Beloved (18 page)

Fie! Great-Grandmama Franchot wanted Saber to help find Ella a husband? What bitter irony.

Ella went closer to the fire. Her body was cold, yet she still felt Saber’s warm chest on her cheek and the texture of his
coat, smelled his clean masculine scent.

He had pressed his mouth into her palm. She looked at the place. When he’d brushed his lips over her skin, there had been
an expression of longing on his face, longing, and struggle within.

It was because her childhood made him angry that he would not let her speak of it. What he didn’t know was that much as she
detested her past, she feared her present more. She feared her present if the scrap of chiffon meant someone had indeed recognized
her and intended to make her secrets public.

Why would anyone do such a thing, other than to victimize her, to control her?

If she told Saber her fears, what would he do? Tell her family to take her away from London? Tell them that he would be what
they wanted for her, a loving husband? That he would protect her from vicious tongues?

She turned her head sharply.

Fool. If he wanted her, he could have her. He did not want her.

Ella picked up the reticule he’d given her and sat on the ebony chair to wait for the coach to come for her.

Saber would return before it was time for her to go back to Hanover Square.

Coals in the grate snapped. Flames wound up the crooked chimney, red and purple and blue.

From somewhere came a creak. She stared at the door. The house pressed in around her, heavy, still, and silent.

Mr. Bigun might have forgotten all about Papa’s request and gone to bed. The servant might even have left the house altogether.

Saber was in the house. Ella could feel him.

He had gone away because he was troubled. But he could return at any moment. Surely he would not simply leave her alone here.

A long case clock ticked in a corner.

The flames shrank a little lower.

Saber
would
come back.

Ella’s next breath quivered into her chest. He would come to her and she would be glad.

But…He was right, he was not the same.

She drew her bottom lip between her teeth and slipped to sit far back in the chair. Saber would never do anything to hurt
her.

“Oh, come back,” she said.

“Where are you?” Saber was not the same.

Brave Ella was frightened.

“Get out, Bigun!”

“The young lady has already left, my lord?”

“I told you to leave. Now.”

Bigun produced the small bottle he seemed always to carry somewhere about his person, and poured a measure of brown liquid
into a glass. “Drink this, my lord, and lie down.”

“And sleep?” Saber laughed. “Thank you, Bigun, but no. In that direction lies only disaster. Go to your own bed.”

“Your family does not appreciate you, my lord.”

“What?” Saber swung from looking through his bedchamber window at the dark roofs of the stables behind the house. “What in
God’s name are you jabbering about?”

“They treat you badly.”

“I have no idea what you mean. My family has not been part of my life in recent years because of certain misunderstandings.”

“And now they think of you as someone who has no life of his own, master.”

Saber shook his head shortly, and winced at the pain in his temples. Ella was alone and confused in this house—in his house,
where she should never have to feel anything but comfort.

“Perhaps I have done some good in that area,” Bigun said. The sound Saber dreaded started, very low, very far away, but growing
louder and closer.

Hoofbeats.

“Now they will know that you are in demand, too. And perhaps the young lady’s ardor will return.”

He squinted at Bigun. “Speak plainly.”

Bigun looked pained. “I am plain. Invitations, I told them. Proposals of marriage. It is known that nothing makes a commodity
more precious than scarcity.”

Saber went to the chest beside his bed and slid open a drawer. The emeralds in the handle of the dagger shone dully. “You
talk nonsense, and I have no patience for it now, my friend.” The dagger had severed the threads that held the buttons.

“Not nonsense at all. Now they will think of how many females desire you, my lord.”

He glanced up. “Was that what all that invitation and proposal rubbish was about?”

“Not rubbish. A calculated move on my part, master. And I saw the young lady’s face. She was jealous at once. The old one
will think about it and come to the appropriate decision too.”

The dagger had been in his hand, retrieved from a fallen enemy. He’d seen a bare arm upraised, a similar dagger clasped in
a strong fist.

“Oh, yes, the old one will stop, and cast about, and say, Saber is receiving proposals of marriage. He does not have time
to waste on lists of suitors for Ella. And then she will—”

“Please go away.”

“Drink the potion, master.”

“Leave me.”

Bigun, the glass in one hand, turned down Saber’s bed. “Miss Rossmara’s head has been turned by the attention she has received
at her first event, master. But now, because of Bigun’s ploy, she will want you even more than she did before.”

The Indian’s voice droned and blurred.

That strong arm had descended, and another Englishman’s last scream split the air. Saber scrambled after the assailant, grabbed
his arm, tore at him. He held the wrist where the Englishman’s blood trickled from the killing knife, and stared into a foreign
face.

Young. Younger than Saber by far. Like the lad he had taken to safety.

Bigun’s voice ceased to form words. “Go to your bed,” Saber told him, forcing himself to walk to the door and open it. “Thank
you for your efforts. Most… Most inventive. Good night.”

“The young lady?”

“She is safe. Her father will return for her.” Perhaps by then he could hope to have collected himself.

Bigun held up the glass. “Drink—”

“Leave it. I’ll drink it in good time.”

Bigun hovered a moment longer, then did as he was commanded.

Saber waited for the sound of his servant’s slippers to recede before lifting the dagger from the drawer. The three emeralds
in the hilt shone mysteriously.

Hoofbeats.

He was awake and hearing the horses—just like the last time when exhaustion had claimed him after too long a fight against
sleep.

How could he subject Ella to this?

Even if he could push the acts she had been forced to perform from his mind and take what she offered him, how could he ever
take her to his bed knowing she might see what he had become?

His mind was changed forever.

Ribbons of color wound about his brain. Pain and horror sickened him. He closed his eyes and saw a gush of bright light—and
the light pierced his head.

He sweated and tore, gasping, at his neckcloth—and slipped to his knees beside the bed.

Aieee!

The face of a youth. Saber had hesitated.

Hoofbeats.

A second, surely only a second of hesitation. But a rearing animal caught Saber’s shoulder and the dagger had flown to the
shredded earth.

And in the heartbeats that followed, that youth with cold eyes and white teeth between snarling lips, had driven his weapon
into the breasts of two more Englishmen. Two more had died.

The boy’s laugh jarred Saber. He shuddered, and lunged for the dagger. Words he did not understand streamed from the mouth
in the blood-spattered face. The moment Saber’s fingers would have closed upon the dagger, the stranger reached it first and
snatched it up, and slashed at Saber’s face.

“Stop it, stop it!” Saber stumbled to his feet and staggered to lean against the wall of his bedchamber. He could not bear
the memories.

The dagger tore his face, his neck. And then he fell, tried to turn and grab the boy’s legs. But the blade descended, plowed
through his back, and rose. Again it plunged, again and again.

All pain, all blood. Face-to-face with a dead Englishman in the mud. A man as young as the stranger Saber had thought to spare.

He had betrayed his own. Mothers and fathers had lost sons. Wives had lost husbands, children their fathers, brothers and
sisters, their brothers—because Saber had failed them all.

He had been attacked with the knife that would have saved the lives of comrades. Attacked and left for dead.

The coals were all but spent. Sparks crackled where flames had curled.

Ella shivered. An hour had passed since Saber left her. Fifteen minutes had been spent before that and after the dowager and
Papa’s departure. So much time remained before she could hope to be taken home.

On an upper floor something thudded.

Ella held the reticule tightly against her stomach. She was safe here. Nothing would ever happen to her in Saber’s house.
He would not allow it.

Footsteps, heavy and slow, sounded on the stairs leading down to the vestibule.

She wetted her dry lips. Of course. Saber felt guilty at having deserted her and was coming to ensure her comfort. He would
be angry at Mr. Bigun for allowing the fire to burn so low.

The footsteps met the flags in the vestibule. Heels clipped on stone.

Ella rose and moved to stand behind the chair. Her eyes strained against candlelight burning low in the vessels offered up
by Saber’s statues.

Her heart rivaled the crack of shoes on tile. Her heart beat much faster.

Then the door opened and Saber stood there. “Oh.” Her relief at the sight of him all but buckled her legs. “Oh, Saber. Thank
goodness you are returned.”

He didn’t reply.

The door slammed shut behind him and he approached her across carpet that swallowed his footsteps.

“Saber, there are things I want to tell you. Please will you listen to me now?”

He raised his right hand.

Gripped in his white-knuckled fingers, a gilded dagger gleamed.

G
ripped in his white-knuckled fingers, a gilded dagger gleamed.

Ella held the back of the chair. “Saber?”

His eyes stared past her, vacant, yet not vacant—seeing, yet not seeing anything of this world.

“Saber, what is it? What’s happened to you?”

Slowly, his blank gaze settled on her face. She saw the sheen of perspiration on his brow.

Unable to resist, she took a step backward, and another. Saber wouldn’t hurt her…. She retreated until she bumped into a bronze
figure of a man in flowing robes. Ella grabbed the statue and it wobbled.

Saber advanced. Never looking away from her, he wiped his brow with a sleeve—and closed the distance between them.

Was he awake? What had she heard about people who walked while asleep?
Do not awaken them.

Ella held very still.

The dagger caught the light. He held it so tightly, his fist shook.

He would not hurt her. Transfixed, she stared at the glinting blade. Closer and closer. Saber walked as if his feet were weighted,
or pulled back by water.

And then he was before her, above her, watching her with eyes as deep green as glimpses of emeralds in the handle of the dagger.

Ella screamed. Her legs would not hold her any longer. She stumbled against Saber, grasped his coat and began to slide downward.

One strong hand clasped her arm. “Ella? My dear girl—are you ill?” His voice sounded as if it hadn’t been used in a long time.
“Ella?”

He had stopped her fall. Keeping her hold on his coat, Ella steadied herself and raised her face. “You…Saber, the knife. You
frightened me.”

Pulling down his brows, he studied the weapon in his hand. “Cuts skin and flesh,” he said, “and spirit—and soul.”

Her teeth chattered together.

His arm went around her waist. Their bodies pressed together, his solid chest to her soft breasts, his unyielding hips and
thighs against her stomach, her legs.

Ella slipped her hands beneath his arms, rested her face on his shoulder and clung. “Is that the knife that … Is it the one
that wounded you?”

His grip on her tightened. “What? No, no, of course not.” Saber’s trembling matched her own. He was like a man returning from
another place. “The knife? The dagger? I brought it down to show you. Another memento of my travels.”

Ella simply held him and struggled to control her quaking limbs.

“Isn’t it pretty?”

She shook her head. “I hate it. I don’t like the way it feels. Evil.”

His laugh was forced. “Such an imagination. You and Max must both have fed on dreamers’ milk when you were infants.”

That brought a fleeting smile to her lips. Max had a shocking reputation for falsehoods that were not exactly falsehoods.
His imagination had often all but brought him to disaster—it had also saved him. Ella knew how her younger brother had used
his flights of fancy to escape the degradation of his early life.

“You would find Max changed,” she told Saber, hugging him the tighter. “When he comes to London to visit, you will not believe
how he has grown up.”