Wild Hearts (22 page)

Tabrizia was terrified. Now that she had lied and said she did not know the identity of her abductor, she must keep up the pretense. "I... I only know I was taken to a castle far away and held prisoner. I kept on trying to escape until I was successful. I regret from the- bottom of my heart that you were forced to pay ransom for me," she cried passionately.

"Trash! Sweepings-up of the gutter!" His voice was like a whiplash. "I was forced to pay twenty thousand in gold for a little drab out of-an orphanage! Gold I had no intentions of handing over, let me inform you. We were tricked! The gold stolen from under my guards' noses. Make no mistake, the gold will be retrieved. The man will be arrested and hanged by the neck until dead. You are the witness who will put the noose about his neck," his voice rasped, his nostrils pinched with fury.

She sat numbed from the shock. The kindly gentleman who had seemed so fatherly and generous was as cold and calculating as a reptile. My God, were all men created evil?
Victim! Victim!
a voice screamed inside her head, and unaccountably she began to laugh. Abrahams's hand shot out and slapped her across the mouth so hard, her head snapped back. She felt a trickle of blood ooze from her lip where his ring had pierced the skin. She did not cry out but sat mute as her heart within her breast turned to stone.

Abrahams went over to the desk and withdrew some papers from the drawer. He waved them in her face. "I have here signed affidavits from a respected man at law that Mrs. Hall has chaperoned you every moment and that you are still virgin. Mrs. Hall is a dead woman for her complicity in this, make no mistake. Are these affidavits factual?"

She sat mute.

He summoned his body servant. "Donald, be so good as to ascertain if this female is still a virgin."

Tabrizia gasped her disbelief at what they were about to do to her. Donald, a large young man, stepped forward and forced her arms behind her back. Without hesitation, in front of the men assembled, he reached under her skirt and tore her underdrawers from her body. Tabrizia struggled and spat in his face, but he hardly noticed her frenzied movements to avoid his hands. She screamed as he forced his finger partway inside her body. He withdrew it almost immediately. "She is very tight and small. I'd say she has never known a man."

A ghastly smile spread across Abrahams's sharp face. It sent a chill of horror through Tabrizia, which made her knees tremble.

"Then it isn't a total loss. Prepare her for bed," he told Donald. She was relieved when Donald led her from the room. She felt if she had stayed in that chamber one more minute, she would have died of shame. Yet the shame was theirs, she told herself fiercely, and vowed if she ever got free from her predicament, she would make all men pay, starting with the great earl who had been responsible for her mother's downfall, and ending with Rogue Cockburn, who had been responsible for her own.

She was taken upstairs to the chamber she had occupied before when she came to this house as a happy bride-to-be. Donald set her skin crawling. He was plump with full lips and thick, pudgy hands. She observed as he prepared her bath for her that he seemed neither man nor woman but some abnormal creature in between. She had no choice but to undress and step into the bath. He left no detail of the toilet incomplete. He selected a diaphanous robe for her and began to brush her hair. Tabrizia felt his touch was loathsome but knew if she fought him, she would end up bruised and broken and still have to face what lay ahead of her. He touched a musky perfume to her breasts, and she knew she would hate that smell for the rest of her life. She could hardly breathe. It was like facing a death sentence. She knew she would hate and fear all men after today. Once this ordeal was behind her, and if she survived it, she promised herself she would get hold of a weapon and never be without it again as long as she lived. If she only had one at this moment, she knew she would have been capable of killing this servant and then enjoy ridding the world of his master. "Why must I do this thing?" she managed to whisper.

"He has no time to lose. He suffers from the bad disorder."

This puzzled her. Did he mean her husband was dying? All her time had run out like the sand in an hourglass. She was led, barefoot, down a flight of steps to the second story of the mansion. The long hallway contained naked, marble figures in disgusting poses. She averted her eyes instinctively, until she reached Abrahams's chamber. Donald opened the door and waited for her to enter. When she did not, he gave her a push from behind, and she found herself in Abrahams's presence.

The bed dominated the room. It was set high on a dais with tall candles burning on either side as if it were a sacred altar. A thought flashed through her brain, something. Shannon had once said: "The coward dies a thousand deaths; the hero dies but once." She stepped forward, determined to get it over with as quickly as possible. The old man in the bed beckoned to her. She approached warily, wondering if she would suddenly awaken from this nightmare. As she knelt upon the bed, he suddenly threw back the covers to reveal his naked body. Remembrance swept over her as she recalled kneeling on that other bed facing Paris. The comparison was so ludicrous, a bubble of laughter escaped her. A sharp slap in the face brought her to her senses, and she focused her eyes on the male before her. He was cadaverous. The skin yellow and wrinkled. His body was devoid of hair, save for the back of his hands.

"Why did Donald put you in a garment that reveals your breasts? He knows female flesh repulses me," he complained loudly.

She was mesmerized as if she faced a cobra. Curiosity overcame her. She leaned forward to see where his male genitals could possibly be. Her ignorance was fast disappearing as she realized all men were not alike. She came out of her hypnotic state as he savagely reached for her hand and forced her to hold his limp member. With his hand still gripping hers, he forced her to manipulate his foreskin up and down. It grew about an inch. "Faster," he ordered. "I must attain an erection sufficient to take your maidenhead. Your blood is the only thing that will cure my disease."

Suddenly, she knew why she had been purchased from the orphanage. All was clear in a burst of blinding comprehension. She gasped and said with deliberate glee, "Too late, too late! All my virgin's blood was spilled in Rogue Cockburn's sheets!"

Horrified, he pulled away from her as if he had been scalded. In that instant another idea crystallized in her brain. She snatched up the candles and threw them into the bed, setting ablaze the altar she had almost been sacrificed upon.

He screamed for help, his piercing shrieks carrying through the house. She was nearly knocked over by the rush of servants into the room, but the panic and confusion served her well. She lifted the night rail from about her ankles and ran like one demented down the main staircase that led to the ground floor. She flung open the front door and ran out into the night. The cold air hit her almost naked body, and she knew she must find shelter fast. She ran behind the huge house, glancing up as she ran to see flames licking at the upper bedchamber window. The stables seemed the closest haven, but she didn't dare run the risk of recapture. As she made her way behind the next few houses, she entered some stables, where a warm miasma of horses, hay and manure filled her nostrils, and one horse whickered low in its throat. She hoped one would not set the others off in their restlessness and alert someone to her presence. Because it was dim inside, she could barely make things out. She was searching for something to keep her warm; perhaps a horse blanket.

Her hands touched some rough material, which she discovered were clothes that must belong to the stableboy. She quickly pulled the pants up over her nightgown and put on the old jacket. She shuddered as the stench of sweat assailed her nose. The clothes were filthy, but they were all that was at hand at the moment. She lay down on some straw to rest. She was in total panic. Where would she go; what would she do? She had only rags, no shoes, no money, no refuge even, for she would have to leave this place as soon as she had rested, or she risked being discovered. Gradually, a calm settled over her. She was through running. It was time for her to take control of her life. She was an earl's daughter, and by God she was going to start acting like one!

She had a town house full of servants; all she had to do was find it. Dawn was turning the sky pink as she slipped from the stables and walked down the back street. As she walked on, she noticed how decrepit the buildings were becoming. She had walked for a half hour now, and everything was windowless and black with the grime of centuries The downstairs level of every hovel was some sort of a business. Gin shops beckoned alongside pawnbrokers and old clothes shops. Peddlers were beginning to fill the streets, offering everything from herrings to dead men's boots. She noticed boys running around almost naked. She was barefoot and saw with amazement that everyone else was, too. There weren't many women about, just a few drabs reeling home, still drunk from the whisky cellars they'd slept the night away in, with God knows what paying customers. This was what had killed her mother the slow death of poverty. Then and there she swore it would not happen to her.

Alexandria had told her where the town house was. She walked down the Royal Mile, past St.. Giles Church and into the Cannongate. The houses were very grand in this section. They were narrow but rose up many stories high. On the wall of each house was the crest and coat of arms of its owner. She stopped to examine a swan with two necks. No, that was not the right one. There it was! A lion rising from a coronet. It was the Cockburn crest, and above it was the Earl of Ormistan's coat of arms, showing Castle Tantallon.

She ran up the steps and banged heavily upon the front door. The housekeeper, who had only just arisen from bed, answered the summons slowly. She was a good woman, but at the moment her plain features showed her annoyance to have a caller at this ungodly hour. She opened the door, saw the young girl in the boy's shabby clothes and said, "Get away, we want no beggars here."

"Beggar? Beggar?" flared Tabrizia, throwing up her head as if she were a queen. "My good woman, I happen to be the daughter of the Earl of Ormistan. Stand aside instantly."

The woman looked doubtful. She looked down at the bare feet and said, "The earl hasna got a daughter."

Tabrizia pushed past her lightly. "I certainly don't intend to stand on the doorstep and argue with a servant. You must be blind, woman, if you can't see that I'm a Cockburn." She waved her hand as if to dismiss the open-mouthed woman.

"Oh, before you go, I'll need a message sent to Tantallon to tell my father I'm at the town house, and in the meantime you can send a maid up with hot water for my bath, and you can tell the cook I'll have warm scones and honey for breakfast. Be a dear and bring it up for. me."

The house was very unfamiliar to her, but common sense told her that staircases led to bedchambers. The very first door she opened turned out to be a bedroom. She slipped inside and sagged against the door in relief. She had pulled it off, and it had been quite simple, really. It was all in the attitude. Rogue Cockburn had been right. If you acted like a doormat, the world would wipe its feet on you! After she had bathed and eaten, she locked the door from the inside and climbed into bed naked. She was asleep in minutes.

Paris Cockburn was up at dawn. This was an important day for all the people of the castle, as well as the villagers who lived on Cockburn land; all were shown appreciation for their loyalty and hard work during the year past. He also had to take the Oath of Allegiance from everyone in the clan, in which they knelt before him and swore, "So may God help me as I shall support thee. I swear and hold up my hand to obey, defend and serve thee as long as my life lasts and if needs be, die for thee."

The castle yard and the grassy slope outside it were beginning to fill with merrymakers. Oxen and sheep were being roasted on huge spits over open fires, and stacked barrels of homemade ale were ready to be tapped. Fiddlers and pipers were tuning up for the dancing, and the children ran around, their hands filled with apples and butterscotch toffee.

Paris was looking forward to the festivities in hopes that he would be able to coax Tabrizia into a warmer mood toward him. He would beg her forgiveness for what happened at Tantallon and tell her how much he loved her.

He was surprised to see Lord Lennox arrive so early, but when he asked Paris if he could have a word in private, Paris guessed it was about Venetia. They went into the gun room next to the men's barracks. Lennox didn't beat about the bush.

"I'd like your sister Venetia for my wife, Paris, if you have no objections to joining our two families."

"None whatever. There are advantages in it for both of us, David."

Lennox thought Cockburn would drive a hard bargain and demand a heavy bride-price for his sister. "My problem is cash flow, Paris, so I will have to let you have a piece of land instead."

Paris, in a magnanimous frame of mind, asked, "Don't you have a nice manor house in Midloathian?"

"Aye," nodded David Lennox, "but 'tis heavily mortgaged," he admitted.

"Put it in Venetia's name, and I will pay off the mortgage," Paris offered rather generously.

"Ye jest, man!" exclaimed Lennox, surprised and relieved.

"No, I am serious. Let's shake on it, and we can have the legal papers drawn up in Edinburgh next week."

Lennox couldn't believe his good luck and went off happily to find Venetia, silently thanking whoever had put Rogue Cockburn in such a generous mood.