A Forbidden Love (35 page)

But now he was going to get a private look inside the squalid walls. A sight he would never forget, he was sure.

The looming wood and iron gates stood before him. Gillingham shouted for the doors to be opened, and it wasn’t long before the feeble entrance rolled back on its rusted hinges.

The putrid stench smacked him across the face the moment the gates parted. Followed by the blast of foul air came the racket. A horrid din of desperate pleas and moans and cries of pain.

It got to him. All the hapless and forgotten voices weeping for salvation. And to think, Sabrina was among the wretched lot!

A burning, twisting need to save her from a soulless existence gripped him. He wanted her in his arms. Safe. He wanted to feel the warmth of her body, inhale the sweet scent of her hair, taste the briny sweat of her skin. Everything about her thrilled him. Made him feel alive. Like his true self. Without her, he was lost. He accepted that now. She was always on his mind, dwelling in his heart. He could sense her even when she wasn’t near. All he had to do was close his eyes and remember. Remember the tender touch of her fingers on his flesh, stirring within him emotions of frightening depth. Remember the sound of her spirited laughter. A sound he had heard only once. A sound he hoped to hear again and again—for the rest of his life.

Anthony entered the hospital, escorted by Gillingham and his two hulking brutes. It was dark inside, so much that a torch was needed to light the way. Anthony would have preferred to stumble through the darkness, though. The glow of torchlight only made the pervasive squalor all the more evident.

He shuddered to think of Sabrina buried within the doomed walls. Walls that seemed to stretch on toward interminable blackness. It was an endless column of stone. Oblivion. And he suddenly felt as trapped as all the inmates hollering behind locked doors.

The entourage passed the whole of Bedlam, or so it seemed. Eternal corridors going this way and that. Finally, they came to a stop in an obscure corner of the hospital.

Anthony waited for the cell door to be unlocked, his heart thundering. If so much as a scratch was on his gypsy, he’d tear out Gillingham’s throat.

The door swung back. Huddled in a nook of the tiny cell was Sabrina, quietly weeping and rocking herself for comfort.

It hit him the moment he saw her. The feeling welled in his chest until he could scarcely breathe. He loved her. Every fiber of his being thrummed with renewed energy at the sight of her.

Anthony fell to his knees, and with a rough movement, yanked his shivering gypsy into his arms, so desperate with relief to feel her snug against him once more.

“Everything will be all right,” he whispered by her ear, burying his face in her mussed hair.

But she wailed all the louder for his words of comfort, as if she didn’t believe him, as though she considered him some figment of her imagination come to torment her with hollow promises of well-being.

“Sabrina, it’s me.” He cradled her moist cheeks between his palms and pressed a hard kiss to her sweet lips. “You’re safe. No one will ever hurt you again.”

He drank in the briny tears from her eyes, and then smothered her back in his embrace, stroking her long, sable locks in tender regard.

Her cries crushed his soul like no other sound. He didn’t know what to say or do to convince her he was really there, that she was safe at last.

“Put your arms around me,” he said to her softly. “Let me take you away from here.”

Without hesitation, she slipped her trembling fingers behind his neck, and gripped him with the strength of an iron leg trap.

Carefully, Anthony scooped her into his arms, relishing in the relief and pleasure he felt at holding her so close.

Sabrina’s sobs dwindled once out of Bedlam. Quietly, firmly she held onto him throughout the carriage ride back to the Lion’s Gate, and even up the staircase to one of the club’s bedrooms.

Once inside, Anthony revealed to Gillingham the location of the hidden locket. The villain would have little trouble entering the townhouse, he was sure, and then departing without anyone the wiser.

After the confession had been made, the door was secured, and Anthony and Sabrina were left alone in the room to await their wedded union at dawn.

The bathtub was first to catch Anthony’s eye. It was at the far end of the room, but he could still see the steam drifting upward from the tranquil water.

He wasn’t surprised to see the tin tub. A spy like Gillingham would have to be well organized, with an eye for detail, and a couple about to recite the wedding vows should have the decency of a bath before the considerable occasion.

It was still rather difficult for Anthony to accept he would be married by morning. It usually took weeks to acquire a marriage license. One had to post the banns first. Only the archbishop of Canterbury had the power to grant a special license, allowing a couple the privilege to marry at any time. And yet, Anthony was sure he would be married come sunrise. Somehow, he suspected Gillingham would have no trouble in obtaining the archbishop’s permission.

He looked down to the woman in his arms and pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. She was still shivering, and he went straight to work to rectify that.

Anthony set her down to the ground, but she maintained her tight hold on him, shifting her hands from his neck to his waist. He didn’t mind the close proximity. He, too, was still getting used to the fact that she was safe, and he didn’t want to take his hands off her.

“Here, let’s get rid of these.” Slowly, he nudged and wiggled her damp blouse off her shoulders, then pushed down her skirt. The clothes lay in a heap on the floor and he added to the pile her wool chemise and boots.

Lifting her into the warm tin tub, he helped her settle into the water. But she didn’t let go of him even then. And so, Anthony knelt beside the tub, stroking her backside and whispering soothing locutions into her ear.

In time, Sabrina’s tremors subsided. But he continued to caress her, to rub his hands all over her body, shooing away the cold, and at the same time, convincing himself she was really all right.

He noted the wounds at her wrists, where she’d been bound, blistered and clogged with dried blood. He went to wash away the blood, but she winced when the water touched her in such a sensitive spot.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and lightly kissed both wounds. Yanking at the knotted neck cloth fastened around his throat, he removed the white linen fabric and tore it in half, winding each piece around one of her injured wrists. “It will heal in time,” he promised, then brought her head down to rest in the groove between his neck and shoulder.

He heard her sigh, and he felt like giving a sigh of his own, but he had to ask her one important question before he could really be at ease.

“Sabrina, I know Gillingham frightened you, but did he hurt you? Did he cause you any physical pain?”

When she shook her head against his shoulder, he released a long suppressed sigh of relief. It had haunted him, the image of her being tortured in Bedlam. Though she had no prominent bruises to suggest anything dreadful had happened to her, some torments could be concealed. Ravishment for one.

He closed his eyes, banishing the hideous thought. She was safe, he reminded himself. And safe she would remain, just as soon as they were wed.

“How did you find me?”

Her voice was weak and shaky, interrupting his reflection, and he nuzzled her brow with his cheek in a soothing gesture. “I offered Gillingham a trade. The locket for you.”

“Where are we then?”

“In Gillingham’s club.”

Her head reared up, panic flashing in her sea-blue eyes. “Why?”

“Sabrina, there is something we need to discuss.” He wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject of marriage. It had always been the furthest thing from his mind. Then again, was a proposal really necessary? The matter was already decided by Gillingham. He and Sabrina were to wed. He need only inform her of her fate—their fate. Perhaps the simple truth would suffice. “I offered Gillingham a trade,” he went on to say. “But the villain refused it at first. I had to give him something more than the locket before he would surrender you.”

“What did you give him?”

“My word…that I would marry you.”

Her eyes rounded. Big blue pools of disbelief. “You can’t marry me. I’m a gypsy. You said you could never—”

He placed the pad of his thumb over her lips to quiet her. “Sabrina, there was no other way to assure Gillingham of your silence. As my wife, you are bound to me, and I can guarantee you will never breathe a word of the locket’s secret to anyone.”

“But I don’t know the locket’s secret.”

“Yes, but Gillingham doesn’t trust your word. It had to be mine. If you want to live, we must marry at dawn.”

She looked away, her gaze drifting to a corner of the room. So much had happened to her in so short a time. There was a lot to take in, he knew. And after a thoughtful pause, she asked him, “What was really inside the locket?”

There it was. The dreaded question. Should he tell her the truth? He didn’t want to. Revealing the locket’s secret would only risk her life further. But she had lost so much because of the locket. And in the end, she deserved to know the truth; to find some measure of peace in knowing why all this had happened to her.

With a deep breath, Anthony recounted the tale of the lost boy-king. When the story was over, he cupped her chin, lifting it until their eyes met. “Now you know everything. Now you understand why we must marry.”

She nodded somberly.

The next morning, Anthony and Sabrina found themselves in a local chapel, standing before the altar. Both were dressed in the crumpled clothing they had worn the night before. Both looked a little stunned to be standing before the altar and reciting the wedding vows. With Gillingham standing in as best man, and his two brutish protectors attending as witnesses, the ceremony wasn’t anything like Anthony had imagined it would be.

After a few binding words, he was married to Sabrina. The minister made the sign of the cross, blessing the union, and Anthony glanced down at his side to observe his wife for the first time.

His wife.

The new Viscountess Hastings seemed somewhat bewildered at the sudden change in her circumstance. Anthony was feeling that bewilderment himself.

The formal announcement of their nuptials would appear in the next printing of the
Times
. Gillingham’s doing, of course. For the present, however, two dozen cards had been sent out, all hand delivered across the city to only the most famed gossips, proclaiming the couple’s attachment. Soon all of London would know about the marriage.

The deed was done. Sabrina was safe from Gillingham forever. Now Anthony need only explain all this to his family.

Chapter 29

T
he Viscountess Hastings stood alone in the bedchamber, her mind a whirl.

A gypsy wedded to a
gajo
. It caused her own brow to raise in wonder. Not two days ago, Anthony had vowed he could never be with her because of her gypsy blood. And now he had married her?

Bafflement soon gave way to a ticklish hope. Hope for her future. One that didn’t look quite so bleak anymore. She had married the man she loved. That alone was cause for great joy, for she had never believed her wants would ever come to pass.

But something else gave her vast hope. Anthony had saved her life. In so doing, he’d defied a sacred canon: to never marry an outsider. She could think of only one reason why he would flout convention and risk the wrath of his family and friends. He must love her, too.

Sabrina glanced over to the bed. Her eyes searched the covers for any sign of the charm, but she saw nothing. The knotted cluster of vines was gone. Had Anthony found the charm? Or had a servant mistaken it for trash and tossed it away? She wished she could ask her husband what had happened to it. She wished she could tell him everything that was swimming around in her heart.

But Anthony wasn’t home. He had gone to inform his family of his recent nuptials. And it was her distress over that impending encounter that had her pacing.

She could do little else but wait. Wait and pray that Anthony’s confrontation with his father would not be as brutal as her own had been.

Anthony made his way through the bustling London crowd. He needed to expend the energy burning inside him. A brisk walk to the West End was an agreeable tack.

The stroll also provided him with an opportunity to mull over in his mind what he was going to say to his parents once he arrived at their door. How to explain why he had married a gypsy? The truth was unthinkable. He was sworn to silence about the locket and all the trouble it had caused, but he did need to come up with some sort of reasonable explanation.

That he loved Sabrina wouldn’t matter a fig to anyone. He could already hear his father’s bellows, demanding to know why he hadn’t just made the girl his mistress instead of his wife. And it was to that question Anthony was in want of an adequate answer.

His quick stride suddenly slowed to a more leisurely jaunt. It was not just the reactions of his parents he had to dread. Gossip amongst the
ton
was going to be in a state of frenzy. Sabrina was going to be abused by every haughty patrician in the city, the country, too. That she now bore the title of viscountess would make nary a difference to anyone. She would be given the cut direct. She would become the social pariah he had feared. And there was scant he could do to avoid any of it.