The Taker-Taker 1 Read online

  Sometimes Uzra came to my room and held me, as though she was comforting me. A few times she pulled me out of bed, insisting I follow her to one of her hiding spaces. Now I understand that she did this so I would know where to go when the day came that I needed to hide from Adair.

  Tilde, on the other hand, gave me no warning when she took me by the hand one afternoon with an irritated sigh and, ignoring my questions, led me firmly to a seldom used room. There, on a table next to the fire, stood a bottle of ink, a number of needles arrayed in a fan, and a much stained old handkerchief. Tilde settled in a chair, tucking stray hairs behind her ears and not regarding me in the least. “Take off your bodice and sleeves,” she said, very matter-of-factly.

  “What is this about?” I demanded.

  “I’m not asking you, you stupid cuny,” she said, taking the stopper out of the ink bottle and wiping the stain from her fingers. “This is by Adair’s orders. Give me your bare arm.”

  Gritting my teeth, I did as I was told, knowing that Tilde delighted in bullying me, and then flounced onto the stool opposite her. She grabbed my right wrist and drew my arm to her, giving it a twist so that the underside was exposed to her, and then she pinned my arm under hers the way a blacksmith traps a horse’s hoof between his knees in order to shoe it. I watched suspiciously as she selected a needle, dipped it into the ink, and then stabbed it into the delicate white skin of the inside of my upper arm.

  I jumped even though I felt nothing more than the press of contact. “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, it’s on Adair’s orders,” she growled. “I’m pricking a mark into your skin. It’s called a tattoo. I take it you’ve never seen one.”

  I stared at the black dots—three, now four; Tilde worked quickly. They looked like beauty marks, formed as the ink spread slightly beyond the puncture. After about an hour had passed, Tilde had completed the outline of a crest about the size of a dollar piece and was starting on an animal-like figure, a bit snakelike and fantastical. It took me a minute to realize that she was drawing a dragon. It was at this time that Adair strolled in. He tilted his head to watch Tilde at her work. He dragged a thumb over the site, now awash in both black ink and red blood, to get a clearer view.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked me, a little proudly. I shook my head. “It’s the crest of my family. Or rather, the crest of my adopted lineage,” he amended. “It’s the emblem on the seal I told you of.”

  “Why are you doing this to me? What does this mean?” I asked.

  He took the handkerchief and wiped at the tattoo, to better admire it. “What do you think it means? I am marking you—as mine.”

  “Is this really necessary?” I asked, trying to twist my arm free, which only earned me a mild slap from Tilde. “I suppose you do this to all your creatures. What about yours, Tilde? May I see it, so I’ll know what it will look like when—”

  “I don’t have one,” she said abruptly, not looking up from her work.

  “You don’t?” I faced Adair. “Then why me?”

  “It is something special I have elected to give to you. It means you are mine forever.”

  I didn’t like the proprietary gleam in his eye. “There are other ways of conveying such an intent to a girl. A ring, a necklace, some token of your devotion is the traditional method, I believe,” I said, testily.

  My feistiness seemed to please him. “Those are but tokens, trivial and transitory. You can take off a ring. You won’t be able to do the same with this.”

  I stared at Tilde’s handiwork. “What do you mean … my skin will be stained permanently?”

  At this, he gave me the queer smile I had come to expect when he was about to do something hurtful. He jerked my arm away from Tilde and pinned it under his, took a deep breath, picked up one of the needles, and stabbed it through the center of Tilde’s handiwork, careful to land in the middle of the design. A sharp pain suddenly bit into my upper arm, the stings of Tilde’s needles coming alive all at once. “By my hand and intent,” he said into the air like a proclamation, and then the wound stung as though salt had been rubbed into the open flesh. He twisted my arm sharply to get another look at the tattoo, and I winced in pain before he let go.

  “Lanore, you surprise me,” Adair said, though exaggerating for effect. “I thought it would please you to know I value you so highly that I would claim you for eternity.”

  The thing was, he was right: it did please the perverse part of me that wanted a man to desire me so badly he would burn his name into my skin. Though I was not so deluded that I wasn’t alarmed, too, at being treated as though I were livestock.

  Weeks passed in this way. I was content with Adair most days: he was attentive enough, kind enough, generous enough. We made love robustly. But there were times when he acted cruelly for no reason other than his own enjoyment. At those times, Alejandro, Tilde, Dona, myself—we became court jesters trying to appease a vindictive regent and coax him out of his terrible mood, or at least, trying to avoid being the object of his cruelty. At those times I felt trapped in a madhouse and was desperate to escape, only I didn’t believe I could. The others were still with Adair, even after decades of such nerve-shattering treatment. I had been told that Uzra had tried to run away from him countless times. Surely, if there was a way to escape, they would have done so by now.

  Also, despite my preoccupation with Adair, Jonathan began creeping back into my thoughts. At first, it was guilt that I felt, because there was another man in my life—as though I’d had a choice! Nonetheless, no matter how logically I tried to think about it, how vigorously I recalled his poor treatment of me, his callousness, I missed Jonathan and felt I was being unfaithful to him. It didn’t matter that he was sworn to another woman and that he’d abdicated his claim to my heart—sleeping with one man, while loving another, seemed wrong.

  And I did still love Jonathan. A thorough examination of my heart told me so. As flattered as I was by Adair’s attention, pleased that a man who’d seen the world would find me intoxicating, I knew in my heart that if Jonathan arrived in town tomorrow, I would leave Adair without even saying good-bye. I was merely surviving. The only hope left to me was to one day see Jonathan again.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Time slipped past me, immeasurably. How long had I been with Adair—six weeks, six months? I’d lost count and was convinced it didn’t matter; in my new circumstances, I’d never have to keep track of time again. Time in all its infinity was open to me now, like the ocean, and much like the first time I’d seen it, too great for me to grasp.

  One blue and gold late summer afternoon, there was a knock at the front door. As I was happening by and there were no servants at hand (sleeping off a binge of purloined claret in the pantry, no doubt), I opened it, thinking it might be a tradesman or someone come to call on Adair. Instead, standing on the steps, satchel in hand, was the wild-eyed charismatic preacher from Saco.

  His jaw dropped upon seeing me and his cunning face lit up with pleasure. “I know you, miss, do I not? I recognize your pretty face because a face like yours I would not be likely to forget,” he said, sweeping into the front hall without an invitation. He brushed by me in his dusty cloak, removing the tricorner hat from his head.

  “I know you too, sir,” I replied, horrified, drawing back, unable to guess what in the world had brought him here.

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, then. What is your name and how did we meet?” he asked, still smiling but in a way meant to hide the calculations going on in his head, trying to recall where we had met and under what circumstances.

  So instead of answering him, I asked, “Why have you come here? Do you know Adair?”

  My guardedness seemed to amuse him. “Of course I know him, why else would I show up on his doorstep? I know him in the same way that you know him, I’ll wager.” So it was true—we were the same now, he and I. Adair’s creations.

  And then it came to him, his face lighting up with lurid delight. “Oh, I r
emember now! That little Maine village not far from the Acadian settlement! That’s where I met you! Without the drab brown dress—you are barely recognizable in blue silk and French lace! It’s an amazing transformation, upon my word. Left the Puritans behind without a regret, have you? It’s always the quiet ones who turn out to be the most wild at heart,” he said, narrowing his eyes to slits and leering, probably guessing that we stood a good chance of ending up in bed together. All he had to do was ask Adair and he was unlikely to be denied.

  At that moment, we were interrupted by Adair’s voice booming from the landing above us. “Look who has turned up at my door! Jude, come for a respite from your travels? Come in, come in, it has been too long since I last saw you,” he said as he jogged down the stairs. After embracing Jude heartily, he noticed that Jude was staring at me in gleeful anticipation and so he asked, “What is it? Do you two know each other?”

  “As a matter of fact, we do,” Jude said, circling me, making a great show of drinking in the sight of me. “I wrote to you about this young woman some time back. Do you recall a letter describing a promising unspoiled beauty with a feral streak?”

  I drew myself up, chin held high. “What do you mean by that?”

  But Adair only chuckled and brushed my cheek to assuage my anger. “Come now, my dear. I think his meaning is plain, and you wouldn’t be here at my side if it wasn’t true.”

  The unwelcome visitor’s eyes swept over me like a housewife’s hands testing a piece of fruit. “Well, I’ll wager she’s unspoiled no more, eh? So, you’ve made this little spitfire your spiritual wife, have you?” Jude asked Adair in a mocking tone, and then he addressed me. “It must be your destiny, my dear, for you to turn up here, don’t you think? And you are lucky, Adair, that you didn’t have to make the journey all the way up there to get her—trust me, it’s not a trip I would wish on anyone. She made a bit of trouble for me when I was there, too. Wouldn’t introduce me to the fellow I wrote to you about.”

  He had to be referring to Jonathan. I held my tongue.

  “I wish you would refrain from that ‘spiritual wife’ nonsense, at least when you’re around me. I’ve no use for that religious mumbo-jumbo,” Adair said as he threw an arm around Jude’s shoulder and led him into the drawing room, where our visitor made a beeline for the decanters of wine. “Now, who is this you’re talking about? What fellow?”

  The preacher poured a full glass for himself. “Didn’t you read my letters? Why ask me to write about my observations if you aren’t going to pay any attention to them? It was all in my report to you, about what I found in this godforsaken backwater village way up in the northernmost corner of the territory. Your latest acquisition here”—he nodded at me as he took a gulp of wine—“kept me from meeting a remarkable young man. She guarded him most jealously, from what I could see. This man is exactly what you’ve been looking for, if the stories I heard about him were accurate.”

  My skin crawled; something terrible was afoot. I stood paralyzed with apprehension.

  Adair poured wine for himself, offering none to me. “Is this true, Lanore?” I didn’t know how to respond and, in any case, common sense deserted me at that moment. “I see by your silence that it is. When were you going to tell me about him?” he asked.

  “Your spy has it all wrong. This man is not worth your attention.” These were words I never thought I’d say about Jonathan. “He’s just a friend from home.”

  “Oh, hardly unworthy of attention. We are talking about Jonathan, the man you bragged of to Alej? Don’t be surprised; of course Alejandro told me. He knows not to keep secrets from me. So, to be clear, this Jonathan, this paragon of beauty, he is the man you love? I am disappointed, Lanore, to find that you are so easily led by a handsome face—”

  “Who are you to speak!” I said, outraged. “When it comes to love of beauty, who is the one who gathers pretty creatures to him like an art collector? If love of beauty is shallowness, you are far more guilty than I—”

  “Oh, do not be so quick to take offense. I’m only teasing you. The fact that this Jonathan is the man you believe you love is reason enough for me to want to meet him, don’t you think?”

  Jude raised his eyebrows. “If I didn’t know better, Adair, I’d say you sound a trifle jealous.”

  In a panic to change Adair’s mind, I pleaded, “Spare Jonathan. He has a family who depends on him. I don’t want him drawn into this. As for loving him … you’re right, but he is gone from my life. I loved him once but no longer.”

  Adair cocked his head, and appraised me. “Oh, my dear, you lie. You would have given up on him by now, if that were the case. But you love him still. I feel it here,” he said, as he touched my breast above my heart. His sparkling eyes, flecked with a note of pain, bored into me. “Bring him to me. I want to meet the man of amazing beauty who has fascinated our Lanore.”

  “If this is about bedding him, it won’t do you any good. He’s not—like Alejandro or Dona.”

  Jude blurted out a rude laugh, then covered his mouth quickly, and it seemed for a moment that Adair, bubbling with a spike of rage, might strike me. “You think I am only interested in this man to swive him? You think that is my only use for a man such as your Jonathan? No, Lanore, I want to meet him. I want to see why he is so deserving of your love. Perhaps we are like souls, he and I. I could use a new companion, a friend. I am sick of being surrounded by fawning sycophants. You’re all little more than servants—treacherous, scheming, demanding. I am sick of all of you.” Adair stepped away and slammed his empty glass down on the sideboard. “Besides, what complaints could you have about your life here? Your days are spent in pleasure and comfort. I’ve given you everything you could want, treated you as a princess. I’ve opened your world, haven’t I? Freed your mind from the limitations put there by those ignorant priests and ministers, and introduced you to secrets that learned men spend their lives seeking. All these things I’ve given you freely, my dear, haven’t I? Frankly, your ingratitude offends me.”

  I bit my tongue, knowing nothing good would come of pointing out all that he’d put me through. What could I do except bow my head and murmur, “I’m sorry, Adair.”

  He clenched and unclenched his jaw and pressed his knuckles against the table, using the silence between us to show that he was coming down from his rage. “If this Jonathan is truly your friend, I would think you’d want to share your good fortune with him.”

  That may have been Adair’s view of my life with him, but it only demonstrated the extent of his delusion. The truth was more complicated; grateful as I was, I was also afraid of him and felt like a prisoner in his house. I’d been made into a prostitute and didn’t want Jonathan to see me like this, let alone draw him into this predicament with me.

  As he left the room, Adair smirked over his shoulder at me. “Don’t think for a moment that you fool me, Lanore. You protest, but in your heart you want this, too.”

  I could not let Jonathan suffer the same fate as me—ever. “Jude is not exaggerating; Jonathan lives far, far away,” I continued, ignoring his slander. “You’d have to travel for three weeks by boat and carriage and have nothing at the end of it but forest and field. No parties, no gaming. Not even a public house to put you up.”

  Adair studied me for a second. “Very well, then. I will not make this trip, if it is as tedious as you say. You will go and fetch him for me. That is a fine test of your loyalty, don’t you think?”

  My heart sank.

  During his stay at the mansion, Jude went with us to parties, but at the end of a night’s carousing, as the group of us made our way to our chambers, Adair would block Jude from following us into the bedroom, throwing a shoulder against the door with a cold smirk and a cheery good night.

  Jude’s stay was short. He spent an afternoon behind closed doors with Adair in the study, after which I saw Jude dropping coins into his purse; clearly Adair was compensating him for something.

  The day Jude was to leave us, he sought
me out as I sat sewing in the morning room, taking advantage of the light. He bowed before me as though I was the lady of the house, holding his hat in his hands.

  “Needlework? I’m surprised you take up needle and thread any longer, Lanore. Surely you have servants to attend to chores,” he said. “Although, it’s a good idea to practice your skills. Life with Adair won’t always be like this, you know—the big house, servants, riches at your fingertips. There will be lean times when you will need to take care of yourself, if my experience serves me,” he said, smiling ruefully.

  “Thank you for that piece of advice,” I said, icily, making a great show of my tolerance for his presence. “But you see that I am busy—is there a reason you’ve sought me out?”

  “I’ll not be imposing on your goodwill any longer, Miss Lanore,” he said, almost meekly. “I take my leave today.”

  “My goodwill? My feelings do not enter into whether you are welcome in this house or not. Adair’s wishes are all that matter.”

  The preacher chuckled at this, dusting his hat against his leg. “Lanore, surely you know that Adair considers your wishes in most things? He is very taken with you. I think you must be quite special to him. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve never seen him act this way before … He’s never been so smitten by a woman, I daresay.” I have to admit, I was flattered by his words, though I kept my head lowered over my sewing and tried not to show it.

  Jude then fixed his maniacal glare upon me. “I’ve come to warn you, too. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing. There’s a reason the rest of us maintain a distance from Adair, and we’ve learned our lesson the hard way. But now you’ve shown him love and that’s given him the notion that he is deserving of such devotion. Did you ever think that perhaps the only thing that holds the devil in check is that he knows how despised he is? Even the devil longs for sympathy at times, but sympathy for the devil is fuel for the flame. Your love will embolden him—likely in a way that will bring you regret.”