Gypsy Heiress (23 page)

“Liza, don’t,” he said. “Please don’t! You’ll hurt yourself! It’s useless anyway, can’t you see that?”

He caught my arms fast, holding them at the wrists as he leaned over me, gathering me to his chest. The cave’s thick air hit my back as I was lifted. Vincent was carrying me toward the stone steps.

“I promised I didn’t want to harm you,” he said. “Even now, I mean it.”

We reached the surface, and the fresh night air poured into my lungs, a deep relief after the stench underground. Yet there was no relief from the horror of Vincent’s hands spreading desolation through me like a cancer. I was set on earth against the smooth bark of a low bushy hazel, at the edge of a curtain of pale color from a second lantern. Ten feet before me was the wolf, his chain hooked to the cellar rim.

Vincent took my hand and I looked at him with tortured, aching eyes, as he said, “I know you’re shocked and afraid. I hate to move you like this, but I have to get you out of here. It’s better that you aren’t here to watch what’s going to happen. There’s an inn not far from here, and the innkeeper won’t ask questions. I’m going to keep you there for a while.”

“Why? What’s going to happen? What are you going to do?”

“I have to make it so we can marry, Liza. I have to be free; it’s the only way. I didn’t want it to be like this. But it must either be this, or you would have to die.”

I didn’t think then what he must mean by marriage and freedom. It never occurred to me that there might be a threat to anyone except myself.

“I’ll give you the land—I don’t want any of it,” I said. “Please—I don’t need it!”

“Liza. Liza. It’s more than the land, my pretty one. It’s you I want—” He caressed my cheek. My flesh felt discolored where his fingers passed. “And you I shall have.”

Misliking a sound he heard in the distance, the wolf gave a strangled cry. Haunted by the fear that Vincent might try to kiss me again, I said, clumsily trying to distract him, “The wolf’s voice—”

Vincent glanced to where he had tied the animal. “I bought him from a bankrupt menagerie. The trainer controlled it with a tight collar, and its voice has been damaged.”

The crisp sound of horses’ hooves interrupted him; it was an irregular noise denoting a hesitant rider. Vincent listened as the wolf cringed and slathered in the dirt at his feet.

“Damn,” he said through clenched teeth. “She’s early.” He left my side, picked up the lantern, shuttered it, and walked out to the middle of the field, to stand under the boughs of a large single oak.

The horse and rider came into view and stopped at the forest line. The rider sat alertly, peering into the clearing, as the horse shied nervously and twitched its tail. Sighting the male figure under the tree, the rider slipped gracefully to the ground.

“Alex!” It was Isabella’s voice. She half-ran joyfully across the clearing, and halted in the open, as if not believing her good fortune. Vincent left the shadow of the tree. They looked like silhouette figures in the dark, inconclusive human shapes, tentative in the moment of misunderstanding and deception. He advanced on her until he was close enough for her to recognize him as her husband. She gave a soft cry of surprise.

“Vincent, it’s you! But why? I’ve come here to meet—”

“I know,” he replied. “I sent you that note. It was one I intercepted years ago, and kept for just such an occasion.”

“Al-Alex isn’t here?” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“No, he isn’t. I would imagine he’s happily asleep at Edgehill. And here you are, so early, so eager. And dressed with such care.”

“You’ve done some cruel things to me, Vincent, but this is the lowest. I’m going home.” She whirled, her skirts billowing out, and started to march back to her horse, but he grabbed her and viciously turned her about.

“My cruelty seems to be the only thing that affects your indifference toward me. You’re here for a reason, my love. There’s something I want to show you.” He had left the lantern shuttered under the tree, and turned to pick it up. “Follow me,” he commanded his wife.

She stamped her foot in irritation, though there was a note of unwilling curiosity in her posture as she looked at her husband. “Oh, all right,” she agreed pettishly. “I warn you, though, I’m in no mood for your games tonight!”

As they started to walk toward the wolf, Vincent said, “This one you may find exciting.” When they were so close that I could hear the movement of her long skirt, Vincent set down the lamp, and drew the shutter. An oval of dim light swept over the wolf and Isabella gave a stifled shriek.

“What in the world is that?” she demanded, staring at it, grasping his arm.

“Think, Isabella,” he said. “Think.”

She must have been suspecting for years, because it took her such a short time to come to the right conclusion.

“You killed Frederick,” she breathed. “It was you—you and this accursed beast.” I expected her to cry out with rage and bitter sorrow. Instead she began to laugh in delighted misbelief.

It seemed at first that this terrible knowledge had disordered her reason; then I realized that her laughter was a genuine expression of glee. If she had loved her brother, if she regretted his death, those emotions were eclipsed by an admiration for Vincent’s murderous cunning. Though I knew my useless leg would never let me get far, I tried to drag myself away. That is when she saw me.

“Why… why, it’s Liza!” She came closer, the mature lines of her figure moving smoothly under the expensive military cut of her crimson riding dress. A showy row of gold medallions glinted in the moonlight.

The wolf was becoming increasingly agitated. Isabella seemed not to notice as it lunged at its chain and growled with deadly concentration. “And you’ve hurt her!” She ran to Vincent and kissed him, like a child presented with a toy, and slid her arms hungrily around his neck. “Oh, Vincent. And I was such a shrew to you! She’s going to die, isn’t she?”

A half smile curled on his lips. He set her back from him “You’d like to see that, wouldn’t you?” He went to kneel by the wolf, his hand on the clasp of the chain. The animal flattened its ears and slathered. “Shall I let him go, Bella?”

“Oh, yes, do,” she said.

The pieces jumped together in my mind like a macabre living puzzle. Isabella’s riding habit, a red habit like mine had been, down to the unusual trim of gleaming gold shields, each the size of a penny piece—had it been a gift to her from Vincent? Now I knew how Vincent meant to give himself the freedom to marry me. My words were sobs.

“No, Vincent,” I cried. “Please don’t! I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything, I promise you. Don’t let the wolf go!”

“So now you’re pleading for your life, you wretched fortune hunter,” snapped Isabella contemptuously. “You would have stolen my land from under my nose.”

“Oh, Isabella, no…” I gasped.

“It’s no good to beg,” she hissed. “I hate you. Vincent’s told me about finding you with Alex. You may think Alex is taken with your false innocence, but he’s had a string of pretty sluts like you. I’m the only woman he cares about!”

“Isabella, please get on your horse and ride out of here. You don’t understand—your life is in danger…” In my anguish for her, I became incoherent, and Isabella looked at me with loathing. I tried to stand, to push her away; ignoring the searing pain in my leg, I managed a half-crouch.

“Stand away from the girl, Bella,” said Vincent with ominous calm.

She obeyed him. looking at me gloatingly as she backed into the starlit clearing.

“Farther,” said Vincent. She did as he told her.

The wolf was ravening, its growls and barks drowning my cries to Isabella to flee. Vincent unclasped the chain, a smile on his lips.

In an ugly blur, I saw the wolf lunge at Isabella. Her screams of disbelief mingled with the throaty growl of the wolf as it closed the distance between them. Vincent grabbed me and shoved my face into his chest.

There was a gunshot, and the scene was ended, like a never-to-be-finished book slamming shut. Vincent slackened his grip, and I twisted violently to see Isabella with her hand over her mouth, staring at the trees, where Brockhaven stood next to the young gypsy I had met at Edgehill, who was lowering a musket. A puff of blue smoke was wafting on the breeze. The wolf was lying on the grass not five feet from Isabella.

Brockhaven clapped the youth on the shoulder, and strode toward us.

“Take your hands off her,” he snapped at Vincent, “or I’ll take that musket and blow your damn head off.”

Vincent paused, and began stroking my hair. “She’s had a bad scare, and I think her leg is broken. Try to curb your martial instincts.”

Brockhaven motioned for the musket, and began to load it, staring at Vincent the while.

“You were ever an impatient young cub,” said Vincent. “Shoot me if you want to—I’m going to set her down gently.” He helped me to a large gray rock, the hard coldness a relief after the prison of Vincent’s arms. I looked at Brockhaven.

“Is the wolf dead?” I asked him.

“Shot through the heart,” he answered. “He didn’t suffer.”

“He suffered for years,” I said, my voice breaking, covering my face in my dirty hands.

Brockhaven removed his greatcoat and laid it on my shoulders; it felt warm from his body, and good.

I gazed up at him protestingly. “No—you’ll get cold.”

“Never mind,” he said, and buttoned it under my chin.

The youth came up behind Brockhaven, studied my face for a moment, and said to Brockhaven in painlessly articulate English, “If you like, I’ll take care of the blond woman. She can return to her home, eh? Stay here. I’ll bring back a horse for the little one. I see she can’t walk.”

He left without waiting for an answer, his hard, bare feet striking off to where Isabella stood, weeping hysterically, at the edge of the woods.

“Poor Isabella… I should go to her,” I said uncertainly.

“To hell with Isabella,” said Brockhaven. “As far as Chipping, one could have heard her screaming at Vincent to turn the wolf loose on you. It wasn’t easy deciding whether to shoot her or the wolf. What’s this about a broken leg?” His tone was abrupt, even angry, as though he was irritated that I had been a nuisance. But he had come to me first, not Isabella.

It seemed so long since I had seen his dearly loved face—Brockhaven, my love, whom I had thought never to see again. I was unable to keep myself from gazing at him in what he most surely must have thought of as mawkish adoration; I stamped in my mind the way his ebony hair curled into the chiseled contours of his face, the way his skin glowed golden in the lamplight. In that moment it didn’t even matter whether he loved me or not. It was enough simply to be near him. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to ask him to hold me in his arms, in spite of Vincent, in spite of everything.

“It’s my right leg,” I said.

He ran his fingers gently up the affected limb, tracing the damage. “What happened?”

Sitting as I was, amid the bittersweet joy of being so close to him, and in the ruin of my plan to leave Edgehill, I found it suddenly difficult to answer his direct question. What had happened, he meant, to bring me to this place and in this condition, when he had told me directly not to leave home, for any reason. The throbbing pain in my leg began to grow, and I felt sick to my stomach; my head swam, my eyes ached. The task of explaining became a labor of Hercules.

Vincent moved as though he would have put an arm around me, but Brockhaven uncoiled from the ground beside my leg with the lean, supple haste of a striking panther.

“Don’t touch her,” he snapped in a voice as hard as I had ever heard him use.

Vincent withdrew; his face became cold, dark, and controlled. “She was running away from home; why to here, I don’t know. The ground collapsed under her, and she fell into the old root cellar where I’ve kept the wolf. I found her in there half an hour ago. I don’t know how long she’d been in there with the beast, but her injuries are from the fall.”

“Are they?” Brockhaven asked him. “If she’s been harmed by you in any way, Vincent, I’m going to kill you.”

“If I couldn’t hurt her that first time when she was alone by the ruined villa, why do you think I’d be able to now?” retorted Vincent.

Brockhaven looked at him sharply. “It
would
be easier to see Frederick die than her.”

“Naturally,” said Vincent softly. “Don’t be a fool, man. We may have a penchant for desiring the same women—but this one, I begin to love.”

“Go to the devil, Vincent. If she’d been a hag, you’d have killed her on the spot.”

“If she’d been a hag, you wouldn’t have seduced her. At least I mean to marry her.”

“And you keep a convenient wolf to eat up your present wife,” replied Brockhaven. He smiled, like a person watching a farcical play. “I’m curious, Vincent. If you don’t think I plan to marry her, what do you think I have in mind?”

Vincent leaned back against a tall, moon-silvered boulder, his legs casually crossed, his eyes heavy-lidded. “Such a pleasure to speak frankly, isn’t it?” he said. “I think you intend to sleep with her, get her with child, and marry her off to Robert.”

Brockhaven laughed. “And waste the years I’ve spent trying to pair him with Ellen Cleaver? Come, Vincent, you can do better than that.”

“God knows, then, I don’t. There’s no need for you to marry her when you’ve got control of her money.”

“No need at all,” agreed Brockhaven amiably.

“Especially if I were to be out of the way and no longer contending for her guardianship. That’s why you tried to push me into a duel. Poor boy—too honest to kill me on the sly. But Isabella was a poor weapon to have chosen, because I know you haven’t been cuckolding me for years.”

“Really,” said Brockhaven with a sardonic smile. “What did the jade do, confess?”

“Yes, last week in a frail moment. She admitted that it only happened once between you, a few months after our marriage, and that she practically had to rape you. It’s clear that you’ve no taste for adultery, much maligned youngster that you are.”

It was irrational that Vincent’s words should make my heart beat faster. It didn’t mean that Brockhaven cared more for me, the less he cared for Isabella. I rubbed my arms under the coat to keep them warm and thought how painfully sweet it was to look at Brockhaven, like trying to drink thick honey.