She was staring at the Reaper.
She screamed again, high and shrill. She tried to run backward. She tripped over a tree root. Her poor, abused ankle gave way, and she fell into the brush. Brittle branches scratched at her flesh and broke beneath her weight. Out of control, she rolled into the pine needles that littered the forest floor. She hit her head on a rock, and for a moment she was airborne and unconscious.
When she came to, she rested on her stomach, her face pressed into the rich loam of the forest. The scent of pine needles rose in her nostrils. Disoriented, she pushed herself up on her hands, then collapsed back into the dirt.
Her head was swimming. Every bone in her body ached. At last, after so many horrible days and so many debilitating nights, her spirit had been crushed. She had reached rock bottom, and she was going to die.
Hands clasped her under her ribs. She felt the heated rush of breath as the being turned her to face him. She looked up into that ghastly visage. It was the Reaper, and his eyes . . . were nothing but empty eye sockets.
With a quiet moan, she fainted.
Picking her up, the Reaper tossed her over his shoulder, mounted his horse, and rode away into the darkness.
Later that night, much later, the Reaper sat in the saddle, the horse warm and restive between his thighs. The stars were bright in the west, but in the east, the faintest tinge of dawn lit the sky. He watched as the long line of carriages inched down the road away from the ball. Outrunners carrying torches lit the way. Occasionally drunken laughter drifted in on the night’s breeze, but for the most part it was quiet, the revelers exhausted from hours of dancing, gambling, and drinking. One by one, the carriages peeled off, taking different roads, and still he watched. Slowly at first, then with more vigor, he moved down the mountain, guided only by his plan, formed in desperate circumstances, and his thirst for revenge.
Chapter Five
“Rickie. Rickie!” Lady de Guignard shook her husband’s shoulder.
“For the love of God, Aimée.” He sounded half-asleep and exasperated at the same time. “It’s four in the morning. Whatever foolish fit has you in its grasp now, can’t it wait?”
“No. No! Do you know they say that a ghost haunts the roads by the dark of the moon?”
“Who’s they?” Rickie sounded casual as he tried to stretch his long legs in the cramped carriage.
But she’d lived with him for twenty years. He couldn’t hide the truth from her; he had gone on alert. “It was that Englishwoman Lady Lettice. She knew all about the Reaper. She told me about it in the ladies’ convenience. She said the Reaper was the specter of King Reynaldo.”
“So it is headless?” She couldn’t see Rickie in the darkness, but he sounded impatient and contemptuous. “Because when the de Guignards took the country, we hanged Reynaldo until he was dead, then cut off his head and stuck it on a pike in the town square in Tonagra.”
Aimée gasped. “A headless specter? I don’t think she knew that!”
“My God, woman, you are the stupidest . . .” His voice ground with irritation.
Lady de Guignard fussed with the lace ruffles at her throat. “If you’ll look outside, you’ll see it is the dark of the moon.”
“So it is. Reynaldo’s been dead for centuries. Why would he start haunting the countryside now?”
“He’s the harbinger of the new king’s return,” she recited.
“The devil take it!” Rickie sat straight up. “How did that rumor get started? We cleaned out that rat’s nest of second-rate royalty. There’s no king to return.”
“Lady Lettice said the royal family is in hiding not far from here in one of the châteaux. She said they are plotting the overthrow of the de Guignards’ cruel regime, and—”
He interrupted impatiently. “You do realize ‘the de Guignards’ cruel regime’ includes you?”
“Oh, no! It’s you.”
“You are my wife.”
“Only by marriage.”
She saw the shadow of his fist rise.
She cringed back.
The carriage lurched. Slowed.
He took a long breath and lowered his hand.
The carriage halted.
“What’s wrong? Why are we stopping?” He peered out the window.
“Is it the Reaper?” Her voice quavered.
He turned on her like a striking snake. “No. It is not the Reaper. There is no Reaper. If there is, it’s a man dressed up in a ghost costume designed to scare the ignorant. Which is why it is working so well with you!”
“Why, Rickie.” Tears filled her eyes. “That was mean.”
“Mean? No. That wasn’t mean. You don’t know what I’m capable of,” he muttered. Slamming the door open, he said, “I’m getting out to see what’s going on.”
She fluttered like a peahen. “Be careful!”
“Not even these ignorant peasants are fools enough to play games with me.” He swung out, shouting, “Let’s get rolling. I’m in need of my bed!” His voice faded as he tromped off into the darkness.
Lady de Guignard huddled into the corner of the carriage and whimpered softly. No matter what Rickie said, she believed in the Reaper. She believed Reynaldo had returned for his revenge. And although she pretended to be ignorant, and Rickie thought she didn’t know of the duties he performed in the dungeons of Prince Sandre’s palace, she knew it all, and shivered when he touched her with those freakishly long fingers and covered her with his tall, skeletal body.
At the same time, she knew all too well that Rickie was her only safety in this degenerate land, and she waited tensely for his return.
But gradually the wine she’d consumed and the lateness of the hour worked irresistibly on her, and she relaxed against the seat. She closed her eyes for a minute, just a minute. Then another minute, then . . . with a start, she woke up. The carriage had started moving again.
Rickie must have straightened out the problem. They were never in real danger. Because she knew he was right; none of the Moricadian peasants would dare hinder him in anything he wanted to do.
Everyone was afraid of Rickie de Guignard. Everyone except Prince Sandre, and although she wasn’t a clever woman, and although she had never seen proof, she knew Prince Sandre was worse than her husband . . . and that was very bad indeed.
“What was wrong, Rickie?” she asked sleepily.
No one answered.
“Rickie?” She groped in the seat beside her, then the seat across from her.
Rickie wasn’t here with her.
Had he decided to ride out with the coachman? That seemed so unlike him. He was fastidious, and liked his elegant clothing to remain pristine.
She rapped on the roof of the carriage and called, “Halloo! Are you up there?”
No one answered.
The carriage continued down the road. She peered out the window. Dawn was breaking, a lightening of the gray mist. A movement at the top of the hill attracted her attention, and she looked up, up, up . . . and saw a ghostly figure in white rags on a white horse.
He had holes where his eyes should be.
She flung herself backward, her back hitting the far wall of the carriage, and crumpled in a heap onto the floor. She covered her eyes, whimpered, and moaned, fear writhing like a worm in her belly.
Then, slowly, she crawled onto the seat. Staying low, she crept back toward the window and, in the greatest act of bravery of her feeble life, looked out again.
The figure of the Reaper had disappeared.
But as they drove past the gibbet on the crossroads, she saw a tall figure dangling there, his feet still performing the dance of death.
She screamed in terror.
It was her husband.
It was Rickie de Guignard.
Chapter Six
In a rush of panic, Emma opened her eyes and stared around her.
She lay prone on a feather bed with clean linens and brocade bed curtains. The room itself was small, but well-appointed, with rugs on the floor,
a chest with a mirror, and, beside the bed, a table with a basin and water jug. Cheerful afternoon sunshine streamed through the open windows, and from outside, she could hear the birds chirping.
She didn’t know where she was.
She didn’t know how she got here.
She lifted her arm and looked at the white sleeve, heavy with lace at the cuff, and felt her neck where buttons secured the neckline.
This was not her nightgown. It was too nice to be her nightgown.
She must have died and gone to heaven.
But no. That was impossible. In heaven, she wouldn’t have awakened with the need to use the ladies’ convenience.
Abruptly she sat up.
That left only one answer. At last she’d come to the pass that she’d always feared: She was in a house of ill repute.
“Please, Miss Chegwidden.” A young woman dressed in a clean and ironed maid’s costume bustled forward, and in a marked French accent, she said, “You’re not to get up. M’lady’s orders.”
Emma stared at her wildly. “Who are you? Who is m’lady?”
“I’m Tia, and you’re in the home of Lady Fanchere.”
Lady Fanchere’s name sounded vaguely familiar, but Emma didn’t know why. “Is she the madam of this establishment?”
The maid took her shoulders and pressed her down onto the bed. “I don’t understand what you mean, miss.”
Tia’s accent wasn’t French, Emma realized, but Moricadian, and Lady Fanchere was . . . she was . . . Emma knit her brow as she tried to grasp the vague thread of memory.
Last night. She’d been at the ball, fanning Lady Lettice, when someone had said, Lord and Lady Fanchere, trusted allies of Prince Sandre, are holding him under house arrest.
Who was being held by Lord and Lady Fanchere?
The answer snapped into her mind.
Michael Durant, heir to the Duke of Nevitt.
Memories of last night were fuzzy, but Michael Durant was crystal clear in her mind. The red hair, the green eyes, the fine clothes, the cavalier manner in which he dismissed his family’s worry at his absence, his kindness to her . . . He was a very odd man, and she didn’t know whether to scorn him or like him.
She remembered something else, too. Something that nudged at the edges of her mind and sent chills down her spine . . . “There was a wolf!” she said.
In a soothing tone, the maid said, “Yes, miss, of course there was. I’ll call Lady Fanchere and you can tell her all about it.”
Emma was so wrapped up in her thoughts she scarcely noticed when Tia slipped from the room.
She certainly noticed when the bedroom door reopened, and a lady bustled in, Tia trailing behind.
The lady was of medium height, anywhere between thirty and forty, with handsome features and a shapely figure. She was also the epitome of a chatelaine. She wore good, but serviceable clothing, a large ring of keys at her belt, and a competent expression. Her glossy blond hair was pulled back into a chignon and wrapped in a net, and her large brown eyes examined Emma and made a judgment Emma feared was not flattering. She stopped at the foot of the bed and slipped her hands into her apron pockets. “So. You’re awake at last. Miss Emma Chegwidden, I believe?”
Emma sat up. “That’s right.”
“I’m Lady Fanchere, daughter of Bernardin de Guignard and wife of Lord Fanchere, minster of finance to Prince Sandre.”
Still in a sitting position, Emma tried to bob a curtsy.
Lady Fanchere waved the courtesy away. “Tia, bring Miss Chegwidden her breakfast tray.”
Tia placed a tray on the table beside the bed, fluffed the pillows behind Emma’s back, then put the tray over her lap.
The smell of fresh bread and hot tea made Emma almost faint with hunger. But she couldn’t dine in front of the mistress of the house.
Lady Fanchere must have been a mind reader, for she said, “I didn’t order a breakfast tray to torment you, Miss Chegwidden, or test your self- restraint. I do not starve my people. Eat. Then we can talk.” Walking to the window, she looked out into the sunlight.
With trembling hands, Emma lifted the slice of bread and took a bite. The crust broke into stiff crumbs, the white interior was faintly sour, and someone had trickled lavender honey in a thin stream across the yeasty surface.
Each bite tasted like satisfaction. She finished the slice, ate ham sliced thinly and rolled around a slice of melon, and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. Tia handed her the cup of black tea sweetened with sugar and pale with cream, and she sipped like a worshipper at the altar of Englishness.
When she looked up, Lady Fanchere had turned to watch her, and she was smiling. With the instinct she’d cultivated in service, Emma deduced that Lady Fanchere was a woman who liked to care for others. Finishing the tea, Emma put the cup down and folded her hands in her lap. “Thank you, Lady Fanchere. That was most reviving.”
Lady Fanchere gestured to Tia, who pulled a chair to the side of the bed. As Lady Fanchere seated herself, she said, “Tia, would you please remove Miss Chegwidden’s tray and get us a new pot of hot tea?”
Tia’s bright face dimmed, but she took the tray, bobbed a curtsy, and moved swiftly out of the room.
Lady Fanchere waited until the door shut behind her before asking, “Could you answer a few questions now, Miss Chegwidden?”
“Of course. I’m delighted to do so.”
“Do you remember how you got here?”
“No, I’m sorry. I . . . I remember some of last night, but then . . .”
“The wolf?”
“Yes.” The memory of pale, glowing eyes burned in her mind. “There was a wolf!”
“There are few wolves left in the Pyrenees, and the ones that remain are far into the wilderness.”
“I was far in the wilderness!” Seeing Lady Fanchere’s cocked eyebrow, Emma added unsteadily, “I think.”
“Tell me what you know, starting with”—an unexpected dimple quivered in Lady Fanchere’s cheek—“the fish.”
Appalled, Emma put her hand to her temple. “The fish? At the ball?”
“Exactly.”
“I hope you don’t think badly of me for that. You see, Lady Lettice wanted her handkerchief dampened, and I got lost. I found my way into the garden, which was very dark, wet the handkerchief in the fountain—”
Lady Fanchere gave a gurgle of merriment.
“—and apparently a small, very small fish found its way into the linen folds. I fear I must have stunned it when I wrung out the excess water. I handed Lady Lettice the handkerchief, not knowing . . .”
Lady Fanchere chuckled through every word.
Distressed, Emma said, “Lady Fanchere, please believe me. I didn’t do it on purpose. I would not be so foolish as to jeopardize my only employment in a strange land!”
“Ah, yes. You English girls are too sensible for that.” Lady Fanchere leaned forward, eyes dancing. “But is it true the fish slid down Lady Lettice’s cleavage?”
“Yes, it did, and then . . .” The remembrance of Lady Lettice’s nimble jig as she tried to dislodge the fish rose in Emma’s mind, and unexpectedly, hilarity caught her by the throat. She giggled, stopped herself, tried to apologize, and giggled again.
Lady Fanchere waved her to silence. “I beg you, don’t say you’re sorry. It was the highlight of the dullest evening of a completely dull season! I thought I would die laughing. Lady Lettice is all wig and no hair, if you comprehend me, and while I’m not one to judge someone by their intelligence—one of my dearest friends is Aimée de Guignard, a darling and the greatest ninny in all Christendom—one cannot say the same about Lady Lettice. That woman is venal in her gossip and her clever cruelties. She wouldn’t be accepted in society at all, but here in Moricadia all one needs is a fortune to be Sandre’s best friend.” She bit her lower lip as if regretting that last comment. With a determination Emma admired, Lady Fanchere changed the subject. “Now, tell me what happened after you left the ball.”
“After I wa
s thrown out like a strumpet?” The humiliation added a surprising bite to Emma’s tone. “I walked and walked. It was cold. I was afraid I was lost, and afraid to turn back for fear lights and warmth were around the corner, and then that wolf stepped in front of me. It was a wolf. It was! I am not mistaken about that.”
“All right. I believe you,” Lady Fanchere said in a soothing tone. “How did you get away?”
“I turned. I ran. And then . . .”
“Then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Emma rubbed her head with both hands, trying to coax some vestige of remembrance from her brain. “There’s nothing. I don’t know how I escaped being a wolf’s late- night meal. I most certainly don’t know how I got here.”
“You have a bump on the back of your head. Do you know how that happened?”
With cautious fingers, Emma explored her scalp and winced when she found the lump. “I must have fallen. Did someone find me in the woods?”
“You were left unconscious on our doorstep like an orphaned child.” Lady Fanchere watched as Emma absorbed the news. “You truly don’t remember?”
Emma shook her head in bewilderment.
“There was no rescuer that you recall?”
Emma frowned. Something stirred in her brain. Some vague recollection of hands turning her to face—
A strong whiff of ammonia brought Emma to consciousness with a jolt. She opened her eyes to see Lady Fanchere leaning over her, holding the smelling salts and wearing a troubled expression.
“Thank heavens,” Lady Fanchere said. “I’ve never had anyone faint during a conversation before.”
“I’m sorry.” Emma tried to struggle back into a sitting position.
“Please lie back.” Lady Fanchere seated herself again and waved the smelling salts under her own nose. “We’re both shaken. Let’s calm ourselves and make sure there are no repeats of that incident.”
Emma sank back onto the pillows. “I must have hit my head harder than I realized.”
“I think you are right.” Lady Fanchere rested her hand on her waist above the curve of her belly. “Well! You may know the Englishman Michael Durant is our prisoner—”
In Bed With the Duke Page 4