I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (28 page)

Still, he could not believe it. This was the object the girls’ mother had sent them to England with? This was the symbol written beside Grace’s name on the ship’s manifest?

He scraped back his chair, dropped coins onto the table, and headed for the stable. He could go to Plymouth, but that was three days’ ride. He could return to Edward Bridgeport-Adler’s house and question Eleanor. But if she hadn’t told him about this, she didn’t know. She would have told him. She
must
have.

One person would know. One person much closer than the jeweler in Plymouth and infinitely more opaque than Eleanor. He opened the door to Tristan’s stall and roused the stallion.

“Come, my friend. It’s time to leave. We are going to see Lussha.”

Chapter 24

The Captive

I
t began innocuously enough. After several sleepless nights punctuated by megrims, Eleanor asked Betsy to procure from the housekeeper a simple sleeping draught.

She hadn’t taken such a draught in ages. Far too many years being dosed with medicines had soured her on remedies that muddled her head. But she must sleep. Her father wished for her company during the days, and she wanted to be with him.

Some days he was contemplative. On those days he told stories of his past, of the revolutionary fervor of the era, the dangers, the excitement, and sometimes of Grace, his stunning wife that every man desired. He never spoke of prison or of his life before he went to the West Indies with his regiment. A few vibrant years captivated his mind, fed by the letters he showed her, like the letter Robin Prince had brought to St. Petroc.

Robin had lied. He had not found Grace’s letter to Alejo in a book at Drearcliffe; he had taken it from this house without her father or Mary’s knowledge. It didn’t matter how many more letters he had taken. She knew the truth now: that he had discovered an object belonging to Edward in the captain’s box at Drearcliffe; that when he’d come to return it to its rightful owner, his visit had led Mary to discover a collection of letters stored in the attic; and that these letters had given Edward’s beleaguered mind a window onto his past.

Written by Edward, Grace, and Alejo, some had been sent between Jamaica and San Domingue, and others between Port-au-Prince and the mountains where rebels gathered and planned for a glorious day when all men would walk as proud equals. Her father had drunk of the fervent brew of revolution and risked his life for that glorious future.

Some of the letters conveyed only news, instructions, concern for the safety of Eleanor and Arabella. Other letters spoke of love. None of them mentioned Ravenna by name, and only one spoke of both “the baby” and “the Fever that is taking children in the city as well as soldiers and sailors”—a single letter written by Grace who was on the coast to Alejo in the mountains, scant months before a ship with her three daughters sailed toward England.

All of the letters she’d sent to Edward’s family resonated with the turbulence and passion of their lives. It wasn’t to be wondered at that they inspired her father’s memory.

At times he grew restive and suspicious. On those days he spoke in short phrases, sometimes words only, and a sheen of sweat coated his skin. He would clutch his head and complain of pain. When Eleanor sympathized with his discomfort, telling him that the sleeping draught improved her sleep but her megrims persisted, his eyes ringed with distress like a wild horse’s. But a walk to the lake would soothe him.

Arabella did not respond to her letter, or to the return of the ring. Perhaps she had gone to London for the social season that had already begun. The letter would take time to find her. Carrying the ring, Taliesin would be swifter, Eleanor knew. But time seemed to pass slowly now, her days taken up with her father’s memories, and her nights full of dreams that troubled her but which upon waking she could not recall.

Eleanor avoided her great-aunt and cousins, taking breakfast and lunch with her father. But at dinner she suffered through their company, with only Mary to relieve the unpleasantness in her own timid fashion.

“My maid tells me that you require a special draught for your megrims, Miss Caulfield,” Lady Boswell drawled one evening. “She says that you are well accustomed to such medicines.”

“Well accustomed?” Eleanor stared. “No, I— That is—”

“She says you suffered quite a lengthy illness.”

Eleanor set down her spoon, wondering what Betsy had heard in St. Petroc and promising to chastise her maid for flapping lips. “Years ago. A—”

“You must allow me to send to London for my physician.”

“No. Thank you, my lady.” The megrims would pass. The lassitude had only to do with the content of her heart, not the muscle. After her adventure and the revelations of the past weeks, it would be remarkable if she weren’t a bit weary. Soon she would throw off this humor.

“I have written to assure Mrs. Caulfield that she needn’t fret for your comfort here,” the baroness continued with a hard eye.

“Aunt Cynthia,” Mary gasped. “I told you that you mustn’t write to the Caulfields.”

“I was certain the Reverend and Mrs. Caulfield would wish to know their delicate flower is well. But we shan’t let our dear, fragile Eleanor fall ill under our watch, shall we? No, no. Not our little mulatto. We will see her well so that she can inherit my nephew’s entire fortune.” She laughed.

Only the soup had been served. But Eleanor stood, apologized to Mary, and left the dining room. Behind her one of her cousins whispered, “Mama, today the maid said she saw Eleanor embracing that Gypsy by the lake last week.”

Let them whisper. It meant nothing to her. Only let her heart stop aching like this.

She went to her father’s rooms. He stood in the middle of a pile of old papers in his stockings, his face drawn.

“I cannot find it, Grace,” he said to her. “I cannot find him.”

She hurried to him. “Father, what can’t you find? Who?”

“He is lost. I have lost him.” He slumped onto the floor. “I have lost him.” He sobbed.

Mary rushed in, shushed him, and led him to a chair.

“He will be well,” she whispered to Eleanor. “You must go to sleep, dear niece. Your face is drawn. I will see to my brother.”

Eleanor left the house and walked to the lake. The evening had turned chill and a misty rain crisscrossed the hill, whipping up her skirts and pressing her hair wetly to her cheeks. She wrapped her shawl tighter and walked until her anger and grief were once again pressed down and she could think. Good Eleanor could be useful sometimes, she thought. Wild, free Eleanor needn’t rule her every moment.

She returned to the house, climbed into bed, and for the first time in years, wept herself to sleep.

She awoke in the darkness, her lungs poked through with a hundred sharp holes, her limbs heavy. Her hair and nightclothes were sodden with sweat. Betsy came.

“Water, please, Betsy,” she mumbled. Her lips were like raw dough. A glass was pressed into her palm.

“Drink this, miss. Her ladyship’s maid says it’ll help.”

A sweet smell made her throat tight. “No. Water only.”

The glass went away. Eleanor put her head on the pillow again and waited, and her mouth grew dry, her tongue thick. It seemed all night she waited, her heartbeats shallow and fast, her skin cold beneath the damp linen. The night went on and she could neither sleep nor wake fully.

When Betsy returned, she struggled to lift her head from the pillow. Betsy put the cup to her lips. She gulped it down.

Relief
. Thirst gone. Longing satisfied. Like wanting him and touching him.

The sweetness curled in her throat.
Laudanum
.

“
No
.” She sputtered and pushed it away. “No. Water.”

“Her ladyship’s maid says this’ll help you sleep,” Betsy whined.

“No.” Her head was too heavy to lift. Her cheek touched the mattress again.

Silence.

Sleep and wicked dreams. Kisses. Bodies entwined.

Tears.

Heaviness.

Thick, dead shadows, so unlike his living eyes.

Pale gray lightened the room. Through eyelids like cracked bricks she saw the furniture. The draperies, she thought, were closed. But it was day. She must rise and go to her father.

She pushed herself from the mattress. Her limbs twisted and her foot bent beneath her. She fell to the floor. There was sudden fire, and darkness. Her head ached. Her jaw. The flavor of metal filled her mouth. Dampness on her chin and in her hair.

No sound but the labor of her breaths. Sleep.

Betsy was beside her again. “Oh, miss!”

Someone dragged her soggy limbs onto the bed. Thoughts came and passed, short and eternal at once. It seemed all dreams, some restful, others wrong. She begged for water. Her tongue could not feel her lips, but she knew her lips were sore, cracked. She smelled blood. Her arm ached, the life sucked from her in droplets. Thirst. Fierce aching, and her chest felt cold. They could not be bleeding her. She was not ill. Not now. Not for years. He had healed her. He had saved her.

When they brought her a glass, she drank the sweet wine and asked for water again. They left. She dreamed again. Black night. Gray. More sweet wine. She insisted to Betsy that she must dress. Go to her father.

“He’s gone, miss.”

“Gone?” No. He was ill. Not clear-headed. Mary would never have allowed it. She was dreaming now. “Mary . . .”

“Miss Bridgeport-Adler’s gone off too. I don’t think anybody knows where. I overheard her ladyship say to her maid he took the carriage.”

Who took the carriage? The doctor? Had the doctor come? He would give her medicine but it would not make her better. Only Taliesin knew how to make her better.

“Taliesin.”

Betsy said nothing now. She had gone too. The room was black again.

Night.

Thirst.

A cup at her lips. Sticky-sweet. Fingers fumbling as she pushed it away, tried to close her lips. The lips brushed against each other, open, swollen and dry.

“They won’t let me give you anything else to drink, miss.”
Whisper
. “They’ve said I’m impertinent. And I am, I know. But she said her ladyship’s bound to turn me off if I don’t make you drink it. Please, miss. Do this for me. Then I’ll think of something.”

Her mouth screamed for the cup. Her tongue. Need hollered in her like a demon, grabbing at her throat, making her want it. Temptation swallowing her. She turned her face away.

Light streamed through her eyelids. Jolting. She was sliding.

“For the love of th’Almighty.”
Hushed voice
. “Don’t let her fall off it. Don’t want to add broken bones to her troubles. Poor miss. And just when she’d found the master, and he gone missing.”

“A tragedy, to be sure. But her ladyship’ll find him and bring him home.”

Light speared her eyelids. Warmth on her hands and face. Sunlight?

“Here, miss.”
Shadow
. Dark. A cloth over her face. A pall? She wasn’t dead. Not yet. But they were trying to kill her. Had they tried to kill her father too? Had they drugged him for years and locked him in an attic?

No
. Penny plays. Lending library novels. She was ill. Again. Dying of fever or whatever fragile, innocent maidens died of in the storybooks. Broken hearts, she supposed.

The jingle of harnesses. The scent of newly cut grass. Wind. She tried to open her eyes.

“Betsy?”

“I’m here, miss.” By her ear, a tight hand around her fingers.

She squinted. Tried to lift her hand. Pushed away the veil.

Treetops. A carriage. “Where are we going?”

“They’re taking you to a cottage on the other side of the estate. Her ladyship says it’s quiet there and you’ll be able to rest better than in the house with all the comings and goings. Also, she says if you stay, the fever might catch on in the servants’ quarters, and make everybody sick. But I don’t feel any fever on you now, though for a bit there I was frightened.”

A cottage? “No. My father.”

“He’s gone, miss. Nearly a fortnight now. I’ve told you that a dozen times. Oh, miss, I can’t see you leave. It’s tearing me up.”

The pain in her head was like a smith’s press, crushing. “Mustn’t go . . .” Her breaths were so shallow she couldn’t force words.

“I’m not going, miss. They’re keeping me here. Her ladyship’s maid will be caring for you—”

“No.” Had she spoken aloud? How could this be real?

Perhaps she
was
ill. She recognized this weakness. This hopelessness. So long ago. But then she’d been a girl. Had she been sick again for months? No. He had saved her then.

Thoughts alighted. Swiftly flew away.

Confused.

The only certainty: he was gone.

“Come,” she whispered. “I need you.”

THERE WERE MORE
days of thirst and befuddlement. The draperies in her little room in the cottage remained drawn, the daylight only peeking through, shafts of pale sunlight cutting deep into the dragon’s lair.

Each time she entered to bid Eleanor drink, Lady Boswell’s maid said nothing else. Eleanor refused. The weakness swallowed her. It was a battle to open her eyes. The maid did not offer her food.

Perhaps there was only one endless day.

She woke, opened her eyes, and saw the ceiling. Painted white. A tiny spider’s web in the corner.

She thought for many minutes, perhaps, or hours, about moving her head to the side. With a mighty breath that tore at her lungs, she finally did.

Green flowered wallpaper. A small table beside the bed.

An open door.

Beyond the door, pale light crossed a corridor.

Her thoughts came one after another, brief but cleanly now. A new, sharp clarity.

An open door
.

She could escape.

Light.

She would be noticed. In the darkness of night she might find success. Had they placed guards on her?