by Thea Devine
Just to prove he could.
But the end result was, he rushed the consequences, and now, conceivably, she wanted him dead.
Or Kyger did. Or Hugo.
His reckless life of dissipation had finally led down the road to this. His family dead set against him, and the one who owed him the most loyalty and gratitude was probably the instigator of it all.
Well, enough thinking about it. He knew what he had to do, and that was to get out and get away.
The ever-discreet March would help him. And no one would know until they were long gone.
******************
The house was eerily quiet. No one had come down for dinner except Jancie, and now everything had gotten cold on the sideboard.
She picked at her food, wondering why Lujan hadn't rung for dinner, wondering where Kyger was, and not a little shaken by that ghostly, rolling, marbley sound that seemed to follow her down the stairs.
Emily was among the missing, too.
Maybe she ought to just go upstairs and check on Lujan. She'd rather have gone and examined the photographs again, but Hugo's unexpected presence in the house was a constraint.
For all she knew, he was in Olivia's room right now, on his knees, begging her forgiveness in heaven. But not, please Lord, searching under the footboard of the bed where her secret was hidden.
She didn't know why those photographs haunted her. Maybe it was because Gaunt seemed to her to be almost a symbol of the missing diamonds . .. and her father's missing life—and that if she could solve the mystery of his disappearance, she would finally find out all the other truths, and they would not be Hugo's truths then.
226 / Tbea Devine
Or Olivia's.
Do you really want to know the truth—about everything?
There were times she wasn't so sure, because she cared for Lujan too much, and hadn't loved Kyger enough.
But they had nothing to do with Hugo's betrayals. She was certain of that. And to this minute, she still believed that marrying Lujan had been the only way she could stay on at Waybury and try to discover what had really happened all those years ago.
That she had fallen in love with him was inconsequential to that. If he ever discovered the real reason why she had married him, he would never forgive her, and her odyssey here, and her marriage to him, would be over.
She had been very canny to comprehend that she should not let herself love him, but not for the obvious reasons; her own treachery had always been reason enough, and she'd be lying to herself otherwise.
She had been walking a very thin line here, convincing herself that the one had nothing to do with the other, and whatever she found would not impact Lujan—or her.
She'd been wrong.
Just the photographs of Gaunt and the way they had seized hold of her imagination . .. she hadn't expected that. Hadn't prepared her for feeling that she wanted to find justice for Gaunt as well as for her father.
She could do nothing about that tonight, much as she wanted to. Her first two close and hurried examinations of the photographs had proved nothing; there was nothing in those poses that was not usual in photographs of that sort.
Which made her feel an urgency to pore over them again.
But not with Hugo wandering around the house, not with Lujan falling off horses and tumbling down stairs. Not with that rolling, rnarbley sound haunting her.
That had to be Emily. Somewhere in the house, Emily had found a marble or a stone that so intrigued her that she was endlessly batting it up and down the hallway.
But it seemed otherworldly sometimes, the way she heard it rolling when she least expected it. And that Emily seemed nowhere in sight.
Satisfaction / 227
Strange, disparate things.
She felt vaguely discomfited suddenly, as if, at any moment, Hugo would find her out.
It always came back to Hugo.
She wondered if she weren't a little scared of Hugo.
She was probably right to be. He still held the power. He still could remarry. There could be other sons, other heirs. He could cut Lujan off and out. He could banish Kyger altogether.
He could have . ..
But why would he? What would either he or Kyger gain by hurting Lujan?
It made no sense. These incidents had to be random accidents. Lujan was not that careless. He had a fine sense of self-preservation, if any of his gossiped-about exploits in London were true.
Lujan would always land on his feet, she thought. She was the one in danger. She was the one prying into Hugo's past, trying to dig up buried secrets, opening all the closed doors.
The house was a little spooky when no one was around. And it didn't seem likely that Kyger or Hugo would come keep her company. She finally decided to go upstairs and check on Lujan. See if he wanted dinner. See if he were finally awake.
All the doors on the bedroom floor were closed, making the hallway, dimly lit by gas sconces, seem a little spooky.
She stepped onto the landing a little reluctantly, pausing for a moment to listen for that rolling sound.
The silence was like a thick, woolen blanket. Like fog. Opaque, dense, creeping into her bones. The way she felt the first time she'd walked in the door.
No cats .. . she shivered as she remembered Olivia's dictum. And Emily howling, mourning her death . . .
Best not think about that. Better to think about Lujan awake and waiting, and wanting . ..
For the first time in days, she thought about the wanting and the sex, and the way he had handled her and spread her and taken her.
A different kind of urgency possessed her suddenly, burgeoning instantly from memory and desire, and the thought that perhaps this was why she had come to him tonight, and nothing else.
228 / Thea Devine
And now she couldn't wait. Lujan .. . !
She pushed open the door, and stepped inside their room.
Their empty room.
******************
She raced unthinkingly down the hallway to Kyger's room. No answer to her imperious knocking. Where? Where? Kyger would know what to do, why he'd left.
Or maybe something had happened to him? What?
Out into the hallway, feeling panicked, feeling a presence, eyes watching, again.
And the rolling sound .. . coming out of the shadows somewhere down the hallway, distant, ghostly, something rolling, rolling .. .
She ran down the stairs, calling, "Kyger! Hugo!" their names echoing eerily under the pounding sound of her feet. Where were they? How could she suddenly be so alone?
"Jancie!" Kyger appeared like a ghost near the library at the opposite end of the downstairs hallway. "What's wrong?"
She ran into his arms. "He's gone."
"He's gone? Who's gone? Lujan? Why are you so surprised?"
She was taken aback by his cavalier answer, and she pushed his arms away. "Why aren't you?"
"My dear Jancie, this is what Lujan does. When things get tight, when emotions are involved, when any prospect of his taking on some responsibility comes to the fore, Lujan ducks and runs."
"And when he thinks someone is trying to hurt him?" Jancie demanded, prickling up. Defending Lujan? Really? Or just wanting to be contrary in the face of Kyger's indifference.
"They were accidents—coincidences. Honestly, Jancie, who would want to hurt him?"
"You?" she murmured without thinking.
"That's a hell of a thing to say," Kyger said with a hint of anger in his voice. "Lujan's done what he always does—he disappears. He's probably gone to the town house, and right now, he's probably at a whorehouse. That, in sum, is Lujan."
And that was brutal, Jancie thought; he didn't have to put it that way on the heels of her terror at Lujan's disappearance.
Satisfaction / 229
"Well then, I'm going after him," she said. "I'm going to get him."
"You don't want to do that."
"I don't? Why don't I?"
"Because you'll h
ave to haul him out from between some other woman's legs, and you don't want to do that."
She hated him then. He hadn't needed to parse out the bald reality. He just really didn't have to say that. "You do it, then."
"He'll come back. He always does."
She refused to back down. "I'll get Hugo to go."
"Jancie, this is Lujan's way. Didn't he walk away the day after you were married? There's no difference. When anything or anyone gets too close to him, he reacts by running away, whether it's a woman or a possible enemy. He never stays around to find out which is which. So don't interfere, don't go. You'll be happier in the long run."
He sounded so matter-of-fact about it. He was shrugging it off as usual behavior, as if he really didn't care. He had his place, his work that he would shoulder for as long as Lujan relinquished it to him.
And he had the superior moral stance: he was here, Lujan was not, and if something happened to Lujan, so much the better—he didn't even have to step up to become, in essence, Lujan.
Lujan—only better—she remembered she had thought that the moment she met him. What had she sensed then that was a reality now?
"You hate him," she said softly.
"I don't hate him. He's my brother. I have no feelings about him whatsoever after all these years. I'm rather sorry you do. This is not unusual behavior—it's nothing to get upset about. So take my advice, Jancie. Don't go after him. You're better off not knowing anything more."
She stared at him a long minute and then whirled away. He was wrong. Something was wrong, and this was the time to go after him.
... Or was it?
She felt baffled, her initial panic seeping away at Kyger's certainty that there was nothing mysterious in his disappearance.
230 / Thea Devine
But for Lujan not to tell anyone, just to sneak away like that...
Maybe it was just possible that Lujan was being childish and irresponsible and not wanting to deal with things.
Her wedding night was proof of that.
And now she didn't know what to do.
******************
It was easier to do nothing. Lujan would return eventually. Kyger was certain of it. Hugo reassured her about it the next morning.
And then off they went to spend their day, leaving her to her own devices.
Even with Hugo back at Waybury, the house seemed preter-naturally silent and empty after they'd gone.
Maybe that was a good thing. She felt so off balance, she needed time to think, to plan. She felt crowded, as if events were piling up one after the other and coming too close to the bone.
She felt as if Kyger had gone over to the side of total disinterest in Lujan's affairs altogether. She did not need an enemy in this house if Lujan already believed he had one.
And last night—she'd been half scared out of her wits last night—between Lujan's defection and the sentient feel of the house.
It had to be all her feelings of guilt. Her sense of being watched, her ongoing searches, and the ethics of filching the family album for her own purposeful prying.
She hadn't ever felt that way before. In all the years she had been here, she had had no qualms about pursuing her course, once she understood what it was.
But now, there were more layers: her marriage to Lujan, his coincidental accidents. The mystery of Gaunt. The discovery of the photographs. The sense of being watched. That haunting, rolling sound.
Lord, she wished she could talk all this over with her father. There was no one else, and he was so far away. She had lost Kyger just when she most needed his helping hand. No, she had depended on having his help, his approval, and she had ignored his perspective, and his ingrained loyalty to his family, in the process.
Satisfaction / 231
Hiding her own true purpose, thinking that everyone saw Hugo as the traitor she did.
The truth was, she was the interloper, she was the one they ought to have been suspicious of, and yet somehow, everything that had transpired was centered around her. And all the while she was busy infiltrating their family and their lives so successfully that she had married the putative heir.
It was this, when she thought about it, that was so confusing. She had accomplished what she'd set out to do, and she had the rest of her married life to pursue the rest. //" Lujan ever returned, if he never discovered she'd had other motives for marrying him.
So why did she feel this growing sense of urgency now? She wished she hadn't come to love him, because that meant nothing to him, and it meant she had not an ally in this house, and she was feeling very, very wary.
Owww.
Emily stalked into the hallway, with an indignant expression on her cat-face.
No friends?
Emily, as always, her friend, her companion, her guide. How could she forget Emily?
What do I do?
Oowww. The house is empty. You know what you want to do.
Go after Lujan.
Mrroowww. No. Find Gaunt.
Show me how.
Oww. Why not now?
Why not? She looked up and down the hallway as if she expected a maid or possibly Bingham to appear out of thin air. Especially Bingham, seemingly always there.
There was no one. And Kyger and Hugo were not in the house. So she could just get the album, take it to her room, and really examine it. Take all the time she needed with Lujan gone.
It was a step, a plan. Something to do, at a moment when she felt helpless to do anything.
She ran upstairs, with Emily following close behind. Quickly down the hallway to Olivia's room, slipping in like a shadow, as if ghosts were looking over her shoulder, as if eyes were watching her.
232 / Thea Devine
Emily jumped up on the bed to watch Jancie as she groped under the footboard, mrowing as she pulled out the dust-covered book and magnifying glass she had had the forethought not to return to the library.
She lifted her skirt and tucked the book under her waistband, and the magnifying glass in a pocket.
A precaution only—if anyone should see her.
Carefully to the door now as Emily jumped down and started scrabbling under the bed.
Into the hallway quickly—and suddenly she heard the rolling sound—from behind her, or from down the hallway or, in her mind, she didn't know.
Just the sustained, scary, marbley, rolling sound . ..
Where was Emily?
She thrust open the door to Olivia's bedroom. Emily was right on the threshold.
Mrroww. What took you so long?
She stalked out of the room, sat emphatically on her haunches, and slanted a considering look up at Jancie.
Well?
The curious thing was the sudden silence—so stunning, complete. No more marbley, rolling sound. No sound at all.
Just Emily's golden eyes watching her as intently as if she were a mouse.
Emily's eyes only?
Fear clutched at her vitals.
The sensation of being watched was as palpable as a touch.
She pulled the door to Olivia's bedroom shut and ran for her room, slamming the door behind her.
For the first time since she'd come to Waybury House, she felt utterly and completely alone, and consumed with fear. As if there were unseen forces operating against her.
It was utterly irrational, she knew. No one had the slightest idea that she was acting as an agent for her father. No one knew how obsessed she'd become about Gaunt's disappearance.
No one cared. Now that she was married to Lujan, she had fulfilled a purpose: she was his vessel, potentially the mother of his children. No need to care or worry about her, or her motives, or her father.
Satisfaction / 233
She was responsible for all of that, and now, for prying into family circumstances that were better left untouched.
She had no idea what she would do beyond five minutes from now.
But for now—she had the photograph album, she had the magnifying glass. A
nd she had hours in which no one might come looking for her.
And daylight, pouring through the windows.
She didn't know why, but she was shaking. She didn't know what she was searching for.
Maybe it didn't matter. She pulled a chair up to the window, opened the album, and began again to scrutinize the details.
******************
Lujan was stunned that he did not feel any more secure in London. If anything, he felt as if he had abandoned Waybury.
What an odd thing to feel.
In the town house, with all the servants around, and the solid mahogany doors protecting him, he felt no safer than if he were at Waybury.
Strange.
He felt alone.
Even stranger.
Even March, hardly a stranger, had thought his flight precipitous, and that he ought not to have left Jancie alone at Waybury.
He couldn't think clearly. He felt as if his whole world had turned upside down with just the notion that Jancie could possibly want to harm him. Could conceivably want a better choice of husband and was plotting to kill him.
Or his brother, acting on twenty years of festering anger at him.
Oh, he had made enemies in his family, all right. Treating Kyger like his indentured servant. Treating Jancie like a whore. Discounting Hugo's hopes and wishes altogether . . .
Wait—that sounded like he was having regrets ... he never regretted anything. What was done was done—he couldn't go back, he wouldn't make amends, it was against his philosophy in general to apologize for anything.
So when had he developed a conscience?
He hadn't—he wouldn't. . .
234 / Tbea Devine
But something was very different—these coincidental little accidents had scared him. Jancie's dispassion irritated him. His obsessive desire to root himself in her appalled him. She cared too little, and that gave her too much power.
He couldn't give that up. He would not be whipsawed by a chit he'd given status and money to by marrying her. He'd divorce her first, but he couldn't stop thinking about their last coupling, his last thorough, naked exploration of her hole. The way she had willingly spread herself for him. The way she had come for him.
