He shrugged. “To fight demons, one must assume the guise of a demon.”
She looked at him. “I’m not sure I understand what that means.”
“No matter.” He glanced away, and with any other man, she might’ve thought him uncertain. “I go to visit my aunt this morn. Would you care to accompany me?”
It was a civilized invitation, and she rather wanted to know what he was about with this sudden transformation, but she bit her lip. Was it safe?
Her hesitation had lasted a fraction of a second too long. His pleasant expression turned to a scowl. “Are you afraid of me, Miss Corning?”
“Not at all.” She tilted her chin, daring him to call her on the fib.
“Then you won’t mind a simple drive in the city.”
Why did he want her to accompany him? She stared at him, trying to decipher his motivations.
“Come, Miss Corning,” he rumbled softly, “a simple yes or no will do.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “On one condition.”
“And that is?” His eyes had narrowed ominously at her words.
She took a breath. “I’ll come if you’ll tell me something about where you’ve been for the last seven years.”
His face darkened, and for a moment she thought he would turn and leave her in the hall. Then he nodded once, sharply. “Done. Go get your wrap.”
She ran up the stairs before he could change his mind.
But when she returned to the hallway, Lord Hope was not there. For a moment, disappointment swept through her. Had he only been playing with her?
Then George the footman said, “’E’s gone back to see Henry, miss. Said ’e wouldn’t be but a minute.”
“Oh.” Beatrice drew a breath, steadying her nerves. “Oh, well, in that case, I’ll call on Henry myself.”
The servants slept under the eaves, of course, way at the top of the town house. But because Henry was a big strong lad, and because he needed nursing, a pallet had been laid for him in a corner of the town-house kitchens. An old screen had been found to place in front of Henry’s pallet when he wanted privacy, but when she entered the kitchen, Beatrice saw that it had been put aside. Lord Hope squatted by the pallet, talking in a low tone to the footman lying there.
Beatrice halted just inside the kitchen door. She couldn’t see Lord Hope’s face—his back was to her—but Henry’s countenance was as brightly lit as if a god had come to visit him. It seemed an intimate moment somehow—even though the principals were surrounded by the bustle of the kitchen—and she didn’t want to intrude. So she stood and watched.
Lord Hope spoke as Henry regarded him intently. She remembered now how Lord Hope had called to the footmen, mistaking them for soldiers. Even then, even when she’d known he was in the midst of some strange delirium, she’d seen his worry. His real care for “his” men. She pressed her trembling fingers to her lips silently. Just when she decided he was entirely self-centered, just when she feared he was nothing but a madman, now he must show this noble side of himself? Dear God, how could she side with her uncle against such a man?
The viscount murmured something more, leaned a little closer to the footman, and placed his hand on Henry’s shoulder. With a final nod, he stood.
He turned and saw her.
Beatrice dropped her hand, smiling brightly.
“I’m sorry, I only meant to be a moment,” he said as he neared. He eyed her curiously.
“It’s no trouble at all.” She tilted her head to look up at him, still dazzled by the whiteness of his wig, the harshness of his tattoos. “Henry seemed pleased to see you.”
He frowned, glancing back toward Henry’s pallet. “I noticed in my army days that it sometimes made a great difference.”
“What did?”
“Visiting the wounded.” He held his arm for her, and she placed her fingertips on his black sleeve as they left the kitchen, very aware of the hard muscle beneath the fabric. “Sitting and chatting with a man laid low. It cheers the man’s spirit, I think. Makes him realize that he is needed in this world. That others wait for his recovery.”
“Did the other officers visit with their wounded men as well?” she asked as they came to the front hall.
“Some did. Not many.” He handed her into the waiting carriage and then climbed in to sit opposite her. “I always thought it a pity more officers did not realize the effectiveness of visiting their wounded men.”
He knocked on the roof to signal the driver that they were ready.
“Perhaps they weren’t as compassionate as you,” she said softly.
He seemed irritated. “Compassion has nothing to do with it. It’s an officer’s duty to look after his men. They are in his charge.”
Beatrice looked at him wonderingly. Duty might be a different motive than compassion, yet the outcome was the same. There’d been a look of awe in Henry’s face when Lord Hope had talked to him. Then, too, if Lord Hope cared so much for a footman he hardly knew but whom he considered one of “his” men, would he not care equally for men who’d actually served in His Majesty’s army?
She licked her lips. “I’ve heard that many men who’ve served in His Majesty’s army become quite destitute when they leave.”
He glanced at her curiously. “Where have you heard that? I wouldn’t think it a lady’s daily conversation.”
“Oh, here and there.” She shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. “I’ve also heard that some members of parliament are thinking of presenting a bill that would ensure veterans a fair pension.”
He snorted. “That’ll die a quick death. There’re too many who would rather see the country’s funds go elsewhere.”
“But if enough members back it—”
“They won’t.” He shook his head. “No one cares about the common soldier. Why d’you think they’re paid so poorly?”
Beatrice bit her lip, unsure how to convince him to her cause. “If you become the earl, you’ll sit in the House of Lords and—”
“I haven’t the time to think of sitting in the House of Lords right now.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I must focus all of my mind, my time, my energy in obtaining my title. Once that bridge is crossed, then I’ll contemplate the tangled web of politics, not before then.”
Beatrice’s heart sank. By the time he decided to involve himself in politics, it might be too late for Mr. Wheaton’s bill. Too late for Jeremy.
She bit her lip, glancing out the carriage window as they rumbled along. How, then, could she convince Lord Hope that Mr. Wheaton needed his help to pass the bill now? If only she knew why he made the decisions he did—why he was so obsessed with regaining his title. She straightened and turned to him with determination. It was even more important than ever to find out what had happened to him in the last seven years.
What had turned him into the man he was today.
REYNAUD WATCHED MISS Corning from beneath lowered eyelids. She sat primly on the seat across from him, nibbling at her full bottom lip. What was going through her quick little mind? And why had she brought up parliament of all things? Her uncle was a keen politician. Perhaps she merely wanted to know if he’d become interested in politics once he attained the title. Become like her uncle.
He frowned. That wasn’t likely to happen. He might be wearing a proper wig and clothing, but he’d never settle into complacent English life entirely. His time in the Colonies had changed him, warped him. He was no longer the proper English aristocrat who’d left London seven years ago. Perhaps that was what bothered her now. Perhaps she saw through the trappings of civilization to the man he really was. Sometimes he caught her staring at him with a curious uneasiness, like a deer scenting the air, aware of danger but with no knowledge of the wolf hiding in the trees behind her.
He turned his head to gaze blindly out the carriage window. His aunt had counseled him to find an English wife of good family. Well, wasn’t that exactly what Miss Corning was? Above reproach, a maiden of his enemy’s family? She was perfe
ct for the role of wife. He pushed aside that primitive part of himself that exulted at the thought of this particular woman belonging to him. Instead, he began laying plans. A year ago he would’ve simply carried her off in a raid. Now he must court in the English ways, which meant gaining the lady’s favor.
Across from him, she cleared her throat with a delicate little sound.
He looked up at her.
She smiled, determined and beautiful, from beneath a ridiculously wide-brimmed hat. “I believe you made a promise, my lord?”
He inclined his head, though his pulse picked up. Of course she wouldn’t forget their bargain.
And indeed her next words solidified his thought. “I know ’tisn’t any of my business, but could you tell me where you were all these years?”
He looked at her silently, struggling not to bat her down with harsh, dismissive words.
The color rose in her cheeks, but she held his gaze even as she tilted her chin up. “Please.”
Courage would be an asset in the mother of his children.
“It is your business,” he said. “I was in the American Colonies.”
“Yes, I know,” she said gently, “but where? And why? Did you lose your memory? Who you were? I’ve heard strange cases of injured men forgetting who and what they were.”
“No. I always knew who I was.” He looked at her, so sheltered from the world. Would such a tale shock her? Repulse her? But she had asked. “I was captured by Indians.”
“Indeed.” Her gray eyes widened. “But surely you haven’t been with them for seven years?”
“I was.” He hesitated. The subject wasn’t one he ever wanted to visit again in this lifetime, but the expression on Miss Corning’s face was rapt. Had not Othello wooed his Desdemona thus? If telling her his bloody war tales would win her, he’d do it, no matter the pain to himself. Brown eyes stared up through a mask of blood.
Even if it tore his soul in two.
“I had no choice. I was enslaved.”
BEATRICE DREW IN her breath at the word enslaved. The carriage bumped around a corner, jostling her against the side, but she paid little mind, caught up as she was with the thought of proud Lord Hope in slavery. The very thought was an abomination.
“Is that where you got those?” She nodded at the bird tattoos.
He raised a hand to trace them. “Aye.”
“Tell me,” she said simply.
His hand dropped. “You’ve heard about the massacre at Spinner’s Falls.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “There was an ambush. Most of the regiment were killed.”
He nodded, his face turned toward the window, though she somehow knew he saw nothing of what passed outside. “We were marching through the woods from Quebec to Fort Edward. The trail was narrow, and the men were forced to walk in single file. The regiment became strung out. Too damned strung out.”
She watched as a muscle ticked in his jaw. He didn’t like telling her this story, but he was doing it anyway.
He inhaled. “I was riding to tell our colonel that I thought we should stop and let the tail catch up to the head of the line when the Indians attacked.”
His lips set firmly, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t go on, but then he looked at her, his black eyes desperate.
“We couldn’t form a line of defense. My men were being picked off before they could rally. The Indians shot from both sides of the trail, hidden in the trees. My men were screaming and falling, and then my colonel was pulled from his horse.”
He looked blindly at his hands. “They scalped him. My men were dying all about me, screaming and being scalped.” His fingers flexed into fists. “My horse caught a bullet and went down. I managed to jump free, but I was surrounded. I don’t remember what happened then—I think I was struck on the head—but when I became aware of my surroundings again, we were being marched to the Indian camp. The French had given us to their allies as war booty.”
“Dear God,” Beatrice breathed, feeling sick to her stomach. How terrible for Lord Hope to lose his men thusly. How impotent he must’ve felt.
He was gazing out the window again and made no indication that he’d heard her. “After we made the camp, I was separated from the others by the Indian who had captured me. His name was Sastaretsi. He stripped me naked, took my clothes away, and gave me only a thin, flea-infested blanket to cover myself with. Then Sastaretsi marched me through the woods for six weeks. By the time we’d made his village, I was walking in bare feet through grass crusted with frost.”
He paused, remembering that awful time, and Beatrice was silent, waiting.
“All that time,” he whispered. “All that time, I schemed on how to kill Sastaretsi. But my hands were bound so tightly in front of me that the flesh had swollen into the leather thongs. He’d pulled my fingernails from my hands so I could not use even their feeble strength to scratch my bonds loose. And at night he tied my bound hands to a stake driven deep in the ground. I was weakened from the cold and lack of nourishment. I think I might’ve died in that endless wood if we hadn’t happened upon a French trapper and his son. The man spoke some Wyandot and seemed to take pity on me, for he gave me an old shirt and a pair of leggings. Those leggings and shirt saved me.”
He was silent again, and this time Beatrice knew he didn’t mean to go on.
“But why?” she finally blurted. “Why did Sastaretsi do all this to you?”
He looked at her then, and his eyes were blank—flat as if he were dead. “Because he meant to burn me at the stake when we reached his village.”
Chapter Six
Now, a giant hourglass sits in the throne room of the Goblin King, its sands endlessly flowing until time itself shall stop. By this means, the goblins mark time in their sunless land deep beneath the earth. It happened that one year when Longsword went to plea for his freedom, the Goblin King was in a particularly good mood, having just that day defeated a great prince in battle.
The Goblin King glanced at his hourglass and then said to Longsword, “You’ve served me well for seven years, my slave. Because of this, I shall make you a bargain.”
Longsword bowed his head, for he knew well that a bargain with the Goblin King suits only the Goblin King.
“You may walk the earth above for one year,” the Goblin King said. “Mark you, one year only. At the end of that time, if you have found one Christian soul to voluntarily take your place in the land of the goblins, then you shall be free and I shall trouble you no more.”
“And if I do not?” Longsword asked.
The Goblin King grinned. “Then you shall serve me for all eternity. . . .”
—from Longsword
Lottie Graham sipped her wine, peering at her husband over the edge of the glass. Nathan was absorbed in thought tonight, his broad brow slightly knit, his blue eyes vague and unfocused.
She set down the wineglass precisely and said, “We received an invitation to a ball hosted by Miss Molyneux today.”
There was a pause that stretched so long that for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer her at all.
Then Nate blinked. “Who?”
“Miss Cristelle Molyneux.” Lottie cut into the roast duck on her plate. “She’s Reynaud St. Aubyn’s aunt on his mother’s side. I think she plans to reintroduce him to society. In any case, the invitation was sent on scandalously short notice—she plans it for this Thursday.”
“Seems silly to plan it on so little notice,” Nate said. “Will anyone show, I wonder?”
“Oh, she’ll have no problem filling her ballroom.” Lottie speared a piece of duck, but then set it back on the plate. Her appetite seemed nonexistent tonight. “Everyone will be wanting to see the mysterious mad earl.”
Nate frowned. “He’s not an earl yet.”
“But surely it’s only a matter of time?” Lottie twirled her wineglass stem.
“Only a fool would think that.”
Lottie felt tears spring to her eyes. She l
ooked down at her lap. “I’m sorry you think me a fool.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice was brisk, impatient.
There’d been a time back before they’d married when her slightest frown would cause him to offer profuse apologies. Once, he’d sent her an arrangement of flowers so big it’d taken two footmen to bring it into the house. All because he’d not been able to take her driving on a day it’d rained.
Now he thought her a fool.
“It’ll take a special parliamentary committee, I believe,” Nate was saying as she thought these gloomy things, “to decide if this man is indeed St. Aubyn, and if he is, who the proper Earl of Blanchard is. That, at least, is the opinion of many of the learned parliamentarians. There hasn’t been a case such as this one in living memory, and many are quite interested in the legal implications.”
“Are they?” Lottie murmured. She’d lost interest in the conversation while her husband had finally become engaged in it. Had her marriage always been thus? “In any case, I thought it would be nice to attend the ball. It’s bound to have all the best gossip of the year.”
She glanced up in time to catch the look of irritation that crossed his face.
“I know that keeping up with the latest scandal is vital to you, dearest,” he said. “But there are actually other things of import in the world, you know.”
There was a short, awful silence.
“First I’m a fool and now I’m interested only in gossip,” Lottie said very clearly, because she was holding back the tears with all her will. “I begin to wonder, sir, why you married me at all.”
“Now, Lottie, you know I didn’t mean it that way,” he replied, and didn’t even bother trying to hide the edge of exasperation in his voice.
“In what way did you mean it, Nathan?”
He shook his head, a reasonable man beset by a mad wife. “You’re overwrought.”