Perhaps that was the real reason she was still a maiden at four and twenty: she’d been waiting for a man as passionate as she’d dreamed Lord Hope was.
But was he that man?
The carriage stopped before the Blanchard town house, and Beatrice descended the steps with the help of a footman. Usually at this time she met with Cook for their weekly consultation about menus. But today she went straight to the kitchen and asked to have a tray prepared and apprised Cook of her change of plans. Then she mounted the stairs to the third floor and the scarlet room, the tray in her hands.
George, the footman stationed outside the scarlet room, nodded at her as she neared. “Can I carry that tray for you, miss?”
“Thank you, George, but I believe I can handle it.” She glanced worriedly at the door. “How is he?”
George scratched his head. “Ornery, miss, if you don’t mind me saying so. Didn’t like the maid coming in to tend his fire. ’E was yelling at her something awful in that Frenchie language—or so I think. Don’t speak the lingo myself.”
Beatrice pursed her lips and nodded. “Can you knock for me?”
“Certainly, miss.” George rapped on the door.
“Come,” Hope said.
George held the door open and Beatrice peeked in. The viscount was sitting up in the big bed wearing a loose nightshirt and writing in a notebook on his lap. His knife lay outside the covers by his right hip. He seemed composed enough now at least, and she exhaled a grateful breath. His cheeks no longer held the hectic flush they’d had the last two days, though his face was still gaunt. His long hair had been braided into a tight queue, but his jaw was still covered by his thick black beard. The top two buttons of his nightshirt had been left undone, and a few strands of dark hair were revealed, curling against the snowy cloth. For a moment, Beatrice found her gaze fixed on the sight.
“Come to tend to me, Cousin Beatrice?” he murmured, and she jerked her gaze up. Knowing black eyes met hers.
“I’ve brought some tea and muffins,” she said tartly. “And you needn’t sound so snide. You’ve scared most of the maids, and George said you yelled at one just this morning.”
“She didn’t knock.” He watched as she came in and placed the tray on a table by the bed.
“That’s hardly a reason to frighten her.”
He looked away irritably. “I don’t like people in my rooms. She should not have come in without leave.”
She eyed him, her voice softening. “The servants are trained not to knock. I think you’ll have to become used to it. But until you do, I’ll warn them to knock at your door.”
He shrugged, reaching for a muffin on the tray. He shoved half of it into his mouth rudely.
She sighed and pulled a chair near the bed, sitting in it. “You seem ravenous.”
He paused in the act of grabbing another muffin. “You’ve obviously never had to eat wormy biscuits and watered ale on board a ship.” He bit into the muffin, his black eyes watching her defiantly.
She stared back calmly, hiding the tremor of unease at his look. His eyes were feral, like a starving wolf. “No, I’ve never been on board a ship. Did you sail home recently?”
He looked away, silently eating the rest of the second muffin. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t answer her. Then he said bitterly, “I took a position as a cook’s assistant. Not that there was much food to cook.”
She looked at him wonderingly. What straits had made the son of an earl take such mean labor? “Where did you sail from?”
He grimaced and then glanced up at her slyly through black eyelashes. “Do you know, I don’t recall having a cousin Beatrice.”
Obviously he had no intention of answering her. Beatrice stifled a sigh of frustration. “That’s because I’m not your cousin. At least not by blood.”
He might’ve meant his question as a diversion, but now he cocked his head in interest. “Explain.”
He’d set aside his notebook, and his whole attention was concentrated on her, making her feel rather self-conscious. Beatrice rose and busied herself pouring the tea as she talked. “My mother was sister to Uncle Reggie’s wife, my aunt Mary. Mother died when I was born, and I was five when my father died. Aunt Mary and Uncle Reggie took me in.”
“A sad story,” he said mockingly.
“No.” Beatrice shook her head, handing him a cup of tea with no milk but with lots of sugar. “Not really. I’ve always been loved, always been cared for, first by my father and then by Uncle Reggie and Aunt Mary. They had no children of their own, so they treated me just as they would a daughter, perhaps even better. Uncle Reggie has been wonderful to me.” She looked at him earnestly. “He’s a good man.”
“Then perhaps I should relinquish my title and let Uncle Reggie keep it.” His voice was sardonic.
“You needn’t be mean,” she replied with dignity.
“Shouldn’t I?” He studied her as if he couldn’t quite make her out.
“No. There’s no need. It’s just that this is our house now—”
“And I’m supposed to take pity on you for that? Lay down my arms and make peace?”
She inhaled to control her temper. “My uncle is old. He doesn’t—”
“My title, my lands, my monies, my goddamned life have been stolen from me, madam,” he said, his voice rising with each word. “Think you I care a whit for your uncle?”
She stared. He was so angry, so determined. Where was the laughing boy in the painting? Had he entirely disappeared? “You were thought dead. No one meant to steal your title from you.”
“Their intention is of no matter to me,” he said. “I care only about the result. I’ve been deprived of what is rightfully mine. I have no home.”
“But Uncle Reggie isn’t to blame!” she cried, losing her self-possession at last. “I’m just trying to explain to you that this isn’t a war. We can be civilized about—”
He flung the teacup against the wall and then swept his arm in an abrupt, violent gesture across the table. Beatrice was forced to hop out of the way as the tray, plate, and teapot—filled with hot tea—all crashed to the floor where’d she been standing.
“How dare you?” she demanded, staring first at the mess on the floor and then at the savage in the bed. “How dare you?”
His black eyes burned so fiercely she felt her skin heat. “If you don’t think this a war, madam,” he said softly, “then you are even more naive than I thought.”
Beatrice set her hands on her hips and leaned forward, her voice shaking with rage. “Perhaps I am naive. Perhaps it is silly and girlish and… and foolish to think that one can settle even difficult matters in a civilized fashion. But I’d rather be a complete ninny than a nasty sarcastic man so lost to bitterness that he’s forgotten his own humanity!”
She turned to sweep from the room, but her dramatic exit was destroyed when he caught her wrist. He yanked, and, caught off balance, she fell back against the bed, across his lap. She gasped and looked up.
Into blazing black eyes.
He leaned so close she felt his breath across her lips. The muscles of his leg shifted under her hip, reminding her of her precarious position. His hands tightened around her upper arms, holding her prisoner. “I may indeed be a nasty, bitter, and sarcastic man, madam, but let me assure you that my humanity is more than intact.”
Beatrice’s breath stopped like a rabbit caught in the open before a wolf. She could feel the heat of his body coming off him in waves. Her bosom was nearly pressed to his chest, and to make matters worse, that sparkling black gaze fell to her mouth.
As she watched, his lips parted and his eyelids drooped as he growled softly, “And I will use any means at my disposal to win this war.”
So mesmerized was she by the wicked intent in his eyes that she started when the door to the bedroom opened. Lord Hope abruptly released her arms. He was staring behind her at the intruder. For a fleeting second, she thought she saw something like joy cross his face, but so suddenly d
id it disappear that perhaps she was mistaken.
In any case, both his countenance and his voice were stony when he spoke.
“Renshaw.”
Chapter Three
“Come, sir,” cried the Goblin King, “I’ll give you fifty gold coins for that sword. Tell me you’ll agree.”
“I fear I cannot,” Longsword replied.
“Then surely you’ll part with it for one hundred gold coins? It is but an old and rusting sword, and you can buy twenty more the same or better for that price.”
At this Longsword laughed. “Sir, I’ll not sell you my sword for any price you name, and I’ll tell you why: to relinquish this sword would cost me my very life, for it and I are bound together magically.”
“Ah, if that is the case,” the Goblin King said craftily, “will you sell me a lock of your hair for one penny?”
—from Longsword
For seven years, Reynaud had thought about what he would say and how he would feel when he saw Jasper Renshaw again. The questions he would ask, the explanations he would demand. And now, now that the moment was here, he searched within himself and felt… nothing.
“It’s Vale now,” the man standing by the door said. His face was a little more lined, his eyes slightly more sad, but otherwise he was the same man Reynaud had played with as a boy. The same man he’d bought a commission with. The same man he’d considered his best friend.
The man who’d left him for dead in a savage foreign land.
“You attained the title, then?” Reynaud asked.
Vale nodded. He still stood just inside the door, hat in hand. He stared at Reynaud as if trying to decipher the thoughts of a wild beast.
Miss Corning straightened from where he’d pulled her across his lap. So intent was he on Vale that he’d almost forgotten her presence. He made a belated grab for her hand but was too late. She’d moved away from the bed and was beyond his reach. He’d have to wait for another time when she might step unwarily close again.
She cleared her throat. “I believe we met once at one of your mother’s garden parties, Lord Vale.”
Vale’s gaze jerked to her, and he blinked before a wide smile spread across his face. He bowed extravagantly. “Forgive me, gentle lady. You are?”
“My cousin, Miss Corning,” Reynaud growled. No need to tell Vale the connection was not a blood one—he’d make what claim he could.
Vale’s thick eyebrows rose. “I never knew you had a female cousin.”
Reynaud smiled thinly. “She’s newly discovered.”
Miss Corning looked between the men, her brows knitted, clearly confused. “Shall I send for tea?”
“Yes, please,” Vale said, while at the same time Reynaud shook his head. “No.”
Vale looked at him, his smile gone.
Miss Corning cleared her throat again. “Well, I think, ah, yes, I think I’ll leave you two to yourselves. There must be many things you’d like to catch up on.”
She walked to the door where Vale still stood and whispered to him, “Just don’t stay too long. He’s been very ill.”
Vale nodded, holding the door for her and then shutting it gently after she’d left. He turned to look at Reynaud.
Who snapped, “I’m not an invalid.”
“You’ve been ill?”
“I took a fever on the ship over. It’s nothing.”
Vale raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment on that. Instead he asked, “What happened?”
Reynaud smiled sardonically. “I think I should be asking that of you.”
Vale looked away, his face paling. “I thought—we all thought—that you were dead.”
“I wasn’t.” Reynaud bit off the words, his incisors closing with sharp finality.
He remembered the stink of burning flesh. The binds cutting into his arms. Of marching naked through new snowfall. Her brown eyes stared up through a mask of blood…. He shook his head once, sharply, chasing the ghosts from his mind, focusing on the living man before him. His hand moved to the hilt of his knife.
Vale watched his movement warily. “I would never have left you had I known you lived.”
“Yet the fact remains that I was alive and you did leave me.”
“I’m sorry. I . . .” Vale’s mouth flattened. He stared at the carpet between his feet. “I saw you die, Reynaud.”
For a moment, demons chattered in Reynaud’s brain, whispering of treachery. He saw clearly the grimace a dying man made while being burned alive. Then, with an effort, he pushed back the image and the mad voices.
“What happened at the Wyandot camp?” he asked.
“After they took you away, you mean?” Vale didn’t wait for the reply but sighed heavily. “They tied us to stakes and tortured the other men—Munroe, Horn, Growe, and Coleman. They killed Coleman.”
Reynaud nodded. He’d seen how the enemies—both white and native—were treated by the Indians who captured them.
Vale inhaled, as if bracing himself. “Then, after Coleman’s death on the second day, the Indians took us to where they were burning a man at the stake. They told us it was you. He wore your coat, had black hair. I thought he was you. We all thought he was you.” Vale looked up, meeting Reynaud’s gaze with haunted turquoise eyes. “His face was already gone. Blackened and burned by the flames.”
Reynaud looked away. The reasonable part of his mind knew that Vale and the others had had no choice. They’d believed him dead because of overwhelming evidence. Any sane man would believe the same when faced with what they’d seen and been told.
And yet…
And yet the beast at his core refused the explanation. He’d been abandoned, left by those he’d risked life and limb for. Left by those he’d called his friends.
“It was almost another fortnight before Sam Hartley brought back a rescue party to ransom us,” Vale said quietly. “Were you in the Indian camp that entire time?”
Reynaud shook his head, watching his left hand flatten against the counterpane, noting absently the contrast of his brown skin against the white fabric. His hand was thin, the tendons standing out clearly on the back. “How is my sister, Emeline?”
He heard Vale sigh as if frustrated. “Emeline. Emeline is just fine. She’s remarried now, you know. To Samuel Hartley.”
Reynaud’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowing. “Corporal Hartley? The ranger?”
Vale smirked. “The same, although he’s no longer a lowly corporal. He’s made his fortune importing and exporting goods from the Colonies.”
“Miss Corning told me that she married a colonial, but I hadn’t realized it was Hartley.” Even if Hartley was wealthy now, Emeline had married beneath her station. She was the daughter of an earl. What had possessed her?
“He came to London a year ago for business and for other matters and quite stole your sister’s heart, I think.”
Reynaud contemplated that information, his mind spinning in confusion and anger. Had Emeline changed so much in seven years? Or were his memories tainted? Warped by time and all that had been done to him?
“What happened, Reynaud?” Vale asked softly. “How did you escape death at the Indian camp?”
Reynaud’s head jerked up. He glared at his former friend. “Do you really care?”
“Yes.” Vale looked bewildered. “Yes, of course.”
Vale stared at him as if waiting for the story, but Reynaud was damned if he’d rip open his soul for him.
Finally Vale looked away. “Ah. Well, I’m glad—very glad—that you’re back safe and sound.”
Reynaud nodded. “Is that it?”
“What?”
“Is that it?” Reynaud enunciated. He was tired and needed sleep, dammit, though he wouldn’t let the other man know it. “Have you finished whatever you came for?”
Vale’s head snapped back as if he’d been clipped in the chin. Then he widened his stance, squared his shoulders, and leveled his head. A wide, unamused smile spread across his lips. “Not quite.”
Reynaud raised his eyebrows.
“I also wanted to talk to you about the traitor,” Vale said silkily.
Reynaud shook his head. “Traitor…?”
“The man who betrayed us to the Indians at Spinner’s Falls,” Vale said as a roaring began in Reynaud’s ears that almost drowned his last words. “A traitor with a French mother.”
BEATRICE HEARD THE crash as she mounted the stairs with another tray of tea and biscuits. She paused on the grand staircase, gazing blindly upward at the floor above. Had it been an accident? A China figurine or a clock falling off the mantel? The thought was hopeful, but she sped her steps, rounding into the upper hallway as the second crash hit. Oh, dear. It sounded rather as if Lord Hope and Lord Vale might be murdering each other.
Down the hall, the door to Lord Hope’s room burst open and Viscount Vale stomped out, angry but blessedly still intact.
“Don’t think this is over, Reynaud,” he called. “Damn you, I’ll be back.”
He jammed his tricorne on his head and turned and saw Beatrice. A sheepish look momentarily crossed his face.
Then he nodded curtly. “Your pardon, ma’am. You might not want to go in there at the moment. He’s not fit for civilized company.”
She glanced at the door to the scarlet room and then back to Lord Vale. As he neared, she saw with horror that a red mark marred his chin.
As if someone had struck him.
“What happened?” she asked.
He shook his head. “He’s not the man I once knew. His emotions are… extreme. Savage. Please, be careful.”
Lord Vale bowed gracefully and then strode past her and down the stairs.
Beatrice watched him disappear before glancing at the tray still in her hands. The tea had spilled a bit, staining the linen cloth covering the bottom of the tray. She could go back to the kitchens and have one of the maids lay a new tray—and perhaps have the girl deliver it as well. Except that would be cowardly. It wasn’t her duty to send servant girls into places she herself was afraid to venture.