Chapter Nine
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Reece and Corina came down the stairs into the cellar cautiously, the butler holding a torch. Julien stilled himself, so his clanking chains would not serve notice that he was conscious. There would be no blinking out to escape his chains. The knockout drops had worn off, but he could still feel the effects of the laudanum. That must be what it was. He was groggy and heavy-eyed. They had accidentally found the only way to subdue his Companion and neutralize his power. His shoulder thudded with pain through the drug. Someone had dug the bullet out. The hard stone was cold against his back. This was an old meat cellar from some former incarnation of the house. To his acute senses, it still smelled of death.
Corina examined him from a safe distance near the steps while Reece replenished the guttering sconces. She seemed surprised to find him conscious. He almost smiled. They had probably given him a dose enough to kill another man. He winced as Reece pulled his hands above his head with the long chains run through rings buried in the stone.
Only when she was sure he was restrained did Corina move closer. "How are you this morning, my pet?" she cooed, and knelt beside him. She unfastened the bandage tied about his shoulder and peered under the pad. "Reece, come look. This wound is not as bad as I thought. The bullet must have been spent."
Reece leaned close with his torch. "That wound looks half healed."
"Nonsense. There has been no time to heal a wound. I am just glad to save the bribe a doctor would require." She wrenched the bandages tight, ignoring Julien's flinch, and stood.
"What do you want?" he managed. His' speech was slurred in his own ears.
"Oh, there will be plenty of time to talk about that." Corina sighed. "I think you are going to be very sorry you ever met me."
"Sorry I met Sarah Ashton, too," he growled. "Sarah?" Corina asked, glowering.
"Your accomplice."
"My accomplice!" Corina tittered. "Of course. She sent you to me, did she not?" She put a finger to her lips. "Should I tell you my plan?" Julien said nothing. "Addiction must be horrifying for a man like you. A few weeks, ever-increasing doses of laudanum, and you have a lifelong friend. You are half a man, wasted in body and mind. Your foolish pride disappears. You will do anything for the drug." Corina watched for the effect of her words.
Julien glared up, his labored breath fueled with disgust. He tried not to let her see the horror he felt at the picture she painted. "You are a monster."
Corina's laugh, half rage, echoed through the stone room. "I, a monster? I? When you tried to destroy me in front of all of Bath? You are the evil one. You will beg forgiveness. You may swear you love me. It will not be enough. You will suffer, Davinoff, as you have made me do." She whirled and strode to the steps. "Reece, keep him plied with laudanum."
"He is strong," Reece said. "We should give him more soon."
"Will our guest drink willingly, do you think?" Corina asked, her head cocked.
"I can get the drug down his throat straight, now he's chained up," Reece replied grimly.
Julien raised his head and stared at the butler, serving notice of a fight. Corina saw it, too. "You had better come prepared, Reece," she lilted, lifting her skirts. She practically skipped up the stairs.
Reece appeared in the cellars in his shirtsleeves the next evening. At least Julien thought it was the next evening. It had been many hours at any rate. The man had come several times. The key twisted in the lock with a hollow clank and the door swung open. He had a metal tumbler in one hand and a stout cudgel under the arm that held his torch. Julien tried to focus on him from the shadows. He had grown to hate that tumbler and the cudgel. Corina forbade her minion to mark his face. He could still feel the bruises, the split lip from yesterday's first session, but since then, Reece had concentrated his attentions elsewhere. Now his shirt was torn and soiled with dirt and blood. Breathing was an effort. They were giving him ever more laudanum in an effort to keep him stuporous. Reece had grown fearful at how much of the drug it took. As he reached the bottom of the worn stone steps, the servant peered into the darkness beyond the circle of light from his torch.
"How long does she think she can keep me here?" Julien rasped.
"As long as she likes."
"What about the servants?" He could hardly think, but he had to turn this man against his mistress.
"The others, if they happen to discover that Mrs. Nandalay has another guest, would never guess he is not a willing participant being paid for his services," Reece observed sourly. He replenished the lanterns from a skin of oil in the corner.
"What about you?" Julien forced scorn through the drug. "You do it for money?"
"I do it because she asks me," Reece snapped.
So, that was it. Julien leaned his head against the stone. "She has many captives."
"You do not understand," Reece almost shouted. "I am her partner."
"You are her dog," Julien breathed. "Even if she grants you other favors."
The man ran a hand through thin hair. "I do not share her bed, if you mean that. She trusts me."
"But trust does not help you to her bed, does it?"
Reece picked up the cudgel and stalked over to him. "Damn you, there are other things besides bedding a woman."
"But not for you. You want her the way she wants me…" Julien might have said more, but Reece raised his stout staff and silenced him with a blow to the ribs.
"She wants you?" the man cried. "She wants you to suffer, that's what she wants." Julien doubled over, unable to protect himself. Reece's stick continued to rise and fall over his shoulders, against his ribs, The thudding pain made him retch and gasp for breath. "You want to drive us apart. Well, you won't do it," Reece hissed.
When his anger seeped away, the butler stood panting. Julien sagged against his manacles. He could not remember ever being defenseless. It was not a feeling he liked. Reece stalked over to where he had left the laudanum, and picked up the tin cup. "She wants you drugged," he wheezed, "and drugged you will be." He pulled Julien's head back and pried his jaw open. The drug poured out in a gleaming stream. Julien felt consciousness slipping away, but he managed to crunch down on Reece's fingers.
"Bloody hell," Reece shouted, snatching his hand away. Julien sputtered as the drug went down. But down it went. He sagged in his chains, defeated, his chest heaving. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, brought up by Reece's blows to his belly. Its taste was metallic.
"You won't be so much when we get through with you," Julien's torturer sneered, bent over and gasping with his own effort. "We'll see how long she keeps her interest once you are reduced to drooling addiction." Reece drew his hand across mouth and stood upright. "I'll see you again in the morning," he promised. Taking the cup, he staggered up the stairs.
The days following the assembly saw Sarah feeling low and small. Davinoff had disappeared entirely. All of Bath was talking about it. Amelia could speak of nothing else. Only Sarah knew where Davinoff had gone, and she refused to satisfy the speculation.
The last thing she wanted was a visit from Corina, but Sarah's friend swept into the drawing room at Laura Place on the second day after the assembly in a manic mode. She sported a fetching russet merino pelisse and matching boots, her hat a high poke buff bonnet trimmed with russet ribbons. "I appear, as you suggested," she announced, tossing her hat onto a side table.
Sarah was seated at her father's desk writing a thank-you letter to Lord Elgin. Amelia had taken a chair to Milsom Street to buy some lace. "I am quite successful in my machinations, am I not?" she asked, though she could not coax animation into her voice. Corina examined her closely.
"Yes, you are." The blonde's laugh was nervous. "What are they saying about Davinoff?"
Sarah glanced up. She'd never realized Corina cared what people said. "They don't know where he has gone." She closed her ink bottle with a savage twist of the cork.
"But you. know." Corina began to toy with the ribbons of her hat. Then she launch
ed into explanation: "Davinoff and I decided that part of our problem was the pressure of speculation. What I had in mind was carried out much better outside the glare of Bath society." She stopped and glanced at Sarah with some hesitation. "You won't tell where he is, will you?"
Sarah shook her head. "How long does he plan to stay?" she managed.
Corina's hesitation disappeared. "Who knows?" Now she fairly gleamed with self-satisfaction. Did Corina think that she approved of this behavior? Sarah wondered. "Now he is mine, I am sure I will find he is like all the others." Corina waved a hand.
Sarah could feel her mouth harden and turned her eyes to the window. There was a light snow, just flurries really. It was not sticking yet. "I have no doubt." Then, as though she didn't care, she said, "I myself am going up to Clershing to meet Mr. Thorpe. I don't know how long I shall be gone."
Corina gave a knowing smile. "I understand your desire to leave town." She grabbed her hat and swaggered to the door. "Come to me when you return." Then she was gone.
Corina and Reece kept Julien plied with laudanum. He couldn't tell how many days passed. Time in the dark cellar wavered in and out with his consciousness. He had always been here, would always be here. He had rejected the food Lansing brought, a small gesture of rebellion. They didn't care enough to force it down his throat. He had grown weaker as the drug took an ever-stronger hold on him and his Companion. At least it kept the pain away. It occurred to him that they could kill him. That might be possible now that the Companion was powerless. He had wanted that many times in his long span of years. It had sometimes held a dark attraction, but not at the hands of a smug blond bitch. He breathed what was almost a chuckle. Change the hair color to flaming red, and you had Magda, part and parcel. They were both sick sexual predators who had lost their balance. Perhaps it was justice that he suffered at Corina's hands. He had let the world suffer with Magda's depraved desires.
As he had grown weaker, Corina grew more confident. She came in alone now. She held her nose as she reached the bottom stair. The cell smelled of sweat and blood, mildew and stale urine. She called to Lansing to empty the chamber pot.
As Lansing left, Corina knelt at Julien's side. She had brought her little golden knife, the kind used for paring ladies' nails. Julien had learned to hate it as much as the cudgel. It gleamed in the dim light from the sconce in spite of the crusty flaking brown on its tip.
"Davinoff," she whispered. He lifted his head. "Is today the day you say it?"
He waited. She would do what she would do.
Corina leaned close. "You know you want to say it," she said throatily. "If you do, maybe I will stop all this. Or maybe not. But shouldn't you try?" The light of need glowed in her eyes, like a lover who longed for a kiss. She ran her hand under his torn shirt, feeling the muscles over his ribs, his belly. She still held the little knife. He could feel the metal of the point barely scrape his skin.
He said nothing, but looked what defiance he could still muster, though he knew defiance excited her. She ran her fingers through his hair with her left hand, leaning close and whispered. "Just say you're sorry, Davinoff. Just beg me to forgive your sin."
He whispered his disgust.
"What, my love?" she breathed.
"Monster," he slurred, louder this time, though he knew what it would mean. He could see the anger shudder down her spine and the excitement rise into her eyes.
"I could kill you," she hissed.
"I think you could." He couldn't manage more than a small, hazy smile. "Do it."
Corina's rage bubbled up and disfigured her face. She was not used to commands.
"Are you afraid?" he pressed. What matter what she did to him? The drug had made him into the living dead, a last dreadful joke at his expense.
She calmed herself, brushed her lips against his ear. "No, are you?" Her right hand caressed his flesh. Her rage pressed the little knife into his side. He stiffened in spite of the laudanum. She pulled her hand away, sticky with his blood, then closed her eyes and breathed in the sensation.
He broke her pleasure with his voice. If she licked those fingers, she would be dead by morning. "No," he said as though she had not cut him, just to enrage her. Lick your fingers.
"Wrong answer." She smiled and drew the little knife along his thigh, just lightly, not yet breaking the skin. "Shall we try again?" She smeared his own blood over his chest. She wasn't going to taste it. Julien tried to keep his breathing steady as she cut him again and again. Finally she rocked back on her heels in frustration. "You will beg forgiveness, you know." Julien just stared at her.
She made a sound in the back of her throat. "I won't kill you. You probably want to die." She took a breath. "As a matter of fact, I really came down to check your bullet wound. I want you to last until I can finish with you."
He watched her tear away his shirt. She surveyed his bare chest, his shoulder still wrapped with a bandage now dirty and bloody. She touched several cuts softly, including the bleeding gashes she just made. "Your ribs are broken, your collarbone," she whispered. "You've lost blood." Then she cut the bandage away with her tiny golden knife and pulled away the pad.
He watched the truth of what she was seeing seep into her. He did not have to look. There would be no wound in his shoulder, only a faint blushing mark where the bullet had struck him, hardly even a scar. The initial doses of laudanum had not been enough to entirely subdue the Companion, though it was thoroughly dampened now.
She stared at his body in amazement. Her breathing came shallow and fast as she raised her eyes to his. What man could heal like that? she was asking herself, and the horror of the only answers she would be able to propose crept across her countenance. He let the faintest smile touch his lips.
With an effort she wrenched herself away and leaned against the wall, panting. "Reece!" she screamed and pushed up the stairs to the door. He heard heavier footsteps above him. "Reece, his dose of laudanum requires adjustment."
Sarah arrived at Clershing with Amelia, in a hired gig. They set about opening up the Dower House and getting in provisions. Mr. Thorpe arrived on Thursday as predicted. He was a friendly, rotund little man. Not at all the way one pictured archeologists. As they surveyed the villa, Mr. Thorpe grew more exited with each shard he retrieved from the rubble.
"This is an excellent example of a first-century Roman house, Lady Clevancy. I am so glad Lord Elgin was kind enough to suggest me."
"Do you think we will find more underground?"
"Undoubtedly. The mosaic floors and the hypocausts probably begin perhaps twenty feet below the surface. We must remove the soil of centuries, but the effort will not be wasted."
Sarah could hardly contain her excitement. During the next three days, she assisted Mr. Thorpe in taking measurements of the site. Then he was off to London. He would be back in a fortnight with workers and supplies to begin in earnest. Sarah had done her finances carefully. With the winter rents, if she scraped, she could afford a dozen workers for a month. Her dream was on the verge of becoming real.
With Mr. Thorpe gone, Sarah had no reason to stay on at Clershing. Yet she had no desire to return to Bath. She consulted Mr. Wells about planting the fields, fallow now. It rained for three days, which forced her to books and needlework until she was thoroughly bored. When finally the gray, wet sky cracked and revealed a blustery blue day, she walked down to the villa feeling restless and sat on a great stone that jutted up just outside the walls that were no more.
But the tiles of her villa could not compete with the view of the abbey that loomed up behind them. The abbey reminded her why she did not go home. She had run away from Corina and Davinoff. There was no other word for it. Corina had added Davinoff to her endless trophies of conquest. And Sarah was not enough like her to fascinate such a man.
Then the fear that she was too much like Corina returned. Not the bold, magnetic side. Sarah knew she had none of that. But she also knew, when she allowed herself to know, that she shared some of Corina's
darker, less savory attributes. She, too, could do anything, no matter how depraved. Why else did she keep coming back to Corina, in spite of what she knew?
As she sat in the shadow of Davinoff's abbey, tears overwhelmed her unexpectedly. She had run away from what Corina was, from what she herself might be, before. Sun-drenched Sienna, nestled in the Tuscan hills, threatened to overwhelm the blustery day and bring back all the fear, all the doubts about herself. No one knew, except Corina. No one would ever know. She tried to slam the door as she had so many times before. But this time the door would not be closed.
It had been on the Continent. Corina was sixteen, Sarah was eighteen, and they were free for the first time, making the Tour. It was a ritual more for young men than girls, and that made it all the more exciting. Corina's Aunt Letty was acting as chaperone and they had Reece, but Letty tired easily, and Reece might be protection, but he was in no position to deny them. Anything was possible that summer. They were young and Corina had money. As they wandered through the narrow, twisted streets of Sienna, looking for treasures in the crowded market stalls, they must have looked like ripened fruit or colorful flowers in their pastel muslins. Corina bargained aggressively with every vendor, not caring what she bought, while Sarah smiled on, glad she did not have to tell some merchant that his carefully handcrafted wares were worth so little.
"If you're not careful, Sarah," Corina taunted, piling Reece's arms with another package, "you'll come away empty-handed. A wasted trip to Italy." Her laugh was golden, then as now.
"You cannot buy the Coliseum," Sarah answered her. "I'll have my memories." Then, feeling defensive, she added, "And you bought me that little painting in Venice."
"Well," Corina temporized, excusing Sarah as she gathered up a native doll of somewhat doubtful origin, "it is certainly getting too hot to trudge around these dirty stalls much longer." She looked around for refuge from the sun and caught sight of a tavern's swinging sign at the end of the road. "Let's get something to drink. I am dry as bleached bones." Sarah and Reece were left to trail in her wake as she pushed her way through the jostling throngs toward the tavern.
Sacrament Page 14
