The Lily Brand

by Sandra Schwab

  “Damn,” he muttered and, not for the first time, wished for a tumbler of port. Old, deep red port. He could almost taste the rich bouquet on his tongue.

  His wife frowned.

  Had her features always been this delicate? He had never noticed.

  Troy scratched his stubbled cheek.

  “Surely you see that we have to talk. Camille’s…” She swallowed, the long, clear lines of her throat moving convulsively. “Camille’s arrival has changed things.”

  With a show of nonchalance, Troy settled back in his chair, cheroot clenched between his fingers. “I don’t see how. After all, she thinks I am dead, doesn’t she?” He puffed on his cigar, inhaled the smoke, yet never let his wife out of sight.

  Another frown marred her forehead. “But if she ever finds out otherwise—”

  “Well,” he interrupted, lacing his voice with arrogance as if his body were not drenched in cold sweat. “There is nothing she can do. I am an earl. She would not dare to lay a hand on me now.” He raised his brows.

  For a few moments his wife just stared at him. And then, the strangest thing happened: She laughed. It resembled in no way the short, shrill sound in the carriage. It was low and angry, full of scorn. Hands clenched into fists, she advanced on him, her gray eyes sparking with rarely shown emotion. “You cannot tell me you have forgotten what she is like. Do you really think any of that would matter to her? You being an earl and all that?”

  Unexpected fury pounded through his veins. “But it matters to me, to me, do you hear?” he shouted, on his feet. “I will not have my pride taken from me again! I will not be demeaned again!” He towered over her, using his height to intimidate her, his fury like a red veil before his eyes. “Do you think I’m still a dog on a leash? Do you? A dog that can be whipped and branded and—”

  His wife’s sharply indrawn breath made him stop. All color leached from her skin, leaving her face ghostly pale.

  And there it was again, the memory that bound them together and that stood between them like a solid wall made of mortar and stone: the white-hot pain of the brand on his body, her mark burnt into his skin.

  A lily for Lillian.

  With a bitter expletive, he turned away from her. He ran his hands through his hair and felt the remembered humiliation gnaw in his gut.

  “There has never been anything that I regret as much as this,” her voice came from behind him, haltingly, with the lightest of trembles.

  Briefly, Troy closed his eyes. Intellectually he now understood she had been a victim just like him, but still, she had held the brand, she had watched and—

  Tiredly, he shook his head. “I will not run away from that woman,” he said hoarsely. “Damn it to hell, I could have her hanged!”

  Another woman might have been intimidated by his anger. His wife, however, was not. She walked around until she stood in front of him, and fearlessly she looked up it him, searched his face. “Do you think she cares?” she asked softly, her voice steady once more despite the tears shimmering in her eyes. “Do you not know? Do you still not know? My stepmother is mad. How else can you explain all of it? She thinks herself the mistress over life and death, a big black spider sitting in the web of her own making, waiting for another victim to tumble into her trap.”

  “Your stepmother is a woman, not a spider,” Troy snapped impatiently “And I will not run from her.”

  His wife continued, her voice imploring. “Nobody ever escapes her clutches. She has always hunted them down. Always. Even now, I still sometimes hear the song of her dogs in the night. If she ever finds out that I have lied to her, she will want to hunt you down, too.”

  “Do you think I’m so helpless that I—” he began, only to be interrupted by her.

  “Do you not understand? You have seen how she is. Do you really not understand?” His wife put a hand on his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh as if to lend her words more emphasis. “Ravenhurst, I beg you, you have to leave London. It is not safe.” He had never seen her so intense.

  He looked down on her hand. Such a small, white hand, with elegant, slender fingers. Did she play the pianoforte? He did not have an instrument at Hill Street, but he could imagine her fingers dancing over the keys, stringing together note after note, creating melodies sweeter than the sound of birdsong.

  Tentatively, he reached out and ran his forefinger over the back of her hand. Her skin felt as soft as down.

  “I beg you,” she whispered. All at once she sounded choked. He glanced up, and he spotted more tears glinting between her lashes.

  The sight made his heart constrict, and his fingers closed over her hand. “She will not harm you,” he said, his tone fierce. He would make sure that la Veuve Noire would never again come near his wife.

  She closed her eyes. The tears spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. “She will not want to harm me. Don’t you understand? She will want to harm you.” She opened her eyes once more. Such beautiful eyes, shimmering with moisture. “I beg you. You are not safe in London.”

  She worried about him?

  About him.

  One dark brown curl tumbled into her face, and Troy reached out to brush it behind her ear, carefully, gently. He remembered how she had cried in the carriage, a damp bundle of misery and desperation. All at once, he felt the urge to wrap her in his arms, to reassure her she was safe; that nothing would ever harm her again. But how could he do it, when it was her mark marring his skin, when it had been she who had held the brand and had been complicit in his degradation? Still, he wanted her to be safe from la Veuve Noire. “Then what do you suggest?” His voice was hoarse. If making her feel safe meant leaving London, so be it.

  “Could you not ask Lord Allenbright and Mr. de la Mere to accompany us back to Bair Hall? We could tell everybody we are going to Cornwall with them. At least that would buy us some time.”

  “If you think so.” Obviously, she had given this serious thought. “I am sure Drake and Justin would come with us. We could leave tomorrow.”

  “No.” Her grip on his arm tightened, her panic obvious. “Let us be gone this morning, before she has time to call on us.”

  “Is this wise?” Her locks twined silkily around his finders as he brushed his hand through her hair. “After all, it will only serve to make her think we are afraid of her.”

  At that, his wife smiled. It was a sad, little smile that reseed at his heart. “Never fear,” she said softly. “She already knows I am afraid of her. She has always known. It is what she wants.”

  Chapter 15

  Bair Hall rose in the distance with its familiar jumble of oriels and turrets and chimneys, its bricks blurring into a single rusty-brown. The shades of red, orange and apricot were lost, just like the delicate blue pattern among them, that diamond-shaped tattoo on the thick hide of the Hall. But like one of the fearsome, blue-painted warriors of old, Bair Hall was steadfastly standing guard over the Earls of Ravenhurst.

  Thoughtfully, Lillian put her chin on her updrawn knees. She sat on one of the tumbling walls of the fourth earl’s fashionable ruins, the gardens laid out before her like a colorful carpet for a pagan queen. The wind picked up and tugged at her hair, until the long strands tumbled loose from their bonds.

  They had told her that here in the north the weather might turn wild in autumn. Yet Lillian did not fear wild weather, just as she did not fear a wolf that might haunt the forest nearby.

  Her husband and his friends were out, hunting that wolf, which one of the villagers thought to have seen while collecting wood. A big, bad wolf, just like in a fairy tale.

  Lillian smiled as she remembered Lord Allenbright’s excitement over the hunt. His cheeks as rosy as a chubby boy’s, he had fidgeted on his chair during breakfast, nearly knocking a tray out of the footman’s hands. De la Mere, his nose stuck in the air, had kept teasing him, but for all his cool demeanor and arrogant drawl, Lillian had seen the loving indulgence shining in de la Mere’s eyes.

  She still found it strange
to take her meals with the men and to live in the countess’s apartments, which were so vast she sometimes felt lost among all their spacious splendor. Strangest of all she found the change in Ravenhurst’s behavior toward herself. While still reserved, he had dropped his outright hostility. Sometimes, Lillian would catch him watching her, his face inscrutable. Since that night after Lady Holland’s dinner party, they had not talked again. Now he seemed to be waiting—but for what?

  Surely not for Camille.

  Lillian frowned.

  There was no sign of her stepmother. Camille had not followed them, and Lillian could almost believe that she had returned to France, defeated.

  Almost.

  With a shake of her head, Lillian banished her dark thoughts. She stood and stretched her arms wide. For a moment more she enjoyed the feeling of the wind caressing her hair, letting it dance like a living thing. In moments like these she could almost imagine herself to be a true pagan queen with the power of the earth coursing through her veins.

  Lillian smiled at her own fancy.

  But she did not live in a fairy tale, and much as she would have liked to pick some flowers for her room, she knew that Nanette might need her help. For in the village several people had come down with a fever. Each day Nanette visited those who were ill, bringing them healing herbs for infusions and salves for the chest and sometimes soup, too, from the kitchen of the Hall.

  Lillian wrapped her arms around herself as the wind freshened even more. She should probably have taken a warmer coat than this thin spencer jacket.

  And an umbrella, too.

  A look to the sky showed dark clouds building ominously on the horizon and closing in quite fast. “Rain, rain, go away, don’t come back till Christmas day,” Lillian chanted softly, then laughed as she remembered the morning Lord Allenbright had come into the breakfast room, his arms full of small, wrapped parcels. “They were supposed to be for Christmas,” he had said somewhat bashfully. “But just imagine you don’t like them. That would ruin the whole festivities. Better to get it over with now.” De la Mere had groaned and scolded, yet his friend had cheerfully proceeded to distribute the presents, while the dogs, picking up on his excitement, had jumped all around him.

  Smiling and chuckling, Lillian skipped down the path. “Rain, rain, go to Spain, never show your face again…”

  ~*~

  “Bloody hell!” Drake cursed as yet another roll of thunder spooked his horse. He had trouble reining the nervous animal in and calming it down.

  Troy’s lips twitched as he regarded his friend. Under the steady downpour of rain, the rim of Drake’s fashionable hat had finally caved in and now hung limply over his ears and into his eyes. At the moment Drake Bainbridge, Viscount Allenbright, looked more like some sort of oversized, angry dwarf than a fashionable gentleman.

  “And not a bloody wolf to be found the whole day,” Drake muttered. “Devil take that wood-picking fellow with the big imagination!”

  At that, Troy laughed. “Did you really think we’d find a wolf in these woods? All the wolves of Britain were hunted down long ago, my friend. But I couldn’t let my villagers sit trembling in their beds for fear of being devoured in their sleep.”

  “Then, by all means, let’s call it a day,” came Justin’s drawl from the near darkness in the shadows between the trees. A flash of lightning illuminated his wet face. Rain dripped from his chin and nose. “For even if there were wolves lurking around here, they would be wiser than to stay out in this dreadful weather.”

  Troy had to admit that his friend was right. Not only were they all soaked to their skins, but it was also growing darker by the minute. It would not do if one of them fell off his horse and broke his bones. So they all turned their horses, wet and weary, toward home.

  The ride back to Bair Hall slowly took on nightmarish qualities. Their wet clothes soon became uncomfortable, rubbing the skin underneath raw. Troy felt as though the cold was seeping into his flesh to settle in the very marrow of his bones. Their horses stomped onward, slick with rain, heads hung low. They felt clearly as miserable as their masters, who had to duck their own heads against the madly swinging tree branches, while above them the wind howled like a wild beast on the loose.

  It seemed to take ages to reach the grounds of Bair Hall. By that time, Troy felt weak with relief when he saw the lights of the house twinkling merrily in the near distance. The horses, too, seemed to feel that the warm, dry stables were near, for they picked up speed once again.

  The stables, however, when they reached them, were strangely deserted. Nobody hurried out to take the horses, and when Troy poked his head into the hay-dusted warmth to holler for a man, nobody answered.

  “Now, this is what I call interesting,” Justin said to no one in particular, his normal nasal twang amplified so that it sounded like an oncoming cold. “What comes to mind is that saying about the absent cat and the dancing mice.”

  Troy frowned. “Let’s walk the horses to the front of the house and see if we find somebody there.”

  The wary beasts protested when they were dragged away from the tantalizing warmth of the stables. “Come on,” Troy murmured and tugged on the reins of his stallion. A niggling worry gently squeezed his heart, spread lower and settled in his stomach, a sliver of ice.

  They reached the front of the house, the hooves of their horses crunching on the gravel, while the rain, merciless, pelted down on men and beasts alike. Even though the windows of the house flared with light, no door opened, no footman came hurrying outside.

  Drake sneezed. “A day full of unexpected adventures,” he said.

  “I could well do without a few of them,” Troy answered dryly, managing to keep his voice even. He handed the reins of his horse to Justin, then marched up the front stairs and opened the door. The creaking of the hinges sounded unnaturally loud in the empty entrance hall.

  “Now, if this isn’t strange…” Troy murmured. Tapping his foot, he looked around, but still there was no footman in sight. Troy frowned. Arms akimbo, he bellowed, “Oy! Anybody there?” His voice reverberated off the walls from where his ancestors threw him reproachful looks. “What the—”

  “My lord.”

  Troy spun around.

  Hill, his eyes round and large in his pale face, came to a halt on the threshold of one of the doors leading away from the entrance hall. “Oh, thank God, my lord, that you are home!” he exclaimed. He was in such a jittery state that he even failed to show proper deference to his master. And when he came nearer, he was visibly shaking.

  Unnerved by Hill’s peculiar behavior, Troy felt his patience slip. “What the deuce is the matter in this house?” he asked harshly.

  “Oh, my lord…” The old butler turned even paler. "There has been an accident. A dreadful accident. Everybody went down to the village to help.”

  “An accident?” The worry weighed like lead in Troy’s stomach. “Whatever happened?”

  For a moment, agitation seemed to rob Hill of speech. His eyes darted past Troy to his friends and the horses, and back again. A nervous tick made his left lid twitch. “The church,” he finally managed. “A stroke of lightning hit the church. The roof caught fire, and the bell tower partly… it partly crumbled.”

  His words acted like a punch to Troy’s stomach. “How is this possible?” he choked. “That church has withstood storms for several hundred years.”

  “I do not know, my lord.” Warily, the old man shook his head. “But it did crumble, my lord, and the church roof came down. There are people hurt and dead, perhaps. I do not know. Most of the staff went down to see if they could help. To douse the fire at least. I stayed for your return, my lord.”

  “Damn it all!” The events of the day caught up with Troy, and he felt tiredness dragging his body down. “I trust that at least one maidservant stayed to look after my wife?”

  Hill swayed on his feet. “Lady Ravenhurst?” His face lost all remaining color. “I have not seen her since the morning, my lord.”


  Troy swore—vile words he had learned in the army, in that French prison. Turning, he jumped down the stairs and strode toward Drake and Justin. “There’s been an accident in the village. And my wife is not here.”

  Drake’s eyes turned round, Justin’s face grim. “Dear God,” he said softly.

  And for the first time it occurred to Troy that his wife might well have been involved in the accident. That she might be hurt. Or dead. His heart missed a beat, only to start hammering in his chest the next moment—underneath the skin that bore her mark. She might be dead. “I must go to the village,” he murmured, and swung himself onto his stallion. His hands, when they picked up the reins, trembled.

  Both Drake and Justin got back in the saddle. “We’ll come with you,” Drake said. “God knows what you’ll find.”

  They rode fast and in strained silence. Troy felt neither the rain nor the cold any longer. His mind whirled with images of his wife’s body, broken and bloodied, and he had to fight the bile that rose in his throat. The dark landscape, which he had loved for so long, suddenly seemed to have turned into a beast with a thousand eyes, ready to devour the unwary wanderer should his foot slip. The familiar landmarks became nightmarish visions of the netherworld, his father’s ruins a bony finger raised toward the skies, a mene tekel in mortar and stone.

  Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting, it seemed to say.

  And his wife was paying the price.

  “No,” he groaned. “No!” He spurred his horse on, faster, always faster. He could not rest, could never rest, until he had seen his wife. His hand crept up and splayed wide over his chest. A lily for Lillian.

  “Troy!” Justin’s horse drew even with his. “Troy, take heed! The ground’s slippery.”

  Drake came up on his other side. “She will be all right, Troy. I am sure she will be all right. She might not even have been near the church when the accident happened. Heck, I’m sure she’s spent the day wandering around your gardens!”