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Varian bowed his head. He wanted to argue, but all he could offer were sweet assurances, to bury the bitter truth. If he took her away, she’d be miserable. To live in exile would be hard enough in the best of circumstances. To be exiled among people who’d despise or pity her, in a world where she could never belong? Her spirit couldn’t bear it. Esme was fearless. Physical danger didn’t alarm her. The life awaiting her in England, though, would surely kill her, and she knew it.
He felt her brush a lock of hair back from his forehead, as she’d done countless times when he lay ill. Always he wanted to kiss that hand in gratitude, because its magic touch dissolved pain and trouble. Now it burned his skin like acid, and the poison streamed through his blood, a searing river of jealousy, frustration, and fear.
He saw a fair-haired stranger with blue jewel eyes who’d wanted her badly enough to steal her…her hand, brushing back that golden hair…her voice, low and soft, telling this young prince of the white mountainside and the fir trees and the rushing river…her supple body, roused to passion in the arms of a young man of her own kind, who’d murmur love words in her own tongue.
It was right, wasn’t it? To Varian the vision was loathsome, yet it was Esme’s only hope of happiness. He wanted her. He needed her. That was all. He’d nothing to offer but promises, and those must be lies, because whatever he felt, always, was for the moment. Nothing lasted, least of all desire.
“Will you help me?” she asked. “Will you let me go?”
“Yes,” Varian said, raising his head at last. “No.”
Chapter Thirteen
They stood by the side of the road for more than an hour, arguing. Yes, Varian would help her. No, he most certainly would not allow her to go alone to Tepelena.
Forcing herself to remain calm, Esme tried to explain how reasonable and safe her plan was: she’d worked out her route carefully; she knew what she was doing.
It was no use. He wouldn’t listen. If she wouldn’t return willingly to Mustafa’s, his lordship coldly told her, he would pick her up and carry her—kicking and screaming, if necessary.
In icy silence, Esme returned with him to the house, then stormed to her cousin’s room. She found Percival studying the rocks he’d collected that day.
Reluctant to spoil the boy’s excitement about his discoveries, Esme dutifully inspected the heap of stones.
“We’d best hire a couple of donkeys,” she said. “Your own pouch will never hold all these. You might build a fortress with what you’ve gathered in Berat alone.”
“They’re much too small to build with,” he answered patiently. “But I do mean to make an organized display, with notes on every specimen. Perhaps in the library at the country house. The estate was Grandfather’s,” he explained, “so it’s Papa’s, but Papa hates it, and lets Grandmama live there. He can’t sell it, you see, because the property’s entailed.”
Here Percival launched into a dissertation on primogeniture. Only with great perseverance did Esme succeed in leading him back to his plans for the rocks.
When she was gone, she would think of her young cousin. She didn’t want to reflect upon his lonely existence. She wanted to envision him happy, organizing his rock collection and making his voluminous notes about them. Then he’d grow into a man with children of his own. He’d show them the stones of Albania and tell of his adventures, and of the Red Lion and the cousin who looked like him. He’d not forget her, not Percival. By the time he was a man, he’d surely have forgiven her for deserting him. No, more than that. He’d understand then, and thank her in his heart for sparing him.
“They belong in a library, don’t you think?” he was saying. “Because rocks are like books. What they’re made of tells you about their history. Now they’re part of my history as well. Of course, I shall have to keep them in boxes until I’m grown up, because Grandmama doesn’t—”
“Hush.” Esme held her hand up. “Someone’s come.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
She’d sensed it minutes before, though she’d not really heeded, for it was only a vague awareness, far beyond Percival’s voice and her own troubled thoughts. She heard clearly now: heavy footsteps, and the murmur of voices.
“Good heavens,” said Percival. “What acute hearing you must have, to be sure. I just now—but it’s like Durres. You heard the men coming well before I did.” Then his eyes opened very wide, and Esme saw a flash of panic there.
The voices were distinct now. Lord Edenmont’s, clipped and irritated, though she couldn’t make out what he said. Another voice soon rose above the rest and launched into grandiloquence.
Percival started to get up. Esme grabbed his arm, and he sank back down.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
He must sense the tension in her, just as Esme sensed the trouble itself. Not that one needed especially acute perceptions. Authority had its own sound, an arrogance one heard in a man’s footfall as well as his voice. She had felt its approach and heard it clearly when it invaded the house. There was but one authority in these realms. The voice only confirmed, allowing her to put a name to the speaker: Fejzi, one of Ali’s secretaries.
“Something must be wrong,” she answered, speaking her thoughts aloud, scarcely aware of the boy near her as she concentrated on the voices. “There was no reason for them to come, not in such numbers. A dozen at least—no, more—perhaps a score. Ali’s men.” She paused a moment as another voice launched into fulsome speech.
Nearby, she heard an odd, choked sound. Turning to her cousin, she found he’d gone white.
“Oh, dear.” He grasped her hand. “Oh, dear, oh, dear.”
“What?”
He stared at her with glazed eyes. “Oh, dear. It’s my fault. It’s him.”
“Who? Risto?” she demanded, for that was the new voice. One of Ali’s men, but also one of Ismal’s associates. “You know him?”
The hand clutching hers had grown cold and damp. “He never saw me,” the boy said. His voice was shaky. “I’m positive. Oh, dear.”
“Saw you when? What is wrong with you? There is no reason to be frightened. They’d not harm you.” Esme released his hand and moved closer to put her arm about his thin shoulders. He trembled. “Come, Percival. You are a brave boy. You’re not afraid of a lot of stupid courtiers.”
“Yes, I am. I think—oh, it’s most embarrassing, but I do think I’m going to be sick.”
In an instant, she’d hauled him to his feet. In the next, she was pushing him through the door, then pulling him down the narrow passage leading to the small courtyard at the rear of the house. As they descended the stairs, she saw no soldiers loitering about. Whatever their reason for coming, it hadn’t motivated them to surround the house. That was reassuring.
Percival’s near-hysterical state was not. He was not a hysterical sort of boy. He’d endured an abduction and called it an exciting adventure. He never screamed in the night, plagued by terrifying dreams. He never seemed uneasy or tense or anxious. He was, Esme felt certain, composed of the same stoical fiber as herself. If he was frightened, then he must have good reason.
Y’Allah, but even in this state he would not forget his wretched rocks. He’d snatched up his pouch as she dragged him from the room. Now he clutched at it while he leaned against the low garden wall and gasped for air.
“Oh, thank heaven,” he said, after his chest had finally stopped heaving. “It would be mortifying to cast up my accounts in front of a girl.”
“Percival, they may call for us at any moment,” she said sternly. “Have you something to tell me? What is wrong?”
He bit his lip and looked down at his feet, then at the stairs to his right, then at the curved gateway before him, then down the stony path to his left, then, finally, at her. “I think I’ve made a dreadful mistake,” he said, “I’m—oh, it’s no use to be sorry, is it? I’m always sorry after, but then it’s too late, isn’t it? Oh, I do wish Papa had sent me
to school in India. I never thought he was particularly sensible, and Mama did say the climate would kill me, but for once Papa may have been right. Except that maybe India wouldn’t be far enough away, and I daresay one school is much like the rest. But perhaps they’re the only ones who’d have me. Being so far away, you see, they may not have heard. I assure you, the pig was for a scientific experiment, and how was I to know that one mustn’t place a lighted candle near—”
“Percival, you are babbling,” Esme said sharply. “Stop it this instant.”
He bit his lip and hugged the pouch tightly, apparently oblivious to its stony contents, which were bound to leave bruises.
“You are hurting yourself,” she snapped. “Put the curst bag down.” She reached out to take it from him, but he spun away so quickly that Esme lost her balance. Making a clumsy grab to pull her up, Percival lost his own footing. They tumbled to the cobblestones in a tangle of arms and legs, the bag slipping from his grasp and its contents spilling about them.
Percival was on his knees in an instant, scrambling to gather up his rocks. Cursing under her breath, Esme started to pull herself up to a sitting position. She swore loudly, for something hard and angular jabbed her bottom. She shifted away to snatch up the offending object. Then she paused, staring at it.
A tiny crowned head poked out of a ragged cloth wrapping. Percival gave a low, anguished groan but remained kneeling where he was, his green eyes fixed on the shrouded object in her hand. Esme swiftly unwound the rest of the fabric.
“A most unusual rock,” she said.
Percival sat back on his heels.
She studied the small, regal figure. “It looks like a chess piece.”
“Please,” he whispered miserably. “Please don’t tell. Anybody.”
