Devil's Embrace (7 page)

“Come, Cassandra, you have hurt yourself.” As he slipped his arm about her waist to pull her upright, she twisted about, and with a cry of rage, smashed her fists against his chest. She caught him off balance and he toppled backward, pulling her with him. He grabbed her wildly flailing arms, rolled her over on her back, and pinned her hands above her head. He saw the blind fury in her eyes and slammed his leg down over hers to stop her from kicking him. She lay panting beneath him, her chest and belly moving in deep gulping breaths.

She grew suddenly still. “Let me go,” she said in a voice of deadly calm.

He stared down at her pale, set face. “You were the attacker, Cassandra,” he said finally. “I will release you if you promise to keep your knee away from my manhood.”

Slowly, she nodded.

“Will you also promise to let me take care of your hands? You have torn your fingers quite badly.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and said, “I promise.”

The earl released her and helped her to her feet. “Come and sit down.”

She stared at streaks of her blood on his white shirt and became aware of throbbing pain in her fingers. She sat down on the chair he held for her and splayed her fingers on the table top.

She lowered her head and did not look up even as she felt him lifting her fingers, one by one, sponging off the blood with warm water.

“Don’t move, Cassandra. I must fetch some bandages, several fingers must be bound.”

She kept her head bowed as he wrapped slender strips of white linen about her fingers.

He looked up from his task when she said in a low, tightly controlled voice, “The first time I remember seeing you was when I was a small child. You were very kind to me I recall, even brought me a pastry from a fair stall in Colchester.”

“I remember.”

“But then you left and it was some years before I saw you again. Miss Petersham said you were a great nobleman both in England and in Italy and that you did not spend all your time in England. I also remember now that I had nearly forgotten you when you suddenly returned when I was fourteen. You gave me an ivory chess set for my birthday. I asked Miss Petersham if you had a daughter of my age and whether that was why you were so attentive to me.”

The earl gently cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “You are the image of your mother
and it was her face that was in my mind until yours replaced it.”

“My mother?” she asked, knitting her brows.

“Yes. You see, I loved Constance, even though I was hardly more than a boy at the time, but unfortunately she had already wed your father. That she was my senior by six or so years was unimportant to me. The last time I saw her, her belly was stretched full with child—with you.”

“Then you should hate me, for I killed her.”

“Perhaps I did, for a time, just as I hated your father for planting his seed in her womb. I left England and did not return for some five years. When I came back, I met you, her daughter, and you were the image of her. You were such a lively child, full of wonder, your eyes bright with intelligence. It was in my mind to take an interest in Constance’s daughter, to watch her grow up, to be a part of her life in some way. When I saw you at fourteen, it was only Constance’s face that I beheld, not her character or personality. I was drawn to you as a young girl, Cassandra, and when you turned seventeen, I realized that I wanted you, loved you for yourself.”

“You lie to yourself, my lord. It is my mother you love.”

“You are quite wrong,” he said.

“You do not really know me. You cannot love someone you do not know.”

“But I know you quite well, Cassandra, believe me.”

In her bewilderment, she tried to close her hands, and winced from the pain in her fingers. She felt his long fingers close about her wrists, and she knew it was to keep her from hurting herself. The small token of his caring made her sick with despair.

She raised bleak eyes to his face. “How can you want someone who does not love you?”

“There are few things in life that are unchangeable.”

She reared back. “Damn you, I don’t want your glib words, my lord. I shall never change.”

“You are but eighteen years old, Cassandra,” he said gently, and abruptly released her wrists. He sat back in his chair and regarded her silently. She saw tenderness in his dark eyes, and drew back instinctively. She hated herself,
but could not prevent her pleading words. “Please, just take me home. I swear I shall tell no one about what you did. Just take me home, I beg you.”

He said with cold finality, “No. And never again abase yourself, Cassandra, it ill befits your character.”

“How dare you speak so arrogantly about my character? You can have no real notion whatsoever about me. If I choose to plead or abase myself, even to a knave like you, it is because it is in my character to do so.”

Her torrent of words, spoken with such perverse defiance, made him smile. “I suppose that next you will tell me that a woman’s tears come easily to you, that a woman’s guile are also part of your character.”

“Go to the devil.”

“Ah, the lady finally speaks words I understand. I wager that other young ladies of your age would have demonstrated sufficient sensibility by this time to have swooned at least twice. I thank God for your character, Cassandra, for fainting ladies are a damned nuisance.”

She turned stiffly away from him and felt cold despair once again pervade her mind like a familiar cloak. She could feel the swiftness of the yacht and knew that each minute took her farther away from her home and from Edward.

“Where is your yacht bound?” she asked, not looking at him. Perhaps he would dock somewhere in England and she could escape him.

He extinguished the small glimmer of hope with one word. “Italy. Genoa, to be exact. We have a long voyage ahead of us. You know, of course, that my father was an English peer, the third Earl of Clare. My mother was Italian. Over the past years I have spent roughly equal periods of time in both countries. Now, my mother’s homeland will be mine—ours.”

Cassie had wondered why she had been taught Italian, not French, like the other young ladies of her acquaintance. It was not possible, she thought with mounting confusion, that he could know that. She said, “The Union Jack is flying at the jackstaff.”

“Of course.
The Cassandra
has flown England’s colors for the past six months and she will continue to do so until we are in French waters.”

“What do you do then, my lord earl, strut like a Frenchman and become the Comte de Clare? Have you a French flag to cloak your cowardice?”

“Such a masquerade might prove amusing, but not at all necessary. The Genoese are the bankers of the French. Even the bucolic Louis has the good sense to protect the funnel to his royal coffers.”

“And if the French attack by error?”

As if he read her thoughts, he said, “Believe me, Cassandra, to be taken by French privateers or the French navy would not result in your return to England. In any case, it will not happen. Did you not notice the gun mounts? They are not toys, I assure you.”

Cassie slumped forward in her chair, her thoughts upon Edward and Eliott and the grief they would feel when they found her wrecked sailboat. Even at this moment, Eliott was probably growing concerned that she had not returned. “You are an evil, ruthless man, my lord,” she said, her voice as dead as her heart.

“Perhaps. Ruthless, at least, for I would have gone to any lengths to secure you as my wife.” He saw the glazed look in her eyes, and said no more. He glanced at the clock atop his desk and rose.

“It grows late, Cassandra. I must go on deck for a while to see to our course. If you wish to bathe, you will find fresh water on the commode. Gowns, underthings, stockings, hairbrushes are in the dresser and armoire. We will dine when I return.”

Cassie merely stared at him, mute. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she heard a key turn in the lock.

“The wee lass, she is all right?”

“She will be,” the earl said as he released the helm to Angelo and turned to Scargill, a plucky, straight-spoken Scotsman, his valet for some ten years.

“It was like ye killed a part of her when ye sent her boat toward the rocks.”

“Yes, but she shall have another, once we are home again.”

Anthony Welles gazed starboard for a long moment over the choppy water, toward the English shoreline. “She is very young, Scargill.”

Scargill’s coarse red hair flapped up and down on his forehead in the sea wind, and out of habit, he raised his forefinger to smooth it down. He studied his master’s strong, proud profile, outlined in the orange glow of the setting sun, and shook his head. “It’s a ruthless thing ye’ve done, my lord.”

“Precisely Cassandra’s words, Scargill, but there is little point in repining now. She is mine, and that is the end to the matter.”

“As I’ve told ye afore, my lord, I’ve never known a man to raise his own wife. I thought ye’d forgotten her when that spitfire, Giovanna, got her hooks into ye.”

“The Contessa accomplished part of her desire, my friend.”

“She was hot for ye, I’ll grant ye that, my lord. But besides warming yer bed, she has an eye to yer title and fortune. She’ll not prove kind to yer English lass.”

The earl turned slowly and an amused smile lit his dark eyes. “In the unlikely event that Giovanna shows her claws to Cassandra, rest assured that Cassandra will dish her up without any assistance from me. She is like quicksilver, I think, arrogant and proud. She has a core of strength that her mother never possessed. Be kind to her, Scargill, but I caution you to be watchful. She very nearly unmanned me with her knee.”

Scargill guffawed. “She did, did she, my lord. So the wee madonna is not taking well to yer kidnaping her.”

“Not at the moment. You call her madonna now, Scargill?”

“Yer Genoese sailors have called her nothing else, my lord. It’s yer mixed blood, they say, that makes ye one minute the cold imperious lord, and the next, the unpredictable man bent on his own passions. They believe it’s yer Italian blood that makes ye go to such lengths for a woman.”

The earl stood rigidly straight, his features impassive. It was always so when his lordship was angered, Scargill thought, particularly when someone referred to his fiery Italian blood.

“Have I a rebellion brewing with my men?”

“Nay, ye know as well as I do that they’d follow ye to hell, if ye asked it of them.”

“Never would I demand anything so final. See that they get an extra ration of grog, Scargill, but not more, mind you. I will be much occupied this evening and have no wish for
The Cassandra
to run aground.”

Scargill grunted. “The men will come to accept her, my lord. Even Angelo, as superstitious as any man with a woman aboard, admitted that she had a fine way with her wee boat.”

“That is quite an accolade, coming from my close-mouthed helmsman. Unfortunately, I do not believe that Cassandra would have the slightest inclination at the moment to value such a compliment.”

“Do ye think she’ll agree to wed with ye, my lord?”

“She will wed me,” Anthony said calmly. “Now, my friend, I must use your cabin just this once to bathe and change for dinner. See that Arturo prepares the English fare that I ordered. You will play the English butler this evening.”

“Aye, my lord.” Scargill watched his master walk down the highly polished deck toward the companionway, his step jaunty, and the set of his broad shoulders assured.

It was dark when the earl straightened his black satin waistcoat and unlocked the cabin door. He could make out Cassandra’s figure in the near darkness as he opened the door, seated in the same chair next to the table where he had left her. He frowned, for she had not bothered to light the lamps.

He performed this task, and when the cabin was flooded with light, he turned to face her. She was wearing the same old muslin gown, and tendrils of hair, unbrushed, curled haphazardly about her set face.

“Good evening, Cassandra,” he said, and sat down opposite her.

“I see the pirate clothes himself like a gentleman,” she said, her eyes flitting over him with open contempt.

“And I see that you are still clothed as a peasant girl. You do not find the wardrobe I have provided you to your liking?”

“I will never touch anything that belongs to you, my lord.”

“In that case,” he remarked imperturbably, “you will soon find yourself naked.” He saw her expressive eyes narrow in disbelief, then widen in ill-disguised fear. Obviously, she had not considered that he would make sexual demands of her.

“Our dinner will arrive shortly. Would you care for a glass of wine?”

Cassie nodded dumbly, aware suddenly that her throat was parched from thirst.

He handed her a glass of French Burgundy and watched her clumsily take it between her bandaged fingers. She downed it in one long gulp and fell into a paroxysm of coughing.

“It is heady stuff, Cassandra. You must learn to sip wine, not gulp it down like water.”

She frowned at him from watery eyes and thwacked the delicate glass on the table.

“Would you care for some more?”

He saw her hesitate perceptibly and guessed that she feared that he would make her drunk. He liberally watered down another glass and placed it in front of her.

There came a knock on the cabin door. “Ah, our dinner has arrived. Enter.”

Scargill appeared in the doorway, dressed in an English butler’s formal attire, his arms laden with covered silver trays. The earl bit back a bark of laughter at the look of pained resignation on his face.

Cassie moved away from the table and sat upon a blue velvet settee. She watched the earl silently as he lifted each cover and sniffed at the dishes. “You may tell Arturo that he has performed wonders,” he said to Scargill, who was looking with worried eyes at Cassie.

Cassie said sharply, “Is it your wish to go to the gallows with your master? That is where brigands and pirates end their days.”

Scargill turned to face the flushed girl. “If it is God’s will, lassie, then so be it.”

She rose unsteadily to her feet and shouted at him, “I will see that it is God’s will. How can you obey a man who ruthlessly kidnaps a woman from her family and those she loves? He is a devil, without heart or honor.”