Seduction Becomes Her (35 page)

W
hen his lantern light picked up the glitter of the emerald and diamond choker, Charles’s step faltered. Relief roared through him as he stared transfixed by those gleaming jewels. His clever darling had found a way to guide him, to give him a sign that she was still alive. Or had been when she had dropped the choker, whispered a sly voice in his brain. Pushing the voice aside, believing that somewhere ahead of him, Daphne was alive and trying to help him find her, with renewed determination, he surged up the stairs.

The lantern was a calculated risk, knowing that the light would give Raoul warning of his approach, but he saw no help for it. He could only hope that he’d spot any ambush Raoul might lay for him.

Spotting that first faint streak of blood on the wall, his heart nearly stopped as rage mingled with an aching terror. He never questioned that it was Daphne’s blood, and he stared a long time at that thin crimson line, gruesome images filling his brain. Wrenching his thoughts away from the horrors that she might be enduring, Charles climbed swiftly, the occasional faint smear of scarlet guiding his steps.

He came upon the first offshoot and flashed his light up the flight of stairs. Certain Daphne would have left him a sign, he examined both the offshoot and the staircase upon which he was standing. A smear of blood on the wall of the staircase he had been climbing gave him his direction, and he rushed upward.

Rapidly, he followed Daphne’s few and ever fainter marks on the walls. The staircase abruptly ended at an intersection with another wider set of stairs. Stepping onto the new stairs, he stopped and looked around him. The area looked familiar, and with a start, he realized that he was standing on the stairs that he and Daphne had first discovered. Was it only yesterday? He looked back at the offshoot he had just left and remembered that they had passed just such a turnoff on their way to the battlements. He studied the stairs for a moment. So which direction did he go? Up to the battlements or down to the ground floor?

Spotting his handkerchief lying just a few steps above where he had stopped, he sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Once again, his courageous, sweet wife had shown her resourcefulness. He bounded up the steps, racing toward the battlements. Reaching the top, he hesitated. If Raoul was waiting for him, once he stepped out onto the battlements, having both his hands full of lantern and pistol could prove disadvantageous. Reluctantly, he set the lantern down and prepared to face what lay ahead.

In the gray murkiness filtering down the steps, Daphne recognized her location. It also gave her the first glimpse of her captor. Seeing his twisted leg as he pulled her up the final steps, she understood at last the uneven gait. His left leg had been broken and set improperly, and had healed badly.

Dragging her out onto the battlements and into the drizzly rain, Raoul’s gaze darted about nervously. He was uneasy and wary. Not frightened yet, but on edge, sensing that there was some other force at work in bringing him to this spot.

He would speculate later about the cause, but right now, he needed to get out of the storm and prepare for Charles’s arrival because Charles was surely coming after him. His eyes fell on the old stone tower, and his grip on Daphne’s arm tightened as he moved forward.

Daphne dug in her heels and clawed at the wrist that held her prisoner. A knife blade flashed in front of her eyes, and Raoul muttered, “I can kill you now as easily as later. Give me any trouble, and you’ll die before you draw another breath.” He ran the knife gently down the side of her throat. “And you don’t want that, do you? No, you want to live and hope that Charles will come, don’t you?” He smiled. “You women—you’re all the same. And you’ll do anything for one more breath, anything at all to live one second longer.” He pulled her close and brushed his lips along her cheek. “I’ve never taken a woman of my own class before, but I suspect you’ll be no different from all the others, sweet. Once I have you naked and writhing under my knife, you’ll beg and plead just like they did.”

He was, she realized sickly, truly a monster. Yet except for those empty eyes, he didn’t look a monster. As tall as her husband and with the same build and the same coloring, except for the black eyes, she recognized his resemblance to Charles, although it was not marked. With his looks, position, and fortune, she wondered why he had chosen to maim and kill.

“Why?” she asked suddenly. “Why do you do it?”

He smiled and said softly, “Because I like to.”

Chilled when Raoul gave her wrist a tug, hating herself for it, Daphne followed him across the battlement.

The first band of rain had blown through, and though the wind and rain had slackened slightly, the far horizon was black with the main part of the storm. Above them, the sky was gray and dreary, a few dark-skirted clouds racing overhead.

Conscious of Raoul’s uneven gait as he limped toward the old stone tower, she asked, “Were you always crippled?”

He stopped and threw her a vicious look. “No. I have my dear brother and cousin to thank for that!” He laughed bitterly. “I broke my leg getting away from them and damn near died from their bullets.”

“How did you get away?”

“Thinking to turn me up sweet with your interest?” Raoul inquired nastily.

Daphne shrugged. “Everyone thought you were dead, but obviously, you’re not. You escaped somehow; I merely wondered how you did it.”

She didn’t think he’d answer her, but then he said, “Mother always feared my, er, hobby would be discovered and that I would have to flee, so at her insistence, I kept a small boat at the mouth of the cavern beneath the dungeon. It was stocked with everything I might need.” He grimaced. “Of course, I never thought I’d need it or that I would be badly wounded when I did. I managed to reach it and push it into the current before I climbed in and collapsed. The river did the rest, taking me far away from Charles and Julian’s orbit.”

“But how did you survive so grievously wounded? Surely someone tended your wounds?” Daphne asked. She was genuinely curious, but she was also aware that if she could keep him here talking, Charles’s chances of catching up with them increased.

“You ask too many questions,” he said and turning away, dragged her after him.

“I do,” Daphne admitted, scuffing her feet and walking as slow as she dared. “But since you plan on killing me anyway, why not tell me?”

He stopped and looked back at her again. “If for no other reason than to shut your mouth, I’ll tell you. My boat eventually washed up near an old peddler’s campsite, and he and his daughter, thinking I was the victim of a highwayman, tenderly nursed me for months.” He smiled, and something in that smile caused Daphne to move as far away as his grasp on her wrist would allow her. “And when I was healed, I killed them both, took their cart and horse, and traveled to Cornwall. To your house.”

Revulsion on her face, she muttered, “With a side trip or two to pick up the jewels your mother hid for you.”

“Oh, you and Charles discovered that, did you? Clever of you.” His hand tightened brutally on her wrist. “Come along now. I’m tired of talking.”

Jerking her after him, he set off again.

Daphne resisted as much as she dared, wondering as she did so of her fate. Would she ever see another sunrise? See Charles’s beloved face again? See Adrian and April again? Or would she die beneath a madman’s knife?

Her eyes filled with tears, and she fought back a sob. She didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted Charles. And with gut-wrenching certainty, she knew she’d never see him again if Raoul took her into that tower. Of their own accord, her feet ceased moving.

Raoul shot her an impatient look. “If you don’t stop annoying me…”

Daphne’s jaw clenched, and her eyes bright with determination, she snapped, “You’re going to kill me anyway. Why should I make it easy for you?”

Astonishing both of them, she launched herself at him. Her free hand balled into a respectable fist, she hit him in the nose with everything she had. Her fist landed with a satisfying thud, the force of her blow rocking Raoul backward. His nose broke, and blood splattered everywhere. He roared in pain, and his hold on her wrist slackened; she twitched from his grasp and sprang free.

Blood streaming from his nose, Raoul lunged forward, but Daphne scooted out of his reach.

“Bitch!” he shouted, stalking her across the battlement.

“Monster!” Daphne taunted, the wind tearing at her hair, sending it flying like a black cloud around her face. She didn’t feel brave, but she knew that if she was going to die, she’d rather go down like a roaring lion than a bleating lamb.

Her only escape was down the staircase, and she edged in that direction.

Raoul knew exactly what she was up to and moved to block her. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, and his crippled leg denied him speed and agility, but he had the knife, which gave him an advantage. Across the small space that separated them, they confronted one another, Daphne with the tower at her back, Raoul scuttling opposite her, the entrance to the stairs at the side of them.

Daphne gauged the distance, calculating her chances of making it to the door and down the stairs before Raoul reached her. Even with his damaged leg, he was a formidable opponent, and she knew she would have only one chance. And if she failed…The taste of fear in her mouth, she dashed toward the door, but even with his crablike gait, Raoul moved with astonishing speed and cut her off.

With the door to his back, he grinned at her. “Naughty, naughty,” he mocked. “Do you really think I’m going to let you slip through my fingers?”

Daphne scrambled backward, putting as much distance between them as she could in the limited space. Fighting back the terror that rose within her, she made a feint to the left, but Raoul only laughed and did not move from his position.

“You may try all the tricks you want, but as long as I hold the door, you’re not going anywhere,” he said, his teeth baring in a parody of a smile.

Daphne eyed him, considering another wild attack. If she knocked him down the stairs…. She bit her lip. If she knocked him down the stairs, unless she was lucky enough for him to hit his head or break his neck in the fall, it wouldn’t accomplish much. But if he broke an arm or a leg…She studied him, the alert stance, the knife held ready. Surprise had worked for her last time, but he was prepared now, and she abandoned the idea.

Raoul scurried forward, and she hastened back, keeping her distance. Despair and desperation her only companions, she struggled not to allow them to overcome her. Did she really believe she could best Raoul? Charles’s face popped up in her mind, and her sagging spirits lifted. Give in? No, by God! All she had to do was stay alive until Charles arrived. And he
would
arrive. Pray God in time.

The wind picked up, howling around the tower; the skies became grayer and more threatening, and the drizzle turned to rain. Chilled by the wind and the rain and her wet clothing, Daphne was hardly aware of the iciness creeping into her bones as she frantically tried to find a way to escape.

She leaped back as Raoul scuttled toward her, the savage swipe of his knife narrowly missing her. Advancing, feinting, retreating, and scrambling violently, she and Raoul performed a macabre dance. All I have to do, Daphne reminded herself again and again as she avoided Raoul’s knife, is stay alive until Charles can find me.

The chattering of her teeth gave her the first sign that the cold seeping into her very core was not only from the storm. Even as understanding formed in her mind, the air thickened, and a heavy mist swelled up between her and Raoul.

Raoul halted, staring puzzled at the floating, amorphous mass in front of him. He was conscious of the biting cold but more importantly, of the passing time. Charles’s imminent arrival worried him more than the freezing cold and the odd mist before him. He knew his brother. Charles would not rest until he found them. No more time could be wasted on Charles’s bloody inconvenient wife.

Gripping his knife, Raoul lunged at Daphne and to his astonishment, was slammed to the floor as he met an impenetrable wall of ice. He stumbled to his feet, staring at the shifting, shapeless matter as it writhed and swirled in front of him. Unnerved, he made to go around it, but it flowed with him, step for step.

What the devil was this thing? Where had it come from? The first faint quiver of fear slid through him when he realized that it had been this, this
thing
that had driven him here to the battlements. Unsettled, forgetting Daphne for the moment, he scuttled back, thinking to disappear down the stairs, but the gyrating mass flowed effortlessly behind him, preventing his escape. Worse, contorting into unimaginable shapes, the thing drove him away from the door toward the parapet. Aware that he was in the presence of something beyond his ken, Raoul watched in horror as the thickening haze grew larger and darker.

Daphne stared through the rain at Raoul’s frantic efforts to escape from the relentless pursuit of that ever twisting, ever swirling vaporous energy. No matter how he sought to elude it, it followed, pressing against him, forcing him back against the parapet.

The apparition had to be Katherine, she thought vaguely. Katherine protecting me. Helping me.

Tearing her gaze away, she half ran, half stumbled toward the staircase. Only five steps separated her from it when Charles stepped out onto the battlements, a pistol in his hand. With a strangled cry, she flew into his startled embrace.

One arm locked around her, the other holding the pistol steady, he hardly dared to believe the miracle that had brought her back to him.
“Daphne!”
he cried brokenly, oblivious to the shrieking wind and rain, the numbing cold as he crushed her slim body against him. Alert for danger, he still risked a glance down into her pale, strained features. “Oh, my love, I never thought to see you again.”

“You came! I knew you would,” she sobbed, clinging to him, kissing his cheek, his chin, anywhere her lips could reach. “I told him you would come for me.”

He stiffened, his gaze sweeping the storm-ravaged battlement. Through the rain and mist, he glimpsed Raoul near the parapet. Putting Daphne safely behind him, he stepped forward, but Daphne’s hand on his arm halted him.