by Kat Ross
This told her something. He knew fire was anathema to her and kept it at a safe distance. It didn’t matter because the talisman prevented her from touching the elements, but this indicated a certain level of courtesy. And he had yet to harm her in any way — besides holding her prisoner. Considering the brutality of the murders at Mara Vardac, Anne found this interesting.
The routine was thus: He would wait until she was in the bedchamber. Then he would enter the dining room and lock the inner door to the tower, lay the table, unlock it again, and leave through the outer door.
It should have been a simple matter to catch him at it. To wait by the inner door until she heard the bolt slide open and then rush inside.
But he was always too fast.
By the time Anne threw the inner door open, the opposite door leading out of the tower would be closing, and by the time she reached that door, he would have bolted it again.
She’d tried two dozen times and been thwarted on every occasion.
It was frustrating, although the meals he left were excellent, if far too much for one person. Aromatic soups and stews, haunches of game and roasted vegetables. Once she’d determined the food wasn’t laced with sedatives, Anne ate with relish. The thought crossed her mind that he might be fattening her up for the kill, but starving herself would make for a prolonged and far more unpleasant death — besides which, it seemed an awful lot of trouble for him to take over a single meal.
And so the hours passed, one merging seamlessly into the next. He always brought two buckets of clean water for bathing and drinking. Occasionally, he left her other things. One day, she’d found a chess set on the sideboard. She took it to her room and played both white and black, all the while plotting her revenge. She composed violent symphonies in her head. But she spent most of her time atop the tower, watching the light play on the water during the day and the slow movement of the heavens at night.
The evening before, he’d left her a novel. It was called The Mysteries of Udolpho and Anne threw it down in boredom after a quick perusal. The characters were always swooning, or being struck by terror and amazement. But if he was leaving her books and chess sets, he planned to keep her there for a long time.
It had already been at least a month by her reckoning. So Anne decided to force his hand.
Now she pressed her ear against the inner door to the dining chamber. For many long minutes, all was quiet. Then she heard the faint ring of footsteps ascending the tower. The bolt of the outer door slid open. She heard the previous evening’s meal being cleared, and the clink of cutlery and dishes being laid out.
“Who are you?” Anne shouted through the door.
As usual, there was no response. He carried on setting the table as if he hadn’t heard.
“Coward! Why am I here?”
He started whistling to himself, a jaunty little tune. She smelled the tantalizing aroma of a tomato bisque.
“You’ve left me no choice,” she announced. “I’m throwing myself off the top of the tower. At least my death will be swift, you brute!”
Anne flew back up the circular stairs.
It had occurred to her that perhaps The Mysteries of Udolpho was a signal she was to play the maiden in distress, emotionally overwrought and suicidal. That dovetailed nicely with her own plans.
Anne hoped to hear the door open behind her, but all was quiet. Moments later she burst out onto the tower roof and clambered atop the wall. A hundred feet below, she could see a bit of the inner bailey and beyond that the precipitous drop to the cliffs and sea.
It was full dark now. The stars shone brightly and a bright three-quarter moon was rising over the forest.
It was bloody cold up there.
Anne shivered and rubbed her arms. She wore the only surviving gown, a velvet thing with puffy sleeves and a scandalous neckline. More than once, Anne had regretted shredding her entire wardrobe before calculating how much rope material she could get out of it.
She was just starting to think he’d called her bluff when a figure appeared in the doorway of the tower. Anne’s eyes narrowed.
“You,” she said.
Father Gavra.
They’d only spoken briefly when she arrived at Saint George’s, but she recognized his face. He’d shaved the beard and his dark blond hair was tied back with a ribbon in a style that struck her as a century or so out of date. The black robe had been traded for a burgundy frock coat and snug trousers, well-cut but also long out of style.
“Come down from there,” he snapped. Then, belatedly, “Please.”
Anne didn’t budge. “You’re a Frenchman.”
His accent was soft but unmistakable.
“I am,” he agreed.
Anne studied him. He leaned against the doorframe in a relaxed manner, but his eyes were not warm.
“You have no right to do this,” she said.
“I have every right.”
The reply came swiftly and with heat. It gave Anne pause.
“Why?”
“You don’t remember me.”
“I’ve never met you before. At the monastery, yes, when you gave me drugged wine. But not before.” She drew a breath. “If I’ve forgotten, please enlighten me.”
“Oh no, it’s not that easy, Miss Lawrence. I suggest you think harder on it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. I haven’t a clue who you are or what grudge you hold against me.”
He gave her an unreadable look. Then he crossed his arms and gazed up at the moon.
“Will you turn into a monster now? Go ahead.” She filled her voice with scorn. “I’m not afraid of you.”
He shrugged, anger fading to amusement. “Later, perhaps.”
The wind gave a hard tug at her skirts like a mischievous child. Anne had a decent head for heights, but her skin prickled at the darkness yawning behind her.
His brow creased in a frown. “Come down, Miss Lawrence. This is a stupid, dangerous game you’re playing.”
“Then tell me what I’ve done.”
His mouth set in a line. “No.”
“You’ll damn well tell me something,” she burst out. “Where is this place?”
To her surprise, he answered freely.
“Le Côte d'Albâtre.”
“The Alabaster Coast. That’s Normandy, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
She stared out at the dark water. The English Channel. Home was on the other side.
“Come down, Miss Lawrence. Your supper is getting cold.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Don’t treat me like a child. What are you?”
Father Gavra — or whatever his real name was — arched an eyebrow. “Come down and I’ll tell you.”
Another sudden gust tore loose strands of hair from their pins and whipped them across her face. Anne inched backward until her heels were at the very edge of the wall. A muscle in his jaw tightened.
“Never mind about that,” she said. “I want to know how long you intend you keep me here.”
“I’m sure you do.” His tone was casual, but his eyes were locked on her with an intensity he couldn’t quite conceal. He was afraid of losing his prize.
“Tell me or I’ll jump.”
Another Gallic shrug. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“I’m looking for something. When I find it….”
“You’ll let me go?”
“Perhaps.”
But she could see the lie in his eyes. He had no intention of ever letting her go.
She raised her hand to the cameo.
“No!” he cried.
Anne swayed, pretending to fall under the talisman’s dark enchantment, though she’d been careful to keep her fingers a hair’s breadth away from touching it. If he was too slow, she’d fall to her death. But he had to believe she was utterly helpless before he’d let his guard down. Whatever else he might be, Father Gavra wasn’t stupid.
Her eyes slipped shut and her knees buckled. A hundr
ed paces of open air rushed to meet her. Anne felt an instant of genuine terror and then hands closed around her waist. She found herself hauled over the wall to the safety of the tower.
She watched him through her lashes as he sank to one knee, breathing hard and muttering curses in French. He adjusted his grip so one hand cradled her back, the other the nape of her neck. Nothing about him signaled man-wolf. If anything, he looked like the type to sit around drinking cheap wine and plotting a revolution. Like an impoverished radical.
Or a priest.
Now his gaze rested on the ribbon around her throat, his hands warm against her bare skin. His lips parted slightly as though he meant to lean down and kiss her.
That’s when Anne stabbed him with the sharpened stake she’d whittled from one leg of her bed and hidden in a slit of her bodice. It had taken her two weeks of hard labor. She drove it straight into his heart, where his frock coat had fallen open. He roared and dropped her. She skittered away, pressing her back against the wall. Blood pulsed from the wound, staining his snowy shirt black in the moonlight.
“Merde!”
Father Gavra threw his head back. The tendons his neck grew taut and his teeth clenched. Then he looked down at his chest, yanked out the stake with an expression of annoyance, and tossed it over the parapet.
“Don’t do that again,” he snarled.
Anne’s own hands were shaking uncontrollably. She stared at him in disbelief as he removed his coat and unbuttoned his shirt. Blood slicked his chest, but when he blotted it with one sleeve, the skin beneath was smooth. He pressed his fingers against the spot, wincing a little.
“That’s a neat trick, Father,” she murmured.
He stood and stalked to the door, turning back with blazing eyes. Anne rose to her feet, feeling foolish and angry.
“I cook for you every day and this is the thanks I get?” He raised a hand to his forehead, leaving a streak of blood across his brow. “Nom de dieu! You are a little beast.”
This hardly merited a response. Anne strode past him and started down the stairs. After a moment, he followed. She heard him sigh deeply. His moods seemed to change like the weather.
“Fair enough. You are unhappy. What else do you need? More books? I can get any ones you like.”
She turned back just long enough to shoot him a poisonous look. He was frowning at the bed and the missing panes in the window.
“Is it warm enough? I’m sorry the roof leaks. This place is impossible to keep up.”
“What do I need?” She pretended to mull it over as they took two more turnings and entered the lower chamber with the dining table. “You could let me go.”
The reply was swift and brutal.
“No.”
“Then bring me a violin. A decent one.”
He nodded, his bloody shirt and hands ghastly in the light of the candles. She stared at the array of dishes with no appetite whatsoever. Her captor stalked to the outer door.
“Goodbye, Miss Lawrence.”
The finality of his tone chilled her. As if he might keep her hidden away here forever and never speak to her again.
I must try to reach him. To make him see me as a real person.
“Wait,” she cried.
He paused with his back to her, one hand resting on the door handle.
“I can’t call you Father anymore. You’re no monk. Will you tell me your name at least? Is it Gavra?”
He turned and regarded Anne for a long moment. His eyes were brown with a ring of gold around the iris. She remembered those eyes bearing down on her as she struggled through knee-deep snow, though he hadn’t been a man then.
“It’s Gabriel,” he said, and shut the door behind him. The bolt shot home.
Anne sank into a chair, despair washing over her.
The name meant nothing.
12
Anne watched the road again the next evening at sunset. When Gabriel arrived, she ran down and gave a polite knock. She was afraid he would return to ignoring her, but after a moment the bolt slid back. He opened the door without a word and continued laying the table.
Progress, she thought.
“Did you bring it?” she asked.
He pointed to the sideboard. A violin case sat there.
“Merci,” she said.
“De rien.”
Anne opened the case and lifted the instrument from its velvet lining, her eyes widening as she read the signature next to the left f-hole: Carlo Bergonzi. One of the finest Italian luthiers of the 1700s. She reverently traced the scroll with her fingertips.
“Do you like it?” He stood at the door, watching her.
“I…. Where did you get this? It’s exquisite.”
“I know people.”
“Thank you.” She gently returned it to the case. “I promise to take excellent care of it.”
He hesitated for a moment, then bowed and left without a word, sliding the bolt shut after himself. Anne lifted it to her shoulder and drew the bow across the strings. It badly needed tuning, yet she could hear the glorious sound it would make.
She returned to the table and ate her supper, an airy soufflé and creamy potato soup with a sprig of fresh thyme, but her thoughts roamed elsewhere, piecing together the scant clues she had about his character. He knew how to cook. He could get his hands on a Bergonzi violin in a single day. He liked silly gothic novels.
He couldn’t be killed, not by traditional methods at least.
When he’d bowed to her, for a fleeting instant he seemed familiar, but then it was gone.
She went upstairs and tuned the violin, then played for a few hours, wild gypsy tunes to suit her mood. When she finally returned the instrument to its case, her fingers were swollen and tender from lack of practice. Anne hadn’t even wanted the violin. She only wanted to see if Gabriel would bring it to her. She wanted to make him to talk to her again.
Now she felt glad to have it. As much as she preferred solitude, the silence was starting to become oppressive.
She undressed and bathed with a bucket of cold water, shivering in the draft from the broken window. After she’d dried off, Anne combed her hair and wondered how had he come to be cursed, if it even was a curse. Were there others like him? Could he change at will? And how to reconcile the creature who had brutally murdered two children with the man whose only reaction when she stabbed him through the heart was to swear at her?
He seemed convinced they knew each other and that she’d done something to him, but he couldn’t be more than thirty-five years old. Anne recalled her travels over the last two decades, the various mortals she’d encountered, and came up blank. She felt sure she’d remember Gabriel. He was pleasant enough to look at if not blindingly handsome, but he had a certain volatile energy that would have left an impression.
It couldn’t be a case of mistaken identity. He knew she was a daēva and had taken precautions to contain her. He seemed to know exactly who she was. Anne frowned. Despite her diminutive size, she wasn’t used to being the weaker party. Without the talisman, she could have bested five mortal men at once. But Gabriel had his own strange power and she was entirely at his mercy.
Anne crawled under the covers but sleep refused to come. Sometime after midnight she wandered back down to the dining room. The remains of the meal sat on the table, waiting for Gabriel to remove them. Her eye landed on The Mysteries of Udolpho. Anne opened it to a random passage.
“Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montoni's; for, though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object.”
Pure rubbish.
She dragged a chair into the yellow glow of a candle and turned back to chapter one.
The next night Anne waited atop the tower and watched the road. The Channel was rough and choppy, driven by a northerly wind with gusts of rain. When she saw the mounted figure race by, she went down to t
he inner door and waited until she heard the rattle of dishes from the previous night’s supper being cleared. He was whistling a tune again — the same one she’d been playing on the violin.
He stayed to listen, she thought with a frisson of excitement.
“Gabriel?” she said through the door.
The whistling stopped.
“May we speak?”
There was a long silence. Then footsteps approached. The bolt slid open and he stood in the doorframe. He wore a grey woolen coat with a black velvet collar and deep cuffs. His beard was coming in again and he looked rough around the edges.
“What is it, Miss Lawrence?”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“I know I need to fix the windowpanes—”
“No, it’s something else. I need more dresses. The old ones got ruined.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, as if he suspected just what she had done with them. Gabriel pointed to a trunk next to the door. “I brought you six, in various styles, with undergarments and two warm cloaks.” His gaze roamed over her, but it was clinical rather than lecherous. “They should fit.”
“Thank you.” He started to turn away. “Also….”
“Yes?”
She pushed a tendril of rain-damp hair from her face and tried to look small and helpless. It was a look Anne had perfected over the years, to the chagrin all the men who’d underestimated her.
“I can’t outrun you, not with this.” She gestured to the rose cameo. “But if you’re going to keep me here, you have to permit me some exercise. Just a short walk. I’ll go mad. I… I can feel my body weakening.” This was a lie but she uttered it with great sincerity.
He hesitated.
“Please. I’ll wear chains on my legs if you insist. It doesn’t have to be far.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
Gabriel shut the door in her face and finished setting the table, then left and bolted her in.
Anne ate her solitary supper while the rain dripped outside. She dragged the trunk up to her room and examined the contents. Brocaded silks and duchesse satins and other frippery, all rumpled from being crushed inside the trunk. They smelled musty. Anne wrinkled her nose and carted the lot of it up to the top of the tower to air out.