Beloved

by Stella Cameron

  “What will Papa say? And—”

  “Leave them to me. Finch said they have gone out to visit friends and will not return until late this evening. By then I shall have thought of an appropriate excuse for being here.”

  “No doubt,” Ella said wryly. “Just leave out the purple demons and the bodice of your matron’s dress.”

  Max ignored that. “Tell me what Saber’s done to you.”

  “Nothing.”

  He rested his chin on his chest. The lines of his face were sharp and clever. Despite his youth, in his black, tailed coat and high, starched white collar, he was a figure bound to command notice. “And therein lies the answer, I think,” he said in measured tones. “Yet again Saber has failed to act. You love him, don’t you, Ella?”

  She blushed and averted her face. “Quite,” Max said. “I know exactly how that feels now.”

  “What?” Her head snapped in his direction again. “What does that mean?”

  He gestured vaguely. “Nothing. Only that a man of my experience understands these things. Not that I have known love, but I have felt the small twinges that might be mistaken for that emotion. However, we are not discussing me. Tell me about Saber.”

  “You speak so well now, Max. One would never imagine you had once been… well, one wouldn’t, would one?”

  He grinned. “No, one wouldn’t, would one? No more than one would imagine you had once been… well…”

  “Very well,” Ella snapped. She must not be further reminded of the other. “We have made that point.”

  “And you tried to change the subject. I take it you have seen Saber?”

  Oh, indeed she had seen Saber. Seen him and much, much more. “Yes.”

  “How is he?”

  “Marvelous.” She bit her bottom lip.

  “Good. If he’s so marvelous, why do you look so sad?”

  “He does not want me, Max.” Tears stung her eyes. “He has vowed to help find me a husband. Can you countenance such a thing? Saber is going to help find another man for me.”

  Max paused in the act of perusing a small portrait he’d picked up from a tiny marquetry table. “Surely you jest? Another man? Saber is trying to find someone else to be your husband?”

  “Yes,” Ella said in a small voice. She did not feel particularly like the older, more mature sibling at the moment.

  The gilt frame of the portrait met the table with a sharp clack. Max said, “Then he is a fool or mad—or both.”

  “Don’t,” Ella implored. “I cannot bear to hear you speak of him so. Oh, Max, he was wounded in India.”

  “Yes.” Max’s straight nose rose. “Years since. We already knew of this. What has it to do with the situation at hand?”

  “I think …I think it has everything to do with it. His face is quite severely scarred.”

  “Really?” Rather than revulsion, Max’s expression showed impressed interest. “How very dashing.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. I would not wish him to have suffered such pain as must have been his, but he is still the most handsome man in the world, not that I should care what he looked like as long as he was my Saber.”

  “There is another female, perhaps?”

  Ella swayed a little. “There is?” Max declared. “Who is she?”

  “Well, he does have a friend, a Countess Perruche. Margot. But I don’t think… No, I don’t think so.”

  Max took Ella’s hand and led her to the chaise. Once she was seated he leaned over her. “Then what, sister dear? What is keeping the rattle-brain from sweeping you to the altar?”

  She shook her head. “It’s mysterious. He’s mysterious. He says he cannot be with me. We cannot be together. It is not possible for us to be together. And he appears desperate when he says so. Desperate and unhappy. Then there is Devlin North.”

  “What about Devlin? He’s in London too?”

  “In London and possibly courting me.”

  “Possibly?” Max snorted. “Either a man is courting a woman or he is not.”

  “I just don’t know,” Ella said. “The most beautiful gifts have been arriving. Lots and lots of them. I was suspicious that Devlin might be sending them.” She considered before she said, “But I am not at all certain Saber isn’t the one.”

  Straightening, Max puffed up his cheeks and made his green eyes round. “Too complicated for a simple mind like mine, my dear sister.” He bent closer again. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Ella’s heart leaped. “Nothing!”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” he told her, pinching his nostrils and assuming an air of wise concentration. “I feel it. I see it. Something else is afoot here. You are not just unhappy. You are troubled. Frightened even.”

  He could not possibly know. He was guessing or fabricating. Max had been a master fabricator all his life. She composed herself, arranging her skirts and settling a calm expression on her face.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Max said, tapping the tip of her nose. “You may try to appear calm and removed, but I know better. We have been everything to each other, Ella. Without you, I should not have survived. Without you—and Papa, whom you persuaded to rescue me—I might still be picking pockets in Covent Garden. Although by now I’d be rotting in prison, if I were still alive. I’d be little better than an animal. Tell me what makes you pale beneath that lovely golden skin of yours. Other than unrequited love.”

  She pressed a hand over the pocket where the letter rested. “Nothing, I tell you.”

  “Nothing, hmm.”

  “Exactly. Nothing at all. I’m a little fatigued by all the revelry is all.”

  Before she guessed his intention, one of Max’s large, strong, nimble hands descended upon hers—on top of the letter in her pocket.

  “Max! What are you thinking of? Let me go.”

  He transferred her hand from his right to his left and deftly removed the letter from her pocket. “I think this is the something that bothers you? It is, isn’t it? You were never good at hiding things from me.”

  “That is private.” She made an unsuccessful grab for the envelope. “Give it to me.”

  “I saw the way you touched it when I pressed you for information. Whatever is so private here is also a great trial to you.”

  “It is not. It is nothing but a personal note from a friend. Kindly—” She made another grab, but he turned his back and she heard him pulling out the notepaper. “Max, I beg you, do not read it. Oh, please, do not read it!”

  He kept her at bay with infuriating ease—and read the letter.

  A dull red gradually rose up his neck and over his face. “Please sit down,” he said to Ella in a voice not at all like his own. “Sit down and collect yourself.”

  “You had no right to take what was mine and read it!” Max pounded the back of a chair. “How dare this foul creature write such filth to you.”

  She trembled so, her teeth clattered together. “What does he…?” How could she ask her fifteen-year-old brother to explain what must be the truly horrifying suggestions of the letter writer?

  Max flattened his lips to his teeth and stared at her. “You do not understand this, do you?” He waved the paper. “Of course not. How could you?”

  “How could you?” she snapped back.

  He pushed his fingers through his hair. “I am a man. I became a man when I should have been a child. The world made it so for me. Now. Be calm.”

  “You are not calm.” Her voice was a squeak. “You are not calm at all. You are angry.”

  “Angry does not describe my feelings at all fittingly. Sit down, Ella.” When she had reluctantly done so, he continued. “What did you intend to do about this?”

  She was helpless to stop tears from falling. “I don’t know. I had only just finished reading it when you arrived. Who can have sent it to me?”

  “A fool,” he said shortly.

  Ella wiped at the tears. “I shall kill him,” Max added. “No!” This is exactly what she’d be
en afraid of. “There will be no violence. It is against the law. And you, rather than he, might be hurt. I will discover the identity of this creature and reason with him. I will make him understand the error of his ways and apologize to me.”

  “Hah!” Max’s eyes were narrow slits of green fire. “You will reason with a sick, mad man? Will you do that while he ravishes you?”

  “Max! How could you speak to me so?”

  “Someone must speak to you so. You have lost your senses. These are not the words of a sane man who might be reasoned with. A creature with evil designs sent you this. He guessed, correctly, that you would attempt to hide it and deal with him yourself. And, when you did, he would have accomplished what he wanted—he would have you, Ella.”

  “But—”

  “Saber will help us.”

  “Saber?” Saber must never know exactly how dreadful the story of her life at Lushbottam’s had been. “Saber doesn’t want any part of me except as a helpful family friend.”

  “Come, we shall visit him now. Where does he live?”

  “No. It would only be as before. He would refuse to see me—if I could persuade his man Bigun to announce us— which I doubt after the last fiasco.”

  “Fiasco?”

  “I cannot recount it. The event is too painful even to consider.”

  “I suppose you have some soiree this evening?”

  “I declined all invitations. I couldn’t face another round so soon after the last. One has no time to as much as catch one’s breath.” She turned her face away. “And I don’t want to go out at all unless I can be certain I shall see Saber.”

  “Do you mean he may not be attending an event this evening, either?”

  “He goes nowhere. He came to a party at the Eagletons’, but I think it was merely to make a point with me.” She trembled at the memory of what had passed between them. “He wanted to make certain I understood we could have no future together.”

  Max paced, coming to a halt in front of her. “Rest.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Rest. Go to your bed. Mama and Papa will retire early to prepare for the long journey on the morrow. Great-Grand-mama always retires early, and so does Blanche. Who attends you?”

  “A maid called Rose. She is to come to me from Hanover Square.”

  “Can she be trusted?”

  “I…Trusted in what?”

  “Tonight, when the house is at rest, we shall go to Saber. It will be late, so late that we can hope he will at least be at home—if not in bed. I would prefer to come upon him unawares.”

  “Oh, no,” Ella moaned. “I thought you loved him.”

  “I do, but—”

  “Then help me to help you. And we need his help with this.” Max waved the letter. “He will know how seriously we should take it, and what should be done.”

  Ella covered her face. “I am so ashamed.”

  “You have no cause for shame. You are blameless.”

  She bowed her head. “You speak as if you, not I, were the eldest. I do not understand what will be gained by pressing Saber when he has made it so clear he does not wish to have anything further to do with me.”

  “Has he made that clear?” Max asked softly. “Are you sure?”

  A coolness slipped over Ella’s heated skin. She dropped her hands, clasped them between her knees, and regarded her brother.

  “Well,” he said, smiling a little. “Are you?”

  “No. No, I’m not at all sure. I think he may just be so foolish as to think I am disgusted by his disfigurement. Inside me, I feel—I feel he may love me, Max. Oh, it is all such a puzzlement.”

  “No matter.”

  She looked up sharply. “No matter?”

  “No matter.

  Your puzzlement is about to be removed.”

  “You are a puzzle, Max.”

  “While you rest, I shall explain my presence here to Mama and Papa—and to Great-Grandmama, of course. At midnight you are to be dressed—in simple clothing that will not draw too much attention. We will make our way on horseback. Do you know the interior of the house?”

  “Yes.” Her stomach squeezed. She felt too cold now. “But what would be the point of riding to Burlington Gardens? Even if Saber will see me, he will only repeat that he has decided we can have no future together.”

  A great smile of confidence transformed Max’s serious expression. Confidence and guile. “He may repeat what he pleases. While I keep watch, you will persuade him otherwise.”

  “I’ve tried,” she told him passionately. “He either does not hear or does not care.”

  “He will hear and he will care.”

  “How? Why?”

  “My mind is made up.” Max pushed back his coat and planted his fists on his hips. “Yes, quite made up. We’ll make certain he’s in bed.”

  “Oh!” Ella bobbed on her toes with agitation. “What on earth can we accomplish if he’s in bed?”

  “Simply”—Max said, raising one arched, dark red brow— “you will seduce him. He will compromise you.”

  Saber looked into the secret herbal draft Bigun had prepared for him and smiled—a cynical smile. What kind of man had he become?

  “Drink, my lord,” Bigun said, although the little man was supposedly busy with Saber’s clothes and should not have been able to see his master. “Drink deeply and sleep deeply.”

  “Drug myself, you mean.”

  “We do what we must.”

  “And we must be drugged in order to become unconscious.”

  Bigun faced him. His gold turban shimmered in the subdued light of Saber’s bedchamber. “You must rest.”

  “I never rest.”

  “At least your body gains strength. I arranged for the ruby earbobs to be delivered tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Saber would like to place the rubies on Ella’s ears himself. He tossed back the draft and set down the goblet. “I must busy myself with the matter of securing the young lady a suitable husband.”

  “A very simple matter, my lord.”

  Saber glared at Bigun. “Simple? Finding a man worthy of one so …”

  “Of one so charming, so beautiful, so perfect of mind and soul—and body?”

  “Hmm. Yes, yes exactly.”

  “As I said,” Bigun remarked, brushing imaginary annoyances from the coat he held. “A very simple matter. Such a man is readily to hand.”

  “Who?” Naked—as he preferred to be in bed—Saber threw back the covers. He should not feel angry whenever he contemplated securing a man to take his place with Ella. “Who is readily to hand, Bigun? Speak up, man.”

  “You.”

  Saber stopped in the act of getting into bed. He rested his knuckles on the mattress and closed his eyes. “I thought we had covered that topic. It cannot be me. And we both know why.”

  Bigun made much of hanging the coat in the large, carved ebony wardrobe.

  “We both know why, don’t we, Bigun?” Saber said loudly. “We both know why you pretend it cannot be so.” Bigun’s tone was silken. “I do not agree with you. I think the young lady is exactly what you need. Someone who loves and wants you and—”

  “Silence!”

  “Do you love her?” Bigun continued as if there had been no explosive interruption.

  Saber turned and fell, spread-eagle, onto the bed. “Leave me. Leave me in peace.”

  “You love her.”

  “I told you to leave. Get out. Now.”

  “You, my lord, love Miss Ella Rossmara. You desire her mind and her body. You wish she were beside you—”

  “Out,” Saber roared, rearing onto his elbows. “And never mention her name to me again.”

  “As you wish.” Bigun bowed and backed toward the door. “But you do love her.”

  “Out!”

  “But of course, my lord. Love does strange things to men, but it can be most healing.”

  “Get out!”

  “A woman’s soft hands upon a man’s fevered body—�
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  “Get—” The door slammed before Saber finished shouting his order.

  His head ached.

  His head invariably ached when he’d fought sleep for more than a few days, as he had since his last confrontation with his demons.

  Bigun was right. The need for rest was desperate now. Sleep must come at any price.

  Warmth spread through Saber’s limbs. He doused the light and rolled toward the windows where, as he insisted, no draperies had been drawn over the casement. Outside was utter darkness. A wind slapped tree limbs against the panes and light rain tapped the glass.

  The wind hummed.

  The humming rose and fell.

  The tapping rain was as the music of tiny silver finger cymbals. The finger cymbals of dancing Indian women. Dancing and turning, dancing and turning. Undulating bodies. Silver and gold—silk—soft.

  Saber drifted.

  Ribbons of silk wafted about him—slipped away.

  Drifting.

  The wind hummed, and hummed.

  The rain fell harder.

  When the wind would have cooled his body, a covering was drawn over him. The cover settled softly over his shoulders, molded to his legs.

  Warm softness curved around his back.

  Soft.

  A hand slipped beneath his arm and around his chest, and held him.

  How long had he lain there?

  The thunder of hoofs came again. Blood filled his eyes and he could not see who rode toward him—friend or foe.

  Saber rested his head on the churned earth once more. From all around him came the stench of sweat. Sweat, fear, and death.

  Moaning and wailing, screams of pain rose on every side. Screams from the living who felt life draining away. Then the sounds ebbed, save those of approaching horses.

  He held very still. Those who came might think him already dead.

  He was dead.

  His heart hurt. It pounded, twisted, pounded. It would stop and he would be dead.

  He was already dead. “Aiee!” The cry rose to a shriek. Hoofs fell so close to his face, he felt the earth give beneath the animal’s weight.

  The horse pawed the ground. Tack creaked and jangled. Saber held his breath.

  At last the hoofbeats started again, leaving, galloping away.