Raine: The Lords of Satyr (23 page)

L
ate that night, Jordan’s sleep turned restless. She was writhing, her skin clammy. She stood and made for the door, her mind caught up in chaos.

Strong hands clasped her and led her back to the bed. Raine. She wanted to tell him she was all right, but she couldn’t organize her thoughts or elude the grip of her nightmares to do so.

In her dream, she was fully dressed in a muslin gown and wearing a hat decorated with posies. She was in the rear garden on her way to Raine’s stable when her mother suddenly materialized beside her in much the same way as a Shimmerskin arrived. From nowhere.

When she saw that Jordan was dressed as a woman, Celia Cietta put a hand over her own impressive bosom. “God in heaven. Look at you!”

Jordan forced her lungs to resume working properly. “Buon giorno, Mother,” she replied, just as if it were a common occurrence to encounter someone who was no longer living.

“I’ve come to take you home,” her mother said, taking her arm. Her fingers were cold.

Gently, Jordan pulled away. “I already
am
home.”

“No! You must come with me. If you don’t return to Venice, your father’s family will take away my fortune,” her mother wheedled.

“I’m not coming back, Mother. I plan to wed soon.”

Her mother paled. “Wed? To a man or a woman?”

“A man. A good man. The one who seeks to awaken me even as we speak.”

Her mother surveyed Raine, who had his arm around Jordan and was trying to cajole her into wakefulness.

“He’s handsome enough. Does he know? About you?” Her mother fluttered a dainty hand in the general direction of Jordan’s genitals.

“We share a bed. How could he not?”

Revulsion filled her mother’s face. “You should be ashamed.”

Jordan slowly shook her head. “No. You’ve always been the one too ashamed to speak of my differences. I’ve never been ashamed of my body.”

Her mother’s tone turned venomous. “Then you should be. Now more than ever. You look ridiculous in that getup. No female was ever so lacking in feminine grace. Your hair is askew. Your gown and hat display an appalling lack of care and refinement. Your ensemble is indifferent and negligently arranged.”

“I’m happy here. Can’t you leave me alone?”

“You’re living a lie.”

Jordan’s lips trembled. “No. The lie ended when I came here. I wish to live as a woman. I plan to be a wife to Raine. He knows what I am and he will have me.”

“No man will keep you as wife for long,” her mother scoffed. “He’ll want children.”

Jordan patted her abdomen. “That doesn’t seem to be a problem. I’m already with child.”

Celia gasped and glared at her in horror. A moment passed, then her face turned sly. “That can be undone.”

Beside her mother, Salerno abruptly materialized. Wordlessly, he took Jordan’s wrists and held them crossed tight together at her chest. Another man with a sinister look appeared as well. It was the bishop from the theater in Venice. He came behind her, lifting her skirt. He raised a clenched fist.

Jordan looked to her mother for help, but Celia had already disappeared into the vapor from which she’d sprung.

Grabbing her belly with the flat of one hand, the bishop rummaged his oily fist between her legs. Without warning, he rammed it high inside her vaginal throat. And higher still, fisting her impossibly deep. Deep inside her womb his hand unfolded to grab and strangle those who grew there. Those who were as yet unborn.

She sobbed, begging him to stop. Fearing it was too late.

And then, just as suddenly as they’d appeared, the two men were gone.

She crumpled, doubling over as a tremendous cramp hit her, wreathing her belly and twisting her gut.

“Raine,” she’d whispered feebly.

“I’m here,” he answered. But he still seemed far away and she took no comfort from his soothing words. She was alone and in pain. She pushed up on all fours. Within her womb, opposing forces raged. Blood clotted. Tissue tore from its moorings. It poured from her, smearing her inner thighs and soaking the bedsheets beneath her.

Hours later she finally made her way back to consciousness. But even before Raine told her, she knew. In the dank darkness of her dream, she’d given birth.

They’d been boys. Twins. ElseWorld children who were already far advanced in development after only one day of gestation.

One was olive skinned. Raine’s child.

And the other had skin the color of ebony stone.

Both were stillborn.

T
he twins were buried in the Satyr crypt in a private ceremony attended only by family. For days afterward, Jordan ate little and refused all conversation. Raine was frantic with the need to comfort her, but when she turned him away he sought solace in his work.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, she approached him, having found him in the garden at the rear of the house. She carried a basket on one arm. Her parting gift.

Seeing her, Raine leaped to his feet. She wanted to weep at the pain she read in his face. Pain she’d brought to him.

“I’m leaving,” she said baldly.

He took her shoulders in his hands, his expression urgent. “It wasn’t your fault. Postponing the ritual didn’t cause the miscarriage. Is that what you think?”

Yes, that was exactly what she thought. “It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head wearily and stepped back from him. “I’m leaving. Returning to my former life in Venice.”

She’d seen Salerno in her dream the night she miscarried. And that meant something. He was still looking for her. If he came here, he would bring devastating scandal and shame. She couldn’t let her sordid past touch Raine and his family. They didn’t deserve that.

Storm clouds gathered in Raine’s eyes. His reaction was subtle, but she knew how to read the signs now.

“What life?” he sneered. “The streets?”

“Raine—”

“You do understand that you’re in danger if you leave? That Morpheus will keep after you? That even if he stops, other ElseWorld creatures will continue to hound you?”

“I’m willing to take that chance.”

“You’re that unhappy here? At the side of a man you supposedly love?”

Biting her lip, she shook her head. She had to take her leave before she broke down. “I have something to give you before I go.”

She handed her basket to him.

He glared at her offering, confused by it.

As well he should be. The basket was full of sticks, tied in pairs with bits of ribbon—the ribbon she’d taken from him back in Venice. Every morning for weeks, she’d been driven to create the strange objects. She’d tried many different kinds of branch and twig and had tied the ribbons in various ways—braids, bows, and knots of various sorts. None had ever pleased her exactly, never seeming quite right. However, once she’d tied just two sticks together each morning, something within her had calmed and she’d been able to go about her day. Ashamed, she’d kept the stockpile hidden. Until now.

When he failed to take the basket, she jiggled it at him. “I don’t know what it means. It’s something to do with you. Some message for you.”

Raine was too angry to listen. He knocked the basket from her hand, scattering its contents into the leaf-strewn path. “If you truly wish to leave me, then go. And take your witchcraft with you. But only travel as far as the confines of this estate allow. Find a home with your sister or I’ll build one for you. You can’t leave Satyr land. You’re too important. There’s more to consider than your personal preferences.”

Turning away he intentionally ground her gift under the heel of his boot. Twigs snapped and pressed deep into the soil as he left her.

She stared at her scattered offering, knowing she’d hurt him. “I’m sorry,” she said to no one in particular, for he’d already departed. In spite of his arguments, she knew what she must do. She couldn’t let the scandal that was her life besmirch his. Couldn’t let him learn the truth of what she had once been.

In her pocket, she touched the only ribbon left whole now, the indigo. Then she stared down the long road that wound downhill, toward Florence.

At some point that afternoon, Raine looked up from his vials, mortars, and the other equipment he used in blending the wines.

Nick glanced at him and saw the tension in his face. “What?”

“Something’s wrong.” Alarmed, Raine stood, rattling everything on the table askew, searching the air for Jordan’s scent. It was gone.
She
was gone.

He rushed from Nick’s office and raced toward home, moving through the forest faster than he ever had in his life. Reaching his castello, he took the stairs three at a time, sprinted down the hall, and threw open the door to her bedchamber.

He reeled back a step at the disgusting smell that assailed him. Her room reeked. Not of Faerie now, but of a hideous concoction of chemicals. French perfumes.

She knew he abhorred perfume. Where had she gotten it? Filched from Jane, no doubt.

Holding his nose, he ventured inside. A half-dozen or more bottles sat on her dressing table, empty. She’d doused herself with it to literally throw him off the scent. Well, her ploy wouldn’t work.

He unfettered his nose and forced himself to dissect the scents, separating acrid from sweet and spicy from tart. Lifting one bottle after another, he quickly analyzed their odors, committing them to memory. But doing so was futile, he realized. If he were to follow the trail of any one such scent, it could as easily lead him to a stranger who wore the perfume as it might to Jordan.

Frustrated, he slammed the bottle he held to the surface of the table. Then he swept the entire collection of them to the floor with an outstretched arm.

Nick entered the room and surveyed the haphazard pile of bottles decorating the floor. “She’s gone?”

Raine shoved his shaking hands into his pockets, unwilling to let his brother see how her departure had affected him. “Apparently.”

“Will you go after her?”

Raine gestured in the general direction that Venice lay and shook his head. “You know I can’t. There’s work to do. The casks are ready and the wine must be blended. And with Lyon gone, your Will alone isn’t sufficient to keep the forcewall bolstered well enough to keep interfering Humans out of our estates and our business.”

Nick put a hand on his shoulder. “Continue your work then and I’ll summon Lyon home from Paris. He’ll be here within the week if he has good weather for traveling. Once the forcewall is strengthened by his coming, you can depart to search for her.”

Raine nodded, then went to stand at the window. A moment later he heard his brother take his leave. He gazed beyond the forest to the fields, distant towns and slopes, edged with misty purple mountains and the spears of cypress trees.

Where was she?

“H
ow lovely you look, Signore Cietta,” a sarcastic voice murmured.

Jordan had scarcely stepped beyond the bounds of Satyr land when she heard it. A familiar hand took hold of her arm. Signore Salerno.

Stunned for a moment, she could only gaze mutely into his cold eyes. Then, gathering her wits, she yanked at her arm making to dash away. But he held her too well.

“Lord! What’s that stink about you?” he said, ducking his head as far from her as he could. “Perfume?”

“If you don’t like it, then release me,” she replied, kicking at him with slippers that did little damage.

“You’d best not offend me. I’m sure you would prefer that news of your recent sojourn here with Lord Satyr not become common knowledge in Venice,” he threatened, giving her a shake. “There are those who would be quite enthralled to learn that he has engaged in carnal acts—possibly even committed the crime of sodomy—with the infamous La Maschera. Ah! I see from your expression that he has committed such a crime. Tut, tut!”

“What do you want? In exchange for your silence.”

“For now, only a little information.”

“What information?” She spat the words.

“Did you kill your mother?” he asked.

Her eyes widened and she shook her head, “No! I suspected you.”

“I’m no murderer.”

“Nor am I!” She tugged against his hold again. “How did you find me?”

“An informant. I’ve been lurking here for days and had begun to wonder if you would ever leave the estate. Then today you made things easy by falling into my lap.”

She continued to fight him as he dragged her toward his horse, but he easily defeated her efforts.

“He haunted me for a time after she died, you know,” Salerno offered.

“Who?”

“The constable. He knew I’d visited the house the morning of your mother’s death and that I’d taken you with me. I think he suspected some sort of conspiracy between us. But he couldn’t pin her murder on me. And in truth I had no hand in it. If you aren’t the culprit, the constable’s case remains unsolved. But no matter.”

Jordan knew why the constable had looked in Salerno’s direction. She’d penned an anonymous note to him implicating the physician.

He fumbled in his saddlebag searching for something, then drew out a cloth, which he clenched tight to her mouth and nose. It had been soaked in some foul-smelling vapor that made it difficult for her to breathe.

“Where are you taking me?” she gasped.

“Why, back to Venice, La Maschera. Now that your mother is gone, every day can be your birthday.”

Jordan’s eyes rolled back in her head as she lost consciousness.

R
aine dreaded the passing of days. Worry threaded the minutes, the hours. Where was she? Was she safe? He withdrew into his work, as he’d done before she’d come. The crush was over now and he sampled the vats regularly.

He filled the rest of his empty hours pacing the estate and watching the vines gradually change color, going from gold to a flamboyant red.

Autumn would end with earthing up. Ploughs would work between the rows to create a mound of fertile soil around the trunks of the canes, which would protect them from winter’s cold. Before long, the vines would lose their leaves and enter the dormant stage from mid-November to mid-March when the Bacchanalia would take place. He wanted Jordan here then. He couldn’t imagine participating in the celebration without her.

If Lyon didn’t return soon, he would quite possibly go insane.

One afternoon, he came across bits of ribbon scattered in the path of his back garden. He knelt to examine them. It was the bundle of sticks Jordan had left behind. A gift, she’d called it. Over the days since she’d gone it had rained once or twice and they’d been soiled. The mud had dried, leaving the ribbons dull and stiff.

He picked up one of the bundles that was still largely intact and examined it, wondering why she’d chosen to create such odd items. One of the branches was from an American species of tree and the other from a native plant of Italy. Pulling the two twigs apart, he noticed that the bark had been scraped away between them at the exact point where the sticks met. He picked up another bundle and saw the same design—American and Italian species joined. It was as though she’d meant them to be…grafted together.

The meaning behind these bizarre crafts struck him like a thunderbolt. Her dreams had caused her to make them, she’d told him. It was some sort of message for him, but she hadn’t understood its meaning.

However, he did. It was quite possibly the very solution he’d been after for these many months. The solution they’d all been after. Could the cure for the phylloxera be grafting the rootstock of an American vine onto an Italian one? Bacchus! If she was right, she’d saved an entire wine industry.

Yet he’d thrown her efforts away. Called it witchcraft. And he’d seen something die in her eyes when he had.