by Sharon Page
“You think you will be able to escape. You won’t. You will not escape your death this time.”
Don’t believe that. Don’t. Don’t. “I just don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”
“By the end of tonight, my dear, many people will be hurt. But if you obey me, the victims may not include the duchess and her daughters. Perhaps.” Angelique laughed.
How she obviously loved having this power.
“Get into the carriage, you stupid girl.”
Sophie scrambled in. The man who had attacked her was acting as the coachman, and he had jumped up into the driving box.
Angelique had killed two innocent women—and had tried to kill her. The woman wanted to destroy Cary—and she was willing to do any ruthless thing to do it.
Two defenseless young women were gone, all because the woman sitting beside her in the carriage was obviously mad.
All her life, people had told Sophie she had a remarkably optimistic disposition. She had not hated her adoptive mother for treating her badly—she’d been happy to have a home. Even when she’d lost Samuel and had been thrown out, she’d been grateful for her son. She had looked at the bright side of becoming a courtesan—and she had found a wonderful man who she could love passionately.
She wasn’t going to die. She had too much to live for. Somehow she would escape. She would survive. And she would make certain Cary’s family wasn’t hurt.
Was there any way she could get a message to him?
The carriage stopped. Sophie looked out and saw the top of Cary’s beautiful house above the wall surrounding it. Angelique opened the window, leaned out, and made a strange whistling noise.
Two shadows, tall and lean, slunk out of the dark. Their caps were pulled low, so the street flare barely illuminated their faces. Sophie glimpsed stubble-covered cheeks. One had a scar that slashed through his upper and lower lips.
“Your business is done for the night,” Angelique said. “You are not to attack.”
“Why not?” one whined. “Would have been right fun.”
“Aye,” said the other. “I was hoping to fondle a noble tit.”
“Be off with you,” Angelique snapped. “Disobey me, and you will both die.” She threw down some coins to them. “For your trouble tonight.”
“Enough for a few rounds and a few tarts,” the first one said as they both scrambled to pick up the coins, bumping each other.
“And if you do not hear from me again tomorrow morning, you are to carry out the original plan and kill the duchess and her daughters. That will be insurance for all of us.”
Then they tipped their caps to Angelique and ran off down the road, away from Cary’s house.
At least Cary’s family was safe for now.
“Now we have the long part of our journey,” Angelique said. “And soon Caradon will receive a note at the ball, telling him where you are. I have no doubt he will come to rescue you.”
“Why are you doing this? How could you hurt so many innocents? How can you hate Caradon so much?”
“He took something from me. Something very, very dear to me.”
“Do you mean your father?”
The inside lights of the carriage were off. They passed another street flare on the lane. The light painted Angelique with harsh precision. Her face had changed. Raw anger and gloating triumph had transformed it. Every line and wrinkle showed. Her age was apparent. “Your father kidnapped Caradon when he was just a child, and you were there.”
Angelique did not answer Sophie’s accusation, but Sophie saw the flash of surprise. “Where are we going?” Sophie demanded.
“To the house he was kept in as a child. I do not see how you knew this.”
“I figured it out,” Sophie answered. “But I still don’t see why!”
“We were poor, terribly poor. A footman’s wages could not support a family. The Duke of Caradon was fabulously wealthy, and my father saw a way to get his hands on some of that money. All we had to do was keep the child until the ransom was paid. But that was not to be. The horrible young brat escaped. After bludgeoning my father to death with a poker.”
“And you blame him for that?” Sophie cried. “A terrified five-year-old? He was fighting for his very life, and your father did terrible things to him. What did you think would happen? You committed a crime!”
Would Angelique shoot her now? Her heart thundered, but Sophie squared her shoulders. If she was going to be shot, she would face it bravely.
“Shut up, you wretched tart!” Angelique snapped. “Think you are so high and mighty? You are naught but a jade yourself. I had to scrape and fight for everything I had. I had to survive. And I learned early that the way for a female to survive is to allow a man to have sex with her. It’s the only way to guarantee a roof over your head. Then I realized I could get much more than just a roof! What was I to do? I knew I’d be thrown out of my house by my father if I didn’t do what he asked—” She stopped. Her hand stroked the muzzle of the pistol.
“Goodness.” Sophie had grown up in a doctor’s home. She had overheard tales of the worst kinds of abuse. “You are saying your father forced you”—she could not actually say it—“into his bed?”
“He came to my bed. Or cornered me in various places of our grotty little cottage.”
Pity and horror blended in her. “That is awful! Oh my goodness, what horror you lived through.”
“Oh, shut up. I don’t want your pity.”
“Well, you have it. I cannot imagine how horrible that must have been.” She remembered having been punished at times, though being locked in her room had seemed severe for simple, childish mistakes. Now she knew her adoptive mother had been punishing her for what she was, not what she’d done. She remembered how sad she had felt. How she had wanted to please. What about when love and the hope to please parents was all warped in a perverse way?
Then she thought. “But surely you would empathize with the duke! You should feel sorry for him. How could you hurt him this way? And those two women were innocent. You must have understood them too. You must have understood the need to survive.”
“They were hardly innocent. Sally Black, who thought she was so young and lovely, so arrogant. And you—you snuck in, defying the ruling queens of the Cyprian world. What loyalty should I have shown to the Fiery Rose? She was going to give my name to Caradon. You were all young and pretty. It is hardly any tragedy for me if a few lovely, young courtesans are no longer competing with me.”
“Well, that was not justification to take their lives,” Sophie said. “And this cannot be Caradon’s fault.”
“You argue with me? I’m holding a pistol.”
“Well, you are in the wrong. I must make you see that.”
“For what purpose, you stupid chit? You are going to die. You want to know why this is Caradon’s fault? I knew what my father did to him was wrong. I would have simply continued on, keeping the secret. But then Caradon did something to me. . . . He took the last thing I had in the whole world. He had my son court-martialed and shot in Ceylon.”
“Your son?” Never had she seen such pain on a woman’s fact. Raw, agonized longing. “Your son was a soldier in Ceylon? But he—he attacked and strangled a woman.”
“He was a young man, barely more than a boy. Caradon should have understood why he snapped after the terrifying battles. And the girl was only a filthy member of the enemy. One of the wretched, horrid native people who were attacking British soldiers. She tried to sneak up and kill my son. Of course he had to defend himself! His friend returned from Ceylon in 1819, and he told me the truth about my son’s death. I knew I wanted to make Caradon pay. He’d stolen everything from me. My entire family. My son was my world!” Angelique cried with passion. “At first I thought I just wanted to kill him. But those attempts failed. Then I knew I wanted him to suffer. I wanted to do more than kill him. I wanted to destroy his name. I wanted it to be spoken with disgust for all time!”
Angelique was insane, but
she was a woman who had lost her child. “I know you loved him, but he did something terribly wrong and bad. As his mother, you must still love him. Your loss was terrible, but you can’t hurt Cary.”
“Caradon cares about you so deeply, it is sickening,” Angelique spat. “But he is also getting too close. I wanted to tighten a noose around his neck little by little. I wanted to make him suffer, and I shall. For he is going to watch you die. Then I shall shoot him in the head and put the pistol in his hand. The poor, mad Duke of Caradon finally takes his own life, because he has been warped by the horrors of war and has become a monster. He will leave a note, explaining everything he has done. Not only will he die, but his name will be infamous!”
Angelique had not even listened to her. Spittle formed on the woman’s lips in her excitement. She was too far gone in her plan to be reasoned with.
Sophie’s hope wavered. But she knew, to survive, she could not give up. She had to cling to hope. Hope had landed her Cary, after all.
Hope—and keeping her wits and fighting to survive—might get her through this.
Then she understood what Angelique was doing. “You are luring Caradon to the place he was imprisoned, where he suffered hell.”
“That should hurt him deeply. Destroy his mind. Then I will kill him. I will kill both of you.”
Sophie stood at one of the two small front windows that looked out onto the lane leading from the highway to the cottage. The lane wound around shrubs and bushes, so the building was well hidden from the road. Her hands were bound in front of her, tied at the wrists with rough rope.
Cary had set a trap—but he would be the one walking into one.
She must warn him. She must protect him. Angelique thought it would be hell for him to watch Sophie die, but Sophie was already in hell—knowing Cary, who had done nothing wrong, was going to walk into Angelique’s clutches.
To save her.
Unless . . . perhaps he wouldn’t come.
Sophie remembered how he had so brutally beaten up the man who had attacked her—Angelique’s man who was acting as her coachman now. The man had been armed with a knife and was huge, and Cary had beaten him to save her without any thought to his own safety.
He would come. Because he was noble.
In her mind’s eye, she could see a small child being carried in here in the arms of his evil, horrible captor. Had Cary been blindfolded, perhaps even drugged? Did he see the cottage, a low structure with a rotting roof and walls of piled stones?
The floor was flagstone and cold beneath her feet as she paced in front of the window. Angelique trained the pistol on her.
The cottage consisted of two rooms—one big main room with chairs circled around the fireplace, and beds at the other end, and a separate kitchen room with a large hearth and a big wooden table for cooking. A low doorway led between the two.
It could have been a quaint, sweet little home once, but she looked around it and imagined a five-year-old boy held inside it as a prisoner. It made the house seem to breathe evil.
What nightmares would come back to Cary when he walked into this place?
She acted as though she were watching anxiously for Cary, but Sophie kept glancing around. Cary had escaped this hell, using the fireplace poker as a weapon. Her captors were armed: Angelique had a pistol. Her coachman—Angelique had called him O’Malley—was in the kitchen, drinking ale, and he also had a pistol.
There was no fireplace poker to hand—Angelique had sent it into the kitchen with O’Malley. Angelique had taken off her cloak and hung it by the door. O’Malley had pulled off his greatcoat. The fire was burning, but the cottage felt cold as a tomb. Sophie could not see anything in the cottage she could use to defend herself.
She looked out the window once more. Moonlight spilled onto the fields around the house. In the silver-blue light, Sophie saw movement. A horse galloped down the lane, emerging out of the shadows cast by trees. A large black gelding with hooves thundering. The rider leaned along the animal’s neck, urging it to great speed. Dust flew up.
Then the rider straightened and reined in his beast as they neared the cottage.
She saw his face in the pale light. Cary.
He jumped off, then tied the reins of the horse to a wooden post. He slowed as he walked toward the cottage, as if he were afraid to come to it.
He must be reliving all the nightmarish things that happened here.
He must be in hell.
She wanted to scream at him to go back. Angelique growled, “Do not move or make a sound, or I will shoot you now.”
Outside the door, Cary ran his hand over his face. Then he shook his head as if shaking off memories. He stalked to the door and hammered on it.
There was fire in the cottage fire grate and a lamp burning in the corner, but she wasn’t sure what Cary could see through the small dirty panes of glass.
Angelique shouted to her man in the kitchen. “O’Malley, come and answer the door to his Grace, the Duke of Caradon!”
The large man lumbered out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He turned the iron key in the lock and flung open the thick wooden door. “Welcome, Yer Grace. Why don’t ye step inside?”
Cary walked in, his face tense and expressionless. Then he saw her. “Thank God, you are all right, Sophie. Thank God.”
He came toward her, but Angelique leveled the pistol at him. “You are not to touch her, Caradon.”
He stopped. “So it was you. You were the daughter of the monster who kidnapped me. I used to beg you to help me, and you refused. You tortured me instead. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.” He peered at O’Malley. Frowned. “I recognize you also. You were in my regiment in Ceylon.”
“Ye’ll forgive me if I don’t put me weapon down to salute, Yer Grace,” O’Malley sneered.
Angelique pointed to the end of the room, to the corner beside the beds. “You were chained there. Do you remember how piteously you cried? Do you remember how my father tried to soothe you—?”
“Yes, I remember that,” he spat.
“Stop it,” Sophie cried.
“Shut up,” Angelique snapped. She stood in the center of the room. Cary stood with his back to the door. O’Malley had moved close to the kitchen door. Sophie was still near the window, and O’Malley had her in his line of fire.
“You did everything he asked willingly, Caradon,” Angelique said. “You were more willing than I ever was. Did you enjoy it? Is that why you’ve never married? Did you discover your true tastes? Perhaps you now hunger for young boys.”
“God no,” Cary muttered. His face looked like stone, but he’d gone pale.
“Why do you think my father touched you? He knew he’d found someone like him. Didn’t you try to please him?”
“No.” Cary’s voice was ragged. “I was afraid. Too damned afraid to fight.”
“That’s what you say, but we both know the truth.”
Cary was not believing any of this, surely?
“I was there, after all,” Angelique said. “I saw everything.”
Sophie wanted to scream that he was a child. But she was afraid she would be helping Angelique by reminding Cary he had been powerless. “You can’t hurt him, Angelique,” she cried. She hadn’t thought this through entirely, but she must go on. “Time has healed his wounds. He is a good, strong, noble gentleman. The reason he has not married is because he did his duty for his country and did it honorably, but now he is ready to find love and marry. Whatever you took from him no longer matters, because you only made him stronger.”
Cary was watching her, looking startled. Their gazes met. His softened. It was so intense, so bright, she lost her breath. Cary spoke. “Sophie is right. It was a long time ago. It’s over. In the past. That is where it should remain. Stop this now, Angelique.”
“It’s too late for that,” she spat. “You really have no idea why I hate you so much, Caradon?”
He stepped closer to her. Her hand trembled a bit, and she waved
the pistol at him. “I will shoot you,” she said. “You will die tonight in this place where you were once a sniveling, terrified little boy.” She shrugged carelessly. “It would be disappointing to do it earlier, but I will do it.”
He gazed at her. “I see it now. Corporal Yew was related to you. Your brother?”
“My son.” Her voice broke. “He was my son. You murdered my only child.”
“He committed a heinous crime. He knew the punishment.”
“He killed one of the enemy’s women. He was a good Englishman, and you wanted to see him give his life because he killed a woman. A woman who belonged to the people massacring our soldiers.”
“Let me tell you what really happened.” He spoke with calm. Slowly.
Sophie shivered. The pistol pointed at his heart.
“Stop,” Angelique snapped. “Why don’t we talk of what happened to you here when you were a little boy?”
“I was kidnapped and forced to do unspeakable things by your father. I killed him. This is just a cottage, Angelique. That is in the past.”
He looked to Sophie. “I won’t let memories master me, Angelique. But I will tell you what happened to your son. It was the day after a long, hard battle. Indeed, we had lost a lot of men. Despair and anger were both whipping us. I tried to keep the men calm—I was afraid tempers would explode and something rash would happen. Your son was the worst powder keg of the lot—he seethed in rage at all times, and he had found the mutilated body of the youngest lad of our regiment and had vowed revenge. I understood how he felt, but I tried to make him see sense. To be honest, I was afraid he would get himself—or someone else—killed because he was being driven by blind fury.”
“He would never listen to you. He knew who you were.”
“Let me finish, Angelique. Your son stalked away, and I let him go—to give him time to clear his head. On the outskirts of our camp, he apparently encountered a Ceylonese woman. Perhaps she was acting as a spy or an assassin, or she had just innocently come upon us. I went in search of him. I found the girl sobbing, her clothing torn. His breeches were unfastened, and he was strangling her. I shouted out to him to stop, but by the time I reached him and pulled him off the girl, it was too late. He threw her body away. I was appalled. It is one thing to kill on the battlefield—another to destroy a defenseless woman. I intended to speak to my superior officers, but at that moment we were attacked from two sides. Most—hell, all of the other soldiers were killed. I thought I was the only survivor. I was taken prisoner, chained up in a cave.”