Shivers Box Set: Darkening Around Me\Legacy of Darkness\The Devil's Eye\Black Rose (18 page)

“You said you don’t know if you love Uther, but could you love me, Lucy? Could you?” Tynan demanded, catching up my hands and holding them close against his chest. “If this was all there was, no Uther, no Tenebris, nothing else,” and I knew he was referring to his own instability, “could you be mine?”

I looked into his clear eyes, free in that moment in time of fear and pain and, truthfully, I nodded.

He laughed and pulled me into a quick embrace, dropping a swift kiss onto my hair. “Then, with that, I will be forever content!”

Hands clasped, we ran along the cliff path like children, for all the world as if we were younger and lighter and gladder of heart.

* * *

I carried my basket of flowers into the hall and set about arranging them into tall, glass vases. I was engrossed in my task and did not notice Uther until he slid his arms about me from behind and pulled me hard against him. With unerring accuracy, his lips found and nuzzled the tender spot where my neck met my shoulders. I gasped with pleasure and felt the immediate arousal of his erection press hard into the small of my back.

“Someone could come,” I whispered, pulling away and glancing around me fearfully.

“I was hoping that someone might be you,” he confessed ruefully. “You have only to say the word and I’ll make damn sure of it! You know I can make it happen here and now in a few quick seconds or, should you wish, keep you hovering there for hours.” He laughed as the ready blush sprang to my face. “No? Another time, maybe?” He flicked my cheek carelessly in a familiar gesture and was gone, leaving me with a series of thoughts that made me weak with lust. I was not alone for long.

“Oh, how pretty!” Demelza flitted across the stone flags towards me and, with her head on one side, viewed the vase of flowers. “Have you seen my brother?”

“You have just missed him,” I explained, and she pouted in annoyance.

“I declare, he is the most provoking creature alive. He knew I particularly wished to speak to him today…. How very kind you are to do this job for me, dearest.” Swiftly, she completely rearranged one of the vases as she spoke.

“I wish there was something more I could do for you, aunt,” I said impulsively. “You have been so kind to me and you ask so little in return.” I was aware of her studying me from under her long lashes and I turned to fully face her. “
Is
there something more?” I asked.

“You must know there is!” she burst out. Laughing at the look of surprise on my face, she clasped my hands and half dragged me into the library, closing the door behind us. The room was in the process of being converted into a cloakroom for the ball and was in an unaccustomed state of disarray. “We can be private here,” she assured me.

“Aunt Demelza, if there is anything, anything at all you need from me, you have only to ask.”

“Marry Tynan!”

“Pardon?” I closed my eyes in shock.

“You heard me. I know you did.” Her tone was impatient. “Marry Tynan. Let this ball be your engagement party. Become Countess of Athal.”

I opened my eyes and stared in astonishment at her radiant, glowing face. “But it was only days ago that you told me Tynan was mad!”

“And he is
still
mad, of course! That hasn’t changed. It never will, you foolish girl.” She drew a deep, calming breath. “That is what makes it imperative that he should marry now, before his condition deteriorates any further!”

I couldn’t speak. I opened my mouth, but no words would come. Demelza appeared not to notice my plight and continued. “Tenebris must have an heir! But Tynan’s wife has to be someone we—Uther and I—can trust. The world must never know the truth about his condition. He will soon be of age, but we cannot allow him to take control of his fortune, or risk him leaving here. Before long, Uther will have to take legal steps to have him declared insane and incarcerate him here permanently.”

“That is why you brought me here. That’s why you look at me that way sometimes…as though you are measuring me. I understand it now,” I said slowly. “This is what you planned all along.”

“Nonsense,” she said with a brittle little laugh. But she was having difficulty meeting my eyes. “I brought you here because I wanted to help you. But when I see how fond he has become of you, and how well you manage him—”

“And what happens when he decides to beat me to death as his father did his mother?” I asked angrily.

“That will not happen,” she said coolly. “When the madness is upon him, when the moon waxes to fullness, we will not allow him to come near you.”

“We?” Even as I asked the question, I knew I did not want to hear the answer. It didn’t matter anyway; my words were just noise to her, an interruption that she had to tolerate before she could speak again.

“Before you dismiss this for silly, girlish reasons, just consider the advantages of the match, Lucy dearest.” Lady Demelza tried to clasp my hand, but I kept my bunched fists tucked into the folds of my skirt. “You
like
Tynan. You will be a countess—mistress of Tenebris!—a position most women in your circumstances would give their eyes for. You will have wealth beyond your imaginings and, once there is a Jago heir, no one will question it if you should seek affection elsewhere.”

“Stop it!” My voice shook with the strength of my emotions. “How can you speak of him this way? Your own nephew…that poor, poor boy… Oh, how delighted you must have been to find me! I was perfect for your plans, wasn’t I? You knew that I had no one else in the world.”

She moved towards me, but I forestalled her. Shaking my head, I ran from the room and up to my bedchamber. Once there, I lay on my bed for what felt like hours, too shocked and frightened to even cry. My mind replayed my first meeting with Demelza. Her bright beauty had been in stinging contrast to the bleakness of Mrs Grimshaw’s faded death-mask. I relived the feeling of her scented embrace and caressing tones, so perfectly pitched to draw in a young woman who had just lost everything that mattered in her world. Me. The perfect dupe. I understood all too well the assessing looks she had given me, her insistence that I call her “aunt,” the crushing generosity…

I imagined a scene, perhaps over the breakfast cups. Uther looking up from his newspaper and saying, “I say, Demelza, didn’t that mousy little second cousin of ours—what was her name now? Lizzie? Liza?—marry a chap named Alleyne?”

“Yes, indeed,” the Demelza of my imagination replied. “He was a dreadfully bourgeois fellow by all accounts. And
she
was dull as dishwater! What of it?”

“Met with a nasty end in Aden, according to this article. Describes him as a widower who leaves a young daughter out in India.”

“Poor girl! She will be quite alone…” And my fertile mind’s eye saw that look, the oblique glance they reserved only for each other, pass between them as their beastly plan began to blossom.

But I could not see how the heat Uther had so masterfully generated between us fitted into this scheme. Dare I hope against hope that he had been so overcome by passion for me that he had abandoned his part in the plan for me to marry Tynan? Even from the depths of my heartsick misery, I gave a snort of laughter at the thought. The Uther Jago I had come to know, the man who put his family pride and his wild castle home above all else, did not fit the romantic ideal my imagination was trying to make of him.

Driven by some masochistic impulse, I went in search of him. I had to hear him say it, that he, too, was part of this cruel plot. I found him in the stables. He took one look at my face and, tossing the curry comb he had been using to a groom, drew me outside. “Why, Lucy, what troubles you?” he asked with apparent concern. I had a feeling he already knew.

“My aunt has told me of her plan—
your
plan—to marry me to Tynan,” I said, fighting to get my trembling lower lip under control.

“Demelza can be tactless,” he said soothingly. “But, you must admit, Lucy, it makes sense.”

“How?” I demanded. “I don’t love Tynan and he doesn’t love me! What sort of future would we have, given his dreadful affliction? I would have a husband who needs constant care and he would have a wife who can only offer him her pity!”

“What else does the future hold for you, Lucy? Be practical. Do you want to spend the rest of your life as the poor relation or the paid companion? This way you would have a level of independence—you would be mistress of your own home.”

I knew then how wrong I had been. I drew in a great, whooshing breath. “I thought that we…that you and I—”

“I cannot marry you! I wish to God I could, but—”

“It is not what you brought me here for,” I finished the sentence for him, my voice sad. “Not part of what you have planned.”

He watched my face warily. “It sounds so cold when you say it like that. But, yes! Oh, I knew the moment I saw you that I wanted you. Dear God, you will never know how much. I curse myself for getting close to you, knowing how hard it will be to give you to him, Lucy. But you must see, you must
know
, that I cannot claim you for my own, not while there is a chance that Tynan could do so and that, together, you might save our name. Can’t you understand? Once his madness is known, the Jago line is dead!”

“You are not too old to have a child, Uther,” I pointed out, my voice devoid of emotion.

“True, but there are too many
ifs!
If
Tynan dies,
if
I marry,
if
my wife bears a child,
if
that child is a boy… Time is not on my side, Lucy. But you and Tynan are both young. What could be more natural than for you to conceive a child together?”

“It is a pity you did not think of all this when you took my innocence. I cannot say you ‘seduced me,’ since we have never made love, and I could not claim you forced me, but you have not been fair to me, Uther,” I said quietly. I liked the fact that my voice was calm now, despite the fact that I was screaming inside.

“I was wrong, but I could not help myself!” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“That is not true, Uther,” I stated, looking him in the eye. “On the contrary, we both know that you have always shown remarkable self-restraint.”

“I had to do so. I could not risk getting you with child before your marriage—” He broke off, aware of the look of stupefaction on my face. How cruelly and how expertly he had tricked me. I was the dupe of hope. He had been cold and calculated, even in the face of the overwhelming heat which seared us both. “But nothing need change between us.” His voice thrummed. “On the contrary, it provides a permanence we do not currently have.” He gripped my waist and drew me into the circle of his embrace. “It means we can finally fully ignite this flame that threatens to consume us.”

I stared up at him in disbelief. “You think I would do that?” I leaned back from him slightly so that my hips pressed against his. I could feel how hard he was, and the realisation sickened me. He was aroused by this conversation, by my revulsion. How little we really knew of each other! “That I would marry Tynan, yet happily bed with you behind his back?”

He shrugged slightly, his eyes cruel. “Accept this bargain, Lucy. Take Tynan and you will get me, all of me, all that you desire, as well. You are only human, Lucy.” He slid a finger lightly down my throat, that familiar fire lighting his eyes. “And I know only too well the passionate creature who lurks just below that demure facade of yours. She could not live under the same roof as me and resist this…resist me.” He pressed his lips to my throat and, to my chagrin, my body arched towards him like a well-honed bow. This was how well he had trained me, I thought sadly, even as my hands reached to clasp his shoulders.

With a soft laugh, he hauled me roughly into an empty stall. The voices of the grooms were close by, but I was too lost in lust to even care. Closing the half-door behind him, Uther dragged me back into a desperate embrace, his lips bruising mine and his hands roaming possessively over my body. As always, I was powerless to resist and I pressed against him, welcoming his tongue into my mouth. Roughly he pulled my gown down, exposing one breast to his hungry gaze. I reached up to lower his head so that his lips could nuzzle my yearning flesh. At the same time he quickly lifted the skirts of my gown, one hand massaging my buttocks through my bloomers, before sliding inside. I writhed against his probing fingers, wet and throbbing with instant arousal.

As quickly as he had begun this devastating assault on my senses, Uther stopped, righted my clothing and, with a soft kiss on my parted lips, said, “So you could resist me, could you, Lucy? You could be a faithful wife to another man?” He laughed derisively and, leaving me leaning against the wall struggling to get my breathing back under control, he abruptly walked away.

* * *

I was subdued over dinner and touched that Tynan, sensing my mood, did his best to make me smile. He succeeded so well that, once or twice, I even laughed out loud. I was aware of Uther’s brooding gaze upon us, but, for once, I did not care what he thought.

“Do you know,
hweg
, I’m a devilish bad dancer! And the waltz is always my undoing.” His grin was infectious. “If I am not to disgrace the ancient Jago name, I must beg the indulgence of a few lessons from you.”

“We have no music,” I pointed out later as we faced each other in the great hall. Uther had not joined us after dinner and Demelza sat beside the fire, checking and rechecking one of her many ball-related lists.

“I’ll hum.” With a formal bow, he asked, “Miss Alleyne, will you do me the honour of agreeing to be my partner for the next dance?”

I sank into an answering curtsy. “The honour is all mine, my lord,” I murmured, with the modestly downcast eyes I knew were expected of a young lady in the ballroom. I extended my hand and Tynan clasped it between his own cool fingers.

I loved the elegant waltz, even though there were those who remained scandalised by the image of a man and woman circling the dance floor in a close embrace. It was quickly apparent that Tynan had understated his prowess. His natural grace and rhythm made him a delightful partner. Humming quietly under his breath, he guided me around the hall with a light hand on my waist. My left hand rested comfortably near his right shoulder and I took up the expected pose with my head turned to look over his shoulder. But, because he addressed a series of funning remarks to me, interrupting his own musical accompaniment to do so, I ended up gazing up at him. Despite the shocking revelations the day had brought, my eyes were alight with laughter and my lips curved into an appreciative smile.