Night Fire Read online

  CATHERINE COULTER

  Night Fire

  To Linda Howard

  You’re a wonderful friend. The Pink Palace awaits YOU.

  Contents

  Prologue

  He knew now that he could control her. Oh, yes…

  One

  It was the stench that brought him back.

  Two

  Burke still felt uncomfortable in his home. He was the…

  Three

  Arielle was flooded with feelings she’d believed had never really…

  Four

  “Good evening, Arielle. I have not intruded.” Arielle stared at…

  Five

  Burke stared down at her, absorbing the consequences of that…

  Six

  Arielle couldn’t believe her eyes. She reread Nesta’s letter. She…

  Seven

  Arielle twisted about in the air and stared into Burke…

  Eight

  It was dark early because of the storm. Arielle was…

  Nine

  Burke quickly lit a candle beside the bed. He’d expected…

  Ten

  Arielle lay on her back, her arms and legs sprawled…

  Eleven

  It was dark and the darkness cloaked his mind, giving…

  Twelve

  “She’ll be all right, Arielle,” Burke said to his wife…

  Thirteen

  Burke didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but…

  Fourteen

  “Oh, Lord Castlerosse, forgive me. I didn’t mean to interrupt…

  Fifteen

  “If Burke believed that the French-painted doll Virgie pronounced was…

  Sixteen

  She stared at him, unwilling to understand his words. She’d…

  Seventeen

  He sounded so incredulous that for a moment Arielle felt…

  Eighteen

  “Burke?”

  Nineteen

  It was her eyes—vague, the pupils pinpoints of light…

  Twenty

  Knight took his leave two mornings later, accompanying Lannie, Percy…

  Twenty-one

  Alec and Nesta left Ravensworth Abbey on Friday morning. It…

  Twenty-two

  “My, my. And here I thought the old woman was…

  Twenty-three

  Arielle’s bravado faltered, then crumbled. She saw the gleam in…

  Epilogue

  “Thank God that’s over.”

  About the Author

  Raves

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  RENDELL HALL, SUSSEX, ENGLAND

  NOVEMBER 1812

  He knew now that he could control her. Oh, yes, indeed he could. She realized that she could count on nothing from her greedy half brother. And her prune-faced maid, Dorcas—a simple threat to that old biddy’s well-being and he’d brought her to heel with gratifying speed. He was stupid not to have thought of that sooner. In the future he would simply remind her on occasion that the old woman could be dispatched easily to her maker. Yes, now she would do precisely what he told her to do.

  He looked down at her and smiled. His sweet, tender seventeen-year-old wife. She was naked, on her knees, her arms wrapped about herself, her head bowed. He particularly liked the way her rich, thick hair fell on either side of her face, touching the floor. She was still breathing heavily, her thin shoulders quivering, from memory of his leather belt.

  “You have been a bad girl,” he said and gently flicked the tip of his leather belt over her shoulder. It licked at a new welt, but she said nothing, nor did she move. It pleased him. She’d tried to fight him, to run from him so many times before. But now he had no doubt that she would stay where he told her to stay, as long as he wished.

  “You will never again leave me,” he said. “I was very displeased with you, Arielle. It was an embarrassment for your dear brother, you know, fleeing to him with all your wild tales.”

  She said nothing. She didn’t move.

  “No, you shouldn’t have done that,” he said thoughtfully after a moment. He flicked the leather belt lower, near her waist. She was slender, always had been, but now she was thin, he saw, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like seeing her ribs. He liked flesh on his women. “How do you expect me to do my duty if you look like a skinny hag?”

  She said nothing.

  He frowned. “Look up at me, girl. I am tired of speaking to the top of your silly head.”

  He watched her stiffen, watched her slowly raise her head and push her hair away from her face. She was still lovely to him, despite her obvious lacks as a woman. That beautiful hair of hers—plain red, his mother would have called it—but he was a poet, and had visited Italy on his Grand Tour, and knew better. Yes, her hair had drawn him to her, and those blue eyes of hers, so light and pure, not a drop of gray or green in them. And they usually held fear, of him. He liked that. He fancied her fear made her pale flesh even more colorless. “I was so happy that you had no freckles, my dear,” he said, more to himself than to her. “Unusual, yes, indeed. Look at me, Arielle, stop that silliness of yours.” She managed sometimes to cloak her fear of him by gazing directly at him, through him. It irritated him no end.

  She looked at him, straightly now. He saw nothing, absolutely nothing in that clear stare of hers. Not hatred, not fear, just a sort of blind awareness. He preferred her fear, but he supposed she shouldn’t be scolded further; he was certain that she finally understood what she was to him and what she would remain for as long as he wished it.

  “Good,” he said and smiled at her. “Now, that is enough punishment for your little peccadillo. I give you permission to address me, Arielle. I want you to tell me what you told your brother, all of it, my dear, else I’ll welt the beautiful flesh on your buttocks. Why, this time I’ve scarce marked you at all. I am feeling benign, I believe. You will speak to me, Arielle, and you will tell me the truth, all of it, or I might be tempted to haul that old woman of yours in here and let her have a taste of my belt as well.”

  She believed him. She was so tired, tired to the depths of her. As for the throbbing pain from his belt on her back and thighs, it was proof at least that she was alive. That was the only thing she could say now—she was alive and she still breathed and saw and heard. She only wished she could still feel, still laugh, from the inside.

  She said slowly, very precisely, so that he wouldn’t accuse her of sullenness and hit her again, “You had hurt me very badly. I could not bear it anymore.” She was rather surprised to hear how calm her voice sounded, and she drew strength from it. Before she could continue, he said sharply, “What did you expect? I have taught you how to arouse a man, but you bungled your instructions yet again. What was I to do—praise you for leaving me limp and unsatisfied?”

  Wisely, Arielle said nothing.

  “Go on,” he said.

  She watched him move away from her, and she relaxed a bit. Her muscles were beginning to cramp from her rigid kneeling position. She watched him sit down in a high-backed chair and wrap the leather belt about his hands, as would a lady sorting out a ball of yarn. She wondered why he wanted her to tell him of her meeting with Evan. Then she realized his motive and again she wished she could laugh—at herself, at her incredible naïveté. He wanted to gloat, to preen, to strut himself in front of her, to make her say how very powerful he was. She forced herself to continue, her voice quiet, emotionless. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself in her bedchamber, felt distantly the now nearly forgotten pain of that time.

  “I cannot bear it further,” she’d said to Dorcas as her lifelong maid and companion gently soaked the swelled welts on her back with a warm wet cloth.

  “These wel
ts won’t last long,” Dorcas said. “Lie still and I’ll be as gentle as I can with this cream.”

  “I hate him. I cannot bear it.”

  “Then you and I will leave here just as soon as you are able.”

  Arielle twisted about, ignoring the jabbing pain in her back, to look at Dorcas’s face. “I have wanted to run away back to Evan, but you have told me it wouldn’t work. You told me my brother would laugh at me. You said to wait for Nesta and her husband.”

  “Aye, that’s what I told you, young miss, but now—well, you’ve the proof of his cruelty on your back. I care not for Mr. Goddis, but when he sees these welts, how can he not do something? As for your half sister and her husband, Miss Nesta and Baron Sherard could be in China for all we know. A letter every three months, but no word when they’ll come again to England. I’ll help you—it’s but five miles to Leslie Farm.”

  Arielle pulled herself upright, gritting her teeth. “I want to leave now, Dorcas.”

  “No, not yet, my baby. We must wait until he is in his bed and the house is quiet. Then we’ll leave. Now lie down again and let me finish with this cream. I don’t want you to be scarred.”

  “Scarred? I am already scarred. And I imagine that he enjoys seeing scars, particularly those he inflicts himself.” But she eased herself down again onto her stomach. She was naked. She thought briefly of the modest girl she had once been, and a vague sort of hatred for that innocent foolish girl surged through her. It seemed that she had been naked and beaten ever since Evan had forced her to wed Paisley Cochrane, Viscount Rendel. And those other things. She gagged, unable to stop herself. But there was nothing in her belly. If she stayed longer she had no doubt she would even become used to each of his sexual demands.

  Dorcas helped her pack a small valise. They slipped out of Rendel Hall at midnight, the witching hour, Dorcas murmured, and Arielle nodded, feeling no desire to jest about any superstition at the moment. Arielle had been raised with horses and she quieted them as best she could, her voice pitched low so they would not awaken anyone. She quickly and efficiently saddled two of her husband’s lesser mares, ignoring the pulling pain in her back. She hefted Dorcas, no lightweight, into her saddle.

  The November night was clear and cold, the stars brilliant in the sky. They met no one on the country roads.

  They arrived at her home, her real home, at one o’clock in the morning. The rectangular Queen Anne manor house was simply called Leslie Farm, after her father’s name, and a pitiful scant hundred acres that grew some wheat. She hadn’t seen the house in nearly eight months. She closed her eyes a moment, and her prayer was simple and to the point: please let Evan help me and protect me.

  The old Leslie butler, Turp, a martinet of rigorous habits, stood in the narrow entrance hall, his nightcap askew, and stared at his former mistress, wondering what was wrong to bring her here in the middle of the night, old Dorcas in tow.

  “Hello, Turp,” Arielle said. “Please fetch Mr. Goddis.”

  “But he is asleep.”

  “I imagine that he is. However, you will fetch him. He will not be angry.”

  Angry or not, Evan Goddis came downstairs fifteen minutes later. He joined Arielle in the Leslie library, once her father’s pride, now airless and dusty because Evan had only contempt for the hundreds of bound volumes that contained ideas that weren’t his and therefore were of no use to him. He stood in the doorway, dressed in his gray brocade dressing gown, and merely looked at his half sister, a thin brow arched.

  “Well?” he drawled in that affected way of his that made her back stiffen instantly. “What the devil are you doing here, Arielle? Rather a dramatic entrance, I should say, and your timing is deuced inconvenient. It is the middle of the night, you know. My, my, I don’t believe I see dear Paisley.”

  She spoke in a rush. “I have left my husband. He is cruel and sadistic and—not normal, Evan. I have come to you for protection.”

  “Interesting,” he said and moved slowly into the room. He was tall, taller than most men, but he was thin as a stork’s leg, his arms and legs appearing too long for his body. His hair was a sandy brown, nearly gone on top. His eyes were the color of thin gruel. Everything about him was thin, she thought, realizing it for the first time. Please, she prayed, watching him with hungry eyes, please don’t let his compassion be as meager as his body.

  “I have always despised this room,” he said, looking about at the inset bookshelves, shadowly in the flickering candlelight. “Your father’s ghost abides here; I can on occasion feel him. I never cared for your father either, him or his bloody ghost.”

  “Evan, you must help me.”

  Evan came to stand in front of her. “Are you not yet with child?”

  Her face went white, and suddenly she began to laugh, a deep, wild, savage laugh. “With child? Oh, God, that is wonderfully funny, Evan. Oh, God.”

  He watched her as she rocked back and forth in a chair, listening to that awful grating laugh, then said sharply, “Be quiet Arielle. Get control of yourself. So the old fool hasn’t managed even that, huh?”

  She shook her head, saying nothing, trying desperately to get hold of herself.

  “That was why he wished to wed you, of course,” Evan said, his long forefinger lightly stroking his jaw.

  His words brought her attention back to him. “What do you mean?”

  “The old fool played all his cards years ago, my dear. Dissolute old reprobate. He saw you, saw your beauty, your extreme youth, and believed you would, er, restore his manhood. I gather that you have failed him?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So my little half sister is still a virgin?”

  She looked at him, her eyes filled with experience and knowledge she should never have had, and again that harsh laughter bubbled from her throat. “Virgin? Ah, Evan, that is almost amusing. A virgin. I should have preferred that very simple act to what he does to me, what he forces me to do to him.” She paused, drawing herself up. “He beats me, Evan, and abuses me. I can no longer stay with him. I have come home. You will protect me. You must not let him near me; you must help me.”

  “You exaggerate, Arielle.”

  She rose slowly, unfastening her green pelisse as she did so. It slipped to the floor. She then unfastened her gown, turning her back to him. She let the gown fall to her waist, the simple white lawn chemise with it. She pulled her hair over her shoulder.

  “This is what he does,” she said.

  She heard him suck in his breath, but he said nothing. She felt a long thin finger lightly touch one of the welts, pause, then touch others. She waited patiently until his fingers left her.

  She pulled her clothing back into order and turned to face him. Odd, she thought vaguely, how there was no resemblance at all between them, even with the same mother. He must resemble his father, John Goddis, a man whom her mother had never spoken of in front of her.

  “Well?” she said at last. “Will you keep that perverted old man away from me? Will you protect me?”

  Evan smiled at her, then looked down at the finger that had touched her back. “Go upstairs to your old room, Arielle. I shall see you in the morning.”

  Hope flared in her eyes. “You will help me,” she said and threw herself against him. “Oh, Evan, thank you. I knew that Dorcas couldn’t be right about you.’

  He raised his hands, realized her back must be very painful, and let them fall again. “Go to bed, Arielle.”

  She looked at him, but he only said again, “Go to bed now—”

  Arielle now looked dumbly at her husband. He knew the rest of it. She waited. She saw him strike the belt lightly against his palm.

  “The next morning,” she said finally, “you were there, in the dining room, eating blood sausages and poached eggs, waiting for me. Evan was with you.”

  “Yes,” Paisley said. “You inconvenienced me, Arielle. That is why I whipped you this time. I will not abide disloyalty. You fail at your womanly functions, but that is different
. Oh, yes, very different. At least now you understand how things are.” It was his turn to pause, and the smile on his lips made her quiver with fear and disgust.

  “Do you call Evan your brother or your half brother?”

  She simply stared at him.

  “Let us say half brother, for he has no caring for you at all, my dear girl. He despises you, as a matter of fact, for you are the offspring of your mother’s liaison with another man. How your father could have been so stupid as to leave Evan your guardian has always amazed me. Well, it hardly matters, really. Did you not realize that he sold you to me? Fifteen thousand pounds I paid to have you for my wife. And this time, Arielle, your dear half brother held you for ransom. When I arrived this morning at Leslie Farm, he informed me that I could have you back for the sum of five thousand pounds. He sold you again. What do you think of that?”

  Arielle felt nothing at first. Then she felt the rage building inside her, felt herself flushing with it, losing all control. She jumped to her feet, unable to think clearly now, and rushed at him, her fingers curving like claws, harsh jagged cries ripping from her throat. She was screaming at him. She felt the flesh of his heavy jowls split, felt his blood on her fingers, heard him yelling curses at her. Even when she saw his fist coming toward her, she couldn’t stop. She was thrown onto the floor with the force of his blow. Her head struck a chair leg and she saw brilliant white flashes before she fell unconscious.

  RENDEL HALL, SUSSEX, ENGLAND ONE YEAR LATER

  Arielle was afraid. She wasn’t, however, certain of the cause of her fear. But it was there nonetheless. She looked at her husband’s illegitimate son, Etienne DuPons, son of a French seamstress, now dead. He bore a slight resemblance to his father as a young man; even his nose was slightly crooked and hooked in the same fashion, and his lower lip was fuller than his upper. His chin was just as prominent, his gray-blue eyes just as pale, just as piercing. She was afraid of him, she realized, and slowly, very slowly, so as not to gain her husband’s attention, she laid her fork across her plate.