Fire Raven (31 page)

“Are sisters.” Kat nodded. “And twins.” At his disbelieving look, she added coolly, “It sounds fantastic, milord. But true, I assure you. Though I have learned only a little more of how I came to be in Wales, I know that I captained my own ship on that fateful day.”

Morgan didn’t question this part of her story. Instead he asked her, “How did you come to remember your past?”

“I didn’t. ’Twas bits and pieces Merry helped me to put together. For example, seeing the Tanner estate.” Kat realized she sounded defensive, and was angry she had allowed her emotions to push aside her common sense. “Anyhow, I find it difficult to believe this interests you in the slightest, milord. After all, you never questioned my disappearance from Falcon’s Lair.”

“There was no need to question the obvious.” The bitter tone in Morgan’s voice surprised her. She felt the hand beneath hers suddenly ball into a fist.

Before Kat might demand what he meant by such a remark, the dance ended. The line of dancers sank into deep curtsies or bows, as befitted their sex and rank. As she rose beside Morgan, Kat sought in vain for any clues swirling in his impenetrable onyx eyes. The mask concealed his emotions, frustrating her attempts to see the man behind the facade.

“Now is our chance to escape,” she said, quickly and quietly, “whilst Her Majesty is looking the other way.”

“Careful, Kat. Why, it sounds as if you plan a tryst,” Morgan retorted. Despite his attitude, he did not protest when she drew him down a long corridor leading to the garden.

T
HE EVENING AIR WAS
cool and crisp, heady with the scents of night stock and clove gillyflower. Kat turned to face Morgan in the moonlight, aware of every movement he made. She knew now might be the only chance for answers she would ever have. If he refused to hear her out, any chance they had was forever lost.

“Please, Morgan,” she said once more, raising her gaze to meet his, no matter how painful or difficult she found it to meet his impenetrable stare. “I must know what happened. Why you did not come for me?”

Morgan’s dark eyes narrowed through his mask. “D’you truly expect me to pursue a woman who left with her lover of her own free will?”

Kat gasped. “You thought such a thing of me?”

“There was little evidence to the contrary. Gwynneth bore witness to the fact you greeted your lover at Falcon’s Lair before her eyes. Several others confirmed the tale of several horses leaving the stables just before I returned that night. Having suddenly and miraculously gained your eyesight as well, ’tis understandable you were eager to quit my company and return to your lover.”

“And you … you believed it of me.”

“I believe you are a clever opportunist, aye.”

With a cry of frustration, Kat spun around and stared in vain into the depths of the garden. Her fists clenched at her sides. The pain was intense, shattering.
Sweet Mother and Mary, Morgan believed such lies. He believed Gwynneth, over her.

“I took no lover in all my life,” she whispered, “save one, and ’twas you.”

“As you say.”

Morgan sounded wary, unconvinced. Without looking at him, Kat continued her tale in a low, choked voice, gazing instead upon leagues of moonlit summer blossoms.

“Nor have I known but two men at all, and the first was lost to me long before my ship sank in the Irish Sea.” She was silent until she regained her composure. “I have since learned I am widowed, Morgan. My husband, Rory, died along with our crew.”

She heard Morgan’s sharp intake of breath, then:

“Jesu, Kat. I’m sorry.”

She sensed his regret was genuine but shook her head. “Nay, do not pity me. I will be honest with you. I do not truly remember Rory and thus cannot do his memory justice. I believe he was a good, kind man, but I also sense there was no true love between us. Respect, perhaps, mayhap passion, but not love.”

Morgan was silent a second, digesting her words. “Then if a lover or your husband did not come to fetch you, how did you leave Wales?”

“You heard nothing, I suppose, of the Tudor guards who came to remove me bodily from Falcon’s Lair?”

“Nay. Do tell.”

“Very well, milord.” Kat whirled back to confront Morgan, temper snapping like fire in a winter grate. She was tired of his skepticism. “For your benefit I will repeat what happened to me in clear, agonizing detail. I doubt I shall ever be able to forget the terror of that night.

“First of all, whilst I faithfully awaited your return from the village, I was betrayed by your sniveling maid servant, Gwynneth. She revealed my hiding place to the queen’s men who came to rout the leader of a supposed papist plot. ’Twas not enough they abused and humiliated me with such ridiculous accusations. Oh, nay, milord — ” she was shaking now, making it difficult to continue, “ — then I must needs be hauled to London by that lot of crude, evil-minded soldiers. I almost died of fever en route. I would have, but for Captain Navarre.”

“Navarre? The Frenchman?”

Kat detected a jealous note in Morgan’s query. “Aye, the captain you had the honor of meeting earlier at the masque when he rushed to defend Merry. Lucien protected me from the other soldiers, saw I had food and water. He protects me still at Court. I will be eternally grateful to him.”

Kat challenged Morgan with her defiant stare. She sensed his dismay and suspicion at the thought of another man caring for her. No matter how innocent the circumstances, Morgan would be hurt. In the end he must accept the existence of her first husband and Lucien’s continuing role in her life. She continued her tale in a choked voice, the lashes rimming and her eyes spiked with tears.

“Lord Lawrence was behind the kidnapping plot. I was brought to Lawrence Hall, where I told him the truth. The earl did not believe me.” Quietly, Kat explained the circumstances of her capture and arrest. She matter-of-factly told him about the close call with Newgate prison. Though Morgan did not interrupt, she sensed his pent-up frustration at the unanswered questions.

“’Tis incredible,” he whispered, when she had finished, and she stood awaiting the sarcastic words. They never came.

“What a fool I was to assume the worst. Forgive me, Kat, but I never suspected foul play in your disappearance. Lawrence took it upon himself to bring you before the queen, I swear it. ’Tis understandable, though not forgivable, to suppose my own household was duplicitous, as well.”

“I suspect Gwynneth took it upon herself,” Kat remarked. “She disliked me from the outset.”

“She had no cause. Why would Gwynneth lie to me?”

“She loves you, milord.”

“Love?” Morgan seemed genuinely surprised. “When she knows — ”

“Knows what?”

“Never mind. I do not wish to talk of Gwynneth now. But you have every right to hate me for believing her as I did.”

“I could never hate you,” Kat whispered, her throat burning with unshed tears. “Though Jesu knows I tried.”

He laughed a little and she relaxed.

“We must talk more,” she said. She sought his gaze with urgency, a plea in her voice. “Much more.”

She remembered how she had prayed, dreamed, waited for the day when she would be able to see the man she loved. He was here, at last. She reached toward his face. “Morgan, your mask — ”

“Nay!”

The unexpected harshness in his tone wounded her. Morgan shook off her attentions, keeping his face and his gaze averted from her. The sudden shift in mood alarmed her.

“What have I — ”

He cut her off with a headshake. “Kat, I am sorry. I came tonight to seek my wayward bride — that is the only reason I am here.” He paused and took a deep breath.

“It is too late. Nothing has changed between us. We are, and shall remain, apart. I must honor the contract with your family now, whilst you, apparently, have a husband to grieve. Forgive me, but I cannot endure the pain of another parting and would spare you the same. The final cut must be swift and true, lest the wound turn putrid.”

Still she stood there, numb with shock, long after he turned and stalked off in the shadows.

C
AUGHT UP IN HER
own secret pain, Kat was unaware of time passing. Suddenly she noticed the dusk, shadows barely held at bay by the occasional sconces spaced along the garden wall. How long had she wandered the gardens, nursing her wounds?

The sound of feminine laughter caught her attention. She froze in the shadows as a couple passed within a handspan, their features obscured by darkness. But both voices were all too familiar to her.

“I do not know if I should allow such familiarities, Adrien,” Merry giggled as she clung to the Frenchman’s arm. “The queen will miss me soon, and within minutes my reputation shall be tattered as my costume. I already tossed my lovely mask you broke.”

“
Ma chère
, what harm can a stolen moment of secret pleasure bring?” As he spoke, Saville maneuvered Merry up against the trunk of a tree and pinned her on either side with his outstretched arms. Their figures were thrown into relief by the sconces placed along the garden walls, but the shadow from the tree fell oddly across the Frenchman’s face, turning his handsome features into something dark and sinister. He was dressed as a knight from the Crusades, in a chainmail hauberk but without a mask.

Oblivious to the danger Kat sensed, Merry laughed, peeking at him between her splayed fingers like a little girl. It was clear she expected their garden rendezvous might turn passionate.

Saville ignored her antics and spoke with an odd intensity.

“Sweet Meredith, this is the first time you and I have been well and truly alone. Your amazon of a sister seems always between us. I never dreamed the day would come you’d agree to meet me alone.”

“Kat acts a mother-hen at times,” Merry admitted, serious again. Her voice held a cross note. “’Tis most unlike her. Methinks she well knows your true intentions, sirrah.”

From her vantage point, Kat noted Saville’s odd reaction to her sister’s words. He stiffened, as if Merry’s idle remark somehow constituted a threat. Moonlight shifted across his saturnine features, silvering his smile with shadows. Kat shivered when Merry continued speaking in a playful vein. The redhead tapped Saville on the arm with her folded fan.

“La, count, has the cat got your tongue this night?” Laughter trilled from Merry’s lips at the bad pun. “I fear m’dear Kat is right, isn’t she? You have something important to ask me.”

Now
. Kat saw Saville mouth the single word, and an icy trickle of fear gripped her. She noticed how the man stared down into her sister’s eyes, as if mesmerized. His right hand dropped to rest on the sword hilt at his side, while the other snaked out and encircled Merry’s tiny waist.

“
Oui
,” he whispered ominously. “I do, indeed, have something to ask you,
Mademoiselle
Tanner.”

Oblivious to the dangerous undercurrent in his voice, Merry continued gazing insipidly at Saville. Her eyes widened when the Frenchman commenced speaking in a tight voice.

“I wish to ask you about my sister. Certainly you must have heard the tale of Gillian Lovelle. She was once accounted the most beautiful woman in England, known as Aphrodite at Court. No doubt your father boasts of her sad fate quite openly at your family gatherings.”

“Of what do you speak?” Merry asked Saville, puzzled. She looked concerned by the sudden wrath in his tone. He restrained her against the tree.

“Surely you know by now, Meredith. Or are you really so naive? Ah, I fear you are. Such a pity.” Saville raised his hand, stroked Merry’s cheek. She started to tremble.

Outraged, Kat stepped forward to intercede on Merry’s behalf. Yet, at the last moment, something gave her pause. She sensed Saville was on the verge of confessing something important. Though tense and fearful for her sister’s sake, she waited to hear his explanation.

“Stop it, Adrien. I-I don’t like this game.”

“Game?” Saville muttered, grabbing Merry and savagely shaking her by the shoulders. “You think this is a game, little girl? Slade Tanner destroyed my sister’s life, and I have spent seventeen years of my life waiting for revenge.”