by Gayle Eden
Fighting fatigue and hearing her stomach growl, she laid her head back, trying to rest during the short trip. She dare not take all the information at once, but had enough so that Raith not only knew the customs officers on the bribe to Marcus, but had proof of his other illegal schemes as well.
During the night, Raith hired men to empty two of Stratton’s warehouses of wines and tobacco the man had himself stole, or rather had stolen from merchants. They were at Raith’s own house. Raith had already started printing the sheets he would begin spreading on the streets that openly named Stratton in the charges.
There were dozens of men in trade who smuggled goods for Marcus, yet he double-crossed every businessman he had dealings with, selling them goods, stealing them back, and reselling them. His brothels were more than the flesh trade, the majority of them sold goods black market, as well as having a lucrative side business of kidnapping women and street children, who sailed God knew where on Marcus’s ships. It explained much of why she and her mother were hunted by his ruffians, and why the most wretched hid from them in the tunnels, below the streets at night.
She could not imagine what he did in other countries, where he had his slaves and plantations, but he knew how to get around the laws in England, who to bribe, and supply whatever contraband for. He was not a man who could have gotten rich the legal way, because what he was skillful at was crime. His personal taste and the things he had visited on those he wanted for himself, played into his assurance that he would never be punished. He truly believed that he had so many in his debt and had fooled many more—that he was beyond any law, moral, or otherwise.
He was, thus far, taking the other bait and intercepting passionate letters, flowers, sweets and gifts, which he thought were from Raith—laughing and sneering, jesting to her, in his arrogant way about taking her from her old lover. She had gone out with him once, a brief trip to the park. Raith had shown up and done a very good job of mooning and playing the obsessed lover. When he had attempted to talk to her, Stratton hauled her to him and kissed her. It was obvious that he enjoyed thinking he had stolen Raith’s mistress. One—who made every pretense of matching his lusts.
Now that she was with him more, Gabriella saw that the polish he tried to employ was very thin on Marcus Stratton—an act he could not perfect, despite fine clothing and wealth. He had a crude humor, and no real respect for human life. The only person Marcus cared about was Marcus. The world and everyone in it, was just there to make sure he got what he wanted, when he wanted, and how he wanted it.
Gabriella jolted forward, not realizing she had drifted off in sleep when the hack stopped. She stirred herself and exited.
Before she could even knock on the door, Raith appeared and pulled her inside.
“You’re late.”
She reached in her cloak and handed him the books, and tied papers. “He’s built up a tolerance for drink and drugs apparently. It takes hours for him to succumb.” Having walked toward the study, she went in and sat heavily in the first chair she came to.
“You look pale. Have you eaten?”
“No…Not since…what day is it?” She looked at him.
Raith cursed. His dark eyes roamed her face. “Wait here.” He laid the books on his desk and left, returning a bit later with a tray of bread, ham, cheese, fruit, coffee, and chilled wine.
Gabriella divested herself of the cloak, ignoring his sharp stare at the bruises on her shoulder and neck while she ate.
“How far are you letting it go, Gabriella?”
Disregarding his arctic growl, she swallowed the bread and wine, and then answered, “As far as I have to. We deduced long ago, he is not a stupid man.”
She ate the ham, cheeses, and fruit, sipping coffee, before finally looking over where he leaned his hips against the desk. His hands cupping the edge beside him—fierce eyed and hard as always, as usual Raith was in all black, shirts, trousers and boots, his hair tucked behind his ears.
She murmured, “Be glad he is agreeable to any submission at all. If it weren’t for the restraints—“
“We can end this another way.”
“We will end it as planned, as soon as you have what you need.”
His nostrils flared. His pitch eyes bore into hers. “It was always understood you would not let him abuse you.”
Despite the fact, she sensed his anger, her lips twisted in a mockery of smile. “Breathing the same air as him befouls my soul.” She turned her head, sighed and tossed the grapes back into the plate. “Having him kiss and grope, and pinch, is only slightly worse.”
Getting to her feet, Gabriella put the tray aside and walked over to the window, staring out. Wanting sleep. Wanting it over. Wanting him dead.
She breathed inward through her clenched teeth, only half-aware of what she was saying, because she was sick, sick in the way she had been from the day she had stepped into Stratton’s world. “You’ve no idea what it’s like to have to touch and arouse such a demon. To listen to him chant out what goes through his sadistic mind. That chamber…is a dank and sinister box that reeks of—” She shuddered and rubbed her arms. “When he’s nude, begging me to beat him a little harder, it’s all I can do to stay in character, and not kill him.”
Several silent moments passed when she knew Raith’s black gaze was fixed on her. She murmured after a time, “I knew he robbed my mother, abused her in some way, now I know why she could endure what became of her on the streets.”
“It will soon be over.”
“Yes.”
Tersely, Raith supplied, “The papers will start circulating on the streets tomorrow. His warehouses should be emptied by week’s end.”
She turned from the window and walked to get her cloak. “I should go. Perhaps I’ll get a few hours rest whilst he’s under the effects of the drug.”
Passing by him, she was detained when he caught her by the wrist.
Looking up, Gabriella saw he was studying the bruises there. When he finally lifted his eyes to meet hers, his thumb washed over the marks, whether deliberate or unconsciously, she did not know.
“Not much longer, Gabriella.”
Her hellish week, her fatigue, whatever it was, made her all the more sensitive to his closeness. His scent was so welcome, familiar, and so refreshing to her nose. His voice, his touch, however light, something she had missed. Though his expression was normally bitter, she thought she saw something different in his eyes—some struggle, some moment like she oft had, of wondering if, when this was all over, would there be anything of their real selves to build anything with. On the other hand, perhaps he was finally realizing that tool or not, avenger or not, she was human.
Uncaring if it was all in her mind or no, she husked, “I’m regretful about what I said, Raith. I’m achingly sorry about your Suzette.”
His eyes turned a darker pitch. The sinew seemed to shrink on the fierce bones of his face. Yet he merely nodded abrupt before he reminded her, “When the time comes, you must flee as soon as I am inside the house.”
“I know what to do.”
His hand dropped from her wrist. He straightened and took the cloak, holding it for her to slip into.
Facing him, whilst he pulled the hood over her hair, Gabriella gazed upwards. “You’ll keep your promise, won’t you? About my mother, if anything goes wrong.”
“It won’t—go wrong.” He took her by the shoulders, his hold more forceful than his voice. “So long as you do exactly as we planned.”
Gabriella nodded. Her gaze skimmed his face. She dared to raise her fingertips to touch his sinewy cheek. “Be careful…I…Just please…take care, Raith.”
“It matters not what happens to me, in that final meeting, so long as he is dead a second before I breathe my last.”
“It matters….” Her lips trembled but she could not finish. Since she felt her emotions surfacing, Gabriella turned swiftly and strode, almost ran, outside before she made a fool of herself.
Back in the hack, she felt her
eyes sting and had to drive the heel of her hands against them to suppress tears. It was fatigue. The strain.
Yet, even as she slipped back inside and stripped, crawling into the bed she loathed, in the house of the man she loathed—she grew a little more queasy, a little panicked in the deepest pit of her stomach—at the reminder that ending their pact over Stratton, would also be the end of their relationship too. She may never see Raith again.
In her worse thoughts, Gabriella feared Raith would destroy himself deliberately. He lived only for vengeance, and lived with the ghost of Suzette—sought it, breathed it, needed it. She knew him well enough to discern it kept him alive when all the rest of him died too.
Finally letting slumber carry her out of the strains of reality, Gabriella found a few stingy hours of peace.
* * * *
Raith stood amid the swirling fog, his high coat collar flipped up, watching the dark shapes as the last of the barges pushed off from shore. When he could see them no more, he turned, keeping to deep shadows. He made his way to Fleet Street. There, he took rear stairs at a narrow building and knocked on the door of the garret. An elder man opened it, holding a sputtering candle.
With few words exchanged, Raith handed him a sack of coins, advising, “There’s a ship for the Indies leaving in the hour, and I’d suggest you board it.”
“I intend to, milord. I have no use for the deed. You’ll find it under the floor boards there.” His head nodded toward a corner.
Tossing him extra coin, Raith left shortly after carrying several wrapped bundles. Yet another hour later, businesses, and doors on several streets had leaflets stuck in the cracks or slid under the bottom. In the better addresses, he left them the same, and addition, in parks, as well as under the doors of the clubs, coffeehouses, and shops.
The fog was soupy, thicker, when empty-handed, he stood gazing up at the back of Stratton’s residence. Reaching in his coat for his flask, he drank deep, once, twice, wiping his mouth with his fist as the emotions began to grip him. All the years of planning, waiting, was for this. Soon. Very soon.
Despite the pre morning chill, a bead of sweat ran down his temple and more mingled with foggy dampness on his hair. He finished the flask, the whiskey burning through his blood with every heartbeat.
Seeing a faint light in one of the windows of the second floor, Raith’s guts tensed. Was she in that little room she called a box? Was Stratton abusing her?
Other, clearer images came, swimming within the intoxication from the whiskey, the corpse bloated and muddy…brown eyes…no. He shook his head, Suzette’s eyes were not brown, Gabriella’s were. The hair flowing outward and matted with debris…black with burgundy lights….
Bloody hell. Raith felt a wave of dizzy heat. His mind’s eye warping an image of semi full red lips, of a woman lying on a bed, first Gabriella, then Suzette’s body, then Gabriella began to transform, to take on an ashen hue. Her skin swelled, blackened, and burst.
“Christ.” He swiped his hand over his face to clear his head and banish those awful sights. The worst kept coming until he turned, groping for something to steady himself, the whiskey rising from his gut upwards. Finally, his hand grasped solid surface, but the spew erupted from his lips. Shuddering, moaning, Raith eased down on his haunches, heaving violently, until nothing remained in his stomach.
This never happened. Never had he confused the two. The dirty, thin, waif, he took in off the streets. The hollow and yet steel eyed young girl who he fed and clothed, who absorbed his instructions like a sponge. There was no confusing the two. Suzette was fair, small and wispy, an innocent Rector’s daughter with no knowledge of the world, no concept of evil save what her father taught in scripture. Suzette was pure and trusting. Gabriella was… she was wounded, bruised, and alone, but sharp, cynical, determined.
Sweat issued through his pores. His hand trembled wiping it away. Taking a moment to lean forward, he pressed his forehead against the cool object under his hand, having a brief, merciful respite. Floating, as a kind of fever took him, he saw Gabriella in a crimson gown, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, and head back in abandon, her hand between her creamy thighs. He saw himself as he sat in the shadows, forgetting to speak, robbed of it, both loathing himself and helpless in that moment. Betraying Suzette in a moment he had forgotten to shut down, helpless to do so. His body had come alive for the first time in years, his heartbeat, his loins warmed and thickened. Moreover, he saw beauty, passion, and life— instead of death.
He tried to blot out her deep creamy skin and round curves, the large coral nipples that had firmed under the amber lamplight. The sight of her thighs, milky, soft, parted—and the sounds he knew she’d picked up from their ventures out at the brothels and exhibitions. Worse yet, he tried to blot out the image of her not acting, but sitting on her bed, no more the waif, but a woman grown, exotic, with that something more in her brandy eyes that tried to pierce places in him he refused to allow.
It was all merged and mingled, the years, the thousands of hours, when the world was just the two of them on their quest, their mission. He told himself he was cold blooded without apology. He was giving her what she wanted too. Had she gone after Stratton on her own, she would be dead already.
He was fixed on his purpose, his goal, and there was no ulterior motive toward Gabriella. They were clear about the ends they worked toward.
Raith squeezed his eyes tight, tighter, until that erotic image vanished. He used the same tool he always did, Suzette in death, to make it vanish.
It left him chilled.
He fumbled for his handkerchief and wiped his face and mouth. Standing, drawing in several breaths, he turned his back from the building, and lit a cheroot, savoring a bitter taste, cupping the lit end, before turning again, letting his shoulder lean against the iron post.
He drew in, letting the smoke inside like wraiths and ghosts amid the fog. He could not forget. He could not think of Gabriella as anything or anyone outside his own need of her assistance. If he let himself imagine…as when he’d spied those marks on her shoulders, he’d think of what he’d made her, what role he’d written for her to play—trained her for. He would not trade one woman for the other. He would be giving up the only thing he lived for.
Suzette deserved revenge.
Gabriella wanted this as much as he, for her own retribution. She had known the danger and agreed. She was in control and knew how much risk to take, and how to protect herself—
If Raith did not tell himself this, he would loathe himself—even more than he had for not protecting his wife.
He should have enlightened Suzette about London and about things a protected and naive country lass would not know of. When he decided to bring her to the city, she had been excited, wide eyed, and he did not have it in him to dampen that. In truth, he had spun a dozen lies for Suzette about who he was and what his background was, because he had wanted to hang onto the purity and love she had offered.
From the moment, he had met her, an accidental meeting on a country lane. Her angelic beauty captivated him. Moreover, from the moment, she opened her mouth and he began to listen, Raith knew he had never met anyone who saw so much goodness in everything.
It hurt still. It twisted him up inside to think of it. Of her shy wonder at his kisses, her complete submission and trust at lovemaking—something they had not done right after marriage, but that very night—the night before she went missing.
If he thought of her giving herself to him that night, rising early, likely thinking she could go to the shops alone, as she did in her village. And…if he imagined Marcus spying her, charming her….holding her for the time he’d searched for her…He had gone mad. Even the worst he had imagined then was not the worst that had happened to her.
He was insane, he was sure. The sight of her in death had snapped that final thread inside of him that was frayed to begin with.
When he had taken her body home to her father, the man had wept. Raith could not. His last wo
rds to him had been, forgive me. Because he knew, he should have never taken her from her home and family.
What drove him, existed from those years of boyhood, never belonging, fitting, and being loathed and invisible to everyone. Those things the Duchess said to him….a child of violence and rape, made him nauseous. Sick, because the father he had so longed to notice him, was then. Moreover, death, death seemed to curse and mark his life.
It was better to meet it, challenge the devil, and beat him at his own game. He would get his blood vengeance before it was said and done. Suzette’s spirit cried out for it. When she had peace, he did not care what happened to him afterwards.
The cheroot finished, dawn nearing, he turned and walked toward his house. Raith inhaled the chill and night mist, letting it cool his blood and body. Dead and cold—at home in the dark. Yes, he had been that for a long time. It was only the passion for Stratton’s blood that kept him alive.
Two more tasks—the fires, the grand finale of explosions that would obliterate any trace of Marcus Stratton’s evil enterprises. Then, he would face Stratton, kill him, make him agonize exactly the way Suzette had. Stratton would die with everyone knowing exactly what he was, a criminal, and a depraved and sadistic animal, kept fed, grown, encouraged, by those who cared nothing of what he did, so long as they served their own ends.
Standing in his chamber later, the place where he could absorb the bleak chill and shadows. Raith looked around and spied the gown he had pulled out of Suzette’s small bag, and kept tucked in the back of the wardrobe. He walked over to it and picked it up, bringing it to his nose, breathing in, trying to smell the long faded scent of wild flowers and sun, the scent of her, the essence of that purity and innocence—the spirit of everything she’d brought into his life, for so short a span.
He closed his eyes and sat on the edge of the bed, his fists in the material whilst he lowered it and stared at the tiny buttons.
Suzette…Suzette…Suzette...
Lying back on the bed, he held it to his chest, the hollow in his gut matching the rift in his heart and soul. Because she did not answer, couldn’t, the blackness seeped in and froze there, whispering to him brutally, that he held the faded garment of one cold in the ground.
