Curse of the Gypsy (20 page)

He took up her hand once more, squeezed it and released. “Annie, my dear, the best years of my life were when I came home, married Barbara, and we had Jamey and then you. I could never regret that, even if your mother and I no longer see eye to eye. I do love her, in my way. I fell in love with her as she lay on our marital bed and bore Jamey with a stoicism that amazed and overwhelmed me. And I love you two, my son and daughter, with all my heart. Annie … you’re the light of my life, but that light will be dimmed if you give up all for me. That would not make me happy.”

She was speechless. How could she say a word with tears in her eyes?

“And so I don’t want you to put off your life in trying to improve mine. Do not delay the sweetness of love, if you have found it. Does that address any of what has concerned you?”

“I understand what you’re saying. But, Papa, I think marriage is quite different for women.” She struggled with a way to say it, rubbing her palms along the wooden arms of the chair. “I have so much that I wish to do and see yet, but am so confined by my sex. And I fear losing myself. I don’t quite know how to explain; you will be known and remembered by all of Kent for your innovation with the hops harvest, and your title as earl … you are James, seventh Earl of Harecross.”

“One in a long line, my dear, and not a particularly distinguished one.”

She shook her head, frustrated by her inability to explain properly. “It sounds so dry when I put it this way, but I long to do something, to make a mark. If I simply marry and have children, what will there be to commemorate my progress through this life, beyond their names etched on tablets? Mother of the next Marquess of Darkefell?” She paused and stared at the lamp. “I will fade to nothing but a querulous society wife, whose name is a footnote in the biography of my husband’s life.”

“My dear, you will never be a footnote. You are too strong, too vital. You will make your mark, married or not.”

“But I want to make my own choices, live my own life! Papa, Tony is a man, not a mouse. He’s a good man, but not a patient one. He’s
far
too strong to ever allow me to put him second to my own ambitions.”

“Good. The one who loves you should be so selfish, to make you pay him mind, to keep you focused on what is important in this life, and that is
people
, not things, not places, not accomplishments, even. I learned that too late in life and I will not have you repeat my mistakes. Do you love him?” the earl again asked.

“Yes.” She felt that tingling warmth in her toes as she thought of Tony and his kisses. “Oh, yes, I love him very much, I’m afraid.”

“Then you will never put him second, but if he loves you, then he will never put
you
second, either. Together you will find a way. Talk to him. Tell him what you have told me. And if there is any question of him misunderstanding you, then send him to me. Though he frightens me a little, for he is a very intense young man, I will set him straight on the excellent qualities of my daughter and how he will never, in my eyes, quite deserve her love.”

Anne stood and bent over her father, hugging his neck and smelling that ineffable smell of port and leather. Tony would never smell of book leather, but of the outdoors and horses and clean air. Her stomach clenched. She had to talk to him, once he was done with Hiram Grover. She had been thinking of him all afternoon and now into evening, hoping he had discovered his brother, praying for Julius’s safety.

If all was well, then she could be frank with him about their tumultuous relationship. It was time to be straight with Darkefell once and for all about love, marriage, life, and the duties of a marchioness.

Thirteen

“Keep a close watch on him, Sanderson,” Darkefell said, at long last, as he left the gloomy driver as a guard over Grover, who was confined in the smallest, most separate shed on Harecross property.

“Aye, milord. ’E’ll not get nowhere tonight,” the big man said. He had eschewed a firearm for the more effective weapon for a man like him, a club. He smacked it against the wooden wall of the shed and the prisoner inside howled.

“I believe you,” the marquess answered. “Have someone awaken me if he decides he’d like to talk.”

“Aye, milord.”

Darkefell began his solitary walk back to Harecross Hall through the darkness, first over dew-laden grass and then his boots crunched on the gravel drive. After hours of closely questioning Grover at the oast house, trying to find out where Julius was supposedly being held, alternately bullying and persuading the man, Darkefell had gotten nothing but stubborn silence in return. He, Osei, and Sanderson—the coachman had returned to the oast house after taking Anne home—had finally bundled Grover into the rough farm cart and carried him back to the shed, where Darkefell had questioned him again, after sending Osei up to the manor house to take dinner and perform the various tasks for which he was responsible, as Darkefell’s nominal valet.

The marquess had learned nothing.

Grover was going to have a long, damp, chilly night, if he would not tell them where Julius was. No food or water would pass his lips until he told them what they needed to know, and he would stay tied up, with no way to relieve himself but in his breeches. “Let him rot! Let him inhabit his own filth,” Darkefell growled, striding across grass again and up to the Hall.

Darkefell had told Grover he would be taking him back to Yorkshire the next morning, but he knew he wouldn’t, not until they found Julius. If Grover didn’t talk to his jailor before morning, Darkefell would have to beat the truth out of him. He would
not
let Julius die, alone and afraid, for want of any action on his part. Grover supposedly had help in this ridiculous affair, three men’s assistance, if he was to be believed, but as weary as Darkefell was, and as heartsick, he didn’t know what to believe. Their mother would be arriving at Hawk Park the next day and he didn’t want to have to tell her that Julius had perished. Again. Losing her son the first time had sent her to her room for a week and left her with an ineffable air of sadness since. Losing him a second time might kill her.

So he’d let Grover stew about it for a while. The last thing Darkefell had said to him was, unless he wanted to suffer a hideous fate—the only threat the marquess had to hold over Grover’s head was torture, though he had no stomach for inflicting pain on a weaker man—Grover would tell them where Julius was. From beginning to end it puzzled Darkefell what Hiram thought he was going to gain by his odd plans and stratagems. He was mad, Darkefell supposed, but it was not the cunning madness of a genius, but rather the workaday madness of a fool, albeit a fool who had, in some ways, outsmarted them all, evading notice and capture repeatedly.

The problem was, Darkefell could not promise Grover the only thing he might value, freedom, in exchange for Julius. He would never release a murderer.

The miserable day had left him with a churning gut and pounding head. Darkefell climbed the last slope to Harecross Hall, circling the manor house to the double doors that opened onto the great hall. He stood for a moment once he reached the doors, staring down the long green slope to the pond as blue-black gloom enveloped him, stars spangling the dark velvet sweep of the heavens. Frogs in the pond peeped and somewhere, in the arboretum wood, an owl chuckled. This placid little corner of Kent was peaceful and serene, bucolic, completely unlike his Darkefell estate, which was set in the wilds of remote and rocky Yorkshire. And yet Anne had seemed to glory in the wildness of his home. And, on occasion, she had seemed to take pleasure in the wildness of him.

He needed food and brandy. He realized, when he finally turned away from the moonlit view of the pond and entered the echoing great hall, that it was late but Epping, the butler, told him that Lady Anne awaited him upstairs in the drawing room. He removed his grimy boots, asked that he be sent a cold collation and something to drink, and took the stairs two at a time, eager to see her.

She sat on a brocade sofa by the curtained window and didn’t hear him at first, engrossed in a book as she was, her head bent, her dark curls gleaming against her slender white neck in the candlelight. He padded over to her in stocking feet. She glanced up.

“Tony! I didn’t hear you.” She set aside her book.

He sat down heavily on the sofa by her, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed his face with both hands, scruffing his whiskers with his fingernails. “I don’t know what to do, Anne. Grover still isn’t telling me where Julius is.”

“And you believe that he is telling the truth and has Julius secreted somewhere?”

“Yes.”

They sat in silence for a while. Epping opened the door and directed a footman to place a tray on a low table near the fireplace. It was loaded with good food: oysters, finger sandwiches, crumbly old cheese, slices of tarte aux pommes, and a bottle of brandy with a crystal goblet along with some sharp local apple cider. Anne told Epping to lock up for the evening and not worry about collecting the tray until morning. They would manage without help now.

Darkefell first took the warm, damp cloth provided along with the food and scrubbed his face and hands, removing the layer of dirt from the long day, then he ate in silence for a few minutes. But after only enough to take the sharp edge from his hunger, he pushed the rest of the food away. “All I can think of is Julius,” he said, covering his eyes with both hands again, elbows on his knees. “I picture him dirty, starving, hurt, and I want to rip Grover limb from limb.”

“Did … did you hurt him, Tony?” she murmured.

“Who, Grover? Not really. Not as much as I wanted to. I’m not a brute, Anne, or at least not often.”

Anne moved to sit beside him and took him in her arms. He rested his head against her bosom and nestled to her, the rise and fall of her breasts under her lace fichu a curious comfort as her breast met his lips then sank away in a lovely, womanly rhythm.

“You can’t do a thing about it until morning, Tony,” she said softly. “With no idea where Julius is, you can’t just go darting about the countryside in the dark, hoping to stumble over him.”

He kissed her and felt her breathing hasten. She wore a soft robe and her ample breasts spilled out of the bodice, concealed only by the delicate fichu. Her skin was warm beneath it, her breath perfumed with wine. He lay his head on her chest for a moment, wondering if he was imagining the thread of her fingers in his hair as she loosened his queue and ran her nails lightly over his neck. He shivered with suppressed desire, then kissed her décolletage as she kneaded his shoulders, murmuring soft words of encouragement. He tugged at the fichu and it came away; her breasts were voluptuous mounds and blissful forgetfulness fogged his brain. Slipping his hand under the fabric of her bodice, he freed her breasts from their confinement and she sighed.

There was no mistaking her acquiescence as he pushed her back upon the sofa. He lifted his head for a moment, but her lovely eyes were closed and her neck arched, her curls tumbling from the restraint of pins. Her breasts were pale orbs, the nipples pinched and puckered. He trembled, need throbbing through him. It was like his dream, but this was real, her warm skin, her whispered words of encouragement, her soft sighs.

He tensed, and whispered, “Anne, tell me to go away.”

“No, oh, no, Tony, don’t go away.”

Her whisper, gentle as the night breeze, left him weak with need. A knife thrust of desire shot through him and he hunched, light-headed with desire.

The light from the candle was dying. He lifted his head to gaze up at her pointed chin, smooth cheek and closed eyes. “Not here, my love, not where we might be interrupted. If I leave you now, will you come to my room?”

“Yes, Tony, I’ll come to you,” she murmured.

***

Mary helped her undress without a word, but when Anne requested that her hair be left unbraided that night, she looked her mistress in the eye.

“I recognize the look of tender skin chafed by a man’s bristles, milady. You’ve had more than a chaste kiss on the lips with that man. You’ve no’ got plans, do ye? To visit his lordship?”

Mary’s frankness was sometimes a nuisance, for the woman was frostily, relentlessly priggish in some matters, and romantic interludes with men were not on her list of approved activities for a young, unmarried woman. “That is none of your business, Mary,” Anne said coldly. “I may speak with him regarding what we shall do about Lord Julius and Hiram Grover. He’s terribly upset, and he’s my friend. Beyond that, it’s none of your affair what I do. Or don’t do.”

“Aye,” the maid said, her expression pinched. “You’re right, it’s no’ my business.” But then a sly light entered her pale eyes. “I’ll warrant if his lordship does manage to tup you, though, milady, ye’ll marry him then.”

“Don’t be crude!” Anne said, gasping.

Mary raised her pale brows. “Crude, is it, to speak frankly of what’s on your mind? He’s not the kind of man to take no for an answer after bedding you, nor are you as freethinking as you fancy yourself.” She tied Anne’s moiré silk night robe with a flourish, then left, with a murmured word of warning to her mistress about men and their wicked ways.

“I should sack her for impertinence,” Anne muttered. “But then who would tell me the truth about myself?”

Anne sat for a long time, then paced the length of her room, wondering how one went about a midnight assignation. Would she rap on Darkefell’s door, or just slip in? Would he be in bed already? Was he even expecting what she thought he was expecting, or did he simply anticipate more kissing? She had agreed so easily, but now was having second thoughts. If she didn’t go to him, though, it would be a shameful breach of their understanding for each other. He was just one room away. Had she been thinking of this night and this prospect when she assigned him a bedchamber so close to hers?

She crept to the hall, her heart beginning to thump an erratic tattoo, like a drummer who had lost the marching beat. Down the silent, dimly lit hallway, past an empty guest chamber and finally to Darkefell’s she stole. As befit his position, he was given the largest guest chamber in Harecross Hall, and it was coincidentally the most august, masculine, wood-paneled and gracious.