Lord of the Beasts Page 15

  Cordelia flinched from the bitterness in his voice. “We do not choose the circumstances into which we are born.”

  “But you admit that we can change them, or you would not have invited Ivy to become a lady.”

  “She clearly does not belong on the streets of London—”

  “And she can be tamed,” he said.

  Her skin went from hot to icy cold, and she snatched her arm away. “Ivy is not an animal.”

  “We are all animals, Cordelia. You speak of the natural world, but you have not recognized that simple fact.”

  “You are wrong. We—” Cordelia pressed her lips together and swallowed her argument. “Have you any practical solution for the care of my animals?”

  He sighed, running his hand up and down the bars. “Are you willing to try an experiment, Cordelia?”

  “An experiment?”

  “It will require you to suspend judgment and abandon your preconceptions for a short while.”

  “And you think I cannot do so?” She stared up at him. “What does this ‘experiment’ involve?”

  “I would like you to sit on that bench and allow me to guide you in a foray of imagination. You will envision yourself as one of the animals in the menagerie…imagine the life they led before they were dragged from their homes—”

  “Imagine? I can do better than that, Doctor. Perhaps in your conversation with Theodora, she mentioned my travels with Sir Geoffrey?”

  “She did.”

  “Then it may not surprise you to learn that I have visited the natural habitats of these creatures, or regions very similar.”

  “You have made an effort to reproduce at least some of those conditions here, but merely ‘visiting’ is not enough. You must—”

  “In which parts of the world have you traveled, Donal? Or are you basing your philosophy upon what you have gleaned from books and your ‘imagination’?”

  His eyes darkened. “I plan to rectify my lack of personal experience very soon.”

  A strange thrill of dread coursed through her body. “Indeed?”

  “I have already begun to make plans to leave England. It is my hope to explore the wildest lands of every continent, even if it takes me the rest of my life.”

  Cordelia touched her throat and looked away. “You will do this…quite alone?”

  “I have no close companions suited for such travel,” he said. “But that has no bearing on our discussion. Will you indulge my request?”

  “It is getting late. We must soon return to the house.”

  “This should not take long.”

  “I hardly see the point of such a game.”

  He leaned closer, and the warm scent of his body engulfed Cordelia in a soothing haze. “Are you afraid, Cordelia?”

  She swayed and caught herself against the bars. “Afraid of what?”

  “Of losing a little of your unshakeable control. Of discovering something in yourself you may not wish to find.”

  She stepped away from the cage. “Certainly not. I am mistress of my own mind, Doctor.”

  He arched a brow and gestured toward the bench. She walked to it slowly and sat, her posture as erect as if she were sipping tea in a duchess’s drawing room. Subtle, treacherous unease fluttered in her chest. “What do you wish me to do?” she asked.

  “Relax as much as you can,” he said, taking up a position at her left side. “Empty your mind of thoughts, and envision what I describe.”

  She closed her eyes, but only because she didn’t want to see Donal’s face. She had boasted of being mistress of her own mind, yet she felt as if she were careening out of control, allowing this man, this virtual stranger, to manipulate her for reasons she didn’t understand.

  That is but a delusion, she told herself. He has no power over your thoughts or emotions. And if you do as he requests now, you may ask him to be on his best behavior tonight….

  “Are you ready?” Donal asked.

  She released the stale air from her lungs. “Yes. You may proceed.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DONAL’S VOICE SOFTENED to a near whisper. “It is spring,” he said, “and the apes are on the hunt.”

  But it was an easy kind of hunting, filled with many pauses for games and grooming as she and the others ambled through the forest of oak and cedar. On her back she carried her young one, whose tiny fingers gripped her fur as he gazed in constant amazement at the world around them.

  Eldest sister, who led the band, knew all the best places to find succulent roots and tender leaves. The mother ape was grateful for the plentiful food, for she was often hungry; as soon as she had her fill she stopped to feed the little one, cradling his small body in her arms as he suckled. When the meal was finished, a male she favored shyly approached and offered to groom her fur. She basked under his caresses, and watched in amusement as another male teased her youngling into a game.

  Soon the joyful play spread to the other members of the band, and the apes chased each other among the rocks, shrieking with delight. The mother ape became a youngling again, remembering the days when she, too, had ridden on her mother’s back, and all the world had yet to be explored….

  The scene faded, the reds and browns and olives of the landscape blending and spinning like a whirlpool of earth and stone. Cordelia searched for a foothold in the chaos, but neither up nor down held any reality. The world went gray as a thick London fog. She opened her mouth to cry out, and a sun-browned hand reached from the emptiness to grasp hers.

  She went where the hand led her, helpless as an infant. Gray mist gave way to the bright green of a meadow, its canvas spattered with wildflowers like dabs and dashes of an artist’s paints.

  She stood in the grass, trembling with excitement as the pack gathered around her. The hunt had been successful; after many days of weary tracking and gnawing hunger, they had found a white-rump weakened by illness and brought it down, each wolf doing its part to drive and trap and make the kill.

  Now she and the others had full bellies, and they had slept all through the warm day. But the sinking sun brought with it the intoxicating smells of evening, and the first howls broke the silence, calling the pack to play.

  A gray male of middle rank rubbed against her, inviting a friendly scuffle. They nipped at each other, basking in the familiar joys of kinship while the scent-laden breeze bathed their fur. Bodies jostled and bumped, noses touched, tails waved. Then the great black male who led the pack lifted his head, ears pricked, and the others fell in behind him as he began to run.

  They ran through the forest where the trees grew tall, splashed through the stream and clambered up rocks that reached into the sky. They scattered smaller creatures before them, hearing the high-pitched cries of warning from those who knew the fear of the hunted.

  She knew no fear. Nothing in her world hunted the pack, and nothing killed its members save the strongest hoofed runners or other wolves…and sometimes the two-legs with their long, shining arms.

  As if the leader had shared her thoughts, he turned in his path and led the pack to the high place that overlooked the den of the two-legs. They did not look dangerous from such a distance, scurrying about in their nests like insects. But the pack leader ventured closer still, close enough that the foul odor of the two-legs clogged the she-wolf’s nostrils. So strong was the scent that no wolf saw the intruder until it was already upon them.

  In some ways it resembled a wolf, but she could not mistake its scent for anything but a creature of the two-legs. It was massive and heavily furred, and it wore a band about its neck. It seemed not to be afraid, though it was alone and the pack was many.

  Her hackles rose. The pack leader advanced, his tail raised high in challenge. If he gave the signal, the pack would fall upon the false wolf in a storm of teeth and claws. But the leader stopped, deliberately turned his back on the outsider, and scraped his hind feet as if he were covering scat.

  One by one the other wolves turned their backs, marking the creature for w
hat it was: a pitiful thing, barred from the wild, stinking of the two-legs from whom it begged its food. Sad, lost creature, severed from the pattern of life and the ecstasy of freedom….

  Lost. Pitiful. Cordelia wandered again in the mist, searching for something she had forgotten. Surely it must be here. She had let it go in the mountains or the forest, when she could no longer bear its presence. Now she felt overwhelming urge to claim it anew, wrap it about herself like the magic cloak of a primitive medicine man who could change his shape at will. Once she had it, she would never lose it again.

  But the gray light dimmed, and she found herself on a narrow track winding beneath the arched, dripping branches of an ancient jungle. Soft-winged flyers screeched from the green wall above, flitting in and out of shafts of sunlight that seldom reached the damp, fragrant earth.

  She paid no attention to the denizens of the trees. She was on the hunt, and her prey was not far ahead. Her paws sank into the deep layer of fallen leaves and rotting wood. She carried her sleek body low to the ground, a shadow among shadows. So silent was she that not even the long-tailed chatterers raised the alarm.

  Step by step she drew closer to the kill. Her heart beat faster. The tip of her tail lashed against her flank. Wetness flooded her mouth. The scent of the prey was hot with panic, for it knew it had little time left to live.

  When she finally sprang, ravenous for the taste of flesh, the old buck was too exhausted to flee. She sank her teeth into the side of its neck, and gouts of warm blood splashed over her muzzle. The prey collapsed to its knees, but she showed no mercy.

  This was life. This was her reason for existence, this sweet victory. She was already feasting before the buck drew its last breath. But then a terrible roaring swept through the jungle, and she looked up in rage, ready to defend her prize.

  She had no chance to fight. The cold, hard branches crashed down around her, and she was staring through them, confined in a space so small that she could barely turn. Deafening noise beat against her ears. Flat faces stared at her, opening mouths filled with blunt, useless teeth. Paws like those of the tree-chatterers poked sharpened sticks into her body. She snarled and slashed, but never did her claws strike flesh.

  Until one flat-face left part of the branch-cave open and she saw her way out. Filled with rage and terror, she ran into a clamor louder than any in the forest, voices shouting and flat-faces pointing their strange limbs. Suddenly one of them stood before her, blocking her path to freedom. She leaped, claws raking. The flat-face howled and fell writhing to the ground. She ran, and the howling ceased. For a while, for all too short a while, she was left in peace….

  Cordelia jerked from the dream, her face bathed in perspiration. She still felt the rampaging wildness of the leopardess, the animal’s savage love of freedom and hatred for anything, anyone who would trammel her wild ways. She still heard the cry of the girl whom the panther had clawed, saw the familiar face with its hazel eyes and upturned nose.

  Lydia. Oh, Lydia.

  “Cordelia?”

  Donal’s voice brought her the final step over the threshold, back to the safe, predictable English countryside. She pressed her hand to her damp forehead, trembling too much to risk standing.

  The bench creaked as Donal sat beside her. Soft, clean cloth brushed her cheek and temple. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes. His face was close to hers as he dabbed at her with his handkerchief—too close, too intimate after such a horrible experience. And yet a part of her wanted nothing more than to lean against him, fold herself into his warmth, beg him to remind her that she was human….

  Or acknowledge that she was every bit as savage in her desires as a bloodthirsty predator.

  God help me.

  She jerked away, raising a hand to ward him off. “I am…fine,” she said, steadying her voice with an effort. But the anger endured, no matter how hard she fought it. “What did you to do me?”

  He drew back, crumpling the handkerchief in his fist. “I…I did not mean to upset you. I only intended—”

  “I was there, with the animals. I felt…” She looked toward the cages, half-afraid to see the creatures she had so nearly become. They were clearly as disturbed as she was. The macaques leaped from branch to branch, the wolves raced from one side of their enclosure to the other, and the panther crouched near the bars, his tail lashing with short, violent cracks.

  She shuddered and took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We must go dress for dinner.” She gathered her feet under her and prepared to rise.

  “Cordelia.” Donal took her arm in a firm grip and stared into her eyes. “Don’t reject what you have seen, what you felt. Your mind was open to this experience because these feelings are a part of you, as they are a part of all of us. They will help you to understand—”

  “Please release me,” she said, gratified that her words were firmly under rational control again. “You have had your experiment. Now I will ask you a favor in return.” She met his gaze and found that she could do so without a telltale shiver. “As you now recall, Sir Geoffrey is joining us at table tonight. It will be a more formal meal than we are accustomed to taking at Edgecott. I would ask you to remember that my father is easily agitated, and to avoid any provocative conversation. I will request the same of Ivy.”

  He let his hand fall. “I understand perfectly.”

  “Thank you. I shall see you in the drawing room at eight-thirty.” She walked away quickly, before he could detain her with further arguments about the beast he presumed lay waiting in her soul.

  She strode across the park, her skirts whipping about her legs. “These feelings are a part of you” indeed. What nonsense. Human beings were not animals, or they should not have dominion over the earth. And if she, in her youth, had been subject to uncivilized impulses, she had long since brought them under command.

  If Donal had not done so—and she increasingly believed that must be the case—he had no right to assume the same of others.

  Cordelia stumbled on an uneven patch of ground and forced herself to slow her furious pace. How had he managed it? How had he influenced her to concoct such incredibly detailed images? Much of it could have been derived from her own travels and imagination, and yet she had been so utterly engulfed in those worlds that she had all but lost her human consciousness.

  She had seen Lydia injured as if it had happened right before her eyes. If she were to believe the vision, and Donal’s claim that she would share the experience of her menagerie animals, then it would seem that Othello had been guilty of the attack on her sister. But she knew that was not true. And in her dream, the panther had been female.

  None of it made sense. Cordelia grasped for a rational explanation and remembered reading of a Scottish doctor who had developed a technique of inducing a state of trance, which he called “hypnosis.” It was not impossible that Donal had learned of this technique and practiced it on her.

  She caught sight of the house through the trees and felt a jolt of relief. It was frightening to think how thoroughly Donal had suborned her mind, and what a truly unscrupulous man might achieve by the same method. But Cordelia did not for a moment believe that Donal would cause harm with such an extraordinary skill. His motives were honest, if misguided. With patience and persistence, she would make him acknowledge his errors of thought and action.

  Her spirits much improved, Cordelia went into the house and climbed the stairs to her room, her thoughts turned again to the very prosaic problem of the evening meal.

  “I HAVE ALREADY BEGUN to make plans to leave England.”

  The words echoed in Tod’s head like the tolling of iron bells and ripped at his heart like the claws of the black beast prowling behind the bars of its cage. He made not a sound in his grief; Donal never knew he was there.

  Tod flew to the grandfather oak and perched among its wide branches. He buried his face in his arms, ignoring the radiant birdsong and the gentle breezes sifting throu
gh his hair. Donal was leaving England. He was leaving Tod.

  “I have no close companions suited for such travel.” Donal knew that Tod could not go with him. He had been making plans, and yet he had never seen fit to tell the one who had served him all his life. Would he have told Tod before he left, or simply abandoned him?

  The knot of sorrow in Tod’s belly drew tighter. He cares nothing for Tod. Anger swelled in a wave that set him to swaying on his branch, snapping twigs and leaves between clenched fingers.

  Today Tod had been given a choice: to act for Lady Béfind without Donal’s knowledge, or to remain strictly loyal to his master. Donal had made the choice for him. But Tod would never let the son of Hern see how he grieved.

  Tod laughed until all the birds flew away.

  DONAL WATCHED Cordelia go, his head still aching with the effort of sharing the animal’s thoughts. He hardly noticed the discomfort, for his heart suffered a far worse affliction.

  He knew she had seen. She had climbed with the apes, run with the wolves and stalked with the panther; she knew what it was they had lost when men had captured them.

  And she had refused to accept what she learned. She had rejected the lesson because she feared what it told her about herself. She had rejected Donal and the small, simple gift he had tried to give her.

  He sank down on the bench, resting his head in his hands. Somewhere he had gone wrong, trying to reason with her when the subject at hand had so little to do with rationality. She clung so fiercely to the superiority of her intellect and her certainty of the way things should be.

  Donal realized that he still clutched his damp handkerchief and laid it on the bench, smoothing it with his fingertips. The bitter truth was that Cordelia could not bring herself to trust him. He had wanted to help her and her animals, and he had failed. When he had looked into her eyes, he’d seen only revulsion.

  And as for the animals…He had betrayed their trust by letting Cordelia into the privacy of their thoughts. They were restive and angry, but their ire wasn’t directed at the man who had disrupted their fragile peace.