"You needn't fear, my Jenny, love," he crooned. "I didn't kill her. I kept thinking of you, child. Do you remember how you put your hands on mine so we could play the pianoforte together? That is the way we shall put my mama to sleep. And Jasper and the rest of those who tried to destroy us. Your hand curved so soft upon mine while we force the pillow down over their faces."
"Stop it!" Lucy shuddered, unable to keep the revulsion from her features.
A wounded expression flashed across Alexander d'Autrecourt's face. "Jenny, you are angry with me?"
"Angry? Papa, you're talking about committing murder—" The words were hard, but Lucy couldn't stop them.
"Murder? Jenny, you distress me," he said in a flat voice. "You know that they are eaten alive with guilt, like a cancer, burning and burning inside them. I am going to put out that unquenchable fire. I am going to save them from themselves."
"No, Papa. You're sick. And no wonder, after all that has happened."
Alexander's eyes widened, the sparse lashes starting out at awkward angles, accenting the blood-red veins that lined the whites of his eyes. "That is not what I want you to say. You are to be overjoyed. You see, we are reunited beyond the grave, you and I. You are my Jenny again, to care for and love. And I am your papa. I will play on the pianoforte, and you can dance."
"I'm not a little girl anymore, Papa. I'm going to bring you to Hawkvale with me, try to help you. You'll like it there. I'm the countess of Valcour now."
"Valcour? Again they spread their poison! Poison you against me!" The sudden virulence of his fury made Lucy fall back a step. He swept up a length of silk cord that lay coiled on the table and twisted it about his fingers in near frenzy. "What did St. Cyr tell you? Lies? Did he tell you that I—"
He stopped, his gaze sharp on Lucy's face. It was as if the blue flame were licking up through his mind, consuming him. Yet was it any wonder he was so unbalanced? Imprisoned all these years, then fleeing to hide in hideous places like this, hunted like a mad animal?
"Papa, I can't stay in this place, and neither can you. I want to help you. I do. But I love my husband."
"He cannot have you," Alexander said in a strange voice. "You can only be happy with me!"
Lucy knew she was helpless to change his mind. "I have to go back to Hawkvale, even if you choose not to come. If you need anything you'll know where to find me." It was hard, so hard to turn and walk away.
She expected protests, expected anger. But never did she expect the sudden hissing that sounded near her ear.
She started to wheel around, but a cord snaked about her throat lightning fast. For one disbelieving moment, Lucy groped for the cord. Good God, what was he doing? It tightened.
Lucy fought like a demon as the cord bit like a circlet of fire about her throat, searing into the fragile skin with a diabolical delicacy, as if he were trying hard not to hurt her.
Not to hurt her? She thought wildly, struggling as her lungs screamed for air and the world spun crazily around her. He was strangling her. Cutting off all air with a mad tenderness.
Oh, God, what had she done? How had things gone so awry? She had a fleeting image of her pistol and sword tucked beneath the hag's gin barrels. She had a flashing picture of Dominic in his study, that frozen instant when she decided not to tell him Alexander had contacted her once again.
She could see the earl in her mind's eye, the moment he was told—what? That she too had betrayed him? Lied to him?
That she was dead?
Valcour! Her mouth rounded in a silent scream.
"Don't be afraid, Jenny, love," Alexander d'Autrecourt crooned in her ear, tightening the noose about her neck. "Sleep, now. Papa will take care of you."
The last sounds Lucy heard before darkness claimed her were the off-key strains of a child's lullaby.
Chapter 18
Valcour tossed and turned in his empty bed, cursing himself as a fool. He had never spent such a miserable night. From the moment he strode through White's doors he realized he had made a tactical error. Instead of finding a refuge where he could put his new countess and the feelings she inspired in him into perspective, he had opened himself to dozens of congratulations, veiled queries, and speculations about the woman who had finally managed to get the elusive earl to the altar.
Countless toasts had been drunk to Lucinda's health, and glass after glass raised in anticipation of the wealth of sturdy sons that would doubtless follow. From the time he was a boy, Valcour had schooled himself never to display emotions—neither anger nor embarrassment, uncertainty nor despair. But the entire time he had spent, lounging in a chair with his hand curved about his glass, he hadn't been able to disguise the feelings rushing through him.
He felt like a sulky boy, deprived of some cherished holiday, because he was banned from Lucinda's bed. He felt like a selfish beast, ill tempered toward the entire world, because of some unavoidable feminine ritual. A ritual that had made his vibrant bride look listless and petulant and forlorn.
Valcour was beginning to feel the same. He swore under his breath. Never before had the monthly inconveniences of his various lights-o'-love disturbed him. He had merely dismissed the matter and gone on with his life with no particular impatience, until the next week. But tonight, Valcour's hands burned with the need to feel his countess beneath them. His mouth tingled with the memory of how it felt to crush Lucinda's soft lips under his, to tease her, to toy with her, coaxing her deeper and deeper into the seductive dance of passion.
Valcour felt himself harden and ache beneath the coverlets. He jammed his fist into the pillow with all the force of his frustration. Damn it to hell. He wanted her. Not just to bury himself inside her, but just to be with her, to feel her nestled against the hard wall of his chest, to feel her breath, so soft, so sweet and moist against his skin as she lay dreaming. He wanted to lie in the first faint rays of dawn and watch her sleeping, a tumbled angel in his arms.
Valcour's chest constricted, a dull pain throbbing at the image his fantasies had woven. Hellfire, when had this happened? This infernal weakness, this desperately dangerous weakening in the walls he had constructed about his heart? When had he started to care for this woman? This lovely rebel who had tempted him, tormented him, mocked him, and then offered her love to him so sweetly she had broken his heart?
But the earl of Valcour had no heart. He had labored seventeen years to make it so. Never had he suspected that the dreamy boy who had believed in fairy castles and dragons and star-crossed lovers still thrived somewhere in the earl of Valcour's battered soul. Never had he suspected that this woman would take that grieving boy into her hands, gently, so gently, and breathe life back into his spirit, agonizing, unexpected life.
He loved her.
Sweet God, how could he have let this happen? How could he have stopped it?
Valcour groaned, flinging one arm across his eyes. Was this fate’s final cruel jest? That he who had hated Alexander d'Autrecourt should fall desperately in love with the man's daughter? That he who had never forgiven his mother for falling prey to love's arrows had now bared his own breast to them, let them pierce him, deep, so deep.
What the devil did it mean? That tomorrow and the next day and the next he would feel this burning sensation in his soul, this agony? That he would spend the rest of his life completely vulnerable to this woman who had captured his heart? That he would be helpless, waiting?
Waiting for what?
For her to betray him? Betray him as his mother had betrayed him? As Alexander d'Autrecourt had betrayed him? As his father had betrayed him?
Valcour closed his eyes, remembering with nightmarish clarity what passion had driven his father to do.
Who fathered the bastard? Lionel St. Cyr had asked, so reasonably, his voice so soft, almost pleading. Dominic, tell me the name of your mother's lover.
Why hadn't he told? There had no longer been any reason to hide it. Death had already put the man far beyond Lionel St. Cyr's reach. Why hadn't Dominic spil
led out the truth?
Because Dominic had felt it was his fault. Because then his father would know that Dominic should have stopped it, should have known. But he had been a foolish boy caught up in his own dreams, oblivious to the disaster waiting to engulf them all.
He hadn't seen the pistol until he was almost to the door. He had screamed, flung himself at his father, but it was too late.
Valcour would never forget the stench of powder and sulphur, of sickly sweet blood and burned flesh. And he would never forget the carnage that had been love's final legacy.
He had stood over his father's grave, a wound in the green earth, and he had turned away from life. Forever, he had thought. Until Lucinda had flung him back into the world of the living, until she had decided to love him.
An incessant rattle made Valcour swear, the racket deepening the throbbing in his head. What was it? Some housemaid run mad? A tradesman attempting to fix something? Valcour scowled, noting the direction of the sound. His bedchamber window? That was absurd—it was on the topmost floor.
Valcour levered himself out of bed and dragged on a banyan, fastening the flowing garment about his lean waist, then he stalked toward the sound, looking forward to lambasting whoever had dared rouse him at this infernal hour. Not that he had been sleeping, Valcour thought with irrational anger. Still, God knew he should have been!
At the window, the earl ripped open the damask curtains and froze, staring into the eyes of a dirty little waif wearing one of Valcour's own shirts. Tears streaked the boy's face—a face so battered, Valcour's gut burned with fury. The child's small fists pounded on the window, begging for entry.
"What the devil!" the earl swore. Shouts rose up from the ground beneath, and Valcour could see a cluster of his own servants, their fists waving, shouting threats as one of the footmen attempted to put up a ladder to fetch the miniature fugitive. For God's sake, it was a wonder the boy hadn't broken his neck already. From the looks on the faces of Valcour's servants, they wouldn't mind if the child had.
The earl carefully opened the window, then reached out and closed his strong hands about the child's arms and lifted him inside.
The boy had a distressingly moist nose and was hiccoughing in a manful attempt to keep his sobs at bay, but he seemed terrified that Valcour would evict him at once. Scrawny arms twined about the earl like living vines.
"What the blazes is this about?" Valcour demanded.
"Th-they wouldn't let me in! I told them and begged, but they wouldn't—wouldn't let me—"
"Exactly what business would you be having at Hawkvale, boy? Aside from stealing my shirt?"
"I didn't steal it! She gave it to me 'cause my other was so bloody after Pappy beat me! She said she would be careful, and then she didn't come back!"
Valcour stared down at that anguished little face, as if the boy were some strange exotic creature brought to display in a country fair. His experience with children seldom extended further than flipping one a guinea for holding his horse. But there was a quality about this staunch little fellow that touched something in Valcour.
"Easy now, boy. You're babbling. Who the blazes is this mysterious she? Your mother? Is your mother a maid here, or—"
"No, you great gudgeon! Never had no mother in all my born days! She said she had a pistol and a sword and that it would be a grand adventure! But I should'a known it would end disastrous. The ring was there on the moon."
A sick suspicion stirred in Valcour's gut. "Damn it, boy, who the devil are you talking about?"
"Your lady! Lucy. I gave her a note from Mad Alex an' she went riding off to find him."
Valcour's heart fell like a stone. In a breath, he was at the door between their rooms. He shoved on the panel. The damned thing stuck. "Lucinda? Damn it, girl—"
Raw panic pulsing inside him, Valcour slammed his shoulder against the door with a strength born of his terror. The door flew open, spilling the earl into the chamber where he had left Lucinda, pale and moaning the night before.
She was gone.
Valcour reeled back as if a fist had driven into his jaw. The entire scenario played out in his mind. Lucy, a master of deception, pretending to be ill, then riding off alone to face the madman who had tormented her these many months.
"No! Goddamn her hide to hell, she has to be all right! My God. I'll kill her myself!"
Valcour wheeled to where the boy still stood, shaking, his eyes wide, terrified.
"Please, milord, you have to save her! He took her, Mad Alex! I followed her, even though she didn’t want me to. I saw him take her out, all limp-like and laying there so pale."
"Where, boy? Where did he take her?"
"I don't know!" Tears shimmered on stubby lashes, then fell free. The boy scrubbed them away with one fist. "The streets were so crowded, and dark, and then Pappy Blood saw me and tried to take me back. And when I got away, I couldn't find her, so I took her horse and came here. But those bastards down there wouldn't let me in the door!"
"This man who took Lucinda, he must have said something, boy. Anything that could give me a place to start!"
"He was blooming crazy, talking to her real strange, even though she couldn't hear him. He said... said he was going to take her to meet Ann Sestors. Never heard of any one by that name."
Ann Sestors? Valcour grappled desperately with the cryptic name. Who the devil... "Please, boy. There must be something else. Anything—"
"He said something about a knight who fought in the crusades. And a ring... there was a magic ring—"
Wasn't there some story about that, attached to the infernal ring Dominic had given Lucy? Ann... That was it! He was taking the girl to her ancestors. And where else would he be able to find a knight who had been dead for centuries?
Valcour stilled, horrified, his memory filling with images of Lucy at the Avonstea graveyard, her skirts a splash of color on the grass, her chin jutting up, defiant, her golden hair ablaze with sunlight against a backdrop of wild-roving rose vines and a crude angel carved into a gray tombstone.
"Why would he take her to a graveyard," Valcour muttered aloud. "Unless she was..."
Dead. The word ran through Valcour's vitals like a knife, all but driving him to his knees.
No! She couldn't be dead! His belligerent countess with her sparkling eyes and devilish smile, her laughter and her raging temper, her courage and her wild, sweet loving.
"Damn it, boy, was she? Was Lucinda..." His voice broke. He couldn't form the word.
"I don't know for sure. I don't know. But I thought—thought I heard her make a little sound, like... like she was crying inside."
A tiny sound a frightened boy thought he heard above the din of the London streets. It was the most fragile thread of hope. Valcour clutched at it like a talisman.
He barely heard footsteps running toward him, Lady Catherine racing into the room, her hair in sleepy disarray, her eyes cloudy and disoriented as she clutched her bedgown about her. "Dominic, there was a disturbance, I heard—"
Valcour wheeled to face his mother, saw her raise her hand to her heart.
"Merciful heavens! Dominic, what—what has happened?" Wide, frightened eyes flashed from Lucinda's empty bed to the ragged urchin, then to Dominic's face.
"Lucinda. He's taken her."
"Who, Dominic?"
"Someone claiming to be Alexander d'Autrecourt."
A low, keening cry tore from Lady Catherine's breast and she staggered back, her face white as parchment. "Alexander? Alive?"
"God damn it, if he's hurt her I'll kill him! The minute I find him I'll..."
But what if he didn't find this lunatic? Oh, God, what if Valcour couldn't? Even now, this madman might be dragging Lucinda somewhere that Valcour could never find her. It might already be too late.
He wouldn't think it. If he did, he'd go mad himself.
"Boy, tell the groom to ready my stallion as if the stable were afire. I'm going after her."
The boy barreled out of the room. Va
lcour wheeled and raced into his bedchamber, grabbing up breeches and shirt, yanking on his boots. He was scarce aware of Lady Catherine trembling like a pale ghost, haunted.
"Dominic, where are you going? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to the Avonstea graveyard, madam. If I find Lucinda—when I find her—I'll take her to Harlestone."
"Let me go with you."
"Why?" Valcour demanded. "So you can see if your lover still lives? My God, he's kidnapped Lucinda! God knows what else he's done."
"Alexander would never harm anyone."
Dominic straightened, his face contorting in rage and disbelief. "You would defend him even now?" He snorted in disgust. "You sicken me, madam. My hand to God, if anything happens to Lucinda—"
He bit off the words, then bolted down the stairs, the image of his mother's stricken face one more facet in the nightmare that would never release Valcour.
* * *
Pain seared Lucy's throat every time she sucked in a breath of air, throbbed in Lucy's hands at the lightest twitch of her fingers. Something cold and hard grated against her cheek, a damp chill seeping into the very marrow of her bones. Where was she? She battled to grasp some tiny snippet of memory, some vague wisp of reality in this world of pulsating pain and relentless darkness, but all she could do was mouth the same word, over and over again, in a moaned plea.
Valcour.
Where was he? Why didn't he come to her? Pull her from this swirling abyss? Why didn't he drive away this hideous, crushing panic with the warmth of his love?
Love? No, he didn't love her. Could never love her. She flinched against the inner anguish the thought caused her, and fiery ribbons unfurled in muscles that seemed fused into place.
"So you are awakening, my darling lamb."
The words were tender, soft. Why did they make Lucy feel as if rats had just scuttled across her bare skin?
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