Etienne slumped down on the couch and put his head in his hands. Haunted by May’s sweet, wanton expression and soft voice saying his name, making it the most erotic word in the vocabulary, he could do nothing but wait for his desire to pass. He did not think that would ever truly happen.
It could never be. She deserved marriage and he would not sully her innocence when he could never give her more than sexual pleasure. That he could give her even as he took his own, for she was a passionate woman, though she had not been awoken to the full force of her sensuality. How he longed to be the one who showed her her true nature.
She was brave and good and pure and he was not fit to lick her boots. How very dramatic he was being! He wondered at this wave of indulgent self-pity. It was not like him. He had been brutal to her and hated himself for the wounded look on her sweet face. It took all the effort he could summon to be cruel enough . . . cruel to be kind.
He had put it off the last time it had occurred to him, but now there was no choice; he must go. Delisle and his hideous cohort would be back. Her very manner must have alerted them to the truth, that he was there, and nearby, and they would wait only as long as they thought they might be discovered. He had, at best, a few hours.
They were dangerous men and he brought peril to May by his presence. He limped from the folly—his leg ached from the night’s activity—and around to the back to fetch his saddle.
• • •
Had she slept at all? If she had, it had only been a fitful kind of doze, but now she sat on the edge of her bed, her heart thudding. Something was wrong. Every fiber of her being screamed it. But was it just her humiliation with Etienne still haunting her, or was there something more?
Those men! Etienne never told her who they really were. If they were not Bow Street runners as they claimed, then who were they? What did they want of him?
She was never going to sleep at this rate.
She slipped out of bed and into her morocco red leather slippers, and donned the cloak she kept in her room so she could take early morning walks without disturbing anyone. She slipped quietly from the room, trying hard not to disturb Hannah, her maid, who slept in the small room off of hers. Down the stairs and into the withdrawing room she crept, and then through the French doors that led out onto the terrace.
The cool night breeze greeted her, lifting her long, unbound hair. She hugged her arms around herself underneath her cloak and walked the length of the stone terrace. The moon had risen and hung in the sky, a great golden globe with that mysterious face that stared down on the folly of mankind. The landscape was gilded, glamour-touched by moonlight. Never had the grounds been so beautiful to her, and yet never had she been so very lonely.
What had become of her life? She had everything she had ever thought she wanted. When she was young, before she went away to school, she thought often of all the things she would do to Lark House when she was older and took possession of her inheritance. She had always known it would be hers unconditionally on her twenty-fifth birthday, so she had never intended to marry. All she wanted was to run her own stud farm and live in contentment, an independent woman.
Now she had her freedom, that precious, enviable quality that she had longed for. And instead of enjoying it, she had found there was something else she wanted even more. Or rather someone else. She wanted Etienne. She had fallen in love with a man who cruelly and brusquely pushed her away, just when she wanted him most! That question screamed through her brain. Perhaps she would understand him better if she had spent her years in London learning more about men instead of avoiding them, but as it was, he puzzled her completely.
It was an impossible dilemma!
She shrugged her shoulders under her cloak, unable to rid herself of that persistent feeling, that prickling between her shoulder blades she had first noticed the day before. She needed to walk, not think! She took the steps down off the terrace, her heavy cloak fluttering in the breeze, and walked the gravel drive around to the stables. She checked on Cassie, and then strolled through the gardens, withering now in the autumn chill.
But she could not keep her mind from returning to the puzzles that tantalized her. Why did Etienne reject her when he so clearly wanted her? With the new knowledge she had of his body and his needs, she could not have mistaken his arousal. He had been with so many women; why not her?
He had told her once, on that long-ago ride into London after his heroic rescue of her from Captain Dempster, that he did not believe in love. He believed in romance and passion, but not love. She thought she had been careful not to reveal to him how much she loved him, letting him think she wanted only his body and not his soul.
Was that, perhaps, the problem? Was his rigid self-control a compliment to her? She paced briskly through the garden. Did he . . . no, she could not think it. But once it entered her brain, the notion would not go away. Did he love her? Did he perhaps love her so much he would not make love to her?
She pulled a rose hip off a low rose bush and pulled it apart, scattering the seeds over the cold ground. He had been aroused, and . . . yes, so had she. He would make love to her all night, he said. She shivered at the delicious, forbidden thought. All night, he promised, in those few brief moments when it seemed she would get her deepest desire. It frightened her and excited her more than anything.
But again the question came back: did he love her too much to make love to her?
Ridiculous. If a man like Etienne ever fell in love, it wouldn’t be with her! He was used to the most practiced and beautiful of lovers, and would certainly not fall for a country hoyden who passed her time in breeches riding her horse and probably smelled like the stable. He liked experienced women who knew what to expect of their lovers.
Had she hit on something there? Was his reluctance to bed her just an aversion to maidens?
She paused in her perambulation of the moonlit garden, struck by that thought. It was a whispered fact among London girls that rakes did not dally with virgins. There was the danger of being forced into an unwanted marriage, and experienced women were likely better at whatever went on between the sheets. And Etienne was a rake who preferred older women.
What if she told him she was not a virgin, that she had been with men before, but had been afraid to say it? How would she explain all of the talks they had had about men and their needs? Maybe she could brush it off and say that she had made love, but had never understood all of the other things that Etienne told her.
It was lunacy to lie to him simply so he would make love to her, but if he should leave she would never see him again, and she wanted him so very badly! Desperation shivered through her like a cold chill. She rubbed her arms under her cloak and stared up at the moon. She would be a spinster all her life, but she didn’t have to die a maiden. She wanted to make love with Etienne and have that memory of him to warm her through the years.
Tears started in her eyes, but she impatiently brushed them away. She would do it, before fear made her cautious. She had nothing to lose but her virginity, and nothing to gain but a sweet memory to carry throughout her life. If he rejected her yet again, she would accept that he really did not want her.
She slipped back to the stables and quietly, silently, walked Cassie out of her stall, found a mounting block, and jumped up onto her mare’s back, her nightrail pushed up so her legs were bare under the wool cloak. She had ridden bareback before and Cassie willingly trotted down the moonlit grassy stretch toward the glade, her trot quickening to a canter as they neared it. She needed no guidance, and seemed to know that her mistress was going to the folly.
Cassie was as willing as her mistress, smitten with Etienne’s big black stallion. May giggled with the absurd thought and the giddy feeling of anticipation that thrummed through her body. She rode toward the woods, her long hair fluttering out behind her and the cloak flapping.
The copse was dark, the light of the moon filtering only a little into the shadowy depths, and that only because the alders and beech
es had lost most of their leaves. Never had she been this impulsive, but now that she was set on this course she did not want to turn back for something as prosaic as a lantern. Not when she had Etienne to look forward to.
Cassie was restless and shied a couple of times, dancing sideways nervously. They picked their way along the path to the folly, avoiding overhanging branches. As the moon rose higher on its journey across the night sky the light shone more directly down, and soon she could see a little better as the silvery light beamed softly through the branches.
There it was, the doorway and windows dark shadows in the mysterious night. She would be with him soon. She slipped from Cassie’s back and patted her rump. “Go find your handsome stallion, girl. Don’t let him get away from you,” she whispered. “And I will find Etienne. Tonight we will be together.” The words echoed in the dark wood like a whispered promise.
She stole into the doorway of the folly and stood, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness inside. There was something different about the folly . . . it was tidy. Everything she had brought for Etienne was piled together with a note pinned to the top, and . . . the couch was empty, the blankets neatly folded and piled at the end of it.
He had deserted her. She darted into the folly, crying out his name. But he was gone and there was no remedy for that, no calling him back. He would return to France and she would never see him again. Pain seared through her breast, and she covered her eyes with her hands and wept, the hot tears pouring through her fingers.
She felt hands grasp her shoulders from behind, and for one glorious moment she thought, He has come back to me! but then a hated, well-remembered voice whispered in the darkness as fingers like iron twisted her arm behind her back, “Don’t cry, girly, just coz your Frenchie lover’s deserted you. I’ll give you what you’re looking for, and I’ll take your jewels, too. I’ve never forgotten that nasty turn you did me back in the spring, and I’ll make you regret it!”
Chapter Seventeen
Dempster!
In that one second all of the fear she thought she had defeated returned and all of the courage she thought she had gained fled. She remembered the loathsome sound of his voice in the conservatory that fateful night when he had drugged her and kidnapped her, and then, when she awoke from the drugs in a deserted, filthy hovel, he had told her in detail what he intended to do to her. He was breaking her in for the elderly Lord Saunders to whom, with her mother’s permission, she was being given in marriage.
The old man had wanted a wife to provide him with an heir, but did not want to be bothered breaking in any squeamish virgin. It was a demonic plan designed to frighten her, break her spirit, and bring her cowed and subjugated to marriage. May’s mother didn’t know about that part of the bargain. Marrying an elderly man was not such a bad end for a girl, Maisie thought; after all, it was what she had done.
“Now, what’ll I do with ya fer the moment?”
“How about letting me go?” she growled, fighting the fear that turned her stomach sour. She had thought she was safe from Dempster, that he would not dare show his face again, but it appeared that she was wrong. He wanted revenge on her for her manner of escaping from him, which had involved pain to his private unmentionable parts.
May struggled against the hold he had on her, but he was very strong. His fetid breath clouded around her as he muttered a stream of filthy words into her ear, calling her every name he could think of and telling her in incoherent detail how much he had looked forward to this night, to his revenge.
“Too good to be true, I thought it, when I heard you was in residence here, an’ with no one else about. Thought you would of stayed in London. Chance of a lifetime to get a little of me own back.”
“You’ll never take me,” she grunted, and paid for her defiance when he twisted her arm harder. She felt like the bone was going to snap.
She cried out, and he pulled her back against his body. “Now that’s what I like to hear, a woman weepin’. You remember, don’t ya, how I feel? You remember, you little bitch, how you took me family jewels and dug yer nails in and like to pull it off?”
“I remember!” she cried, struggling. “And I hope it still hurts, you bastard!”
“Bitch,” he hissed, circling her body with an arm that felt like steel. “You’re not worth bedding. I know what you were doin’, coming out here in the middle of the night. Already been broke to the saddle, ain’t ya? Gave it away to that Frenchie who came and got you that day, didn’t you? Whore,” he spat. “Just like your mother!”
Anger welled up in her and she thrust her elbow back, catching him in the ribs. He expelled his breath in a whoosh and she tried to pull away from him, but he twisted her arm higher and grasped her around the waist so tightly that she was helpless. If she had had her riding boots on she would have stomped on his foot, but what good were morocco slippers to a booted foot?
“I don’t want yer body no more, you wizened-up spinster. Frenchie was prob’ly only doin’ you out o’ pity. I will take your jewels, though, coz I aim to have the money I should o’ got, the money Saunders was gonna give me for breakin’ you in and bringing you docile to him to marry. You owe me!”
May trembled, but she was not that scared girl from last spring. Etienne thought her brave. She calmed herself and gazed around her, her eyes now accustomed to the dimness. Dempster was marching her forward, toward the door, but he was not going to control her anymore.
With her free hand clenched, she slammed her fist down on his arm, which clutched her around the waist. His hold loosened. She twisted out of his grasp and looked wildly around for something to arm herself with, for he was now between her and the door, and the look of fury on his face told her he had no intention of letting her get away from him this time. The pale moonlight gleamed on something metallic, and she saw what she needed. There on the table, by the pile of clothing and blankets, was the straight razor she had loaned Etienne.
She grabbed it and held it up as Dempster advanced on her again. Had he really thought so little of her ability to defend herself that he had no weapon? She raised her hand with the blade while backing him to the door.
He eyed the razor, and she could tell by some slight movement the moment he was set to lunge at her to take it. She danced around him and raced from the folly, the cloak billowing out behind her. And that was her downfall. He grabbed a handful of the wool cloak, jerking her back. She staggered and lost her balance, falling against him and turning her ankle. Pain stabbed through it, but she righted herself and tried to pull away.
“You’re not getting away from me this time,” he yelled, his voice harsh with anger.
She turned on him swiftly, releasing the tension of the cloak between them and this time he was the one who staggered backward, but still retained hold of her flowing cape. With one swift, smooth motion, May twisted the clasp of her cloak, undoing it. As it fell away from her shoulders, freeing her movements, she darted at the staggering man with a downward slashing motion of the razor and connected with his wrist. He screamed and released her, and she kicked him in the stomach. He tumbled to the ground and she heard a thud, like a ripe melon hitting a rock, and then he lay still.
• • •
“Move, ya Frenchie bastard.”
“Jem, you addle pate, you should keep your insalubrious mouth shut. There is no need for incivility toward my unfortunate compatriot.”
Delisle’s smooth voice and urbane manner grated on Etienne in a way Jem Foster’s crudeness could not. “I will kill you, Delisle,” he ground out, “if ever once I get my hands around your throat.”
A chuckle in the darkness was all the evidence there was of the older Frenchman. “My friend, if you had not seen fit to double-cross me in that little affair of the dangerous marquess, we would both be basking in wealth at this moment.”
“I could not do it, Delisle! I am no criminal, merely very foolish.” He had switched to French, and Jem squeezed him harder as he pushed him through the woods, a
nd a tree limb slapped him in the face.
“English, you froggy bastard. Yer in England now, speak the king’s lingo!”
Etienne felt a trickle of blood from the branch that had hit him. They staggered through the brush, and Etienne knew they were headed for the folly. He had almost made it away and would have been long gone, but he had stopped to write that note to May. He just could not leave without a word of gratitude and a good-bye. And it had been his undoing.
The quality of the darkness changed, and Etienne knew instinctively that they were nearing the clearing where the folly stood. Of course Delisle had taken away his pistol, but he thought longingly of the straight razor he had left on the table. If he could just get to it before his captors realized what was going on, he would delight in cutting the throat of Delisle, at the very least.
They broke through the last line of brush and into the semi-lighted clearing, where the moon shone down on a glorious and silvery sight Etienne was stunned to see.
His own English darling, May, her hair streaming behind her! She looked like a Valkyrie standing over a slain foe, her white nightrail stained with blood, fluttered out behind her. She held the straight razor in her hand, and over whom did she stand? It was that foul bastard, Dempster, at her feet!
All this he saw in a second. Jem froze in place with an utterance of astonishment as Delisle followed them into the clearing. Jem might be a fool, but he knew what to do. He immediately pressed the knife in his hand to Etienne’s throat. A trickle of blood spilled down his neck and under his shirt.
“Etienne!” cried May, and moved forward.
With that one agonized word, she had given away both her knowledge of him and the fact that he was important to her. “Run away! Flee!” he croaked as the blade pushed closer to cutting his throat.
“I would not do that, my lady, if I were you,” Delisle said, his voice a studied calm that was belied by jerky movements as he raised his hand and held it, palm out, toward her. He pulled Etienne’s pistol out of his greatcoat pocket and pointed it at her. “One step closer and your, hmm . . . your paramour will die like a slaughtered hog, just as you perish by one single bullet.”
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