Crimson Night Part 21

Isn't it better for your friend to feel some anxiety for a few nights rather than lose his life?"

"What if he comes over to your house?" Meghann could see the logic in Simon's arguments the Council wouldn't harm Charles if he knew nothing. And without any knowledge of Guy's attack, she knew her friend well enough to guess he'd only fear that she'd fallen under Simon's spell and was avoiding him out of shame.

"We won't be here," Simon replied. "After all, I'd be a poor husband if I didn't give my lovely bride a honeymoon. We'll return in a few weeks and end all this distasteful business with Alcuin's lapdogs. Why did your faithful companion and his lover go to San Francisco, anyway?"

Meghann explained about the convention, a mischievous smile lighting up her face. "Charles didn't want to leave me alone with you but I said he should because I wanted to learn how to fend you off by myself."

Simon raised an eyebrow and allowed one finger to trail behind her ear. "Do you still wish to fend me off, wife?"

Meghann giggled, feeling a ridiculous sense of shyness when Simon called her his wife. "Isn't that what all your wives did fend you off?"

"It is in shockingly poor taste to refer to my other spouses on our wedding night," he reproved and tweaked her nose. "Alice did not fend me off. Rather, I spent all my time cowering from the horrors of performing my marital duties with that unappetizing mound of lard. Isabelle I married solely to protect my hard- earned fortune. Marrying for love you are a refres.h.i.+ng change, my third and final bride." Simon leaned closer and gave Meghann a wicked grin. "Now, my love, I have a special treat for you. What say you we go to the Seraglio and make use of the honeymoon suite?"

"You mean you'll take me to your hotel where all the rooms are designed like harems?" she said, her coy tone undermined by smoldering green eyes. "Do you want a slave girl master?"

The open l.u.s.t in his gaze made her s.h.i.+ver and wait in a state of delicious tension while he settled the bill.

At last, Simon turned to her and took her hand, licking the palm. "Little concubine, come with me and see if you can enslave your master."

"Did you really have a harem in Istanbul?" Meghann asked drowsily after three solid hours of lovemaking. She stretched, feeling an exquisite pain in every muscle, and rested her head against her lover's shoulder, lapping at some blood still dripping from the punctures she'd made in his neck.

"I had everything a wealthy merchant in sixteenth -century Istanbul could desire," Simon replied and gathered her up off the enormous square bed with its elaborately carved pillars and canopy that sat on a dais within the center of the room. He carried her to a pretty blue-and-white-tiled circular pool in a corner of the room, settling down in the cool water with her still cradled against his chest.

"Was the real Istanbul anything like this?" she asked, taking in the plush suite with its elegant walls of pale wood and tiles placed every few feet to make a thistle design. Idly, Meghann wondered how much it cost to stay in this suite with its silver hooded fireplace, brightly colored Turkish carpets soft enough to sleep on, ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl furniture, and fresh floral arrangements in elegant copper bowls strewn throughout the rooms. As a majority shareholder, Simon hadn't paid for the room. Instead, he went behind the reservations desk and helped himself to the key card for the suite.

"A bit," Simon replied, seeming to take the room in through her eyes. "If anything, the real thing was more luxurious. I cannot tell you what it was like to go from a drafty, crumbling manor in northern England to owning a magnificent house that boasted exquisite marble fountains, a garden filled with almond and apricot trees, flowers of radiant colors I'd never seen before, and that was only the exterior!" Simon laughed. "Sweetheart, I had doors carved of gold, wide expanses of gla.s.s I'd never dreamed of back in my medieval home, furniture inlaid with precious gems, and with all that luxury, I was merely considered a prosperous merchant."

"Were you happy there?"

"At that point, I couldn't conceive of wanting anything else. In Istanbul, I had everything I'd been denied growing up a palatial home filled with every luxury, beautiful women to serve me, and since religion meant nothing to me, I had no trouble abandoning Christianity and embracing Allah. As a Muslim, I could serve the Ottoman. In time, I'm sure I could have been one of his viziers and then I might have allowed myself to have sons, knowing I could provide them with wealth and prestige."

"You became a Muslim? So that's how an English n.o.bleman born in the sixteenth century came to be circ.u.mcised I always wondered about that Did it hurt?"

"I do not count the experience as one of my more pleasant memories."

"But why would you go through all that pain if "

"That must be our champagne," Simon said at the hard rap to the hotel door and threw on the black silk robe he'd informed Meghann came to all guests complementary of the hotel.

Meghann smiled at his retreating back, and leaned back in the pool. Her naughty thoughts at what she'd like to do when Simon returned were interrupted by a booming male voice at the door.

"How's this for room service? Get waited on by the chairman of the board himself. You gonna tell me what you've got in there?" a cheerful interrogator, possessed of a strong Texas tw.a.n.g, asked Simon. "I sure hope it ain't Louise you're romancing with a three-hundred-dollar bottle of champagne." "Not what, Del, but who," she heard Simon reply. "My bride, Meghann."

"Bride! When in the h.e.l.l did you get married? Don't answer, I know you've got better things to do on your wedding night than talk to an old coot like me so I'll meet your gal some other time. Congratulations, partner. Think I'll go hunt up that round heels of ours. I can barely wait to see the look on her face when she finds out a multimillionaire just slipped through her fingers."

"Who was that cowboy?" Meghann asked while Simon poured champagne into two elegant crystal flutes.

"Del Straker, my darling chief shareholder of this fine establishment. That 'cowboy' also owns most of Texas and a substantial chunk of the fast-food industry. A few years back, he persuaded me to invest in the 'new' Las Vegas after your government succeeded in running the organized crime chieftains out of town."

"Why did he call Louise your round heels?" Meghann inquired, slowly sipping the champagne. Delicious though it was, she didn't intend to have more than one gla.s.s. While her bloodstream might be immune to feeling the affects of alcohol, there was no way of determining whether it would affect the baby's development.

"Louise is a private joke between us. Our casino manager is retiring soon and his ambitious a.s.sistant is dividing her favors between Del because he is the chairman of our board of directors and myself because I control the largest share of stock in the hotel after him."

"So she thinks if she screws the two of you, she'll become the next casino manager?" At Simon's nod, Meghann said, "Will she?"

"Good Lord, no. She'd be merely competent while the woman we've lured from Bally's is among the best in town."

"Did that woman have to sleep with you too?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Only an imbecile allows s.e.x to interfere with business. I hire my mortal employees based on merit no other consideration. Have you any other questions before we may abandon this dull subject?"

Rather than reply, Meghann splashed the rest of her champagne over his chest, running her tongue over the glistening ma.s.s of water and Perrier Jouet.

"Oh, wait," she said innocently, abandoning the pleasant work the moment she felt his arms tighten around her. Lazily, Meghann pushed herself to the other end of the small pool and pretended great interest in the shooting jet of water behind her. "I do have another question but it's not about Louise. You constantly tell me that you loved Istanbul; the superior medical care, certainly the hygiene was better than the hideous state of affairs in England, you had the wealth and position you'd always wanted, you were willing to let someone cut off your foreskin to fit into Turkish society why on earth did you decide to come back to England and usurp Roger after all that?"

Simon stretched and pulled her back toward him, rubbing her sensitive b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his hard, muscled chest. "Are you still presuming anything Alcuin told you of my history is true? Wait, let me guess. He told you I was greedy and power- mad, that I simply couldn't live without s.n.a.t.c.hing my brother's t.i.tle and slaughtering him."

Meghann nodded, and Simon shook with laughter. "Sweetheart, it was my foolish brother's greed that made me return home. You remember my brother did not know Father Bain was my ally? Well, the idiot spoke freely to him. I should explain that my partner, Sir John, died in 1586 and his heirs were eager to sell his share of the trading company we'd founded together. I'd made a reasonable offer and expected it would only be a matter of time before we arrived at an agreement Then, Father Bain wrote to tell me Roger had doubled my last offer. He intended to buy Sir John's shares and then toss me out."

"But you built that business," Meghann argued, though the strong hands fondling her body made thinking not only difficult, but seem an unnecessary waste of time. "He did nothing but sit in England and collect money. You're the one that went to Algiers and then Turkey and traded and bought new s.h.i.+ps and had them target the Spanish Main, seize wealth in the New World "

"Knowing all that, do you think I'd stand by and allow Roger to rip everything I'd built from me?"

"Of course not," Meghann said and clasped his waist with her legs.

"I made plans to return home and get that idiot out of my life once and for all.

But while I was making preparations, fate played into my hands. You know I returned to England in 1588? What else happened to England that year besides the monumental event of my homecoming?"

Meghann thought for a moment and then her eyes widened. "The Armada! The Spanish navy tried to invade England but the English fleet defeated them."

"Indeed we did."

"We?" Meghann asked and then she grinned. "That's right you told me you were knighted during the Armada crisis. What did you do?"

"First, I donated six of my ten s.h.i.+ps to the queen's service. I piloted my own s.h.i.+p in Drake's offensive off the Flemish coast and received my knighthood for initiating the attack against the San Martin the flags.h.i.+p of the Armada battalion."

Simon impaled her on him, guiding her hips up and down while he continued to lecture like a history professor in a dry, almost bored tone. "Of course, that gave me instant entry to Elizabeth's court and I soon became a favored courtier. The queen intimated on more than one occasion that she would not mind if my still Catholic brother that clung to the old ways met with an early demise. You must understand, Meghann, that the north of England was still almost feudal completely behind the times and likely to embrace any wild plot to overthrow Bess. The queen needed powerful men she could trust in the north so the death of a fanatically Catholic baron needn't be investigated too closely as long as his younger brother was discreet in disposing of him."

"Yes," Meghann cried out, the word having nothing to do with agreement. She arched her back, bouncing wildly for some minutes before she leaned in to attack his jugular vein. There was nothing like it, feeling the blood pour down her throat while her body rocked from the force of her climax.

"I haven't taken too much blood from you tonight?" Meghann asked afterward.

Simon laughed and pulled her out of the pool, sitting her on his knee while he dried her off. "You did not seem overly concerned a few moments ago. Rest easy, little one. I drained Guy almost to death last night you cannot weaken me tonight."

Dry, Meghann plucked up a towel and ran it over him, allowing her hands to linger at the bulging muscles in his arms and chest. What was it about Simon Baldevar that made her so wild, so out of control whenever she looked him?

Granted, he was divine to look at with his thick, wavy hair, mesmerizing eyes, and hard body but so were any number of men. Why did she burn for his touch and then when she received it only want him more? What was it about him that made her willing to forsake everything just to be with him?

"Meghann." Simon sat her between his legs, brus.h.i.+ng out her long, wet hair with one of the tortoisesh.e.l.l combs she'd used to put her hair up. "Stop letting my uncle's dire warnings upset you. You'll see, darling. You don't have to forsake anything to be my bride."

"Why did you force Isabelle to be your bride?" she asked, still disturbed by the notion that he'd forced his brother's widow to marry him for no better reason than unrequited l.u.s.t. "I can see why you murdered Roger and I know people were a bit more cutthroat in your time, that your morals are probably more, uh, flexible than mine. But why were you so obsessed with Isabelle?"

"I know my uncle told you I was in love with my brother's wife and I only transformed you because you resemble her but that is not true."

"It's more than a resemblance," Meghann pouted, remembering the oil painting Alcuin showed her of Isabelle. She was still rankled by the thought that Simon might have transformed her merely because she reminded him of a woman that spurned him four centuries before.

"Meghann, you needn't envy my deceased wife. First, anyone with half an eye would see that what appears to be a great likeness between you both is not that strong at all. Isabelle may have had red hair and fine features but a woman's beauty tends to be determined by her character. Sweetheart, you s.h.i.+ne and capture my heart because of that dazzling vibrancy of yours that wonderful pa.s.sion that makes you reach out to take all life can give you with both hands. It makes you glow, turns you from being merely pretty into a ravis.h.i.+ng beauty. Isabelle not only lacked your vitality, she did not have one other characteristic that might have redeemed her in my eyes no mind, no wit, no touch of humor to her. Not only wasn't I in love with her, I actively disliked the woman. Here, get dressed."

Meghann accepted her bronze jersey and started dressing while Simon continued to talk. "Even so, I was prepared to be fair in my dealings with her once Roger was deceased. I would never contest the two-thirds' share of the estate a widow traditionally received at her husband's death. She could take her money, the son she'd born Roger, and leave with my blessing."

"This zipper is stuck," Meghann complained. "You broke it when you tore my dress off."

Simon held up his light blue silk s.h.i.+rt for her inspection pointing to the many torn-off b.u.t.tons. He came behind her, and fixed the unruly zipper.

"So why did you wind up marrying her?" Meghann asked.

"I'll tell you in a moment. First, we must decide where to go for our honeymoon. All our talk of my past leaves me homesick. What say you to going to a hunting lodge I have in the Yorks.h.i.+re Dales? I'd like to take you on horseback rides along the cliffs and rolling hills covered in mist and heather. We can take your dog along he'll have a fine time running through the moors."

"I'd love it!" Meghann said but then she quieted. "But what about "

"Thank you for not ruining this night by mentioning him by name. There's stationery in the living room, Meghann. Write down for Vinny the precise dosage of drug to blood and he'll see that your 'patient' continues to receive his treatment while we're away."

"When are we leaving?" Meghann asked. "How are we leaving? No, wait. I bet you own your own plane."

"Lear jet," Simon replied. "It will take us to London in an hour. There's no need to pack, we'll buy whatever we need in London and York. I'll call Vinny and have him bring Max to the airport."

"So why did you marry Isabelle if you hated her so much?" Meghann asked while Simon pulled the ragged remains of his s.h.i.+rt on and b.u.t.toned the navy blazer to hide the damage.

"When my brother lay slain before me, his wife took it upon herself to explain why Roger wanted to cut me out. Apparently he was dying and the leech told him he had only a few months to put his affairs in order. So Roger made out a will that left everything in Isabella's control until his son, Michael, reached his majority and left me more penniless than a beggar in Whitechapel. It seems while I was off fighting for England, Roger got his hands on Sir John's share of the company. Of course, I had what gold I'd managed to save but everything I'd built up was now being torn from me."

Meghann saw his eyes darken to copper with remembered fury, and sympathized with him. Alcuin didn't mention any of this when he portrayed Simon as a power-mad, ruthless scoundrel that murdered his brother for the h.e.l.l of it.

"Roger was an idiot!" she said firmly, and Simon's eyes lightened when he grinned at her. "Well, I mean maybe if he'd at least left you the trading company "

"Yes, I might have been content. But to have my livelihood placed in the hands of some ignorant woman that could barely add and subtract without a.s.sistance I had to marry her to reclaim my property."

"How did you get Elizabeth to allow you to marry Isabelle?" Meghann asked.

"I thought there were laws in place that said you couldn't go around marrying your dead brother's wife."

Simon smiled and made a shus.h.i.+ng gesture when he started speaking to Vinny on his small cellular phone while they waited for the elevator. Meghann couldn't help but notice that he was far more detailed and concerned sounding when he spoke of Max's care than Jimmy's.

"What you were referring to, little one," Simon said after he finished the conversation with his servant, "were the laws of consanguinity what King Henry the Eighth used to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. When you have wealth and a powerful queen on your side, though, any law can be bent to your will. Any suspicions I had that Elizabeth wanted my brother and one last bastion of Catholic resistance in the north dead were confirmed when she did not even order an inquest into my brother's death. Instead, she matched me to Isabelle and decreed that her dowry would be the trading company my brother left her. Then, Elizabeth gave me her final boon something I had not expected at all. She raised me from mere knight to the rank of earl. From that day on, I was Lord Simon Baldevar, Earl of Lecarrow." The parking valet returned with the Bentley and Simon handed him some cash before opening the door for Meghann.

At a stoplight, Simon took Meghann's hand, running one finger over the emerald signet ring. "That ring, little one, came from Elizabeth Tudor's hand. She told me I'd foster my dynasty on the body of the woman that wore it. She was right four hundred years in the future but right all the same."

Meghann's eyes darkened, remembering one final bit of Simon's mortal history that disturbed her, that made her question her decision to raise her child with him.

"Simon," she said haltingly, looking out the window instead of at him, "why did you have to murder Michael? Just because Isabelle miscarried, did you have to pay her back by killing her innocent child?"

"Meghann."

She looked over at him, shocked by the desolate, ragged sound of his voice.

"Meghann," he said again, and her breath caught at the sorrow reflected in his eyes she'd never seen him look like that. "It's suited me these past four centuries to allow the world to believe I murdered my nephew because I wanted to break Isabelle. Understand that what I tell you tonight is for your ears only. I did not arrange that child's death because I hated him. Rather, I did it out of love."

Love? Meghann thought incredulously while he guided the car to the landing strip at McCarran Airport. She accepted that Simon Baldevar was different from her, that his code of ethics (if you could call it that) was something she might never understand, but telling her love made him kill a child?

Meghann allowed Simon to lead her to the private bedroom of his jet, a long room paneled in brightly polished oak with no windows. She sat down on the edge of the king-size bed, petting Max's head and wondering what kind of madness allowed her to accept this man in her life again.

"What would you do if Max contracted distemper and developed encephalitis?"

"You mean brain damage? Why, I I'd put him down."

"That's what I had to do with my stepson."

Simon kept his back to her while he spoke. "You know Isabelle conceived my child quickly. I was quite pleased that I'd no longer have to visit her cold bed, watch her eyes glare up at me while she chanted the rosary. Alcuin told you my rage knew no bounds when she miscarried? What he omitted was that she lost the child because she would not stop wearing her d.a.m.ned steel corset so she might continue to fit into her gowns, or allow my expert Moor physician to examine her.

Instead, she entrusted my son's care to some ignorant village midwife and if there was any justice in the world, she would have died too when she bled my son away in her sixth month of pregnancy. But Isabelle recovered, though the miscarriage so damaged her she'd never be able to conceive again, and there I was, stuck in a marriage with a woman I despised and no hope of a child of my own. I simply could not dispose of her so soon after the questionable circ.u.mstances of Roger's death."

Dispose of her, Meghann thought. He speaks so casually of murder. When did human life come to mean so little to him?

Simon turned and offered her an icy smile, sprawling on the large bed.

"Isabelle loved Michael with all her heart so I decided if I must be deprived of children, she would be too. Don't look so horrified I didn't kill him then, merely took him with me to London when I went to serve the queen at court. Isabelle protested mightily but a few nights of rather imaginative s.e.xual torture that included making her perform with my mastiff hound soon quelled her tongue. At first, I had no interest in Michael keeping him by my side was merely a way to make Isabelle miserable. But then, as he began to grow from senseless infant to young boy, I began to see my nephew was far more like me than either of his parents. He was a bright child, filled with mischievous energy. I taught him his letters, engaged tutors for him. By the time he was five, he spoke French as well as English, had the rudiments of mathematics; I'd just hired a sword master for him."

Meghann came closer, drawn by the grieving look in his eyes that reminded her of how Jimmy Delacroix had looked when he told her of his son's death. But Jimmy had cried against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and Simon somehow she felt more pity and pain for him, for the clear eyes and tight voice that showed a strong man who'd never allow anyone to see his tears. Meghann felt a little overwhelmed as she realized that by speaking of his grief, Simon was giving her the rare opportunity to see beneath the cool, detached mask he presented to the rest of the world.

"Then, in June of 1591, an epidemic of plague spread through London. I sent the child back to Yorks.h.i.+re, wanting him away from the city." Simon looked over and gave her a small smile. "The little imp refused to get in the carriage crying 'No, Papa! I want to stay with you. I want my horse and my sword.' But I insisted he go. In a few months, he'd be starting his service as page to the Earl of Northumberland and I gave in to Isabelle's hysterical, ranting letters that demanded she have one more chance to see her son. In effect, by doing that, I signed the boy's death warrant. He got to the estate and contracted smallpox Isabelle had not told me the disease was raging through our village."

"I don't understand," Meghann said and came closer, taking his hand. "Alcuin didn't tell me he died of smallpox."

"He didn't. I hurried home the moment I heard the news and was greeted by my physician, Doctor Ahmed. He'd been beaten to within an inch of his life but he begged me to kill him. He didn't think himself worthy of living because he hadn't been able to fight Isabelle's boorish guards when they beat the infidel doctor because he tried to treat Michael. I burst into the child's room and found my nephew, the child I meant to make my heir, being treated by Isabelle and the village cunning woman with leeches and red curtains hung over his bed. I thrashed Isabelle until she fell at my feet in an unconscious heap. Then Doctor Ahmed and I went to work on the child. In the end, Michael recovered from the disease but his high fever in the words of my doctor, it made his mind 'soft.' "

"Oh, my G.o.d."

"I did not believe there could be a G.o.d when I looked down at that wonderful little boy and realized his mind would never function again. I could not let him live that way. Once he convalesced, I took him to the stables and left him alone. Fate took over my stallion, Sulieman, crushed him when he crawled into the horse's stall."

"You killed him so he wouldn't have to live as a " What a lethal opponent Simon Baldevar was. When he transformed Jimmy and warped his mind, he'd known what kind of agony it was to watch someone you loved stare at the world with dull, unknowing eyes. How much did he hate her to hurt her like that? No, Meghann realized, it wasn't hate that made Simon transform Jimmy it was love.

It was the love she'd thrown back into his face the night she left him, love twisted into an ugly desire for revenge, a need to hurt her like she hurt him. Meghann took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. He'd done horrible things, things she'd never be able to forgive or forget. But was it possible love could melt the ice around Simon's heart at least a small bit?

Gently, Simon tilted her head up toward him, giving her a soft smile that dispelled her anxiety immediately.

This can't be wrong, she thought, hearing a low roar in her ears when he kissed her with a strange intensity that seemed to thank her for her trust and devour her at the same time. Nothing that feels this good can be wrong.