Dark Torment

by Karen Robards

  “Well, he forgave her, all right, as far as I know—at least she remained his wife until her death—but I, as the living symbol of her betrayal, became the focus of his hatred. The first inkling I had that change was in the wind was when he called me into his study, shut the door, and, in the iciest voice I have ever heard to this day, informed me that I was never again to call him Papa because I was not his son, but a nameless bastard who had been foisted on him by deception. I was stunned of course, and frightened. Even now I can remember the suffocating fear I felt when he told me that he and my mother were removing at once to London, never to return. I was to remain behind at Fonderleigh—I should be grateful for that, he said; it was only his Christian charity that kept him from throwing me out among the peasants who were my real kin to make my own way. Neither he nor my mother ever wanted to set eyes on me again as long as I lived. When he dismissed me, after many more scathing remarks about my person and ancestry, I was sobbing—something that I, a very manly seven-year-old, rarely did. I ran at once to my mother, who held me to her and cried and told me that she was powerless to aid me. And I suppose she was, unless she had a mind to jeopardize her own position. In any event, the very next day they left for London. Bewildered and scared to death, I remained behind at Fonderleigh; but everything had changed. I was no longer the earl’s son, but a charity case, though no one other than those immediately concerned knew it. I believe the earl was too proud to acknowledge that his wife had betrayed him and that his son and heir was not his own flesh. At any rate, the servants and neighbors still regarded me as the earl’s son; only I knew differently. I felt like an interloper. . . .

  “My mother and the earl never returned, never wrote or sent gifts or messages at Christmas or birthdays. I, who had been hopelessly spoiled, was now abandoned. I will pass over the next few years except to say I was very lonely and very bitter. It galled me to no end to know that the roof over my head, the bed I slept in, the clothes I wore, the very food I ate, were grudgingly provided by a man who hated me. I grew to loathe the very idea of being beholden to anyone at all, and I still do. . . . Finally, on my sixteenth birthday, I could stand it no longer. I left Fonderleigh. Like the idealistic youth I was, I went immediately to see my mother. She and the earl lived in a fashionable London townhouse, and I arrived on their doorstep at the height of the season. Fortunately for her, the earl was out when I arrived, shy and gangling as most boys are at that age; it was fortunate for me too, I suppose, because I considered myself very much a man and had half-formed the notion of drawing the earl’s cork for him in defense of my mother’s honor. He likely would have killed me on the spot. My mother was horrified to see me, though she hid it rather well, and quickly hustled me out of the house and into a lodgings in an out-of-the-way part of town. She made protestations of love but said she couldn’t stay, as she and the earl were giving a dinner that night, but she would try to come by and see me again before I went home to Fonderleigh. Then she pressed a pound note in my hand and told me to buy myself a gift, and left.

  “I tore the note up as soon as she had gone, and left myself, making my way to the waterfront where I signed on as crew for a merchantman leaving the next morning for Spain and then Africa. Luckily for me, three of their crew had jumped ship the day before—I was too naïve to realize what this said about the ship and her captain—or they would never have taken me on. I was a very bad sailor, who knew nothing about ships or the sea. I spent the voyage—a hellish trip, though not as bad as some I’ve had since—green with seasickness and disillusionment. I had idolized my mother, you see, and convinced myself that she had been forced to acquiesce to what had been done to me, that once she saw me again she would run away from my father and take me with her—you know, the sort of thing any adolescent might dream. She had shattered my illusions in about twenty minutes flat, and I thought I was nursing a broken heart. It took me a while to learn that hearts are sturdier than most people give them credit for being. . . . Anyway, by the time we reached Africa I was convinced that I was not a seaman. But there was still the return voyage.

  “Two years had passed by the time the Avery—that was the ship’s name, the Avery—returned to London. This time I didn’t bother to visit my mother. I was eighteen, and a man. . . . I took my pay packet—precious little it was, too—and went home to Ireland. But not to Fonderleigh—that was not my home, it was his. To Dublin. And I parlayed that pay packet into quite a stake, thanks to obliging dice and fast horses. Luckily, I had the sense to quit before I lost all I’d won. Dublin had never appealed to me despite its obvious attractions, so I took the money and bought a farm near Galway. And I commenced breeding horses. My stud was beginning to acquire quite a reputation when I learned, through gossipy neighbors who had no idea I was in any way connected with the family—since I had signed on the Avery I had been using the name Gallagher, which was the only one that was mine—that the countess of Rule was dying. I had long since thought that any love I had once felt for my mother was dead, but this hit me hard. I went home and brooded, and finally knew that I had to see her again. I drove to London and went straight to the earl’s townhouse without even bothering to book a room or change clothes. The butler was loath to admit a stranger at such a time, but I was not taking ‘no’ for an answer. I forced my way past him and took myself up to my mother’s bedchamber in the wake of a frightened chambermaid. My mother was lying in the middle of an enormous bed, alone except for a priest who was administering last rites, and her maid. I can still see the huge fire that blazed in the hearth, though the weather outside was mild. . . .

  “I won’t bore you with the details of what passed between my mother and me, except to say that we reconciled. Just before she died she took my hand and slid the pearl-and-ruby ring that she had worn ever since I could remember onto my smallest finger. Her fingers were so delicate that, despite the fact that she had worn it on her ring finger, it would go only as far as my knuckle. The earl burst through the door just as she breathed her last. I almost felt sorry for him—he was too late to say good-bye, and it was easy to see that he was shattered. But then he turned from her bedside and saw me. And with a howl of rage attacked me with his cane. I merely wrested the cane from his grasp, but he was demented: he screamed for the servants, and every one of them in the house must have come running to his aid. Two burly footmen held me while the constable was fetched. I didn’t struggle; after all, the whole thing was ridiculous, or so I thought. But when the constable came, he wouldn’t listen to my side of the story, and I was hauled off to jail.

  “I wasn’t seriously alarmed—until I was moved to Newgate Prison, to await trial. To my amazement, I was told that the charge was robbery—my mother’s ring, which I supposedly stole. I was still more amused than alarmed at such a flimsy charge—until the actual trial. I was not even permitted to appear. I was tried in proxy and found guilty. The judge sentenced me to be transported to Australia, there to serve a term of fifteen years at hard labor. Thus, I was as completely removed from the earl’s world as if I had died—which I am certain he intended for me to do on the voyage. After all, as the legal if not actual son of his marriage, I was still heir to his title, and to the entailed portion of his estates.

  “But then Captain Farley got greedy and arranged to sell me to your father. When your father refused to take me, I was convinced that I would be killed. And, sure enough, they had me strung up and would, I believe, have beaten me to death. But for a flashing-eyed virago who set them all on their ears.” He slanted her a whimsical look.

  Sarah smiled at him, appreciating his description of her for the teasing it was, though her eyes were wet with tears as she pictured the lonely, frightened, mistreated little boy he had once been. In her opinion, his mother was the one who deserved to be horsewhipped, but she wisely kept that thought to herself. Just as she hoped that the darkness would hide her tears. She had a feeling that he would interpret them as pity, and she knew him well enough now to know that he would hate that.
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br />   “I wanted to kiss the hem of that awful skirt you had on when you told them to cut me down. And I hated you for making me feel so beholden to you.”

  “Which was why you were so nasty to me that night at the inn,” she said, remembering. She cast him a mockchiding glance. Her tears were almost gone now. “I only wanted to help you.”

  He shifted suddenly, his arm under her head pulling her closer, his other arm fitting itself around her waist beneath the shirt. She could feel the heat radiating from his hair-roughened body as he hugged her to him, brushing her cheek with the softest of kisses. Her own arms slid around his neck. He held himself a little away from her, looking down into her face. Her head was pillowed on the hard muscles of his upper arm.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding contrite. “I was a . . .” His voice trailed off tantalizingly as he made her wait for the description, which she was fairly certain would be too pungent to be proper.

  “Swine,” she interjected firmly.

  “Swine,” he agreed, laughing. And then he kissed her soundly on her eager mouth.

  “You made me furious,” she said against his mouth. “I could never remember being quite that angry before.”

  “I shudder to think what would have happened to me if that brute of an overseer of yours had not come along. If I had known then what I know now, I would never have chanced that temper of yours. You likely would have shot me, or clubbed me to death, or . . .”

  “I don’t have a temper. Usually,” she temporized as he laughed again, delightedly.

  “Oh, Sarah. How little you know yourself. You have a glorious temper, and I love you even more when you lose it. It’s such a fascinating change, from prim lady to spitting hell-cat.”

  Sarah was silent for a moment, her eyes widening. Dominic stopped laughing suddenly, his body going very still as he met her eyes. If it hadn’t been absurd, she would have sworn she saw trepidation in those blue depths.

  “Dominic,” she said faintly, after carefully replaying his words in her mind. “What did you say?”

  He stared at her without answering, looking as if he was trying to make up his mind about how to reply. Then, with a grimace, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the cloudy night sky.

  “I love you,” he said, very gruff.

  Sarah lay without moving for several heartbeats, her eyes wide as she stared at his averted face. Then it was she who rose to lean propped on her elbow as she looked down at him, her hair forming a trailing brown-gold curtain that shut them away from the world. He met her eyes reluctantly, his mouth taut and straight, his eyes defensive.

  “Do you mean it?” she asked, scarcely breathing. He didn’t say anything. “Dominic . . .”

  His mouth twisted. “Yes, I mean it.”

  “Oh, Dominic!” It was a soft cry straight from the heart as she toppled onto him, her arms locking around his neck, her lips pressing a flurry of kisses all over his dark face. He suffered her onslaught for several seconds before catching her elbows and rolling with her so that their positions were reversed, with her lying flat on her back while he loomed over her.

  “It would be nice to hear that my very flattering sentiments are reciprocated,” he muttered, frowning down at her.

  “What?” She grinned at him, delight shining from her huge golden eyes. He glared, then surrendered with a groan.

  “Oh, hell, Sarah, do you love me?”

  She stared up at him. Faint traces of starlight peeping through the black clouds illuminated his hard, handsome face and picked out the blue highlights in his midnight-black hair.

  “Yes,” she said, suddenly knowing that she did love him.

  His face relaxed, he even managed a smile. Sarah reached up to kiss him, to press her lips to that lovely male mouth, to stake her claim in the most basic way of all, but he held her off.

  “Uh-uh. Not till you say it.”

  “Dominic!” Looking at him, suddenly she felt absurdly shy.

  “Say it, Sarah.”

  It came to her then that he was as vulnerable as she. Not his height and strength, nor his blatant masculinity, nor his dazzling good looks protected him from the insecurities of the heart. Like her, he had not expected to fall in love, and it had caught him by surprise. And also like her, he was frightened by it.

  “I love you, Dominic.” She had not meant them to be so, but the words were solemn, a pledge. Her lips trembled as his eyes searched her face, locked with her eyes. His expression was very grave.

  “Again.”

  “I love you, Dominic.”

  He groaned, a guttural, animal sound, and lowered his head to capture her mouth with his. His kiss was such sweet torture that it made her want to cry. . . . He made love to her the same way, with a ferocious gentleness that had her crying out and clinging to him, locking him to her forever with her arms and legs and mouth as he whirled her away with him on a tempestuous floodtide of passion.

  XXIII

  Sarah woke the next morning to a sky so filled with heavy gray clouds that it seemed to be only inches away from her small nose. Safe in the shelter of Dominic’s arms, she grimaced at the sky, knowing that she should be pleased, because the clouds meant rain at last. But she wasn’t pleased: she was depressed, nervous, uneasy. Those lowering clouds warned of a terrific storm, and even ordinary storms in that part of Australia were devastating. Without shelter on the open range, they would be scourged by lightning, pelted by hail, drenched by rain. Their wisest course would be to head at once for Lowella, which was half a day’s ride away, or less if they hurried. Which brought Sarah back to why she was feeling depressed—here was the “someday” she had been dreading. Today the future had to be faced.

  “Dominic.”

  There was no point in delaying the inevitable, she thought as she gently shook his shoulder. They had to get moving if they hoped to miss the rain. The arm clasping her waist tightened as she said his name again. Slowly, reluctantly, one blue eye opened to slant a disgruntled look at her.

  “Go back to sleep, cuilin.”

  “No, I . . . What’s cuilin?” She was momentarily sidetracked by the unfamiliar word.

  He sighed, releasing her to turn over onto his back, rubbing his face with his hands. Looking down at him, at the tousled black hair and unshaven jaw, at the wide, bare, bronzed shoulders and black-pelted chest, Sarah wondered suddenly if she hadn’t been dreaming the night before. Surely such a splendid male could not be in love with her. . . . Then his hands dropped away from his face and she found him smiling tenderly at her, and she knew that, however unlikely, it was true.

  “You—maid with the beautiful hair,” he said, and reached out to pull a lock of the hair he praised. Sarah slapped his hand lightly in response; he caught her hand then instead of her hair and pulled her toward him. “It’s Gaelic. Come here.”

  “No, Dominic,” she said, resisting.

  He saw that she was serious and let her go. Sarah sat up, unselfconscious at being clad only in the thin blue shirt that revealed the shape of her breasts and the outline of her nipples to him. He had seen her breasts, and indeed the rest of her, in far more intimate detail. And he himself was naked beneath the blanket drawn modestly—by accident rather than intent, she knew—up to his waist. She smiled to herself as she remembered how shocking she had once found his nakedness.

  “What’s the matter, my own?” He lounged back against the saddle, his arms crossing behind his head to reveal the luxuriant black forests of hair beneath each arm.

  Sarah looked at him, feeling a queer little pang of pain grip her heart. She loved him so much—it would be hard not to be able to touch him whenever she wished, to talk with him and kiss him and share his bed. . . .

  “It’s going to storm, Dominic.” The words were harmless enough, but he seemed to sense that she was trying to say something more.

  His blue eyes regarded her steadily. “Is it now?”

  “We have to go back, Dominic. To Lowella. We can’t put it off any longer.” />
  He studied her for a long moment before he spoke. Then he seemed to choose his words with care.

  “I can’t go back there, Sarah.”

  She moistened her lips. “Of course you can. I’ll tell Pa how you saved me from those bushrangers—”

  “And how I abducted you,” he interjected dryly.

  She frowned. “I wouldn’t tell him that.”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” he conceded. Then he sighed, and levered himself into a sitting position. He looked magnificent, sitting there bare to the waist, but Sarah was not in a mood to appreciate his appearance. “Let me put it another way: I won’t go back to Lowella, Sarah. I’d have to be out of my mind if I did. What if you can’t convince your father that my rescuing you outweighs everything else I’ve done? He ordered that buffoon of an overseer of yours to have me beaten to death the last time. If I go back, I’ll be throwing myself on his mercy, and so far I haven’t found him to be particularly merciful.”

  “I’ll tell him—”

  Dominic snorted, cutting her off. “Sarah, my love, you’re fooling yourself if you think your father will welcome me with open arms. He was ready to have me killed even before I helped plan a raid on his station, participated in stealing his prized sheep, and abducted his daughter. How do you think he’s going to feel about me now?”