When they both lay breathless, still entwined in their intimate embrace, Brienne swept one hand down his thigh; her emotions showed clearly on her face. Avenel had taken her to a place where she thought she'd never go. It had been a place where even the coldest and most sinister of men could learn to be loving and giving. All her days of loneliness seemed to dissipate before her like mist with the dawn. She had become close to Avenel, and with him, for the first time in her life, she had had her first taste of true happiness. Closing her eyes, she vowed to cling to it as she had never done before.
As she lay quietly with her thoughts, Avenel brushed her hair back from her brow. But before either knew what to say, Brienne felt warm blood permeating the bandage on his leg.
"You're bleeding," she whispered.
Avenel studied her for a very long time, not moving, not leaving. He kissed her then, deeply, and startled her by biting her full lips. Then, as if they were words he almost hated to say, he said, "I'm afraid, my love, your father has seen to it that we both are." With this enigmatic statement, he finally extricated himself from her and enfolded her protectively in his arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Someone was knocking at the bedchamber door, softly at first, then more insistently when no one answered. Avenel opened his eyes; his gaze went immediately to Brienne, who lay next to him. Her hair fanned out across his chest like an exquisite ruby-colored counterpane, and she lay sleeping in his arms, her lips reddened from their passion of the night before and slightly parted in slumber. Slowly he moved away from her, hardly making her stir underneath the warm creamy linens and heavy green velvet coverlet. He bent, kissed her enticing lips, then covered her tender breasts, before moving naked to the door.
"What is it?" he asked impatiently as he opened the door to the passage. Seeing Cumberland standing in the threshold clad only in his red banyan and hat, he cocked one jet brow and said, "The sun has not yet risen. What could be so important that you must come here now?"
"A letter, Slane, from Satterlee." Cumberland's mouth was a grim line, and he didn't even seem to notice Avenel's lack of clothing. "I am afraid it's been delayed getting here. The messanger told me it was on a frigate sunk by the Americans. Do you see the date? It was written five months ago, the day after we left." Cumberland shot him a nervous, foreboding glance and watched as Avenel forced open the wax seal with the Satterlee crest. He read the letter swiftly, and when he was finished, he too looked grim. "What is it, Slane?" Cumberland asked in a voice that implied he was not sure he wanted to know.
"Staples is dead," Avenel answered in a lifeless voice.
"How?" The elder man swallowed.
"Morrow's handiwork. It seems he left his signature on Staples's body."
"Oh, God, no!" Cumberland gasped. "But what about the boy? Is he dead, too?"
"No, apparently Nob was out hunting at the time. When he returned, he found his father, and then ran to Satterlee for help." Avenel ran a shaky hand through his dark, untied mane. "He's been staying at Satterlee, but they said that if they hadn't heard from me after a few months, they would ship him here. It seems they think I'm the best keeper for the boy. He needs to be looked after, and . . ." He gave a great, mournful sigh and refused to finish.
"He is all right, though, Slane. He should arrive in a matter of weeks, safe and sound. Things could be worse."
"No!" Avenel lashed out through clenched teeth. "Things could not be worse! Staples saved our lives when he found us swimming ashore, bloody and maimed as we were. Look how he has been repaid! Because he helped me regain Osterley, Morrow has butchered him." Suddenly his face contorted into a mask of murderous rage. "God help that beast," he said low and hard. "God help him if he ever sets foot on Osterley soil again. Though he caught me off guard in the woods, I swear he will never get a second chance!"
"Aye," Cumberland assented. But suddenly the old man's mouth dropped open, and he stared beyond Avenel to the domed bed. There could be no mistaking whose auburn head rested on the pillows.
"It's early, Cumberland. Go back to bed. I shall take care of her." Avenel spoke in a flat monotone. His eyes shone with vengeance like rays of icicles, and Cumberland shook with fear for the young girl who now slept so peacefully in her lover's bed, unaware of the storm brewing around her.
"What are you going to do, Slane?" Cumberland asked, desperate to reason with him. "She has had no part in this." He pulled the letter from his friend's grasp. "She is innocent—"
"No longer, my friend. And 'tis just as well." Avenel took the letter from the old man's hand.
"Don't do this to her, Avenel. She loves you. And this will kill her." Cumberland licked his dry lips.
"I gave her her chance to leave, and she refused. Now she is a part of this. Whether by her own hand or not, I tell you, my friend, she is now a part of this." Slowly Avenel backed into the room, closing the door behind him.
"For God's sake, Slane! She saved your life! Don't do this!" Cumberland whispered desperately at the door.
"Then she is playing the fool. For perhaps 'twas not worth saving." The door closed with a thud, and not another sound could be heard from behind its reaches for a very long time.
Gradually Brienne's sleep-heavy eyelids opened, and two gentian irises peered out from the encircling dark lashes. She breathed in deeply and became heady with the scent of Avenel and their lovemaking that clung to the fine Egyptian linen surrounding her. Raising her head, she looked to the other side of the bedstead for him, but the bed was empty. Soon, however, she spotted him standing naked at the window, awash in the predawn light. His back was to her, and he appeared almost stern. His arms were folded neatly across his chest, and his finely hewn thighs, one still bound with white linen bandages, were spread apart in a stance of superiority. Her eyes caressed his body, from the wide, scar-nicked shoulders to the firm, small buttocks that finally melded down to two, dark-haired, muscular legs. These sights brought on memories of the night before as time and time again, he had taken her to him and they had tumbled helplessly about in the bed. They had made love ferociously all night long, as if there would never be another time for them. Now, feeling wonderfully sore and utterly satiated, she sat up in the large, columned bed, draping the linen modestly across her full bare chest.
"Avenel, love," she greeted him, feeling for perhaps the first time in her life fully glad to be alive. She smiled and waiting for him to turn around and wrap his strong, warm arms around her. But there was no response from him at all. "Avenel? What is it, my love?" Lines of concern marred her smooth forehead. He still did not turn around to face her, and perhaps that was what disturbed her most of all. "Please?" she whispered, and he answered her in a harsh, merciless voice.
"I've received a letter today, Lady Brienne." He suddenly seemed to take pleasure in reminding her of her tide.
"A letter? But it's not even dawn." She pulled the covers to her, feeling a quickening desire for protection.
" 'Twas sent by special messenger. It was lost in the war we are having and just recently was found."
"What—what does it say?" She moistened her lips with her tongue and vaguely wondered how they could be so dry after so much kissing the night before.
"It says," he began, this time raising his voice. "It says that my friend has been murdered by your father."
"Murdered?" She frowned. "He will be tried for the crime, will he not? When they find him guilty, they'll hang him. Lord Oliver will be dead, and we'll be left alone," Brienne reasoned, desperate for him to change the hard-edged tone of voice.
"How can your father be tried when the authorities do not know it was he?" He laughed bitterly.
"But you know it was the earl."
"Yes, and do you know how I know?" He was deadly calm now.
"No, Avenel," she whispered, suddenly fearful.
"Because he left his calling card." She listened to the hatred in his voice and then watched as he slowly turned around to face her. Suddenly she let out
a horrified gasp, and the morning bloom left her face as she gazed below his waistline. Dimly she recalled moving her hand down his abdomen the night before. But never did it occur to her that the smooth flesh she had touched there was the result of so many scars. His entire belly below the navel was flecked with a starburst of razor-thin scars. A particularly mean one ran down one side of his groin, just missing his manhood, it would seem, by a hair's breadth. "Do you know what castration means?" Avenel forced her eyes back up to his angry face.
"I—I do. You are marked, but surely—"
"Ah, but I am not referring to myself. There was a botched attempt on me, to be sure. But I speak about your loved one, Brienne. I am talking about Cumberland." His eyes flashed coldly.
"No!" she cried at him, refusing to listen. But soon his words seemed to find their way to her ears, and he spoke without regard for her delicate senses.
"We were on a ship bound for England, my brother and I. That was when it happened to Christopher." He paused, and his entire body seemed to burn with vengeance that was now "directed completely at her. "Your father had him disemboweled, my lady"—he spat at her—"disemboweled and castrated. When he and his band started on me, Cumberland attempted to fight them off. But by the time we jumped into the Chesapeake Bay, he had left all that made him a man in a bloody heap on the decks."
"He is still a man. Rose loves him very much." She wept bitterly, thinking how dear Cumberland had become to her and how brutally the earl had treated him.
"You may be right there. But think of the humiliation! Think, will you?" He walked up to her, grasped her unbound mass of hair, and jerked her face painfully up to meet his. "Think of the pain of hitting the salt water with your body half-butchered. And watching your own blood make the clear blue waters of the Atlantic turn red." He tossed her violently back onto the bed and then walked over to the window, now not moving a muscle except the one that twitched in his lower jaw. "I was thirteen then. It took me twenty years to find retribution. And the day after I found it, he killed and castrated the man who helped me."
"Why does he hate you so?" She wiped her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand. Unmindful of her unclothed state, she shivered and sat back on her slim haunches to look at him.
"You will find that out in good time. For now, let it suffice to say that greed has been his motive." He touched the ancient lapis urn displayed so proudly on the tripod pedestal before the window. In the early morning light the piece shone almost black. He skimmed the polished surface with his palm and watched it wobble precariously. "Your father has a great love for beautiful things, has he not?" He looked back at her with an evil glance.
"Yes," she said flatly. "My mother was one of his things."
"Ah! Then you know-how it is." He looked back out the window. The only sound in the room came from the heavy, wobbling urn.
When it finally came to a stop, he stood quietly, and she took this moment to assure him. "I will help you, Avenel. Whatever it is that I can do to help you, please know that I will do it. Together we will find some way to—"
"We have already found a way."
Suddenly the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. There was a stance about him so utterly void of emotion that she could have sworn he was some sort of satanic being. Reluctantly she breathed the final question, knowing the answer was not what she wanted to hear: "And what is that way?"
"I planned this for you all along." He laughed harshly and then started to speak as if she were not even present in the room. "From the very first moment I'd heard Oliver Morrow's daughter was stranded at my blessed Osterley, I asked myself, how could I use her to get to him? What would be the one humiliation no father would stand for?" Inch by inch, his eyes trailed to the magnificent rumpled bed. "I'm afraid the answer was obvious. After all, how could the earl stand by while I made his daughter prisoner in the house he believes to be his? While I not only forced her to live in servitude and submission, but also"—he paused as if he were struggling with what he had to say next—"but also made her my willing whore as well."
Something inside her died when she heard his words. It was not her love for him that seemed to wither and fade, for that, she knew, was destined to remain strong and tormented. But her reason for living and this hoped-for, fresh new beginning was swiftly killed by his shrewd words. She saw now that their wonderful night together that had brought her love for him to the surface had been nothing less than a calculated and immoral act. And now all he could relay to her was his consuming hatred for her father and his contempt for her.
Cold, mad laughter seemed to come from her throat, and she suddenly spat out at him, "What a pathetic creature I must seem to you! But the little plan you've devised for my downfall will come to naught—of that I can assure you. For I will not go along with your scheming. And it will do no harm to the earl for you to torture me. You see, Oliver Morrow despises me. He despises me almost as much as you do." She stopped and watched as his eyes moved worriedly over her face, as if he wondered about her sanity.
"He may hate you, my lady. But he will not stand by while I—"
"While you rape me? Despoil me? But that is not so! For rape is one of his favorite pastimes," she spewed at him.
"But were you raped last night?" He moved to the bed and grabbed her arm, demanding her answer.
"Don't touch me." Violently she pushed him away and got off the bed.
"You see? That is where I'll get him. I have his precious house under my hand and his only daughter, who'll willingly take everything I can give." Now it was his turn to laugh mirthlessly. "Aye, that will do it. Whether he hates you or loves you, that will bring him to his knees."
"How wrong you are!" She pulled her arms across her bare chest and looked for her shift, which was nowhere to be seen in the bedchamber. "I'll leave before that comes to pass. I have the means now, and I'll use it."
"You have the means? Pray tell, and what are they?" He cocked his brow wickedly.
"The money . . ." Her voice trailed off, seeing his taunting smile. "You would go back on your offer?" she demanded.
"The offer was withdrawn last night, love. You chose to stay."
"But that was when I thought you . . ." She looked down, hiding her vulnerable, expressive eyes from his sight. She tried to think, but her head pounded from a wretched headache. All she could say was "Then I shall leave without any means."
"You will never leave here. You're mine now because the price for you was extracted from my own flesh and blood." His words were tightly spoken, as if he were fighting for self- control. But then he suddenly shoved the priceless lapis lazuli urn off the pedestal. A moment's flash of anger and the three-thousand-year-old urn lay in worthless shards before her feet. A stifled sob racked her body and she quickly ran to the tapestry room to get away from this unfeeling, brutal man who was bent on torturing her. She gratefully saw her hyacinth brocade laid out on a chair near a newly built-up fire and she quickly flung the fabric over her head.
When she had the dress on, she pulled it together with her arms, looking down for her laces. Then she saw the gold key sparkling in the light from the hearth. She knew Avenel was behind her, stalking her like some magnificent, naked carnivore, and she knew she would have to be quick if she were going to win her freedom. She grabbed the key, but her cry soon went from triumph to defeat as he came upon her. He almost broke her fingers as he wrenched the gold key out of her hand. Without an ounce of remorse on his face, he then flung the precious key into the fire. Instinctively she reached for it, moaning from the sharp pain that the flames inflicted on her. But when he grabbed her to get her hand away from the flames, she thrust out her fist and beat mercilessly on his bandaged thigh, knowing from her experience with his wound exactly where her small hand could hurt him most. When he was helpless and groaning, she calmly walked out of the room the victor. Yet she felt bitter with the knowledge that, despite his aching wound, she had left him feeling less pain than she felt—not
from her burned hand, but from her ravaged heart.
Everything was ready. Her brown cloak lay on the counterpane with a coarse cloth bag that held all her worldly possessions: two dresses, an extra linen shift, and the miniature of a young man painted on a wafer-thin sheet of ivory. Stepping into her pattens, she momentarily rubbed her forehead. Her head ached pitiably from the tears she refused to shed. Taking a deep breath, she went over to the bed to grab her cloak and bag. Then she moved to the door, somehow feeling anxious about her departure, which seemed to be going too smoothly.
But then she encountered the locked door. Pulling on the brass knob, done in arabesques and etchings, she struggled with it for a long time, hoping against hope that it was just stuck. She hadn't heard the quiet click of the lock when she had first entered her bedchamber, for she had been too involved in collecting her things and getting out of the hyacinth brocade. But there was no mistaking it now. The door was locked, and she could be sure there was no key left behind for her.
She gave up on it and looked around the yellow taffeta room, seeking another way out. There was only one other door. Going into her dressing room, she went to the wall where the jib was placed. She ran her fingers along the edge, seeking the spring lock, but she quickly realized it was no use. The door could only be sprung from the other side by the servants, and for the moment it was tightly shut and locked, too.
"Damn," she whispered, holding her head, which now pounded unmercifully.
* * *
Late that afternoon, Avenel sat by the blazing fireplace in the gallery just underneath the painting of Oliver Morrow. A glass in his hand was filled with amber spirits. He held on to it tightly, keeping the tension of his fingers on the beaker just below the breaking point.
No Choice But Surrender Page 24