To Chase the Storm

by Kimberly Cates

  But why should he trust Morgause Warburton? Why would she endanger herself and her son to aid a man who, mere days before, had lain in Warvaliant's dungeon?

  "What price must I pay for your aid?" he asked, meeting her gaze.

  That eager, hungry light played again upon Morgause's pale features, and she strained forward, her bosom heaving with some emotion Rafe could not name. "It is a small price, Captain Santadar. One that will serve your cause as well as my own. You have but to remove one small obstacle from my path this night."

  "Obstacle?"

  "Aye, I have been much troubled by someone seated high within this castle. I would like to be... relieved of this person's presence in the most permanent way possible."

  Rafe stared into those pale witch's eyes. "What do you want me to do, my lady? Kidnap some enemy for you?"

  "I wish you to... dispose of this enemy."

  Rafe nearly choked. "You wish me to murder someone?"

  "Murder is such an ugly word, Captain Santadar. I much prefer gentler terms. However, since you press me, aye. That is what I wish you to do."

  "I know of no gentle term for cold-blooded killing, milady," Rafe said, his skin crawling. "And I know no gentle way to give you my answer. I have killed men aplenty, in battle, and have been near death myself a score of times. But I have never taken a life on a whim, nor will I ever do so. No, even if your ship had the power to carry me away to heaven itself."

  Rafe swung away from her and stalked toward the door, but before he reached it, he felt Morgause's fingers catch at his sleeve.

  "A moment, please, Captain Santadar."

  He whirled on her, fury etched deep in his face.

  There was a quaver in her voice, something that made him pause.

  "It was wrong of me, I know, to ask such a favor of you. It is just that I am but a poor woman, widowed, alone, with enemies snapping at me."

  "You have your son," Rafe said in steely tones. "Surely Lord Neville would take great pleasure in dispatching this enemy in whatever way you wish. In my brief acquaintance with his lordship, I found his taste for the pain of others to be most indiscriminate."

  Morgause's lips quivered, and Rafe felt a brief stab of remorse that he had struck out at her through her son. Then he brought himself up short, dashing away the regret. This woman was no frail, gentle flower. She had just asked him to do murder!

  "My son has such an... er... ill-begotten fondness for this person that I fear even his regard for me would not sway him." Her lashes fluttered, and tears glistened in her eyes. "But that is my cross to bear, Captain Santadar. I see that now." A sigh shuddered through her thin shoulders, the gauzy white fabric swathing them fluttering about her.

  Rafe regarded her uneasily, unsettled by the lightning-swift shifts of mood evident in those strange eyes. Yet he could not stop himself from drawing out his handkerchief and pressing it into her hand as she continued a most valiant battle against weeping.

  "I kill for no one, milady." Rafe's words were not ungentle, but they were firm.

  She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with the square of fabric he had given her. "You are most kind, Captain Santadar. Most noble. It was foolish of me to put you in such a difficult position. I thank you for your patience in listening to me... aye, and showing me the error in my wishes. If you would allow me, I would like to do what is within my paltry power to make things right between us."

  "Milady?"

  "The ship." Morgause's lips curled in a watery smile. "It still waits beyond these walls. Let me redeem myself in your eyes by helping you escape."

  Rafe stared into her eyes for long minutes, emotions warring within him. He knew it would be crazed of him to trust a woman who had asked him to commit murder. It was insanity to place his life in the hands of one who disturbed him so deeply, stirred in him feelings of such stark foreboding.

  And yet, what choice had he? Would Tarrant St. Cyr help him return to Spain? Would Elizabeth release the Spanish captive who had afforded her courtiers such amusement this night? And Tessa—could he face the pleading look in her eyes? Could he confess the truth to her—that his pride was more important to him than their love for each other?

  Pain cut, jagged-edged, within him, and he knew at that moment he would risk anything to save himself from seeing the sorrow in Tessa's face. Besides, it did not matter that Morgause was tangled in some plot. Once he was free of this castle, Rafe could affect his own escape. He could stow away on some foreign vessel at anchor here in London.

  "Please, good Captain," Morgause whispered. "Let me aid you the only way I know how."

  Rafe straightened, his decision made. "I would be most grateful to be quit of this castle, these shores, as soon as possible."

  "Before dawn fully breaks we can be away." Morgause wrapped her thin arms about herself, delight evident in her face. "Hasten to gather what things you wish to take; then meet me at the door below." Her fingers fluttered toward a curving staircase that vanished into inky shadows. "I will wait for you."

  The sudden sound of footsteps at the far end of the corridor made the noblewoman draw back, her gaze flicking to a figure in an amber gown hastening toward them. Like a snake, Morgause Warburton slithered into the darkness. "Hasten, Captain Santadar. There is little time."

  But Rafe scarce heard the woman's warning. His eyes locked upon Tessa as she came toward him. Had she seen Morgause? No. Rafe had scarce seen the noblewoman himself until he had all but tripped over her. And Tessa's quarters were far distant from Rafe's own.

  By Saint Stephen, didn't Tessa know he would not want to see her? Not after she'd humiliated him with her puppet show.

  Rafe stepped out into the meager light of the corridor and fixed an implacable glare upon Tessa's wounded Madonna face. The misery and the love that shone upon her features drove pain deep into the core of him, but he clenched his jaw, wheeling away from her in a gesture of dismissal and stalked into his chamber.

  Every other woman he had ever known would have retreated beneath the scathing fury in Rafael Santadar's gaze. Most would have fled, weeping, to be consoled by some buxom matron. But before he had time to slam the door of the chamber in which he sought refuge, she stormed up behind him, one delicate hand stopping the portal midway.

  "Damn you, Rafael Santadar," she blazed, her eyes spitting black flame, "at least have the courage and honesty to tell me to go to hell instead of stomping off to sulk like a spoiled babe."

  Rafe gazed at her face, at those features, which were branded on his heart, and the pain of her betrayal slammed into him again like a fierce blow.

  "Honesty?" he roared, hating himself for the break in his voice. "You want honesty, madam? I'll give it to you! You betrayed me. Jeered at the men I commanded, the men who died under my command. You scorned them that you might play the jester before your strumpet queen and her perfumed fops."

  "I performed to save your cursed stiff neck, plague take you! Because I loved you and wanted to spare you."

  "You wanted to spare me?" Rafe gave a savage, anguished laugh. "I would have faced every horror Elizabeth had to offer to be spared the pain of watching you in that chamber this night, watching you, the woman I loved and trusted, hold up my men—my honorable, loyal, dead men—to the ridicule of the thieving pirates who killed them."

  "Rafe." Her eyes filled with tears that rent his spirit. "Your men are dead. You live. I had to do all I could to see that you remained alive. I love you, love you, curse it. I grieve for your men, because I see the pain you suffer for their loss. But don't you see? Your life matters more than your pride."

  She reached up and curved her fingers about his cheeks, and he could feel them shaking, see the tears flowing down her pale cheeks. Her pain nearly drove him to catch her in his arms and bury his face in that cascade of glorious dark hair, regardless of the cost. But instead his jaw knotted beneath her touch, and his eyes were cold as they met her tear-glistened gaze.

  "Nay, milady, I do not see." Gritting his teeth against her
anguish, he put her away from him and turned his back on her pleas, her love.

  Silence ground down upon him like a millstone, tormenting him with his idiocy, his cruelty, and the certainty that he lacked the strength to forgive her. To spare himself the sight of her pain, he left her outside the door and stepped inside the bedchamber, but he found that the walls of the empty room hurled her image back at him a hundredfold, jeering at his cowardice.

  Behind him, in the doorway, her muffled sobs had stopped, but he knew she still stood in the vaulted corridor, watching him.

  Then he heard her footsteps as she entered the room and circled to stand once more before him.

  He had thought he possessed pride in abundance, but his was but a light gilding in comparison to the strength that now shone within Tessa's eyes. She was all that was bright and good and beautiful in the world—all things that he valued. And he knew in that instant he had no right to touch her with his own tarnished arrogance.

  For long minutes she stood there, her eyes delving into his with such sweet sorrow. Then she reached out and traced the stiff line of his lips. "When you fell beneath Warburton's sword, I was proud of you, Rafe. Aye, and when you had to face the certainty that your mother was English, I ached for the misery it caused you. But now... now I am only sorry for you."

  "I want none of your sympathy."

  "You have it. You have it in abundance, you stupid, stiff-necked Spaniard. I thought you loved me, that we loved each other. I dared hope so." Her eyes flicked away for a heartbeat, then found his again, giving him no quarter. "Love, real love, could never be crushed by such a selfish, worthless trait as pride, Rafael."

  He pulled away, unable to bear her touch another instant, unable to bear the scent of her, the sadness in her.

  "Pride will not warm your bed at night," she went on relentlessly. "It will not bear your children."

  There was a catch in her voice, and a hateful longing throbbed in Rafe's loins.

  "Your babes," she said. "How I wanted to lay them in your arms."

  The words were a knife thrust as she turned away and strode from the chamber, leaving him with nothing but empty, aching hands and a barren future.

  He waited until he was certain she was gone. Then he scanned the chamber. The rich garments his grandfather had had made for him lay packed in an inlaid chest, along with jewels befitting his station as Tarrant St. Cyr’s heir. Yet he took nothing from the chest save a black mantle and the sword that had once been Tarrant's own.

  He could hear the muffled laughter of the courtiers still waiting upon the queen in the distant chamber, and knew there was little time to make his escape.

  Tessa—her name echoed inside him, wrenching his heart. Then he turned and descended the shadowy staircase. He sensed the presence of someone at the foot of the steps, felt a sudden wariness even through his pain.

  Roses. The scent of withered roses that was Lady Morgause's own hung heavy in the darkness, but it was mingled with another scent as well, one more disturbing... familiar. Sandalwood and wine. The finest Madeira.

  Rafe sensed danger, his fingers flashing instinctively to the hilt of his grandfather's sword, but it was too late.

  Something heavy crashed into the base of his skull, plunging him into a world of hopelessness as dark and chill as his future without Tessa.

  Morgause knelt beside Rafe's inert form and pressed her fingers to his heart. Her lips curved in a satisfied smile. "He lives."

  "I can assure you, when I have done with him, he will wish he had died," a harsh, masculine voice cut in. "Died before he ever set foot upon English shores."

  Morgause ignored the figure looming beside her as her fingertips trailed over the warm, muscled plane of Rafe's chest. "It is a most regrettable waste. He is... much like his father, Ruy Santadar. He was foolish as well, but so... hard, so wondrously virile. I still remember—"

  "Do you remember that he would have cast us both into prison for spying twenty-eight years ago?" the voice lashed out. "Had us executed as traitors if he had revealed—"

  "He did not," Morgause interrupted dismissively. "You saw to that, and to the death of his puling wife. Yet it seems you were unable to finish the task, for the babe we thought dead has now appeared as a man."

  "I did not know that he lived!"

  Morgause waved away the angry protestations, plunging on as though the other had not spoken. "He returns as a man with far too much honor to rid us of our enemy or even to save his own skin. It is a pity our good captain proved reluctant to thrust our blade through the queen's black heart, is it not, my dearest Lucero? Death to the Protestant usurper of what will again be a Catholic throne," Morgause purred, raising her eyes to the sharp features of the inquisitor. "It would have been perfect vengeance for Anne St. Cyr’s son to have driven the knife home. But we will find another way... later."

  Encina rubbed his hands together, fixing his eyes upon Santadar. "Sí, after I see to a most fitting demise for our captain. I shall be a hero, famous for presenting the Spanish king with the reason for our defeat at English hands: witchery... witchery!"

  "Do not fondle your hero's laurels too soon. 'Twill not be easy to mount a witchcraft case against a man so well respected, especially if he lets it be known that he is Ruy Santadar's son."

  "Bah! Captain Santadar's little puppet mistress has taken care of that difficulty for me. The flames of the auto-da-fé will prove most eager for Captain Santadar's flesh, I promise you. And all of Spain will rejoice at his screams."

  "The puppet mistress?" Morgause interrupted, chafing at wrists that still carried the marks of the ropes with which the girl had bound her. "Have you made her your captive?"

  "Nay, but she soon will be."

  Morgause's lips split over small pearly teeth. "I do not care how you use her once she is in your possession, but it would give me the greatest of pleasure to aid you in securing her. A debt stands between us."

  "I have no time for women's games!"

  "You have been gaming with me since that day in Seville when I enlisted you in my father's quest to restore Catholicism to England. Do as I bid you, Señor Encina." She let the full force of her pale gaze fall upon him and saw the Spaniard shrink back. Her gaze had bent the strongest of wills to her own. It was a frightening gaze whose power she used with relish.

  Aye, there were times it was far better to have the strange features fate had given her than all the beauty Anne St. Cyr had possessed.

  "Have one of your men follow in my wake and wait, hidden, until the girl falls beneath my power." Morgause fingered the unusual ring on her finger, her gaze sweeping lovingly over its glistening surface.

  "And then?"

  Morgause let her gaze flow across the sensual curve of Rafe's parted lips. "And then I will trust to your expertise in making Santadar and his whore pay in blood for the sins of his father."

  Chapter 13

  Tessa walked slowly into the chamber assigned to her, not bothering to close the door behind her. Her eyes swept the tiny room with its musty tapestries that had once been grand but were now threadbare where the moths had feasted upon the jewel-hued threads. Though the room was far from the pulsing center of the bustling castle, it was a respectable, aye, even a rich sanctuary for the daughter of a common sailor and far too fine for a humble player.

  Yet another simple room had seemed a wonderland to her when it was warmed by Rafael Santadar's love, full of new beginnings.

  Now she heard only the echoes of Rafe's farewell, and she saw nothing but an endless sweep of gray before her—days devoid of indigo eyes blazing with passion, lips far too solemn, which she had delighted in coaxing to smile.

  She tugged the pearl-encrusted headdress from her hair and let it fall from numb fingers onto the bed that stood at one end of the room.

  Rafael was lost to her forever.

  Any faint hope she had held that he might somehow understand once his first raw fury receded had vanished when she had looked into his eyes. She had sensed th
at somehow, some way, Rafael Santadar would leave—slip away from the castle, from his grandfather, from her, and disappear into the sea from whence he had come.

  And she could do nothing—would do nothing—to force him to stay.

  Her gaze skimmed the table upon which her untouched meal still sat—hearty bread, a savory meat pie, and a honeyed pastry that would have delighted Tessa had she possessed any appetite. A pewter goblet stood on the silver platter beside a flask of wine.

  Two hours ago, she had been about to delve into this feast, when Lord Valcour’s servant had rushed in carrying the magnificent gown and announcing that Tessa was to hasten to the presence chamber.

  If she had known what the old earl had plotted, she would have defied his order, cast the finery into the servant's face, and told them both to go to the devil. And yet... had she done so, who would have diffused the queen’s anger?

  Tessa raised numb fingers to a face still damp with tears.

  Damn them both to hell—Rafael Santadar and his grandsire as well. They had caught her between them most handily, trapped her in a dilemma from which there was no escape.

  Well, Rafe can take his cursed pride and loathe me forever, if he is fool enough, Tessa thought. She was glad she had performed so well—glad he was safe. She wondered if he would return to Spain and find some adoring woman to give him a dozen babies. Perhaps he would be given so many blasted ships to command that he'd be half crazed with trying to keep track of them.

  Hating herself for such speculations, she swept up the marionette head she had been working on hours before—a perfect image of Rafe's arrogant face. She stared down into those lovingly fashioned features, blinking back tears. "Sweet God," she said aloud, "I hope he realizes what an ass he is being, and comes back for me. Damn you, Rafael Santadar! Damn you!"