The irony Maryssa felt at Wickersby's touting of her father's parental concern was eclipsed by stark imaginings of a highwayman, his cloak flowing about his shoulders like sinister wings, his mouth savage and brutal. "The Black Falcon?" she echoed.
"Aye, miss. He's a bad one. An' deadly as his name. Fired Lord Thomas's storehouse but a fortnight past an' carved the word thief on 'is lordship's cheek. Took the lord's mistress, too, an' the horrors the Falcon's band worked on her..." Wickersby rolled his eyes skyward. "A hedger found 'er wandering the roads pure nake—"
"Fine. I mean that's enough," Maryssa interrupted hastily, her fingers flying to the fastening of her cloak. "I'm thirstier than I thought." She gave her hand to the coachman and swung down from the box on wobbly knees. "Celes—"
She started to turn back to the coach, but the maid had already bounded after her like a startled roe, her face having puckered as though she had swallowed a basketful of lemons. Yet despite the ridiculous expression, Celeste managed to drag her mantle of superiority around herself. "If you're determined to go, I suppose I shall be forced to accompany you," she said haughtily. "For the sake of propriety."
Maryssa bit back a sarcastic reply. She strode to the door, her hand freezing on the latch when the raucous shouts from behind the wood panel died as if every throat within had been suddenly slit. A shiver scuttled down her spine as the latch seemed to release itself of its own accord, the heavy door creaking open on sagging hinges.
The stench of rancid mutton sizzling over embers in the inn's stone fireplace struck her, its greasy odor blending with that of sour ale and a score of unwashed bodies. Shifting orange light cast eerie shadows over faces glowering across the dimly lit room—like crimson-eyed wolves closing for the kill, the flames painting their savage features in gold and red.
Maryssa swallowed hard and took a step backward, but Celeste, rushing behind her, would allow no retreat. Maryssa felt the toe of one shoe snag on a splintered floorboard, catapulting her into the room. Her ribs slammed into the edge of a filthy table, her hand clutching the slippery surface as her knees crashed to the floor, her hold barely saving her from sprawling across a leering drunk's lap. Firelight danced across a wicked curved blade poised inches from her chest. The man's lips split in a toothy grin.
"Would ye be likin' me to carve ye a bit o' breast, yer ladyship?''
Quaking inside, Maryssa followed his gaze to where it was fastened on her chest, horror and embarrassment rushing through her veins. The camlet cloak had torn open in her fall, exposing the soft, creamy skin above her décolletage. The table edge pushed up her full breasts until they swelled above the meager modesty panel, giving them the absurd appearance of being some tempting culinary delicacy.
"No. I..." Maryssa clamped her hands over the bared skin, trying to scramble to her feet, but the drunken man caught her skirt and drove the point of his knife through a hank of her gown, pinning the fabric to the wood below.
"Come now, my little partridge. You wouldn’t wanna fly the snare so soon," he slurred as Maryssa tugged desperately on the pinned cloth.
"A snare would be the only way you'd catch a woman, MacTeague," a voice, dangerous and deep as the devil's well, said at Maryssa's shoulder. "I prefer gentler measures." She tried to pull away as a strong black-gloved hand cupped her elbow, but the unseen man only hauled her back against a frame as long and tough as a wind-scarred oak, his other fist closing on the bone hilt of MacTeague's knife. "We must show our English guests hospitality," he crooned. "Kindness such as they've shown us these many years."
The man yanked the knife free, and Maryssa spun to face him. Horror froze in her throat. Plumes the hue of blood swept back from a sable cocked hat, the face beneath it hidden by a black silk hood. A hood emblazoned with the silver talons of a falcon.
"Please. Let me go." Maryssa squeezed the words through the lump lodged in her throat, her whole body shaking. "My father . . ." Eyes, so green they seemed to have stolen all the tint from the verdant Irish glens, narrowed as they regarded her through slits cut in the hood. Maryssa suddenly realized what Bainbridge Wylder's daughter might mean to a savage like this—a hostage to be held for a huge ransom, a tool to be used in vengeance for lands her father had taken—used, perhaps like the mistress of Lord Thomas.
Her gaze darted to the doorway. Celeste had disappeared back into the darkness of the yard, but Maryssa had no false hope that the woman would bring her aid.
"Your father?"the Falcon prompted. Maryssa set her teeth, knowing her refusal to answer might unleash fury in the man. Her brain struggled to come up with some plausible lie. The black-gloved hands skimmed back the folds of her cloak, then slid down to span her slender waist in a firm grip as the green eyes pierced her. Even through the layers of cloth, whalebone, and leather, the heat of him seemed to burn her.
"So you dare defy the Black Falcon?" An underlying edge bit the deep voice. “Perhaps you were about to tell me that your father is lethal with a sword? That he will cut my black heart out and see me hang if I stain your virtue?"
"No. I . . ."
The blood seemed to rush from Maryssa's body, leaving her weak and shaken, as his broad palms eased up to curve just beneath the swells of her breasts.
"Come, now," his voice caressed, as his thumbs brushed lazy circles over the satin. "A woman with your eyes, your lips, surely some man before me has been wise enough to sample . . ." With a suddenness that nearly threw her off her feet, sensation swept back into her veins. He was laughing! Damn him to hell, behind his mask the cur was laughing!
Hurt washed through her, as painful as the hundreds of times her father had derided her for her ugliness, fresh as the taunts of Celeste and Lady Dallywoulde. And Maryssa hated the fact that even now, with the danger all around her, it mattered to her that this brigand, this renegade, a breath from the hangman's noose was making jest of her before the rabble.
"I assure you that my virtue is intact," Maryssa said, the hooded figure blurring through the tears that rose in her eyes.
"Is it?" There was a sudden gentleness to his voice. "That is more of a pity than you know." His fingers trailed up to the hollow of her throat, lifting the tiny swan pendant that dangled there against her skin. "Then I guess I shall have to satisfy myself with some other favor from the most winsome woman I've ever seen."
She flinched, and his fingers stilled.
"Have you ever seen a young swan, colleen, a hatchling cygnet swimming behind its mother? It's all gray down, its neck long. No one could call it beautiful. But time passes, and it blossoms into the most graceful and lovely of birds."
“He’s going soft in the skull!" MacTeague's drunken jeering split the quiet. "The Black Falcon spouting verses like a fop! Next thing ye know he'll be kissin' the Sassenach doxy's hand instead o' bedding her."
The fear that had loosened its grip on Maryssa with the Falcon's words clenched around her again as the green eyes behind the hood blazed with anger, and with an odd, more subtle emotion.
She could almost see the hidden lips shift to a wry, mocking grin. "Ah, MacTeague." The Falcon shook his head, tipping Maryssa's face more fully into the path of the drunk's bleary gaze. "I said the cygnet would blossom into the most beautiful of birds." Gloved fingers tugged at the wispy mahogany curls that had pulled free of the loosely pinned knot at the back of her head. "This swan still has a bit too much down left to heat my blood." A sick feeling knotted in Maryssa’s stomach. "I'll slake my lust with her gold instead of her maidenhead."
She pulled back, grasping the swan pendant as he reached for it. "Please," she whispered, "don't take this. It belonged to . . ." Her words trailed to silence.
She felt his hand hesitate at the chain around her throat. "To whom? Some lover?"
"No. My mother. She died when I was a babe. If you take it—"
"I stand to forfeit much more than you this night." The rich, husky tones of his voice touched her, lulled her. The face behind the hood seemed to strain toward her, and she felt
the dizzying suspicion that he wanted to touch her lips with his.
She swallowed, unaware that she had loosened her grasp on the golden swan until she felt the quick, sharp tug of the chain snapping.
"No! No! You—" The misery she had fought to hold inside since that horrible night at the ball burst forth in a sob as the broad shoulders wheeled away from her.
"Well?" He barked, cramming the necklet into a pouch at his waist. "Don't stand there gawking like striplings! Make an end to what we came for!''
A dozen black-garbed masked figures melted out of the shadows near the walls, but Maryssa was barely aware of the innkeeper's pleading, the sounds of crockery shattering and wooden casks being split as the band of rogues tore the room apart. Sticky red wine seeped through the morocco sides of her shoes, splashed her petticoat and cloak, but the sickly sweet smell of violence didn’t sour her stomach half as much as the hatred she felt for the hooded man who now stood rigid at the door of the room.
"Curse you to hell!" The sound of her own voice startled her, piercing through a lull in the din. The Falcon's men froze. The rebel himself appeared carved in stone.
With a jerk of his head he commanded his band out the door, then wheeled to stalk into the night. Maryssa's nails bit deep into her sweating palms as she saw him swing up onto a huge black stallion one of his cohorts had brought to the doorway. For what seemed an eternity those piercing green eyes glowed at her through the slits in his night-black hood.
He seemed almost to shake himself as one hand took up the reins. "You want hell, my little English bitch?" he snarled, his eyes raking the lands around him. "You've just arrived."
Chapter 2
Hell. Maryssa bit her lower lip to stop the wild laughter rising inside her as the Falcon's words echoed in her mind a day later. He had thrown out disdainful barbs to wound a pampered brat. As if she'd known anything but hell in her life, or expected anything better from Ascot Dallywoulde or from her father.
The cold stone beneath her feet seeped through the carpets as she paced the huge room at Nightwylde. It was like her father to summon her to this chamber, then force her to wait, tortured by her own imagination. Three hundred years ago this chamber had served as the solarium, graced by lords and ladies, rulers of their own land. But now their ghosts seemed to dart from dark stone corners and creep beneath the velvet hangings that dripped from the walls of Nightwylde.
Stones shrouded in ancient mysteries seemed to compress her chest until she couldn't breathe, as though the dead of five hundred years still fought to claim their own. No icings of intricate plasterwork, no gilt sconces or whimsical sculptures could mask the stark history that wove among the candle flames flickering in the shadows. It was as though the walls themselves cried out for vengeance.
"So. You've shamed me yet again." Maryssa wheeled at the slice of a razor-sharp voice through the silence. Her chin lifted a fraction, her fingers clenching as she faced the stout figure silhouetted in the doorway. Even so, she couldn't still the hammering of her heart. The somber waistcoat, denuded of any fancy work, puffed out over the waistband of too-tight breeches, the shirt ruffle couched beneath a double chin as stiff as the lips of the man who owned it.
"Good day, Father."
"Good day," Bainbridge Wylder mocked, yanking the massive oak door closed behind him with a plump, square hand. "Is that all you have to say, girl? I released you from Carradown into the care of that pompous witch, Lady Dallywoulde, hoping she could fashion you into a tolerable bride for your esteemed cousin, Sir Ascot, and even she could not bear your insolence. Tell me, miss, do you know what this letter says?"
He dug into the pocket of his rumpled frock coat and yanked out a wad of paper to wave beneath her nose. "Lady Olivette claims that, in the center of a ballroom you defamed your betrothed, humiliating him before his peers."
"I—I only said it was wrong to condemn innocent children to the flames.”
"After Sir Ascot had been touting the necessity of ridding society of its filth before they grow large enough to do evil."
"Father, they tortured that little girl.”
"I don't give a damn about anything except ridding myself of the burden of being responsible for you." Her father spun around and jammed the missive down onto the vast top of his desk, then turned to face her. "Aye, miss, and now, because of your insolence, you may be a spinster instead of a nobleman's wife. A disinherited spinster, perhaps.”
"I think I would rather be a spinster than—"
"Than wife to a noble and godly man?"
"Godly!" Maryssa nearly choked on the word, picturing her weasel-thin cousin as he had looked in the hours before the infamous ball, his nostrils pinched, his lips pursed with displeasure at having been cheated out of his afternoon's entertainment.
He had forced her to ride out with him in his sedan chair to a crowded square. Filthy bodies had crowded around them, leering and laughing as a girl of thirteen was dragged forth. A witch, Ascot had claimed, guilty of having lured a high holy bishop into her bed through sorcery. But Maryssa had seen no lascivious evil in the girl's countenance, only narrow, white-robed shoulders, thick honeyed curls, and eyes so terrified they seemed to swallow the child's whole face. Maryssa had begged to leave, but Ascot's mouth had merely curled with self-righteous glee as the executioner bound the screaming girl to the stake and piled the faggots beneath her bare feet.
Maryssa shut her eyes, the terrible stench of seared flesh still burning her nostrils. Thank God for the wind! It had rushed the flames up the girl's slight body with merciful speed, stopping the inhuman screams that still haunted Maryssa's dreams.
And pious Ascot Dallywoulde had raged the whole way home that the child's pain had not lasted long enough to make her pay for her wickedness.
“Girl! You'll listen when I speak to you!"
Her father’s hand clamped on her shoulder, yanking her back from the horrifying memory. Marissa winced, as he jerked her around to meet his baleful glare. “You've not heeded a word I've said."
"I have." Her fingers strayed to her throat, seeking the familiar security of the tiny swan pendant, only to be flooded once again with desolation at its loss. Her hand dropped to her side. "I can explain what happened, Father, if you'll—"
"If I'll what? Waste my time listening to you spin excuses? I spent three years listening to a woman’s lies in the most ill-advised marriage witnessed by heaven or hell. You think me fool enough to begin again?"
"I'm not my mother!" Maryssa pulled away from him, the still-fresh horror of the witch-burning causing her to flare in a rare attempt at defense. Her arms closed convulsively about her ribs. "If you hated my mother so much why did you marry her? Didn't you ever love her? Or me?"
She saw her father's lips whiten as if she’d delivered a blow, but in a heartbeat the expression vanished, leaving her to wonder if it had ever been there at all.
The fingers digging into Maryssa's flesh loosened, and she could see the struggle in her father, as if he were forcibly ripping them away. "Love? Mary?" With a bark of laughter he shoved Maryssa from him and wiped the palm of his hand on his breeches as if it were soiled. "Your mother betrayed me. Aye, and would have cast you aside for a fresh pair of slippers."
The words cut deep, but Maryssa raised her chin, meeting her father's gaze. "And what would you cast me aside for, Father? Less even than that?"
"I've fed you these twenty years, housed you, kept clothes on your back."
"Aye, and endured me like a brace of iron weights hanging about your neck, burning and chafing in your hate." Maryssa struggled to keep her voice from quavering. "I'm sorry I was born, Father."
"No sorrier than I."
Maryssa scooped up her petticoats and stumbled toward the door.
"Stop!" Instincts bred of a hundred like confrontations made her freeze where she stood at her father's command. "We've one more matter to discuss before you go running to your room. I've dismissed that Celeste woman you dragged here. Painted, disgusting wenc
h! I'll not have her in my house."
Irony swelled in Maryssa's throat, her fingers clenching on the edge of a small table beside the door. "If I told you how much I hated Celeste, would you run after her, Father?" she whispered, the words hollow as the corridor that echoed beyond the velvet-draped wall.
A dull bit of metal glimmered at Maryssa from among the gilded trinkets and gleaming candelabra on the polished mahogany table. She reached out to touch the object, which seemed strangely at odds with the richly furnished room. A tiny, cunningly wrought toy soldier, its blue-painted coat unchipped, the jaunty lead plume bedecking its hat tarnished with age, though it appeared never to have been touched by small fingers.
"Don't touch that!" Her father’s order was brittle-edged, and Maryssa was stunned to find the words tinged with pain.
She turned, fragile and tentative. "Father..."
"Od's blood! What heinous crime did I commit that I am father to such as you?" Woolly brows slashed low over Bainbridge Wylder's eyes as he jammed a blunt hand against the close-set sockets. "Worthless. A worthless chit cowering from her own shadow when I could have had—" The hand snapped away from Bainbridge's face, his knotted fist cracking down onto the desktop before him. "For God's sake, don't stand there gaping, girl! Leave me in peace before I'm tempted to rid myself of you by means more permanent than marriage!"
His rage-filled face seemed to shift into patterns of bone-deep loathing—a loathing that might well lead to . . . murder?
Maryssa felt the blood drain from her face.
"Get out!"
Her father’s furious roar seemed to clutch at her throat, cutting off breath and life. She stumbled back against the table, then wheeled and fled down the dark hallway.
Black Falcon's Lady Page 2