Page 37 of Temptation and the Artist

He lunged toward his father, who yelped, “Be still, you fool!” Just as the parlor door burst open, and Stephen Dornan walked in, Mr. Flowers close at his heels.

“Stand and deliver,” Stephen said cheerfully into the sudden silence. He held a pistol that swung to aim straight at Gaston’s heart.

Aline wanted to laugh and cry and scream all the same time. Instead, she said shakily, “What kept you?”

He smiled directly into her eyes, a quick, dazzling glance before his gaze returned to Gaston. “What kept us? Finding a horse large enough to carry Flowers. And then we misjudged how far you would travel. We meant to catch you on the road, hence Stand and deliver, which I’ve always wanted to say and refused to give up.”

Was he babbling? Stephen Dornan? He really had been worried for her. Warmth spread through her like a gently glowing fire. But they were not yet out of the woods.

“He has a pistol,” she said. “Gaston. It’s in his pocket, I think. That is Gaston, my first husband’s cousin. This is his uncle, Philippe.”

“Hands slowly in the air, Cousin Gaston,” Stephen said.

She had never heard his voice so cold, so implacable. Yet another side of the man she would never tire of discovering. Gaston, far more nervous than his father, obeyed at once.

“Mr. Flowers?” Stephen suggested, and the tutor, without further instruction, marched up to Gaston, keeping well clear of Stephen’s line of fire at all times. The pistol was located without trouble and withdrawn. Mr. Flowers pocketed it and strolled away.

“Basil,” Stephen said steadily. “Would you be so good as to go to Mr. Flowers?”

Basil stood but hesitated, his wide gaze on Aline. “Mama,” he uttered uncertainly, clearly unhappy to leave her anywhere near Philippe.

“I’m coming,” she assured him. “The instant after I assure Uncle Philippe that I can throw the dagger, too.”

Encouraged, Basil walked slowly and reluctantly away from Aline to the tutor, who put his arm around the boy in a quick, hard hug.

Aline removed the dagger from Philippe’s throat and stepped back.

“How badly are you hurt?” Stephen asked conversationally, without taking his eyes off Gaston.

“Barely at all. A few minor cuts to my fingers.”

“I’d call him out, but he doesn’t appear to be a gentleman,” Stephen remarked.

“Oh, please!” Philippe said in apparent amusement. Without the knife to his throat, he had recovered his urbanity with remarkable speed. “I believe you English have a saying about pots and kettles. Aline, you have wasted your time in the last five minutes and would do well to sit down again. And to deliver Basil to Gaston, for this…man, this Dornan, will be holding the pistol on my instructions at any moment. He is a man prone to change sides.”

Aline laughed. “How long have you been having these delusions, Philippe?” She had joined Basil and Mr. Flowers, and now they moved toward Stephen between the Monteignes and the door.

“Since I spoke to Dornan senior,” Philippe said, smiling. “Did you know your knight in shining armor here is a traitor and a one-time Bonapartist? I’m sure it is also news to his ally, the tutor.”

Whatever she had expected to come out of Philippe’s mouth, it was not that.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Philippe was definitely amused now. “But how charming! He was in France during the war, Aline, and there could only be one reason for that, one possibility that allowed him to stay among his country’s enemies. He was paid by Bonaparte—for which I must applaud him, of course, though I doubt you do. He was even in Paris during the Hundred Days when the emperor was free, probably right up to Waterloo. Were you not, monsieur?”

“Yes, and after Waterloo, too,” Stephen said, astonishing her further. His hand brushed against her, caught her fingers and she clung. Whatever he was about to say, she trusted him implicitly. “I traveled about Europe for several years, dodging the armies, painting where I could. Mostly in Italy, actually. Not the best time to see anywhere, really, ravaged by decades of war, but I learned a huge amount. And then I stopped off in Paris on my way home, and so I was indeed there during the Hundred Days.”

“And if you do not hand me that pistol,” Philippe said in suddenly freezing tones, “I will make known to everyone in your country that you were a traitor and a spy.”

“I was not.”

“My dear fellow, that will hardly matter when your commissions dry up and you are reduced to penury. You will be quite the pariah. Unless you give me the pistol, in which case I am inclined to forget what I know.”

“But you have already misunderstood what you know,” Stephen said gently. “And your so-called revelation will surprise no one. I daresay it will surprise you, however, to hear what I learned during the Hundred Days. That on the emperor’s return, you accused your neighbor—a Monsieur Duclos, I believe?—of continued violence in the cause of the Bourbon king, that you had him arrested and summarily executed, just so that you could increase your landholding. One could call it patriotic except it wasn’t remotely true, was it? Duclos was an inoffensive old man, whose family had been farming those few acres and keeping their noses out of politics for generations. The accusation was purely malicious, but he still died, and I very much doubt your friends and neighbors will approve of that.”

“Jesu, how do you know it was us?” Gaston blurted.

Philippe scowled at him.

“Duclos,” Aline whispered on a rush of memory and shame and grief. “You had M. Duclos executed? Dear God, for a few paltry acres…”

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