by Kitty Curran
Or do you storm off in furious silence? The fool will only get in the way, and there is clearly a mystery to solve. If so, turn to this page.
Fortunately, what you see when you enter the decaying entrance hall of Glenblair Castle does much to lighten your mood.
“Colonel Abercrombie!” you cry, relieved at the sight of the older man’s familiar jolly face and white hair.
“Good to see you, lass, good to see you!” he says, hugging you warmly.
“How on earth did you get here so soon?!” you say. “You must have fairly raced here!”
“Och, no mind to that,” he chortles. “How have you and our Captain MacTaggart been faring with the wee monsters? Any news?”
You cannot help but blush at the remembrance of exactly what you and Mac have been doing in Abercrombie’s absence. The colonel raises his eyebrows but says nothing.
“We’ve been well,” you venture at last. “And Jane and Gertie have been a great help, as has Mrs. Ferguson.”
“Och, Mrs. F is a treasure, that’s fer sure!” He pats your shoulder. “Though forgive me for saying, lass, but you seem a wee bit distracted.”
You don’t tell him exactly what has been distracting you, nor how the memory of it has been haunting your dreams these past few nights. But you do take the opportunity to press someone who might well know the full story of exactly what happened to Mac when he was at war.
“Colonel Abercrombie, do you remember anyone by the name of Constantina?”
Two lines appear between Abercrombie’s eyebrows, as he seems to try to recall. “I reckon I do remember a lass by that name. A camp follower when we were stationed in Salamanca. A bonnie young lass, sweet as a rose in bloom.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” you say, desperate to know the source of Mac’s pain. Abercrombie shrugs.
“There I cannot help ye, lass. But war is a rough business, and young ladies disappear all the time, sadly. Though I hope that perhaps she simply moved on and that wherever she is, she is well.”
You are glad to know more, yet something still niggles in the back of your mind. You are about to ask if he ever saw Mac with her when the man in question strolls in, shirtless and sweaty from caber-tossing practice.
“I-I must go!” you splutter to a bewildered Abercrombie and then tear out of the room.
Your mind races. What you need is something to engage it productively. Perhaps it is time to teach the children a thing or two about local Highland flora and fauna.
Alas, the orphans are busy driving Mrs. Ferguson to distraction with their attempts at sword dancing. She throws her hands in the air.
“Och, I’ve seen oxen move with more grace! Once again, now.”
The children laugh uproariously, and you realize you do not have the heart to interrupt them.
So go find something useful to do, girl! Turn to this page.
Lady Evangeline breaks from her sad reverie and signals for you to be silent as death. You have reached your destination—the camp of Delphine St. Croix.
Together, you sneak up to the encampment, which is presumably also the site of the lost temple. Delphine, who is exotically beautiful, with her dark hair, miraculously pale skin despite the blazing desert sun, and arresting catlike eyes, is berating a cringing Fabien. Though she is half his size, you find yourself truly fearing for his well-being.
“You are soft! You fool!” Delphine cries. “You will pay for losing her!” She pulls a pistol on Fabien. Evangeline raises her eyebrows.
“NOW!” Evangeline cries, and the gang charges into the fray. The desert quickly becomes a storm of fighting women, flying sand, and vengeful screaming, and as the epic battle rages, you lose sight of Delphine. Suddenly, you feel a sharp knife dig into your throat and a hand grasp your arm.
“Hello, little putain,” Delphine sneers behind you. “You are coming with me.”
Let’s look at your options:
Do you fight tooth and nail, regardless of the consequences? You will not let this fiend use you as a tool against the woman you love! You will not! Turn to this page.
Or do you prefer to stay not dead, all things considered? If so, make no sudden movements, just do what she says…and turn to this page.
You rush to tend to Lord Craven, who has collapsed at the foot of your bed in a fashion both manly and vulnerable. You manage to tug down the neckline of your nightdress ever so, in order to ensure that the tops of your womanly orbs glow attractively in the moonlight.
You wrap him in your trembling arms.
“Lord Craven,” you say. You know you should be scandalized, but your voice catches with desire. He places his hand against your mouth to silence you, letting his surprisingly rough fingers slip over your plush, parted lips. “You are bleeding!” you cry, your moonlit orbs heaving with every syllable.
“I have…urges.” The way he emphasizes the word would bring you to your knees if you weren’t already sitting. “I tried to fight them tonight. For you.”
“Did you win?” you ask, not fully understanding what he’s getting at—but also not minding so much because he looks so good being so bad. Any effort to solve the mystery of Lord Craven’s words is abandoned the instant he wraps the width of your waist with his arm. For a moment you are both so charged with erotic electricity that you almost don’t realize the painting of the lovely late wife with raven locks glaring at you.
“The painting,” you whisper.
“Damn the painting! Damn her!” Lord Craven’s ragged voice rips through the room as his hands rip through the portrait’s canvas. “She made me this way! She made me a monster! But you!” Lord Craven tears his eyes away from the torn picture and burns his longing into your very soul. “You make me feel like a man,” he growls lustily.
“Oh, Garraway!” you swoon, calling Lord Craven by his first name. A time for painting-ripping and waist-gripping is no time for formality.
“I want you,” he keens, his eyes as wild as your desire for him. “I have wanted you since you arrived.”
“But society dictates—” You attempt a false protest to at least appear to save your modesty.
“Society!” he spits. “What do our bodies dictate?”
He wraps you in an embrace so close you feel all the firmness of his body’s dictations. You rack your mind for adequate verbiage but ascertain that the truest depth of your emotions can only be expressed by pressing the fullness of your moonlit orbs into Lord Craven’s handsome, hungry mouth.
“The only society I care about,” he says through mouthfuls of orb and ecstasy, “is yours.”
The two of you make love with a violent passion on your bedchamber floor, atop the ruins of your purity and the painting of his dead wife’s face.
Minutes, or possibly hours, later, as you lie panting in each other’s arms, your reverie is broken.
“HE SAID IT WOULD BE ONLY ME! ONLY ME FOR ALL TIME!!” An eerie, feminine voice rends the air, followed by the sounds of a woman crying. Craven’s face turns as pale as a corpse.
“Damnable woman!” Craven cries. He rushes from your chamber, leaving you with nothing but your tattered nightgown for company.
Goodness. Do you leave and never speak of this again? Turn to this page.
Or do you investigate the voice? The source must be nearby, for it is in woman’s-screaming-distance from where you are. In for a penny, in for a pound. Turn to this page.
You are shocked, but you choose to stay. Surely he couldn’t do anything in cold blood, knowing how hot he makes your blood run. Yet there must be more to tell. You stroke his face and look into those haunted whisky-colored eyes.
“What happened?” you ask gently. Mac explains.
“Constantina was Abercrombie’s bit o’ fluff back in the war, when we were stationed at Salamanca. All I knew was that she had a fine name and a fine eye for Abercrombie. One night, I was out walking, after m’guar
d. I had just passed a knot of Frenchmen on a bridge, thinking themselves hidden in the shadow. Here comes Constantina, headed straight for ’em, wobblin’ like she was three sheets to the wind. I went to stop her, and she turned her knife on me, slashin’ like a madwoman.”
A shudder runs the length of Mac’s glorious body. You reach out and stroke him. He moans, half in painful remembrance, half in total arousal.
“Go on,” you urge.
“There was a struggle. She fell off the bridge to her death. I may have been a soldier”—he turns to you with shining eyes—“but, aye, lass, I have never held with killing women.”
“Even a woman who seems to have wanted to kill you?” you say with wonder, as well as a fierce desire to untie the knots of his past.
“Ye ken,” he says, deep into the valley between your breasts, “I can still hear her screaming.” You are about to kiss him, to erase this tension on his brow and capitalize on the tension between the two of you, when your movements are interrupted by literal screaming: the sound of a horse about to give birth. Mac snaps to attention.
“Och, lass! A foal is needing born!” He races toward the keening sound. “We must help the mare!”
Oh, you think. Must we?
Well…must you? If so, turn to this page.
Or must you not, and instead get some air after all this drama? It’s not like you’ve ever birthed a horse before. Turn to this page.
A fortnight passes with no further incident with Lord Craven. In fact, the only evidence of his residing in Hopesend lies in the half-empty bottles of brandy he leaves in all areas of the house.
You wonder at the army of broken birds he has collected as his staff—to tend to them and keep them safe? Or to stalk them as easy prey? What wound does he see in you? Or did he lure you here to sate a different thirst?
These fantastical daydreams are interrupted only by occasional visits from the Reverend Simon Loveday, the handsome blond vicar, who comes ostensibly to check upon your well-being. Every time he leaves, he holds your hands for one delicious moment too long.
Your charge, Alexander, is a sullen child who stares into the middle distance with foreboding frequency. Perhaps his ill moods are rooted in the loss of his mother, yet you suspect something…darker. Still, you content him with study of the more murderous episodes of history. The child also enjoys covering screens.
By the next full moon, an unease has crept over you. The portrait of Blanche hanging in your bedchamber seems to study you whenever you undress for bed. Restless, you stroll the house in the small hours of the night, longing against your better judgment to run into Master Craven on your midnight explorations. Instead, your only company is moonlight…until one night, an eerie howl pierces the calm. Could it belong to the demon dog out on the moors the villagers spoke of?
Do you choose to investigate the moors like the curious wench you know you truly are? Turn to this page.
Or do you run to your rooms and hide like the demure governess you aspire to be? Turn to this page.
Sighing, you straighten yourself and kiss Benedict deeply, perhaps for the last time. “Goodbye, my love,” you say, fighting the tears welling in your eyes at the cruelty of a world that could not allow your love to be.
Solemn and bow-legged, you walk to your rooms and change out of your dress, which is now ripped to shreds. You put on your only other frock, a drab gray affair. Most fitting, for you must ready your mind for a future so undesirable, so colorless, that to dwell on its reality would only do a disservice to the wonderful dream you just had the opportunity of living.
You resolve, at the very least, either to flee the Dragon’s employ for someone less detestable or to ratchet up your kindness to her so that you may see Benedict as often as possible. You know you cannot be with him again, adding insult to his pauperhood if he decides to stay mum on the question of legitimacy for Henrietta’s sake. You just can’t bring yourself to decide if it is really possible to live without seeing him, even from a distance, forevermore.
As you stumble back into the great hall, you find yourself arriving the same time as your beloved Benedict. Your eyes bore into each other with knowledge of the intimacy that you once shared but now know can never be.
“Well, well, well,” says a voice laced with venom, sending chills down your spine. You turn and see Cad stalking into the room, one eye blackened and his nose looking gratifyingly broken. Remembering what he came so close to doing, you shudder involuntarily. To both your joy and anguish, Benedict strides over and places a protective arm around your shoulders.
Despite it being madness to do so, you lean into him, despairing at how very right it feels to be one with him.
“So…I see you have made your choice,” Cad hisses, his eyes narrow with rage. “It is a very stupid one and one for which you shall pay for the rest of your days.”
“Don’t you dare,” growls Benedict as he steps protectively in front of you. You are gratified to see Cad flinch.
“I want you gone,” snarls Cad. “Gone from my home, and gone from my property. I am the rightful heir, and you have more than outstayed your welcome.”
By now, Lady Evangeline has appeared from a side door to witness the display.
“I have a dear little cottage on my grounds that you may stay in, Benny,” she whispers gently before turning to you. “And you may stay with me while we resolve this whole messy issue.”
Suddenly, you hear a fierce shriek. Henrietta bursts into the hallway, her formerly meek face now lit up with righteous anger.
“You will not do this, Rafe!” she storms. Shocked that his mousy little sister seems to have grown a spine, Cad gapes helplessly for a moment, like a very surprised fish, before a chilling, icy rage crosses his face.
“You will hold your tongue,” he seethes. “You know what the consequences are.”
“I don’t care anymore!” she cries. “I have stood here being a coward while you hurt the one brother who has always been good to me, even though he had every right not to be!”
Henrietta runs over to you and grabs your hand.
“And then you tried to hurt my new friend, who in the brief time I have known her has been kind, and strong, and brave enough to put herself in danger for those she loves!” Henrietta throws her shoulders back and appears to grow several inches. “So I have decided to be brave like her. I have told all the newspapers how you lied about our inheritance, the truth of what Mama did, and every single other time that you have lied, cheated, and swindled! And, as you know, there are many of those!”
You all stare at her, shocked and impressed, with the exception of Cad, who is staring at her like a man condemned.
“Y-you didn’t…” he says incredulously, all color drained from his face.
“I did! With physical proof, too!” says Henrietta, her voice wavering slightly but her expression mutinous. You exchange shocked glances with Benedict and stand shoulder to shoulder with Henrietta. She barely needs the protection.
“I don’t care what you do to me anymore!” she cries. “All I care is that Benny and his true love are happy!”
“You—you little bi—” wails Cad before being cut off.
“It’s over, Cad,” Benedict says with frigid calm. “Get out.”
Cad hesitates for a minute, looking at each of you before turning tail and fleeing, never to be seen again.
Lady Evangeline gives a round of applause and then embraces Henrietta.
“Well done, my dear,” she says to the wide-eyed young woman. “You know, if it doesn’t work out with your young farmer, you would be very welcome to accompany me on my travels to Egypt…”
As Henrietta decides her fate, you barely notice, for you have already decided yours. Benedict grins, his dark hair falling into his silver-gray eyes, now clouded with desire.
“What say you to getting the banns published today?” he says to you. “I don’t particul
arly wish to wait any longer to be married, do you?”
You grin back.
“I think you are being exceptionally cocky, Sir Benedict, assuming that I even wish to be married to you.”
“Oh, you know,” Benedict says as he leans in and whispers into your ear, sending a shiver down your spine, “I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”
“Then persuade me,” you whisper back.
Benedict doesn’t answer, but instead pulls you behind a convenient pillar.
Within seconds you find yourself extremely convinced.
The End
“Vincit qui se vincit!” you find yourself yelling to the small child.
“Vincit qui se vincit!” he yells back even louder, and then quickly breaks into fits of giggles. You both laugh and roll about the floor, which only makes him laugh harder. It warms your heart to make him happy.
“What have you taught me, miss?” he squeaks out. “It sounds like a magic spell!”
“It is a magic spell, in a way,” you say. “It is Latin, an old language that hides underneath all of our new language, breathing life into it, giving it form. The words of the spell mean, ‘He who conquers himself, conquers all he wishes.’ ”
Alexander scowls. “That sounds like it means you need to behave in order to be strong.”
“In a way,” you say. “It also means you must know, and conquer, what is in you that needs conquering to be able to stand strong against anything that might come your way.”
“So I can be a hero?” Alexander asks, intensely skeptical.
“Of course,” you answer, pleased with how motivational you are being until you notice the tears in his eyes.
“Mama said I wasn’t strong.” A tear slips down his face. “Mama said I was silly and bad, and that life was better before I came.”