by Thea Devine
"You first." His voice was guttural, harsher than he'd meant it to be.
She scrambled to the edge of the bed, rooting around for something to cover herself with. This was the last thing she envisioned happening, this sudden volte-face as if she had transformed into something distasteful and disposable.
Especially after—that... all that... bone-melting sensation—
But that was a man for you—all in a night's work for him— pleasure and play for a hired penis. That was the point, wasn't it?
But it was the price pf admission for her.
Already paid.
And where was her damned skirt anyway? Anything to drape over her nakedness... She grabbed a handful of material and hauled it up onto the bed and wound it around her upper body.
There, now she could face him. Fabric was like armor, and she felt as though she was charging into battle. She'd done something royally stupid, and she had to gird herself to pay the price for that as well.
Only she wasn't certain what it was. Something had shifted; the bull was uncertain of her. Didn't believe her or trust her—or something.
Something had made him wary. Something she'd said . .. ? But how strange that was. The bull for hire in the brothel. Why had she thought he was somehow different?
She stared at him, conscious all over again just how striking he was. How austere his features, how strong and lean his body. Nothing about him, naked or dressed, seemed dissipated. He looked as if he was keenly in control of all his senses and wholly in charge of himself.
She'd thought that about him the first time. He was different.
So what was a man like this doing in a place like this? It begged an answer, defied all logic.
Or perhaps he wasn't what he seemed?
"Well?"
She hated him just then. For all his talk about mysterious watchers, here he was treating her as if she was being questioned at the Yard.
"They're still watching," she retorted. "Or doesn't that matter now?"
"Your name," he said implacably.
She stared at him mutinously.
"If you want help," he added as an inducement. He knew exactly the kind of help he would give her—right out the door and let her fend for herself from this moment forward.
No matter who she sold herself to after.
If her story was even remotely true.
It couldn't be true.
"Your name ..."
She squared her shoulders. He wasn't going to help her, she knew that. "I'll just leave you alone, let you get on with whatever you were doing when I interrupted you." There, her best-mannered voice, reducing all that soaking soul-rending pleasure to nothing more than a passing intrusion. As if she'd entered the wrong room and seen something she shouldn't.
Exactly what it had been like for her.
No, it wasn't.
Damn. She couldn't look at him. She didn't know what she was going to do, and bluffing it out didn't seem the right solution.
"Fine. Then leave."
That obdurate line settled around her lovely lips. She didn't like that either.
"You have to behave. You have to be silent. We can hash this out when we get out of here. If you can't, I'll be happy to leave you to the watchers."
Her head snapped around. "What does that mean?"
"You thought that was a piece of fiction? I promise you, Arigilee Rosslyn, they do exist, and you don't want to know any more than that."
He was scaring her again. And it occurred to her, hearing her name on his lips, that she didn't yet know his. He was still the bull, the penis, the hired man.
Her savior, if only he would take her hand and keep her away from Wroth. Take her hand and lead her out of this god-awful place where ominous watchers observed whatever they would.
He was still her only chance to circumvent Wroth, to make it out of the Bullhead come to that, no matter what he thought she was.
"I'll do what you ask," she whispered.
He doubted it. But he had to take the chance. He got off the platform and snuffed out the candle sconces. Somewhere deep in the manor house, a clock struck, mellow chimes barely noticeable unless you were about to descend into the impenetrable depths of the forbidden.
Three in the morning. Bong, bong, bong. . . the sound reverberated in his bones. It was too late, too late for this, too late for him.
He opened the door a crack. The dim light from the hallway sliced right to her feet.
He was a shadow at the door, he moved, and he motioned for her to follow, then stepped out into the hall.
Zabel slept. He didn't know how long he slept. He barely remembered falling into his bed the night before, after all the rabbling and revelry ... it was all mixed up in his mind, but it was everything he had ever dreamt of. The inclusion. The camaraderie. There was nothing like it. And it was all because of Wroth.
How much he owed the man. And giving him Angilee was such a small price to pay. She ought to be grateful to him, actually. Wroth was a man of substance and ideals. He would curb Angilee's natural inclination to get her own way. He would mold her and instruct her, and make her into a fine English lady with a big house and a life she could only have imagined in America.
It was a fair exchange.
And it was only days until they would marry. Wroth had got the license, he'd found a church and a minister, and it wanted only that he, Zabel, prepare Angilee for her wedding with the appropriate clothing and obedient attitude.
Her mother would have been so proud ...
Zabel slept, his dreams infused with visions of his lovely, tragic young wife. Angilee was the very picture of her. She'd died so young, but he'd had Angilee, and that was in no small way like having Mary Lee.
She had been from a fine old, proud family who had lost everything in that war. He had been the brash land-grabber who had bought their plantation and fallen in love with their lily-pure daughter.
Mary Lee hadn't resisted him the way her parents had. They hated him. They saw him as one of the carpetbaggers, as a man who had betrayed his country by selling it off to foreigners.
They had disowned Mary Lee. But she didn't care.
Angilee was so much like her, with the same stubborn heart, the same obdurate will, the same breathtaking beauty.
He knew how Mary Lee had seen him: he was her savior. He had rescued her from poverty and given her the life she should have had.
And all he'd asked of her was sons and obedience.
She'd given him a daughter the mirror image of herself, and then she'd died. He'd been inconsolable for months because all his dreams for dynasty and acceptance had died with her.
But then, for him, Angilee became enough. As much like Mary Lee as she was, she was also his, cast from his clay, his seed. She would obey. Eventually, she would obey.
And she'd give him grandsons from another man's seed. He could live with that. The right man. The right time. He'd spent
his life earning and investing for Angilee. For Mary Lee, too, to show her parents that he hadn't betrayed them, that he'd meant all along to reinstate them to their elegant life, too.
That part hadn't worked. All the money in the world could not buy the approbation and goodwill of Mary Lee's family.
That part, Zabel cut away like a limb off a tree.
Angilee was not to know them, ever, and they would never know her, or that she was the living image of their dead and eternally mourned daughter.
Zabel believed in righteous revenge. It was enough that they would never see Angilee. And as far as Angilee knew, everyone on her mother's side of the family was dead.
And so now that her marriage was imminent and grandsons would follow, Zabel would finally take his place among men of influence and power.
It was perfect; it was what he had worked for and striven for—yearned for, even—all his life. Just a place at the table ...
In his dream, he was seated at the table, and shockingly, Mary Lee and all her family were th
ere. All of them there, in his big, beautiful brick house in Atlanta, Georgia, around his elegantly appointed table that was set with a real lace tablecloth, and fine china and utensils of gold.
All of them there, sitting and talking and ignoring him, the paterfamilias, at the head of the table, as his paid servants brought in the first course of a six course dinner, and his attendants poured wine, free-flowing, expensive wine, and still they ignored him.
Him, Zabel, at the head of the table, the head of his family— and they paid no attention to him whatsoever.
Blast them all, blast them to hell—Zabel stood up, banging his fist on the table so furiously that the plates rattled and wine spilled on the expensive Alencon lace tablecloth.
Everyone looked at him, startled, but worse, Mary Lee looked at him with reproach in her eyes. And then, in her soft sweet voice, What can you be thinking, dear Zabel? We have another guest...
He turned, and there was Wroth, grabbing his arm urgently. Where is Angilee? I've come to see Angilee, and she's nowhere to be found...
Zabel looked down the table, and Angilee was not there; she was not at the table at all, and Wroth was shaking him and demanding to know where was Angilee .. .
And he jolted awake to find Wroth kneeling on his bed, shaking him violently, trying to wake him up, mouthing the same words as in his dream—Angilee is gone, where is Angilee ... This is a dream ...
"Dammit, man—get your wits together. Angilee is gone." What? What—? What was real, what was the dream—dazed, Zabel elbowed himself to a sitting position. Wait, wait—this was his room, the sun was pouring in, high and bright, flooding the walls with aching light, and there was Wroth, pacing back and forth, waiting for him to collect himself before he launched into another tirade. "ZABEL—"
Oh, that man had a hammer of a voice when he wanted to use it and a hammer of a fist that he was using to emphasize his words.
"I hear you ..." Zabel muttered.
"She's gone. You heard me say that? Angilee is not in her bed." Bam on the dresser. "Not in the hotel." Bam. "Not anywhere on the premises." Bam. "Nowhere." Bam. "And believe me, I searched." Zabel shook his head to clear it. He couldn't get the vision of Mary Lee's sorrowful gaze out of his mind. It was almost more real than Wroth pounding on his dresser in a fit of pique.
"Nonsense," he managed finally. "I chained her up again ..." Uh—bad choice of words. Wroth didn't need to know she'd been free of restraints for that hour last night. And of course he comprehended what was meant, exactly, by again.
Wroth's expression changed. "Again? Again?" His voice went dangerously silky. "Tell me, Zabel, assure me, swear by God, that you did not take off the cuff. Tell me you weren't that gullible."
He had been that gullible, and there was no way to get around it.
Wroth's fury was amazing to behold. "You have raised that girl for twenty years, and you don't think she's cunning enough to try to find a way to slip out of her restraints. You uncuffed her wrist? You ACTUALLY unlocked the cuff? Left it,.." his voice was rising .. . "so the brazen bitch could tamper with it? Are you terminally STUPID?? Did you learn nothing from the story of Eve? It's the first lesson in the Bible for a reason: how else could man learn that a woman is not to be trusted, that she is full of deceit and guile and only wishes to trick and topple him to his knees,
"And you willingly unlocked the cuff that kept her constrained ..."
He spat disgustedly. "It is not to be believed that you could be that naive. You should have cuffed her wrists behind her, wrapped her legs in chains, and then encircled the bed, twice, and then perhaps you could have been assured of the fact she would not betray you. Probably not, though. She is a most defiant and intractable girl, and you are arrogant beyond permission to think she had even remotely changed, that she'd come to heel. No, she wanted only to trick you and humiliate me—and so she has done, and she will be punished for this insubordination. She will not get away with it, I promise you. I will hunt her down like a dog, and I will marry her wrapped like a mummy, chained to my wrist and my ankles, if I must, in order to make her obey my will.
"And she will. She will come to obey, and then our bargain will be met."
Zabel struggled out of bed. "I must see ..."
"There's nothing to see ..."
Zabel hobbled through the parlor and into Angilee's empty room. Gone... the cuff displayed prominently, cheekily, defiantly, on a mound of pillows where it could not be missed when one stepped into the room.
Damn damn damn damn .. . damn her to hell... He saw all his aspirations disintegrating like smoke.
He plucked up the cuff. "How—?"
"She is a woman—scheming, crafty, sly"—Wroth's voice behind him—"who will not rest until she savages a man no matter what it costs her ..."
Zabel ignored him. "How did she do this?" He pushed the tongue of the lock into its slot. There—there. .. something obstructing it... oh, the duplicity, the wiliness of her .. . and he'd believed her. His own daughter, damn her, he'd believed her hurt, her anguish, her willingness to change . ..
You couldn't believe anything a woman ever said ... Wroth
was right. She must be contained and controlled. A willful spirit like hers—it was the only way for her to be happy.
"Where can she be?" he whispered, still holding the cuff.
"I'll find her," Wroth said firmly.
"How?" Zabel sounded lost for a moment. He still couldn't believe ...
"I have ways." Wroth dug into his coat pocket and produced a pocket knife encased in ebony. He pulled out one blade.
"Let me see that." He took the cuff and pressed the knife blade into the slot. "There's something in there. She put something in there, Zabel. Deliberately, and with intent to deceive you, she put something in that slot to compromise the lock. Now do you believe me?"
He worked the blade for a couple of minutes and removed a scrap of cotton. "Probably from her nightgown—or a pillow ... that shifty, sneaking, lying bitch. Treacherous. Disloyal. Unscrupulous—ah, thy name is woman, but you won't escape me.
"Zabel!" He barked ZabePs name, and Zabel jumped. "I will find her, you know, and we together will mete out a punishment that will bring her in line and in consonance with my ideal of the perfect wife. You need have no worries about that. I still want the bitch, and I will contain her and constrain her to my specifications. I took the precaution of obtaining a special license, and I could marry her tonight if my sources find her.
"So be of good cheer. All is not lost. I relish the challenge of remaking your lying, wayward daughter into a compliant and obedient woman who is worthy of my name. Put down the cuff for now, although I would keep it as a symbol of the perfidy of woman once we are wed.
"But—that... is for later. .." He was at the door, in command and ready for action. "We have other considerations right now."
Zabel stared at the cuff, then set it on the pillow as if it were a crown jewel instead of the symbol of disaster.
How could she? How could she do this to me?
"Zabel!" Wroth's voice cracked over him like a whip. "Get dressed. Others will find her. Leave it to them. They know what they're doing and where to look,"
There was no other choice. Zabel recognized that immediately; he had never been able to contain Angilee, never been able to mold or shape her or rid her of her independent streak.
And by this traitorous act, she could ruin everything. It was only by the grace of Wroth's stubborn determination to subdue her, and to tame her, that he would be saved. He couldn't take much more in any event.
And why should he, he wondered irritably. When did he get to pursue all those possibilities that had always loomed over the horizon just out of reach?
All that he had set aside because of Angilee; all his ambition he had suborned to his duty to his daughter.
Well, thanks to her unyielding need to disdain his authority, he'd be damned grateful to hand her off in marriage to Wroth. And then, and only th
en, he'd be free to plunge his fingers into all the pies that would be spread like a banquet before him in the aftermath.
Leave it to Wroth ... little did the man know—and maybe he shouldn't ever know, Zabel thought craftily—that had been his plan all along.
It had just been a matter of determining what it was that motivated Wroth. And that had been so easy to see. Domination. Power. Obedience. Let him lead. Let him take control.
So easy for a man like him who had learned to sell near-worthless bottom land to Northern speculators for a flagrant profit.
Learn what they want; give what they want.
Let him wield the whip. He was positively salivating over all the ways he would punish Angilee.
Let him do it. Wash his own hands of complicity. Take what was offered. Easy. So easy. Unleash the beast that was Wroth. Why not? He was set; he was still outside—it wouldn't hurt him . . .
"Yes," Zabel whispered, stroking the cuff and smiling to himself.
Give him what he wants. Let him take control.
"You're so right, Wroth," he murmured in his most fawning tone. "We have other considerations right now. I completely agree. I will—I'll be most happy to leave it all in your most capable hands."
Chapter Seven
Kyger eased out into the hallway, pulling Angilee after him. It was preternaturally quiet—dead quiet—as if there were no sentient beings in the manor house, as if he were chasing ghosts.
But the Bullhead was never empty. Ever. And he knew that better than most.
They crept down the hallway in tandem, the thick carpeting muffling every footstep the way the house muffled every vice.
It seemed to him that it was important to take note of the details: the way the walls appeared to be one endless slab of mahogany, lit to a warm, glossy sheen by the banked flame of the gas lamps hanging intermittently from the ceiling; the way the doors fit flush floor to ceiling into the walls, barely noticeable except for the dull brass ring pulls. There were six pulls, six doors, including the door from which they had just exited.
And he noticed that when he looked closely, there were seams in the wall, subtle, like paneling, but nearly hidden in the grain, and that all the rooms were on one side of the building.
