"You've been drinking all day, Avenel." Rose walked over to the armchair in which he sat. She kneeled down beside him, taking his free hand in hers.
"So I have." His eyes were red and tired from the drink, but his speech did not show its effects.
"Perhaps you would like me to help you into your bedchamber? You could try to rest." She placed her head gently on his knee and looked over to the side where her husband stood.
"That sounds like a good idea, Slane. You look worn out." Cumberland moved closer to them.
"No, no. I'm not tired. I've been thinking. Remembering times past." Avenel lifted the glass to his lips and took a long sip of the expensive liquid. "I was recalling that terrible fever you had. It seemed to me and Staples, 'twould never cease. Do you recall?"
"Not hardly. It all seems a bad dream," Cumberland said.
"I do, though. Staples had me up and about in no time after we jumped ship. But you—you were laid up for a long while." Avenel squinted as if he were pulling something from the back of his mind. "I remember how I went to work with Staples. 'Twas in the tobacco fields with that fresh shipment of African flesh. We were hardly better off than the slaves that toiled alongside us. By the end of the summer, Staples and I appeared as black as they from the sun beating down on our backs. To this day I still cannot abide the stench of dried tobacco leaves. It reminds me too dearly of the cost in blood and sweat.""
"Staples was a dear friend. I mourn him too, Slane. But we moved up, didn't we? And we moved him up with us," Cumberland reassured him.
"It was mostly your doing. We never could have gotten him such a plantation if you hadn't taught me how to gamble." Avenel sipped again and frowned. "As it was, it took years before I thought I could win. Those wealthy, impetuous fools!" he scoffed. "How easily they threw away their gold, when they didn't have the vaguest knowledge whence it came! Nor how hard a man must work to earn the most meager of livings." He laughed now, his mood as changeable as mercury. "But look at the three of us! We're all three rich beyond our wildest imaginings and back at Osterley Park. We have them to thank for it!"
"We have you to thank for it," Rose said softly, looking at his pain-filled eyes.
Avenel took notice of her now, and he found comfort stroking her corona of faded blond hair. "You must tell me, Rose. Why did I not marry you when Christopher was killed? You're still lovely, though you be years older than I."
"Hush your musings, my lord!" she exclaimed with a playful smile. "For my husband is near, and you will force him to all you out!"
"But tell me, why did we not fall in love and—"
"Because, my lord," she answered gently, "you were not Christopher and you are not Cumberland. And I, alas, am not Bri—"
"Do not!" Avenel warned her before she could say the lame.
"But it's true, is it not, Slane?" Cumberland forced his way nto their conversation.
"No! You're both mad if you think I would fall in love with Morrow's daughter!" Avenel sat up straight in the armchair, causing Rose to jerk her head abruptly from his knee.
"Why don't you admit it? We cannot go on fooling ourselves that the girl upstairs is to be used and then cast aside, she is a person, Slane. It's true we had our plans to do that to her, but that was before we came here. We thought she'd be a vile, selfish creature, well used to a soft, indulgent life. But Brienne is not like that, and you cannot abuse her like a London strumpet." Cumberland looked over to him with imploring blue eyes. "She loves you, Slane. And God forgive me for saying this, but you love her too!"
"Damn you for saying that!" The glass that Avenel held so forcibly now shattered in his hand. Tiny rivulets of crimson started down his palm into the crisp, snowy lace of his cuff, Rose jumped up off the floor to get a cloth from the tea table, but he violently waived it away, choosing instead to vent his anger on her husband. "Are you crazed, old man, for speaking such things?" Avenel stood up and shouted at Cumberland, "Why not be quick about it and simply put a knife in my back? Or are you both hoping Morrow will do it for you? I daresay he would love to attend to that task! Just look what he did in the woods!" Avenel looked up, his eyes as mean and white as a wolf's. "But I vow to both of you, and heed my words well," he spoke in a tightly controlled whisper. "Oliver Morrow will not get to me through Brienne. He will not get me that way!" He kicked out at the fine elbow chair and then stalked out of the room, leaving Rose and Cumberland behind, their faces full of shock and helpless disbelief.
Brienne paced the pale wool carpeting in her bedchamber. The waiting was driving her mad. She knew someone, whether it be Vivie, Cumberland, or Avenel himself, would have to enter her room eventually, and when they did, she would make her escape. But now it was all she could do to fight the compulsion to bang wildly on the door and beg to be let out of her yellow-silk-hung prison. But she forced herself to pace quietly and wait, to ease her aching head in the peaceful solitude of her bedchamber. There had been a lot of time to think as the early evening sun descended into the surrounding forests. A plan had formed in her mind as to how she could get past the guards and gatemen, who by now had surely been informed of the possibility of her escape. She did not doubt Avenel's thoroughness in this matter, but she knew that with the plan she had in mind her greatest obstacle was getting through the locked door before her and not by the burly Scandinavians at the Park's entrance.
Her ears pricked at the sound of a key in the keyhole. There was a click, the lock was sprung, and she backed from the door to meet whoever stood on the other side of the thick mahogany.
"Get out!" she whispered vehemently at Avenel as he stood in the threshold. But he did not heed her words; instead he closed the door behind him and relocked it. Brienne noticed the stark, glazed appearance of his eyes and knew he had been drinking, although his calculated and controlled movements belied this fact.
"Leave me, I tell you!" she demanded, horrified that he nonchalantly placed the key on the mantelpiece and then sat on the settee. He removed his tall, black boots and his fine knitted stockings. She watched in absolute silence as he pulled each of them off his legs, noticing for the first time his cut and bleeding palm. But she felt no sympathy for him, only fear, as he pulled off his waistcoat and tossed that elaborately embroidered garment onto the floor. Then he looked straight at her with dispassionate eyes and pulled off his white linen shirt. Bending his head to his front, he slowly unlaced his doeskin breeches. She watched from her place at the window like a frightened red vixen caught in a trap. The scarred flesh of his taut, lower abdomen was exposed, and then his manhood, large and unfettered, was revealed. She looked away as he tossed the last vestige of his clothing over the settee; her mouth went dry, and her heart beat desperately in her chest.
Slowly and deliberately, he walked over to her; his naked male flesh swung with every powerful step. All too soon he was upon her, and she expected a violent assault on her body. But there was none save die soft brush of his skin as he positioned her against the wall.
"You will have to force me this time." She jerked her head to the side in refusal, breathing in his brandy-laced scent. His darkly furred chest skimmed the bare skin that was exposed at the top of her bodice, and against her will she found it pinkening and tingling beneath him.
"I think not," he whispered into her mass of auburn, honeysuckle-scented hair. He inhaled her fragrance deeply and then paused to admire the sweet, kiss-starved curve of her lips before his own descended on them.
Her eyes squeezed shut as if to force from her mind the overwhelming memory of their lovemaking. Her hand pushed against his well-muscled chest to announce her reluctance. But there was no pulling away from the proud, naked man as his hips pressed into her soft belly, proving his desire again and again with his hard and swelling manhood. She dared not look down in fear of its very size, and so she looked up, thereby allowing her mouth to be opened and explored by his hard, thrusting tongue.
"Nay," she moaned deliriously as she felt her bodice open undern
eath his experienced fingers. Soon his palm was overflowing with the rose-crested fullness of her breast, and a bittersweet feeling came over her as she noticed how generously she filled his large, bronzed hand. "Nay, I tell you!" She pulled her bodice to her and then ran over to the mantelpiece, seeking the key.
"I can make you want me, Brienne. With just one finger I can make you." He stalked her at the mantel. In panic she sought the key, but before she had it within her grasp, she was pulled by the waist to the settee.
"Oh, God, how wrong you are!" she spat at him, elbowing and kicking at him to free herself of his iron embrace. He forced her down onto the cushion, but she swore she would not give up until she was free, not this time. "I don't want a man who hates me! I tell you, I want no part of you!"
Before she could cry out another protest, his mouth clamped over hers. He kissed her long and hard, and by its end she found she was no longer struggling with him. But it was not the assault of his mouth that she could not deny. Instead it was his hand as he moved it along her leg and up between her smooth, inner thighs. She felt his fingers touch the dewy softness that hid in the silken wine-colored triangle. In moments he had her panting and so very hot, she thought she would be consumed by the fire burning within her.
She groaned as he pulled her down onto the floor. Pushing on his bare chest, she said in a broken voice, "Cease this madness, Avenel! Stop.-Stop!" Her nails raked at his skin.
But he appeared to feel nothing but the devil at his tail. He shoved aside her bodice. Her dress unfastened, her shift proved no barrier at all.
"Take me within you"—he bent down and placed a nibbling kiss on her taut, sensitive nipple—"or live out the rest of the day with the ache that only I can satisfy."
"You can satisfy nothing in me, you heathen!" She spurned his kiss over and over again. But when his lips finally caught hers, she became almost pliant beneath their caress. When they had drunk of her mouth, he used them to trail down her throat. He bit her and licked her until she was forced to let out a helpless moan of desire. He then moved lower and lower and pushed away her shift, which had caught at her elbows. When his rough velvet tongue met the peak of her breast, she thought she would surely go mad from the emotional and physical war that raged within her. -
"Take me." He positioned himself over her and waited for her choice. She writhed beneath him; her screaming, demanding senses seemed too great to fight any longer. She made one last incoherent plea for sanity, then his dark, handsome head bent over her breast once more. Desire rushed through her soul like water through a dam, and she knew she was lost Wordlessly, mindlessly, her head nodded in helpless assent "Say it, then," he demanded. "Say you'll take me." "I will take you!" she cried just before he entered her. In her frenzy for appeasement, her hands clutched at his back, wanting to feel each muscle as it flexed and slackened. Her traitorous mouth reached up for his, and she took it with the same demanding force that he had used on her earlier. An unbearably short time later, she began to shudder. As Avenel's hard body rocked between her quivering thighs, the torment and pleasure instilled within her was too much to control. With a gasp, she surrendered to the dizzying eddy they had created, and she found what she had so carelessly sought. In a world of right and wrong, she felt as if she were perfectly suspended between the two, grappling with her heart and her body. When Avenel spent himself into her, she moaned. But whether this was from pure ecstasy or complete heartbreak, she was never sure.
When they finally broke free, Avenel lay back on the floor and peered at her with sleepy eyes. He seemed more relaxed than before, but she could almost believe there was remorse in his eyes for what he had done. There was a softness about him now that he had not possessed when he'd first entered her room. It was as if the demons that had held him in their grasp had been expunged by his actions. But she wouldn't wait for their return.
Quietly she rose from the floor; her hair fell over her expressionless face like a veil. He watched her, waiting for angry, spiteful words. But there were none. Instead she walked naked up to the mantel and took a large green Sevres vase from it. Then, with great calculation, she crashed it over his dark head before he could move to avoid her onslaught.
"You bastard!" she hissed at him. A flicker of surprise at her retaliation crossed his handsome face. But it was tempered by a gleam of respect that shone briefly in his eyes. Then he slumped backward onto the floor, out cold.
It was almost evening when she approached the ragged children who were playing unlawfully on the grounds of the Park. Brienne was small, and any womanly curves were painfully bound to her chest with large strips of fine batiste. She was dressed much like the children, in a torn and dirty overdress that boasted no warm petticoat underneath and no protective shoes. Carrying a large, coarsely woven bag slung over her hips like a pocket, she shivered in the chill.
"Would you like some pigeon pie?" She held out the small meat pastries she'd stolen from the kitchen before sneaking out of the house.
Wary of strangers, especially of those from the Park, the children eyed her distrustfully at first. But she did not appear to be one of the grand, satin-clad figures they had seen from afar. In her rags, she was more like a child herself than an adult; her creamy soft skin and her persuasive amethyst eyes were unhidden by adornment. Softly they stepped nearer to her like ragged fawns, to seek out what she held in her palms.
"Truly, they are quite fine. And not even one day old." She trembled with anxiety, but it did not take many words to convince the children that she was sincere. The starved, homely creatures were enraptured with the beautiful pauper whose uncommon magenta-streaked hair was almost completely hidden underneath a soiled gray mobcap, and whose violet-blue eyes seemed to speak of the treachery and deceit cast upon her.
"Them's fine, you say?" A skinny boy came the closest to her. "Where'd you get 'em?" He cast doubtful eyes upon her.
"I stole them," she said. "They're for the master's dinner at the Park. But now he has none."
A hoydenish laugh came from the circle of children, and soon they were all laughing. They had a great appreciation for the truth. One by one, each child claimed a pie until they were all gone.
"Get away with you! Before I have your hides!" The larger of the blond giants from the gatehouse came into view and yelled at the children. Snarling at the ragamuffins, he ordered them away from Osterley. As Brienne had hoped, he paid no special attention to the dirty girl who kept her eyes on the ground and wore a tattered pink polonaise.
The children quickly dispersed along the fence line, laughing at their mischief and at the giant's irritation. Brienne saw a boy disappear beneath the fence where a depression had been dug in the earth. She followed him, but because she was larger, she was almost afraid she would get stuck. But with one last push she was running past the other side of the fence away from Osterley.
II
Bath
A fine slope to the grave . . .
—James Quin
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A heavy mist began to fall just as the last vestiges of daylight were disappearing and darkness settled upon the countryside. Shivering and damp, Brienne sadly watched the raggedy children scatter into the night; each headed for his or her hovel. She wished she could repay them. They would never know how much they had done for her.
She looked down at the wet and muddied polonaise and shook uncontrollably from the cold in spite of the tightly wrapped strips of linen that bound her bosom. Even though it was spring, the chilly night air descending around her made her think it was a winter's eve. Aching for the warmth of her woolen dress and heavy cloak, she stole across the quagmire of road and ran for the eaves of the nearest cottage, where she sought shelter to change into her traveling clothes. She felt the cold more intensely than ever when she stripped her body of the desecrated pink silk and linen bandages and searched through her burlap bag for her brown woolen dress. She pulled this over her damp shift and hooked it down the front, instant
ly feeling less cold. Shoving on her coarsely knitted woolen hosiery and the oxblood riding shoes for which she vowed to repay Avenel, she wrapped herself snugly in her cloak and gathered up the evidence of her departure. She wanted to hide the ratty material in a place where Avenel would never find it.
"Oh, my God!" She spun around and found herself staring directly into Jill's catlike yellow eyes. The girl was spotlessly clean, and her harshly combed-back hair was tied severely to her nape. She was dressed in a fichu and blue woolen round gown, and to her waist was tied a pair of yellow linen pockets—a sign that she had finished her work for the day and was returning home.
She watched the girl, not sure whether she should try to explain her circumstances or whether to immediately flee from her because of her loyalty to Avenel. She soon made up her mind, for at the far-off gatehouse of the Park, both girls saw a commotion and a band of men riding anxious and furious horses. Someone called out instructions to them, and the horsemen started off in every direction imaginable. Standing just under the dark shadow of the eaves, Brienne needed little prodding to escape. She imagined the bloodthirsty look on Avenel's rock-hard face when she heard him shout orders from the road. In a split-second she looked at Jill and saw a traitorous gleam in the girl's amber eyes. That was all she needed.
As soon as Jill ran out from the eaves of Mistress Blake's cottage to flag Avenel down, Brienne dropped the evidence of her escape and took only her brown burlap bag. With this in hand, she frantically set out across the cold, black nighttime pastures, assured at least that he would never find her this night, for even the moonlight had abandoned his cause.
"She's gone to Wales. She must have. Where else would she go but to that eyesore of a town, Tenby? She knows of no other existence."
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