Dearly Beloved

  When she was halfway down the passage, Geoffrey appeared at the far end and dashed toward her. He was about to call out when she put her finger to her lips in a frantic demand for silence.

  He was surprised but obedient, and in a moment Diana was beside him, dropping to her knees and putting her lips by his ear to speak in a breathless whisper. "Geoffrey, there's a bad man behind me in the maze. Do you know the way well enough to lead us through and out the other side without any wrong turns?"

  He considered, then whispered, "No." He was intrigued by her words, not yet fearful.

  Diana thought rapidly. If she and Geoffrey stayed together, it was likely they would both run into Veseul and neither would escape alive.

  Her glance fell to the base of the thick green hedge. The heavy yew branches grew almost down to the ground, but at the very bottom there was a little space between the hedge and the earth. Not enough for an adult to wiggle through, but adequate for a small child. With a swift prayer that Veseul would not appear, she asked urgently, "Could you crawl under the hedges and get out of the maze the shortest, quickest way?"

  After a quick look, Geoffrey nodded. "Yes, but I might ruin my clothes."

  "That doesn't matter!" Diana caught at the note of hysteria in her voice, wanting her son to be alert but not panicky. "Go as quickly as you can and try not to let Veseul see you. He's a very, very wicked man. If he catches you, shout and I'll come. When you're outside, run as fast as you can to the house and bring back help. Do you understand all that?"

  Geoffrey nodded, his eyes wide. Beginning to realize the danger, he threw his arms around her for a quick hug before burrowing under the hedge nearest the perimeter.

  Sending a fervent blessing with her son, Diana lifted her skirts to ankle level and ran, her thin kidskin slippers silent on the grass. At the next intersection she turned left again. The sky above was still sunlit, but here in the maze all was cool shadow as dusk approached.

  There was still no sight of the Frenchman, but she heard a rustling sound on the far side of the right-hand hedge. In his confidence, the count moved at a leisurely pace, scorning both silence and speed.

  Wanting to distract him from any chance of hearing Geoffrey, Diana gave a small gasp, just loud enough for him to hear before she plunged down the new path.

  A thick, evil chuckle followed her. "I am so glad you are trying to escape, ma petite, it is more exciting this way." His voice was a confident, threatening hiss, like his golden serpent come to life. "You will not succeed, you know. It is merely a matter of time until one of your turns will bring you right into my arms."

  The frightened whimper she gave was only partly for effect. Was Geoffrey out yet? Pray God he wouldn't come back to investigate! Another dead end, the dense green hedge a blank barrier in front of her. She turned and ran back.

  At the next junction she stopped and listened. She heard heavy breathing and the soft rustle of a body brushing the shrubbery, but within the tangled pathways of the maze it was impossible to tell where the sounds came from.

  Veseul could be almost anywhere. He could have gotten ahead of her and be lying in wait, or be as close as the other side of the hedge. The uncertainty was almost as terrifying as his actual presence.

  She moved down the next aisle. The maze seemed much larger inside than it had from the outside, The fragrance of a late-summer garden was an ironic contrast to this nightmare game of hide-and-seek. How long until she came to the center and found the path out? If she could escape the maze with even a minute's head start, she could win free of the Frenchman.

  She paused again at the intersection, listening intently as her lungs struggled for breath. Then, with shocking suddenness, a black-clad arm shot through the dark yew wall and grabbed her upper arm with vicious strength. This time there was nothing calculated about her scream.

  * * *

  Geoffrey wriggled out from under the outside hedge, leaving his coat tangled in the yew branches. As he sprang to his feet, he heard his mother's terrified cry, and he instinctively moved toward the maze entrance. Then he stopped. He couldn't fight the bad man alone. He must go for help as Mama ordered.

  Running as never before, he cut through the formal rose garden toward the main house. The gardens were too large, the house impossibly distant.

  A stitch stabbed at his side and he was gasping for breath but he refused to slow down. As he came to the edge of the gardens, he felt a tugging on his forehead, the invisible rope that would pull him backward into an epileptic seizure.

  * * *

  The Frenchman's grasp was cruelly tight. His other hand emerged from the hedge and fumbled blindly at Diana's body, squeezing viciously when he found her breast. The clawing hands revolted her, and her only comfort was knowing that the hedge temporarily blocked his passage.

  But he could disable her, then follow through the maze to her location. At the thought, she struggled harder.

  Veseul crooned his threats in a low, sibilant voice. "First I shall cut off your clothes so I may see if the whole of you is as perfect as what is visible. Then I will ravish you, invade every depth of your body while you fight me." He was panting with eagerness now, his perverse visions stimulating him out of his cool savoir faire. "So fortunate that no one is around at this hour. I won't have to gag your screams."

  His depraved excitement infuriated Diana, and she managed to lean over and sink her teeth into his wrist, biting as hard as she could. He gasped and his fingers loosened, permitting her to tear free.

  She fled down the aisle, pursued by the hissing threat, "You should not have done that, ma petite." His voice and hoarse breathing filled the whole maze, coming from every direction at once. She could hear his heavy steps, no longer leisurely as he pursued her.

  Another intersection. Another left turn. Terrifyingly, another dead end, at the same moment that Veseul appeared behind her, a scant twenty feet away. A vicious, satisfied smile spread across his face, all handsomeness eradicated by his emerging madness.

  With the desperation of a cornered rabbit, Diana saw that the gap at the bottom of the hedge was unusually wide here. She dropped to the ground and wriggled frantically under.

  It was possible to force her body through, just barely. The thick, ancient yew limb gouged her back painfully, ripping the light muslin of her dress. She lost one slipper but won a brief reprieve. A man the size of Veseul could not squeeze through the gap, though his furious curses pursued her.

  As she ran once more to the left, her heart thundered, as if it would burst from her body. Her strength was fading, and with it any faint hope of escaping. She considered stopping and waiting for her pursuer, knife in hand, but she didn't know if she could kill a man, even to save her own life. And she didn't dare find out.

  * * *

  Geoffrey fought the seizure with every iota of will and concentration that he had developed in his demanding childhood. "No!" he shrieked, bending forward at the waist, clutching his temples as if to hold on to consciousness. "No!"

  Fueled by desperation, his willpower succeeded. The tugging at his forehead receded, though not very far. As he straightened up dizzily and staggered across the drive toward the house, he could feel the seizure at the edge of his consciousness, waiting like a predator for his concentration to fail so that it could take away his mind.

  * * *

  Behind her, Veseul was panting, no longer suave. His hissing threats had deteriorated into a string of French obscenities, words that mercifully she did not understand. Another turn, then ahead of her lay the circular heart of the maze.

  Light-footed, she plunged into the clearing. When she was halfway across, she heard the sibilant voice exult, "Now I have you, little whore!"

  She hurled herself forward with all her remaining strength, but just as she reached the far exit a hard blow between her shoulder blades knocked her to her knees, leaving her gasping for breath. Veseul had hurled his cane at her, and from the corner of her eye she saw the golden serpent's head shining bright
and evil against the green grass.

  For a moment she was too spent to move. Then she scrambled frantically to her feet.

  Before she could flee again, before she could even reach down for her knife, he had crossed the clearing and seized her.

  Chapter 24

  Grim and uncompromising, Francis waited for Gervase to speak. Though a hum of conversation came from behind the door to the salon, they were alone in the soaring two-story entrance hall, joined by blood and divided by tension.

  Not knowing where to begin, Gervase examined the fourteenth-century suit of armor standing by the wall and wondered why the devil it was there. His grandfather must have liked it. Or maybe his great-great-grandfather.

  He laid one hand on the visor, and without looking at Francis, he said haltingly, "I'm sorry for... what I said earlier. It was unpardonable."

  "Yes, it was."

  Francis would not make this easy for him. Blindly staring at distorted reflections in the polished helmet, Gervase forced out the words: "What I said... had nothing to do with you, or with Geoffrey. Only with me."

  This time, there was an arrested quality to his cousin's silence. Gervase turned to face him.

  Francis watched him with an uncomfortable amount of perception, and with diminished hostility. His cousin undoubtedly saw more than Gervase would have wished, but said merely, "Consider it forgotten. The news I gave you would shock anyone out of good sense. But surely you know"—his voice dropped as he glanced around to be absolutely sure of their privacy—"I would no more molest a young boy than you would rape a young girl."

  Gervase flinched. Geoffrey would be far safer with Francis than the young Diana had been with Gervase. Trying to conceal his reaction from those too-watchful blue eyes, he said, "I doubt you will ever be able to match me for disgraceful conduct."

  Francis chuckled, lightening the atmosphere. "We'll have to get together at my club one night before I leave and trade lies about our wickedness."

  This part of his life, at least, could be mended. Gervase offered his hand. "I'm going to miss you."

  "And I, you. I will come back to England occasionally. You can visit me as well when we have settled somewhere." Francis clasped Gervase's hand in both of his and they stood locked together for a moment, joined not only by blood but also by happy memories, from the time Francis had shadowed his large cousin's footsteps, to this moment of poignant acceptance.

  Geoffrey hurtled into the hall, pelting across the polished marble floor before skidding into his father as he tried to stop. The boy was coatless and dirty, with a bleeding scratch across one cheek and frantic eyes. "Please, Mama!" he gasped. "She's in the maze and there's a bad man after her."

  Gervase froze for a moment as lingering remnants of jealousy made him wonder if his wife had met a lover and the boy had misunderstood.

  Suspicion dissolved when Geoffrey grabbed his hand, shaking it in his frenzy. "Veseul, she said. She sent me for help. Mama screamed. He wants to hurt her."

  Then, to the horror of the two men, the boy's eyes rolled back and he pitched to the hard marble floor in the first stages of seizure, his breathing a harsh rattle in the empty hall.

  Swearing, Gervase knelt by his son, pulling off his coat and shoving it under the boy's head for whatever protection it might give. Frightening as the seizure was, Geoffrey needed him far less than Diana did.

  Fragments of information clicked into a terrifying new pattern. It wasn't spying that had brought Veseul to loiter near Diana's house, but her extraordinary beauty and her closeness to Gervase. The Frenchman had been barred from London brothels for his violence. He would not dare attack Diana here unless he intended to leave no witness to his crime.

  Springing to his feet, Gervase said in staccato sentences, "The fit will be over in a minute or two. Make sure he doesn't hurt himself. Send for his nurse, Madeline. She'll know what to do. Then send help to the maze. Veseul is dangerous."

  As he tore across the hall toward the door, Francis knelt by the convulsing child, his hands gentle and a glowing warmth in his heart in spite of the circumstances. By the simple act of entrusting his son to his cousin, Gervase had atoned for his earlier insult in a manner far more meaningful than any spoken apology.

  * * *

  Veseul grabbed Diana in one powerful hand, looming over her in all his broad muscular strength. He was panting, the wildness of his eyes showing the beast that had always lurked beneath his polished surface. He used his other hand to give a hard, open-handed blow to the side of her head. "That should take some of the fire out of you, little bitch."

  Diana's head snapped sideways and she nearly blacked out. She was helpless as a doll as he lowered her to the ground and straddled her body, immobilized by his heavy weight on her thighs. Ignoring the feeble brushing motions of her hands, he laid one heavy palm against her cheek and crooned, "So exquisite, so entirely perfect. If you had only been more accommodating, I could have shown you delights you have never reached with an Englishman. Cold of heart, cold of hand, the English."

  The fingers of one hand slipped into her hair and his other palm cupped her breast. "Silk and softness... everything a woman should be. In one way, it's a tragic waste to kill you, but destroying beauty is a high, pure art, and I will draw strength and power from the destruction. No one else will ever know, which will give me all the more power."

  His madness was nearly as paralyzing as the weakness of Diana's body. Almost casually Veseul ripped the bodice of her gown, exposing her breasts to his touch. As his hand moved back and forth, he sighed, his lower body beginning a slow, voluptuous pulsing against hers.

  "A pity there is so little time, but it will be enough," he said in the same eerie, conversational tone. "I am an artist of destruction, you know. Today I will destroy you, the purest essence of woman I have ever seen. Then I will go to London and weave a web of brilliant lies that will destroy Wellesley, the purest warrior of our age after Bonaparte himself. And the destruction of the first two will destroy your husband, the purest form of cold, hard Englishman."

  All her life Diana's beauty had attracted unwanted attention and violence, but never had she felt so helpless and victimized as she did now. As she struggled, Veseul easily caught both her wrists and pinned them to the ground above her head with one of his hands. He wore a faint tangy cologne that turned her stomach with nausea, and the serpent-quick tip of his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Her legs numbed beneath his weight, and his bright, blank eyes bored into her with hypnotic intensity.

  "And when I have accomplished all that, perhaps I shall destroy myself," he said reflectively. "For the rest of my life will be anticlimactic, and I abhor anticlimax."

  Diana began to scream, hoping that someone, anyone, was within earshot. She had scarcely begun when he bent over and forced his mouth on hers, smothering her gathering voice easily with his thick lips and pointed tongue. She was far too thoroughly caught to fight free. For all the good her struggling did, she might as well be lying utterly passive.

  Hopeless with despair, she felt the demon of violence that had stalked her for a lifetime closing in for the kill.

  * * *

  The maze had been his playground and retreat as a child, and Gervase forced himself to slow down to remember the route so he wouldn't waste precious seconds on dead ends. For the whole of his relationship with Diana, he had gone down blind alleys, running in fear from what was so freely and generously offered. He would not let himself do that again at this moment of greatest crisis.

  Even though he knew the path, his progress seemed slow as he raced between the tall hedges, hurtling around the corners. He was halfway through when he heard Diana's voice raised in a scream that was suddenly, terrifyingly, cut off.

  Gervase froze, paralyzed with anguish at being too late. Lost in the selfishness of his guilt, he had rejected his salvation, and the one bright light of his life was extinguished. He had failed Diana, himself, and their son, and for his sins he was cursed to spend eternity in
darkness.

  In the aftermath of catastrophe, there was nothing left except the absolute need to avenge her.

  When Gervase burst into the clearing at the heart of the maze, in the gathering dusk he saw the Count de Veseul's broad body pinning Diana to the cold earth. So total was Gervase's certainty that she was dead that at first he disbelieved the evidence of his eye. When he saw her move, still struggling against her attacker, joy lanced through him. This time he had not failed. Redemption was still attainable.

  He did not pause to savor the exultation of his relief. In three strides he crossed the clearing, bellowing a wordless challenge to Veseul.

  The Frenchman knew who came without even looking, and he leapt to his feet. He kicked Diana in the ribs to weaken her so she would not interfere, then he turned to face his attacker. His burly frame crouched in the stance of an experienced fighter.

  Gervase recognized that skill and slowed, knowing that a headlong assault would put him at a lethal disadvantage. He had perfected his knowledge of hand-to-hand fighting in the unforgiving school of combat, and his eyes narrowed in concentration as he circled sideways, watching for a weakness. To test his opponent, he threw a single blow with his left hand. Veseul easily blocked it, so Gervase riposted with a sharp blow with his right hand.

  To Diana, dazed and gasping for breath on the soft turf, there was a nightmare silence as Gervase and Veseul circled each other, each probing the other's defenses before risking an all-out attack. A swift punch smashed Veseul's face, opening up his cheek and rocking him off balance. Before Gervase could follow up his advantage, the Frenchman responded with a kick that clipped Gervase's knee and sent him staggering.

  In the advancing darkness they began to close with each other, their blows beginning to do damage. Diana saw how equally matched they were, Gervase lighter and quicker, Veseul with a bearlike power that would be disastrous if he got a firm grip on his opponent.