Storm Damages

by Magda Alexander

  “Very well.” Gritting my teeth, I lead her up to the third floor deep into the east wing where the nursery lies. We’ll spend a few minutes, ten tops, and then I’ll drive us to the lake and exorcise my demons in her sweet body.

  The room’s big. Discarded furniture sits in one corner—a broken chair, a three-legged table. Four toy chests, each carved with a child’s name, sit by the wall. She heads straight to the one labeled with my name, kneels in front and wrestles it open. Toy soldiers, books, puzzles, typical things a boy would have.

  All shiny-eyed, she glances at me. “Someday your children will play here.”

  Her words slice into me, releasing painful memories of a time long ago. “No. They won’t. I’ll never bring them here.”

  Her head jerks up. “Why not?”

  How can I begin to explain the hell I lived through? I pace around the space, kicking up the dust of a room that hasn’t been swept for many years. Believing the place is haunted, servants refuse to clean it. And they’re right. “My childhood was not a happy one. I was the oldest, the heir, so I was assigned extra lessons about the duties, the responsibilities I would take up when the title came to me. Once a week, I met with the estate steward. Sometimes we would ride over the grounds, other times, we went over the finances.”

  “How old were you?” Gone is her excitement, replaced by a guarded look.

  I hate seeing her like this. She was so happy a second ago. “The lessons started when I was ten. After my sessions with the steward, my tutor tested me. If I did not recall everything perfectly, I was punished.” My hand twitches with remembered pain.

  Her hand flies to her chest. “Punished?”

  “Yes.”

  Her breath hitches. “How? What?”

  I shake my head. “No.” The word rips from my lips. She doesn’t need to know about my ugly past.

  She rushes forward and curls her hands around my face. “Tell me.”

  “No.” I won’t put those images in her head. Bad enough I’ll never drive them from mine.

  “You must talk about it.” Tears mist her eyes. “Remember when I wouldn’t go into your closet and you helped me through my fear.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m here for you.” She wraps her arms around my waist. “Please, tell me.”

  But my memories have sunk their talons into me, shredding me apart. “We need to go. Now.” I take her hand, meaning to lead her out of this hellish place, but she breaks free and strides to the large oak door in the back of the nursery.

  She jiggles the handle, but it won’t give. That door was always locked, except when it was in use. “What’s behind the door?”

  “Nothing.”

  She drills me with a hard, flinty gaze. “Tell me, Gabriel.”

  I breathe deeply, whoosh it out. “The infraction room.” The words bleed out of me.

  Her eyes widen in horror. “Is that where he punished you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to see it. Where’s the key?”

  “I don’t know.” The ghost of that long-ago agony claws at my insides.

  She grips my chin and forces me to look at her. “Yes, you do.”

  For a couple of heartbeats, I breathe hard. She won’t stop until I reveal my personal hell. Consigned to my fate, I trudge to the big wooden desk, the one behind which my tutor watched for my slightest disobedience. The heavy iron key, now rusted with age, lies where it always did—in the center drawer.

  I plod to the big oak frame, insert the key in the lock. But before opening it, I turn back to her. “I don’t want you to see what’s in there.”

  She rests her small, soft hand over mine, sharing her warmth with me. “Open the door, Gabriel.”

  When the door refuses to budge, I ram my shoulder against the wood. It screeches, proof it hasn’t been opened for some time. I give it one more shove, and it swings open, revealing its dark secrets. Everything is as it ever was. Whips, chains, belts, a four-legged table with manacles and a throne-like chair in a corner of the room.

  She gasps. “Oh, my God.”

  Unable to go in, I slump against the outside wall.

  She stares at me out of pain-filled eyes. “What did he do to you?”

  “I was disobedient and stubborn, so they beat the rebellion out of me.” My voice regresses to that of the child I used to be so many years ago.

  Color bleaches from her face, and her lips turn white. “They? What do you mean they?”

  “My tutor, Simon Snipes, and my mother. She never wielded the instruments of punishment. But sat in that chair and watched while he bloodied me.”

  “Oh, Gabriel.” She lays a fisted hand on her belly.

  When I don’t say anything else, she asks. “There’s more, isn’t it?”

  I nod. Now that I’m talking I want to tell her everything. She needs to know what a weakling I was, what a weakling I still am. “From the time I was little, I could hear a melody and pluck it out in the piano. As time went on, I got better and better at it. Even managed to squeeze in some private lessons when I was sent to Harrow. One school holiday I told her I was going to be a famous pianist and that I would travel around the world playing concerts, far away from here where she could never touch me.” The memory of what happened next guts me. The pain’s so bad I fall to my knees.

  Elizabeth drops next to me. Her soft hand brushes back my hair, circles my jaw. “What did she do to you?”

  “She drugged my food. When I woke up, I was back on that table, shackled, immobilized. They gagged me so I couldn’t scream. And she sat right in that chair while the sadistic son of a bitch broke every finger in my left hand.” Sweat pours from my face, bile rises in my throat. Afraid I’ll throw up, I swallow hard.

  “Why didn’t your father put a stop to it? He had to have known.”

  “She was his meal ticket, love. He wasn’t about to kill his golden goose. She held all the power.” My voice grows strong and sure. “Until I took it away from her.”

  “What about your brothers, Brianna? Were they beaten as well?”

  “No. Father wouldn’t let her touch Brianna. Edward was my mother’s favorite. And, for some reason, she never paid much attention to Royce.”

  “Hope you made the tutor pay.” A bloodthirsty light flashes in her eyes.

  “He paid with his life. Shortly after he broke my fingers, he fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”

  She bares her teeth. “I’m glad. If he were here right now, I’d hurt him the way he hurt you.” The strength of her fury surprises me. I’ve never had anyone do battle for me.

  “Are you, love?” I brush my thumb across her mouth, lean in to kiss her sweet lips. “I suspected it was no accident. Violence does tend to beget violence, after all. It wasn’t me. I was away at school, still healing from my injury.”

  “Do you know who?”

  I breathe a heavy sigh, rest my head against the wall. “I suspected, but never knew. Not with any certainty.” Rising, I hold out my hand to her. “Come, we must leave. I don’t want you in this room.”

  I guide her down the stairs, out of the darkness into the garden where the sun blazes with heat. In unison. we sit at a bench, in full view of anyone wandering down the terraced walks or gazing out a window. I glance back at the majestic and imposing castle walls. “It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it? And yet it hides such ugliness. Sometimes I wish I could just burn it all down. But made of stone as it is, it won’t burn. Besides, doing so wouldn’t rid me of my memories.”

  She leans her head against my shoulder and squeezes my arm.

  Uncaring of who may or may not see us, I curl my hands around her beloved face and kiss her. “You’re the only peace I’ve found my entire life. You make everything new and shiny. All the ugliness goes away when I’m with you. I know you don’t wish to—”

  Footsteps approach, interrupting my heart’s outpouring. I don’t want anyone to hear what I’m about to say. Those words are meant for Elizabeth alone.
/>   As it turns out, the intruder is Tilly, my mother’s maid.

  “Begging your pardon, my lord.” She bobs a curtsy. “Lady Winterleagh wishes to see you in her morning room.”

  My mother, the Countess. “Thank you. Tell her I’ll come up shortly.”

  After one more curtsy, she drifts away as unobtrusively as she arrived.

  I swivel back to Elizabeth to find her wary gaze.

  “Be careful, Gabriel.”

  “It’s fine, love. She can’t hurt me anymore. I’m done with her, with this place.” I rest my forehead against hers. “I’m done with everything but you.”

  “Gabriel, I ...” Tears shimmer in her eyes, and one manages to escape.

  “There’s no ‘I’ anymore. There’s only us. You and me.” I swipe the moisture from her face.

  “But my job, school—”

  I bring her hand to my lips, kiss the fingertips. “Do you want me, Elizabeth?”

  A shudder runs through her. “You know I do.”

  I smile. “We’ll make it work. You’ll see. Now go to your room and wait for me. I’ll talk to her one last time and then we can be together forever.”

  Chapter 29

  ______________

  I ARRIVE AT MY MOTHER’S MORNING ROOM eager to get this confrontation over and done with so I can get on with the rest of my life. As usual, she’s seated behind her elegant Queen Anne writing desk. Such a strange choice for a woman who rules with an iron fist.

  “Ainsley.” She’s dressed in her armor, the white suit she wears whenever she lays down the law. Her hair’s imprisoned in her usual chignon, with no loose strand in sight.

  “Mother.” I nod my head.

  “Please sit.” She points to the chair opposite the desk, whose seat is so low everyone appears shorter than her.

  “I’d rather stand.” I’m not about to dance to her tune.

  Her nostrils flare. “Very well. Glad you could tear yourself away from your whore.”

  My stomach roils with anger. “Elizabeth’s not a whore.”

  “But her mother was. She died of a drug overdose. While servicing a client, so the story goes.” Going by her triumphant smile, she actually thinks she’s won. Little does she realize, I hold most of the winning cards.

  I dismiss her statement with a wave of my hand. “Don’t you think I know? You’ll have to do better than that.” I learned about Elizabeth’s mother from the report I asked Jake to produce.

  She grips the family heirloom she uses to open letters. “I want to announce your engagement to Lady Melissande at today’s luncheon.” Her plan’s brilliant. Such a revelation would guarantee a swift departure by our guests who’d be eager to spread the news.

  “I’m afraid that will be rather impossible.” I pick up a vase from the credenza that sits along the windowless wall, Ching Dynasty as I recall.

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t proposed to her. Nor do I intend to do so.” The blue lotus pattern of the porcelain is a thing of beauty.

  Gnashing her teeth, she spits out at me. “We agreed you were to propose to Lady Melissande, in exchange for my not embroiling Storm Industries in a scandal.”

  “You won’t be able to do that, Countess. And I never agreed to such thing.” I carefully return the vase to its setting.

  She hisses out a breath. I’ve never called her Countess before. At least, not to her face.

  “Royce flew to Brazil and obtained a sworn statement from the Brazilian official declaring the money was intended for his daughter’s welfare, and not as a bribe. Since the daughter built a house with the money, no one will question the declaration.”

  While we talked, she’s been stabbing the desk with the letter opener. I pry it from her hand. “You’ll mar the surface, and the desk is quite valuable.”

  “I’ll do whatever I wish. It’s mine.”

  Leaning in, I rest my free hand on the leather surface of the desk. “That’s not true. The castle and all its furnishings belong to my father, not you. As his heir, it’s my responsibility to ensure none of those possessions come to harm.”

  She grabs the letter opener and stabs at my hand. But before the knife tears into my skin, I wrestle it away and stash it in my jeans pocket. “I’m not fourteen, Countess. You can’t hurt me anymore.”

  An unholy light flashes in her eyes. “I’ll convene a board of directors’ meeting and vote down the SouthWind deal.” She growls.

  “You no longer have the power to do so. Father transferred his board shares to me.”

  “He wouldn’t!” She pounds the desk with her closed fist.

  “I’m afraid he did, especially when I reminded him I hold the purse strings, not you.”

  “He’s incapable of making lucid decisions.”

  “Three doctors certified to his mental competence. It wouldn’t be such a surprise if you’d talked to him in the last month.” Although my father remained in London so he could attend his therapy sessions, she’d had numerous opportunities to visit him. But she’d chosen not to do so.

  She sputters, but no words emerge. I smile, triumphant. Finally, finally, I’ve gotten the best of her.

  I strut out, my mood buoyed from the weight lifted off my shoulders. But before I take two steps, an alarm blares in my brain. Call it a premonition or a hard-earned knowledge of her character. She’s up to no good. I thrust open the door to discover the priceless Ming vase raised high over her head, her hands poised to smash it to the ground.

  I snatch the priceless porcelain from her. Gritting my teeth, I spit out. “Just so you know, everything in the room, in the entire castle, is inventoried. If any item is mutilated, scratched, damaged in any way, you will pay.”

  A mad light shines in her eyes. “You won’t lay a finger on me.”

  The top of her head barely reaches my shoulder. Strange. I always thought she was so much bigger and stronger than me. “You’re right. I won’t. But people who work for me would, if I ordered them to.”

  Nails out, she lunges at me. Before she can scratch my face, I catch her arm and fling it away. “If you don’t stop this insane behavior, I’ll be forced to restrain you. And you wouldn’t like the way I’d go about it, Countess.”

  Her lips curl in a sneer. “You have everything figured out, don’t you?” By now, her hair’s torn loose from its chignon, strewn in complete disarray around her shoulders. So different from the well-groomed woman I faced when I arrived.

  “Yes, I do. By the way, you might want to tidy up before you face your guests again.” This time, when I leave, I don’t turn back.

  Taking the library passage to Elizabeth’s room, I arrive to find her sitting on her heels in the middle of the bed, her dark hair in a glorious jumble down her back, hands folded on her thighs, and, except for a red lacy thong, very, very naked.

  Without saying a word, she extends a hand to me. Just as silently, I sit on the bed and let her have her way with me.

  As she unbuttons my shirt, she kisses every inch she reveals. Done, she tosses the shirt to the side, drops her lips to my jeans and unzips me with her mouth. When my cock springs out fully erect, she licks its head, pumps the rude length, before she engulfs the whole in her mouth. Closing my eyes, I lie back on the bed and allow her to pleasure me. This must be what heaven feels like.

  After I reach completion, I surprise her when I slip off her panties, rather than tear them off her. The scent of her gardenia perfume ensnares me, bewitches me as I kiss every inch of her satin skin down to her honey pot where she’s wet and aching for me. When I part her folds and lick her, she wriggles beneath me, eager for what I will give her. She surprises me as well when, unlike every other time we’ve made love, she allows me to set the rhythm of our passion. By the time I slip into her, we’re panting with desire.

  In the aftermath of our lovemaking, I make plans for our future. As soon as the SouthWind deal closes, I’ll turn over the reins of the company to my cousin, William, and move to Washington, D.C. to be close to Eli
zabeth. That dream lasts less than twenty four hours. Until Monday morning when everything crashes down on me.

  Chapter 30

  ______________

  AS SOON AS THE MORNING SESSION BEGINS, Thomas Carrey announces a major change to the deal—an increase of eighty million dollars to the asking price. A more thorough examination of the patents attached to the assets revealed they are more valuable than previously thought. As proof, he provides copies of documents which detail the cost of developing the patents and the projected revenue increase. Documents I’m infinitely familiar with, since my handwritten comments appear in the margins.

  For a few moments I find it difficult to breathe. These are the copies of the documents I’d spread over the table in the Park Suite. Going by the non-crisp edges, the images were taken with a camera phone.

  Only one person could have taken such photos—Elizabeth.

  Her perfidy shreds my soul. She must have snapped the images while I showered. And to think I joked about her straightening the papers, not knowing she’d already betrayed me. Not hard to understand what drove her to do such a thing. From the beginning, I’ve known of her ambition to become a corporate attorney with Smith Cannon. She’s certainly proved her worth to the firm. By exploiting my attraction to her, she entered my inner sanctum and obtained the information she needed to sweeten the deal for their client.

  What a fool I’ve been.

  A lump clogs my throat, but not by an eyelash do I reveal my emotions. Not to Carrey and certainly not to her. “We’ll need to discuss this. May I suggest we suspend negotiations for the rest of the day and reconvene tomorrow?”

  “Of course. Whatever you need.” Thomas Carrey’s quick to agree.

  The Storm Industries’ team adjourns to our private conference room in the hotel where we hash out the numbers. Eighty million dollars is a fair assessment of the value of the patents which will allow us to build turbines less susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.

  Since I’m certain Carrey will demand at least half that amount in cash, the challenge becomes obtaining the necessary financing. I don’t want to impact Storm Industries’ bottom line so the money will have to come out of my personal assets. But I’m not liquid. No one has eighty million dollars in cash lying around. So the capital must come from some other source. I will need to mortgage The Brighton.