To Chase the Storm

by Kimberly Cates

  "Aye, damn you, if that will keep you safe!"

  "I can't abandon some other innocent to the fate of my parents. I can't flee, do nothing, while someone is murdered."

  "But you don't even know who she's after."

  "Would it matter? Even if her intended victim is some fisherman's daughter, do I not owe her a chance at life? And what if it is someone much closer to me, some member of the English family you took such pains to reveal to me? What if it is my grandfather?"

  Tessa blanched. "Nay, he is too strong. They could never touch him."

  "Not even with the poison Morgause is so fond of? Or a stiletto hidden in the night? God knows the Warburtons loathed Tarrant St. Cyr enough even before I set foot on English shores. And now they have an even better reason to seek vengeance on him. What if it is your precious Earl of Valcour who lives beneath the blade of Morgause's dagger?"

  Silence fell between them, heavy and fraught with anger and pain. Rafe met her gaze with a gentle firmness. "When Bastion returns, it will be to take us to some foreign ship bound for England. I'll take you to my grandfather, make certain you are under his protection. Then I will go to confront Lady Morgause and her thrice damned son, alone."

  "The devil you will!" Distress streaked across the features that had been dewed with pleasure. Regret twisted inside Rafe, but he only skimmed his knuckles over her flushed face.

  "All my life I've been stalked by shadows," he told her gently. "I'll not abandon you, and the babes you will bear for me, to a future clouded by such a dark fate, even if this venture costs me my life."

  Chapter 17

  The wind lashed in from the sea, battering the English coast with its fury. Rafe felt it pulse deep inside him, driving high his dread, his anger, and his stark frustration as he urged his mount at a breakneck pace over the night-shrouded countryside. Yet it was all he could do to keep pace with the dark-tressed virago at his side, whose billowing scarlet cloak was like a wound upon the mist-laden darkness.

  Lightning shattered the sky into a score of midnight fragments, the flashes of bright light searing images of Tessa's face into Rafe's memory.

  Her hair flew back from pale, taut cheeks, and her lips were still set in the expression of mutinous anger that had fallen upon them that long-ago day when they had loved by Brother Ambrose's cottage. There was the same fierce determination and steely will in her features that Rafe had seen in the visages of battle-hardened sailors.

  She was going with him to Warvaliant, to Morgause, to the brutal Lord Warburton, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

  In the weeks that they had traveled, how many times had he heard her vow that she would not leave him? How often had he seen in her eyes a warring glint that might have shone off the blade of a well-honed rapier?

  In the end he had seemed to accede to her. He had nodded when she railed that it was foolhardy to pit his lone strength against the might that was Warvaliant. He had told her that they would stop at his grandfather's castle to enlist a small party of his men. And then they would continue on toward Warvaliant.

  A grim smile curved his lips as he remembered those keen black eyes upon his face, the ring in her voice as she had told him that they damn well would.

  He felt a shaft of longing in his loins as his imagination welled with images of his wildwitch in the midst of a bevy of children—daughters woven of fire and strength, sons with the bravery that had shone in their mother. Damn, they would breed such children, he and his wildwitch. There would be nothing they couldn't tame between them.

  "Slow your pace, blast it, before that palfrey hurls you into the next cursed earldom!" Rafe shouted. But whether the wind carried away his words or Tessa chose to ignore them, he didn’t know.

  He swore as he saw her drive her heels into her mount's sides again, the beast’s mane lashing back against Tessa's face. Then, just as Rafe was about to spur his own horse and grab the palfrey's reins to jerk it to a halt, Tessa reined the animal to a quivering stop.

  Rafe pulled back on his own mount's bridle, barely keeping the stallion from crashing into Tessa's horse.

  "Look!" She gestured to where a dark giant seemed to crouch upon the horizon. Just then a flash of lightning illuminated the great hulk of Valcour Castle.

  "I see it. And it is a good thing we're almost there. Perhaps we'll reach it before you break your blasted neck!"

  "There is a small gate to the north. We'd best enter there—stealthily. If things should go awry, we don’t want to drag the earl any deeper into disfavor. Pull the hood of your mantle up about your face to hide it."

  Rafe felt a stab of jealousy over her concern for the old warrior. "Fine. I'll swath myself in black and we can creep in like thieves."

  But even before his words were out, she was again urging her mount to a gallop. Rafe gritted his teeth, one hand yanking his hood into place as he spurred his horse to follow. In what seemed a heartbeat she had whirled up to the smaller entry. He saw her smiling down at the crabbed old soldier who was guarding the gate—an aged knight who had served Tarrant St. Cyr for forty years.

  Rafe drew rein, his stallion dancing upon great hooves, tossing his magnificent equine head. But the anger Rafe had felt moments before eased as he heard Tessa's voice, warm as summer rain. "Good morrow, Sir Dinadan. I have brought his lordship a most welcome guest."

  The soldier scrubbed at his mist-dampened face with one gnarled hand, peering up at them from the single eye left him after a jousting accident decades past.

  "I've no doubt you'd be right welcome, Mistress Tessa, save that another guest arrived a fortnight ago, and tonight is a grand fete in her honor."

  Rafe felt that single knowing eye pierce the shadows beneath his hood, and he hated the subterfuge Tessa had urged him to. There was a subtle cowardice in it, as though he had something to feel ashamed of. And perhaps he did. His escape from Elizabeth's palace had left the old earl, who had risked so much on his behalf, to face the queen's formidable wrath alone.

  Rafe's fingers closed about the edge of the velvet hood, drawing it back from his face so that he could meet Dinadan's gaze squarely. "Perhaps we could await my grandfather's pleasure in a withdrawing room until after tonight's entertainment."

  "Nay, you witling!" He heard the knight mutter an oath. "Cover yourself! Look at the banner above."

  Rafe shielded his eyes against the mist, trying to pierce the darkness with his gaze. Then suddenly another bolt of silver split the sky, and he saw the flag fluttering high above them in the wind.

  The royal banner.

  Foreboding drove deep into Rafe's belly, and he heard Tessa's gasp of distress.

  The queen...

  Rafe had planned to face Elizabeth Tudor as well, once he had dealt with the threat from the Warburtons. He had planned to surrender himself to the monarch in hopes of winning some measure of mercy so he and Tessa would have a chance to make a life here on the queen's shores. But not yet. He could not face Elizabeth now, before he knew Tessa to be safe from Morgause's treachery and Warburton's cruelty.

  His fingers groped for his hood, and he heard Tessa whisper. "Sir Dinadan, is there somewhere we might wait in secret?"

  "I don't know, mistress. The place is crawling with royal servants and such. There have been whispers again about some knave making an attempt on Her Majesty's life, and it seems the whole kingdom has turned out to shield her."

  "There have been whispers about an attempt against Her Majesty?"

  "Bah! Don't trouble yourself about it. Our Gloriana pays them no heed. But because of the celebration, the castle is bursting with guards, courtiers, and every man and woman of note within a hundred miles."

  The old guard guffawed. "Every man of note, that is, except that devil Warburton. The earl said if that dog showed his face hereabouts, he'd send him to his Maker, queen or no queen. And I guess his lordship must have believed it, because—"

  "Who goes there?" The gruff voice made Rafe start in his saddle, as all eyes swept a figure
striding out of the darkness. Royal livery dripped in lavish elegance from the man's broad shoulders as his weasel-like visage was illuminated by the night's flashes of light.

  Rafe felt his stomach plunge to his toes, knew he should wheel his mount and spur it away from the castle, away from the queen's waiting justice. Yet at that moment, Dinadan reached out and caught the reins, giving a hushed warning as he nodded toward three other guards following on the heels of the first. "It is too late. You'll have to brazen it out."

  Rafe's gaze clashed with the knight's, but he loosened his grip on the reins as Dinadan swaggered up to the queen's man. "I am Sir Dinadan Graystoke, guardian of this gate. If you are guarding Her Majesty, you'd best find more fruitful ground than here."

  Rafe held his breath, knowing the old soldier was hoping to deflect the royal guards' attention from him in an effort to buy him time to slip away. But the scarlet-draped chest of the queen's servant swelled with importance, and Rafe could see the man's mouth harden in a grim, smug smile. "And these other two?" he demanded. "Who are they?"

  Rafe heard Tessa start to stammer, feared she would blunder into some falsehood that would make the queen distrust them even more. And in that instant he knew what he must do.

  "I am Captain Rafael Santadar." The hard edge of command rang in his voice, and he met the royal servant's glare with a level one of his own. "I am grandson to the Earl of Valcour and heir to this castle."

  "Rafe, nay—" Tessa's protest was lost in the guard's surprised oath.

  "You're the Spaniard, the one who fled the queen's presence."

  "I escaped from enemy hands," Rafe corrected. "Now I am returned to surrender myself to your queen. I demand to be taken to her at once."

  "You demand?" the guard sputtered.

  "Do you dare defy the future Earl of Valcour?” Rafe glimpsed Tessa's stunned white face and was surprised at the steely determination in his voice as he claimed the heritage he had scorned.

  "I—" the guard began.

  "Think before you speak, you popinjay." Dinadan's voice was rough with pride. "You are talking to Lord Valcour’s heir."

  "Lord Valcour’s heir is a fugitive from the Crown," the guard replied.

  Rafe arched his brow and said with acid arrogance, "One who has information Her Majesty will find most disconcerting."

  "Her Majesty is otherwise engaged."

  "Now, man. She will see me now." Rafe swung down from his restive mount. The magnificence that had made men cower from the Phantom of the Midnight Sea radiated from every line of his body. "Or are you willing to take the responsibility for withholding information vital to the good of her state and perhaps to her very survival?"

  "What can you possibly know, Spaniard?"

  "It is for the queen's ears only. I'll say no more until I stand in the royal presence."

  He turned his back on the guard and swept Tessa from the palfrey's back. As she slid down against the plane of his chest, he felt her dread.

  "Rafe, nay. We can't go before the queen. We're not ready."

  Rafe peered down into that delicate face that had been seething with mutiny and he was touched by the fear for him in those wide dark eyes.

  He took her face gently between his hard palms, skimming his thumb over the warm velvet of her full lower lip. "When you are out on the sea and a storm blows wild, you are never prepared either, wildwitch," he said softly. "But you have to face it anyway."

  He clasped her chill fingers in his and drew them through the crook of his arm. Then they turned toward the massive castle to confront the full fury of what awaited within.

  * * *

  The queen of England was a maelstrom of color, light, and ruthless power as she sat enthroned at the head of the vast carved table in the great hall of Valcour Castle. Scores of courtiers garbed in their finest lined both sides of the huge sweep of wood, their own daunting magnificence overshadowed completely by the woman who was Gloriana, England's beloved Virgin Queen.

  With Tessa at his side, Rafe strode down the length of the chamber, feeling as though the blade of an ax already hovered over his naked throat. For had the the gazes of those who filled the room been made of steel, Rafael Santadar knew that he would already be dead.

  His gaze swept past them all to where the noble Earl of Valcour sat at Elizabeth Tudor's side. The craggy features of his grandfather, already so time-worn, were now creased with the fresh pain Rafe knew he had brought the old man.

  Yet it was the sight of the woman who sat at the queen's other hand that made Rafe's chest tighten with wariness. For there, all but lost in the glittering majesty of the queen, Morgause Warburton sat, her pale eyes huge in her colorless face, her hands shaking as though she were viewing two corpses come alive.

  She pressed her fingers to her bosom, and it was as if that flick of her hand had somehow broken the spell Rafe's entrance had cast over the room. The chamber suddenly erupted in a buzz of anger and indignation, and several of the posturing young nobles leapt to their feet.

  Rafe's muscles snapped taut, and he half expected some knave to fall upon him with sword or dagger. But at that moment the earl lunged from his chair, the stony strength of a score of battles lying about his broad shoulders like a mantle.

  “Sit down, you cursed fools, before I banish all of you from my table!" Had a sense of impending doom not hung so heavy over the chamber, Rafe would have burst into laughter at the haste with which the striplings dropped into their seats, felled like trees beneath that iron-honed will.

  Rafe met the old earl's stare.

  "We were not aware that we would be accorded the pleasure of your grandson's company this night, Lord Valcour.” Elizabeth Tudor’s voice was steel on ice, musical, yet ringing with the unyielding, regal tones of a monarch displeased. "Had we been forewarned, perhaps we would have ordered shackles and chains to be served along with the meat pasties."

  Rafe saw the earl's jaw clench, felt Tessa's fingers tighten on his arm, but before either of them could act, he stepped away from Tessa's side, strode toward the queen, and said, "Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to summon up a shroud, Your Majesty."

  "A shroud?" The queen's eyes hardened further. "Is it possible, milord Spaniard, you are hungry for vengeance against us, hungry to regain the honor of your king?"

  Rafe held out hands empty of weapons. "There may have been a time when I would have been willing—no, eager—to do so. I would have done all within honorable means to gain a victory for Spain. But never, even in the midst of the total destruction that followed the armada's defeat, would I have struck down a defenseless woman."

  "You deem the queen of England nothing but a defenseless woman, Captain Santadar?" Elizabeth ran be-ringed fingers over the gem-starred base of her golden goblet. "You mightily underestimate us. We hold the power of the finest army ever to march upon these shores. And now our navy has proved itself worthy of like acclaim."

  "An army is small shield against a traitor, Your Majesty. And an assassin does not care if Neptune's own trident fights upon your side."

  "An assassin? Traitor?" Elizabeth shoved the goblet to one side, signaling for more wine. Yet her eyes never left Rafe's. "Those are serious allegations, Captain Santadar. Especially from the lips of a man who was among the invasion fleet sent to steal away our throne."

  "Your Majesty, if you would but listen," Tessa cut in, earnest and pleading.

  "This is between Captain Santadar and us, girl. You will let him tighten the noose about his own proud neck if he so chooses."

  "In truth, it is not only between the two of us." Rafe’s gaze shifted to the woman beside the queen. "There is another."

  Morgause Warburton paled further, a rapid pulse beating beneath the fragile layer of skin at her throat. Her fingers played in agitation over the ornate rim of the queen's magnificent goblet.

  "Your Majesty," she interrupted smoothly, "surely state matters can wait until after we've finished our feast. An hour or two cannot make a vast difference in
the Crown's affairs."

  "I fear it could make a great difference in the Crown's affairs, Lady Warburton," Rafe said. "It could well determine whether or not your queen will continue to sit upon her throne."

  As Morgause's pen-stroke-thin brows arched in something akin to alarm, the dart of terror in her pale eyes confirmed Rafe's mounting suspicion.

  "And what could you know of English affairs," Morgause demanded scornfully, "a cowardly Spaniard who ran from the queen's presence?"

  "And into the grasp of a Spanish spy, a man who spent a lifetime gleaning English secrets from a source hidden among the queen's own nobility."

  Morgause winced, her eyes taking on the dangerous glint of a trapped animal. "Her Majesty will not listen to such ramblings from a cursed Spaniard."

  "A cursed Spaniard who refused to drown himself in blood for your benefit, Lady Morgause?" Rafe said. "Even when you tempted him with tales of how he could redeem himself after the defeat of the armada, how he could save his honor after suffering humiliation at Drake's hands? Like a sweetmeat you dangled your intrigue before me, tempting me."

  A nervous laugh tripped from Morgause's lips. "This is pure folly. Your accusations are so ridiculous no one will be witless enough to believe you. I had no link to Spain or to Encina. I—"

  "Encina?" Rafe spat the name, infusing it with loathing and scorn. "Strange. He was the man who claimed to hold England's secrets in the palm of his hand. Yet I have not spoken his name this night. How did you come to know of him, milady? Tell us." He saw the woman stand up and take a step back, the queen's goblet wavering as Morgause's fingers left its engraved rim.

  "But of course you babbled his name." There was a wildness in the woman's voice as her gaze darted to the queen. "You spoke of the Spaniard!"

  "The one who dragged me from the queen's own palace? Threw Tessa and me into the hold of a ship, and dragged us before the Inquisition because we knew—"

  "Must we suffer the ravings of this Spanish swine?" Morgause shrilled, grasping the base of her own wine-filled vessel. "He has already proved himself a coward and a liar as well, duping all within this castle into thinking him an honorable heir to the house of Valcour.”