Daughter of Darkness (37 page)

Gerard’s mind became icy clear. The marquis had been trying to find his weakness by making him lose his temper. Instead, he’d given him an edge by revealing his own weakness. He gave a derisive chuckle whilst they circled each other.

‘Edward is not
my
son. You’d have known that should you have thought to calculate his natal day.’

Relief washed through Willow. It was stupid to be jealous of a dead woman, and she’d known instinctively Edward wasn’t Gerard’s.

‘Then he’s truly my heir?’ The marquis seemed to hesitate.

‘You’re pathetic.’ Gerard’s voice became scathing. ‘Did you really think you could escape the curse of Marietta Givanchy? Of course he’s not your heir. There are not enough manly virtues left in your family to produce a male.’

Do not say such things, Willow implored silently, her fingers temporarily stilled from their work. He will surely make you suffer for it.

His opponant’s eyes were beginning to lose their reason, Gerard noted, going for a head thrust. His adversary’s parry slid along his sword blade to the guard and the marquis staggered. ‘Marietta was in league with the devil,’ he whispered, his panting breath alerting Gerard to the fact he was tiring.

The marquis was reaching the same conclusion. Damn those fawning creatures at the academy, he was thinking, tiring himself even further by taking a wild swing at his young opponent. They’d fed his vanity with lies. He was getting too old for swordplay, and he hadn’t expected the son of Ambrose Lytton to be so skilled. He
had
to goad the man into losing his temper. ‘Willow is a dark-souled harlot, like her mother and grandmother before her. The French duke paid me well to rid himself of them.’

The marquis hissed as Gerard’s blade drew blood from his cheek, and twisted away on his deformed leg. ‘Marietta was the devil’s own. Did she not come back from the grave and talk to the daughter she spawned?’

‘Willow is
your
daughter!’ An unforgiving, hardness lit Gerard’s eyes as he gritted out. ‘You’ll answer to me for your treatment of her.’ His weapon found an opening and slashed a groove along his adversary’s arm. A grunt of satisfaction left his lips. ‘First blood to me.’

The lock clicked suddenly. Willow gave a smile of triumph as the door slid open. She was just in time to see Gerard’s sword draw blood and her father stagger backwards. Then her father’s hand slid behind his back and came out with a pistol. Her heart plummeted with fear. ‘He has a pistol!’

Her cry came too late. The ball hit Gerard in the shoulder and his sword arm became useless. His knees buckled beneath him.

She was across the room almost before he hit the floor. Cradling his head in her lap, she gazed up at the swaying figure of the marquis, said scornfully. ‘You’re a craven coward. God rot your soul.’

‘Daughter of darkness,’ he screamed. Both hands gripped the sword and brought it up over his head. ‘You’re about to join your husband in hell.’

Something about the girl reminded the marquis of himself at that moment. A certain look to the eyes, a tilt of her head? There was no fear in her. Had she been a boy instead of a female… ?

‘I am carrying your grandson in my womb,’ she lied. ‘Would you kill your unborn heir, too?’

He hesitated. Willow was the last of his bloodline. She would pass his title on to her sons. Gerard Lytton still breathed. They’d be Lytton sons! He shuddered, lapsing into an unaccustomed indecisiveness. He’d born the Lyttons a grudge since his mother had taken one as a lover, and his father had been slain defending his right to her. He’d idolized his father, and when he’d taken revenge on the Lytton whore-monger by murdering him in his bed, he’d sworn to wipe the whole family out. He’d never known peace since.

What if he allowed his daughter and her husband to live, and made atonement for his sins? Perhaps Marietta’s curse would be lifted from him? He could trade her first-born son for her husband’s life.

Take advantage of your opponent’s weakness, Willow thought, and remembered a fatal cut James had once demonstrated. She grabbed the sword from her husband’s relaxed hand and went up on one knee.

For a second, she and her father gazed into each other’s eyes. She was defending the man she loved, and now her back was against the wall she discovered a core of her father’s ruthlessness lived in her. Her eyes were the more lethal of the two.

‘No!’ the marquis shouted in alarm. But the weapon sliced upwards, grazed under his rib cage and split his heart asunder. He was dead before he toppled backwards to the floor, leaving Willow staring aghast at the bloody sword in her hand.

‘Willow?’ Gerard groaned. Shock had rendered her husband unconscious, now the pain of the bullet lodged in his shoulder brought him round. ‘The marquis… is he dead?’

‘He’s dead.’ She swiftly placed the sword in reach of his seeking fingers and they curled around the hilt.

‘I’ll never let him take you from me.’

‘La, Gerard,’ she said shakily. ‘You’ve defeated him, and are the bravest man alive.’ Tremors of shock wracked her body.

‘Why didn’t you obey me?’ he said huskily. ‘Had you gone to Coringal your life would not have been placed in jeopardy.’

‘Did you not get my letter?’ She gave him a scathing glance. ‘If you send me away again you’ll have to bind me hand and foot. Then I’ll crawl back on my hands and knees and beg you to let me stay.’ She pressed her lips against his dark hairline, his eyelids, then his mouth. ‘Have I not demonstrated I’d choose to throw myself into the sea and drown rather than leave you?’

He managed a grin. ‘You have, indeed.’

‘I love you.’ Her mouth covered his face with feverish little kisses. ‘I refuse to let you live without me by your side, even if you think I’m a nuisance. You must reconcile yourself to that.’

‘I adore you.’ He groaned, bringing his good arm around her and burying his face in the fragrant curtain of her hair. ‘Only God knows how much I love you!’

‘You cannot know how I’ve longed for you to say that, Gerard, but somehow I knew it.’ She took a sideways glance at the bloodied form of her father and said dispassionately. ‘He does not look so terrifying now he is dead. His grandsons will be all the better for not knowing him.’

‘You are with child?’

‘Not yet. It shouldn’t take long once you come back to my bed and apply yourself to the task. Of course, we must allow time for your wound to heal.’

She didn’t notice his grin since her attention was caught by the sound of horses. Rising to her feet, she staggered to a French door that led on to the neglected terrace garden, and threw it open. Clinging weakly to the door frame, she said in a voice loud enough for all to hear, before sliding to the floor. ‘The Marquis is dead. Gerard has defeated him.’

Summer 1757

It was Willow’s fourth summer at Lytton House. She gazed upon the garden and smiled with joy. It was alive with color, scents, and the sound of insects. Such a short time had passed, but much had happened.

What remained of her father’s vast estate after his creditors had been settled had become her inheritance. She’d sold the infamous French chateau, which had caused such misery to the children who’d been taken there. The rest, including the Lynchcross title were held in abeyance for her children. With Gerard’s blessing, the money from the sale of the chateau had funded the home for orphans she’d always wanted.

Brian and Kitty O’Shea and their baby son had returned to Ireland to manage Coringal. With them, had gone Circe and the Sheronwood stallion, to become breeding stock for a horse stud. The idea had been hers, but Gerard had leapt at the suggestion once he’d seen the filly the pair had produced.

Jeffrey, John Grey, and his daughter, had left for Virginia six months before. Gerard had gifted Jeffrey the deeds to the tobacco plantation. Although she missed Jeffrey’s presence Willow had been too busy to grieve for long.

In a week’s time there was to be a wedding. James Langland’s proposal had been accepted by Annie Tupworthy. ‘It’s a love match,’ she’d declared to Gerard, her romantic heart convincing her it was the truth. James had recently inherited a large sum of money on the death of his father, and could have made a more suitable match. He’d chosen the widow, and vowed her son would become his heir should there be no issue from the marriage, which considering the lady’s age seemed unlikely. His elder brother was not of robust health and had no issue, so James was in the enviable position of now being the heir to an earldom.

‘Caroline’s eyes are the very image of Gerard’s.’ Edwina cuddled her great-granddaughter fondly against her bosom. ‘Except for that, she resembles you. She’s such a good little soul, never a whimper out of her.’

‘She’s nothing like Radford,’ Willow admitted. ‘I thought twins would be alike in nature.’

Her son was forever creating mischief. His eyes were violet, his hair darkly abundant, his chin firm. He’d kicked himself free from the restraints of the blanket and was lurching vigorously across the lawn on his newly discovered legs, the ginger cat in hot pursuit. At the moment Radford was happy, but when he was displeased he roared like a bull until he was pacified. ‘He’s such a handsome boy, Grandmother. I’m so lucky.’

‘Of course he’s handsome. How could he be otherwise with Gerard for a father?’ Edwina smiled. ‘Radford is very strong-minded. I’m undecided from whom that trait is inherited.’

‘You perhaps?’ Willow suggested, her voice coated with honey.

She not hear Edwina’s indignant reply, she was watching her husband come across the lawn.

Gerard had been watching the groom give Edward a riding lesson on the gelding he’d given him for his seventh birthday. Much to Edward’s disgust, he’d been firmly sent back to his tutor afterwards. Having recently been breeched, Edward had a tendency to lord it over the nursery. He was an intelligent child and was doing well with his early studies.

Gerard was strong now, but the poison that had entered the bullet wound two summers previously had nearly claimed his life. The shock had painted a streak of silver through his hair at the temple. Willow thought it gave him a distinguished look.

Radford stopped when he saw his father, and let out a yell of delight. Gerard scooped him up to his shoulders and gazed towards the woman he loved. He tossed her a grin and saw the responding spark in her violet eyes. Willow was a constant source of pleasure to him. She was still vain, contrary at times, and stubborn. She was also as soft as a kitten, sensual, and capricious enough to turn into a spitting fury when he rubbed her fur the wrong way. Gerard had never cared much for docile women, so they were a good match.

He stopped, picked a red rose from the garden bed and presented it to her with a flourish. Her eyes fused to his. Although no words were spoken, she stood when he set Radford upon his feet, moved into the circle of his arms and laid her head against his shoulder.

Willow’s loving glance went from her husband, to her children, then to her home before coming back to her husband. She had everything worth having.

Daughter of darkness, her father had called her. That had been true. There had been events in her life that had scared her, things she didn’t understand. But the darkness had been in the marquis himself. That darkness had been destroyed with him.

She smiled as the baby she carried quickened inside her. She would birth a second strong son for her husband shortly. Next year there would be a daughter, whom she’d call Marietta. The future had been revealed to her in her mother’s crystal.

Also revealed had been a raven, trapped deep inside it. Bella had rowed her to the middle of the lake, at the point where it was at its deepest. She’d dropped it into the water, and watched as it was slowly sucked beneath the mud. The House of Lytton would survive forever.

www.belgravehouse.com