by Lois Greiman
Silence ticked steadily away.
“I think you know,” Savaana said finally.
Clarette shook her head. “This is madness.”
“They’re not simple rocks.”
For a moment Savaana thought she would pretend not to understand, but finally she spoke, her voice low and hushed. “The necklace,” Clarette said.
Savaana nodded.
“Mother said they were nothing but river stones Father had collected. She kept them in memory of him.”
“I think she lied to keep them safe. To keep you safe.”
“From what?”
Savaana drew a steadying breath and wondered if she was right or if all her years of searching for the truth were for nothing. Maybe she had fabricated everything to satisfy her own vanity. “The Ludricks.”
“I’ve never even heard of—” Clarette stopped, half turned away, then swiveled back. “You’re daft.”
“The stones are diamonds. Uncut paragons.”
“You’re lying.”
“I took them to a jeweler. Two, in fact.”
“How dare you?” she asked, but her voice was soft.
“I dare because I’m your sister.”
Clarette shook her head and backed away. “No. You’re making up tales.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you want the necklace.”
“No…” Savaana began, then almost laughed at herself. “I do rather want the necklace.”
“Well, you can’t have it!”
“Very well,” she said, and remained exactly as she was.
Clarette’s brows lowered quizzically. “It wasn’t the Earl of Ayrshire who sent you?”
“No.”
“Lord Griffin?”
Savaana shook her head.
“Baron Von Brandt?”
“Never heard of him.”
“Lord Aramount?”
“Sounds like a biblical mountain.”
“Sergeant MacDugal?”
“How many lovers have you had?”
The baroness scowled. “It was Fen, wasn’t it?”
Savaana was getting tired. “Fen?”
“He didn’t have a title, but he had…” She raised her brows suggestively. “…something else.”
“If we weren’t sisters I wouldn’t even speak to you.”
“We’re not sisters!” The words came out on a hiss. “I’m Lady Tilmont.”
“You’re wrong,” someone said, and stepped from the shadows.
They jerked toward him in surprise. He was little more than a silhouette in the darkness, but he was there, his black top hat just visible above his gray hair.
“Your mother was Princess Eliane.”
“What?” Clarette rasped.
“You’re the man from the alley,” Savaana said, and stepped sideways, putting herself between him and Clarette.
“My apologies for our unforgivable behavior of yesterday.” His voice was very formal, slightly accented.
Savaana’s head was spinning. What had she done? After all these years, had she brought trouble to her sister’s doorstep? “If it’s unforgivable, apologizing seems a waste of time.”
The little man smiled. “You’ve your mother’s quick wit, cea dulce.”
“Who are you?” she asked. Perhaps if she yelled, Gallagher would come running. Funny how minutes ago she had been trying to avoid him.
“My name would mean nothing to you. What is important is that we have found you. But there is little time to talk. We must leave this place,” he said, and stepped forward.
Savaana shook her head and inched backward, bumping into Clarette. “Stay away,” she warned.
“All will soon be made clear.”
“Why not make it clear now?”
“There’s no time. It is enough to say that your lives are in danger.”
“That I believe.”
“But if you cooperate, this will be simpler.”
“Your pardon,” Savaana said. “But I don’t care to make your life simpler.”
He chuckled, but something touched her hand. She twisted her wrist, felt the rock in her sister’s fingers, and took it surreptitiously in her own.
“Come along now,” said Top Hat, and stepped toward them. “I’ll not—”
Savaana loosed the stone, but it was darker than sin in the shadows. The missile bounced off his shoulder, but it was enough of an advantage.
“Run!” she rasped, and spinning about, pushed Clarette away from her.
The giant appeared without warning. Big as a mountain, he caught them both by the fronts of their gowns and hoisted them from their feet.
They fought like cornered badgers. Clarette landed a kick to his groin. He grunted, but his grip didn’t loosen a whit.
Then a shot exploded from behind. Their captor jerked and dropped to his knees. The women lurched away, scrambling for footing.
The giant rolled his eyes upward, meeting Savaana’s terrified gaze.
“Iara-ma, cea dulce,” he said, and toppled face first into the undergrowth.
Chapter 25
Clarette spun about. Their savior was there, not fifty feet away. His brass buttons gleamed dully in the pale moonlight.
“Thank God you came!” she rasped. But as she stared in his direction, he raised a pistol. Another bullet whistled through the darkness. It grazed her arm and sung into the distance.
She shrieked.
“Go!” Savaana’s voice was breathy, barely audible, but Clarette was already running. Skirts gathered in both hands, she sprinted past the giant’s fallen form. Two men appeared in the darkness ahead. She careened to a halt. Savaana skidded, almost sliding into her. They changed directions like hunted hare, darting uphill.
“Hurry!” Savaana gasped.
“I am hurrying!” Clarette said, but someone yelled from above.
“There!”
The sisters jerked their attention upward, and then, as a duo, dashed to the left, cutting downhill, slipping and sliding. But the men were already giving chase.
It was a nightmare of terror. They ran blindly, crashing through the woods. Branches whipped their faces. Another bullet sang past, lodging in a nearby tree.
Clarette jerked, caught her foot on something and tumbled downhill.
Savaana gasped and slid after. She jolted to a halt next to her sister’s still form. “Clarette…”
“We’re on a road.” The baroness lifted her head, sounding dazed.
“Holy hell, I thought you were dead.”
“A road,” she repeated, and jerked to a sitting position. “Someone will find us.”
“That’s what I fear, too.” Savaana grabbed her arm, tugging her to her feet as she glanced frantically down the pale, twisted trail. There was less than ten feet of clearing from one side to the next, but the road shone like a beacon in the darkness.
“I’d say you were needlessly worried, but—” Clarette began. Another bullet shot into the pebbles at their feet.
Without a word they skittered into the woods on the far side of the road.
“Who are they?” Clarette rasped.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, guess!”
“I—” A snap of noise interrupted her. “They’re close. Hurry!” she ordered, but their pursuers were catching up, bearing down on them like swooping birds of prey. “How can they see—” she began, then caught a glimpse of Clarette’s ensemble. Her bonnet was long gone, but her gown gleamed in the darkness. “Go!” she ordered. They ran again, but only a short distance now. Just out of sight of their pursuers, Savaana leapt. She hit Clarette square in the back. Her sister went down with an audible grunt, rolling as she did so. Savaana clasped her hand over the other’s mouth.
Clarette thrashed wildly, but Savaana held tight.
“Quiet!” she hissed.
“Let me—”
“They can see your gown!”
The thrashing stopped. Their gazes met.
“Cover up!” Sava
ana ordered.
It barely took an instant for Clarette to begin burrowing into the rotten leaves.
Allowing herself one quick glance behind, Savaana draped her dark skirt over the two of them.
Footsteps scrambled nearer. Voices scattered around them. Savaana pulled her feet beneath her wide skirt and dropped her head against her sister’s face, letting her hair cover everything.
“Where are they?” The man who spoke had a strong, indistinguishable accent. He was nearly upon them.
Savaana felt Clarette jerk, but she held her down, hand tight over her mouth.
“They are close,” someone else growled.
“Then kill them,” snarled another. “Acum!”
Clarette whimpered. Savaana shook.
Heavy footfalls hurried past.
The sisters remained still, barely breathing until the sound of the men’s movement was only a whisper of twigs in the distance.
Savaana eased onto her knees.
“Are they gone?” Clarette sat up carefully.
Savaana shook her head, rising shakily to her feet, squatting beside a nearby tree.
“Let’s go,” Clarette hissed, and eased back the way they had come. Savaana slunk after.
But someone yelled from above.
The women jerked their attention to the left. Three men were sliding toward them.
“Nandy!” someone shouted from behind.
“Le va esti aici!” said another, but the women were already racing away, darting through trees, trying to bisect the enemies in a desperate bid to make it back to the road. It was their only hope now. But the trio from above was slicing off their angle of escape.
Pivoting wildly, the girls skittered downward, scrambling, falling, only to rise and rush on, but the slope was becoming steeper, and they could no longer hear their pursuers. Blood pounded in Savaana’s ears. Terror tore at her heart. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t possibly have found her sister only to lose her now. To lose her because of her own efforts.
“Dammit!” Clarette said, and skidded to a halt, arms windmilling as she tried to keep herself from tumbling downward. Savaana grabbed a sapling to prevent careening into her. And then she realized the truth; it wasn’t the sound of her own terror that was pounding in her ears. It was the river. Glancing down, she saw it tumble and roll thirty yards beneath their feet.
“Holy mother!” Clarette’s face looked as pale as the moon, a round sickle of fear, eyes wide with terror. She was holding onto a branch with white-knuckled panic.
But Savaana felt hope bloom like a wild blossom in her soul. “This is our chance.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“That tree,” Savaana said, motioning toward a fallen trunk before snapping her gaze behind her. No sinister shapes shone in the darkness, but it was only a matter of time. “We’ll crawl out on it. Hide. They’ll never expect us there.”
“You’re mad.”
“No time to debate that. Go.”
“No.”
“Clarette.” She caught her sister’s eyes. “You’re the princess of Delvania. Wealthier than you’ve ever imagined.”
There was a moment of absolute silence, then: “I can imagine quite a lot.”
“Surely you don’t want to give it all up now.”
Clarette closed her eyes, swallowed, then dropped to her knees and shimmied onto the log by slow degrees. Savaana slipped out of her shoes, then followed her, crouched in her wake, watching behind, praying in silence. The tree gave a little beneath them, jerking under their weight.
Clarette whimpered, hugging a branch to her chest. Below them the river raced along its wild path to the sea.
From above Savaana heard a murmur of voices.
“Clarette?”
Her sister turned panicked eyes on her.
“You’re going to have to jump.”
“You said we were hiding here.” The words were no more than a hissed accusation.
“We only have a few minutes before they find us. Maybe not that much,”
Clarette glanced down. She closed her eyes. “You lied to me.”
Savaana glanced behind again. “You and everyone else. Are you ready?” she asked, and skimmed her bare foot forward a few inches.
“What happened to your shoes?”
“Is that really what you want to concentrate on at this precise moment?” Savaana asked, and reaching for her sister’s shoes, pulled them off one after the other “Or do you want to think about surviving?”
Clarette’s face contorted. “Are they really diamonds?”
“Would I lie to you?” Savaana asked, and grinned.
“If I survive this I’m going to beat the hell out of you,” Clarette said, and Savaana almost laughed as she dropped the shoes into the water below. It seemed a lifetime before they splashed.
Clarette tightened her grip on the tree and pressed her face to a branch.
“They’re diamonds,” Savaana said. “I swear it. More valuable than—”
Voices sounded from the hill above.
“It’s time,” Savaana said.
Clarette closed her eyes, hugging harder. “I can’t do it.”
“Then you won’t live to see the diamonds cut.”
She didn’t respond.
“You’ll die,” Savaana added. “And I’ll die with you.”
Their gazes met. Then, with painful slowness, Clarette released her right hand and reached for Savaana. “I’ve never had a sister,” she said.
Savaana clasped her hand, steady as a rock. Just another performance. Just another unlikely feat of derring-do. She stretched out her other hand, and Clarette gave it.
“You’ve always had a sister,” she said, and leaping, pulled them both toward the rushing waters below.
Chapter 26
“Mr. Gallagher?”
Sean turned toward Lord Tilmont, brow furrowed, mind churning.
“What are you doing here? And…” The baron paused in the arched door of Reardon’s ostentatious manor. “What the devil are you wearing?” he asked, but Sean didn’t acknowledge Tilmont’s questions.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“What?”
Worry gnawed him like a starving hound. He should have gone with her. Should have ignored her request for solitude and followed her into the dark garden. “Your wife. Where is she?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” Tilmont said, but Sean’s patience had evaporated.
Taking the one stride that remained between them, he lowered his voice to a growl. “What the hell have you done with her?”
The baron’s brows rose in unison with one corner of his mouth, and suddenly he didn’t look so dissipated, so innocuous. “So I was right, then. You’re in love with her.”
“I’m not…” Feelings swirled like fireflies in Gallagher’s tortured soul. Terror and hope soaring on the wings of something rather akin to love. “There’s no time for that.” He scanned the milling crowd. “I can’t find her in this damned circus.”
Tilmont scowled a little. “Perhaps she returned home.”
Gallagher snapped his gaze back to the baron. “To Knollcrest? Why would she leave—”
“That’s not her home,” Tilmont said. The words you dolt seemed to be implied. “Don’t you know anything about her, man?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Her real home.”
Gallagher scowled. “Which is where?”
“How the devil am I supposed to know?” he asked. “I’ve only just met her.”
The world had gone mad. There seemed little reason to be the only sane person there. So Gallagher took a wild stab at the truth. “You know she’s not your wife?”
“Good God, man, I’m a lush not an imbecile. My wife’s a sharp-tongued shrew.”
Gallagher shook his head, trying to rid it of the confusion. But there was little hope of that. “You’ve known all along she was someone else?”
&nb
sp; “Since I stepped into her room at the inn.”
“How—” he began, but there was no time. “Where has she gone?”
“My wife or the other…” Tilmont paused. “What’s her name, by the by?”
Frustration made Sean want to shake the baron till his teeth rattled. “I’ve no idea.”
“Well, what the hell have you been doing with all your bloody time?”
“I’ve—She—” What indeed? “How was I to know she wasn’t who you said her to be?”
“I told you she was a bitch at the outset. You didn’t seem to care a whit. You still wished to meet her. Hell, you were frothing to meet her. Why is that, by the by?”
“I thought she was Clarette!”
“Even after you spoke to her? Are you a damned idiot or—” He stopped himself. “My apologies,” he said, and held out his right hand. It shook like a tambourine.
Gallagher scowled. “You need a drink.”
“More than you know.”
“I’ll get—” he began, but Tilmont caught his arm.
“Who were the men who accosted her?”
“I have no idea.”
“But we can assume her life is in danger.”
Sean felt his stomach twist, felt his face go pale.
Tilmont watched, an expression of near pity crossing his face. “You’re that far gone, are you, lad?”
“You’ve met her,” Gallagher said, thinking that enough of an explanation as he scanned the crowd again.
Tilmont grinned, expression wry. “Just briefly,” he said. “What part did my wife have to play in this, do you think?”
“I’ve no idea.” Frustration bubbled like hot tar in his soul. Half of London must be in that damned ballroom.
“So you don’t know her name, where she’s from, or why she’s here.”
Sean suddenly felt like popping the cocky baron in the face, but he gritted his jaw and manfully refrained. “That sums it up.”
“Maybe she’s avoiding you.”
“Why would she—” Gallagher began, then remembered painful pieces of their past.
Tilmont raised his brows.
“I never intended to seduce her.” Gallagher’s voice sounded sulky to his own ears. “Not once I suspected she wasn’t who I thought her to be.”
“What was your intent exactly?”
Gallagher watched Tilmont for a moment. Impatience gnawed at him, but there were things to be learned. Necessary things. “My brother was to wed. He said she was beauty itself.” He clenched his jaw. “Father had been unwell since Mother’s death, but the hope of grandchildren rejuvenated him. He smiled for the first time in months when he gave Alastar Mother’s ring. ‘A symbol of faithfulness and joy,’” he said.
