Suddenly, Alexandra found the knot. Her fingers trembling, she attacked the last obstacle to her long-dreamed-of revenge.
Just as the strands loosened, Hawke rolled over and pulled her beneath him. Feverishly, she grabbed the pistol and steadied it only a second before it would have fallen against his knee. Her heart lurched, and she prayed he had not noticed the telltale motions of her hand at her skirt.
"I don't know what you're about, Alexandra, but understand this — there'll be no more running. No more interruptions." Hawke's eyes were like a cold winter sea as he studied her. "I've a mind to teach you a great many things today. I'm certain you'll make an apt student."
The devil take him and his teaching! If only he would move his knee and let her finish! The pistol was nearly free.
Suddenly, Hawke reached down and swept Alexandra's hands above her head. "This will be what the first time should have been. Long and fierce, swan, until you beg me to end the sweet torment and plunge us both over the edge. Then you'll talk no more of running or freedom."
The wind whipped down over the hill and tossed Alexandra's red-gold curls until they lashed Hawke's face. An electric tension sizzled between them, shocking in its raw intensity. For a moment neither moved. Suddenly, a fat glob of water hit Hawke's face, followed by another.
Frowning, he looked up and saw a dark line of clouds running in toward the coast.
Damn it! Hawke thought. They'd have to seek shelter. Cursing long and fluently, he stood up and jerked her to her feet. With a shrill whistle he summoned Aladdin from the far side of the hill.
"Wh-What are you doing? Where are we going?" Alexandra demanded hoarsely. So close to revenge!
"Didn't you notice the storm? Or was your nightmare just another act?"
Alexandra looked to the south and shivered imperceptibly as she took in the black slash of clouds above the Channel.
"Come on," Hawke ordered, already dragging her up the slope.
The wind built quickly in force, tossing Alexandra's hair wildly and hurling rain into her face. As they crossed the hill, she saw a weathered barn set in a slight depression of the downs and a rough shed made of slanting planks behind it. Abruptly, Hawke released her and grabbed the horses' reins.
Out over the Channel a ragged finger of lightning leaped from the darkening sky. The horses tossed their heads and danced skittishly until it was all that Hawke could do to hold them.
"Go inside, while I tether the horses!" he shouted against the roll of thunder that followed.
Alexandra jerked open the heavy barn door and darted into the shadowed interior. She turned and put her shoulder to the door, struggling against the wind to close it. When it was at last latched in place, she tossed up her skirt and ripped the pistol free with trembling fingers. The binding around the hammer was the next to go.
Now! she thought wildly. Let him come now! She was ready.
The door creaked behind her, then crashed shut.
He was soaked, Alexandra saw in the brief flare of light from the door. His hair was plastered to his head like a dark pelt. He shrugged out of his jacket and strode to the wall behind the door, where he dug deep into the hay.
With a grim laugh Hawke exposed a hollow section of wall near the dirt floor. "Just where it used to be, by God!" From a hidden chamber behind the wooden plank he lifted a tinder box and an old lantern without panes. Next came a small wooden keg. "Smugglers use this place to land their silks and brandy," he explained. "When the excisemen aren't nipping at their heels, they rest here by day and move inland with the darkness."
He did not turn around but struggled with the flint to light a candle for the lantern. After several failed attempts he finally succeeded and rested the flickering light on an upturned barrel.
Once again he dug into the hiding place. This time he brought out two blankets, a length of French lace, and a pair of fine crystal goblets. "Run goods — specially ordered for a bride's trousseau, no doubt. Everything we need to be comfortable until the storm passes, including brandy direct from Paris."
Alexandra's cold fingers cradled the gun concealed in the folds of her skirt. "I should have expected you to know about such things," she said bitterly.
"The smugglers' comings and goings are common knowledge on the coast," Hawke said, shrugging.
"Yes, a murderer would know of such things."
"Murderer?" He frowned then, his attention caught at last. "What are you talking about?"
"You. The Marquess of Derwent. A murderer!" Alexandra said shrilly, finally giving voice to the words branded upon her heart so long ago: " 'We hereby order your immediate recall to London, where you will answer charges of bribery, corruption, and gross irresponsibility which led to a sepoy rising and the subsequent loss of 200 lives.' Do those words sound familiar, Your Grace? Do you remember signing your name to that document?"
Hawke frowned. What was the woman about now? "The recall of the governor-general after the suppression of the Vellore mutiny, I believe. I have some notion of the document. Why should it interest you?"
"Did it give you pleasure to grind a man into the gutter?" Alexandra cried as if he had not spoken. "To destroy twenty-five years of unstinting service to the Crown in one stroke of the pen? You, who had never done an honest day's work in your whole cursed life!"
"The letter was a joint decision by the whole board of control," Hawke said slowly. "A decision reached after two months of debate. Someone had erred: someone had to take the blame. Maitland was in charge; therefore it was his responsibility."
"As simple as that? Neat and clean and settled." Alexandra laughed, a cold, dead sort of sound. "But it's not so simple after all, Your Grace. For that man was my father, and you're going to feel the pain he felt, the burning jolt of the ball that ended his life!"
Slowly, Alexandra drew the gun from within the folds of her habit and raised it until the barrel pointed directly at Hawke's temple.
"Well, I'll be goddamned," he said softly.
"Without a doubt."
"Are you mad?"
"Perhaps I am," Alexandra cried, laughing recklessly. "But it's a happy sort of delirium to have you in my sights at last! To see you begin to suffer as he did!"
Hawke took a step forward. My God, he thought — she was Lord Percival Maitland's daughter?
"Don't move," Alexandra warned. "I can shoot the eye of a jack at ten paces."
"Your father again?"
"My father. A man whose name you aren't fit to utter."
"A man who nearly lost his garrison. A man who refused to take responsibility for his flawed decisions at a time of crisis."
"No!" she screamed, and the wind echoed her shrill protest. " 'Twas not his fault, but the fault of men who ordered him to do the impossible. Men who knew not the slightest thing about conditions in India. Men like you, damn your soul!"
Hawke moved slightly closer. "And you planned this whole thing for revenge? You were searching for me that night in the fog?"
"Of course," Alexandra lied. "I came to make you crawl. To make you right this obscene injustice against an honest, decent man." A bolt of lightning crashed overhead, and her hand quivered slightly.
"Ah, but I won't crawl." Slowly, he stalked closer. "But I think you will. Hear that, Alexandra? The storm is nearly upon us. Hear the drum of the thunder." His eyes were silver pinpoints in the gloom. "The Devil's fire."
"Stop!" she cried furiously, hating the tremor of her hand, which soon grew to a visible shaking. "Storm or not, I'll put a ball through your skull. At this distance I can't miss — not with a weapon like this."
"Did Telford arrange this too?" Hawke asked in a tone of cool dispassion.
"I plan my own revenge!" Alexandra screamed. "I need no one's help! I've been planning this ever since the night I found my father's shattered body."
Hawke's eyes were shadowed and unreadable. "Have you ever shot a man, Alexandra?" he asked softly, taking another step closer. "Have you heard the last rattle of breath, been
close enough to see the eyes go flat and vacant when the life is ripped out of them?"
"I'll see it soon!" she cried. "I'll laugh when you die!"
"I think not. You don't have what it takes."
A ragged bolt of lightning lit the room, and in the sudden flare Alexandra saw his mouth set in a thin line.
In the inky darkness after the lightning bolt passed, she saw a different room, bloodred, rank with the suffocating smell of death. Her father's body sprawled across the neatly stacked papers on his desk.
Alexandra's hand shook uncontrollably. "No!" she screamed. "You'll die for what you did to him! You and the two others who signed his death warrant!"
"The storm's nearly overhead now. Can you hear the wind?"
"Shut up, you bastard! It won't work!"
"Won't it?" he asked, taking another step until he stood no more than four feet from her. "Listen, Alexandra," he ordered with silken violence. "They call to you. Like the fiends of hell clawing at the door." As if in answer, the wind screamed and lashed the barn with sheets of rain.
"Stop!"
"They're coming, Alexandra. Can you hear?"
"Murderer!" she cried to drown out the sound of the storm. She shuddered as the Terror began to creep along her spine. "You might as well have shot him in the back! At least I'll face you when you die!"
A bolt of lightning crashed directly overhead, exploding like a giant fist across the wooden roof, hammering and rattling the whole building in the storm's unleashed fury. And then there was a new sound against the wind — a wild, ragged keening.
"I must do it!" Alexandra screamed helplessly, but her finger would not move.
"Go on then," Hawke growled. "Do it. Now."
Suddenly, there was a flare of light, and the lead ball exploded down the barrel, hissed past Hawke's ear. and neatly shot out the candle inside the paneless lantern.
"Forgive me, Father," Alexandra cried brokenly, throwing the gun away from her as if it burned her fingers.
The next moment, Hawke's hands were upon her shoulders, shaking her savagely. "So you meant to put a ball through my heart, did you, Alexandra Maitland? You'll wish you did before I'm done with you," he said cruelly, pushing her down upon the hay.
She lay white-faced before him, her hands twisting at her waist. The storm was upon them in all its fury now, and without the lantern they were plunged into semidarkness.
Her breath came in little choking bursts as she fought the tremors that shook her limbs. Her beautiful eyes were wide and staring. "No," she moaned. "No more."
"Much more," Hawke vowed, dropping down to slant his hard body across her in the hay. "But this time it will be me and not a dream."
"Ayah!" she muttered, twisting madly to escape.
"Wake up," Hawke growled, trapping her restless body beneath him. "This is no dream. You're here, not back in India! Wake up, damn it! Fight me!"
Another violent bolt rent the air. Suddenly, Hawke heard a horse's wild neighing, then the muffled drum of hooves. Damn! They'd bolted even though he'd tethered them well!
His captive forgotten, he jumped up and ran to the door, throwing it open just in time to see Aladdin and Bluebell disappear into a gray wall of rain. Hawke cursed long and fluently.
He did not hear the rustling in the hay behind him until it was too late. As he turned, he saw his captive dart blindly past him into the fury of the storm.
* * * * *
Sharp, tiny nails ripped her flesh, and a thousand stabbing fingers pulled her down. Hungry teeth snapped at her legs.
Wildly she struggled, only to feel more hands claw her neck and scalp. Still Alexandra fought, for dimly she knew that to yield would be to die.
"Father?" she screamed, but only the shrieking wind answered, flinging her terror back at her.
The Devil's fire slashed through the sky and sent its ghastly light dancing over the earth. Long fingers wrapped around her neck and tightened relentlessly. Choking, she struck at the rigid fingers but met only air.
Black waves of fear crashed over her, and a queer whine rose in her ears.
They screamed her name in a thousand voices, and above the din she heard the sound of her own terror. She choked, desperate for air, and fell to her knees, flailing crazily.
The iron bands tightened until blackness licked at the edge of her dreaming mind. Then the wind roared and tore the last racking sob from her throat.
* * * * *
Cursing, Hawke struggled up the hill against the slashing rain, unable to see more than a few feet in front of him. He ran stumbling toward where he had seen Alexandra disappear, praying he would find her before she reached the cliffs.
At the top of the hill he stopped, hunched into the wind, and flung the rain from his face to peer into the unrelenting curtain of gray before him.
That was when he heard her scream.
He plunged forward, half stumbling, and nearly fell over her in the streaming rain. She was caught against a dwarf hawthorn, struggling wildly, her glorious mane caught by a thousand tiny thorns. The more she fought, the tighter she was impaled. Yet like a crazed animal she thrashed, until tears soaked her face and her eyes were dazed with pain.
Suddenly she fell to her knees, screaming in blind terror.
"Stop fighting!" Hawke ordered, but the wind flung the words back at him, mingled with her wild hysterical laughter.
He tugged at her hair, then reached down into his boot for the knife he'd hidden there. It was five minutes' work to cut her free and throw her stiff body over his shoulder. Strangely, she no longer fought him.
She was shivering by the time he got her back to the barn. He tossed her down into the hay, and there she lay, her body rigid, her eyes glazed and unseeing. Grimly, Hawke jerked off her skirt and torn chemise and wrapped her in one of the blankets. He chafed her cold skin roughly, but she gave no sign of noticing.
With a savage curse, he reached for the keg of brandy, filled a glass to overflowing, and forced a small amount upon her. She took it without demur, unmoving in his arms. Again he tipped the glass against her mouth, more this time, and she coughed when the high-proof smuggled spirits burned down her throat.
Weakly, she fought the iron fingers forcing more of the liquid fire between her lips. "C-couldn't do it," she muttered brokenly. "Too much d-death already. Forgive me, Father."
Hawke smiled grimly. He stripped off his own clothes and pulled the blanket around them both. Soon he would give her something to beg forgiveness for, by God!
He slid his hand between their damp bodies and massaged her skin, forcing warmth back into the rigid muscles. Rain hammered on the roof like the hollow sound of his heart, and he asked the one question still gnawing at him. "Who sent you, Alexandra? Telford? Was this his idea?"
She mumbled something between short, jagged breaths, and Hawke bent closer to listen.
"Who?" he repeated sharply.
"No one. Me. M-my revenge. Against them all."
Hawke felt a harsh, blinding sense of relief. She was not lying this time, he knew, for the madness was upon her, and she could not lie in its grip.
"So this thing is between us alone," he whispered. His fingers massaged her spine and buttocks, and he pulled her into his body's heat, never ceasing his powerful strokes. "Wake up, Alexandra. The storm is nearly over. A new storm is about to begin, by God."
He drew slightly away, bringing his hands around to the cold, taut crests that teased his chest. His thumbs played over her nipples mercilessly, circling and closing again and again. Then his warm caressing fingers slipped lower, tracing her navel and massaging the hollow of her belly.
When she cried protestingly, Hawke brought his open palm to the junction of her thighs and forced her legs apart as he flattened his hand against her soft fur.
He recognized the exact moment when her whimper of fear became a moan of desire. Instinct and vast experience told him, even though she had not yet recognized it herself.
He knew and did not stop. He mi
ght have, had he been capable of rational thought, but by then the madness was upon him as well.
Searing muscle probed Alexandra's thighs. Suddenly, her eyes widened, and the ragged edge of dreams gave way to harsh reality. Her breath caught in a sob, and she pounded clumsily against his chest. "Let me go, m-murderer!" she cried. "Haven't you done enough?"
With a bitter smile Hawke trapped her fingers in one large hand and rose above her, his manhood rampant between them. "Not nearly!" He found what he was seeking, and his smile was thin and cruel as he parted her. "Not for you. Certainly not for me." She twisted wildly, but he captured her beneath a muscled thigh while his finger slipped inside, stroking deep and then retreating, over and over, until she arched blindly. "Not yet," he taunted.
Alexandra felt lightning play over her, exploding along her raw nerves and bathing her in silver fire. Her body was a thing apart now, molding itself to those expert hands, her taut muscles desperate for the release he held just out of reach.
And still she fought him.
Hawke's fingers circled, plunged deep, then quickly retreated. "Now?" he growled.
"N-never!"
"Say it!" he ordered.
"Oh, God, stop!" It was a last desperate plea.
"Tell me, Alexandra! No more lies."
It was madness, it was savage, blinding pleasure, and she could fight it no longer. "Please!" she cried in a voice not her own but a stranger's.
Abruptly, Hawke knelt and cupped her buttocks. He watched her face as he lifted her and plunged inside, filling her with living fire and hard throbbing muscle.
A moan broke from Alexandra's lips. "Damn you!" she cried. "I hate you for this!"
But he only laughed and pulled away until she twisted helplessly, desperate for his return. "Yes, Alexandra, like that, with little pleasure sounds upon your lips. Like this." His hands caught her ivory legs and pushed them apart so that their bodies met with savage, stunning force. "Feel it! Feel my fire."
Her mind poised on the edge of darkness, Alexandra moaned hoarsely. Still Hawke toyed with her, never giving her what he had taught her to need so desperately.
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