by Cat Lindler
Samantha stiffened, occupied in riding out a contraction squeezing her belly like an anaconda’s coils. “When did it change?” she asked with only a modicum of strain in her voice. “What happened to that friendship?”
The flesh across the bones of his face stretched as tightly as the skin of a drum. “We had been accepted into the membership of the elite Royal Academy of Science, rivals yet colleagues. But while Richard’s fame grew, important discoveries and their elusive meanings falling from his pen like autumn leaves, I encountered naught but roadblocks to my continued professional success.
“You must understand,” he said, “human fossils are a great deal rarer and more difficult to uncover than plant fragments. My work suffered, and my reputation waned. I required some major discovery, something … spectacular.” His gaze caught and held hers. He gave her an earnest look, as though he wished to sway her to his point of view. She returned what she hoped resembled a sincere smile. “You see, the academy was close to ejecting me. My father would never have allowed me peace should I have permitted that to occur.”
She nodded, praying the gesture conveyed sympathy.
Steven’s gaze drifted away. “I was reaching the end of my tether when I encountered a man who offered me a chance for redemption. A partially intact skull, meticulously constructed, a chimera of ape and human parts.” He grinned. “It was quite nearly perfect. I presented it to the academy as the first solid evidence of the missing link between apes and humans. At first, accolades propelled me to the scientific forefront. Scientists bandied my name about the London salons in the same breath as Darwin’s. Then Richard Colchester emerged, like the Grim Reaper from the London fog.” He raised fists, and his voice turned bitter. “His righteous scythe cut me to the knees, exposing the fossil as a fraud. Richard vowed he did so, not out of jealousy but through scientific outrage that one of his own should go to such lengths to gain notoriety.” He paused, his chest heaving as he gulped in air.
“What happened then?” Samantha asked cautiously.
He laughed and waved an arm in an airy gesture. “Oh, quite a bit, indeed. A storm of censure descended. The ensuing gale blew through London, wiping out my reputation and erasing all my previous, legitimate scientific contributions. My friends shunned me. I became a social pariah virtually overnight.” The maniacal light that so concerned her before surfaced again in his eyes. “The academy expelled me, and my father summoned me.” He chuckled. “But I took care of him as I believed I had taken care of Richard.”
With an intake of breath that had naught to do with her worsening physical condition, Samantha recalled Delia’s words: intruders had murdered Steven Burnett’s father shortly after the marquis petitioned the House of Lords to elevate his younger son. Surely Steven could not have killed his own father? Another thought struck terror in her soul. Richard’s abduction by pirates. Steven orchestrated that situation, too? He was the gentleman who paid Miggs? She could not quell a loud gasp.
Steven pushed away from the wall and looked down with a chilling smile. “Quite right, my dear. Miggs was to dispose of Richard after he learned where to find the Smilodon.” He stretched out his arms with a plea on his face. “Can you not see that Richard owed me the Smilodon? Its discovery would restore my standing. However, circumstances intervened, and your damned uncle has more lives than a cat. Like all the others in my past, Miggs turned out to be a disappointment.” Lowering his arms, he pulled back and smiled reflectively. “Yet, now Richard is dead, as fairness dictates he be, and I have you.”
After his confession, if that was what it truly was and not merely a boast, she discarded any sympathy, false or otherwise, she might have had for the man. “Christian will come for me. When he finds us, he will punish you for your transgressions, both past and present.”
His laugh echoed off the rafters, setting into flight a roost of bats in the far reaches. Dust and wood fragments sifted downward, and he brushed off his shoulders, glanced up at the bats. His gaze came back to her. “Your beloved Christian despises you. He believes that brat you carry to be mine.”
When she flinched, he said, “Oh yes, I know. I followed your affairs with a vested interest. Even should he search for you out of some misplaced sense of responsibility, he will soon join Richard and my father in hell.” He brandished the gun. “After all, we cannot properly wed until you become a widow.”
Samantha tried to discard Steven’s assessment of her marriage as the ravings of a madman, though it held more than a grain of truth. Christian had no earthly reason to rescue her. He did believe she carried another man’s child. Even so, she refused to abandon all hope. “What do you truly want, Steven? You obviously have no love for me.” The abdominal pain, which had briefly quieted, gripped her womb once again. She fought to bear it and hold back the scream swelling in her throat. When the curtain of agony lifted, Steven was speaking.
“—my dear. I’ve not an iota of love for you. Quite the contrary. As the spawn of a Colchester, I loathe you. Yet I desire what you possess. Your fortune, respectability, and social consequence.” He leaned down into her face. “Most of all, I desire the Smilodon, my discovery. It will propel me back into the ranks of eminent scientists. With your money, my scientific achievement, and you as my respectable wife, doors will again open for me.”
She battled the pains coming closer together. She must keep him talking. “What about the scandal? Marriage to me will hardly undo the past.”
“You will. Your words will redeem me. You will let it be known that Richard confessed to constructing the fake fossil and made me his pawn out of jealousy. Before he died, he regretted the injustice he perpetrated on me and my family.”
“Wh-whyever would I utter such an untruth and smear Richard’s name?” she asked, incredulity infusing her words.
He hunkered down and pressed a hand cruelly hard on her rippling belly.
She grunted with pain.
“Because of this, Samantha. Because of your child. The child whose future depends upon my charity.”
Despite the heat inside the warehouse, she shivered. He meant what he said. He had already proved he was not above murder, and he would harm her child were she to defy him. A red wave of agony sunk its teeth into her guts, causing a moan to slide past her lips. The baby was coming quickly. If help did not arrive soon, they could die here.
Steven rose and turned away.
“Steven,” she gasped, “the baby is coming. You must fetch me to the doctor, or we shall die, and you will have no one to restore your reputation.”
He pivoted around, his brows gathered in censure. “You cannot give birth now. I forbid it. You will have to wait until we board the ship. My driver will arrive presently.”
Samantha blinked open eyes she hadn’t realized were closed while wrestling with the contraction. Her jaw sagged. Wait? He was more insane than she supposed if he believed she could wait! “I cannot wait. This child demands to be born now. I have no capability of stopping it. You must find help for me.”
His face thunderous, he strode away, muttering to himself like a bedlamite. Coming to a halt, he glared back. “You will wait, I say. I shan’t countenance any disobedience. As you are my wife, you will obey me!”
She collapsed against the wall. Each time a contraction seized her belly, she drew up her knees and bent over them, muffling her cries in her skirts. She could not allow Steven to become aware of the true state of her distress. No telling what he would do. When he asked questions, she waited as though in thought until the pain eased, then answered in a low, controlled voice. Steven had lost all grasp on reality, retreating into a delusion of his own invention. With the impending birth continuing to wreak havoc on her body at regular intervals, she fought to keep from instinctively pushing her child into the world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Christian exited the doctor’s office and jogged down the steps to the post where he had tied Triton. When departing over an hour ago, Samantha had mentioned to Dr. Finney that
she planned to visit her aunt Delia before returning home. The doctor told Christian that Samantha was healthy and her pregnancy progressing satisfactorily. He expected her to deliver in no more than a few days. He assured Christian he would remain on call, although he didn’t anticipate any difficulties.
Familiar with the route to Delia’s Boston accommodations, Christian made good time through the residential neighborhoods and soon came upon the dockside warehouses. After passing four lofty wooden structures, he turned left around the far corner of the fifth onto the narrow road leading out of the commercial district. His carriage was three-fourths of the way down the street beside a weather-worn warehouse with the sign “McCreedy Brothers, Steamship Equipment Fitters” painted on the front. He frowned and halted Triton.
The carriage driver’s seat was unoccupied. Moving closer, he leaned down and peered into the carriage. His jaw muscles firmed. Where was Cullen? More importantly, where was his wife? Swinging down from Triton, he hitched him to the side of the carriage and tried the front doors of the warehouse. Finding them locked, he walked into the alley.
Cullen opened his eyes to filtered light floating with dust. At first he had little remembrance of where he was or what had happened to him. Then voices came across the cavernous space, one of them belonging to that scoundrel Steven Landry, and his memory came back. Revulsion moved into his throat. Easing up on his hands and knees, Cullen crawled closer.
Landry loomed over Samantha and berated her. The gleam of a pistol picked up a stray beam of light from the windows far overhead. Samantha sat with her back against the wall and her hands behind her. Though her voice sounded calm, beneath the words, Cullen detected pain and fear. Chill bumps rose on his arms and legs. He stole a look about for a weapon. Nothing presented itself, and Landry began to stride back and forth across the floor between Cullen and the door.
Cullen scooted backward until his heels bumped up against a wall, and he inched along it. Surely a building this size had more than one door. Every nerve stretched tight, the need to escape and find help drove him. He’d always held the opinion that Landry was a bad egg. He’d told everyone the man was a snake, but no one had listened to him. Now, with the man threatening to harm Samantha, Cullen drew no comfort from his keen assessment of character. He would trade all his insight for a weapon and another fifty pounds of muscle. That being unlikely, he would settle for a constable.
A faint light outlined the seam of a second door. Cullen found the latch and snuck another glance at Landry. The man had turned his back, waving his arms and stalking about in front of Samantha. Cullen cracked open the door and rolled out into the dirt alley. He prayed Landry did not notice the slight creak of the door and the light streaming in. Climbing to his feet, he quietly closed the door and took off running, pelting down the alley toward the street where he had left the carriage.
He rounded the corner of the warehouse, and the silhouette of a man appeared in the shadows. One of Landry’s men! Cullen stifled a groan, skidded to a halt, and spun about. A familiar voice called his name, and he looked back at Christian trotting toward him.
When Cullen emerged from around the far corner, Christian was planning to try the doors on the side of the warehouse. “Cullen!” he shouted, and the boy stopped. When Christian reached him, Cullen was shaking as though with the ague, and blood dripped from a cut on the side of his head. “Where is Sam?” Christian asked, clamping a hand on Cullen’s shoulder. His heart beat at thrice its normal rate.
“Inside,” Cullen panted. Christian turned toward the door, but Cullen stopped him. “Steven Landry’s in there, an’ ‘e ‘as a gun. Looks like ‘e’s tied up Sam.”
Christian compressed his lips and nodded. “Listen carefully to me. Triton is tied out front. You are to take him, hie to the nearest police station, and send them back here. Then ride on to Dr. Finney’s office and inform him that we may require his services.”
Cullen’s head moved from side to side, hair flying into his eyes. “Ye can’t go in there by yerself. Landry’s armed. Ye need me ta back ye up.”
Christian shook him. “Do as I say, boy! Sam may be hurt. I have no time to argue with you!” He shoved the boy toward the alley entrance.
Cullen hesitated, rocking from foot to foot before sprinting off.
At the sound of Christian’s voice, Samantha turned her head toward the alley. She sucked in a breath, praying she had sufficient strength left to scream, but her attempt came out as a tortured squeak.
Steven threw himself beside her and slapped his hand over her mouth. He drew forth the handkerchief, gagged her, and dragged her to the middle of the space, where a trickle of sunlight spilled down on her. “One false move and he dies,” he whispered, face only inches from hers.
Her heart flipping in her chest, she watched him disappear once again into the darkness along the far wall, the gun gripped in one hand.
Christian inched open the door, slipped through the opening, and eased the portal shut behind him. Stale, heavy air filled his lungs. Dust particles swam in dirty ripples of light and distorted his vision. His breath coming quick and shallow, he stood motionless and blinked in the semidarkness. Deep shadow hugged the walls, and mountainous wooden crates were arrayed on the gritty floor at irregular intervals. Wan light bled through two high, grime-encrusted windows to limn the rafters far above.
He focused in on Samantha, who sat on the floor, hands behind her and a gag covering her mouth. When she shook her head, his knees wobbled. She looked unharmed and as furious as a caged leopard.
Where was Steven? Nearby. Christian all but smelled the gun pointed at him. Since arriving in Boston, Christian had commissioned an investigation of Steven and his business dealings. Then Landry disappeared, two steps ahead of the British authorities. Though Christian tried every avenue to track him down, the man had left Tasmania on a ship bound for Malaysia and then vanished with no trace. Never had Christian considered that Boston might be Landry’s ultimate destination, not with a Royal warrant for his arrest on charges of murder.
To think that Samantha had come so dreadfully close to wedding the man froze his blood. He had believed Steven was out of their lives forever, and thus, not mentioned his findings to Samantha. Not surprising, considering he had granted her no more than a few words of conversation in the past months. Now, knowing the man’s true nature, Christian felt certain Steven would decline to emerge from his hiding place and face him like a man. A coward who hired others to carry out his dirty deeds would more likely shoot from ambush.
Christian leapt forward and dove into a forward roll, aiming for the darkness behind a large crate. A bullet whined, slicing the air above his tumbling body, and he snapped a glance toward the sound. A curl of smoke wafted from a black area along one wall. The air stank of cordite. He rose behind the crate, and a grim smile spread across his lips. Listening intently, he waited for the man to move again. A slight shuffling came from the wall to his right.
Christian pulled off his boots and climbed the side of the wooden crate. Once on top, he fished a penknife from his pocket and tossed it to the floor. The gun roared again, the flame from the barrel lighting up the man in the shadows, and Christian launched himself into the air. He plowed into Steven as the man spun toward him. The gun went off again, the bullet passing by harmlessly.
Christian’s weight and impetus knocked the man off his feet. They lay in a heap on the floor for a heartbeat. When Steven swung the gun, Christian took a glancing blow to the side of the head. It stunned him long enough for Steven to scramble to his feet.
Christian flung out an arm, caught the man’s ankle, and Steven stumbled into the wall, giving Christian time to get his feet beneath him. Then Steven pushed away from the splintered boards and raised the gun.
Christian seized the outstretched wrist. He squeezed and twisted until bone snapped. Steven gave a sharp cry, and the gun dropped from his hand and fell to the floor. Christian bent and picked it up.
A red haze filled his visi
on, and he gazed down at the man who had destroyed his marriage and threatened the lives of his wife and child. He rested the metal barrel against Steven’s temple. Steven clutched his broken wrist in his other hand, and with eyes as cold as a New England blizzard, glared up at Christian.
“I should kill you,” Christian said, his voice shaking but the gun steady, his finger on the trigger. “You deserve to die.” He pulled back the hammer. Temptation to fire blew through him like a typhoon. This man was responsible for all their troubles: Richard’s death, his estrangement from Samantha, not to mention the death of Steven’s father, a respected peer and an honorable man. He would find it easy to end everything here in this dusty warehouse.
“Why?” Steven laughed. “Because I fucked your wife and she now bears my child? Because you were not man enough to keep her faithful? Though you can kill me, you will see me every time you look at my son or daughter.” His words were pitched to goad, as though he truly wished to die. Tears of laughter ran down his face.
Christian flexed his finger, more than willing to grant Steven his wish. Landry’s words lashed like a whip at the jealousy Christian had nursed for so long, and though he accepted the words as falsehood, they still stung. But the main brunt of his anger came from Steven’s placing Samantha and her unborn child in mortal danger.
“Chris!” Samantha screamed.
He turned his head quickly toward her. She had worked the gag down onto her chin. At the sight of Samantha, heavily pregnant with their child, his desire to end Landry’s existence wavered. Could he allow her to watch him murder a man in cold blood, even a man like Steven, who deserved death? Would this act of retribution forever color their lives? Would she remember this moment every time he held her in his arms? He examined his heart and knew her good opinion weighed more heavily than Steven’s miserable life and the momentary satisfaction he would gain by taking it. He had many bridges to repair between his wife and himself. He didn’t need to add to that burden.
