The Dragon's Bride (18 page)

Say it simply.

She looked him in the eye. “I encouraged a military officer to make love— No, it wasn’t love. I barely knew him. Whatever you want to call it. It was my idea, though he didn’t need much encouragement.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.” She could tell nothing from his tone.

She sucked in a breath and went on. “Apparently he spoke of it to Gifford as he lay dying, so Gifford thinks I do that sort of thing all the time.” She managed a shrug. “Thus, he wishes me to do it with him. In return, he’ll turn a blind eye to Captain Drake and the Dragon’s Horde.”

She watched him, fearful of his response, but immensely lightened by depriving Gifford of the power the secret would have held. She was lightened, too, by having someone she could tell about that painful event.

But Con?

Had the wild air gone to her head that she thought she could confide her most perilous secrets to this new Con?

“I’ll destroy him.” It was said with cool certainty.

She grasped his arm. “No!”

Silver eyes. Dragon eyes. “I see. You are not unwilling, then?”

“Of course I am.” She was still holding him, through heavy cloth, but holding him. Was this the first time she’d touched him? “Don’t duel him, Con. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.”

He laughed and pulled free. “You don’t have much faith in me, do you?”

Oh, Lord!
“In a duel anyone can be hurt! And I don’t want him killed either. I detest him now, but he does not deserve death.”

He closed his eyes briefly, then looked at her. “Susan, I’m an earl. I don’t need to call Gifford out to deal with him. If I want him posted to the tip of Cornwall, I can do it. I can send him to India, or to the hell pits of the West Indies, or to guard Mel Clyst in Botany Bay. If I want him thrown out of the service, I can do that too.”

“But that would be unjust.”

Too late, she realized it sounded like a criticism rather than a protest.

“It’s an unjust world. What do you want me to do?” After a moment, he added, “I think I can still act Saint George on occasion.”

He said it without expression, but it carried her back.

This wasn’t Irish Cove, and they were both fully dressed, but she knew he, like she, was instantly back in another lifetime, before….

“I’m not a maiden.” What an idiotic thing to say.

It stirred the hint of a smile. “I believe I’m aware of that.”

“I mean …” Suddenly it seemed essential that they have truth on this. “There have been others.”

“You just told me that, didn’t you?”

Now she wanted to clarify that there’d been only two others, and only two other times.

“There have been others for me too,” he said, quite gently. “Rather more, I assume.”

“Of course. And I’m glad of it.”

But this was all going wrong. Her words weren’t forming into the right meanings. She struggled to her feet.

He rose beside her. “Why are you glad?”

She tried again. “I don’t want you to have suffered because of what I did that day. I am sorry, Con.”

Oh, how inadequate that sounded.

He looked away, turning to face the vista of sea. “It’s all so long ago, Susan. And it’s impossible to imagine that anything could have come of it, isn’t it? Two fifteen-year-olds. Me a younger son with my way to make in the world. You a young lady not considered ready for the world at all.”

He was speaking so lightly that she wanted to protest, to insist that it was more than that. But perhaps for him it had been a simpler matter. Horribly embarrassing and painful at the time, but now a thing of the distant past.

And there had been many other women.

“That’s true,” she said, brushing off her skirts. “Even if I had ended up in a compromised condition they would likely not have made us marry. A visit to a relative, a family paid to take care of the child …”

She would never have allowed that, so like her birth and upbringing except that there had never been any attempt at secrecy. But he did not need to know that.

He turned back to her. “I’ll warn Gifford off. If he has any sense, he’ll heed it.”

“He thinks we’re lovers.”

He raised his brow as a query, but a blanket of … comfort was growing around them. He wasn’t assuming she’d told Gifford they were lovers.

“He saw us by the fountain,” she explained.

“We never touched by the fountain.”

“Even so.”

He grimaced. “Perceptive of him.”

She remembered then that Con had propositioned her by the fountain—out of curiosity’s sake.

“Let him think what he wants,” he said flatly.

“He may think you sympathize with the smugglers, too.”

He shook his head. “Susan, I’d expect you to be quicker-witted than this. I’m the
earl,
remember. He’d have to find me hauling tubs up the cliff to even think of touching me, and even then he’d be a damned fool. The whole power system of Britain would rise up in rage at the thought of one of their own being dragged into the courts over such a petty matter. I’m damn near untouchable.”

She hesitated for a moment because she wasn’t sure what was happening between them, what it meant, but she asked anyway. “Will you protect David, then?”

His mouth tightened, but he said, “For your sake, yes.”

“For his sake, too.” She put her hand on Con’s arm again, deliberately this time. “He didn’t choose this path. He’s Mel’s son. Rival gangs were threatening to invade and no one else had the authority.”

“I see. Very well. But I won’t be here much. You know that.”

It seemed to encompass more than the issue of smuggling.

“I know.” She faced it squarely. “You’ll be marrying Lady Anne soon, and living in Sussex.”

The wind caught a hank of her hair, blowing it wildly around her face. She realized it had lost most of its pins and she must look a mess. She moved her hand off his arm to control the hair, but he was there first.

He caught it and tucked it off her face, behind her ear. “A plait was more practical,” he said with a smile.

“It escaped from that too.” She couldn’t help but smile back.

“I remember.” His hand lingered, but then he lowered it. “We were friends once, I think.”

Her heart was rapid and high. “Yes.”

“And again, I hope.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “So do I.”

“A man can never have too many friends. On the other hand,” he added lightly, “an earl seems to have only one housekeeper. Shouldn’t you be keeping house?”

She laughed and stepped beside him to walk back to Crag Wyvern, feeling suddenly as if she had found the only gold that mattered. By implication he had forgiven her for the past. She’d told him the worst about herself. And they were friends.

Certainly a person could never have too many friends.

By the time they went through the door into the cool of the house, however, delight was sliding into melancholy.

They were only friends.

He’d made it clear that friendship was all that could exist between them. She could weep over that for she didn’t think she could bear to be only friends with Con. It would have to spin off into more dangerous waters, and that she could not allow. Despite temptation, she would not be the cause of Con breaking his wedding vows.

Any meetings between them in the future must be few and far between, and she would see that they were well chaperoned.

Con parted from Susan without a backward look and went directly to the office. Race was at a shelf, some sort of ledger in his hands, and as usual he looked up impatiently.

“Put that away,” Con said. “We’re going riding.”

“How do you expect me to get this straight if you keep dragging me away?”

“Is it not straight?”

“Mostly, but there are some wonderfully arcane and tantalizing aspects.”

Con propped his hips against the desk. “What do you think of Lady Anne?”

Race rolled his eyes and put the ledger back on the shelf. “I think you’re more interested in Susan Kerslake.”

Con straightened. “Who gave you the right to use her first name?” A fight might be just what he needed.

“No one. I’m tired of trying to decide if she’s Miss or Mrs. Kerslake.”

The inclination to violence dissolved into laughter. “The thing I like about you, Race, is that you don’t give a damn that I’m the blasted earl.”

Race leaned back against the bookcase, arms folded. “As I understand it, you have plenty of friends who wouldn’t give a damn either.”

Con eyed him. “The other thing I like about you— liked about you—is that you don’t think you’re entitled to dig into my personal affairs.”

“Unlike the Georges or the Rogues.” Race raised a brow. “Going to run?”

“I’m more likely to throttle you.”

Race smiled as if offered a treat.

“Damn it to Hades.” Con pushed off from the desk and paced the room. “I thought employees were supposed to do as they’re told.”

“Friends aren’t.”

Con looked at Race, remembering that civilized little exchange with Susan.

Friends.

God!

“Nicholas Delaney lives a couple of hours’ ride from here,” he said, then realized that Race wouldn’t know what he meant. He’d mentioned the Rogues, but not in any detail. “He founded the Rogues. Sometimes we call him King Rogue.”

“You want to visit him? Sounds like a good idea, but not this late in the day with an overcast sickle-moon night to come.”

“That’s as well. Nick’s an interfering bastard.”

Race’s eyes twinkled wickedly. “Sounds like just the potion.”

“Don’t say potion in a place like this.”

“Think a demon will rise?”

“If it’s one of the old earl’s potions, it’ll be something else that’ll rise!”

Race laughed. “If I find that one, it’ll make my fortune.” He straightened from the bookshelves and picked up his jacket from the back of a chair. “Let’s go riding, then.”

Con was aware of the strength of the pull to visit Nick, to talk to him about Susan, and Anne, and smuggling, and the Georges.

And Dare.

Perhaps more than anything he wanted to talk to Nicholas Delaney about Dare. He had something of a magic touch with tricky matters.

Not today though. As Race had said, it would be a wildly impractical thing to do.

So was riding around the countryside with no purpose.

He was simply running. He’d run from Hawk in the Vale to here, and now he was running from Crag Wyvern and from Susan. But he’d have to come back here. Like a hound on a long leash, he was tethered to the thing he most feared and longed for.

He’d agreed to be friends with Susan.

He wanted to howl.

Susan heard that Con and de Vere had left Crag Wyvern, and she breathed a sigh of relief. It was like a pressure off her chest, though absurdly, she hated the thought of Con being any distance away.

Friends.

At least she had his protection for David.

Because she and he were friends.

It was more than she’d dreamed possible this morning.

It wasn’t enough.

She made sure the dinner Con returned to would be perfect, and once again selected and prepared suitable wines. Then she checked that the table was perfectly arranged. Again, she took pathetic pleasure in doing these little things for him.

For her friend.

She could not stay here, could not be near, but perhaps there could be letters….

Ah, no. She could control her feelings in letters, write and rewrite them until they said only what she wanted to say, but his letters back would kill her slowly….

“Hello.” David strolled in and pinched a grape from the bowl on the table. “What’s the matter?”

She looked at him blankly for a moment, then said, “Oh! I asked you to come up.”

“Right.
Is
something the matter? Is it Wyvern?”

“No,” she said, probably too quickly. “But I do need to talk to you. Come.” She led the way to the privacy of her rooms.

Once there, she said, “Gifford knows you’re Captain Drake. Or at least, he has the strongest suspicions.”

“The devil you say. What does he know?”

“That you and I are Mel’s children.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s enough.”

He shrugged. “It was bound to come out, though I’d hoped for a little while longer.”

“This means that you can’t have another run anywhere near here for a long time. He’ll be watching—”

“Susan, when is he going to
stop
watching me? Probably never. I’ll think of something.”

“David!” But then she stopped herself from lecturing him like an older sister. She wouldn’t tell him about Con’s protection, however. Not yet. He was overconfident as it was.

“Wait for a few months at least.”

“A few months.” He laughed. “You know that’s not possible. Unless you’ve found the gold.”

She shook her head. “I’ve spent most of the day looking for cunning hiding places, and I’m running out of places to search.” She paced the room in frustration. “It has to be somewhere the earl went, at least now and then, and he spent nearly all his time in his rooms. He used the dining room occasionally when he had guests, and the drawing room once or twice….”

“What about the storerooms and cellars below?”

She considered, but then said, “I can’t imagine it. He thought it beneath an earl’s dignity to go into such places. I don’t think he even visited the kitchens.” She looked at him. “I can’t stay much longer, and I don’t think I’m going to find that money. I do wish you were just the earl’s estate manager.”

“Well you know,” he said with a smile, “if I was I’d be dashed bored. Probably into all sorts of other trouble.”

“Alas, how true.” She took his hands. “For my sake, love, try to be at least careful.”

He gave a comforting squeeze. “I am careful—because I have the welfare of everyone around here in my hands.”

He might not have intended it as a gentle rebuke, but it was. He was her younger brother, but he was past her control and a commander of men. All she could cling to was that Con had promised to try to keep him safe. Unlike the old earl, he would keep his word.

She pulled free with a light smile for him, and told him about the notes she’d found. “It was as if he hated Mel and Lady Belle.”

“Mel said a couple of things that suggested that he and the earl were at odds. He kept him sweet with money, but also with things for his collection.” He grinned. “Some of it is even more bogus than it’s supposed to be.”

“Perhaps the earl found out about that.”

“Possible, I suppose.”

Susan frowned. “But why include Lady Belle in his animosity?”

“Jealousy? I did hear that the earl courted her when she was young. Before Mel.”

Susan remembered that. “They must both have been very young. She was eighteen, wasn’t she, when she took up with Mel? She could have been countess and she chose to live in sin with a smuggler instead? A wise choice, but extraordinary.”

And so different from her own choice. For the first time in her life Susan wished she’d been more like her mother.

“And he held a grudge for nearly thirty years? Truly insane.” David shook his head. “But by God, I’ll bet he did bring about Mel’s capture. I wish he were still alive to pay for that betrayal, but he’s beyond my reach.”

He was all Captain Drake, and suddenly she shivered.

He turned suddenly watchful eyes on her. “How did you find out that Gifford knows?”

She had to do rapid assessments. She’d confessed her past to Con, but she couldn’t bear to tell David. “He told the earl, and the earl told me.”

“So the earl’s on our side?”

“To a moderate degree. I think I persuaded him of how important smuggling is here.”

He nodded. “Good. I’d better go. I’m engaged for the evening.”

“Not—”

“Dammit, Susan, I do have interests other than smuggling, you know. It’s a cricket match over at Paston Harby.”

She laughed with relief. “To be followed by a drinking match at the Black Bull. Do try not to get into another fight, love.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “You too. Try to keep on the right side of Wyvern.”

With a carefree smile he was gone, and she tried to begin as she meant to go on by not fretting about what he might do next.

She ate her meal in her rooms, served by a maid, as was proper for a housekeeper. As she ate she read a novel—
Guy Mannering
by Sir Walter Scott. The high emotions had appealed to her a few days ago, but now the book seemed ridiculous in comparison to the real, feverish emotions swirling through her life.

She exchanged the novel for a book about beetles and made herself concentrate on it and not think about smuggling, friends… or lovers.

At a knock on the door, she said, “Enter.”

Maisie popped her head around the door. “The earl wishes to speak to you, Mrs. Kerslake. They’re still in the dining room.”

Again
? Instead of fear, silly hope leaped inside her.

Idiot
. They were friends.

Only friends.

Yet there was that matter of curiosity….

“They?” she asked.

“The earl and Mr. de Vere, ma’am,” Maisie said, as if it were a nonsensical question. As indeed it was. But Susan had the information she needed. He wasn’t alone.

She hardly thought de Vere a pattern card of respectability, but she trusted Con not to do anything embarrassing in front of a third party.

“Thank you, Maisie.”

She checked herself in the mirror, tempted to reach for her cap and fichu again, but there was no need for that. They were friends.

She was tempted to change into a pretty dress, rearrange her hair….

They were
only
friends.

She settled her mind about that, straightened her spine, and went briskly to the dining room by the corridor route.

Con was relaxed at the table, fingers cradling a mostly empty brandy glass. He smiled slightly at her, but it was a deep, thoughtful smile. The decanter was over half empty and there was no way to tell how much of it de Vere had drunk. De Vere was on his feet waiting for her, looking bright-eyed. She wondered what was going on in his mischievous mind.

They must have decided that there was no point to formality, for neither man was wearing a cravat, leaving their shirts wickedly loose at the neck.

Con raised his glass and sipped from it.

“Yes, my lord?” She tried to make it crisp. Crisp as the starched cravat he so obviously was not wearing.

Race de Vere spoke, however. “We would like to see this torture chamber, Mrs. Kerslake.”

Con raised his brows, suggesting that he thought it folly, too, but he didn’t contradict his secretary.

“Now?” She glanced between them. “It would be better left until the morning.”

“Did the late earl visit it in daylight?” Con asked.

After a moment she said, “No. But—”

“Then we probably should see it in the appropriate manner.” He pushed back from the table and rose, steadily, it seemed. “Don’t worry. We expect it to be suitably horrid. In fact, de Vere is depending on it.”

She gave Race de Vere an unfriendly look, but he showed no effect of it.

Con said, “If it frightens you, give us directions and we’ll go by ourselves.”

“Frightens me?” she said, turning to him. “No, it doesn’t frighten me.” Then she saw the glint of humor in his eyes and knew he’d tossed out a deliberate challenge. The trouble with friends was that they knew you all too well.

Even across a bridge of eleven years.

She swept up the candelabrum from the table. “It’s more ridiculous than horrid. But if you want to see it, come along.”

She led the way down the dark corridor, but paused by the arch above the stairs that spiraled downward. These particular stairs had been made with true medieval narrowness, and were tricky, especially with the candles in her right hand. She transferred them to the left, then held her skirts up with her right.

Someone touched her arm, and she started.

It was Con. She’d known it was Con. She’d known his touch, like ice, like fire.

He took the candles from her and stepped in front. “I’m sure it’s the noble hero’s part to lead the way down stairs like this, and after all, I am suitably left-handed. Race, I trust you to fight off any demons or dragons that attack us from behind.”

She entered the downward spiral, therefore, between the two men, encased in their fragile bubble of light and protection. She was truly relieved to have one hand free to trace the wall as they went. She didn’t like these tight stairs. She always felt trapped, as if the air would go.

When they stepped out into a small, plain chamber she sucked in a relieved breath. She especially hated the stairs in the dark. She should have remembered that.

Only one narrow corridor led off the room.

“Down there, I assume,” Con said.

“Yes. It was made narrow to increase the spine-chilling effect. It is all done for effect. Shall I lead the way, or do you wish to?”

He passed her the candles. “ ‘Lead on, Macduff,’” he quoted. “If there’s a trap, I assume you know how to avoid it.”

“No trap. It is completely harmless, I assure you, though designed to stir fear.”

She spoke calmly, but the narrow corridor pressed in on her, even three candles seeming feeble in the dark. The iron-bound door with a small barred opening seemed to waver in the flickering light.

She pressed down the cold iron latch, and pushed the heavy door open. It gave a long, eerie squeal. Prosaically, she said, “It was apparently quite difficult to make the door produce just the right noise.”

“The miracles of modern engineering.”

A hint of laughter in his voice warmed her and swept away fear.

Friends. Coming here with a friend was so different from coming here with the earl, as in the past. He’d insisted in showing it off to her three times.

She placed the candelabrum on a table among assorted strange implements, and stood back to watch the men’s reactions.

“The room is not entirely below ground,” she said as if giving a guided tour, her voice resonating in the chamber. “You will note the high barred windows, gentlemen. By day they let in a little light. For expected night visits, the torches on the walls are lit, and the brazier, of course, for heating hot irons and such.” She gestured to the implements on the table. She didn’t know what most of them were, and she didn’t want to.

“The torches produce a lot of smoke,” she continued, “but if the wind is right, it escapes through the windows.”

Con and Race were wandering through the unsteady chiaroscuro of the room, studying the tools of torture on walls, shelves, and tables, glancing at the wretched victims. Three hung in chains on the wall along with ancient weaponry. Another screamed silently as his foot was crushed by the iron boot. On the piece de resistance, the rack, a woman stretched, arched in agony.

The waxwork figures were astonishingly realistic, and the first time she’d come here she had been shocked. She looked at the two men, but couldn’t read their thoughts.

“No waxworks of the torturers?” Con asked, flipping a cat-o‘-nine-tails on the wall without expression. Of course, they were used in the army and navy on real flesh. They were used in the streets on thieves and whores, too.

“The earl or his guests liked to play those parts.”

Susan looked at de Vere, expecting to see him reveling in his treat, but he was looking around with a slight frown. “Why?” he asked.

She found herself sharing a look with Con. It was an excellent question, but to those familiar with Crag Wyvern and the Demented Devonish earls, it hadn’t occurred.

“Because he was stark, staring mad, of course,” Con said. He looked at Susan. “Does any of this actually work?”

She knew what he was asking: Had it ever been used? “Of course not, but it’s designed to be played with.” She went to one of the haggard wretches hanging on the wall, scarred, bruised, and burned. “The burns aren’t wax, but painted metal over wood, so a hot iron can be put against them. They can be covered with mutton fat to create smell and smoke. There are bladders of red fluid in various places that can be pierced to bleed.”

Con shook his head. “He could have joined the army surgeons and had so much more fun.”

Susan was hit by a sudden feeling of associated shame. This place had nothing to do with her, but she had thought it merely ridiculous when she should have been deeply horrified.

Like the dragon’s bride fountain.

She glanced at the rack, struck by a similarity between the arched figure there and the arched “bride” bound to the rock. What a foul and twisted mind it had been to think up such things.

She should have seen them for what they were. She should have avoided contact with the mad earl entirely. Instead she had chosen to work here, and thus had let Crag Wyvern coarsen her.