His Mask of Retribution (18 page)

She felt the stir of both anger and fear. ‘Have a care how you speak of my husband, Francis.’

‘After the way he seduced you at your ball I don’t think I need have any care over him.’

‘He is my husband.’

‘Even so, you barely know the man, Marianne.’

‘If that is what you brought me in here to say, you will excuse me.’

‘Not so hasty, little sister.’ She felt his hand upon her arm. ‘There is something that you might want to see.’

Her heart gave a stutter. ‘You have found the document?’

‘Not yet.’ He shook his head. ‘Father will discuss little of the highwayman matter with me, so I took the liberty of looking into it myself. Remember the first ransom note that he sent?’

She nodded. The words were engraved upon her heart.

‘1795. Hounslow Heath. The document that was taken in exchange for your daughter,’ said Francis as if reading them again. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and when he unfolded it she could see that it was a page that had been cut from a newspaper—a newspaper that was yellow with age. He passed it to her. At the top of the page in tiny letters she saw the page was from
The London Messenger
, and the date was June 22nd, 1795.

‘1795,’ she said and when her eyes dropped lower on the page she saw the article entitled ‘Robbery and Murder upon Hounslow Heath’. She swallowed down the nausea.

‘Read it,’ her brother said.

The names leapt out at her before she even began to read. She read, in silence, a small part of what Rafe had already told her.

‘Edmund Knight,’ he said slowly. ‘And his wife, Catherine.’

‘A tragedy,’ she said.

‘Do you know who they are?’

She nodded, but did not meet his eye, just kept her gaze fixed on the sheet of newsprint before her.

‘Rafe Knight’s parents,’ he said.

The silence hissed between them.

‘What is your point, Francis?’

‘1795. Hounslow Heath. A highwayman. A strange coincidence, don’t you think?’

‘What are you suggesting?’ She looked at him then. Her heart was thumping so fast, so hard, that it threatened to leap from her throat. ‘You think that the man who killed Rafe’s parents is the same one who abducted me?’ But she knew that was not what he was thinking.

‘No. But the two crimes are connected in some way.’

‘There must have been hundreds of happenings upon Hounslow Heath in that year.’

‘There were not,’ said Francis. His gaze held hers and the look in his eyes made her shiver.

‘Then maybe the reference is to some event not reported in the newspapers.’ She hoped he could not see her nervousness.

He shook his head. ‘It is the strangest thing,’ he said, ‘but when I started asking questions about the murder of Rafe Knight’s parents I discovered that no one is willing to answer them.’

‘Then maybe you should stop asking questions about something that is long since dead and buried.’ The blood was pounding in her head and she felt a fear worse than any she had known, for this fear was not for herself, but for the man she loved. She did not trust herself to raise her eyes to her brother’s. She gripped the newspaper page tighter so that he would not see the tremor that ran through her fingers.

‘Don’t you want us to catch the highwayman, Marianne?’

No!
she wanted to shout. ‘I want to put the past behind me and move on with my life.’

‘Even if he’s still out there?’

‘There are worse men than him out there, Francis,’ she said quietly. She hated to see the pity that flashed in her brother’s eyes and wished she had not spoken.

‘Not in England,’ he reassured her.

She prayed he was right, and when she went to leave this time her brother did not stop her.

* * *

Rafe was in his study, discussing matters with Callerton, when Marianne returned from her father’s house. Her face was pale and he could see the worry in her eyes. She had not even removed her pelisse, bonnet or gloves when she came to him. He sent Callerton away before coming to stand before her.

‘Francis has found it. He knows, Rafe!’

He felt his heart miss a beat. ‘The document?’ he asked quietly.

She shook her head with impatience. ‘The article from
The London Messenger
archives for 1795. He knows of the murder of your parents.’ She untied her bonnet and set it down on his desk.

‘It is no great secret, Marianne.’

She peeled off her gloves and thrust them down beside the bonnet. ‘No, but it is the only incident reported for Hounslow Heath for 1795.’

The silence hissed between them. He knew what she was saying.

Her eyes held his and he saw the fear in them.

‘He has already been asking questions about your parents...about you.’

He had not cared if they caught him before, not as long as he took Misbourne down with him, but things were different now.

‘Do not underestimate my brother, Rafe. He seeks to protect me and that makes him tenacious, and determined, ruthless even. He will not let the matter rest, not until he has found all there is to know of you...and the highwayman. We have to go away before he discovers the truth.’

‘We can’t run from this, Marianne.’

‘Why won’t you understand?’

‘I do understand,’ he said softly and drew her into his arms.

She stared up into his face. ‘My father will destroy you,’ she said. ‘And you will destroy him.’

‘You know that he has the document, don’t you?’

She nodded and he saw tears sheen her eyes.

‘And you know what that means, Marianne.’

‘I know, but I cannot believe it of him, Rafe.’ She shook her head. ‘All of this for a sheet of paper. What is written on it that it is worth so many lives? You saw it that night.’

‘Only the smallest part of it.’ Only the three vowels written large and clear.

She placed her hands on either side of his face and stared up into his eyes. ‘He is my father, Rafe, and I love him.’ She paused and a single tear overflowed to trickle down her cheek. ‘And I love
you.
More than anything.’

‘I know.’ It seemed he could see right into her very soul. ‘I love you, too, Marianne.’

She squeezed her eyes shut at his whispered words, but the tears escaped to flow none the less.

‘What are we going to do, Rafe?’

‘We are going to face what will come.’

‘I cannot,’ she sobbed.

‘I know that you can, Marianne,’ he said.

‘If I lose you, Rafe...’ The words choked and finished.

He held her in his arms and he could not tell her that everything would be all right, for they both knew the truth: it would be his neck or Misbourne’s in the noose and, either way, it would break Marianne’s heart.

Chapter Fourteen

T
hey lay in bed together that night. The wind rattled at the window panes and the sky outside was a sheer sheet of black. There was no moonlight, no starlight. Only the glow of the fire’s red embers broke the darkness of the room. But there was no need for light. They lay naked and entwined, breast to breast, heart to heart. So close that she could feel his eyelashes against hers, so close that they shared the same breath. Every hour was precious. Every minute. Too precious to waste on the past or on worries of the future. All they had was now.

‘Make love to me, Rafe,’ she whispered against his lips. ‘I am asking you.’ Then, remembering the words he had spoken so long ago, ‘I am begging you.’

‘As I would kneel at your feet and beg you, Marianne.’ And then he kissed her and it made all his other kisses fade to oblivion. In his kiss was everything that had been between them and all that love could ever encompass. He kissed her lips and then he kissed her breasts, tenderly, with all of his love, so that it felt like he was worshipping her with his mouth. His breath seared her skin, branding her, making her his, as if she could ever be another’s. Tasting her, touching her, taking them both on a journey that could only have one end.

Their hearts beat in unison. She could feel the rush of his blood as surely as she felt her own, feel the convergence of their desire to a blaze of unimaginable intensity. He kissed her until there was no thought in her mind save for him, kissed her until her body was begging for his. She needed this union with him, wanted it with all her heart, all her soul. To share their bodies. To lose herself in him. For ever. Against her belly she could feel the press of the long thick length of him and between her thighs the dull throbbing ache was almost unbearable. She slid herself against him, needing to feel him between her legs.

‘Marianne,’ he breathed her name.

‘Rafe.’ There was nothing else in the world. No fear. No hurt. Only her love for him and his love for her.

He rolled her on to her back, taking his weight on his elbows as their bodies clung together. Her thighs gaped wide, opening herself to him, and she could feel him touching her, letting her taste the place to which he would take them both. A promise. A vow.

‘Yes,’ she whispered. She wanted to love him in every way she could. She needed him, him and only him, as desperately as if her life depended on it.

His lips brushed hers, their breaths mingling, warm and intimate, and then he slid inside her. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world, being filled with him, as if their bodies had been made to fit together. A sense of coming home. A sense that everything had been made right. She sighed with relief, with delight, the sensation of it making her dizzy. She kissed his mouth and only then felt him begin to move within her. Thrusting, in long strokes, a rhythm that cemented the love that was between them. Deeper and faster until she was clutching him to her so hard that her fingers dug into his back, into his buttocks. Until she was moving with him, pulling him in even deeper, even harder. Until their breaths panted loud and their skin was slick and sliding with sweat. Faster and faster in a whirlwind that tumbled and turned and drove and urged. Until she arched against him and cried out his name and heard him cry hers, as everything seemed to explode in an ecstasy that stole her breath and stopped her heart, and shattered her body, her very being, into a thousand pieces scattered across the heavens, like stars in the darkness of the night sky. She clung to him, revelling in the heavy weight of his body upon hers, feeling his love all around her, within her, filling her heart and her body and her soul as, together, they floated back down to earth.

They lay there, and he kissed her, a single kiss both tender and possessive, then rolled his weight from her.

She heard him climb from the bed, watched the dark shape of him move across to the fireplace. She saw the tiny flare on the candle he lit from the red embers on the hearth. And the two small flames flicker in the darkness as he used the first candle to light the others. She could see his nakedness as he returned across the room and set the branch of candles down on the bedside cabinet. He did not climb into the bed, but sat on its edge, looking round at her, his eyes very dark, his face shadowed in the flicker of the candlelight.

There was silence, a pure silence, raw and unbroken. And she felt her heart tighten because she only now remembered, and she knew what he was going to say.

* * *

Rafe looked into the eyes of the woman he loved.

‘You were not a maid.’ The candles flickered in the draught, making shadows dance upon the walls, upon her face.

‘No.’ Her voice was quiet. She did not try to deny it, made no pretence.

‘Why did you not tell me?’

‘The right moment never came, and then I...forgot.’

‘Forgot?’ He raised an eyebrow and looked at her.

‘You made me forget,’ she said.

‘Does your father know?’

She nodded. He closed his eyes, tried to close his ears to the horrible little voice that whispered possibilities of which he could not bear to think.

‘The night of your birthday ball, when your father caught us in his study... Was it all a ploy he devised to catch you a husband?’

‘No! Never think that!’ He saw the shock that flared in her eyes, and the distress that followed in its wake, and he knew that she was telling the truth. And besides, it was too late, because he loved her.

They looked at each other across the small distance.

‘Tell me what happened, Marianne,’ he said gently.

Her eyes scanned his face as if she were committing him to memory, then she glanced down and began to speak. ‘It was the night of my eighteenth birthday. My father wanted it to be a quiet family celebration so we did not even leave the house that day. I retired as usual. My maid helped me change into my nightclothes and put me to bed, and then she left. It was a mild night and the fire had almost died upon the hearth and...’ She hesitated, and took a deep breath as if willing herself to continue. He reached his hand across the covers to take hers. She felt cold to his touch. He folded his fingers around hers to warm them.

‘The curtains were drawn,’ she said. ‘I blew the candle out and it was so dark.’ He felt the slight tightening of her fingers. ‘He came from behind the curtains. He said he would kill me if I cried out or struggled and I was so shocked, so very afraid, that I made no sound, not until he was gone. I could not see him in the darkness, not until he left and the streetlight shone on his face as he climbed out of the window.’

Rafe felt her pain as raw as if it were his own. His heart was thudding hard in his chest and he was aware of the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. And more than anything of the quiet deadly certainty that he hid from his face and his voice. He placed his other hand over hers, enfolding her one small hand with both of his, protecting it, warming it.

‘Monsters in the darkness,’ he said quietly.

‘Yes.’

He paused. ‘Who is he, Marianne?’

‘He is gone. Fled to the Continent before my father and brother could find him. They would kill him were he ever to return.’

They would not, for Rafe would get to him first. ‘His name, Marianne.’

‘The Duke of Rotherham.’

There was a small silence before she said, ‘I tried to block him from my mind. I tried not to let myself think of him or what he had done. And then I met you...’

And he had made her father grovel hurt in the dirt while she watched. And he had abducted her at gunpoint and held her prisoner. He only now realised the truth of what he had done.

‘I never would have abducted you had I known.’

She looked up at him then and her expression was one of devastation. ‘Now you are sorry for it.’ And she began to weep.

He moved across the bed, pulling her into his arms, trying to make her understand. ‘I can never be sorry for taking you, Marianne. Had I not, you would always just have been Misbourne’s daughter. How would I have come to love you? How would I have made you my wife?’

‘You made me truly forget what Rotherham had done.’

‘I am glad of it,’ he whispered.

‘My mother told me there was a way that you might never know. To pretend the pain and scratch my skin with a pin so that the blood would mark the bedsheets. But I could not deceive you like that.’

‘I know you would not. I love you, Marianne. You are mine. And I am yours. Nothing can ever change that.’ He kissed her and took her in his arms and made love to her again, gently, with all that was in his heart, to show her the truth of it, to show her that nothing else mattered.

* * *

In the week that followed they lived and loved minute by minute, hour by hour, one day at a time. There was nothing of fear, nothing of darkness, only a love so strong that it seemed to etch itself upon time itself. Marianne knew they could not live like this for ever, that sooner or later, reality must intrude upon the world they had constructed for themselves. And it did.

The note was delivered by hand on Tuesday afternoon. She recognized the neat slope of her mother’s handwriting and cracked open the red wax seal of the Earl of Misbourne.

Leicester Square, London,

November 1810

My dearest Marianne

Your father and I would be delighted if you and your husband would come to tea at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. We look forward to seeing you both.

Ever your loving mother

She passed the note to Rafe, who read it without a word.

‘Will you come?’ She knew what she was asking of him—to take afternoon tea with the man he believed responsible for the murder of his parents. She hoped with all her heart that he was wrong and prayed for the miracle that would prove it both to her and to Rafe. And deep within her was the small glimmer of hope that, somehow, the breach between her husband and her father could be healed.

He nodded.

Her heart gave a little squeeze. She reached her face up to his and kissed him on the mouth. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

* * *

At three o’clock the next day her father’s butler led them into the drawing room. She knew the minute the door closed that she had made a mistake in coming here. There was no sign of her mother. There was no tea tray. Only her father and on the table, where the tea cups should have been, a crumple of deep-blue silk and Mr Pickering’s betrothal ring. She felt her heart miss a beat and her stomach sink down to meet her toes.

‘Where is Mama? What is going on?’ She played the game, feigning an indignation and innocence, anything that would protect Rafe. And even while she played it she prayed and prayed that she was wrong.

‘Sit down,’ said her father in a voice she barely recognised.

‘No.’ She manoeuvred herself to stand in front of her husband, as if she could shield him from them. ‘We are leaving.’

She tried to back away towards the doorway, but Rafe was solid and unmoving as a rock. Behind them she heard the closing of the door and the key turn in the lock; when she looked Francis was standing there, barring their exit.

‘Do you recognise this dress, Marianne?’ Her father lifted it from where it lay on the table. And when she said nothing, ‘You should do, it is the one the highwayman sent you home in.’

She felt Rafe move, coming to stand slightly in front of her. She swallowed and felt her blood chill. She did not look at him, just kept her eyes on the dress that was gripped so tight within her father’s hand that his knuckles shone white.

Her father began to speak. ‘Your brother was most interested in this dress. It appears that one can discover so much from a dressmaker’s label. The dress was made in March 1795 by Madame Voise of New Bond Street, a dressmaker with a very select clientele.’

She waited, and the sense of dread she had felt on entering the room expanded and grew to fill the entirety of her chest. But she showed nothing of it, determined to yield not one thing that might implicate Rafe.

‘Madame Voise died some years ago. Her nephew runs the business now, under the name of Sutton. But he still had his aunt’s old records.’

The tension in the room was so tight she thought she could not bear it.

‘No one would have anticipated such a thing after all these years,’ he said.

She said nothing. She did not dare look at Rafe, but she could sense the strain emanating from his body.

Please, God
, she prayed.
Please.

‘The dress is made from Parisian silk,’ he said.

Say it if you know
, she wanted to shout.

‘The material cost one pound, sixteen shillings and thruppence a yard.’

Every word was a torture of waiting, for she had a very good idea of where this was leading.

‘And do you know the lady for whom it was made?’ He smiled, but it was not a smile of happiness, nor even one of victory.

She held her breath and felt the tremble go through her as the seconds stretched.

‘Mrs Catherine Knight.’ He paused. ‘Your husband’s mother.’

In the silence there was only the fast frenzied thud of her heart.

‘Rafe Knight is the highwayman who held us up on Hounslow Heath. Rafe Knight is the man who abducted you.’

‘What nonsense—’ she began, but her father cut her off.

‘But then you already know that, don’t you, Marianne?’

‘This is madness! Rafe has done nothing!’

But her father and brother just looked at her.

‘Do you think I would not know if my own husband was the highwayman? Do you think—?’ But Rafe stayed her with the gentle pressure of his hand on her arm.

‘They know, Marianne.’ His eyes were very dark and his face the sternest she had ever seen it. There was about him such a certainty, such an aura of danger and power, that she feared the terribleness of what was about to be unleashed within this room.

She shook her head as if doing so would deny that he had said the words. ‘No,’ she whispered, and looked up into his eyes. ‘No.’ And stroked her fingers against where his hand rested upon her arm.

‘Your brother was right,’ her father said. ‘You love him.’