Defiant Captive

by Christina Skye

  As she continued to stare at the portrait in horrified fascination, she saw other differences. The hair was a shade darker than hers, its tones less vibrant. The eyes were set a trifle closer together, which seemed to emphasize their cold hauteur.

  But it was nevertheless much like looking into a mirror. Something about those cold, proud eyes held Alexandra, refusing to release her. And that was when she felt the chill hint of evil radiating from the woman in the portrait. Suddenly, Alexandra shivered.

  Mesmerized, her eyes flashed lower, toward the white expanse of skin stretching unbroken from neck to navel. Sweet heaven, it was her own image but unclothed, every curve wantonly displayed.

  "The Naked Bacchante, or so Lawrence called it. Truly he outdid himself for you. In fact, he was very loath to part with his masterpiece, although the man who commissioned it offered him a fortune for the finished canvas." The hard voice hammered on relentlessly in Alexandra's ear. "In the end I had to offer terms that neither man could refuse." The menace in his voice left Alexandra with no doubt of those terms. "And then Prinny threw himself into the fray, determined to have the painting for Carlton House. Unfortunately, he was not dealt with so expeditiously. Now, do you mean to persist in telling me there are two such as you upon this earth? Go ahead," the duke ordered flatly, "convince me! Tell me how to deny the evidence of my own eyes."

  But Alexandra could find no words to begin. How could she argue with such incontrovertible evidence — with a portrait that was the very image of herself?

  The duke's low laugh taunted her. "I thought not. Not even you are so brazen."

  It was then that Alexandra noticed a dark stain upon one lush, high breast. Frowning, she bent closer to examine this single imperfection in Lawrence's masterpiece. To her horror she saw it was no blotch that marred the firm ivory curve, but the slim jeweled hilt of a dagger protruding from the woman's heart.

  "Dear God!" Alexandra whispered, her startled eyes flashing to the duke's drawn face.

  "I'm afraid he had nothing to do with it," Hawke said with a harsh laugh. "I'd been drinking rather heavily that night, but it was the sight of Robbie's tear-stained face that finally—" His mouth twisted in a grimace, and long seconds passed before he could speak. When he continued, his voice was taut with his effort at control. "But do not congratulate yourself, my dear, for it won't happen again."

  "And who is Robbie?" Alexandra asked sharply.

  "Who is Robbie?" Hawke repeated in disbelief. Then it was as if all his hard-won control shattered. His teeth grated audibly, and he sprang toward her with a look of raw fury blazing on his face. "By God, does your perversion know no bounds?" he thundered, shaking her until his features swam before her eyes. "Robbie is our son, damn your black, unnatural mother's heart!"

  He drew back, and his hand flew up to strike her. His fingers tightened, his face contorting with rage as he looked down at her, revulsion set in every hard angle of his face. Then his jaw froze into a relentless line, and his fist dropped to his side. "You pollute everything you touch, don't you? You can never rest until all good is destroyed. Well, not this time! The game here is of my making and played by my rules." He swept her up and tossed her over his shoulder before she had time to realize what he was about. "Yes, by God! This is a lesson long overdue."

  "Put me down!" Alexandra cried, her mind still whirling at what he had just told her.

  "In my own good time," Hawke answered, striding down the long gallery. His fingers tightened painfully, crushing her hands, forcing her into submission. His boots thundered across the wooden floor, then swept outside to pound up the stairs three at a time.

  Alexandra's heart surged crazily. "I demand that you put me down this instant!"

  "As you wish, madam," Hawke countered a moment later, storming through a door near the end of the corridor.

  Alexandra was roughly flung down upon a wide bed veiled by rich velvet hangings. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared up at her raging captor through the wild tangle of her hair. "You can't do this!" she cried raggedly.

  "I can do anything I wish. You will find you have no friends in this house — no allies of any sort." He towered over her, his face set in harsh lines that bespoke his unlimited hatred.

  "What do you want of me?" she rasped.

  "Want, my dear wife? I want to break you, piece by tiny piece. Until you beg for mercy. And I mean to begin here and now." His hand swung down in a powerful arc, tearing first the fragile shirt and then her threadbare breeches from her trembling body.

  For a long moment he stood staring down at her, a vein pulsing at his temple. Then, abruptly, he spun on his heel and thundered to the door, where he stopped and turned back. "We can do this the hard way or the easy way. It's up to you. Either way, the result will be the same. The only way you'll ever leave Hawkeswish is when I've broken you to my bit and you've learned to wear my saddle."

  His words were still ringing in Alexandra's ears when the door crashed shut, and she heard the mocking echo of a key grating in the lock.

  "You'll be sorry for this!" she screamed as she jumped from the bed and hurled herself against the solid oak door.

  "No more than I shall make you," she heard him answer from the other side. "And you may scream as much as you like, for most of the staff is in London. As for the rest — suffice it to say, they are entirely loyal to me. After the things they've witnessed in this house, you would find it difficult to shock them. They all hate you, you see." He laughed harshly. "Although not nearly as much as I do, my dear."

  Then his muffled steps drummed across the carpet and back down the corridor.

  Chapter Eleven

  Caged like an animal, Alexandra thought furiously, turning to glare at her prison. Sunlight streamed through high mullioned windows, casting a golden glow upon walls of aqua silk, fine oil paintings in gilt frames, and armchairs of aqua Genoa velvet.

  Even to her feverish eye, the objects in the room attested to good taste and the unlimited wealth to indulge that taste.

  For the first time Alexandra looked at the bed where Hawke had thrown her minutes before. From the ceiling overhead was suspended a vast canopy of aqua velvet that looked as fragile as it was magnificent, while the opposite end of the room was dominated by an intricately carved oak armoire. The arrangement was complemented by a cherry Queen Anne highboy and matching chairs. Beside the highboy a cheval glass winked back at her.

  Unconsciously, Alexandra brought her hand to her neck, where the dried mud had begun to itch unbearably. With revulsion she regarded the dirt ground beneath her fingernails.

  She was tired, dirty, sore, and hungry. But she was not broken, by God! He would learn that soon enough.

  With an angry snort Alexandra crossed to the window, where she saw the green sweep of the downs and a faint flash of water in the far distance. Suddenly, her gaze narrowed, and she reached over to finger the aqua curtains thoughtfully. Her lips curved into a smile.

  She would soon teach the hateful duke a thing or two, she vowed furiously.

  A moment later, she jerked one side of fabric from the window. Deftly, she ripped off a short piece and tied it about her waist like a sash. Then she draped the rest of the long curtain about her slim frame, just as she had seen her ayah do so many times in India, and tucked it into the sash at her waist to form a gathered skirt. When there were no more than two yards left, she brought the end up and over her left shoulder and secured it behind her.

  There! she thought triumphantly, studying herself in the cheval glass. Her hands slid down the thick fabric swathing her from shoulder to ankle in aqua folds, even though she had no underblouse. Her ayah would have been proud of her.

  The next problem would not be so simple to solve, Alexandra knew. She studied the view from the window and gauged the distance to the ground. It had to be at least thirty feet, she realized in disappointment, which rendered her first plan impossible. Even if she tied together every scrap of fabric in the room, they would never reach so fa
r.

  Blaze and bedamned! Well then, if she couldn't go down, she would just have to go up. With tense fingers Alexandra jerked open the window and stuck her head out, then swiveled to stare up at the roof.

  Six feet above the high window ran an indented stone parapet.

  Yes! Alexandra thought wildly, her heart beginning to pound.

  An instant later, she disappeared inside the room and began to shove the highboy toward the open window.

  * * * * *

  Twilight was just settling upon the downs when the Duke of Hawkesworth threw open the long French doors of his study and stepped out onto the terrace. This was his favorite time of day, that precious interval after the afternoon's heat and before the bleak loneliness of night.

  Drink in hand, Hawke crossed the flagstones to stare toward the west, where the sky was streaked with lavender and aquamarine. Something about the pure, translucent colors made him think of startled eyes that flashed imperiously, eyes that reached out to haunt him even in his dreams.

  A pebble skittered across the roof and dropped to the flagstones with a high ping. Bloody owls nesting on the roof again, Hawke thought, cursing silently. A frown set his lips as he turned to look up at the darkening line of the parapets.

  Another stone came hissing down to strike him in the forehead, and this time the duke's curse was far from silent. But the oath froze upon his lips when he saw a slim figure suspended in midair, her pale ankles thrashing as she climbed up the curtain that was draped over a notch in the crenelated roof.

  By God, she would be killed!

  Hawke's glass slipped unnoticed from his hand, crashing upon the flagstones. For a horrifying moment the woman suspended overhead froze, looking down at him, her eyes huge and haunted. Even at this distance he could see that she was waging a battle with her fear.

  "Bloody little fool!" The words were barely out of his mouth when she twisted about and resumed her desperate struggle up the taut fabric, her forearms flashing silver in the gathering dusk. She lost her hold for an instant, and Hawke froze. She sobbed and spun crazily down the twisting fabric, and he felt her pain almost as if it were his own.

  He did not move, paralyzed, as she broke her fall at the very last moment and dangled high overhead. Only when one fist climbed awkwardly and her knees closed around the length of fabric did he breathe once more.

  And that breath woke him fully. He leaped across the terrace in two great running strides. Damned if he would let his wife kill herself while escaping — not when so much was still unfinished between them!

  High above, Alexandra dragged herself inch by inch along the groaning velvet. Already a jagged tear had rent the center of the fabric, and she prayed she could reach the roof before the old cloth disintegrated.

  But she refused to consider failure. Nor would she think about the granite-faced man staring up at her even now from the terrace below.

  Beneath her fingers the fabric grew taut, and she realized she was nearing the point where the curtain was anchored to the roof. A shuddering heartbeat later, she felt rough stone beneath her fingers. Her whole body racked with tremors, she clawed her way up and over the crenelated border and collapsed in an exhausted heap on the rough pebbles of the roof.

  She looked up into a twilight sky that burned radiant cobalt above the roof's gathering shadows. Unsteadily, she rolled to her feet and like a hunted animal began to search desperately for an escape route, knowing that her grim pursuer would not be far behind. She crossed the roof toward the southeast corner of the house, touching a line of chimneys and carved parapets still warm from the sun's heat.

  Out of the twilight shadows behind her came a muffled snap, and Alexandra swung around to find her fear a reality.

  "Do you hate me so much that you'd risk your life to escape?" the Duke of Hawkesworth asked in a deadly voice as he stepped from behind a snarling stone lion. "Or can it be that I have finally broken through that marble shell and made you know the taste of fear?"

  "S-Stay back!" Alexandra hissed unsteadily, creeping backward, never taking her eyes from his angry face.

  "Why? So that you can break your neck when you stumble over the loose stones by the south front? So that you can fall down the ruined shaft there by your left foot? No, that I will not. I'm not about to let you go so easily. This storm's been a long time brewing, and we'll have it out between us here and now." As he spoke, Hawke moved closer, and his voice rolled across the darkness in unbroken waves. "You've fire enough, Isobel, which is something I forgot. Either that, or you're half mad — and there we might find something in common. But one thing I never thought was that you were a coward. Right now, that's what you appear."

  Alexandra, already nearing the small domed tower at the southeast corner of the roof, gave a hard laugh. "You're a fine one to talk of cowardice, Your Grace, here on your home territory with a staff to do your bidding. Put us down on open ground, and I'll teach you fear soon enough." Her foot slipped on a fallen chimney tile, and she swayed awkwardly before righting herself.

  "What's wrong with right here?" Hawke asked silkily. "It's all very well to talk about open ground, but now we have the whole roof before us. Why don't you stop running and face me?" He kept his movements slow and unobtrusive, but all the time he steadily closed the distance between them.

  "Because it would be no contest, as you well know! So stay away from me, I warn you! I've had enough of your treachery." She felt the warm stone of the circular tower touch her back, and she fought down a trill of wild laughter. She only had time for a quick glance at the stone parapet bordering the roof and the ancient gnarled oak beyond before the sound of falling stones brought her around sharply.

  He was less than a yard away, his eyes pinpoints of silver in the navy twilight.

  Alexandra kept her back to the warm stone, afraid to look away from him for even an instant now. Her trembling fingers searched the wall of the tower, seeking an opening in the stone face but finding only the regular lines of stone and mortar.

  There had to be some opening, either window or door, she told herself frantically.

  "You're out of luck, my dear. We closed off the stairway from the south tower three years ago, after Davies took that bad tumble there. Perhaps you'd forgotten," the duke added, faintly taunting.

  No! Alexandra thought. Not when freedom was so near! Her fingers closed upon a loose granite slab, and she struggled to wrench it free. "Stay back!" she threatened, raising the block before her chest.

  Hawke stopped and held his rage in check, for he saw that she was now dangerously close to the edge of the roof. "Very well," he said, crossing his arms carelessly at his chest. "What next?"

  In the darkness to Alexandra's left the oak leaves rustled softly in the wind. "Move back," she said hoarsely, praying that he would obey. He had to, she thought. She needed time to think and space to maneuver.

  "Or what?"

  "Or I hoist this stone atop your great witless head!"

  His soft chuckle carried easily in the stillness. "I think not, my dear. It's an artful bluff and I congratulate you, but now it's time to admit defeat."

  "Not while I can yet draw breath, damn you!" Without warning Alexandra hefted the square of granite and hurled it toward that rough taunting voice, for in the darkness she could see little more than the outline of his white shirt. She heard the thunder of falling rock, a brief silence, then a score of small, muffled explosions far below.

  Without pausing, she turned and flung herself over the stone railing where the green oak leaves trembled in the night wind.

  "Stop!" Hawke's hoarse shout rent the air, bouncing back and forth between the chimneys, echoing like thunder.

  But Alexandra's ears were full of the fury of her own heartbeat and the roar of the wind until she could hear nothing else.

  A storm of angry branches bit into her face, and her right shoulder cracked against a massive bough. She cried out in pain, clawed by a thousand wooden fingers as she plunged down through the thick foli
age.

  Her thigh struck wood, and the force of the impact ripped a piercing cry from her throat. Even then, she continued to fall, whipped by twigs and branches, flailing about desperately to grasp anything solid. When finally her fingers met rough bark, she clung with all her strength and swayed crazily up and down until the unseen branch beneath her fingers finally came to rest. A moment later, she felt the outline of a limb at her feet.

  Coughing, she spat out a mouthful of bitter leaves and began to work her way in toward the trunk, elbowing aside twigs and foliage. It was hard going in the dark, and she nearly fell more than once, relying upon touch alone for guidance. Then her hands found the oak's wide trunk, and she sank down to her knees with a sigh of thanks.

  But there was no time for rest. She hiked up her makeshift sari and slid down along the trunk, lowering herself bough by bough until she hung no more than five feet above the ground. She let herself dangle for a moment, then fell with a muffled thump, gasping at the pain that seared her ankle.

  It was one more thing that she would repay the foul toad for someday, Alexandra vowed, picking herself up and stumbling toward the brow of the hill where a grove of beeches shone silver in the light of the rising moon.

  The wind was singing across the meadow, and the moon had just lifted over the treetops, providing her a dim path. She knew she could not go far, for her ankle was throbbing savagely. She had not noticed it before, caught in the desperation of her escape, but the pain could no longer be ignored.

  She had to find a place to hide, for he would certainly come looking for her, and probably others of his staff as well. But where? Alexandra wondered, studying the open grassland crisscrossed with pale lanes of moonlight. She clambered up the crest of the hill and stopped to listen for sounds of pursuit.