Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  She stopped, for a moment still as time. The house roared in silence. There was nothing. Either the servants, far up in the attic, had heard nothing, or they were already dead in their beds. She looked down at Sean, who stirred faintly on the cellar floor, bathed in dim light. Get it over with. The less he sees, the better. This is my responsibility. Vengeance is a private thing.

  The man watched her. McGrover watched her. She held the dagger, motionless.

  One word took the shape on her tongue. “R…?”

  The hooded figure cut her off with an abrupt finger to the place on his hood where his mouth would be. Quiet! No names! And he pointed at the dagger in her hand. Time. Time. Hurry.

  Still she waited, transfixed as much by what it was she might do here as by the almost certain knowledge that Royce had returned to save her once again. It was confirmed.

  “Sometimes it is necessary,”came the words from beneath the mask.

  He lifted his head, his veiled eyes on hers. She met his sightless gaze, and stepped forward. McGrover tried to cry out; now he was afraid. Now he believed it. He knew better than to expect a second chance; he had no doubts about her anymore.

  But she did not move toward the target that the hooded man had exposed.

  “An eye for an eye,” she said. “A throat for a throat.” Royce understood. He moved his forearm from McGrover’s neck and pinioned the man’s shoulders to the floor. McGrover’s breath returned; he panted desperately.

  “Others will come,” he croaked. “You will never escape my web.”

  “Yes, I will,” she told him. And drove the point of the dagger straight down through his throat, cutting off his voice, severing his windpipe. There was some blood, but not as much as Selena had expected. He thrashed pitifully, his body fighting for air. His body wanted desperately to live, and the struggle was ferocious. One minute, two. Three minutes. McGrover’s face was blue, almost black. Blood bubbled at the edge of the dagger blade, as his body tried to suck in the air it could no longer hope to have. All the while, McGrover’s eyes were on Selena. He never looked away, no matter how his body pitched and tossed. It was a terrible death she had given him, far longer than he had given Father, more agonizing than the maharajah’s had been. Selena hated to watch it, but she did not regret it, and the fact must have shown in her eyes. Because, even at the last moment, McGrover jerked his head, a congratulatory nod. You have won. My regards.

  Then he was dead, and gone to the hell that had spawned him.

  Sean was stirring. The men had to move fast. Royce gestured toward the upper floors of the house, where the soldiers were.

  “How many?” someone asked.

  “Three, I counted.”

  The work was over quickly, short and brutal. Seven men lay dead in the cellar. And Royce was gone.

  “There must, indeed, have been a man here earlier,” Selena told Sean. “He returned with reinforcements. You were unconscious and McGrover was beginning to torture Traudl when they came in.”

  Traudl was in her second-floor bedroom, recovering from the shock. The most trusted servant was caring for her. Sean slumped on the cellar stairs, the bodies and blood before him. He rubbed his head and moaned in pain. “

  We’d best get a doctor. Come, and I’ll take you…”

  “Wait.” He was thinking. “This is very bad, I don’t know…God, my head’s not clear…”

  One of the servants was at the head of the cellar stairs. “Someone to see you, Mister Bloodwell.”

  “Well, that’s it. We’re finished now. A bunch of security men dead in my house, and…well, who is it, dammit?”

  “Lord Weddington, sir.”

  Dick Weddington. A friend. Selena’s heart leaped. She helped Sean up the stairs. They met Dick and retreated to the study.

  “My God, what happened!” Dick cried. He was in riding clothes. His boots had mud on them, caked in the space between the sole and heel. One did not acquire such mud in a stirrup. Selena knew already, but Sean did not. He was too concerned about the future he believed to be lost. Dispiritedly, he described what had happened, and Selena finished the story, omitting only that she herself had killed Darius McGrover.

  She suppressed an impulse to go back down to the cellar, to make sure he was still dead.

  “You know, this could be in your favor,” Dick suggested shrewdly, glancing at Selena.

  Sean raised his head. “And what in hell are you doing out? It couldn’t be much after three in the morning.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess you didn’t get my missive. I’m bound for Long Island and Westchester for a week. To see how my new men are getting along…”

  “Oh. Yes. But you were saying…”

  “This need not involve you, or the firm,” Dick said, leaning forward and speaking quickly. Dick had come to know Sean. Knew that his loyalty to the Empire was a willed, fully rational emotion. Knew that he expected reward for what he gave. And, finally, knew that Sean would not change his mind. So he pitched his strategy to that knowledge.

  “Did you ever expect Ludford to do anything like this?” Dick demanded, feigning a little more outrage than necessary. “You were the man who notified Ludford of Hamilton’s presence at the masque. And now they send McGrover in on you, when it’s clear from the start that this McGrover was some kind of madman. In fact, I’ve heard that Ludford was very uncomfortable with the man. His excess of zeal was dangerous to security itself. Now that’s been proven. Look, I’ll delay my trip. You get some rest. And in the morning we’ll go down to the Battery and see Ludford. He can pick up his bodies. If he wants the support of decent, restrained people in this town, he had best remember that dignity denied is dignity defiant. Ludford will be happy to find out about McGrover, don’t you worry,” Dick added. And he knew what he was talking about.

  The ploy worked. Sean was convinced that, by accident, his house had been used for mayhem, and, with all the bodies lying about, McGrover’s mention of Royce Campbell seemed a preposterous fabrication. How could that be?

  Or did he believe it? Selena was not sure. For his part, Lord Ludford remained cool and canny, as befit the guardian of state security. He handled the situation with caution and dexterity, so much so that his own motives were obscure. In effect, Ludford told Sean that the battle in his house might well have occurred anywhere. Ludford himself had been concerned about McGrover’s excessive zeal ever since the man had arrived from London. There had been nothing he could do about it, because McGrover was a favorite of Lord North, having rendered certain services in the past, best left unmentioned. But, of late, McGrover was thought to have been pursuing some personal vendetta, which Ludford did not detail. Whatever the nature of this vendetta, it was the ruthless interrogator’s personal passion. Obviously, it had caused him to ignore the fact that, for some months now, rebel groups had had him earmarked for assassination. Ludford himself had warned McGrover Of these reports. Selena listened to Ludford speak, and concluded that he was probably glad to be rid of McGrover, but justly skeptical of the monster’s bizarre demise.

  “So there you have it,” Ludford told Sean. A tragic error on McGrover’s part. An outrageous attempt by an overzealous investigator to besmirch the house of a Tory. And worse, McGrover had been careless, letting himself be spotted in the streets. Followed to the Bloodwell home, he had been ambushed there. Ludford assured Sean that everyone knew of Sean’s loyalty, and the security director immediately wrote his superiors in London, praising Sean’s bravery and cooperation in keeping confidential this incendiary situation. He also knew how to serve himself: buried in the same letter was an admission that he had not yet been able to identify, much less capture, the rebel’s master spy, who was working impudently somewhere in New York.

  But after that night, Sean was not the same. Selena would see it when he glanced up suddenly from his ledgers, his eyes fixed on a faraway scene. Or when he stood at the window watching the security men, who were ever present now “for the protection of the Tories on Bowling Gre
en.” Or she would see it when he thoughtfully regarded the now subdued, troubled Traudl. And she would even feel his remoteness when he took her in the warm summer bed, sheets cast off, their bodies naked and gleaming. He would love her as well, as skillfully and tenderly as ever, and she would respond in kind. Just what was the nature of the new quality she perceived in him? Was it disappointment? Or sadness? Was it wariness, or a conviction of danger? Had his estimation of her changed? Was he himself somehow different from the man he had been when they were joined under God on the deck of the Blue Foray?

  She did not know what to do, and so she did nothing, hoping he would return to himself. It would do no good for her to make great protestations of innocence. Such protestations are invariably self-defeating. Harbingers of grief.

  They made love, and kissed, and whispered good night. In the summer of 1777. Changelings, bound together. In sleep, he turned on his side, away from her, and thrust an arm over the edge of the bed. She tossed, neither asleep nor awake, golden hair tangling on the perfumed, lavender pillow. The satin sheet slid from her young, burning body. Neither she nor Sean knew what would be, but sleep took away, for short, sweet hours, the need to care. A confluence of forces and events was about to occur. Finally, the day arrived.

  Callie Fox was still at La Marinda, but in Selena’s need to talk to Dick, she was incautious when he arrived at the shop.

  “You’re here,” she cried, with a touch of desperation.

  Callie Fox glanced up from her work. She was suspicious. Dick began talking of a purchase for the wife of a friend, and Selena forced herself to calm down. After a time, Callie Fox excused herself and left. But not before she took a good long look at what she thought was going on, and not before she let them both know that she had her own opinion, all right.

  Selena waited until the seamstress had gone down the street, then turned to face Dick.

  “I’ve got to see Royce,” she said.

  He gave her a long look, half sad, half resigned, as if he had known that this day would come. Since her arrival in New York, he had been her closest friend. And almost from the first, he had also known of her past involvement with Royce. So now, he did not ask why. He knew why. “Royce is at sea,” he said.

  “When will he be back?”

  “He’s due in to our Montauk supply point sometime in late August. He’s been trying to disrupt the British blockade of Boston harbor.”

  Selena calculated. It was late July.

  “I could go to Montauk,” she said.

  He was sympathetic but firm. “Selena, don’t be a fool. There is no doubt that Ludford trusts Sean, and my sources tell me he’s convinced Sean had no knowledge of that incident at your house in May. But, Selena…” He stepped close to her, speaking urgently. “…Ludford is not so certain of you.”

  The information shook her.

  “Royce Campbell—although it could not be proven that he was there that night—would be a glittering prize. McGrover remembered your connection with Campbell, and he told his superior about you many times. It’s stuck in Ludford’s mind. Why do you think those security men hang about Bowling Green? It’s not to get a glimpse of your ankles, I can tell you that.”

  Selena blanched; they considered her potentially disloyal. I’m not, she thought resolutely, I’m just loyal to something else, and I’m going to stay that way.

  But it was clear that Dick was trying to dissuade her from seeing Royce.

  “In fact,” he was saying, “if I were Sean, I’d be more than a little watchful myself.”

  “I’m afraid he is.” She told him about the moodiness and doleful self-absorption.

  “You once told me something about your vow…”

  “Seeing Royce has nothing to do with my vow,” she said, too quickly. Late August in Montauk, she was thinking. Montauk was a remote village on the Atlantic, at the easternmost tip of Long Island. The Penrods went there annually to summer…

  “Selena, don’t try to fool me. Men are men and women are women. I know you and I know what he feels toward you…”

  “You do?” Her heart shot into skies of roaring glory. “He does?”

  Dick Weddington smiled ruefully.

  “Just once,” she pleaded. “I promise—just once. I have to see him alone, in a quiet place, so we can talk things out and lay it all to rest.”

  “That’s what you have in mind?”

  “I swear! Dick, try to see it as I do. We loved…” the past tense was as difficult a thing as she’d ever said “…each other. We thought each other dead. We’ve seen each other for only a couple of minutes. It was worse than never having seen each other at all! I must see him, and I’m afraid I’ll just go by myself sometime, and ruin everything for you, your work…”

  Outside, Otto Kollor drew up in the carriage, come to fetch her home to dinner. “Perhaps if Sean would take Davina and me to Montauk…”

  Dick Weddington succumbed. “All right, Selena,” he said, “but I’m warning you. Put that affair with Royce to rest, or you’ll have nothing but trouble for the rest of your life. I know what love is. I’ve been in love, too. But you have a fine husband, a lovely daughter, everything. We’ll win the war. Sean won’t like it, but he’ll adjust…”

  Maybe, she thought, fingers crossed.

  “…and your future will be as secure as anything can be. Don’t blow your hard-won security to kingdom come!”

  “I won’t. If I see Royce, just once, just the two of us…” Then the old haunting things can be laid to rest.

  “I’ll figure something out for you,” Dick said. “Some pretext I’ll send a message around to your house. All right?”.

  Yes. She agreed. She saw Dick outside, locked La Marinda and climbed up into the carriage. She greeted Otto so gaily that the Hessian driver was startled out of his complacency. He didn’t smile, though. Otto was satisfied with himself today for a number of reasons. The master had relied on him, told him to keep his eyes open. He’d halted the horses to get a bit of information from Callie Fox, just up the street. And, through the window, he’d seen the mistress talking earnestly with this Weddington fellow. He didn’t like the looks of it. Not one bit. Their heads had been too close together. He also remembered that Weddington had been there last February, with the man who’d fled the soldiers.

  It might not mean anything, but it was worth mentioning to Herr Bloodwell.

  Summer heat had built up throughout the day, and Selena ordered the dining room draperies drawn aside and the windows thrown open so they could enjoy the river breeze as they dined. “Wouldn’t it be nice at the seashore?” she asked brightly.

  Davina was in her usual good spirits. Traudl was almost recovered from the terrible affair in the cellar, but it had left her more serious than before, almost grave. Sean came a bit late to table. He had news; she could tell by his face. But he said nothing just then. The meal was light: cold, sliced meat, potatoes, salad, bear. Finally he told her, as if watching to see how she would react.

  “Word came from London today. Through Ludford’s office.”

  Selena looked up guardedly. “Oh?”

  “You’ll recall he commended me by letter to London? Well, they responded. I’m to be decorated.”

  He didn’t seem as cheerful as he ought to be, she thought.

  “You do understand what this means?” he asked, still with that uncharacteristic grimness in the face of such good news. “I’m formally recognized again, after all this time. We can go anywhere. The years of exile are over…”

  “And, after the decoration, you may get your title…”

  “No,” he answered flatly. “That will take more service than I’ve given the Crown so far. But, after the decoration…”

  “What award is it?” she asked belatedly, realizing that her delayed inquiry could easily be misconstrued as a lack of enthusiasm.

  “Order of the Golden Spur.”

  Selena was impressed, as anyone would have been. The Order of the Spur was granted only to
those who made “personal service to the monarch, in danger and risk of death.” True, Ludford had been playing politics, as Sean knew only too well. Ludford was using Sean as an example to the rest of the burghers of New York, telling them none of them would be neglected should they cast their lot with the Tories now.

  “Is Daddy a king now?” asked Davina, who had been following the conversation closely.

  Even Traudl laughed at that, forgetting, for the moment, her hovering melancholy.

  And Sean smiled, too. “You will never know,” he teased, “just where a bit of industry might lead, as long as you have a cache of Indian jewels as well.”

  Nevertheless, his severity did not dissipate. After the meal was over and Traudl took Davina off to bed, she asked him about it.

  “I think something’s wrong on Long Island,” he said. “It has something to do with Dick’s factors and representatives out there. One of his men, a young fellow by the name of Nathan Hale, seems to have switched locations. At first, he was working in the Port Washington area. He did fairly well, but he was never too good at keeping his records current. It seems, however, that he purchased more goods from local farmers than found their way back to my warehouses…”

  Selena knew why. Those supplies had found their way into the hold of the Selena.

  “It’s probably just an oversight that’ll be straightened out when Hale gets a chance to go over his books. But that won’t be soon, judging from his latest itinerary.”

  She looked at him questioningly.

  “He’s moved from Port Washington out to the eastern end of Long Island. I had no advance word of it, and Dick is usually most faithful about keeping me posted.”

  She seized the opportunity to try and make her point.

  “Oh, Sean, I was just thinking while driving back here in this heat, wouldn’t it be nice if we went out to the ocean for the rest of August? The Penrods are out near Montauk at their cottage, and Samantha told me about a new summer hotel there now, called the Colony. And I thought…”

  “The Penrods again? Look what almost happened the last time we became involved with them. Let him have his ten percent, but…”