He held my head and pressed his lips down on mine. I went stiff as a board. Tides of hatred and fury rose in me. His arms closed around me. He slid his lips slowly along the line of my jawbone to my ear, then down my neck to my throat. A shock of pleasure as strong as an earthquake and as debilitating as a bolt of lightning struck me. I tried to collect my wits, to push him away, but he pressed closer, kissing and licking my throat lightly. My hands fluttered ineffectually in front of my bosom, like frail, helpless butterflies beating themselves to death against glass.
He opened the sash of my robe and slid his hand under my nightgown. He cradled my breast in his palm and manipulated the nipple expertly with his thumb. He kept his other arm securely around my waist, but he needn’t have. My legs were so weak and rubbery that I couldn’t have run if I wanted to. I felt myself sinking and swirling. I reached up and touched his cheek. Flashes of heat danced down my spine, pierced my flesh.
I gulped air and cried, “No!”
I wouldn’t let him do it. I broke away from him and ran into my bedroom. I slammed the door and fumbled with the key. The damned thing had never been used since I’d been in the house and it jammed in the lock. I cursed. I heard him coming and I fell back just as he swept the door open.
“Stay away from me, damn you!” I cast about desperately for some kind of weapon. I wished 1 had an axe: I would split his grinning head in two, right down to his belly. He moved forward, unsmiling now, slowly and relentlessly, like a snake intent on capturing its meal.
“I won’t let you—” I gasped.
He grabbed my wrist and hauled me into his arms. Jerking my head back, he pillaged my mouth with his tongue, hurting me, pressing in on me until I was dizzy and breathless. I kept shaking my head, trying to clear away the thick mist that enveloped my brain. I was like a drunk trying to view the world soberly. He fondled my face, his hands swirled around my breasts. They felt cool and dry. I was hot, burning, sweating.
I sagged limply against him, sighing, and he slipped off my robe and gown and carried me to bed. I moaned softly and covered my face with my arms, giving myself up to his caresses. He covered my long body with a hundred kisses, like shooting sparks. They burned my throat and my breasts, my abdomen and thighs, and finally the soft feathery region between my legs. I was helpless. How could I fight him when he attacked me this way, knowingly and lovingly? My buttocks filled his strong hands and he buried his face in my softness, fondling the tiny fleshy mound there with his lips, darting his tongue in and out. Again and again his touches sent jolts of yearning through my body, into my fingertips, into my toes. I sobbed and clutched at his thick hair with my hands, trying at the same time to deter and to encourage him.
He moved away from me and undressed in the dim light shed by the lamps in front of the dressing table mirror. I couldn’t look at him, naked. I closed my eyes. I felt him ease himself down beside me.
“Look at me,” he said.
I opened my eyes. His face hovered over mine, dreamlike. I knew it so well, every crease, every pore, every shadow. Sorrow and anger were forgotten, shed as easily as the flimsy garments that lay in a pile on the floor near the bed. I gave myself up to the ancient passion that had lived in my body since I had known him. I opened my arms and my soul to him. His shaft felt as hard and as slick as steel. We crashed together and I returned his kisses with a greed that matched his own. I let my long fingers skim over his body, remembering. I knew every contour, every scar, every depression and hair, every sinew and bone. He drove himself into me, taking me swiftly and hungrily, as though he wanted to capture some essential magic of my womanhood before it slipped away, before it eluded him.
Each fierce thrust sent hot arrows fleeting through my heart to my brain. I felt myself sliding backwards, plummeting headlong into a molten sea, without air, shivering, shrieking, shaking. With a roar he released his fire and at the same instant the soft petals of an elusive dark flower captured him and held him fast.
It had never happened that way with us before. A shattering, draining moment when we merged in sweetness and were really one. I wanted to lie forever welded to him in an infinite embrace. I wanted the world to end, there and then, so that we could die together before we began to act and speak again. Before we could spoil the magic.
Seth quivered. We were both wet from exertion and the room was chilly, but neither of us wanted to make a move to pull up the coverlets. Slowly, the world righted itself. I lay absolutely still, listening to the music of his breathing and the soft drumming of his heart. I could hear the rustle of leaves against the window pane and the small noises of the house settling itself into sleep and darkness. I drew my arm up and turned my face away from him, into the curve of my elbow. A tear slid down my cheek into the satin pillow under my head.
His hand came up to the side of my face and found the tear. He said my name, so softly that I thought I dreamed it.
After a while he groaned and rolled over on his back. He hitched up one leg and spread his arms out. I moved out of the way and sat on the edge of the bed. I noticed a new scar on his upraised thigh, and another round one, a bullet hole, on his upper arm. Signs of battles fought. His little victories in his war against life. A few demons exorcised through the ritual of danger and death, but hundreds remaining. He moved and tossed. I grimaced. He even sleeps aggressively, I thought.
I started to get up. His eyes flew open and his hand whipped out to close around my wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“The next room. I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Stay here.” He pulled me down next to him and flung his arm over me.
“I don’t want to.” I twisted around. I felt stiff and dead inside. The magic was gone.
“Wife’s place is with her husband,” he said drowsily. Be a good girl and close your eyes.”
“I am not your wife!” I said, throwing off his arm and sitting up again. “What a farce. You weren’t even using your legal name. It can’t possibly be legal!”
“Why not?” he grunted. “If you can go around calling yourself the Baroness von Ravens-toenail, I can certainly call myself Garrett. I can call myself Seth Garibaldi, if I like. Who’s to stop me?” He folded his arms behind his lead and grinned at me. “I knew I must have had a reason for marrying you. I’ve given it a great deal of thought—as much thought as I give anything. Insurance. You are—my wife. My property. Mine. And you’ll stay mine, my dear. I won’t give you up.”
“You—won’t give me up!” I laughed bitterly and gave him an incredulous look. “Where have you been for the past four years? What do you call what you did in Vienna? You deserted me and my baby. You left us, with hardly enough money to live on.” My voice shook and I shrugged to get it under control. “Don’t you remember? Give me up, indeed! You gave your son up very easily. Do you know what happened to him? He died. Three weeks after he was born, in a hotel room that was small and cramped and cold. I wrapped the body myself and walked behind it to the grave.” I jumped off the bed and pulled on my wrapper. “Don’t you dare try and assert your mastery over me. I won’t stand for it, do you hear? You think a few words spoken in front of a man neither of us had ever seen before means that we are married? Marriage means love and caring and responsibility. And you aren’t capable of any of that. Steven is. You may be able to stop me from marrying him, but if you think that I would ever, ever live with you again and endure your cynicism and your callowness and your infidelity—well, I won’t! You remember these?” I bent over the bed and shook my upturned wrists under his nose. “The child who did that to herself because she couldn’t think of any other way of escaping you no longer exists. But I tell you, Seth Garrett McClelland whatever-your-name-is, she is just as determined not to let you control her. Now why don’t you get out of my house before I get really angry!”
He nodded approvingly. “Wonderful speech, Rhawnie. I congratulate you—your English has really improved.”
“You—bah!” I glared at him.
He lau
ghed lightly. “And now you’ve gotten yourself engaged to Steve. I could hardly believe my eyes. I walk into the house after six, seven years, and there you are, stuck like a leech to my brother, looking like the cat that stole the cream. What a joke! What a damned, funny joke!”
"Don’t make yourself sick laughing too hard,” I said through gritted teeth. I tightened my sash with an angry jerk and walked into the music room. I poured some tea into a glass, added some hot water from the samovar, and popped a sugar cube into my mouth. Blast him. God damn and blast him!
He strolled out of the bedroom. He was wearing his ruffled shirt and trousers. His feet were bare. “May I?” He helped himself to brandy.
“I hope you choke.” I sucked my tea loudly.
He grinned. “More likely your faithful little Anna has slipped poison into the decanter.” He lifted the snifter to his nose. “Excellent! I’m happy to see you’ve retained some of the things I taught you. Some of the important things.” He put his hand on my rump.
I moved away from him and plopped myself down on the settee. I slurped my tea. He sat next to me.
“Your performance tonight was really remarkable,” he said. “Can Steve be such a failure as a lover? I wouldn’t be surprised. All those years of fidelity. Really takes the edge off. But maybe he’s been neglecting you. He’s a fool. I’ll have to tell him about you and your needs.”
“Why do you talk this way?” I asked. “Why, why do you want to hurt me? Haven’t you done enough? Why can’t you be kind to me?”
He set down his glass and looked at me. “Because I’m not Steve,” he said in a harder voice. We didn’t speak for a while but watched the fire die. He cocked his head and looked around. “My brother is a generous man. I congratulate you. You’ve done well for yourself.”
“And I have done it for myself,” I said. “Your brother has given me nothing. Haven’t you heard, I’m a concert singer now. I’ll be singing at the French Opera House next Saturday. Please don’t feel as though you have to come.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for anything,” he said. “Tell me how you got your hooks into Steve? Mother had some fantastic story about his rescuing you from some German baron.”
“You might have asked how your brother got his hooks into me,” I said. “I didn’t propose to him. It was a complete surprise to me. But it’s what I want, Seth. And you want to spoil it.”
“Want to—!” He laughed. “My dear, we are married, like it or not! It’s not what I want or don’t want. It’s a fact.”
“Give me a divorce, Seth. Please! I’m sure it can be done without Steven’s finding out who you are. I’ll hire a lawyer in England—far away from here. I’ll find some excuse to go abroad!”
Seth shook his head. “He’d find out. Lawyers are very clubbish. He’d poke around and learn the truth. Why don’t you tell him I’m dead? Your husband, I mean. He’d believe that.”
“And then you’d appear on our seventh wedding anniversary with a startling revelation,” I said bitterly. “I know you. No, what I need is some insurance, as you call it. I want you to help me, Seth. I want you to promise me that you won’t spoil this, that you won’t tell them. Give me your word.”
“What an outrageous suggestion!” Seth looked shocked. He’s really enjoying this, the bastard, I thought. “You want me to suppress the truth about us so that you can marry my brother! There is such a thing as bigamy, my darling. It means—”
“I know what it means. And I don’t consider myself married to you. What’s a gorgio wedding anyway? What’s the harm in it? We were married only a few months before you left me, and I haven’t seen you in four years! Please, Seth. I’ll make him happy, I swear it!”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said quietly.
“I want to be married to him,” I said quickly. “He’s good and kind and—respectable. Please, don’t laugh at me, Seth. All I’ve ever wanted in my life was a husband and a family. Babies, three or six or a dozen. And a good man to take care of us all. It’s not such a big thing. Millions of women have just that—a family. I’d give anything for a chance like this. I could be a great singer. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. The best people in Europe have said so. But I wouldn’t want to sing for money if I could sing for my own babies at home. This concert business is a game I play. I would throw it all away for Steven. Please, Seth, I have never asked you for anything. I never made demands of you, never whined for carriages and dresses and baubles the way some women do. All I ever wanted from you was my freedom. And that’s all I want now. Don’t tell them. Please. Do this for me. You owe me this! Do it and I will thank you all my life.”
He reached over and brushed a strand of hair from my face. “You haven’t said that you love him.”
“I do love him!” I said passionately. “He is good and kind and—”
“Yes, yes,” he waved his hand impatiently. “I know all that. Steve the paragon. Steve the model husband and father. Steve the upright example to us all.” He made a sour face. “Good old Steve. But tell me, Rhawnie, what do I get out of all of this? Will I be entitled to special attentions when I come to town?” He sat closer and put his arm around my shoulders. He fondled my breast through the silk of my robe. “What fun that will be. A family picnic at Highlands. Daddy Steve and Grandpa Garth take the tots for a swim, and Mother Rhawnie and Uncle Seth sneak off into the shrubbery.”
“Please stop that!” I twisted away. “You’re treating it like a joke and it’s not a joke! I am serious about this!” I whirled back again and grabbed the ruffled front of his shirt with both hands. “Listen to me, Seth. I won’t be blackmailed by you for the rest of my life. You will either do this for me or you won’t. But you must decide now. One thing more: if you tell them about us, I will tell them about you. About how you live and the way you used me and deserted me. It wasn’t a very honorable thing to do, was it, Seth? Think of how disappointed your parents would be—and Sean! He worships you. But even he, in his youth and callowness, would think less of you for doing that. And Gabrielle. You love her, don’t you? And she loves you. But if she knew what you were, what you are, what would she think?”
I knew I was grasping at straws but I had to try anything. I pressed on.
“I’ll tell her how you killed Martin de Vernay, and how you used my talent for faro to cheat people all over Europe. I know you so well, after all. Why shouldn’t I use what I know? And if it wouldn’t hurt you—it would hurt them. And I wouldn’t care! By that time I’d have nothing to lose anyway. I’d have lost Steven and my new life. Think about it, Seth. Tell Steven. He won’t have me, but you won’t have me, either.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he said curtly, “To think that you had any kind of power over me—”
“I have seen you with your family.” Yes, family! That’s what Anna had been trying to tell me: I could get at him through his family. “I used to think that you didn’t care about anything in the world. But you care about them, don’t you? You changed your name so you wouldn’t embarrass them. You came home on Christmas Eve to be with them. I think you even care about Steven. If you really wanted to hurt him you would have stayed after the duel. I think I do have a weapon I can use against you, Seth. If you destroy my dreams,” I took a breath, “I will hurt you, through them. I swear it. I swear it on the body of my dead baby.”
I must have looked like a madwoman. My braids had fallen down and become unravelled and my hair swirled around my face like a golden cloud, now concealing, now revealing. And my eyes were wild and bright with anger. And he must have believed my threat, for he said.
“You damned crazy Gypsy lunatic. I'd kill you before I let you—”
“Then kill me now,” I said passionately. “I'm not afraid of your threats. I fear nothing!” I held up my wrists. “And I certainly don’t fear Death!”
I watched a variety of emotions play over his usually impassive face: anger, frustration, and finally, after a struggle, calm.
“I don’t strike bar
gains with madwomen,” he said. “The whole thing is ridiculous. You and Steve! Ha! That’s a match for you! By God, I ought to let him have you! What a fine joke! I suppose he told you about Julie?” I drew back a little. “Of course he did. Dear Julie. So saintly, so good. She married Steve because that’s what her parents wanted for her. I wasn’t good enough, but he was. But before she was his, she was mine. Do you understand?”
My mouth felt dry. “You—ruined her.”
“That’s what the pious blockheads around here would call it. Ruin,” he sneered. “But I didn’t have to force her. She wanted me. She was very willing. We had quite a nice little time in a deserted cottage. If it hadn’t been for that delay Father and Steven never would have caught up with us. Little Mademoiselle Julie was no saint, I can tell you.”
I closed my eyes and put my hands to my cheeks. I could picture the scene—I had played it myself. Julie, young and sweet and innocent—even more innocent than I had been. And he took her away from the protection of her home and worked his vile magic on her, his sweet, vile magic. She couldn’t resist him. No woman could, even a woman who had fallen victim to his will a thousand and one times, as I had. He took her, knowing she would never tell, knowing that she would marry Steven and live in the shadow of a lie for the rest of her life. Poor child. Poor woman.
“Steven should have killed you when he had the chance,” I said bitterly. “"You think you’ve beaten him, don’t you? Beaten him at whatever crazy game you’ve been playing since you were children. He has loved two women in his life—which is two more than you’ve loved—and you have spoiled them both for him. He doesn’t know anything about it, and so you laugh at him and call him dull and make fun of his kindness, because you have your dirty little secrets and you can use them any time you want to destroy him. It’s the same thing you did when you were thirteen and you lied about the accident that made you lame. Secrets. Dirty secrets that make people afraid. I’ll tell Steven myself. And then you can deal with his anger. I hope this time he doesn’t let you go.”
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