by Julia Ross
He held out a slip of paper.
There was no need, of course, to look at it.
THE carriage rolled on, its lamps carving a faint path through the darkness. Guy still slept. Ryder stared from the window at the shrouded countryside. Thick clouds hid the stars. Lightning crackled from one ominous mass of blackness to another, followed by long, low peals of thunder.
God! If only he could tear open the night to fly like a raven straight to Miracle’s side!
There was no way to travel any faster than this. He forced himself to lean back and close his eyes.
“Aren’t we almost there?” His cousin pushed down the rug and stretched. “Must be close to dawn?”
Ryder glanced at his watch. “Not according to this. Bloody timepiece must have stopped.”
He leaned forward to glance from the window, then he wrenched down the glass. Shock ripped into his gut.
“What the hell?”
An angry red bruise colored the sky to the south, as if the devil were smelting iron in the clouds. For several long minutes as the carriage rolled closer, Ryder stared in silence. At last he was able to distinguish the sharp agony of battlements silhouetted against the red glow. The spiked outline of roof turrets and flagpole. The dread bulk of the Fortune Tower.
Shock coalesced into terror, while incoherent prayers tumbled through his mind.
The base of the clouds above Wyldshay flamed like a furnace.
He slammed his fist into the side of the carriage, then tore both hands through his hair, as if he could wrench the torment out of his heart.
Guy grabbed him by the wrist. “It’s no use, Ryder. There’s nothing we can do till we get there. The horses can’t possibly run any faster.”
Ryder forced himself to take several deep breaths, before his anguish completely blocked his throat.
“I know that,” he said. “But I left Miracle there alone. And the bloody bastard has set fire to Wyldshay!”
MIRACLE dreamed of him: warm, passionate, thoughtful, lovely. Lord Ryderbourne!
Yet buried doubts also stirred—as if she were being prodded by hobgoblins—making her toss restlessly in his bed. Thunder boomed through her dreams, threatening heartache.
Or is it just that poppies are known to bring headaches and thunderstorms?
Surely love would be enough?
Yet she woke to sudden fear, as if a goblin jeered at her: How do you like your fool’s paradise?
Thunder still rolled, but the sound had become a dull roar, like a waterfall. A faint crackling underlay the sound, as if the water fell onto dry sticks.
“I asked you,” the voice said again. “How do you like your fool’s paradise?”
Miracle gulped down plain terror, then pushed her hair from her forehead with both hands and sat up. The clock marked only a few minutes past midnight, but a faint red glow was shining in at the window, and a man with an oil lamp was standing at the foot of her bed.
For one long moment she stared at him, while her heart rattled madly in her chest.
“He loves this place, doesn’t he?” Lord Hanley asked. “He even thinks that he loves you. Too bad he’s about to lose all of it.”
She swallowed hard. Smoke wafted in the open window. “There’s a fire,” she said. “We may not have very much time to get out.”
Footsteps pounded in the corridor. Someone shouted, then rattled at the door.
“It’s locked,” Hanley said, lifting the lamp higher. “And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m holding a pistol in my right hand. Both loaded barrels point at your heart. Get up!”
Miracle swallowed hard. Life beat fast in her veins. She did not want to die.
“In nothing but my nightgown? In front of a gentleman? Sir, you shock me!”
Lord Hanley stepped forward. Red glinted on his weapon. “Don’t try to be clever, Miracle! Do as I say!”
“Well, of course! I would never argue with loaded pistols.” She clambered from the bed. Buy time! Buy time! “Yet I had planned to die on the scaffold. Ah well! It’s been a short life, but a sweet one. I regret none of it, except you.”
He thrust the gun into her ribs. “Be quiet!”
Voices shouted her name from the hallway. She heard Jane and Duncan: Ryder’s people, trying to save her. Something heavy thudded into the door. They were trying to break it down.
Lord Hanley threw the lamp. Glass exploded into flame, devouring oil as it spilled across the floor.
He clapped one hand over Miracle’s mouth and marched her to another door hidden in the paneling. He slammed it open with a blow from his pistol butt and pushed her through ahead of him. A spiral stair coiled up inside the walls of the Whitchurch Tower.
Miracle stumbled up, the steps rough on her bare feet. At every third or fourth turn, an arrow-slit window looked out. She saw nothing but red.
Hanley thrust her out onto the roof walk behind the battlements and slammed another door closed behind them.
“I want you to watch as his home burns to the ground,” he said. “I’m only sorry that he’s not here to see it, as well.”
A furious red glow was eating its way steadily up the walls of the Docent Tower. The stables were already ablaze. The Fortune Tower stood out like an angry black fist in stark contrast.
“How did you know that a stair led up here from Ryder’s bedroom?” she asked.
“He told me. Many years ago. At Harrow.”
“When you first fell into disagreement? What on earth did he do to you?”
Hanley thrust her up against the battlements, cruelly twisting her arm. Stitches tore at the shoulder of her nightgown.
“It’s more a matter of what I did to him. Shall I tell you?”
She forced herself to laugh, though fear beat at her. “If you like! It makes no difference to me. I really don’t care to know any more about him.”
He released her and stepped back. His eyes were cold, his handsome face rigid.
Lord Hanley did not look mad. He looked like a man with a broken heart.
“You don’t even love him, do you?” he asked.
Forgive me, my love! But I want to live for you, if I can. If he knows how much we care for each other, I fear he will kill me out of hand.
“Love? Are you serious? He just fancies me in his bed, that’s all!”
“You little bitch!” The pistol wavered as if he gripped it too hard. “Did you truly think you could get away with this? That a strumpet could marry into one of the first families of England? That a harlot could ever become a duchess? That after sharing all those nasty whore’s tricks in my bed, you could really invite the rest of the peerage to a grand wedding here at Wyldshay?”
“Well, no,” she said. “I suppose not. But it was worth a try. After all, he has more money than you ever dreamed of.”
“Used to have.”
Hanley leaned his hips against the high wall behind him. Red reflections glowed on his face and in his silver-blond hair, but his eyes glittered like ice.
“Yes,” Miracle said, turning to gaze down at the flames. “I suppose Wyldshay will cost a little more to rebuild than the door panel on your coach.”
He stepped forward again to grasp her by the chin, then twisted her, so that her stomach pressed hard against the merlon.
“Yet perhaps he won’t wish to, when he finds his wife’s body. Not quite so pretty, after she was burned alive.”
“How very unoriginal!” she said. “If my corpse is to burn, how on earth will he know whether or not I was raped—or do you intend to do that afterward?”
He stood for a moment as if frozen, then—still holding her by the chin with her head pulled back—he thrust his other hand beneath the hem of her nightgown.
Far below, in the courtyards and gardens, a scurry of figures had organized itself into bucket chains, bringing water and flinging it at the tortured stone walls. Horses surged blindfolded from the stables. A procession of maids carried paintings and armloads of valuables across the arched bri
dge.
On the edge of the river men were working feverishly at some kind of pump. Another group dragged hoses. The roof of the stables fell in with a roar, but a spray was starting to play across the base of the Fortune Tower.
Even without its master, Wyldshay fought for survival.
As did Miracle Heather.
Hanley’s hand, still holding the pistol, stroked unsteadily up her thighs, until her gown was rucked up over her bottom. His breath roared hot in her ear.
“One last time, then, Miracle, before we both die!”
“Did you forget,” she said through gritted teeth, “that I’m not a fine lady who’ll lie back and squeal while you take your rotten pleasure?”
She locked her fists together and hammered her elbow into his groin. Hanley doubled over. The pistol skidded away across the stone pavement. Miracle dived after it, but he caught her by the ankle.
Writhing like an eel, she rammed her bare heel into his face. He grunted, but hung on, his fingers biting into bone.
It was a blind, bitter rage. All the hurt. All the pain. Childhood years of hard labor and fear. The dread of hunger and desperation and poverty that had led her to accept carte blanche from him, even when her instincts screamed a warning.
With the same grim determination that she had once shown Willcott, she kicked out again. Hanley swore and released her.
Wriggling back across the cold stone, she tried again to grab the pistol. Hanley lurched to his feet. Her fingers closed on the gun. As he started toward her again, she took aim and fired.
He cried out, then fell like a tree.
Miracle dropped the pistol and stumbled back to the door that led to the spiral stair. The oak was at least two inches thick and heavily banded with iron. She set her hand on the latch to wrench it open, then let go with a gasp. The handle was hot.
She glanced back at Hanley. Handsome, broken, his fair hair glimmering, he lay like a corpse.
Now that she was free of his direct attack, she was afraid enough to weep. Smoke leaked from the keyhole. The rooms below must be roaringly alight by now. The staircase was probably on fire. As far as she knew, there was no other way down.
Yet life still blazed its demands. Whether in the end she lived or died, she would strive for life with every ounce of her being. Miracle glanced up and whispered a quick prayer—blasphemously offered not to God, but to her husband’s love. She would tear the clouds from the heavens, if that would prevent Ryder having to find her dead body.
Thunder boomed directly overhead. A bolt of lightning sizzled into a field on the other side of the River Wyld. Every stone leaped into sharp relief. A gutter ran down the wall of the turret. She reached up to dip her fingers into a bend in the lead. Water still lay there from the last rain.
With frantic fingers she tore the ripped sleeve from her nightgown and sopped it into the fluid. She splashed more water over her nightgown until she was soaked. With the wet sleeve wrapped over her nose and mouth, she set her hand on the door latch.
The oak planks roared as if they held back lions.
She began to turn the handle, her face damp with rainwater and tears. My dear Ryder, give me the strength to live for you!
“Miracle! For God’s sake! Don’t!”
She whirled about. His hair wild about his face, Ryder hauled himself up over the battlements. He had stripped down to shirt and trousers, and he carried a coil of rope slung over one shoulder.
“Unless you want to die, don’t open that door!” he said. “The whole bloody tower beneath us is on fire.”
Miracle smiled at him with the smile that she might reserve for angels, and fainted.
AN ocean lashed into her face. She was adrift in a dinghy with no oars. She had just killed a man. She deserved to die.
“Miracle!”
She looked up into the pure green gaze of Sir Galahad. Lightning blazed from cloud to cloud. A downpour beat from the darkness, soaking his shirt and face and hair. He was holding her tight to his chest and striding with her toward the battlements.
“I love you,” she said. “Is it raining?”
Ryder nodded, his hair plastered to his forehead. “You fainted. The rain will help save the rest of Wyldshay, but this roof is threatening collapse.”
“You climbed all the way up the wall from the river?”
“Yes, but we must get down right away. Can you stand?”
She glanced at Hanley, still lying where she had shot him. She shivered.
“So I’ve killed another man?”
“No.” Ryder set her on her feet and busied himself tying knots in the rope. “No. Anyway, you never killed the first one.”
Lightning cracked again. Miracle leaned both hands on the wet stone and looked out. Rain swept in sheets across the fields to thrash into the castle, dumping torrents onto their heads. The stables still burned, but the frenzied flare had softened to a dull, bruised glow, hissing beneath the storm.
“I don’t understand.” She still felt a little giddy. “Willcott?”
“I can’t explain now, but Willcott’s alive. As for Hanley, he’s not dead. You shot him in the leg. He fainted from pain and pure bile, probably. You didn’t kill anyone, Miracle.”
“No,” another voice said. “But I did.”
Ryder thrust Miracle behind him and spun about. He seemed carved from wet stone.
With one hand pressed to his thigh, Hanley had pushed himself up to sit propped against the wall. “Willcott’s body will be found in an alley in London. No one will associate it with me.”
“So you killed him?” Ryder tied loops of knotted rope about Miracle’s body. “Once you knew that Guy and I had seen the papers, what difference did Willcott make any longer?”
The downpour streamed. Hanley’s head seemed to be plated in silver, as if he wore armor.
“It’s what I should have done to start with, when Willcott first hinted that he knew secrets that could ruin me. Yet he said there were more copies, that if anything happened to him, they’d be made public.”
“Though you still took the gamble on the yacht?”
“Once he admitted that he’d hidden the only copies in England amongst Miracle’s things, the risk seemed worth it. Who’d go to France to look for the rest?”
Hanley grimaced and lifted his palm from his leg. His fingers were sticky with blood.
Ryder picked up Miracle’s torn sleeve and tossed it to the other man. “If you want to get off this roof alive, you’d better bind that.”
“No!” Hanley said, striking out with his free hand. “Leave me be! I’m damned if I’ll let you see me ruined.”
“For God’s sake! I can’t leave you up here to die.”
“Why the hell not?” Hanley laughed. “I’ve rather burned my bridges, as well as your home.”
“Bind the wound!” Ryder tied the other end of the rope about a merlon. “As soon as I’ve seen my wife safely down off this roof, I’ll lower you next.”
“So you really intend to remain married to that whore? You’ll besmirch your entire family and contaminate the purity of your blood by attempting to ennoble a creature from the gutter? Then you’ll hold me up to ridicule?”
“Manners, not birth, maketh man,” Ryder said. “Why do you assume that I’ll blackmail you as Willcott did? The sin, if there was one, was your father’s, not yours.”
Hanley stared at him. “You really think I’ll let you give me my life?”
“If you want it. As for Willcott’s death, I’ve no proof against you, and you know it. That’s entirely up to your conscience. The man’s no bloody loss to the world.”
“But everything I have was entailed with the title. If the truth comes out that I’m a bastard, I’ll be a laughingstock.”
Ryder looped rope around another merlon, where he could brace it. “For all I know, Willcott made up the whole sorry tale and had forgeries made in France. There was enough chaos after the Revolution to make that possible.”
Hanley tied the slee
ve about his leg. “But you’ve always hated me.”
“No,” Ryder said. “I did once, but I forgave it all a long time ago. The only thing I can’t forgive is how you tried to use Miracle. For that, once your leg is healed, you’ll be pleased to give me satisfaction.”
“And why not first see me drummed from the Lords?”
“You have a wife and children, sir. If anybody’s innocent in this whole bloody mess, it’s your little son.”
“When you spread the word, they’ll all be beggared.”
Ryder lifted Miracle onto the battlements, kissed her quickly, and made ready to lower her from the tower.
“Devil take it! Haven’t you grasped yet that I’ll keep silent for their sake? So will Miracle and Guy Devoran. You’ve no cousin who’s being cheated of his inheritance. Nothing’s to be gained by ruining you, sir!”
Hanley staggered to his feet. “Do you think that I wish to live beholden to you, waiting every day to be denounced? What the hell do I have left to live for?”
“Not much, I admit,” Ryder said. “Because once you’re healed enough, I still intend to kill you.”
“So you would offer me a gentleman’s death on the dueling field? Then let me take a gentleman’s death here and now.” Hanley nodded at the gun left lying where Miracle had dropped it. “There’s still one ball left in that pistol.”
Miracle gasped as her husband kicked the pistol within Hanley’s reach. The blood-soaked fingers reached out and grasped it. As Hanley raised the pistol, Ryder lowered her over the wall.
She spun out into space, lost in the lashing darkness, but a shot rang out, the sound oddly muffled by the rain as she spiraled down toward the black river.
Hands reached up to catch her. Guy was waiting in a small boat at the foot of the tower. He untied the rope from her body and flung his cloak around her shoulders, before pulling her down onto the seat beside him.
“Ryder!” she said, clutching Guy’s arm. “He’s up there with Hanley. He gave Hanley the pistol. I heard a shot.”
Guy hugged her to his side and stared up into the roaring darkness. “Ryder’s the best man I’ve ever known,” he said. “Have faith, Miracle!”
