Lord of Ice (7 page)

His gaze homed in on the stand of trees by the bridge over the half-frozen River Cole. As he watched, a tall, dark figure emerged from the trees, stark against the snow. It stationed itself in the road as though waiting for her by prior arrangement.

Bloody hell!
he thought, his expression turning to outrage.
Honest, my arse!

Apparently, the wench had already scheduled a rendezvous for the night. She had chosen someone else instead of him. Why couldn’t she have simply said so instead of letting him make a fool of himself? He shook his head, pricked by the rejection. Lucien was always warning him he was easily duped by women. As usual, his sly twin brother proved right.
Pleasure her well, my friend,
he thought in disgust, but as he started to turn away, he saw a second male figure materialize out of the cluster of trees. And a third.

Damien stopped, frowned, stared. There was something sinister about the furtive way the three men crept out of the darkness. Willing his gaze to penetrate the dark copse to see if there were any more lurking in there, he could just make out the dim outline of horses hidden among the brambles. The hackles on his nape rose in instinctual warning. Hadn’t one of the subalterns at the barracks mentioned something about the criminal population that had taken up residence just outside of town?

Meanwhile, Miss White kept walking fearlessly toward them as though she knew who they were. Then Damien realized she could not yet see them because of the gentle ridge that rose up in front of her. His eyes flared with cold dread as the three men lined up across the road, as though preparing to ambush her.
They’re not her friends.
Savage energy began pounding in his temples, in time with the thunderous pumping of his heart.

They’re bloody goddamned highwaymen.

Already he was in motion, dropping his greatcoat, breaking into a run. He shook off the chains of the past few months’ civility with a mental roar of release. He had no weapon, but this posed little worry to a man who knew nine ways to kill with his bare hands. With each accelerating stride, his focus grew crisper, more sublimely clear, his mind already assessing the problem with mathematical precision, showing him his angle of attack.

As the girl neared the crest of the ridge, he poured on a fresh burst of speed, desperate to intercept her before the gang of criminals did. He felt his awareness heighten toward his battle state, then saw her freeze in her tracks at the apex of the rise. Finally she saw the men lined up across the road before her. Damien was too far away to make out what they said to her as they started toward her, but she whirled around and began running back toward the theater.

Come on, come on,
he urged himself, pressing himself to sprint full-speed, but he was not fast enough to stop them from catching up to her. A fourth man on horseback came galloping out of the woods while the three on foot captured her within a few strides, grabbing her by her long hair. They tackled her to the ground in a plume of snow. She let out a scream that was quickly cut off when one clapped his hand over her mouth. Damien held back a roar of rage, for surprise was his only advantage. Murder in his eyes, he lost sight of her momentarily as he hurtled toward the rise.

When he came up over the ridge, he saw one man steadying the horse’s reins, while the other two held the girl by her armpits and her ankles, struggling to hand her up to the man on the horse. She fought them fiercely, kicking and clawing—until the one who had hold of her upper body pulled out a knife and threatened her with it.

Damien felt something dark inside of him open its red, demon eyes, roused to wakefulness at the silver glint of the knife, the beast in him scenting blood. Jumbled memories flashed through his mind: nights on piquet, bayonet charges. His awareness was distant, yet crystal clear, controlled to the point of eerie tranquility; everything seemed to move slowly. The greasy brigand sheathed his weapon again in order to lift the uncooperative girl; then Damien was upon them.

Ignoring their Cockney shouts, he elbowed the man with the knife in the face, snapping his head back, seizing Miss White around the waist to catch her from falling as the man staggered back. The horse skittered sideways, but the terrorized beauty swiped at Damien’s face with her nails, too panicked to realize it was him.

His eyes widened as her kick connected with the chin of the hefty man who was trying to hold onto her legs. Damien pulled her free of them and carried her two or three steps away, placing her roughly on the snowy ground behind him, swiftly positioning his body between her and her attackers.

The hefty man she had kicked in the chin was already back for more. Damien punched him in the face with such force that the big fellow reeled and fell, stunned. Damien glanced back for a split second to see if the girl was all right. On her knees in the snow, she looked up and met his gaze. Realization flashed in her eyes—who he was, that he had come to help.

Then a deafening shot exploded a few feet away. From the corner of his eye, he saw the pistol’s flare, felt the bullet’s bite as it grazed his left biceps, searing through the sleeve of his red uniform coat. He let out a curse and clapped his hand over the wound as the girl cried,
“No!”

With sweat beading on his face, Damien slowly looked up from his bleeding arm at the one who had shot him, a wiry, unkempt man with a gold tooth. Deaf to the threats and shouts of the other men, Damien stared at the gunman in an icy silence for the space of a heartbeat, the pain in his arm diminishing into numbness.

The criminal lowered his gun and began reloading, but fear and haste made him clumsy. Lowering his hand from his wounded arm, Damien wiped the blood off his palm down the front of his scarlet coat, his pulse thundering in his ears like cannon fire in the distance. Reality wavered like the king’s colors billowing slowly on the breeze. It buckled, split—and suddenly, fractured. He was back in Spain, the guns roaring around him, the French flinging themselves at his battalion. His confusion receded, narrowing down to one blissfully simple goal:
Destroy
.

“Run,” he ordered the girl in a low, vicious growl as he stalked toward the gunman.

He did not want her to see this.

It all happened so fast.

Miranda hesitated, her heart pounding with dread to see the big, gray-eyed stranger walking straight toward the man with the gun. She had seen the chilling look that had come over his hard, angular face upon being wounded, though he had hardly flinched with pain. In that split second, she did not know what to do.

She felt she should obey his order—but how could she abandon him to save herself? He was outnumbered and already hurt. It was all her fault. Something like this had been bound to happen to her, venturing so close to Mud City.

She did not know what these cretins wanted or how they had known her real name. She only knew she was unutterably grateful to the big, handsome officer for so gallantly rushing to her rescue. In the next moment, however, any notion of him as her knight in shining armor turned to horror. He attacked the gunman, launching at him like a wolf. The man screamed, though the soldier had no weapon. Almost too quick for the eye to see, the soldier raised his fist, fingers curled in a savage hook, and struck the outlaw in his windpipe, fairly tearing the man’s throat out with his bare hand, letting out the most terrifying, barbaric snarl she had ever heard from human lips.

The air left her lungs in a whoosh. She felt her gorge rise as he dropped the body and turned to the others with a mad glint of blood lust in his eyes. The others took the Lord’s name in vain, backing away from him in shock.

Miranda needed no further instruction. She stumbled to her feet, tripping on the hem of her lavender gown as she began running back toward the lights and people around the Pavilion. Her mind was blank with shock. She had never seen anything so horrible in her life, but somehow, through her hysteria, she had the presence of mind to run in the right direction.

There was another scream behind her, but it was not the soldier’s deep voice. She winced, realizing he had just killed another one, then ran faster until the man on horseback galloped his lanky mount past her, heading her off well before she reached the theater. Terror rose up in her anew.

Herded around like a wild filly, she turned on a sixpence and ran back the other way, bolting in the direction of the bridge over the River Cole—the way back to Yardley.

She ran until her lungs burned, taking a zigzagging path like a fleeing rabbit, but it only bought her a few extra seconds. She gave her terrifying rescuer a wide berth as she sprinted past him. There were two dead men sprawled on the ground, and he was at work on the third, beating the hefty one’s face to a pulp, lost in a frenzy of violence. He seemed to be in his own world, barely even noticing her as she tore past him toward the bridge, trying futilely to outpace the horse.

“Aarrgh!” A wild, angry cry wrenched from her lips as she heard the dull cadence of hoofbeats sweeping up behind her.

The horseman was closing in. She could smell the horse, hear the creaking of the leather tack. Panting painfully with the air’s sharp cold, she glanced over her shoulder as the rider leaned down from the saddle, steadying himself to grab her.

“Help me!” she screamed.

She could almost feel his hot breath on the back of her neck, when suddenly, the rider let out an odd shriek and pitched off the horse, hitting the ground, headfirst, a few feet in front of her. She heard the sickening crunch of breaking bones as he landed facedown with a knife jutting out of his back.

She skidded to a halt, nearly falling over the dead man, then stayed exactly where she was. The horse bolted on, riderless, tearing off over the bridge. No longer daring to move in any direction, Miranda covered her mouth with both hands to stop the ragged, animal whimpering that spilled from her lips. Her whole body was shaking. She turned slowly, forcing herself to look back at her wild rescuer.

There, on the moonlit ridge several yards away, a sword trailing from his grasp, he was the only man left standing, his giant shoulders rising and falling as he caught his breath. Like some berserker warrior out of Celtic legend, he stood in the cold white moonlight, his fury spent, dead men strewn around him.

He threw down the borrowed sword, dropped his head almost to his chest, and turned, wiping his brow with his forearm. The ground beneath his boots had been churned to bloodstained slush. His face was bloody, streaming with sweat; his smart uniform was torn, his hair disheveled. She had never encountered any creature more primal or more dangerous than this unbowed, elemental male.

She stood paralyzed. The quiet gurgling of the nearby River Cole was thunderous in the silence. As though feeling her awed, appalled stare upon him, the gray-eyed stranger slowly turned his head and met her gaze.

He looked inhuman in that moment, like the angel of death: beautiful and terrible and utterly remote, his cool, silvery eyes devoid of emotion. A flicker of some distant response passed behind his diamond-hard gaze.

“What are you looking at?”

The sound of his voice terrified her, reverberating through her entire being with the force and raw, rumbling power of some mountain cataract. She picked up her skirts, whirled around, and ran. With a sense of disjointed unreality, she pounded back across the bridge and tore through the silent fields, stumbling through snowdrifts, fleeing blindly back to Yardley.

CHAPTER
THREE

Late morning was bleak and eerily still as Damien’s horse picked its way along the muddy, rutted drive to Yardley School, past the line of large, bare, gnarled trees with painfully twisted trunks. Dingy clouds hung low across the sky like a dirty woolen blanket. Arriving in the walled courtyard, he halted his stallion and stiffly dismounted before the thick front doors of the school. Aches and pains plagued his back, neck, and shoulders from the fight. His arm where the bullet had hit him stung like hell, but in a strange way, he was glad he had been wounded, because at least he could feel
that
. Otherwise there would only have been this terrible, cold numbness.

He led his horse over to the post beside the weathered mounting block, glancing at the gray stone farmhouse as he lashed the reins to the iron ring. He walked slowly to the front door, but behind his steely facade he was soul-sick with the hollow, shaky feeling that came as a predictable aftereffect of having gone on the rampage. He pounded out an implacable knock with the heel of his fist, since he had split his knuckles open during the fight.

As he waited for someone to answer, his thoughts drifted back to the events following the bloody melee. He had returned to the barracks after his damsel in distress had fled in horror of him. By that time, fortunately, his army chum, Morris, had returned. Damien had recounted the attack, how he had intervened and had, perhaps, overreacted. The officers had been outraged by the assault on the theater girl and had commended him for his quick response to her plight. While the regiment’s surgeon had seen to his wound, Colonel Morris had sent a squad of soldiers out to patrol the area around Bordesley Green, another to remove the bodies.

Their subsequent search of the dead men’s clothes had provided no clues to their identities but had revealed a strange tattoo on the left arm of the hefty one. The tattoo had depicted a bird of prey gripping a dagger in its talons. Morris had suggested that perhaps the outlaw had once served as a sailor. It mattered little now. They had shared a drink, toasting Sherbrooke, their most lately fallen comrade. Morris had ordered one of the men to drive Damien back to the Royal Hotel, assuring him he need not worry—the whole incident would be discreetly swept under the carpet.

“And tell that girl not to walk past there anymore,” Morris had added with a scowl.

But even if Damien had known where to look for the mysterious Miss White, he never wanted to see her again. He was glad he had not told her his name. There was no need for her to know that the ferocious madman who had come to her rescue was the same distinguished officer the nation had hailed as a hero. No one in the civilian realm understood what it was really like on the front lines, nor ever could; but that girl, whoever she was, had gotten a taste of it last night. He only hoped it did not scar her too badly—but, no, he thought, staring at nothing. She’d be all right. He knew a survivor when he saw one. Yet he could not get her face out of his mind in that last moment before she had bolted—the way she had looked at him, the terror and revulsion in her eyes, reflecting back to him the full horror of the monster he had become. It made him wonder if he really should destroy himself and do the world a favor.

Just then, the door opened behind him. “May I 'elp ye, sir?” a ruddy, round-faced servant woman asked.

“Yes. I am here to see my ward, Miss Miranda FitzHubert.”

Under the ribbon brim of her house cap, the woman’s eyes widened. She quickly curtseyed. “Do come in, sir! Major Sherbrooke, is it?”

The mistake pained him. “No, ma'am. I am Major Sherbrooke’s colonel and friend, Lord Winterley. I have been appointed as Miss FitzHubert’s guardian.”

“Oh, dear,” the woman murmured, taking in his hard, meaningful stare. “Oh, dear me. Do come in, my lord. Miss FitzHubert is at chapel with the others girls. Shall I fetch her?”

“No, there is no need to hasten bad news. I will wait.” He stepped into the gloomy entrance hall. At once he was aware of the cold, vaporous damp rising from the flagstones. It could not be healthful, he thought with a frown. He hoped the child had a hardy constitution. “Is the headmaster available? I would speak with him.”

“No, my lord, the Reverend Mr. Reed is our minister as well as headmaster. He is celebrating the Eucharist at chapel right now. Miss Brocklehurst, our headmistress, is there as well, minding the girls.”

“As she should be, I’m sure,” he replied with a forced, polite smile. “And you are?”

“Mrs. Warren. I’m the cook, housekeeper, laundress—I does a bit of everything.” She opened a door to the right of the entrance hall and gestured to it with a kindly smile. “Would ye care to wait in the parlor, my lord? They shouldn’t be more than ten minutes.”

He nodded and started toward the parlor, then paused and glanced askance at her. “Do the children come in through the front, Mrs. Warren? My stallion is a bit high-tempered. It would not be safe if they took it into their heads to try to pet him.”

“No, sir, the girls come in through the back. There’s a nice stone path that leads from the church.”

“Very good, then,” he said with a curt nod, then strode past her into the modest reception room.

“May I fix you some tea?”

He nodded. “Thank you, ma'am. I’d be obliged.”

She bobbed a curtsy and closed the parlor door, leaving him alone. Damien shrugged off his greatcoat, drew off his thick leather riding gauntlets, and waited restlessly. The fire burned feebly in the hearth, leaving a chill in the room.

Whoever ran this place had a cheese-paring soul, he thought, looking around at the threadbare carpet, faded furniture, and miserly coal fire, yet the tuition at Yardley was not cheap. Perhaps it was badly managed. Having run a regiment all too often without adequate food, shoes, or clothing for his men, let alone ammunition, he immediately recognized the signs of economies being practiced. But the hardships that soldiers could endure were certainly not appropriate for fragile young ladies. So far his opinion of Yardley was low, but he could not fault them on cleanliness. He scrutinized the parlor as though he were inspecting his troops’ quarters. It was spotless.

He took a seat on the couch at length and sat ramrod-straight, his gaze fixed forward, his hands resting on his thighs. He spent a few minutes mentally rehearsing the painful speech he must make to his ward. He could scarcely believe that in a short while, he, who did not deserve to walk among civilized human beings, would have to comfort a bereaved child.

It was not long before the chapel bells began ringing, signaling the end of the service. Mrs. Warren came in with the tea tray and carried it to the small table nearby. He noticed her glance over her shoulder at the sound of the back door opening and the sudden chattering of numerous, high-pitched voices. A louder, pompous, male voice drowned them out, ordering them to be seen and not heard.

“That’ll be 'imself,” the housekeeper murmured, giving Damien an anxious look.

“Ma'am?” he asked.

Mrs. Warren pursed her lips with a determined air. “My lord, no matter what those two tell you, Miss Miranda is a good girl, a fine girl. Aye,” she whispered emphatically, “she is an angel, in her way.”

“Mrs. Warren! Oh, Mrs. Warren!” the man’s voice called from the hallway beyond. “Daft old woman, where are you?”

Damien’s eyebrows drew together. He glanced toward the doorway.

The old servant clamped her mouth shut and gave Damien a conspiratorial nod, then hurried out into the entrance hall. “Yes, Reverend? You have a visitor, sir. His Lordship is waiting in the parlor—”

“Lordship?” the man exclaimed, then dropped his voice to a whisper.

Damien stood, contemplating the old woman’s strange words. He heard several pairs of feet running lightly up the stairs that rose from the entrance hall, one of which, he imagined, belonged to his ward. Curious to see her, he walked to the doorway and looked up, but only glimpsed the swishing hems of some beige dresses and pale kid boots before the children vanished upstairs.

“My lord, welcome to Yardley School.” The black-clad minister came toward him with an obsequious smile. “I am the founder and headmaster, Mr. Reed. How may I be of service?”

Damien’s nape prickled with instinctive dislike. “I am Colonel Lord Winterley,” he said with an imperious stare, taking the letter from Jason’s solicitor out of his waistcoat and handing it to the man. “I regret to say that Major Jason Sherbrooke of the Hundred Thirty-sixth was killed in London last week. I have been named the guardian of his ward, Miss Miranda FitzHubert. I wish to see her.”

“Of course, my lord,” Mr. Reed murmured, passing a curious glance over his face before skimming the solicitor’s letter. He looked up again a moment later and handed the letter back to Damien. “Forgive my hesitation, my lord. I have a duty to protect my girls.”

“An honorable sentiment.”

The clergyman’s sallow countenance brightened at Damien’s placated tone. “Won’t you step into my office, then we will call her in? Do bring the tea, Mrs. Warren.”

Tucking the letter back into his waistcoat, Damien followed him across the entrance hall into another room with a few bookshelves on the walls and an impressive escritoire in the center.

“Do make yourself comfortable, my lord.” Mr. Reed gestured toward a leather armchair positioned across from the desk, but as Damien walked toward it, another piece of furniture blocked his path—one that released a bevy of old memories and sent a shiver of dread down his spine. He stopped and stared at it with anger leaping into his veins. It was a prayer kneeler with a book rest across the top, but the leather cuffs that hung down the sides betrayed its true purpose as the stand on which students were strapped down to take their lashes.

As a lad at Eton, he had been stretched across a similar device on a handful of occasions, usually due to his refusal to tell on Lucien for making mischief.

“Mr. Reed.” He looked at the minister, who had gone to stand behind the desk. “If you have beaten my ward,” he said calmly, “so help me, I will thrash you from here to kingdom come.”

“Lord Winterley! Goodness,” he said with a nervous little laugh. “You are indeed a man of arms. Rest assured, the prie-dieu serves only as a threat for our more unruly girls. It is never actually used.”

Mrs. Warren sent Damien a sharp look out of the corner of her eye as she set the tea tray on the minister’s desk.

“Thank you, Mrs. Warren,” Mr. Reed said. “That will be all. Kindly ask Miss Brocklehurst to bring in Miss FitzHubert for me.”

“Yes, Reverend.” Sending Damien a last, worried glance, Mrs. Warren exited, leaving him alone with the headmaster. What a strange place this was, he thought, but he could not be sure if the tension he sensed lay in the atmosphere of Yardley School or if it was merely his own.

“Now then.” The minister rested his bony elbows on his desk and interlocked his fingers. His pinched, sallow face was grave above his white collar. “About your ward.”

“Yes. I have questions.”

“As do I, my lord. After you.”

Damien shifted in the large leather chair. “Is she in good health?”

“Oh, yes, she is hearty and hale, my lord. She is almost never ill.”

“Excellent. Is she a good student?”

“To be sure, she is a clever girl, but . . .”

“Yes?” Damien prompted at the clergyman’s hesitation. “Please speak freely, sir. I would like to know the truth of my ward’s disposition.”

“Well, in terms of temperament, Miss FitzHubert is, shall we say . . . strong-willed.”

“Hmm.”

Mr. Reed took a sip of tea. “She is quite intelligent, but does not apply herself with any great effort. You see, my lord,” he said, leaning forward, lowering his tone, “what she lacks, in a word, is discipline. As an army man, I’m sure you can appreciate the value, nay, the necessity of that virtue.”

Damien leaned his elbow on the chair arm and stroked his lips in thought, studying him. “Go on.”

“She is prone to fits of temper. Defiance. Disrespect for her elders. Destructiveness. Dishonesty—”

“Dishonesty? I do not at all approve of lying females.”

“Nor do I. Why, just yesterday, I’m afraid Miss FitzHubert deliberately smashed a porcelain figurine belonging to our headmistress, then tried to evade punishment by lying about it.”

Good God!
he thought, blanching. He had inherited the ward from Hades.

“Naturally, all of this is quite disturbing, Mr. Reed. Do send me a bill so that the headmistress’s property can be replaced.”

“You are very kind, sir, but it is the point of Miranda’s actions that is the problem, not the property itself. I must say, I am relieved you have come to claim her, for Miss Brocklehurst and I are quite at our wit’s end.”