No, Lucy thought fiercely. No matter what this man said or did, Alexander d’Autrecourt was dead. The gentle boy who had saved her mother from a cruel marriage could never take the actions this man had taken, never terrorize or hurt or conjure up sinister plots. If this was indeed Alexander in body, his spirit had been buried long before, buried by the family who had tormented them both.
Lucy caught her lip between her teeth, trying to force herself to strike, mustering the will to do so. There was no choice, nothing else to do. He was insane. God only knew what would happen if she did not escape. Once this was over, she would find some way to help him. Make certain he was safe, taken care of.
The thought shattered, horror tearing through her as the heavy brass piece slipped from her numb fingers.
She cried out as a sharp edge glanced off of Alexander’s brow, slicing a nasty gash in his pale skin. He bolted upright with a yelp of pain.
Desperate, Lucy grappled for the candlestick in an effort to defend herself, knowing in her heart it was too late.
Just as her fingers closed on the object, a booted foot lashed out, cracking into her hands. Lucy screamed as she crumpled in agony.
Alexander towered above her, blood trickling in a macabre pattern down his face.
“You tried to kill me.” He said the words softly, so softly. “That was a very naughty girl.”
“I was only trying to get away. Please, if you are my father, I—”
“Jenny, you are a most ungrateful child. You leave me no other choice.”
“Choice?” Lucy echoed, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life.
With chillingly methodical movements, he burrowed under the feather tick, withdrawing a gold-mounted pistol and a dirt-encrusted spade.
“You are not to be trusted alone. I shall have to put you where you will be safe.” He hauled her to her feet, dragging her out into the twilight. Storm clouds roiled in the heavens, like Satan wrestling the angels, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
Where was he taking her? It didn’t matter, Lucy thought, a faint hope sweeping through her. If she could scream, someone might hear her. Someone might come to her aid. Some vicar must tend the graveyard. Some villager or farmer might pass by. Someone, anyone, who might help her.
Alexander refastened Lucy’s bindings and then settled her on the ground beside the tiny grave.
“I have lived here from time to time for almost a year now,” Alexander said. “This is where I packed the box to send to you in Virginia. Virginia! Imagine Jasper’s stupidity in letting such information slip into my hands. He would jeer at me, and tell me that you lived at Blackheath Hall. Sometimes it was as if he knew I wanted to find you. He knew I wanted to escape, make things right.”
Lucy shuddered at the knowledge that the evil man she had first seen in the gaming hell could somehow have provided the catalyst that had brought her here—one more cruel jest that had spun out of control.
“Do you know, Jenny?” Alexander said. “In all the time I have lived here, never once have I seen a living soul. Perhaps that is because I am supposed to be dead!” He laughed, a hollow, frightening sound. Then he took the spade in his hands, fierce concentration furrowing his bloodstained brow. Despair rocked Lucy as the shovel tore a fresh wound in the earth.
“Wh-What are you doing?” Lucy choked out.
“Don’t you see?” Those eyes met hers, soulless, empty. “Jenny is dead. I must bury her beneath the roses.”
Chapter Nineteen
How deep did a madman dig a grave before he felt compelled to fill it with a corpse? Lucy stared at the top of Alexander d’Autrecourt’s blond head with sick fascination, the man standing neck deep in the grave he was digging with such crazed precision. He had shaped the grave so carefully, uprooting the roses like a master gardener and setting them beside Lucy so he could replant them as “a blanket of blossoms for his darling.”
Each chink of spade biting earth, each thud of the clods being flung into the growing pile of dirt beside the angel-carved tombstone signaled that she was one shovelful closer to whatever fate Alexander d’Autrecourt had planned for her in the twisted reaches of his mind.
Her hands writhed against the cords that bound her. And every time d’Autrecourt’s face was angled away from her, she tore at the knots with her teeth, trying to loosen them. But they only snarled up tighter, cut even deeper into her burned skin.
There had to be some way to thwart him, something she could do. Suddenly the spade came flying up to land on the turf on the far side of the grave. Time had run out.
Lucy gave one last desperate twist of her wrists as Alexander d’Autrecourt pulled himself from the hole. Dirt clung to his clothing, his face so pale and deep with hollows that he seemed some ghoul come alive to stalk her from the grave.
She had to do something, think of something. If she could fool him, reason with him, play whatever insane game was running through the tangled labyrinth that had once been his mind…
Lucy shoved herself backward, the thorns of the roses Emily had planted so long before cutting into her skin as she collided with them. “No, Papa, you can’t do this! Please, you have to listen—”
“I am going to put you in the grave now, Jenny,” he said. “It is a very nice grave Papa has made for you.”
“I don’t want to be in the grave,” she reasoned desperately. “I have only just found you again.”
“Sometimes parents must do things their little ones do not like because the papa knows it is best for them,” he said, drawing a pistol from his boot top. He caressed the barrel of the weapon, looking genuinely grieved. “It will hurt for just a moment, then you will be happy forever. You will be tucked safe beneath the roses where you belong. I will come and care for them, and I will talk to you, Jenny, when you are beneath the earth.”
Lucy’s gaze flicked to the edge of the grave, so near. An idea sparked in the midst of her terror. If she could startle him, make him fall backward, she might have some small chance to escape. “I won’t talk to you if you put me beneath the roses,” she insisted. “I’ll hate you.”
He flinched at the words, those vague eyes more befuddled than ever. “Jenny, you don’t mean that,” he cajoled, pacing toward her. “You could never hate your papa!”
Lucy grasped one of the thick branches at the base of a rose plant between her numb fingers. She sat, frozen, until he leaned over to caress her cheek. Then she lashed out with the thorny plant, lunging toward him in an effort to drive him back over the edge of the grave.
Alexander shrieked as the thorns slashed his face, the rose vines snarling around him. But he leapt to the side, avoiding the hole in the earth with the agility of a cat.
“You hurt me again!” he choked out, incredulous. “Jenny, why did you hurt me?”
In that instant, Lucy saw her death reflected in his eyes.
She tried to shove herself away, but her numb legs refused to obey.
She thought of Dominic, wondered if he had discovered she was gone. If she died here, he would never know what had happened to her. The idea of Valcour tortured, waiting for her, when she would never come back to him wrenched at Lucy’s heart.
Blast it, the Raider’s daughter didn’t give up! There had to be some way. Suddenly, as if summoned up by her thoughts alone, she heard something in the distance. Hoofbeats? Someone coming? Please, God!
Lucy pressed her bound hands against her pain-filled throat and screamed.
The sound was a raspy croak, one only Alexander d’Autrecourt could hope to catch. But whoever was approaching thundered toward them, as if drawn by her cry.
Alexander froze, staring in disbelief as a horse and rider crested the hill. Lucy let out a sob of joy as she saw Valcour burst over the horizon like one of the horsemen of the apocalypse racing toward them, his dark mane flowing, his face savage.
“Dominic! Oh, Dom—” Her choked cry was cut off as d’Autrecourt’s hand knotted in her hair. He dragged her to her feet, twisting her
until she was in front of him. The lethal kiss of the pistol barrel pressed hard against her temple.
God, no, please no, she prayed desperately, trying to keep her knees from buckling. Don’t let Dominic see me die.
Blood pounded in her ears and she struggled to keep her eyes fixed on Valcour’s beloved face. His features were twisted with disbelief, his face ash-gray. If Lucy still had any doubts as to the identity of her captor, the incredulity raging in Valcour’s eyes would have quelled it. The earl’s mouth contorted in a feral shout as he reined in the stallion a cart’s length from where they stood, the beast plunging and rearing as if it sensed its master’s torment.
“Stop!” Valcour bellowed, flinging himself from the horse in a whirl of black cloak and desperation. “D’Autrecourt, no!”
For a heartbeat the barrel bit deeper, and Lucy waited agonizing seconds for the explosion that would end her life. But Valcour froze, his hands open to show he was unarmed. “D’Autrecourt, for the love of God, let her go!”
It was as if the mask of Valcour had been ripped away for the first time, and Lucy could see the man beneath. He who’d watched as his beloved father died the same hideous death that now awaited Lucy.
“Go away!” D’Autrecourt’s cry shook Lucy from the horrifying thought. “I am not to be disturbed. I am taking care of my Jenny.”
“Taking care of her?” Valcour raged. “You’ve got a pistol to her head!” Lucy could feel the pain throbbing in every sinew of his body, could feel him grappling to find some way, any way, to save her. During the duel in the gaming hell Valcour had been cool as ice. There was nothing cool and detached in his face now.
“I have to make things right at last,” d’Autrecourt said. “Jenny belongs under the roses. St. Cyr, you above anyone should understand the need to end a misery too great to bear! Your father put a pistol to his head!”
“Because you drove him to do it!”
“You lie!” d’Autrecourt shrilled.
“I speak the truth!” The earl’s eyes clashed with Lucy’s. There was a plea for understanding in those midnight depths, a regret so savage she could feel it wounding him in places no one could ever reach. With his next words Lucy understood why.
“D’Autrecourt, you were the reason my father pulled that trigger,” Valcour said, driving his hand back through the tangled waves of his hair. “You seduced my mother.”
Lucy gasped.
“I’m sorry, hoyden, but it’s true. Even on the night your father”—he fair spat the word—“caught the fever that supposedly killed him, he was leaving my mother’s bedside after she bore him a bastard son.”
“Aubrey!” Lucy felt the pieces in a macabre puzzle slide into place in her mind.
“No!” d’Autrecourt cried. “Jenny, don’t listen to his lies!”
“They aren’t lies!” Lucy could see the effort it cost Valcour to continue. This man who had always tried to protect those in his care was now making an effort to bring the madman’s wrath down upon himself.
As Lucy watched those beloved features, she knew that the weapon Valcour was using against d’Autrecourt was savaging Dominic himself—that Valcour was revealing the most agonizing secrets of his life in order to save her, secrets he had not even been able to tell his own father.
“Lucinda wears the ring, the legendary love token you gave my mother.”
Valcour paced, edging imperceptibly nearer, every muscle in his body vibrating with tension as he watched for any opening, any chance to reach her. Lucy tensed as well, waiting for the slightest signal in those dark eyes, trusting Valcour to the depth of her soul.
“You tried to get my mother to give up Aubrey.” Valcour hammered at d’Autrecourt’s nerves, relentless. “Told her that she couldn’t keep the child. My father would discover her infidelity. And so would your wife. It would destroy both of you.”
“A bastard cannot be tolerated!”
“It wasn’t Aubrey’s fault that he was born, damn you! The boy had no choice in the man who was his father! Do you know how my mother cried the night you left her? How terrified she was to face my father? Lionel St. Cyr was a man with a temper to fear. He tried to beat the truth from her, but she wouldn’t betray you, nor would she abandon her baby.”
“Stop this!” D’Autrecourt’s voice shattered on a sob. “Oh, God, Alexander would never—never…” The hand holding the pistol shook violently, and Lucy half expected him to pull the trigger in his distress. Either that or swing the gun toward his tormentor. That, Lucy realized, was Valcour’s intent. To take the bullet for her, if need be, to give her a chance to escape. He was trusting in her ability to save herself.
Neither of them was going to die!
“You want to drive me mad!” D’Autrecourt raged. “You are one of them—one with my family. Next you will be telling me I am not Alexander! That I am Edward! That weak fool who stood by and did nothing when they sent Alexander away! Edward, who was helpless against the duke’s fury!”
Valcour faltered for an instant, his brow creasing in confusion. “What manner of madness is this? Edward? The invalid? My God—of course! Edward was—” Valcour stopped.
Stillness fell, Lucy twisting her face to search that of her captor. The man was trembling as if stricken with palsy; what little color had been in his face seemed to be sucked into eyes hot with insanity.
Valcour’s own face turned waxen, and Lucy could see he realized too late that his words had shattered something in the man who held her captive, the man now wild with fury and denial.
“See what you have done! She doesn’t believe in me now! My Jenny! I’ll kill you, St. Cyr! Kill you for that!” The pistol tore away from Lucy’s temple, shifting toward Valcour, but at that instant Lucy knocked d’Autrecourt’s arms away, wheeling around to drive her knee with all her might into his groin.
The man shrieked and staggered backward, the pistol flying from his hand. Valcour was already lunging at d’Autrecourt. D’Autrecourt drove his fist hard into Valcour’s chest, kicked and thrashed and battled, as the earl landed blow after blow to the smaller man’s midsection. Finally Valcour slammed his knotted fist into d’Autrecourt’s jaw. The man’s head snapped back, and he cried out. He slumped to the earth, limp as a rag-stuffed doll.
For an instant, murderous rage contorted Valcour’s face—a primitive thirst for the death of the bastard who had tried to take Lucy’s life.
Her throat constricted by the unleashed emotion in those features, Lucy’s voice was soft, gentle. “No, Dominic. He can’t hurt us now.”
Valcour looked up, his fists clenched as if aching to feel d’Autrecourt’s neck crushed beneath his fingers. “When I think what he tried to do—”
“But he didn’t. Because of you, he can never hurt me again.” She swallowed hard. “Valcour, this isn’t his fault any more than it is yours or mine. Please.”
For a moment there was outright rebellion in those stormy dark eyes, as if he were battling for reason. Then his gaze softened, flooded with an emotion that brought tears to Lucy’s eyes.
“My brave little hoyden. Oh, God, what he almost did to you!” Lucy trembled with relief as Valcour turned to her, his fingers carefully unfastening the bindings about her wrists. His handsome face was awash with tenderness, this man who had never flinched from danger, from ugliness, from his own faults; he winced every time he thought he caused her pain. Her hands were pathetic, battered little things, the burn marks from the candle flame reddened and blistered. The gouges the tight bindings had cut were fiery red, and her fingers were swollen and dirty. Valcour lifted them for a moment and pressed his lips on her fingertips. His voice trembled. “Oh, God, little one…”
“It doesn’t hurt at all now that you’re here.”
Valcour’s own eyes were over bright. “I was almost too late. Another few moments, and God only knows—”
“I would have been most put out if you had botched the rescue this time, my lord. I would have haunted you forever and ever.”
&n
bsp; “And I would have welcomed it. I would have waited for you in the darkness, Countess. Listened…”
A tiny groan from the inert d’Autrecourt made Valcour turn away. Dominic gathered up the coils of silk that had bound Lucy and used them to tie the man’s wrists in front of him.
It was as if the fierce strength in Dominic’s dark eyes had kept Lucy on her feet. Her gaze flicked to the pathetic man huddled against the grass: Alexander d’Autrecourt, or the mysterious Edward?
Would she ever know for certain? She crumpled onto the ground, sudden tears stinging her eyes. She should be grateful to be alive. And she was, God knew she was. But now, even after all that had happened, the mystery persisted. The questions, the sickening suspicions and fears that roiled inside her. Did it matter if the man Valcour was tying up was Edward d’Autrecourt or Alexander now that Lucy knew the harsh truth about what had happened so many years before? When Emily had been frightened and cold and desperate, her father had been sleeping with another woman, loving another woman.
Lady Catherine’s words, soft, sad, echoed in Lucy’s mind. We never meant to hurt anyone. But they had. And they were still hurting her husband with his bitterness, his despair, hurting Aubrey with rejections he could never understand. And hurting Lucy more than she would have believed possible, shattering her dream of the phantom angel coaxing music from the keys of a pianoforte.
Lucy wanted nothing more than to run to Emily, to bury her face in her mother’s skirts and tell her everything, pour out her disillusionment, her heartache. But Lucy could never tell her mother the truth. Emily could never know.
“Lucinda.” Valcour’s voice, soft yet urgent, jarred her from her thoughts.
She turned to where he was bent over her captor’s hands. Valcour’s dark eyes were wide and amazed. “Countess, this man—he’s not your father.”
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