by Kery, Beth
Ian nodded. “The FBI couldn’t convincingly link the two to the case, but there was a strong suspicion against Stern and Brodsik. So they have been connected to kidnapping in the past. And they did try to take Francesca,” Ian said, his eyes gleaming in the firelight as he looked at Francesca.
An involuntary shiver went through her. Anne inhaled raggedly.
“What of this other man, Stern?” James asked worriedly.
“They’ve found him. He’s dead, too,” Ian said.
“What?” Elise and Anne exclaimed at once.
Ian nodded. “Actually, the police recovered Stern’s body from a creek several days ago. He’d been shot. His body had gone unclaimed, and they hadn’t been able to identify him until now. Once Markov had Brodsik’s passport, he was able to follow his trail into the country. Stern and he were on the same plane, both using aliases of course. After that, they were able to identify Brodsik’s true name from fingerprints from the international crime files. They were able to identify Stern given Brodsik and Stern’s history together.”
“Who killed Stern?” Gerard asked.
“Markov suspects Brodsik did away with him. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s seen partners squabble over plans . . . or become unwilling to share when the ultimate prize grows closer. But they’re still trying to confirm that with their investigation. As to why Brodsik might have murdered his own partner, I have no idea. I imagine they’ll know more once they can determine where the two men were staying and trace their movements since they arrived late on Christmas Eve.”
“They came to England on Christmas Eve?” Lucien asked.
“Yes,” Ian said grimly. “The same day as Francesca.”
“And no one else accompanied them?” Gerard asked.
“No. Just Stern and Brodsik,” Ian replied.
“So that’s it, isn’t it?” Francesca asked. She swallowed thickly. Her mouth had gone very dry. “Both men are dead. The threat is done.”
“It would seem so,” James said slowly.
Ian frowned. “I wish I could be so convinced,” he said before he sat and pulled Francesca back into his arms.
* * *
Neither of them attempted to disguise to the others that they were going up to bed together that night, leaving the sitting room hand in hand after saying their good-nights. Francesca was still feeling especially shaky and Ian seemed to sense it, holding her against him when they went to bed, neither of them speaking, just breathing each other’s scent, prizing each other’s presence. She awoke at dawn to the sensation of his lips firm and warm on her throat and breast, his hunger unshielded . . . raw. Their lovemaking was fierce and sweet, both of them desperate to jump into the bright blaze of passion and life, wild to escape the lingering menace of death and the shadows that always seemed to encroach on their happiness.
Francesca’s eyes blinked open heavily as she had the incendiary thought as she lay in Ian’s arms after they made love. Why were her thoughts so morbid and depressing? It took her a moment to understand her dark mood.
And so that really is the reason you came back. The only reason. Because you believed I was in danger.
I came back because I was worried about you, yes.
Fear gripped at her heart and throat. Once Ian was convinced that the threat against her had passed, would he leave again? She wanted to beg him for reassurance that he wouldn’t depart again on his search, but pride stilled her voice. So did helplessness, as she recalled all too well that she didn’t have the power to bring him peace when it came to his past. If he insisted upon putting himself back on that path, he’d have to travel alone.
* * *
They gathered in the hall later that morning to say good-bye to Lucien and Elise, waiting for Peter to come around with the car. Elise and Lucien’s departure only seemed to amplify Ian’s black mood, signifying the culmination of something he didn’t want to end. When he recognized his thoughts, he determinedly asked Lucien for a word before he left. He drew him into the alcove behind the stairs.
“Do you still plan to meet me at Aurore?” Ian asked his brother in a hushed tone.
Lucien’s stoic expression barely stirred. “You still plan to go? Even after everything with Francesca?”
Ian realized Lucien was being delicate. He wasn’t just referring to Brodsik and Stern’s intent to harm or kidnap Francesca. He was talking about the fact that Francesca and he were clearly lovers again.
“Yes. I have to go back. I have to know as much about Trevor Gaines as I can.”
Lucien didn’t reply for a moment. Finally, he exhaled. “Yes. All right. I’m not sure it’s for the best where you’re concerned, but I won’t leave you alone to deal with this. And it’s not as if I’m not curious as well. Just contact me when you’re ready, and I’ll come.”
Lucien started to depart.
“Wait. There’s one other thing. It’s about your mother,” Ian said when Lucien paused. Lucien’s eyes closed briefly.
“What is it?” Ian asked, noticing Lucien’s reaction.
Lucien opened his eyes with a resigned air. “It’s nothing. I was just waiting for you to ask ever since you arrived at Belford Hall. I was shocked when you didn’t ask me straightaway.”
Ian’s pulse began to throb at his throat, although he remained outwardly calm. “I felt guilty about asking. I know you’ve just recently met Fatima,” he said, referring to Lucien’s mother. “I realize how discovering she’s alive and forming a relationship must be very sacred for you.”
Lucien met his stare. “You want to speak with her, don’t you? Ask her about your mother? About Trevor Gaines?”
“Yes,” Ian said honestly. “I do. I won’t without your permission, though. You wouldn’t have spoken to my mother about her past—about a vulnerable time in her life—without my permission, and I wouldn’t speak to your mother without your agreement.”
Lucien looked away. “What you have to understand,” he said quietly. “Is that my mother’s religion is highly prohibitive at the concept of a woman taking a lover outside of marriage, let alone having a child out of wedlock. Her family is a rarity for continuing to accept her even when she told them the truth about me. It wasn’t an easy thing for her to open up and talk about my origins. Her shame is palpable. It’s very difficult to witness her guilt.”
Ian’s heart paused in his chest. “You mean you’ve already spoken with her?” he rasped. “About Trevor Gaines? About my mother?”
Lucien looked at him with the gray eyes he’d inherited from Trevor Gaines, yet the degree of compassion he saw in his gaze was nothing that Gaines could have ever begun to pass on to his child.
“Yes,” Lucien said.
“What did she say? Did Gaines force her into being with him?”
“No,” Lucien replied starkly. “My mother is under the impression that everything Gaines did in regard to moving Helen and her to France was for her—Fatima. She was duped into believing he loved her while they were still in Britain. She’d caught his eye while he’d been visiting Helen, and then he accidentally ran into her while she was marketing in the town. He wooed her carefully. My mother was charmed by him—a handsome, accomplished, wealthy man. Their love affair was carried out clandestinely and lasted several months before he disappeared from her life.”
Ian absorbed all of this, picturing the scene of seduction in the tiny town in Essex, Gaines wooing both women at once, the mad gentlewoman and her servant. But not just wooing. Gathering information about them of an intimate nature, their likes and dislikes, gauging their vulnerabilities, ascertaining their cycles. By now, Ian understood that Gaines’s fascination with mechanical things, especially clockworks, bizarrely paralleled this obsession he had with women’s reproductive cycles. He must have realized early on that the cycles of women who lived together often synchronized. Ian had a sick feeling it excited him, being in the know of such feminine intimacies,
using that knowledge for his perverse aims.
“Did Fatima realize that Gaines was seeing my mother during the same time period?”
“No. As a matter of fact, Fatima had the distinct impression that Helen didn’t care for Gaines. She assumed it was because of her increasing illness. Helen could be very withdrawn at times.” Lucien’s stare turned fierce. “And I don’t want my mother to know until I have the chance to tell her. At this point, my mother is under the impression she was taken advantage of by a philanderer. If anyone has to reveal to her that Gaines was much, much worse than that, it will be me.”
“Fine,” Ian said distractedly, fixated as he was on what Lucien had said earlier. “But what did your mother say about my mother? Lucien?” he prompted roughly. Lucien still hesitated, but then seemed to come to a decision when he met Ian’s gaze.
“My mother said that when they went to France, your mother decompensated considerably,” he said quietly. “Helen used to be functional enough that my mother could leave her alone for an hour or two at a time. Your mother could see to her own basic needs, and she didn’t pose a threat to herself. One morning, my mother returned from a shopping errand in the town where you grew up in France, only to find Helen missing. She searched, growing increasingly frantic. She eventually found your mother in the backyard in what sounds like a near-catatonic state, curled up in a ball, unresponsive. Helen was unable to speak, walk, or recognize familiar faces. My mother called the local doctor and the police. They undertook an investigation. It was determined Helen had recently had sexual intercourse, and there were some bruises on her body. But they were hesitant to call what had occurred rape. Helen was unable to testify as to what had happened, and she’d been occasionally witnessed in . . . erratic behavior by the townspeople since arriving. She might have gotten the bruises from falls, or even taken part in consensual rough sex—”
“How is a psychotic woman able to give informed consent?” Ian interrupted furiously.
“I’m just telling you the police’s thinking,” Lucien said, his gray eyes making Ian clamp his mouth shut. “No charge was ever officially made.”
“She was raped,” Ian grated out.
“My mother agrees,” Lucien said regretfully. “Unlike the police officials, she was familiar with the cycles of Helen’s schizophrenia. She’d never seen your mother decompensate to the level she fell to during that time period. It was clear to my mother she’d experienced a severe trauma. Helen didn’t speak for nearly a month after the incident. My mother thought for sure when she discovered Helen was pregnant that she wouldn’t be able to carry the child to term, she was so debilitated. All signs point to the conclusion that when Helen denied Gaines, he eventually resorted to rape. It’s not as if there isn’t clear-cut proof that he was familiar with those tactics,” Lucien said bitterly.
Ian’s grandmother laughed in the distance, the sound echoing off the walls of the Great Hall. It took Ian a few seconds to even recognize the familiar sound for what it was.
“And your mother gave birth nine months later,” Lucien finished heavily.
“I can see why you wouldn’t want your mother seeing me,” Ian stated after a pause. He and Trevor Gaines looked appallingly alike, after all. If it weren’t for the difference of their eyes, they might have been twins. Lucien’s mother obviously remained ignorant of the fact that her seducer and Helen’s rapist were one and the same man. If she were to meet Helen’s son, however, the truth would be slammed home by the simple, blatant evidence of Ian’s face.
“I do want you to meet my mother someday,” Lucien said fiercely. “Of course I do. I’m just trying to convey to you the complexity of the whole thing.”
“I would never let her anywhere near me, if I were you,” Ian said, walking past Lucien to the Great Hall.
He suddenly wanted nothing more than for this whole conversation to be over. Lucien halted him with a hand on his upper arm. Ian looked at his brother, anger—that old, familiar companion—starting to bubble beneath the surface of his calm façade. Not anger at Lucien, but at some unknown, vague grayness that seemed to return in that moment to press down on him like a suffocating pall.
I can’t escape it, no matter how hard I’ve been trying to for the past week, since the second you looked into Francesca’s startled, glistening eyes as she stood in that reception line.
“You’re my brother. She’s my mother,” Lucien hissed. “Of course I want my family to meet someday. You’re not Trevor Gaines, Ian.”
The fury reared in him, seeming to constrict his throat. He jerked Lucien’s hold off him, a snarl shaping his mouth. He had that tight, hot feeling in his chest again that made breathing difficult. When he turned, he saw Francesca standing in the hallway, a startled expression on her face. He froze. Half of her face was radiant from sunshine, the other cast in a shadow from the grand staircase.
“Lucien? The car is here.” Her gaze narrowed on Ian. She took a step toward him. “Ian? Are you all right? What is it?”
He didn’t reply. Too much emotion had erupted in him too quickly. He walked ahead of both of them to the Great Hall and started up the stairs, taking two at a time. He’d already said his good-byes to Elise, and he couldn’t force himself to take part in small talk at the moment. He did his best to ignore the sensation of Francesca’s dubious, worried stare at his back.
* * *
It was technically too cold to ride a motorcycle, but Ian dressed for it, and the winter day was sunny and unseasonably mild, the temperature inching up to the high thirties. When he saw more than a half dozen press vans outside the main entrance security gate, he cursed bitterly under his breath and thought of turning around. His grandfather had told him that several news stations had called his secretary this morning about the shooting at Belford Hall yesterday, asking for interviews and a statement. James had denied requests for interviews, but he and Ian had come up with a basic statement, saying that all the visitors at the press conference and the family were safe, and deferring to the Stratham police for official news of the crime. The break-in and shooting had been made all that much more sensationalistic because it involved an earl, his heir to the title, and Ian himself, who had been making a reappearance on the business scene. In addition, the crime had happened during a well-publicized and well-attended press conference, the gunshot itself being picked up by press cameras. According to Anne, the press conference and chilling gunshot interruption were being replayed continually on national and local stations.
Screw it, Ian thought, waving a hand at Cromwell at the security gate, and turning onto the road a moment later. The press didn’t know who was behind the black helmet with the face visor. Although certainly many of the people who lived locally knew that the earl’s grandson was fond of motorcycles, he noticed that the majority of the vans were from London stations. If they chose to chase him, let them. He was edgy and restless enough to crave a challenge. Besides, he’d blow them away on the sleek MV Agusta he straddled.
He ripped past the vans parked on the side of the road at a lightning-fast pace, actually half hoping one or several would follow. He saw only a couple surprised, pale faces peer at him from the vehicle windows, none of them alight with the thrill of a chase, however.
The chill air rushing past him as he roared down the country roads was sufficient for clearing his head, though, seeming to blow out some of his anger and crystalize his thoughts.
He craved some numbing off.
By the time he returned to Belford, he felt frozen to the bone, but calmer, and more resolved. He used a back entrance to the grounds. Although relatively few people knew about the gravel road through the trees, Ian was gratified to see one of the security guards his grandfather had hired manning it. He returned the motorcycle he and Gerard had once mechanically enhanced to the chauffeur and mechanic, Peter. While he and Peter were talking about the Agusta’s performance, he received a phone call. Seeing it was Detecti
ve Markov calling, he walked away to take it.
Twenty minutes later, he found James alone looking over some ledgers in the sitting room.
“I’m working in here instead of my office for the time being,” James explained after they’d greeted one another. “Anne wants to send off the carpet in my office to have it cleaned . . .” He faded off reluctantly, and Ian knew he meant cleaned of Anton Brodsik’s blood. “But I spoke to Detective Markov about it, and he said to hold off making any major changes or using the room until they’ve finalized their investigation.”
“I just got off the phone with Markov.”
“Did you?” James asked, immediately interested. “Any news?”
“Yes. Considerable,” Ian said, sitting down in an upholstered chair near the desk where James worked. “They’ve done ballistics reports, and it seems that the gun Brodsik pulled on Gerard yesterday was definitely the same weapon that killed Shell Stern.”
“So . . .” James said slowly. “Brodsik decided he didn’t want to share any of the pie with his partner.”
“Either that or they had a falling out over something else,” Ian said.
“Does Markov have any indication whatsoever that another person was involved?”
“No. None.”
James’s astute gaze narrowed on his grandson. “But you don’t believe him?”
Ian paused, thinking. “Given the pair’s history of petty crimes, I just find it hard to believe that they’d engineer this whole thing themselves. I suppose it’s possible, though.”
“I’d hardly call the attempted kidnapping of the Henes heir a petty crime.”
“Exactly my point,” Ian murmured. “I doubt they were the main instigators of that one, either. Although considering the whole thing was botched, who knows?”
“Well, they’re dead, so I suppose we’ll never know the full truth. Ian?”
Ian blinked. He realized he’d been scowling, lost in thought at his grandfather’s words.
