The Dragon's Bride

by Jo Beverley

  Uncertainty disappeared. “He wasn’t drunk, Susan, he was dying. We shared a mat on the ground in the crowded surgeon’s tent after Albuera. I survived, and he didn’t. But we talked of home, and one of the things he talked about was you. A beautiful, well-bred lady who’d just about begged him to tumble her. But he’d found out later she wasn’t really a well-bred lady, and her mother was a whore, so it hadn’t been such a miracle after all.”

  Susan couldn’t think what to say, but relief was washing over her in a dizzying wave. It was possible that Lavalle hadn’t talked of her in every mess tent in the Peninsula.

  But she still had Gifford to deal with.

  “Be my whore, Mistress Kerslake, and your brother will be safe.”

  Lord, and she’d thought Gifford a good man! Surrender? Or fight.

  Fight, of course.

  “My brother is the earl’s estate manager,” she said flatly, “and you, sir, are a cad.”

  He paled, but his lips tightened. “But you won’t be telling the earl what I’ve done, will you?”

  “He’d probably think that I’m as mad as you are. I doubt you’re brave enough to admit your words to him.”

  “So he is your lover, is he?”

  She met his eyes. “No. If I try to continue on my way, Lieutenant, are you going to manhandle me again?”

  She had him rattled. He even bit his lower lip.

  But then he stood straighter. “A week from now,” he said. “When the moon is too full for the plaguey smugglers. Come to my rooms at the Crown and Anchor.” His grim smile showed that he had his nerve back.

  “The local smugglers have been trying for months to find a way to pay me off,” he added. “Well, now they have it. For as long as you please me, Susan, you can be the payment.”

  Footsteps saved her from having to find a response. Both she and Gifford turned as Con walked in.

  He paused.

  What did they look like, standing so close together?

  Con’s face was expressionless as he came forward. “Lieutenant Gifford.”

  Gifford bowed. “My lord.”

  He sounded half strangled by sudden nerves, and Susan felt a bubble of laughter threatening. She kept forgetting that Con was an earl, that he was supposed to be regarded with awe and trembling.

  Ah, no. She could do the awe and trembling very well indeed.

  She knew that if she told him what Gifford had threatened, showed him the marks that had to be on her wrists, he would destroy Gifford for her. Doubtless here and now.

  But she couldn’t, because she’d have to tell him why.

  And she didn’t want to bring about Gifford’s destruction. He’d been led astray by Lavalle’s story, which had been essentially true. As with her other sorrows, she had brought this on herself.

  Now, however, flight to the manor seemed pointless. The enemies were outside as well as in.

  Con and Gifford had been speaking together, and now Con indicated that Gifford should accompany him. “Mrs. Kerslake,” he said to her with chilly formality, “please have refreshments sent to the library.”

  She pulled on the manner of the perfect housekeeper, and curtsied.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Con led Gifford across the garden to the library, wishing he had an excuse to plant the man a facer. Gifford and Susan? Damnation, why would a Preventive man take up with a smuggler’s daughter?

  Perhaps he didn’t know.

  Gifford made some inane remark about the garden, and Con replied. He could drop the information into conversation. He assumed they were about to talk about smuggling.

  They were passing the fountain basin and he remembered what had been there. He could not betray Susan. He was a dragon, but not a dragon of the foulest sort. Gifford was bound to find out soon, and if Con was any judge, that would be the end of any chance of a marriage, but it wouldn’t come at his hands.

  But then he wondered, if Susan was encouraging Gifford, did she truly not want Crag Wyvern anymore?

  Or was she encouraging Gifford in the Dragon’s Horde’s cause?

  The momentary hope faded.

  Of course she was.

  Poor Gifford.

  Victim of the dragon in another way.

  Susan gave the order for the refreshments, then scurried off to hide in her room.

  What in the name of heaven did she do now?

  She circled her haven, clutching her useless cap. She needed to warn David, but she didn’t want to tell him about Gifford’s threat. David always seemed levelheaded, but no man was going to stay levelheaded if told about his sister being blackmailed into whoredom!

  He might challenge Gifford to a duel.

  As Captain Drake, he might order Gifford killed out of hand.

  That would be so wrong, and it would be disastrous to have yet another riding officer die on this stretch of coast. They’d end up with troops every few feet, and once the local smuggling master was caught, they’d find a way to hang him. If not, he too would doubtless fall off a cliff.

  Gifford’s threat was hollow. He couldn’t arrest David. He had no proof. But now he’d be watching David and this area like a hawk.

  She dropped her hands and sighed. She couldn’t tell David any more than she could tell Con, because she’d have to tell them about Lavalle. Of all the things she had done of which she was ashamed, Captain Lavalle was the worst.

  She wanted no one to know, and now it appeared that Lavalle had talked of it.

  While she’d been speaking with Gifford she’d felt sure that Lavalle had only spoken about her when he’d been dying, but what if he’d shared the story with dozens? Or what if Gifford had spread it about since? No, no, he wouldn’t do that. It was his weapon. But what if . . . ?

  She recognized the ache of weak tears and fought them. But they broke free and she collapsed in a chair, trying not to sob out loud, trying to keep the storm quiet with her hand. That seemed to force the misery back painfully into her chest, into her bruised and aching heart. . . .

  She managed to control it in the end, but Lord, she hurt. Her chest ached, and her throat, and her eyes burned. She couldn’t imagine where the term “a good cry” came from.

  But slowly she did begin to feel better.

  Not good. But better.

  She’d learned in the past that some things couldn’t be changed and that the world did not crash to its end because of one person’s anguish. She’d learned that life must be dealt with as it was, not as she wished it to be. She’d learned that she could not take life in her hands like wet clay and mold it.

  This was simply another bruising lesson.

  She stood and blew her nose. Her mirror showed her red and swollen eyes. How could she face anyone like this?

  She ripped off her scratchy fichu, however, and her confining cap. Clearly they were not armor at all. In fact, she remembered with a shudder, Gifford had said they excited him!

  With a shock of laughter she wondered if she was going about this in the wrong way. Perhaps if she flitted around the place half-dressed Con would not be affected, and men like Gifford would shy away!

  But no. Her low bodice last night had not been safe either.

  Gifford had given her a week.

  A week to decide what to do.

  A week to find the gold.

  Which meant a week here, with Con, and already in two days things were getting out of hand. That force, that power that had driven her to run was still swirling through Crag Wyvern.

  But the gold was the answer.

  With the gold, David could lie low for months. Gifford could watch him until his eyes dried to raisins and not find a thing.

  And with the gold, David could pay back the loans she had made. She could move far away. In fact, she thought, excited by the idea, she’d ask David to come with her to help her settle.

  Bath perhaps. No, too close.

  London.

  Scotland?

  Could she get him to take her to Italy?

&n
bsp; The farther the better.

  Perhaps she could keep him away for weeks, a month, even more. He’d have to return, of course. He’d have to be in danger in the future, but the critical danger would be past.

  Gifford would surely forget about her once she was far away. He’d still suspect David, but the Preventives had more than suspected Mel. They’d simply not been able to catch him at it or prove anything.

  Until helped by the old earl, apparently, damn his black heart.

  Yes, that was a plan. For now, however, this was an excellent time to search for the gold.

  Con was with Gifford in the library, and de Vere was presumably in the office engaged in his love affair with accounts. The bedrooms upstairs should be deserted.

  She slipped out of the kitchen area without attracting attention and headed for the circular stairs. As she passed a window into the garden, however, she saw movement.

  It was de Vere, out of the office, for once. It was one of the rooms she knew best, and had searched most carefully. She was almost sure that the money could not be hidden there, but she had better check one last time.

  Chapter Sixteen

  As soon as Susan entered she saw the effects of a new hand. The standish and pens were arranged differently. Piles of papers stood around the desk, each with a note on top. She glanced at them and saw one note saying, Further investigation.

  What had de Vere found?

  She flicked through that short pile but found nothing about smuggling. It contained mostly bills, and she supposed there was no record of payment.

  It only took moments to assure herself that there was no hiding place she’d overlooked. However, she saw a small wooden box on the desk that had been tucked in a drawer for years. She opened it and found it half-full of scraps of paper, even chunks torn out of printed books.

  She recognized the old earl’s scribbled notes. De Vere must be collecting them as he found them. She took them out and flicked through them.

  Some were nonsense. Some were clear. Look up nao cha. Some were cryptic. Bats or cats? That is the question. Two pieces made her frown, though.

  One said: Mel and Belle. Belle and Mel. Who should tell? Toll the bell.

  Another said: Mel and Belle, Belle and Mel. Go to hell. To demon’s land, in fact! Ha! Ha!

  “Ha! Ha!”? What a childish form of madness that illustrated, but what had impelled him to write these notes?

  Gifford had hinted that the earl had played some part in Mel’s capture, and the notes certainly showed animosity.

  Why? Why would the earl have planned trouble for Mel and Lady Belle? Smuggling had provided the money he’d used to indulge in his mad pursuit of an heir. Until the end he’d seemed an enthusiastic supporter.

  Did a madman need reasons?

  She shrugged and put the notes back in the box. Whatever had stirred in his deranged mind, it was history now. He was dead, and Mel and Belle were at the other side of the world. She went to the globe that stood on its stand beside the courtyard window, turning it to look at Australia, so very far away.

  She still couldn’t forgive Lady Belle for taking all the money without regard to her son’s safety, but perhaps she understood a little better now. Con’s return had taught her something of the power of love, and now she knew the power of desire.

  Her experiences with Rivenham and Lavalle had made her shut off that part of herself, made her deny that it existed. Easy enough when she hadn’t met a man who tempted her.

  She suspected now that she was beyond temptation. Eleven years ago, in two weeks of sunshine and friendship and one day of sinful exploration, she had been captured for all time.

  She spun the globe idly.

  Con had not been as trapped as she, thank heavens. He had escaped the shadows of that day to find love elsewhere, and it was proof that sometimes life was just. He’d done nothing wrong.

  Her eyes were looking at the globe without seeing it, but something alerted her brain.

  South of Australia. An island.

  Van Deimen’s Land . . .

  To demon’s land.

  Dragon spit! The mad earl had planned to send Mel to the penal colonies of Australia! It sounded as if he’d planned for Lady Belle to go there too, but that was impossible unless he’d guessed that she’d do something so outrageous.

  Did he know her well enough to be able to predict what she’d do? Susan wasn’t aware of the earl and Lady Belle knowing one another at all, except, she supposed, as members of local society growing up together.

  But even if he had planned to send them both off to “demon’s land,” why?

  His madness had been a cunning sort, not completely wild. He’d always had reason for the things he did.

  Why?

  She was staring out of the doors into the garden as she thought, and she suddenly drew back. De Vere had come out of the library doors, and was heading this way.

  She turned and walked quickly out of the room. The mad earl was history and she had an urgent present to deal with.

  For the rest of the afternoon, between dealing with routine matters, she checked all the bedrooms for secret spaces. Nothing. To take care of the corridors she set Ellen, Diddy, and Ada to sweeping and dusting them, telling them to check as they went for cracks in the walls.

  After a visit to the kitchen to check that all was in order for dinner, she climbed to the top floor, which would be the attics in a normal house. Here most of the space was taken by two large water cisterns.

  The big one on the west side held water for the house, including the fountain, and was original to the house. Because the house sat on the cliff, the water was pumped up from the village by a clever screw design worked by horses. The smaller one on the north, above the Saint George rooms, held and heated the water for the Roman bath. That drew water from the main cistern by a gravity feed. Beneath it a stone hearth held charcoal to heat the water.

  She noted that her orders were being followed. The fire was steady, and four buckets of charcoal stood nearby. If Con took it into his head to use the big bath, it would be ready for him. She was aware of a stupid tenderness about arranging such comforts for him. She was his housekeeper, for heaven’s sake. She was paid to arrange every detail of his comfort.

  Even so, it pleased her.

  For the first time she wondered if the gold could be hidden in one of the cisterns.

  She carefully opened the hatch and peered through warm steam. It would have been quite a cunning hiding place for something indestructible like gold, but there was no sign of a box or bag, or a line to anything submerged.

  She went to the other, bigger cistern, and checked that. Nothing, though running the fountain so much had left the water low. She’d send a message to the village to get it filled.

  She stood there smiling sadly at the memory of that encounter by the wildly spraying fountain.

  Precious, but painful. A clear demonstration of what she had thrown away.

  She moved on briskly to check the rest of the floor. She’d never known the old earl to come up here, but he might have sneaked up in the night. She had previously checked every box and piece of discarded furniture here. Now, she looked for more cunning places, but poke around as she might, she found nothing.

  As she prepared to leave, dusting off her hands, she noted the ladder that led up to the roof. She was sure the old earl would not have gone up there—into the open, by gad!—but she might as well be thorough. She kirtled up her skirts and climbed up, unlatching and pushing open the heavy trapdoor. It stopped just past the vertical, thank heavens, or she would have had to let it fall with a shocking bang. When she climbed out, she saw that it rested against a chimney.

  She’d never been up here and she found herself on a wide walkway between the slope of the roof and the chest-high battlements. She gave thanks they were chest high—it was a long way down.

  Up so high, however, the breeze was a brisk wind, cool and fresh off the sea. Enjoying it, she began a circuit, noting that
the roof was shallow enough not to show from outside, and that it sloped from the courtyard side to the battlements. A groove ran around the walkway, and she finally came to a hole and realized that the groove collected the rain and funneled it here, which surely led down to the water cistern.

  An efficient design. It made the recently added gargoyles particularly ridiculous, however. She leaned carefully out between two merlons to look at the one on the nearest corner. On true medieval buildings they were usually waterspouts. This one snarled uselessly into nowhere.

  An image of something, that. She preferred not to look at it too closely.

  She was on the sea side now, and she leaned her elbows on the rough stone to look out across the Channel. On this overcast day, the distance was misty, but up close the waves rippled silver on the steel gray sea, and fishing boats bobbed industriously on it. Shrunk small by distance, a sailing ship swooped along, heading west toward the Atlantic, perhaps to Canada, or south to Spain, to Africa or India.

  Or to Australia.

  Gulls swirled and cried, and the sea air whipped past her skin, brisk and unbearably clean. To right or left she could see misty miles down the coast.

  Other places, other people.

  Places she would have to go to, people she would have to live among. The old fear of not belonging cramped in her, but she made it release. She would do what she had to do.

  She continued on her way, looking out all the time, dazzled by this new view of her commonplace world. Patchwork fields spread green or brown, the new grass dotted with animals. She had an angel’s view of coppices and stands of evergreens, and the occasional majestic solitary tree. Of hills and valleys and silvery hints of water.

  She looked down on the cottages, farms, and church spires of her familiar life—and out at distances containing secrets, and even adventures.

  When she arrived back at the trapdoor, she almost could not bear to go down.

  Trap. Indeed.

  She’d thought she’d evaded the trap of Crag Wyvern, but she had come here, first by day, and then to live. And she was still here when she wanted to be elsewhere. . . .