Her words seemed to rouse him. "Yes, my wife… my wife," he mumbled. "That is just what Squire Longsworth said. You aren't really my wife."
"Rodney, you are talking nonsense, and I'm disgusted and-"
"No!" Rodney shouted as he shook his head drunkenly. "No! That's just what I said. But it's true, you see. I have it on the authority of the squire. People aren't really married until the ceremony is consummated," he finished, watching with satisfaction as Juliette's face changed. He poured himself more Scotch.
"What are you trying to say?" Juliette began. "We are married in just the way we agreed. There is nothing in our bargain that includes. . . . that includes anything else!"
"Ah, but Juliette,"" his voice was suddenly gentle as he made an uncertain path to her and took her by the shoulders. "We are married in name already. What can it matter if we make it a fact? Only one night, that's all I ask. Then we will be man and wife for once and all and I won't bother you about it again."
His grip on her shoulders had grown painful and Juliette jerked away, her sense of uneasiness growing.
Tilting her head higher she said, "You are drunk, Rodney, and hardly able-to discuss such a serious matter intelligently. First you make a bargain, and now you ask me to go back on it, to engage in something that would disgust me. If I had known you could behave this way, I assure you I would never have consented to any marriage between us. Now I'm tired of your foolishness, and I'm going to bed, alone!"
She turned then and headed toward the door. But Rodney followed, his shoulders hunched, his fists clenched, his eyes suddenly hard. As she reached for the doorknob. he was there, spinning her around and pulling her against him until she gagged from the stench of alcohol on his breath.
"It will be done, Juliette! I've a right to your maidenhead, and I mean to have it!" His face was puffy and red as his bloodshot eyes leered into hers.
"Is it to be rape then?" she asked coldly. "It is certain I'll never give in to you. I find you disgusting, a cad and a liar, and I believe at this moment I hate you.'
"Yes, you hate me!" Rodney said in a low accusing voice. "I'm not Phillips, am I? I know how you feel about him. You love him, don't you? But you found out he had a mistress and it hurt your damned pride. So you married me. I was convenient, wasn't I, and fool enough to keep you respectable while all the time you've been mooning over him, just waiting for a chance to find him again and open your legs for that bloody nigger!"
Rodney's body was heaving now as though out of breath. "Well, that may be so. Phillips may have you," he continued spitting the words at her. "Perhaps I can't prevent it. But I shall have you first!"
He lunged at her then, but Juliette jumped away so he fell flat on the carpet.
"Rodney, stop it!" she said with all the bravado she could muster. "This is absurd. You will wake all the servants with your drunkenness!"
Rodney crawled to his feet, his face suddenly so filled with malice that she hardly recognized it as his. "I don't care if I do," he said. "Let them know . . . let them all know! It will create a nice scandal, won't it? Lord Keiths rapes wife, eh? But I'll tell you a secret, Juliette. You haven't made quite so big a fool out of me as you think. You've been congratulating yourself haven't you? You think I married you because I really care for you, love you, eh?”
“But you're wrong. I have debts, Juliette, huge ones. My mother doesn't even know. She doesn't approve of gambling, you see. And she certainly wouldn't approve of the company I keep. But I had to do something to amuse myself while you were off prancing about and showing everyone just how free you are. Gambling is a marvelous pastime, even if it is expensive. I like it quite a lot, and now there's no reason anyone has to know about it. I was desperate, you see, and then you came to me so upset about Phillips that you were desperate, too. I saw my chance and took it, and now that we're married, Madam Keiths, you'll have to pay my bills or see your reputation ruined right along with mine. And now there isn't any reason to stop my fun, either. With your money I can go right on playing. Of course it will be expensive. You probably won't be able to travel so much as you planned-maybe not at all. But you will pay. Those thugs that followed you this afternoon-they were a warning. My creditors, you see, are not - the most scrupulous characters. I can't pay them. I'm absolutely broke. And they are growing impatient, I think. Undoubtedly they meant to give you a little example of what it could be like if they don't get their money. So you see, my dear, it is you who have been the fool!"
"Don't be ridiculous, Rodney! You have your estates and your mother's jewels. I don't think the crown jewels are worth much more. What are you talking about; you can't have gambled all that away!"
"No, I haven't gambled it away. For the moment it's invested. Do you think those jewels my mother wears are the seal thing? Oh the gold is real enough, but the jewels are paste, copies I had made while I borrowed money on the real ones. I plan to make money, lots of money. I'll be so rich I won't care if you do go back to that filthy Arab of yours-that spy!"
"Spy-what do you mean spy? Brandon may be a lot of things, but he is certainly no spy," Juliette said shakily.
"`So you want proof, is that it?" Rodney came menacingly forward. "Well, I'll prove it to you. Brandon Phillips is a spy and leads an alliance of Arab natives resisting our forces in the Sahara, and the French forces as well."
"I don't believe you."
"Don't believe if you like. But how well do you really know him? And how can you say you' don't believe this when everything else I've told you about him is true?"
Juliette stood stunned. Brandon did seem so mysterious and traveled a lot, she thought. And what was he doing posing as a vacationing Frenchman when he was an Arab?
"What do you mean?" she repeated.
Swaying on his feet unsteadily as a midshipman on his first cruise, Rodney made his way to the desk, pulling open a small panel and withdrawing a scroll of paper that he waved. "It's all here," he said tossing it at her. "I had his mistress steal it. No one knows yet, but everyone shall. I would have told you before if you hadn't been so bloody upset about your precious Monsieur Phillips's woman. I know who Phillips is and what he is doing, at least part of it, and I intend to find out everything. You want to know where the money has gone, well, I've invested the last of it in rifles being sold to the French for shipment to the Sahara-guns that will be the downfall of this Brandon Phillips, or Karim al-Sharif as he is known in the desert. The French pay triple the price of rifles upon safe delivery. But even if I didn't need the money so badly, I'd gladly give them rifles just to see that bastard destroyed. It's going to be the end of your damned half-breed."
Juliette was looking at him as if he were someone she didn't recognize, an intruder that she happened upon where she least expected it. "But Rodney, selling guns to the French is treason. You can't! And your mother's jewels, how could you ..:" But before she could go on, he grabbed the front of her dressing gown and ripped it open to the waist.
Instantly her round, pink-tipped breasts appeared through the opening as a hand clapped over her mouth and he dragged her to a velvet couch. He threw her on it then, covering her squirming, kicking body with his own.
With his free exploring hand, he was quick to discover she had only a chemise under her gown and, propping a knee between her legs, he spread them apart. Juliette's eyes bulged as she struggled, trying to breathe under the hand that held back her screams and her oxygen as well.
Everything was a blur, revulsion filling her at the feel and smell of his sweating body. Then, in that moment, everything stopped, as above Rodney's ragged panting, Juliette heard a voice.
"It seems I missed the wedding," it said. "But luckily I'm not too late to witness the newly wedded bliss."
Juliette gasped and felt Rodney leap off her with surprising agility as they both turned to see Brandon standing above them on the sill of the tallest window, his hat at a jaunty angle, his black cape swinging from his wide shoulders.
There was a kindling fire in his
eyes that touched her like a brand as white teeth flashed in a smile. "And you, Juliette," Brandon continued, sarcastically indicating her gaping gown. "You are looking lovely."
"Brandon!" Juliette breathed in a hoarse whisper as she drew the torn material together across her breasts.
"But you seem surprised," he said. "I thought surely you were expecting me. Didn't you get my note?"
His tall black boots mirrored the pale light of the room as he stood balanced and alert, like a wolf ready to spring and yet waiting. Then he stepped down from the window to stand beside Rodney who seemed to have grown abruptly sober.
"How dare you, sir!" Rodney began. "You ..:'
"How dare I?" Brandon interrupted. "Indeed, how dare you!"
He gave a scornful perusal of Rodney whose pants were still vulgarly open, although his hardened appendage had wisely retreated out of sight.
"But my business is not with you," he continued dismissing the young man. "I am here strictly to do business with the lady-your wife, so they tell me." And turning from Rodney, Brandon walked to stand hovering over her, seeming the devil himself.
Deliberately he bent, picking up the scroll of paper Rodney had thrown at her, unrolling it and quickly reading. Then over the top of the sheet his eyes came back to her, his expression so brutal it made Juliette's back teeth clench with fear.
"Get up!" he snapped. "You're coming with me."
Juliette felt numb, her legs immobile. No, he couldn't be serious, he couldn't be expecting her to go with him-and what had the paper said? She hadn't even looked at it and yet now he would think she had a part in stealing it.
"This is unforgivable," she heard Rodney begin. "You will not take her from this house! I am her husband. I have certain rights. You can't just come in here like this ..."
But Brandon was ignoring him as he held her gaze in a willful vise of black. "Get up!" he repeated.
"I won't," Juliette answered barely whispering. "I won't go with you. I wish I'd never laid eyes on you . . .”
A look of disgusted impatience crossed Brandon's face, and reaching down, he captured her wrists together and hauled her up, setting her on her feet like a doll. "I'm not asking your opinion. I am giving you an order. It would be best for you to learn to obey me, Cherie. People consider it essential where I'm taking you."
Rodney was between them suddenly, a small pistol shaking in his hand. "All right, Phillips! Against the wall before I shoot you where you stand!"
But before Juliette could release the strangled protest that lodged in her throat, Brandon had already taken the gun into his own hand.
Rodney leaped after him, pinning the pistol between them. There was a quick struggle as Rodney's hand closed around the gun.
A deafening explosion rocked the room. For a brief silent moment no one moved. Then, slowly, Rodney's head began dropping, his form sliding downward along Brandon's legs to finally lie before the tall man's black boots, a scarlet hole in his chest.
Juliette stared, her arms hanging limp at her sides. He was dead. Brandon had murdered him! But she was given no time to think. Stepping clear of the body, Brandon came to stand behind her. "Apparently, Madam Keiths," he observed dryly, "you have become a widow."
Chapter 43
Desperately fighting with all her strength, Juliette was hauled through the window, over cypress bushes, and dragged stumbling across the dew-damp lawn to a pair of horses in the shadows of hulking oaks.
"Brandon, stop this .., you're hurting me! You can't just . . . you can't . . . you've murdered Rodney. My God, Brandon, stop!"
He didn't answer, throwing her onto a gray mare, gagging her, and tying her wrists to her saddle. Then taking her horse's lead rope, he mounted his own stallion. Her gown was gaping open. A shout came from the direction of the manor. Grabbing a hank of mane in one hand she fell forward on the gray's neck, aware of the ground dappled by a pattern of moonlight and shadow that whirled and melted together beneath the horse's feet as they galloped away.
No, it wasn't possible. He couldn't be kidnapping her! He was just trying to scare her, it couldn't be true. But the next hours became for Juliette all too horribly real as ahead of her Brandon rode purposefully erect over hills, through gullies, and across streams. He never even glanced back as she was scratched and cut by brambles and thorns. Her long skirt was torn away, piece by piece, revealing her knees and calves. Then she was further scratched and splattered with mud.
Still she clung to her mount, afraid that if she fell, he wouldn't stop but would let her be dragged by her wrists. He was insane, yes, insane! He would welcome some mishap and no doubt was planning to kill her anyway. They made only one stop, apparently prearranged.
The moon was shining between the branches overhead, and tossing her scattered hair out of her eyes, and sitting up, Juliette saw what appeared to be a common Englishman waiting beside the road with two horses. It was only when the man salaamed that she recognized Brandon's servant Rashid.
As Brandon dismounted an owl took silent wing overhead. Together the two men's shadows merged into, one, their conversation low and brief and in Arabic. Then Brandon came to her, wordlessly untying her hands and dragging her from her horse.
His callous roughness renewed her fury, and with one fist she managed to glance his jaw before his arm surrounded her ribs, abruptly squeezing the air from her lungs and giving her a shake. "Hold still!"
But he need not have spoken. At once she hung limp in his grasp, offering no resistance as she was thrown into the saddle of the new horse. Her wrists were tied as before and she was agonizingly aware that the full length of her thighs, and most of her breasts were plainly displayed now beneath what remained of her gown. Yet he seemed not to notice, or care, as he mounted the other horse and they galloped off again.
They traveled faster now, often out in the open, and the horses' necks were lathered with sweat and steaming by the time the smell of salt air told Juliette they were near the coast.
When they stopped at the edge of a cliff and Juliette looked down, she saw Brandon's yacht far below, bobbing in the swells. A damp wind blew in gusts, and above her, fierce black storm clouds had gathered. The wind blew faster, harder now, the first large droplets of rain quickly reaching a crescendo in a downpour.
Plucking Juliette from the saddle, Brandon stood her on her feet, removing the gag and untying her wrists before shoving her toward a narrow path down the cliff face. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the ship, the cliff, and Brandon's demonic countenance for a brief instant before thunder rolled.
"Walk!" he commanded.
"I won't go!" she screamed, choking against the rain.
Then shielding her breasts, she dodged him in a desperate leap and made a dash for the horses. In a single bound he had her, his hand threatening to crush her upper arm as he flung her round to face him.
"You try that again and I'll drag you down this cliff," he snarled.
Juliette stood panting, her hair dripping in rivulets. It seemed impossible. There was no resemblance between this Brandon and the one she had known before. This man was a savage, and, by the cold look in his eyes, was willing to do exactly as he threatened and probably would enjoy it.
Turning, she started down the path which was steep and rough. The rain pelted down harder, transforming the cliff side into mud that slipped from beneath her feet. Twice she fell to her knees and was brutally pulled up again. The third time she heard him growl like a beast.
Lightning flashed and, in that instant, she saw his set and rigid features as he snatched her up roughly and deposited her over his shoulder before continuing down. Along parts of the path, the footing was extremely rocky and treacherously narrow, and Juliette was torn between the fear that he would stumble and drop her head first down the precipice, and a wish that he would do just that and end it all now.
But his hold didn't slacken, nor did he lose his footing. He stopped only once, wordlessly wrapping her in his black cloak like a mummy before should
ering her again and walking the last hundred yards to a skiff where two Arabs waited at the oars.
With a sure foot laid steadily in the center of the boat, Brandon stepped in and sat down holding her across his lap. She lay still, unable to move, hardly able to breath, and leaning against him, she slept or fainted, she never knew which, since the next thing she knew, she was being hoisted up the side of the ship and pulled on deck.
Then once again she was in his arms, this time carried like a child. The cloak had fallen away so with one eye she saw stairs and wood paneling and bowing Arabs all passing in a blur before there was only a room, dimly lit by the glow of a brass lantern, and the door crashing closed from a kick of his boot.
Juliette had just started struggling again when she felt herself tossed sprawling with a bounce on a large circular divan. Righting herself, she cringed as he stood above her, one black boot propped on a low table at the edge of the divan, his arms crossed. He had never seemed so tall, so proud, so utterly furious as he scrutinized her for a long ominous moment.
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