Seacliff (36 page)

It did not take long for frustration to overtake him. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “I thought you said I could have you!” he shouted. “What in hell are you playing at now?”

“You can have me,” she said without raising her voice, “but nothing more. Nothing more, Mr. Flint.”

He slapped her, but her head was rigid and did not recoil. “Nothing more.”

He slapped her again, three and four times before clubbing her with a fist and jumping to his feet. “You’re not human,” he hissed. “None of you Welsh are.” He raised his arm to strike her again.

She stared. “Nothing more.”

And it was easier than she’d hoped; for the most part all she had to do was remember the ashes of Falconrest, and not even his blows could pierce her armor.

“You will die!” he vowed as he stalked from the room. “Damn you, woman, you will not live out the week!”

The door slammed, the mirrors trembled, and Caitlin remained on the hearth, not moving until dawn a few hours later. And when first light slanted into the room she rose, took another robe from the closet and asked the guard at the door to fetch Gwen Thomas. There was a message to be delivered, and she wanted her breakfast.

27

T
he rain had begun the afternoon before as a gray blanket that descended over the valley from the reaches of Cardigan Bay. Mist crowned the treetops, gathered in the mouths of burrows, filled the land’s depressions until the outlines of objects blurred and appeared otherworldly. Tendrils of white fog snaked across the surface of the streams, swirling, shredding, rejoining in a rush to bury the shallows under a deceptively thick cover. Then the air chilled as the invisible sun dropped below the horizon, and the mist became a drizzle, and the drizzle a light rain, that softened the ruts in lanes, slickened the crushed stone of the main roads, and dripped from leaves and eaves into empty, fat rain barrels.

It was a spring rain, a nourishing rain, and Caitlin stood at the balcony door and watched it render the bay invisible. She hugged herself for warmth despite the blazing hearth; she looked hopelessly at the cloud cover and wished she could locate some sign of lightning, some indication of turbulence beyond the gentle rainfall. It had been two days since Gwen had told her that she’d passed Caitlin’s message on to Orin; two days of praying for the heavens to stop their taunting and give her what she demanded.

And during those two days, Gwen had told her, Flint had begun behaving like a man who had lost all his senses. He prowled the corridors cursing and muttering to himself, barking incomprehensible orders at Nate Birwyn. Once he took his chestnut gelding for a ride that lasted nearly the entire day, returning only for supper, drenched and sneezing and forcing even Birwyn to keep a safe distance.

He’s working up to it, Caitlin decided. In his own dark way he probably really did love her, and unless he carried out his threat to see her dead, he would be granting her a power over him no person had ever exercised before. He could never live that way, and she knew it. How long it would take before he convinced himself to kill her, she could only guess.

Two men walked across the back lawn. With their heads covered by floppy-brimmed hats and their cloaks darkly sodden, they looked like gnomes just out of their burrows. She could see no weapons, but she sensed they were there just the same. Pistols or muskets, tucked just out of reach of the rain. The men passed from view, and she bit her lower lip lightly, frowned, and returned to her secretary, staring at, without seeing, the blank page of her journal. The temptation to put down everything that crossed her mind was immense, but she had restrained herself in case of prying eyes: Mary, whenever she flitted into the room with her feather duster and inane chatter; Bradford, when he brought her one of her meals; and Flint himself, whose curiosity would not be thwarted by a simple lock and a thin strap of burnished leather.

She pushed aside the inkwell and quill. She had no intention of signing her own death warrant.

Another day passed. The rain subsided, and there were small breaks in the clouds. She almost wept when she saw the streams of sunlight funneled down from them. The evening before, long after she had finished eating, she had heard Flint stalking the gallery and screaming imprecations at the walls. At first she’d decided Gwen had been right, that the man had gone mad; later, however, when the house had quieted down, she understood in a flash that his madness was only a pretense. He was a man too much in control of himself to allow her rejection to drive him insane. Was he trying to break her resistance by gnawing at her fears? What better way to convince her to marry him than by pretending he was losing his mind at the thought of having to kill her?

Which meant, she prayed, there was still some faint hope he would not kill her as he had vowed.

She was strong, and she withstood the pressure, but she was not strong enough to face the next morning when the clouds scattered, the blue skies returned in force, and the temperature climbed to warn of coming summer.

She wept, and allowed the tears to flow unhindered.

And in weeping, she understood there was more than the weather’s betrayal working at her mind. After realizing that Flint was feigning madness, she’d formed a decision, quite without her realizing it: to die would be to abandon much more than her life. She would be leaving behind too many helpless people, too many memories, and too much history to the whims of James Patrick Flint and his ghostly band of men.

By permitting him to kill her she would commit a safe form of suicide, giving herself over to the consequences of foolish stubbornness and blinding pride.

And if she did that, she would receive and deserve all the approbation her people would heap upon her; and if she turned her back now on all she had come to believe she stood for, her consignment to hell would be the most lenient of punishments.

She turned away from the sun and the blue sky.

She stripped and bathed in cold water, not bothering to lace the bath with scent. Then she sat naked at the vanity, brushing her hair two hundred strokes, until its texture and color were almost spectral in their beauty. Choosing the simplest gown she owned—a highnecked brown dress without a single gracing of lace—she walked to the outer door and opened it. The guard, startled, wheeled around and stared.

“You will please inform Mr. Flint that I have reconsidered,” she said, after taking a deep, shuddering breath that did not stem the chill that coursed through her blood.

“M’lady?”

“Never mind trying to understand what I’m talking about,” she said quietly, but firmly. “Just deliver the message at once, please. And tell him I shall be waiting.”

T
he day passed without a response.

The following morning taunted her cruelly with billowing white clouds that lined the horizon, but reached Seacliff in a few trailing wisps.

On the morning of the third day Gwen burst into her chambers, her face crimson with outrage and her hands raking the air or pulling harshly at her hair as she searched for words.

“I’ve heard,” she finally said, practically shouting.

Caitlin was in the same plain dress, and sat in an armchair she had dragged before the open French doors. A vagrant breeze toyed with strands of her hair, and at times blew them in front of her eyes, making her push them back in annoyance. She did not turn around, so Gwen rounded the chair and stood in front of her, hands now at her hips and her chest pumping for breath.

“I’ve heard what you’re planning to do.”

Caitlin slowly lifted her gaze. “I have no choice,” she said flatly.

“What? You could die!”

She refused to be baited. “And what good would that do, Gwen? What earthly good would my dying do for anyone?” Gwen’s disgust bleached all beauty from her face. “The word’s already in the village, you know,” she said scornfully. “La, you should hear what they’re saying now.” She flicked out a hand toward Caitlin’s unmoving head. “Your ears surely must be burning all this while.” She stalked away and kicked at the bed dais. “You must sleep well, then.”

“I don’t sleep at all.”

Gwen froze, her spine rigid and her head held high. Then she looked over her shoulder. “God willing, you’ll never sleep another night in your life.”

“Gwen, please—”

“Gwen, please,” she mocked. “Gwen, please. You were dying, and I nursed you back. You were to run on your birthday, and I was going with you. That… that
man
put his hands on me, and I took it because I feared for your life. And now… now you’re going to take him as a husband just because you don’t want to die?” She drew in a deep breath, and the room took on a frigid silence. “He’s taken it all from you, hasn’t he? You’ve nothing left, am I right?”

“You don’t understand, Gwen.”

Gwen’s shoulders sagged, and though she shed no tears, her voice was filled with the weeping she must have been doing since she’d gotten the news. “I do. I really do. I had just hoped you could be Cat awhile longer, just until—”

The sound of Gwen’s fleeing footsteps lingered on long after she had gone; Caitlin was alone again. Still waiting. Still seated in front of the balcony doors and watching the undulations of the sea. Mary brought all her meals. Bradford twice requested she prepare a wedding guest list—and twice Caitlin informed him she would have none of it, that Flint could invite King George for all she gave a damn. Nate Birwyn poked his one-eyed head in one morning and asked if she wouldn’t care to take a short ride in the cart. She shook her head without looking at him, and he left with a careless shrug.

He’s still playing his secret games, she thought when May slipped into June with the sun high overhead and the sea turned a deep shifting blue; now he’s waiting for me to send him a plea to end the suspense.

But she was still alive. And though she was still alone, she knew that he had finally made his third mistake: if the first had been in not taking Griffin, and the second in not killing her shortly afterward, then the third was in permitting her all this time to think.

And think she did.

And in thinking found something she didn’t dare yet call hope.

One afternoon she asked Bradford if he had any word from Gwen, anything at all. The old retainer, his face more deeply lined than ever and his few wisps of graying hair brittle and stiff, sniffed and informed her that the Thomas woman had thrown all her belongings into a sack and had taken a bed in the Daniels cottage. Mr. Flint did not seem to mind. He never mentioned her at all.

Caitlin did not permit herself to despair. Sooner or later, Gwen would forgive her.

In the middle of June Mary woke her shortly after dawn and told her she was to prepare herself. Mr. Flint would call on her after supper, and he left explicit instructions that she be well fed and well groomed.

She took the brown dress out again, and set the pearl-backed brush to her hair.

When at the stroke of seven, Flint opened the door, she was waiting in the center of the room, composed but not smiling.

He said nothing at first. He merely walked around her as if inspecting a possible livestock purchase. He nodded, he grunted, he reached out and sifted her hair through his fingers. She held herself still, her hands clasped demurely at her waist and her eyes fixed on a point midway between Flint and herself. She did not focus her gaze until he’d stopped his perusal and nodded his approval.

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” she said, her voice hollow.

“I am well-pleased indeed,” he told her formally. Then a hint of mischief sparked his eyes. “But you don’t fool me for a minute, Caitlin Morgan. Be aware of that fact—you don’t fool me for a minute. The only reason you’re doing this is to save your lovely neck.”

“I do not deny it.”

He applauded her silently. “Well done, Caitlin, well done. I would not have it any other way. It is,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “rather like a campaign, don’t you think? I have all the armies at my command, ready and eager to do battle, and you are the fortress. The first defenses have been breached, so to speak, and now I move on to the next.” Then he frowned and shook his head. “No, that’s a poor way of putting it. I apologize. You must know by now that I think more highly of you than that.”

Caitlin smiled, thinking all the while how apt the military analogy really was. The man would have to break down many lines of defense before conquering her, and if she had anything to say about it, that moment would never come.

“There’s some activity in the hills,” he said then, eyeing her shrewdly. “It appears a few of your wayward lambs are determined to return to their flock.”

“You’ve taken care of that, I’m sure,” she said dryly.

“Oh, I have, my dear. I have. They’ve seen a little more than they bargained for, I think.” He paused. “I just thought you’d like to know.”

She faced him squarely. “Thank you.”

He laughed, a rich and rolling laugh that forced him to reach for her shoulder for support. She did not move or sway under his pressure. Neither did her lips break their solemn taut line when he invited her with a gesture to join in his delight. Feigning regret when she declined, he sobered, caught his breath with a gasp, and took her elbow.

“We will go downstairs now and inform the staff of the date, if you don’t mind.”

“You have set one, then?”

“Indeed, my dear.” He grinned.

“If I’m to be part of this, don’t you think I should know?”

Another laugh, quick and grating. “Caitlin, you are truly a wonder. How does three days hence suit you?”

Three days suited her not at all, but her nod encouraged him to break into a genuine smile that lasted all the way to the front room. She glanced around slowly as he guided her to the couch by the massive hearth. It had been so long since she had seen the blackened stoves; it was as if she were viewing them for the first time. And nothing had changed. The tapestries and portraits were still in their places; the bookshelves were still lined with volumes and ledgers; and the sideboards and chairs were still in their usual places. There was a faint gray layer of dust on the wood, to be sure, and it did not take more than a quick glance to see that the draperies had not been taken down for shaking since last fall—but other than that, nothing had changed.