Dark of the Moon (39 page)

He had been left with a limp. Catching herself on the edge of the bed, Caitlyn felt her heart turn over as he stalked out the door. Her magnificent Connor had been left with a souvenir of that terrible night, just as she had been. With only the slightest hesitation in his furious stride, he favored his left leg. As vividly as if she were seeing it again, she could picture the blood gushing from the enormous hole the bullet had torn in his thigh. Her fury melted away like butter over fire, leaving behind hurt. How she longed to run after him. to tell him that it was all a terrible mistake, to run away with him as he had been hell-bent on making her do! How she longed to wrap her arms around him, press her lips to his.

Caitlyn buried her face in her hands. Tears rose to her eyes, only to be forced sternly back.

Over the past twelve months, she had borne too much to find comfort any longer in tears. There was no ease she could offer her aching heart. Pain of every variety had become an inescapable fact of her life. She had learned to bear it dry-eyed.

She had hoped never to see him again, and that was the price she'd been willing to pay for his life. Still, she had faced the possibility that one day he might find her, and had rehearsed her story until it was as convincing as she could make it. But she hadn't been prepared for what the mere sight of him would do to her. Finding him in her room unexpectedly had unnerved her, terrified her, stunned her so that she had ceased to think. For one brief, glorious moment, she had been in his arms again, hugging him close, being hugged in return. She had been home—

and then her shocked brain had begun to function. Connor could not be found in her room, could no longer be a part of her life. He would pay with his life if he were. She had a secret, a terrible secret that he could not discover. Though it broke her heart to do so, she had to send him away. Drive him away. Because she knew that was the only way he would go.

The door to her chamber clicked open without warning.

Caitlyn lifted her head from her hands and looked up, both hoping and dreading to see Connor standing there glaring at her. She almost wished he would force her to go with him—that would take the terrible choice out of her hands. But she did not really wish it.

Whatever she had to endure, whatever pain Connor might be suffering now because of her, was preferable to seeing him and his brothers hang.

The man who strolled so confidently into her chamber was not Connor. He shut the door behind him gently, then turned to smile at her. Staring up at him, Caitlyn felt her knees begin to shake. She knew that smile. She had first seen it just before he had slapped her on that day when she had still been an innocent, that day when Connor had avenged her by beating him to a pulp. Though she had not known it or cared to know it then, that smile had portended a sickening depravity, as she had since learned to her misery. Sir Edward Dunne, who held her imprisoned as neatly and invisibly as a butterfly in a glass, derived pleasure from other people's pain.

"Well, my dear, I feared I had lost you after the party. I should have known better than that, should I not have? I will never lose you, will I, my pet?"

"No, Edward," she intoned woodenly. Though she was not aware of it, her hands were clenched into fists as they pressed into the mattress. He saw the impotent gesture, however, and his smile broadened.

"What a pretty thing you are, to be sure." He moved toward her. Caitlyn felt her stomach clench in revulsion. No matter how many times she had had to endure his touch, she still felt physically ill whenever he came near her. She had thought, at the beginning of this hellish bargain, that time might lessen her aversion. How naive she had been! She had thought she had known much of men, and she had known nothing.

"Why, what's this?" He stopped, frowning as he looked down at the torn gown beside the wardrobe. The other dresses that Connor had pulled out lay crumpled on the floor nearby. The green walking dress was half on, half off the bed. Most damning of all, the black mask that Connor must have been wearing when he gained entrance to her chamber lay on the small chair. Alarm shot through her. Whatever happened, Sir Edward must not be allowed to suspect that Connor had found her. She did not know what her captor's reaction would be, but she was sure it would be terrible. And she had not suffered so much for so long to now endanger Connor's life.

"I ... 1 was trying on dresses, trying to find the perfect outfit to wear tomorrow. I ... 1 must have forgotten to lock the door. A gentleman—one of the guests—came in and . . . and tried to—he tore my dress." She knew that she was babbling, but she could not help herself.

"One of our fellow guests tried to bed you, eh? Well, as I said, you're a pretty package. I don't blame the fellow. I trust you discouraged him?"

"Y-yes."

"And how did you do that?" He smiled again. Caitlyn blanched.

"I scratched his face."

Sir Edward chuckled. Caitlyn watched him, hating him so desperately that she was sick with it, wanting to hurt him, to kill him but not daring to, since he held the ultimate weapon that kept him safe from her. Deliberately she called to mind the images of Connor beating him, of Sir Edward cringing and bloodied and whining for mercy. It was the one thing that had the power to make her feel better. If she could tell Connor, if she could just tell Connor, he would kill this man for what he had done to her. But she could not.

When she had first woken up in the lodge on the grounds of Ballymara and learned that Sir Edward was the leader of the group that had so cleverly set a trap for the Dark Horseman and his band, and had refrained from exposing her identity for his own evil purposes, she had comforted herself with the notion that she had only, somehow, to get word to Connor and she would be free. Connor would kill her tormentor as easily as he would swat a fly, and she would be set free of the prison into which her own foolishness had led her. But Sir Edward had foreseen the possibility that he might one day face Connor's wrath for what he had done, so he had devised a scheme that made it impossible for her to ever tell Connor anything. Unless she wanted to see him hang by the neck until he was dead.

"You should not have left your door unlocked. One might almost think you were hoping to have company. Am I not man enough for you, my dear? I shudder to think that that might be so."

"No. No, of course not. It ... it was merely an oversight on my part."

He nodded judiciously. "This is certainly possible, of course. But still, I trust I made it clear that you're to be my exclusive property until such time as I tire of you. I do not wish to take the chance of such an oversight occurring again. Accordingly, you must be punished."

Caitlyn clenched her teeth. Her stomach roiled with nausea. She had seen this coming, had known that he would find some pretext or another for it from the moment he had walked into the room. That smile had told her. He was a beast, a monster—and she had no choice but to submit. Just as she had submitted for the better part of a year, ever since her wound had healed enough to permit him to practice his particular form of gratification on her. She had submitted to every painful and degrading act he had demanded, though she was sickened in body and soul. Because if she refused, he would tell the authorities of the truth he had guessed as soon as he had recognized her on that dark night when she was wounded. Sir Edward had been the first to dismount and crow over the fallen highwayman that they had thought her to be. But as soon as he had gotten a close look at her, lying crumpled and senseless in her highwayman's guise, his devious mind had immediately seen that a prize of inestimable worth had fallen into his lap.

He could have her body to use as he wished and gain his revenge on Connor at the same time. If she did not stay with him, did not do exactly as he told her at all times, he would announce to the world that Connor d'Arcy was the Dark Horseman and that she and his brothers were members of his gang. Connor would be hanged. They all would be hanged. Though for herself she might almost prefer death to the hell that her existence had become, she could not bear the thought of Connor hanging because of her, or Cormac or Rory or Liam or even Mickeen. Sir Edward had her neatly and horribly as a butterfly fluttering on an impaling pin.

If Connor found out how she suffered, he would strike back at Sir Edward no matter what the consequences might be. And the consequences lay in identical sealed letters that- Sir Edward had left with his solicitor, his man of affairs, his majordomo, and a host of others whose identity she didn't even know, along with instructions that they be opened in case of his death. Letters that named Connor d'Arcy of Donoughmore as the Dark Horseman, and the probable murderer of Sir Edward Dunne.

"Disrobe, if you please."

Caitlyn knew better than to try to reason or plead with him. It only excited him more, made him hurt her more. She had learned to withdraw to a place that existed only inside herself, to leave only the shell of her body for him to abuse. It was a trick that she had mastered long ago, when she had had to live by her wits on the streets of Dublin, and it was a trick that over the past horrifying year had stood her in good stead, enabled her to survive with her sanity and a semblance of pride intact.

Though her hands shook and her loiees trembled so that they would barely support her, she got to her feet and began to untie the ties of her petticoats. There was no escaping what he had planned. She could only endure, and pray for a day of glorious reckoning. One day, though she knew not when or how, vengeance would be hers.

He walked to the wardrobe and reached inside for the riding crop he forced her to always keep on hand. Looking at its slender length, Caitlyn thought she would throw up.

"Tut, tut, Caitlyn, am I to wait all night?" His mildly reproving voice told her that he was anxious to find an excuse to get even angrier with her. Anger excited him, made him more vicious than usual. Swallowing nervously, she caught the hem of her shift and pulled it up over her head. His eyes went over her, gleaming with excitement as he examined her naked body with minute attention. Standing before him, helpless to resist him in any way, she felt shame so hot and deep that she wished she might die of it. She also felt hatred, and healthy, healing anger.

"You are truly an exquisite creature," he said, his voice thickening as his eyes touched her everywhere. "What a shame that you're so wicked, that I must restore you to righteousness with the whip. Will you never learn that you must be pure for me, that you must obey without question? It angers me that you force me to mar your lovely skin."

She said nothing, because there was nothing she could say that would stop his awful tirade.

He launched into a variation of it every time he came to her bed. It excited him, she knew, just as anger excited him, and fear. Her fear. Which she felt despite all her exhortations to herself to have courage. By blaming her for the livid marks that were never long absent from her buttocks and thighs, he found another reason for his anger. Her knees quivered. Tonight was going to be bad.

She lifted her chin at him in the only gesture of defiance she was allowed. If she could not save herself from what was coming, at least she could face it with courage. Or at least the face of courage, which in the end was much the same. Caitlyn O'Malley asked for no quarter, ever.

Not that it would do any good if she did.

"Lie down and take your punishment, you wicked chit." The rough edge to his voice told her that his excitement was progressing to the point where he would soon not be rational. Biting back a whimper of fear, she climbed onto the bed and lay facedown on the cool, slick satin of the coverlet. The terrified trembling of her limbs was out of her control. She only hoped he would not see. Despite all the degradations he had made her suffer, she had done her best to keep him from knowing how deep were her fear and shame.

"Lift your hair off your back." His voice was guttural. Caitlyn felt a sob rise in her throat.

She suppressed it, breathing deeply as she reached to pull her hair up over her head as he had ordered. Wrapping her arms around her head to protect it from the blows she knew were coming, she tried to project herself to that place where her mind hid. She had not quite made it there when the first blow fell with a whistle and a crack, searing agony into the soft flesh of her buttocks that was still bruised from the last time. A small cry escaped her. At first she had tried to take the beatings in silence, but she had learned that this only made him hurt her more. He needed the evidence of her pain to find his release.

He beat her savagely about the buttocks and thighs, striping her flesh again and again while she flinched and trembled and moaned beneath the whip. Finally he threw it down and came up on the bed behind her, catching hold of her thighs and yanking them apart to kneel between them. He never came inside her, but took his pleasure by spilling his seed on her abused flesh.

When she felt the warm wetness spurting onto her buttocks, she went limp, knowing the horror was over for the night.

After a moment or two, he got off the bed and buttoned his breeches. Though she kept her face pressed against the coverlet, she knew that he was looking at her with a greedy intensity.

This, too, was part of the ritual. He would look at her, naked and bruised and marked with his seed, as if to imprint the sight of her humiliation upon his mind. Then he would go away. Until the next time.

She heard the door open and close and knew she was alone. Her muscles relaxed, and the stinging, burning pain in her flesh increased a thousandfold. Gulping in great mouthfuls of air, she tried to hold back the tears. But this night, for the first time in months, she was unsuccessful. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her sobs and then cried as though her heart would break.

But as she had known since she was a bairn, crying changed naught. When at last her tears were spent, her buttocks and thighs still throbbed and burned, she was still naked and defiled, and she was still Sir Edward's captive plaything. And Connor was still forever beyond her reach.