Authors: J. Jay Kamp
Breathing in the intimacy of it, his face so close to hers, his musky scent filling her senses and his broad, tall shoulder looming above her, it was enough to make her vow she’d never leave his side again.
A second more, and she had no choice. Sarah was calling him. In response, he ducked out the door in a hurry, and she sighed; not out of weariness but with joy, relief, for walking upstairs without a candle, past Megan’s adjoining room where the wet nurse slept with her infant son, she felt a surge of hope.
As dawn began to gray the night, she slipped out of her dress and into a chemise, trembling with the thought of what James had done. “At least I know he still loves me,” she mused, getting under the covers. “At least I have that.”
“But of course I still love you,” a voice answered back. “’Til death do us part, just as we promised.”
Her heart nearly stopped at the sound. She lay as still as she possibly could, like a frightened fawn, for she knew that voice all too well.
Christian was under her bed.
From beneath the bed skirts, he grabbed her foot. Ravenna should have screamed then, when he used her for leverage, slid out from under the rope-strung mattress. Instead, as he came at her, she kicked him viciously. It did no good. All the fighting in the world wouldn’t have stopped him, for with alarming speed, Christian had climbed on top of her and, gloating at where she lay helpless beneath him, covered her mouth with a heavy hand.
Senseless with fear, she held still. Sweat glistened above Christian’s lip. His hair was a mess, and when he leisurely settled his full weight over her, pinning her down, enjoying her panic, Ravenna knew she was in terrible trouble. With pupils the size of pinheads, Christian had obviously taken something.
Then she was frightened. All the rules she’d known, all the tricks she’d used in manipulating him were thrown out the window, for with that fixated wildness in his stare, he’d turned into a complete stranger. Leaning over her, he glanced down between them, at where her breasts just touched his shirt. A smile twitched strangely at his mouth. “I wonder,” he asked, staring at her neckline, “what exactly did the Paddy do to arouse you? Did he use his hands? Should we try as much?”
She fought to turn away, but he squeezed his fingers around her jaw, held her fast. “Oh, yes, but surely he courted you first.” And leaning down close, he took her mouth in a kiss.
Filling her, devouring her with a reckless hunger, he forced her to endure the crush of his lips. Ravenna grabbed at his powdered hair and yanked with all the strength she had, but it didn’t help. He only moaned, and the wetness of him roved and deepened until abruptly, just as suddenly as he’d started, he pulled out of her mouth with a flourish.
She struggled, gasped for breath. “
Get off me
,” she hissed.
“What’s that you say?” He seized her waist, gave it a shake. “You want me to
get you off
, Beloved?”
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“I don’t?” Christian smiled. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“You wish.” With his palm gliding up the front of her, she realized the door to Megan’s room was ajar. James was downstairs. She’d only have to scream to bring them both running, but as she took in a deep breath and filled her lungs, Christian’s hand came up to smother her.
On instinct, she clawed at it. Fighting to get at him, she tore into his shirt, his skin, whatever she met in the midst of her panic, but Christian merely pushed her down harder, held her entire body in check with the force of his clammy, wine-smelling fingers. When he leaned down and buried his lips at her neck, she felt his tongue edge toward her collarbone, nearer her breasts, his free hand wandering until, feeling his fingers between her thighs, Ravenna’s mind went blank with fear. He’d unbuttoned his trousers, was starting to lift the hem of her chemise.
With her hands unfettered, she lunged at him. She dug her fingernails into his eyes. When he weakened his hold, she gathered up her legs and, aiming for that which he intended to use against her, kicked him for all she was worth.
Instantly, the battle ended. Making no sound other than a gasp, Christian rolled backwards and fell to the floor with knees together and eyes shut fast. Ravenna wasted no time in escaping. Before her baby woke up, before Megan wandered in to see what had happened, she had to get James and put a stop to this.
Without lights and without thinking, she threw herself into the corridor and broke into a run. Hearing Christian scrambling after her, she raced downstairs and out to the greenhouse where, finding it empty, she turned and bolted back in the house. Even as she ran, she put all her strength into a cry for James. When the echo of it had subsided, she heard voices, and she hurried desperately toward the sound, burst through the great hall, dove through the doors standing open on the lawn toward James, his protection, his towering figure rushing to meet her.
With the noise of a blade being pulled from its scabbard, she tumbled to the lawn at James’s feet.
“Launceston!” James shouted.
Sliding, Christian stopped at the great hall’s doors.
Only then did Ravenna look up. Sarah stood a few yards away. Banks, Sidney, Farrough and Harlow were all clustered around James’s mare now held by the postilion, and as these guests watched in shock, Christian sauntered down the steps in a waver. Swaggering across the lawn, he showed no sign of slowing even when James lifted his sword.
“If you’ve harmed her,” James said, extending the weapon, “you’ll pay for it in blood, do you understand me, Cousin?”
Christian beamed drunkenly. “I’m so
impressed
.” And with a wave of his hand, he brushed off the sword. “Of course I understand you, but I think your guests might find it distasteful. After all, rapiers are so pathetically old-fashioned.”
Bowing his head dangerously, James edged the sword closer still, but Christian went on, reveling in his braggart tone. “Oh, but I’ve forgotten,” he said, “it takes good breeding to recognize style…doesn’t it, James?”
From the grass, Ravenna shook her head.
Christian, please don’t say it
, she thought,
not here, not now
.
Yet James seemed to dismiss the remark. Keeping an eye on Christian’s swaying, he held out his free hand to help Ravenna. “What has he done, Love? If he’s raped you, he’s already dead.”
Already dead
…
Christian gazed at her, waiting for the accusation to fall from her lips as it rightly should, but seeing him balanced against the point of that sword, Ravenna was struck by the strangest feeling.
The mist had begun rolling in off the ocean. Ribbons of it crept over the lawn around them. One of the guests said something to James, but Ravenna ignored them in favor of this nagging familiarity in her thoughts, this urgency fighting for her attention in every detail, Christian’s royal blue frock coat, his delicate hand near the blade at his neck.
David standing there
, that’s what it was. David telling her about Christian’s death when he’d held a sword in his reverent grasp, that sword,
Paul’s sword
. In remembering his words, a chill swept up Ravenna’s spine. She could still see David tortured by his need to understand his ancestors, this very weapon in his trembling hands, and with Christian before her, she realized what it meant.
This was the beginning of Christian’s death.
Death
…Memories fought their way to the surface, of Paul’s last gaze as the pinnace pushed off from
Discovery’s
side; of how only a few hours had brought the shock of his absence, one moment moving tenderly beside her in the safety of the crow’s nest, the next moment dead on the river’s bank. As confident and spiteful as Christian was in leaning against that four-foot rapier, as much drug-induced violence as she saw in his eyes, still he was alive.
He was alive
. The sweat on his cheek was warm, his intense gaze animated and alert, and these were things worth the price of any amount of suffering.
“Ravenna, tell me,” James urged.
And knowing destiny rode on her answer, she turned away from the image David had vested in her and looked up at James with solemn resolve. “He’s done nothing. Please, just put the sword away. I won’t mourn him or anyone else ever again.”
“There’s nothing
to
mourn. If he’s raped you, he deserves to die.”
“No,” she said, watching the way Christian’s features sharpened. “He’s my husband, and you can’t kill him for doing what he has the right to.”
“I can and shall kill him.” And giving him a push, James forced him back with the tip of the sword. Blood trickled from Christian’s chin. It ran in the channel engraved along the steel, and yet it hardly mattered; quiet and unmoving where he stood pinned back by James’s anger, Christian didn’t appear to notice.
Instead, his poise faltering, malice and flippancy slipping away, he ran a hand through the blond of his hair. He swayed against the sword’s point, and as he stared at Ravenna in obvious shock, she was sure she saw love in his eyes.
Then he looked away, mumbling to himself.
“What was that, Cousin?” James glanced at Ravenna. “If he’s threatened you again to ensure your protection, I’ll—”
“I said I don’t deserve her,” Christian answered loudly.
“You don’t deserve the dirt beneath her shoes.”
“Listen to me.” Ravenna put her hands over James’s, under the rapier’s S-shaped guard. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt him, remember? No matter what happened, you said you wouldn’t—”
“
He’ll answer for his crimes!
He isn’t Paul, he isn’t worthy of your grief or your—”
“James, this is murder.”
“Leave him alone, Beloved.”
Christian’s guilt-ridden eyes met hers, and she did see it then, that love she’d glimpsed before. For an instant, his attention lingered on her, his cherubic features drawn up in a wince. Then he swallowed, and with as much belligerence as he could muster, he said blatantly, for all to hear, “I doubt very much the marquess inherited from his
real
father the nerve to run me through.”
She gasped as James abruptly withdrew the sword, then just as quickly brought it swooping across Christian’s face.
Christian didn’t move. Blood oozed from the length of the sword’s trail across his cheek, but his expression of purpose was far more alarming.
“
What
did you say?” James asked softly.
Glancing at Ravenna, Christian raised his voice. “I said your real father. You know the one. I believe he was tall, dark, and—oh yes—wasn’t he Spanish?”
James pushed nearer with the point of the sword, pressed it tight to Christian’s heart. “One more word before these people and you’ll meet God here and now, understand? I’ll run you through, I swear I will.”
“Do you mean that?” Christian asked in a whisper. “For Ravenna’s sake, you’ll kill me now?”
“I’ll do more than kill you.”
“Christian, please just go back to London.”
But Christian didn’t step back from the sword. “I’ll go,” he said, “but only if James will first tell these people about his real paternity. Is Sir Joseph aware of your secret heritage?”
“You know I’ll destroy you if you so much as—”
“James, why don’t you tell them how the third Lord Wolvesfield wouldn’t marry your mother? How he cocked up an actress and then forced your mother to raise Ravenna as her own?” Christian smiled a little. “Now expecting your mum to be faithful after that kind of abuse requires audacity, don't you think? Especially if you invite Don Juan into your home. Imagine my lord’s surprise when, nine months later, she bore him a mongrel, a dark-skinned Mexican brat?”
“
That’s enough!
”
Tilting the sword back, James gave Christian a tremendous shove. Christian staggered backwards, but that didn’t stop him from persevering with the story.
“Why haven’t you told them, James? Why haven’t you told your wife? Well, wife-to-be, anyway. Are you afraid she won’t marry you, should she know the truth? That your father was a Spanish mestizo from Mérida, a swashbuckler, a mercenary, a
common thief?
Does Sarah not have a right to know the pedigree her children will suffer?” Christian implored the guests, giving Sarah a shaky nod.
“Or will you deceive her to the very altar?” He turned back to James, leaned ever harder against the sword. “Shouldn’t she know that her future groom will not be Lord Wolvesfield at all, but James Escalante, the poor son of a half-breed adventurer? Because you see, Lord Wolvesfield’s not only lied about his blood, but he’s assumed a peerage which by right of succession is mine. Oh, the third lord did eventually marry James’s mother—
on her death bed
. Then he bribed the vicar to alter the parish records. Thus the title, the house, everything he calls his own should lawfully belong to me and he’s stolen it impenitently because he’s not a marquess’s son at all, he’s a lying, thieving, mongrel bast—”
James lunged at Christian. Knowing what was about to happen, Ravenna got there first. She pushed against James, begged him to stop as she fought to cover Christian’s body, to keep the inevitable from happening around her.
Yet James dropped the sword when, in the midst of the struggle, he shoved her aside. “Love, stay
back
,” he snarled. Turning to Christian, fists raised, he punched him squarely in the jaw, giving Ravenna an odd sense of relief in watching her husband fall to the grass.
No one moved to collect the sword. Seeing her chance, she rushed to get it, to keep it from James as long as she could.
“Are you going to kill me with fisticuffs or swordplay?” Christian frowned as she picked up the weapon. “Beloved, give the marquess his sword.”
“Christian, I—”
“
Give him the sword!”
But James had no intention of taking it. With his face contorted in unbridled rage, he circled Christian, his hands making fists again and again. “Get up,” he growled.