Chance the Winds of Fortune

by Laurie McBain

  * * *

  “Signora! Signora! Che cosa c’è?” Sophia cried out in alarm as her mistress stormed up the grand staircase, leaving the puffing maid far behind. By the time Sophia had reached the doors to her mistress’s private apartment, they were barred against her. She hesitated before the closed doors, her eyes round with fear as she listened to the ranting going on within, which was broken only by the sound of shattering glass.

  “Dio mio,” Sophia whispered, still panting from her speedy climb up the stairs; then, as a thud hit the door, she jumped back and crossed herself for protection against whatever evil was driving her mistress into an uncontrollable frenzy.

  Beyond the closed doors La Rosa Triste stared bemusedly at the ruins of her once elegant bedchamber, her breathing ragged as she fought for control. Then with her breath coming in short, uneven gasps, she collapsed on the edge of her bed. Through the opened doors she could see the destruction she had wrought in her salon, yet she had no real memory of doing it.

  “Twins!” La Rosa Triste cried out in disbelief and outrage. “How dare he! Twins!” She rolled over on the bed, her screams muffled against the soft fur coverlet as she beat against it with clenched fists. “Damn him! Damn his rotten soul to hell! ’Tis his fault. It always has been. I hate him, hate him! Look what he has done to me. He’s taken everything away, everything. I hate you, Lucien!”

  With a deep sob of despair La Rosa Triste climbed from the bed, tripping over her cloak. In a savage motion she threw it off and stumbled to the cracked mirror hanging off center in one of the wall panels. With shaking hands she began to untie the cords that were always securely tied around her head to hold her mask immovable. Not once in almost eighteen years had she seen her own face revealed without its protective mask. She had sworn never to gaze upon it, but now…

  Without stopping to think she pulled the mask free, leaving her face bared, her inhuman cry of pain echoing around the room as she stared at the jagged scar running from chin to temple that destroyed forever the perfection of her features. The cicatrix was an ugly, reddish purple color that moved in a puckered line along the length of her face. The base of the wound pulled down the corner of her mouth just slightly, but it was enough to give her a grotesque sneer. The more La Rosa Triste stared at her deformity, the more the scar began to take the shape of a sloppily executed L, marking her for eternity with the brand of Lucien.

  La Rosa Triste gazed at her strange reflection in the mirror, almost unable to believe her disfigurement. How many of these fine Venetians, as well as others she had known, would have given their fortunes to have gazed beneath her mask? Once or twice an overly amorous and drunken lover (for he would not have dared unless he were drunk), had tried to snatch the mask from her face. But with her able-bodied footmen standing close by outside her apartment, prepared for just such an occurrence, the foolhardy gentlemen had been shown the door. Only once, long ago, when they had first come to Venice, had anyone seen her face. It had happened before she’d gained her notoriety and power, for no one would dare to offend her now; she had many powerful friends, some of whom were her lovers—and with a softly spoken word in the right ear, a man could disappear forever.

  She could barely remember that night. She had been having a private dinner with a man, and before she knew what he was going to do, he had lifted her mask from her face. His look of shocked horror as he’d stared at her scarred face still caused her unbearable pain. She couldn’t remember at all what had happened after that endless moment of discovery, except that Percy had come into the room and found her standing over the man, who had a dinner knife protruding from his chest. Percy had helped her dispose of the body, and no one had ever been the wiser about the man’s disappearance. But she had learned a valuable lesson, and never again had she been caught off guard. Even the conte had never seen her face. He respected her privacy, and her reasons for wanting to keep it. Perhaps he even found it exciting to make love to a woman whose face he’d not know if he saw it unmasked. Many men felt that way. They enjoyed the mystery surrounding her, but only she knew the truth.

  She was not La Rosa Triste. She was Kate! Katherine Anders, Lady Morpeth, granddaughter of the seventh Duke of Camareigh, and cousin to Lucien Dominick, ninth Duke of Camareigh. She and Percy were the ones who deserved Camareigh, not Lucien. She and Percy should have been living at Camareigh right now, not Lucien. Percy. Percy, her twin. And now Lucien had twins. Twins—just like she and Percy had been.

  They all wondered why she wore black. Black. Black for mourning. Mourning for all that she had lost, for what she had been cheated of by dear cousin Lucien. Her mourning for Camareigh had never ended, and now she mourned for the loss of the one person she had ever truly loved. Percy. Dear, sweet Percy. And roses? Red roses? Why, in memory of England, of course. Her beloved England. Her home, the land from which she had been exiled by Lucien.

  Lucien had stolen everything from her, Kate thought, looking dazedly at her hideously scarred face, her fingers rubbing against the roughly healed scar tissue. And now he was the cause of Percy’s death. Percy was gone. Kate’s eyes drifted over to a painting which had miraculously escaped destruction. It was draped in black crepe, and could almost have been a portrait of Kate, so identical was the likeness. But it was a portrait of a young man dressed in blue velvet, the style of his coat and stock dating it back almost twenty years. The delicately molded lips were curved in a sweet smile, while the sherry-colored eyes seemed to reflect some inner amusement. He had been so beautiful then, so perfect. A male replica of herself. Percy’s face blurred through her tears as Kate remembered all of the times they’d had together, especially the ones spent at Camareigh. A deep-seated anger and resentment began to smolder within her as she reflected on all the wonderful, carefree days they’d shared before being banished from Camareigh and England.

  It always had been just the two of them, and that was the way it always should have been. Even her brief marriage to Charles Anders had not altered her closeness to Percy, for even a husband could not come between that special quality unique to twins. Of course, she hadn’t loved Charles, so he’d never been any competition for Percy. She’d married Charles solely for his wealth and title. One day he would have inherited a considerable estate from his father, the Earl of Grenborough, as well as that old gentleman’s title. But as fortune would have it, the earl had outlived his only son, and the title had passed to a cousin after the earl had finally died the following year. So close she had come, and yet before she could even blink her eye, she’d found herself a well-to-do widow, cheated by death out of becoming a countess.

  On the other hand, the fine Lady Anne, Percy’s wife, had thought she could replace Kate in Percy’s affection. She had sought to turn Percy from Kate, but she had been wrong. He couldn’t forsake his Kate, for they breathed as one—they were nothing without each other. Percy had only married Lady Anne for her money. Percy and Kate had long ago spent all of the legacy left to Kate from her late husband’s estate, and they were desperate for funds. But the marriage had done little to help them, for Lady Anne’s money had not lasted long after they’d settled in Venice. And when times had got hard, what had Percy’s little mouse of a wife done? She’d run back to England and the safe bosom of her family, leaving Percy and Kate to fend for themselves. Actually, Kate had been glad to see the back of that English miss and her runny-nosed brats. Why Percy had ever fathered them, she would never understand. Kate smiled, thinking of Lady Anne back in England, not realizing she was a widow. And nor would she find it out for a long, long time.

  She and Percy had been strong, and they had survived those first long winters in Venice. But Kate knew it shouldn’t have been like that. It should have been different. If Lucien had never been born, if he’d never walked the face of the earth, then she and Percy would’ve been the rightful heirs to Camareigh. They would have been the golden ones, the ones with the money and influence. But no, they had been the poor co
usins, the ones to have pittance doled out to them. As Kate stared at herself in the mirror, her pale eyes hypnotized by her distorted face, she remembered once again the agonizing pain she had suffered that day in the small English inn when the pistol, which Percy and Lucien had been struggling to possess, had gone off accidentally. The ricocheting bullet had scored a deep trough through her cheek, leaving her lying in a pool of her own blood. The blood spilled that day should have been Lucien’s.

  Nothing had gone as planned, but then it seldom had when it concerned Lucien. He led a charmed life. Kate laughed harshly, thinking of the many times she and Percy had tried unsuccessfully to end their dear cousin’s life. But he had always managed to survive, like a cat with nine lives. It had been seventeen, no, eighteen years now since she had last seen Lucien, and he must have used up most of those extra lives by now. In fact, he must be down to about the last one.

  Sighing, Kate moved slowly toward her bed, sinking wearily into the soft fur. She was so tired, so sleepy. And yet she could not sleep, must not sleep, not yet. She had to think. Percy was dead; she had to keep reminding herself of that. Her sweet Percy was dead, and Lucien was still alive. Her twin was gone, and yet Lucien had fathered twins.

  Kate rubbed her throbbing temples as she looked around the shambles of her room, her eyes dulled with unbearable pain. She would think of something. There must be some way to make Lucien pay for his crimes against them. She couldn’t let Percy die unrevenged. Yes, Kate decided, yawning as she buried her scarred face in the silky fur, Lucien would pay, and pay dearly. She would find a way of seeking retribution, but for now…now she must sleep. There would be time enough tomorrow to plan her revenge against Lucien Dominick, Duke of Camareigh.

  Four

  The bright day is done,

  And we are for the dark.

  —Shakespeare

  The early twilight of late autumn lingered in the hazy skies over the sprawling metropolis of London. Dark, grayish smoke curled upward into the sky from a thousand chimneys of red and gray brick and Portland stone as the city’s inhabitants tried to fight off the damp chill creeping in from the Thames. The slight warmth of the day was fleeing quickly under the fall of darkness. Whether it was a struggling family lighting a few precious pieces of hoarded coal in a tenement on the industrial east side, or a genial landlord rubbing his hands before a crackling fire of sweet-smelling wood in an inn or tavern in the Whitechapel or Limehouse districts along the river, or a busy maid tending a hearth in an elegant salon in one of the mansions in the fashionable squares of Russell, Berkeley, or Hanover, they all contributed to the grimy layer of soot settling down over the city.

  Vendors were still bustling in the streets, hawking their wares, ringing hand bells to attract the attention of passersby. Both the pungent odors of fresh oysters being sold cheap from wheelbarrows and yesterday’s prawns being peddled at a bargain on every corner mixed with the noisome smells of the offal collecting in the open sewers and gutters, which needed a good, hard rain to wash it into the Thames. The more savory scents wafting from the muffin-men and pie-women were enticement enough to draw the eye of the prospective customer from other itinerant vendors offering asses’ milk, fresh fruits, and vegetables, whose trays were weighed down with goods as they jostled for position along the narrow, cobbled streets of London.

  Crowding close along miles of wharves was a forest of stark masts swaying and bobbing with the rise and fall of the tide. Dotting the surface of the Thames as it curved through London were ships representing every great and small seafaring nation of the world that traded with the ever-expanding, far-reaching British empire. There were well-seasoned merchantmen flying foreign flags and riding low in the water, barques with cargo nets stretched wide, luggers laden in bulk, schooners that had already discharged their cargoes and were waiting to be loaded again for their return voyages, and coastal fishing boats and river barges that knew well the tides and currents of the Thames. Filling the busy wharves to capacity, until they creaked and trembled beneath the weight, were crates and bales, barrels and chests of every conceivable size and content. The aromatic and exotic fragrances of coffee and cacao beans, nutmeg, clove, molasses and cayenne from the Indies, tobacco from the colonies, as well as countless varieties of teas from the China trade, all blended with the odor of the honest sweat of dock workers and seamen, who were lifting bales of finely woven silks, Genoa velvets, and delicate laces from convents in France, soft furs from the Northwest Territory for milady’s cloak, barrels of flour and stacks of timber from across the Atlantic, and casks of aged wines and brandies from cellars on the Continent.

  The London docks were a hive of activity as heavily loaded drays, their harnesses straining, were pulled away by teams of short, thickset Welsh cobs or the larger Suffolk Punches. But now that the dank, swirling fog was rolling in off the water, all business was coming to a halt. As the workers retreated to the warmth of a favorite tavern, the sudden silence shrouding the docks was as deafening as the clanging racket of only moments before had been. The only sounds to be heard now along the docks were the muffled voices and laughter coming from inside smoky, well-lit taverns, and the creaking of masts and gentle lapping of the river current against wooden hulls.

  Out in the river, the Stella Reale, a merchantman out of Venice, had long since made fast her moorings, unloaded her cargo, and sent passengers ashore. However, an odd trio of travelers had been the last passengers on board to set foot on dry land. The heavily veiled woman dressed in black and her hulking footman, who had moved with unusual grace for a man of his size, had been strangely silent, while the ancient little woman hurrying after them had never ceased her agitated flow of foreign words.

  A hackney coach had been hired, and now was rattling along the narrow, twisting cobblestone lanes in the oldest part of the city of London, the grumbling coachman cracking his whip over the flowing manes of his pair of grays. From beneath his beetle brows, the coachman cast a curious glance at the silent figure sitting beside him on the box, who seemed oblivious to the sights and sounds around him, not to mention the nip in the air.

  “Yer mistress there,” the coachman began, jerking his head back. “Her’s a queer one, sure enough. Who’d ’av thought her be an Englishwoman? Tryin’ to be polite, Oi was. Just welcomin’ a stranger t’London,” he said, his voice heavy with disgust as he spat over the side of the coach. “And what does ’er laidyship do—and not even sparin’ me a glance, she didn’t! Says to me, ever so hoity-toity like, ‘I am not a fool, my good man, so you might as well speak properly, if indeed that is possible for you, which I seriously doubt. I happen to be English, and speak the language better than you shall ever have hope of doing. And don’t try to pad the fare, for I know London better than you ever shall,’” said the coachman, mimicking his upper-class passenger, then snorting with ill-concealed derision. “So Oi’m askin’ ye now, if’n her knows London better’n meself, why is it her wants a tour of the city? Crazy her be, that’s it. Juz me luck to get a crackbrained female as a passenger on a foul night like this’un.

  “Don’t understand a bleedin’ word Oi’ve said, d’ye? Well,” he added with another appraising look at his silent companion, “’tis just as well. Wouldn’t care to tangle with ye, that’s fer sure. But Oi’m goin’ to be sayin’ this anyhow, ’cause Oi’m an ’onest man, Oi am, and Oi’m not takin’ kindly to bein’ accused of cullyin’ practices, and ’twouldn’t ’av made no different if’n she ’ad been Italian. Would’ve charged the same, Oi would’ve. ’Ow was Oi to be knowin’ any different with that old woman ajawin’ away in some feurin tongue? And now,” added the much aggrieved coachman, his heavy brows lifted heavenward for emphasis, “her ’as me stoppin’ fer flowers! Be dark soon, ’twill, and ’ere we are hurry-scurrin’ across town and—

  “’Ere, watch out, ye son of a whoremonger! Aye! And the same t’ye, and t’ye grandmother as well!” the coachman yelled, shaking his gloved fist at the seda
n chair that had shot across their path, the cringing, liveried footmen carrying it away from the powerful forelegs of the pair of grays.

  Inside the coach, Katherine, Lady Morpeth, was smiling behind her veil as she listened to the familiar voices of London. The offensive language and abuse heaped on the heads of the unfortunate footmen’s families sounded like music in her ears, for the sights and sounds of London could not be duplicated anywhere else in the world. And how she had missed it all, Kate thought now, pushing aside the leather covering of the coach window and staring out with burning eyes, never seeing quite enough to fill the deep ache within her.

  The congested streets were lined with neat rows of narrow, sash-windowed shops that had gaily painted signs swinging above glaze-windowed doors. From chemists, carpenters, and printsellers, to publishers, saddlers, and picture frame makers, all were hoping to hear the bells above their doors jingling with a steady stream of customers.

  As the coach halted at a busy crossroads, Kate watched a splendid coach-and-six rumble past, its liveried attendants hanging on for dear life, while outriders rode on ahead to clear a passage through the crowded roadway. Kate recognized the crest painted on the door of the coach and wondered whether time had been kind to the occupants. As she leaned back against the leather-cushioned seat, she speculated about where her old acquaintances might be headed. Ranelagh and Vauxhall, the pleasure gardens, would be closed for the winter season, but had they been open, their customers could have enjoyed concerts of Handel in the Pavilion, midnight suppers in secluded alcoves, and brief assignations along dark paths.