Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  Flames of Desire

  Vanessa Royall

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1978 by M.T. Hinkemeyer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email info@diversionbooks.com

  First Diversion Books edition September 2014

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-412-7

  More from Vanessa Royall

  Come Faith, Come Fire

  Firebrand’s Woman

  Fires of Delight

  Seize the Dawn

  Wild Wind Westward

  The Passionate and the Proud

  For Ellen and Jonathan

  Prologue

  The mead shop in the village of Lauder had a clay floor, shuffled to dull gloss by two centuries of topers. It was just elegant enough for such activity, too: a bar, a couple of battered tables, a soot-ridden hearth. Here one might quench a throat parched by the long trek from Edinburgh. Many men stopped at this inn on their way to meet Lord Seamus MacPherson, political leader and member of the Scottish Parliament, at his nearby Coldstream estate. Here stopped young Alan MacTavish one day, late in the Year of Our Lord 1774, and here he drank ale and whiskey in quantities insufficient to prevent him, after a time, from remounting his chestnut stallion, but certainly adequate to loosen his tongue, which declared a passionate hatred of England. And he was friend to Lord MacPherson, the hitherto irreproachable statesman? Many heard MacTavish on that cold afternoon, and now the peasants of Lauder possessed a secret they did not desire.

  Such secrets are not long kept.

  December now, and getting colder. The logs in the fireplace crackled but cast little warmth around the small taproom. Two weather-beaten peasants sat at a table, drinking mugs of stout, now and then staring covetously at the buxom, bold-faced barmaid. She pretended not to notice, feigning a coy innocence that had ceased to be convincing years before. But she was the landlord’s wife and he was asleep or maybe drunk in the back room of the inn, so the men were content to snicker over lascivious possibility, both of them hinting of such experience with the barmaid on stolen nights in years past. But they held their tongues. The landlord was mean, and a brawler. Besides, this kind of secret was not important enough to tell.

  Then the three turned expectantly as the tavern’s wood-and-nail door swung open. A tall, saturnine figure entered out of the dusk, trailed by a blast of wind, a cloud of brittle snow. Had he been an ordinary pilgrim, stopped along the road for food and drink, the men would have stared and measured him, given him the eye. Instead, the two drinkers turned quickly away, hunching down over the table, studying their mugs. This arrogant man with the dagger at his belt and the hint of menace in his slightly narrowed eyes was not the kind you look at long unless you want to fight. Even the barmaid, who had known hard men, stifled a gasp and seemed to shrink away. The stranger allowed himself a smile, half amused, half contemptuous. He had a face of sharp angles and predatory, hawklike eyes.

  “Whiskey. Fast,” he demanded, and strode to the bar. A black cape billowed as he moved, and he seemed larger than he was, his dark face accentuated by a tricornered hat. He did not wear the kilts of Berwick Province, but rather knee breeches and glossy boots, stylish cloak and silk cravat: the fashion now in Edinburgh and London. He smiled his unsettling smile once more—a momentary grimace of flashing teeth, slitted eye—and the barmaid nervously poured the strong whiskey from cask to mug, discarding any thought of “cheating the measure,” a trick that had brought many extra pound into the landlord’s till. This was not a man one crossed in any way.

  “Ah, enou’, m’ lassie,” he said now, reaching for the mug, taking it and her hand, too, for a long string of seconds. Then he released her, grinning. She stared stupidly at her hand, rubbed it on her skirt.

  “T’ England and the Act of Union!” he said, raising his mug and turning toward the two men at the table. His smile was still in place and it held more than a hint of clever malice now. Now they knew he was an Englishman after all. They must pretend to welcome him as a fellow citizen, but it would be more like offering grudging obeisance. He would make them drink with him against their will; they dared not refuse a toast to the Act of Union, which, under Queen Anne in 1707, less than seventy years before, had combined Scotland and England into what was called Great Britain. But the King was George III and his throne was in London. A thing of bitterness still to many of the Scots, a passionate and patriotic people.

  “T’ England an’ the Act of Union,” the two men muttered, hunched over the table.

  The tall man drained the pewter mug in one long draft, returned it to the bar, and from a calfskin pouch at his belt took out a gold sovereign, far more than the drink was worth. He held it before the barmaid’s eyes, held it in the flickering light so that even at the table the peasants could see it clearly. He laughed aloud at the flashing greed that rattled in the room.

  “Aye, ’tis yours, m’ bonnie,” he hissed softly, “’tis yours indeed,” leaning across the bar and cupping her right breast in his hand. It was a gentleman’s hand, well-shaped, strong, but the fingers were long and cruel. The barmaid winced, her mouth and eyes flew wide open with pain as he ground her nipple between thumb and forefinger. But she made no sound and did not move, as if either would invite greater agony, or worse…

  “See, lads,” smiled the caped man, turning. But the peasants concentrated on the pattern of the grain in the wooden table. This amused him. “Ah, lads, lads,” he said, turning back to the barmaid. “Ye’ve nithin’ t’ fear o’ Darius McGrover, y’ ken it, do ye na?” But then he snarled and those pincerlike fingers closed a final measure. The barmaid yelped, a sound of pain and fright, a sound that Darius loved. Master of His Majesty’s Secret Offices, Darius had heard—and caused—such sounds of pain in dungeons and cellars throughout the Empire.

  Slowly, grinning, Darius removed his hand. The men did nothing. There was going to be trouble now and they knew it. One of them glanced at the door, as if it were a way out. The barmaid rubbed her savaged breast, her mouth open in a soundless grimace of pain. Darius made a sound something like laughter and slammed the sovereign down on the bar, a ringing gold disk on dark wood.

  “Wouldna ye like t’ ’ave it?” he asked, and from the unnecessary thickness of the accent they could tell he was mocking them even in speech. He was an Englishman, the lord. They were serfs, the appropriated, the dispossessed. They hated him then with a sullen fury that only accentuated their impotence. He felt it like a burning pall in the room. It did not bother him. In his business he was used to it, even amused by it. It meant nothing in the end, when accounts were settled. Aye, a seditious traitor running in the back alleys, free to sow dissension and discord, was sure to be proud and defiant. But on the rack, where the screws were turned, he would sing quite another tune. Darius knew. It was his profession to reduce men to their lowest common denominator: fearful husks in terror of death and pain. When he distilled from them this final essence of themselves, he learned the truth. Always.

  “I require information,” he said softly to the three of them, “about a young man called Alan MacTavish. A big, rangy lad, insolent of expression, with a shock of yellow hair, and a mount perhaps, of chestnut hue.”

  The barmaid looked quickly
at the two men, saw the greed and fear fighting in their eyes, on their faces, saw the quivering pulse of greed in their twisting hands. They looked back at her, eyes moving from her face to the gold piece on the bar.

  Darius waited awhile, took another slow swallow of whiskey directly from the bottle this time. “Well? Are you ready now to accommodate me? This MacTavish, you may know, is quite clearly a traitor to the King and the Empire. Have you seen him here? Has he passed by?”

  Now he spoke slowly, almost as if bored, with the refined diction of the highest class. He spoke as if he had all the time in the world, and something played around his mouth that was like a smile, but not quite.

  The barmaid and the two peasants twisted and suffered before him. Certainly, MacTavish had passed this way, had ridden on to see Lord MacPherson. But MacPherson was highly respected, and he was the most powerful lord in Berwick Province. There were many things he could do to them, should it be learned that any of them had spoken out of turn. He might even send against them his hot-tempered son, fiery Brian, and that would be no treat. They were caught betwixt unknowns of equal menace. But Darius was right here before them, with his hand on the dagger at his belt.

  “You know this MacTavish fellow is a Rob Roy, do ye na? And I’m sure you do not wish to be accused yourselves of harboring or assisting one of them.”

  The men bowed their heads quickly and the barmaid stifled a gasp. The Rob Roys were a secret, outlawed political faction, whose goal it was to repeal and abnegate the Act of Union, to make Scotland entirely independent once more. Many Scots cheered them silently, but to raise one’s voice in their behalf was to invite the hangman’s noose. Or worse.

  “I see,” McGrover was saying, nodding, with that unspeakable smile. “You are afraid of MacPherson, are ye not? But do not be. The King will protect you from the ravaging of his bloody ilk, should he be in it with MacTavish. Ah, I know them, too,” he went on, in response to their sudden, surprised glances. “I know the lord and his bloody son, and I’ve seen that wench, his daughter, Selena. You know her, too, I’m sure, don’t you, lads? A fine blond beauty with that proud body and those haughty breasts? But ye’ll nivir ’ave ’er,” he muttered coarsely, lapsing back into the idiom to enhance the sexual connotation of his words. “But I intend to. An additional prize, a bounty, you might say, when I complete the mission that brought me here.”

  Envy showed in the barmaid’s eyes at mention of Selena’s name, the envy of a rough peasant woman whose knowledge of life included raw whiskey, winters of black bread, crude grapplings with drunken, brutal men, a knowledge of these things which stood against the reality of a noblewoman’s life: fine gowns, handsome men who took you in soft beds, servants to light the fires, sweet wine. She was on the verge of speaking when, suddenly, one of the men could no longer bear the pressure. Lurching sideways from his chair, he scuttled crablike, half running, half crouching, toward the door. The movement was so unexpected that even Darius was taken aback. For a tiny spasm of seconds it even seemed as if the man would escape. Already his fingers fumbled at the leather loop of latchstring. In a flashing instant, Darius made his decision. His hand was at his belt and then high in the air, the bladed point of the dagger poised between his fingers, just as the barmaid’s nipple had been. Then his arm swung down in a smooth arc of blinding speed. Silver flashed through the mead shop, fast as light. The peasant stiffened at the door, slumped forward, fell. In a moment blood formed at the corner of his slack mouth and ran down his chin in a thin red line. The hilt of the dagger protruded from his back.

  Darius walked over to the body, kicked it, bent, and eased the weapon slowly from the man’s body, drawing it out with exquisite slowness, almost a parody of sensual disengagement. He wiped the bloody blade on the peasant’s rude cloak, stood up.

  “I believe you will now speak to me of MacTavish and the MacPhersons,” he smiled. Brandishing the unsheathed dagger, he advanced toward the barmaid. The peasant at the table shivered, his mouth working soundlessly. The barmaid made a sound deep in her throat, an indeterminate gurgle, somewhere between a sob and a moan. It was not loud but it was loud enough. The dirty, hanging curtain in the doorway behind the bar, which separated the taproom from the rest of the inn, was shoved aside by a brawny arm, and the landlord’s heavy face poked in. Still half-asleep, a mean mouth, pouchy, lethargic, hung-over eyes.

  “What’re ye moanin’ aboot, woman…?” Then he saw Darius and the dagger and the dead man at the door. He was a big man himself, and although startled, his eyes showed no fear.

  “Ye’re welcome t’ the money, mate,” he said, his eyes narrowed and crafty, as if ready to make some move. “There’s precious little o’ it, truth t’ tell.”

  The barmaid shook her head. “MacTavish,” she bleated. “’E wants t’ know on MacTavish and the MacPhersons.”

  The landlord’s eyes fell upon the gold sovereign on the bar. Instantly he understood the proffered transaction. His face brightened, then darkened quickly in contempt. Grunting, he cuffed the woman soundly on the side of the head. Off balance, she half spun and crashed into a row of bottles, one of which fell and shattered on the hard, slick floor. The strong smell of smoky whiskey rose in the room.

  “Fool woman! If ye’d o’ told ’im, a man’d be alive and there’d be gold in my pocket.”

  Darius smiled, a real smile this time. It was going to be easy now. “It is an affair of His Majesty’s Secret Office. I seek information regarding Alan MacTavish.” He gave the description again, asked when and in which direction the young man had passed.

  “Treason, aye!” the landlord muttered, turning to his wife. “An’ this one time o’ all times ye kept yer mouth shut? An’ get us wrapped into a treason business? Oh, I vow, ye’re goin’ t’ get the beatin’ of yer bloody life…”

  “Well?” Darius prodded.

  “Aye!” the landlord hastened to explain. “Aye, ’e were ’ere ’bout a fortnight past. ’Ad ’im many a pint, an’ were talkin’ of the Rob Roys an’ glory an’ the King. A young man’s ravin’, seemed t’ me then. If I’da ken, I’da…”

  “Save your good intentions, man. ’Tis too late now. In which direction did he ride?”

  “Southeast to Coldstream Castle. But I know more…”

  “What’s that?”

  “’E told me ’e were goin’ t’ meet MacPherson. ’E said that Lord MacPherson were a bosom friend o’ ’is.”

  “He did?”

  The landlord nodded, crafty and conspiratorial.

  “What else do you know?”

  The landlord chuckled, pleased with his wisdom and indispensability.

  “I know ’he’s aboot t’ marry ’is daughter off t’ a rich man. The lord is. Ye ever seen ’is daughter? She’s a…”

  Darius made his unsettling grimace again. “I’ve seen her before, many times, in Edinburgh at the Christmas balls. You might even say I’ve watched her grow.”

  His cold laugh was like chunks of ice rattling in a bowl.

  “No, they will not save themselves by marrying her now. Nor will they save her, either.”

  For just a moment, his eyes took on a faraway glint of anticipation and pleasure, then he returned to the taproom. “All right,” he snapped. “I must go now. But of course you understand that I can return at any time?”

  They all understood.

  Darius turned and walked across the room; the cape billowed and flowed. He stepped across the body at the door.

  “You’d best get rid of this man,” he ordered, nudging the body idly with the toe of his black boot. “If I hear nothing of this, there will be three more sovereigns delivered here by messenger. But if not…”

  The landlord was already protesting his loyalty to King and Crown when Darius pushed open the tavern door with an insolent crash. It was fully dark now and snowing heavily, but he left the door ajar and disappeared into the darkness. The entering wind chilled the mead shop and fanned the embers in the fireplace, cheerlessly glowing the logs. Af
ter a little, the barmaid arose and pulled the door shut, while the landlord and the other peasant wrapped the dead man in his own tattered cloak.

  “Ground’s too cold t’ bury ’im,” the landlord decided. “We’ll take ’im an’ throw ’im in the Teviot River. There’s ice in ’er this time o’ year batterin’ enou’ t’ ’ide a dagger’s prick.”

  Heavily, with much panting and cursing, the landlord got the body up on the back of the other man, opened the door again, and the two of them lurched into the swirling snow, vowing oaths against the devil and the darkness. Once more the barmaid grabbed the latchstring and drew the door to. Caught wind died out in the tavern. Rubbing, first the side of her head and then again her stinging breast, she padded dimly back to the bar, her simple mind a jumble of confused and conflicting impulses. She had done a stupid thing and now she had to face a beating. But maybe he would be too tired when he got back from the river. She poured herself a glass of whiskey and set it on the bar. Darius. The dagger slashing through the air. That cruel smile. And Selena, of the high and mighty MacPhersons, who would know that smile, too. Now she was massaging her breast again, in an oddly rhythmic manner, and there was a flush on her face that had nothing to do with the waning fire. The gold coin caught her eye, and for a moment she dreamed of being a high lady like Selena MacPherson, whom men would embrace sweetly, not curse and whip, and whose lives were lived in the luxury of towered mansions. But then she remembered Darius again, and she no longer wished to be Selena.

  “Traitors,” she murmured, and knocked back a slug of the drink.

  Wrapped in his cape, within a shroud of swirling snow, Darius rode. The puzzle was coming together in his predatory mind; the plan was forming. He must get MacTavish now. MacTavish was the next link in the chain. MacTavish would sing long and loud, sing quite a pretty tune. MacTavish would be a whole ensemble, a whole choir.