Read Online Judith Merkle Riley by The Master of All Desires - Free Book Online Page A

waking the others. At the very same time, I pulled the trigger, and there was a hiss of powder, sparks flew from the wheel, and there was a huge boom! Too late I recalled the stories of gunners blown up by their own weapons, and as I was thrown to the floor I was sure that I would awaken in the other world. If the screaming had not awakened the household, the explosion would have. The room was full of the stink of gun-powder. As people poured into the room, I realized I was still in this world and stood up. The face at the window was gone. Vengefully, I lunged toward the open window and pushed the ladder over onto the huddled figures below. For in that very split second before I had pulled the trigger, I had recognized the greasy collar of the leather hunting coat and the narrow, malignant mouth beneath the mask. It was Thibault Villasse.
    “Thieves, thieves! Downstairs! Catch them!” was the cry. I watched from the bedroom window as servants poured out into the moonlit courtyard. But the men below the ladder had gathered up their burden, flung him across a waiting horse, and shouted dreadful vengeance as they vanished at a gallop through the open courtyard gate into the dark. I watched from above as the bobbing torches moved hither and thither in the dark, held by the servants searching the courtyard. One by one the lights illumined the corpses of the mastiffs lying dead in the dust, poisoned.
    “It’s Nero, dead.” I heard the voices below. “What a crime. There’ll never be another like him.”
    “Oh, no, not Belle, too.”
    “Look,” came another voice, “one of them’s still moving.”
    “It’s the most useless of the lot. Gargantua, the greedy gut. He ate so much of the poison bait, he threw it all up.”
    “Vincent, where is Vincent?” asked mother. We helped her downstairs. There she sat, bolt upright in father’s big chair, a Turkey shawl on her shoulders over her nightgown, her nightcap close over her graying blond hair. Sick, unclad, her fine features somehow stronger in the candlelight, it was clear who was in command. Power radiated from her steel spine, her suddenly fierce eyes.
    “Madame, he appears to have fled with them,” said a valet.
    “Traitor,” she said. “My father would never have retained such a false steward. He poisoned the dogs so they would not give the alarm, then opened the gates to them. I see it all clearly.”
    “Mother—Mother,” I stammered. “I—I know who it was. The man in the mask. I’m sure it was Thibault Villasse.”
    “I’m not surprised,” she said, her voice calm. “But you must get away before dawn, before they think to send anyone for you—if they dare.”
    “B-but, why? Why did he do it?”
    “Why? If your father is found guilty, all our property will be seized by the church, and he will lose his vineyard. If he had succeeded in carrying you off by force and marrying you before the verdict, he would keep his claim. I am not surprised that he would try such a thing. He has official connections, you know, and I suspect he may have heard how the verdict will go with your father. It is a bad sign, his haste—it means a person of great power covets our estate, and intends to make sure your father is found guilty in order to take possession of our property.”
    “I shot him, Mother. I killed him.”
    “It is hardly regrettable. I never cared for him,” she said. “But of course, you have no proof of who he was.”
    “B–but, I’m sure—”
    “Nonsense. You just imagined who it was. Your mind was disordered. Such worries. They lead a girl to fantasy. The men who came were robbers, and the authorities should pursue them and hang them. Imagine, trying to attack innocent young virgins in their own bedroom! No doubt they heard the lord of the house was away, and hoped to steal our silver plate. Have all of you heard that? That is what I wish you to say if anyone comes to question any of you.” Mother’s commanding eye swept the family and