Jennifer Horseman (44 page)

Tomas could only say her name over and over again until at last she pulled back to look at his face. The pain and fear in his eyes, eyes underlined with dark circles, told her he had suffered much, too. So did the cologne covering the faint scent of drinking, a foul scent permeating his skin and breath. Yet their trials were over.

"You are well?" he asked softly.

She nodded and closed her eyes as she felt the study of his eyes. "Did he hurt you very badly?"

Juliet knew what question was being asked and she had practiced lying. She started to shake her head but another voice answered from behind.

"Yes, I did."

They both turned to see Garrett still astride the stallion. She understood Tomas's fear, for like that first day long ago, Garrett looked a frightening sight atop the huge black beast. He leaned slightly forward in the saddle, a deceptively casual stance. The folds of his cloak were tossed over his shoulders, revealing the plain sight of the pistols hanging from his shoulder harness, the weapons as much a part of him as his supreme ease and grace. His deadly strength was accented by the harness and, worse, by the cold antipathy in his gaze as he considered Tomas.

Tomas's clenched fists tightened at his side. "How dare you admit it openly! In front of her, to further humiliate and abuse her!"

"Indeed," A dark brow lifted, though his gaze remained steady, hard, cold. "And how dare you pretend to care about her abuse, much less her humiliation. After you stood by and did nothing all those years that man beat, mutilated, and terrorized her—"

"No, Garrett!" Juliet cried, "Don't do this-"

"What can you mean by that?" Tomas stared aghast. "You would dare make an accusation against me when 'twas you who swept into our life, abducted and abused an innocent girl, killed her uncle in cold blood, and left me imagining she was dead, too—"

"Tomas, no, please. You don't know! You dont understand. My uncle and Clarissa killed his brother most cruelly and Garrett thought I was Clarissa. He—"

"My God, Juliet," Tomas swung around to face her. "You're not going to defend him, are you? I don't care -hat your uncle did to his brother, if his brother was half as despicable as he is, then 'twas a deed well done!"

Juliet shot frightened eyes to Garrett, measuring his response. There was none, save for the barest hint of amusement in Garrett's gaze, as if he considered Tomas's slander less than a minor irritation. Yet the thought of Edric, the profundity of Garrett's grief, set against the unintentional cruelty of Tomas's words made her say, "I'm sorry, Garrett. He doesn't know what he says. I know when he understands—"

Furious she would apologize for him, Tomas clamped his hand over her mouth before another word could be said. A shot passed so close to his head that he felt a burning rush of wind. Tomas trained his startled eyes on Garrett, whose pistol now aimed at the dead center of his heart.

"Take your hands off her."

Tomas's face went white. He slowly removed his hands. Juliet looked shocked and more than a little confused. The last thing she could bear to witness was a confrontation between the two. She started to shake her head, but Tomas suddenly screamed.

"You can't do this!" He turned to her, not willing to take her arm but certain they had to leave before the man pushed him into a challenge. "We don't have to listen to you—"

"I'm afraid you do."

Leifs mount danced a bit, a small signal of unrest, a warning that he would give chase. Tomas turned around and with equal parts viciousness and fear said, "You've hurt her enough. Let me take her away."

"Not on your life."

Not a platitude, not even a threat, a statement of fact. In that first awful moment Juliet knew. She turned to see him. Watching her, Garrett's gaze had nothing to do with Tomas, as if the young man were still no more consequential than a bothersome insect. So it was when he spoke. "You see, I have this problem. Juliet thinks she loves you, that you are deserving of that gift. Her innocence has forgiven so much. I've not even told her of the rat-infested hole you plan to keep her in, keep her without even offering the dubious protection of your name."

Alarmed by those words, Juliet's gaze shot from Garrett to Tomas. Tomas first looked surprised, then nervous, as he met her eyes. "It's a lie, Juliet . . . he's lying. It's true that I don't have much money—"

"Enough," Garrett stopped him cold. "It's bad enough that I have to listen to her making excuses for you, but you can believe I won't listen to yours." Garrett watched the uncertainty play in her eyes. "Aye, love, this is what I was afraid of, that your heart would still quiet the doubts. What I must do is show you something you can not forgive."

Garrett reached behind to his saddle bag and withdrew the money bag. He tossed it unceremoniously to the ground, one short foot from Tomas's feet. Juliet stared with incomprehension until he said to Tomas, "Ten thousand pounds in gold, yours if you walk away with the vow never to see her again."

For one long moment Juliet couldn't believe he really did that, that he truly imagined Tomas would trade her for a bag of money! Yet no, he had said it. There lay the bag to prove it. A swift surge of rage and indignations trembled through her, shimmering in her eyes as she stared at the bag. "Garrett . . . how could you, Garrett? How—"

"You are hesitating?" he asked Tomas, unwilling to show mercy now. "Well, I'm surprised. The greed in your eyes tells me your ... ah ... love is worth less than the bag that gold sits in. In the event you disagree, I'm open to bargaining, that is, if you can overcome your concern for Juliet's ... ah ... humiliation."

She was shocked, just shocked. He truly believed this sordid ploy would work, that Tbmas was of a character that would trade her for a bag of gold. "Garrett ... I cannot believe this. . . .How—" She stopped as her consciousness became abruptly riveted to the utter stillness of the glen. She froze, panicked by it, by the terrible quiet interrupted only by the shuffle of the horses' hooves, each intake of the beasts' breaths. The slightest turn of her body would allow her to see Tomas now, but something strange and awful forbade the measure absolutely.

Garrett had never known such hate as he watched what she could not. Tomas stood mute and helpless. Small trickles of sweat lined his brow as he considered not the consequences of his next act but rather if the offer could possibly be genuine.

Leif could hardly bear a moment more of her pain, though God knew it would only be worse. "Your hesitation speaks well of your choice. Take it, boy, and be gone. You have my word, he will not hurt you now."

From the corner of her vision, Juliet watched Tomas's hand reach down to touch the bag. Like the shot that shattered the quiet, her startled cry stopped him. He briefly met her eyes, and in that moment she waited for the denial he would not give to her. In a flash of blinding white light, she saw him for the beast in her dreams. Then suddenly she was running. Bolting like a startled doe, she darted through the glen and into the forest.

In that instant Garrett reined his mount around to give chase. Tomas looked up with sudden alarm, only to see he was the victim of the great red giant's disgust, like a hard-edged knife. "Begone, before I decide to kill you myself for the misery you bring to this earth."

With the bag in his hands, Tomas turned away.

Leif kicked his mount after Garrett and gave chase through the thicket on the other side. "Garrett, nay!" The warning sounded just as Juliet darted onto a footpath leading into the forest. Garrett reined the mount in and the great beast reared before coming into control. Garrett turned as Leif came to his side. "She is shocked, badly wounded. Give her the release."

Garrett turned from Leifs concern to the path Juliet took, hesitating. Yet Leif was right. The violence of her emotions would need a release before he could go to her. He thought of her pain and he swore with sudden viciousness, "God forbid I ever see his face again, Leif," Garrett flexed the gloved fingers of his hand. "My fingers ache to bury that boy at last."

"Ah, but you did, Garrett, you did."

The woods and thicket grew more dense as she ran. She swung wildly at the encroaching branches, twigs and bushes claiming the path, swinging as if they were a malicious enemy trying to stop her. Still she ran, further and further, until her lungs burned and she could no longer feel the hot throbbing in her legs. She knew only that she could not, would not stop. Not ever . . .

All at once the path opened to a small clearing of tall grass. She never saw the rock the greenery concealed. The torn slippered foot hit it and with an ugly thud, she hit the cold, brown earth, knocking the wind out of her lungs. Her knee caught under her skirt and ripped it, while the sharp edge of a twig cut her hand and gravel scraped her face. Pain shot through her body, but she ignored it. Panicked, she tried to get up but her limbs would no longer obey her will and she collapsed with the effort.

She felt that sadness welling inside, the force of her will pushing it back . . . back. She would not cry. She would never cry. Tears were associated with cold and death, the morning she woke to see the broken braid of hair and her mother so still and cold at her side, looking not peaceful or tranquil but so terribly frightened. Her mother greeted death's portal and the sight, like the sharp point of a sculptor's knife, carved the hellish fright on her face. She called her mother's name over and over, the invocation a spell, as she laid her warm cheek against the frigid cold of her mother's, so certain the hot tears running in streams over her mother's face would ease the terror and warm the cold flesh. Her mother would wake to see the tears, the lavish display of the depth of her grief, and she would forgive everything.

Sometimes when she closed her eyes she heard the scream as they found her like some many hours later. She felt those hands seize her slight form, forcing the parting at last, the voices screaming at her over and over, "Mamma la morte! Mamma la morte!" until at last she understood these precious tears were no good; they meant nothing, they changed nothing.

She knew better than to cry.

As she lay there perfectly still, listening to her heartbeat spiral downward and her breathing slow, like a ghost come to haunt her, she remembered her mother's perfume. She closed her eyes, trying to grasp and cling to the memory of that exotic, evocative scent.

She remembered standing in front of the vanity late Tuesday afternoons watching her mother dress for the flower shop. First came silk stockings and lace chemises, then fine corsets made of pretty colored silk. Her mother always let her brush her hair, and as she stroked the long hair, her mother carefully applied first face powder, then rouge and red lip color. Coal oil went on her lashes and blue powder over her eyelids. . . .

Juliet's heart quickened again as voices came to her mind.

"Anna! What brings you back?" Madame Gaston's voice came from the sitting parlor. "My God, you're breathless and crying. What is it?"

"I ... had to get out of there. I just ... I just have to see her."

"She is fast asleep-"

"I just have to look at her and see that she is safe."

The voices disappeared for a moment, sounding again in a whisper close to the bed where she lay, half asleep. "Oh God, there are nights when the set of hands upon me are his ... the sweat is his, when he is choking me with it ... and then, then I see her little face so clearly, not pretty like Juliet's but ugly and grotesque as she must be. Dear God, don't let me ever see the poor creature. . . ."

"A flower shop? Did you ever see this flower shop, Juliet?"

"Mama, take me to the flower shop . . . please?"

"No darling, not today. I spend all week there working to keep us safe and happy. You don't want to spoil my holiday, do you? Some other day perhaps. . ."

"A flower shop?"

"The flower shop where her mother worked, Admiral."

"I curse your whorish, slutting mother. . . ."

Garrett searched for over an hour before he finally came across her still form in the small clearing. She lay on her side on the cushion of grass. Her back was to him but he saw the twigs and leaves caught in her long hair, the tattered skirt and ripped slippers, evidence of her struggle. He dismounted and set the horse free, then stepped quietly to her with her name sounding in a whisper of emotion, "Juliet."

She turned to see him there. In that moment he took in the depth of her anguish and drew a sharp breath. He knelt in front of her and she shook her head ever so slightly, a warning that, like a wild creature, she could not now be touched. Obeying the command of her emotions was a hard-fought battle, won for but a moment, for every fiber of his body wanted to bring her against his heart.

"There never was a flower shop, was there?"

Garrett could not guess how she stumbled to this devastating truth now, and he was shaking his head, not knowing he did, a denial, a warning, as if he knew what it meant to her.

'"Twas why all those men stared at her. . . . She was a whore, and the admiral, the admiral . . . 'Twas why my uncle hated me, why he kept beating me, for shame .... 'Twas for shame. I zjn the product of an ungodly coupling done for money—"

Hurt and betrayal and shame changed her beauty to a flushed, frightened mask of pain as she greeted these half-truths, falling to her consciousness like the blows of an axe that swing by swing destroyed her. "No, Juliet—"

She recoiled from his reach, frightened by it. "I thought Tbmas loved me, but of course he couldn't. Even he couldn't love me. . . ."

"Love, no, I won't let you do this to yourself—"

"Love, this name you call me. What a strange word to me now!" The back of her hand went to her mouth to stop the swell of emotion. "I should have known even he would not want me. I suppose I did know somehow. All this time I was so afraid it was true, but I suppose, I suppose I had nothing else to cling to but the hope that somehow, he did love me—"

"Nay, Juliet. He could neither want nor love you. He was incapable of it, incapable of knowing you—"

"What pretty words! Am I that pitiful that you feel you must say those words, laying them over my wounds like a bandage. ... Or ... or forgive me, did you mean he can't know me as you do ... as in the biblical sense? I know it was worth ten thousand pounds to you, but-"