by Brenda Joyce
Francesca felt a touch of excitement. A servant might hate his or her employer, and if he was insane, he might also enjoy tormenting the Burtons so greatly. Of course, by now Francesca felt certain that the monster was a man. It was just a feeling that she had, but it was one that she could not shake.
Tonight Bragg was picking her up and they were hunting Gordino. The prospect was frightening; it was also exhilarating. But he was not picking her up until eleven o’clock. It wasn’t even six in the evening.
Francesca could not even contemplate wasting time. She hurried back up the steps. She felt like a criminal as she tested the door, which was unlocked, as she had suspected. They did not lock their own door at the Cahill home until retiring for the night.
She pushed it open and peered inside—the front hall was empty.
Francesca darted in, shut the door as quietly as possible, and leapt into the doorway of the adjacent withdrawing room. Once there, she took a deep breath. She could hardly believe she was stealing uninvited into someone else’s home.
She glanced around at the pleasant room with its several sofas and chairs and its wide-open gold velvet draperies. Eliza was probably upstairs in her apartments. Just what was she looking for? She supposed she would like to search Eliza’s personal papers, but would her desk be upstairs, in her suite, or downstairs, in the library? Francesca could only assume the library was at the back of the house. It might be a good place to start.
She would also like to visit the twins’ bedroom.
Francesca moved from the withdrawing room into the adjacent reception room, without having to go into the hall, as open doorways connected the rooms. She crossed it swiftly. A small, intimate salon was on the other side, larger than the withdrawing room, the blood-red curtains drawn, a grand piano in the center. The motif was Chinese—the walls were red, dragons creeping up them, the woodwork red lacquer, the furniture Oriental, as were the various vases and sculptures. It was a very seductive room, and Francesca was about to cross it to go to the door, when a flurry of movement on the other side of the piano caught her eye.
She saw a man on all fours on the sofa. Francesca darted behind a tall Chinese screen and heard a woman’s soft, breathless cry.
She froze, in that instant realizing why the room was so dark, why the curtains were drawn, and just what was happening on the sofa. A man and woman were making love!
She did not mean to look. She assumed the couple to be servants. But Francesca found herself peering around the screen, unable to restrain herself.
The man was big and dark. He did not have his jacket on. The woman beneath him was a tangle of lace and black stockings. Francesca glimpsed white thighs.
She drew back as the woman cried out and the man grunted. Housemaids did not wear lace, or black stockings with rose-decorated garters, either.
Was that Eliza?
Francesca did not know what to think, in fact, she was stunned by the probability, and Bragg was, she knew, back at police headquarters where she had left him—wasn’t he? It was so dark in the room, but that man was not Bragg, or was he?
“Oh, God, Eliza,” the man said.
Francesca felt her knees buckle and she gripped the closest object—the top of the piano—to prevent herself from collapsing as she recognized the man’s voice. But surely, surely she was mistaken!
Francesca stepped from behind the screen and stared, as the man drew back, lifted Eliza up, and began to nuzzle her breasts and test her nipples with the tip of his tongue. Eliza was spilling over her corset and out of her open shirtwaist.
She stared harder.
His head moved down her rib cage. And lower still, down her belly. As he continued to nuzzle and kiss her bare flesh, Francesca could not move, and she could not look away.
“Oh, God, Neil,” Eliza gasped as she sank back on the couch and Montrose’s head moved between her white, gartered thighs. Eliza began to whimper uncontrollably.
Was he doing what she thought he was doing? Francesca felt her knees buckle as she helplessly watched.
And Montrose reared up.
Francesca blinked at the sight of him in all of his swollen glory and then he was moving over Eliza and thrusting into her and the pair were bucking and twisting frantically. “Yes, yes,” Eliza was crying.
Francesca suddenly realized just what she was doing and she jumped behind the screen, too stunned to form more than one single coherent thought. Montrose.
Their harsh, heavy breathing, their moans, Eliza’s soft cries, filled the room. Francesca began to think.
Montrose and Eliza.
Montrose and Eliza.
Eliza began crying out.
Francesca did not mean to engage in further voyeurism, at least not deliberately. But the impassioned and fervent nature of Eliza’s cries caused her to somehow move out from behind the screen.
Montrose was thrusting into her, again and again, his movements at once controlled and wildly passionate. “God, Eliza, God,” he chanted, then, “You make me insanely jealous.”
“Yes, Neil.” Eliza was clawing his back. “Again, Neil.”
“Yes,” he said savagely.
Eliza suddenly cried out, even more loudly than before. Montrose clapped a hand over her mouth, collapsing on top of her with his own guttural grunt. And suddenly the pair was motionless.
Francesca took her cue. She ran.
And this time, when Eliza cried out, it was not in passion, it was in fear. “Neil! Someone was watching us!”
Chapter 12
Francesca ran blindly down the block and into the Cahill driveway. By the time she reached the house, she was panting harshly and her breath hung in big puffs of vapor in the chilly evening air. She staggered before the front steps, gasping for breath. To her own ear, those huge breaths sounded like sobs.
Montrose and Eliza were lovers.
Connie’s husband was Eliza’s lover.
Poor Connie!
Francesca sank down on the second step, aware of how wildly she was trembling. She remained in shock. How could Montrose be Eliza’s lover? How?
He and Connie seemed so content, so perfect for one another.
Francesca did not know what to think or do. But while Eliza might be a very loose woman indeed, there was one thing she was certain of, and that was that she did not have a string of lovers dangling about. Bragg must have had an affair with her in the past. They had remained friends, and that explained the intimate embrace she had seen a few days ago.
Francesca felt no relief. Not now.
Did Connie know! Did she know that her husband was unfaithful? Did she even suspect?
Poor Connie! Francesca began to weep.
And as she wept, so many memories danced through her head. She recalled Montrose pulling Connie close, just last night, and Connie smiling up at him before disengaging herself. She recalled the first time she had seen Montrose, when she was fourteen years old.
“He’s here,” Evan had said, dragging Francesca out of her bedroom and downstairs. “His lordship is here, courting our sister, you must come see.”
And on the lowest step, Francesca had stopped abruptly. Tall, dark, and broad-shouldered, his eyes brilliantly blue, he was quite the most handsome and masculine man she had ever laid eyes upon. He was speaking to her sister and smiling. Connie was gazing up at him and smiling back. It was, everyone said, the perfect match. A match made in heaven.
Francesca had watched them as they spoke for the very first time and she had felt her heart lurch wildly, uncontrollably, inside of her breast. The sensation had been terrifying, like leaping off a cliff and falling forever, with the ground nowhere in sight. She had secretly admired him from that moment on. And she had been so happy for her sister. But she had also, secretly, been so sad—for herself.
Francesca hugged her knees to her cheek and rocked, recalling the day they had made their wedding vows. Connie had been gorgeous in her frothy beaded white gown, and the moment they had exchanged vows, Montrose had pu
lled up her veil while pulling her close, and he had kissed her deeply. Francesca had watched, gaping; she had never seen a man kiss a woman like that before.
Someone in the crowded church had cheered. And then the applause was thunderous.
A match made in heaven.
How could he cheat on Connie? Didn’t he love his wife?
Francesca recalled the way he had come barging into the house one summer eve, three years ago, haggard and drawn and afraid, waking up the household, shouting that Connie was having the baby. Even more vividly, she recalled the doctor announcing a safe birth for mother and child, and her father, with tears in his eyes, handing Montrose a cigar. Montrose had been ashen and red-eyed—he had kept an all-night vigil-and cigar in hand, he had sunk into the closest chair. An instant later he had bolted to his feet. “I am going to see my wife and daughter,” he had cried, dashing from the room.
Francesca wept harder.
She did not know how long she sat there on the stoop, reliving too many memories of her brother-in-law and sister to count, but suddenly she was aware of being frozen through and through. The stone step she sat on was like ice, as was her derriere. She was shivering, and dried, frozen tears felt like plaster on her face. Slowly, Francesca got to her feet.
A huge and heavy weight had settled over her—the weight of grief. Hugging herself, she walked into the house.
How could he! Did Connie know? Those two thoughts replayed over and over again in her mind.
Suddenly Francesca stiffened. Should she tell her sister?
Francesca forgot to breathe. The starkly brutal importance of the question struck with violent force. What should she do?
“Francesca,” Julia said, entering the hall from the dining room.
Francesca saw her mother approaching in a beautiful mauve suit with a determined stride she recognized too well. She prayed silently for a respite when she knew there would not be one.
Julia’s expression changed, becoming bewildered. “Francesca?” Her strident tone had vanished. Her mother paused before her. “Are you ill? Have you ... you have been crying!” she exclaimed.
Francesca turned away, removing her coat and hat and handing the items, along with her gloves, to a servant. She wiped her face with her sleeve. “I am merely cold. I walked home,” she said tersely.
Julia tilted up her chin. “What is it? You have been crying, Francesca. Tears are stained all over your face.”
Francesca stared into her mother’s concerned gaze and could not come up with a single thing to say. And then she wondered if Julia knew. Julia knew everything. She was the queen of New York society. But she would never allow Montrose to continue the affair if she knew. And Francesca had no doubt that Julia would somehow pull the proper strings to make him dance to her tune, perhaps through finances. The Montrose fortune had been squandered generations ago. His family, while titled, was impoverished and nearly landless. Connie had inherited a huge fortune upon her marriage. Still, it had been a love match. Hadn’t it?
“I don’t feel very well,” Francesca finally said. “I have been at Sarah Channing’s. I decided to take a walk in the park. I am very cold.” She could hear how terrible her own tone sounded.
Julia hesitated and Francesca thought that she suspected her to be lying, but she said, “Then you should go upstairs to bed. Perhaps you will feel better in a few hours. We are having a small supper tonight, just family. Connie, Montrose, and the girls, and Sarah Channing and her mother, of course.”
Her heart sank with sickening force. How could she face Montrose over a meal, tonight? “I don’t know, Mama, I think I am feverish,” Francesca said.
Julia laid her dainty hand on Francesca’s brow. “You are never feverish,” she said with real concern. “I am worried about you, Francesca.” And, “Truthfully, I have been worried about you for some months now.”
Francesca almost burst into tears again. Should Julia raise the subject of her comings and goings, she was too distressed to dissemble well and she would never succeed in pulling the wool over her mother’s eyes. “I will be fine.” And that was the truth. She would be fine, because it wasn’t her heart that was broken. It was her sister’s heart that was broken—or that would soon become broken, should she ever learn of her husband’s treachery.
“Francesca.”
Francesca had been about to go upstairs and she paused. “Yes?”
“We will discuss the matter of my silver when you are feeling better.”
Francesca trembled. “Thank you, Mama.”
Julia smiled at her, but the worry in her eyes had not abated. She turned and walked out of the hall.
Francesca leaned upon the banister, closing her eyes briefly. Now she was aware of a tremendous headache forming just behind both temples. And the truth was, she did feel ill. Perhaps she was actually coming down with the flu. It might just be a godsend if it would prevent her from attending her family’s supper that night.
Francesca was about to go upstairs when she heard a loud and angry exclamation coming from behind the closed doors of the library. Her brother had made the outburst. And now she could hear her father speaking in a calm, measured tone of voice in response.
Evan was never angry. He had the most cheerful and sunny of dispositions. Under normal circumstances, Francesca would have been concerned about whatever was making him angry. She would have hurried to the library and perhaps she might have eavesdropped. Now, she only fled upstairs as fast as she could go. She could not handle one more stitch of conflict.
It was only when she reached the sanctuary of her room that she recalled words spoken in the heat of passion.
Words she wished she had never heard.
You make me insanely jealous.
Montrose was insanely jealous where Eliza Burton was concerned.
“No,” Francesca whispered, catching a glimpse of her ashen expression in the mirror across her room. She looked deathly ill. “No.”
Montrose was not insane. Montrose was not a madman. Montrose was not the monster who had abducted Jonny Burton and was now so cruelly toying with Robert Burton because he hated his lover’s husband.
It was impossible.
Francesca realized at the last moment that she must join the family for supper that night. She had to look Montrose in the eye, and try to comprehend him. She had to see him with her sister, and try to understand their relationship, as well. It seemed like a hopeless task.
She was late. But she could not hurry as she slowly descended the stairs, as if unsure of her footing, holding tightly onto the smooth brass railing of the banister. She was exhausted, but she also felt violated, the way she had after Gordino had assaulted her. That sense of violation gave her an anger that was welcome. How dare Montrose betray her sister!
And in betraying Connie, he had betrayed them all.
They were already taking their seats in the dining room. Her father smiled with pleasure at the sight of her. “Francesca! I am so glad you are feeling well enough to join us. Mother was just explaining that you did not feel well this afternoon.” Her father pulled her close, his smile fading as he studied her with searching eyes.
Francesca forced a smile. She knew she still looked terrible—like death warmed over. Her eyes remained red from another, recent bout with tears. “I am better,” she said so softly that she realized her tone was inaudible.
“Fran?” Evan wandered over, concerned. “I think you should go right back upstairs and get into bed. You look ghastly.”
“I am fine.” This time she was firm and she spoke up. And then she looked across the table, where Montrose was standing with Connie and the two girls. She hardly even noticed Sarah and her mother.
Connie and Neil were both looking at her with worry.
Neil! Someone was watching us!
Francesca found herself staring at Montrose, Eliza’s last cry ringing in her ears so vividly it was as if she were calling out now, in the present. Images she wished she had never seen tumbled throu
gh her mind, almost too swiftly to decipher. And she felt ill, wretchedly so.
Montrose stared back at her.
His expression was impossible to read.
Had he leapt up after Eliza had cried out? Had he dashed after her? Had he seen her?
Did he know that Francesca knew about him and his rotten affair?
But he was not the monster who had abducted and maybe even murdered Jonny Burton, was he?
Their gazes locked.
“Fran.” Connie handed the wide-eyed Lucinda to Mrs. Partridge, pausing to kiss her cheek, and then she hurried around the table.
“Auntie! Sit next to me!” Charlotte cried, jumping up and down.
Francesca had not moved. She could not tear her gaze from Montrose. He continued to stare back at her, as well. He might be an adulterer, but that was not the same thing as being insane. It was not.
A lot of men were jealous of their wives and mistresses.
You make me insanely jealous.
She could hear her own heavy, deafening heartbeat in her ears. Surely the whole room could, as well. Francesca felt the tension arcing between her and Montrose as if it were actual currents of electricity. And the terrible tableau felt frozen in place and time.
I must not stare, Francesca managed to think.
Everyone is noticing the way we are regarding one another.
He was not smiling. And Francesca was quite certain that he knew she had been the voyeur.
“Francesca, what is wrong?” Connie asked, now at her side, and taking her hand.
And just as Francesca turned to face her sister, Montrose said worriedly, “I think Evan is right. I think you should go up to bed.”
Francesca turned back instantly and met his worried blue eyes. Then she faced Connie, trembling, not knowing what to think now.
Joining the family for supper had been a terrible idea.
Especially as she had an impending rendezvous with Bragg in just a few hours. She should lie down, she should rest.