Lisbon (19 page)

He meant to keep watch when finally they lay together, 
spent but still aglow; he meant to, but fatigue overcame him and gradually his eyes closed and he slept.

The whole countryside had been aroused by Charlotte’s “abduction by a trepanner,” for Bodine had seen to it that word was put about that Lord Pimmerston’s betrothed was a young lady of vast fortune who had been snatched from the gardens of Castle Stroud by a horse thief who held a gun to her head. This fellow, it was reported, intended to spirit the unfortunate heiress across the border, marry her in haste, and return to claim her fortune and bribe his way out of his thievery.

Such a story was bound to arouse the fury of the county, and from all about, grim men armed with muskets had set out at once to patrol the border country, lest the fiend slip through with his victim.

The horse Tom had stolen from its hitching post at Castle Stroud had by now returned home, but when a fellow who frequented the Stag and Horn chanced upon the landlord’s horse grazing peacefully beside a little spring, he rode in haste through the darkness to bring the news to Charlotte’s uncle, who, along with Rowan Keynes, had ridden in with a small search party, while Lord Pimmerston and Bodine had raced off for the coast in case the “rogue, ” as Tom was now called, should try to escape by sea.

As the man who had found the horse approached with his news, a heated conversation was taking place between Charlotte’s uncle, astride his bay horse, and Rowan Keynes, sitting easily astride his chestnut stallion.

“The girl sees herself as meant for better things than a man of Pimmerston’s age—and eaten away with the ‘gallant’s disease’ as well, and eager to infect her!” Rowan was insisting. “Had either of us been in her slippers, we’d have run away too.”

“We're neither of us wenches,” was the grumpy response. “ Tis not for a wench to decide.” But he gave Rowan a curious look, for it was the streak of cruelty in Rowan’s nature along with his wildness that appealed to men like himself and Lord Pimmerston and Bodine and others of their ilk. The Rowan Keynes he had known rode 
his horses without mercy, had once horsewhipped his valet insensible for forgetting to relay a message from a lady, and was reputed to have beaten a prostitute in London so badly that she could not work for a month. When asked about the prostitute, Rowan had said frankly that she’d approached him knowing full well that she had a fresh case of the “gallant’s disease’’—which he’d have got from her had he fancied her, which he didn’t—but when he found out about that, he had sought her out and punished her. Tongues had wagged for a while, but prostitutes counted for little, and most who heard about it felt she had gotten what was coming to her. “What’s this, Rowan?’’ Russ demanded with sudden interest. “Why’ve you taken this tack? Have you gone soft for the wench?”

Rowan frowned at him.
Had
he gone soft for the wench? Visions of Charlotte dancing in her white dress floated through his mind, clouding it.

“Certainly not!” He closed his mouth with a snap. But one thing he
had
decided
—Pimmerston should not have her!

What else he might have said at that moment was interrupted by the arrival of the landlord’s friend from the Stag and Horn, who told them he had found the stolen horse. “So they must be somewheres around here,” the man concluded. “For afoot they can’t have gone far.”

“We'll fan out and search the valley!” exclaimed Russ instantly. “Pass the word!”

But as their messenger galloped away, Rowan’s thoughtful gaze turned upward toward the heights.

“If I were fleeing and my horse had given way under me,” he mused, “I’d seek high ground and a good defensive position—not go running about like a scared rabbit through the meadows below.”

Russ frowned. “What’re you saying, Rowan?”

“I’m saying they’re up there.” Rowan nodded his dark head toward the peak above.

“On Kenlock Crag? Can’t be! We’d have seen them climbing up, wouldn’t we?”

“Not if they did it last night in the dark. ”

“But the horse couldn’t make it, it’s too steep.”

"Maybe not. Someone from around here can tell us if there’s a good way up.” He rode off.

"Wait for me!” cried Russ. "If there’s a chance we can pounce on the pair of them ourselves ...”

Up ahead, riding through the gathering darkness, Rowan did not answer. That was exactly what he had in mind.

They found a pair of local men—climbers both—who knew the rocky defile that led to the top of the mountain. Aye, they could lead them up there—night or day.

"Dogs!” rumbled Charlotte’s uncle on a note of triumph. "We’ll send up the dogs first. They’ll flush Westing out like a fox!”

"Westing’s well enough, but there’s your niece up there,” pointed out Rowan. "You’ve seen dogs tear foxes to pieces. Suppose they attack her? Do you plan to turn the wench over to Pimmerston bitten and bleeding?”

Russ subsided, grumbling.

Pleased to have won his point, Rowan narrowed his dark eyes.

"We'll go on foot—with the help of these good fellows here.” He nodded toward the climbers.

"Very well,” agreed Russ with a sigh. "We'll start at dawn.”

"We'll start now,” corrected Rowan pleasantly. "We'll make the climb at night, when they won’t expect us. After all, we don’t want them to do anything foolish—as you told me was done by a pair of runaway lovers last year on yon mountain.”

His remark silenced Charlotte’s uncle, reminding him that last year a maddened father had pursued his runaway daughter and her lover to this very crag. Cornered and desperate, they had locked hands and leapt to their death in the cataract below. Dead, Charlotte would be of no use to him.

"How many men should we take?” he asked in an altered tone. "There’s a dozen nearby who’d be glad to volunteer.”

"The four of us should be more than sufficient,” was Rowan’s cool response. He would have liked to say "the three of us” and leave Russ at the base of the crag, but he knew that Russ would never allow that, and there was no point in arousing his ire. But when Russ reached for a lantern, Rowan said tersely, “Leave that. The moonlight will soon be more than enough to light our way”

Carefully, moving like shadows, with the experienced climbers going ahead and leading the way, the two men started out.

They took a long painful time climbing up the defile. At the fork their guides left them and went ahead to the top, moving like ghosts silhouetted against the dark sky

And then from above, lying along the protruding rock outcrop that overhung the niche that partially covered the sleeping bodies of Charlotte and Tom, a vantage point that could be seen in the distance by the two men waiting at the fork, the experienced climbers beckoned Rowan and Russ toward the low terrace wall where Tom had erected his small cairn of stones to serve as a warning.

Silent and breathless now, Rowan and Russ arrived at the spot simultaneously and their two heads came up over the terrace wall, surveying the lovers’ hideaway The scene they had come upon in the moonlight was a peaceful one. Charlotte lay upon Tom’s spread-out coat. Her head was pillowed on his shoulder Tom’s shirt was pulled out from his trouser top and one fine hand lay with the fingers still touching Charlotte’s unhooked bodice, as if it had slid there from caressing the mounds of her firm young breasts that rose bare and pale, their tips caressed by moonlight. As she moved restlessly in her sleep on the hard rock surface, Charlotte’s light skirts had ridden up, and Rowan Keynes was confronted with the prettiest pair of legs—for all the slight swelling and redness of one ankle—that it had ever been his privilege to view. Her bright hair was spread out in a shining moon-glittered mass.

It was a very private scene, a scene upon which no man should have stumbled, and for a moment, caught up by the girl’s beauty and by a sudden wish that 
he
 were that long tall fellow lying there asleep, Rowan held his breath.

Beside him Charlotte’s uncle had no such finer feelings. He let out a bellow that would have waked the dead, slipped, and clutched at Rowan’s coat to save himself.

Tom, aroused by the noise, gained his feet in a bound and leapt forward. That put him in range of the climbers from above, who dropped down on him just as Rowan, picking up the top stone of Tom’s cairn, flung it with force to smash into the side of Tom’s head so that he staggered sideways and fell like a stone at the cliff edge.

At that point Rowan was occupied with keeping Russ’s weight from pulling him over backward, for Russ had toppled, lost his footing, and would have skittered down the steep defile behind him save for that death grip he had taken on Rowan’s coat.

At the noise, Charlotte too had come awake and seen with paralyzing fear Tom spring up and be struck down by a stone from nowhere even as two bodies hurtled down upon him from above.

With a cry of fear at seeing Tom lying so still on the cliff edge, where he might with any motion topple over, Charlotte came to her feet and, unmindful of her injured ankle, plunged toward him.

One of the climbers from above, seeing her try to lunge past him, and afraid that her impetuous spring forward might carry her over the edge, managed to snatch at her skirts. Her hurt ankle gave way and she went down in a heap. This was accompanied by a loud rip as her skirts parted company from her bodice at the back.

The other climber who had guided the party up seized Charlotte by the arm and yanked her to her feet, where she would have gone down again save for the first climber, who promptly seized her other arm. Together they bore her back to the rock wall, where she stood on her good foot, kicking out at them with her injured one and screaming at Tom to get up and save himself, to get away from the edge or he’d go over!

She made a pretty picture spread-eagled there against the rock wall—and perhaps that was why the climbers continued to hold her thus, devouring her with their eyes— for her firm round breasts rode free above her unhooked bodice, bouncing as her torso moved with each angry kick. Her skirts in the back had torn free and hung down almost 
like a train, while her chemise—in which her heel had caught in the melee as she was unceremoniously yanked to her feet—streamed down below like a train as well.

In her torn white gown with her hair wild and disheveled and her face flushed, she looked curiously like an embattled bride—and endlessly tempting.

It was in that moment that Rowan decided to marry her.

Rowan, who had missed the early part of this scene as he was pulled abruptly backward by the weight of Russ's body as Russ clawed to regain his footing on the steep defile, had by now managed to regain the terrace, dragging Russ with him. He shook off the other man and vaulted the terrace wall, knocking down Tom s cairn of stones as he did so.

Russ came over next, stumbled on a rolling stone, and was righted by Rowan, who reached out and caught him. Russ was so angry he was almost frothing at the mouth.

“Pimmerston will not want her now—she's no longer a virgin,'' Rowan told Russ softly. His dark eyes gleamed.

“We don’t know that!’’ blustered Russ. “Could be he didn’t get that far. By God, we ll have her skirts up and find out!’’ He plunged toward Charlotte, who was standing precariously on one foot, being held flat against the rocky wall by the two climbers, one on each side, holding her arms pressed against the steep wall of the crag.

Rowan's long arm barred his way.

“Ask her”
he suggested pleasantly.

“Did that rogue pierce your maidenhead?’’ roared her uncle.

“Yes, he did,” Charlotte screamed back. “And I'm glad of it! 'Tis better than what
you
had in mind for me!”

“I'll have proof of that!” Russ struggled against Rowan's detaining arm.

Charlotte's face was white when Rowan, hard put to hold Russ back, suddenly said, “There's your proof,” and Russ followed the gesture of his head and saw what Rowan meant. In the bright moonlight, the torn-away section at the back of Charlotte's thin chemise, which had left her body and now lay spread out at her feet, was highlighted, 
and its delicate white surface betrayed a pale stain of watery blood.

His chest heaving with rage at being thus bilked, Russ flung himself back from Rowan's restraining grip, and Rowan, now that Russ was no longer headed in Charlotte’s direction, let him go. All eyes were on Charlotte, quivering there, when suddenly Russ turned to vent his spleen upon Tom.

“Bastard!’’ he almost sobbed, and with the word—and to the accompaniment of a shriek from Charlotte—he aimed such a devastating kick at Tom’s body that the very force of it sent Russ himself over on his backside.

The effect on Tom was worse. Caught by such a solid blow, his inert body rolled over, poised for a moment half-on, half-off the cliff edge, and then, almost in slow motion, went over the edge, dislodging a shower of stones as he went, to disappear into the blackness below.

For long moments, with the remnants of Charlotte’s scream still lingering in the air, the whole group remained paralyzed. No one spoke, astonished perhaps by this sudden attack upon an unconscious man who could not defend himself. Even Charlotte’s uncle, frozen in the act of trying to struggle up, remained mute, as if appalled by what he had done.