Читать книгу Moonrise - Ana Seymour - Страница 5

September 3, 1666

From the gardens at Vauxhall to the bustling and smelly streets of Southwark, Londoners agreed that it had been an odd year. The city was tinderbox dry. Instead of fresh autumn winds, a sweltering heat enveloped it like a clinging blanket and showed no signs of dissipating.

Behind three feet of clammy stone wall, Sarah Fairfax felt prickles along her arms where her wool dress clung damply to her skin. She glanced for the hundredth time at the basin of water sitting on the room’s single table. It would be heavenly to rid herself of the heavy gown and bathe.

A movement at the small, barred window in the door caught her eye. In the shadowy light she could just make out the features of the warder, the one who had been coming around more and more often. His leering eyes and blackened smile had begun to appear in her dreams...darting in and out amid the other haunting faces.

“Say the word, mum, and I’ll fetch ye some fresh water,” he said with relish, putting his face right up against the bars. “Won’t cost ye nothin’. A lady like yerself needs her baths.”

A scar along his left eye made it look squinty and small, while his good right eye had a lecherous gleam that turned Sarah’s stomach. “No, thank you,” she said calmly. She turned away from him toward the narrow, deep window that had been her only source of light for...how many days now? Weeks? She had lost count.

At the beginning she had demanded candles, blankets, writing materials. Her guards had been only too happy to oblige the beautiful new prisoner, but she had soon discovered that the price of their largesse had been filthy propositions and surreptitious gropings. Finally she had ceased to ask for anything.

She felt the warder’s uneven eyes staring at her back. A chill went along her spine in spite of the heat. When she had entered the Tower weeks before, she had been defiant and angry. But day after endless day in the tiny cell had drained the defiance out of her, along with the hope.

Only the hate remained.

Her father would have told her to give that up, too. She could almost hear his sonorous voice echoing around the cell. “My dearest child,” he would say, “you must make peace with all mankind before you can find peace with your Maker.”

She believed that Jack had done so before he died. He had been possessed of a wonderful serenity during that last sad meeting they had had here in this very cell. But Sarah had reconciled herself to the fact that she simply wasn’t as good as her father and brother had been. She intended to take her hate with her all the way to the grave and beyond.

It was early afternoon. By now she knew every angle of the sun’s rays through the window slit and could judge the hour more accurately than a timepiece. The warder had at last moved on to torment some other poor victim. Sarah gave a little shudder. Actually, she’d been lucky. She had had to suffer the guards’ leers and their hands on her, but some blessed edict from an unknown higher authority had so far kept any of them from bothering her in a more direct way. If she still had an ounce of hope left in her, it was that her death should come before this mysterious protection was lifted.

She stood and walked over to the basin of water, glancing quickly at the opening in the door. Perhaps now, before he returned... She bent and carefully lifted the hem of her skirt to dip it in the water, then brought the wet wool up against her hot cheeks. She closed her eyes, savoring the coolness.

There was a loud thump against the thick wood door. Sarah dropped her skirt and jumped back. A key rattled in the lock. She took an involuntary step backward against the rough edge of the table. Prison routine was more regular than the tide, and it was not the time of day for a scheduled visit. The fear that Sarah had worked so hard to conquer since she had been seized at Leasworth weeks ago came flooding back, leaving an acid sting at the base of her throat.

The door opened with a harsh scrape against the stone floor. The visitor was dressed in solid black, from his hose to his fine silk shirt. His hair was black, too, as were his eyes. Coal, demon black in the dim light of the cell.

“You!” Sarah gasped, bracing herself with her hands on the table behind her.

The black eyes narrowed. “Surprised to see me, my love?”

Sarah forced herself to stand straight and meet the newcomer’s gaze. “Not surprised,” she said, her voice low and fierce. “Disappointed. I had hoped by now you had been blown to bits by a Dutch frigate.”

The man smiled. Without taking his eyes off her, he reached easily back to shut the heavy door. “I’ve managed to stay out of that particular war so far,” he said lightly. “You see, I have some unfinished business yet in the world of the living.”

Her chin went up. “Not with me, you don’t. Our business was finished long ago.”

“Perhaps not.”

The softly spoken words made the heat rush to Sarah’s face. She put up a hand as he advanced toward her. “Leave me be, Anthony,” she said fiercely.

He came like a stalking animal, graceful and deadly of purpose. Sarah’s hand shook, then fell to her side. An arm’s length away, he stopped. “Now there’s a problem, my sweet.” His voice was husky. “It appears that I can’t let you be. Were old Mephistopheles himself chasing me away, I’d not be able to let you be.”

He drew her against him then, and she went without resistance. His lips found hers with the inexorable force of a river seeking the sea. Their bodies molded, clung. For a moment it appeared that they might defy the laws of the natural world to merge themselves into one being.

Sarah’s blood ran hot, then icy cold, then scalding. She was held upright only by the steely strength of Anthony’s arms around her. Involuntarily her mouth had opened to his onslaught. Her breasts burned against the pressure of his velvet doublet.

The walls of the cell blurred around her, then disappeared altogether. Blood pounded in her ears and lower as her body responded to the hard strength of his arms and the sudden gentleness of his mouth.

It took a long moment for either of them to register the sound of a tin cup scraping across the bars of the door. Anthony was the first to pull back. He held Sarah protectively out of view and turned his head toward the sound.

“Glad to see ye enjoying yerself, yer lordship.” The warder’s black teeth showed in a lascivious grin. “But ye’d best finish it off right quick. I can only let ye have a few more minutes.”

With gentle firmness, Anthony set Sarah against the table and took two long strides to the door. He spoke through the opening to the warder in low, even tones. “My good man, if I see you looking into this room again before I summon you, I will cut out your eyeballs and roll them in my next game of bowls.”

The warder winced, and a trickle of sweat started down the squinty side of his face.

“Do you understand?” Anthony asked, almost pleasantly.

The warder nodded once, then disappeared from view.

Anthony turned back to Sarah, his expression troubled. “Have they...bothered you, Sarah? Hurt you?”

Her heart had almost stopped thundering. But she felt weak. Months of confinement and poor food had taken their toll. She’d give anything for some strength at this moment. Desperately she grasped at the table as she felt her legs give way beneath her. In an instant he was beside her and she was lifted in arms that were as familiar to her as her own.

“Sarah!” Anthony cried in alarm. He crossed the tiny cell in a single long stride and settled her on the narrow straw bed. “What is it? Are you sick?”

His head was bent over hers, the window casting its slanting light over the strong, dark features. She took a ragged breath. “What are you doing here, Anthony?”

He smoothed her hair back from her forehead in a gesture that was so loverlike, Sarah bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “I’ve come to take you out of here.”

She gave a humorless chuckle. “In case you’ve forgotten, Lord Rutledge, your king has other ideas for me. If the royal prosecutors have their way, I’m to have my head smitten from my body.”

Anthony’s black eyes shifted to her slender white throat. She could see the muscles of his neck ripple as he swallowed with difficulty. “That’s not going to happen, Sarah. You’re leaving here with me...today.”

“Oh, certainly. I just walk on out past the guards? A condemned prisoner?”

“Not as a condemned prisoner.” His dark eyes gleamed. “As my wife.”

Sarah pushed herself up on the bed, her face ghost white. “Your wife!”

Anthony reached for her hand, but she snatched it away. Patiently he said, “I knew you might be opposed to the idea, but it’s the only way, Sarah. Marry me, and you can leave here today, a free woman.”

She pulled away from him, against the cold stone of the wall. Her soft gray eyes grew deadly. “I’d sooner rot a thousand years in hell,” she said.