The Touch of the Outcast_A Gothic Mystery Romance

by Amalia Altman

  Elise’s face went hard when she realized that he wasn’t going to answer.

  “Am I free to go?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. Suddenly, he didn’t want to see her any more, didn’t want to argue with her or face the tension between them. His whole body was on edge with arousal, his cock hard and pressing against the inside of his trousers. He felt wild and wound up, and he knew that the best thing for both of them would be to send her away before he acted on his desire—their mutual desire—to touch each other. Because looking at Elise, he could tell that she wanted it as well. It was written all over her face as she bit her lip, turning away from him and leaving the office without another word.

  Julian began to pace in his office, his body tense and angry, filled with lust at the same time. He thought briefly about going after Elise, showing up at her door, taking her into his arms the moment she opened it, and going through with the kiss that he so desperately wanted. But he knew that he couldn’t do that. He looked at the clock to see that it was late, almost midnight, and thought to go to the brothel. For some reason, the idea of that, of taking a strange girl to bed just to relieve his frustration, wasn’t one that seemed appealing to him. Still, he craved touch and affection, and he found himself leaving the mansion and crossing the property toward the stables. He saddled his horse and climbed on, heading in the direction of the Duchess Waverly’s estate. It would take him a couple of hours to get there, but they were old friends who had an arrangement—come for the night, stay for the night. It sounded better to him than to spend his evening with one of the girls from the brothel, who was bound to ask about Elise and bring her to the forefront of his mind again.

  Julian tried not to think of Elise as he rode but he found it impossible not to, and by the time we got to the Duchess’s mansion, he was wound up all over again. Her maid answered, looking sleepy, and welcomed him in, and Julian crept upstairs to the woman’s rooms, hoping to do his best to forget about Elise altogether.

  Chapter 10

  Elise woke up to the sound of pounding and sat straight up in bed, staring at the ceiling, positive that it was coming from above her on the third floor. She was frozen in place, breathing heavily, when she heard the knocking again and realized that it was coming from downstairs. She crept out of bed, dressing quickly and going downstairs. Nikola had answered the door and Elise saw the inspector there, a grave look on his sharp features.

  “Is Lord Ashton here?” the man asked Nikola.

  “I believe he’s still asleep,” Nikola said. “What’s this about?”

  “I need to speak with him immediately. Please go fetch him and bring him downstairs.”

  Nikola gave him a tentative look and Elise met the woman’s eye as she swept past her and up the stairs. She returned a few moments later with Julian at her heels, looking wide awake and on edge as he came down the stairs.

  “What’s this about?” he asked the inspector.

  “We’re taking you in for questioning,” the inspector said.

  Julian stared at him, a look of disbelief on his face.

  “For what?”

  “The murder of the Duchess Waverly,” the inspector said. “She was found dead this morning. We were told that you were at her mansion last night. Her maid let you in.”

  Elise felt her heart pounding. She stared at Julian, who didn’t deny it. He simply gaped at the other man.

  “I don’t—“

  “You’re not under arrest yet,” the inspector said,. “Although I can’t promise you it won’t end that way.”

  “I didn’t do it,” Julian said, his lips pressed into a thin line. The inspector stared at him, studying his face. Elise didn’t like the man’s expression—he looked like he had already made up his mind.

  Julian turned to look at Elise before he started toward the door. He met her eye, holding it for an instant before he turned to Nikola.

  “I’ll be back,” he said. Elise saw the woman take his hand and squeeze it in a motherly gesture. Julian sighed, then turned around and followed the inspector out the front door. Elise remained frozen at the bottom of the stairs, staring after him, unable to believe what had just happened.

  “Did you see Lord Ashton leave last night?” Elise asked. She remembered the look on his face when she’d left, how wild he had seemed, almost out of control. Julian had been holding himself back when he’d been in front of her. He hadn’t kissed her, though she had been desperate for him to do so in the moment. She hadn’t been desperate enough to do it herself, though. She was too nervous, afraid that he would take it as her acquiescence to be something that she refused to be for him—his whore, a disposable maid.

  “No,” said Nikola. Her throat was tight when she said the word, as if she was having trouble getting them out. She turned to look at Elise then, giving her a hard look. “Lord Ashton had nothing to do with this.”

  Elise looked away from her without speaking, unsure. She had seen in her employer’s eyes a side of him that was raw and passionate. Elise couldn’t help but to wonder if he was capable of doing the things that the inspector had accused him of doing, if he could murder a woman in cold blood without a second thought. The thought made Elise cold all over, and she shivered as Nikola left the foyer and went into the kitchen without another word.

  Thoughts of Julian filled her mind as she climbed the stairs, and she found herself stopping in the middle, looking up the staircase to the door to the top floor. Elise reached into her pocket and fingered the key that she had been carrying around since she’d taken it from Lord Ashton’s office. Elise took a deep breath and started up the stairs, glancing over her shoulder before unlocking the door. She crept inside, closing it gently behind her, and looked around the dim corridor that was lit only by a single window at the end. Elise went to the end of the hallway and began to open doors, looking into the dusty rooms. It was clear that none of the maids had been up here to clean; the rooms smelled musty from disuse, as if there hadn’t been fresh air circulated through in decades. Elise had trouble breathing as she made her way through the dusty rooms, crossing to the east wing of the hallway.

  Elise heard a noise then and froze, turning toward the door closest to her. She heard it again—a faint voice, a man’s voice, cracked with age.

  “Hello?” he said through the door, his voice almost too faint to hear. “Julian? Is that you?”

  Elise held her breath, reaching for the door handle. She opened it and peered inside to see an old man sitting up in a chair next to the bed, his back toward the door. He didn’t turn around to look at her, but called out to her.

  “Julian?” the man said again. “Are you going to stand behind me the whole time, you coward?”

  “I’m—“ Elise—“ Elise began, but cut herself off. The man shifted in his seat then but obviously couldn’t turn around.

  “Who is that? Nikola? Did he send you up here to do his dirty work? Are you going to kill me this time?”

  Elise felt the blood in her body run cold.

  “I always thought it’d be Julian who did it,” said the old man. Elise felt the curiosity to see his face overwhelm her, but at the same time she was terrified to approach him. His voice sounded ghoulish, and Elise shuddered when he let out a cackling laugh. “After what he did to Mary.”

  “What did he do to Mary?” Elise asked, despite herself. She found that she had to know.

  “You know exactly what he did, Nikola,” the man hissed. “Now if you’re not going to kill me, leave me alone. And send my nephew up here.”

  Elise swallowed, knowing she couldn’t get any more information out of the old man without giving up the fact that she wasn’t Nikola. She wondered if she should just go to him, ask him all of the questions that were in her head, but thinking about doing so filled her with a dread she didn’t understand.

  Elise backed out of the room, letting out a small scream when she turned and nearly ran into a young girl. She
was younger than Elise, and smaller—probably seventeen or eighteen. She had wispy, thin blonde hair that hung in limp strands around a ghostly pale face, with hollow blue eyes that were so pale Elise might have thought she was blind if not for the way the girl was looking at her. Elise felt her heart pounding in her chest as she looked the girl over for some reason, paralyzed with fear. The girl said nothing, but just stared up at Elise’s face with a blank expression.

  “Hi,” said Elise, barely able to get the word out. She was filled with fear and panic for some reason that was inexplicable to her.

  The girl still said nothing, but her face screwed up into a look of rage that stabbed into Elise like a knife. Elise pushed past the girl then and started to run, fleeing down the hall. She fumbled with the door to the staircase, looking over to see that the girl was walking toward her in slow steps, her face blank again. Elise tried to catch her breath as she flung herself through the door and locked it behind her. There was a pounding sound, fists light on the door, and Elise turned and fled down the stairs, not stopping until she got to her own room.

  Elise sat on the edge of her bed, trying to still her beating heart. She wanted to go immediately to Nikola but didn’t want to risk Lord Ashton finding out that she had gone onto the third floor, that she had spoken to his uncle and gotten some cryptic information that made Elise doubt even further who her employer really was.

  She stayed in her room for a long time, too afraid to leave. At least here, she knew the door was locked, that nobody was going to be able to get in. Elise had no idea who the girl was and yet she had never been more afraid in her life than standing there in front of her, especially when she remembered what the girls had said back at the brothel—that there was a ghost in the house, a demon. If there was, Elise was certain that’s what the girl had been—pure evil, wicked down to her very bones. The thought made Elise shiver, and she couldn’t bring herself to leave the room until later when she heard a knock on the door again.

  Nikola answered just as Elise came out of her room to see that the inspector was back. Elise looked over his shoulder for a glimpse of Lord Ashton, praying that he would come through the door, that everything was just a big mistake. She felt disappointed when she didn’t see him. She was standing at the top of the stairs, and when the inspector came in, he met Elise’s eye.

  “Are you Elise Dawson?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Elise, her heart fluttering nervously in her chest.

  “We have a few questions for you,” the man said. “Is there somewhere we can go?”

  “To the sitting room,” Nikola said, glancing up at Elise with a question on her face. Elise avoided her eye as she made her way down the stairs, leading the inspector into the sitting room. She took a seat next to the fire across from him, hoping that the extra warmth would relax her so that she wasn’t so tense answering his questions. Elise knew there was nothing she had to be nervous about, but in the back of her mind was always the fear that somehow the inspector had found out about her powers, that he was taking her away to accuse her of witchcraft or worse.

  “What can I do for you, inspector?” Elise asked in a tentative voice.

  “Lord Ashton said he was with you last night,” the inspector said. “I was wondering if that was true.”

  Elise swallowed. She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. It was true that they had been together, but Elise had left him at a certain point, and he easily could have left the estate without her knowing.

  “He was with me,” she said before she had a chance to stop herself.

  “For how long?” the inspector asked.

  “All night,” Elise said, the words coming out without thinking. “We were—we were together all night.”

  The inspector raised his eyebrows.

  “You spent the night with Lord Ashton,” he said. “Is that an arrangement you have with him?”

  Elise found herself blushing furiously. “That’s none of your business.”

  “No, I suppose it’s not,” said the inspector. “So there’s no way Lord Ashton could have left the estate last night, is that true?”

  “No,” said Elise, her throat dry. “No, he was with me.”

  “Duchess Waverly’s maid says she saw him at the estate that night,” said the inspector. “But she doesn’t seem to be sure that it was him. She says it was late and it was dark.”

  “It wasn’t him,” Elise insisted. She had no idea why she was lying for Lord Ashton, just that it seemed to be something that was instinctive to her. The inspector’s eyes were intent on her face, burrowing into her, looking right through her. She was sure that he didn’t believe her—Elise had never been good at lying under pressure. It was part of the reason she had gotten kicked out from her family in the first place; she had told her sister of her powers and her sister had betrayed her.

  Elise was glad when the inspector finally looked away from her, standing up.

  “That’s all I needed. Thank you for your time,” he said. He had a look of distaste on his face that Elise recognized as disdain. He didn’t like that she had spent the night with her employer; he thought it was cheap and unladylike. It made Elise bristle but she knew there was nothing she could do about it. I—it was scandalous, she knew, and she regretted the fact that it was the only alibi she could think of.

  Chapter 11

  Julian arrived home late. After the inspector came back, he had more questions. He had grilled Julian about his relationship with Duchess Waverly, brief and casual as it had been. All that Julian could think about was seeing her face the night before, laying on top of her for a long time as his mind filled with images of Elise. He had left her satisfied when they were finished and he’d gone home, only to find out that she’d been murdered shortly after. The thought made him sick as he went into the house, planning to go straight to bed. He was surprised when he lit a lamp to find that Elise was sitting on the stairs in the dark, staring up at him. She was pale, her beautiful face drawn tight with what he recognized as anger.

  “Elise,” he said. He knew exactly why she was angry. “Let me explain—“

  “You made me lie for you,” she said.

  “I did not make you do anything,” Julian snapped. He was tired, and he didn’t have the patience to deal with her fire right now, with the way it made his body react. Her face was growing pink instead of pale, her cheeks blushing, and the heat in her eyes made his chest tighten.

  “You told them we were together,” she said.

  “We were together,” Julian said, trying to keep his voice patient. “In my office. Or don’t you remember?”

  “I remember,” she said in a soft voice, chewing on her lip.

  “You were the one who told them we spent the night together,” he said. He had been surprised when the inspector had told him that. Julian genuinely hadn’t expected Elise to lie for him.

  “I had no other choice,” she said.

  “You did. You could have told them the truth. But you chose to lie.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said sarcastically.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked. He had been curious to know ever since it had happened.

  She didn’t answer, but stared at him. He stepped closer to her, holding her eye.

  “Tell me,” he said in a soft voice. When she still didn’t say anything, he found himself reaching out, taking her waist and pulling her against him just as he had always wanted to do. She didn’t pull away, but stood very still, her body trembling in his grasp. His lips were close to hers and his breathing felt shallow, his body tense as he held her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

  There was a noise then upstairs, distant, as if it was coming from the third floor. It was a scraping sound, the sound of wood -on -wood, the sound of somebody dragging something across the floor. Elise broke apart from him, staring up at the ceiling. Then she looked at him.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s
nothing,” Julian said, his jaw going tight. He knew exactly what it was, though. “You should go to bed, Elise.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, looking stubbornly at his face.

  “I want an explanation about last night,” she said. He stared at her, the loveliness of her skin, wondering how soft it was. They had been so close to touching and yet something had stopped them again. Julian was beginning to think that maybe it was a sign that they were getting too close. He made his face passive.

  “We can speak about it tomorrow,” he said, his voice calm but firm. When she started to protested, he cut her off with a look.

  “I’m tired, Elise,” he said to her.

  She closed her lips and nodded, then disappeared up the stairs. Julian sighed and followed her up, but didn’t stop when he got to the second floor. He kept going up the stairs to the third floor, making sure that Elise had gone into her room before he opened the door and went inside. He went over to his uncle’s room and opened the door to find the man sitting in his chair as usual, looking out over the gardens.

  “Uncle,” Julian said. “What are you doing up here?”

  Jack banged his cane on the floor, scraping it into the wood.

  “Stop it,” Julian hissed, crossing the room to the old man and yanking the cane away from him. Julian tossed it to the side, glaring at the shriveled old man. He couldn’t walk, but that didn’t stop him from causing a disturbance every time he made a noise. “What are you doing?”

  “Did you come here to kill me, Julian?” the old man asked, training his half-blind eyes on his nephew.

  “Unfortunately not,” said Julian coldly. In fact, he had dreamed of doing just that many times, but Julian wasn’t the type of person who could do something like that to his family. His loyalty was bred into him, despite the fact that he considered his uncle to be nothing but a monster. “I came up here to tell you that you need to stay quiet. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you.”