Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 (24 page)

Abella ceased her squirming. “What you say?”

“My darling, I am your father.” Still holding Abella, he stroked her hair as she stood motionless, waiting for his words to ease into her heart.

Shock, wonder, relief, and confusion traveled across the girl’s features. The sight made Claire want to weep, even for the wretch who nearly took her life. How terrible it must have been to grow up in a home where the people you thought were your parents treated you as abominably as the Caballero de Vargas-Duarte and his wife.

Finally, Flavian released Abella. Sniffling, eyes red and puffy with tears, she turned and stared at him. He met her gaze with such love and tenderness that tears crested Claire’s lids and slid down her cheeks.

Flavian took Abella to the bed and they sat on the edge, his arm over her trembling shoulders. “I was fourteen years old when I met your mother, and she was two years older. You’ve never heard her name because her parents forbade it ever to be spoken again in their presence, and I was sworn to secrecy. Valencia. She was beautiful. You look just like her.”

“But where she be?”

“She died, my love.”

Abella’s hands flew to her face, covering her eyes as if she saw Flavian’s words, and they hurt her. “How?”

Flavian looked at Claire, his glance filled with despair. It was time for the truth, and they passed that message wordlessly one to the other.

“Unfortunately, she committed suicide.”

For a long time Abella was silent. Then she sighed and bit her quivering lip. “Why you no tell me this before?”

“I’m so sorry, my darling. I swore to Hernando, to whom I owed my life, that no one would ever know. You see, he took her body the night she died and had her buried in consecrated ground. She loved the Catholic faith, but in the eyes of the Church, suicide is a sin. If the Church ever finds out the nature of her death, the priests will have her body exhumed and removed.”

Abella twisted her hands in her lap, grappling with a barrage of emotions that Claire could only guess at how she must feel. “I wish there be a song for this,” the girl said, resting her cheek against his chest.

Flavian pulled her closer and gave her a gentle shake, “My Bella, do you see now why I can love Lady Claire and you equally?”

“My lord, my lord!” They heard Marlow shouting from the hall. A second later, the butler burst into the room. “The pile is on fire. Come quickly!”

Flavian leaped to his feet. “Get out of the tower,” he said. Abella’s eyes went blank with terror. “I can no go.”

“You have to direct the servants!” Marlow shouted, “They don’t know what to do.”

“Come on!” Flavian went to grab Abella, but she rolled across the bed and slipped away.

Claire pushed Flavian toward the door. “Go! Go! I’ll get her out.” Doubt flashed across his face, but Marlow tugged his arm. “My lord, all will be lost if you don’t come.”

He dashed after the butler.

Abella stared at the black smoke billowing past the window. “Hold my hand,” Claire said, grabbing the girl’s arm.

As if she’d been stung, Abella drew back, her eyes filled with dread. “I bad for you and Vav will hate me”

“Come!” Claire yanked Abella to her feet and pulled her toward the door.

“No, no.” Tearing herself away, Abella raced for the far side of the bed. “Is better I stay!”

As the girl tried to crawl across the bed again, Claire grabbed her by the collar. Abella fell backwards, landing with a thump and a crack on the head. “Don’t you dare do that to him,” Claire hissed, inches from the girl’s face. “You will not break his heart.”

Smoke poured in the window, turning the room dark. Eyes stinging, each breath ending with a spasm of coughing, Claire walked backward dragging Abella by her dress. The girl kicked and flailed, trying to beat her off. Straining her injured, smoke ravaged throat, Claire screamed, “Stop it! Stop it!” But Abella kept struggling.

At last, she got her out of the bedroom, but to close the door and keep the smoke from overtaking them, she had to let go with one hand. The moment she released the collar, Abella sprang to her feet. Claire beat her to the door and pressed against the oak, the handle digging into her back. “Does your father deserve to lose both of the women he loves?”

Glittering rage flared in Abella’s eyes. She raised her hand, and as it arced toward Claire’s face, Claire grabbed the wrist and held it fast. “Don’t.”

A long minute passed and the rage faded. Despair took its place. “But the horses scream.” Abella pulled at the neckline of her bodice. “They no stop kicking in the pond, and they under the ice. Seven horses, they screaming for me to come.”

“Give me a chance to help you.”

“Let me go,” Abella twisted her wrist from Claire’s grasp. “I want to go where the horses don’t cry. I want to be with Hernando and mama.” The girl wrung her hands. She kept looking at the smoke curling from under the door as if it were a pool of water on a hot day.

“When you sing, the horses stop, yes?”

Abella was too distracted to answer. “Sing,” Claire pleaded, “sing to me.” In a croaking voice, she started the old round, “
London’s burning, London’s burning
.”

The look of lost despair lifted a little, and Abella trilled the next line, “
Look out! Look out … ”

Claire took her hand and led her down the hall, “
Fire, fire! Fire, fire!”
they sang together, “
Pour on water, pour on water.”

• • •

A powerful explosion rattled every window of the massive house. Flames shot into the air causing a hot wind to blow past Claire. The impact shook a burning wine barrel off the debris pile, causing it to roll onto the lawn and detonate. Servants helping in the bucket brigade broke away to put it out.

“Stay with the line!” Flavian shouted. “Save the house.” He hurled the contents of a pail at a wooden window frame near the flames. Marlow and Betteridge-Haugh struggled to carry a horse trough full of water. Flavian broke from his place at the head of the line to help them.

Moving as swiftly as she could without spilling, Claire passed a full bucket to Mrs. Gower, who stood like a post, the bucket hanging from her arm until Betty came to fetch it.

Abella wandered absently up and down the line. She seemed unable to understand what was happening. Another ear-splitting explosion caused the vague, somnambulant haze to clear from her eyes. “I sorry all this trouble,” she said, taking a bucket from Claire. Framed by her black hair, Abella’s face appeared paler than usual — her eyes wide and distracted.

Claire raced for another bucket from Apple Bess. Coming back to Abella, she tried to say, ‘Thank you for the apology,’ but her throat was so raw, all that came out was a faint, “Thanks.”

“You love him,
si
?”

Claire nodded as she lugged the bucket the rest of the way to Mrs. Gower.

“I no want to hurt you no more.”

After handing off the bucket, Claire pressed her heart then placed her palm on Abella’s chest. “Friends?” she croaked.

Tears sprang to Abella’s eyes and she dropped to her knees, clutching her head.

“Here my lady!” cried Apple Bess, lugging a bucket across the lawn. Worried about Abella’s emotional state, Claire decided to keep an eye on her, but there was little else she could do. Her place on the bucket brigade was too critical to run for a vial of remedy. She hurried to take the pail from Apple Bess.

Flavian, holding one end of the trough and Marlow and Betteridge-Haugh taking the other, walked beside the line. “Vav,” Abella said, leaping to her feet, “My things for Hernando, they go to him now?”

“Yes, like in ancient Rome where they burned things the dead would need in the afterlife.”

She kept following him. “And fire, it purify?”

“Yes, and fire sends earthly goods to heaven. Help with the brigade now.”

Claire wondered if Flavian noticed Abella’s desperation and the agitation in her gestures.

“Purification bring peace to the soul.” Abella murmured, returning to the line and accepting the bucket Claire gave her.

“You silly fool!” shouted Apple Bess. The cook flapped a soaking apron at the scullery maid. Claire recognized the maid as the one she woke the night Abella soiled the bed. “She’s gone and dumped water on me.”

“It were an accident!”

“That fire is raging, and I got to go fill this bucket again!”

Claire waved her arms, chasing the women back to their work. She shoved the empty bucket into the scullery maid’s hands and gestured toward the water. The maid hurried off toward the canal, which ran under the stone bridge.

Simmons passed Apple Bess a full bucket and Claire took the container to hand it off to Abella, but the girl was gone. As she hauled the heavy pail toward Mrs. Gower, Claire scanned the lawn. The girl wasn’t by the fire, nor was she elsewhere on the line. She didn’t see her walking toward the house or down by the canal. A terrible sense of foreboding rang in her brain. “Flavian,” Claire tried to shout, but only the faintest squeak left her lips. She rammed the pail onto Mrs. Gower’s outstretched arm and ran toward the fire. A white sheet of paper floated out of the tower’s third floor window and skittered high into the sky. “Flavian!” Claire screamed, but her pitiful caw was no match for the roar of the fire.

Abella appeared then, standing on the edge of the window frame, hair blowing wildly in the heated air. In one arm, she held a mass of sheet music; the other protected her face as she gazed at the burning pyre.

Yanking on Flavian’s sleeve, Claire pointed at the tower.

“Get back!” Flavian bellowed, but the girl did not move.

Flaming ash danced into the air. Abella beckoned toward it, willing the lacy black particles to drift nearer.

Dropping his end of the trough, Flavian dashed for the tower. Pandemonium erupted as shrieking servants abandoned their pails and ran forward. An ash twisted its glowing body and then rested against the skirt of Abella’s white frock. Like a spill, a circle of brown spread on the dress from the body of the ember.
Please God, let him get to her in time
, Claire prayed. But in the next instant, Abella’s skirt transformed into a mass of orange flames. Frantic with pain, the girl let go of the sheet music, which spiralled and circled like birds above the ocean.

Even over the howl of fire, Abella’s shrill cry split the air. “Forgive me,” she wailed, then tipped forward and plummeted into the inferno.

While Simmons re-tied the cravat for the umpteenth time, Flavian watched Claire bounce her knees up and down for three-year-old Sarah Abella Bourne, the someday viscountess of Monroe.

“Sing ‘A, B, C’ for Papa,” Claire said.

“A, B, C lellem nenopee,” warbled the child.

“That was outstanding,” Flavian assured her. “Someday you’ll sing as beautifully as your half-sister.” A slice of pain caught his heart. He grieved for Abella every day, and still prayed … prayed that she’d found peace.

“I ate a carrot today, Papa,” said Sarah, disrupting his thoughts.

“What an amazing child. You shall find wonderful things under the Christmas tree tomorrow morning, I just know it.”

“A doll?”

“Perhaps a doll.”

“A sweet?”

“Maybe a sweet.”

“What else?”

The governess leaned over Claire’s shoulder, “A slate to improve your studies. And it’s time we left your parents to get ready for the Christmas ball.”

The little girl wrapped her arms about her mother’s neck. “Mama, you look like a cake,” she whispered not too quietly.

Claire laughed. “I shall take that as the highest compliment.” She kissed Sarah’s rosy cheek and handed her to the governess who carried her to Flavian for a goodnight peck. “Sleep sound, Turtledove.” He patted the little girl’s chubby knee, exposed under the bunched fabric of her nightgown. “The magic doesn’t happen unless you’re fast asleep.”

“I’ll be like this,” Sarah said, closing her eyes tight and dropping her head on the governess’s shoulder.

Flavian smiled. “Good girl.”

When the governess had gone, Simmons held a hand mirror for Flavian to inspect the cravat. “Nicely done.”

Claire swung her feet onto a footstool. The skirt of her ball gown flipped up, exposing a trim ankle in white hose and the lacy edge of her petticoat. Flavian’s blood quickened.
Oh, to be that petticoat sliding against those alabaster legs
. The valet crossed in front of him, blocking the view. Deliberately, Flavian was sure. He battled a desire to hoist Simmons up and drop him outside the door so that he could be alone with his wife. The valet persisted in his work, however, despite Flavian’s impatient exhalation. With a few quick whisks of a brush to the epaulets of the Royal Navy dress jacket, the valet stood back and examined his work.

“How do I look?” Flavian said, stepping around the man.

“Ready for duty,” said Claire, with a sly smile.

“My lord, we need to buckle your sword.” Simmons ceremoniously presented the weapon.

“Ah yes, heaven forbid I should be seen in public without that unnecessary, uncomfortable piece of metal banging against my leg.”

“But it’s so dashing,” said Claire. She bit her lower lip, and reached for a cordial perched on a table by the wing chair on which she was sitting. Ever so subtly, she opened her thighs beneath the rich green silk of her evening gown.

He raised an eyebrow, and she raised one back. Simmons fiddled with the clasp to the sword belt. “Raise your hand please, my lord.” Flavian obliged.

His wife’s bare arm, luminous in the candlelight, lifted the cordial to her lips. One tiny bead of liquid remained, reflecting like a drop of rain at the centre of a rose. An ache surged through his body. “And now, Simmons, you will have to excuse us.”

A knowing smile tweaked the corners of Claire’s mouth. Wickedly, and clearly without a thought to the hard work of his valet, the vixen moved her elevated foot in a lazy circle.

“But my lord,” Simmons said, sounding slightly panicked, “you’ll be late for the ball.”

Leaning over her, Flavian breathed in the sweet perfume of his wife’s hair then ran his hands down her naked arms. Claire rose into his embrace, her body heating beneath his touch.