Gaelen Foley - Ascension 02

by Princess

  Opening the door quietly, she found herself for the first time in his quarters.

  Her gaze traveled over the small, spartan box of a room. The narrow bed, fit for a servant, was tautly made. The cover was brown and the sheet was white. Beside it, one serviceable taper sat on one humble, no-nonsense table. His reading spectacles were on the table, too, and the sight of them clenched her heart somehow, this token of his hidden vulnerabilities and lovable little human flaws.

  On the left wall, his orderly clothes hung on pegs. All the same, all black. The canvas curtain was neatly drawn over the window. Not a painting hung on the walls, which were of a nondescript color. Her throat closed, gazing at this dismal space. It was the most depressing room she had ever seen.

  This is not a life, Darius. This is a prison sentence. But I swear I’ll get you out of here.

  Just as she pulled the door closed with a sniffle, she heard hoofbeats outside, and the sound of her five guards suddenly hollering. It couldn’t be Darius who had arrived, she thought, for the men’s voices sounded hostile. Then her eyes flared.

  She stood frozen at the sound of a guttural Russian accent.

  Under a canvas pavilion not far from the scene of the battle, Darius took a heavy hero’s supper with the king, the crown prince, and the top officers present. All congratulated him on his nuptials.

  They were all suddenly so happy for him, Darius didn’t know how to tell them he’d already fumbled the marriage. His failure in Milan was nothing compared to this one.

  His mind wandered again and again back to his wife as the men talked of the battle and agreed that their defenses were better than expected. When Rafe began boasting of how they would hold off Villeneuve when he came, Lazar voiced the opinion that, knowing Horatio Nelson’s cool nerves and expertise, Villeneuve might not come back from the West Indies at all.

  Finally, Darius nudged the prince into confessing about Julia and the tunnels.

  Lazar was still bellowing at the lad when Darius took leave of them, chuckling ruefully as father and son shouted at each other, Italian gestures flying. He left his men at the feast. They had earned a celebration and, for his part, he wanted to be alone with his grief when it came time to face the empty yellow villa.

  The whole long ride back to the villa astride his borrowed horse, Darius’s mood was empty and sad. He was tired from the day’s exertions, sated from the heavy meal, and he rode the horse at a lazy, ambling walk, dreading the thought of facing his empty house.

  He was beginning to wonder about the wisdom of ending it with Serafina. If Lazar thought him worthy of her, perhaps . . . perhaps he wasn’t as bad as he thought.

  He couldn’t go on like this, hating himself. It was pointless, he thought. If he wasn’t going to find a way to get himself killed, then he was going to have to learn to live in his own skin somehow, and he would need her help to learn how to do that. She was his strength, his truest friend. She was his reason for living . . . and he had driven her away.

  The road was quiet. He saw no one the whole journey. He watched birds swoop between boughs. Far above, a hawk soared, circling on an airy spiral.

  The hot day cooled to dusk. As he neared the yellow villa, he grew more anxious about whether or not he would find his wife there. He had ordered her to go, but one never knew when she would choose to obey or defy. In this case, he wasn’t sure which he preferred.

  Now that she knew all the truth about him, she wasn’t going to want to stay, anyway.

  He thought for a while on the things he loved best about her and would miss most—her mischief, her sparkle. Her pout and her haughty scowl, when she was in her Queen of Sheba mood. And the sweetness of her soft arms around him as he drifted off to sleep.

  The prospect of returning to his old life without her was unbearably bleak, but all he could do now was keep his desperation concealed beneath the surface of stoic resolve. Whether she chose to stay or go, either way, he would face her decision with equanimity.

  The sun’s glow was fading in the western sky as dusk deepened to night. Wearily, he let himself in through the tall iron gates and led the horse to the stable. His heart sank, for not a soul was in sight. Not a candle burned in the window.

  They were all gone.

  He stopped on the cobbled yard, hands in his pockets as he gazed at the house he had bought. God, how could he bear to go in there?

  No, he told himself. This was as it should be. He had never deserved her, not really. She was too highborn for him, too beautiful, too pure. She was better off without her Spanish madman.

  Open yourself to me, she had said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to do. He remembered her asking him once, What would it take to make you trust me?

  He didn’t know. A miracle, maybe. Some kind of miracle to turn back the years and give him a father who didn’t bash him around, and a mother who didn’t dote on him and abandon him by turns, as if he were not her child but a little stray alley cat she fed scraps to when the whim took her.

  Darius clenched his jaw as he stood there, not wanting to think about it, but he knew it drove straight to the heart of his problem. What stood in the way of his present happiness was his ancient past.

  Viewed rationally, he knew his mother had been just as abused as he and had been sensible to flee. But on a deep, visceral level, he hated her almost worse than he hated his father, even though he knew it wasn’t fair. His father had abused him, but his beautiful, sparkling mama had torn his heart out, betrayed him. She had been his only ally until she had abandoned him there.

  If only he had not been so small and helpless. If only he had been strong enough to protect her, he thought. But all he had been able to do was take care of her after his father left her broken and bruised.

  He supposed she had finally found some other wealthy protector to take care of her, someone who had not been afraid of his father. She took her chance at escape without looking back. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

  Whore, he thought, his lips curling in a cold, faint sneer. Whore, whore.

  Her treachery hurt him so much that he usually could not bear even to think of her. It was easier remembering his father’s kicks and blows than to think of her dazzling smile . . . and perhaps he had been punishing her in every woman he had met since, showing them all what whores they were. Showing them that he was the one in control, he was the one who could leave them.

  He had but to crook his finger to be worshiped by beautiful women. He could bring them to their knees with a look, then walk away without a scratch.

  Until now.

  Until the purest creature on earth had floated down beside him and fed him from the milk of her very body.

  Had he won this time? Could it be called a victory, his driving her off deliberately so he would not have to face her eventual abandonment?

  The hell with it.

  He’d survive.

  Abruptly, he lurched into motion, forcing himself to face the empty house. He dragged himself up the shallow front steps and opened the door.

  As he stepped over the threshold into the darkened foyer, he heard a wooden thud at the same time he felt a startling blast of agony in his skull. He saw scarlet stars, blurring, black.

  He realized too late who had come to keep a promise.

  He was struck again.

  Thank God she left.

  At last, he thought, someone with the competence to kill him.

  Then nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  There had been a brief opportunity to run out the back door and flee into the tunnels that would take her safely into hiding, but when Serafina heard the shots and brief screams that told her that her few remaining guards had been killed, she abandoned all thought of flight.

  Darius would be coming home soon, and she knew it was him they wanted. Somebody had to warn him.

  So she stayed.

  She had fumbled her way into the coffinlike secret compartment built into the floor in the pink bedroom. It w
as cobwebbed and claustrophobic, and how she had remained silent when they searched her room, she did not know.

  The Russians’ heavy, booted footfalls trod practically on her back through the hardwood floor. She had counted two male voices conversing as they searched the room, then left, but there could be more.

  She knew Anatole was somewhere in the house. She could feel his icy presence.

  She prayed Darius would not come, but strove to think of a plan in case he did. She considered what weapons she had at her disposal and asked herself what her wily, ruthless husband would do in this scenario. She knew the answer: Whatever necessary.

  If only he had made some noise when he had arrived.

  Then she could have screamed to warn him, but she realized he had come only once the shouting started. They already had him.

  Silently, silently, she crept out of her hiding place and readied herself as quickly as possible for her own brash suicide mission. Her heart raced. Her hands shook madly, and she prayed she didn’t get both of them killed.

  As she edged down the hall and picked her way silently down the stairs, she could hear Darius mocking them and taunting them as they did whatever it was they were doing to him.

  Their voices were coming from the library. She couldn’t understand a word of the argument, which was taking place all in Russian, but she knew that insolent tone. It told her that his back was to the wall.

  I’m coming, she told him silently.

  Darius.

  His head throbbed, his jaw hurt, and the world had gone a bit dizzy, so maybe that explained the sweet, tickling whisper he could have sworn he heard in his head. Her voice.

  My Darius, I am here with you.

  The illusion was comforting as he scowled up at the two biggest Russians he had ever seen in his life, the general’s handpicked blond giants. He was almost cocky enough to be insulted that Tyurinov had brought only two, except there was no avoiding the fact that he was the one tied to the chair.

  Tyurinov was looming over him, his blue eyes locked frigidly on him. “So, Santiago, you thought I’d let you get away with making a fool of me before the entire world. And now I find out you have been writing to my cousin about me.” The general merely jerked a nod toward him and stepped back.

  One of the giants went to work again. Darius gritted his teeth against the urge to cry out. He assured himself the pain involved with breathing suddenly and the blood trickling from his nostril and the corner of his mouth were nothing serious. Waiting for this round to end, he glared straight ahead, past the giant’s bulging thighs, ignoring the blows by dint of will, and it was then that his second beatific vision that day appeared in the doorway.

  When he saw her, he ceased feeling pain. Ahhh. His whole body sank in the chair as in relief, as if she had come to put her arms around him softly and make these mean fellows go away. It was a good thing she was just a hallucination, born of a few bad blows to the head.

  Angel.

  He smiled at her a little, pleased and a trifle shocked at the form in which his goddess had chosen to manifest herself tonight for his private vision. If today on the stairs she had appeared to him as an innocent angel of light, this was the Serafina he had only dared imagine when he was very hot and bothered late at night.

  She had on a gauzy and quite indecent peignoir of deep scarlet. It had long, flowing, ruffled sleeves and a very low neckline revealing her creamy white chest. Her wild, black, spiraling curls flowed about her shoulders and a wineglass dangled from her hand.

  In all her erotic splendor, this luscious figment of his dirty mind was a siren, a wicked temptress—the tigress he had unleashed during their final, incredible encounter this afternoon.

  He watched her lean her curvy body languidly in the doorway, striking a pose.

  “Ahem,” she said in a voice that was surprisingly real.

  All three Russians turned.

  “What are you doing in my house?” she asked coolly with a haughty little lift of her elegant black brows. Her fingertips began to play at her neckline, teasing along the lace.

  “Oh, my God,” Darius said.

  One of the giants stuttered. Anatole’s eyes widened.

  Radiating pure bitchery, which he could only guess she had learned from a lifetime of studying the palace ladies, she glided into action before any of them, stupid males, could react.

  She was lethal.

  Her walk was honeyed treachery as she flowed toward him, red silk swirling dreamily around her long legs, her pale face fixed in a marble mask of cold beauty. “I see you’ve found my philandering husband.”

  Darius stared at her in horror as she effortlessly nudged the giants aside as easily as if they were big, stupid plowhorses. She held the medal of the Virgin up before his eyes and swung it back and forth like a little pendulum.

  “Where did this come from, hmm? No, don’t bother to explain. I am sick of your lies.”

  With a mocking curve of her lips, she slipped the chain over his head, her hand touching the back of his hair with a stolen caress to reassure him. When she moved back, he stared into her eyes in bewildered pleading. Get out of here! Are you trying to kill yourself?

  Tyurinov slowly began to laugh.

  He’s not falling for this, Darius tried to tell her with his hopeless stare. But he saw that her game had barely begun.

  The giants were staring mutely at his wife while she turned to Tyurinov, folding her arms under her breasts, brazenly plumping them for his avid inspection.

  “What are you going to do with him?” she asked in a bored tone.

  “What game are you playing, my dear?” the prince growled through his difficult accent, his eyes blazing with undisguised lust. He took a step toward her.

  “Well, he has served his purpose for me, hasn’t he?”

  “Has he? You tell me.”

  She pouted. “Oh, you are still cross with me.” She reached out and hooked a fingertip through the buttonhole on his blue coat’s lapel. “Anatole, we parted so bitterly. I really think we ought to talk.”

  Darius turned white. “Serafina.” He did not want her going off alone with this brute.

  “Oh, shut up,” she snapped at him, taking him aback. “They’re going to kill you, and as far as I’m concerned, you deserve it.” She looked back up at Tyurinov again with cool, calculated charm. “Husbands can be so tedious. Widowhood will be much more my style.”

  “Married under a fortnight and already you are tired of him?” Tyurinov asked, searching her face closely.

  “This vainglorious schemer?” She glanced at Darius, but she avoided his eyes, as if she could not bear to meet his gaze. “A lover, maybe. But a husband? He tricked me. I never wanted to marry him. I enticed him into attempting to kill Napoleon—which he failed to do,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But he lied about having failed, you see, and claimed his reward under false pretenses.”

  “Why did you not wish to marry me?” he demanded.

  “Anatole, Anatole, my dear.” She petted his chest soothingly, tilting her head back to meet his stare. “It’s not that I didn’t want to marry you. It’s that I didn’t want to marry— period. I relish my freedom. Surely you know how it is to be worshiped by many. Was I really to choose just one? My reasoning, simply, was that if I must marry then I shall have a husband weak enough of character to be someone I could control. You did not strike me as such a man.”

  This seemed to mollify him slightly. “Indeed, I am not.”

  “Santiago, on the other hand”—she glanced over at him— “why, he’d put his hand in a fire if I asked him to.”

  “How long has he been your lover?”

  “Oh, we’ve always shared a certain . . . physical attraction,” she admitted, “but ever since he tricked me, I have refused to give him what he wants. So, do you know what he does?” she demanded prettily. “He goes off sulking, scurrying into the arms of other women, yet he has a fit if I take an interest in another man,” she neatly lied. “I ask you, A
natole, do I look like someone who need tolerate a man who does not appreciate me?” She ran her hands down her sides, artfully putting her curves on display.

  Tyurinov’s stare followed the route of her hands. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and Darius was growing very worried indeed. She was certainly playing her part to the hilt.

  “Has he been leaving you alone at nights already?” the general rumbled, practically drooling.

  “Too many nights,” she purred.

  “Well. That is inexcusable.”

  Darius wanted to kill him for the way he was looking at her, but he bit his tongue, terrified to say a word because he might only make things worse somehow. There was a sliver-thin chance that the devious chit knew what she was doing. God knew, she had him half-convinced. By the look of it, she could have been standing there telling the Russians the moon was made of green cheese and they would nod agreement, too busy gawking at her celebrated breasts.

  He cast about in a fury of frustration trying to find some means to free himself, but as his wife sidled up close to Tyurinov and began toying with one of his gold epaulets, Darius decided, eyes blazing, that his wayward little Cricket was long, long overdue for a lecture.

  When she spoke, he grew uneasy. This was a charade, wasn’t it?

  “Anatole,” she said sweetly, “can’t your men finish up with my husband? I want to talk to you. Alone.”

  “You are treacherous,” he panted at her.

  She gave him a cool, narrow smile. “Do I frighten you?”

  He laughed softly, eyes sparkling at the challenge, and sliced a nod to his men. “Kill him.”

  “Wait.” She swayed over to Darius and draped her arms loosely around his shoulders, thrusting her breasts just under his face.

  Lord, but her gown was low-cut.

  “I told you you’d get what’s coming to you, you wicked rake.”

  He stared at her in disbelief and bewilderment. You’re leaving me here? She leaned toward him and gave him a soft kiss on the side of his mouth that wasn’t bleeding, then her slow, soft kisses moved toward his neck in teasing seduction. He was stunned when she actually got a shiver out of him, though his whole body hurt.