Counterfeit Lady Read online

  After the meeting, they hadn’t spoken but had walked to the hidden clearing by the river. In spite of the fact that it had been well over a year since they’d made love, there was no urgency. They took their time, looking at each other, exploring, savoring. They were rediscovering each other.

  There had been no long explanations, no rehashing of what idiots they’d been. There was no sense of something going to happen, only a deep joy that they were together again. They had felt as if they were one person, not two people who mistrusted, misjudged, and misunderstood each other.

  “Nicole!”

  Gerard’s sharp voice brought Nicole out of her reverie and into the present. “Yes?”

  “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. One of the twins fell up on the ridge. Janie wants you to come.”

  She threw the dipper down, lifted her skirts, and started running, with Gerard close behind her. The ridge was empty. “Where are they?”

  Gerard stepped very close to her. “You’d do anything for them, wouldn’t you? You give yourself to everyone except me.”

  Nicole stepped backward. “Where are the twins?”

  “With the devil, for all I care. I wanted to get you up here alone. I want you to take a little journey with me.”

  “I have work to do. I—” She stopped when she saw the pistol in Gerard’s hands.

  “Now I have your attention. Or does any man who points something large and hard at you get that?”

  Nicole curled her lip and cursed him in French.

  Gerard smiled at her. “Quite colorful! Now, I want you to go with me—quietly.”

  “No.”

  “I thought perhaps you’d say that. Remember how you thought my dear wife overheard that Bianca was planning to murder Armstrong? For once in that crazy woman’s life, she was right about something.”

  Nicole stared at him, her eyes wide, enormous. “You killed my mother,” she whispered.

  “Clever girl. Too clever. Now, if you ever wish to see your lover alive again, you will obey me.” He waved the pistol. “Through there, and remember that his life depends on you.”

  Nicole walked through the woods, away from the mill, then down to the river where Gerard had a rowboat hidden. He delighted in the fact that Nicole had to row him across while he sat in the stern and gave her orders. He talked constantly of his cleverness, of how Nicole had enticed him and teased him since he arrived.

  They landed at a far corner of the Armstrong plantation. There was a vacant tool shed there, half hidden under a tree, its door hanging off a broken hinge.

  They had barely reached the door when Bianca came from the trees. “Where have you been? And what is she doing here?”

  “Never mind that,” Gerard snapped. “Did you do it?”

  Her eyes, almost hidden by her grotesquely fat cheeks, were unnaturally bright. “He wouldn’t go riding. He wouldn’t do what he was supposed to. I fixed the saddle with the glass like you said, but he wouldn’t go.”

  “What happened?” Gerard demanded.

  Bianca had been holding her skirt together. Now she released it. There was a great deal of blood down the front. “I shot him,” she said, as if she were surprised at the fact.

  Nicole screamed and would have started running toward the house, but Gerard caught her by the arm. He hit her hard across the mouth, sending her sprawling inside the tool shed.

  “Is he dead?” Gerard demanded.

  “Oh, yes,” Bianca said. She blinked at him, and her voice sounded strangely like a child’s. She pulled her other hand from behind her skirt. “I brought the other pistol.”

  Gerard grabbed it from her hand, then pointed it at her. “Get in here.”

  Bianca frowned in puzzlement, then stepped inside the shed. “Why is Nicole here? Why is my maid here?” she asked simply.

  “Bianca!” Nicole screamed. “Where is Clay?”

  Bianca turned slowly and looked at Nicole as she stood pressed against the wall. “You!” she whispered. “You did this!” She half fell toward Nicole, her hands like claws.

  Nicole was nearly suffocated when Bianca’s great weight came crashing down on her.

  “Get off her, you fat whore!” Gerard yelled. He tossed one pistol onto the floor behind him, put the other into his belt, and began to pull Bianca off Nicole.

  “I want to kill her!” Bianca sneered. “Let me kill her now!”

  Gerard pulled his gun and pointed it at her. “It’s you who’ll be killed, not her,” he said.

  Bianca smiled. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s me, remember? The woman you love.”

  “Love!” Gerard snorted. “What man could love you? I’d as soon mate with one of the sows!”

  “Gerard!” Bianca pleaded. “You’re upset.”

  “You stupid, vain pig! To think you believed that I, a Courtalain, could ever love such as you. You will be found dead, a suicide, grief-stricken over your husband’s death, which was caused, no doubt, by robbers.”

  “No,” Bianca whispered, her hands outstretched, palms upward.

  “Oh, yes,” he smiled, obviously enjoying himself. “The Armstrong estate will be left to those obnoxious twins, and since there are no other relatives, Nicole will be their guardian and I will be her husband.”

  “Hers!” Bianca gasped. “You said you hated her.”

  He laughed. “It was a game, remember? You and I played a game, and I won.”

  Nicole was beginning to think again. Maybe she could divert Gerard’s attention until someone found them. “No one would believe Bianca would kill herself over Clay. It’s common knowledge that she hates him.”

  Bianca turned to Nicole with a look of hate. Then their one and only look of understanding passed between them. “Yes, the field hands and the house servants know that we rarely even see each other.”

  “But, lately, people have been saying you’re reconciled, that Armstrong’s stopped drinking and become the perfect husband,” Gerard said.

  Bianca looked bewildered.

  “Bianca is an English lady,” Nicole said. “In England, she’s one of the peerage, and there is no peerage in France anymore. She would make an admirable wife.”

  “She is nothing!” Gerard said. “Nothing! Everyone knows royalty will be reinstated in France. Then, I shall be married to a duke’s granddaughter. The magnificent Courtalains will live again through me!”

  “But—” Nicole began.

  “Enough!” Gerard screamed. “You think I’m stupid, do you not? Do you think I can’t see through your schemes to keep me talking?” He waved the gun toward Bianca. “I would not have her if she were the queen of England herself. She is fat, ugly, and unbelievably stupid.”

  Bianca flew at him, her hands going for his face. Gerard struggled for a moment under her suffocating weight.

  The pistol went off, and slowly Bianca moved away from him, her hands clutching her stomach, blood beginning to seep through her fingers.

  Nicole’s eyes had long been on the pistol Gerard had carelessly tossed to the floor, but now Gerard and Bianca struggled between her and it. She looked around the empty shed until she saw a loose board in the wall. With superhuman strength, she wrenched it free.

  Moments after the pistol went off, Nicole hit Gerard with the board. He staggered as Bianca crumbled to the floor.

  “You have hurt me,” he whispered in French, his fingers touching the blood at his temple. “You will pay for that with every moment of your life.”

  He advanced toward her as she backed against the wall.

  Bianca, her blood quickly flowing from her, looked through hazy vision to see Gerard advancing on her enemy. A pistol lay at her fingertips. She used the last of her strength to raise it, aim it, and pull the trigger. She died before she saw that her aim had been true.

  Nicole stood absolutely still as Gerard suddenly jerked still. He seemed to react before she heard the shot. His eyes showed surprise, puzzlement at what had happened to him. Then, very slowly, he fell t