An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition

by Cartland, Barbara

  Now she was no longer afraid of him. He had saved Hector. He had shown her all too clearly that under that mask of proud indifference he was human – and understanding.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Iona whispered into the darkness.

  Then she turned and crept from the room.

  10

  Lady Wrexham lay on a chaise longue in the boudoir that led out of her bedroom. It was a big room, light and gay, for the panelling had been painted white and inset with silk brocade and the curtains were of rose damask. The sunshine coming through the closed windows filled the room with a golden radiance, dimming the flames that leapt high from the logs burning in the chimneypiece.

  Beatrice lay near the fire, a rug of ermine covering her legs, her head against satin cushions. She was wearing a negligée of Chinese silk, fine as a spider’s web and so transparent that its soft folds concealed few of her voluptuous charms. Her golden hair, unpowdered and drawn back from her low forehead, was caught simply in a twisted coil at the nape of her neck and held only with two jewelled pins.

  Even when she rested, Beatrice wore same of her jewels, and a ruby as big as a pigeon’s egg glittered on one hand, on the other there was a sapphire, somnolent as the sea on a calm day. When Beatrice moved her hinds, the ruby glittered as if she had awakened some strange fire within it, and after a time she fixed her eyes on it as if it were a crystal which would reveal to her the secrets of the future.

  Beatrice’s eyelids were heavy over the Elysium blue of her eyes, yet she was not tired. She was planning and plotting but for once her scheming had no connection with her instructions from the Marquis of Severn but was solely and completely personal.

  A loud knocking interrupted her reverie, but before she could ring the bell by her side and summon her maid, the door opened and Lord Niall came into the room. He was in riding dress, the polish of his high boots reflecting the sunlight as he crossed the room, the chains on his spurs making a jingling musical accompaniment to his footsteps.

  “There is no sign of the damned fellow,” he announced angrily.

  Beatrice’s expression had not changed at his entry. She had merely raised her eyes from the contemplation of her ring, and now without smiling she asked slowly in a voice that was curiously dull,

  “Is it of such consequence that he should be recaptured?”

  Lord Niall made a gesture, which seemed to combine both astonishment and exasperation.

  “You know it is of the utmost import,” he replied. “The fellow was a Jacobite, there was no doubt about it, and anything might have been disclosed in an examination of him. But instead, he has vanished – disappeared into thin air. By God, if I can find out how he escaped, I would kill those who helped him with my own hands.”

  Lord Niall spoke savagely and the fury in his eyes was murderous. Beatrice gave a tiny yawn.

  “Why perturb yourself unduly? He may not have been as significant as you think.”

  “’Pon my soul, you amaze me, Beatrice,” Lord Niall exclaimed. “That man is without doubt, an exile who has slipped back to Scotland to sow dissension and discontent, and what is more, I am convinced that under torture we should have learnt that Ewan is in league with him. It was an opportunity we may never have again, and now without any evidence of how it has been contrived the prisoner disappears overnight from the Keep. I’ll swear that Ewan must have had a hand in this, but the Devil knows how I am to prove it.”

  “If the Duke let him out,” Beatrice suggested, “it must surely have been through the door or a window.”

  “There are no windows,” Lord Niall said sullenly, “only arrow slits which one could not squeeze a rat through, let alone a grown man.”

  “Then the door?”

  “I had the key of the door.”

  “You?”

  For the first time since Lord Niall had come into the room Beatrice smiled, then she laughed.

  “You had the key! Oh, poor Niall, I do see how exasperating it must be for you.”

  “Exasperating! It’s enough to send me crazed,” Lord Niall cried.

  Like a spoilt child he flung himself down on the armchair, his face sullen and puckered with discontent.

  “Have you inquired of the Duke if he has any explanation of this mystery?” Beatrice asked.

  “Yes, I have asked him,” Lord Niall replied, “and he admits that on his orders the prisoner was given food and wine. But to make certain that the rascal should not escape while his gaoler was absent Ewan took charge of the key. That information is of little help when I myself went down to the Keep later in the evening, inspected the prisoner, through the peephole in the door and took the key away with me.”

  “It was with you all night?” Beatrice asked.

  “All night,” Lord Niall answered, “and I slept alone, you will remember.” He looked at her and his face softened. “I did not sleep well,” he added, “and you know the reason.”

  Beatrice met his eyes for a second, then returned to the contemplation of her ruby ring.

  “We must be careful, Niall,” she said. “I have warned you more than once that you are too possessive – and too familiar in your attitude towards me.”

  “Can you wonder at it,” he asked quickly, “when I ache to hold you, when my lips burn for the touch of yours?”

  “I beg of you to be more careful.”

  “Oh, hell, what does it matter?” Lord Niall inquired. “If only things would go right, if only I could have a modicum of good fortune on my side, I would be able to take you in my arms and let the whole damned world see me do it!

  When I think that this swine that escaped might have been instrumental in incriminating Ewan, I could in sheer rage pull the whole damned place down about our ears.”

  “You cannot be certain the Duke was in league with him,” Beatrice argued. “After all, you have nothing to go on, and even if he were a Jacobite, there are plenty of them about. Most of them are slinking around in fear of their lives, of danger to no one but themselves. Suppose we admit that this Hugo Thomson, or whatever he called himself, was a returned exile, what proof have we that he made contact with the Duke?”

  “I have no actual proof,” Lord Niall admitted sullenly, “but I am convinced he would not have come here and risked recognition had he not wished to convey information of some sort to Ewan. He was with the girl at the hotel in Inverness – I told you how I surprised them there – and she met him again in the woods yesterday afternoon.”

  “Then I imagine that it is but an ordinary case of frustrated love,” Beatrice sneered. “You are exaggerating the whole incident, Niall, and I am ready to wager there is nothing more to it than a lovers’ meeting.”

  Lord Niall jumped to his feet and walked over to the window.

  “You are deliberately trying to ridicule me and make me appear a fool,” he said angrily. “If you are right, why should the fellow have been in such a hurry to escape? And again, how could he have done so without the assistance of someone inside the castle? Could the girl, a stranger here without money or influence have contrived that? No, it was Ewan, I tell you, Ewan who by some authority or devilish ingenuity of which we know nothing has managed to spirit a grown man out of the Keep and leave no trace of how it was done.”

  Beatrice yawned again, but her eyes were reflective.

  “What does the man who was guarding him say?” she asked at length. “And can you trust him to speak the truth?”

  “I would not trust my own shadow at the moment,” Lord Niall retorted. “Eachann, the man on guard, is a fool, but I have no reason to suspect him of treachery. He is full of tales of ghosts and spirits and other nonsensical bunkum. These people are ridiculously superstitious. My great, great grandfather, MacCraggan Mor, is popularly supposed by the household to have wafted the prisoner through the walls or the keyhole, though why the old gentleman should have wanted to save a Jacobite, no one can explain.”

  “Does anyone pretend to have seen him do it?” Beatrice asked.

&n
bsp; “No, of course not. It’s all talk and those dolts chatter amongst themselves until they believe anything. Eachann keeps averring that he felt the MacCraggan Mor’s presence by the Keep although he will not admit to seeing him. I had him flogged to see if I could learn more, but he swore that no one visited him the whole night, though he confesses to having fallen asleep for an hour or two.”

  “And so you are back where you started,” Beatrice said lightly. “An empty cage and the bird flown.”

  Lord Niall turned from the window and crossed the room to her side.

  “Can you not understand why I mind so greatly?” he asked. “Can you not realise why I pin my hopes on finding that Ewan and this Jacobite were in league?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that question?” Beatrice asked.

  “No, because you know the answer,” he said, his tone suddenly fierce and domineering. “It is because of you that I can wait no longer, because I want you and because the mere sight of you drives me mad.”

  He dropped down on his knees beside her to look close at her face, his eyes burning as if he were in a fever.

  “I want you,” he repeated hoarsely. “God, how I want you! All my life I have wished to be the Duke of Arkrae, I have desired the power and prestige that the position would bring me, but now I want it for one reason and one reason alone, and that reason is you, my love – you and only you.”

  He bent forward to kiss her lips, but Beatrice turned her face aside. For one moment he was still, then his hands went out to grip her bare shoulders and to draw her closer and still closer to him. With a surprising strength Beatrice thrust him away.

  “No, Niall, no,” she protested. “It is dangerous. Anyone might come in. Besides, you have work to do.”

  “I have nothing better to do than to swear that I love you,” Lord Niall answered.

  “Not now,” Beatrice answered, and there was a sudden edge to her voice.

  Slowly and reluctantly he took his hands from her and rose to his feet.

  “Why are you like this?” he asked. “If I thought that you were tired of me, I swear that I would strangle you.”

  Beatrice closed her eyes for a second, then she said with her voice deliberately weak.

  “How can you be so unkind? I am not tired of you, Niall, but I am in truth very tired. I am not like a man, that I can journey from London to Scotland and not be fatigued by the weariness of the long drive. All I ask is a little consideration until I am strong again.”

  There was a break in her voice – of frailty or of tears, and instantly Lord Niall’s attitude changed.

  “Oh, my dear,” he said. “I am a brute, forgive me. It is that I – love you so desperately. I am crazed for you. There’s not a second passes but I yearn to the point of madness for the softness of your body. I am importunate, but patience was never my strongest virtue. Nevertheless, forgive me.”

  “Of course I forgive you, Niall,” Beatrice said, holding out her hand to him, “but you must be sensible and conceal both your feelings and your impatience.”

  Lord Niall took her hand and kissed it.

  “I will try,” he promised, “but Heaven knows it will not be easy. When I see you smiling at Ewan, when I watch your eyes looking up into his, I am jealous beyond endurance. One day I shall murder him, not for his heritage but because I cannot bear you even to look at another man.”

  “How foolish you are,” Beatrice scolded, “for it seems that nothing I can do or say is of particular interest to the Duke. If I attempt to entice him, you know it is but – for your sake.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that,” Lord Niall answered, “but the mere fact that you must do so makes me hate him the more. If he were at all responsive, I doubt if I could control myself. Thank God that Ewan has always been a cold fish and, incredible though it may seem, remains so, even though you smile at him.”

  Beatrice’s lips tightened for a moment, then she asked in a voice that was curiously icy.

  “The Duke has not lost his heart to any other woman?”

  “Not that I am aware of, though I assure you that I know very little about Ewan’s private affairs,” Lord Niall replied. “He has always been curiously reserved, hard as nails in some things and soft hearted as a woman in others. Look at last night – how, despite my express instructions, he had food and drink taken to the prisoner. A ridiculous gesture, but he made it, I believe, to please that red-headed chit because she said the fellow had befriended her.”

  There was a sudden silence.

  “Do you think it was to please her?” Beatrice asked slowly.

  “As like as not,” Lord Niall said. “Did you not notice the way Ewan looked at her at dinner when she sat there dumb as a dog, white-faced and on the verge of tears? The man means a great deal to her, that’s obvious, and I know, as surely as I know my own name, that Ewan is intriguing with him.”

  Beatrice threw back the ermine rug that covered her and rose to her feet. She walked across the room and the silk of her loose robe flowed gracefully around her, but the lines of her body were silhouetted clearly against the sunlit windows. She was as perfectly proportioned as a Grecian statue and as she turned Lord Niall went hotly towards her.

  “Faith, but you intoxicate me!” he exclaimed thickly.

  As he touched her, Beatrice pushed his arms aside with an angry, impulsive gesture which she covered almost instantly by putting her hands to her forehead.

  “My head is aching, Niall, I must retire to bed. If I cannot come down to dinner, I will send my apologies to your stepmother. At the moment I feel ready to swoon with fatigue – the chatter of voices, would split my poor head open.”

  “You must indeed rest,” Lord Niall said soothingly. “If you are not better tomorrow, I will send for the leech. But if I do not see you at dinner, may I come and say good night?”

  “No, no,” Beatrice said, her voice almost shrill. “Can you not understand that I must be alone? I will talk with you tomorrow, that I promise, but tonight I want only rest and – privacy.”

  As if he realised that further arguments or protestations of love would only annoy her, Lord Niall took both Beatrice’s hands in his, turned them over, and kissed them softly, his lips lingering in the soft hollow of her palms, then moving to caress her tiny wrists.

  At last reluctantly he released her, watching her as she moved across the room to her bedchamber and standing immobile for some minutes after the door had closed behind her. She had not looked back or she would have surprised a look of unbridled savagery on his dark face.

  All Lord Niall’s life strange fires had burnt within his breast, always he had hated the position he must endure of being the younger son, of having to take second place, of knowing that only the death of his half-brother could give him the authority and power that he craved almost to the point of madness.

  It was a hate so strong, so virulent that it seemed at times as if it would consume him, but it enabled him to mask his feelings and to act a part day after day, year after year, because only through such a pretence would he ever gain his ultimate goal. A weaker man would have found such a role impossible. It required strength and an almost superhuman self-control to be courteous and polite to the Duke, to take second place in the household, to speak and behave as if he had no ambitions, no desires beyond a comfortable, luxurious existence as his half-brother’s guest.

  Only his stepmother knew the truth, and perhaps a dozen or so of Lord Niall’s personal servants who had a vague inkling that one day their loyalty might be richly rewarded.

  But now there was an ally, an ally so powerful, so influential that Lord Niall could hardly believe it possible that she should also be the woman he so ardently desired. With Beatrice in the castle, with the thought of her response to him personally like a weapon in his hand, Lord Niall knew that the hour had come in which he must strike to gain both a dukedom and a bride.

  It was with an air of defiance that he walked boldly from the boudoir, pulled the door to behind him an
d walked down the corridor. He half hoped that he would meet his stepmother. For the first time for many years he was not afraid of her reproaches. He saw her for what she was, a middle-aged woman clinging to him pathetically because in losing him she lost the last vestige of her youth. Why had he even been hesitant and afraid of her finding him out? What a fool he had been! Lord Niall gave a little laugh and it was not a pleasant sound.

  He went down the main staircase and into the Great Hall. He crossed it and a flunkey hurried to open the front door. Outside the castle his men were waiting, some on horseback, others on foot holding stout sticks in their hands. They were all of fine physique, but at the moment they were hot, dusty and fatigued, for they had been out since early morning searching the woods and moors for miles around in search of the escaped prisoner.

  Lord Niall came down the steps. Sime detached himself from a group of men with whom he had been talking and went to meet him.

  “Any news of the fugitive?” Lord Niall asked.

  Sime shook his head.

  “The last twa men hae just got bac’, my Lord. They hae seen naught o’ the prisoner.”

  Lord Niall’s eyes narrowed.

  “You are all either fools or knaves,” he said harshly. “He must be hiding somewhere near here. Is it possible for a man to vanish in such a manner and not be found?”

  But even as he asked the question, Lord Niall knew the answer. Had not Prince Charles remained hidden for months with half the English Army searching for him? As if he guessed what his men were thinking, Lord Niall turned abruptly on his heel.

  “I shall not forget your stupidity,” he snarled, and began to walk up the steps to the front door.

  “Are we no tae search any maur, my Lord?” Sime asked from behind him.

  Lord Niall turned.

  “No,” he snapped.

  “An’ Eachann, my Lord?”

  “Release him,” Lord Niall said, “but keep an eye on him. If I thought that he deceived me, he would suffer for it as will anyone else who stands convicted of the same offence.”