by Faye Hall
Pushing open the door to the study, Lotte glanced inside, unsure what she would find.
Devon lay bent over his desk, an empty bottle of whiskey still in his hand. Never did she imagine Devon would want to live this way, and not for the first time, Lotte began to wonder just how much she knew about this man. Despite having shared the most intimate of embraces with him some years back, Lotte started to realize she knew little else about Devon Munroy. All she knew was how he had made her feel and how he still made her feel. She had given this man her heart so long ago, a heart she still surrendered to him, no matter what had become of his life. She would give him anything, would do anything for him. But Lotte knew she needed to be careful. If Elizabeth were to ever discover she had shared a bed with Devon, or that she was in fact the same Lotte Higgins believed to be shot dead in that cottage four years ago, everything she was working for would be for nothing.
Standing so close to Devon again, remembering how he had felt, his body entwined with hers in passionate embrace, Lotte couldn’t turn away from him. Walking up behind him, Lotte ran her fingers along Devon’s naked back, treasuring the feel of his warm skin beneath her fingertips. Hearing him beginning to stir, Lotte quickly stepped away from him.
“L-Lotte…” Devon mumbled, his head lifting slightly from the desk.
Lotte wanted to stay with him. She wanted to tell him that it was really her retuned to him. But she couldn’t, not yet at least.
Quickly retreating from Devon’s study, she made her way toward the rear of the house to the servants quarters and what was to be her room. Before she could leave the main house, Lotte heard Elizabeth summoning her on the bell pull.
“I’ll be right with you, Mrs. Munroy,” Lotte muttered to herself.
* * * *
Having fallen asleep in his study yet again, Devon stirred the following morning, raised voices from down the hall dragging him from his comatosed state. Reaching for his shirt, he pulled it on and walked toward his wife’s room and what he was certain were familiar voices.
Stopping outside the door to his wife’s room, Devon listened to Elizabeth’s raised voice explaining the gown she wanted to be wearing when she went visiting that afternoon.
“Mrs. Munroy, you can’t wear such a thing to see the Trotts. They will never receive you.”
Devon’s breath caught in his throat at hearing the familiar feminine voice.
“The gown I had out for you is far more suitable for this afternoon’s event,” the female voice continued.
Opening the door slightly, Devon looked inside, needing to see who the woman was talking to Elizabeth. Her voice sounded so familiar, almost like he knew her. Focusing on the woman standing with his wife, Devon’s heart skipped a beat. He knew in that instance this woman was the same one he had spent the night with at the Pioneer Hotel. But why was she here?
“Stop leering at the door, Devon,” Elizabeth called out. “You’re going to scare my new handmaiden.”
“New handmaiden?” Devon asked as he opened the door properly. “So soon?”
Lotte curtsied slightly at Devon before returning her attention to Elizabeth.
“And how, pray tell, did you learn we were in need of a new servant, miss?” Devon asked suspiciously.
“I heard talk from the girls at the Pioneer Hotel. They said you were suddenly short some servants,” Lotte explained.
“Get out, Devon,” Elizabeth said rudely. “I need my outfit ready by this afternoon, and that’s not going to happen with you drooling over my handmaiden.”
Devon smiled, though not from humor. He had gotten very accustomed to the rudeness of his wife. So much so it hardly affected him now. Nodding at her, as if one of her obedient servants, Devon turned and left the room, knowing he had to find out what Lotte was doing there in his home.
* * * *
Finally leaving Elizabeth’s room almost an hour later, Lotte closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She closed her eyes and took a huge sigh of relief.
“What are you doing here?” she heard Devon ask from not far away.
Opening her eyes quickly, Lotte straightened her attire and turned toward where Devon was leaning against the wall just meters away.
“I know you’re the woman I spent the night with at the Pioneer Hotel, Lotte. What I don’t know is what the hell you are doing here in my house?”
Lotte walked slowly toward him. “I’m just a poor working girl who needed a better paying job, Devon.”
“You would be wise not to call me by my first name while you’re working here,” he said softly. “You will learn quickly my wife is a very unforgiving woman.”
Lotte reached forward, her palm resting carefully on his chest, not ignorant to his sudden ragged breath.
“I’m surprised you remember me, Devon. What with the many women you’ve had, with your wife…”
His hand went to hers, pulling it away from him. “This isn’t a brothel. You would do well to remember that.”
“Not a brothel?” Lotte asked, leaning into him and kissing his cheek. “Are you so sure?”
When she went to pull away from him, Devon’s hand on her elbow stopped her. The pair stood there, their stares locked.
“Unless you want your wife to walk out and see us together you should let me go, Devon. Now!”
Devon still held her stare, his grip on her unfaltering. “What if I don’t care if she finds us?”
Finally, Lotte succeeded in pulling free from him. Turning away from him, she quickly walked away and back to her duties.
* * * *
Several days after starting work at the Munroy estate, Lotte escaped around midday after receiving a message from her childhood aboriginal friend, Sarah.
“I can’t stay long, Sarah,” Lotte explained as she met her friend along the secluded area near the tress along the estate’s boundary. “Elizabeth is far more demanding than any woman of her position should be.”
Sarah went to her friend, hugging her tight. “Thank God you’re safe, Lotte. When Patrick told me you were working here, I was so worried. Surely you must remember Elizabeth will stop at nothing to destroy your family. If she discovers who you are—”
Lotte lifted her hand. “I know what I’m doing, Sarah.”
Sarah continued to hold her friend’s other hand. “The men who work for her have been asking the working girls and servants of the town if they saw a woman out here the other night when Delphine was killed. If Elizabeth ever discovers it was you, if she ever discovers you didn’t die that night…”
Lotte squeezed her friend’s hand. “I need proof that she’s killed those people. I need to prove it to the police, to the town, to Devon.”
Sarah hugged her again. “Please take care, my friend. I will do what I can to help you find your proof.”
No sooner did Lotte arrive back at the main house than she was called to Devon’s study.
“Can you bring fresh towels to my room when you have finished serving my wife, please?” he asked politely.
Lotte didn’t try to hide her confusion. “I was hired as your wife’s handmaiden, Devon, not as the housekeeper.”
Devon nodded. “As I’m well aware, Lotte. But it appears my estate as a whole is suddenly less most of its servants.”
Lotte went about picking up the stray clothes spread on the floor of the study. “They probably left because they couldn’t stand working for your wife any longer.”
When silence surrounded them, Lotte looked up at Devon, worried she had overstepped the mark by her remark.
“What did you say?” Devon asked, his eyes narrowed as if studying her.
Concerned by his reaction to her, Lotte bowed her head. “My apologies. I only meant your wife is not the easiest woman to work for.”
“Yet you are still here?” Devon continued, his tone softer.
Lotte stopped in front of him, her body barely a breath away from his. “I have survived far worse than your wife, Devon.”
Devo
n looked at her so intently, his hand rising, his fingers running through the stray curls around her face.
“You look so familiar to me, Lotte, like some ghost from my past returned to haunt me. Your name, your face, your eyes…”
Lotte stepped away from him then, his familiar words scaring her. “I will bring your towels to you shortly, Mr. Munroy.”
With that, she quickly left Devon alone in his study.
* * * *
About an hour later, having already seen Elizabeth to her carriage for her afternoon social calls, Lotte went to Devon’s room to deliver his fresh towels.
“I’ve also brought some fresh sheets for your bed, Devon. Your clothes should be ready within an hour too.”
Devon looked at her confused, watching as she went about changing the sheets on his bed. “I never asked you to do that, Lotte.”
Finishing making his bed, Lotte turned back to him. “I know, but you are a well-respected man of the town and you can’t be seen walking around with unwashed clothes.”
Devon laughed at her choice of words. “Not so well respected, as I am well known. In a town the size of Brandon, it is very hard to forget the man who shot and killed his mistress.”
Lotte held the dirty sheets tight against her, knowing she should leave his last comment alone, still she couldn’t. “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe you killed that woman, nor is that what I remember you for. I remember you as a well-dressed man of position.”
Devon started walking toward her, his stare dark and brooding. Reaching out, he grabbed her hand in his.
“Why are you saying this, Lotte?” he asked softly. “Why are you here?”
Lotte rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. “Maybe I just like you, Devon.”
Pulling her hand free then, Lotte quickly retreated from his room, shutting the door behind her.
* * * *
“Just stop at the edge of the trees!” Elizabeth yelled to the driver of her moving carriage.
When she received the message this morning from a man claiming to have information regarding the identity of the woman seen escaping the estate grounds the night the working girl was killed, Elizabeth was immediately skeptical. She had received many a message claiming this very thing nearly every day since the incident, and none had proved to be useful. Still, she knew she had to go meet this man, in case what he was claiming was indeed truth.
Hopping out of the carriage, Elizabeth walked toward the older, silver-haired man leaning against the tall gum tree smoking a cigarette.
“Mrs. Munroy,” the man greeted her. “You’re even more beautiful than your father said.”
Elizabeth stopped a short distance from him. “My father? What do you know of my father?”
The older gentleman flicked his cigarette into the scrub. “I know he robbed that stagecoach back in Victoria and killed the young man traveling with it.”
“You have made a mistake, sir. My father was never in Victoria.”
The man nodded his head. “Oh yes, he was. I panned gold with your father back in Victoria. And I watched him kill men for far less than a carriage full of Victorian gold.”
Elizabeth tried to hold herself strong, knowing she couldn’t cower before this man. “You can’t prove any of these accusations. For all I know, it was you who killed these men.”
The man pulled forth a letter from his pocket. “George Fanti wrote me telling me if I were to ever tell the police what I knew, he would have me killed. He paid me well in Victorian gold coin to keep my mouth shut.”
“You forget, sir, my father has been dead for some years.”
The man nodded his head. “I was told of his death. He apparently fell from a carriage.”
Elizabeth smiled smugly. “He did fall from a carriage, sir. So you can take your empty threats and leave.”
Turning away from him, Elizabeth began to walk back to her carriage.
“I saw you kill that working girl, Mrs. Munroy. I saw you cut her throat as if it were butter and throw her body to the ground.”
Elizabeth stopped, slowly turning back to look at this man. “What do you want, sir?”
The man smiled. “I want the same deal your father gave to me. I will keep my silence, for a price.”
“And what if I don’t pay?”
He approached her, stopping when he was barely a breath away from her. He leaned into her. “Then you will learn there are far worse things than death, Mrs. Munroy.”
Reaching for her hidden dagger, Elizabeth plunged it deep into the man’s stomach before pushing him away from her.
“Don’t you dare threaten me, you little maggot!”
Going over to the man’s now crumbled body lying on the dirt, Elizabeth pulled her dagger from the dying man and wiped the blood off onto his shirt.
Turning away from him, she walked swiftly toward the carriage. “Take me back to the estate! Now!”
Taking her seat in the carriage, Elizabeth thought over the encounter she’d just had with this man. He claimed to know her father back in Victoria. Did he? Were there other men like him who would find her and demand payment to keep her secret? Elizabeth didn’t know.
Chapter 18
Devon woke suddenly, his head shooting up from his study desk, his alcohol-clouded mind still swimming with images of his wife’s new handmaiden. Rubbing his hands along his face, he tried desperately to clear his mind of the haunting images of this woman. He didn’t want this, not again.
Once before, Devon had allowed his mind to be completely consumed by a woman, by a woman who also went by the name of Lotte. When she died, he swore he would never again allow this to happen. He couldn’t allow it. Devon believed he didn’t deserve to find any happiness, not with any woman, not after what he’d done. He certainly didn’t deserve to be able to share passions unlike any other he had felt before.
Needing to clear his head, Devon pulled on his shirt and, leaving his study, went for a walk through his estate house. This house had been in his family since his father first settled in Brandon. Devon had grown up there, and his father had lived there until his death. It was never the grandest of houses, but to Devon, it was home. Looking around now though, all he saw was expensive ornaments and paintings and things that filled his house. Still, to him, his house felt so cold, so empty.
Walking out the back of the house through the servant’s entrance, Devon thought a walk in the morning sunlight through the gardens might help him get his thoughts back in order and remind him just where he had first met his wife’s new handmaiden.
Glancing up, Devon’s steps stopped, his gaze resting on the image of Lotte as she went about collecting the laundry. She looked so beautiful, the sunlight highlighting the rich redness of her hair, her movements so elegant as she performed her simple servant’s task. Never before had he seen a woman like her, and he couldn’t ignore the sudden hard thud his heart made in his chest.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, Devon wondered why he was allowing himself to be tortured this way. This woman was a servant, nothing more. She certainly wasn’t his lover, despite their single night of passion they had shared at the hotel. She also wasn’t Lotte Higgins returned from the dead, no matter her name nor her physical resemblance to her.
Returning his gaze back to her though, Devon couldn’t help but let his hope grow slightly. This woman may not be his lost love returned, but she was so much like her that she could easily pass as her twin. Maybe this woman was his second chance after all.
Devon walked slowly toward Lotte, his stare never faltering from her. Despite his confusion and suspicion of this woman, he couldn’t ignore the myriad of feelings she created in him. She ignited a passion inside of him unlike any other he’d ever felt before, one he couldn’t manage to ignore or refuse. His steps measured, Devon couldn’t deny that he felt like a moth being drawn to the flame that was Lotte. He knew what he was risking if he was seen going to this woman, the wrath he would incur from his wife, but he didn’t ca
re. He had to go to her. He needed to be close to her again, her body pressed against his own, her warm lips upon his own.
Stopping behind her, and without warning, Devon reached forward and grabbed hold of her wrist. Pulling her back toward him and turning her to face him, Devon joined his lips hungrily to hers. Pulling at her blouse, needing entrance to her slightly browned skin, Devon whispered her name. Suddenly, Lotte pulled away from him, breaking their embrace.
“We can’t do this, Devon,” she said, her tone far from convincing as she refastened the buttons on her blouse. “You are a married man.”
Devon tried to pull her back to him. “You didn’t care so much when you welcomed me into your bed at the Pioneer Hotel.”
Lotte averted her eyes from his. “That was different.”
His brow narrowed. “Why so different? You can’t say because it was for money, because you wouldn’t take any.”
Lotte tried to turn away from him, but Devon grabbed her wrist, stopping her.
“Why didn’t you take my money that night, Lotte?” he asked, his fingers lacing with hers. “You earned it, that’s for certain, so tell me why.”
“I must get back to the house.” Lotte tried to again escape him, obviously avoiding his question.
Devon held her firm. “Please tell me. I want to know. I need to know.”
She tried to pull her hand free from his. “If Elizabeth sees us together, Devon, if she discovers I have shared a bed with you, she will kill me.”
Her words echoed in his mind. “I wouldn’t let her,” Devon tried to reassure her. “I won’t let her touch you.”
She smiled at him though she looked sad. “You wouldn’t be able to stop her, Devon. No one can stop her.”
Finally succeeding in pulling herself free, Lotte took several steps away from him until she was out of his reach.
“You would refuse me?” he asked, her comment confusing him. “Even after you welcomed me so passionately in your bed, inside of you? You would now turn me away as if nothing was shared between us?”
She nodded, tears welling in her eyes. “I have to, Devon. I can’t risk my life for you again.”
