by Kitty Curran
“I must say,” he crows, “my brother may be a fool, but he is a fool with good taste.” His eyes run over you in a way that makes you shiver. You say nothing, staring at him mutinously and then spitting at his hell-born face.
Angered, he pushes your face roughly against the statue.
“Don’t make this hard for yourself, sweeting,” he hisses in your ear. “I think you’ll find that if even my sap of a brother can satisfy you, then I will be more than enough to—”
“Unhand her! NOW,” growls a dangerously low voice. You look up in relief.
“Benedict!” you cry.
“Benedict!” moans Cad, rolling his eyes. “If you don’t mind, this young lady and I are rather occupied. I suggest you take this opportunity to leave us and get off my property for good. Before I call the authorities.”
Benedict stalks forward silently, his eyes silvery with rage. Cad gulps despite himself.
“How dare you,” Benedict says a little too quietly, his voice the eerie calm before the storm.
“Now see here, Benny,” says Cad, releasing his grip enough for you to slip away from him. Cad barely notices as he turns to face his dangerously silent half brother. He reminds you of a cornered snake facing a particularly deadly mongoose. “You are—”
Again he is cut off as Benedict lands a deft punch to his jaw and another to his nose.
“Not the face!” howls Cad, and he launches himself at Benedict. Throwing his sibling against a statue of Cupid with such ferocity it makes you wince, he lands several heavy slugs to Benedict’s stomach.
You watch, dazed, as the two brothers—one light, one dark, yet perfectly matched—battle for mastery of the other. You search desperately for some tool with which to help Benedict.
“Always such a stick-in-the-mud, Benny,” Cad jeers. “Always so easy to provoke with your foolish notions of honor. And what did it get you? I have your home, I have your title, and now once I have beaten you, I shall have your whore, too! Perhaps you would like to watch?”
If Cad meant to throw Benedict off balance with his taunts, he could not have chosen a worse way to do it. You see a strange light cross Benedict’s dark silver eyes that makes you shiver in both fear and desire.
Even Cad seems to sense his mistake. He tries a swinging right hook that Benedict expertly dodges. A fire has been lit under him now, and he comes at Cad with a series of brutal punches that send the rogue collapsing to the ground.
Benedict launches himself on the slumped golden form of his half brother with another volley of blows. As Cad whimpers, you realize with horror that the strange light in Benedict’s eyes is in fact a death gleam. It is up to you to intervene—lest this brave, wonderful fool, who has managed to break through the once-impenetrable walls of your heart, does something that he regrets.
“No, Benedict!” you cry. “He’s not worth it!” Your voice seems to snap Benedict out of his murder daze, and he stares at you in wonder. You stare back at him, your eyes loving but your expression unflinching.
“Please, my love. Do you wish to hang for fratricide?” Benedict pauses for a moment, then shakes his head and raises himself off the ground. Turning to Cad, he spits on his cringing form.
“You are nothing to me. Nothing at all,” he says, his voice cold and impassive. He then turns to you, his eyes ablaze with passion and concern.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, so tenderly that you feel your throat catch.
“I shall be quite all right, thank you,” you say, as you watch relief course over his handsome face. He raises a strong hand to stroke the hair out of your face with a gentleness that takes your breath away.
“Oh, my darling,” he says as he leans in to kiss you. You close your eyes, but feel him yanked from you by a certain would-be ravager.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” snarls Cad as he throws Benedict to the ground and draws out a pistol. “I mean to have my way, and I’m not letting anyone, least of all my pathetic waste of a half brother, stop m—”
For the third time Cad is cut short—this time by you smashing an urn-shaped garden ornament onto his head.
He slumps to the ground, out cold. Benedict stands shakily, his eyes blazing with admiration and desire. You gasp with pleasure as he pulls you into a fiery kiss. Whatever happens between you in the future, you will never forget this moment.
Still, reason must prevail, if only for now, for you have an unconscious fake heir to deal with. Benedict, as if reading your thoughts, pulls away and looks coldly at his brother lying on the ground.
“We should go.”
Benedict is right. Get out of there and go to this page.
You down your tea, square your shoulders, and decide that this will not do. Whoever sent this letter clearly meant to scare you, and you will be damned if you let them succeed.
You head to the great hall, where Mrs. Ferguson is attempting to teach the children sword dancing with distinctly mixed results. You ask the kindly housekeeper where you might buy the many supplies that you can’t really afford but desperately need.
“Och, the only shop in town is Buchanan’s,” she says. “They’re good folk and will give you a fair price.”
And so you find yourself rambling across the rolling green Highlands to find Buchanan’s shop. The dramatic scudding clouds and craggy outposts soothe your soul…and you begin to wonder what it would be like to live here.
Spotting the village in the distance, you quicken your pace. As desperate as you are for bread and bandages, you are even more eager for answers to the questions that have been plaguing you since the fire.
Buchanan’s is surprisingly well stocked for a store in a tiny village. But it is the vision standing behind the counter that truly astounds you. With darkest auburn hair and eyes the color of wild heather, the shopkeeper is so exquisitely lovely that, were the members of the Royal Academy to see her, they would come to serious blows for the priviledge of painting her portrait.
The vision, utterly unselfconscious of her pulchritude, smiles at you with a welcoming visage.
“How can I help ye, hen?” she asks warmly. Finding yourself lost for words, you hand over your list. She gives it a once-over with her magnificent eyes and then calls to the back room, “Gerald! Can I get some help wi’ the top shelves?”
As a brawny man with jet-black hair and a heavy beard emerges from the back room, she turns to you.
“I dinnae mean to pry, hen,” she says, “but would ye be one o’ the Sassenachs that wee Angus has brought up with him from London?”
“I-I am,” you say.
“Och, are ye asking after yer old sweetheart, Fiona?” teases the man. He winks at the flame-haired beauty. She laughs and pushes him.
Your heart sinks. “You—you know Captain MacTaggart?”
“Ye could put it that way!” chuckles the man. Fiona laughs and pushes him again.
“What my husband is trying to say is Angus MacTaggart and I were sweethearts when we were wee bairns.”
Your heart has now utterly plunged. Yet you must be doing a good job of hiding it, for the gorgeous woman continues unabashed.
“Och, I fancied myself in love with him, I did. But then Mac got into a spot of hot water after he burned down Abercrombie’s barn.”
“A fire?” you say. Another fire!
“Aye. You wouldn’t think it now, but he was a wee tearaway when he was young. He would have got in serious trouble with the law, but then Old Abercrombie offered to waive the charges if he joined the army. So off he went, and I was heartbroken.”
“Aye. For about two weeks, until I came along.” Her husband winks at you.
“Beast! It was at least six!”
“And what about Mac—I mean, Captain MacTaggart? Did he find love again?” You force yourself to ask the most difficult question of all: “Perhaps with a lady named Constantina?”
Fiona frowns. “I have heard of no one by that name,” s
he says. “But I do know that the rapscallion that left Glenblair was not the somber man who returned. He puts on a brave face, but he has been changed by something that happened out there at war. Something he never talks about. Anyway, that’ll be three shillings and sixpence.”
You pay the Buchanans, thank them for their time, and leave with the supplies. You have much to ponder on.
Do you head straight home and get to fixing the house, and maybe finding some answers? Turn to this page.
Or do you take the scenic route, so that you may gather your thoughts about what to do next? Turn to this page.
You drink deeply his scent and run your tongue over the plush protrusion of his bottom lip. In response, the reverend slips his own tongue into your mouth, the serpent seeking the forbidden apple.
Now, truly, you swoon. He gasps with pleasure and stares intensely into your eyes. When he speaks, he is breathless and raw with power and pleasure. “You have played into my plan beautifully…but I didn’t want to feel for you the way I do!”
You stare at him in shock. “What…plan?” you ask between shivers of pleasure. You grip his fine, white-blond hair in your fingers and twist. He emits a pleased, pained little cry and you guide him down your neck to your breasts. He playfully bites your taut nipples through your gown.
“My real name,” he says, between mouthfuls of you, “is Simon Loveday Craven.”
“What?!” you yelp—in part because what?!, and in part because he has slid two holy fingers into your mouth to wet them before dipping them in your holy water again and again and again.
“I am next in line to inherit Hopesend,” he reveals as he works you into a fine frenzy. Sweat shimmers on his fair brow, and you pause between his admission and your desire to free his straining member from his all-white ensemble and sink him like a treasure into the sea of your mouth.
“I…had hoped…,” he gasps, “to convince Lord Craven to give me the home willingly. When he…refused…I decided to make him…appear to be mad. Manvers was all too ready to help me frame Craven for any misdeeds that would make…the home…easier for me…to claim…”
You pull away right before he climaxes. His eyes are wild and longing, but you aren’t quite in the mood right this second. The naughty vicar has been up to what?
“Manvers was easy to convince that a little…theater would help do the trick. All he had to do was wear some sort of ghostly garb that would make Craven think his dead wife was watching him from the great beyond.”
“You would have had Lord Craven and Master Alexander killed just so you could claim a house?” you ask, bitterness creeping into your tone…and parts.
“A mansion and title, yes,” Loveday says with a sneer. “I wasn’t outright villainous at the first, but when Craven started sleeping with the help, as he put it, Manvers had kittens about how it would desecrate the late Lady Craven. He never knew how I had desecrated the late Lady Craven over and over, right in this very spot.”
All your blood that has not run entirely cold takes the opportunity to do so now.
“So all of this—us—was part of your plan?” you say acidly.
“Of course not. You were to be a pawn, the pièce de résistance once they found your lifeless body in the eldritch garden.”
“You were going to kill me just to stake your claim on a house you do not need, on a title that means nothing, for a fortune that is not truly yours?” You seethe with rage.
“Of course!” He laughs at you and rises to his full, delicate height, so in love with himself and his power that you are by turns aroused and disgusted. “But now you have awakened a passion in me! You give me hope that I could find my place as a Craven in this world, at Hopesend and beyond. You may even help me find redemption after all this is over. Join me, my lady. Join me and revel in taking what you deserve from those who do not.”
His silver tongue slips between your lips again. Why do all the good kissers have to be bad guys?
Do you run from this sodding crazy fool and his murderous plans? If so, turn to this page.
Or do you really have what some would call a destructive penchant for bad boys and want to go all-in on this runaway carriage ride to hell? If so, turn to this page!
“I have never been to Cairo, and I would love to see more of it today,” you reply. To your surprise, Evangeline’s understanding smile is laced with something that looks almost like regret. But why would she regret the departure of a simple creature such as yourself when she has work to do?
“Quite right, my dear,” she says briskly. “Why lock yourself away when there is a world to be explored? Have a wonderful time.”
With that she stalks out of the room, head held regally in the posture of an ancient goddess.
“Where do you suggest we go?” asks Kamal, his formerly doleful face lighting with pride for the city of his birth. “I think Cairo market would be most interesting for a new visitor! After that, we could perhaps see the famous Hanging Church?”
“That sounds marvelous.” You push the memory of Evangeline’s sad eyes far from your mind. “Lead the way!”
Kamal gestures down the nearest corridor. “Farouk, we need you!”
A dark figure looms from the shadows. He nods, his face almost entirely covered by a turban and face wrap, except for a pair of arresting, Nile-green eyes. You shudder, sensing something dangerous beneath the surface, like a crocodile hiding beneath tranquil water. Kamal seems unperturbed and turns to you.
“Farouk will keep us safe on our travels. It is a shame that he was not there last night, for he might have prevented this robbery.”
You don’t know what to say, so you nod silently, keeping your eyes on the enormous figure now following you. You really do not have a good feeling about this.
Do you take this chance to make excuses and return to Lady Evangeline? An afternoon in Cairo market is one thing, but an afternoon in Cairo market being “protected” by Frightful McTerrorface is quite another. If so, go to this page.
Or do you go to the market as planned? Bodyguards are meant to be intimidating. And he might turn out to be useful. If so, go to this page.
You find Craven pacing in the library, half drunk on brandy and the past.
At the sight of him, you are furious with longing, and just plain furious. Leave it to this man to flee his responsibilities and run from his desires at the very moment that both require him.
“Put the brandy down, man. It is time for action, not self-sorrow.”
He laughs unkindly, and drinks deeply while squinting into the gathering moonlight, feeling sorry for himself.
“You know not my sorrow, woman,” he growls.
That’s it. You’ve had enough. You slap the brandy from his hand and the smirk from his jaw. He looks at you in shock.
“I do hope your full attention is now on the matter at hand, rather than on your own self-pity,” you say coolly.
“Th-thank you,” Craven stammers.
“You must be strong now, for your son. But first, you must tell me what the devil is going on. We’re a team now, damn it. The beast will out, so out it. Now.”
Craven looks at you longingly, imploringly, the barest sheen of tears in his eyes. Oh, hell. You kiss him deeply, softly, and lightly trace the line of his gently hardening member with the palm of your hand, just for encouragement.
A confession issues forth from his lush mouth. He speaks like a poet, tearing pages out of his own journals. He speaks like spilling ink.
“Blanche was beautiful, and I loved her, even if I only married her for her money. She only married me for my name. I was a lord with a decrepit family home, and she was a wealthy Swiss chocolatier’s daughter raised in England. She had all the trappings of the ton with absolutely no title, and I had all the trappings with none of the wealth. ‘We are both outsiders,’ she told me, ‘but come inside, and we can climb as one.’
“I was
young and foolish enough to believe her. I fancied myself a writer in those days, which meant I had to marry for money in order to provide for my family. Can you imagine my mother, the Dowager Dragon as you call her, living out the rest of her days, fed only by the hand of charity?”
You stifle a chortle. Indeed, you cannot. He continues.
“Even though we were happy for a time, that all changed when the twins were born. She was unfaithful far before then, of course, but I never disillusioned myself to think I was her only love. Still, that she felt the need to make her indiscretions so flagrant and cunning struck me as particularly cruel. On our honeymoon, on the shores of Lake Geneva, we struck up friendly conversation with a company of fellow poets. She took a particular liking to the most obnoxious—and published—of them all. She enjoyed telling me of his conquests, in the bedroom and on the page. She enjoyed making me feel inferior.
“When the twins were born, she left me for him, for a time. She could not bear the screaming of the babes, but she could more than bear the endless prattling of the poet. When she finally parted ways from his company and returned to me, her entire manner had changed. Her passions were wilder, her angers more ferocious. She focused fresh waves of hatred on the children, insisting that they needed to be ‘dealt with’ or ‘seen to.’ I did not like the way she looked at them, and I tried to be home whenever I could. I tried to make us a family in manner as well as name.”
Your eyes widen as Craven muffles a sob in your midsection.
“If I’d been less of a fool, Helena would still be alive. Alexander would be happy, and you—you would not be here.”
“You do not wish me here?”
“I wish it more than anything in the world. But I know that if you stay, I will damn you. The way I have damned everyone around me.”
He lifts his eyes to hold your gaze and continues, speaking simply. “This is for you, my love,” he says and hands you a small, smooth, polished-ash box.