Lucy lifted up her chin. “I know that. Ian Blackheath is my father. He’s the one who loved me, cared for me. This—this shouldn’t matter at all. But it does, Dominic. No matter how much I try to pretend it does not.”
“No, my love, you don’t understand.” Valcour caught her by the hand. “I mean this man is not your father. He’s not Alexander d’Autrecourt. I’d stake my life on the fact.”
Lucy stared. “I don’t understand. How can you be certain?”
“I spent hours watching your father’s hands playing the keys of the pianoforte. There was a crook in his smallest finger, here.” Valcour cradled her hand in his then kissed the bent joint of her little finger.
Lucy raised her eyes from Valcour’s kiss to look at the madman’s fingers—fingers that were perfectly straight. “Whoever he is, he lived at Avonstea. They kept him imprisoned there.”
“Why?”
“He said that he accidentally shoved the duke down the stairs, killed him.”
“The death of a father, a brother, the horror of such a betrayal could drive any man to madness,” Valcour said softly. “No one knows that better than I do. But this man won’t be imprisoned anywhere any longer. I promise I’ll see he is taken care of. God knows, he is just one more victim in this horror. But it’s over now. I promise you, it’s over.”
“I beg to contradict you.” The malevolent voice made them wheel. Lucy froze, the light picking out the hate-filled features of Jasper d’Autrecourt. Valcour reached for his pistol, but Sir Jasper’s gleamed, aimed straight for Lucy’s heart.
“Move so much as an eyelash and I’ll kill her,” Jasper warned, a sword clutched in his other hand, a shimmering river of blue.
“What the devil are you doing here, Jasper?”
“I can hardly believe the fortuitous timing of my arrival myself. Imagine my amusement, watching this Cheltenham tragedy spin itself out, listening to you, Valcour, spilling out your soul, trampling upon your precious honor to save the life of your woman. Of course, I depended upon you being the same ruthless bastard you had always been. A quick sword thrust or pistol blast dispatching your enemy to hell. Who would have believed that Valcour could be tamed by a woman?”
“That still doesn’t answer my question, Jasper.”
The man sneered. “I’ve come to find my pathetic mad brother. And, I might add, I have gone to a great deal of trouble and exhausted a great deal of patience arranging this little meeting. He was desperate, you know, to recover Alexander’s precious daughter. Year after year, I would come into the room, tell him snippets about Jenny that I had discovered. Anything to stir him into a frenzy. Then one day, I left him the keys to his cell.”
“I don’t understand,” Lucy said.
Jasper chortled. “And here I thought you were a clever child. It was a brilliantly simple plan. He was to leave the safety of Avonstea, and I would be waiting to make certain an appropriately tragic accident befell him. Who would have guessed that a madman could manage to elude me for almost a year? Who would have guessed that he would be canny enough to contact you all the way in America? And who would have guessed that you would be fool enough to come back to England to find him?”
Jasper shook his head in bemusement. “Had I not tracked him to the gin shop and beaten the truth from the hag who owns it, I might never have found him.”’
“Why would you want your own brother dead?” Lucy asked.
“A dukedom can be a compelling enticement to murder, can’t it, Jasper?” Valcour snarled.
“Edward went mad when he discovered what had been done to Alexander and his infamous wife and child. My eldest brother was dead, as was Alexander. Upon my father’s death, Edward was next in line for the dukedom. He was mad. I had a measure of the power inherent in the title. But it didn’t matter. He was still the duke, damn his soul to hell! As long as he lived, I was nothing but a paltry knight, scorned and laughed at. Mocked because of my impotence. But when Edward died… all the wealth of Avonstea would be mine to command. I could revenge myself on anyone who had jeered at me.”
“So you decided to murder Edward?” Lucy demanded. “Why not just creep into his cell? Do it quickly, cleanly?”
“Because my mother suspected my plans. Insane as Edward was, she did not want him dead. If she suspected I had killed him, the consequences would have been most unpleasant. She had him guarded night and day. I had to get him away from Avonstea.”
“You sick bastard!” Dominic spat.
“What, Valcour? You try to play the saint? You are as ruthless as I am and as black of soul. I can only thank you for giving me the means to send you to the devil before me.”
“It takes no courage to kill an unarmed man.”
“Oh, but you’re mistaken. You were armed, you see, with this so lovely sword.” He twisted the weapon in his hand. “You came to fight my brother. Ran him through with your blade in fury at what he had done to your countess here. Burying her alive—quite a hideous death, but one that could easily spring into the mind of a madman. Unfortunately, you arrived too late to save her, and Edward managed to kill you as well. Three tidy corpses in a graveyard. It is an end poetic beyond imagining.”
“Damn you, Jasper, this is between us,” Valcour snarled as Jasper pushed his sword point against Edward’s chest. “Settle it like a man!”
“Don’t you remember what you announced to everyone at the gaming hell the night of our duel, Valcour? I am a coward. But no one will ever know. I will be quite heartsick when I come upon the hellish carnage in the graveyard. I will weep copious tears over my brother’s grave, and then I will be duke of Avonstea.”
Lucinda searched desperately for any way out. It was a miracle that they had escaped Edward moments before. There would be no miracle this time.
“Now, my lady countess, you will move to the edge of the grave. I think it wisest to kill your bridegroom first, before he tries once again to play the hero.”
Lucinda cried, hanging onto Dominic. “I won’t let you!”
“Then you may be the first to die!”
“No!” They all started at the groan from Edward. “Don’t hurt Jenny!… Won’t… let you!”
But Jasper’s mouth twisted in a grimace of hate, his eyes never leaving Valcour’s face. Lucy screamed as he rammed the sword deep into Edward d’Autrecourt’s chest.
“Say farewell, Valcour,” Jasper chortled, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Lucy flung herself in front of Valcour just as the weapon exploded. Fire blossomed in Lucy’s shoulder, as the world became a fuzzy montage of scenes.
Edward d’Autrecourt’s pain-ravaged face, the pistol he had held to Lucy’s head clutched in his bound hands. The orange stab of the gun blazing. Sir Jasper shrieking in disbelief as the bullet slammed into his chest, tumbling him backward into the open grave. Valcour, wild with anguish, diving for his own weapon.
But it was over. Only the sound of Edward d’Autrecourt’s strangled pleas shattered the deathly stillness.
“J-Jenny,” he choked out. “I—I’m sorry. Didn’t know Jasper… would come. I only wanted to take… care of you. But never… got anything right. Fool… weak fool, just like… always said…”
Her head spinning, Lucy edged toward the pathetic, broken man and took up his quaking hand. “It’s all right, Papa,” Lucy whispered, wanting only to give him some slight peace. “It’s all right.”
“You are… a good girl, Jenny. Like your… mama.” He breathed once more, then his eyes rolled back in death. Lucy dropped his hand, waves of dizziness sweeping through her.
“Lucinda!” She heard Valcour as if from a distance, his hands—gentle, so gentle—scooping her up against his chest. “You fool! You damned little fool!”
Fire still raged in her shoulder as Valcour ripped open the torn fabric of her bodice, his breath hissing between his teeth in horror. Lucy could feel the sticky dampness of her own blood as he ripped off his shirt, wadding the fabric against the wound.
&nbs
p; “Dominic.” Lucy squeezed his name through numb lips as he tied the makeshift bandage about her. “You must… listen to… me. If I… die… not your fault. Blame self for… everything. Love you… Not your fault…”
“You’re not going to die!” He gathered her fiercely into his arms and carried her toward the stallion. “I’m taking you to Harlestone. You’ll get well there.”
“Take me to… tower… room,” Lucy whispered. “So beautiful. Music like magic. Want to hear… the rest…”
Her words twisted like knife blades in Valcour’s chest. “Damn you, Countess! I order you not to die!”
“Always the… tyrant,” Lucy whispered, aching at the pain in his voice. “But even tyrants don’t always get their way.”
Her head sagged against Valcour’s chest, limp and lifeless. A wild, animal sound of grief split the night, seventeen years of pain bursting forth in the wake of the greatest anguish Dominic St. Cyr had ever known.
Chapter Twenty
For five days Valcour made certain the tower room blazed with candles, as if he hoped their constant brightness could keep encroaching death at bay. But the physician who had left an hour before had told Valcour that the crisis was near. The countess would either awaken or slip away forever.
Lucinda lay like the sleeping princess in a fairy tale, silent, still, heartbreakingly lovely on the bed Valcour had ordered the servants to bring to the chamber that nightmarish night he’d carried her up the winding stairway to the setting of his childhood anguish.
Not once had the earl left her side. His face was haggard, his eyes burning with exhaustion. His voice rasped, hoarse in his throat. Hour after hour he ordered his countess to open her eyes. He raged at her, pleaded with her, challenged her in ways he knew would have brought his defiant hoyden to fury in days before.
But she only lay there, growing paler and more still, as if the dream she was having was so beautiful she couldn’t bear to be dragged back into the ugly reality that had all but engulfed her beside the stone-carved angel.
Valcour sat beside her, his fingers clasping a silver backed brush, gently smoothing the bristles through her hair. The silky strands curled about his fingers, so vibrant, so alive, the way they had the last night they had made love.
The thought of that magic night was almost too poignant to bear. The memory of Lucinda, her eyes wide with wonder as he loved her, cut Valcour more deeply than any lash ever could. He could have told her what he felt that night, confessed the raging emotions she had loosed in him. He could have opened his heart just a little and let her in. But no, he’d been too afraid, too raw to do so. And now it might be too late.
A strangled sound rose in Valcour’s throat. How many times had he told her he loved her during this dark, desperate time? Now that her eyes were closed, her soft lips unable to receive his kiss? Now, when he couldn’t reach her?
The brush trembled in his hand, hopelessness tearing through him. A soft sound made him turn to where Lady Catherine stood framed in the doorway.
She had arrived at Harlestone the same day Dominic had. And from the moment she had seen Lucinda, so helpless, it was as if Dominic could see her heart breaking as well. But in spite of all the anger, the fury, the resentment and ugliness that had been between Valcour and the woman he had blamed for his pain all these years, she had remained here, a gentle presence, always seeming to know when Valcour needed her. She had made broth to slip between Lucinda’s lips and pressed Dominic to eat himself, saying he must be strong when Lucinda awoke. She had brought a blanket to wrap about his shoulders in the chill of the night and had held the basin of warm, rose-scented water while Valcour gently bathed his sleeping countess.
But never before had Lady Catherine intruded on the chamber without some reason, never before had she hovered there, unguarded love in her eyes.
“Her hair is beautiful, Dominic. So soft and silky beneath your hand. She looks like an angel lying there.”
“An angel… should look beautiful, don’t you think?” Valcour said, his throat thick.
Lady Catherine’s voice was gentle, as if she understood his deepest fears, as she had when he was a boy. “She will not leave you. God couldn’t be so cruel as to take her away.”
“You, above anyone, should know how cruel God can be, madam. He gave you a husband you didn’t love. He made you love a weak man who didn’t deserve you. And he gave you a son so bitter he could never forgive you.”
“You had reason to be hurt, to be angry. I made choices. It was only right that I paid for them.”
“Forever?” Dominic curved his hand over Lucinda’s cheek, a cheek pale and translucent as marble. “Is that how long I will pay for my mistakes?”
“Dominic, you did nothing wrong.”
“I didn’t love her until it was too late. I didn’t guard her closely enough. This is my doing. All of it. If I had known what might happen, I would never have let her out of my sight for an instant.”
“I know that, Dominic.”
“She didn’t trust me. How could she trust me after the way I behaved? An arrogant fool, a damned tyrant, never listening, never stopping to think. Do you know that is the last thing she called me, before she slipped away? I ordered her not to die, and she looked at me, those eyes, those damned eyes of hers so tender, so loving.”
“She loved you from the first, I think, though she didn’t know it. And you loved her.”
“I never told her so. I was too caught up in my own stubborn pain. Too damned determined not to feel, not to let myself be vulnerable ever again.”
“To the kind of pain your father and I caused you?”
Valcour turned away, stricken by the gentle anguish in his mother’s voice. “I didn’t mean to… hurt you, madam.”
“And yet, no matter how much we have loved each other all these years, we have done little else. Why is it always so easy to see what we should have done after disaster has overtaken us? When it is too late to change anything? It seems so unfair.”
“I never understood what it meant to love,” Valcour admitted. “I never knew what you must have felt, how you must have suffered. I thought that if you had just put honor first, if you had only… only been strong, everything would have been all right.”
“But that is true. I couldn’t stop loving Alexander. I wanted to. Tried to bury the feelings I had. But—”
“All my life I have battled to save my honor. But I would cast it all to the winds just to see my hoyden smile at me one more time.” Dominic’s voice broke, his fingertips brushing over Lucinda’s pale lips. “Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of Lucinda carrying my child? Of a son with her fierce courage, and a daughter with her eyes?”
“You will hold those babies yet, my son. I am sure of it.”
“I love her so much. Want so much for some part of us to be joined together forever, so nothing, not even death could ever part us. That is what you felt when you held Aubrey in your arms, isn’t it? I think I knew that, even as a child. And I feared that—that you must love Aubrey, the son of the man you loved, far more than you could ever love me.”
“I have always loved you, Dominic. Loved you both. You were the single good thing in my life for so many years. Aubrey was a tangible piece of the love Alexander and I shared. You were both treasures. I only wished that you might love one another.”
“I didn’t want to love him. It hurt too much. When I did, it made me so angry… angry at myself and you, and… I didn’t want to love anyone. But Lucy wouldn’t let me deny the truth any longer. She forced me to see that I was a coward, that I was lying to everyone, especially to myself.”
Dominic gently laid the brush on the satin coverlets and turned toward Lady Catherine, his soul bared, his anguish there for her to see.
“Mama.” He whispered the word for the first time since he’d watched his father die. “Help me. I can’t reach her, no matter what I say. I don’t think I can live without her.”
Dominic felt his mother’s arms en
circle him, and for once the earl of Valcour let someone else share his burden of pain. He buried his face against her breast, racking sobs tearing from his throat.
“There was a time when mere words were never enough for you. Do you remember, Dominic?” Lady Catherine murmured, stroking his hair. “A time when everything you felt deep in your heart poured out each time you touched the pianoforte?”
“I can’t. Not anymore,” he said in a pain-ravaged voice. “It’s gone, Mama. I know it is gone.”
“I don’t believe that. I—No!” Her sudden cry of alarm made Valcour raise his face, half fearing Lucinda had slipped away.
But his mother stared not at the bed where Lucinda slept, but at the tower door.
Aubrey.
The boy stood, windblown and travel weary, the expression on his face leaving no doubt he had heard every tortured confession, every painful truth about his birth.
“No!” Valcour swiped his hand furiously across his eyes, feeling as if a giant fist had crushed his chest. The earl jammed himself to his feet and wheeled. He paced away, leaning against the pianoforte in an effort to steady himself. “My God, boy. What are you doing here?”
“I came as soon as I heard Lucy was hurt.” There was pain in the boy’s face, confusion, and yet a kind of understanding that made him seem older. Older because of the pain he had suffered at Dominic’s hands. Older because of the burden Dominic had just inadvertently laid on the boy’s narrow shoulders.
“Aubrey,” Valcour rasped, “I didn’t mean for you to hear any of this. I wanted to save you the pain.”
“You told me that you love me,” the boy said softly.
“I do. God help me, I do. Yet I hurt you again. Just like I always have, since you were so damned small.”
“I’m not a child anymore. And now… now I understand so much better why…” Aubrey shrugged. “Why my father… Why you… it must have been a blow to your honor—knowing that I am a… bastard.” The boy tripped over the word.
“The circumstances of your birth don’t matter a damn to me. You’re my brother. I love you no matter what my stubborn pride made me do to convince you otherwise.”
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