by Laura London
“Vincent, it’s you! But why? I’ve come here to meet—”
“I know,” he replied. “I sent you that note. It was one I intercepted years ago, and kept for just such an occasion.”
“Al-Alex isn’t here?” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“No, he isn’t. I would imagine he’s happily asleep at Edgehill. And here you are, so early, so eager. And dressed with such care.”
“You’ve done some cruel things to me, Vincent, but this is the lowest. I’m going home.” She whirled, her skirts billowing out, and started to march back to her horse, but he grabbed her and viciously turned her about.
“My cruelty seems to be the only thing that affects your indifference toward me. You’re here for a reason, my love. There’s something I want to show you.” He had left the lantern shuttered under the tree, and turned to pick it up. “Follow me,” he commanded his wife.
She stamped her foot in irritation, though there was a note of unwilling curiosity in her posture as she looked at her husband. “Oh, all right,” she agreed pettishly. “I warn you, though, I’m in no mood for your games tonight!”
As they started to walk toward the wolf, Vincent said, “This one you may find exciting.” When they were so close that I could hear the movement of her long skirt, Vincent set down the lamp, and drew the shutter. An oval of dim light swept over the wolf and Isabella gave a stifled shriek.
“What in the world is that?” she demanded, staring at it, grasping his arm.
“Think, Isabella,” he said. “Think.”
She must have been suspecting for years, because it took her such a short time to come to the right conclusion.
“You killed Frederick,” she breathed. “It was you—you and this accursed beast.” I expected her to cry out with rage and bitter sorrow. Instead she began to laugh in delighted misbelief.
It seemed at first that this terrible knowledge had disordered her reason; then I realized that her laughter was a genuine expression of glee. If she had loved her brother, if she regretted his death, those emotions were eclipsed by an admiration for Vincent’s murderous cunning. Though I knew my useless leg would never let me get far, I tried to drag myself away. That is when she saw me.
“Why… why, it’s Liza!” She came closer, the mature lines of her figure moving smoothly under the expensive military cut of her crimson riding dress. A showy row of gold medallions glinted in the moonlight.
The wolf was becoming increasingly agitated. Isabella seemed not to notice as it lunged at its chain and growled with deadly concentration. “And you’ve hurt her!” She ran to Vincent and kissed him, like a child presented with a toy, and slid her arms hungrily around his neck. “Oh, Vincent. And I was such a shrew to you! She’s going to die, isn’t she?”
A half smile curled on his lips. He set her back from him “You’d like to see that, wouldn’t you?” He went to kneel by the wolf, his hand on the clasp of the chain. The animal flattened its ears and slathered. “Shall I let him go, Bella?”
“Oh, yes, do,” she said.
The pieces jumped together in my mind like a macabre living puzzle. Isabella’s riding habit, a red habit like mine had been, down to the unusual trim of gleaming gold shields, each the size of a penny piece—had it been a gift to her from Vincent? Now I knew how Vincent meant to give himself the freedom to marry me. My words were sobs.
“No, Vincent,” I cried. “Please don’t! I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything, I promise you. Don’t let the wolf go!”
“So now you’re pleading for your life, you wretched fortune hunter,” snapped Isabella contemptuously. “You would have stolen my land from under my nose.”
“Oh, Isabella, no…” I gasped.
“It’s no good to beg,” she hissed. “I hate you. Vincent’s told me about finding you with Alex. You may think Alex is taken with your false innocence, but he’s had a string of pretty sluts like you. I’m the only woman he cares about!”
“Isabella, please get on your horse and ride out of here. You don’t understand—your life is in danger…” In my anguish for her, I became incoherent, and Isabella looked at me with loathing. I tried to stand, to push her away; ignoring the searing pain in my leg, I managed a half-crouch.
“Stand away from the girl, Bella,” said Vincent with ominous calm.
She obeyed him. looking at me gloatingly as she backed into the starlit clearing.
“Farther,” said Vincent. She did as he told her.
The wolf was ravening, its growls and barks drowning my cries to Isabella to flee. Vincent unclasped the chain, a smile on his lips.
In an ugly blur, I saw the wolf lunge at Isabella. Her screams of disbelief mingled with the throaty growl of the wolf as it closed the distance between them. Vincent grabbed me and shoved my face into his chest.
There was a gunshot, and the scene was ended, like a never-to-be-finished book slamming shut. Vincent slackened his grip, and I twisted violently to see Isabella with her hand over her mouth, staring at the trees, where Brockhaven stood next to the young gypsy I had met at Edgehill, who was lowering a musket. A puff of blue smoke was wafting on the breeze. The wolf was lying on the grass not five feet from Isabella.
Brockhaven clapped the youth on the shoulder, and strode toward us.
“Take your hands off her,” he snapped at Vincent, “or I’ll take that musket and blow your damn head off.”
Vincent paused, and began stroking my hair. “She’s had a bad scare, and I think her leg is broken. Try to curb your martial instincts.”
Brockhaven motioned for the musket, and began to load it, staring at Vincent the while.
“You were ever an impatient young cub,” said Vincent. “Shoot me if you want to—I’m going to set her down gently.” He helped me to a large gray rock, the hard coldness a relief after the prison of Vincent’s arms. I looked at Brockhaven.
“Is the wolf dead?” I asked him.
“Shot through the heart,” he answered. “He didn’t suffer.”
“He suffered for years,” I said, my voice breaking, covering my face in my dirty hands.
Brockhaven removed his greatcoat and laid it on my shoulders; it felt warm from his body, and good.
I gazed up at him protestingly. “No—you’ll get cold.”
“Never mind,” he said, and buttoned it under my chin.
The youth came up behind Brockhaven, studied my face for a moment, and said to Brockhaven in painlessly articulate English, “If you like, I’ll take care of the blond woman. She can return to her home, eh? Stay here. I’ll bring back a horse for the little one. I see she can’t walk.”
He left without waiting for an answer, his hard, bare feet striking off to where Isabella stood, weeping hysterically, at the edge of the woods.
“Poor Isabella… I should go to her,” I said uncertainly.
“To hell with Isabella,” said Brockhaven. “As far as Chipping, one could have heard her screaming at Vincent to turn the wolf loose on you. It wasn’t easy deciding whether to shoot her or the wolf. What’s this about a broken leg?” His tone was abrupt, even angry, as though he was irritated that I had been a nuisance. But he had come to me first, not Isabella.
It seemed so long since I had seen his dearly loved face—Brockhaven, my love, whom I had thought never to see again. I was unable to keep myself from gazing at him in what he most surely must have thought of as mawkish adoration; I stamped in my mind the way his ebony hair curled into the chiseled contours of his face, the way his skin glowed golden in the lamplight. In that moment it didn’t even matter whether he loved me or not. It was enough simply to be near him. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to ask him to hold me in his arms, in spite of Vincent, in spite of everything.
“It’s my right leg,” I said.
He ran his fingers gently up the affected limb, tracing the damage. “What happened?”
Sitting as I was, amid the bittersweet joy of being so close to him, and in the ruin of my plan to lea
ve Edgehill, I found it suddenly difficult to answer his direct question. What had happened, he meant, to bring me to this place and in this condition, when he had told me directly not to leave home, for any reason. The throbbing pain in my leg began to grow, and I felt sick to my stomach; my head swam, my eyes ached. The task of explaining became a labor of Hercules.
Vincent moved as though he would have put an arm around me, but Brockhaven uncoiled from the ground beside my leg with the lean, supple haste of a striking panther.
“Don’t touch her,” he snapped in a voice as hard as I had ever heard him use.
Vincent withdrew; his face became cold, dark, and controlled. “She was running away from home; why to here, I don’t know. The ground collapsed under her, and she fell into the old root cellar where I’ve kept the wolf. I found her in there half an hour ago. I don’t know how long she’d been in there with the beast, but her injuries are from the fall.”
“Are they?” Brockhaven asked him. “If she’s been harmed by you in any way, Vincent, I’m going to kill you.”
“If I couldn’t hurt her that first time when she was alone by the ruined villa, why do you think I’d be able to now?” retorted Vincent.
Brockhaven looked at him sharply. “It would be easier to see Frederick die than her.”
“Naturally,” said Vincent softly. “Don’t be a fool, man. We may have a penchant for desiring the same women—but this one, I begin to love.”
“Go to the devil, Vincent. If she’d been a hag, you’d have killed her on the spot.”
“If she’d been a hag, you wouldn’t have seduced her. At least I mean to marry her.”
“And you keep a convenient wolf to eat up your present wife,” replied Brockhaven. He smiled, like a person watching a farcical play. “I’m curious, Vincent. If you don’t think I plan to marry her, what do you think I have in mind?”
Vincent leaned back against a tall, moon-silvered boulder, his legs casually crossed, his eyes heavy-lidded. “Such a pleasure to speak frankly, isn’t it?” he said. “I think you intend to sleep with her, get her with child, and marry her off to Robert.”
Brockhaven laughed. “And waste the years I’ve spent trying to pair him with Ellen Cleaver? Come, Vincent, you can do better than that.”
“God knows, then, I don’t. There’s no need for you to marry her when you’ve got control of her money.”
“No need at all,” agreed Brockhaven amiably.
“Especially if I were to be out of the way and no longer contending for her guardianship. That’s why you tried to push me into a duel. Poor boy—too honest to kill me on the sly. But Isabella was a poor weapon to have chosen, because I know you haven’t been cuckolding me for years.”
“Really,” said Brockhaven with a sardonic smile. “What did the jade do, confess?”
“Yes, last week in a frail moment. She admitted that it only happened once between you, a few months after our marriage, and that she practically had to rape you. It’s clear that you’ve no taste for adultery, much maligned youngster that you are.”
It was irrational that Vincent’s words should make my heart beat faster. It didn’t mean that Brockhaven cared more for me, the less he cared for Isabella. I rubbed my arms under the coat to keep them warm and thought how painfully sweet it was to look at Brockhaven, like trying to drink thick honey.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it?” said Brockhaven. “Especially considering the passion you’ve expended in a slow burn about it.”
“Once was enough,” Vincent replied. “But I told you already, not enough to die for. Of course, there were times when I’ve been hit with a mood—when Bella’s spared no effort to throw herself at you in public, for example—and I did reflect that I might not be desolated to hear that you’d broken your neck.” He gave Brockhaven a crooked smile. “So much for that. We have to think of Liza, don’t we? Here she is, with a broken leg, and we’re at a standoff, neither of us trusting the other with her.”
“Why a standoff? I have the firearm,” Brockhaven reminded him suavely. “What do you have to hear from me?”
Vincent shifted against the boulder. “Have you dishonored her?”
“No.”
“Tell me you won’t,” said the older man.
Brockhaven’s hand came to rest on the back of my head. “You have my word on it,” he said, his fingers moving down the length of my hair, then in a slow circle on my back. The mood became contemplative, silent, with both men staring at the ground. I was so tired, and Brockhaven’s thigh was so invitingly close to my cheek that I let my head droop against him, realizing far in the back of my mind that it was a rather shocking thing to be doing. He made no objection to it, though, just continued to stroke my hair, and when some moments had passed, he spoke to Vincent again.
“So. What do you think we should do about you?”
There was a short hesitation before Vincent replied, “I think, go to America. The New World. Land of Opportunity. Would that be far enough for you? It will take me a few days to make arrangements—get a draught from my bank, meet with my man of business. I’ll cut things to the bare minimum, of course. America.”
“A good place for you. You know what will happen, if you come back to England?”
“Terrible things,” said Vincent. “You really don’t need to enumerate them, my dear.” His gaze dropped to me. “Would you let me kiss her good-bye?”
“No. Good-bye, Vincent. Farewell.”
“Good-bye, Alex.” He was still looking at me. “God bless you, little one.” He turned and disappeared quietly, wraithlike, into the night.
Alex lifted his hand to the back of my neck, continuing his massage. “Still alive down there?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I said and looked up at him.
“You know,” he said, “I think he’s really in love with you.”
“He’s a very strange man,” I said. “Do you understand him?”
“Oh, yes… too well. Don’t be afraid. If he says he’s going to go, he’s going to go.”
“Yes, I know that. I can’t help feeling sorry for him.”
“I suppose not,” he said, smiling. “Maudlin wench that you are. Do you hear that?”
I lifted my head, and looked toward the forest to see the gypsy youth emerge from the foliage riding bareback and without a bridle on a white horse with an exotically long mane and tail. Reaching us, he slid agilely from the horse and said to Brockhaven, “The man has gone—Vincent?”
“Yes. He won’t be back. What did you do with his wife?”
“I took her to the camp. One of our women will see her home.” The youth’s lips tightened. “A barbarous thing. If she were my woman, I would never have let her get so bad that I’d have to feed her to a wolf. What ailed her husband?”
I could see that Brockhaven was amused by the youth’s worldly air, though he didn’t show it with a smile. “He was too indifferent to her to care. She touched only his pride.”
“Some men are like that,” said the youth. He shook his head, and his long hair moved smoothly in the black breeze. With a gentle movement of his hand, he indicated me. “Does she know yet?”
“No,” said Brockhaven. “I waited. I thought your father might want to tell her himself.”
“Not he,” said the youth, shaking his head and smiling. “He would weep too much. He’ll weep anyway, when he sees her.” Bending down to my level, he said to me in flowing Romany, “Liza, I’m the son of your uncle. My name is Trenit. Two years ago, this man, Lord Brockhaven, came to the camp of my father and asked if we knew what had become of a young man, Charles Compton, heir to the Marquisate of Chadbourne, who had eloped many years past with a young gypsy woman. The young lord told us that he wished to find Compton because Compton had become the owner of a great property, and if that property went unclaimed, it would remain in the pocket of Compton’s niece and her husband, who were exploiting the peasants there to starvation.
“There was nothing my father could tell your y
oung lord, for we too were without knowledge of what had become of Charles Compton. It began before my memory, Liza, when your mother came before the elders of the tribe eighteen years ago and told them she would marry Charles Compton. There was a great dismay because your mother was much loved. The future they saw for her with the spoiled son of a wealthy gorgio was one of heartbreak and abandonment. Your mother had great pride and anger toward the elders, anger that those who claimed to love her would have so little faith in her judgment. She said she would leave, and no one believed her. Her mother, afraid of the foretold bitter ending, went with her. It was a heavy blow for the tribe, and most of all for my father, who lost at one time both his sister and his mother.
“For many years, the tribe searched for their missing daughter, but your mother and her husband had gone to Europe, and the wars of Napoleon came, and it became impossible to trace their path.”
“I thought no one cared,” I cried out wretchedly. “So many years… I was sure that my mother was rejected by her tribe.”
“It was a stupid disharmony, Liza, not a rejection. The elders meant to show love and protection in telling your mother not to see Charles Compton. It was a great misfortune that they were blind to his high character, blind to your mother’s adult intelligence. You must forgive them, dear. It is hard for the older ones to see their babes grow up.”
“Yes,” I said softly, thinking of the years I had together with my grandmother and my father, of the love Grandmother had given to me and to my father, and the sadness she had kept locked inside her, parted as she had been, from her people and from her son. Having to choose between son and daughter, she had sacrificed everything to aid the most needy.
“I don’t say these words to make you cry, lambkin,” said Trenit. “Scratch not your open wounds.”
“I shall try not to,” I said, wanting to win his respect with a show of courage. Hardly daring to hope it was true, I asked him, “Did you come to Edgehill because of me?”
“Two years ago,” he answered, “before the young lord met with us, he had talked with other tribes, and after we left he was to talk with many more. He made a pact with my father to communicate anything either of us learned about your family, and we are here because Brockhaven has kept his word.”