Whisper To Me of Love (54 page)

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Authors: Shirlee Busbee

BOOK: Whisper To Me of Love
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Her heart icy, she cried desperately, “You will never get away with it! And even if you do kill Royce, you have no proof that I am Morgana Devlin—your plan will come to naught!”
“No proof?” he repeated archly. “Oh, but you are wrong there, my dear—I have a great deal of proof! Would you like to see it?”
Her eyes searched his face. Slowly she nodded. “Yes, I would.”
He walked over to the chest and, taking a key from his pocket, unlocked it. Opening the chest, he scrabbled about for a second and then lifted out a leather-bound book. Smiling, he walked back toward her. “I must tell you that this modest place is my own particular little hideaway. I come here when I want to be alone or to admire some of the more fascinating, er, mementos I keep here.”
He held the book in front of her, and she saw that it was a Bible. “You don't recognize this book, but it is your mother's Bible,” he said conversationally. “I took it from her the night she died—the night you were born.” He flipped it open and showed her the writing on the page.
Bewilderedly she read the delicate, flowing script in the right-hand corner of the page before her.
Hester Devlin, Countess St. Audries, her book, July 1, 1795.
It gave Morgana a peculiar feeling to read those words, and yet, of themselves, they proved nothing.
“Just because you have her Bible doesn't prove that she is my mother!” she said sharply. “Jane was my mother!”
Clearly enjoying himself, he shook his head. “Oh, no, that's not true. Your uncle, Stephen Devlin, at that time only a mere younger brother to an Earl, arranged for me to take you away... . Of course, he wanted me to kill you and get rid of your body, but it amused me to give you to Jane. Believe me, Hester Devlin was your mother, and Andrew Devlin, the sixth Earl of St. Audries, was your father. You have some of the finest blood in England running in your veins.”
Confusion evident in her expression, she inquired helplessly, “But why?”
“Why did Stephen want you dead? Or why didn't I kill you?”
“Both!”
Smiling complacently, he sat down in one of the wooden chairs at the table near her. “Rather than telling it to you piecemeal, it will be much easier if you just listen while I regale you with a most diverting little story about the past,” he explained cheerfully.
In fascinated horror, Morgana listened to the ugly and twisted events that had taken place over twenty years ago, events that had shaped her life and brought her to this moment in time. He spared her nothing, telling her with relish every tiny detail, from Julian's conception to the night that her mother had died from Lucinda's final dose of poison. The most difficult part for Morgana was when he read aloud her mother's pitiful letter, which he had extracted with flourish from the spine of the Bible. Hester's fear came through clearly, as did the love she bore her child and the betrayal she was trying so desperately to avenge. Morgana felt tears trembling on her lashes, and frantically she blinked them away, not wanting him to realize how powerfully her mother's letter affected her. Pale and shaken, reeling from the sheer vindictiveness of Stephen's act of violence against her father, stunned to learn that Julian was actually her half brother and that his mother had murdered her mother, she could only stare at him, her features full of revulsion and loathing.
“Why didn't you kill me?” she forced herself to ask.
He looked thoughtful. “I don't really know,” he admitted. “You were rather a sickly baby—probably the result of the arsenic—and for a while Jane feared that you would die. But you didn't, and I really can't say why I let you live. A whim, perhaps? A perverse sort of pleasure in knowing that as long as you lived, I could crush Stephen at any time?” He shrugged. “I didn't actually think of marrying you for quite a number of years, but then one day I looked at you and realized that you were growing up to be quite a fetching little baggage.” He smiled meaningfully at her. “I had arranged to sell you to a nobleman who preferred
very
young virgins, but Jane would have none of it and so I had to change my plans. I considered merely making you my mistress, the idea of having the
Lady
Morgana Devlin in my bed and at my command appealing rather strongly to me, but then I carried that thought one step further—what if I
married
you and saw to it that the truth came out ... ?” He chuckled. “Of course, not my part in it! The one-eyed man would be the villain, while I would simply be your loving husband—the man who accidentally uncovered the entire dastardly plot. I thought that after we were married, I would ‘discover' your mother's Bible in an old trunk that had been Jane's. No one will be more surprised and outraged than myself to find out that my half sister, a woman who, because of her, ah ... unsavory way of life, I had not heard of in years, was part of such a dastardly plot. Clever, don't you agree?”
She gazed wordlessly at him for a very long time, not quite trusting herself to speak, fearful that no matter what he did to her, she would not be able to keep from hurling herself at him in a savage fury and, despite her bonds, not cease her wild attempts to inflict grievous injury on him until he had beaten her unconscious. Hatred welled up in her heart, and almost compulsively her eyes strayed to the basket sitting on the table
and the reticule lying within it!
Dizzying hope flooded through her slender body. If only he would leave for a while, provided the dagger was still inside the reticule, it would take her but a moment to free herself, and then ... For a second she was mesmerized by the soul-satisfying picture of the one-eyed man lying dead at her feet, the dagger plunged through his black heart. But reality set in almost immediately and she realized sickly that unless fate smiled kindly upon her, she was doomed to suffer the fate he had planned for her.
Bitter regret washed over her and she was tormented by visions of everything
else
she could have done rather than embark on her own quest to kill the one-eyed man. I should have considered that I might fail and have left Royce a letter explaining everything.... Suddenly she stiffened. She hadn't left a note of her own, but as clearly as if she were standing in her bedchamber, she could see the one-eyed man's note lying crumpled on her dressing table, where she had left it in her haste to meet him.
Royce was certain to have found that note by now, and he would at least know what had happened to her ... and perhaps try to find her? Hope once again rose within her, and in spite of knowing that it would be miraculous if Royce managed to discover where the one-eyed man had taken her, she clung comfortingly to the knowledge that Royce
might
at this very moment be following quickly behind them.
Not aware of any of the events that had taken place since her capture, she would not have believed that even as she sat staring helplessly at the one-eyed man, Royce was pulling his mercilessly driven horses to an exhausted stop at the very stable where the one-eyed man had unharnessed his own horses just half an hour ago.
Unlike the one-eyed man, who had not wanted to bring attention to himself and had been forced to travel at an unremarkable rate of speed, Royce hadn't given a damn who saw him madly racing down the road and he had not spared his horses, driving them at an unrelenting pace. George thought it the most terrifying ride of his life, and more than once, as Royce had approached a curve at breakneck speed, with never a check of the horses, he was quite positive that his life was over.
The foam-flecked horses, their heads hanging low in bone-deep exhaustion, remained motionless as Royce jumped down from the gig and made a quick inspection of the stable. Returning, he commented grimly, “He's been here. There is no sign of Morgana, but there is a vehicle inside and two horses, the sweat not yet completely dried on them, so we are not too far behind him.” As he walked toward the gig, he pulled forth a folded slip of paper from his waistcoat.
Quickly perusing the instructions from the one-eyed man, Royce lifted his gaze, staring at the barren landscape around him, the scent and sound of the sea coming clearly to him. “He states that there is a path which leads to the beach below the headlands and that once I've reached the shore, I should turn to the left and continue in that direction until I see the opening of a cave in the face of the promontory. He'll meet me there at eleven o'clock tonight.”
“Never tell me you're going to do it!” George expostulated nervously. “It will be a trap! He means to kill you!”
A feral gleam in the golden eyes, Royce replied mockingly, “I know that, George, and I have no intention of walking blindly into his snare. Don't forget, if everything had gone according to his plan, I would just now be receiving these instructions—we are hours ahead of the schedule he set.” He stood there frowning a moment. “He won't have Morgana in the cave—I'm certain of that—but more than likely he will have her somewhere nearby... .”
Before George's astonished gaze, Royce suddenly clambered gracefully up to the roof of the stable. Hands on his hips, feet planted apart as he balanced on the sloping roof, he stared off in the distance. “I see the path angling off to the right over there, but nothing else.” He continued to rake the bleak landscape, hoping desperately to sight something that would give him a clue where next to look for Morgana. He had managed by sheer, obstinate tenacity to keep his fear for her under control during the wild, madcap dash to reach this destination, but as the minutes crept inexorably by, as the sunlight began gradually to lessen, he could feel his iron-hold grip slipping, and he was faced with the terrifying possibility that whatever luck he had possessed so far had vanished and that he might never see Morgana again.
Royce was almost dizzy from the suffocating fright and half-mad fury that erupted through him at that thought; his mouth tightened and the golden eyes narrowed. He was not beaten! He was going to find his wife; and when he found her, after he had shaken her senseless for scaring him this way, he was going to kiss her witless and let her hear from him in no uncertain terms precisely how very much he loved her! The one-eyed man was not going to win this time! Royce was on the point of turning away when something caught his eye, and his breath lodged painfully in his chest. Was that a rooftop near the edge of the cliff? Half-hidden by a slight rise in the land? From the ground it would have been invisible, but from his vantage point on top of the stable, Royce stared tensely at that irregular break in the landscape, passionately willing it to be what he was so frantically searching for. A shaft of the fading sunlight suddenly gilded the tiny weather vane that perched at the peak of the small building, and Royce let out a low, fierce, triumphant growl. It could merely be some fisherman's cottage, but instinct told him that he would find his wife there ... and the one-eyed man!
Effortlessly leaping down from the roof, he hurried over to the gig, and checking the pistol he had brought with him, he said tersely to George, “There is a small cottage near the edge of the cliff—I suspect that Morgana will be found there ... along with Newell. You remain here, and if I am not returned within the hour—drive as fast as these poor horses will take you to the nearest magistrate's and explain everything to him.”
“Royce, be careful!” George replied urgently. “He is a killer and will stop at nothing to gain his aims.”
Something dangerous and deadly moved in Royce's eyes. “He has my wife, George! I think that your fears should be for
him!”
Without another word, Royce disappeared around the end of the stable.
Approaching the cottage was tricky because of the lack of cover, but using the slight undulations of the land itself and the few scrubby bushes that dotted the area, Royce gradually crept nearer. The falling twilight was to his advantage, and as he stealthily drew closer, he could see that there were no windows at the rear of the house, which allowed him to approach faster.
Careful to make no sound, the pistol held ready in one hand, he edged along the weather-beaten boards of the cottage, listening for any noise that would bolster his stubborn belief that Morgana was inside.
She had to be!
It was unthinkable that he had squandered precious time chasing after a will-o'-the-wisp notion. Unable to allow himself to consider even for a moment that the cottage might simply be a lonely fisherman's hut, he sidled cautiously around the corner of the building. The sight of the two windows and door facing the churning sea several feet below halted him abruptly, but dropping down to the ground, he inched forward until he was beneath one of the windows.
Like a balm and a benediction, the sound of Morgana's voice wafted to him, and involuntarily his eyes closed in a fervent, exultant prayer. He hadn't been aware of precisely how very fearful he had been until this moment, but hearing the familiar rise and fall of her voice, something inside him suddenly unclenched and he was conscious of a tremendous burden lifting.
The golden eyes glittering fiercely, his fingers tightened around the pistol, and Royce hoped for the sake of the one-eyed man that Morgana was unhurt, for if that blackhearted devil had harmed her ... A primitive and unforgiving emotion welling up inside him, he began to creep forward.
Inside the cottage, totally oblivious to the danger just outside his doorway, the one-eyed man was preening himself before Morgana, boasting of his various successes. “Of course,” he said smugly, “I've never been contacted by a member of the royal family, but just think if I had been—why, conceivably I could have been the uncrowned King of England!”

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