The Willows (22 page)

He had then gone on to poke fun of
Michael’s frilly, white handkerchief, claiming he must have stolen
it. After all, what female in her right mind would give that
adventurer a token, or even the time of day?

Lance had gone on to catalog more of
the man’s faults, but now, staring at the mud encrusted scrap of
white, when wondered why Michael had never explained. Had he not
told Lance where he had gotten the handkerchief, he could have used
his opponents rage to his advantage, but he kept quiet, as silent
as he’d been at her last sight of them.

As if she faced him now, she could see
Michael’s disappointments before he turned away. He could have been
that boy again, for his surprise at her decision had been the same.
He’d expected more of her, and once again, she’d let him
down.

“
No, no, no!” She cried out,
swinging herself up onto the horse. She must not fret anymore over
the wretched man. Didn’t uncle maintain that Michael was using her,
hoping to extract money in exchange for leaving her alone? Lance
was right, she insisted as she spurred the horse across the field.
Michael was dangerous and violent, and she should be thinking every
last star in the heavens for her narrow escape.

Narrow escape.

With a chill, she recognized those
words. They were the same her mother had uttered in their
arguments, right before she rode out to her death.

Escape, escape,
escape,
Gwen’s mind chanted as she tore
over the dark Fields, but deep down, she wondered if she could ever
run fast or far away enough. Impossible not to make comparisons to
the night five years ago, she’d gone flying into the night then,
to, and she’d been fleeing her demons ever since.

She slowed the horse, realizing with a
sick lurch that this was same area where she found her mother’s
lifeless body. Why had she come here? She wondered, feeling
moisture on her cheeks. Was this one subconscious pilgrimage, a
tortured attempts to deal with her past? Dismounting in a slow
motion, she tied in the horse to a tree and walked in dreamlike
fashion through the marshland, to the small mounds at the edge of
the Bayou.

Stopping, she looked down at
the ground with revulsion.
Stay out of the
swamp
, her parents had always
commanded.
Predators and disease breed in
that filthy by you.

Above, Gwen and here the
breeze sifting through the trees. A hundred ghosts seem to whisper
in her ears.
Here,
she thought, digging the toe over boots in the dirt. This was
the spot where her mother had died.

Gwen had been in a raging temper,
because her daddy refused Lance as a suitor, but that was no excuse
for lashing out at her mother. She cringed at the dreadful things
she had said, wanting mother to hurt as much as she hurt inside
herself. Ever patient, always the lady, Amanda had quietly insisted
that Gwen would come to thank her parents someday. She was too
young to be married, and Lance was to... Well, a nice visit with
her aunt’s I get the in Boston would help her see things in a new
light.

“
I hate you!” Gwen had
shouted, words no child should ever uttered to a parents,
especially when they prove the last words her mother would hear
from her. In a roaring temper, Gwen had gone tearing off, never
dreaming mother would follow and be thrown off her horse to break
her neck.

Shivering, Gwen felt the same hollow
chill she had that night’s, as she’d watched her daddy leaned down
to lift up his wife’s broken body. Something inside him had died
with his beloved Amanda, she’d sensed, and the way he’d then looked
through Gwen, Meant that as far as he was concerned, his daughter
also died that night.

“
It’s not my fault,” she
whispered as she had to her father’s back, but then, as now, it
made no difference father walked off, never once looking back at
her, leaving Gwen alone and abandoned, and fearing she would stay
that way for the rest of her life.

She hugged herself, blinking back
tears. What sort of pilgrimage was this? What good has she done by
returning here? The memories hurt too much; they were better left
dead and buried. No wonder she chose to run away from the truth,
why she now clung to Lance like a lifeline.

Remembering how wonderful he’d been
that night, how he’d wrapped her in a blanket and supplied a
supporting arm around her shoulders, she felt doubly awful for
wanting to escape from him tonight. She wasn’t alone, she told
herself; Lance would stay by her always.

Why hadn’t she trusted the one person
who remained steady and true? She’d been wrong to make light of
lances warnings; it was concerned for her safety that prompted his
lecture. How could she blame him for not wanting her to be hurt, or
possibly dead, like her mother?

With a Frisson of fear, Gwen now
noticed how dark it was here in the marshland, of the place teamed
with shadows and unfamiliar noises. Sounds in the undergrowth could
be the snakes she despised, or perhaps something larger, like a
hunter, stocking her through the swamps.

Shivering freely, she turned to go.
Whether this sound was made by something animal or human, she was a
fool to remain standing here. A person could disappear forever in
the Bayou. Especially, she realized with the gulp, a person stupid
enough not to tell anyone where she’d gone.

She thought longingly of the warm, safe
bed she had left at her Roseland. As she did, she heard a splash.
Alligators, she remembered with a shudder, preyed along the
shores.

She ran up for her horse, chairing
headless leave through the brushes, ripping her habit and
scratching her face. She could just get to the horse, she thought
with something close to a prayer, she promised she would never
again venture out on her own.

Emerging from the undergrowth with a
whimper of relief, she stumbled over the cherry where she tied her
horse. In her panic, it took some moments to realize it was not
where she’d left it.

This oriented, she spotted to scan the
field. She heard the whinny behind her, but before she could turn
her head, large, strong, hands grabbed her from behind.

Her life seem to pass before her eyes,
as she recognize the throaty laugh.

“
Ah, so we meet again, my
lady,” Michael whispered in her ear. “And this time, you will be
coming with me.”

Chapter 10

Taking another swig of Bourbon, Lance
climbed the stairs to the bedrooms. Folks might say he had no
business being up here in the family area, that he should be out in
the bachelor quarters, where he always stayed, but then, those
folks did not know things had changed. Not even Jervis,
gallivanting to town, understood that Lance was not some errand boy
he could order about at any time.

Oh, but he soon would.

Lance had agreed to “take care of
things,” but only because he knew it required little effort to keep
John in a stupor. By the time he’d had his talk with Gwen and
reached her father’s study, the drunken fool was already faced down
at his desk, snoring blissfully, leaving Lance to sit in his
favorite chair and drink the man’s Bourbon by himself.

Growing bolder with every glass, he’d
told his unconscious host exactly what he thought of him, and his
attempts to keep Lance from his daughter. No need to toady up to
the man who held the Willows in his grasp; hell, John would not
have known had Lance leaned down and bit his face.

As his fear of John lessened, his
comments grew more insulting, until Lance vibrated with a surging
sense of power. Forgetting his defeat in the competition. Nurtured
by drink, he became convinced that he’d vanquished Michael, once
and for all, and because of its, Gwen-and more importantly, the
Willows-would be his forever.

Drunk in more ways than one, he’d left
John’s study to roam the halls, stuttering as if he already owned
them. In his mind, Lance was not here as Jervis’s lacking, and
signed to take care of things in his absence. He was lord and
master, King of all he surveyed.

Droit seigneur, thoughts with an inner
laugh as he stopped before her bedroom door. No more empty nights
with a ring with an absent lust; he would storm her citadel and
possess her at last. There was not a blessed thing her father could
do to stop him.

Foolish Jervis; he should never have
left for town.

Smacking his lips, Lance imagined
Edith’s luscious breasts squeezed beneath his fingers, her whimpers
of delight as he took her, hard and fast, like the strumpet she
longed to be. There would be no more teasing, no dangling him on a
sensual leash. He would show her–show them all–just who was master
of the Willows.

He reached for the knob, anticipating
her shocked expression he flung open her door. His smile swiftly
vanished as he realized the door was locked.

His anger needed an outlet. It was more
than one female in the house, wasn’t there? He even had permission
to bed Gwen. Her uncle had given him that before he
left.

He marched down the hall and yanked
open her bedroom door. Finding the bed empty, on slept in, he felt
another wave of fury wash over him. After all the trouble he had
taken to warm her, had Gwen actually gone out? He was heading out
the door, determined to go after her, when the truth eventually
dawned this was no longer Gwen’s room. He heard that willful miss
herself, complaining to her uncle about how Edith had moved her to
inferior quarters down the hall.

Somewhat subdued, and not liking it, he
made his way to her new bedroom. Annoying, how she’d whined about
her accommodations. Always the little Princess, their Gwen,
demanding the best and doing she damn well pleased.

Reaching her door, he thought back to
their earlier conversation. Overly occupied she’d seemed, and
entirely too flippant. Jervis was right. Lance would have to start
hounding her every step, watching her day and night. Wouldn’t do to
have Gwen thinking acting on her own.

His grasp tightened on the knob. Queen
Gwen would soon learn who truly ruled the Willows. Oh yes, he would
teach her soon enough how he expected his wife to
behave.

Wife.
His handle recoiled as the word echoed through his drunken
brain. Desire drained out of him, leaving him week with dismay.
What was he thinking of, coming here to Gwen’s room? This was the
woman he had chosen to bear his child. Good Lord, he might just as
well bed his mother…

Feeling as if his mother were actually
there to punish him, he backed away from the door. Lance you must
go slow with Gwen, mother had instructed; he cannot afford to be
frightening her off with his baser passions. At least wait until he
had the wedding ring on her finger.

“
Sorry, mother,” he
muttered, hurrying down the hall. Maybe he might better wait to
talk to Gwen in the morning.

***

Michael looked at Gwen, huddled on the
other side of his pirogue. He wished he had a more stable vessel.
Design for slipping through the narrowest parts of the bayou, but
the pirogue was more a canoe then the barges her ladyship was used
to, and one good tantrum could well capsize them.

Though quiet enough now, Gwen had been
scratching, biting she-cat an hour earlier, he knew better than to
trust her poise of surrender. Even with her hands tied and her eyes
blindfolded, she could still cause trouble. In more trouble was the
last thing he needed.

You refuse to question his motives for
taking her. She was his wife, and, as Jeffery insisted, the family
owed him. Still, he might have ignored the old man’s urges to claim
her as you not seen Gwen just as he’d left Jeffery’s place. Ready
to slide his boat in the water, he’d spotted her on the nearby
mound, tears streaming down her cheeks. It was then, if he cared to
be honest, that he’d made the decision to grab her.

Damn, but he never could bear to see a
woman cry.

And so he’d swept her up, just like
that, with no real thought to his motives, or even the
consequences. It was too late to turn back now, but that did not
mean he cannot regret his split second decision. Kidnapping Gwen
should just about killed any hope that they might one day, to an
understanding. If she had disliked distrusted him before, she
wasn’t going to be any happier once she learned where he meant to
take her.

Turning his boat into the narrow fork
to the right, he went deeper into the swamp.

***

Gwen had never been so frightened in
her life. They’d been gliding along the bayou for what seemed like
hours. By now, he must have lost in the swamp. Blindfolded, her
imagination went riot, and she could sense all sorts of hideous
things; spiders dropping from trees, bats grabbing to her knotted
hair, water snakes slithering up over the sides of the boat
to…

Trembling, she tried to think of some
way to escape, but her hands were tied, and she had been told these
narrow byways could be surprisingly deep. Snakes were bad enough,
but who knew what other creatures could be swimming along in the
waters ahead. Worse, every now and then she heard a loud splash.
She could be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire
indeed, if she somehow managed to elude Michael, only to find
herself acing a hungry alligator. And even if by some miracle she
did reached dry ground, she could well find herself on an island,
as cut off from civilized nation–and safety–as if she had sailed
off the end of the earth.