Bliss River

by Thea Devine

  It was the horses, of course. It wasn't that far from Ascot opening day, and they were always on the lookout for fine horseflesh. How fortuitous that Charles had landed in London just now. They would have so much to talk about at dinner the following night.

  "We came up from Greybourne not three days ago," Charles told him. "We've leased a house in Hyde Park, and on for the Season. Fortunate we arrived now, wouldn't you say?"

  Indeed, his host would say. In March, everyone would descend for the Little Season and there wouldn't be a place to let anywhere.

  Charles got the house next, a small, nicely respectable, two-bedroom town home at the edge of Hyde Park. Then he set up a line of credit at Harrod's, all on the strength of his name, and guarantees from his host. Risky things both, on the face of it, but sportsmen were gamblers, too, no one more so than that gentleman, a fact Charles had counted on.

  Next then, Georgiana.

  "We're going to a dinner party. You need appropriate clothes."

  So he had done it. Why had she thought he couldn't? Charles Elliott could do anything. He had a life beyond anything he had yet revealed to her, and he'd still wanted Aling besides.

  There were too many surprises, too soon. She wondered if he had thought she wouldn't get onto him at some point. Or that the sting of betrayal wouldn't go deep.

  "No clothes would be more my taste," she muttered. Those tight constricting clothes on top of it. God, she hated these garments. Hated the idea of going out among society with him and having to meet new people and be­have in a proscribed way.

  His dark eyes glinted. "We're on the attack, my lady. You will do nothing to upset the boat."

  "No," she retorted, "I will dutifully steam into the har­bor, and contrive somehow to stay afloat."

  And in the end, it was easier than she thought. She only had to look beautiful, say nothing (not that she could, so tightly was she bound into that dress), let herself be led to table by one or another talkative man, and let Charles take the lead.

  He was very good at dinner table conversation, which all centered around his—his!—fictional adventures in South Africa. The company hung on his every word, breathless as he recounted his highly romanticized escape from the Valley, populated now with cannibalistic hea­thens who had taken her captive as well.

  The fairy tale story of how they met—

  The company heaved a collective romantic sigh.

  And how they'd gotten married—in Sierra Leone—and they were here doing business before returning to South America.

  This was the story all his friends would put out, and that Moreton would be hard put to deny.

  There were a dozen men and their wives seated around the luxuriously appointed town house dining room table, and every one of the women saw herself in that romantic fiction that Charles had created.

  Every one of them wanted to be her, Georgiana, racing for her life from the killers in the valley.

  "A toast to Charles and his bride," the host called out, and the men stood up. "To Charles and Georgiana . . . May all the years of your marriage be an adventure."

  The men stood. "Hear, hear—" They drank; the women clapped.

  Charles stood and bowed, and motioned to Georgiana.

  "Give up South America and come back to England to live," his host proposed, and that engendered another toast. "By God, Charles. You could find something in Essex or Kent and set up a breeding farm here. Import your ponies; they are spectacular. But we need you here."

  Another round of applause, and then the host stood up, the women rose as well, and one by one filed into the ad­jacent drawing room.

  And so the evening went, with the women discussing the inconsequentials of their daily life and the latest gossip, and Georgiana sitting back quietly to listen in her beautiful bronze-colored silk with the voluminous sleeves and brown velvet bow.

  This was how proper society went on. There was no suggestion there would be anything more than coffee and dessert to follow, and then everyone would return to their respective and respectable homes.

  No promenades, no assignations, no expectations. Every­thing private, respectful and revered.

  Ah, too late for any of that now that she deduced the true purpose of Charles's generosity. There was nothing left to the story but to vanquish Moreton.

  And then what, for her? A return to the Valley, perhaps? Where else could she fit? What else did she know how to do?

  Or she could go to Aling. After all the blood was washed away, after all the memories faded, she could go to Aling and start all over again.

  Could she? Without Charles and with all the explana­tions that would entail? It didn't bear thinking about—not yet, at any rate.

  But she had that choice: she could go to Aling ...

  They returned to the little town house on Hyde Park at midnight.

  "This is but the first strike," Charles said, taking her wrap. "Everything I said will be bruited all over the city by tomorrow. Everyone will know that we are here, why we are here, and how we got here. There will be no way for Moreton to countervent that."

  "And then what?"

  There was no getting around this part. "We wait."

  And while they waited, Charles conducted business. Once word got around he was in London, there was no end to the number of inquiries about his stock and the possibility of his starting a horse farm in England.

  There were even offers to bankroll him, and to structure the business to sell shares in it. It was god-awful tempting, and not in the least what he had thought would happen when they got to England.

  It was the window, at long last, to a life with some nor­malcy, some hope of a future. A life to share with some­one.

  Someone who thought him capable of murder.

  No, Moreton's game must be played to its end.

  And so they waited. There were invitations to the homes of various friends and acquaintances. There were balls and parties, dinners and hunts and the theater, all things so vastly foreign to Georgiana that all she could do was marvel.

  He spared no expense to showcase her in these settings. After all, the advances were coming in thick and fast. And everyone was charmed by his beautiful, refined wife who was so quiet and serene.

  And everyone was interested in his ponies. And he was beginning to become interested in the idea of staying in England.

  That, and the idea of really being married to Georgiana. Of having a family, a farm, a life. Her.

  Because Georgiana in England was the queen he always imagined her to be. Beautiful, elegant, sensual. Dressed. Even with the mandate that he never touch her again.

  It was folly. He couldn't live in that tiny house with her without wanting her.

  But not being able to have her was the penance that must be paid. For all his failings, for all his destructive de­sires, and the life he'd led before Georgiana, he must pay penance now.

  So he made himself content to be her escort, her protec­tor, her husband in all ways but one. Because the thing would be over soon. Moreton was cracking, and the night­mare he had created would have to finally come to an end.

  "Well, Moreton seems to have gone to ground," Geor-giana said several days later. "And there's been nothing in the London papers about my father. You think, if an Honorable were reported deceased, it would be in the paper."

  They were sitting in the little morning room at the back of the Hyde Park house. He'd hired a housekeeper, a cook, and one maid. The maid was serving them a light break­fast of tea, toast, jam, eggs, and fruit, as Georgiana rifled through the paper.

  Charles had wondered, too. Moreton had been uncon­scionably quiet since the murder. Since they had slipped out of his hands. What would a man like Moreton do if he were thwarted?

  But he already knew, and he was loathe to even say it.

  He said it. "Maybe ... no one knows he's dead." And maybe Olivia was dead, too.

  Georgiana looked away. "Even Moreton wouldn't be that cruel."

  "He's tha
t cruel and that clever, Georgiana. We've gone public, and we're supposedly married. He knows he can't get at us here. He wants us to come to him."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  The tension escalated, especially between them. She needed him, and it was the worst thing, now that she had exposed his secret agenda. It was always between them.

  But so were the sensual memories of their journey, and all the things they had done that she could not forget.

  Moreton was the enemy, the evil to be vanquished. Charles was merely the opportunist he had painted More-ton out to be.

  It was hard to live with that nevertheless. And with all the little flicking memories of what had gone on between them. Like when she would catch a glimpse of him in the morning, nearly undressed. Or the sight of him through his half-closed bedroom door, sprawled out naked in his bed.

  Did she prowl the town house looking to ignite some­thing? Looking for an excuse?

  She hadn't changed that much.

  Life in London was a veritable banquet, once she got used to the clothes and corsets, and the fact that sex was not the primary activity and the center of everyone's world.

  But the habits of Bliss River were more ingrained than she had ever imagined, and a strong resilient man could be forgiven anything in the heat of a woman's need.

  But Moreton's presence at Aling overshadowed every­thing. It brought the depravity of Bliss River to London. It pervaded the simplest moments of contentment. It invaded her soul.

  Of course, she couldn't give in to her desires. If she did, Moreton would win. And all of his sins would go unavenged.

  So they waited. One day gone, with Charles immersed in starting up his business. There was no dearth of parties interested in investing in profitable ponies, he discovered, and it was taking no time at all to accumulate a book.

  Neither did they hear news of Henry Maitland's death. "He hasn't reported it," Charles said. "It's the only con­clusion. His plans went awry, and he's waiting for one of us to break."

  The second day gone. They attended the theater with some of Charles's friends, ensconced in a box, where dur­ing the entr'acte, their hosts left them to procure some re­freshments.

  "Well, well, well, here are my pretties," a voice said from the curtained archway. Charles jumped up as More-ton appeared on the threshold. "Sit down, my boy; don't make a scene. I came to applaud you. You are a worthy adversary, Charles Elliott, married to Miss Georgiana of Bliss River—and not. Married, I mean. You foiled my little plan very nicely. I salute you. And I came to chide you, Georgie. You haven't come to visit your mother. Olivia has been expecting you these many days, and here you sit as if you never had a mother at all."

  "I don't have a mother," Georgiana spat.

  "Ungrateful wretch. It's the least you can do after all the trouble you've caused her. Bring her to Aling, Charles. Olivia is waiting and we can settle everything then ..."

  He whirled. The curtain dropped and Charles leaped after him, but Moreton had vanished, like a magician, into thin air.

  "And now what?" Georgiana demanded the next morn­ing.

  They were seated in the parlor, Charles by the window with a pad of paper and pencil in hand, and Georgiana by the fireplace, which couldn't generate enough heat to warm her up after last night.

  Nevertheless, with them together like this and the world closed out, she felt curiously safe for the moment, and cu­rious altogether about what Charles meant to do about Moreton.

  "Last night was his preemptive strike," Charles said, sketching something on the paper.

  "You think Moreton plans things? How did he find us? How did he know the marriage is a fake?"

  "We've been public enough with the details, Georgiana. I told you word would get around quickly, and he certainly wouldn't have believed the story of our wedding in Sierra Leone. And he did have time to check the churches in the surrounding area. He had to. If you were married ..."

  "I'd be dead," she interpolated.

  "There would be no point to that except to clean house," Charles murmured. "But still and all, Olivia is at Aling."

  "Yes, and probably dancing on my father's grave."

  "It's not that simple, khanum. He will kill her. We could save her."

  She was stunned by his use of that name, her tent name. She didn't want to save anything but the ferocious plea­sures she could not forget.

  Except she couldn't forget his betrayal either.

  "I don't want to save her. I don't care."

  "She's your mother," Charles said gently.

  "I seem to recall, cadi, that you were not above wanting to murder your mother."

  "I wouldn't have done it, Georgiana. I couldn't have done it. And whatever either of our mothers did or did not do, neither of them should pay for it with their lives."

  "I don't believe you. I don't. My mother conspired in the death of my father, was complicit in fostering the he­donistic lifestyle of Bliss River, and sacrificed her own daughter to it without a qualm. What should I rescue her from? Her sins and her vices?"

  "She's your mother. She gave you life, and for that alone, khanum—"

  She hated his using that name, hated him arousing memories she'd sooner forget, hated that stoic forgiveness that would extend even to her depraved mother.

  "As your mother gave you life," she hissed, "and you fully meant to take hers—"

  He ignored that. "We can save her."

  "From what? For what? She's wallowed in Moreton's ooze for so many years she wouldn't know where to begin again,"

  "She's your mother. And he will kill her."

  "You are so sure." She was furious that he was so cer­tain, and that he thought Olivia was worth saving.

  "He has no need of her now."

  "But he was only baiting you. He doesn't need to kill her, and we don't have to walk into his trap."

  "I didn't intend to." He turned the page on which he'd been sketching so she could see it. On it, he had drawn the first-floor plan at Aling, as viewed from the front door. The reception room. All the doors. The hallway. All the rooms they had seen. "She probably wouldn't be secreted in any of the public rooms. She's probably in one of the bedrooms. However many there are. It should be a simple matter to sneak in and find her."

  "When?" she asked, her voice heavy.

  "Tomorrow, first light, just as before."

  "Damn you, you are going to do this. Why? Tell me why."

  He put down the pad. "Because on my mother's soul, khanum, I can't let him kill her sister, too."

  He had thought it all out. Not one more life would be sacrificed to Bliss River. And with this one act, he would wash away his own sins in his thirst for redemption. And he would vanquish Moreton, too. Moreton would not win, and with that, perhaps, he could finally forgive him­self.

  "Then you will go, cadi, but not without me."

  Fog shrouded the landscape, drifting in the bushes and trees, obscuring the road. It was so early, it hadn't burned off yet, and the sound of the horses' hooves was eerie in the fogbound stillness as Charles guided the carriage on the road to King's Lyme.

  It took no time to breach the gates of Aling, and place the carriage behind the yew bushes out of sight of the house. It remained only for them to quiet the horses, and, keeping low, to take the direction opposite the drive, along the hedges toward the back of the house.

  "Oh my God, look at the house," Georgiana whispered. "There must be dozens of rooms on the upper floors."

  Charles was counting. "Twelve double windows. Not too many. I don't see any extensions or ells at the back from here. No separate kitchen wing. Deadly damned quiet though." That, and the eerie creeping fog.

  "What about the servants?"

  "I have a feeling they will be nowhere around. He's waiting, Georgiana. He knows we're going to come."

  That was her feeling, too. But surely Moreton was not that devious. He couldn't know what the trigger would be that finally brought them here.

  And yet, it was so
still, so quiet, even at this hour when a gardener or a stable boy might be awake and on the job. The fog drifted across the lawn as if it had a life of its own.

  "I don't like this."

  "We have to run for the side of the house now. Get as close as you can to the rear wall." Charles set off, his body as low to the ground as he could comfortably run, and dis­appeared into the mist.

  Georgiana girded herself as Charles was swallowed into the foggy swath, and followed him a moment later. Followed his whispers.

  "Here, here."

  She felt her way toward the wall, and then toward him, several yards away.

  He grabbed her hand. "Here, now. Look. Two doors. Some windows. Flatten yourself against the wall and come with me."

  She was so cold from fear she thought she would crack into shards, whereas he seemed so used to doing things like this. Still more things she didn't know about him.

  "If the doors won't open?"

  "We'll break a window."

  He was so confident. She was so scared. They inched their way down the wall, and he tried the first door. "Locked."

  "Good." Sneaking into Aling this way ... maybe More-ton had manipulated that, too?

  "Shhh." He held still for a moment, listening. There was nothing to hear, just the still matte silence of the rolling fog. "All right. Next door then."

  It felt like hours, edging down that back wall toward the second door. Aling was a large square house, more appreciable now that they were taking the measure of the back wall.

  "Don't move. I've got the knob,"

  They listened again. Not a sound. The thick, moist, faintly sour scent of the fog enveloped them.

  He turned the knob. Pushed. A small protesting creak of the hinges, and then he whirled her in. The scent was stronger here, more metallic. He closed the door with barely a sound.

  The silence was nerve-racking. Georgiana could hear Charles groping his way carefully around, trying to grasp where they were. "It's an anteroom; the walls are stone. It doesn't seem to be a storeroom, and there's another door over here. Take my hand."

  His hand warm, still, in spite of the foggy cold. He was leading her blind, step by tiny step, relying on his senses to give him direction. "Got it. Stand back."