Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  Selena stood next to the inert form of McGrover, her eyes turned toward the empty staircase, and her heart bursting with tears of holy blood, and joy.

  She did not know how much time went by, but she felt the hand on hers and looked up into Sean’s slightly worried eyes.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded numbly.

  “Lucky I spotted Hamilton, wasn’t it? I’d heard about him, of course, and I notified Ludford’s office. This will be a major break for us. There can be no doubt about our loyalties now.”

  What was he saying?

  “Penrod’s thanked me up and down for what I’ve done. He had no idea what kind of scoundrel had infiltrated his party. Just the type of thing Hamilton revels in, I’ve heard. Well, he got away. And I’ll bet he won’t be back. Selena, are you all right?”

  Again, she nodded, as the fact of it came to her. Sean, arriving back at Penrod’s house with the soldiers, and intent upon pointing out Hamilton to them, had not noticed the hangman. Would McGrover tell him? McGrover was, someone said, in the hospital now, his tongue almost severed by his own teeth. Still, he could write, couldn’t he? Or had everything happened so fast that even he had not fully registered the implications of Royce Campbell’s presence?

  What were those implications?

  Selena shuddered again, and fought to hold back an inexpressible but almost tangible sweetness that threatened to embrace her. Like a drug. Or a dream of Nirvana.

  Thinking her afraid, Sean put a protective arm around her. They left the Penrods’, and went home.

  Nothing was under control anymore. Nothing in the world.

  The City Unsleeping

  Darius McGrover spoke thickly, words on a blue, swollen tongue. But his malice, clear, cold, and changeless, surrounded him, a penumbra of ice. There was no mistaking malice or intent, in spite of the damage Royce had done to his mouth. Death was on his mind.

  He was bolder now, but still circling, like a hawk in the sky, measuring its prey.

  He measured Selena as he stood in the doorway of their house on Bowling Green. Traudl had answered the door, but Selena had refused to let the man enter.

  “You may believe that you are safe this time,” he hissed, moving his painful tongue as little as possible, grinning with cracked teeth. “You may think that, because of your wealthy loyalist husband, you are secure.”

  Selena lifted her chin and stared right back at him. She said nothing. She was afraid, but it was unlikely that he would make his move now. This was a warning call, to unnerve her further. This was the challenge, the figurative throwing down of the gauntlet. Still, she felt comfort in Traudl’s presence, just behind the door. It was another human being with her, near her, as she faced the monster.

  “But you are not secure,” McGrover continued. “Oh, it may seem so to you now. In spite of my suspicions about each and every one of your friends at Penrod’s little affair last week, my superiors will only allow the apprehension of those clearly on the rebel list.” He spat in disgust.

  “You have foul manners, as well as everything else.”

  “You are fortunate. I am not spitting blood anymore. Your doorstep is relatively clean.” He spat again, mocking her. “You might even say it has now been blessed.”

  She said nothing.

  “Lord Ludford is cautious in political matters,” he went on. “It is his belief that we must not harass the influential of this city, even though they may have certain rebel sympathies. He feels that the triumph of our arms on the field of battle will quickly bring them around to our side. So I am restrained, at the moment, from moving against the Penrods and the Weddingtons…”

  Thank God, she thought, they are still not certain about Dick.

  “…and the Bloodwells. At least not against one of the Bloodwells. Oh, I have tried. I have informed my superiors of the young Sean Bloodwell who gave financial aid to the Rob Roys. But he has redeemed himself most shrewdly, I must say. Bringing us the news of Hamilton’s presence, and then taking us to the very site of the masque. Yes, very clever indeed.”

  “My husband is a loyalist, if you must know,” Selena said coldly.

  “And you, my lovely one?”

  “I am a citizen of the British Empire,” she told him contemptuously, her scorn greater than her fear.

  “And clever, as always, I see. Just like your father. Do you recall what his cleverness earned him, in the end?”

  There in the doorway, staring at him, Selena was forced to relive the scene she had almost succeeded in blocking from her conscious memory. Father on his knees. McGrover, sneering, twisting the garrote. And Father, just before his death, jerking free of his bonds, raising his hand, choking out the words which, more than anything, had bound them together in life. Selena, the sky begins here.

  She vowed it then. Somehow, some way, she would do what she ought to have done at Foinaven Lodge.

  “You are a dead man,” she told him. Her passion rendered the words almost as indistinct as his own speech.

  He seemed to take a step back, almost surprised.

  “What?”

  “I am speaking to a dead man,” she said. “You will leave me alone or I swear to you, on my father’s grave and memory, that you will not survive the summer.”

  Her hatred registered in his expression, but he recovered, mocking her. “That leaves me June, July, and August, doesn’t it?”

  Behind her, Traudl made a sound. Not quite a sob, it was more a suppressed squeak of terror and fear.

  “Will you enlist your husband’s aid?”

  “I might.”

  “Well, he is influential, and might slow me down,” McGrover admitted, quite frankly. “But you and I have a special relationship, do we not? When I realized you had given me the slip in Liverpool, I thought you were bound for America. At once I made application for a transfer to the colonies. They did not allow me to come, at first. They think me overzealous. All this time, I have been yearning for you, though. That is what a blood bond does to one. It is like a hunger that one cannot slake, a need that must be satiated. You had your chance to kill me, and you failed. I cannot forgive that, and the blood bond will not let me rest. I will not be the coward you were. And to think I had almost given up hope of finding you. I did not know, of course, of your little sojourn in Hinduland. Did you please the potentates? Did you take them unto yourself, so to speak, and please them well?”

  He grinned again. Selena did not speak. Traudl was practically whining. It was fortunate that Sean had taken Davina for a ride in the carriage today. Or was it? With Sean here, would McGrover have been bold enough to make his approach? Probably not. Anyway, it was Selena he was after. Anyone else was secondary.

  “And now you are here,” McGrover said, very softly. “And so am I.”

  They looked at each other. Selena began to close the door.

  “One more thing,” McGrover warned, raising his hand. “I would not rely on your glorious husband for unquestioning support.”

  Still she said nothing, but there must have been a twinge of doubt in her eyes.

  “I know who the hangman was,” McGrover added enigmatically. “I remembered while I lay in hospital.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said unsteadily. Uncertain of his ploy, she hesitated. He sensed her vulnerability, and bored in.

  “Your old lover come back, isn’t that so?” he asked. Traudl went very quiet.

  “I did not know it was he,” Selena said uncertainly. “We were costumed. We were only dancing.”

  “This time,” McGrover said. “But what of the past? Indeed, what of the future?”

  “That is over, and long past. My future is with my husband…and child.” She said it; it had to be true.

  He knew better, a snake with the gift of vision, peering directly into the heart of his enemy.

  “And I suppose you would hold to that story if I applied a whip to the soft parts of your body? No, no. I remember the Christmas dances, a
nd I distinctly recall the evening on which you paraded yourself before him.” He seemed to smile with a private memory. “Yes, I believe you would have given yourself to him on the floor of that cold balcony, had not your brother intervened so crudely…”

  He had been there? Hiding in the shadows, while she and Royce clung to each other, the first precious instant of their mutual discovery?

  “I told you that it’s all over,” she said, and closed the door until he was only a thin, sneering figure in a narrow space.

  “I will put the two of you together again, mark my words. You have promised me death, and I offer you the same, twofold. I will unite you and your pirate lover, and display you both, for all the world to see. On the yardarm of his own ship, in New York harbor. Hung by your adulterous, traitorous necks…”

  Traudl broke into sobs. Selena tried to jam the door shut, but McGrover had pushed the edge of his walking stick in the open space.

  “And I know where he is hiding,” McGrover cried. “Yes, right now! Even this afternoon my men and I will move to take him. You hold that knowledge close to your heart, my dear. And while you are dreaming your juicy dreams of his embrace—ah, don’t you think I know?—he will already be descending into the embrace of death which I have prepared for him.”

  She pushed all her weight against the door, and he suddenly removed his walking stick. The door crashed shut, and Selena crashed against it.

  She could hear him laughing as he went down the steps. She did not look after him.

  Traudl was sobbing, her innocent, simple mind in turmoil over the sinister man, the obvious danger. And the terrible words: Adultery. Treason.

  “Ooohhh, ma’am! Ohhhhh! What’s going to become of…”

  “Traudl, you must control yourself,” Selena said, putting her arms around the chubby nursemaid. “This is one time when we’ll both have to be brave, whether we feel like it or not. And, for reasons you don’t need to know just now, I must ask you to keep this incident between ourselves.”

  Traudl’s eyes widened.

  “You mean and not tell Mister…”

  “That’s right. The man you saw at the door is a liar and a poseur. He is dangerous, but I must handle him in my own way. And I can.”

  Saying it, she was almost convinced. She had to hurry. So she had to maintain her resolve. If Royce was in danger, she had to be prepared, to warn him. Somehow. But if she made the wrong decision, the wrong move, everything might be lost. She recalled Sean’s words on the evening of the masque, after they had returned home.

  “Selena, this is it,” he had declared. “We’ve discussed it before, God knows, and I think you’ve done your best to be careful. Perhaps the problem is simply that you haven’t been able to sense situations that might lead to trouble. Although, by now, I think you ought at least to be able to do that.”

  It had hurt, that at least. And to say anything, by way of explanation, would just make things more labyrinthine.

  “So, you have a business connection with Penrod, and, from what I hear, it might prove lucrative. Well and good. But these are complicated times. God forbid that Howe in the south and Burgoyne in New England should fail to crush the rebels this year. It’s very bad for business, as you know. But, above and beyond all that, you must not be seen in any house or public place in which your reputation might be held up for inspection.”

  That was Sean, utterly confident, making his pronouncements. Sean, with a continental spy as a business partner!

  Perhaps Sean was right. She should at least have learned a few more self-preservatory ruses.

  Right now, in the parlor of the Bowling Green residence, trying to stay calm for the benefit of the stunned and panicky Traudl, the only help Selena could think of lay in the person of Dick Weddington himself. He might know what was going on. He might even know where Royce was, now that the colonies’ foremost rebel raider was back in port. “Traudl, have Otto saddle a horse for me.”

  “But, ma’am, he’s out driving the carriage for Davina and Mister Bloodwell.”

  “So he is. Well, then, I’ll do it myself,” she decided. But it occurred to her that McGrover or one of his men might be watching the house. If she rushed out now, and rode down to Wall Street, the connection between herself and Dick Weddington would be clear, if, indeed, it was not clear already. (She assumed that McGrover knew Sean was not at the office; thus the pretext of rushing to Wall Street in order to see him could not pass the test of credibility.)

  “All right, Traudl. This is what I want you to do. Now, I know this isn’t your job, but I can’t…ah, rely on the kitchen staff just now. You take a shopping basket. I’ll give you money. As soon as you get a good distance from the house, you flag a cab. Go to Sean’s office and see if Lord Weddington is there. If he is, tell him to return with you. Tell him it’s of the utmost importance. And have the cab drive into the back alley. I’ll be waiting there.”

  “But what if he’s not there?”

  “Then say good day and leave. Do you understand?”

  Traudl nodded slowly, an honest, good-hearted girl suddenly plunged into a welter of thrust and counterthrust she had not the experience to understand. But she got herself under a semblance of control, and, true to her training and character, she had to get a couple of things straight. It was a matter of conscience.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but first I got to know some things, honest and true.”

  “Honest and true,” Selena said.

  “That evil man who was at the door, with the funny ear tied on. Are you certain—I mean, I don’t doubt you, ma’am, you’ve been good to me as my own mama and papa would have been, had they lived—but you sure you don’t want to tell Mister Sean he came here? And what he said?”

  “Not just yet. It would upset him. And don’t be afraid. That ear of his—I cut it off. Myself.”

  Traudl’s eyes went wide. She couldn’t even get out her next question for a moment. But she did.

  “An’, ma’am, he said about treason and…and…ah…adultery? I was raised not to have no truck with sin, and…”

  “You should have no worries over your soul on that account, Traudl. I am guilty of neither, whether by omission or commission.”

  It was true, but the statement—and the matters involved—were quite over Traudl’s head. Soon she would make her own interpretations. But now she hastened to carry out the orders, and Selena spent a restless hour waiting for Dick Weddington to arrive. Thinking of Royce Campbell.

  Selena was grateful she had at least known he was alive; seeing him for the first time when the hangman ripped off his hood at the masque would have been too much for her to have borne. The very knowledge of his existence had been troubling her since first she’d glimpsed the Selena. Now, having seen him, touched him, she was afraid to let her heart go, lest the emotional tumult prove too disconcerting to endure. But what could be done? And she was married to Sean. All right, she decided. But he saved me once, and if he is in danger from McGrover, I must do all I can to save him.

  Time dragged on forever, and she paced and watched the sun start down over the wild hills of New Jersey, across the great Hudson River. The May afternoon was warm and clear, but Selena had barely noticed it. Many people promenaded along the waterfront; any of them might have been one of McGrover’s spies, watching the house. Cabs came and went, the horses trotting by, the harness bells jingling. Finally a cab drew up to the house, and she saw Traudl, fairly blushing with tension and importance, direct the driver to the alley that led behind the house. But something was wrong; she couldn’t see Dick Weddington in the cab. It disappeared around the side of the house. Selena raced through the rooms on the main floor, to meet it at the back entrance.

  She understood why Traudl had been blushing so much. Dick Weddington unbent himself from his hiding place on the floor of the cab, and untangled the heels of his boots from the poor nursemaid’s skirts. Selena shot a glance at the cabdriver to see if he looked the reliable type, and another face from the pa
st sprang into her vision. The big black beard, the strong, good-natured—and now a little abashed—expression. Will Teviot.

  She was too glad to see him to remember with any animosity what had happened to them in the stone hut in Kinlochbervie. She would have invited him in, but Dick waved him away.

  “Another time, Selena,” Will said. “God, but ’tis good to see ye ’ale an’ ’earty, that I vow.”

  Then he was off and she was hurrying Dick Weddington into Sean’s quiet study on the second floor. No one could hear them there. She closed the door and told him quickly of McGrover’s visit. He listened as his face darkened with concern.

  “How long ago did McGrover leave?”

  “A little over an hour. So far, Traudl and I are the only ones who know he was here. And who know what he said. Can you trust Will Teviot?”

  “Will? I’d trust him with my life. I was the one who helped him flee the British, after he’d left your family in Kinlochbervie. I was sailing from Liverpool at the time, coming out to the colonies. Pater had told me of the Rob Roy business, and, from Will’s desperation, I had a suspicion that he was one of them. I took him aboard with me as a valet. He left ship at Nova Scotia. Can you imagine? A valet! I’d rather have Will with me in a back alley, settling scores with McGrover.”

  Selena smiled. Will Teviot, who had rescued her, was bold and violent and strong, but in his own way he was as innocent and loyal as a little boy. The sort you would want to protect even as he was protecting you.

  “What are you going to tell Sean?” Dick was asking.

  “I was going to try not telling him at all. He is already upset, after the masque. I don’t want to harm the rebel cause, but, here I am, more deeply involved than ever. I just don’t know…”

  “All right. Forget that for the time being. Let us consider first things first. There comes a time when everyone must fight for what he believes, and that time will come to you.”

  Royce had said something like that once. “If it is necessary to kill in order to save your dream…”

  And right now it was necessary to save Royce Campbell.