A brief frown flitted across his handsome face and then vanished. “I wanted him to get you pregnant, but the stupid bastard couldn’t. That was the only mistake I made when I chose him for you. I didn’t know he really didn’t like women. He hid that from me, until it was too late for me to get rid of him and choose someone else.”
Julia’s mind was working sluggishly. “You…killed my parents?”
“They were in the way,” he explained almost politely. “People were always getting in the way when I arranged your life. Or making mistakes. That stupid cow—what was her name?—Helen, I think. She was a friend of Lissa’s, so I used her. She thought I was going to marry her. I told her I had a wife in an asylum. That kind of tale always appeals to silly little bitches. She wasn’t bad, really loved being tumbled in a stable. But she disappointed me. She made a mistake with the message I told her to give you. You got it too late, and that ruined my plan. So of course I had to kill her too.”
Sickened, Julia stared at him.
His vacant smile widened. “I’m really surprised you didn’t figure it out. He did. I suppose he was trying to protect you in that way as well, not telling you about me. I wish I could see his face when he finds out it was all for nothing.”
One of her hands was still resting on the wooden box behind her; without really being aware of her action, she closed her fingers around the polished wood of the cane. His eyes, she thought, they’re so empty. She’d never seen that before—except in the newspaper photo she’d all but forgotten about.
“What was all for nothing?” she asked, trying to think, to understand.
Adam Prescott chuckled softly, the sound like wind rustling through dry leaves. “He thought he could win. When he took you away from Adrian and put guards around you. He thought he could defeat me. Today is our birthday, did you know that? No, of course not. Neither does he. I’ve always known, though. Just the way I’ve known you had to be kept from him because he couldn’t be allowed to make himself whole with your love.” The final word was almost spat out, and he took another step closer.
“Whole?” Julia was bewildered, and yet some part of her understood.
In a suddenly reasonable tone, he said, “My gift isn’t dependent on anything outside myself. That’s my strength. But he has to have you. He has to be connected to you. All I have to do is cut that tie, and I’ll win. It’ll be easy to destroy him then. Once I kill you, he’ll be alone, and his gift dies with you.”
“Magic,” she whispered.
“Fortune, actually. He even got the name, but it was mine by rights. I believe I’ll claim it for my own. When he’s gone. You do understand why I have to kill both of you?”
Julia shook her head slowly, her terrified gaze fixed on his dead eyes and blank smile as he took another step toward her; he was barely more than an arm’s length away now. Every muscle in her body was tense and quivering, and her fingers gripped the cane so tightly they ached.
Adam made a little “tsk” sound, mildly impatient. “He’ll fight me now that he’s beginning to realize what we are; that’s why I have to destroy him. And if I don’t kill you first, he’ll just keep getting stronger. I can’t have that—” He broke off, stiffening, and tilted his head as though he were listening to some far-off sound.
For the first time Julia became aware of crackling sounds and a dim roar, and she caught the acrid smell of smoke. The house was on fire, she realized, the lower floor burning. She thought that was what he was listening to, but when he spoke she realized it was something else.
“He’s coming,” Adam murmured. He leaned over to set the lamp on the floor. “I have to finish it now, before—”
Julia didn’t wait to hear the rest. She pulled the cane from its box and swung it with all her strength. The heavy gold handle struck him a solid blow on his shoulder, the force of contact numbing her hand, and he went over sideways with a startled cry of pain.
Still holding the cane, Julia ran. The hallway was thick with smoke, making her cough and making her eyes water, but she didn’t slow her pace until she reached the top of the stairs. The roar of the fire was louder now, the smoke even thicker—and the stairs were burning. There was a secondary stairway at the rear of the house for the servants’ use, but it was back the way she’d come, and not even a fear of burning could make her retrace her steps.
She hadn’t knocked him out, just down; he’d be coming after her. Desperate, she darted into one of the salons on the second floor, hoping she could open a window and escape that way. But before she could cross the room, she heard the front door crash open, and heard Cyrus shout her name. That wonderful voice jerked her back around. She wanted to call out to him, to go out into the hall so she could see him, but something held her motionless and silent as she pressed herself against the wall beside the open salon door. The cane still gripped in one hand, she pressed the other over her mouth to muffle the sounds of her coughing, and strained to hear…
Cyrus went straight up the stairs, ignoring the flames all around him, and didn’t stop until he reached the top. The smoke burned his eyes and throat, but he saw Adam Prescott standing motionless a few feet away, a gun in his hand.
“Where is she, you bastard?” Cyrus demanded, fighting the murderous urge to throw himself at the other man. He could feel Julia nearby, and he was almost sure she was unhurt, but the house was burning and soon none of them would be able to escape.
Adam laughed, a strange, high sound filled with the primal terror of an animal for fire. “A mistake, another mistake, I used too much kerosene.” The words had a singsong rhythm, and his wide, empty smile was like a death’s-head grimace. “She’ll burn—we’ll all burn now. But I win. Yes, I win. Say good-bye, brother.” He lifted the gun.
“No!” Julia burst from the salon, closer to Adam than to Cyrus, the cane held high in her hands. Without hesitation she rushed across the landing and struck, bringing the heavy cane down on Adam’s extended arm.
The gun fell and he stumbled back away from her. The smoke was so thick it was almost impossible to see, and he probably never realized how close he was to the fragile wooden banister until he fell against it. The decorative barrier splintered, and he dropped like a stone to the marble floor far below.
“Julia—” Cyrus reached her just in time to support her as she sagged. Her wide green eyes, tearing from the smoke, looked up at him for a moment out of her white face, and then a hoarse little sigh escaped her and she crumpled against him.
—
Her dreams were dreadful at first; she wanted to wake up. There was fire all around, the flames roaring with a maniac’s laugh, and she held desperately to the cane because it was all that would keep her safe. Cyrus stood in front of her, but there were two of him, and she knew only one was real. Which one? It was terribly important that she guess correctly, because one was life and the other death.
She couldn’t trust herself to choose. And if she didn’t choose, if she held back and waited, then maybe she could be certain. But the flames were getting closer, and she suddenly realized what would happen if she waited. The chance for happiness gone. The chance for life gone. And, after all, wasn’t that the point, to take the chance? To trust beyond knowledge, because that was where love came from?
She chose, and when his strong arms closed around her, she felt a kind of happiness she’d never known before. The flames faded away. There was softness, and cool peace. Her body seemed peculiarly aware of itself, as if all her senses had turned inward. In her dream, a little girl with dark hair and green eyes talked to her, seriously explaining what it would mean to be Fortune’s love, and Fortune’s wife.
Julia listened with gravity equaling the girl’s. Magic, oh, yes. And love. So much love. She wasn’t wary of the future anymore, or frightened of anything at all. The little girl smiled and went away—but not very far.
It was very quiet when she opened her eyes, and only one lamp was on in the bedroom. She was in the new house, she realized. She was in bed,
naked beneath the covers. She turned her head slowly and saw Cyrus sitting in a chair close beside the bed. He was holding her hand, and as she looked at him he leaned forward and kissed it, smiling at her.
“You’re always taking care of me,” she murmured, wondering vaguely why her throat wasn’t raw from the smoke she’d breathed.
“You took care of me today,” he reminded her in his black velvet voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about him, sweetheart, warn you. If you’d known there was a reason to be wary, you never would have left here alone. I didn’t know who the threat was until today, but that’s no excuse.”
Julia wasn’t upset he hadn’t told her; she thought she had needed the weeks of peace, or she wouldn’t have been able to do what she had in defense of herself and Cyrus. “It’s all right,” she said. “But how did you get us out of there? The stairs were burning.”
“They weren’t when I carried you out.”
The statement didn’t surprise her, and she merely nodded. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Yes, love.”
“Who was he?” She hesitated, then added, “He talked a bit before I got away from him. He said he’d killed my parents. And Helen. And that he married me to Adrian to…to keep me away from you. Did he do all that?”
Cyrus nodded. “I believe he did. He’s manipulated people and influenced events for years. As for who he was—well, I’m not sure. He called me brother. Maybe he was my brother.”
Julia’s fingers tightened in his. “He was no part of you. He was evil.”
Looking down at her hand, holding it in both of his now, Cyrus spoke very quietly. “He was evil. But he was like me in some way, connected to me. I don’t know how. Now that he’s gone, I may never know.” His gaze rose to her face, the liquid black eyes nakedly expressive. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I have you. That you’re safe is the only important thing. I was so afraid he’d take you away from me.”
“I love you,” she said.
Cyrus went utterly still.
Julia smiled. “I didn’t know it until I thought he was going to kill you. I’d been afraid to let myself love you, to take the chance. But when I thought I was going to lose you…”
“Sweetheart…” He came over onto the bed, drawing her up against him. “God, I love you so much.” He was holding her, his head bowed and face buried in the curve of her neck. “I searched for you all my life and never knew it until I found you.”
She was holding him as well, happy and not worried about all the questions still unanswered. She had an odd belief that the answers would be provided eventually. Some of them, at least; the important ones.
“Come to bed with me?” she murmured.
He drew back just a little, and then kissed her tenderly. “You haven’t eaten anything since lunch. Aren’t you hungry, love?”
“For you.” She stroked his lean cheek, smiling a peculiarly feminine, intimate smile. “I always seem to be hungry for you. I think it’s part of your magic.”
This time, his kiss was deeper and more intense. “Then you have magic too,” he murmured against her mouth. “Because I can’t get enough of you, my sweet.”
Her green eyes gleamed at him in the dim room. “I’d say we were perfectly matched. Make love to me, darling.”
She didn’t have to ask him again.
—
On a warm, pleasant afternoon of the following May, Cyrus leaned against the back of a park bench and watched his wife and Felice Stanton as they stood a few yards away talking to another woman. Julia was glowing, her lovely face alight with happiness and her vivid green eyes serene. Pregnancy agreed with her; she hadn’t suffered even a single bout of morning sickness and, though well into her sixth month, retained the grace of movement that was peculiarly hers.
Cyrus never tired of looking at her. And he never ceased to feel a sense of wonder. During the last months, her love, given so freely and completely, had deepened the bond between them. Cyrus never felt lonely now, and the place inside him that had been empty was filled with her love and his own.
“Revolt won,” Noel said.
Glancing aside at his friend, Cyrus said, “Did it?”
“Yes. By ten lengths. How’d you know?”
Mildly, Cyrus said, “A paddock tip, as I told you.”
Noel made a rude noise. “The nag was a thirty-to-one long shot, and the jockey was so surprised he nearly fell off at the finish. I made a small fortune, thank you very much, but I’d like to know how you knew which horse would win the race.”
“A lucky guess.”
Sighing, Noel shook his head a little. He’d expected that sort of answer. “Well, take a lucky guess about tomorrow’s races, would you?”
Looking at his wife again, Cyrus said absently, “I shouldn’t have done it yesterday. You don’t need to make more money, Noel, and I shouldn’t abuse knowledge for the sake of gain.”
“Not even for a friend?” Noel’s voice was dry, and he wasn’t surprised when he received no answer. Wherever his friend’s peculiar talents came from, they had grown stronger—and even more mysterious—during the past months. Cyrus had changed a great deal since returning to Richmond the summer past. There was a new calmness about him, a vivid wisdom in his black eyes, and Noel had come to the conclusion he was now literally incapable of raising his voice; it remained always soft and unruffled.
His humor was kinder and never sardonic, and not even the most cynical person in Richmond doubted that he absolutely adored his lovely wife.
Still, people occasionally commented on the strange events of the past year, and eyed Cyrus in puzzlement. Thinking of those events himself, Noel said, “The last time we spoke, your Pinkertons hadn’t managed to dig up any more information about Prescott; is that still the case?”
“The case is closed,” Cyrus replied, looking at Noel again. “They traced him to an orphanage in New York, but the place burned shortly after he left.”
“Burned,” Noel murmured. “He did like fire, didn’t he?”
“Apparently. Two people died in that particular fire, including the priest who ran the place. If Prescott wanted to obliterate every trace of his beginnings, he did a good job. All the records were destroyed.”
After a moment Noel nodded to the gold-headed cane under Cyrus’s relaxed hand. “What about that?”
Cyrus lifted the cane and held it in both hands, studying it thoughtfully. “This is still a mystery.” Even more so than his friend knew, he thought.
The night of the fire, Julia had clung to the cane long after he’d carried her from the burning house. In fact, he’d had to gently pry her fingers off it, even though she’d been unconscious. When she’d first awakened, he had seen her eyes flicker to the nightstand where he’d placed the cane, but she hadn’t said anything about it then. Only later did she tell him it had saved her as well as him from Prescott.
It had also been Julia who had first noticed the birthmark on Cyrus’s arm—or, rather, its disappearance. The day of the fire it had marked his arm with a blood-red crescent; the day after, it was gone.
Cyrus had stopped asking himself questions about any of it. Like Julia, he felt sure there would be answers eventually. In any case, he was so happy with her and so delighted by a new appreciation of life and love, he was perfectly willing to be patient.
He wasn’t particularly surprised, on that May afternoon, to find a visitor awaiting him and Julia when they returned home. But when they walked together into the parlor, he stopped and stood staring in wonder at the woman who rose to face them.
She couldn’t have been much above fifty, and was stylishly dressed, elegant. Her hair was thick and richly black, her face still strikingly beautiful. None of those attributes, however, was responsible for Cyrus’s shock.
Her eyes were black.
In a voice that was the feminine counterpart of his own lyrical tone, she said, “My name is Catherine Wingate. I—I believe you know who I am.”
Cyrus nodded slo
wly. “You’re my mother.”
Perhaps oddly, Cyrus felt no bitterness and, in fact, no discomfort at all with the stranger who had borne him. Instead, he felt very calm and, curiously, had few questions now. It was as if her appearance had opened a locked door in his mind.
Moments later he was on the settee beside Julia as they both looked at Catherine, and she was speaking softly. No further introductions had been necessary, and she told her story simply from the day a seventeen-year-old girl had found herself pregnant and unmarried.
“My family was wealthy, and didn’t disown me, but insisted I not keep my child. There was no choice for me. So they sent me away, to relatives, where I wasn’t known. I was told my child would be given to strangers. That was when a Gypsy caravan passed through town. I—I’m not sure why I went to the Old One, the Gypsy. It was as if I was drawn to her.”
Catherine drew a deep breath and quietly related the Gypsy’s predictions and warnings. Then she said, “I couldn’t kill my child, I couldn’t. If I had known then what harm he’d do, perhaps I might have found the strength, but how could I believe such a terrible thing of the child growing inside my body?”
Julia, one hand resting over her rounded belly and the other clasping her husband’s hand, looked at the older woman with compassion and understanding. “You couldn’t,” she murmured. “Of course you couldn’t.” Catherine sent her a fleeting smile in return, so like Cyrus’s, it caught at Julia’s heart.
Catherine went on. “The Old One told me what to do, though she knew I was making a mistake. She told me precisely where my sons were to be taken after they were born, and dictated the written messages I was to leave with them. I managed to persuade my aunt to help me, though she naturally didn’t believe a word the Gypsy had told me.
“When the two of you were born, my aunt pointed out triumphantly that my firstborn was the dark one—you.” She looked at Cyrus, her gaze turned to the past. “He was fair, almost angelic. But his eyes were lifeless even then. Yours were filled with delight.” She blinked, then shook her head a little. “I did what I had to do. And for thirty-two years I lived with the knowledge of what I’d done, even though my life was a normal one afterward. I married a good man; he died ten years ago, and we had no children together. I never attempted to see my sons, because of the Gypsy’s warning.”