Teresa Medeiros (35 page)

His tentative knock garnered no reply. He eased open the door.

A snarling ball of fur exploded around his ankles. Dougal shook his leg, believing for a confused second that he’d been attacked by a rabid rat.

“Pugsley! Stand down!” The roar seemed to tremble the very rafters.

The little dog slunk behind an overturned table, a less than penitent smirk on his muzzle. Realizing he’d only been gummed, not bitten, Dougal swiped his brow with a handkerchief. “Sweet Christ! The pup’s always been a bit ill tempered, prone to dyspepsia even, but I’ve never seen him …”

He trailed off as the chieftain of the MacDonnells emerged from the chaos of the chamber into the rays of the sun slanting through the western window. Dougal still found himself caught off guard by Morgan’s massive stature. Somehow he always expected to find the slender, defiant lad he remembered. But all traces of boyhood had been vanquished from this man’s barren, glittering eyes.

Morgan’s chest was bare, his tattered plaid knotted at the waist. His stony jaw was unshaven. Beneath the tawny stubble, the planes of his face had been honed to dangerous perfection. His crystalline eyes were shot through with tiny veins of scarlet. Dougal shivered to imagine his sleepless specter haunting the castle by night.

With the sun haloing his tangled mane, he looked like a fallen angel scorched by the flames of hell, a creature of darkness untouched by the light that surrounded him. As he swaggered forward, the stench of whisky fumes rolled off him in stinging waves. He stopped a few feet away, legs splayed, arms folded over his chest.

Dougal dreaded throwing himself on this man’s dubious mercy. But for Sabrina, he would do anything, even sell his soul to Morgan’s new master. “I’ve come to speak to you about my daughter.”

“What about her?” Morgan’s voice was flat, as soulless as his eyes. “Has her condition worsened? Has she died? Or did you just bring the documents of divorce for me to mark?”

Morgan spoke as if all those possibilities bore equal weight, infuriating Dougal. “A divorce won’t be necessary. I’ve arranged for an annulment.”

Morgan cocked his head to the side. A spark of dark amusement flickered in his eyes. “How clever. You
Camerons always did have your ways around the law. What did you tell the magistrate? That I’d never laid my dirty MacDonnell hands on her?” He crooked one devilish eyebrow. “Well, I did. And she liked it too.”

Dougal clenched his fists, remembering the many times he’d been forced to bear Angus MacDonnell’s drunken taunts. He must not forget his mission. He would fall down on his knees before this man if need be.

His hands slowly unclenched. “My daughter needs you.”

Dougal flinched as Morgan threw back his head and roared with laughter. He stumbled over and collapsed against the wall, wiping helpless tears from his eyes. “Christ, man! Was crippling her not enough? Do you want me to finish what I started? Shall I kill her now?”

Downstairs Elizabeth sat rigid in a straight-back chair Morgan’s clansman had found for her, her polished fingernails clicking out a fitful rhythm on its arms. Ranald perched on the edge of the hearth like a chastised lapdog, shooting sly glances at her from beneath the sinful length of his lashes. A pity such a pretty creature had to have been born in such squalor, Elizabeth thought. Her gaze searched the massive rafters. The only sound from above was the eerie whisper of the cobwebs dancing in the drafts.

Ranald cracked his knuckles. Elizabeth jumped, the haunted atmosphere of the castle beginning to tell on her nerves. “Where are the others of your clan?” she blurted out, preferring the sound of her own voice to silence.

Ranald shrugged. “Scattered. Morgan sent them all away. Gave ’em the sheep, the cows, all but a few chickens and a pittance o’ salted meat.”

“And you? Why do you stay?”

He gave an undue amount of attention to rubbing a spot of soot into his trews. “He’s me cousin. I canna verra well leave him here to die, can I?”

She leaned forward and peered into his angelic face, fascinated by a glimpse of a loyalty she would never have suspected in a MacDonnell. “You honestly believe he would die without you?”

He met her gaze squarely. “No, me lady. I believe he would die
alone
without me.”

Elizabeth’s wordless shock was interrupted by Dougal’s disheartened step on the stairs. She gathered her skirts and rose, but her husband only shook his head. “I begged. I pleaded. I did everything but crawl. He will not relent.”

At first Dougal believed the sheen in Elizabeth’s eyes was unshed tears, but as he moved to comfort her, she shoved past him and marched up the stairs.

“Beth, you mustn’t!” he cried, racing after her.

Ranald danced at their heels. “I wouldna if I were ye. ’Tis not a wise idea at all. I canna be accountable if—”

Elizabeth hesitated at a fork in the corridor, but Ranald gave away Morgan’s whereabouts by sprinting ahead of them and throwing himself across the door.

“Stand aside, sir,” she commanded.

Ducking his head in surrender, Ranald obeyed. Elizabeth splayed her hand on her husband’s chest. Her steely eyes glinted with determination. “I want the both of you to return downstairs. I don’t care what you hear or what you think you hear, do not come up here unless I call for you. Do you understand?”

For an absurd moment Dougal was tempted to laugh. He could not remember a time when he had loved his wife more. He stepped back, gave her a genteel bow, and proffered her the door. “The pleasure is yours, my lady.”

Elizabeth threw open the door. Over her head Dougal caught a glimpse of Morgan’s stunned face. Within his jaded eyes came the first flare of uncertainty, of raw vulnerability.

Elizabeth rested her hands on her hips. “Snap that stubborn jaw of yours shut, Morgan MacDonnell. You’ll get no pity from me.”

She swept into the chamber, slamming the door in Dougal’s face.

Dougal clapped Ranald on the shoulder as they descended the stairs. “Say a prayer for your chieftain, lad. He’s just met a harsher taskmaster than the devil ever thought to be.”

Sharing a flagon of well-mellowed beer, Dougal and Ranald kept their own vigil below. As the hours passed, Ranald started at each new noise, but Dougal just swirled his beer around in his earthenware mug, hiding a small, secret smile.

Voices raised in anger were followed by a thunderous crash that sent Ranald’s beer sloshing over the rim of his mug.

Dougal lifted his own in a toast. “To Beth,” he whispered.

The cacophony worsened. A masculine bellow of rage was broken by the shattering of glass. More shouting followed, then came the unmistakable snap of an open palm meeting flesh. Ranald’s eyes widened. Dougal bowed his head at the thick silence that followed. The ominous absence of noise lingered until even Dougal began to fidget in his chair. He drew a pendant watch from his jacket.

Elizabeth appeared at the top of the stairs. Her skirts were furred with dust and streaked with something that looked like huge handprints. As she descended, she smoothed her disheveled hair, her sharp features aglow with triumph and joy.

She held out her hands to Dougal. “He’s vowed to help us. He says he’ll do whatever he can for Sabrina. Whatever it takes.”

Thumping down his mug, Ranald bounced up from the hearth. “Aye, I knew our Sabrina wouldna desert him. I never met a sweeter, more unselfish lass in all me life.”

He began to dance an impromptu fling, missing the exaggerated arch of Dougal’s eyebrows and the finger of warning Elizabeth laid to her husband’s lips.

•  •  •

“You inept creature! I asked for the strawberry tarts, not the apple.”

The flushed maid studied the silver tray laid across Sabrina’s lap in open confusion. “No, miss. You asked for the apple. I swear you did.”

Sabrina thrust the tray back at the servant. “Take them out of my sight this instant. I may be crippled, but I’m not daft. I clearly remember requesting the strawberry. And don’t swear. It ill becomes you.”

The tray tilted in the maid’s shaking hands. A steaming tart plopped in Sabrina’s lap. “Dammit all!” she shouted. “Must you be so infernally clumsy?”

Lower lip trembling, the maid plucked the tart from Sabrina’s lap and dabbed at the fresh stain on her dressing gown. A long-suffering sigh escaped Sabrina. Her head fell back against the divan’s bolster as if her neck no longer had the strength or will to support it.

She waved the maid away with a limp hand. “Oh, just leave me be. My digestion is ruined. I’m far too upset to eat now.”

As the daunted servant crept from the salon, another maid abandoned her dusting to trail after her, casting Sabrina a reproachful glance. The woman’s hushed voice carried clearly in the afternoon silence of the London town house.

“There now, girlie, don’t you cry. There ain’t no pleasing Her Highness when she’s in a snit. Asked me to hand her a book this morning and it no more than an inch from her dainty little fingertips. Why, I’m just biding my time until she starts bellowing, ‘off with their heads!’ every time something don’t suit her.”

Hateful creatures, Sabrina thought, palming her brow to see if she could detect any hint of fever. She was well aware that the Belmont servants spent most of their time in the servants’ kitchen discussing their master’s invalid niece. But why should she care? She’d rather have their malice than their pity. And besides, it was human nature to gossip about freaks, was it not?

As if to prove her point, Enid waddled into the salon, waving a thin pamphlet. “Look what Stefan brought me from the street vendor!” She collapsed in a tiny Louis XIV chair, kicking her slippered feet in delight. “Just listen to this. ‘Mrs. Mary Toft of Godalming recently gave birth to her fourteenth rabbit.’ ”

“How nice,” Sabrina murmured. “Would you press my brow, Enid? I’m feeling rather feverish.”

Enid absently obeyed, still scanning the pamphlet. “It says here that the king’s physician was sent to investigate and arrived at Mrs. Toft’s lodgings at the most propitious moment to deliver rabbit number fifteen! You’re quite cool, dear. No fever at all.”

“How would you know? You’re not a doctor.” Sabrina couldn’t seem to stop the querulous note in her voice from rising. “You’d be interested in me only if I birthed a litter of hedgehogs right here in your mother’s salon!”

Enid lowered the pamphlet. Her sweet smile couldn’t quite hide the hurt in her eyes. Sabrina wanted to apologize, but couldn’t find the words. They’d become like a foreign language to her in the past few months. She would open her mouth to ask for an extra pillow or comment on the weather only to have a whining demand or tart rebuke snap from her lips. How could she blame Enid for looking at her as if she were a stranger when she’d become a stranger to herself?

“You’re right, of course,” Enid said, tucking a cashmere shawl around Sabrina’s shoulders. “How selfish of me. Here I am going on and on about such nonsense without even considering your feelings. Shall I read to you?” She picked up the volume resting at Sabrina’s elbow. “Homer again?”

Sabrina nodded. Enid launched into Odysseus’s journey to the kingdom of the dead, but Sabrina could derive no enjoyment from the familiar tale. She now thought Odysseus an insufferable bore and Penelope a passive idiot. What sort of romantic fool would while
her life away, waiting for a man who might never come?

Sabrina turned her face to gaze out the window at the elegant environs of Hanover Square, remembering the winding road that had brought her to this place. A gentle breeze rife with the scent of hyacinths and newly warmed earth caressed her brow.

When Sabrina’s condition had shown no sign of improving, her parents, on the advice of Dr. Montjoy, had brought her to London, hoping a change of scenery might lift her spirits. At least here in London she was no longer a constant reminder of her papa’s misguided guilt.

Enid’s voice droned on, robbing the Greek bard’s majestic prose of all its drama. Sabrina plucked fretfully at the smothering softness of the shawl. She had spent those first dark days at Cameron crying herself to sleep each night. But even in her despair she’d nursed a tiny flame of hope in her heart. No more than a spark to brighten the darkness and give shape to the fervent prayer she whispered to God each night before sleeping and each morning upon awakening.

On Christmas Eve she discovered that God had denied her prayer. She was not to bear Morgan’s child. She would not be allowed to carry even that much of him with her. She had cried that night, dry, wrenching sobs that tore at her very soul, but after that she had not shed another tear or so much as thought a prayer. Why should she pray to someone who obviously cared so little for her?

Shortly after that, fresh ailments began to plague her. An unbearable tightness of the chest. Stabbing pains in her temples. A feeble cough. Assorted aches throughout the rest of her body. The more she dwelled upon them, the worse they became until she awoke one morning quite convinced she must be dying. The Cameron carriage had been ordered to London posthaste.

The Belmonts had dutifully taken her in and propped her on their divan, where she ruled their household with the aplomb of a spoiled young queen.
Sabrina was sometimes beset by a strange sensation of distance, as if she were watching from the chandelier while another girl performed a part in some badly acted melodrama.

Enid’s chair creaked as she shifted her weight. Sabrina still failed to understand the Belmonts’ predilection for cramming the rooms of their massive town house with furniture better suited for wraiths. Every time one of them plopped down in one of the gilded and curlicued chairs, Sabrina held her breath, awaiting the imminent collapse of its spidery legs.

All the Belmonts were round, but in the past few months Enid had grown rounder yet. Sabrina stole a glance at her cousin, despising herself anew for her petty pang of jealousy. Not even a jeweled stomacher could hide the swelling mound of Enid’s belly. A thin layer of ceruse muted but could not quench the radiant glow of her skin. While Sabrina withered to a bitter old woman in a young woman’s skin, Enid bloomed with the child of the man she had loved.