Till Dawn Tames the Night (44 page)

"When you have your bloody emerald, you will have no more hold on me. I shall do as I please." She took his hand away, stood, and walked to the window. The magnificence of Mirage beckoned her, but somehow its luster was gone.

He rubbed his jaw and looked at her. "That orphanage hadn't much to recommend it." He hesitated. "Are you still mourning your dear Phipps?"

She refused to answer.

"Aurora." He stood. "Get it out of your head about returning to London now. If you want Phipps, you may write him and ask him to join you. But you cannot put yourself in such danger as to return to the Home."

"This is your battle, Vashon, not mine. I've made my peace with my father. I've forgiven him for his failures. What happens now concerns you, not me."

"I won't let you do this."

"And why not?"
Her voice caught. Furious, she turned back to the scenery outside the louvers. She shouldn't have even asked that question. For what kind of answer did she expect? Vashon was the last man she could see making declarations of love to keep her by his side. So why was there this emptiness inside her yearning for just such a thing?

"
Peterborough'll
hurt you if he finds you, don't you understand that?"

She scowled. "How do you know so much about Peterborough? I demand to know your connection that's given you such a vengeance for him."

"He's my brother."

She whipped around and faced him. This fight couldn't be so terrible that it had pit brother against brother? But just by Vashon's expression, he confirmed it. His face was as implacable as it always was, but his eyes held rare emotion. She saw rage and betrayal; worse, she saw hurt that ran like a silent scar so deep and wide one had to pull back to see it in its entirety.

"What did he do to you?" she gasped, her very soul aching for him.
       

"We had the same mother. But
my
father was the Viscount Blackwell."

She closed her eyes, sickened all over again. Everything made sense now. Why Vashon had been so pampered as a child.
And so terribly hardened as a youth.
His own brother had been the reason why he'd been sent to Algiers and sold for his very flesh.

"Why did he do it, Vashon? Did he do it to get the title?" She could hardly utter the questions.

He didn't answer. She looked at him but his expression had closed. It was obvious she wasn't going to get anything more from him now.

She picked up the key dangling between her breasts, finally seeing the Blackwell crest stamped into its handle. The pieces of the puzzle came together as she saw the two rampant dragons flanking the Blackwell shield. They looked exactly like her locket. With a growing realization, she saw that her locket wasn't a lizard at all, but a stylized dragon, obviously designed for the
Viscountess
Blackwell. When she looked again, she saw that if the Chinese artistry of the tattoo were taken away, the dragon on Vashon's back would be exactly like the dragon on this crest.

"In China they consider dragons to be benevolent creatures, don't they, Vashon?" she said numbly.

"Yes."

"But the English dragon is not a benevolent creature, is it? And the dragon on your back is not a Chinese dragon at all. It's the dragon on your family crest."

He slowly nodded.

"This key, how did you come by it?"

"It was in my pocket my last day in London.

"Why did you give it to me?"

His voice dropped to a quiet, harsh rasp.
"Because it symbolizes everything that was good.
And everything that didn't last."

She put her hand to her mouth, finally letting the shock and depression overcome her. Perhaps in the back of her mind she had held the smallest hope that she might be able to tame Vashon, to still the rage and blood-lust in him and perhaps help him find happiness. Now she could see that would be nigh to impossible. He was too strong and too angry. Love was the only thing that could overcome this kind of fury, and he would hardly accept her love, let alone return it in kind. He was right to give her the key. Things didn't last. Nothing lasted.
Except unrequited love.

"Now you know why the Star is so important," he said.

She suddenly lashed out, unable to let him slip away without a fight. "No, I don't know. The only thing that's clear is that this vengeance is all wrong. It will only hurt you, Vashon. You'll never be happy seeking revenge on Peterborough. Your hatred will make you into a monster, almost the monster your brother's become."

"Perhaps I am the monster my brother is. Have you ever considered that? Half his blood runs in my veins." His face was as cold as marble.

"Then you must fight it! You don't have to be like him! It's not destined! There's a part of you that's good! I've seen it!"

"Ah, what a saintly perspective.
But it's not that easy, Aurora. Maybe I don't want to fight it."

"But you've got to," she pleaded. "I see now this revenge isn't about the Blackwell title, and I see it's not about wealth, for yours must be thrice Peterborough's. Nonetheless, this retribution will never make you happy. Don't destroy everything in your path to get to him. There'll be nothing left for you if you do."

"What do you know about any of this?" he snapped, his eyes flashing.
"You, with your sheltered, pitiful little life.
What could you know of anything?"

He was trying to hurt her, but she shrugged off his callous words and said, "I do know what I'm speaking of, Vashon. I've seen the children at the Home, and they've had pasts much like your own. The ones that forgot and went forward are the ones that survived. The ones that didn't—that harbored their anger as you have—never did."

"I'm no foundling, Aurora."

"Not on the outside."

Their eyes met and a moment passed when she thought she might have reached him. But then, without warning, he grabbed her so forcefully he knocked the breath right out of her.

"I told you that I'm not going to change. What makes you think some by-blow of a thief is going to be the one to make me?"

His words lacerated her. She felt as if she were bleeding. She whispered painfully, "Is there no depth to which you cannot sink?"

"No, no, I can sink much farther." His arm went around her waist and he lifted her off the ground, making her meet him face-to-face. He smiled darkly. "Must you continually make me prove how cruel I can be?"

Fear crossed her face, but she hid it behind a staunch facade. "I don't force you," she told him. "It's that beast on your back, Vashon. It only mirrors the beast in your heart."

"And you jeopardize yourself every time you forget that." He smiled as if he enjoyed frightening her, then he kissed her, his lips taking hers in a mean, loveless kiss.

She moaned, hating him for his ruthlessness and hating herself for having fallen in love with him. But while he forced himself upon her, it was as if there were two men kissing her, one who could be gentle and giving, and one whose hand hurtfully gripped her chin and made her endure his wet, wretched onslaught.

When his kiss grew
more bold
and he thrust his tongue savagely between her teeth, she finally fought back. Her hand went up and slammed against his face, but her strength hardly touched him. He only laughed and kissed harder until she tried to hit him again. Yet this time he was ready for her. He took her hand in an iron grip and shoved it brutally behind her until she gasped from shock. With no other weapon, she found herself, little by little, forced into an unwilling surrender.

He pulled her to the bed, and she felt as if they were reenacting a dark kind of dance they had performed once before. Stiff and unyielding, she was pulled beneath him on the mattress while he continued kissing her, caressing her. His hand moved up her bosom, and she could feel him groan and harden against her thighs. She tried to get away, tried to fight again, but he finished her rebellion with one sure motion of his body as he eased himself down upon her. She tried to make him look at her; he wouldn't, instead choosing to bury his face in her throat. But her eyes, filled with betrayal, never left him.

When his fingers pulled at the gauze of her dress, searching for the flesh beneath, hurt etched itself into every smooth plane of her face. He gripped her corsage and looked to rend her bodice in two. Finally he met her gaze, and, as if taunting her, he pulled, creating a tiny rip where her dress covered the valley between her breasts.

"How do you want it, Aurora," he whispered, "rough or easy?"

Her gaze never wavered. "You know the way I want it, Vashon."

His eyes met hers and a look passed between them,
her own
expression fraught with supplication and pain. But now she no longer harbored any hope of reaching him. Her fate was to endure this night,
then
leave him, forever chained to only the memory of the man he might have been.

"Look away," he told her, his voice husky and low, her unwavering gaze finally appearing to unnerve him.

"I cannot," she whispered, hardly able to hold back the tremor in her voice.

"Why?" he demanded, his agitation growing, only promising more brutality.

"Because I—" A tear finally fell. She wiped it and saw no more reason to hide. "Because I might miss the man I love, Vashon. And you see
,
I see him so rarely."

As if she'd stabbed him with a knife to the gut, he pulled back, his expression filled with horror. Cold, violent rage then filled him, and she thought he might even slap her, but instead, with just as much violence, he righted himself and pointed to the door.

"Get out of here. Never show your face to me again. Do you hear?"

With a great, heart-wrenching sob she scrambled to her feet, her hand clutching her ripped bodice. "Vashon," she begged, as unwilling to be sent away as she'd been unwilling to be raped.

"Get out. You'll sail on the
Resolute
in the morning."

"Please, no," she began, but he stopped her with one deadly look. When she saw nothing before her but fury and ice, she blinked back her burning tears and stumbled to the door,
her
only thought that God was just as cruel as John Phipps portrayed Him to be.

That night rain came and Aurora watched it fall with
Koonga
asleep in her arms. In the islands, the rains were gentle and brief, daily cooling and replenishing the tropical earth. A nighttime rain was generally viewed with trepidation, for hurricanes could rake clean islands much bigger than Mirage. But Aurora only dared the rain to come down harder, only begged for the wind to blow with more force. If a hurricane was brewing this night, she prayed for it to come. And if instead the sun was destined to shine in the morning, then she prayed not to see it.

The louvers clattered with the force of the wind, but this night nothing seemed too fierce for her. There was no gust angry enough, no rain
cool
enough to take away her sorrow. Desolate, she hardly felt the spray as the rain pelted against the open windows of her room. Only when
Koonga
stirred did she step away.

The Star of
Aran
was now a curse to be uttered only when the
most foul
phrases had been already used. Thinking about the jewel, she laughed bitterly and wiped the rain off her tearless cheeks. Twice now she'd been abandoned for that vile emerald. Twice her hope for love had been destroyed by the greater lure of that stone. Now suddenly she couldn't wait to get her hands on it. She wanted to clutch the wretched thing in her palm and see if all her pain had been worth what she'd paid for it. And then she wanted to drop it into the ocean, an ocean as green, fathomless, and cruel as Vashon's eyes.

But until then she had nothing to comfort her but the hard little ache where her heart had been. And even destroying the Star wasn't going to take that away.

She took a deep breath and hugged the slumbering monkey to her breast. Benny would most likely come for
Koonga
tomorrow. She doubted he and the monkey would come with them on the
Resolute;
Vashon would hardly provide for her and Flossie on their returning voyage as well as he'd done on their outgoing one. Placing the creature on a pillow on the
recamier
, she was further saddened by the thought of how empty her days were going to be without
Koonga's
homely little face and amusing chatter.

A knock on the door startled her out of her melancholy state. For some reason her heart leaped at the thought that it might be Vashon, but she knew only too well he didn't knock.

"Yes?" she whispered to the closed door.

"
Missa
!
Missa
! Come quick!
Is big
diremma
!"

She opened the door and found
Tsing
holding
a sumptuous candelabra
. In the lamplight his face appeared unusually excited.

"What is it?" she asked, becoming alarmed.

"Vashon go crazy! He
go
crazy! Come quick!
Is big
diremma
!"