Naughty In Nice (A Royal Spyness Mystery)

branch bobbed dangerously as I swung myself around. I thought I heard the sound of a branch cracking over the crackling of the fire, but I managed to turn enough to grab hold again with my body now facing toward the cliff. I pulled up my legs and struck out in all directions, trying to find something firm enough to take my weight. My right foot hit a rock. I scrabbled madly and it held firm. Holding my breath, I transferred some of my weight to it, then inched my way back up the branch until I was standing on the rocky outcropping. There was another branch above me. I made a grab for it and tried to haul myself upward. Pebbles showered down around me. I found a clump of grass or weeds growing from the face and dug my other foot into it. Then inch by inch I was making my way upward. I could see the road above. A big racing car had stopped.
    “Help!” I yelled, in English. I suppose it would have been more sensible to have shouted in French but one tends to forget logic at times like this. Two men had been walking ahead of me, presumably hurrying toward the site of the fireball. At the sound of my voice they spun around and ran back to me. Hands grabbed at me and I was yanked back up to the road just as the bushes below me burst into flame.
    “Merci, monsieurs.” I remembered my French this time, and I looked up at my rescuers. They were the Marquis de Ronchard and Darcy.

 
    Chapter 34
     
    At a peasant cottage, somewhere high above the
Mediterranean
January 28, 1933
     
    “My God, you look terrible,” Darcy said at the same moment as the marquis said in French, “ Mon Dieu , you look terrible.” He ran back to the car.
    “Of course I look terrible,” I snapped, the tension of the past hour spilling out. “So would you if you’d been kidnapped by a murderer and nearly fallen down a cliff and been singed to death.”
    “I didn’t mean that.” Darcy had dropped to his knees beside me. “I was just horrified by what had happened to you. But you’re safe. That’s the main thing. Rather, it’s not the main thing. What was the last thing I said to you when we parted? Was it not ‘go straight home and stay there’?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “No buts,” Darcy said angrily. “What were you doing in that man’s car in the first place?”
    “I didn’t realize he was the murderer until I was in the car with him. I tracked down Jeanine—the one who looked like me—and someone started shooting at us and . . .” I looked up at the marquis. I still wasn’t completely sure that he hadn’t fired that shot.
    “Jeanine is dead,” he said flatly. “That brute shot her. I wish I could have caught up with him. I’d have strangled him with my bare hands.” He handed me a silver flask. “Drink that. It’s cognac,” he said. “And we should try to move you. The fire is getting rather too close.”
    Other people had gathered around us—the carter from that farm wagon, and various inhabitants of the cottages. At a word from the marquis they picked me up between them and trundled me across the street into the nearest open door.
    “I’ll go for help,” Jean-Paul said.
    “I’m sure you don’t have to,” Darcy replied, looking up at him coldly. “There will be a telephone somewhere around.”
    “I don’t want to risk those flames coming too close to my car,” Jean-Paul confessed. “And Georgie needs a doctor right away.”
    He came over to me and bent to kiss me gently on the forehead. “Adieu, ma petite,” he whispered. I didn’t take in until later that he had not said au revoir. He was not planning to see me again.
    People fussed around me, tucking a rug around me, offering coffee, soup and hot water and a cloth to clean up my wounds. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the extent of my injuries. My arms and legs looked as if I had been wrestling with a tiger. Blood was trickling down my face. But I moved my hands and feet experimentally. Nothing appeared to be broken. The warm water stung as an old woman dabbed at the worst of the cuts and scrapes, making clicking noises with her tongue at what she saw.
    “What happened to her?” someone asked.
    “She fell out of a motorcar,” Darcy said.
    “I jumped out,” I corrected. “I had been kidnapped by a murderer. He was taking me as a hostage. When the horse and cart came out in front of us he had to brake. I took my chance and flung myself out. I thought those bushes would break my fall. I hadn’t realized they were growing over the