The Reckless One

by Connie Brockway

  She kept her eyes tightly shut, trying not to cry. Her nails dug fiercely into her palms. She would focus on that pain—but how, when this other one so utterly eclipsed it? She must just send him away. She’d not shed tears for Muira, she wouldn’t shed them now.

  He was waiting. She braced herself. She was a good liar. The best the convent of Sacré Coeur had ever known. She opened her eyes. He loomed above her table, his clenched fists planted on either side of her on the tabletop. His feet were spread wide as though bracing himself for a fight.

  “Help with what?” she asked, furtively cataloguing each beloved feature—the amber color of his eyes, the texture of his beard-rough jaw, the breadth and height of him—hungrily hoarding each impression so that she would have his image for all time.

  She did not worry about remembering his touch. The tensile strength in his fingers, the warmth of his mouth, his kiss, his whispered words, these were part of her now. She would no sooner forget them than she would forget how to breathe.

  For a long moment they stared at each.

  “Is it true?” he finally asked.

  She’d begun shivering. She hadn’t shivered since Muira had brought her back from the tower even though she was cold, so cold she doubted she’d ever be warm again.

  “Is what true?” she asked feebly, dull-witted with gin. Ah, yes. Gin. The promised void. She snagged the glass and brought it to her lips. He seized her wrist and slammed it down on the table. The liquid leapt from the glass, spilling over the linen table covering.

  She tried to pull free. Around them the low murmur of conversation died. Interested faces turned in their direction.

  “Stop!” she whispered hoarsely. “The footman will be on you in a minute if you continue like this!”

  His smile was feral and dark. “Let him.”

  “No, I beg you,” she said. “You’ll only be found out. Leave. Please.”

  “Not before you tell me whether it’s true,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Are you going to marry Carr?”

  “What does it matter who I wed?” she asked in a low, taut voice. “You knew I was trolling for a trophy. What grander trophy than Carr? Who wealthier?”

  “You little fool,” he said, his eyes blazing. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You can’t.”

  “Why are you suddenly so loathe to see me marry?” she asked bitterly, unable to contain her words. “Remember? You have nothing to offer in substitute. Not even a name. Or should I just acquiesce to your demands, give you carte blanche and become your mistress?”

  He leaned forward. She could see his braced arms tremble with barely contained emotion. “If I don’t already have a place in hell, that would surely win it,” he said in a low, intense voice, “but by God, if that is what you want … if that would keep you from him … my hand is yours, Madame.”

  Hand, not heart.

  “My path is set,” she said vacantly. “I’ve other masters to serve besides myself.”

  His bronze skin dulled. He straightened, towering over her. “Carr will destroy you.”

  She shook her head. “I can manage Carr. You see, I have been bred to manage Carr.”

  “You fool,” he said again with quiet venom. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. If you won’t have me, have some other knave. I swear to God, I could gladly give you to another if by doing so I kept you from him.”

  “I won’t have another.”

  “Vanity or suicide, which one?” His eyes condemned her, his knuckles were white where he gripped the edge of the table.

  “Neither. My family.”

  “Oh, Favor,” he said, suddenly appealing to her. “Refuse them. You’ll be doing them a benefit by setting them free from their expectations of you. Let them find their own fate and not rely on you to find it for them.”

  She stared at the sodden linen, soaked with the spilled oblivion she’d been courting to no avail all afternoon. The wind had picked up, driving most of the others in the courtyard inside though a few remained seated at a distance. One of them would tell Carr. Rafe would be exposed.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet, separated from him by a table and a decade of obligation. “I have a debt I need to repay.”

  “A curse on your damned debt!” he grated out.

  Too late. Already damned. She made a last appeal to him, trying to make him understand. “How could I live with myself if I asked less of myself than you would ask of yourself?”

  He slammed his fist down on the table once more. His face was flushed, his teeth bared. “I don’t give a bloody damn about your moral conscience. This is Carr. A man who’s known to have killed three wives already. Is it your desire to be the fourth?”

  “I will die—”

  “Bloody right.”

  “—long after we marry. I will outlive him. I’m far younger than he—”

  He surged across the table, grabbing her hand and dragging her halfway across it. She did not resist, even when he thrust his face within inches of hers. “You are a little girl,” he said tightly. “A foolish little girl raised on stupid romantic notions about sacrificing yourself for a lofty and noble purpose. But you won’t just sacrifice your youth, your beauty, your bravery and—Damn you! You’ll sacrifice your life, Favor!

  “You’ll die at Carr’s convenience and the only thing lofty about it will be the heights from which he’ll pitch you like he did m—his first bride.”

  His words scared her, undermined her resolve, and she couldn’t let that happen. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to return to that tower, to see her clansmen’s broken bodies and hear their dying screams.

  She’d been raised with this one purpose. And she would fulfill it but, the Blessed Virgin help her, she could no longer stand to see the bitter condemnation in Rafe’s expression or hear the contempt in his voice. He’d been a lover. He deserved the truth.

  “My name is Favor McClairen,” she said dully. “The Earl of Carr robbed my family of this island, this castle. He stole not only our wealth but our heritage.”

  He was watching her, not only unimpressed but unsurprised. “Why must you be the one to regain it?”

  “Because,” she said, “ten years ago I was responsible for the massacre of those who could have fought for it.”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “Carr’s son had raped a novitiate and they brought him to—but you’d know, wouldn’t you?” she asked. “If Ash Merrick told you about something as paltry as the Trust, he surely recited to you that fascinating bit of his family history. I see I’m right.” Her smile felt like a grimace. “Well, Rafe, I was the girl who saved Raine Merrick’s life. I delayed his hanging long enough for Carr to ride down on my clan with a hundred redcoats.”

  His face was hard, intractable. “You can’t repay the dead with your life.”

  “I’m repaying the living,” she said tiredly. “I’ll marry Carr and I’ll leave him. I’ll return to France. He wouldn’t dare follow me there. I’ll wait for him to die and then—”

  “And then what?” Rafe sneered.

  “Then McClairen’s Isle will belong to the McClairens once more. In Scotland a widow inherits her husband’s property.”

  He shook his head, his eyes bleak, and shook his head again. “You cannot be so naive,” he whispered. “Whoever put you to this cannot be so naive. ‘Wait for Carr to die?’ ”

  “It’s what I’ll do,” she said. “It’s what will happen.”

  He kept shaking his head, his lips curled back to reveal the edge of his teeth, a pulse pounding in his temple. “No,” he said. “No. I’ll stop it.”

  “No. You can’t. You’re too late.” Her gaze fell before his, her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Carr proposed this morning. I accepted.”

  He went absolutely still. She closed her eyes, unable to stand the condemnation in his expression. His contempt washed over her like a physical thing. Not that she could blame him. It was why she was here with this bottle of gin when s
he did not drink spirits. It was why she’d drunk Carr’s gift—a carafe of Madeira doubtless laced with Muira’s “love potion”—throughout luncheon. It was why she would stay here, drinking, after he left. She opened her eyes. He was still there.

  “I will ask you this and, damn you, you’d better answer,” he said in a hard voice, “Did you declare yourselves? Were witnesses there?”

  She understood then. He thought Carr had tricked her into the old Scottish custom of declaration and that they’d already wed.

  “Did you?” he shouted, rattling the heavy iron furniture like a piece of tin.

  “What difference does it make?” she said.

  “I’ll ask once more ’ere I throttle you, Madame—and be warned, I have never so desired to do a person harm as I do you at this moment.”

  “I assure you, I hurt every bit as much as you could want,” she replied softly. He jerked forward and caught himself short as though held by invisible chains.

  “Did you declare?”

  “No,” she said tiredly. “No. I would have and so, too, would Carr but Muira—Mrs. Douglas—insisted on finding a priest. She said the McClairens would not accept the marriage as real unless it had been sanctioned by the Church.”

  She lifted tragic eyes to him. “Is that not funny? Do you not see the joke? They want this marriage blessed when it is from its conception cursed.”

  A sound of anguish and fury rose in Rafe’s throat, frightening the hollow humor from her.

  “You can’t stop it, Rafe,” she whispered. “A priest rides for Wanton’s Blush even as we speak.”

  His fury erupted in a roar of pain. He seized the table and pitched it over, hurling it across the terrace. Without another glance at her, he strode from the windswept courtyard.

  Gunna was waiting for Raine when he reached the room he’d been using for sleep. “They say the king is dead!” she greeted him.

  Raine didn’t reply. He moved past her and began a hurried hunt through a pile of discarded clothing.

  “Everyone is leaving Wanton’s Blush. Everyone!” Gunna went on. “Fia is already gone. The house is in an uproar: servants scurrying everywhere, packing trunks; the grooms and stable boys working round the clock to hitch the proper horses to the proper carriage.”

  He found his greatcoat and swung it over his shoulder, stopped in the middle of the room, and looked about for the small leather purse containing all the wealth he owned, a dozen gold guineas.

  “And Carr prowls the castle like an aged badger, snarling and gloating, and while all his guests leave he keeps servants in the tower looking for the arrival of a carriage!”

  “Aye,” Raine swept the debris from a table. His purse wasn’t there. “He’s sent for a priest.”

  “Why?” Gunna asked, her confusion mirrored in her ravaged face.

  “To marry him and Miss Donne.”

  He heard the sharp whistle of her indrawn breath. “Aye. A new stepmama for Fia and myself. Aren’t we lucky?” He spied the purse on the windowsill. He snagged it, tossing it in the air with a predacious smile.

  “Oh, Raine. I am sorry,” Gunna said softly.

  “Don’t be. You’d be wasting your pity. She’ll not wed Carr. I swear it.”

  “But, Raine, how can you stop them?”

  He shoved the purse into his belt and wheeled around, grasping her by the shoulders. “I’ll be gone for a while, a couple of days at the most. If you ever had any affection for me, I need you to do something for me now, Gunna. And never fail.”

  She studied his face, saw something there that caused her breath to catch in her scarred old lungs. “Of course, Raine. But where are you going?”

  His expression turned hard. “There’s an old debt I have to collect.”

  Chapter 28

  Wake up!”

  Favor rolled onto her side, swatting at the hands pulling her. She blinked owlishly into the dark. It was still night. Her mouth was cottony and rancid, her eyes crusted with the residual salt from countless tears. And she was still half-drunk.

  Not that it helped.

  She remembered each eternal moment since yesterday when Rafe had left. She must not think of Rafe. He was gone. “Go ’way,” she mumbled.

  “Nay!” Muira grabbed her arm and hauled her upright The sound of a flint strike preceded the flash of a flame as Muira lit a candle. “The priest is here. You’re to be wed in an hour’s time.”

  Favor came wide awake, snatching herself out of the old woman’s grip and scooting to the far side of the bed, yards of rumpled and stained pink satin heaped about her. She stared at them uncomprehendingly until she recognized the skirts of last night’s gown. She hadn’t taken it off before falling into her bed last night and no maid had disrobed her.

  “No,” she mumbled, tucking her knees to her chest. “Carr is too sick. He’s been abed since yesterday. So sick he hasn’t even come to see his guests off.”

  “He must have gotten better,” Muira said, seizing Favor’s ankle and dragging her across the bed. “He sent word a few minutes ago. He’s found a priest but the man won’t stay long, fearing the antipapists at Wanton’s Blush. You must get up!”

  “I am cursed then,” Favor said, and as Muira began to drag her farther she reached down and pried her fingers from her ankle. “I’ll come. I said I would marry him and I will, now let me be.”

  “Stupid girl! You can’t appear like that! Look at you. I’ve ordered a bath brought up.” She pointed at a tub standing in the center of the room. “You’ll use it and clean yourself.”

  Favor’s lip curled back. “If you think to deck me out like some virgin sacrifice, you’ll get no satisfaction, I promise you. I’d sooner go to him dressed in black.”

  The old woman’s mouth flattened with impatience. “Ach! Fine, then. Carr isn’t marrying you anyway, he’s marrying Janet.”

  She stood back, waiting while Favor pulled herself to the edge of the bed and stood. Her head swam and she closed her eyes against the ache in her temple. When she opened them she caught sight of herself in a dark mirror on the far wall.

  She was ghastly white, her eyes sunk deep and ringed with shadows. Her hair fell in thick black ropes about her face and shoulders, lending her a feral appearance. She glared at her image with satisfaction. A worthy bride for a murderer. With a sharp movement, she gestured Muira ahead of her.

  Muttering, Muira led her down empty black halls and long-echoing corridors. Already Wanton’s Blush wore an air of abandonment, her denizens having fled in a steady stream over the last few days.

  “They’re in here, waiting,” Muira whispered. “I’ll look over the marriage certificate. You bob your head when the priest bids you do so and then, finally, it will be done.” She opened the door and waited for Favor to enter and followed her in.

  The room was small and dark and of indeterminate usage. The few lit candles did little to chase the shadows from the corners. At least it is not a chapel, Favor thought. A priest, sitting on a hardback chair near the doorway, rose as they entered, his gaze darting anxiously. A small man stood beside the priest, his expression closed. Probably a witness.

  Favor looked about. No one else was in the room. Certainly not Carr. Relief flooded through her. Perhaps he was, indeed, too sick to leave his room. Perhaps he’d overestimated his strength. Perhaps he wouldn’t come. Hope uncoiled in Favor’s heart.

  “Where’s His Lordship?” Muira asked, her honeyed ‘Mrs. Douglas’ tones so unlike her real voice that for a second Favor did not realize who’d spoken.

  “His Lordship is too ill to leave his bed.” The small man beside the priest stepped forward.

  “Ah!” An involuntary cry, small and quickly smothered, rose from Muira.

  “But,” he said, “His Lordship is most anxious, indeed, most anxious to wed Miss Donne, and as the priest”—his gaze flickered derisively at the silent man—“is afraid to leave his sanctuary for long, Lord Carr insists we do not delay.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mu
ira snapped, in her confusion over this unforeseen turn of events forgetting her harmless mien.

  “If it pleases you, he would like to go through with the ceremony by proxy,” the small man continued. “I will stand for him. My name is Rankle. I am His Lordship’s valet.”

  “His valet? This is most irregular,” Muira exclaimed. “Some would say ridiculous. Why I doubt such a marriage is legal or”—she looked at the priest—“even valid.”

  “I can assure you as to its validity, Madame,” the priest said quietly, “and as far as the world is concerned, you know that a simple declaration before witnesses is all that Scottish law requires to marry.”

  “I want to see the certificate,” Muira said, holding out her hand.

  Wordlessly, Rankle gave it to her. She tilted the paper into the candlelight while Favor held her breath, praying she would find some irregularity, a few more days in which—if God would but show mercy—Rafe’s face would begin to fade from memory.

  Muira raised her face, a gloating smirk on her lips. Favor’s hope died.

  “It’s legal and it’s clear as day. Aye!” Muira said. She grasped Favor’s elbow and propelled her forward. “Say your piece, priest, and make sure to heed her answer well.”

  She could not say what held her upright, Muira’s grasp or her own will. With Muira’s triumph her last bit of hope died. The room faded to a dim stage, the others became caricatures mumbling unintelligible lines in a play in which she had no interest. She stared at the candles’ haloes, heard the priest’s voice drone above the dull throbbing in her temples. Her limbs seemed liquid, her thoughts disjointed. She answered in a faint voice when prodded, nodding in continual agreement while deep inside she chanted his name like an incantation against the devil: Rafe. Rafe. Rafe.

  And then it was done. Rankle wished her well and plopped a purse into the priest’s outstretched hand. Muira, eyes ablaze with triumph, folded the certificate and stuffed it into her bodice.