by Anne Stuart
When I awoke it could have been anywhere from midnight to four in the morning. A crack of thunder sounded from just outside my windows, and I jumped up, startled, to meet the shining, wide eyes of my cousin Maeve.
"Oh, for God's sake," I said with sleepy irritability, "you can't be wanting to go out on a night like this?"
She laughed, her low throaty chuckle that had mesmerized men since she was twelve years old. "But this is exactly the kind of night I do want to go out. I find storms terribly exhilarating."
I was wider awake now, cursing her inwardly. "Who are you meeting?" I found myself asking.
She smiled her cat's smile. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she purred. "Someone very, very exciting." And she drifted out through her hidden door, leaving it open with her usual deliberate carelessness.
I burrowed down in the covers and shut my eyes determinedly. After a few minutes of restless tossing and turning I rose, sighing, and went to shut first the secret doorway and then the one into the hall.
It was almost closed when suddenly I felt it wrenched from my hand and flung open. And standing there, with that murderous hatred I had seen before, was Connell.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He seemed bigger and taller than ever, looming over me with that contemptuous look on his saturnine face.
When he spoke his voice was low, ominously so, with none of the lilt that had so delighted me.
"Where's Maeve?" He didn't bother to sweep those blazing dark eyes over my deserted, firelit bedroom; he knew perfectly well she wasn't there.
I hesitated. "She went out through the passageway behind the paneling," I replied slowly, and his mouth twisted in an ugly sneer.
"What? You couldn't by any chance have decided to tell me the truth for once?" he mocked. "I didn't know you were capable of honesty."
"Connell." I put out a hand beseechingly. "You don't understand."
He moved inside the room, slamming the heavy oak door shut behind him. And suddenly I was very frightened. "Oh, I understand, Mary. I understand only too well. You've lied to me since we first met. I suppose Maeve arranged for you to come and apply for the job, so that you could aid and abet her in her tawdry affairs."
"I didn't know you cared so goddamned much for your precious wife," I shot back angrily.
"Oh, I don't," he murmured, his voice like silk. "It's your damned rotten lies that matter to me. The way you look up at me with those sweet, trusting green eyes of yours, hiding all that deceit underneath. If it was just a case of helping Maeve cheat on me, it wouldn't matter so much. But when you stand by and allow her to torture a poor, helpless child . . ."
"Con, I didn't . . ."
"And I didn't believe her when she told me about you," he continued, ignoring my interruption. "I called her a liar."
"Who?" I asked in a hoarse voice, backing away nervously.
One hand shot out and grabbed a handful of my thick, black curls, yanking me forward. I stayed pressed against him, motionless, hypnotized by his soft, enraged voice. "And are you a slut like your cousin, Mary Gallager? Was it on Maeve's instructions that you came tiptoeing down last night, to see if you could entice the besotted master into your bed? Or did you think of that one all by yourself, to try and tempt me until I was mad for you? Your shy innocence was very touching, my dear. Maybe I should find out how innocent you really are." His strong hand reached under my stubborn chin and forced my face upward to meet his hot, angry mouth. And for a long moment I melted against him, responding helplessly to his passionate, hate-filled kiss. "That's right," he murmured, his dark eyes glittering with hatred. "This is nothing more than you've given Robinson and Peter and probably half the men in Cambridge. Surely you might say I have a right to it after all your lies?" And he ripped my cotton nightdress down the front, pulling it off my shoulders with rough, brutal haste.
It was then I began to fight him, filled with terror and hatred, hatred for him for condemning me without giving me a chance to explain, hating myself for almost giving in to him. I scratched him, hit him, bit him, but he seemed to take no more notice than if I'd been a fly buzzing. Everytime I tried to strike him his hand would be in the way, grabbing my wrist and twisting it until I was faint with pain. I was no match for him—despite my Irish temper he was a foot taller and weighed half again as much. But still I fought him, until he held me away for a moment and clouted me across the face with the back of his hand, so that I fell dazed across the giant bed.
And then his body covered mine, his cruel hurtful hands ripping away at the shreds of my clothing, his handsome face shadowed and brutal in the flickering firelight. And I knew with a sudden cold desperation that there was no way I could stop him, no way my puny strength could ever begin to match his. Slow, hot tears poured down my face, tears of shame and rage, shame that I wanted this more than anything, but under different circumstances, with love, not that mad, murderous hatred shining in his dark blue eyes.
I stopped struggling. "Con," I whispered brokenly. "Con, please. Don't."
He stiffened, staring down at my pleading, tear- streaked face. That killing rage left him, leaving only a cold, bleak expression that somehow hurt me more than anything else. "Oh, damn you, Mary Gallager," he said softly. "God damn your soul to hell." And as suddenly as he had come he went away, silently, shutting the door behind him, leaving me there on the bed, stunned, with my nightgown shredded around me, a hundred emotions warring through my dazed brain: anger, pain, and frustration among them. With a low moan I curled up into a tight ball, holding my weeping head against my knees, completely awash with mindless misery. And stayed that way until the sky, filled with its promised rain, began to lighten.
Chapter Eighteen
I dressed slowly, very slowly the next morning. Dully I noticed the bruises Con's cruel, demanding hands had inflicted on me, and it surprised me not one bit to recognize that they were darker and more vicious than the ones Perley Robinson had given me. And Perley had been beaten half to death for his troubles. I no longer doubted a word of Lillian's horrid accusations—I had seen the killing rage in Connell's eyes last night.
I dressed as warmly as I could, in a dove-gray wool and three flannel petticoats. Lacing up my stoutest boots, I finished packing and started out the door. It was only a few minutes after six in the morning—most everyone would be sound asleep. Certainly Con would be. It would come as a great relief to him when he came downstairs to find the lying governess gone from the cold, empty halls of Demonwood.
It never once entered my mind that Maeve hadn't returned. If it had I suppose I simply would have assumed that she'd gone in the front door like the brazen, hateful hussy that she was. I had her to blame for my present wretched predicament, her to blame for Con's hatred of me. Oh, I deserved it, all right. Deserved it for being fool enough to listen to her. I knew now that Con would have believed me when I told him her threats. I could have trusted him to protect Daniel. But hindsight would do me no good, and it was without looking back that I shut the heavy door behind me and started out through the drenching rain down the long road to town.
I had plenty of time for reflection. I had barely reached the first turn in the road before my clothes were soaked through with the cold, misty rain, and by the time I had gone a mile my body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers. The water on the snow-packed road had turned to ice, and more than once I slipped and fell, scraping my hands through my thin, cotton gloves until they were raw and bleeding, twisting my ankle and splattering my skirts with the patches of mud I always seemed to have the luck to find. The trees around me creaked ponderously in the brisk wind, and vainly I tried to hurry.
When I fell for the third time, I tossed my cumbersome carpet bag to the side of the road, abandoning the few possessions I had hastily thrown together without a moment's hesitation, as I trudged onward. I knew when I arrived at Lyman's Gore I would have at least a few hours to wait for the train, and it would have been far wiser of me to keep a change of clothes along, but I
no longer cared. I would have welcomed pneumonia, scarlet fever, and the plague gladly, and as I moved onward I vaguely, self-indulgently considered the increasingly enticing idea of crawling off into the woods and falling into a permanent sleep. Wallowing in self-pity, I struggled forward.
I must have been gone several hours when I first heard the heavy beat of hooves from down the road. The sky was still as dark as ever, and the rain showed no sign at all of letting up, but I knew from the progress I had made along Demonwood's endless roads that I had covered at least five miles. I hesitated, wondering whether I should stand my ground or jump into the underbrush along the side of the road, when the choice was taken out of my hands. I made too swift a move out of the way of the thundering horse and slipped in the snow and mud directly in the path of the approaching animal. I shut my eyes and began a rushed Hail Mary, preparing quite calmly to meet my maker when, with a shrill whinny, the huge animal stopped within inches of my prostrate body.
It was peaceful there on the ground. I had a very good idea who had come barreling down the road like a bat out of hell, and I had no great desire to meet his furious face ever again. I kept my eyes firmly shut.
With his usual charm and courtesy he jumped down from the horse, put an iron hand under my limp arm, and yanked me to my feet with one brutal jerk. "You haven't fainted," he mocked, and my eyes flew open.
"No, I haven't," I snapped back. "No thanks to you."
My hostility left him totally unmoved. I had thought I had gone beyond caring, but the cold contempt in his face still had the power to chill me. After a long moment I yanked my arm free from his grip. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a train to catch." I started down the road with as much dignity as a new, pronounced limp would allow me. I got no more than a few feet.
"Oh, you'll catch your train all right, Mary. You can count on me to make sure you're out of Vermont as soon as possible. But I'm not going to send you back bruised and bleeding and with a case of pneumonia. For all you've lied and cheated and abused my hospitality, I'm still responsible for you. You'll come back to the house now and Carpenter will take you to the train tomorrow, when you're dried and rested."
"It's you I have to thank for the bruises and bleeding," I spat at him.
He raised an eyebrow. "Now I wasn't thinking it was thanking me you were doing, Mary Gallager," he drawled, and I could feel my face pale. "If you behave yourself I might come back tonight and finish what I started. That's about all you're fit for, isn't it?"
I waited long enough to calm the hot, bubbling rage that flooded my chilled body and made me sick inside. "Don't you dare lay your great nasty hands on me again," I said through clenched teeth. "And if one of my brothers doesn't come up here and kill you," I added with slow, deliberate calm, "then I will."
"But you're forgetting," he mocked, his eyes cold and lifeless as death, "I'm the murderer at Demonwood. Get on the horse."
"Go to hell."
Before I knew what had happened, his strong, sinewy arms had grabbed me once more, and the fear and terror of the night before flooded back, so that I fought against him with a wild, panic-stricken rage, desperate to escape from those cruel, confining hands. But my useless struggles were over in a minute—I was up on the horse, with Con behind me, and we had started back down the long, icy road, back toward Demonwood.
I kept my backbone ramrod stiff, determined not to let any part of me touch his lean, strong body that I could help. My rage still burned red-hot, but the cold, damp rain that had penetrated my clothing and drenched my hair was now reaching into the marrow of my bones, and I began trembling uncontrollably.
"You're soaking wet," Connell observed without expression. "How long had you been walking?"
I refused to answer him, afraid that if I spoke I would either scream or cry! I kept my eyes downcast. My hands were raw and bleeding through the ripped and torn cotton gloves, and hurriedly I grabbed onto the saddle, hiding them from my captor's all too observant eyes.
"You're a melodramatic fool," he said emotionlessly. "You should have known that I'd make arrangements for your immediate removal from Demonwood."
"I'm not interested in any arrangements you might have made," I snapped back. "I have no intention of accepting favors from you."
"I have no intention of offering any, other than a ride to the station in a warm carriage and your fare back to Cambridge. If you choose to go to Peter Riordan with it than that, my dear, is your business."
"Why should I go to Peter?" I demanded coldly, interested despite myself.
"He informed me that you two were engaged last night. He came courting at eight o'clock this morning, and I discovered you'd run off like a teen-age bride."
I shut my eyes; the rocking of the horse was making me feel both faint and nauseated, and still his cold, cruel voice went on. "You don't, by any chance, happen to know where my erring wife went, do you? I presumed when she slipped off through the attic that she must have gone to Peter, but he would hardly have arrived at Demonwood so bright and early if he'd been having his usual midnight rendezvous."
"You knew about them?" I heard myself ask in dazed surprise.
"Of course I knew about them. I've known about every affair of Maeve's; every affair that I cared to check on, that is. Her comings and goings haven't interested me for years."
"But why . . ."
"Why did you have to lie to me?" he asked harshly. "I wish I knew. Perhaps it's just part of Maeve's idea of fun. Where is she?"
"I have no idea," I said between clenched teeth, trying to control the chills that were wracking my body. "And I don't give a damn."
The rain was falling steadily now, pouring out of the leaden sky onto the snow-packed landscape as we plodded onward. There was a pause, and suddenly I felt myself pulled back against Con's curiously comforting chest. "You're freezing to death," he said shortly, wrapping his cloak around me with rough concern that he couldn't totally deny, no matter how much he despised me. I made a small attempt to sit upright, and then gave in to his inexorable strength. I rested my drenched head against his hard, unyielding shoulder and shut my eyes, letting my body tremble with the cold and whatever emotions were plaguing it.
The trip back to Demonwood was far shorter than my trip away, and it was with an almost panicked despair that I felt the horse stop. This would be the last time I would touch Connell Fitzgerald, the last moment of tenderness he would ever show me, and I couldn't stand the thought that it had to end. His arm around me tightened for a moment, as if unwilling to let me go, then he lifted me down unceremoniously.
"You'd better go in and change your clothes," he said gruffly. "A hot bath wouldn't be a bad idea either. There'll be time enough for packing later on today."
I looked up at him, at his cold, impassive face. "I'm already packed."
"Mary, darling!" Lillian flew from the house, her small brown face puckered with worry. "Where in the world have you been? The whole house has been in an uproar, what with Maeve and you both missing! What in God's name has happened?"
Suddenly Con's words came back to me from the swirling madness of last night. She had told him something. Could it have been Lillian, spreading her vile rumors, sneaking to him, telling him how my every word had been a lie? Or had it been Mrs. Carpenter, who had always hated me. Or, perhaps the most likely, had Maeve herself told him, laughing with those slanted, beautiful eyes as she destroyed me forever in his mind. There was no way I could tell—all I knew was that I could trust no one. I was in a house of enemies.
Before I could bring myself to answer her chirrupy little questions, Daniel appeared at the front door. "Mary!" he cried, and ran headlong down the front steps and into my arms. "I thought you'd left me."
And then the dam of my tears broke once more as I bent down and put my arms around his slender frame.
Lillian grasped his arm in one of her plump, surprisingly strong hands and tried to pull him away. "Leave Mary alone, Daniel. She's had a long, uncomfortable walk. We'll go up
stairs while she gets changed. Come along." She tugged at him, her voice sharp. His hold on me tightened. -
"No!" he cried stubbornly, trying to shake her off. "I want to stay with Mary! Leave me alone, Aunt Lillian. I don't want to go with you."
Somehow I found the strength to pull myself together. The angry look on Lillian's sulky face augured no good for either Daniel or myself, and Daniel's childish chin was beginning to wobble uncontrollably. I let go of him, reluctantly, and stood up. "Daniel, if I stand around here much longer in these wet clothes I'm going to die of pneumonia, and then where will we be? Why don't you go on up to the schoolroom, and start on your Latin? I'll be with you in a short while after I change into some warm, dry clothes and have a short rest."
"You're not going away then?" he demanded, a ray of hope dawning on his troubled young face, and I felt a pang of sorrow deep within me.
I hesitated for only a moment. "Yes, Daniel, I am. But you can come visit me in Boston if your father will let you . . . you could meet some of your third cousins." And I looked up into Connell's coldly interested eyes as he witnessed this byplay.
This did little to assuage Daniel's fears. He yanked himself away from me, tears welling up in those dark blue eyes so like his father's. "I don't believe you!" he shrieked. "You're lying!" I reached for him once more but he struck my hand away, turning and running off into the cavernous reaches of that cold, ornate house.
Lillian turned to me, her face smooth and untroubled once more. "Pay him no mind, Mary dear. He's overwrought, what with Maeve missing without a word and the realization that you must leave." She tucked a confiding arm in my damp, unwilling one. "Come along with me. I've already had Mrs. Carpenter heat you a nice warm bath, and then a long nap will be just the thing. I'll prepare you one of my own spiced possets and you'll feel much, much better. It might be . . . wiser if you didn't see Daniel again. He's such a sensitive boy, you know. Your leaving will be hard enough for him to bear; I think it might be easier on him if the farewells are brief, don't you?" During this gentle monologue she had drawn me through the drafty halls and up the stairs, her soft voice droning on in a curiously hypnotic way, and I was helpless to resist.