Caroline (42 page)

The red blotches on his face darkened as he thought of Alec, and Caro felt him tear at the remaining hooks on her basque. The pain in her head had vanished, and now everything was pouring into her brain in a kaleidoscope of lost memories. Frantically, she tried to compose herself enough to smile stiffly up at Pilquebinder, suppressing an urge to gag at the odor of his stale breath. His fingers stopped their groping at her chemise as he registered clear surprise.

"Yes, you're right," she choked, her heart pounding so hard it seemed on the verge of breaking. "I am so anxious to talk to you, but first I must have some water to quench my thirst. I am so dry—"

"Of course, my sweet," he exclaimed, jumping to his feet, then stopping to regard her with suspicion. "This isn't another of your tricks, is it? Well, just in case, I'd better see to it that you can't escape me this time."

He bent over and pulled the ribbons from her hair. Swiftly he tied them around her ankles so that they cut into her flesh. Then, he ripped the rest of the hem from the bottle-green silk dress and bound her wrists in front, his eyes lingering hotly on her breasts which strained against the thin chemise.

"I'll be right back, my sweet," he rasped, and ran from the room. Caro's head was too full of the past to have any room for escape plans. Closing her eyes, she remembered her childhood in that very room, and vaguely she recalled the early years spent in the nursery next door. All the pieces fit now—she knew her real name—Kristin—and she could recall completely her father, Josef. She felt a familiar throb of pain remembering the death of her beautiful mother when she was twelve. After that, there had been intermittent seasons of school away from the farm, followed by four years in a French convent school when her father left to fight for the patriots' cause.

Caro's mind skimmed over memories of her return to America and the news of her father's death as she pondered the role Ezra Pilquebinder had played in her past. She recalled now that Noah and Isabel Willow had told her shortly after her homecoming that a man had been there looking for her, saying that he was the new owner of the property and her own guardian. At first, she had been perplexed and alarmed, but after a year passed with no further sign of the man, she had begun to relax.

Then, in October of 1783, he had suddenly reappeared, turning her life upside down. Pilquebinder showed her a letter in her father's hand which asked that the man in question take over his farm and, if possible, marry his daughter in the event of Josef's death. It also gave a listing of Bergman's possessions that was so complete it convinced Caro of the authenticity of the letter.

"You are a remarkable man," Bergman had written, "and I pray to God that if events warrant your receipt of this missive you will carry out my plans—nay, dreams—for you and my Kristin. I know what is said of you, but I was certain from the first moment I laid eyes on you that you were the perfect man for my daughter."

Caro had been horrified by these sentiments, for she had found Pilquebinder unspeakably repulsive. Convinced that her father had gone mad, and frightened to death by the twisted passion that constantly glowed in the pale eyes of her new "guardian," she had snatched the first opportunity to flee.

After consuming a huge quantity of port that first evening at the farm, Pilquebinder inadvertently fell asleep before the fire. Caro went to work. Dressing in the clothes of a former stable boy, she hastily assembled a bundle of belongings and rode away from the farm on the back of her own mare, Molly.

Now she lay back on her old bed, totally at the mercy of Ezra Pilquebinder. She had come full circle.

I walked right into this trap, she thought in stunned disbelief, and Alec unknowingly led me! God, if only I hadn't hit that tree branch, my escape would have been good and I'd have
known
better than to come back here!

Caro realized that she would not have met or married Alec, either, and a bittersweet pain stabbed her. She was trying to figure out how he fit into the maze of events concerning the farm and her father when the door swung open to admit Pilquebinder. He carried a glass of thick port, which Caro was forced to choke down.

"You look as frightened as a cornered doe, my sweet," he sneered while pulling down her bodice. A sour taste rose in Caro's throat when he touched her breasts with clammy fingers.

"Let us pass the time as we await the innocent arrival of Major Beauvisage. After I dispose of him, I anticipate a long night of much-dreamt-of pleasure with you, dear Kristin."

"D-dispose?"

"But of course—after all, you cannot become my wife until you are his
widow
!" he chuckled gleefully. "And, I cannot think of any man whom I could take greater pleasure in killing. Perhaps you would like to watch?"

His hands roamed over her breasts as he spoke and Caro saw his tongue dart across his lips as he prepared to kiss her.

"Please! Tell me why you should want to kill Alec! And what makes you imagine that it will be easy?"

"Easy?" he sneered. "It will be effortless. Our ill-fated major will come home to his dear wife, knocking gently on the door he so carefully instructed her to bolt. Only it will not be opened by you; I shall be the one to greet him—for the last time!" Pilquebinder laughed with glee and Caro went ice cold at the simplicity of his plot. "Do you think that I resent the man merely because he married you?" he continued, pushing up her skirts to reveal her pale thighs. "No, my dove, it goes back much further. I have known—and hated—the major for many years. He was always so sure of himself in the army, always the one to get the best assignments. He was friends with every general, hobnobbing with Kosciuszko, and sought after by women."

Caro was bathed in a cold sweat of terror and her mouth seemed stuffed with cotton. Pilquebinder's hands crawled up her legs until she thought she would scream from the sheer horror of it.

"Well," he went on in an oily tone, "I thought that I had my revenge when Bergman died and the major was so preoccupied with the battle that was underway that he didn't have a chance to get all those papers—and by then I had already confiscated them. All I had to do was remove them from the envelope with Beauvisage's name on it and claim that I was the recipient of letter from your father and the deed to the farm." Caro's mouth dropped open as realization dawned at last and Pilquebinder gave her a smug smile. "It was quite ironic that fate led your path to cross Beauvisage's anyway. Fortunately, I do not believe in fate unless it is one that I create myself. I was always determined to find you after you left me here, but I didn't know I would have to see Beauvisage dead until later."

At the sight of the growing bulge in Pilquebinder's breeches, Caro desperately sought to stall for time.

"What—what do you mean?"

He was pushing up her skirts, a thin line of saliva running from his mouth.

"Why, my brother, of course. Quintus. One of the men Beauvisage killed at that farm in New York last fall."

"Oh, no," she groaned. What madness!

He stopped touching her long enough to gulp more of the port. "Quintus befriended some Hessian mercenaries and decided to join them. After the war, he and a comrade deserted and I ran into them near here last October as I searched for you. They promised to keep an eye out. Quintus found you, didn't he? I reached that farm eventually, I saw the blood in the barn and my brother's own sash—and I found plenty of personal belongings inside the house that the two of you so carelessly left behind. It was not hard to trace you then...."

As he spoke, he crouched over her on the bed and Caro squeezed her eyes shut, praying for unconsciousness.

"Dear God," she whispered, while Pilquebinder fumbled with the buttons on his breeches.

Suddenly there was an ear-splitting crash accompanied by shattered bits of glass spraying in every direction, while out of the corner of her eye, Caro saw Alec's expensive boots sweeping through the window. His face was dark with rage as he grabbed Pilquebinder by the hair to wrench him up in the air and off Caro. Just as fast, the smaller man drew a long, evil-looking knife from a hidden sheath.

"Prepare to die!" Alec said in a low growl, revealing a knife in his own free hand.

Pilquebinder was extremely agile and wiry, and now his mouth twisted confidently as he faced his nemesis. "Well, Major, I have been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time! You have deserved to die all along—God was on my side when he contrived to cast you as Kristin's savior!"

Alec's eyes narrowed. "I have no time for your riddles, Pilquebinder. Let us see this ended."

Clutching their knives, the two men began to circle each other warily. There was a maniacal light in Pilquebinder's odd, yellowish eyes, while Alec's own face was reckless and cool.

Caro lay on the bed, clothing torn and trembling with fear. As she watched the two men, their bodies wary and poised for attack, she began to act without even formulating a plan in her mind. It was a struggle for her to sit up with her ankles bound, but she managed to do so. Then, as Pilquebinder circled just one more step, his back was to her and she reached out with her bound hands, pushing at him with every ounce of strength she possessed. Alec stepped neatly aside as Ezra Pilquebinder stumbled, tripped over a footstool, and plunged forward on top of the dressing table—and his own knife.

Chapter 31

The storm broke that evening, torrents of rain rattling the windowpanes in the parlor. Alec had built them a blazing fire and now Caro sat beside him on her mother's settee, her head resting against the warm strength of his chest.

"I want to leave as soon as we can," she said slowly. "This house makes me feel like a ghost; it's as though I died and have come back now from another life."

"You have," Alec commented drily, looking down at Caro's face. She was only now beginning to come out of the shock that had followed her near-rape and Ezra Pilquebinder's gruesome death, and Alec had been briefly afraid that she would retreat back into her amnesia. He had held her most of the time since, sensing that she really needed to collect her thoughts and sort them out. Now she was beginning to sound quite clear-headed and he was greatly relieved.

"I am hungry," she whispered.

"Wonderful!" he declared, setting her on her feet as he stood up. "Let us repair to the kitchen."

Caro was pensive while Alec clanged pots together and made a great show of cooking the meal. She was hard pressed to laugh, however, for all her emotions, thoughts, and nerves seemed to be saturated by an influx of memories. It was one thing to attempt to come to terms with and set aside her abuse at the hands of Ezra Pilquebinder, but quite another to stop the recollections of nearly twenty years which were returning to her now in full measure.

At the back of the kitchen stood a sturdy drop-leaf table surrounded by five bow-back chairs. Caro wandered over to them, dusting the wood with a woven towel.

"My mother used to keep five chairs here in case someone we knew—a couple, perhaps—happened to drop by during a meal. People knew that she loved company, so they did visit often."

Alec looked up from the eggs he was cooking, letting her see his interest. "She sounds like a wonderful woman. I wish that I could have known her."

"Nothing was the same after Mama died." Caro bit her lip. "The heart went out of this house and Papa was simply lost."

"Caro, that reminds me. I know I've already repeated most of that enlightening conversation I had with Noah Willow, but I've just remembered something else. He mentioned that you were here for over a year alone—and that you came back from France by yourself! How the devil did you manage?"

It was the closest she had come to laughing all evening. "Alec, you certainly do underestimate me! I can accomplish anything I want or need to do on my own if I decide to. I came back from France because I wanted to discover what had happened to my father. If I had remained abroad and waited, I would probably still be in the dark—and a nun by now! As to living here alone, that was easy enough. I grew my own vegetables, chopped my own wood, and forced myself to kill chickens to eat. My parents taught me well during my childhood; I simply copied all the things I had seen them do. I was lonely sometimes, but I visited the neighbors a great deal and I read constantly. A book or more a day. I was happy and learned to know myself and my own capabilities and limitations, but..."