Lennox, Mary - Heart of Fire.txt Read online

  uncovered breasts, her small, supple waist, her rounded hips,

  even if they were made of marble, not flesh. The stone felt warm

  to his hand.

  His thumb played softly over the statue. Round, high breasts,

  hips flaring from that slender waist. The little goddess bore a

  striking resemblance to—he almost dropped the precious

  antique in his hurry to put it down.

  It was a damned good thing that Sera was well on the way

  to recovery. He grew more demented by the day. With a bit of

  snooping by his agents, he might be closer to what he needed to

  know about her. He turned and walked into the dacha and down

  the long corridor to her room. His steps were swift as he traveled

  the hall, and his knock on her door sounded impatient to his

  own ears. In a low, musical voice she bade him enter.

  Sera tilted her head to look at him as she sat at the bay

  window, wearing a soft gown of yellow linen. Her long hair

  rippled in curls down her back. The sun limned her body,

  outlining her breasts and her hips, turning all of her to gold.

  Her face had a soft, pink glow like the blush of a rose. Nicholas

  felt the now familiar tug at his chest as he crossed the room and

  stood close to her, his back resting against a heavy carved pillar

  of the bed.

  “The doctor was just here with good news,” she said to

  him. “I may travel in a day. I wish to thank you for your kindness,

  both in saving me from the slave harem in Jehanna and in

  bringing me here to regain my strength. I owe you a great debt.

  When I return to my homeland, I shall try very hard to repay

  you.”

  “You may repay me by being happy and safe in

  Montanyard,” said Nicholas. He waited, watching the small

  crease of puzzlement appear between her arched brows

  “But Montanyard is in Laurentia,” she said.

  “Exactly,” said Nicholas. He would give orders. While he

  had her watched for any surreptitious activity, Sera would learn

  court etiquette, proper court dress, all the necessary foolishness

  that a lady-in-waiting to a princess was expected to know. She

  was intelligent. That much he knew from his conversations with

  her. Until he found out just what Sera was, his sister Katherine

  would benefit from this arrangement.

  “But I am not going to Laurentia. I must return to the Hills.”

  She was holding her hands tightly in her lap, looking up at him

  with wide eyes. He could see just the beginning of a stubborn

  set to her rounded jaw.

  “Sera,” he said, trying to keep his voice reasonable. “A

  woman, especially one who looks like you, cannot travel these

  lands alone. Look what happened to you recently. That, or worse,

  will happen again if you ride off alone.”

  She rose to her feet and folded her arms in front of her

  chest. “I made a bad mistake last time, that is all. I promise not

  to do so again.”

  Nicholas sighed in exasperation. “I made a promise to you,

  as well, just a se’nnight ago, as I watched you fight the spell of

  the laudanum. I promised to keep you safe, and I’ll not break

  that vow any time soon. So you will not ride off alone on that

  costly stallion.”

  Her face flushed, and she tapped her foot. “I do not recall

  you making any promise like that.”

  “Of course not! You were half out of your mind and raving

  at the time. Still, I made it.”

  She stared up at him with wide eyes. Her face grew pale in

  an instant. “What did I say?” she asked so low that he had to

  bend over her to hear.

  “Something about a terrible punishment—your parents

  locked you in a closet, apparently. I must say, they sounded like

  the sort of people I’d put in prison for life.”

  “Was that all I said?”

  Nicholas saw that she was actually shaking. “Yes. But I

  told you I’d keep you safe, and I shall. Why in God’s name do

  you wish to traipse about the countryside, prey to any villain

  who sees you?”

  “There is something I must do.”

  He waited for more, but Sera just stood before him, her

  head down, her hands clasped in front of her.

  Nicholas threw his hands up. “You must do something?

  And that is explanation enough for me to send you off, not

  knowing where you’ll wind up, or if you’re alive or dead by the

  side of the road?” God! Which was she—spy or innocent?

  Sera shrank back against the wall at this last, and Nicholas

  came to the realization that he must have been shouting rather

  loudly. When she raised her head to look at him, her eyes were

  clouded, but she shook her head and that luscious, stubborn

  lower lip jutted out.

  “First of all, I am not your responsibility, nor your subject.

  I need not explain anything to you. There are others involved,

  and my duty lies with them, King, not with you. I can tell you I

  wish you and your people no harm. My greatest desire is to

  return to my home and never leave it again. And that is all I can

  say.”

  “You will not ride this country alone.” Nicholas felt the

  anger rising in him, hot and potent. He watched her as she

  blanched and stood straighter.

  “You have no right to keep me, Outlander.”

  “I have every right,” he said, working against the heat to

  keep his voice low and steady. “I own you. Would you like to

  see the papers?”

  She gasped in outrage. “I saved your life!”

  “And I plan to return the compliment. Be ready to ride by

  dawn tomorrow. And don’t try to escape tonight. There will be

  guards at your door and beneath your window, should you be

  foolish enough to attempt a climb down to the ground.”

  She had gone from shock to fury to calculation in only

  seconds. No, Sera couldn’t be a spy, Nicholas thought. She was

  too transparent to last a day.

  “Don’t even try to think how you might outwit the guards,”

  he told her firmly. “Even if you could get past them, I’d simply

  ride after you and bring you back. I’m the finest tracker in the

  three lands, Sera. That’s not an idle boast.”

  She had that helpless look of resentment he had seen before

  on the faces of his adversaries—the understanding that she had

  just lost everything and hated the man who was taking it from

  her.

  He turned his back on her and heard his own inarticulate

  growl. Heaven protect him from emotional women! She’d see

  the rightness of his decision in time. When he was convinced

  of her innocence, he would tear up the hateful papers of

  ownership and free her.

  He could almost feel her eyes burning a hole in his back.

  “Soon you’ll understand, Sera, and you’ll be glad,” he said

  to the window.

  Then he turned and walked to the door. Perhaps time alone

  would make her see sense.

  He had his hand on the knob and was halfway out the room

  when she spoke.

  “Barbarian,” Sera said, and all the scorn in the world was

  in
that word.

  ***

  Anatole Galerien, king of Beaureve, sat in his opulent study,

  staring into the fire. He stifled the terrible urge to chew his nails,

  smoothing the pure white gloves he wore over his ravaged

  fingers. A servant carrying a coal bucket scuttled across the room

  to the fireplace and knelt before it. The hod slipped a bit and hit

  the floor with a loud thump as the man began to set it down.

  “Fool!” barked Galerien. “Have a care or you’ll be down

  in the mines bringing the damned stuff up rather than warm and

  well fed in my palace.”

  The man rose swiftly, keeping his eyes on the Persian carpet

  at his feet, mumbling his apology and bowing his way out of

  the room.

  Galerien pulled off his gloves and stared at his hands for a

  moment. They were cracked and reddened with the rash that

  had tormented him for the last eighteen years. He scratched at

  the flaking skin, reached into the hidden cabinet in his parquetry

  desk and pulled out a brown glass bottle. His hands trembled as

  he unstopped the cork and poured the lotion from the latest

  quack on the backs and palms of his hands. The itching subsided

  a bit, and he sat back in the gold inlaid chair, gnawing at his

  fingernails.

  Someone rapped hesitantly at the door. “Wait,” Galerien

  called. When his gloves were safely on his hands again, he said,

  “Enter.”

  A soldier, smartly turned out in parade dress, opened the

  door. “Count Laslow requests an audience,” he said, standing

  tall but pale with uncertainty and just a hint of fear in his face.

  Good, thought Galerien. He wanted their fear, their

  immediate obedience.

  In a swirl of black, Laslow entered and gave him a bow

  somehow ironic, although correct.

  “Well? What news? Of the thief—of the girl?”

  Laslow pulled off his black gloves and cloak. He crossed

  the room to the fire and stood, his back to Galerien, holding his

  hands toward the warm coals. Even from behind, his tall, slim

  body looked slightly sinister.

  “We have searched the hills and questioned the peasants

  who live in their shadow. There is no sign of the thief. Anyone

  who had knowledge of him would gladly have given it up to us

  when we were done with them.”

  He turned, crossing the room with his long, catlike strides

  until he stood before Galerien. He seemed to loom over the

  desk, his face still half-hidden, despite the light of the chandelier.

  “But the girl is still alive. We tracked her to Hadar’s palace,

  where servants told us of a slave woman with golden hair, newly

  arrived. The Nantal had sold her to Hadar only a few days before.

  She was being groomed for Nicholas Rostov.”

  Galerien slammed his fist down on the inlaid writing desk.

  “Why did you not take them in one blow?”

  “I couldn’t. Hadar had agreed only to a small force, should

  anything go wrong. If she had been sleeping in his bed, we

  would have dispensed with them both, but either Rostov has

  scruples or he is a eunuch. She was reputed to be quite beautiful.”

  “The witch was beautiful, too,” murmured Galerien.

  “At any rate, Hadar’s man waited and watched outside the

  door. The girl sounded a warning and threw herself on Juseph.

  Of all the men lost in that attempt, I shall miss Juseph the most.

  He was a genius with a knife.” He shook his head, a puzzled

  expression crossing his normally frozen features. “The girl has

  actually made me feel . . . something, if only annoyance.”

  “However,” continued Laslow, settling into the brocade

  library chair Galerien silently pointed to, “I believe she has gone

  to Laurentia with Rostov. Whether he has taken her under his

  wing permanently or has merely given her safe passage is yet

  to be seen. I shall send men into Laurentia to ascertain if she

  lives beneath the king’s protection.”

  Galerien clutched the edges of the inlaid desk. He thought

  he might actually crack off the piece of molding with the

  intensity of his grip. “You know my need, Laslow. The thief I

  hired escaped with Arkadia’s secrets and its treasure. Find him

  and the Heart of Fire. Torture the location of the cliffs and the

  waterfall from him. At least a week before the twenty-first of

  December, the girl and the ruby must be mine.”

  “Why the twenty-first?” Laslow fixed him with a curious

  look.

  “The witch once told me that the waterfall froze by that

  date, and that the cliffs were then visible to the world. Without

  the Heart of Fire to act as a key to the cliffs, Aestron or his

  council will seal them shut forever. I need the information and

  the key before the gates close. See to it, and smartly!”

  Only with the power and wealth of Arkadia could he hope

  to take what ought to be his. Galerien closed his eyes and laid

  his head against the back of the chair. The skin covering the

  backs of his hands itched as though fire ants were feeding upon

  it.

  “I must have it all before Napoleon leads his troops hence,”

  he muttered. “I’ll be a force to fear in this world.” There was

  utter silence in the room, so profound as to make him believe

  that Laslow, spectre-like, had slipped away. He could hear the

  ticking of the French clock on the mantel, the hiss of coals on

  the grate.

  “What is this madness?” Laslow’s voice, cold,

  contemptuous, sliced through Galerien’s thoughts.

  “No madness. An order. From your king.”

  “I can guarantee you victory over Laurentia by spring, for

  your young men flock to our training camps, selling their souls

  for a chance to put food into their family’s bellies. But there

  isn’t enough time to train them for an all-out assault on Arkadia

  or any other country before the solstice. Aestron has powers

  that can render us helpless, even if we breach the cliffs protecting

  Arkadia.”

  Anatole waved his hand impatiently. “I never truly believed

  what the witch told me about Aestron’s abilities, and besides, it

  was so many years ago. The man’s old. He may be dead by now

  for all I know, and with him, whatever power he had. Get me

  the ruby. And bring the girl here. I wish to witness her death.”

  “I shall prepare my best men to invade Laurentia. By week’s

  end they’ll find the thief and bring me news of the girl,” said

  the count.

  “Good.” Galerien waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal.

  The count gave him a look of utter contempt and a bow so

  perfunctory that from any other man, Galerien would have

  punished it with death. But he needed Laslow and his desperate

  martyrs until he satisfied the hunger that roiled in his belly—

  for Arkadia, for Laurentia, for respect.

  ***

  In the Mage’s palace, Jacob Augustus stared at the fading

  figures in the scrying glass, his breath coming so fast he had to

  concentrate on slowing his diaphragm’s movements to their

  normal, unhu
rried state. He must not give way to emotion. Doing

  so was deadly, both for him and the Outlander enemy. When he

  felt more in control, he looked across the desk into his

  grandfather’s eyes. He saw an ocean of calm, more than he ever

  thought he could manage, himself. And pain showed, too,

  beneath the serenity.

  “I shall go into Laurentia and bring her home,” he said

  quietly.

  “No,” said Emmanuel Aestron. He placed a velvet cloth

  over the glass and sat back in his chair. “Give her time to find

  the thief and return on her own. Perhaps she will find more

  than the ruby in the Outlander world.”

  Was his grandfather finally aging and slowly losing his

  excellent judgment? Jacob hastily put that fear away to

  concentrate on the problem facing them now.

  “She has no Hill cloak. Even if she finds the thief and the

  Heart of Fire, she will never get past the animals that hunt her,

  or past filth like the Nantal and Hadar who will see her as a

  prize for some man’s lust.”

  “Perhaps there are some who will protect her, even to their

  last breath.”

  “Outlanders?” Jacob gave a dry laugh. “They will happily

  rape her and bind her into slavery, but they won’t lift a finger to

  help her.”

  His grandfather held him on a long, steady look. “Jacob, I

  do not make this decision lightly. You were too young to

  understand what happened all those years ago. Perhaps it is

  time you knew.”

  Jacob stared at Emmanuel in rapt attention. At last, he was

  going to learn about those terrible events that had ripped Sera’s

  world apart.

  “I shall never forgive myself,” Emmanuel said with quiet

  agony. “I trusted that all was well with Marissa and Stephan.

  Their people loved them. The Brotherhood was a small group

  of fanatics no one took seriously. I thought it was safe for me to

  retreat to the summit of Mount Joy for the summer solstice, to

  rededicate and purify myself as I am required to do each year.

  In accordance with tradition, I took no Hill cloak to ease my

  journey, so, like any Outlander, I toiled up the mountain. After

  my fast and rituals, I journeyed homeward, becoming more and

  more uneasy with every step.”

  The look on his grandfather’s face tore at Jacob’s heart, but

  the old man continued in the same quiet tones.