The Offer (2 page)

Elizabeth sat back down on the delicate French chair and tapped her fingertips softly and rhythmically together. She smoothed her pale blue wool skirts. She looked at the glittering diamonds on her heirloom wedding ring, the huge faceted emerald that sat high in the middle. Finally, she looked up and smiled at her sister. The sight of her ravaged face was balm to her soul. “I gather you are still a virgin, Sabrina?”

Sabrina stared at her sister's calm, impassive face as her question rang in her ears. She sounded bored, indifferent.

“Well, are you? Are you stupid? Can't you speak?”

Sabrina didn't want to, but she turned red, remembering Trevor's howling yell, seeing again the stain spread on his breeches. God, she hated him, she hated what he'd made her learn, all in an instant of time. “Yes, I'm still a virgin, no thanks to that bastard.”

Elizabeth's lashes nearly closed over her narrowed eyes. “So, my dear little sister, what happened is that you teased Trevor, and being a man and weak of flesh, as all men are, he gladly accompanied you to the gallery. You then ran away from him when you realized he had every intention of taking your teasing seriously. Were you afraid he'd make you pregnant, Sabrina?”

Sabrina grabbed her sister's arm, saw the disdain in her sister's pale eyes, and dropped her hand. “Listen
to me, Elizabeth. You cannot believe what you just said. You make it sound as though I purposefully tried to seduce your husband. I tell you, he is vain and cruel, a strutting evil man who scorns us all.” She wasn't about to tell her sister what her bridegroom had said about her. “Please, Elizabeth, you cannot ignore this, you cannot pretend it didn't happen. You must help me, help yourself.”

Elizabeth stood abruptly again, standing on her tiptoes so she could tower over her sister, and flattened the palms of her hands on the desktop. “Now you will listen to me, you pampered little wretch. For years, even before our parents died, I have watched you twist Grandfather around your little finger, wheedle your way so firmly into his affections so that he had no love left for me. Oh yes, Grandfather allowed me a season in London with Aunt Barresford, hoping that I would find a husband so he would be rid of me. But I always knew that my place was here, even though at every turn you have tried to usurp my position and my authority as the eldest.

“No more, Sabrina. I am Trevor's wife.” She squared her shoulders, standing even taller, the sunlight lacing through her blond hair, forming a pale golden halo round her head. She looked like a princess, tall and proud. Then she said, her voice colder than the wind that was tangling through the oak branches outside the window, “When that miserable old man dies, I shall be the Countess of Monmouth. On that day, my dear sister, I shall be the undisputed mistress here and you will be nothing more than I wish you to be. I wonder if I will even allow you to live here. Perhaps the dower house is the place for you. I doubt I'll waste my money on a London season for you.”

Sabrina drew back at the naked hatred she saw on
her sister's face. Dimly she realized that the cold aloofness Elizabeth had always shown the world, had always shown to her sister, masked a bitterness that went very deep. Had she somehow been responsible for that? She was appalled. No, she hadn't done a thing. She was eighteen years old. She'd laughed and played, wept bitterly when her father had been killed on the Peninsula and her mother had died but a year later so needlessly, in the boating accident in the fall of 1811, but her grandfather had been there for her, and she'd accepted his love, his warmth, never realizing that Elizabeth saw herself standing on the outside. Grandfather loved both of them equally, surely he did.

She struggled to understand her sister, understand her hatred, her defense of a man who didn't deserve to be her husband. But she'd wanted him because she wanted to rule, to order. She said slowly, “Elizabeth, surely you cannot mean that you married Trevor only so that you would be the Countess of Monmouth. No, you would not have done that.”

The bleak five years since her eighteenth birthday and her one season in London stretched out endlessly in Elizabeth's mind. Five years watching this precocious child grow into womanhood. She said with deadly calm, “I have done exactly what I intended to do, and you, Sabrina, never had, and never will have, anything to say in the matter. My feelings for Trevor are none of your affair. He is my husband and he shall remain my husband, his reputation unsullied by you, you filthy little liar.”

Sabrina felt a knot of fear clog her throat. “Elizabeth, I'm not lying! Trevor threatened to come to me again, even to my own room. He said he would hurt me if I locked my door against him. He hurt me this time, Elizabeth. He's not natural. Surely most men aren't like he is.”

“Shut up!”

Sabrina stared at her sister's set face. She'd never felt so helpless in her life. “I had never thought that you so disliked me, Elizabeth,” she said finally, striving to sort through all the ugly words her sister had hurled at her. “I have never done anything to harm you. I can't believe that my loving grandfather made him care for you less. Don't turn away from me, Elizabeth. You are my sister and I seek only to protect you and me from that terrible man.”

“Get out, Sabrina. I will hear no more of your pathetic lies.”

Sabrina drew herself up to her full height. “If you will not believe me, then I must go to Grandfather. I can't simply ignore what Trevor has threatened to do to me. He said he would come to my bedchamber. I won't wait like a whimpering helpless female for him to come and abuse me.” She turned on her heel and walked quickly to the door.

Elizabeth yelled, “If you have the audacity to carry your filth to Grandfather, I shall tell him that in your jealousy, you threw yourself at Trevor and that he repulsed you. Think, you little wretch, just think of what would happen. Everyone would revile you. You would disgrace your family. You would disgrace Grandfather. Know that you will get no quarter from me. Just what do you think Grandfather would think then, Sabrina?”

Sabrina felt suddenly like a hated stranger in her own home. She stood uncertainly at the door, staring bleakly back at her sister.

Elizabeth pursed her thin lips and said more calmly, her words all the more deadly because of their emotionless calm, “No, Grandfather wouldn't believe you. You know, of course, what Trevor would say. Go ahead, Sabrina, go to him. See how quickly he loses
his doting affection for you. Trevor is his heir, you fool. He would take the side of his heir because through Trevor he gains his own immortality and the immortality of his precious line. Mayhap such a filthy story would topple him into his grave. Would you like Grandfather's death on your hands? Well, would you?”

Sabrina remembered Trevor's threat. No, surely he wouldn't try to kill Grandfather. But what would happen? She shook her head back and forth, unable to find words. Her face ached where Trevor had struck her. She saw the stain on his breeches and felt such hatred she was certain she'd choke on it.

“You know, Sabrina,” Elizabeth continued, carefully watching her sister, “there is really nothing left for you here. If indeed you are so concerned about my husband's attentions toward you, perhaps it would be better if you left.” She saw wrenching fear in her sister's vivid eyes, an incredible violet that everyone so admired, and turned abruptly away from her. She'd said enough. She wanted to smile, but she didn't. She'd nearly won. “Leave me,” she said, her voice as cold as the winter wind that was beginning to howl against the windows. A storm was coming. A very bad storm. “Leave me. I do not wish to look on your face again.”

 

Sabrina licked away a tear that had fallen down her cheek onto her upper lip. She tried to talk some purpose into herself, to force herself to bury for the moment at least the terrible memories of the previous afternoon. She'd spent the night in a large cupboard in the old nursery, waking at dawn, dressing, and sneaking to the stables. Had it just been the day before that Trevor had attacked her? It seemed like a week had passed, a week alone in the dizzying cold, watching the sky darken and fill with snow. She
pressed her hand against her chest and felt hope at the thought of the three pounds tucked safely inside her chemise. It would be enough to buy a stage ticket to London, to her aunt Barresford. It would be dark soon. She didn't have much time. She couldn't press against this tree forever.

She pushed back a heavy lock of hair that had come loose over her forehead, and looked about her. Surely she had walked in the right direction. It could not be too much farther to Borhamwood and the warmth and safety of the Raven Inn.

She felt the searing pain in her chest again, and doubled over, hugging herself tightly. She could hear her own raspy breathing and admitted to herself for the first time that she was ill. “I don't want to die,” she said, the words freezing on her lips. “I won't die.”

She scrambled through the brambles, each tree becoming a goal to reach and pass. She felt a surge of hope, for she was certain that the trees were thinning ahead of her. Yes, that was an opening. She was nearly there, nearly free of the forest, nearly to Borhamwood.

Suddenly she went flying, stumbling on a large root that stuck up through the moss on the forest floor. She sprawled facedown on the frozen ground, stunned by the force of her fall. She felt curiously warmed by the thick moss.

She would remain here just a minute or two longer. She sighed. She would rest just a little while longer, then she would feel strong again. She would be so strong she would run to Borhamwood.

“Bloody hell.”

Phillip Edmund Mercerault, Viscount Derencourt, drew up his bay mare, Tasha, gazed about him at the forbidding wilderness, and continued his cursing. Damn Charles anyway. He liked Charles, truly he did, had known him for more years than either of them could remember, but this was too much. The directions he'd provided to reach his house, Moreland, had landed Phillip in the middle of a forest in the middle of a snowstorm that could very probably become a blizzard. Phillip would shoot him when he next saw Charles.

If he next saw him.

No, that was ridiculous. Tasha was strong and sound. He knew he was going east. He just had to get out of this damned forest soon. But he hadn't seen a sign for a village called Borhamwood, there hadn't even been a farmhouse at which he could stop and beg a cup of coffee to warm himself. Of course since this was a forest and not farmland, he supposed it made sense that no farmers were around. He cursed again. There hadn't even been a ditch where he could get Tasha out of the snow, if for just a minute or two.

He'd been a bloody fool to wave off his valet, Dambler, with his carriage and luggage. Dambler, despite all his lapses into martyrdom, had a nose for direction.
It was uncanny, this ability, but unfortunately, at this point in the afternoon, Dambler was probably roasting his toes in front of a nice kitchen fire at Moreland. And here his master was—cold and hungry with only two changes of clothes in the soft leather valise strapped to Tasha's saddle.

What had ever possessed him? Hunting and Christmas festivities at Moreland. He wondered if he'd find his way there by Boxing Day.

He patted Tasha's glossy neck and gently dug his heels into her sides. He swallowed snow even as he said, “Come on, Tasha, if we stay here much longer, that damned Charles will find us here thawing out in the spring.”

Surely he was riding east. He tried concentrating on his nose, the way Dambler told him he drew the various latitudes and longitudes into his being—through his nose—but all he got out of it was a sneeze.

It was getting late. It would be dark soon. If he didn't find his way to somewhere, he would be in big trouble. Tasha suddenly snorted, jerking her head left. To his left was a cottage nestled in a small hollow, carved out, it seemed to him, from the midst of the forest itself. He wheeled Tasha about, the thought of hot coffee scalding his lips making him forget that he wanted to bash Charles the next time he had him in the ring at Gentleman Jackson's Boxing Salon.

No, it wasn't a simple cottage. It was a two-story red brick hunting box, its facade covered with ivy dusted white by the snow. He swung off Tasha's back in front of the columned entrance, stamped his cold feet, and thwacked the knocker loudly.

No answer and no wonder. It was indeed a hunting box. The owner, whoever he was, wouldn't return until spring. As he swung back into the saddle, he said, “Tasha, I promise you an extra bucket of oats if you
get me to Moreland so that I may thrash Charles before dark.”

Phillip groped with one gloved hand through the rich layer of his greatcoat to the watch in his waistcoat pocket. It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon. He gazed apprehensively up at the snow, coming down more thickly now, and turned Tasha about again toward the narrow, rutted path. If he didn't find his way out of here, he would return to the hunting box. He'd give himself another half hour, no more.

Despite his fur-lined greatcoat, the swirling wind chilled him to his very bones. He shivered and lowered his head close to his mare's neck.

Snowflakes dusted the bridge of his nose when he chanced to look heavenward. He pulled his greatcoat more closely about his throat, pulled his scarf up nearly to his eyes, ducked his head closer to Tasha's neck, and urged her on. At a fork in the path, Phillip looked up again at the snow-filled sky. He had absolutely no notion of which direction to take. He drew a guinea from his waistcoat pocket, flipped it, and with a shrug turned Tasha to the path at his left. He wasn't about to forget the direction of the hunting box. If the impossible happened, then he would return there.

He grinned suddenly, imagining what his friends would be saying to him if they knew he was lost in the middle of a snowstorm in a forest in Yorkshire. He doubted he'd live it down for many a good year. He could just hear his long-time friend, Rohan Carrington, say in that amused drawl of his, “Well, Phillip, what is one to say? You can find your way all through Scotland, but when it comes to the backyard in Yorkshire, you lose yourself in a bloody blizzard.”

And then there was Martine, his mistress. He could just see her lying there on her bed, wearing something frothy, something he could see through yet not really
see through, something that would fill him with such lust that he wouldn't, frankly, care if she laughed her head off.

The snowfall became thicker, if that was possible. He couldn't see the path beyond three or four feet ahead. Tasha quickened her pace.

He kept his head pressed against Tasha's neck. She would stay on the path. There was nothing more he could do.

Except go back to that hunting box if they didn't clear the forest soon, very soon. Say in the next ten minutes, maybe even nine minutes. He had a marvelous sense of timing, even Martine told him that. Yes, he knew the exact moment when she wanted him to do this and then do that. He was smiling as he pulled out his watch. Yes, he'd give it ten more minutes, then it was back to the hunting box.

Martine, his languid, glorious mistress, swam again into his mind's eye. At least she was a warm thought. When he'd told her that he was traveling to the north for a round of Christmas parties and would be gone from London for some time, she'd roused herself, propping herself up on her elbows to gain his attention, and given a lazy laugh. “Ah, my beautiful man, you prefer the dead of winter to a live me. It's absurd.” He grinned, knowing that he would most willingly part with the bulk of his worldly goods if he could at this moment be warm and naked in her large bed, his face buried in her glorious bosom, showing her yet again his wonderful timing.

The snow was driving down in earnest now, and he drew up Tasha once again in an effort to get his bearings. It was the absence of thick snow that caused him to look again upon a large splash of crimson. He hooded his eyes with his gloved hand.

What the devil was that mound of red? In another
few minutes it would be completely covered with snow.

He turned Tasha off the path. He drew her up and gazed down in some consternation at a deep red velvet cloak that covered an unconscious small female.

He jumped off Tasha's back and knelt down beside her. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she here in the middle of the forest, in the middle of a blizzard? He gently turned her over and stared down at a young girl's face. She was as pale as the white snow around her and her lips were blue with cold. He could see the veins beneath her white flesh. Two narrow scratches slashed down her cheek, the blood congealed with a crust of snow. A thick hank of red hair fell over her forehead.

The viscount stripped off a leather glove and slipped his hand inside the cloak against her chest. She was alive, but her breathing was labored, and slow, too slow. He lightly slapped her face. There was no response. He slapped her harder and shook her by her shoulders, but he couldn't awaken her. He had seen many cases of severe exposure two winters ago, when he'd spent the winter in Poland, after the French retreat from Russia, and knew that the result was more often than not a slow numbing death. He quickly scooped her up in his arms, wrapping his greatcoat about her as best he could. She didn't weigh much, despite her soaked clothing.

He realized that he couldn't continue on, even if he were alone, for the snow was so thick now he could scarcely see Tasha who was standing but four feet from him. The hunting box was the only answer. Even if the caretaker of the place didn't return, it would at the very least allow them shelter.

He pressed her tightly against his chest in an effort
to warm her, and wheeled Tasha back toward the hunting box.

“Life becomes complicated,” he said to his horse. Her ears twitched and she neighed.

 

Phillip dismounted in front of a small stable next to the hunting box and quickly led Tasha inside, carrying the girl in the crook of his right arm. He laid her gently down on a pile of hay, quickly removed Tasha's saddle and bridle, and covered her with a thick horse blanket. “I'll be back to feed you when I can, my girl.” He patted her rump, picked up the unconscious female, and carried her to the hunting box.

The heavy oak front door was, not surprisingly, securely locked, just as he'd expected it would be. His boots crunched in the thick layers of icy snow as he walked quickly to the back of the house. He came upon another door, this one less sturdy. He took a step back, lifted his right leg, and sent his boot crashing into the door. It shuddered, but didn't give. He kicked again and this time it flew back on its hinges. Clutching the unconscious girl against his chest, he walked into a small kitchen.

He shoved the broken door closed and pulled a small table against it to keep out the freezing wind and blowing snow. The kitchen had a homey air, with many small personal items strewn about on the table and counters, a sure sign the place was not left abandoned during the winter months. A neat stack of logs climbed halfway up the wall next to the fireplace. Although he didn't take time to look into the pantry, he felt fairly certain that there would be sufficient food to keep them from starving.

He carried her quickly from the kitchen, down a narrow corridor that led to the center of the house. He gazed only cursorily into a small dining room and
across the hall into a parlor. All the furnishings were covered in white holland covers.

Phillip felt the cold from her wet clothing and hurried up the staircase that wound up in circular fashion to the floor above, taking the steps two at a time.

He found a large bedchamber toward the end of the upstairs corridor, carried her to the wide bed in the center of the room, and whipped back the heavy counterpane. He held her against him, pulling off the cloak. Then came her gown, for it was soaked through as well. He laid her onto her back to unfasten the long row of tiny pearl buttons that went from the waist to the throat. His practiced eye noted the quality and style of the gown. She was no farmer's daughter, that was certain. He frowned at the sight of her boots. They were riding boots, not made for trekking about in a forest. Where had her horse been? Had she been thrown and her horse had run back to its stable? That seemed likely. But why had she even been riding on a day like this?

He quickly stripped off her petticoat and chemise, both beautifully hemmed and embroidered in soft white batiste, and pulled off her sturdy wool socks. He looked resolutely at her face, but soon realized there was no hope for it. He studied her carefully, feeling her arms and legs for broken bones, pressing his palm to the pulse in her neck, to her breast. Her heartbeat was still slow, but steady. There wasn't a mark on her. No broken anything. What had happened to her?

He also saw that she wasn't a girl, but a young woman. Long-legged, no, he wouldn't catalogue her female points. It wouldn't be well done of him. He quickly bundled her under the covers and drew the sheets to her chin. He gathered up her hair, thick, waving around his hand, and as red as a harlot's
evening dress, and spread it onto the pillow away from her head. He stared down at her. She looked like an angel, a dead angel, her skin was so white, her body so absolutely still.

He sat down beside her, placing his palms first against her forehead, then against her cheeks. She was cold to the touch, yet he knew that when she was warm again, the fever would come and very probably snuff out her life. Just as it had killed Lucius, he thought angrily, his mind laying bare the raw memory. Lucius, his French half brother, who had willingly followed Napoleon into the savage wilds of Russia. Lucius had been a strong man, a rugged man, so unlike this slip of a girl. As he looked down at her, he saw for an instant Lucius's ravaged face, deeply etched from the weeks of hunger and the driving winter wind and snow. He'd made it to Poland where Phillip had found him.

His hands shaking, Phillip pressed the covers hard against her, molding them to her. He forced himself to shake off the painful memories that occasionally still haunted his dreams. He looked again, briefly, at the pale face and the mouth that was still blue-tinged with cold. She was so still. He quickly placed his palm over her chest to see if she still breathed. She did, just barely. He'd failed to save Lucius, but he was damned if he was going to let this young female die.