by Anne Stuart
And the more he fought against it, the worse it grew. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and listened to the night while he made one last attempt to talk some sense into his willful brain.
He heard Valerian return, heard the whisper of voices, the rhythmic creak of the bed overhead. A short while later he heard Val’s horse wander back into the courtyard, obviously having been abandoned for better companionship, and he almost rose to take care of the animal, then thought better of it. Hannigan would be out and about—it was his time of night. He’d see to Hellfire, sooner or later.
Phelan heard Hannigan leave for one of his frequent visits to the tiny village of Hampton Parva. He’d be back by dawn as always. But this dawn would be different. This would be the beginning of their last day in England.
He flung open the windows, watching the night sky, the clouds scudding past the full moon. A lover’s moon, mocking him, he thought as he wandered over to his desk to begin packing up his papers.
His sketch pad lay there, still disarranged from his tussle with Valerian. He’d avoided looking at it for days, unwilling to see her image, but suddenly he wanted to; he had to look at her. To convince himself that she didn’t matter.
It took him endless moments of flipping through the sketchbook before he realized the picture was gone.
There was only one person who’d seen that sketch, one person who could have taken it. When Juliette had left his bed and his life, she’d taken the sketch with her.
He stared at the sketch pad for a moment, then let it drop down on the desk.
She’d lied to him, and he’d been too caught up in his own fury and confusion to think straight. She hadn’t turned her back on him for a life of respectability and comfort. Whatever her reasons for going with Lemur, they would have nothing to do with her own wants.
He was going after her, as he should have three days ago. He didn’t give a damn about the strictures of society or what idiotic sacrifice Juliette thought she was making. He was going to find her, and he was never going to let her go.
He bounded up the stairs two at a time, crashing into Valerian’s room without bothering to knock. They were asleep, his brother and the little bluestocking, but they woke up at his presumptuous entrance, the girl diving under the covers with a shriek of embarrassment, Valerian looking ready for another bout of fisticuffs.
“I’m not going,” Phelan said flatly.
“Just as well,” Valerian said. “Neither am I.”
“I’ve got to find Juliette.”
Valerian’s thunderous expression vanished. “It’s about bloody time,” he said.
“Yes,” said Phelan. “It is.” He started toward the door, then paused, turning back to see his brother bending over the lump hidden under the bedclothes, his voice a coaxing murmur. “By the way, brother.”
“What?” Val growled, his temper back.
“You’d better find a way to marry the girl.”
Val laughed then, flipping back the covers to expose a tangle of golden-blond hair and a bright red face. “I intend to. Assuming they don’t hang me first.”
Hannigan was waiting for him when Phelan strode into the darkened kitchen. One lamp was burning on the table, illuminating his face. “You’re looking a bit lively for this early in the morning, your lordship,” he said heavily. “You’ve finally gotten over the girl?”
“I’m going after her,” Phelan said. “We’re not sailing today. We might not sail at all. It’s time we knew the truth, Hannigan. Even if it’s not what we want to hear.”
Hannigan stared at him for a long moment. “What is it you’re wanting?” he said slowly, his tone caustic. “The truth, or the girl?”
“Both. Juliette first. They’ve got a three-day start—Lemur’s probably taken her to Chichester by now.”
“Lemur’s in Somerset.”
Phelan stared at him in disbelief. “What are you talking about? How the hell would you know where he is?”
“I know what I need to know,” Hannigan said. “He’s deep in Somerset. About four feet under. I put him there myself.”
The man Phelan had known all his life, the man who had been almost another father to him, was suddenly a stranger. “Did you kill him?”
Hannigan shook his head. “Not me, lad. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you. You’d gotten rid of the girl; she was no longer our concern. But things have been moving too fast, out of my control, and you’re going to find out sooner or later. It was just damned bad luck that Lemur took her to that inn.”
“She did it, didn’t she?” Phelan demanded. “He tried to touch her again, and she killed her own husband. Damn it, if only I’d gone after her!”
“Not her, lad,” said Hannigan. “Though if I hadn’t helped Barbe get rid of the body, that’s doubtless what they’d believe.”
Phelan’s horror deepened. “Barbe? She was in Yorkshire, watching over Lady Margery.”
“She was in Somerset, watching over Lady Margery,” Hannigan said heavily. “Your mother killed Lemur. With the same knife she used on your father. And she’s going to kill the girl.”
It was a cold, misty day, the sun barely rising, as the two women scrambled down the path to Dead Man’s Cove. Lady Margery was pushing Juliette ahead, one hand clasped like a talon around her wrist, the other holding the knife. She was clever, all right. If she’d gone first down the steep, winding path, Juliette could have given her a shove, taken the chance that she’d be dragged down as well. If she pulled the murderous old woman down on top of her, it would mean certain death, and Juliette wasn’t quite ready to face it.
She wasn’t sure why. She’d been living with death for the past three days, ever since Lemur had taken her away from Phelan. She should have begun to accept it.
But oddly enough, the moment she’d woken up to find Lemur dead beside her, she’d known hope. And nothing had been able to take it from her.
The woman behind her stumbled on a loose rock, shrieked, and Juliette tensed, ready to pull away from the steely grip if it should loosen.
It didn’t. Lady Margery righted herself with a demonic cackle. “Like a mountain goat,” she said, more to herself. “And they won’t come after us. Don’t you be thinking anyone will come to your rescue. They’re too scared.”
“Who is?” Juliette asked breathlessly when they reached the sand. It looked different in the early morning light, the full moon still hanging in the sky. Eerie, ghost-ridden. Not the place where she’d lain in the sand and watched Phelan. Not the place she’d returned to, and dreamed. It was well named, a place of death.
“The Hannigans. None of them will come down here. The ghosts of their victims haunt this place, haunt them. It’s their penance. Barbe explained it all to me. They must stay nearby so that they may never forget the crimes of their ancestors. But they never venture any closer.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. It’s a place of death and it’s where you’re going. Come along.” She started dragging her across the sand.
Juliette no longer bothered to argue. Who could reason with a madwoman? She stumbled into the surf, moving through the waist-deep water toward the beached wreck, her long skirts trailing in the water, slapping against her legs.
The wrecked ship was sturdier than she would have guessed. Lady Margery clambered up the side, dragging Juliette after her, crawling over blackened timbers with a spiderlike agility unhampered by the butcher knife. “They say drowning’s easy,” she said, panting, climbing onto the slanted deck. It was pitted with holes, but Lady Margery navigated them like the mountain goat she professed to be.
“That’s a blessing,” Juliette murmured uneasily, wondering whether the corpses of long-dead sailors still lay in the rotting hull, or just their ghosts.
“Not for you, love. I’m going to cut your throat before I toss you over. That way the fishes can feed on you while you bleed to death.”
Juliette shivered in horror at the gruesome
words. It was going to be a beautiful day, she thought, in contrast to her desperate situation. The sun would burn off the early morning haze and shine brightly down on this cove of death. And Juliette had every intention of staying alive to see it. Of staying alive to get back to Phelan.
She looked to the cliffs. She could see the Hannigans lined up on the edge, watching the ship from a distance, none of them making any move to descend the path and come to her aid. They looked like ghosts in the faint light, silent, eerie, a witness to one more death.
She yanked herself away from Lady Margery and raced across the scarred deck toward the far end of the ship. “Help me!” she screamed, but the line of people didn’t move, and her foot caught in the splintered deck, sending her sprawling.
Lady Margery scuttled toward Juliette, a cunning smile on her face. “It won’t do you any good,” she crooned. “They’re afraid. If they try to help you, the ghosts of the sea will rise up and drown them.”
Juliette rolled onto her back, staring up at the old woman with undisguised hatred. “The ghosts of the sea will rise up and kill you,” she said. “They’ll pull you under the sea and the fishes will feed on you.”
Lady Margery’s laugh was bright and silvery. “Don’t be ridiculous, child. Do you think I’m crazy?”
The question was absurd enough to make Juliette weep. Instead, she scrambled to her feet, the long wet skirts hampering her as she edged away from her mad captor. “I’m not going to let you do this,” she said. “I’m going to fight.”
“There’s nowhere you can go,” the old woman said smugly. “You can’t dive overboard. If you didn’t hit the rocks, you’d drown. There’s a murderous riptide that will carry you out to sea. No one would ever even find your body.”
“I’m going to escape,” Juliette said firmly. The masts had fallen, one over the other, making a crisscross against the deck, and the ropes hung crazily in the soft breeze. Juliette started to climb, scrambling up the rotted timber. “I’m going to get away from you, and I’m going back to Phelan.”
“No!” Lady Margery shrieked in rage. “He’s mine. You can’t have him.”
Juliette didn’t bother to look behind as she scrambled higher and higher. Lady Margery couldn’t come after her with the knife in her hand, and without it they were more evenly matched, despite the older woman’s greater strength and madness. Higher still Juliette went, her skirts catching on the rotted wood, and when she reached the heights, she could see the Hannigans clearly, watching her.
Lady Margery was far below, clambering after her, the knife held awkwardly in her hand glinting in the early morning sunlight. In the distance two figures had started down the winding path, and Juliette knew, with no doubt whatsoever, that one of them was Phelan.
“No,” she said triumphantly, her voice ringing out in the morning air, carrying on the wind. “Phelan’s mine.”
And Lady Margery let out a shriek of fury as the knife skittered away to the deck far below them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phelan had no idea how he made it down the steep pathway to the cove. He was only distantly aware of two things—the roughness of the path beneath his feet and the row of silent Hannigans, sentinels at the edge of the cliff, who made no effort to descend and come to Juliette’s aid. Hannigan, his own Hannigan, was behind him, fast on his heels, and Valerian had appeared out of nowhere, barefoot, half dressed, racing along after them.
But Phelan’s attention was riveted to the rotting hull of the old ship and to the two women, climbing higher, ever higher on the broken masts, their damp skirts flapping in the strong morning breeze.
He ran into the surf and climbed up onto the side of the ship, ignoring the pain in his hands as splinters dug deep. He vaulted onto the deck and had started after the women when Hannigan’s hand clamped down on his shoulder.
He whirled around in fury. “Damn you, you knew she had her!” he shouted, enraged. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you try to stop her?”
Hannigan’s face was dead white and sweating, and if Phelan hadn’t known better, he would have though the man was in the grip of a powerful terror. “I was hoping … I was hoping I could make things work out. Get Lady Margery back to Yorkshire before she could do any more harm.”
Phelan grabbed Hannigan by his shirtfront and slammed him against the side of the ship. “She’s killed two men, Hannigan. How many more must she kill before we stop her?”
Valerian had reached the deck as well by that time, moving past them to stand directly beneath the tangled masts. “Lady Margery!” he called up.
The old woman stumbled, falling against the mast, and she glared down at the men on the deck. “You!” she shrieked. “I should have killed you years ago! I tried, you know. When you were just a child, I almost smothered you. But I couldn’t. I was afraid. Afraid for my soul. But killing’s easy, bastard! The first murder was a pleasure I’m looking forward to repeating.”
“Then come down and try it,” Valerian taunted, picking up the fallen knife and holding it in his hand. “I’ll leave this for you, give you a fair shot at me. I’d be much more satisfying than the girl. What harm has she done?”
“She loves him,” Lady Margery spat. “No one can have him but me. He’s mine, do you hear me, mine!”
Phelan shoved Hannigan away from him in disgust, pushing past Valerian to clamber up the half-rotted timbers after the women. His added weight was almost more than the ancient wood could support, and it creaked beneath them. “Let Juliette go,” he called to Lady Margery, his voice low and soothing. “Come back down here. It’s dangerous up there. She doesn’t matter, let her be.”
The old woman stared down at him, her long gray hair whipping in the breeze, and for a moment he thought he’d convinced her. And then she smiled, a strange, savage smile. “You never call me Mother,” she said in a mournful voice. “Unnatural child. When I think of all I’ve done for you, all I’ve sacrificed for you.”
“Come down,” he said, climbing higher. Juliette was overhead, staring down at him, her face white and still. “I’ll call you Mother. Just leave her be.”
She laughed, a mad, wicked sound on the cool morning air. “I know what’s best for you. She needs to die. You think you love her, but you don’t. You don’t love anyone but me.”
“Of course not,” he murmured. He could feel the extra weight on the mast as Valerian started after him, and he wanted to shout a warning. He didn’t dare. As long as he managed to distract Lady Margery from her goal, Juliette had a chance.
“You’re my son,” she shrieked, scuttling upward, one clawlike hand catching the hem of Juliette’s skirt. “My flesh and blood. No one else can have you …”
“Enough!” Hannigan’s voice thundered. “Enough of your mad stories! It’s time for the truth.”
Phelan was astonished at Lady Margery’s reaction. She let out a scream of horror, and for a moment her grip faltered on the mast and she hung out over the deck, her long skinny legs kicking. He held his breath, waiting to see her fall, but her hold tightened on Juliette’s skirt, and she hauled herself upward, dangerously close to her.
“Lies,” Lady Margery babbled. “Nothing but lies! He’s my son. Don’t listen to him, Phelan. He’s trying to turn you against me. I bore you, this body bore you. Catherine died in childbirth, and her babe with her. We buried her in Italy, and I brought you back. My own dear son. You had silver eyes, just like your father.”
Phelan’s grip tightened on the splintery wood as he hauled himself upward. “My father had blue eyes,” he said.
“But Catherine’s husband, your real father, had silver eyes,” Hannigan said heavily. “She died, leaving behind you, her child. And Lady Margery claimed you. We promised Catherine, Barbe and I, on her deathbed that we’d watch out for you. You’d be a lord, you’d have parents, rather than be a poor relation. It was a sensible thing to do, and there was no reasoning with her ladyship.”
“Lies!” Margery shrieked again. “Do
n’t listen to him!”
Phelan looked up at her, the murderous woman who’d been such a twisted force in his life. She was no blood kin of his—the dark heritage was none of his own. “Come down,” he said gently. “You’ve already killed two men. Don’t hurt anyone else.”
She laughed again, with that lightning shift of madness. “You love the girl, Phelan?”
He knew he should lie. The truth might drive her over the edge. But he couldn’t deny it when they might be the last words Juliette ever heard. “Yes,” he said, unable to keep the astonishment from his voice as he realized the truth. “I love her.”
The panic fled Juliette’s face by magic. She reached down for him, and the rotting mast shifted ominously. “Phelan,” she breathed, her eyes alight with joy, and her voice was so soft only he could hear it. He looked up at her, high overhead, and it was all he could do to keep from climbing up after her, pushing the old woman to one side, and endangering both of them.
He had no choice but to hold still, halfway up the broken mast, as Lady Margery’s cackle floated downward. “Ungrateful fool! You’re wrong about one thing. I killed only one man, Phelan,” she said. “The girl’s husband. Consider it a wedding present. A final gift from mother to son.” Her mad laugh rang out over the sea. “You wonder who killed Lord Harry? You were both gullible fools, so ready to believe the obvious.”
“If you didn’t kill him, who did?”
“He deserved to die, and it was only right that I should blame his bastard. But the authorities didn’t believe me. Did you know that? You ran for no reason. They thought I was a crazy old woman intent on revenge, and if I hadn’t left, they might have blamed me.” She glared down at Valerian. “Not that I care. My husband finally knew the truth about you, Phelan. He was going to disinherit you and put Valerian in your place. I would have done anything to protect you. But there was someone who’d been looking out after you far better than I had.”
Phelan kept inching upward. As long as Lady Margery continued with her babble, she was distracted, unaware that he was almost within reach of Juliette. “Who killed him?”