"Will you pay your debt to me?"
I saw no hope for it. He was through with me. "Yes, I will pay my debt."
The Cretan light winked out. I was cast into darkness blacker than a sinner's heart. I was alone. But I had heard no retreating footfalls, no sound of any movement. There was no breathing in the still, black air but my own.
But what was my debt?
I fell asleep. I dreamed I sat at a grand table and ate a meal worthy of good Queen Bess herself, served by hands I could not see-roasted pheasant and other exotic meats, and dates and figs, and sweet flatbread I had never before eaten. Everything was delicious, and the tart ale from a golden flagon warmed my mouth and coursed through me like healing mother's milk. I was sated, I was content.
Suddenly the light in my dream shifted and a young girl appeared in front of me, hair red as the sunset off Gibraltar, loosely braided down her back. Her eyes were blue and freckles ran across her small nose. She seemed so real in that dazzling dream I felt I could reach out my hand and touch her. She threw her head back and she sang:
I dream of beauty and sightless night
I dream of strength and fevered might
I dream I'm not alone again
But I know of his death and her grievous sin.
A child's voice, sweet and true, it called forth feelings I had not known were in me, feelings to break my heart. But those strange words-what did they mean? Whose death? What grievous sin?
She sang the song again, more softly this time, and again her voice settled deep inside me as I listened to the strange minor key and the haunting sad notes that made me want to weep.
What did this small girl know of haunting or sin?
She went quiet. Slowly she took a step closer to me. Even though I knew this was a dream, I would swear I could hear her breath, hear her light footfalls. She smiled and spoke to me even as she seemed to fade into the soft air, and this time her words rang clear in my brain: I am your debt.
2
Present Apri 22, 1835 London
Nicholas Vail stood at the edge of the large ballroom with its dozens of limp red and white silk banners hanging from the ceiling with military-precision distance between them-to give the feeling of a royal joust, don't you know, my lord, Lady Pinchon had said proudly, all puffed up with a purple turban on her head.
He agreed smoothly, mentioned it was a pity no knight and horse could fit into her magnificent ballroom, at which she looked very thoughtful.
He was sweating from the heat of all the too-close bodies and the countless numbers of dripping candles in every corner of the room. Of the long line of French doors that gave onto a large stone balcony, at least two were open to the still evening.
He pitied the women. They wore five petticoats-he'd counted them with the past several women he'd been with. He estimated there were two hundred women present, so that meant one thousand petticoats. It boggled the mind. And their gowns-the women looked like rich desserts in yards of heavy brocade or satin in every color invented by man, looped with braid and flounces that dusted the floor, wilted flowers and jewels in their hair-all of it had to weigh a good stone. He pictured the froth of petticoats in a mountainous pile in the middle of the ballroom, all those gowns dumped on top like frosting atop a cake, the lot sprinkled with the buckets of jewels that adorned their earlobes, necks, wrists. And that meant the women would be naked. Now, that was a fine picture to tease a man's brain. He saw one particularly heavy young matron, her chins quivering as she laughed, and quickly stifled that image.
As for the men, they looked dapper and prideful in their buttoned-up, nipped-in, long-tailed, proper black garb, starched and stiff, undoubtedly miserable in this heat. It made him shudder.
He knew exactly how they felt since he was dressed just as they were.
At least the women could bare half their chests, what with their gowns nearly falling off sloping white shoulders. He thought of walking around the ballroom, giving little tugs here and there to see what would happen. But those bare shoulders couldn't make up for those ridiculous Jong sleeves that stuck out so stiffly from their bodies. If he had to endure those sleeves, he would surely hunt down the insane misogynist who had foisted them on women. Were they supposed to make them more desirable? What they did was render each female a force to be reckoned with in sheer breadth.
It was time to get down to business. He raised his head, a wolf scenting prey. His hunt was over finally-she was here just as he'd known she would be-he felt her. The hair rose on his arms as the scent of her thickened in his nostrils. He turned quickly, nearly knocked the tray out of a footman's arms. He righted the footman, set his punch glass on the tray, and started toward her, pausing when he could finally see her face. She was young, obviously newly loosed on London, but he'd known she would be. She was laughing joyously, enjoying herself immensely. He could see her lovely white teeth flashing, her hair in thick braids stacked atop her head, making her look very tail indeed. As he drew nearer, he saw also that her pale blue satin gown didn't hang off sloping shoulders. Her shoulders didn't slope, but were strong, squared, her flesh as white as the beach sand on the leeward side of Coloane Island.
Her braids were dark red, a deep auburn it was written, perhaps Titian if one were a poet. It was she, no doubt in his mind at all. In odd moments over the years he'd wondered if he would die a doddering old man, not finding her, if it still wasn't the right time. But it was the right time and he was here and so was she. It was an unspeakable relief.
He walked toward her, aware that people were watching him; they usually did because he was an earl and no one knew a thing about him. London society loved a mystery, particularly if the mystery in question was an unattached presentable male with a title. There was his size too, one of his grandfather's gifts to him, and he knew he intimidated. With his black hair, pulled back and tied with a black velvet ribbon, he knew people looked at him and saw a man not quite civilized. They might have been right. He knew his eyes could turn cold as death, another gift from his grandfather-black eyes that made people think of wizards, perhaps, or executioners.
A couple danced into his path. He smoothly moved aside at the alarm on the man's face, but he scarcely noticed them, he was so focused on her.
Each of his senses recognized and accepted she was indeed the one he sought. She was waltzing now, her partner whirling her in wide circles, and her blue satin skirts swirled and ballooned around her. She was light on her feet, smoothly following her partner, an older man-old enough to be her father, only he wasn't paunchy and jowly like a father should be; he was tall and lean and graceful, his blue eyes bright as a summer sky, nearly the same light blue as hers, and that face of his was too handsome, his smile too charming. Her husband? Surely not, she was too young. He laughed at himself. Girls were married off at seventeen, some even sixteen, to men older than this one, who also looked fit and surely too spry for his age.
They danced by him. He saw her eyes were brighter than the gentleman's, she was that excited.
He stood quietly, watching. Around and around they whirled, the man keeping her to the perimeter so no one would dance into their path.
He could do nothing but wait, which he did, leaning negligently, arms crossed over his chest, against a wall beside a large palm tree that had a red bow fastened to one of its fronds. He didn't know her name, yet he already knew she wouldn't be a Mary or a Jane. No, her name would be exotic, but he couldn't ever think of a single English name exotic enough to fit his image of her.
He saw a pallid young gentleman and a lady who appeared to be his mother whispering as they looked toward him. He smiled at them, a black brow arching, not that he blamed them for their gossip. After all, he was the new Lord Mountjoy, and people were speculating on how he was adjusting to a title as empty as a gourd since the old earl had left all his wealth to Nicholas's three younger half brothers. All that was left to him was the entailed moldering family estate in Sussex, Wyverly Chase, built by the first Earl of Mountjoy, who had fought the Spanish like a Viking berserker and managed to charm the eternal virgin Queen Elizabeth. She had duly elevated Viscount Ashborough to his earldom. Wyverly Chase was going on three hundred years old, and showed every decade. As for the entailed three thousand acres, his father had ensured it was as worthless as a lack of money and care could make it by the time he'd died. His son was left with nothing but fallow fields, desperate tenants, and mountains of debt.