The Deadliest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  How long would it go on? And to what end? Her sister was nowhere in sight, lost somewhere in the night while all she could do was watch the hopeless battle, her eyes mesmerized by the flashes of metal in the moonlight. They parried, retreated, and the larger man leapt behind a low stone wall to catch his breath while Strathmore marched toward him with lethal intent.

  Strathmore could not die. With his death, Rowena would be lost. Julia began crawling toward the scene, watching as the larger man suddenly lunged and caught Strathmore unaware. Leaping back, Strathmore slid out of range once more.

  Before rising to her full height, Julia felt for the outlines of Mclean’s pistol pressed against her waist. She imagined clutching it between her unsteady hands and training it on the two moving figures. The impediments to a clear shot were numerous. She told herself she was capable, that her photographer’s eye would see her through.

  A third figure was silhouetted in the moonlight—Julia Woolcott. She rose from her knees and when she called out, she knew that her voice would be stripped of emotion, her hands amazingly steady. Raising the weapon, she fixed it with her left hand under the iron barrel.

  Her objective was to stop that fight to the death—without killing either man. And to assert her control over Faron and Strathmore.

  Fiercely concentrating on the crumbling stone wall on one side of the men, Julia prayed for a clear shot. But they moved at blurring speed. Strathmore was infused with bottomless energy, his blade swooping and driving back his opponent, nearly overpowering the larger man with his savagery.

  “Are you certain you don’t wish to answer my question now?” Strathmore asked, his eyes glittering as he took a moment to savor his victory, and to gather his strength to lunge for the kill.

  Holding her breath, Julia narrowed her eyes, focusing on her quarry. Then she squeezed the trigger. The lone bullet exploded in the night, ricocheting twice off the low stone wall, the recoil driving her backwards.

  Both men stopped in mid-motion.

  “I’m asking the question now, gentlemen,” said Julia, her voice straining to be heard over the rushing river in the gorge below.

  Strathmore stood with his arms hanging loose at his sides, his chest heaving. His opponent was the worse for wear, his left should bleeding, crimson stains creeping down his shirt-front. Wondering briefly whether it was the right decision, she swung her pistol at the strange man, framing him in her sights.

  “Where is my sister? I shall not ask twice.”

  “This is most unwise, Julia.” Strathmore said.

  “I did not ask for your opinion,” she said, stronger than she had ever been in her life. The larger man watched her silently, his head covered by a knitted cap, his features obscured by shadows. “Unlike you two gentlemen, I shall not be held ransom by outdated ideas of fair play, particularly when it comes to my sister. In other words,” she said, making each word count, “I shall depend on my poor marksmanship to ensure that I don’t hit anything of vital importance. Although I can’t promise that I shan’t skim a knee cap or, heaven forbid, areas of a more private and personal nature.”

  No answer from either man. “I am not willing to discuss terms,” she said, her breath curling into the damp air. “As I’ve plainly stated, I shall not ask twice.”

  To make her intentions plain and to ensure the accuracy of her shot, Julia took two confident strides toward the men, who watched her with unnerving concentration. The hard, uneven earth beneath her boots grounded her. When she stopped she was only several feet away from the two men who would take her sister from her. Her ears strained over the sound of rushing water, the back of her neck tightening as her ears struggled to hear a cry, a voice, anything that would let her know Rowena was near. Her eyes scanned the low wall behind the unknown man, wondering whether they might have secreted her away beneath the pile of ancient stone.

  Don’t worry. Don’t cry. I will save you, Rowena. The simple words echoed with a childish rhythm, resonating from somewhere in her past. Her grip tightened on the pistol. She had rescued her sister once and she would rescue her again.

  “I am going to ask you to drop your weapon, and turn slowly around, sir, with your back to me, at which point you will begin marching toward wherever it is that you are holding my sister.” For emphasis, she pulled the trigger again, a blast hitting the ground by the man’s feet. To his credit, the large man didn’t flinch but dropped his knife and turned his back to her. He began walking toward the low wall furthest away from them.

  “My aim is improving,” Julia said. “Practice makes perfect, after all.” She wondered how many bullets she had left in the chamber. Strathmore was watching her, the knife glinting in his gloved hand. Part of her wondered why he wasn’t interfering, why he was holding himself back in a manner that was totally unlike his usual aggressiveness. Just stay where you are, she begged silently.

  Her chest tight, she matched the unknown man, step for step, until he stooped down over the low wall. From her memory, Julia saw the gentle slope beyond that led to the rushing river. The breath rushed from her breast like a deflated balloon when she saw him rise with a bundle in his arms, the slack body and face covered by a cape whose hood had fallen open. In the moonlight, she could make out the features that were as familiar to her as her own—the perfectly white oval of Rowena’s face.

  Julia’s voice was harder and stronger than it had ever been. “Put her down. Now. And then step away from her,” she commanded. Her outstretched arm holding the pistol never wavered.

  “I’d be pleased to do so, Miss Woolcott,” said the unknown man, his voice nothing more than a rasp over the rush of the river nearby. “Because she’s not mine to kill.”

  Thank God, confirmation that Rowena was still alive. Yet the words were meant to provoke, serving as a riddle intended to disturb. Strathmore took a few steps closer toward her until she sensed he was an arm’s length from her back.

  “Forget the wordplay. Put her down,” she repeated.

  The man shook his head, a white smile gleaming in the moonlight. “No wordplay. If I do relinquish your sister, she will surely die,” he said.

  Julia gritted her teeth until her jaw hurt. “You are in no position to make light of the situation, sir.”

  “You are clearly confused. So I shall clarify the circumstances for you, Miss Woolcott.” He settled the bundle more comfortably in his arms. “You see, it is not I who will kill your sister but the man standing behind you—Lord Strathmore.”

  Thunder rumbled in Julia’s ears, competing with the churning of the river. It was all she could do to steady and silence her breath. “Put her down,” she commanded with a stabbing sensation in her stomach.

  “Why don’t you confirm what you know to be true, Strathmore?”

  It was then Julia felt the sharpness of the dagger in her back.

  “It’s very simple,” said the unknown man, “Lord Strathmore is to choose between you and your sister. Only one of you will leave here alive.” He paused. “You appear to be shocked, Miss Woolcott, which tells me that Strathmore has been less than candid with you.”

  Julia’s throat sealed up like wax and the hand holding the pistol shook, badly.

  Chapter 12

  Strathmore hoped Julia wouldn’t shoot. There was no way she could hit the kidnapper without jeopardizing the woman he held aloft in his arms.

  His mind calculated swiftly. “Miss Woolcott can’t be depended upon to act reasonably when her sister’s life hangs in the balance,” he said into the night air, wondering about the man’s stamina, the blood stains flowering through the rips in his shirt and breeches. “I know the requirements of my assignment. Although I’m amazed that Lowther believed I would kill Rowena to save her sister. Perhaps his judgment is not nearly as keen as he believes.”

  Strathmore pricked the back of Julia’s cloak, ensuring that she felt the pressure of the dagger in his hands. Her profile was pure ivory, her eyes locked on the man only a few feet away. “I can shoot more quickly
than Strathmore can plunge his dagger in my back,” she shouted over the wind.

  “I doubt it,” Strathmore said under his breath but making sure that she heard. Julia Woolcott was prepared to think the worst of him. It was the logical conclusion, one she would not ignore despite the distress, borne of her love for her sister and her hatred of him, that must be ripping her apart. Difficult to reconcile, Strathmore admitted to himself with a coldness that often served him well in the past.

  “I think we need to clarify the rules of the game,” offered the stranger without sparing a glance at the body in his arms. “You’re clearly good with the dagger you hold in your hand, Strathmore, as you’ve demonstrated, so it shouldn’t take much to finish off the senior Miss Woolcott quickly, neatly, and painlessly. For your troubles, once I determine the deed has been done properly this time, I shall dutifully relinquish Miss Rowena Woolcott, alive and well, if a trifle faint from a healthy dose of laudanum.”

  There was a sickening silence and then Julia said, “Consider it done.”

  It was at that point Strathmore decided to move. “Whatever you do, don’t shoot,” he growled into Julia’s ear before thrusting her behind him. He held her tightly, one large hand pushing her to the ground as he heard a series of erratic shots.

  Something wasn’t right. Another volley of shots, and Faron’s man, with Rowena still in his arms, fell behind the low stone wall. For a moment Strathmore’s vision blurred. Rubbing his eyes, he brought away his gloved hand soaked in blood. He heard a scrambling around them and the ricochet of rock spitting from the ground. They were surrounded, by a phalanx of dark riders on horseback who held glimmering pistols trained upon them.

  He shook his head to clear his vision again, dragging Julia with him toward the figure that had disappeared behind the low wall. He felt a numbing pain spreading up his arm and into his shoulder, filling his awareness and threatening to blot out all else.

  Julia was clearly in shock, her eyes blank and haunted as she peered into the night, frantically searching the elusive shadows, barely aware of the half dozen or so men surrounding them. Strathmore looked over his shoulder, aimed Julia’s pistol into the air, and kept up a steady barrage of fire until he heard the empty click of the cartridge. From a distance, he heard a series of voices, commands, affirmations, and snapped orders.

  He forced himself to move, the two of them running and half rolling down the hill toward the rushing river. He was certain a glimmer of dark liquid on the scrub beneath their feet was blood. Faron’s man was wounded and heading toward the water.

  Behind them, a merciful silence. Faron was a suspicious man, and his assailants had disappeared as quickly as they had come. That Strathmore remained alive was no coincidence. There were further plans in store. He scanned the darkness, while absently watching the blood drip from his arm. Clearing his head, he stopped for a moment as Julia took great labored gasps of air.

  She trembled as he pulled her into his arms. “He’ll kill her. He’ll kill Rowena,” she whispered, clinging to him with the wild strength of burgeoning hysteria. “You should have done as he asked and spared her.”

  “Taking your life would have solved nothing,” he soothed, not really believing his own words. The river was a short distance away and he calculated whether they would be in time to intercept the stranger who had Rowena. He would be weakening, from his earlier loss of blood and quite possibly from a gunshot wound. Strathmore’s hands gently stroked Julia’s back, although his own brain worked feverishly.

  “We can’t wait. Dear God, it was probably my bullet that hit him and possibly”—she bit back the words against his chest—“It’s my fault.” Panic held her frozen in his arms.

  “Stay here,” he said, “I’ll go…”

  “Can you find them?” Julia whispered, lifting her face to Strathmore. He started to disengage her clinging arms. Her hands tightened on his shirt, oblivious to the stream of blood matting the fabric.

  “Every moment counts,” he said.

  “I am coming with you.”

  He looked down at her and said, “No.”

  But she was already running away from him toward the river, turning back in the same sweeping motion, her eyes manic. “She’s my sister. And it’s my fault.”

  Strathmore inhaled deeply and then a second later said harshly, “The track of fresh blood leads over to that low copse a few feet from the river’s edge.” He pointed and in a few strides overtook her.

  In moments, they stood at the water’s boundary, a thin streak of pink highlighting the horizon, heralding a new morning a few hours away. The wind had refused to release its grip, the river’s chop fighting with the swirling current dragging the water down its winding path. Julia paced frantically, her focus on the glistening drops of fresh blood that came to a stop where the rocky shore met the river.

  “The bastard.” Her voice rose in white-hot rage, followed by a torrent of obscenities, her back uncompromisingly rigid. “I shall see him dead,” she finished in a breathless fury, standing stiff, pale and unyielding, fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.

  Strathmore studied the horizon but Julia, despite her fury, had already followed his gaze. In the far distance, a small eddy darker than the larger whirlpool of water, floated with the current. Julia took a deep breath and ripped off her riding jacket, throwing it to the ground before he caught her both arms.

  “Let me go. I need to be with her,” she said, the fury in her eyes replaced with blank fear.

  “You can’t fight that current, even if you were the best of swimmers.”

  “Let me go,” she said, terror making her unusually strong. She tore at his arms, the blood from his wound covering her hands and the front of her dress. Closed to reason, she began loosening the fastenings of her riding vest, her features tight with determination. The truth was too painful to absorb.

  Julia hated him already and she would hate him even more. He had nothing to lose by saying the words she was loathe to hear. “It’s no use, Julia. She’s already gone. There is no possibility of survival, drugged as she is, possibly injured by a stray bullet. And the water is too cold, the current too strong.”

  She struggled in his arms, against the tide of awareness that threatened to consume her. “That’s not possible. I won’t allow it,” she repeated, her eyes glittering, fighting the staggering reality.

  Reflected in their depths was a darkness so complete, an absence of light so absolute, he was compelled to steal himself against it. “I am sorry. Desperately sorry,” he said.

  Julia arched away from him. However long he lived, Strathmore never again wanted to hear such a cry as the one that was wrenched from her lips, poisoning the moon-drenched night like the howl of a wounded animal, primitive and inconsolable.

  Julia Woolcott, once returned to Montfort, was ensconced in her old bedchamber, the drapes in the bedroom closed to the sun, which chose to shine brilliantly for three days after Rowena’s death. It didn’t seem proper the universe continued its march and the spring leaves outside turned a tender green when Julia’s world had died. She lay on her bed, face turned away from the windows, curling deeply into the pillows filled with the memories of her years with her sister.

  It seemed only yesterday Rowena had sprawled at the end of her bed, holding up a botanical sample for her to examine or bubbling with news from the stables. Julia’s mind echoed with Rowena’s gentle teasing, her mocking imitations of the curate’s prim wife, the restless energy that kept her perpetually in motion, a study in laughter and love.

  Julia’s tears began to flow in a slow bleeding at the poignant memories, as if her grieving heart was bound at last to mourn in the solitude of her childhood room. The trickle gave way to great heaving sobs followed by a flood of uncontrollable weeping. It was her fault, no one else’s.

  How would she survive, when she would never see Rowena again? Because of her own heedless pride and recklessness, she would never touch her again, never hear her laugh or hear her teasin
g, never feel the comfort of a closeness that had enfolded her most of her life. Clutching the pillow with tears streaming down her face, she lay against the lavender scented sheets of her bed, wanting to dissolve into the softness, to travel where oblivion lay.

  She floated distraught and mournful for an endless time, tormented by loss. Shadows of people came and went. Meredith’s beautiful face, etched with her own private agony. And others. The low gravel voice that belonged to Strathmore, arousing an embittered fury beneath the depths of her grief. What chaos had she unleashed when she had allied herself to such a man? She berated herself for her own folly at wasting precious time because of her own dangerously irrational desires.

  And now it was too late. She realized how senseless and trivial her concerns had been. Her photography. Her false pride in her learning and knowledge. Her foundationless trust in a man who was buffeted by senseless ambition, and inexorably linked to Montagu Faron, the evil at the center of the morass her life had become. It was far simpler to let go, the urge reassuringly familiar, to give up the regret, the painful desire to be given another chance. Their prison at Montfort had been a gilded one but she would have done anything to retrieve every moment of her time together with Rowena, to collect and treasure their history, every exchange of words, every comfort she had shared with her younger sister.

  Julia wished she could pray, asking like a child in complete, heartfelt sincerity for another chance, another opportunity to set things right. But she didn’t believe in prayer, never had. Her dry sobs fell into the dark silence of the room, her grief so intense her breath stilled in her throat. Laying her cheek against the damp linen, she cried, wishing for a return to the past, however imperfect.

  Whether asleep or awake, suspended in some nether world, she drifted, weary in spirit, devastated by the stunning realization that her soul had been severed in two because she had failed. Failed her sister. Failed her aunt. Failed herself, most of all. And not for the first time.