Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

As Roger looked across at her he wondered with grim humour if he would share it with her for the rest of the night or if she would prove adamant and drive him from her. On that, or rather, on the next half hour everything depended. He knew that he would have to fight a battle-royal with her which would require all his wits and courage if he was to emerge victorious. He had had ample time to make up his mind on the policy he meant to pursue, and intended to burn his boats by not only charging her with her perfidy but punishing her for it. Such a grasping of the nettle, he felt, offered the only chance of gaining a mental ascendancy over her; but if it failed she would have real cause to vent her spite on him, and he would find himself in the very devil of a mess when they landed in Russia.

Thrusting the door wide he stepped out into the room. Natalia was not asleep. She sat up with a start, and failing to recognise him for a moment in the dim light, cried sharply in German: "Who are you? How did you get into my room?"

" 'Tis I, Rojé Christorovitchl" he replied harshly, advancing towards the bed. "Surely you did not think to throw off a man of my metal with impunity?"

She stared at him, her eyes widening with sudden fear; but her voice was steady as she demanded: "How did you come to be aboard this ship?"

" 'Twas the talk of the town this noon that King Gustavus had ordered you and the staff of the Russian Embassy out of his country. I had no sooner heard it than I came off to the frigate and persuaded the Captain to give me a passage in her."

"With what intent? What do you want with me?"

His laugh was tinged with bitterness. "That should not be hard for you to guess."

"Your face is hard and cold, Rojé Christorovitch." Her voice faltered a little. "I have never seen you so before. Can it—can it be that your love for me has turned to hate; and that you have sought me out to be revenged upon me for that which occurred after our last meeting? If so, I swear to you that it was none of my fault."

"You lie," he said tersely.

"Nay," she protested, her long fingers clutching nervously at the sheets. "The commotion in the street below fetched me out onto my balcony, and I saw that you were attacked. But 'twas all over in a few moments, and I saw you rescued by the stranger in the coach. Other­wise I would have roused the Embassy and brought you aid."

"You lie," he repeated. "You stood there laughing at the vile sport you had planned for your own diversion. I both saw and heard you whilst I fought. And the leader of ray attackers was Count Yagerhorn. I knew him by his voice. Believing me to have been unfaithful to you with Angelique de Pons you deliberately set your ex-lover on to give me a whipping before your eyes,"

Seeing that he knew too much for there to be any sense in deny­ing it further, she flared with sudden anger: "Well, what if I did? I warned you when I took you for my lover that I'd give you cause to rue it if you betrayed me with another. From your first night in Stock­holm you had a fancy for that French bitch. You admitted that you had been to her birthday-party, and you failed to keep our midnight tryst. In Sweden only big functions are kept up so late; 'twas proof enough that you had remained on, or gone back afterwards. I know the Marquis to have been in Gothenborg, and 'twas too good a chance for the pair of you not to take a tumble in her bed."

He shook his head. "In that you wrong both myself and Angelique. 'Tis true I was unable to keep my midnight tryst with you, since the party was on the French model and a late one; yet in that lies the very proof of my innocence. We kept it up till past four o'clock, and I then returned to the city in company with the six other guests, who would vouch for dropping me at my inn. 'Twas full daylight already and, even had I left my inn again to return to the French Embassy, by the time I had got there the servants would have been up and about, so there was nought of the night left to make love in."

"I care not," she muttered sullenly. " 'Tis my opinion that my suspicions were fully justified by your having failed to be at my disposal at the usual place and time. I warned you that I should take it ill should you ever fail in that."

"I've not forgotten it," he snapped. "But at least you should haye had the decency to first accuse me to my face, and seek to verify your suspicions before setting your bullies on to me. To conceal your evil thoughts beneath false smiles, and let me lie with you after you had already planned to have me treated worse than a dog, was a most shameful thing to do.".

"Nay," she protested with an outrageous frankness that quite took him aback. "How otherwise could I have ensured your being outside the postern-gate at dawn and getting the beating I believed you to deserve?"

"But, damn it!" Roger gasped. "Have you no understanding of the baseness of such an act?"

She shook her head. "I know only that I had wanted you the night before and believing you to be in the arms of another was rendered half-mad from jealousy. At two o'clock, since you had not come, and I could not beat you, I pulled my maid from her bed and beat her instead. But I vowed that I'd make you pay for the misery you had caused me before another night was past, and laid my plans accord­ingly."

Roger scowled at her thin, sullen face below him, and the thought that the wretched maid had been beaten for no fault of her own added fresh fuel to his anger.

" 'Tis over-time that someone put a check upon your vicious habits," he stormed. "Have you never a thought but for yourself? Did it not occur to you that in such an ambush as you planned some­one might have lost his life? You knew that I carried a cutlass and would be certain to use it; but with five of those rogues against me I might well have received a mortal wound myself."

She shrugged her slim shoulders. "I loved you passionately and thought that you loved me no longer; so had you been killed I should have suffered less than in believing that you had cast me off and that another was the recipient of your caresses."

"Lovel" he snarled. "You do not even begin to know the meaning of the word!" And he slapped her hard with the flat of his hand across the face.

He had wrought himself up into a temper, yet his anger was nothing near so great as it appeared; and the blow was not delivered spon­taneously, but as a set-piece in an act that he had worked out with great care several hours before. He meant to break her spirit if he could, and had decided that in offering her violence lay his only real chance of making her his submissive puppet by the time they reached Russia.

White and shaken she recoiled from the blow with a little gasp. Then her mouth opened to let out a scream. With a second slap he checked it, so that her cry was half-strangled in her throat.

Squirming away from him she choked out a torrent of abuse mingled with the most terrifying threats. "You filthy Frenchman! By the death of God you shall pay for this. Son of a whore, how dare you strike me in the face! Wait only until we reach Russia, you gutter-bred parvenu, and I'll have the Empress's Cossacks ply their knouts upon you till you're flayed alive!"

"We are not in Russia yet," he said curtly. "And before we get there I mean to teach you how a decent woman should behave herself."

"You'll teach me nothing!" she screamed. "You'll not have the chance. I'll rouse the ship and have the Captain put you in irons for making an assault upon me."

Swift as an eel she slid out of bed. He grabbed at her shoulder and caught her night-robe, but it ripped right down to the waist, and half-naked, she dashed towards the door with Roger in hot pursuit.

Before she could get it open he was upon her. Grasping her wrist he gave it a violent jerk, which swung her round and sent her crashing to title floor. Swiftly he shot the bolt, then turned again towards her.