She gazed wordlessly at him for a very long time, not quite trusting herself to speak, fearful that no matter what he did to her, she would not be able to keep from hurling herself at him in a savage fury and, despite her bonds, not cease her wild attempts to inflict grievous injury on him until he had beaten her unconscious. Hatred welled up in her heart, and almost compulsively her eyes strayed to the basket sitting on the table and the reticule lying within it! Dizzying hope flooded through her slender body. If only he would leave for a while, provided the dagger was still inside the reticule, it would take her but a moment to free herself, and then ... For a second she was mesmerized by the soul-satisfying picture of the one-eyed man lying dead at her feet, the dagger plunged through his black heart. But reality set in almost immediately and she realized sickly that unless fate smiled kindly upon her, she was doomed to suffer the fate he had planned for her.
Bitter regret washed over her and she was tormented by visions of everything else she could have done rather than embark on her own quest to kill the one-eyed man. I should have considered that I might fail and have left Royce a letter explaining everything.... Suddenly she stiffened. She hadn’t left a note of her own, but as clearly as if she were standing in her bedchamber, she could see the one-eyed man’s note lying crumpled on her dressing table, where she had left it in her haste to meet him.
Royce was certain to have found that note by now, and he would at least know what had happened to her ... and perhaps try to find her? Hope once again rose within her, and in spite of knowing that it would be miraculous if Royce managed to discover where the one-eyed man had taken her, she clung comfortingly to the knowledge that Royce might at this very moment be following quickly behind them.
Not aware of any of the events that had taken place since her capture, she would not have believed that even as she sat staring helplessly at the one-eyed man, Royce was pulling his mercilessly driven horses to an exhausted stop at the very stable where the one-eyed man had unharnessed his own horses just half an hour ago.
Unlike the one-eyed man, who had not wanted to bring attention to himself and had been forced to travel at an unremarkable rate of speed, Royce hadn’t given a damn who saw him madly racing down the road and he had not spared his horses, driving them at an unrelenting pace. George thought it the most terrifying ride of his life, and more than once, as Royce had approached a curve at breakneck speed, with never a check of the horses, he was quite positive that his life was over.
The foam-flecked horses, their heads hanging low in bone-deep exhaustion, remained motionless as Royce jumped down from the gig and made a quick inspection of the stable. Returning, he commented grimly, “He’s been here. There is no sign of Morgana, but there is a vehicle inside and two horses, the sweat not yet completely dried on them, so we are not too far behind him.” As he walked toward the gig, he pulled forth a folded slip of paper from his waistcoat.
Quickly perusing the instructions from the one-eyed man, Royce lifted his gaze, staring at the barren landscape around him, the scent and sound of the sea coming clearly to him. “He states that there is a path which leads to the beach below the headlands and that once I’ve reached the shore, I should turn to the left and continue in that direction until I see the opening of a cave in the face of the promontory. He’ll meet me there at eleven o’clock tonight.”
“Never tell me you’re going to do it!” George expostulated nervously. “It will be a trap! He means to kill you!”
A feral gleam in the golden eyes, Royce replied mockingly, “I know that, George, and I have no intention of walking blindly into his snare. Don’t forget, if everything had gone according to his plan, I would just now be receiving these instructions—we are hours ahead of the schedule he set.” He stood there frowning a moment. “He won’t have Morgana in the cave—I’m certain of that—but more than likely he will have her somewhere nearby... .”
Before George’s astonished gaze, Royce suddenly clambered gracefully up to the roof of the stable. Hands on his hips, feet planted apart as he balanced on the sloping roof, he stared off in the distance. “I see the path angling off to the right over there, but nothing else.” He continued to rake the bleak landscape, hoping desperately to sight something that would give him a clue where next to look for Morgana. He had managed by sheer, obstinate tenacity to keep his fear for her under control during the wild, madcap dash to reach this destination, but as the minutes crept inexorably by, as the sunlight began gradually to lessen, he could feel his iron-hold grip slipping, and he was faced with the terrifying possibility that whatever luck he had possessed so far had vanished and that he might never see Morgana again.
Royce was almost dizzy from the suffocating fright and half-mad fury that erupted through him at that thought; his mouth tightened and the golden eyes narrowed. He was not beaten! He was going to find his wife; and when he found her, after he had shaken her senseless for scaring him this way, he was going to kiss her witless and let her hear from him in no uncertain terms precisely how very much he loved her! The one-eyed man was not going to win this time! Royce was on the point of turning away when something caught his eye, and his breath lodged painfully in his chest. Was that a rooftop near the edge of the cliff? Half-hidden by a slight rise in the land? From the ground it would have been invisible, but from his vantage point on top of the stable, Royce stared tensely at that irregular break in the landscape, passionately willing it to be what he was so frantically searching for. A shaft of the fading sunlight suddenly gilded the tiny weather vane that perched at the peak of the small building, and Royce let out a low, fierce, triumphant growl. It could merely be some fisherman’s cottage, but instinct told him that he would find his wife there ... and the one-eyed man!
Effortlessly leaping down from the roof, he hurried over to the gig, and checking the pistol he had brought with him, he said tersely to George, “There is a small cottage near the edge of the cliff—I suspect that Morgana will be found there ... along with Newell. You remain here, and if I am not returned within the hour—drive as fast as these poor horses will take you to the nearest magistrate’s and explain everything to him.”
“Royce, be careful!” George replied urgently. “He is a killer and will stop at nothing to gain his aims.”
Something dangerous and deadly moved in Royce’s eyes. “He has my wife, George! I think that your fears should be for him!”
Without another word, Royce disappeared around the end of the stable.
Approaching the cottage was tricky because of the lack of cover, but using the slight undulations of the land itself and the few scrubby bushes that dotted the area, Royce gradually crept nearer. The falling twilight was to his advantage, and as he stealthily drew closer, he could see that there were no windows at the rear of the house, which allowed him to approach faster.
Careful to make no sound, the pistol held ready in one hand, he edged along the weather-beaten boards of the cottage, listening for any noise that would bolster his stubborn belief that Morgana was inside. She had to be! It was unthinkable that he had squandered precious time chasing after a will-o’-the-wisp notion. Unable to allow himself to consider even for a moment that the cottage might simply be a lonely fisherman’s hut, he sidled cautiously around the corner of the building. The sight of the two windows and door facing the churning sea several feet below halted him abruptly, but dropping down to the ground, he inched forward until he was beneath one of the windows.
Like a balm and a benediction, the sound of Morgana’s voice wafted to him, and involuntarily his eyes closed in a fervent, exultant prayer. He hadn’t been aware of precisely how very fearful he had been until this moment, but hearing the familiar rise and fall of her voice, something inside him suddenly unclenched and he was conscious of a tremendous burden lifting.
The golden eyes glittering fiercely, his fingers tightened around the pistol, and Royce hoped for the sake of the one-eyed man that Morgana was unhurt, for if that blackhearted devil had harmed her ... A
primitive and unforgiving emotion welling up inside him, he began to creep forward.
Inside the cottage, totally oblivious to the danger just outside his doorway, the one-eyed man was preening himself before Morgana, boasting of his various successes. “Of course,” he said smugly, “I’ve never been contacted by a member of the royal family, but just think if I had been—why, conceivably I could have been the uncrowned King of England!”
Despite the fact that her lovely features showed the strain of maintaining her flagging courage, Morgana’s eyes flashed contemptuously and she declared spiritedly, “I don’t care how clever you’ve been in the past—you’re never going to get away with this! Royce is too smart to fall into your trap! He’ll find me, and when he does, you’ll rue the day you thought to best him!”
“Ah, do you think so, my sweet?” he drawled, standing very close to her, his black eye roving with increasing satisfaction over her slender form. Cupping her chin, he forced her head backward, and one thumb rubbing suggestively across her tight mouth, he murmured, “I wouldn’t count on it! Just about now your soon-to-be-late husband should be receiving a message from me—one that gives him explicit instructions where to meet me!” He smiled when her eyes widened in angry alarm. “He should be arriving in oh, say, three hours, determined to wrest you from me! Of course,” he continued lightly, “he won’t be meeting me at this place! No, no, you’ll remain here safely out of danger while I, er ... dispose of him in a sea cave just below us. There are all sorts of hiding places within it, virtually made for someone like me to lie in wait for the unsuspecting. Not that Manchester will be unsuspecting—I believe that he has wit enough to surmise that I mean to kill him—but I am very familiar with the terrain of the cave, and he is not. Besides, he will be no match for someone of my cunning. Just think, my dear, before midnight you will be a widow!”
The one-eyed man had been so intent on impressing Morgana that he had not been paying attention to what was going on around him. The first intimation he had that there were going to have to be some drastic revisions within his plan was when the door to the cottage flew open and Royce drawled from the doorway, “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Newell! Before anyone leaves this place, one of us will die ... and I have no intention of it being me!”
Morgana’s heart nearly leapt from her breast at the sight of Royce standing arrogantly in the doorway, the pistol in his hand aimed unerringly at the heart of the one-eyed man. His cravat had been discarded and his white shirt was opened as far as the V of his embroidered waistcoat, the formfitting russet jacket revealing his powerful shoulders and arms, the buckskin breeches clinging faithfully to the hard muscle and sinew of his strong thighs, and fairly radiating from him was an air of something wild and dangerous. He looked magnificent, the thick, tawny hair falling in windswept locks about his head, the handsome face taut and full of vitality, and beneath the heavy black brows, the golden eyes ... the golden eyes gleaming with a tiger’s savage intensity.
Loving him passionately as she did, unutterably joyful that he had come and yet swamped with fear for his life, Morgana could not take her eyes off him. Instinctively she surged upward from her chair, intent on reaching him, but the one-eyed man moved with the speed of a striking snake, jerking her upright and holding her slender, blue-gowned body in front of him like a shield. From out of nowhere a pistol appeared in his hand, and leveling it at Royce, he smiled.
“And now what do you intend to do, Manchester?” the one-eyed man asked with a smirk, apparently not at all disturbed by this unexpected occurrence. “Your weapon is no good to you ... unless, of course, you want to risk hitting her instead of me.”
Thoughtfully Royce considered his prey, noting carefully that Morgana’s much smaller body did not provide quite the amount of protection that Newell assumed it did. Never taking his eyes off Newell’s face, apparently oblivious to the pistol aimed at him, Royce said coolly, “Actually, she isn’t such a good shield for you, Newell—you don’t want her dead any more than I do!” At Newell’s start, Royce continued easily, “I haven’t quite figured out precisely what you plan to do, but I’m convinced that my wife is at the heart of it, and without her, your schemes will come to naught. So I don’t think you’re really willing to risk her life.”
Ignoring the bulk of Royce’s words and honing in on the part that interested him most, the one-eyed man remarked, “That’s twice you’ve called me ‘Newell.’ Why?”
“Did you think that we wouldn’t put it all together?” Royce asked lightly. “I won’t go into great detail how we concluded that you are Allan Newell, but suffice it to say that George Ponteby has a remarkable memory ... and he remembered that Jane Fowler, supposedly my wife’s mother, was your half sister. We’ve already concluded that Morgana is the legitimate daughter of the sixth Earl of St. Audries and his wife, Hester, but Jane Fowler was the link to you—once George identified her as your sister, everything else fell into place.”
The one-eyed man’s face contorted with rage, and the arm that held Morgana captive in front of him tightened painfully across her throat, making her wince. “You can’t prove anything!” he snarled.
“I don’t have to,” Royce replied indifferently. “There are four or five of us who know, and all it will take is a word dropped here and there for the news to spread like wildfire amongst the ton that Allan Newell is actually the feared and hated one-eyed man! In less than a week the scandalmongers will have ruined you. Bow Street will be quite interested in you, too, I suspect. Give it up! Let Morgana and me go now and you will have just enough time to escape with your ill-gotten gains to the continent.... Otherwise, I will kill you where you stand.”
Newell’s fury-ravaged face gave no clue to the stunning jolt Royce’s words had given him. His dreams, his world, were on the verge of shattering before him. With a craftiness born of desperation, he considered how to wrest victory out of what appeared to be crushing defeat. The solution was right there before him—he would simply have to find out who else knew the truth and kill them. He had already planned to kill Royce, Jacko, and Ben; what were a few more? Confidence flooding through him, he could now scoff at Royce’s offer to let him escape. Why should he give up everything he had dreamed and planned for when it was just within grasp? As for Royce killing him where he stood—the idea was ludicrous! He held all the cards! Not Manchester!
An ugly smile on his mouth, his fingers tightening menacingly around the trigger of his pistol, Newell stated contemptuously, “It is you who is far more likely to be killed where you stand! Throw down your pistol at once!”
Royce had given him all the chances he was going to, and taking the measure of his man, he decided that time was running out for all of them. He dare not prolong this confrontation if he didn’t want to be shot down before Morgana’s very eyes. And as for obeying Newell’s command, there was no question of that! If he were foolish enough to do so, Morgana would be a widow before his pistol hit the floor! He had never doubted his own skill, and despite the terrifying risks involved, there was really only one choice for him to make....
Royce glanced for the first time at Morgana, noting her pale, frightened features, the lovely gray eyes dark and wide with fear as she gazed at him. Incredibly he smiled at her and murmured softly, “Don’t look so worried, sweetheart—I won’t let anything harm you, and I didn’t come harrying after you to let him win in the end.”
Morgana felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise up within her at his words, but before a sound escaped her, without hesitation, Royce fired the pistol directly at Newell’s head!
The small room was rent by the explosion of Royce’s pistol, and in the stunned second that followed his action, Morgana was appallingly certain he’d shot her. Hardly conscious of the slackening hold of the one-eyed man, through the drifts of blue smoke that had billowed from the pistol, she stared in dazed disbelief at Royce as he slowly lowered his arm. It was only then that she became aware that she was unharmed and noticed the white creases near
Royce’s mouth and the look of taut concentration upon his face.
The thump of the one-eyed man’s body hitting the floor made her jump and look down. Blankly, almost uncomprehendingly, she stared at the man lying dead on the floor by her feet. His black hat had fallen off, revealing a fine head of dark hair, and in the middle of his forehead ... the neat round hole made by the bullet from Royce’s pistol. She swayed dizzily from reaction and then she was swept up in Royce’s embrace as he crushed her next to him and pressed urgent little kisses into her black, curly hair. They stood there a long time, locked together, Royce’s voice in her ear whispering the words she had once longed to hear, but she was numb. She could feel nothing; it was as if all her emotions were encased in ice. Even after Royce had removed her bonds and they prepared to leave, she was only conscious of a great emptiness inside her.
From the doorway, with her mother’s Bible, Hester’s desperate letter inside it, clasped tightly in her hand, Morgana glanced back at the body of the one-eyed man lying sprawled on the floor. A little crack appeared in the ice that surrounded her. Hester would be glad, she thought fiercely, and then, turning away, she walked outside into the twilight with Royce.
EPILOGUE
Sunlight and Shadows
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasure prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
JOHN DONNE, “The Bait”
The Devlin family cemetery was enclosed by a low, ivy-covered stone wall and had been laid out on a small, tree-dotted hill about a half mile from St. Audries Hall. The scent of roses and honeysuckle wafted on the warm air, and a soft breeze rustled the green leaves of the oak trees that dappled the area with patches of shade. It was a tranquil place, especially so this late August afternoon as Morgana slowly wandered among the marble headstones and edifices that marked the graves of her ancestors.
Whisper To Me of Love Page 52