Free The Deception by Catherine Coulter Page A

the words to scream at him, to demand why he was doing this, whatever this was?
    “I’m relieved that you’re well enough looking. The duke only likes beautiful women. If you must, you will bed him.”
    She leapt from the stingy chair and screamed, “What are you talking about? What duke? I know no duke. What have you done with my father?”
    “Oh, you know the duke. Soon you will know him even better. You’re half English. I find it amusing that you will aid me in my cause. You bloody English, you are always so certain that you and only you are right. I wonder if I should bed you first to see that you’ll know how to properly seduce the duke, if, naturally, the need arises.” He turned to one of the men. “Did you strip her? Examine her?”
    The man shook his head. “The little chick was too frightened and her father too incensed. I didn’t want to have to kill him. Do you want me to strip her now?” Houchard looked at her, slowly shaking his head.
    He threw back his head and laughed and laughed. Then, with no warning, he started singing in Latin, in a deep monotone, as would a priest intoning a benediction to the people.
    The two men standing behind her began to sing as well, their voices high as young boys’, pure and light, their Latin beautiful and smooth and resonating in that monks’ cell of a room. Evangeline jerked awake, her heart pounding, sweatheavy on her face, breathing so hard she thought she’d choke.
    A dream.
    It had been nothing but a dream. But most of it had happened. She wondered why she’d dreamed that Houchard and his henchmen had sung in Latin? She hadn’t understood what they were singing, and perhaps that was the point. She had no idea what would happen now.
    A dream.
    God, it had been so very real. She shook away the last remnants and pushed back the covers. She could deal with this. If she didn’t, her father would die. She’d won the major concession, thank God. The duke, for the moment, had accepted her, had welcomed her as a member of the Chesleigh household. She would be Lord Edmund’s nanny, if Edmund accepted her. Houchard’s drama was set irrevocably into motion, and there was nothing she could do to prevent his characters, herself included, from playing out their roles.
    The morning sun was shining brilliantly through her bedchamber windows. There was no fire lit, and indeed there was no need for one. It was so warm one would believe it was summer. This had happened several times during her growing-up years in England. There would be torrential rains, freezing weather, snowstorms, then several days so vivid and bright, so warm, that one dreamed of summer, lush and hot and so very green. She looked out at the naked-branched elm trees. Well, not really summer.
    Then, naturally, winter would return with a vengeance. There was so much she had to do, the most important thing to make friends with the duke’s son. If he took an instant dislike to her, she was ruined.She remembered saying this to Houchard. He’d merely shaken his finger at her, saying, “If that happens, my dear, I suggest you prepare yourself for your father’s funeral. The problem will be, of course, that you will never find his body.” She’d believed him then. She still believed him.
    She was dressed and ready to leave her bedchamber when she heard the sound of slow, heavy steps dragging closer and closer to her bedchamber door.
    She knew a spurt of terror. The two men who’d taken her and her father from their home, their image, their voices, were deep and strong in her mind. The smooth, younger one had been called Biron. She couldn’t remember the other man’s face, just his voice. He’d been a little ferret of a man who looked as if he hadn’t ever said a kind word to anyone in his entire life. At least they hadn’t harmed their servants, Margueritte and Joseph, merely left them staring out through the drawing room windows toward the carriages, their faces drawn and pale in the candlelight,