s concentration, for he had very little time left to decide how to manage the situation. He had never been captured, and all of his vials of poison remained concealed upstairs. This was what Pickering had faced at his end, and he had goaded the agents into killing him.

Somehow he must do the same.

“I am sorry about that,” Catherine said as she came over to him with a carving knife. “You know how trying it can be, working with Jean-Pierre’s sort. All ballocks and no brains. But now we must move on to the interrogation. Where have you hidden Jennet Reed?”

“As I told you, she left. I told her where to find my horse, and what to do as soon as she got home.” Greystone stared past her. “Likely she has arrived at Reed Park by now, and is sending her man for the magistrate.”

“Well, if that is true, we will make that our next stop.” She expertly sliced open the front of his shirt. “A pity, too, for I had hoped to preserve my friendship with your lady love. Her goodness often grows monotonous, but she has provided excellent cover whenever I must decamp to the country.”

“Leave her out of this,” he said tonelessly. “She is a civilian.”

“That is the problem with you English. You regard women as beneath you, unable to be your partners in the war effort. In Erin, we are all soldiers.” She began ripping off his shirt with the efficiency of someone who had done the same many times.

“Jennet is an innocent,” Greystone reminded her.

Catherine chuckled. “That she is. I am sure it will be vastly entertaining to reveal my true self to her before I cut her throat. Never would she have suspected her giddy friend to be an agent for the French. Her talent for reading people never worked on me.”

“She loves you as a friend.” It would break her heart when she discovered Catherine’s deception, too. “We never expect the people we care for to be heartless monsters, and that is your specialty, isn’t it? Your life is nothing but one endless masquerade.”

“You say that with such disapproval.” She made a tsking sound. “I know you are the Raven, William. You can stop pretending you care for anything but the next kill.”

“Jennet need never know the truth about either of us,” Greystone said quickly. “You have shown yourself only to me. I will die here tonight, and she will believe I have abandoned her again. You can still be her friend.”

“True, if I wished to.” She tossed the torn garment aside and stood back as if admiring his bare chest. “I am not entirely heartless, William. Before my men killed Pickering, I pleasured him twice—once with my mouth. While I was searching his bed chamber he came in, you see, so I was obliged to play the swooning maid for his benefit.”

“Arthur was only a courier,” Greystone told her.

“So, it seems. Still, I can assure you that he died a happy man.” She ran her finger down his sternum and stroked his abdomen. “Would you care for one last romp, my lord? I’ve always wondered what sort of lover you would prove. Jean-Pierre told me you were quite vigorous with Jennet in the hot-house.”

Her touch felt cold, and her fingers hard as bone, as if a skeleton caressed him. “I cannot not oblige you, madam.”

Catherine grabbed his crotch, but when she felt no sign of arousal from him she lifted her hand and slapped his face. She strode away from him, her fists clenched, her back rigid. Just as suddenly she turned around, her expression serene.

“A pity, for now I must seek my amusements elsewhere,” Catherine said in a pleasant tone. “I know just the thing I will do. When we arrive at Reed Park, I will permit Jacques and Jean-Pierre to have Margaret while I force Jennet to watch. Do you think the old lady can accommodate them both at once? Or perhaps I will take both ladies with me to Paris, and allow them to entertain some of my friends there.”

“You will not touch them,” Greystone said, snarling the words.

“Their fate depends entirely on how cooperative you are, William.” She came over and stroked his face where she had marked it. “What will it be: a quick death for your lady love and her sniveling mother, or a command performance with my men, or months of servicing the Emperor’s worst? The last is not a reprieve, I assure you. Those fellows in our prisons are much rougher than Jean-Pierre, I fear. Your contact’s mistress held out only a few days before she confessed all, and she had been as well-used as an alley slut before I gave her to them. She was happy to die.”

Catherine would take pleasure in keeping her horrific promises; in her role as Ruban she had done far worse. “What do you want to know?”

“I already know that you came here to deliver the cipher to Pickering,” she said as she brought her blade to his chest. “Tell me where you have hidden it.”

Chapter 19

The moon shone down on Jeffrey Branwen like a baleful eye as he slowed the carriage to a stop beside the twin lions guarding the gate to Dredthorne Hall. Peering at the front of the house, he saw most of the windows had gone dark. No carriages occupied the drive, and the carts used by the staff Pickering had hired for the party had also gone. It seemed the ball was over, and all was as it should be.