The Black Rose Read online

  "What do you think you're doing?"

  "Doing?" Ravenhurst repeated harshly, hauling her against his hard, wet body. "Doing, my dear Tess? I'm teaching you a lesson, that's what I'm doing. The first of many lessons I mean to teach you. Today I'm showing you exactly what you missed. And giving you a taste of what's yet to come."

  "Never, you bastard!" Tess's breath came and went in harsh gasps as she jerked free to pummel his chest. Every touch of his naked skin was like fire, tormenting her in ways she had never dreamed possible. "Swine! Snake! S-scorpion!"

  "How they lied when they called you the Ice Maiden," Ravenhurst growled, dodging her flying fists. With a smothered curse, he caught her hands and forced them immobile at her sides. "For you, my dear, are a fire just waiting to happen!"

  "Why did you come back?" Tess hissed. "The real reason, this time."

  "Why, my dark angel? Because of you, of course. Because of what you did to me five years ago. You told me to go to the devil, do you remember? Well, I've been there, Tess. I've seen the face of Hell itself. And now I've come back for you — to give you a taste of what it was like." Slowly, inexorably, he drew her toward his naked body.

  Tess flinched, feeling the hard outline of his manhood at her thigh; finding this savage bitterness between them worse than any nightmare.

  "No —"

  His rough hands bit into her wrists. "Oh, yes, Tess. I'm going to do exactly what I should have done that night in the gate house. After I'd put a ball through that bastard Chevington's heart, that is. I'm going to strip away your lies, layer by poisonous layer, until I find your heart. But it will be done on my terms. In my own time, in my own way. And not just yet, I think." Ravenhurst's lapis eyes burned into her ashen face. "No, I believe I want to see you bleed a little first."

  Her mind reeling, Tess was not immediately aware that he had released her. She stumbled slightly, then caught her balance on the dresser by the door.

  Nightmares ... more nightmares ...

  Dimly she saw Ravenhurst turn and lower his powerful body into the steaming tub. His face was hard and shuttered as he settled himself to his comfort, then lifted one powerful leg, hooking it over the tub's copper rim.

  "Too bad you dispensed with Lucy. I take it that means you're going to soap my back?"

  Tess's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came from her throat.

  "Well, woman?"

  "I — I'd as soon stroke a snake!"

  Ravenhurst's lips twisted. "An interesting image, my love. Do go on."

  "I won't have you here at the Angel one night longer, do you hear?"

  "Is it my imagination or has it turned chill in here? Perhaps you'd better close the window." One sable brow rose in a mocking slant. "After you've looked your fill, of course."

  "Damn you!" Tess blazed. "You're just like all the rest! You think you can —" She bit back the words she'd been about to say. "I won't have you seducing my help!"

  "Then perhaps I should try seducing you instead. But I've already tried that, haven't I, Tess? And just look where it got us." Ravenhurst's fingers tightened on the rim of the tub. "Only I wasn't the one doing the seducing, was I? It was you, all along. How you must have laughed at your conquest."

  Tess stared back in stony silence.

  "Answer me, damn it! Or are you afraid to admit the truth about yourself? That even then, though only seventeen and barely out of the schoolroom, you were already a hardened trollop."

  Tess stood frozen, her eyes dark pools of pain.

  But we had no schoolroom at Fairleigh, she could have told him. No tutor. No mother. No friends of any sort. We took our food when we had it and did without too many times to count. Above all, we learned to stay out of our father's way, especially when the black moods were upon him.

  Oh, yes, Lord Ravenhurst, I was many things at seventeen, but a hardened trollop was not one of them.

  But telling this cold-eyed stranger the truth about those years was the last thing Tess would ever do.

  Instead she tilted her head back and smiled faintly. "Yes, you were rather amusing, my lord. For a while." She shrugged indifferently. "But only for a while, alas."

  "And so you sought new prey. Just like that."

  "You men do it all the time. Why should a woman not do the same?"

  She heard his sharp intake of breath. Disgust hardened his features, and Tess nearly flinched.

  Then her slim shoulders stiffened. Why should she care what he thought of her? "I want you out of here before nightfall, Lord Ravenhurst. Do you understand me?"

  "I think I do understand. Far better than you realize. But as for leaving," the hard-faced man in the tub growled, "I wouldn't dream of it. Not when things are just beginning to get interesting."

  "Play your dirty little games somewhere else, your bloody lordship! And if it's entertainment you want, try the Merry Maids. You'll find nothing to suit you here!"

  Without waiting for what she was certain would be another mocking reply, Tess spun about and stormed from the room. Her heart pounding, she flung the door closed behind her. "The devil fly away with you, Dane St. Pierre!" she hissed, stamping down the stairs.

  But the man in the tub only laughed harshly, his eyes cold with triumph. "How wrong you are, Tess Leighton," he whispered, his lips curving into a bitter smile. "I shall find a great deal to suit me here. And what suits me, as you will soon discover, is unravelling all your sordid secrets, inch by agonizing inch, until you lie naked before me — in body and in soul. When that happens, there will be no room left between us for games."

  Chapter Thirteen

  Smells of sweetness and decay hung heavy on the air of Fairleigh's dusty drawing room, where Tess crouched, curtains drawn, busy at the laborious work of letting down the overproof brandy from her last runs.

  Before her stood a line of dusty, cobweb-covered bottles from Fairleigh's cellars. This, she had discovered, was the safest way to cover the evidence. To any casual observer these bottles bore every evidence of having reposed in their racks for at least fifty years.

  But Hawkins was no casual observer, Tess knew, and that thought made her take special care with the task.

  It was all accomplished deftly and in entirely mechanical fashion. One by one she opened the four-gallon kegs, transferred their contents to a large tub, mixed in water and caramel coloring, then poured the spirits into their new — that is to say, very old-looking — containers.

  Each keg yielded six gallons of brandy, which would fetch a full four pounds in London, against a purchase price in France of only thirteen shillings.

  Almost a fivefold profit. A profit great enough to make a man take grave risks.

  Or a woman, if she was brave enough.

  Tess had done it many times before and she would, she supposed, do it many times again. Today the thought gave her no pleasure.

  When forty bottles stood on the floor before her, replete with fine French brandy, she sat back. They would net her a good price, those bottles — more than enough to repair the damage Hawkins had done to her linens.

  Yes, everything was going as planned. She had seen Jack and he was improving steadily. Letty had pronounced him nearly past the danger of fever.

  So why did Tess still feel tense and unsettled, the way one felt before a raging storm swept across the Channel? Why didn't her heart glow with triumph as she surveyed the fruits of her labor?

  This time the wild elation was gone. It was a task completed and no more.

  She took a deep breath as she recorked the last bottle, then moved to her feet.

  She swayed slightly and realized the brandy fumes were making her dizzy and more than a little light-headed. Perhaps that explained her odd mood.

  Once again something ghosted about the edges of her mind, something that made her feel queer and uneasy. She frowned, trying to place the errant images, but they only skittered away.

  It could have been the confrontation with Mrs. Tredwell, of course. It could have been the problems wi
th Amos Hawkins. It could have been her indecision over Lord Lennox's offer.

  But it was none of those things, Tess knew.

  It was something to do with one bastard of a man with lapis eyes and cruel fingers. A man who knew exactly where her weak points were, and probed them with unerring accuracy. A man who cut her no slack.

  In his cold eyes she had read the raw force of his hatred — and it had horrified her.

  But only for a moment.

  Then the other Tess had taken over, the Tess who had repeatedly saved her mother from her father's cruel abuse. The Tess who led one hundred lawless men over marsh and weald.

  The Tess who had forced herself to forget anything that made her weak.

  Or at least she tried to forget.

  There it was again, that strange sense of having overlooked something ...

  Her eyes narrowed, sweeping over the dusty bottles; once again the source eluded her.

  Oh well, better begin tidying up here. Thomas would be around soon with the wagon, and together they would load their secret cargo into the special compartment beneath the seat.

  Still frowning, Tess bent down for the rope Thomas would need to tie the crate. Absently she studied the hastily dropped coils snaking across the dusty floor, rippling back and forth across themselves in crisscross patterns.

  Like a row of X's, she thought, reaching down. Like a living creature. Like ...

  And there she froze, the thick strands rough upon her fingers.

  Like a writhing, tormented creature — as rough as the scars carved into Dane's wrists.

  Her mind had not acknowledged the image earlier, while she was reeling under his assault and the fiery shock of her own response to his nakedness.

  But now, in her first moments of leisure since that encounter, the image exploded into Tess's consciousness.

  Scars — terrible scars. How had they been earned? On a quarterdeck, with cannon shot crashing overhead as he struggled with fallen rigging? In roaring seas as he grappled for a line?

  She saw them in her mind clearly now, red and angry, their edges raised and puckered. Ugly and disfiguring.

  Entirely in keeping with the character of the man who wore them.

  It could not have been a year since their inflicting.

  All this Tess saw with sudden, chilling clarity, and wondered how she could have overlooked it before.

  Dear God, Dane, what happened to us? How could something so fresh and pure be corrupted into something so dark and full of hate?

  There on the floor of Fairleigh's empty drawing room, with little dust motes dancing around her feet, Tess pressed her trembling hands to her face and allowed the hot tears to spill down her cheeks.

  She cried for the person she had once been and the person she had become.

  She cried for a love died stillborn and for the scars it had left unhealed.

  She cried, too, for the dashing officer who had faced battle once too often, and for the cold-eyed stranger who had come back from the wars in his place.

  It was the first time Tess had cried since her mother's death.

  The first time in nearly nine years.

  Already, she realized dimly, Dane's bitter threat was proving true.

  * * * * *

  "Aye, that's the lot, Miss Tess. Covered 'em good with the firewood. Nobody going to do a lot of probing there, I'll own. Now, you'd best be changing that soiled gown and washing your hands, for you've the rank smell of a tavern about you, and that's a fact!" Old Thomas smiled grimly at Tess. "As if you'd ever listen to anything I have to say. None of you Leightons ever have."

  The old servant frowned, studying Tess's pale face. For a moment it looked as if he meant to say something else, but he merely shook his head and went to bring the wagon around, muttering under his breath.

  Tess ran a furtive hand across her face, wondering if Thomas had guessed why her cheeks were pale and her eyes red-rimmed. But her shoulders soon straightened, their fragility enhanced by her stiff bearing.

  For now she had no more time for tears.

  Tonight the Fox had a trail to lay and a trap to set.

  * * * * *

  As the moon rose that night, four flowers reached their destination on the marsh. "Camber Castle," came the whispered message, and to a man the recipients of the roses shivered. The walls half decayed, open to moon and wind and night-flying bats, the castle was a place where ghosts might indeed walk.

  And a fitting place to meet, therefore.

  For the Fox was, perhaps, more than half ghost himself.

  * * * * *

  "Bleedin' bunch of rubbish, I tell ye!"

  His long, reddish hair lank and unkempt, Tom Ransley scowled, angrily pacing back and forth within the empty circle of stone walls at the center of the ruined Tudor castle. High above, the moon rode through the sky, faint smudges of clouds trailing over its silver face. In the distance came the lonely screech of an owl, followed by the shrill whine of hungry bats racing through the night.

  The two men standing beside the wall shivered. "Hush, Tom Ransley," one hissed. "Never know when he might be listenin'."

  "The devil take the Fox, I say! Who's he to hide his face from us, when we take the same risks as ever he does! Aye, why should he keep his name a secret?" The pale light shone on the rough edges of a scar that zigzagged across Ransley's face from temple to chin.

  " 'Cause 'tis him what plans the runs, and him what brings the goods, as well ye do know." As the man beside the wall spoke, he peered nervously over his shoulder. "What was that?" he demanded suddenly.

  "What was what?" Ransley asked, his own voice tense.

  From the other side of the wall came a quiet crunching sound. The three men froze. After a few seconds, the noise died away.

  "Just a bloody lot of owls, like as not," Ransley snarled, only to sink into silence a moment later as the sound was repeated, nearer this time.

  Just beyond the black opening which yawned before them.

  The three men sank back, their eyes wide.

  Through the breech in the ancient stone walls there stepped a tall, rangy figure.

  "Who goes there?" Ransley demanded.

  "John Digby, it is. Is he here?" None of the nervous men had the slightest question about whom Digby meant.

  "Naw, the bloody bastard's late, like always. Wantin' to make the grand entrance, that's what he is." Ransley strode out into the center of the roofless walls, eager to make up for his momentary weakness. "And us standin' here white-faced and shiverin' like a bunch of bleedin' schoolboys!"

  "Oh, shut yer mouth, Ransley," the new arrival snapped. " 'Tis guineas aplenty the Fox has brought us, yerself like the rest of us. So ye've no reason to be cursing the man now. Unless ye got something else on yer mind, that is."

  With a low, graphic curse, the lank-haired smuggler strode over to pin Digby against the moss-dappled walls. "Shut yer soddin' mouth, John Digby. Unless ye look forward to the taste of my fist crammed down yer throat!"

  With a growl, Digby whipped free, and a moment later the two were at each other's throats.

  "Gentlemen! Gentlemen! What manner of reception is this?" From the top of the wall at their back came the crunch of gravel. Those low, harsh tones could belong to only one man.

  The Fox.

  As always, he was garbed all in black, from tricorn to high boots. His long cloak swirled about him as he stood with legs apart, arms crossed over his chest.

  The long, slim whiskers of his mask gleamed faintly in the moonlight. "Take your hands off Brother Digby, Tom Ransley," the shadowy figure growled, his voice disguised by his heavy mask. "Else I escort you from here and deal with you personally. The gentlemen do not raise hands against one another. 'Tis one of the vows you took when you joined our hand," the Fox reminded.

  Scowling, the big man pushed his rangy opponent aside. "Ye take yer bloody time about comin', don't ye, Fox?" he snarled, aiming a thick mouthful of saliva at the dark ground between the Fox and himself.
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br />   Suddenly a ray of cold moonlight flashed from the pistol that appeared in the Fox's hand. It was the only hint of light about that dark figure.

  "Is that in the manner of a complaint, my friend?" The smuggler's voice was silky with menace. "If so, I shall have to treat it with the seriousness it warrants." That unnatural voice from high above was frigid, devoid of any trace of emotion; the sound sent terror through the four men waiting below.

  For long moments Ransley did not move, his face mottled with fury. He itched to draw out the pistol hidden deep in the pocket of his baggy pants.

  But the time was not right for a challenge, he knew.

  Not yet.

  A look of cunning crossed the smuggler's scarred face, and he merely shrugged. "Not from me, it ain't. And a bad business it is when a man can't even make a simple comment without him bein' growled at. Aye, so it is, by God."

  The Fox did not move from his position on the wall. Slowly his hands rose to his hips, giving him the appearance of a great black angel as he stood in judgment over them.

  The four men below felt the force of his cold eyes cut through them, measuring them in turn. Each man wondered what secrets their leader had already guessed.

  And each man stiffened, shivering secretly, expecting the dark phantom to single him out as the object of his wrath in the next moment.

  Within that circle of weathered stones the uneasy silence seemed to stretch on forever.

  But in keeping with his lightning changes of mood, the Fox smiled abruptly and doffed his tricorn. "Ah, well, then. A joke it was, Mr. Ransley, and as such it may be forgiven. But now, gentlemen, it's to business." Shifting one black-clad leg forward, the Fox leaned down, elbow braced on bended knee. "Listen, my brothers, and listen well. There's gold guineas aplenty if you do."

  If there was the faintest hint of irony in that choice of epithet, none of the men below him seemed to notice, for their eyes were already gleaming with avarice at the plan the Fox had begun to describe.