Lily (23 page)

Hopeless. Howe spun around, almost as if Lily had pointed behind her and shouted “There she is!” Lowdy stopped dead in her tracks. A nearly comical look of chagrin lumbered across her wide, friendly face. Then Lily’s view of her was cut off by Howe’s bulky back, moving with uncanny swiftness. She heard Howe’s voice raised in interrogation, Lowdy’s low in impudent answer—and then the crack of Howe’s hand across the girl’s flushed cheek. Lily stumbled to her feet and ran toward them, her own voice stuttering “Stop!” in a frightened, breathless gasp. Howe struck again, and this time Lowdy screamed. The tin cup clattered; the apple rolled sideways. Lily reached them just as Howe brought her hand back again. “No, don’t!” Lily shrieked, and Howe whirled around, fist raised.

“I’m all right!” shouted Lowdy, holding her cheeks, blood streaming from her nose. “I’m all right, I’m all right, Lily didn’t do nothing!”

Howe turned from one to the other, breathing hard, black eyes venomous. Lily thought the white streaks blazing back from her temples made her look mad—rabid. “You, Lowdy, go up to your room! For your disobedience you’ll have no dinner nor supper, and tomorrow you’ll spend the day watering the kitchen gardens—with that cup. Out o’ my sight, now, unless it’s a beating you want, too. Go on, I said!”

Lily stiffened in fearful anticipation, seeing rebellion in Lowdy’s bloody, tear-streaked face. But a second later Lowdy mumbled, “Yes, ma’am,” eyes downcast to hide the welling of new tears, and scuttled toward the house at a graceless, uneven trot.

“Well? Go back to your work or you’ll get the same and worse. What’re you staring at?”

Lily didn’t try to hide her disgust. Behind Howe’s flat black eyes she could see nothing except malevolence, but for once Lily’s anger was stronger than her fear. “Lowdy didn’t deserve that, Mrs. Howe, and you know it,” she accused, ignoring the quake in her voice. “You hit her because you wanted to—because you like frightening people if they’re weaker than you. You’re a bully and a tyrant—and a hypocrite.” She planted her feet, braced for whatever would come, but with no regret for what she’d said. Watching Howe’s huge right hand clench into a fist, she thought of one more thing to say. “I don’t believe Mr. Darkwell knows how you treat the servants, and I—I intend to tell him what you did to Lowdy!”

To her amazement, the housekeeper’s grim slit of a mouth loosened in a repulsive smile. “So,” she said in a soft hiss. “You’d tell the master on me, would you? Good. Very good.” She slid back a silent step. “Excellent,” she sighed, and the sibilant syllables raised the hair on the back of Lily’s neck. “Do that. Do it soon. Be sure to let me know what he says. And remember, Lily: ‘God is not mocked; for whatsoever thou soweth, that shall you also reap.’ ” Her smile grew, revealing two white eyeteeth as sharp as fangs. A dreadful moment passed. Then she turned and walked away, black bulk sliding swiftly, feet slithering over the grass as silently as adders.

Lily shivered in the blazing sun. A prickle of fear, or premonition, fluttered across her shoulders, leaving a sheen of ice-cold perspiration. She shook herself, but the terrifying sense of helplessness, of having inadvertently been captured, would not go away. She gazed up at the blunt stone walls of Darkstone, the flat, implacable bulwark of tower and chimneys and black balustrade against the bright, cloudless sky. For the first time since the night she’d come here, the house looked sinister to her. Malign, not indiffèrent—not insensate stone and mortar bur a force, a consciousness within the thick granite walls that bore her a personal ill will.

Fancy, she scolded herself, turning her face away, blinking into the hot sky above the blinding sea. Childish imagining, and she could not afford to indulge in whimsy. In an impetuous moment she had issued a challenge. She regretted it now, deeply and profoundly, but that was too bad. Lowdy deserved better from her than craven acquiescence to the status quo. Speaking to Devon would be hellish, crushing, a far worse torment than anything Howe could devise. But she had no choice; she’d made a promise and now she had to keep it.

She knew where he was: in his library. She knew too that he was alone, working at his big table. The accuracy of her knowledge of his whereabouts at almost all times dismayed and appalled her, but in spite of her best efforts she could not rid herself of this uncanny and destructive
awareness.
He was nothing to her—she was less than nothing to him!—so why couldn’t she forget him? She would. She would—as soon as she got away. Roger Soames was alive, and tonight she would write to him. Her captivity was ending—surely! Dry-mouthed, shoulders squared, Lily wiped her damp palms on her apron and moved with reluctant haste toward the house.

Devon raked his fingers through his hair, loosening his neat queue in the process. He tore the thin velvet ribbon away and threw it on his desk, out of patience with everything. It was the heat that made it impossible to concentrate on his tenant registry, he told himself, staring grimly at the same column of figures he’d been trying to add for four minutes. The whole exercise was pointless anyway—Cobb handled his rental accounts, and he could count on one hand the times he’d caught his steward in an error. Still, better to sit here by himself, shuffling numbers about on a ledger sheet, than go out and recommence swearing at his employees. For a man who prided himself on his self-control, this new inability to curb his temper was disconcerting. And all he had to do to exacerbate his anger was to remember two facts: that he’d only felt this way during one other period of his life, and that he’d vowed five years ago that he never would again.

He heard no sound over the restless murmur of the sea. Nevertheless, something made him fling his head up, tossing the curtain of straight brown hair back from his forehead. Lily was nothing but a dark outline against the blaze of the day, but he recognized her instantly, and felt a queer twist of pleasure. She was standing between the open French doors, poised in diffident silence. Forcing his hand to relax before he broke his quill pen in half, he said her name in a quiet, questioning voice. Tall, willow-slim, impossibly graceful, she took a hesitating step toward him.

She could barely see him in the sudden darkness. He was sitting at his cluttered library table, exactly as she’d known he would be. Despite the heat, he still wore his black coat, somber-looking against the white of his frilled shirt front. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, she saw that his expression was patient and disinterested, a little stern. Although she’d never seen a judge, he made her think of one. Good. That was good, she told herself, for if she’d seen anything to hint that he remembered, if there had been the vaguest flicker of acknowledgment that once a thousand years ago they had been lovers, had sighed and touched and laughed together, naked in his bed—then she’d have lost her courage and run away without speaking to him. But then, why did his indifference make her heart ache so?

She cleared her throat and made herself take another step closer. “I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but I have to tell you something important. It’s about Mrs. Howe.”

He didn’t know what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t that. He leaned back in his chair, conscious of a violent rush of disappointment, and stroked the feather of his pen with apparently idle fingers. “Mrs. Howe? What can you have to tell me about my housekeeper, I wonder?”

She heard condescension in his voice and pulled herself up straighter. “You couldn’t know what she’s like—you
couldn’t,
or you would not keep her.” She swallowed hard; that wasn’t at all the way she’d meant to begin!

“Indeed? What’s she done? From the look of you, Lily, I’d say she’s made you jump in the well to retrieve the bucket.” He stroked the quill across a tight smile, letting his gaze flick over her damp, disheveled gown and disreputable-looking apron. Her already pink cheeks flamed red with embarrassment, and she tossed a long tangle of escaped hair out of her face with the back of an angry hand.

“She’s done nothing to me, it’s Lowdy. She
struck
her!”

Devon scowled. “Why?” he snapped. “What did the girl do?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing? Come, now. Nothing at all?”

“She stopped working in the hot sun to get a drink of water.” She desperately wanted to leave it at that, but couldn’t bring herself to lie. “And she st—she took an apple from the kitchen larder.”

“She stole?”

“An apple!”

“I see. And what is it you expect from me now?”

She spread her hands, staring at him in gathering hopelessness. “Something!”

“What?” He shoved back in his chair impatiently and folded his arms over his chest. The impulse to explain himself to her annoyed him, turning his voice surly. “Mrs. Howe has been here for four years. She’s a capable woman; I leave everything about the running of my house in her hands and I don’t interfere. We leave each other al—”

“I can’t believe this,” Lily broke in, anger and incredulity making her forget her awkwardness. “She hit Lowdy, I tell you. She
hurt
her. And Lowdy’s not the first. Do you condone that?”

“It depends,” he answered coldly, his eyes a pale, arctic blue.

“On what? What could it possibly ‘depend’ on?”

“On whether you’re telling me the truth.”

She gasped her outrage. “Why would I lie? Listen to me, this is
important
—”

“Why would you lie? I can’t say. But I don’t believe my housekeeper would strike anyone for stealing an apple.”

“She did, I tell you! And you won’t do anything about it!”

“I’ll do what’s fair—I won’t tolerate abuse in my house.” He paled with anger when she laughed, a harsh, disbelieving sound that edged into derision at the end. “But if you
are
lying, we both know it wouldn’t be for the first time.”

Lily closed her mouth, frightened by the accuracy of his thrust.

He smiled unpleasantly. “You can’t answer that, I see.” A silent moment passed. “I’ll speak to Howe,” he conceded stiffly.

“No,” she cried, rallying. “Speak to Lowdy. For God’s sake! She’ll tell you the tr—”

“Enough!” Her righteous ire goaded him again. “I told you, it’s not my affair. I don’t get involved with …”

She didn’t cry, didn’t look away, but an odd, opaque film gathered in front of her eyes, blinding her. The word hung between them, unspoken for as long as she could stand it. “With servants.”

Devon stood. He said, “Lily,” with no idea of what he would say next. But it didn’t matter—she spun away and ran out through the French doors, disappearing into the dazzling brightness before he could speak another word.

He came out from behind the table, striking his knee against the sharp-edged corner. Cursing, he drew his booted foot back and kicked viciously at a heavy oak leg.

“That’s telling it. Son of a bitch won’t try
that
again.”

Devon swung around. His hard face split slowly into a glad smile. “Clay, you miserable bastard. Thank God.” They met in the middle of the room. Clay ignored the hand Devon held out and threw his arms around his brother in a jubilant bear hug, pounding him on the back. Devon grunted in pain; Clay jumped away.

“God, Dev, what is it? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“No, something’s wrong.”

“A scratch. It’s nothing now.” And he was doing exactly what he’d said he wouldn’t—minimizing the consequences of one of Clay’s idiotic follies in order to save his bloody feelings.

“What is it, your shoulder?”

“It’s healed—only acts up when some fool attacks me.” Might as well explain it. “One of the Falmouth Riding Officers got a bit too close with his bayonet. But I put his lights out,” he couldn’t help adding, modesty be damned. “I have a lot to tell you, you scurvy son of a bitch.”

Clay’s blue eyes twinkled. “Not as much as I have to tell you.” He was bursting with secret news, but his mouth pulled sideways with impatience. “Trouble is, I
can’t
tell you. You never want to know.”

“Clay—dammit—you said you’d stop, you made a promise—”

“I
have
stopped. Except for Wiley Falk, my whole crew’s disbanded, left the area. This isn’t smuggling anyway. Not exactly. It’s something really big. I won’t say what it is—”

“Thanks for that.”

“—but I will tell you that it’s safe, it’s finished, it’s my last adventure, and if I weren’t already a rich man, I would be now!” He laughed, partly at his exciting news, partly at the consternation on his brother’s face.

Devon swore, long and foully. “Just tell me this: Did you sell that bleeding sloop?”

“Not yet.” He held up a placating hand. “But I’m
going
to. Christ, I’ve only been back for two days.”

“Two, eh? I won’t even ask why you’re just getting home.”

“Let’s just say I had something to take care of.”

“Something you wanted as few witnesses to as possible?”

“Maybe.” He laughed again, then slowly sobered. “Listen, Dev, I’m awfully sorry you got nicked. I’d never have asked for your help if I’d known it would end like that, I swear.”

“I know it. Forget it.”

“No, I can’t. I wish it had been me instead of you, or at least that I’d been there with you when it happened.”

“Best that you weren’t; they might have recognized you. Anyway, it’s over. They could stick me like a pincushion and I wouldn’t care, as long as you’re really through being a goddamn pirate.”

“I am, I swear I am. I’m going to be so bloody dull you’ll soon get sick of the sight of me.”

“I doubt that.” They smiled at each other. “So,” he said, trying to sound casual, “think you might be staying around for a while, do you?”

“I might be. Might even go to work in your damn copper mine.”

“Not
in
it, for God’s sake, I never—”

“For
it, then,” Clay chuckled. “Manage it, or whatever the hell you want.”

Devon couldn’t stop shaking his head. “I must be hallucinating.”

“I say maybe—we’ll see how things go. Brandy?” Devon nodded, and Clay poured out two generous glasses from a decanter on the side table. “But I won’t work for Francis, Dev. That’s the only condition I’ll make, but it’s final.”