by Anna Edwards
“Why can’t you just accept he doesn’t want you and fuck off to hell.” Elizabeth steps forward this time and wraps her arm round my father’s.
“Are you talking about the Duke or the Earl, Elizabeth, because I’m pretty sure I would pass on the former.”
“The Earl got me pregnant, you stupid bitch. He’s a cheater and a liar.”
“No.” Victoria maintains her poise and calm so gracefully that, despite the situation, I can feel myself getting hard in my pants. “The Duke got you pregnant when you opened your legs for him for a title. I’m guessing that, as Nicholas is most definitely the better looking of the two, you slipped into a little fantasy world at some point and imagined it was the Earl. I know he wouldn’t touch you with his dick even if it was on fire and needed a wet place to extinguish it.” Victoria raises an eyebrow at the end of her retort, and I let out a little chuckle.
“Are you going to let her speak to me like that? Kill her,” Elizabeth demands of my father.
“She’s the one with the gun. I’m afraid there isn’t much that I can do.” My father edges closer to Victoria. I’m wary of the action.
“But you’ve got your own gun in your suit jacket,” Elizabeth replies.
Everything happens in slow motion. My father growls and pulls his own weapon out. He fires at the same time as Victoria does. Thankfully, his shot skims past and into the wall behind. I turn to follow the path of Victoria’s bullet just as I watch it slice through Elizabeth’s chest. My father is behind her — he’d pulled her in front of him. Elizabeth gurgles blood from her mouth as the life drains from her. My father lets her slip to the floor. Victoria stands shocked at what she’s done, and it’s just the advantage my father needs. He grabs her and pulls the gun from her trembling hands and drops it to the floor. I’m on my feet as quickly as my blood loss allows me. William’s rushing forward at the same time, but we’re too late. My father has Victoria around the throat, and a gun pointed at her head. We both skid to a halt.
“My daughter.” The Bishop falls to the floor and begins last rites.
“I’ve failed you, Father,” Elizabeth speaks through struggled breaths
“No!” her father cries.
“I only wanted to make them see you’re a good man. It’s all you’ve ever taught me.”
“I know, my child, I know.”
Elizabeth tries to speak again, but only her final breath of life comes. She slumps lifelessly into her father’s arms.
“You promised me that she wouldn’t be hurt.” Hubert Sandford’s mask of piety slips. “I’ll make you suffer for this.”
Without even batting an eyelid, my father removes the gun from Victoria's head and shoots the grieving man between the eyes.
Victoria screams as he slumps forward in a heap on top of his daughter.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer man,” my father jests.
“How about you point the gun at yourself?” I counter and take a step closer.
“Uh, uh. No. You stay just where you are. I’m not a fool. Here’s what happens. If you want Victoria alive, then I suggest you both move out of my way. I’m going to take her with me as collateral for a while. It seems that I need to think of another plan.”
“Not going to happen. You’re going to put the gun down. We still have a weapon trained on you.”
“Yes, by the most stupid man in London.”
“I’m not stupid — I’m autistic,” William shouts.
“Same thing.” My father rolls his eyes.
“You’ve no idea about either of your sons, do you? Who we actually are? Autism hasn’t made me stupid. It’s given me the ability to focus. I can do things with a computer nobody else can. If you’d actually bothered to be a father to me, then you could’ve used my skills to further your stealing of artwork. But no, I wasn’t normal, so you disregarded me. And as for Nicholas, you’ve no idea what sort of man he is. You think he’s the arrogant bastard you’ve made him, and in some ways he is, but he’s a born leader with it. He’ll take the society into the future and make it great. You’ll just run it into the ground and have everyone, who doesn’t agree with you, arrested or shot.” William’s foot taps the entire time he speaks. I can tell he’s stressed beyond words, but he’s maintaining his composure, thanks to his tics.
“I don’t believe any of that for a moment. You’re both weak and feeble, just like your mother. Her genes have spoiled you both.”
“No.” It’s my turn to step up to the fight. “Her genes have made us the good men we are, despite the malevolence from you that runs through our veins. Enough games — you know that you won’t get out of here with Victoria. Let her go.”
Victoria’s watching me get closer and closer. Her eyes flick to the wound in my shoulder and anguish fills them.
“I’m walking out of here,” my father reiterates.
“And we’ll let you — just not with Victoria.”
“What do you see in her anyway? Elizabeth was the prettier of the two. She’s got no discernible features as far as I can tell. How can you let her ruin what we could do for this society? Isn’t there a part of you that wants more? We could rule the country together, you and me.”
“Victoria has everything. She’s beautiful, compassionate, and fiery. She’s made me see that there’s more to power than being a dictator. Plus, if you’d actually taken time to know her as a woman, not an object, you would’ve seen she probably knows as much about the art world as we do. Maybe even more.” With every word I speak, I’m edging closer to where my father holds Victoria around the neck. He pulls the gun away and points it at me.
“Stay back.”
It’s the chance I need. With the gun pointed away from Victoria, I’m close enough to leap at him. Despite the pain from my wound, I take him by surprise and punch him in the face. Reeling, he lets Victoria go, and she scrambles away. I need to disarm my father before he has a chance to fire off the gun again. I ignore the fiery spasms shooting through my body and wrestle him to the ground. I release his hold on the weapon, and I push it away. Now, we’re even.
“Give up Father. I’ll give you your life and a pension to live quietly somewhere, but this is over now.”
“Never. You weren’t born to lead.” He punches me in the shoulder, and I cry out, swearing I see stars.
Then, we’re on the floor and rolling over. I’m on my back when my father brings another blow down on my shoulder. If I have much more of this, I know I’ll pass out. That’s the last thing I want.
“William, do something.” I hear Victoria say.
“I…I…I…,” he stutters back.
I bring my good arm around and catch my father on the side of the jaw. He wavers a little but doesn’t fall.
“Why couldn’t you have just loved us?” I shout.
“Because he doesn’t have a heart.” I hear William shout — his voice filled with anguish.
A gunshot goes off, and my father’s body goes lifeless on top of me. William appears and pulls my father off me. Then disappears to the side of the room to tap out a rhythm. I notice the back of my father’s skull is missing, and my head swims with nausea. I don’t have a chance to retch, though, as Victoria slams her body onto the floor next to me and brings her lips to mine.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
“I love you. Everything he said was lies. I didn’t want to marry her. I want you.”
“I know. I know.” She kisses me again through her tears, which fall freely. I reach up and touch one.
“No more tears.” She’s cradling me in her arms, and I can feel the dark clouds looming again. I look toward William, and she follows my gaze. “Look after him for me.”
“What?” she stammers. “No, Nicholas.”
I don’t hear anything else for the world goes black.
EPILOGUE
VICTORIA
“How long is this thing supposed to take?” I look toward my best friend Tamara while she sits on the bed swinging her legs.
“It says five minutes.”
“That’s far too long.” I pull on the ends of my vibrant red hair, due to nerves.
“You’ve got five minutes to spare. Remember the thing about having a whole life ahead of you.” She tuts at me.
“That might be about to change.”
It’s been a month since the day the old Duke of Oakfield died, much has happened in the interim. I’m not sure that I’ve processed it all yet. Nicholas was rushed from the castle in Scotland to a hospital with barely even a faint pulse. William and I sat by his bedside for three long days before he woke. He’d lost so much blood that his body had started to shut down. The doctors had given him a transfusion and put him into an induced coma to recover. I don’t know what happened with the Duke, the Bishop, and Elizabeth Sandford’s bodies. William disappeared for a while and told me that he’d had someone deal with it all. There’d be no repercussions for anyone. I think it was at this point that I realized just how far above the law the Dukedom of Oakfield is. William had retreated into himself after that. It had taken so much courage for him to leave his home in London. I could tell that all the people who came and went from his brother’s bedside disturbed him. I told him he could return home if he wanted to, but he refused. I didn’t know what was going on in his head although I feared it wasn’t good. He’d killed his own father to save his brother, in addition to his years of anguish and repression. None of that could be erased quickly or easily.
Eventually, Nicholas woke, and we rejoiced. The doctors said there should be no lasting issues with his shoulder, but it would take a while to heal. He’d need physical therapy to rebuild his strength. Nicholas, being the stubborn man he is, told them he’d be fine. Then he promptly spilled the cup of tea they’d given him everywhere, when he tried to lift it with the damaged arm. It was at that point I took control and told him he’d follow the doctor’s orders, or I’d have him strapped to the bed until he agreed. He seemed to like that suggestion far too much because he then promptly called for a priest — we said our vows and consummated our marriage that same day. It wasn’t how I pictured my wedding day, but when I told Tamara about it later, I was sobbing with the beauty of it all. That is what has led me to my current predicament — Tamara and I staring at a little stick I’ve just peed on. I'm unsure how I feel about the result.
I am the Duchess of Oakfield. I shouldn’t worry about being pregnant as my future is secure. It’s more Nicholas’ reaction I’m scared off. This is all still so new for both of us, and the stigma of how we fell in love surrounds us daily. The former Duke’s reaping his own type of torment, even from the grave. Why give us contraceptive injections at all if they were going to be fake? Yes, placebos apparently, another ploy by the Duke to mess with our heads. It was the one piece of information I was able to get out of Doctor Fallen before I told him that he’d better disappear because if Nicholas found him, he’d be dead.
A loud bang on the door makes me jump. The door handle rattles. Tamara gasps and shoves the pregnancy test under my pillow.
“Victoria, why is your door locked?” Nicholas shouts from the other side. “It’s my right as your husband to get into this room whenever I want.”
“He sounds furious,” Tamara whispers.
“He’s just being Nicholas,” I reply and sweep off the bed toward the door. He bangs again before I can turn the key in the lock.
“Open up, now!”
I unlock the door as it almost comes flying off its hinges with the force of his entrance.
“Why was it locked?” he growls and stalks toward me. Nicholas will always be Nicholas. He has an arrogant and bossy side to him, but I love it because it’s counteracted by the softer side he keeps hidden only for William and I. The younger Cavendish brother follows the elder into the room, and I wave at him.
“Me, focus on me,” Nicholas moans.
“Yes, husband,” I counter with a twist of my lips.
“Why was your door locked? Mrs. McDonald said you didn’t eat breakfast this morning. What’s wrong? Who do I need to threaten to fix it?”
I look over at Tamara — William has come to sit next to her on my bed. They smile at each other, and I swear I see Tamara’s cheeks blush. She refocuses her attention on my warring husband, and I shrug.
“Sit down before you hurt yourself,” I direct Nicholas toward a chair. He reluctantly sits. He’s still wearing his arm in a sling, to allow the wound to heal.
“Victoria, talk to me.” His voice softens — I can see the worry in his eyes. I perch on the side of the chair.
“It would seem that the contraceptive injection Dr. Fallen gave me was a placebo.”
“What?” his face whitens.
“You know that we’ve barely left the bedroom since you were discharged from the hospital. Well, it seems that every time we’ve had sex, we’ve been doing it without protection.”
“You're pregnant?” he questions.
“I don’t know for certain.” I look to Tamara, and she pulls the stick out from under my pillow and waves it in the air. “The door was locked because we’re doing a test.”
“You haven’t read the answer?” Nicholas asks.
“I have to wait five minutes.”
“Have the five minutes finished?”
An alarm goes off on Tamara’s phone. William quickly picks it up and silences it. He doesn't like loud noises.
“What does it say?” Nicholas demands of Tamara.
She gets up off the bed and comes over to us. William follows.
“I think this is something you two best do alone.” She hands me the stick face down. “William, I’ve been hearing about all this great artwork that you have here and how it’s going to be sent back. I’d like to see it before it goes. Would you show me?” She holds her hand out for William. He looks down at it.
“Is that the hand that just touched the pee stick?”
Tamara laughs, steps up behind him, and pushes him toward the door.
“Come on, I promise I’ll wash my hands before we touch the pictures.”
They both leave, and I’m left alone with my husband. Both of us looking at the stick in my hand like it’s some kind of poisonous instrument of torture.
“Are you scared?” Nicholas asks me.
“No, I’m not, actually. If I’m pregnant, I know that you and I will be the best parents we can be to the baby.”
“Even with my past?”
“Because of your past.” I shuffle so that I’m straddling him on the seat. I feel his cock go hard underneath me.
“I love you,” Nicholas offers me with genuine warmth and affection.
“I love you, too,” I respond. “On the count of three.”
He looks towards the stick.
“One, two, three.”
I turn it over, and the words, ‘You’re pregnant’ are on the little screen.
“Well, it looks like we’re having a little Earl or Countess Lullington.” He smiles up and me and brings his lips to meet mine.
“You’re happy?” I ask.
“I couldn’t be happier. A whole new start. I know we’ve still got a lot to sort out with the society. So many people, including your father and Lady Joanna Nethercutt, have gone to ground. We need to find them and prevent what happened to us from happening again. We’ve given our dead the burials they deserve, be they innocent or a villain of the peace.” My mind flicks back to the day of Reggie’s funeral. I thought he was just a butler to Nicholas, but I saw my husband break down that day. He was an emotional wreck and has still to employ another butler to replace his friend. Nicholas told me, the evening of the funeral, how Reggie had been like a father to him over the years. He’d been there for so many of his firsts in life. His father had never done that. Speaking of his father, that funeral couldn’t have been more different. It was only Nicholas, William, and I in attendance, and I solely went with Nicholas to support him. There were no feelings of loss that day, only remorse that their father was so se
lf-absorbed that he was unable to see them both for the great men that they’d become. I didn’t cry when they lowered the Duke’s coffin into the Earth, No, I rejoiced quietly. I felt nothing but pure hatred for the body that was being given to the worms for dinner. No one mourned the loss of the old Duke of Oakfield.
Nicholas’ good hand has been on my backside supporting my weight on his lap, but he removes it and reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls out papers. “I was going to give these to you later, but now seems a good time as any. The society and the title were all in my name, but I had my lawyer make everything fifty-fifty. All decisions on its future will be made jointly.”
I take the papers from him. My heart falling even more in love with the man in front of me if that was possible.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’ll take me a long time to trust that I have a good nature. I’ve done bad things. I’ve been a bastard for so much of my life, but I know with your guiding voice I’ll be alright. This is my way of ensuring that, together, we rule. Simul ut praeesset. I’m changing the motto to reflect the way we’re going to be working.”
I drop the papers to the floor behind me and lean into my husband.
“I want you inside me.”
“I want to be inside you.” He gives me a lustful smirk, and we make short work of divesting only the clothes that are hindering our desire to be joined. I don’t need foreplay, not today. I’ve been wet since Nicholas walked into the room. I always am around him. I slide myself down onto his erect length until he fills me. The sensation is overwhelming and captures my breath every time. Two people, as in love as we are, joining as one in this most intimate of ways. Nicholas places his hand on my hip and helps guide me up and down his cock. I’m breathless already with the fire burning brightly in my core. I’ve suffered. I’m not the precious little princess I was a few months ago. I’ve learned about life, discovered about love, and you know, I wouldn’t change a thing that happened. Well, maybe I would have kept my mouth shut, so I didn't have to experience the scold's bridle.