Twilight of a Queen (11 page)

His mermaid returned to his side and tried to get more of her vile brew down his throat. With his left hand, he managed to dash the cup from her hand.

“No more of that damned stuff. Where am I?” he roared at her. At least he meant to roar, his voice came out more like a croak.

“On Faire Isle.”

“No! Not possible.”

“I assure you that it is.” She bobbed her head, looking so solemn, he had to suppress a mad urge to laugh. She was a most earnest mermaid, nothing like the seductress of his potion-induced trance.

She pressed his left hand. “Don’t worry. You are safe now.”

Safe? On the island of witches, the last place this side of hell he’d ever wanted to be. He grated his teeth as he absorbed this information.

When his rescuer started to draw away, he clutched at her hand. “Where are you going?”

“Only to see if I can find the Lady. Someone should have fetched her by now. I cannot imagine what is keeping her.”

“No,” he said harshly. “I don’t want—” He was mortified to realize he was clinging to her like a child, but in this nightmare world, she was the only thing that seemed real, besides his unrelenting pain.

“Just stay.”

“I will.” She smiled, a sweet solemn smile. With her free hand, she caressed his cheek, the only place he didn’t seem to hurt. “Everything is going to be all right.”

Damned if she almost didn’t make him believe it, until she added, “I am sure the Lady will be here soon.”

What lady? he almost demanded. But as his mind cleared, he knew his mermaid had to be speaking of only one woman. The Lady of Faire Isle. The thought of
her
tightened the knot in his gut. He had to get the devil out of here.

He grated his teeth against the pain as he tried to rise, a feeble effort at best. The mermaid easily restrained him by pressing her hand on his left shoulder.

“No. Please, monsieur. You must lie still lest—” Her warning was cut off when someone else burst into the room in a flurry of faded gray skirts and flapping apron. An elderly woman with a cloud of white hair and vague blue eyes clapped her hand to her mouth at the sight of him.

Xavier regarded her blearily The old woman burst into tears and cried. “Oh, my dear master, is that really you?”

Master?
Now what the devil? Xavier thought. Island of
witches, hell. He’d fetched up on an isle peopled by madwomen.

“Is it really you after all these years?” The woman beamed through her tears. “The sea took you away and now brought you back to us.”

With another mighty sob, she flung herself upon his chest, jarring his right arm. She might as well have stabbed him. Xavier choked off a cry at the fresh spasm of pain that spiked through him.

“Mistress please!” His mermaid dragged the sobbing woman away from him. “I fear you are distressing our guest.”

“Distressing me?” Xavier grated, letting fly a volley of oaths that would have blistered their ears if either woman had been paying any attention to him.

The old lady was clinging to his mermaid, half weeping, half laughing. “Oh, you don’t understand. You don’t know who he is. This is a great day for Faire Isle, Jane.”

Jane?
Xavier thought as he blew out a succession of quick breaths in an effort to gain some mastery over his pain. That was a ridiculously staid name for a mermaid or even a witch.

Jane struggled to calm the mad old woman, keep her from flinging herself at Xavier again. As she eased her toward the door, Xavier became aware of another presence, another pair of hands gripping the old lady’s arms, reinforcing Jane’s efforts.

“Agnes, my dear. What is all this?”

Xavier could not see who spoke, but the voice penetrated his haze of pain, cool, calm, and authoritative.

The old woman turned from Jane to embrace the newcomer.
“Oh, milady. The joyous day we have prayed for is here. The chevalier has returned to us.”

Xavier froze, even his pain forgotten as he realized for whom he had been mistaken. It should have come as no surprise to him. Closing his eyes, he could hear the echo of his mother’s voice.

“You are the very image of your father, Louis.”

Even now Xavier was not sure if his mother had been proud of that resemblance or hated him for it.

The old woman’s cries faded into the distance and silence descended over the room. Xavier became aware of someone returning to his side. Somehow he sensed it wasn’t Jane.

He kept his eyes closed as though he could avoid the confrontation he’d dreaded most of his life and yet had been unable to stop from imagining as well. But he had never pictured it like this, with him flat on his back, wounded and helpless before her.

No matter how he had resisted this moment, a part of him had regarded it as inevitable. He expelled a deep breath. Feeling strangely resigned, he opened his eyes and gazed up at the Lady of Faire Isle.

Tall, slender, she possessed a stately grace despite the simple brown frock she wore. Her chestnut-colored hair crowned her head in a circle of tightly woven braids, the strands threaded with hints of silver. Her countenance was more striking than beautiful. He fancied that it was usually serene, but she paled at the sight of him, her brown eyes wide.

So this was his father’s beloved Evangeline. She was very like her portrait. But even as the thought occurred to
Xavier, he frowned, knowing that was wrong. Evangeline was long dead and buried like his own mother. In any case, this woman was far too young to be Evangeline. This could only be Ariane, the eldest daughter.

At least that was the word Xavier meant to form. But the whisper that escaped his lips startled even him.

“Sister.”

“M-my God! Who are you?”

“Nobody that you want to know.”

“Avoiding your acquaintance may prove difficult, monsieur, since the fates have chosen to cast you up on my island.”

“The fates had nothing to do with it. It was the
Miribelle
when she listed during last night’s storm.”

“The—the
Miribelle?”
she faltered. “You can’t possibly mean … my father’s ship.”

“No,
my
father’s ship.” Which Xavier prayed had somehow managed to ride out the storm and avoid breaking up on the rocks.

The lady bit her lip. He noted that she chose to avoid challenging him on the issue of fathers. Instead she asked, “What about the chevalier? Do you know—”

“Dead.” He stabbed the word at her, effectively killing the flicker of hope in her eyes. Xavier felt a fleeting regret for his cruelty, but he was in too damned much pain to soften the blow.

She lowered her lashes, sorrow and resignation softening her features. But the steel was back in her gaze when she regarded him again.

“And you are claiming to be …?”

“I am not claiming anything. If you are as good at reading
men’s minds as I have been told, I am sure you can figure out who I am for yourself.” Despite the pain throbbing behind his eyes, Xavier looked defiantly up at her.

She frowned, her gaze narrowing as her eyes locked on his. Xavier returned her stare, refusing to blink, but damned if it didn’t feel like the witch had cracked open his skull as deftly as he flung open the lid of his sea chest, his thoughts threatening to spill like treasures into her lap.

He gritted his teeth and slammed his mind closed, though the effort to resist cost him in pain and sweat, beads of perspiration gathering on his brow. Still, he refused to surrender, their eyes clashing in a merciless duel until Jane rushed forward to intervene.

“Ariane, please.”

His mermaid had been so quiet, Xavier hadn’t even noticed she was still there. Her puzzled gaze flickered between him and Ariane. Jane rested her fingers on Ariane’s sleeve.

“I don’t know what is going on or who this man is. But surely the important thing is that he needs your help. His arm must be set to rights.”

The lady pinched the bridge of her nose and drew herself up more erect. “Of course, you are right, Jane.” She forced a tight-lipped smile. “Very well, monsieur. Let us have a look at this injured arm.”

“There is nothing wrong with my damned arm,” Xavier denied despite the pain radiating up his right side. He shifted, half raising his head. “I only need—”

He choked off a cry of horror as he realized himself the full extent of his injury, the dried blood crusting
around the rent in his sleeve, the hint of bone protruding. Ariane bent closer to examine the wound, but even her gentlest touch drove spikes of fire into his flesh.

“Leave it alone,” Xavier snarled. Bracing himself with his left hand, he struggled to a sitting position. Over the protests of both women, he drew his injured arm protectively close to his chest, although the effort caused black dots of pain to dance before his eyes.

“Oh, monsieur, pray don’t. You are only going to make it worse,” Jane said.

Worse? How could this possibly get any worse, Xavier thought as his vision cleared and he stared at the wreckage of his once powerful right arm. He’d witnessed the kind of accidents that could happen too easily upon a ship, sea dogs injured in brawls or falls from the rigging, wounded during fiercely fought battles. He’d realized how fragile a man could be, hale and strong one moment, shattered beyond repair the next.

He’d helped to treat fractures this bad, knew what the inevitable outcome must be, although his mind recoiled from it.

“Oh, God.” He sagged back against the pillows.

“Don’t worry.” Jane soothed. “Ariane will take care of you.”

“The devil she will. Fetch me a doctor. Are there no men on this bloody island?”

Ariane folded her arms across her bosom. “None that will be of any use to you. Most of them are like my son, still in tailclouts.”

“Please, monsieur.” Jane tried to ease his fingers away
from his injured arm. “The lady is very skilled. She will have that bone set in a trice.”

Xavier shrank away from her, snarling. “Set? Do you take me for a blasted fool? I have seen this kind of break before. I know that my arm is going to have to be … to be …
amputated.”
There. He’d managed to say the dread word, acknowledged it aloud.

Ariane’s brows shot upward. “You seem in quite a hurry to part company with your arm, monsieur.”

“Because I have no other choice.”

“I admit it may come to that. But I have had great success setting even worse fractures than yours. If you would just allow me to try—”

“No. Keep your damned witchery to yourself.”

“That’s enough,” Jane cried. She eyed Xavier sternly. “The lady wants to help, so stop behaving like—like a recalcitrant child.”

Color rose high in Jane’s cheeks. So his calm mermaid did possess a bit of a temper. Under other circumstances, Xavier might have found it amusing, even rather adorable. But he focused on Ariane’s stony countenance.

“Somehow I doubt that the lady is all that eager to render me her aid.”

Ariane lifted her chin proudly. “I am the daughter of Evangeline Cheney. My mother was a gifted healer and she taught me all her skills, all her wisdom, to help those in need, whoever they might be.”

“Well, I am the son of Marguerite de Maitland, a most accomplished courtesan and she taught me to be wary of witches.”

Xavier tried to sneer, but his lips twisted into a pained grimace. “Of course you have no need to ask who my father was because you have already worked that out. In fact, my mother had me christened for him. Louis Xavier Cheney.”

He tossed out the name as if he were flinging down a gauntlet and it had the desired effect.

Angry color flared in Ariane’s cheeks. “That—that woman dared give you my father’s name. You are a bastard. You have no right!”

“So I have been told. Perhaps now that you know all that, you are not quite so eager to lay your healing hands upon me,
sister.”

Ariane compressed her lips together and for a moment he thought she would storm out of the room. Then she issued a deep sigh.

“Your mother Marguerite brought a great deal of misery to my family, robbed my mother’s final days of all happiness and contentment. But it matters not to me what your name is or if you are the spawn of Satan. I am a healer and I believe I can help you.”

Jane captured his left hand between hers, adding her own plea. “Monsieur, you strike me as a man used to being his own master, issuing commands. I realize how hard it must be for you to consign yourself to the care of a woman. But I have seen Ariane perform so many miracles. You can trust her, I promise you.”

Xavier’s gaze shifted belligerently from Ariane’s stern face to Jane’s softer one. He didn’t know how far he trusted the Lady of Faire Isle, but he was surprised to feel himself yielding to Jane’s calm persuasion. Perhaps because he had
never seen a woman’s face so entirely without guile. Perhaps it was because her eyes swam with genuine concern. But perhaps it was simply because he had no other damned choice.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he growled at Ariane. “Go fetch your saw or blade or whatever you are planning to hack me apart with and get some of your own back.”

“Fine. Jane, will you please cut away his shirt, while I go retrieve my weapon of choice.” Ariane bared her teeth at him in a grim smile before striding from the room.

Jane dug out a pair of scissors from the workbasket and returned to the bedside. “I am sorry that your shirt must be destroyed.”

“No problem, m’dear. It’s always been my favorite fantasy, a beautiful woman ripping my clothes off.”

His quip brought a becoming flush of color to her cheeks, a reaction he might have enjoyed if he had not been half dizzy with pain and apprehension of what was to come. He gritted his teeth and relaxed his injured arm so that she could begin.

For several moments the room was silent except for the snick of the scissors and his sharp quick breaths.

“I will try not to hurt you,” she said. “But I fear your shirt is matted to your wound where—where—”

“My bone is attempting to exit my body?” He grated. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t be feeling much pain in that region once Ariane finishes with me. And I daresay my dear sister will enjoy it.”

Jane paused to frown at him. “I don’t fully understand your history with the Lady of Faire Isle, but Ariane is not the sort of woman to seek revenge or make you pay for the
sins of your mother. She is an amazing healer. She will save your arm, Monsieur Cheney.”