Stormfire (6 page)

He quickly folded the towel, then dropped it on the marble-topped commode. Wearing a determined look that boded ill, he crossed the bold Moorish rug to a magnificently carved bed hung in oyster velvet. Sitting on the end of it, he leaned back on his elbows, spread his legs, and said, "Come here."

Her mouth went dry, but she did not budge.

"Do you require another box to clear your ears, girl?"

Catherine debated a retort, but bit her lip and went to stand just out of reach. To give him an excuse to batter her again was pointless. She could do little to stop him from doing as he pleased, but sooner or later he would drop his guard.

He thrust out a boot. "Take them off." She stared at him, a comical mixture of relief and outrage warring for a moment on her face. Then, with a look of complete disdain, she turned her back on him, hiked her skirts slightly, and with the boot between her skirted knees began to tug, only to straighten with a snort when he planted his other foot on her bottom and braced himself. "You'll do well to keep your head up or you'll start your nose bleeding again."

Catherine dropped the first boot with a deliberate crash and began working on the other one, thinking with what wicked joy she would crown him once she got her hands on the candlestick by the basin. As the other boot hit the floor, she squirreled out from between his knees, expecting him to lunge for her, but he simply lay back on the bed and locked his hands behind his head. With one good kick I could ruin the smug bastard, she thought grimly as she turned to face him.

Sean had just begun to think she might be tractable after all when he caught the gleam in her eye. "Try it." His voice was quiet but his eyes glinted like shards of green glass.

"Ladies who present no surprises are rather tedious, don't you think?" she replied wickedly.

"You've unladylike notions; but then, you couldn't look less like a lady now, and I've rarely met one capable of surprising me. There's clean water in the pitcher. Wash your face. You may hang your jacket on the chair."

Catherine turned on her heel and stalked to the chair, hung her jacket as directed, then carried the basin of darkish pink water to the commode. She emptied it with a heavy splash and refilled it. Stealing a glance in the mirror as she poured, she saw her features already swelling in a pale moon ringed in dirt and bruises. Her nose, neck, and jaw ached; her cut underlip was still bleeding. It's no thanks to that lout my nose isn't broken, she thought angrily, wincing as she soaked her face. His voice came over her shoulder, "You may as. well take off the dress. Your dirty neck is showing and you might not have another bath for some time."

She kept the padded cloth clamped to her nose and retorted nasally, "You said I rated no better than an Irish pig; you can hardly object to my looking the part."

She missed his faint smile. "If you think a swinish appearance will discourage my men, you'd better know they're not in the least particular, but I am. Take off the dress. I'll have it off soon enough, in any case."

Damp hair sticking to her face, she grabbed the candlestick with both hands and whirled. "If you touch me, I'll kill you!" Her voice was low, but utterly determined.

Sean Culhane slipped off the bed in one fluid movement, and belatedly, Catherine realized she had not reckoned with his reflexes. She took a wary defensive stance, arms straining at the weight of the candlestick. Ignoring her, he unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it off, folded it ne&tly, and laid it on a carved chest. Wide shoulders and a black-furred chest tapered to a flat belly and slim hips. Clad only in snug breeches, he turned to stand with hip outthrust, hands hanging loosely. "That thing won't stop me," he said almost wearily. Before the words were out of his mouth, he was nearly on her. She swung the candlestick in a wide, lethal arc that he dodged with a swift, twisting side step. He closed on her, caught her wrists on the back swing, and crushed the tendons until, with a cry, she was forced to drop the heavy weapon. Then he thrust her back and around, twisting her arms painfully against her back. Just as quickly, he released her arms; but as she tore free, his fingers hooked in the dress and, with a jerk, ripped it down her back. He was already stripping her as she spun, clawing and stumbling over skirts which had fallen in a tangle about her feet. Wild-eyed, spitting hate, she caught his cheek and raked his chest while he half dragged her, half carried her to the bed. One chemise strap was ripped and hanging, the other slipping down her arm. Her hair swirled like a silken maelstrom as he picked her up and hurled her onto the bed.

Then; as he stood over her, his cheek clawed and his chest striped scarlet, hie looming figure abruptly merged into a nightmarish haze of blood in her mind. It blocked out reality, tore her away to some other place, another horror from a source deeper than the threat of imminent rape.

When Sean stripped off his breeches, he knew she had seen a man before. Her eyes were wide, but not with startled innocence. He might have guessed a bitch of Enderly's would be no virgin. She edged away from him like a cornered animal, her eyes great desperate pools fixed on his bloody chest. Creamy skin gleamed in the shadows of the bed as the torn petticoat slipped up, revealing long, slender legs; but it was not desire that drove him now.

He climbed atop her, caught her hands and pinned them above her head, then threw a leg over her lower body. When she felt the pressure of his sex against her bare thigh, she suddenly went berserk and fought him in dumb, choking terror. Clamping her wrists with one hand, he methodically ripped the camisole and petticoat from her straining body, then lay full length upon her, forcing her to submit to his nakedness until she lay exhausted, heart thudding against his ribs. Sensing the trigger to her fear, he deliberately smeared her breasts with his blood so that her body was slippery under him. Eyes dilated until they were almost black, she lapsed into paralytic terror, lips moving in a pleading whisper, "No,
no. . .
no," as a litany, as if to herself. Sean's eyes, boring into hers, looked into a midnight void. Relentlessly, he pursued her into the void.

Rising to a kneeling position, then grasping her under the knees, he backed off the bed, pulling her with him until he stood on the floor with her defenselessly open to him, knees on either side of his thighs and feet dangling. He dragged her thighs wide. As if giving a death blow to an enemy, Sean rammed himself into her body with all the hatred pent in him, felt fragile membrane tear and heard her scream in agony. He thrust harshly, savaging her, fingers biting into her flesh when she twisted as if to escape a knife stabbing into her vitals. His hatred burst into her in a flood.

When he had done, Culhane stood like a spent animal, motionless but for the rise and fall of his chest. Catherine lay impaled, slack, her face averted and shadowed by her hair. He withdrew, then released her to lie sprawled and broken, like the women the soldiers had left in the ruins of Kenlo.

He collected the shreds of her undergarments and wiped them with the mingling of her blood and his seed. He crossed to the desk, wadded the garment, then began to wrap it in paper.

Catherine stared dully as if in a trance, but when realization of his intention finally pierced her mind, she shrieked and flung herself across the room, nearly tripping as pain wrenched at her abdomen. Desperately, she snatched at the package. "No! You won't shame my father so! Give it to me!"

Sean eluded her as he would have a gesticulating drunkard. "Shame him? He has enough blood on his hands to taint the North Sea. Not an Irishman born won't raise a cheer as your unworthy father kicks into hell, a precipitous journey he'll be taking sooner than he knows."

"You're a liar! He's one of the most respected statesmen in England! He's never hurt anyone!" Stumbling, she made another futile grab. "You're not fit to lick his boots, you filthy cur! You're striking at his back because you haven't the courage to face him!"

Leaning over the desk with a contemptuous sneer on his dark face, Culhane interrupted her tirade. "He's respectable, twit, not respected! Oh, he's spotless enough to the eye. He does his murdering with a stroke of a pen. I'll wager he's never even quirted a horse. How do you suppose he's managed to rise two steps in the peerage? Well, I'll be telling you. He's an efficient butcher, as well as an accomplished thief and traitor. And as for my craven reluctance to carve him up in gentlemanly fashion, face-to-face, it's too good for him. By the time I've done with the bastard, he'll think hell's a holiday!"

"You miserable, lying . . . !" She hooked for his eyes and diverted his attention as her other hand snaked toward the packet and successfully flicked it out of his grasp. She backed with it toward the fireplace.

Culhane pulled a pistol from a desk drawer, cocked and leveled it. "Drop the bundle, girl. Your father's pride isn't worth dying for." When she did not move, he murmured softly, "So, you'd not die for yourself, but you'd toss off in a trice for Papa. You've a slapsided notion of the way the world wags, girl, if you'll trade your life for a bit of dirty linen. For clean, now, that's another thing altogether, as you'll soon discover."

Eyes blazing in contempt, Catherine whirled and accurately chucked the bundle into the fire. As the packet began to flame, she tensely held her breath, waiting for the pistol explosion that would send her into oblivion.

Blackness clouded in Sean, the packet conjuring up the image of Megan's oil-soaked, blazing corpse. Imperceptibly, his finger tightened on the trigger. The girl was John Enderly's blood, she was Enderly; but a part of his mind, too familiar with the dreadful ritual of death, warred with his impulse to murder. He knew how small she would be in death. The bullet would explode that straight, proud little back to crumple her on the rug like a mangled kitten.

Catherine, hearing his strides eat the distance between them, lunged to block his way to the fire. Culhane knocked her aside. She fell to the carpet, then flew at his back and tore at his hair as he knelt to dig gingerly in the hot coals. Flicking the packet out of its glowing bed, he growled and shoved her off, then turned the gun on her as she came at him again. As the cold muzzle touched between her breasts, she froze in a crouch, panting with fury, midnight hair smoking about her face and shoulders, eyes opal-eerie. Without warning, Sean's loins blazed into a desire so intense he caught his breath. With a lust he had never before known, he wanted to take her. To feel her wind about his body, to arouse response in her as fierce as her suddenly savage beauty. Fiery serpents of light darted across their taut bodies as the chill tip of the gun trailed slowly upward between the soft breasts until he rested it in the hollow of her throat. He felt sweat trickle down his kneeling body, down the crevices where his thighs met his groin. Fighting for control, he gritted hoarsely, "Get back." As Catherine obeyed him warily, his voice was ragged with effort to hold himself in check. "I suggest you dress . . .
now."
He indicated the direction of her clothing with the pistol. Without taking her eyes off him, she got up and found her clothes.

His pulse slowed as she quickly covered her nakedness, but where the torn dress did not meet under the jacket, the cleft of her breasts was an enticing shadow. No longer training the gun on her, but still watchful, he tucked the packet under his arm and moved towardjhe head of the bed, where he gave the bell rope a tug. Shortly, as he shrugged into a robe, a rap sounded on the door.

"Come in, Peg."

The woman, with graying blond hair loosely tucked under a nightcap and a plump body contained with equal carelessness in a voluminous robe of indeterminate color, seemed undisturbed to see a wild-haired young woman in torn clothing with eyes like bruises in her master's bedroom. Silently, she waited.

"Take her downstairs and show her where she's to sleep," Culhane ordered. "She'll begin her duties tomorrow. The slower she learns, the less she eats. If she makes any trouble, deal with her as I would. Good night."

The woman nodded at Catherine, indicating she should precede her. As the door closed, Catherine saw her rapist staring broodingly into the fire.

Before they started down the stair, the woman advised briskly, "In case ye've any notions about makin' a run for it, this place is well guarded and ye're as far from help as the moon. I've got arms like a hairy pugilist and a noggin to match, as well as five stone on ye. So move along. We'll both need our sleep for tomorrow."

Catherine, grateful for the protecting darkness, was too depressed to speak. Feeling torn and degraded, she clung to the banister as they descended.

Finally, in the bowels of the house, when she verged on collapse, the woman nudged her to stop. Choosing a key from a ring looped over her arm, the Irishwoman unlocked the heavy door and, lifting the candle high, motioned Catherine to enter. '"Tisn't much," she advised in her broad brogue, "but ye'll be glad enough for it at day's end." The flickering candle revealed stone walls and a high window too narrow for even a child to squeeze through, but perversely generous enough to emit an icy draft. The bed, a straw-stuffed pallet on a wooden cot, had only a single, tattered quilt. At home, Chippendale himself had decorated her bedchamber, petit salon, and bath.