But he could disable her, then follow through the maze to her location. At the thought, she struggled harder.
Veseul crooned his threats in a low, sibilant voice. “First I shall cut off your clothes so I may see if the whole of you is as perfect as what is visible. Then I will ravish you, invade every depth of your body while you fight me.” He was panting with eagerness now, his perverse visions stimulating him out of his coolsavoir faire.“So fortunate that no one is around at this hour. I won’t have to gag your screams.”
His depraved excitement infuriated Diana, and she managed to lean over and sink her teeth into his wrist, biting as hard as she could. He gasped and his fingers loosened, permitting her to tear free.
She fled down the aisle, pursued by the hissing threat, “You should not have done that,ma petite.” His voice and hoarse breathing filled the whole maze, coming from every direction at once. She could hear his heavy steps, no longer leisurely as he pursued her.
Another intersection. Another left turn. Terrifyingly, another dead end, at the same moment that Veseul appeared behind her, a scant twenty feet away. A vicious, satisfied smile spread across his face, all handsomeness eradicated by his emerging madness.
With the desperation of a cornered rabbit, Diana saw that the gap at the bottom of the hedge was unusually wide here. She dropped to the ground and wriggled frantically under.
It was possible to force her body through, just barely. The thick, ancient yew limb gouged her back painfully, ripping the light muslin of her dress. She lost one slipper but won a brief reprieve. A man the size of Veseul could not squeeze through the gap, though his furious curses pursued her.
As she ran once more to the left, her heart thundered, as if it would burst from her body. Her strength was fading, and with it any faint hope of escaping. She considered stopping and waiting for her pursuer, knife in hand, but she didn’t know if she could kill a man, even to save her own life. And she didn’t dare find out.
* * *
Geoffrey fought the seizure with every iota of will and concentration that he had developed in his demanding childhood. “No!” he shrieked, bending forward at the waist, clutching his temples as if to hold on to consciousness. “No!”
Fueled by desperation, his willpower succeeded. The tugging at his forehead receded, though not very far. As he straightened up dizzily and staggered across the drive toward the house, he could feel the seizure at the edge of his consciousness, waiting like a predator for his concentration to fail so that it could take away his mind.
* * *
Behind her, Veseul was panting, no longer suave. His hissing threats had deteriorated into a string of French obscenities, words that mercifully she did not understand. Another turn, then ahead of her lay the circular heart of the maze.
Light-footed, she plunged into the clearing. When she was halfway across, she heard the sibilant voice exult, “Now I have you, little whore!”
She hurled herself forward with all her remaining strength, but just as she reached the far exit a hard blow between her shoulder blades knocked her to her knees, leaving her gasping for breath. Veseul had hurled his cane at her, and from the corner of her eye she saw the golden serpent’s head shining bright and evil against the green grass.
For an instant she was too spent to move. Then she scrambled frantically to her feet.
Before she could flee again, before she could even reach down for her knife, he had crossed the clearing and seized her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Grim and uncompromising, Francis waited for Gervase to speak. Though a hum of conversation came from behind the door to the salon, they were alone in the soaring two-story entrance hall, joined by blood and divided by tension.
Not knowing where to begin, Gervase examined the fourteenth-century suit of armor standing by the wall and wondered why the devil it was there. His grandfather must have liked it. Or maybe his great-great-grandfather.
He laid one hand on the visor, and without looking at Francis, he said haltingly, “I’m sorry for . . . what I said earlier. It was unpardonable.”
“Yes, it was.”
Francis would not make this easy for him. Blindly staring at distorted reflections in the polished helmet, Gervase forced out the words: “What I said . . . had nothing to do with you, or with Geoffrey. Only with me.”
This time there was an arrested quality to his cousin’s silence. Gervase turned to face him.
Francis watched him with an uncomfortable amount of perception, and with diminished hostility. His cousin undoubtedly saw more than Gervase would have wished, but said merely, “Consider it forgotten. The news I gave you would shock anyone out of good sense. But surely you know”—his voice dropped as he glanced around to be absolutely sure of their privacy—“I would no more molest a young boy than you would rape a young girl.”
Gervase flinched. Geoffrey would be far safer with Francis than the young Diana had been with Gervase. Trying to conceal his reaction from those too-watchful blue eyes, he said, “I doubt you will ever be able to match me for disgraceful conduct.”
Francis chuckled, lightening the atmosphere. “We’ll have to get together at my club one night before I leave and trade lies about our wickedness.”
This part of his life, at least, could be mended. Gervase offered his hand. “I’m going to miss you.”
“And I, you. I will come back to England occasionally. You can visit me as well when we have settled somewhere.” Francis clasped Gervase’s hand in both of his and they stood locked together for a moment, joined not only by blood but also by happy memories, from the time Francis had shadowed his large cousin’s footsteps, to this moment of poignant acceptance.
Geoffrey hurtled into the hall, pelting across the polished marble floor before skidding into his father as he tried to stop. The boy was coatless and dirty, with a bleeding scratch across one cheek and frantic eyes. “Please, help Mama!” he gasped. “She’s in the maze and there’s a bad man after her.”
