The Daughters of Nightsong. V. J. Banis

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СКАЧАТЬ thousands of miles away. And what will they live on? Where will they go when they get there?” A thought struck her. She looked up at Peter and said, “The company’s Chinese representative. David must have written him....”

      “Oh, be quiet,” Peter snapped as he reached for Lydia’s arm. “Come on, we can take my carriage. I only hope we can find the ship before it sails...if it hasn’t already.”

      “But what about me?” Lorna wailed as the two of them hurried out the door.

      “Go home,” Peter called back over his shoulder. “With any kind of luck I’ll have David home with me soon.”

      Lorna stood gaping at them as they got into Peter’s carriage and started off toward the docks. Even when the fog had swallowed them up she still stood in the light of the doorway, shoulders sagging, heart aching.

      CHAPTER SIX

      Lydia sat huddled in the corner of the closed carriage. She hadn’t wanted to go with Peter but she knew he was the only one who understood the dangers and could help her. She would have to forget for now how he’d abandoned her in China, sold her—for the price of his own passage to America—leaving her a slave to a Mandarin prince for over ten years. If she hadn’t saved herself and April from that cruel, selfish barbarian, their bones would be rotting in China this very day, victims of the executioner her husband had set upon them.

      How could she believe Peter MacNair when he told her he’d done it for her own good? Still, it was true enough that they had been in the middle of that accursed country, surrounded by millions of Chinese who’d been goaded by the Empress into killing every white they could find. Her mother was dying of cholera, her father just dead; there had been no chance, Lydia knew, of her reaching any of the distant seaports.

      At least with the Mandarin prince she had survived—for a while, Lydia told herself, even if it had been almost as a slave, a concubine. She would never have been able to escape from Ke Loo’s heavily guarded palace. He had wanted her too desperately at the beginning to ever permit her to slip away from him without his going after her. She told herself she should be thanking Peter MacNair rather than cursing him.

      Peter had said he’d tried to find her over the years. Had he lied to her again about that? He could have been telling the truth, she knew. She had, after all, left no trail for anyone to follow when Ke Loo carried her off, no trail a foreigner could have found. Kalgan, where Ke Loo had taken her, was so isolated a city she’d lived virtually a prisoner in her husband’s palace, bearing a son as well as April. It was ten years later that he’d taken them to Peking, to the palace of the Dowager Empress in the Forbidden City, where he deserted her and April in favor of another, a Chinese courtesan.

      Yet, she still wanted to hate Peter MacNair even though it was increasingly difficult to do so in retrospect. A part of her wanted to believe the things he’d told her, his explanation for his seemingly cruel, selfish actions in China, his feelings for her and his interest in her when he found her again in San Francisco.

      Hard as she tried, she could not quiet the voice inside her that whispered that she was being foolish to rely on and trust this man, for all his handsome good-looks, for all his charms, and the smile that played havoc with her heartbeat every time she looked at him, as she was looking at him now through the concealing darkness of the carriage.

      If only there weren’t so many facets to the man, Lydia said to herself. It would all be so simple if he were a scoundrel, plain and simple. But Peter MacNair? No woman could ever feel entirely safe and secure in his affections. She’d seen the way he’d looked with disdain at his own wife, the way he’d treated her, humiliated her in front of another woman, a woman Lorna MacNair knew to be her one-time rival. Peter was unlike any other man who had crossed Lydia’s path, she told herself, with one singular exception perhaps: Ke Loo, her Mandarin husband.

      The two men were alike in that they were both arrogant and heartless and neither would stop at anything to get what they wanted. But unlike Ke Loo, Peter had a soft side too; he would take a woman by force, if necessary, but he would be tender as well as wildly passionate in his lovemaking.

      Lydia closed her eyes as her insides began to ache. It might have been only last night when she lay in Peter’s arms, feeling the heat of his mouth upon her, his hands searching, discovering, his body so hard, so heavy atop her own.

      “Damn,” Peter swore, slamming a fist down on the cushioned seat between them.

      Lydia’s eyes flew open, her reverie splintered into a million fragments.

      “Damn,” Peter said again. “How could they be so foolish?”

      Lydia looked at his handsome profile. Even etched as it was in anger, its chiseled silhouette thrilled her.

      She wanted to touch the soft full lips with her fingertips, press her mouth against his cheek, listen to the words of love he’d once spoken to her.

      She calmly collected herself. “They are children, Peter,” she said. Just speaking his name tugged at her heart.

      “Children be damned,” he growled. “You were no more than April’s age when you managed for yourself in China.”

      Her beautiful thoughts raced away when she remembered her tears, her misery, the harshness of the Mandarin’s sexual assault when Peter left her in his clutches.

      He felt her sudden coldness and turned to look at her. “You were only about seventeen. You had sense.”

      “Sixteen,” Lydia corrected with an icy edge to her voice. “And I did not choose my fate, it was chosen for me.”

      “You still hate me for that?” he said as he looked at her with a hurt expression.

      “I will never forgive you for what you did.”

      “For God’s sake, Lydia, what will it take for you to believe me, or has China become a part of you also? Do you live by their ancient belief that revenge is a sacred duty?” He noticed the way she flinched. He’d touched a nerve, he saw. “Damn it, Lydia. Revenge isn’t some child’s playtoy. It’s a damn bomb that could just as likely go off in your hand.”

      She drew her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes when she turned to look at him. “Vengeance makes grief bearable,” she said in an even voice.

      She watched the steadiness of his gaze upon her, the intense concentration that gathered around his eyes, the change in his expression and she felt suddenly powerless before him. Even as Peter grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly against him, she felt herself void of any weapons of defense.

      He kissed her hard on the mouth, crushing himself against her breasts, hurting her, holding her so tightly she felt her bones would crack. She knew he was leaving black and blue marks on her arms where his wide, thick, powerful fingers encircled them, but the heat of him, the pressure of his kiss made her weak with desire for his love.

      “Damn it, I adore you, Lydia. Don’t you know that?”

      She opened her eyes and saw his face. She felt so vulnerable she wanted to cry out from the pain of it. How could she allow him to manipulate her this way, she asked herself as she felt the rage begin to mount? She slapped his face as hard as she could.

      To her utter amazement he raised his hand and slapped her in return, then pulled her back into his arms and began kissing her wildly as she struggled against him. She felt his hands on СКАЧАТЬ