The door was bolted.
Rosalie swore at the discovery, throwing down the hairpin clutched between her fingers. Angry, frustrated tears threatened to spill from her eyes but she held them back as she paced from one end of the overelaborate room to the other. After working at the lock for hours and finally hearing the blessed click that had signified freedom, she had found that the door still would not open. There were no windows, no tools that would aid her in escaping, no fireplace . . . in short, there was no way out except for that door. The fact that the room was luxurious did not comfort her, for it was still a prison. The embroidery, fancywork, filigree, posies and bouquets, ruffles, and rosettes did little except to irritate her. This room had none of the wellorganized flamboyance of the Château d’Angoux; instead it possessed a cluttery English prettiness that threatened to suffocate her.
A lit oil lamp perched on one of the small tables by the frilly bed; a basket of perfect fruit posed on the other. Rosalie walked over and selected an apple, biting into it cautiously. The fruit was firm and sweet, and she chewed it slowly as she reflected upon the events of the past three days. Ever since Guillaume had left her in the Gypsy wagon she had been bound or locked up, transported from place to place by a succession of strangers, who had not mistreated her but had not spoken a word about her eventual fate. Escape was always made impossible, for her abduction had been conducted with care and an obvious amount of forethought. Part of the journey had been by ship. Even though they had landed at night and she had been blindfolded, Rosalie had recognized the scents of the English docks, English air, and the sounds of English voices. It was slightly comforting to know that she had been brought back here instead of transported to some foreign country where the language and the people were unfamiliar to her.
Judging from the somber stillness of her surroundings, Rosalie guessed that she was in a house located deep in the countryside: no traffic, no horses, whistles, or voices. Occasionally she would hear the scuffling sounds of servants’ feet just outside her door, but it was evident that they had been told to ignore her stubborn pounding and her shouted demands.
“Cowards,” she gritted between her teeth, throwing the half-finished apple into the nearest receptacle and resuming her pacing. “All of you are cowards. At least have the courage to face me and tell me why it is I’m being held against my will!” Her voice rose in helpless fury as she directed it toward the bolted door. “I don’t know if it’s night or day! I can’t breathe in here! I have no books, no papers—damn you all, I’m sick of waiting!”
Silence.
“I’m going to go mad,” Rosalie whispered, pressing her hands against her temples and taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. Unbuttoning the front of her high-necked lavender dress, she lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, liquid pooling in her eyes until she closed them and tried to occupy her mind with sane, sensible thoughts. She wondered where Rand was, and if he was as distraught as she, and if he had caught Guillaume and made him confess where she had been taken. He will find me, she told herself. He will take England and France apart until he finds me. She did not doubt his love for her, nor his strength
and persistence. Rosalie even managed to smile as she thought of him in a rage . . . although the sight was awe-inspiring, a small part of her was always excited by his anger, for the intensity and wildness of it reminded her of his passion. Then she thought of him laughing, his teeth white against his copper skin, eyes glowing, his amber hair shining with layers of gold and brown. She remembered him as he told her that he loved her . . . how wonderfully gentle his mouth would become, how strange and compelling the mixture of colors in his hazel eyes was. Sighing, Rosalie found that her body had relaxed in temporary peace, her nerves now tranquil. “Neither you nor I will let anyone part us,” she murmured, dragging her fingers back and forth across a neighboring pillow. “You are my life, and separated from you I am nothing. Bring me back to life, Rand.” Rosalie turned her cheek into the pillow and slept, immersing herself in more thoughts of him.
The lamp was low as she struggled to wake from comforting dreams, but a brilliant flood of light entered the room. The door was open, she realized, and she snapped into wakefulness. The light was from a massive chandelier in the main hall beyond this room.
Rosalie shot up from the bed, freezing in place as the door was closed again.
“Turn up the lamp, please,” a gruff male voice requested, and with trembling hands she complied, nearly burning her fingers on the hot glass. The darkness was banished to the extreme corners of the bedroom, lamplight filling the air with a sultry whiteyellow glow.
The man in the room was easily twice her age, his face pale-skinned, his hair startlingly dark in contrast and frosted with charcoal gray. He was a large man with a spare, fit physique, dressed in expensive, fashionable clothes and a formal white cravat. His features were vaguely saturnine, his nose thin, his brows thick and black, his mouth slender and dark in color. What frightened Rosalie was not his build or his features but the expression in his eyes. They were black and gleaming, like two onyx stones. His gaze traveled over every inch of her, widening with bewilderment and then with a hunger that caused a deep recoiling inside Rosalie’s midriff.
“Lucy,” he said, his voice corrugated with emotion. She regarded him with wide eyes, her lungs expand
ing and contracting deeply, her skin gleaming like pale satin in the light. Lifting the back of a slender hand to her perspiring forehead, Rosalie brushed away the collecting dampness there, still watching him with a trapped, hypnotized gaze.
“I’m . . . I’m not Lucy,” she said.
He shook his head slowly. “No. You’re her daughter.” “Yes.” She would have started inching toward the closed door, but he was still standing there, staring at her as if about to devour her. “I’ve been locked up, tied and gagged for days,” she said, her voice strengthening into tautness. “Why have you done this to me? Who are you?”
“I am sorry about that, Miss Doncaster.”
“That’s not my name,” Rosalie said sharply. “I am Rosalie Bel—”
“It doesn’t matter what your name is,” he interrupted, moving a few steps closer to her. She shrank away from him, moving to the wall as she avoided the bed. “Lucy belonged to me, and you’re her daughter. And you belong to me.”
“Lucy . . . belonged to you?” she repeated in a whisper, her face mirroring her confusion. What did he mean? He was far too young to be Lucy’s father. “Are you . . . a Doncaster?”
He snorted at the idea, shaking his dark, gray-frosted head. “I am the Earl of Rotherham.”
Rosalie could feel her face fade to a sickly hue. “I don’t understand,” she managed to say. “She never belonged to you. She was in love with George Brummell—”
“Be silent!” he exploded, and his face went through a terrifying contortion before he regained control of himself. Rosalie quivered but kept her gaze fastened unflinchingly on his, and slowly his mouth curved upward in a thin smile. “So fearless, are you?” he questioned.
“Was my mother afraid of you?”
“Had she been faithful, there would have been no reason for her to fear me. I loved your mother very much. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I loved everything about her with a passion that no one could understand, certainly not your coward of a father. I loved her shyness, her serenity, her soft skin, and her long hair . . .” He reached out to a lock of Rosalie’s hair and kept it in his hand, fondling it with his white, slender fingers. “Your hair is even longer than hers was. And you have her eyes . . . did you know that?”
Rosalie shook her head jerkily.
“Doncaster blue,” Rotherham continued. “Only the Doncasters have eyes that color . . . dark blue, almost violet.”
“Oh,” Rosalie breathed in surprise. “I thought they were from—”
“You thought that since his are blue that your eyes were his,” Rotherham finished for her, and he gathered another lock of her hair in his hand. “No. Not at all. Brummell’s eyes are not so bright as yours, not so passionate and expressive.”
“Say whatever you like about him,” Rosalie said, her skin crawling as she saw him wind her hair through his fingers. He was planning to bed her, she realized, and the thought turned her stomach. A picture appeared in her mind for a fleeting instant, of his white hands running over her body. Her lips twisted in a trembling half-smile as she continued. “Nothing will change the fact that he is my father and that Lucy chose him over you.”
Rotherham swore at her. His hands pressed on either side of her head, framing her face in a tight vise. Ineffectually Rosalie tried to bolt away, gasping as his body pressed hers against the wall. He was aroused, and she felt the straining shape of him against her abdomen. As she let out a disgusted sob and tried to pull his wrists away, he jerked her hair tighter. Her eyes were slitted from the pressure of his hands near her face.
“Why don’t you scream?” he asked, his thin mouth so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “Would it do any good?” she whispered. “No. I will
not scream, because you wish me to be afraid of you, and I am not. I am merely revolted by you, just as my mother was.”
“You are a whore, just as your mother was,” Rotherham spat, bringing his body so tightly against hers that she expected to hear her bones crack. “I know all about your affair with Berkeley—everyone knows about it. But now you’re my whore, and I will have you for all the times that I wanted Lucy and could not have her.” “You’re insane! I am not my mother!” she cried
hoarsely.
“You are—you’re part of her,” he contradicted, and his eyes closed as he moved his pelvis against her. “You feel like her. By God, you feel like Lucy.” He groaned and pressed his mouth to hers, seeming not to notice that her teeth were tightly clenched. “I’ve looked for you ever since I lost Lucy,” he muttered. “I’ve known about you all these years, ever since I saw her in France, swollen with you. Little whore, her belly full with Brummell’s bastard when she was promised to me!” He kissed her neck and muttered Lucy’s name again, his coarse hair brushing against her cheek. Suddenly Rosalie could not stand it any longer and screamed, trying to strike him. He caught her wrists easily, his grip so tight that her fingers went numb.
“You’d bloody well better enjoy this,” she said thickly, barely recognizing her own voice. “Because you’ll pay for it with your life, and if I don’t find a way to kill you first, someone else will.”
“You mean your lover,” Rotherham said, his fingers delving into the valley between her breasts. “You will never see him again. You will never lie with him again.
And if you ever escape from me, I’ll have him killed within an hour of your disappearance.”
“No!”
She fought him in blind panic, squirming away from his engorged manhood and managing to wrench one hand away from his grip. Flailing at him in a desperate attempt for freedom, Rosalie managed to strike him in the throat. Immediately her other hand was released as he choked for air. Running to the door, she scrabbled at the knob and sobbed in gratitude as it opened. She could hear him behind her, his heavy footsteps seeming to thunder in her ears. A silent scream echoed through her insides, and she ran like a mad, wild creature, into the cavernous main hall and toward the endless slope of steps that led to the front door. The scene was a mere blur before her eyes, the paralyzed figures of a manservant and a maid barely impinged on her mind as she passed by them. Rosalie half-fell, half-ran down the steps, her thoughts in a tumbling whirl as instinct took over her body, forcing her feet to move faster and pumping adrenaline through her veins. Halfway down the stairs she fell on the landing, her palms hitting the hard marble with a loud smack. Every bone in her body was jarred. Behind her, the sound of Rotherham’s boots came closer. With a harsh breath Rosalie picked herself up and prepared to run down the remaining stairs, when suddenly a dark shape obstructed her path. Helplessly she collided with it, her feet slipping on the marble. In a fraction of a second she knew that she was going to fall and die. No one could survive a tumble down those hard, gleaming steps.
Shocked, she felt herself being snatched from the fall, pulled upright and held lightly, securely against a hard body. Dumbly she quivered and remained there, gripping her rescuer’s coat lapels in a desperate bid for protection.
“Rosalie. Be still, my love, and don’t tremble so.” She heard Rand’s voice, and uncomprehendingly she looked up at him. “Have you been hurt?” His hazel eyes moved over her face in careful assessment.
Collecting her wits in a fumbling attempt, Rosalie stared up at him with dilated eyes. “Rotherham . . .
table.
. |.
Guillaume
|.
.” she stuttered, trying to tell him
|
everything in a confused flurry.
He cut her off by placing a forefinger on her lips. “I understand.”
He was so calm, so wonderfully calm and strong. Rosalie hid her white face against his coat. Rand looked up at Rotherham, who was only a few feet above them on the stairs.
“My greatest pleasure,” Rand said to him evenly, “would be to kill you with my bare hands. If you have a preference for any other method, I’ll be glad to oblige you.”
Equally controlled, Rotherham cast him a slight smile. “Are you competent with a straight saber?”
“I am considered to be.”
“By your fledgling contemporaries?” Rotherham questioned. “Or merely by yourself?”
“Why, both.”
“The weapons are downstairs in the first room. If you care to follow me . . .”
“Of course,” Rand said politely, a frosty, feral gleam in his topaz-shaded eyes. He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to Rosalie, who clutched the garment in . a death hold. The saber, she thought numbly, was probably the best weapon for them to duel with, for it would ensure that the contest of abilities would be finished quickly. It possessed a blade of triangular section, wickedly sharp on the front edge. Requiring strength as well as skill, it weighed more than a pound and tired the forearm easily.
Fear-stricken about what might happen, she wanted to beg Rand to take her away from here and forget about Rotherham, yet she knew that he would have refused her. She did not speak to him, biting her lower lip as he walked down the steps after Rotherham. Rand paused and turned back to her with a mocking, “Hold the railing as you come down.” Rosalie nodded, meeting his quick glance and abruptly seeing all that she had missed before. In his eyes burned a stark blend of love, pain, and fury, but he dared not relinquish his control or he could not accomplish what he had to do.
Both men had removed their coats but not their boots, each seeming to be satisfied with the handicap as long as the other was equally encumbered. Afraid of being a distraction to Rand, Rosalie stayed almost out of sight, remaining at the bottom of the stairs to catch what glimpses were available through the open doorway.
“A good piece,” Rand commented after pulling a saber off the wall.
“You will not need to use it long. I’ll cut you down before you know what has happened,” Rotherham said, his onyx eyes piercing. “After twenty years I will not lose her again. She was intended for me.”
“My God, are you well in the head?” Rand inquired, the course of his blood increasing with rage. “What delusions do you suffer from?”
“You don’t know a thing, you insolent pup.” Rotherham sneered. “She understands well enough, although you don’t.”
“Understands what?”
“That she rightfully belongs to me. She will pay for being the same whore that her mother was—”
“Your conversation is tiresome,” Rand interrupted with a snarl. “As well as irrational.”
They lifted the heavy weapons in salute, the briefness of the gesture a studied insult on both parts. Rosalie held her breath as the engagement began, the sabers clashing edge to edge. They fought with cutting strokes and strangely swift attacks launched immediately after the parry. It was a type of swordplay different from anything she had ever seen before, for the mock battles staged in the plays she had attended were conducted with the light scratching, maneuvering, and delicate offense of the foil. There was nothing light or delicate about the real-life duel she watched so intently: it was direct, simple, and acute.
Rand discovered immediately after the fight had begun that his opponent was well-experienced at saber fencing, and he field Rotherham at a distance while sizing up the situation. Rotherham guarded all of his
lines well, his technique strong and his lunge impressive. They were both tall men, which made agility essentia! in defending against each other’s long reach. Rotherham’s advantage was experience. He had obviously practiced the saber riposte until it was second nature, able to deliver an instantaneous reply to each attack. Rand had to rely not on practice but on instinct, forcing himself to subdue his emotions and concentrate on trusting his own reflexes.
All of his recent fencing experience with Guillaume now became a disadvantage—dueling with foils was a different art from sabers. This was quickly apparent as he engaged Rotherham in quarte, a technique which Rand had used so successfully in besting Guillaume. It was not well-suited to the saber. The blade of Rotherham’s weapon bit into his unprotected arm, causing Rand to inhale sharply with pain. Any more damage done to his forearm and he would become disabled. “Competent?” Rotherham sneered. “That you are, but
nothing more.”
Rosalie sat down abruptly on the stairs as she saw the scarlet blossom on Rand’s white shirt sleeve, her legs unable to support the rest of her body. The blades flashed like streaks of lightning, swinging through the air and meeting with sharp, whipping sounds. Rand’s concentration became complete as the engagement wore on. He forgot about his arm, his anger, everything but the mathematical precision of the strokes of the sabers. Feint. Parry, riposte. Low tierce to
protect the flank. Low quarte to protect the stomach. The attacks became faster, the fight quickening until the only defense was to redouble the attacks.
It seemed to Rosalie that they fought for hours. She saw every detail of what was happening as if it had been slowed to a snail’s pace, yet there was nothing she could do to help Rand. She could only watch, her hands clenched around the stair railing until her knuckles were white from the pressure. Her life was suspended on the outcome of the duel, just as Rand’s was. After two feints and tierce yet again, Rand inter
rupted Rotherham’s attack with a single lunge. The saber sank deeply through Rotherham’s flesh, ending his life with startling promptness. He dropped to the floor without a sound, his body thudding gently onto the flat surface.
Slowly Rosalie stood up and went to the doorway, stopping a foot away from Rand. His thick lashes lowered as he looked away from her and dropped the saber. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his body retaining the tensed, charged energy of the fight. Then silently he stared at her, his face expressionless as he sought for some word, some action that would help to banish the icy control he had built around himself. Intuitively Rosalie pressed her body against his rigid muscles, curving to him and sliding her arms around his waist. “I love you,” she murmured, clinging to him. “I knew
you would find me . . . Oh, your arm, Rand . . .” As her warmth and soft whisperings gradually slipped under his guard, Rand wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. A faint, incoherent sound left his throat and he pulled her tighter.
He was whole again.
Rosalie stirred in her husband’s arms, her skin pinkened with pleasure, her eyes half-closed with feline contentment. For the first time they had made love as husband and wife, and although the experience was as lusty and breathtaking as ever, a new element had been added. Now they were joined by God and ceremony as well as love, and henceforth the world would never look upon either of them as a single entity. She was sorry that Amille would never know this
particular kind of completeness with Baron Winthrop, yet in spite of that, Amille seemed to be happier than Rosalie had ever known her to be. The two women had spent a long time together the day before, talking about all that had happened and recognizing that although they were not related by blood, they were nevertheless mother and daughter. Smiling in contentment, Rosalie turned her attention back to Rand.
“Maman once told me that a woman’s duty was to give man pleasure,” Rosalie said, her silken legs en twined with his pleasantly rough ones. “But she never told me that he returned the obligation.”
Rand chuckled, lifting his mouth from her tingling skin and looking at her with an intimate glow in his eyes.
“I must admit, before meeting you I never expected to find such pleasure in the marriage bed.” “Why is it,” Rosalie wondered thoughtfully, “that a
man is supposed to find fulfillment only in the arms of his mistress and not his wife?”
“Because unlike me, the average man does not marry his mistress.”
As he had expected, the taunt roused her ire. Uttering mock threats of revenge, Rosalie slammed a pillow over his mischievous face and shrieked with laughter as Rand rolled on top of her to keep her still. They engaged in such play for long, enjoyable moments until the tickling and cavorting changed into inquiring strokes and unrestrained caresses. Rosalie felt the irresistible magic of his lovemaking saturate her senses. She returned his kisses eagerly, still unable to believe that he was hers and that he wanted her with the same insatiable hunger that consumed her. Boldly he possessed her, his shoulders rising above hers in flexing power. Rosalie sighed in pleasure, her arms encircling his neck. She loved this moment above all others, when she knew that she was his entire world and that his every thought, his every sensation, centered upon her alone.
After their passion was sated they talked with uninhibited freedom, sharing their thoughts.
“Do you suppose,” Rosalie asked quietly, “that we’ll ever see Mireille again?”
“It depends,” Rand replied, shrugging. “If she’s still with Guillaume, I’d say it was likely.”
“Why? Are you still planning to look for Guillaume?” “At this moment I have men scouring England and France for any sign of him.”
“I don’t care about him. But I would like for Mireille to be found.” Rosalie was quiet for several minutes after that, until Rand kissed her forehead and voiced a gentle question.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Brummell,” Rosalie answered hesitantly. “I wonder how often he thinks about me . . . or Lucy.”
“He probably tries not to,” Rand replied. “And I’ll wager that it haunts him every day.” Rosalie nodded wistfully, laying her head on his chest and drawing from his steady comfort.
They were quiet and content in each other’s embrace until the sun began to rise, its gentle light shining through the luminous mist of dawn. My first day as his wife, Rosalie thought, and her eyes glittered with sudden tears of bliss. Rand took his contemplative gaze from the window and looked down at her, understanding her with the acute perception that love brings. They smiled at each other, and then their lips met in a passionate kiss.
“Rose . . .” Rand breathed against her mouth. “No more adventures for a while.”
“None, I promise.”
“A year’s respite is all I ask. Now that we’re married, we’ll set up a household, have a child, go to an occasional ball—”
“Yes, my dearest love,” Rosalie agreed, smiling secretly to herself.
Somehow she knew that adventures would find them anyway.