Heartless (35 page)

And so she procrastinated.

When would be a good time? Would a good time ever present itself as though on a platter? Would it not have to be created? But when? There would be only one chance. Only one. She had no other weapon. No one would come to her rescue. No one knew where she was. The only help she could expect must come from herself. And from her knife.

Oh, dear God. Oh, Luke.

But there was no point in giving in to panic or self-pity. And so she paced.

Until a sound outside the door had her stopping abruptly and straining to hear. It was not loud, but it sounded like a scuffle.

She was not mistaken. Sir Lovatt, too, was suddenly alert. He was half out of his chair by the time a grunt outside the door was followed almost immediately by the crash of the door opening inward and colliding with the inner wall.

“I regret to inform you, Blakely,” Lucas Kendrick, Duke of Harndon, told Sir Lovatt, all cold formality, “that your servant has met with a little accident. I believe he is—to put the matter bluntly—dead.”

The unsheathed sword he held in his right hand was red to the hilt and dripped onto the worn carpet.

Anna's trembling hands went to her mouth.

Dear God, thank you. Dear God, let me not be dreaming. Not unless the whole thing is a dream.

•   •   •

Luke
had been sick with worry throughout the journey. There were several ports from which one might sail to America, including London itself. What if Blakely had not made for the nearest one? And what if he had, and had had the good fortune to find a ship about to sail? And how was Luke to find them in Southampton anyway? Blakely, he remembered now that he thought about it, had always ridden in a plain carriage. Luke doubted he would recognize it even if he saw it.

It was evening by the time he reached Southampton. But as it turned out, tracking down his quarry proved almost unbelievably easy. There was a ship bound for America the next day. The captain was on board and confirmed the fact that Sir Lowell Blakely had booked passage for himself and for his daughter and her child. They were to board soon after first light on the morrow. Given that fact, it was unlikely that they had put up at an inn very far from the quay, the captain gave as his opinion. There were four inns within a stone's throw, so to speak.

They were not at either the White Horse or the Dolphin. The landlords of both watched the gold coins Luke jingled absently in one hand with some wistfulness but could give him no information. The landlord at the George was a different story. He licked his lips at sight of the coins and glanced with shifty eyes in the direction of the stairs. He had already denied knowledge of the travelers. Luke casually added two more coins to the others.

“Well, there is a gent with a lady and a babe in number twelve, an' it please your worship,” the man said. “But I vow I do not know if 'tis your man.”

“Who else is with them?” Luke asked, the coins suspended over his closed fingers halfway across the taproom counter.

“A manservant,” the innkeeper said. “He is on guard outside the room, your worship. He has a pistol. But I will have any damage to my good house paid for in full, d'ye hear?”

Luke looked steadily into the man's eyes as he dropped the coins into his open palm. The landlord licked his lips and turned shifty-eyed again.

“As I was a-saying,” he said, “you should find the gent in number twelve, your worship.”

The man who was sitting outside room number twelve, looking bored, was the same man who had refused to deliver Anna's letter into Luke's hand one morning at the gates to Bowden Abbey. He lost his look of boredom as soon as he caught sight of Luke, bounded to his feet, and assumed a posture of defense, both hands clenched into fists and raised menacingly before him.

Luke would have been content to knock the man insensible, but even as he moved in with his fists, evaded his opponent's guard, and landed one satisfying punch to the jaw, the servant drew a pistol. It was a mistake he would not live to regret. Luke's sword was drawn and through his stomach even before he could get his finger on the trigger. He moaned, but he was dead before he measured his length on the floor.

Luke opened the door of the room and flung it inward. One glance assured him that there were three occupants. Anna was there, standing at one side of the room. Joy was lying in a sleeping bundle on a sofa at the opposite side. Blakely was between them.

And it was on Blakely, alert and half out of his chair, that Luke's eyes and all of his attention focused.

“I regret to inform you, Blakely,” he said, “that your servant has met with a little accident. I believe he is—to put the matter bluntly—dead.”

His mind assessed the fact that his wife and his daughter were widely separated and that the other door—doubtless leading to a bedchamber—was close to Anna but far away from Joy. There was no chance to get them out of the way.

Sir Lowell Blakely finished getting to his feet, his sword scraping free of its scabbard as he did so. “Harndon,” he said, eyeing Luke's sword with some distaste, “this is a rude interruption to a quiet evening I am spending with my Anna.”

“You sully her grace's name by permitting it to pass your lips,” Luke said. “It were better to make use of that weapon if you know how.”

“I wonder if you realize,” Sir Lowell said, smiling, “what a strumpet you have for a wife, Harndon. It were best to let me take her away with me. You would not want her if you knew all.”

“Perhaps you noticed,” Luke said softly, “that I call you Blakely, not either Blaydon or Lomax. I am not in utter ignorance of the facts. On guard, Blakely.”

“The baby,” Anna moaned. “Oh, dear God, the baby.”

But Luke could not afford to have his attention diverted by the very real danger to his wife and his daughter on either side of him.

Blakely was not a worthy opponent. Luke realized that early in the fight, at the first clash of swords. He fought defensively and wildly, trying to take his opponent by surprise and end the bout quickly. But he was a desperate man, and desperate men are ever dangerous. Luke fought with care and with intelligence, parrying wild thrusts and patiently setting up his opponent for the inevitable opening that would take his sword in for the kill.

He was aware that Anna had not stayed where she was but was edging her way around the room in an attempt to reach the baby. But he could not spare a moment's attention either to look at her or to advise her to stay still. He could only ensure that she stayed out of range of either his sword or Blakely's.

But Blakely had noticed her too. And Luke had made the mistake of assuming that he, too, would ignore her and keep his full attention on the fight to the death in which he was involved. Blakely suddenly whirled about, dropped his sword with a clatter to the carpet, whipped an arm about Anna and turned back so that her body was a shield between him and Luke. He drew a pistol from his pocket. A moment later its muzzle was resting against Anna's temple.

Sir Lowell was smiling and breathless. “It might be advisable to set the sword down on the floor, my dear Harndon,” he said. “You may not enjoy seeing your wife's brains spattered all over the room. Now, if you please.”

For the first time Luke's eyes rested fully on his wife. She was deathly pale. She was looking directly back at him. “I am sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry.” And she closed her eyes.

Luke leaned slowly down and set his sword on the floor at his feet. He straightened up again. What now? What the devil was to be done now? He cursed himself for not anticipating that very obvious move of Blakely's.

“Luke,” Anna was saying, “you had best go back home. He will not kill you or me if you agree to go. I do not love you, you see. I never have. And I have no further wish to live with you. I am going to America with Sir Lowell. He has a home prepared for me there. And although I have been reluctant all day, I know now that I have seen you again that I really want to go.”

Luke's eyes focused on her as her words lashed at him. But her eyes were sending him a different message entirely. And from the edge of his vision he could see her hand inching its way beneath the folded back portion of her gown to the side of her petticoat. There was a slit there through which she could reach into a pocket. What was in the pocket? What the devil was in it?

“Strumpet?” he said, eyes blazing, voice dripping scorn. “Aye, 'twas well said, Blakely. Strumpet indeed. Is this what I get for coming after you to claim my own? America, you say? Go, and good riddance, madam.” His nostrils flared. And his knees felt suddenly weak. He had seen what Anna was sliding free of the petticoat slit.

Anna turned her head slowly so that the muzzle of the pistol moved from her temple almost to the center of her forehead. She smiled. “Shoot him instead of me,” she said. “Dear Father. Dearest Papa.”

Sir Lowell's eyes turned to her in some surprise and the gun shifted position slightly so that it was no longer against her head—or pointing at any other occupant of the room.

Luke watched, his heart in his mouth, as Anna's hand whipped up and she stabbed the knife sharply downward into Sir Lowell's leg.

He howled with shock and pain, Anna whirled away, and Luke snatched up his sword from the floor and embedded it in Sir Lowell Blakely's heart.

Sir Lowell stared at him for a moment, a ghastly smile on his lips. Luke withdrew his sword before the man pitched forward, dead, onto his face.

Anna had the baby, still miraculously asleep, in her arms. Luke dropped his sword as she stumbled toward him, and opened his arms. He held them both against him, his eyes tightly closed. Neither he nor Anna spoke.

“Lawks a-mercy,” the voice of the landlord said from the doorway. “Two dead bodies, and more blood than will wash away with a dozen pails of water, forsooth. And who is to answer for these two deaths, your worship?”

“The Duke of Harndon,” Luke said with weary haughtiness. “You will send for the nearest magistrate without delay, my good man. Standing there gawking will accomplish nothing.”

A group of curious servants and guests had gathered in the hallway to witness the fascinating spectacle of a dead and bloody body stretched on the floor there. Several of them peered into the room for the extra satisfaction of seeing the phenomenon repeated—but this time the body belonged to a gentleman, the murmur went.

“Anna,” Luke said, leading her to the doorway into the bedchamber, “there is no need for you to have to look further on this. Wait in here with Joy.”

“Yes,” she said as he opened the door and stepped into the inner room with her. She raised a face to his that was even more ghastly pale than before. “Luke, thank you for coming. Thank you for killing him for me. I did not come willingly. I swear it.”

“I know.” He bent his head and kissed her quickly. “I know, my love. And I must treat you with care for the rest of my life. I will live in fear and trembling of that knife hand of yours.”

She laughed shakily and bit her lip.

“Stay here for now,” he said, looking down at their oblivious daughter and bending his head to kiss her too on the forehead. “I'll be back, Anna. We will leave here tonight, late as it is. We will go home.”

“Yes.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Yes, please, Luke.”

I
T
was close to midnight when he came back into the room. She had lain on the bed the whole while, having removed only her hoops, staring upward. Joy, beside her, had not stirred. Sometimes Anna had stilled her thoughts by listening to the child's quiet breathing. She had tried to ignore the sound of voices in the other room and the line of light beneath the door.

She had plunged a knife into living flesh and had heard the howl of agony she had caused. And she had exulted in the feeling of power and triumph. She would have pulled the knife out and stabbed it into his heart if she could have done so and felt even more triumphant. She shivered.

And then eventually the door opened again and Luke came in. She turned her head to watch him as he approached the bed. The light was behind him so that she could not see his face.

“Do you want to stay here for the night, Anna?” he asked. “It is very late.”

“No.” She sat up. The thought of staying, of trying to sleep in this room, even if he stayed there with her, was nauseating. “I want to go home.”

“The carriage is ready,” he said, looking down at their daughter. “She is wrapped warmly. Those are your trunks?”

Anna shook her head. “They are what he brought for me,” she said. “I do not want them. Only Joy's bag of supplies.”

But he stooped over one of the trunks, opened the lid, and came out after a brief rummaging with a new and warm-looking cloak. He wrapped it about her when she got to her feet. “We will burn it when we get home if you wish,” he said.

“Yes.” She shivered despite the increased warmth the cloak brought.

The landlord was still up. He bowed obsequiously to them as they passed through the taproom. A few guests, who were sitting up late drinking, perhaps discussing the exciting events of the evening, gazed at them silently. And then they were in the blessed darkness and familiarity of their own carriage.

Anna sank down onto one of the seats and watched as Luke set the baby down opposite and wedged her carefully with the blankets so that she could not roll off.

“How wonderful,” Anna said, “to have the kind of innocence and the sense of security that would enable one to sleep through such an evening.”

Luke sat down and took her hand in his.

“How did you know?” she asked him. “How did you know he had taken us? How did you know where to look for us? Did Henrietta tell you?”

“Emily told me,” he said. “She saw all, Anna, and somehow managed to tell me all, even to the fact that he was taking you to America. Theo is at Bowden to protect her from Henrietta, so you need not worry about her. Henrietta will be sent away tomorrow. You will never see her again.”

Anna did not comment. There was nothing to say about Henrietta, whom both she and Luke had loved at different times. They sat in silence for a while.

“You called him by his real name,” she said at last. “Even I did not know it until today.”

“'Twas the business that took me from home,” he said. “I needed to find out who Colonel Henry Lomax really was, Anna, and what hold he had over you. Your brother and sister and Lady Sterne helped me to piece the story together. You called him Father.”

“He told me today that that was what he was,” she said. “I felt that he almost believed it himself.”

“But 'tis not true.” He squeezed her hand. “You do not need to carry about that burden, Anna. He had an obsession for your mother long after she had turned him off as a girl and even after she had fallen in love with your father and married him.”

“I know,” she said. “I know he was not my father. There is the portrait of my grandmother I have hanging in my room.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “The portrait that looks for all the world like you masquerading as your paternal grandmother. I am glad you resemble her so closely, Anna. There will be no lingering doubt in your mind.”

She closed her eyes. She wanted to tip her head sideways to rest against his shoulder, but she could not do so. Not yet.

“Luke,” she said, suddenly finding it difficult to speak, “you do not know the half.”

“I know,” he said, “that he was obsessed with you, Anna. I know that he bought all your father's debts and so gained power over you. I know that he has demanded gradually that you pay off those debts one at a time. And I know that you love your brother too much to have burdened him with the debts. And that you were too proud to come to me so that I could pay them for you. Why did you not trust me? Even at the beginning? Did you not realize that I would have honored rather than censured you?”

“You do not know the half,” she said again, her heart heavy. A fiendish voice in her head was telling her to let it go at that. He need never know the rest. But she had to tell the rest. All of it. She had to give him the whole truth.

He lifted her hand to his lips. “Tell me, then, my love,” he said.

“Perhaps you will not call me that when you know,” she said. And she told him all the things she had done to redeem some of those debts in addition to the payment of money. And about the witnesses he had hired to perjure themselves if necessary and swear that she was both a thief and a murderer.

“Anna,” he said with gentle reproach when she fell silent. “Ah, Anna, why did you not tell me? What foolishness to think yourself guilty of crimes you were forced to witness. And how foolish to believe that he would have brought you to court when he was so very guilty himself. My love, I could have eased your mind in a moment. You have lived through this hell for three years? I could have put an end to it a year ago if you had only confided in me.”

“I thought you would not have the power,” she said. “Worse, I thought perhaps you would believe it all and turn me away.”

“Anna.” He released her hand in order to set his arm about her shoulders and turn her toward him. “What a scoundrel you must have thought me.” He tilted her chin with his free hand and kissed her deeply.

She sagged against him and kissed him back. The numbness was gradually leaving her mind. She was only just beginning to realize that it was all over, the nightmare of three years. That she was free. That she was going home with her husband and their daughter and that she would be able to live with them there without fear for the rest of their lives.

He was looking into her eyes from a few inches away. She could see his face clearly from the light of the moon and stars.

“He called himself your father, Anna,” he said, “yet he raped you? It was him, was it not? Was it once or many times? Talk about it, my love, so that we may put it behind us and let the healing begin.”

And yes, there was that. One more barrier to happiness. She did not want to think about it. She did not want to remember.

It had not really been rape, though in a way it had been. It had been as ugly and as sordid and as demeaning as rape could possibly have been. And she had not understood it at all, either at the time or afterward. Only now did she understand, now that she knew he claimed to be her father.

He had lured her to his house on some pretext—not difficult when she dared not disobey his every whim. They had taken her upstairs to a bedchamber, his two servants, when she had refused to go there herself. One on each side of her, they had half dragged, half carried her, while he had walked behind, talking soothingly to her. And then they had tied her to the bed by her wrists and her ankles so that she was spreadeagled and helpless and feeling quite robbed of dignity and personhood.

The woman servant had folded back her petticoat and her shift to the waist so that Anna had closed her eyes tightly and sobbed with shame. And then the servant had taken something—Anna had not seen it but it had felt hard and cold and greasy—and pushed it slowly inside, twisting it as she did so.

There had been blinding terror, screams above that constant soothing voice, and sharp pain. Anna had thought she was about to die. She had thought they were going to impale her until they had killed her.

But the woman had withdrawn whatever it was she had used and Anna had felt a hot gush between her legs.

“There is the blood,” the woman had said, sounding satisfied. “It has been done, sir.”

She was no longer a virgin, he had told her afterward. No man would want her as a wife now. She must never think of marriage.

Anna was sobbing. Dry, painful sobs that hurt her chest and robbed her of breath.

“Shh,” Luke was saying, cradling her head against his shoulder, freeing it of cap and pins so that he could run his fingers soothingly through her hair. “My love, forgive me. Please forgive me.”

He was crying too, Anna realized suddenly. She stayed where she was for a while until the echo of his words finally took meaning in her brain.

“Forgive you?” she said. “For what?”

He swallowed. “I can see myself sitting behind that desk,” he said, “the morning after our wedding, telling you that you had some explaining to do. Interrogating you. Demanding to know how many times, with how many lovers. Demanding to know if you had loved him. Ah, my sweet love, forgive me.”

She drew back her head and looked into his face. “Yes,” she said, “if 'twill make you feel better. But I was very foolish not to tell you all then. I realize that now. I was afraid to, Luke. I was afraid of losing you.”

“So soon?” he asked. “But why? We hardly knew each other. We had had a week's acquaintance. Not even. The fact constantly amazes me when I look back.”

“But I loved you from the moment I first saw you,” she said, “looking more gorgeous than any other gentleman I had ever seen. With your cosmetics and your fan that should have made you seem unmanly but somehow had just the opposite effect. I was dazzled. And I was lost from that moment on. And so I was unwise enough to give in to temptation when you came to offer for me. I would have done anything after that to avoid the risk of losing you. I was foolish.”

He sighed. “And I talked so sensibly of duty and pleasure,” he said. “Anna, Anna, what a very foolish man I was.”

“No.” She raised a hand to cup about one side of his face and let all the tenderness she felt show in her eyes. “Just a very unhappy and a very hurt person, Luke. Hidden skillfully behind a facade of splendor and a reputation for ruthlessness and heartlessness. I believe some of the pain has gone away, has it not?”

He touched his lips to hers. “All of it,” he said. “All of it, Anna. I was dead for ten years, my love, and you have brought life back to me in one.”

She smiled and then snuggled her head against his shoulder. She suddenly felt very tired.

•   •   •

It
was still dark when he woke up. He guessed that he had not slept for very long. The carriage was still moving at a steady pace. They were fortunate that it was a light night. His coachman had assured him that he would have no trouble seeing well enough to drive. And neither the coachman nor Luke had any particular fear of highwaymen.

Joy was settling into sleep again. He realized that it was her slight fussing that had woken him. But she stilled and fell silent even as he watched. Anna was sleeping against his shoulder.

He had killed four men in his lifetime—two of them this very night. It was a heavy burden knowing that he had deprived men of life, though in each case he had felt fully justified and in each case the killing had seemed unavoidable. But he knew at this moment that he had only one regret about killing Lowell Blakely. The regret was that he had been able to do it only once.

One other thing of which he was glad. He was thankful that Blakely was not in fact Anna's father and that she had proof that would satisfy her beyond any doubts. For a long time, perhaps for the rest of her life, she was going to live with bad memories. At least she would not be burdened by the knowledge that her father had so used her and that she had helped kill her father.

There were still hours to go before they would be home. It would be daylight by the time they reached Bowden and there was not the faintest sign of dawn yet. He was impatient to be home.

Home! A feeling of almost unbearable longing and love swept over him. Bowden Abbey—where he belonged, where he lived with his wife and his daughter, where their other children would be begotten and born and nurtured. Where he would live surrounded by family and warmed by the love he gave them and received from them for the rest of his life. Where he could be with Anna, the two of them living there together until a ripe old age, God willing.

Unconsciously he tightened his arms about her.

“Mmm.” She sighed deeply and burrowed closer for a few moments before drawing her head back and smiling sleepily up at him. “Are we almost home?”

“I see my wife here before my very eyes,” he said, “and feel her in my arms. I have but to turn my head to see my daughter asleep within a few feet. Are we not home already, love?”

She smiled slowly at him. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, Luke.”