He bit her shoulder and shuddered heavily against her, and she felt his fire flood her, joining and mixing with her light, combining to become an inferno.
THE SUN SHONE through the windows when Beatrice next woke. She lay and watched as Reynaud washed his face in the basin on the dresser. He’d donned smallclothes but nothing else yet, and the muscles of his back flexed as he moved, making the scars ripple.
“You haven’t told me how you managed to escape your captivity,” she said quietly.
Did it matter anymore? She didn’t know. Perhaps not, but she still needed to know.
He turned, unsurprised, at the sound of her voice. “You’re awake.”
“Yes.” She drew the covers up over her chin. It was warm, and the bed smelled faintly of their combined intimate scents. She rather wished she could spend all day in it and never have to get up to face her realities. Right here, right now, she could pretend she had a loving marriage.
“Will you tell me?” she asked softly.
He faced the dresser again and she thought he’d refuse. He took up a razor and a strip of leather and began stropping it. She’d noticed that although he had a very competent valet, Reynaud liked to do most of his dressing himself. Perhaps he hadn’t yet gotten used to a personal servant.
“Many Indian captives never go home again,” he said quietly. “They die in captivity not because their masters are so strong but because the prisoners no longer try to escape.”
“I don’t understand,” Beatrice said.
He nodded. “It doesn’t make much sense unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. I told you before that the Indians in that part of the New World adopt their prisoners into their family to take the place of family members who have died.”
“But you said they weren’t truly regarded as family. That their role was symbolic.”
“Mmm.” He finished sharpening his razor and laid it aside. “That’s more or less correct. The prisoner takes the place of a working member of the family—say a hunter—so those skills can be fulfilled.”
“But there’s more?” she asked.
“Sometimes.” He lathered his face with some soap from a dish. “I suppose that it’s only human nature to become fond of a person one lives with day in and day out. One hunts with members of the band or family, eats and sleeps with them. It’s a very intimate living arrangement.”
She was silent as she watched him pick up the razor and make the first pass through the foam on the side of his face.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the captive becomes a true member of the family. He may take a wife and even have children by her.”
Beatrice stilled. “Did you take an Indian wife?”
He rinsed the razor in the basin of water and looked over at her. “No. But it wasn’t because I couldn’t have.”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He tilted his head and shaved the area next to his ear in short, careful strokes. It might’ve been her imagination, but it seemed to Beatrice that he took overlong at it. “After Gaho spared my life for the second time, she became rather fond of me—whether because of myself or because of her dream, I’m not sure. But, in any case, she determined that I should be content living among them, and she knew that if I had a wife and family, I would have reason not to try and escape.”
“She meant to tie you to herself,” Beatrice said.
He nodded and tapped the razor slowly against the porcelain basin. “Exactly. But Gaho had a problem. Both her daughters were already married, and although sometimes men of their tribe would take a second wife, the women never take a second husband.”
“How unfair,” Beatrice said drily.
A smile flickered across his face and was gone. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Humph.”
He turned back to the mirror over the dresser and said, “I spent that next winter recovering from my illness and injuries. In the spring, Gaho took me and tattooed my face with the image of one of her gods. She pierced my ear and gave me one of her own earrings. In this way, she signified that I was a good hunter, part of her band, and that she valued me. Then she sent word to another band of Indians whom she wanted to befriend. She sought to arrange a marriage between me and the daughter of a warrior.”
She saw the muscle in his jaw flex. “In this way, the two bands would make peace and become allies.”
“Was the girl pretty?” Beatrice asked before she could stop herself.
“Pretty enough,” he replied, “but she was very young, not yet sixteen, and I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t want a wife and children who would bind me more firmly to Gaho and her band. I wanted to come home—it was the only thing I thought of.”
“What did you do?”
“I found a way to talk to the girl myself. It was forbidden in theory, but since we were supposed to be courting, the elders looked the other way. I found that the girl already had a secret beau, a slave like myself but from another tribe. After that, it was simple. I gave the other man everything of value I had, what furs and little trinkets I had saved up in two years’ captivity. The next night, my prospective bride disappeared with her lover.”
“That was kind of you,” Beatrice said.
“No.” He splashed water on his face and wiped away the last of the suds. “Kindness had very little to do with it. I was determined to escape. Determined to come home and recover the life that should’ve been mine. Had I been forced to marry that girl, it would’ve been easy to relax into that life. To become a member of Gaho’s family in truth. To never see England again.”
He threw down the cloth he’d used to dry his face and looked at her. His eyes were black and stark. “In fact, it was because of me that Gaho and her entire band were slaughtered.”
“What?” Beatrice whispered.
He nodded, his mouth twisting bitterly. “It took me five years to gather enough funds so that when the opportunity presented itself, I could escape. In my sixth year, a French trader began visiting the camp, and little by little, I persuaded him to help me flee, even though it meant risking his own life. We walked for three days through the woods until we came to his camp. And there I heard that Gaho’s enemies were planning to attack her band. I was half-starved and weary, but I tell you I ran back to that village. Ran back to save the woman who had saved me.”
He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers.
“What did you find?” Beatrice asked, because he had to finish this awful story.
“I was too late,” he said quietly. “They were all dead, young and old, the camp a smoking ruins. I looked for Gaho. I turned over the bodies, looking into each bloody face.”
“Did you find her?” she whispered.
He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes as if to blot out a sight. “When I came to Gaho, I only knew her by her dress. I turned her and her brown eyes were staring up at me through a mask of blood. They were dull and lifeless. She’d been scalped.”
“I’m so sorry.”
His head jerked up, his face hardening. “Don’t be. She was an old Indian woman. She meant nothing to me.”
“But, Reynaud”—Beatrice sat up—“you said she saved you, treated you as a son. I know you were fond of her.”
“You don’t understand.” He picked up his knife and stared at it a moment—so long she thought he might never finish. Then he said softly, “The band that attacked Gaho and her family was the same one she’d tried to make peace with five years before. The one I was to marry into.”
Beatrice inhaled, not saying anything, simply watching him.
“If I was fond of her, I would’ve made that marriage. I would’ve ensured her village’s safety. I didn’t. I had only one goal the entire time I spent in her family—to come home. Nothing was more important.” He slid the knife into the sheath at his waist. “After I buried Gaho, I spent months tramping through the woods, evading Indians and Frenchmen alike until I reached British territory. And every step of the way, I reminded
myself that I’d sacrificed Gaho and her family for this freedom.”
“Reynaud—”
“No.” He looked at her sharply. “You wanted to know, so let me finish. I had very little funds and no friends. When I reached a port, I signed on as a cook on a ship to pay my passage home.”
“You were ill and feverish when you got here,” she whispered.
He nodded. “I lived on dried meat and berries for months in the woods. By the time I made civilization, I was mostly skin and bones, and the fare on a ship isn’t particularly nourishing. I contracted some illness from the sailors and was feverish when we docked in London.”
“You’re lucky to’ve survived,” she said soberly.
“I was driven,” he said. “I wasn’t going to die without seeing home again. And I made a vow when I stepped foot on that ship: This was the last time I’d ever serve another man. I’ll never let myself be captured again, never be imprisoned to another’s will. I’ll die before I let it happen again. Because if I do, I’ll have let her die for nothing. Do you understand?”
She stared at him, standing so proud and tall. The scars of his captivity were etched upon his back, his years of imprisonment illustrated by the tattoos on his face. He’d always have them with him, no matter where he went, no matter what he did. There was no way he could ever forget his captivity or his vow to never submit to another’s will. He was a hard man, and his will was iron.
He nodded. “Now you know.”
She swallowed, feeling a little sick but not wanting to appear weak before him. “Yes, now I know.”
He turned his back on her and left the room.
Beatrice looked about the room, dazed. His story had been worse even than she’d expected, because now she did know: Reynaud would never let himself love her.
WHAT HAD POSSESSED Beatrice to make him tell that story? Reynaud ran down the stairs to the front hall. What did she want of him? Had he not been an attentive husband and a sensitive lover? What more did she need?
And why bring all this up today? His belly felt twisted in knots, and he absently rubbed it as he strode through the front hall. He needed his mind sharp and clear, uncluttered by emotional upheaval. Tonight he’d make amends for his abrupt exit—bring her those flowers that Jeremy had said she’d like. But right now he had an appointment with his solicitors to go over his petition to the special committee, and that he couldn’t miss.
Reynaud was descending the front steps of his town house, his mind still occupied with thoughts of Beatrice, when he heard his name called. He turned and saw a vision from his past.
Alistair Munroe walked toward him, bearing the scars of ritual Indian torture on his face.
Reynaud flinched.
“Horrible, aren’t they?” Munroe rasped in a raw voice.
Reynaud studied him. Munroe’s right cheek was marred by the scars of knife wounds and burning sticks. A black eye patch covered the socket of one eye. Reynaud had seen the captured killed by Indians twice—one right after Spinner’s Falls and again in his fourth year with Gaho’s band. Her husband had disappeared for a month one summer and then returned with an enemy warrior he’d captured on a raid. The man had taken two days to die.
“Did you scream?” he asked.
Munroe shook his head. “No.”
“Then you were a worthy captive,” Reynaud said. “Had you not been rescued, you would’ve been tortured to death eventually. Then the men of the tribe would have cut your heart from your body, and all would have eaten a small piece of it so that they might take your courage into their own bodies and use it when next they fought.”
Munroe threw back his head and laughed, the sound harsh and rusty. “No one has ever talked about my scars so frankly to my face.”
Reynaud gestured, unsmiling. “They’re badges of honor. I have the same on my back.”
“Do you now?” Munroe looked at him thoughtfully. “You must’ve been a stubborn bastard to survive seven years a captive.”
“You might say that.” Reynaud cocked his head. “Have you been to see Vale yet?”
“Indeed I have, and he says you might have a small chore for me.”
“Good man.” Reynaud grinned. “Actually, I have two favors to ask of you. Let me tell you what I need done. . . .”
LORD HASSELTHORPE CLIMBED into his carriage and pounded his stick against the roof to alert the driver. Then he sat back and withdrew a memorandum book from his greatcoat pocket. His majority was thin, but he had no doubt they would easily vote down Wheaton’s ridiculous veteran’s pension bill. The government could ill afford to pay drunks and riffraff to lie about all day just because they once took the king’s shilling. Still, it never hurt to be careful. He licked his thumb and turned to the first page in the little book and began to study his speech against the bill.
So intent was he on the points he meant to argue, in fact, that it was some time before he noticed that the carriage was driving by Hyde Park.
Lord Hasselthorpe scowled and leaped to his feet, knocking against the carriage roof. “Stop the carriage! Stop the carriage, I say! You’re going in the wrong damned direction.”
The carriage pulled to the side of the road and halted. Hasselthorpe prepared to give the idiot coachman a tongue-lashing. But before he could reach the carriage door, it was jerked open and a familiar face filled the doorway.
“What the hell are you doing?” Hasselthorpe roared.
Chapter Sixteen
So Longsword lived with the princess and her father in the royal castle, and his days were filled with ease and joy. The food was rich and abundant, his clothing warm and soft; he didn’t have to battle any imps or demons, and the princess was delightful company. In fact, the more time Longsword spent riding with the princess, dining with her, and strolling the castle gardens, the sweeter his pleasure became, until he longed to spend all his days and nights with her forever.
But he knew he could not. His year on earth was growing to a close, and the Goblin King would soon demand his return….
—from Longsword
Westminster Hall’s stern Gothic architecture gave it a conservative air much admired by the majority of the older members of parliament. A corner of Reynaud’s mouth curled up as he neared the imposing doors. He’d come here often as a young man, accompanying his father when he sat in the House of Lords. It was strange to enter now, knowing that he came to defend a title held by his father—a title that should’ve passed to him without any dispute at all. He squared his shoulders and thrust his chin out as he entered the facade. It occurred to him they were the same movements he used to make right before battle.
This, too, was a battle, but one he must fight with his wits.
Reynaud strode through the great vaulted hall, passing under the watchful eyes of the angels that lined the eaves, and proceeded to a dark back passage. This led down a short flight of stairs and to a series of dark-paneled doors. Outside one was a somberly dressed servant.
The servant bowed to Reynaud. “They’re waiting within, my lord.”
Reynaud nodded. “Thank you.”
The dark little room he entered was sparsely furnished. Four rows of wooden benches sat facing a large wood table. Beside the table was a single tall chair. The room was loud with the voices of men, for the benches were nearly full. There were twenty members of this Select Committee for Privileges, appointed from the House of Lords to decide the matter of his title. As Reynaud found a seat, the chairman of the committee, Lord Travers, got up from where he’d been sitting with Beatrice’s uncle on the front bench. He saw Reynaud, nodded, and went to stand before the tall chair.
“My lords, shall we begin?”
The room gradually quieted, although total silence was not achieved, because several members continued to murmur, and one elderly lord was cracking walnuts in the corner, apparently oblivious to the proceedings around him.
Lord Travers nodded, gave a brief, dry outline of the case before the committee, and then called on Reynaud. br />
Reynaud took a deep breath, his fingers moving to touch where his knife usually hung by his side before he remembered he’d left it at home. He stood and strode to the front of the room and faced his peers. The faces that looked back at him were mostly old. Would they understand? Did they still have pity?
He took a breath. “My lords, I stand before you and plead for the title my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and his father before him held. I ask you for what is only mine by birth. You have papers attesting to my identity. That, I think, is not at issue.” He paused and looked at the men sitting in judgment of him. Not a one looked particularly sympathetic. “What is at issue is what my opponent intends to claim: that I am mad.”
That caused several lords to frown and put their heads together. Reynaud felt his shoulder blades twitch. The tack he was taking was a risk, but a calculated one.
He let the murmurs die and then lifted his chin. “I am not mad. What I am is an officer of His Majesty’s army, one who has seen perhaps more than his fair share of combat and hardship. If I am mad, then every officer who ever saw battle, who ever came home missing limb or eye, who ever dreamed in the night of blood and war cries, is mad as well. Shame me and you shame every brave man who has fought for this country.”
The voices had grown louder at his assertion, but Reynaud raised his voice to be heard over the murmuring. “Grant me, then, my lords, what is mine and mine alone. The title that belonged to my father. The title that in time will descend to my son. The earldom of Blanchard. My earldom.”
There were frowns and voices raised in argument as he made his way back to his seat. As Reynaud sat down he wondered if he’d just won back his title—or lost it forever.
ALGERNON DOWNEY, THE Duke of Lister, was on the way to the House of Lords, but he paused on the front steps of his town house to give his secretary some additional instructions. “I’ve run out of patience. Tell my aunt that if she cannot keep figures, then she should hire someone literate to do it for her. Until then, I do not intend to give her any further monies this quarter. A few refusals of service from tradesmen may help her to be more frugal with her allowance.”