The Devil Rogue (42 page)

Mrs. Brown placed steadying hands on Angela’s shoulders
.
“What is it?” she asked in alarm.

“It’s
. . .
Viola
,” Angela panted, “
I think she’s
. . .
she appears to be quite ill.”
She
didn’t want to say the words out loud, but Viola was very old, and surely didn’t have much time left
i
n this
world
.

“Let’s just go have a look-see,” Mrs. Brown said calmly
.
“Old folks do tend to have their episodes, not necessarily warranting a
physician’s
visit each time.”

They both went quickly up the stairs, back to the suite of r
ooms where Angela had left
Viola
.

No one was there.

“But I – I just left her
only moments ago,” a perplexed Angela
stuttered
.

“Like I said, some have a little episode, snap right out of
it, and then just keep on going,
”
Mrs. Brown assured her
.

“Even so, I’d like to search the house, make sure she didn’t collapse someplace else.”

All
of
the servants were gathered together, and
then
split into pairs
.
They
searched the entire house and the back gardens
.
Viola was nowhere to be found
.
Angela was completely mystified
.
The woman couldn’t have just vanished into thin air
,
could she
?

Exhausted from the search for Viola, Angela laid down on the bed, sinking into the soft coverlet
.
S
he fell into a sound sleep
,
Sprinkles curled up behind her knees, purring. The kitten always offered a special comfort, reminding Angela of Ian’s gift. H
ours later she awoke to the warmth of Ian’s body at her back
.
One arm draped over her waist, his hand c
radling
her b
elly
, while his other arm supported her head.

“How are my wife and child?”
he
asked, his voice low.

“We’re fine
.
”
She
turn
ed
in his arms
so she could see his face
.
“
I’m just a
little tired, but better, now that you’re home.”

“I heard about Viola, that she could
n’t
be found.”

“It’s the strangest thing
.
She’s utterly disappeared
.
One minute she was
right
here, sitting in a chair, having some sort of difficulty,
and
the next, she was gone.”

“Maybe she wandered out of the house and got lost
.
I’ve already sent some men to search for her.”

“Oh, Ian, thank you
.
But I have to wonder, and I get goose pimples just thinking about it
,
but it’s almost as if she were a
. . .
a ghost
. . .
that she was never really here
.
”

“Do you believe in that sort of thing?”

“I don’t know
.
She did say some odd things to me, as if she knew what was going to happen
.
She told me about my mother.”

“What did she say?”

Angela told Ian everything Viola had said about her mother, the reason why she
’d
married
Eberly
.
She also told him how Viola had known of her love for him, and that
she’d known
everything would turn out all right
.

“That is amazing
. . .
and odd,” Ian said when Angela had finished.

“And
I’m happy to say she was right,
”
she said, smiling.

Ian played with a strand of her hair
.
“Speaking of happy, your father seems to have taken quite an interest
in
my mother.”

“I’m not surprised she decided to stay in
Moldova
for an extended visit.”

“You do realize if they were to marry, we’d become brother and sister?” Ian teased.

Angela
laughed
.
“That would be a bit awkward.”

“Somehow, I have the feeling
that
neither one of them is looking for marriage, but aren’t averse to a union of a different nature,” he said with a wicked twinkle in his eyes
.

“Please stop
!
I don’t want to think of my father and your mother
—
”

“
Okay
!
Besides,
I have a surprise for you.”

Angela sat up in her excitement
.
“A surprise
!
How lovely
!
What is it?
”

Ian reached behind him, producing a packet of papers
.
“It’s why I left you at the docks
.
I wanted to get started on it as soon as possible.”

“Well, what is it?” Angela prodded.

“I’ve bought
you
a ship,” he stated proudly
.

Months ago, h
e’d wanted to find the perfect gift for her.

“A ship?”

“
Your
very own ship to take us to
Moldova
any time we wish
.
It’s to be refitted in grand fashion as befits a viscountess – or a princess
.
I’ve been assured it will be ready to sail by the time our child is born.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Angela said with tears in her eyes
.
“It’s the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“It’s only the beginning, sweetheart
.
I plan to spoil you rotten
.”

“I love you so much, my
D
evil
R
ogue
,” she said huskily, leaning in for a kiss.

Dipping his head toward her luscious mouth, Ian replied, “And I love you,
my
princess.”

* * * * *

Read on for an excerpt of
this paranormal romance
:

Twelfth Moon,
Legend of the Pantera

One

Devil’s Spur,
Texas
, 1868

THEY WERE GOING TO hang her.

An angry mob surrounded Cadence. She sat on a nervously sidestepping horse, its hooves kicking up swirling clouds of brown dust. They were gathered on the outskirts of town. Heat, wind, sand, and encroaching vegetation all battled for dominion over the unforgiving landscape.

Two muddy trails marked her dirty, tear-stained cheeks. Her hair and clothes were tinged with the same color as the desert. She’d been dragged from Mamma Reba’s house, followed by a mad ride into town.

Cadence
struggled to control the wild panic working its way from her roiling gut, up her spine, to the back of her skull. The townspeople had turned on her; gone mad, snapping at her heels like a pack of feral dogs.

“Yer gonna pay fer yer sins, boy!” someone shouted.

But then, they didn’t know she was really a female.

That had suited Cadence just fine.

Nobody had seemed to notice she was anything other than what she appeared to be – a young boy of an age around fourteen or fifteen years old. Except Mamma Reba.

They also didn’t know
Cadence Antoinette LaPorte
was something else…something not quite human.

She felt the primitive animal
stirring beneath her skin
. It wanted to lash out at them – to draw blood
. Unfortunately, that would be impossible with her hands tied behind her back
.

She’d lived among these very people for the last several weeks, gotten to know them…even liked most of them.

Now, here she was, about to be hanged, which was really rather funny – or tragic – since she was innocent. At least
this
time she was.

Cadence knew who the real killer was. She could see him out of the corner of her eye, standing next to Mr. Pribbernow, who owned the feed store.

Did anyone bother to ask her what had happened? No.

That miserable coward, Ned Furley, must have ridden into town to proclaim he’d witnessed the kid murder Mamma Reba.
Cadence’s tears were for the dear old blind woman who’d taken her in, fed her, and let her do chores in exchange for a place to stay.

Furley had lived here his whole life, so of course everyone believed him. Cadence was a newcomer, an outsider.

They’d brought her directly to the hanging tree.

It was an ancient, twisted monstrosity with black, gnarled branches reaching toward the sky like bony fingers angrily clawing their way to heaven. It sat in rooted silence, a specter with secrets of death and violence, and when they led her horse beneath it, Cadence could feel its malignance.

She’d been settled upright in the saddle, someone yanking her hands behind her back, securing her wrists with a piece of rope. Then came the noose, suspended from a thick, sturdy appendage of the sinister tree. It had been placed over her head to rest on her slim shoulders like a coiled python, poised to choke the life out of her.

Her dark, curly hair had been cut as part of her disguise, and was now dirty and dripping with sweat. An occasional salty bead trickled into her eyes and along her temples. It made the cut near her ear burn annoyingly. Sweat slid in rivulets between her breasts, down her back and between her shoulder blades, while tiny flies buzzed around her head.

The blistering heat of the midday sun caused shimmering mirages to appear on the distant, barren horizon.
Civilization, ever vigilant in its show of superiority, maintained a constant struggle to wrestle the forces of nature into submission.
She squinted against the brightness, thinking this was to be her last image of life on this earth.

She had to force back the maniacal bubble of laughter that suddenly rose like bile into her throat. How ironic that she was about to be hanged for a murder she
didn’t
commit.

“It’s not over,”
her sister, Jaelene, had told Cadence just before she’d left home.
“There’s more trouble coming your way.
Be careful.
”

No kidding.

Maybe this was best. At least she would finally be free from the guilt of what she’d done, and the torture of her nightmares.

The horse beneath her bobbed its head up and down, blowing through its nose, taking a step forward. The rope tightened against the front of her neck, and for one horrifying moment, she thought the horse would keep on going, but it stopped. She strained backward, attempting to gain even the smallest amount of slack and still keep her seat. The rope’s prickly fibers abraded her skin, the pungent odor of hemp drifting into her nostrils.

She crooned softly to the horse, trying to calm it. Animals, especially horses, tended to get nervous around her kind. They could sense the dangerous predator. But Cadence had learned from her mother how to quiet them by using a special tone of voice and words spoken in her mother’s Romany language. Finally, the horse relaxed, settling back into its original position.