Lucien said under his breath, "Move away from me, Kira." While she withdrew from the line of fire, he dropped his useless pistol and raised his hands a little so that Chiswick could see that they were empty.
High above, Michael began to race around the gallery to a position where the altar wouldn't block his shot. But something in Chiswick's voice made Lucien think that the battle might be over. He said, "You think this is a senseless massacre?"
Pistol shaking, Chiswick said with an unconvincing show of nonchalance, "Christ, we were having a peaceful little orgy when you and your friends came and began shooting everyone in sight."
Michael reached a position where Chiswick was in his line of fire, but Lucien raised his hand in a signal to wait. To Chiswick he said harshly, "Are you claiming that you don't know that Mace kidnapped Cassie James two months ago and has kept her captive here? Or that he did his damnedest to kidnap her sister as well? Those things are facts, and he himself boasted to his captive that he had kidnapped, brutalized, and ultimately killed other women in the past."
Chiswick's jaw dropped. Across the room Sir James Westley exclaimed, "You've got it all wrong! The girls Mace hired for the solstice rituals were told to fight and scream and pretend to be captives. It was part of the fun. The rape of the Sabine women and all that, y'know."
His mouth trembled. "I thought you were part of the show, until you started killing people."
Lucien shifted his hard stare to the baronet. "Would you have known the difference between a real and a pretend captive?"
"You mean they weren't…?" Westley's complexion took on a greenish hue. "I thought that Mace had hired Cassie James to entertain us for the evening. She's hardly the first actress to sell herself for the right price."
Kira had retreated into Kit's arms, but at Westley's statement she raised her head. "Not only did he tell me of his murders, but he said that my sister and I were to be the next victims," she said bitterly. "After the general rape, he and his closest cronies would have had a private little orgy of their own that would have ended with our deaths."
Her testimony left the surviving Disciples shaken. Chiswick's gaze went from Harford to Mace to Nunfield, and the shock in his eyes could not have been counterfeited. "I didn't know," he said with horror. "I swear to God that I didn't know."
Face implacable, Kira said, "Not consciously, perhaps, but by your cruelty and self-absorption, the whole rotten lot of you condoned Mace's behavior."
Chiswick's expression grayed.
Lucien said, "Think back and you may find it easier to believe."
After a painful hesitation, Chiswick nodded. "I always knew there was something a little strange going on with those three, but I thought it was merely family eccentricity between two brothers and their cousin." He straightened up, his gun sagging to the floor. "Though sometimes I wondered…"
Fragments of fact from his own investigation clicked into place in Lucien's mind, bringing near-certainty. "Did it ever occur to you that one of them might be a French spy?"
Chiswick looked startled. "Strange you should say that. I once overheard something that made me consider going to the authorities. Nunfield had access to information, Mace enjoyed confounding authority, and Roderick always needed money. But they were my friends, and I was reluctant to accuse them. Then the war ended, and the matter didn't seem worth pursuing. It… it never occurred to me that they might be murderers."
It made sense. Later Lucien would question Chiswick about the evidence of spying, but his intuition confirmed the other man's suspicion: the Phantom was not one man, but three, and all now lay dead. "I think their vices were multiple," he said dryly. "Though I didn't plan it this way, what happened tonight was justice, not slaughter."
Chiswick looked down at his pistol, then holstered it. "This wasn't loaded, you know. It was only part of the costume."
Which explained why he hadn't shot Lucien. It was also further evidence that Chiswick had not been part of Mace's violent inner circle.
Michael had descended from the gallery, alert but no longer in battle mode. He asked, "Has everything been resolved to your satisfaction?"
Lucien laid his hand on the other man's forearm. "It has. Thank you, Michael. God knows what would have happened without your marksmanship."
His friend smiled. "Think nothing of it. I'm always looking for a chance to atone for my sins." He moved away to look more closely at the warrior statues.
Now that the danger had passed, Lucien was physically and emotionally drained. His shoulder ached where Kira had clubbed him, his ankle hurt like the devil, and the prolonged anxiety of the night had taken a heavy toll. Instinctively he turned to Kit, needing to hold her.
She was with Kira, the identical faces like mirror images of each other. Though the twins were not clinging as desperately as they had earlier, it was obvious they were bound by an emotional intimacy that shut out everyone else.
Hesitantly he said, "Are you all right, Kit? Mace didn't hurt you?"
She looked at him, her gray eyes opaque and unreadable. "I'm fine, thank you. He didn't have time to do anything."
Worse than the formality of her words was the bitter knowledge that she had deliberately cut the silent ties that had been growing between them. He had not realized how strong they had become until now, when they were gone, leaving an icy void.
It was his worst fear come true. She had become the center of his life, yet for her, he scarcely existed. She no longer needed him now that she had her twin again.
He wondered where Jason would fit into the equation. Perhaps he didn't want as much from Kira as Lucien needed from Kit; if so, he might be perfectly happy, not knowing what he was missing. But Lucien wanted more, and he felt bleakly certain that he would never get it. If pressed, Kit might agree to marry him, from gratitude if for no other reason. But in every meaningful way she was gone, for she had never really been his.
Damming the pain before it could drown him, Lucien looked back at Chiswick. "We're leaving now. Do you want to take care of this mess? You were part of it, so you and the others have the most to lose if a public scandal results."
Chiswick looked startled, then thoughtful. "If it was announced that Nunfield, Mace, and Harford died in a carriage accident because of the icy weather, it would be sad, but not scandalous." He glanced at his fellows. "Do you agree?"
There were murmurs of relief. Judging by the faces of the other Disciples, the night's events had persuaded this particular lot of rakes to stick to more conventional vices in the future.
"Speaking of carriages," Chiswick said, "mine has special wheels that make it travel well in ice and snow. If you like, you can borrow it for the ladies." He glanced at Kit and Kira. "I think they have endured quite enough for one night."
Lucien accepted the offer, and within a quarter of an hour they were on their way. Even when he helped Kit into the carriage, she would not meet his gaze. She couldn't have been more reserved if they had just been introduced.
Michael drove the carriage while Lucien and Jason rode behind with the extra horses. The sleet and freezing rain had stopped and the temperature had fallen, turning the world to a glittering fantasy land of ice.
Lucien welcomed the biting cold, for it matched the chill in his heart. He thought back to the night at Eton when he had decided to become Lucifer-cool, ironic, detached, as far above the pain of loss as the clouds sailing through the sky. It had worked then, and it would work now, for he had had so many years of practice.