Heather Graham (25 page)

Stunned, Rose sprang up, her flesh burning, her sense of betrayal acute. She wrapped the remnants of her gown about her, hugging it to her breasts, incredulous as she accosted him.

“What treachery! Before God, I don’t know what this is about! Remember … what?” Tears burned her eyelids. “I swear to God, you arrogant bastard, you have wronged me … used me! Are you leaving? Did you find Anne—?”

He was walking toward the door. “Oh, yes! I found Anne.”

“Then—?”

He spun on her, a whirlwind of fury. “As if you did not know! I found her dead!” he exclaimed furiously.

“Dead!” Rose gasped, the color draining from her face.

“Aye, lady, dead! Dead and cold upon the floor, the red of her blood entangled with the gold of her hair.”

“Oh, my God! Then Jamison—”

“Jesu, Rose! You sent me there! Sent me there to find her, sent me into a trap! And I blamed that idiot Jamison! Well, that damned fool lies there dead, too. It was you and Jerome! You sent me there so that the law would find me there with Anne and Jamison tied together in their last unholy embrace!”

She couldn’t comprehend the horror of what he was saying. Anne. Dead. It couldn’t be.

And Jamison? Jamison was dead, too? No, it was not possible. What had happened? Jamison had killed Anne in his jealousy? But Jamison was dead, too. How?

Jerome.

The coldness settled over her.

She had sent Pierce to find it all. She had urged him to go there. She had met with Jerome.

Her teeth were beginning to chatter. He thought that she had been in on it. Oh, God! He thought that she had known that Anne was dead. That she had sent him to discover her.

“Oh, you bastard! “she breathed. “How could…”

But her voice trailed away. She understood the emotion in him at last. It was anguish, agony, the deepest pain and wrath imaginable.

Suddenly they both became aware of the sound of hoofbeats, coming loudly from the streets below. He stared at her, a dark brow rising. “Come to me here, eh, my fine, sweet Rose? Rich, milady, ’tis rich! Come back to me—isn’t that what you said? If I wasn’t taken at Huntington Manor, you could use your gentle wiles and see that I was taken here!”

She gasped. “No!” she cried out. But he was already drawing his sword. “Oh, you fool, no!”

There was the sound of footsteps, rushing now, on the stairs leading to the room. Numerous footsteps.

The door burst open.

Rose shrieked, wrenching the sheets from the bed. A young man surged into the room, his blade bared. Then it seemed that a full score of men came behind him. “He’ll not hurt you, milady!” the first man called to her. “Thanks to your hasty message, there’s a score of us here, and we’ll bring him down, I swear it!”

“Message, eh, milady?” Pierce queried, his silver gaze finding hers swiftly.

Then he shoved at the door with his foot. The oak slammed back heavily, knocking over the men who had come for him.

He dragged her brutally into his arms. “My turn, milady. You’ll pay for this! By God, you’ll be made to pay for this!”

“No!” she cried in fear and fury. “I—”

He thrust her savagely from him. The men were scrambling to their feet, charging after him once again. The screech and clatter of metal became an awful cacophony as Pierce drew his sword and parried and thrust with the men. He clutched the large chair by the fire, throwing it hard upon his attackers. They fell back briefly. He leapt for the window, ripping the draperies from it. He paused, ready to plunge down to the street below.

One of the men nearly caught him in the back with his sword. “Pierce!” she cried out.

He turned, slicing the man’s arm in the nick of time.

His eyes met hers for just a second. Then he jumped.

She heard him fall into the street below.

“After him, men!” came a cry. And a savage melee broke out, the soldiers falling over one another in their haste to follow Pierce.

“No!” Rose shrieked. “Leave him be! Leave him be!” Heedless of her half-naked state, she followed them, tripping and stumbling down the stairs and out into the coolness of the street. Shouts arose, and she followed them through the shadowy darkness. She raced barefoot and freezing along the dirt roads, down to the wooden docks, following the men.

Pierce was in front of them, pausing now and again to parry with one of his attackers, slicing an arm here, a wrist there, making them drop away, injuring them, besting them …

But slaying no man.

Oh, God, couldn’t they see the truth?

No, for they had him racing down the dock now, coming closer and closer to the edge, closer and closer to the black abyss of the water. He barely had room to stand. They were upon him like flies. And he fought them still.

Then a great roar sounded. For a moment his blade was raised very high. The moonlight glinted upon it.

“Justice!” he thundered, and the depth and fury of his voice seemed to reverberate in the night.

Then he turned, and plunged into the icy blackness of the cold waters …

And Rose screamed.

And screamed, and screamed …

Hours later, they told her he was dead.

Several men had plunged in after him, but they hadn’t been able to drag him up. It was just as well. He had been a great and powerful man.

None would have relished his hanging …

There was a sorrowful older man there then. He had come unhappily upon the scene. He had set his cloak around Rose’s shoulders, and had seen that she was taken back to the tavern and seated by the fire. He gave her whiskey, and forced her to drink it, and the fiery liquid gave back some life to her body.

He could not be dead.

Not when she had fallen so deeply in love with him.

Hate him! Hate him! she cried to herself. Hate him, for he never believed in you. At the very end he believed that you had betrayed him.

The thought was agony.

But someone said that she had sent the message, assuring the lord constable that if he failed to take Pierce at the manor, he would find him at the tavern.

Jerome.

“Perhaps it is best,” the kindly lord constable told her gently, forcing her to drink more whiskey.

No, no, it could not be best. It was horrible. Anne was dead. Jamison was dead. Pierce was …

And Jerome was alive.

She would kill him, she vowed, trembling. She would find a way to prove his guilt. It would be a reason to live.

But not tonight. Tears welled into her eyes again. She drank more and more whiskey. It burned, it hurt.

Not like the hollow place in her heart. Not like the emptiness that seared inside her …

“He was innocent. He loved Anne,” she told the lord constable.

His hand curled warmly over hers. “Aye, milady. He was innocent. Perhaps he was guilty of passion, of arrogance, of life! But he never killed the Lady Anne, nor Lord Bryant.”

“I will prove it!” she vowed, tears in her eyes.

“Aye, lady. In time,” he soothed her. “You should sleep now. Rest.”

But she stared into the fire for hours. And then, at dawn, she began to sob.

He was really dead. Pierce was gone.

SOMEWHERE IN THE DARKNESS,
he entered into a great void. The water had been frigid, freezing him, stealing sensation from him. He couldn’t feel his limbs, his body; he couldn’t even feel his soul.

Then came the blackness. Neither life nor death meant a thing in that black void. It was total, encompassing, enwrapping …

A thud against his rib cage brought him from it. Then all the pain and the anguish of the night came rushing back upon him. He felt the vicious cold of being sea-soaked in the chill night air. He felt the weariness in his arms, the burning in his lungs from the water he had gulped and inhaled. He felt the salt that clamped over his flesh and filled his tongue.

And he felt a blade, prodding his ribs. A small blade. The kind used by a fisherman. Sharp enough though to slit his fish.

Someone was talking. Someone who thought that Pierce was still unconscious. “He’s someone important, ’e is, Jake. Take ye a look what clothing ’e’s wearing. ’Tis fine stuff, that fabric of his breeches! His shirt is silk.”

“Then we can claim a ransom for him, Billy!”

Pierce allowed his eyes to open a slit. The salt stung them, and for a moment he was blinded again. He remained perfectly still. He felt the heavy rocking of the vessel he was on. A fishing boat, he thought. One that was out very late.

With a curious twosome aboard.

Perhaps a twosome who looked for wrecks, and salvage.

“Aye, ’e’s a rich one!” the man named Billy mused. He was middle-aged, Pierce determined, once the stinging had faded and he could see. His face was peppered with white and black whiskers, like a man who shaved upon occasion, but could never quite decide whether he did or didn’t want to do so. He was lean, and as hungry-looking as a shark.

“So a ransom, maybe,” Jake said. Jake was younger, but meaner-looking. He was dark and sallow, clean-shaven himself, but with a nasty scar slashing across his left cheek.

“Or maybe …” Billy said.

“Maybe he’s a traitor out here like this, or some such thing. Maybe the king or some sheriff or law official would pay a great sum for him! What do you think?”

“I think we should steal his coins and shirt and throw him back overboard! Maybe we shouldn’t be getting rung up with this one; ’e’s a powerful-looking one, ’e is!”

“Throw him back over—to drown?”

“Aye, man, that is the thought!”

“Then how do we start ’ere?”

“Get his trousers!”

Pierce heard them, and prayed for strength. When the first set of hands fell upon him, he tried to bolt up, smashing a fist against Billy’s jaw.

“Jesu and the Blessed Virgin!” Billy cried out, falling back.

“The mighty lord’s near dead!” Jake retorted, enraged. He stood above Pierce with one of the oars waving in his hands. “I’ll crack his skull, I will!”

He couldn’t possibly move fast enough now! Pierce thought. He’d already fought all he could fight this night. No more. He had thought that he’d drowned, that he’d already come to meet death’s sweet harbor.

But not, it seemed, before he suffered more pain!

He tried to roll. The boat was small. The oar cracked down and he did roll. The wood caught his arm.

Oh, God! He could still feel pain, Jesus, but he could still feel it!

“Finish him off! Finish him off!” Billy encouraged Jake.

But before the oar could fall again, the small boat was rammed hard.

Jake tottered. The oar went flying from his hands. Pierce watched him fluttering his hands wildly, almost as if he could fly. Then he pitched over into the ink black water.

Pierce tried to rise. They had been rammed by another small boat, but not a fishing boat. This was a small boat cast off from a larger ship, a trim shadow in the night out in the deeper water.

“
Hola!
” Someone called in the night.

She was a Spaniard, Pierce thought. A Spaniard, hovering in English waters …

“Speak up there, English!” a heavily accented voice cried out. A dark-mustached face came into view. Pierce saw it there; he tried to speak. His head was ringing again. He fell back, welcomed into the warm embrace of the dark void.

Later, he awakened again. He was slumped into a hard chair. Candlelight shone around him. He opened his eyes slowly. The light hurt.

He was in a chair before a heavy desk in a captain’s cabin, facing an immaculate Spaniard with dark hair and eyes and a pale face with a pointed chin.

“So, English, you are with us again. Who are you?”

Pierce moistened his dry and cracking lips. “Who are you—and what are you doing with a Spanish warship in English waters?”

“We’re not at war!” the man said quickly. “So who are you?”

Pierce shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

The Spaniard stood, shaking his head. Pierce realized that men were standing behind him, awaiting the captain’s order.

The captain came around and leaned against his desk, staring at Pierce. “So, you are dressed finely, but you will not tell me your name! You are a cutthroat, a pirate, like those others?”

Pierce shook his head. “No.”

“You are worth quite a ransom?”

“No.”

“Then you are a pirate, no better than the others.”

“What did you do with old Billy?” Pierce inquired politely.

The Spaniard smiled icily. “He is sleeping with his friend, warm in the darkness of the night—in the embrace of the sea. So, my friend … what do I do with you?”

“I am no pirate!”

“But a man with a past nonetheless. And one who knows that I have steered this ship into these waters … hmm.”

“Kill him!” One of the men suggested. “He is no different from the others.”

“Oh, but he is,” the captain said, tapping an elegant silver letter opener against his cheek. “He is very big, and strong.” He smiled, leaning close to Pierce. “He can earn his life on this ship! Shackles on his feet and wrists, and he will be a willing worker! Maybe then, sometime, he will talk. And if not …” The captain shrugged. “Then we can throw him to the sharks later, when his work is done!”

The captain had come too close. Pierce found a spark of life indeed. The man leaned low, smiling cruelly.

Pierce knotted his fingers into a fist and slammed it against his pointed chin. The captain staggered back, swearing, blood dripping from his mouth and nose.

“Take him!” he commanded his men. “Take him and shackle him. And whip him for that. Tie him to the mainmast, and give him forty lashes, just as our Lord was given. We will teach these Protestant infidels to find faith again!”

The Spaniards set upon him. Too many of them. He fought them off, but he had no strength. He thought he might have broken a bone or two in the fight, but in the end he was subdued. Bucking and straining against the hands on him, he was dragged out to the mainmast and tied to it.

His shirt was ripped from his back.

Then the blows began to fall …

Blessed Mary, death would be a mercy!

But death would not come. The blows did. Again and again.

And with each blow, he saw her face.