Dark Rider (8 page)

But his eyes were just as cool as she remembered them. She instinctively drew the dressing gown closer about her. “Good evening, Your Grace.”

“Were you contemplating leaving through that
window?” He came into the room and shut the door. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

“This is my home. Why should I leave it as if I were a thief in the night?” Her knees were beginning to feel weak, so she crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I was just looking out at the intruders blundering around the grounds. They’re ruining Lani’s vegetable garden.”

“I’ll give her adequate compensation.”

“Can you compensate her for her distress and disappointment, for all the hours she spent planning and nurturing?”

“Enough gold can soothe most disappointments.”

She shook her head. “Perhaps in your world. Not here.”

“Then she will have to be disappointed.” He came toward her. “And I didn’t come here to discuss vegetable gardens.”

She gazed at him defiantly. “It’s all I’ll discuss with you.”

“Where is your father?”

She stared at him in silence.

“I’d advise you to tell me. It will be easier for you.”

“I don’t want it to be easier for me. You have no business here. Go back to England.”

“On the contrary, I have very important business here.”

“Murder?”

He was silent a moment. “Retribution.”

“I know my father. He could never have done anything that would deserve death.”

His expression hardened. “Yes, what a kind and sacrificing father he must be. He fled like the coward he is and left you to lead me away from him.
You
could have died on that mountain.”

“It wasn’t his fault I was clumsy. He didn’t want to leave me. I made him go.”

“And you weren’t as important to him as his neck.”

“My father
does
love me. I told you, I made him go.”

“He loves you so much, he goes off into the hills and lets you run wild and half-naked where any man can assault and rape you,” he said violently.

“There’s no shame in nakedness, and no islander would take me by force.” She stared at him scornfully. “They’re not like you English.”

“I didn’t take you by force. I didn’t take you at all. I thought you a child. Another lie. According to what I was told, you were eight when you left Marseilles. That would make you near your twentieth year now.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You didn’t make any real attempt to dissuade me.”

“Why should I care what a stranger believes?”

“You were lucky that this particular stranger believed you to be an innocent child instead of the half-naked voluptuary you obviously are.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

She inhaled sharply as heat burned her cheeks. “What would you have done? Ravished me? Kill the father, rape the daughter? What a splendid man you are.”

“I don’t rape women.” His mouth tightened. “And how was I to know you were that bastard’s spawn? Respectable women don’t wander around beaches at night and masquerade as natives.”

“I wasn’t masquerading. I was with my friends, who are just as respectable as any of your Englishwomen. You’re the intruder. You’re like all the other
foreigners. You come here and lie with the women, give them a few beads, and then sail away.”

“These women you say I victimized were not only eager but aggressive, and I didn’t come here to take advantage of them.” He paused. “You know why I came here.”

“I won’t let you do it,” she said fiercely. “My father isn’t without friends here. Even the king is fond of him.”

“But he’s fonder of the prospect of guns to make war on the chief of the neighboring island.”

Cassie had hoped he would not make that discovery. Lani was right, he was very clever. “And will you give him those guns?”

“Let us say I would do almost anything to have your father.”

Dead. He meant he wanted Papa dead, she realized, feeling sick. “Why? You don’t know him. He’s a kind man who wants only to paint and live his life in peace.”

Danemount’s eyes were suddenly merciless. “He’s a butcher and deserves to be butchered in turn.” He turned and moved toward the door. “Go back to bed and rid yourself of any idea of going to him. My men have orders to stop anyone from leaving.”

“Then it’s true? We’re to be prisoners here?”

“That’s not the precise term I’d use.” He opened the door. “Bait for the trap. We’ll see how much love your father has for you.”

She shivered as she watched the door close behind him.

Bait for the trap. It mustn’t happen. She had to find a way to get out of the cottage and down to Kamehameha’s village.

•   •   •

Bradford looked up as Jared strode out on the veranda. “How is she?”

“Stubborn,” Jared said curtly as he dropped down in the chair opposite his uncle. “Other than that I’d say she’s recovering rapidly.”

“She’s fond of her father?”

“Yes.” Jared poured a whiskey. “God knows why. He apparently ignores her most of the time and has clearly brought her up as a savage.”

“The life of a savage can be very pleasant.” Bradford leaned back in the chair and lifted his glass. “And it’s not uncommon for a woman to love an undeserving lout and give him her loyalty. Though not many of them would go to the lengths she did. She must be brave.” He shuddered. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go sliding along that mountainside in the dark.”

Jared took a long drink. “It wasn’t altogether dark.”

“Close enough for me.” Bradford tilted his head. “You’re still angry with her. Why? You would have done the same in her place.”

“I wouldn’t have been in her place. My father was not a butcher.”

“He was no angel either,” Bradford said quietly. “John was a brave man but he had his faults. Even though you were only a lad of thirteen, you must have realized that he was arrogant as the devil and even more of a womanizer than I was.”

“That didn’t mean he deserved to be murdered.” He took another drink. “He was in Danjuet to save lives, and Deville betrayed him.” His hand tightened on the glass. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see them slice him to ribbons. I think even you would have learned to hate, Bradford.”

“Perhaps.” Bradford’s eyes were sympathetic. “I
wish it had been I who had seen it instead of you, lad. But you shouldn’t be angry at the daughter for the father’s sin.”

“Shouldn’t I?” He looked down into the amber liquid in his glass. “Stay out of this, Bradford. I won’t have you interfering. She’s the key I need to get to Deville.”

“And what happens if she won’t cooperate?”

“Then I do whatever I have to do.”

Bradford frowned. “I don’t like this. There’s too much anger in you.”

He finished the brandy and poured another. “I’ve waited a long time.”

“Not to hurt the innocent as well as the guilty.”

“Only if the innocent help the guilty.”

“You seem more angry with her than with him.”

Because he would not have it any other way, dammit. Jared’s anger at Deville was cold and sharp, honed through the years, but he had to work to keep his anger at the girl fresh and hot. In the past twenty-four hours she had aroused him to anger, pity, fear, and an admiration he would not admit even to Bradford. Anger was safe. If he yielded to a softer emotion, then he would lose his key.

But lust need not be soft. It could be hot and frantic and iron hard.

The thought came so swiftly that he knew it had been waiting just beneath the surface. She was not the child he had thought was forbidden to him. He could reach out and take …

Christ, what was he thinking? Who could be more forbidden than Deville’s daughter? He was her enemy, and he wouldn’t pretend to be anything else. Frustration surged back in a storm of rejection.

“That’s your third brandy,” Bradford observed
with interest. “Are you returning to your days of depravity?”

He hadn’t realized he’d poured another brandy. He was tempted to drink the whole damn bottle. No, he was too close to his goal and would need a clear head in the next few hours. He pushed the glass aside. “No.”

“Too bad.” Bradford sighed. “It’s a sad and mournful cross for a man to be forced to be depraved alone.”

“You bear it well.” He stood up. “Come along.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the stable.”

Bradford immediately brightened, as Jared had known he would. “Is there something worth looking at?”

“You thought there was last night. I believe you said he had a lovely gait.”

Bradford’s brow wrinkled in bewilderment. “I did? When did—” His eyes widened. “On the shore? The woman?”

Jared didn’t answer as he went down the steps and set out for the stable. “Are you coming?”

Giving a low whistle, Bradford followed him. “I’m beginning to understand.” He chuckled. “You were telling the truth when you said he’d raised her as a savage. I thought you were referring to her manners.”

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore. We’re going to see the horse.”

“Ah, yes, the horse,” Bradford said. “But you must admit your meeting was an interesting coincidence. Most unusual. Almost as if it were fated.”

Jared made an obscene remark.

“Don’t be impolite. There are a great many people in this world who believe in fate.”

“You’re not one of them.”

“No, but I wish I did. I wish I believed in something,” Bradford said wistfully. “It would be pleasant, don’t you think?”

“I think you’ve had too much brandy.”

“You’re probably right. I always become melancholy after the fifth glass. Are you ever melancholy, Jared?”

“No.”

“Of course you’re not. You never let yourself feel anything so mawkish. You allow yourself lust and an appreciation of beauty, a hunger for knowledge … even an affection for my humble self.” He opened the stable door. “But nothing that would strike deep, no sentimental nonsense for you.”

“Isn’t that what you taught me?”

“No, I taught you only to be cautious. You built the other walls yourself. Sometime when I’m sober, I must have a talk with you about the danger of— What have we here?”

“Someone who belongs.” Lani turned away from the stallion’s stall and set the bucket of oats down on the ground. “As you do not. Isn’t it enough that you injured Kanoa? Do you also intend to steal her horse?”

“I didn’t injure her,” Jared said, trying to keep his temper. “And we came only to look at the animal in the daylight. Were you thinking of riding out and going to your lover?”

“No, I was feeding him.” She moved toward the door. “No one rides Kapu but Kanoa.”

“What a pity,” Bradford murmured as he eagerly moved toward the stall. “Jared, he’s magnificent. Look at those lines … the shoulders.” He reached a hand out to touch the white star between the stallion’s eyes. “And he moves with—”

“Don’t touch him!” Lani hurried forward and slapped his hand down.

“I wasn’t going to hurt him.”

“I know,” Lani said grimly. “But I have no desire to bandage your hand after he savages you. Kapu doesn’t like strangers.”

“He apparently likes you.” Bradford looked at her with interest before bowing low. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Bradford Tyndale Danemount.”

“I know who you are. You’re the uncle.”

He sighed. “Such is my boring fate. The brother, the uncle, never Bradford Danemount the extraordinary, the bold knight, the wise sage, the—”

“Stay away from Kapu,” Lani interrupted. “You have had too much to drink, and Kapu likes drunks.”

“If that’s the case, then we should get along splendidly.”

Lani’s smile gleamed white with wickedness. “But Kapu likes to see them dead. He trampled his former master until one could not tell he had ever had a face.”

“Who was his master?” Jared asked as he stepped closer to the stallion.

“An Englishman who stopped here on his way to Australia. When he was drunk, he beat Kapu unmercifully. One day he grew careless and Kapu was equally unmerciful. The king tried to claim Kapu for his own, but he was too vicious. They were going to put him to death until Charles went to Kamehameha and begged him to sell the horse to him.”

“Nothing I’ve learned about Deville indicates he has a fondness for horses,” Jared said.

“But he has a fondness for Cassie, and she was in
love with the stallion.” She added caustically, “And this is the terrible man you wish to kill.” She watched Jared move to stand before the stallion. “You’re too close. I told you—” She broke off and stared in astonishment when Jared reached up and stroked the stallion’s muzzle. Kapu nickered softly and pushed against his hand. “Magic.”

“No.” Jared gazed into the stallion’s eyes. “We just understand each other.”

“Jared is very good with horses,” Bradford said.

“Kahuna,” Lani muttered.

It was what Cassie had said on the shore, Jared remembered. She had looked at him with that expression of desperation and fear, and he had felt as if he had been cruel to a helpless child. The abrasive memory roughened his voice. “Nonsense.”

Bradford chuckled. “He’s definitely no priest. Though I’ve often thought he delves in sorcery when dealing with horses … and the gaming tables.”

Jared shot him an amused glance. “Intelligence.”

“Luck,” Bradford replied.

Lani looked from one to the other and then shrugged. “Neither will do you any good here. This is a bad thing you seek to do to Charles, and God will not be with you.” She moved toward the door. “Test how far your good fortune lasts, Your Grace. Let the drunken one stroke Kapu.”

Bradford watched her leave the stable. “Unusual woman. I feel quite intoxicated.” He laughed. “But then I felt intoxicated before I met her, so it’s difficult to judge.” He turned back to the stallion. “Magnificent.”

“Yes.”

“You want him.”

“Oh, yes.” Now that he had a closer look in full daylight, he wasn’t sure even his Morgana could compare to the stallion. Another frustration to add to the mix.

“A difficult situation.”

“Without the slightest doubt.” He gave the stallion a final pat and backed away. “And probably going to grow more difficult as time goes on. I want you to go to the king and make discreet inquiries regarding Deville. Make sure the king knows we’re staying here at Deville’s cottage.”