The Last Killiney (44 page)

Catching herself, she sniffed before the pain became too great, brought her hand up to wipe at her eyes.

Christian stirred beside her.

She tensed. The memory of Christian’s cutting grasp edged at her mind. Did he know she’d been crying? Would he dare to threaten her within sight of his peers?

Yet when she turned to see what expression of disgust sat upon his embittered face, she found something entirely different.

He wasn’t looking at her. Bent over the last page of the libretto, he mouthed the lines of the final Commendatore scene, his teeth clenching down on every word. Below, Anna and Ottavio invoked the thunder of revenge that would strike Don Giovanni down, and seeing this musical assault against the Don, Christian shuddered. He gripped the libretto in his gracile hands as if it were his damnation, an omen sent from God to confirm his worst fears. Swallowing hard, he drew in a heavy breath and under the music, Ravenna barely heard his accusing words. “You will do the same,” he said, and turning toward her, his eyes darkened.

“What are you talking about?”

“Hell,” he said. “It will be your loathing which consigns me to the flames of hell.”

The orchestra punched the final notes of the first act, the curtains fell, and Christian sat calmly regarding her. Craven hatred shone in his stare. He was losing it again, she could see it. Whatever meaning he’d discovered in the opera had fueled his smoldering from last night’s madness.

“You’re not going to hell,” she said carefully, fingering Paul’s silver watch in her pocket.

“Oh yes, I’ve got it wrong. It’s the future for me, isn’t it? Another round of all this…this blissful, enviable life I have, but in the twentieth century?” Christian snorted. “At least I’ll get Wolvesfield. At least I’ll get the marquessate and James’s money, even James’s unborn children’s money to squander and waste as I please, and I’ll serve my penance as myself one of James’s disgusting, righteous spawn.”

“Christian, I meant—”

“Maybe I’ll set fire to it all,” he continued fiercely. “House, furniture, diary, everything that might remind me of you, once I’ve recalled who I really am. Wouldn’t you, if you discovered your soul had been mine?”

His voice rose, and around them, gentlemen everywhere leaned back in their seats and whispered to their wives. Behind fans and librettos, their fashionably pallid faces snickered as Ravenna pressed Christian to calm himself. “You weren’t supposed to find out about the future. You shouldn’t have overheard those things about David.”

“And why not?” he asked. “I’m sure you told James what
he
could expect.”

“James doesn’t have a life in the future.”

“So it’s a privilege reserved only for the damned? Is that the nature of hell, to live it all again? And where will you be, Beloved? You’ll be here. While your memory ruins my life not once but twice, you’ll be swooning under the Paddy’s boorish, incompetent love, waiting for death to kill me off—”

“What’s all this about death, Launceston?”

The two looked up. A man stood behind them, just outside the box’s curtains with only his head poking through.

Beside her, Christian choked. “Edmund,” he said, but that was all he could get out. Malice, complaint, he forgot everything in the face of the smiling, squinty-eyed gentleman behind them.

“Oh, come now, you can’t
forfeit
,” the man said. “You’ve only returned to the neighborhood, and you know I’ve not had my chance to part you from your money.”

“Edmund Thornton,” Christian repeated clumsily, giving Ravenna a warning glance. Getting to his feet, he faced the stranger. “I didn’t…I’d no idea you were back.”

“Well, I couldn’t help noticing you, Launceston.” Taking Ravenna’s hand, the man bent to kiss it. “And your lovely cousin Lady Elizabeth. I hear your brother’s writing a paper about Indians. He’ll have no trouble getting published, I’ll wager.”

“I hope not,” Ravenna said. Whether out of jealousy or manners, Christian took her hand from the man then, helped her to stand in the most gracious way.

“And what about you?” The man turned to Christian “Banks won’t even speak your name, something about a mistake in sending you on the voyage. If you’ve a treatise for the old tyrant, you’d better not count on a fair reading, because I’ve heard tell that—”

He stopped, turned toward the passage behind him. “Ah, here they come,” he said, holding the curtain back. “I beg your pardon, but I’ve some friends with me from Salzburg and they insisted on seeing this Mozart
thing
. Wouldn’t leave the box until the bastards quit singing. Here we are, my friends. Come and meet Lord Launceston and his bride.”

But when the first of Edmund’s visitors walked through the door, Ravenna’s heart stopped.

His friend had no freckles, no Irish brogue. He wore no silver at his ear, but that hardly mattered as he introduced himself, for Ravenna’s legs weakened. Her pulse raced madly, and she couldn’t stop herself from shivering, whispering,
my love, oh God you look like Paul
.

Thick of build, Edmund’s visitor had slender hips and a wrestler’s arms. His brown hair, darkened by the faintest shade of auburn, was brushed back and tied in a silk bag. Dizzying to look at, that color, and how she missed the sight,
the feel of it under her stroking hands
. Her heart beat quicker at the way his pale and hard-bitten features appraised her serenely, at the cleft in his square jaw, his angular cheeks and his liquid eyes, blue as Chinese porcelain.

Ravenna’s head lightened and whirled. Paul’s watch, poised at the edge of her pocket, fell to the floor at the man’s feet, but she couldn’t look away from those familiar eyes, so similar to her love’s.
Miss you, how I miss you
, she cried, and trembling viciously, enraptured by that face she had so longed to see, she gave in completely as the darkness swept over her.

* * *

When she came to, it seemed there was a scuffle around her. Voices arguing. Christian yelling. The orchestra had begun again, far off in the blackened distance of her mind, but it faded as she regained her senses and the voices around her fell away.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. Dark oak walls flew past her face, askew and tilted upside down, bouncing with Christian’s desperate rush. She felt the support of his arms around her back, behind her knees. Raising her head enough to slip her fingers around his neck, she caught sight of his slate-gray eyes.

The end of the world looked back at her. Was he furious? Scared? She couldn’t tell which, but when he yelled at an usher to open the door, his voice nearly broke with the strength of his emotion.

She held him tighter, pulled herself up nearer his face. “It’s OK,” she whispered, “I’m all right now, you don’t have to—”

“
Shut up
,” he hissed, giving her a shake.

More than the way he hated her with that voice, it was what he did next which frightened her. He strode to the curbside and, without warning of any kind, threw her down in the doorway of the carriage with a shove that smacked her head against the wall.

Tendrils of blond drifted about Christian as he stood there, panting, watching her struggle to right herself. Ravenna looked up at him, knowing what would come next and hopelessly fearing it.

But before she could move, he’d turned and dropped something on the street beside his left shoe. With gleeful abandon, he set his foot down hard and Ravenna heard the scrape of rock against metal, the sound of his heel grinding into silver.

She knew then it was too late. There’d be no retrieving the chance he might somehow let her go, for it was Paul’s watch he’d smashed. He’d destroyed it happily, and this, along with the scorn in his eyes, the coveting long suppressed and wanting her, only her…it was enough to make her finally realize she had to get away. There was no alternative. Escape or die with him.

So when he raised his foot to the carriage door, she didn’t let him step inside. Instead, blocking the width of the entrance, she put all her strength into one single well-aimed punch at his jaw. Not enough to hurt him, but it surprised him so much that she was able to squirm past him, out of the carriage and out of his grasp.

For an instant she met with empty air, freedom.

Then his fist slammed into her side, just below her rib cage. The force of it knocked the wind right out of her, sent her plunging to the pavement in pain.

What has he done?
She sucked in a stabbing breath.
What more will he do if he gets me alone?

Trying her best to make it difficult for him, she bit him hard when he scooped her up. She screamed as loud as she possibly could, flailing her arms at the passersby, begging their help, but still he got her into the carriage, only this time he didn’t throw her in—he backed in, holding her roughly around the waist.

“You frigid, selfish bitch,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear. “You’d spread your legs for that one, wouldn’t you? Is that all one requires?
That
face and nothing more?”

The wheels jolted into motion and she kept still on his lap, waited for her dizziness to pass. She understood completely what he had in mind for her. She didn’t want to think about it, but to get out of his clutches, she’d have to.
She’d have to
.

Resting against him, she willed herself to relax, not shiver so heavily with what she was about to do.
It’s now or never
, she thought to herself.
If he gets you in the house, it’s finished for sure
. “You’re going to rape me, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to take what’s mine, what
he
never deserved.”

“No, there must be some other way,” and dredging up every speck of hopelessness she felt, she pleaded him more than she ever would have, “give me more time, I know I can love you if—”

“
I’ll not be denied
!
”

Ravenna leaned closer. “The servants will stop you. Mr. Drew hates you, he’ll help me escape if you—”

“You are my wife, and I’ve every right to you,
every
right, so how is that idiot going to get you away from me? Force a pistol to my head?”

“No, Christian, please,” and she whimpered, made her voice quiver, “what about my baby? Don’t take me back to the house, I’m begging you, not if there’s going to be shooting near my son.”

And understanding fully well what unstoppable fires she might inflame, she let her hand slip as if by chance. Her fingers touched his inner thigh. “I’m so frightened,” she said, and turning to meet his terrible eyes, she moved her hand in a trailing caress.

That fear, that paralyzing dread, showed itself in the crush of his brow. His lower lip tightened. He recoiled ever so slightly in his seat, but Ravenna pretended not to notice. “What if there’s an accident?” Filling her voice with as much motherly hysteria as she could conjure, she went on stupidly, “What if the baby gets shot by mistake when Mr. Drew comes to rescue me? Christian,
please
don’t take me home, don’t put my baby in the middle of this!”

“If you’d shut up and lie still, there’d be no accident, would there?” he asked, giving her waist a vengeful shake. “Do you really love your son? Would you protect the Paddy’s spawn at
all
costs?”

She pushed at his ribs, tried to stop his rough embrace, but all the while her fingers inched closer to her target. The carriage was just pulling up before the house, and knowing she had only seconds to reach her goal, Ravenna lessened her struggling and settled her hand between his legs.

Christian’s eyes flared. He stilled beneath her touch. Taking encouragement from his reaction, seeing him so shocked and helpless, she pleaded for his mercy even as her fingers enfolded him ruthlessly. “If I give you what you want, if I…
sleep
with you,” she sobbed, “will you leave my son alone?”

Christian couldn’t answer. His tongue moved silently in his mouth, but no sound came out. When the carriage door opened, he glanced at the coachman; he cleared his throat, and in an effort to regain the strength of his anger, his hands tightened further around Ravenna’s waist…but it was too late. She’d already aroused his need beyond repair and Christian knew it, couldn’t deny it.

“Let’s finish it, then,” he grumbled bitterly. And with a stirring of shame deep in his eyes, he let her go.

It only took an instant for her to clear the door.

Putting a hundred yards between them, knowing well enough that Christian never, ever ran, she sprinted madly toward Charing Cross. She knew he was shouting at her. He’d surely send the coachman to chase her down the street, but she ran anyway, knowing the man couldn’t catch her once she’d ducked into the traffic.

Back up Cockspur Street toward the Haymarket, she knew where she was going. In the wake of the horrible stairwell kiss, she’d formulated a plan to fall back on, should Christian make good on his threats. She’d struggled for hours in coming up with someone, a friend she might turn to, for what she needed was a sympathetic ear, a woman like herself who’d understand why she wouldn’t want to sleep with her husband.

She knew of only one woman who might. Christian had mentioned how she’d once met this lady, at a party when Elizabeth had cornered her in an alcove and together they’d talked the whole night through. Christian hadn’t liked her. Did Ravenna care now?

At the top of the Haymarket, she turned left. Piccadilly stretched all the way to Green Park, and she hurried past home after glittering home until halfway down the row, just as Christian had once pointed out, she came to the Duchess of Devonshire’s house.

What must I look like?
She wondered as she stepped up to the door, lifted the knocker.
Will they even let me in?

But the young man who greeted her wasted no time in taking her straight to the duchess. He led her to the library where, with some explanation of her frightened condition, of Christian’s vengeful threats to her son, she was presented to a beautiful and stylish-looking woman.

Ravenna curtsied, or at least she tried to. “I’m sorry, Your Grace,” she began with a stammer. But glancing around at the duchess’s companions, she suddenly felt foolish. All eyes were on her. “It’s just that I didn’t know who else to turn to,” she went on. “My husband, Lord Launceston, he’s—”