Speak Only Love

by Deana James

  Stiffly, Vivian started across the room to the sideboard.

  "Graceless chit!" the housekeeper barked, enjoying herself hugely. "You forgot to curtsy. Who has taught you, fool? You'll be back in the scullery before you know it."

  Playing the deadly game for all she was worth, Vivian hastened back to drop an impeccable curtsy bofore the woman. She was rewarded with a frosty nod and a rude grunt. Scurrying to the sideboard, Vivian poured a crystal water glass full of sherry. If Felders drank enough, she might fall asleep or be so befuddled that she would be easily tricked.

  "Idiot." The woman continued her acting. "You didn’t set it on a tray. How dare you bring it to me with your filthy hands! Take it back and serve me properly."

  Gritting her teeth, Vivian did as she commanded. When she came back with the drink, Mrs. Felders laughed nastily. Rising, her eyes icy with cruelty, she struck Vivian a savage slap across the side of the cheek. The glass, sherry, and tray went flying. The fragile crystal shattered.

  Instantly, Vivian lunged for the older woman, her fists clenched, only to be brought up short by the horse pistol aimed for her heart.

  Felders laughed in delight. "Now you'll pay for it. Ignorant, stupid, clumsy girl. Down on your knees and beg my pardon." She pointed imperiously at the floor.

  When Vivian hesitated, calculating the chances of springing at Felders and wresting the pistol from her hand, the woman's mouth pursed angrily. "Down!" she snarled, gesturing with the pistol. Trembling, Vivian sank to her knees.

  "Oh, my god. Don't you look sweet?" Felders sucked in a shuddering breath. "You don't know how good you look to me. You the fine lady." She pushed the pistol into Vivian's face. "Do you know I've been in service of one kind or another since I was a child? I’ve been kicked and whipped and sneered at. I’ve been pawed and fondled by drunken fools and raped, too, until I found out that I could get a little of my own back and have a softer time of it if I'd just give in and give 'em what they wanted. Does that shock you?"

  Vivian shook her head.

  "I’ll bet it does. You'd say anything now on your knees, but you don't know what it's like. God! The years I've had to endure this very thing from you bleedin' ladies and then your men come to my bed at night."

  Felders straightened and stepped back. Passion had transformed her face until it was barely recognizable. "How does it feel? Do your knees hurt? Does your back ache? We’ll, just stay where you are."

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vivian tried to track the woman's movements. The housekeeper was moving toward the door. Could she possibly be leaving? No. What was she-?

  Transferring the pistol to her left hand, the woman caught up Piers's riding whip where it had been left on the table beside the door. "Too bad I can't have the pleasure of hearing you scream in pain. But I can at least see the tears run down." Striding back across the room, Mrs. Felders raised the whip high above her head and brought it whistling down with all her strength.

  Even as she twisted to escape, Felders struck her across the shoulder. A band of fire arced across her shoulder blade. The weight of the blow knocked her aside, adding impetus to the movement she had al­ready begun. Determined not to take another blow without a struggle, she rolled over on her hands and knees and came to her feet. With a grunt Felders raised the whip again.

  A loud imperative knock sounded at the door freezing both women in their attitudes.

  As all the servants did, Watkins waited for the space of twenty seconds before hurrying into the room followed closely by Lord Alexander's valet. "Milord, the earl—”

  "My God—” Mackery breathed.

  To Watkins's well-trained eyes the scene was unbelievable. The lady of the manor, the dear, sweet, gentle girl whom they had all come to respect, held at bay by a whip and pistol in the hands of the Emma Felders.

  Fortunately, the housekeeper seemed to forget that she held the pistol, for she let both drop to her sides. "Get out!" she commanded. "This doesn't concern you."

  Mackery drew back, hands upraised, but Watkins rallied instantly. "Here now, Mrs. Felders," he began soothingly, "you mustn't—” One step. Two. And he flung himself upon her. Both his hands clamped around her wrist squeezing with all his might.

  The woman's cry of rage turned to pain. Still she brought the whip down across his back. When she tried to strike again, Vivian caught her wrist and wrenched the whip away.

  "Damn you! Damn you all!" A string of oaths streamed from her lips as she fought them both until finally Mackery also joined in to pull the Woman's arms behind her and hold her.

  "You'll be sorry for this," she panted when she had finally stopped struggling. "The earl will hear about this. You'll both be discharged."

  Watkins sobered. "I very much doubt that."

  Vivian caught up her pencil and pad and began to write, her scribbling almost illegible in her frantic haste.

  "Piers captive Beddoes. Inlet below house. Save him." She shoved the note into Watkins's hand.

  He read it. "Beddoes. Are you sure? He's dead."

  "He is." Mrs. Felders chimed in. "You're right, of course. She doesn't know what she's talking about."

  Vivian shook her head. "Spanish Girl," she wrote.

  "The earl told him about that," Mackery supplied uncertainly.

  "Trap!" Vivian wrote.

  "No. She's wrong. Don't pay any attention. Ask Lord Alexander," Mrs. Felders insisted.

  "I can't do that," Watkins replied. He turned the pistol on her. "He's dead, Mrs. Felders. Just a few minutes ago."

  Emma's face crumpled. "No. He can't be. He's not an old man."

  "Even so." Mackery sighed. He took the gun from Watkins. "I’ll leave you here to look after the lady, while I take this one away. What shall I do with her. milady?"

  Vivian wrote her instructions instantly. "Lock her in her room."

  "No," Emma Felders protested. "You can't do that."

  Mackery motioned the pistol toward the door. "If you'll be so good as to move, Mrs. Felders. I think you've troubled this dear lady long enough."

  Chapter 25

  Once the door closed behind them, Vivian tottered to the chair and sank down in it. Nausea roiled inside her. Closing her eyes, she tasted its bitterness and swallowed convulsively.

  "Milady." Watkins bent over her, patting her shoulder, his own hand not quite steady. "Where is Lord Piers?"

  Fingers icy and fumbling, Vivian tried to balance her pad and pencil on her knee. Darkness seemed to be closing her range of vision. Into it spun wheeling pinpoints of light. She could feel herself falling.

  "Milady! Here, milady, steady there." Watkins's gentle hands caught her shoulders and pushed her back against the chair.

  The contact of her bruised shoulder blade with the chair back hurt her, but the spark of pain brought her back to reality. She nodded as she patted his wrist.

  "Shall I bring some brandy?"

  While he got it, she tried to marshall her thoughts enough to write. When he returned, she clutched at the glass and tossed the fiery liquid down her throat. Her eyes watered and her breath wheezed out of her throat, but she welcomed the warmth that spread itself through her shocked body. Her trembling stopped almost immediately. Resolutely, she sat up and began to write.

  Watkins hovered at her shoulder reading the incredible events of the evening. He commented in a shocked murmur at each revelation.

  Vivian, once she was well into her story, found she had more and more difficulty concentrating. She felt detached and light-headed, as if she were floating behind a gauze that separated her from the room and the man beside her. Like a recurring nightmare the experience of this night blended with the night of her mother's death in the freezing coach and the terrible journey when Beddoes had brought her almost across the south of England. She began to shudder violently.

  "Another, milady?"

  She nodded.

  Stubbornly, she caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit down hard. Reading over her shoulder, Watkins cursed softly a
s she concluded in hastily scribbled terse words the threats and danger that hung over the viscount.

  At her written question, Watkins sighed. "Yes, milady. I'm afraid it's all too true. Lord Alexander is dead. He can be of no help to you or Lord Piers, even if he would. You are a countess and your husband is the Earl of Larnaervon."

  But not if he did not live through the night. She and she alone could set in motion a rescue. As if a mantle had settled over her shoulders, Vivian wrote her orders. Watkins read and departed without question to summon Addie and to instruct Tyler to saddle Barbary.

  By the time Addie came, yawning, her face swollen with sleep, Vivian had already stripped off her clothing and was pulling on her riding habit. Within a couple of minutes, she was running down the stairs and out the front door.

  Millard held a lantern for her, his face worried. "Lord Piers would not let you do this, milady. At night. In the dark and the cold. And what can you do?"

  She met his eyes steadfastly as he held out a long black cape belonging to her husband. To her way of thinking, she had no choice.

  At the step Tyler waited with Barbary and Romany Prince both saddled.

  She caught hold of his arm and pointed toward the stable.

  He grinned one-sidedly and tugged at his forelock before he held his hands for her to mount. Spurred by her own sense of emergency, she cantered the gelding away into the night. Behind her Tyler mounted Romany Prince and spurred the big black after her. When she realized he was accompanying her, she stopped and laid her hand on his to restrain him. At the same time she shook her head vigorously. He had been a smuggler. She could not allow him to betray his friends.

  He patted her hand. "You don't ride alone tonight, milady. I know where you're going, but I won't let you go out there by yourself."

  The moon did not shed enough light for her to read his expression. She pushed at his shoulder, trying to send him back. Surely he could not know that if her mission tonight was successful, the smuggling would cease, at least as the Larnaervons' and their people were a part of it.

  He sat his horse like a statue. "Don't think me a fool, just because Jack Beddoes is. I ride all over this part of the country exercising the horses. Rory MacPherson knows the big fish got through his last net. And he's stubborn as they come. He won't give up until he's got them all, or until he's satisfied that they're dead."

  Vivian shrugged. In his hand she wrote the word, "Boat."

  She had to write it twice before Tyler nodded. "The Spanish Girl is sailing into a trap."

  A band tightened around her heart. Piers—pushed by Jack Beddoes into leading his men—might be sacrificing himself to save her. She put her gloved hand on Tyler's arm in a gesture of fervent gratitude. Then she swung Barbary's head around and laid her crop across the muscled rump. The gelding sprang forward at a gallop, and the two riders tore out onto the coast road.

  The night wind rushed past her ears, and the clouds raced across the moon. At one moment the road would be clear in the moonlight, then plunge into darkness seeming all the blacker by contrast. So dangerous was their pace that Vivian half expected Tyler to pull up or perhaps reach across to try and pull both horses to a more moderate gait. But the little weasel-faced man stuck on the back of the big stallion like a jockey at Ascot.

  Uppermost in her mind surged the thought that the danger of a broken neck increased with each passing moment. Yet Piers must be warned. He was in more danger than even he knew. At any moment he might be caught in a cross fire between the ruthless Beddoes and MacPherson's soldiers.

  The clouds bared the moon as the pair neared the trail to the beach. Without hesitation she set Barbary'i head upon it.

  "Wait, milady!" Tyler shouted. "Pull back! The clouds—”

  She glanced overhead. A thunderhead huge as a castle edged onto the shining silver disc. She reined Barbary fiercely, hurting his tender mouth. The gelding neighed loudly and rose up on its hind legs.

  Just in time, the big horse came down. The night turned dark—dark in the infernal darkness just before dawn. How many hours had slipped away since Jack Beddoes had first appeared in their bedroom? To Vivian's ears came the roaring of the sea below. The tide had turned. Spanish Girl must have already come in with her contraband.

  Barbary stamped and whinnied again, sawing at the reins. Vivian patted his sweaty neck, leaning far forward in the saddle. Behind her, invisible in the cold, windy darkness, she could hear Romany Prince blow breath from his nostrils and shift his weight. The saddle leather creaked.

  Holding her breath, Vivian strained to sort out other sounds carried upward on the rising wind. Far below her she could distinguish men's voices rising faintly over the sound of the surf. The smugglers were unloading the Spanish Girl. Piers must be below in the cove where she had seen the barrels the first day.

  Would he be standing in the surf, forming part of the chain to bring in the cargo? Or would he be standing somewhere up on the beach, his back menaced by Beddoes's volley gun? The latter surely, for he might slip away in the waves and darkness and make his way back to her.

  No, somewhere beneath her, Piers waited helplessly, forced to stand by as a watcher in this dangerous undertaking, a hostage for her life. If he only knew she was no longer in danger.

  She could not send him a visual signal through the blackness of the night, and she had no voice to call out his name. The darkness frustrated her, wrapping her in its folds, preventing her from communicating even with Tyler. Never had her handicap left her more isolated. Only with Barbary did her extreme terror and nervousness assert itself. The chestnut stamped and snorted beneath her, throwing up his head, setting his bit to jingling.

  Her dearest love was in danger in the darkness below her. Now, for the strongest reason in the world, she should be able to speak his name. She put her hand to her throat and opened her mouth. Willing the words to come, straining to call out, sweat breaking out on her forehead with the effort, she could not make a sound.

  The rushing sea wind tore the thunderhead away from the moon face, illuminating the scene below. Black figures against pale sand stood out in sharp relief. A hundred yards out, the black hulk of Spanish Girl floated. A small boat was pulled partway up on the sand. Shuffling figures unloaded heavy boxes and barrels in the foaming surf.

  Rising in her stirrups, Vivian stared at each figure, but they were so far away, small moving forms, indistinguishable except as men. She could not pick out which one was her husband. A line of dark pony shapes, more than half a dozen, waited like silhouetted sculptures farther up the sand.

  She had to get closer. Vivian urged Barbary for­ward, leaning back in the saddle to counterbalance his weight. With only a second's hesitation, the big chestnut began to pick his way gamely down the steep trail. Rocks and pebbles rolled under his hooves.

  "Wait, milady," Tyler called softly. "Look yonder!"

  As Vivian stared where he pointed, the spill of rocks at the far end of the cove began to move. First, one figure then another detached itself momentarily then blended back into the dark mass. Keeping as much as possible in the shadows, a troop of men was moving down on the smugglers.

  A chill tore up her spine. The Riding Officers. MacPherson's men. The Scots captain's tenacity would pay off tonight. Tonight he would crush this smuggling operation forever.

  Beddoes and his men were well and truly trapped in the cove. They had no way out except the steep path where Vivian and Tyler waited and watched, a path which as they watched, the soldiers moved to cut off.

  "We're too late. They'll be on them any minute."

  Refusing to believe him, Vivian urged Barbary down.

  "Milady," Tyler called vainly.

  She had to help Piers somehow. She had to. If she could not warn him, then she must get to MacPherson to explain that her husband had been taken as a hostage. MacPherson must not attack and endanger Piers. If Beddoes realized that the game was up, he might think Piers had somehow betrayed him and kill her husband in a vengeful fury.
With Beddoes on one side and the King's muskets on the other, Piers would be caught between two fires.

  Tyler urged Romany Prince down the trail until he came up beside her and grasped her rein. "Too late, milady," he gritted. "You'll burst out onto that beach in the middle of them. They'll shoot you without knowing who you are."

  She struck at his hand, but he held fast. "I can’t let you be going down there until the game's played out. We both know who's led the smuggler's until this night. He’ll have to take his chances with the rest of them."

  Angrily, Vivian jerked on the rein, pulling it out of Tyler's hand. Barbary's head came up. Fiercely, she reined back at the same time she brought her crop down with all her might on the horse's rump.

  With a shrill neigh the gelding reared and plunged forward, crashing its broad chest into the shoulder of the stallion. Pushed off the trail onto the uneven stones of the cliff top, the larger horse staggered back under the unexpected attack. Down it went to its knees, despite Tyler's fervent curse and valiant effort to pull its head up.

  For a perilous instant, Barbary staggered, too, but managed to gather his legs under him. With hands and heels Vivian urged the chestnut down the steep path, praying that the moonlight would last.

  The noise had alerted the smugglers and un­doubtedly the King's men, too.