by Thea Devine
A shard of light... his shadow moving across to the opposite side of the door. "Kitchen. Come."
They darted inside. Here at least there were windows. One of the three or four, they guessed, they had seen on the entrance door wall outside.
A still stronger scent pervaded the room. And just enough light to avoid crashing into tables and pots that were strewn all over. And more doors. One to the pantry, one to a storeroom, one to the hall.
Charles let a breath. "This is familiar territory. This is the hallway from the reception room. God, something smells. We'll go in the interior rooms. The office is this way." He led the way into the small room, which was dominated by a desk that had been pulled over the spot where a big blot of blood had stained and seeped into the floor.
Georgiana averted her eyes, and followed him into the billiard room, the dining room, and from there, into the hall, and the ornate staircase that wound upward seemingly without any support.
"To the bedrooms then," Charles said, and began taking the steps two at a time, ignoring that malodorous scent, with Georgiana just behind him.
The stairs gave onto a long hallway with six doors on either side.
"A lot of bedrooms," Georgiana murmured. "And no servants."
"The most likely thing is, he sent them away. No witnesses. So let's not waste time." He thrust open the first door, to the right. Empty. And to the left—empty. And on, down the hallway, with the foul odor seeming to envelop them—every stiffly stuffily furnished bedroom empty.
"Damn. Empty—empty—she's not here; she's not there."
He slammed the doors closed as they went down the hall, his fury mounting as he realized what they would find. And it was too late to shield Georgiana as they approached the twelfth bedroom.
The odor here was nauseating. Georgiana gagged.
"Cover your nose. Don't come in with me."
He pushed open the door. The stench hit him like a wall. Death incarnate rampant in the room, and Georgiana, disregarding his orders, too close behind him.
God, that lunatic didn't have a shred of decency in him.
He should have expected this. He should have known. He put his arm out to bar her way, to prevent her from seeing anything further.
But she saw anyway.
The bodies. The dead, decaying bodies propped side by side on the stuffy four-poster bed. Olivia reunited with her husband at last—in death.
"Go on in, my pretties." Moreton's voice, behind them, slicing through their horror. "It's about time you came to visit your mother, Georgie. Go on in and say hello."
How did one move, how did one keep from coughing and choking and acting as if this wasn't the most grisly sight in the world? How could Moreton act as if everything were normal?
Something poked her ribs. She stumbled forward, into Charles so that he was forced to move farther into the room, and she fell on the floor. She rolled away from the awful sight on the bed, and started choking again as she caught sight of the pistol in Moreton's hand.
He waved it at her, seemingly oblivious to the foul stench that pervaded the room.
"Olivia is very happy about our impending marriage, aren't you, my dear? And she's so happy we're all finally together at Aling." He leaned against the doorframe, the gun dangling from his finger, effectively blocking any escape.
"Or so she would have told you, if you'd come sooner. You should have come sooner, Charles. Damn your eyes. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to kill her. That damned infernal woman, thinking we would actually have this delicious life together running Aling as a brothel. I must say though I was very convincing. She bought that fiction in the blink of an eye. Stupid woman. Well, she's paid for that now, and you, Charles, are going to hang for it. And Georgie and I are getting married. It's as simple as that, and I'm damned furious that it took this long. Georgie!! Stop that coughing!"
"I can't. Can't we go in the hallway at least? I need some fresh air."
"Oh, I don't think so, Georgie. We have a few things to get done in here. And I like your submissive attitude; there's nothing like a willing woman at your feet."
She choked again, at his words this time, as she eyed the distance between them. "What? What else could you possibly want to do here?"
"I want Olivia to bear witness to the fact that you're here and we will be married. I posted the banns, you know. Yes, it was ill-considered of me to do it without your knowledge. When Olivia found out, she was livid, but the priest is willing to perform the ceremony without the requisite wait. That's why I killed her anyway. She found out, and she didn't want me to marry you at all."
"You can have Aling. You don't need me," Georgiana said desperately between coughs, as she tried to slither toward him. If she could just distract him, just move in tiny increments, get near his legs, topple him over somehow.
"Oh you're so wrong about that, Georgie. How else would I attract all those wealthy studs to our little enterprise? It makes such sense, a bawdy house in the country. All the privacy, discretion, and decadence that money can buy. And my delicious young wife, the mound mistress. Oh, they'll buy it. They'll come in droves. I can hardly wait. All that money. All those stallions plowing you. Don't move any closer, Georgie dear, or I'll shoot you. I know exactly what you're up to."
"Charles—" Georgiana whispered, looking up into his dispassionate eyes, and gagging once again.
"That's a very appropriate response, Georgie. He's useless. Always has been. Couldn't save Lydia. Won't save you. I'll kill him first anyway. Dead or alive, he will be convicted for murder."
She gagged again, and Moreton reached down and yanked her to her feet. "Don't move, pretty lady." He reached down again, for a coil of rope at his feet. "It's too bad, but I have to tie you up, so I can take care of Charles. On second thought, I like the idea of having you tied up and at my mercy."
She felt the life drain from her limbs, and she couldn't take the stench much longer. But there was no reasoning with a madman. Charles was too far away from him, and Moreton could get off a shot in an instant if Charles moved a muscle.
She was the one who had a chance of disabling him. One chance. The only chance. "Just cooperate, Georgie. It won't be that bad."
"What do you want me to do?" she whispered.
"Just turn around. Just let me get Charles out of the way."
The gun was on her. The death-odor was powerful, heartstopping. Charles was still as a statue three feet behind her. And there was another two feet between her and Moreton, and the gun.
"All right. I'll do what you want." He'd like that. Whatever the madman with the gun wanted was fine with her.
She pivoted on her right foot, and swung the left one, suddenly, sharply hard against his shin.
His leg buckled as she ducked to one side and Charles dove into him, like a bullet, and they went down hard, as the gun flew into the air and landed on the bed.
Oh God, she couldn't reach it, not from where she was hunched beside the bed. She'd have to reach over those bodies to the foot rail. She'd have to touch them, feel them dissolve against her skin.
She felt faint. She gagged again.
She had to get the gun. She had to stop Moreton, who was fighting with superhuman strength. If he got loose, if he got the gun, they would both be dead.
He shoved at Charles, Charles toppled backward, and Georgiana scrambled over him to the foot of the bed.
Moreton was a step behind her. She jumped onto the mattress, over the desiccated corpses, her fragility, her scruples, her fears, and covered the gun with her body.
"Now, Georgie—" Moreton panted, and a minute later Charles jumped him and sent him crashing down to the floor.
She backed off the bed with the gun in her hands. Both hands. Her hands weren't even shaking. She felt a calmness, a certainty that finally something was right.
She pointed it at Moreton, who was pinned at the foot of the bed by Charles's large body.
Charles climbed off him, and Mor
eton levered himself up. "You can't kill me, Georgie. You don't have the taste for it."
"Oh, I could kill you, Moreton." She leveled the gun at him. "I can count three reasons I should." Her voice was calm, so calm, but for some reason, the tears started then.
She cocked the trigger as they streamed down her face. "I want to kill you." She squeezed, and the shot went close, so close he looked stunned.
"Goddamn it, Georgie, I made you. You can't kill me."
"What?" He couldn't mean what she thought he meant. He said it to rattle her. To get her upset. Dear, dear God—
Everything shifted. Kill him now. She squeezed and the shot grazed his shoulder.
"Jesus, Georgie—"
"You made me? You made me? This is what you made—" She waved the gun. "You are going to die.
"Think, Georgie, why do you think your father left Bliss River? Why do you think he abandoned you?"
"Because you made me?" She felt close to the edge now, felt the blood of the madman coursing through her veins.
"The minute she stepped foot in the valley, Olivia was a pig in heat," Moreton said desperately. "Wallowed everywhere, with everyone and got knocked up soon after."
"Oh, that's so nice to know, and you don't want to die? Just for that, I'll kill you." She shot again, and the bullet hit the wall behind him.
"The man who fucked my mother is going to die." She pulled again, and Moreton ducked and howled and backed away.
"Georgie—don't—"
/ am the child of my father. The bloodlust swamped her, enfolded her, seeping into the enveloping scent of death, into her suppurating soul.
"Georgie." He was pleading now.
"Tell them, you bastard. I am the child of my father. You tell them, Moreton. Beg their forgiveness."
She fired again and he stepped back still farther. And now his back was to the window, and he was facing the bed.
It was right that her parents were the last thing he should see. She was the child of her father, after all. He was the one who made her. The tears kept coming. She couldn't understand why the tears kept coming and why she suddenly felt bereft.
Moreton saw it, saw that shearing moment of weakness, and lunged at her.
"The man who killed my father is going to die," she whispered, and fired again, sending him to his death.
Epilogue
Charles had taken care of everything. The newspaper report put it all very succinctly:
The death of the Honorable Henry Maitland ofAling, Medwyn, Kent, still remains a mystery. The servants, who had been given an unusual weekend off by Olivia Maitland, who had just returned from South Africa after many years' residence there, found the decaying body of Sir Henry, and his wife, together in a bedroom, as well as that of an unidentified stranger who had been shot. The murder weapon was found on the scene. The authorities estimate that Sir Henry had been dead for almost two weeks, and that Mrs. Maitland and the stranger had died within the past two or three days.
Attempts to locate Sir Henry's daughter, who was thought to have been living with her mother in South Africa, have been unsuccessful.
***
I am my father's daughter.
It was a fitting end to the story of Bliss River. She was either the spawn of Lucifer or a child of the Valley, and either way, Henry Maitland had never been her father, even if he had contributed his seed.
That alone was a stunning realization. Moreton had won, in the end.
There was nothing left to do but go to the authorities. Charles advised against it.
"Let them find you," Charles said. "Give them time to cook up their own theory. At a minimum, they will find that Moreton came to Aling with Olivia. The servants will testify that they visited your father, that they had a lot of words. That your father took an unexpected trip, and that Olivia generously gave them a lot of time off. They will conclude that Olivia and Moreton conspired to murder your father, and that Moreton killed Olivia and then, perhaps, in remorse, killed himself. Unfortunately, any testimony about Moreton will contradict that idea. It's the only sticking point; after all, he was on the verge of getting what he wanted."
"Me," Georgiana said dryly.
"Yes. And at that point, they will find you."
"Of course, they'll find me," she murmured, her voice odd. "I can't expect to have shot a man and live a long and happy life."
"But you absolutely can," Charles said. "Never forget, Moreton was coming after you. You had just told him you'd gotten married, and he was utterly distraught—"
Georgiana looked up sharply.
"Out of his mind distraught and far stronger than you. I was too far away to help you. You had the gun and you had no other choice, Georgiana. None. He meant to attack you, kill you, even. That's the story, and I'm your witness. And if you ever testified to what he did in Bliss River, you'd be a national hero."
"Oh." That simple. That complete. They never saw the other bodies. And there was always Bliss River, if things should get tricky.
"Well." She blinked. She still wasn't over having taken someone's life, even a monster like Moreton. Still couldn't quite comprehend that her mother was dead.
And, once the hurtle of going to the authorities was clear, she would be free. Whatever that meant. She would never be free. Her history and Bliss River would pulse inside her till the end of her days.
But she'd be free ... Free to do what?
Everything must come to an end. And Charles was still with her, now, protective and solicitous both. Charles, in fact, seemed to have all the answers. "So where have I been all this time that they couldn't find me, Charles?"
He held out his hand. "You've gone to South America, where you really will marry me."
She wasn't even shocked. He wanted that. He wanted her.
Was there ever any other choice after he had marked her and claimed her all that time ago? Her petal-rimmed breast, the paint not faded yet, was the constant reminder of every erotic moment she had spent with him.
Not even Moreton could crush that.
Or the horror they had just gone through.
No other man met his measure. She knew that now. And no other man could live with the litany of her sins.
And he was the only man who could ever hold her, contain her, and make her beg. She would forever be khanum and he was her cadi.
Marry him ... for real—
A life together, for real. A home, a farm, a family. Corsets and constraints.
And a tent, their private world, a world with no restraints.
They sailed for South America later that week.
There, she discovered that he was wealthy in his own right, that he had stud farms and land and money all his own, and that she need never see Aling again if she didn't want to.
He would now hire managers for his farms, and import his stud stock to England for his investors, and buy land in the English countryside and a fresh new place for them to live.
The things that were possible outside Bliss River—not least a future, with him.
It sounded like a plan.
"But you need not marry me," she pointed out. "Everyone believed that we were, except Moreton."
"We will show every possible authentication of our union," Charles said. "I will have nothing less."
"You really want Aling." The last thing to clear up.
"For God's sake, Georgiana. Hang Aling. Sell Aling if you want. I'm not a gentleman, no one knows that better than you—"
She stared at him. The things that were possible. Things other people did, like get married. Have families.
He stared at her. She was so beautiful, his queen. And she'd come through so much. And come so far. And in the end, she was everything he wanted, and life without having her was no life at all.
He was so close to her now. A breath away.
Things lovers did—like sometimes—
He settled his mouth on hers.
"You can run naked through the house if that's yo
ur desire," he whispered against her lips. "You need never put on clothes."
"My favorite mode of dress—" she sighed, opening her mouth to him, that sweet little feeling unfurling inside.
"Good. God, I want you." He wanted to devour her. He knew every inch of her body but her mouth. Every part of her, but her kisses. He couldn't get enough of her. His whole body vibrated with it, and found that answering resonance in her.
This was different. This was because they both had changed.
He felt as if they had finally walked together into clean sweet air, that everything was bright and fresh and they were entering a world where two sinners were free to start over.
Had he not sinned as much as she?
"There are no just impediments, Charles."
"There are a damned lot of clothes," he muttered.
"I can remedy that, cadi."
He pulled away from her lips reluctantly. "Do you know what, khanum? We're going to do this right, with all due tradition: no fucking until after the wedding."
"Not possible," she murmured.
"Anything is possible." Except his towering erection. That might not last for many more days. No, minutes at this rate, with those kisses. "It's only a matter of days. And I didn't say no kissing ..."
Ah, the kissing. The sweet tender ravenous kissing. She would never get enough of the kissing.
She opened her mouth joyfully to receive him. She knew where kissing led.
THE END~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She's the hottest writer in the industry. Romantic Times calls her "The Queen of Erotic Romance," and Affaire de Coeur hails her as "the divine mistress of sensual writing." She's THEA DEVINE, and she's the author of eighteen steamy historical romances (all published by Zebra Books), four novellas, and was featured in the bestselling erotic romance anthologies CAPTIVATED, FASCINATED, and ALL THROUGHT THE NIGHT She also writes contemporary romance and is a longtime freelance manuscript reader. She lives in Connecticut with her husband of 35 years, two dogs and two cats. You can contact her her at: [email protected]. And visit her web site at www.theadevine.com
