by Jo Ann Wendt
"My lady," Jericho broke in, urgently needing to confess. "My lady, I found the letter. In your night box. The day you sent me from the garden for a handkerchief. Forgive me, my lady, I read some of it."
"Then you know I quickened. I was terrified. When I began to show, 1 kept to my rooms. Aubrey visited me in the stealth of night, whenever he could steal through Cromwell's lines to come to me. We made plans for our baby—Aubrey to take our child and raise it, I to visit my child whenever possible. But when my time came, Aubrey was in battle. I sent for the midwife and paid her an enormous sum for her silence. But then—"
"The babe was born dead," Jericho supplied. The duchess gazed at her with terrified eyes.
"So-I'd thought until now ... so I'd thought."
Jericho froze. Her heart stopped. She was afraid to think, afraid to hope. Lord Aubrey. Red hair, blue eyes, a birthmark. Herself. Red hair, blue eyes, birthmarks . . .
"It was a difficult birth, darling. I was unconscious. Or perhaps the midwife drugged me. I cannot know. I only know that when I woke up, my belly was flat and my baby was gone. The midwife told me my baby daughter had been stillborn. She said she'd buried it at once, to spare me scandal.
"I was heartbroken. I knew God was punishing me for adultery. When I could stop sobbing, I begged her to tell me what my baby had looked like. She gave me a snippet of hair. It was red. She told me my baby'd had three strawberry birthmarks—one on her tiny wrist, a second on her little breast and a third on . . . the nape of her neck."
Jericho stopped breathing. For a moment, she couldn't see, couldn't hear. Mist pecked at the windows. She didn't hear it. A candle flared in front of her eyes. She didn't see it. There was only dizziness and the loud roaring of her own blood thundering in her ears. Her lips parted shakily.
"M-mother?"
"Yes! My daughter." Eyes swimming with bright tears, Angelina opened her arms, and Jericho threw herself into them. They knelt on the floor and embraced and wept, wept and embraced. Clutching each other, they murmured incoherently. Angelina swept her to the settee and they embraced again. They kissed, sweet passionate kisses, then clutched each other again. Cheek against cheek, Jericho didn't know which tears were hers, which were Angelina's. But it didn't matter. They were tears of joy.
"Oh, my lady," Jericho gasped. "Oh, my lady."
"Mother, call me Mother!"
"Mother—oh, it feels so good to say that—if you could know how much I've wanted my mother—needed my mother—"
"Jericho—sweet daughter. I knew you were Aubrey's the moment I saw you—but I never dreamed you were mine. I thought Aubrey'd had you by someone else, some other love. My heart broke every time I looked at you—"
"He loves you, my lady, he loves you. I know he does."
"Mother, call me Mother."
"Mother!" They hugged and kissed, words pouring out in a torrent. There was so much to say, so much to ask. Jericho felt her heart would burst. But suddenly, Angelina drew back and looked at her with dawning terror. In a whirl of rustling silk, Angelina leaped up and went to a mahogany wardrobe, wrenched it open and with frantic jerky movements grabbed articles of clothing and thrust them at Jericho.
"Boots, warm stockings. Dress, Jericho. Quickly. You must leave Blackpool Castle at once. You are in danger here."
"Danger?"
Distraught, agitated, Angelina thrust things at her. "Go to Arleigh Castle. Send to Nordham Hall for your father. Tell Aubrey everything. Aubrey will keep you safe."
"Safe? My la—Mother, I don't understand."
Suddenly a wild woman, Angelina shoved her down into a chair, then knelt like a common chambermaid to dress her, thrusting a pair of thick wool stockings over Jericho's mended ones. She was so frenzied, she was almost rough.
"Nor do 1.1 only understand this is somehow my husband's
doing. It must be. Why else would he lure you here to Blackpool Castle, engage you to serve me? He means you harm. Hurry, darling, hurry!"
Despite the cozy warmth of the fire, a chill as cold as the fog fingered its way up Jericho's spine. She stared at Angelina in dazed disbelief.44 And in New Amsterdam, my lady? Those men who abducted me. Hired by someone called Fox?"
Angelina's frantic hands worked even more swiftly.
44Yes, Fox Hazlitt. I'm sure of it. Hurry, darling."
Jericho didn't need further urging. She dressed in a frenzy. But when she'd thrown the cloak on and whirled, she found Angelina had not even begun to get ready. She was standing there, watching, her face strained and white.
4'Mother! Hurry. Dear life, here, let me help you."
Angelina stopped Jericho's eager hands.
"No. It is best I stay behind. Until I know you are safe. If he finds both of us gone, he will know. But if he finds me here, as usual, he will not suspect. I shall tell him—tell him I became displeased with your service and dismissed you."
"But you can't stay here. He will kill you!"
Again, Angelina shook her head. "No. If he wished me dead, I would have been dead long before now. I do not yet see all the pieces of this wicked puzzle, but I begin to see he knew about Aubrey and me—knew about you—even before your birth."
44But he does terrible things to you. He will order you bled again!"
Angelina reached out and cupped her face with soft gentle hands. Her smile was tender, motherly. 44You are so pretty. So brave and bold. You are everything a mother could want in a daughter. A bleeding is nothing. If it would keep you safe, I willingly would be bled a hundred times."
Jericho's chest tightened with fear. Unbuttoning her cloak, she wrenched it off and threw it to a chair. 4 4If you won't go, I won't, either."
Angelina seized the cloak and buttoned her into it, as if Jericho were a child of six.
"Mother!"
"Yes,'Mother'. That is what I am. I am your mother, and
I ask you to obey me. Go to Arleigh Castle. Send for your father. Tell him all. Aubrey will think what to do."
"But, I can't leave you. I won't."
"Twenty years ago, I failed to protect you. I let you be stolen from my womb and sold as a bondslave. I shan't fail you this time. Go at once, datighter. Now. I demand it."
A thousand anguished protests welled up in Jericho's throat. She swallowed them all. Instead, helpless, she threw her arms around Angelina. They kissed fiercely. Then Angelina seized her arm and hurried her to the door.
"Hurry! Promise me you will run all the way to Arleigh Castle before dark."
Heart pounding, Jericho managed a smile. "I'll run."
"Come. I shall see you safely out, in the event the duke has left instructions to stop you. No one will dare countermand my orders."
They had just stepped into the gloomy corridor when footsteps rang out on the staircase. There was the brisk cadence of expensive boots lightly mounting the stairs. Jericho's pulse quickened. She and Angelina glanced at each other. Angelina paled. The duke's crisp step brought him up the dim staircase, out of the enshrouding shadows. His flunky, Fox Hazlitt, followed. They had been out in the weather and their clothing smelled of mist and fog. Unpeeling his damp glistening cloak, the duke leisurely dropped it into Fox Hazlitt's slavish arms and came forward.
"Angelina, my love. How lovely to see you up and about.'' His voice was silk. Jericho shivered. For now she knew what underlay that silk.
Angelina stiffened. "My lord."
He came forward and took a kiss from her stiff unwilling mouth, resting a jeweled hand on her frail, delicate ribcage, just under her breasts. A gesture not of love, Jericho knew, but of ownership. His frosty smile swept them.
'4 What a pretty sight, the two of you. You look as charming as . . . mother and daughter."
Jericho's chest tightened.
"Think you so, my lord?" Angelina challenged. "I do not."
A brave answer. But Jericho wished her mother's voice hadn't trembled. For the duke's eyes thinned warily, like a watchful cat's. He gazed at Jericho's cloak, and she tightened. The cloak
was Angelina's. Surely he recognized it.
"Where is the girl going, my love?"
Angelina faltered, and Jericho rushed into the breach. "To—to St. John's Basket, Your Grace. To buy crimson silk thread to mend Her Grace's petticoat." She had to get to Lord Aubrey. Lord Aubrey—Father, she thought with shock—would know what to do.
"Tsk, tsk. How uncharitable of you, my angel. Send the girl out into the cold and fog? With the afternoon spent and darkness soon upon us? Tsk, tsk. How unlike you to be so inconsiderate, Angelina."
"I d-don't mind, Your Grace," Jericho said quickly. She had to get help. For herself, for Angelina.
"I wish the petticoat mended tonight," Angelina said hysterically. "I will have it mended tonight. I insist."
"This 'petticoat' is of enormous importance?" Did Jericho imagine it, or did his smile grow chillier? But with a magnanimous gesture, he seemed to concede. "Then by all means, my angel, you shall have your thread." Just as Jericho drew a careful breath of relief, he said coldly, "Fox shall go for the thread. Shan't you, Fox."
"Ay, milord."
Unwisely, Angelina panicked. "I don't wish Fox to go for me! I wish Jericho to!"
"My lady, my lady," Jericho whispered as Angelina's hysteria rose. The duchess was not well enough for this stress. She had not yet recovered from her last bleeding. But it was useless to try to calm her. Angelina's gentle voice grew shrill.
"Go, Jericho," she shrilled. "Go now. Leave at once."
"Yes, my lady." Afraid for Angelina, still she had to go. For both their sakes. She could do nothing but curtsy and obey. She started to move, but three softly uttered words checked her.
"I . . .think . . . not."
She stopped, afraid to disobey the duke. The glitter in Fox
Hazlitt's malicious eyes told her what he would love to do to her if she took one more step.
"Now, my love. Shall all of us step into your bedchamber and discuss this urgent need for . . . 'thread'?"
Not a question, a command. Jericho threw a panicky glance down the shadowy corridor. She could break and run. Fox Hazlitt might not be able to catch her. But what of Mother? If she ran, the duke might hurt Mother in retaliation. Jericho couldn't bear that.
Pale and shaken, the encounter taking its toll, Angelina weakly entered her bedchamber, followed by the duke. Scared witless, Jericho dutifully followed. Fox Hazlitt brought up the rear, shut the door and leaned against it, a none-too-subtle guard. Jericho's anxiety rose. What was going to happen? Savoring her anxiety, Fox Hazlitt smiled maliciously. Her nerves twisted in knots.
Like the drafty corridor, Angelina's unlighted, unfired bedchamber was ice cold and shrouded in gloom. Fog pressed against the windows, thick as cat fur. The testered bedstead and the livery cabinet loomed dark and shadowy. When Angelina began to tremble, Jericho pulled off her cloak, went to her, wrapped her in it.
The duke watched with cold eyes, then snapped, "Fox! Build a fire. Her Grace is chilled. I will not have her chilled.''
The sly weasel jumped to his task, obedient as a dog. The fire crackled to life, illuminating Angelina's strained pale face. As the fire crackled, the duke strolled the room, touching this or that, picking up things and laying them down. It was nerve-wracking. At the livery cabinet, he picked up the fruit knife and slit an apple in two—as a man might slit a throat.
Watching him, Jericho felt the tension rise within her and saw it fully risen in Angelina. Her mother's face was as pale as candle wax, her lips trembling. When the duke took a bite of apple, then abandoned knife and apple and resumed his unnerving stroll, Angelina's delicate frayed nerves snapped.
"Don't hurt her! I beg you, don't hurt her. She has done nothing wrong! Dear God, she did not ask to be bom. The sin is mine. Mine and Aubrey's. Punish us. Hurt us. Kill us, if you must. But do not hurt my daughter, I beg of you."
"Be silent, you adulterous fornicating whore. You Jezebel. You Bathsheba!"
The epitaph was so cruel that Jericho gasped, and Angelina recoiled as if slapped. The duke's eyes burned. Agitated, he began to pace and rave, frothing at the mouth, bits of spittle clinging to his lips.
"Did you think me ignorant all these years? Did you think you'd fooled me? The two of you? You and my adulterous cousin? You stole from me! The two of you stole from me. You gave him the passion that was rightly mine. You gave him the child you owed to me. To me, you gave nothing. Nothing, do you hear? In our marriage bed, you were as cold to me as dead flesh. And I loved you."
"You never loved me," Angelina cried, wrought up. 4 4Never. You loved Glynden de Mont. When Royce left Glynden a widow, you sought her hand in marriage. She spurned you. So you took your revenge. You bought my hand from my guardian because you knew Aubrey wanted me for his wife. You married me for revenge, to break a de Mont's heart."
44At first that was true." Spittle flew from his lips. He paced, as wrought up as Angelina. 4'Then—unexpectedly! —I grew fond of you. As one grows fond of—of a pathetic helpless kitten."
Her strength gone, Angelina swayed. Jericho leaped forward, but the duke swung his head and warned her off with a look of burning hatred. The vein in his temple pulsed, standing out like a flag, blue and ugly. She stayed where she was. Her mouth went dry with fear. This was a madman.
44 You knew of my baby from the first, didn't you! It was you who ordered her stolen from me at birth and sold as a bondslave."
"Don't be ridiculous! I didn't order her stolen—I ordered her killed. It was a decade before I learned the midwife had played me false—padded her purse by selling the wretched babe—at St. Katherine's Docks. Oh, yes—I knew—I knew—I knew all about you and Aubrey!" Spittle flew from his lips.
Terror filled Jericho, engulfing her, washing through her like ice water. Inch by careful inch, she backed toward the garde-robe room, her terrified eyes casting back and forth between the duke and Fox Hazlitt.
Angelina grew white as chalk. "Then it was you who ordered her abducted in New Amsterdam. Abducted and killed. She told me of it today."
"Of course, you fornicating adulterous slut. When that failed—when it failed—I tried to buy her—through agents —agents in London. I knew—oh, yes, I knew about you and Aubrey—I knew—I knew—"
Jericho inched toward the door, heart banging wildly. The letters that had come yearly . . .
"When that also failed, I devised a better plan. I knew Dove de Mont would send for his bondslave one day. How ironic, I thought! How amusing to let the she-bastard grow up—let Angelina discover her—and then—kill her."
Jericho spun around. She lunged for the garde-robe room. But Fox Hazlitt was quicker. He was on her in an instant, wrenching her arm behind her back, giving it a vicious twist. She shrieked in pain.
"Let her go!" Angelina threw herself forward, but the duke captured her as easily as he would a butterfly.
Jericho panted in pain. She didn't dare move. Hazlitt would snap her arm, break it. She threw a frightened look at Angelina, and from somewhere found the courage to shout, "Let me go! Let my mother go. Don't hurt her or—or I'll kill you."
It infuriated the duke. The vein in his temple swelled, pulsing with fury. His eyes burned like coals.
"Be silent, you vile de Mont spawn. We shall see how brave you prove. Isn't that so, Fox!"
"Ay, milord." Hazlitt gave her arm a twist. She gasped in pain. His breath curled sourly in her hair.
Trapped in the duke's grip, Angelina grew wild-eyed.
"What are you going to do to her!"
The duke's spittle flew. "The dogs, you adulterous bitch!"
For a moment, Jericho didn't understand. Nor did Angelina. Their eyes met in scared confusion. When comprehension came, so did stark terror.
"No," Angelina cried out. "Dear God, you cannot mean that."
"A fitting punishment for you, is it not, my angel slut? To see the fruit of your sin—torn to pieces before your eyes?''
"You cannotl It's madness. I would tell the world. I would shout it from the roof
tops."
"And who would believe? You have been ill, whore! In the last several years the duchess of Blackpool has been neither sound of body nor sound of mind. Ask anyone. Ask any of the dozen physicians I have brought to your sickbed —ask your own servants—ask your own friends—ask anyone." He turned to Jericho. "Now, my whore's angel—we are going for a walk. Into Blackpool marsh." Ranting, spittle trailed down his chin.
Jericho's terror grew boundless. He was as insane as any chained madman in Bedlam.
"M-mother?"
"Jericho, run!" Wrenching free, Angelina came flying at Fox Hazlitt, fingernails clawing his eyes. Startled, Hazlitt slackened his grip, and Jericho tore loose.
"Fox!" the duke warned.
But Jericho hit the door running. She wrenched it open. She flew down the corridor and down the stairs. She flew through the castle and wrenched open the first outside door she came to. The fog came billowing at her, cold and wet, heavy as wet wool, blinding her, filling her throat. She plunged into it and ran blindly, wildly, stumbling over fog-shrouded ground she couldn't see, crashing through icy puddles that came up out of nowhere, hearing nothing in the foggy silence but the sound of her own terrified steps and the loud thrashing of her own heart. When she ran blindly into a fence, she panicked, whirled, and ran in the opposite direction.
Where was the road, where was the road?
The fog engulfed her, thick as sheep's wool, a silent glowing white. Run, run. Each labored breath she gulped—run, run—went down her throat like wool, wet and thick. She couldn't see, she couldn't see. When objects loomed up, they loomed up suddenly, like monsters in a nightmare, leaping at her.
Run, run. Help me, God, help me. Please! Please!
When a tree branch swung out of nowhere and slammed her in the chest, knocking her down, knocking her windless, she crawled panting through the icy mud, dragging her wet skirts with her, crawling until she found the trunk of a tree and felt her way up, frantically exploring the ridged, rough bark. A plum tree. She was in the orchard. Dear God, she'd run in the wrong direction. She was nowhere near the road to St. John's Basket!