Devil's Embrace (30 page)

He did not bother with luncheon, but ordered Paolo to bring around his black stallion, Cicero, and left immediately for Genoa.

Sordello was not quite sure why he drew back into the thick bushes that lined the dusty road at the sight of the on-coming horsemen, but even from a distance he knew them to be strangers, and strangers he did not trust. He quickly jerked in his fishing pole and crouched down. He felt his heart plummet to his shoes as they drew up not far from his hiding place.

Their voices were low and muffled by their heavy great-coats. He really had no wish to hear their conversation, merely to remain hidden from their sight, but he heard one of the men say quite clearly, “I know this is their direction. Giacomo saw the Corsican ride out with the English girl not more than an hour ago.”

The man, who evidently was Giacomo, grunted in assent. “And
Il Signore
left the villa in the opposite direction.”

The man who had first spoken, the leader, Sordello supposed, for he was a huge, burly man, with a loud voice, said even more loudly, “Then it’s off we are, lads, if we are to be at Vannone’s hut by nightfall.”

Sordello heard one man curse at the light drizzle that had begun to fall. His voice was consumed by the galloping horses’ hooves as they rode away. Sordello crawled quietly from his hiding place and watched the men ride up the snaking road that wound through the hills. He felt a quiver of fear. They were taking the same route as the madonna and Joseph had ridden earlier. His mind worked feverishly as he dusted off his trousers and clutched his fishing pole firmly to his side. He wasn’t at all sure what the man’s words meant, but the thought that they might hurt Joseph sent him hurtling over the high stone walls of the Villa Parese to search out Scargill.

He breathlessly repeated to the Scotsman what he could remember and watched fearfully as Scargill’s ruddy face paled.

“Ye heard nothing more, lad?”

“No, signore. But they looked vicious and mean.”

Scargill didn’t hesitate. Even if the boy had totally misunderstood what the men were about, he could not afford to take the chance.

“Quickly, boy, tell Paolo and yer father to make themselves ready. I will fetch his lordship from Genoa.”

Scargill never slackened his horse’s pace, but he began to feel nagging doubts by the time he reached the harbor and
The Cassandra.
He was beginning to feel indeed the fool when he stepped into the captain’s cabin. The earl and Mr. Donnetti were seated across from each other at the table. In the earl’s hands was a bolt of singularly beautiful silk.

“My lord.”

“Scargill! What the devil are you doing here?” He dropped the bolt of silk and rose to his feet.

“I think there may be trouble, my lord.” He saw Mr. Donnetti’s hand move to the slender stiletto at his belt.

“Very well, tell me what has happened.” The earl’s voice was controlled yet impatient, and it had the effect of making Scargill pour out Sordello’s story with scarce a pause.

“That is all?”

“The boy said there were four of them and they were a vicious-looking lot.” Scargill had done his duty, and waited
for the earl to shrug and admonish him not to be an impressionable ass.

The earl turned to Mr. Donnetti. “Francesco, hire horses and bring two of your best men to the villa. I will assure that there is someone there to guide you further. Scargill, you said they mentioned Vannone’s hut?”

“Aye, my lord, the boy was certain about the name. Ye know the place?”

“Yes, I believe I do. It’s an abandoned shack, supposedly haunted by a blackguard, Vannone, long dead. Francesco, it lies about seven miles into the hills, west of the villa, just off the main road. Make haste, my friend.”

The earl turned quickly and strode to his desk. Scargill saw him stare for a brief instant at one of the dueling pistols before he thrust them into his belt. It was the pistol the madonna had shot him with.

Cassie pulled herself forward from her comfortable position against a tree trunk and squinted heavenward. “Oh dear,” she said, “I do believe the earl was right. I think a raindrop just fell on my nose.”

“
Si,
and because you are headstrong, we are both in for a good soaking.”

Cassie wrinkled her nose at him. “I suppose you will tell me now that you have not much enjoyed gorging yourself on the cold chicken and cheese. And the prospect is so beautiful. A little rain will not make us melt, Joseph.”

Joseph rose unhurriedly to his feet and sniffed the air. “We will return now, madonna. If you will not take care of yourself, then I must.”

“Very well.” She stretched her stiff legs and shook out her velvet riding skirt. “It has grown somewhat chilly, I will grant you that.”

Joseph’s toes were feeling prickly with cold, but he curbed a sharp retort. Her perversity, he realized, was part of her charm, and like his master, he was not at all immune to it. He quickly packed up the basket and tossed Cassandra into her saddle.

“The feather in your hat will be a wilted mess by the time we return,” he said, not without some satisfaction.

Cassie touched her fingers to the fast drooping feather and laughed. “If it will bring you pleasure, my friend, then I will pray for the clouds to flood us.”

He tried to frown at her, but failed. She was indeed a minx, he thought. It surprised him greatly that after some twenty-five years of silence, he had found himself telling her about his young wife, Maria, and their short year together on Corsica. A lifetime ago, yet when he was with the madonna, the happy memories stirred themselves into life.

It began to rain in earnest, and Joseph motioned to Cassandra to quicken her mare’s pace. He imagined the earl would have his head as it was, for returning her to the villa in sodden clothing. He corrected himself quickly, for the master was rarely unfair. It was Joseph’s self-willed mistress who would receive a good trimming.

Joseph reined in his horse at a sharp bend in the rutted, now slippery road, and looked skyward. Already the afternoon was shadowed and gray, and the air had turned a muddy color.

His horse snorted and reared back in surprise, and Joseph’s hands tightened on the reins. He looked down the winding road that crisscrossed in and out of the hills below them. Four horsemen, heavily cloaked, were riding purposefully up the road, several hundred yards below them. He felt growing alarm, for he recognized neither the horses nor the men. Suddenly, one of the men drew up, raised himself in the saddle, and scanned the hills above him. To Joseph’s horror, the man pointed at him and yelled something to the others. He could hear the pounding hooves as the galloping horses strained forward toward them.

Cassie pulled her mare to a halt beside him. “What is it, Joseph?”

He turned in his saddle to face her and said in a low, hard voice, “Listen carefully, madonna, and do exactly as I tell you. There are four men coming and I know that they mean us no good.” As he spoke, he pulled a pistol from his belt and carefully laid back the hammer.

“Dear God, whatever are you talking about?”

He waved away her question. “Do you know the direction of the villa if you leave the road?”

“I believe so, but—”

“I will halt the men here. You, madonna, will leave the road. You must go carefully, for the incline, though slight, is fast becoming a sea of mud. Ride through the trees yon for at least a mile before you return to the road. Then I want you to ride like the devil himself back to the villa. I will try to catch up with you.”

“Surely you are mistaken. Joseph, I cannot leave you.”

Joseph uttered a loud oath and for the first time since she had met him, she saw the fierce, set lines of the Barbary pirate on his face.

His fear communicated itself to her, and she shivered.

“Go, quickly.” He drew back his hand and slapped her mare’s rump hard with the butt of his pistol.

Cassie looked back at him. He was covering his pistol with his cloak to shield it from the rain, and studying the terrain around him with narrowed, calculating eyes. Cassie guided her mare off the road and down the incline. Brambles tore at her riding skirt and cloak, but she was scarce aware of them. The suddenness of what was happening made her fear somehow unreal, as if she had been thrust into a bizarre nightmare.

The trees were thick, but her Arabian-bred mare nimbly sought out the narrow passages between them, side-stepping dangerously thorned underbrush. Her mare pushed forward until they came upon a narrow, nearly overgrown footpath, Cassie click-clicked her into a canter, and at the same instant, her mare’s ears flattened at the sound of a pistol shot, followed quickly by another. Their retorts merged into a single staccato echo off the hills.

“Joseph,” Cassie croaked, and slewed her head back in the direction she had come.

She heard the loud crashing of horses through the thick underbrush and felt her mouth go dry. She whipped her mare forward, urging her into a gallop. Low-hanging tree branches tore at her riding hat, and her mare snorted angrily as thorny bushes ripped at her legs. The horses’ hooves pounded behind her, through the thick forest, drawing closer. Suddenly, her mare burst through the trees.

She cried out in disbelief. On the road below her, a man
sat waiting on his horse, his face shrouded by a black mask. They had guessed what she would do. She eyed the distance between them, bowed her head close to her mare’s neck, dug her heels into her tender sides, and whipped her into a mad gallop down the slope.

Giacomo watched the girl tearing toward him in some surprise. But he was experienced in his work. He grinned in anticipation, for she was bringing sport to what he had thought would be a dull post. He knew she would try to startle his horse out of her path, and he grasped his horse’s reins more firmly. He whipped his horse into a gallop before she reached the road, and when Cassie’s mare veered away at the last instant, he reached out and raked her off her horse’s back. She clawed wildly against his arms, and he could not stop her mare, who was galloping erratically away from him down the hill road. He felt her nails rake at his neck, and with a bellow of fury, struck her jaw with his fist.

Brilliant flashes of white exploded in her head, and she slumped limply against him.

“Good work, Giacomo,” Andrea said, as his mount gained the road. “You haven’t killed her, have you?”

“No, but she’s a feisty wench.” He wrapped his hand roughly about a mass of golden hair that spilled loosely down her back. “She’s a beauty, this one.”

Andrea laughed heartily. “There’ll be time enough for that once we get her to Vannone’s hut.” He whipped his horse about, and waved to Giacomo. They left her soaked, bedraggled riding hat lying trampled at the side of the road.

Cassie smelled wet, sweat-soaked wool. She gagged and tried to wrench herself away from the stench, but a strong hand pressed hard against her back.

“Make yourself easy, my girl,” she heard a man say. “It won’t be long now.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but a sharp pain in her jaw held her silent. She discovered she was flung like a sack of grain face down over a saddle, her face pressed against the man’s thigh. She tried once again to jerk herself free, and the man pulled viciously at her hair, until she cried out.

“Hold still,” came a snarling command. She felt the man’s
hand move downward from the small of her back, until he probed roughly at her buttocks through her thick cloak. She froze, every thought suspended, and swallowed convulsively, fear and bile rising in her throat. Dear God, where was Joseph? She remembered the two shots that had echoed off the hills, and closed her eyes tight against her mounting terror.

She fought against growing nausea and spasmodic pain that gnawed at her belly from the jolting horse’s gallop. It had stopped raining and the gray afternoon shadows had lengthened before she heard the shout of a man and felt the horse beneath her come to a halt.

“Bring her in, I’ll light the lamps.” It was a man’s loud voice.

Her fear made her wily, and she forced her stiff muscles to go limp when she was pulled from the saddle. She thought the man believed her to have fainted for he held her loosely with but one arm about her waist. Without warning, she twisted wildly in his grasp and smashed his face with her fist. He howled, and she was suddenly free, stumbling away from him, running blindly into the growing darkness.

She felt a tremendous weight strike her back, and she went hurtling to the ground, breathless. A man’s heavy body covered her, grinding her into the earth. She heard a deep, throaty laugh close to her ear. “Giacomo is right, you are a feisty wench. More’s the pleasure for us, my fine lady.”

Cassie was jerked to her feet, her arms twisted behind her. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out, to deny them the pleasure of hearing her pain. They dragged her up rotted wooden steps through the open door of a small cabin and shoved her inside. She staggered forward and sprawled to her knees.

“Madonna.” Joseph’s anguished voice restored her to reason, and she jerked her head toward him.

He stood in the far corner of the room, his arms held by two men. There was a wide red stain spreading down his shirt.

“My God, Joseph, you are hurt.” She struggled to her feet, but the huge burly man flung her back to the floor.

“Leave her alone, you stinking pigs!” Cassie heard pain
beneath the fury in Joseph’s shout. She had to help him—somehow.

She looked up at the huge man, whose hooded face made him all the more terrifying, for he seemed faceless. “Do you not realize who I am?” she said in a cold voice. “In case you do not, I am betrothed to Anthony Welles, the master of the Villa Parese. If it is money you want, you shall have it, but only if we are returned unharmed. I demand that you release us at once.”

Andrea appeared thoughtful for a moment. He stroked his jaw and turned to the other men. “Well, my lads, what do you think of the lady’s offer?”

“I’ll tell you what I think of the little bitch.” Cassie had no time to pull out of Giacomo’s way, for he stood over her. His booted foot smashed against her ribs, and she doubled over, violent pain ripping her chest. She heard a ragged curse from Joseph, and then a strange, soft whimper. The whimper, she realized dimly, came from deep in her throat.