“Yes!” Tears spilled down Carmen’s cheeks. “She wrote all those letters. It was Esperanza all the time!” Her voice rose sharply. “I confronted her, and she hit me on the head.”
He looked up at the table they were crouched behind, and saw the jumble of papers and pencils and sticks of black wax. A heavy silver candlestick, flecked with blood, was carelessly tossed there on its side.
He shuddered at the palpable sense of evil that surrounded them, as strongly as he had once felt it in battle. He carefully gathered Carmen into his arms, surrounding her with his body as if he could thus ward off anything bad from touching her. She was trembling.
“My poor dear,” he whispered. “Why would she do such a thing to you?”
“I don’t know!” Carmen cried. “She just went on and on about how wicked I was, how I have lived my life sinfully, and now Isabella ...” She gasped suddenly and struggled to sit up, clawing at Peter’s hands when he pressed her back down. “Isabella!”
“What is it? Did she threaten Isabella?” Peter felt such a burning rage, uncontrollable as a house fire, rising up in him. He forced himself to stay quiet as he held Carmen, to not frighten her further. “Did she?”
“I do not know! I can’t remember. It is all such a jumble in my mind. But if she could do this, she is capable of anything!” She seized his hand, her grip painful as she pressed the bones together. “You must find Isabella, Peter. Find her, and keep her safe.”
“I will, I swear. But you must stay here, and not move until a physician can get here.”
“No! I must go with you ...”
“Carmen!” Unmistakable authority rang in his voice. He pressed her gently but firmly back against the floor. “You will start to bleed again if you move about. Either you wait here for me to return, or I will not leave you.”
Carmen moistened her cracked lips with the tip of her tongue, indecision flickering in her eyes. Finally she gave a small nod. “Yes.”
“Good. I will not be gone long.”
He kissed her on her forehead and went in search of his daughter. But in Isabella’s bedroom, he found precisely what he had feared to find—nothing.
Her small bed had been slept in, the sheets turned back and rumpled. Yet they were cold, and the doll Carmen had tucked in so carefully beside their daughter was tossed to the floor. Isabella’s little velvet dressing gown was still folded across the foot of the bed.
Peter picked it up, feeling the soft fabric beneath his hands; the milky-sweet little girl smell still clung to its folds. He had only just found her; how could he lose her so quickly?
“She is gone?”
He turned to see Carmen leaning weakly against the door frame, clinging to the wood to keep from falling. Her eyes were huge as she took in the empty room.
“Esperanza took her,” she whispered.
“Perhaps. Or she might have simply wandered off somewhere, perhaps to find you or to look for something to drink. I do not know where her maid is, but when I find the stupid girl ...” Carmen swayed precariously, so he swept her up into his arms and laid her on the bed before she could injure herself further. She turned her face away, weeping.
“No!” she sobbed. “Esperanza took her, I know. She is not in her right mind! What if she does an injury to Isabella?”
Peter was quite terrified. He had never seen Carmen, his brave Carmen, so helplessly hysterical. His own fragile hold on calm was quickly slipping away. He knew that if he did not do something, he would soon be as frantic as Carmen and they would never find Isabella.
He sat up, drawing Major Everdean around him once again. He had a battle, the most decisive of his life, to plot.
“Carmen,” he snapped. “You must cease this at once. Tell me what Esperanza said to you, if she gave you some hint as to where she would have gone.”
Something in Carmen seemed to respond to the crisp authority in his voice. She sniffed and slowly sat up against the pillows. “No,” she said thoughtfully. “Nothing. She said something about a convent, but there are no convents near here.”
“Are you sure that was all?”
“Of course. I ...”
“Peter! What has happened?”
Elizabeth swept into the room, holding a shrinking housemaid by the wrist. Elizabeth took in the scene of a bloodied and tearstained Carmen, a pale and grim Peter, and nodded.
“So something did happen,” she said. “It was Carmen’s Spanish maid?”
“How did you know?” Carmen murmured.
Elizabeth drew the maid forward. “Molly came to me with quite an odd tale. Tell them, Molly!”
“Oh, no, my lady, I can’t ...” The maid was obviously terrified, afeard she had done something wrong and was probably about to be dismissed.
“It is quite all right, Molly,” Elizabeth urged. “This is terribly important. Do you not want to help that little girl?”
“Oh, yes, my lady!”
“Then, go on, please, Molly,” Peter urged.
“Well, my lord, I was up here putting the bed warmers in the guest rooms, see, when I heard a bit of a set-too.”
“A set-too?”
“Yes, my lord. Loud, like. Then I heard the young lady crying and saying, ‘No, no.’ So I came out into the corridor, and I saw the old lady. I beg pardon, your maid, Condesa. She was carrying the young lady off down the stairs, but she didn’t want to go.”
“The child did not?” Peter asked.
“Yes, the young lady.” Molly was warming to her tale. “She tried to get away. I heard her call for her mama.”
Carmen gave a choked cry.
Molly went on. “I knew this wasn’t right, so I followed at a bit of a distance to see where they went.”
“You were not seen?” Peter asked.
“Oh, no, my lord. I saw them go out the back doors, to the garden, and across the way to those trees. I daren’t leave the house, my lord, without the butler knowing. So I told him what I seen.”
“When was this, Molly?”
“Oh, my lord, ‘bout an hour ago, I’d say.”
“Damn!” Peter raked trembling fingers through his hair. “They could be anywhere by now.”
Carmen reached for his hand. “We must make up a search party, quickly.”
“Of course. Lizzie, will you help me?”
“I will go down now and tell Nick to have some horses readied.” She started to turn away, then snapped her fingers. “The ruins?”
Peter looked at her sharply. “What ruins?”
“That old medieval tower, of course!” Elizabeth said, excited. “You follow the path through those trees to get to the tower on foot, remember? The butler does like to brag of the local sights to guests. Perhaps he told Esperanza of the tower, and she thought it a fine hiding place.”
“Surely that is where they have gone!” said Carmen. “Esperanza is fascinated by romantic old ruins; they are the only things she has enjoyed on our travels. And it is beginning to rain, so I am sure they will have sought shelter.”
“I will go there at once,” Peter answered. “Lizzie, tell Nick and Viscount Huntington to come after me, but quietly. There must be no charging ahead full force like some cavalry, not when dealing with so unhinged a person.”
“Of course, at once.” Elizabeth hurried away, pulling the now-grinning maid behind her.
“I will come with you,” Carmen announced.
“No!” Peter said firmly. “There is no knowing what will be found, Carmen. If something terrible has happened, or if I am forced to take some drastic action ...”
“Do you think I have no stomach for whatever might happen?” She grasped his arm and forced him to look at her. She was pale as snow, her eyes huge and dark, but she was utterly composed now. Her earlier hysterics were gone, and in her face could be seen only steely resolve.
“Peter,” she said, “you know the horrible things I have seen in my life, and that I have always done what was necessary, without flinching.”
He nodded slowly. “Indeed yo
u did. You were the best shot I have ever seen.”
“Then, take me with you now! I will go whether you say aye or nay, but we would be so much more effective if we work together.” Her grip tightened. “She is my child. I cannot sit here idly while she is in danger. After all is finished, I promise I will rest and see the doctor, and whatever else you like.”
Peter sighed, resigned. “Very well. But put on a cloak! It is cold and wet outside.”
She smiled faintly. “Of course, Major.”
“Carmen ...”
“Yes?”
“We will find her.” His voice was implacable, yet somehow searching for reassurance.
“Oh, yes. We must.”
The alternative was completely unthinkable.
Chapter Nineteen
It was a misty night, foggy and damp, not at all like the night they had their midnight picnic. The moon was almost completely obscured by clouds, casting the landscape into a dangerous darkness. Carmen and Peter had been forced to leave their horses and proceed down the narrow path on foot. They kept the lantern they had brought shuttered, so as not to reveal their progress. The only saving grace was that it had not yet begun to rain in earnest, just spitting little dribbles at them.
Carmen marveled that such a landscape, so pastoral and idyllic only days before, could look like the setting of the darkest nightmare now.
She held tightly to Peter’s hand as they walked along the path. In her other hand she clutched the cold steel of her loaded pistol. As the cold air swept up her legs, she wished vaguely that there had been time to change into trousers. The thin satin of her evening gown, even covered by a heavy cloak, hardly seemed the proper armor for going into battle.
But the only thought that could stay in her mind was of Isabella. Where was she? Was she cold? Was she frightened? Did she call out for her mama?
Carmen bit her lip until she tasted blood to keep from crying out. This was not the time for panic; this was a time for cold, rational calm.
She looked at Peter and was reassured by the hard set of his jaw, the icy light in his eyes. Here was not the English earl, who danced so gallantly in ballrooms, but the warrior she had first met. He would get their daughter back for her, no matter the obstacles. She was sure of that.
“There it is,” he whispered.
The trees thinned out, and the path widened, revealing the ruined tower set atop its bluff. The stream beside which Carmen and Peter had talked ran behind it, swollen now with the rain.
Peter drew his field glasses from inside his greatcoat and examined the tower. Carmen remembered that, though the stones were crumbling, the stairs that curved up the center of the tower were intact and passable. They led to a small room at the very top of the structure, where medieval warriors had kept watch for their enemies.
“Do you see anything?” she whispered.
“No. It is too confounded dark.”
Yet even as they spoke, they saw a small light flicker and die, then flicker again in the windows at the top of the tower.
“Did you see that?” she hissed. “It must be them!”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps it is merely vagrants.”
“We must find out.”
“Yes. Remember to stay behind me at all times, Carmen. Do you understand? No matter what we may see?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have your pistol?”
“Yes, loaded and ready.”
“Excellent.” Peter turned suddenly and pulled her into his arms for a brief, hard kiss. “Then, once more into the breach, eh, Carmen?”
“Peter ...”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“And I love you. After tonight, my dear, shall we strive to live the dullest lives imaginable?”
“Oh, yes, please!”
He smiled down at her, then released her to walk off across the clearing toward the tower. He looked every bit the nonchalant Englishman, off for a bit of an evening stroll, but Carmen knew that concealed beneath his stylish many-caped greatcoat was a sword and two pistols.
Praying that no one was watching their approach, Carmen followed him, her own pistol primed and ready. Despite the enveloping warmth of her fur-lined cloak, she shivered.
It was when she slipped inside the open doorway of the tower and reached for Peter’s hand for assistance ascending the crumbling stairs, that she heard it. A faint cry, a rumble of low, hurried, feminine voices. There was a golden spill of light from above.
Her eyes met Peter’s. “Go,” she mouthed.
He nodded, and quickly, nimbly ran up the stairs, his soft-soled boots silent on the old stone. He turned a corner, and was gone from her sight.
As per their agreement, she would wait a full minute before following. The longest minute of her life.
She leaned against the cold stone wall, the chill damp seeming to seep into her very bones. She held the pistol against her side. If only this were all over, her daughter in her arms ...
Just as she thought she could not bear to wait another instant, she heard the deeper tones of Peter’s voice, echoing from above. The rising, heavily accented voice of a woman. A shrill cry, a sob.
Carmen pushed away from the wall and ran up the stairs as quickly as she could over the stones crumbling beneath her half boots. She kept one gloved hand on the slimy wall for balance.
At the top of the stairs, she did not give in to her longing to rush headlong into the lamp-lit room. Instead, she held back to the shadows, peering around the sharp corner of the wall.
Esperanza was there. Her usually immaculate black gown was dusty and torn, her cap gone and hair straggling from its pins. She stood near the window, her back to the night. One hand held a long dagger; the other clutched Isabella’s arm.
Carmen bit her lip. He daughter was shivering in only her nightrail, her tangled blonde curls falling over her shaking shoulders. She was crying, her little face pale and streaked with tears and dirt.
Peter stood just inside the doorway, his arms held out as if to show surrender. His voice was very low and soft as he spoke.
“Please, Esperanza,” he said slowly. “Please, I have not come to hurt you. I have only come to take you and Isabella back to the house. It is very cold here; this is not a place for a child.”
Esperanza backed up another step, pulling Isabella with her. She was now almost leaning on the low sill of the window. “No!” she cried. “You need not pretend innocence with me, your lordship. I know who you are.”
“Who am I, Esperanza?”
“It was you who spoiled my Carmencita, my innocent girl! Who lured her into wickedness.”
“I do not know what you mean.” Peter’s voice was soft, almost tender. He took a very small step forward, then immediately halted as Esperanza backed up, sending a shower of stones from the window to the cobbles below.
“You do know what I mean! You were the English soldier who seduced Carmen, encouraged her in unseemly actions when she should have been at home. I know, because you are the image of Isabella! You are this child’s father! You abandoned them to sin.”
“You are wrong. Carmen was, is, my wife. There was never anything sinful about it.”
“So she claimed.” Esperanza pulled Isabella closer against her. She was shaking as if in a hurricane gale.
“You pulled Carmen down into evil, and now she is lost. Now you are trying to do the same to Isabella. But I will save her!”
“She is my daughter. I would never do anything to hurt her, Esperanza. Now, please let me take you back to the house.”
Isabella stared at him with huge, bewildered dark eyes. She strained against Esperanza’s grasp. “You—are my papa?”
Peter took another step toward them. Esperanza stepped back again, sending another clatter of stones below. Carmen could hear the pounding of horses’ hooves, coming closer to the tower.
Esperanza obviously heard them, as well. She glanced back over her shoulder and gasped.
Carmen se
nsed that their time was growing short. Esperanza was perilously near the edge of the unstable window frame, and her eyes were wilder and more unfocused than ever before. Slowly, Carmen pushed back her cloak and lifted the pistol. She stepped away from the wall to take aim ...
“Mama!” Isabella’s sudden scream made Esperanza whip her head back around. Her wide, startled gaze took in Carmen and the gun.
“Demon!” Esperanza whispered.
Then Isabella tugged hard on her arm, catching Esperanza by surprise. The soles of her shoes skidded on the stone floor, and she began to lose her balance. As Carmen watched, horrified, Esperanza fell backward, toward the windowsill, her hand still gripping Isabella.
“Papa, help!” Isabella screamed, her free hand flailing in midair as she was pulled toward the window, her bare feet dangling off the floor.
Carmen screamed as well, and rushed forward even though she knew she was much too far away to catch her in time. Her feet seemed made of lead.
Peter, though, was much closer to them. Sleek and swift as a tiger, he lunged at his daughter, and caught her small hand, pulling her back from the brink along with Esperanza.
The momentum of their weight sent him skidding backward, to land on his back with Isabella atop him. For a moment they both lay still.
Esperanza slumped on the floor near the window, sobbing.
“Madre de Dios,” Carmen whispered. She tossed aside the pistol and fell to her knees beside her family. She could not even feel the bite of the sharp stones through the thin satin of her gown as she watched them stir. Isabella, sobbing, fell into her mother’s arms.
“Sh, my darling,” Carmen murmured. “It is well now. You are safe.”
Across the room, Esperanza stirred, her shoulders shuddering as she took a deep, shivering breath. Carmen put Isabella into Peter’s arms and went to her, crouching down at her side.
“Esperanza,” she said very quietly. “Are you hurt?”
Esperanza began sobbing in earnest at the sound of her voice. Great tears fell from her wrinkled cheeks onto her dusty black skirts. She covered her face with her hands. “What have I done? What have I done?”
“Sh,” Carmen said, just as she had with Isabella. She drew Esperanza carefully into her arms, cradling her against her shoulder, as Esperanza had done so often for her when she was a child. “It is quite all right now. Everyone is safe.”
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