From that point, it was simple. Banker Duval left the party first, looking forward to a visit with his delectable mistress on Bourbon Street. He was thinking of her as he walked to his carriage; then the man walked boldly up behind him and quickly sliced his throat. Devereaux pulled the body back under the house and waited.
The judge’s carriage held a driver who had died easily in his sleep. The Mountebanks departed soon after the banker, and the killer was ready. He held a string he had tied to a shrub and stretched it across the walkway. Mrs. Mountebank tripped on it and fell forward. Her husband bent to help her up, but never had a chance to complete his sentence of concern before his blood spurted down on his wife. Devereaux hit her hard where she lay before dragging them both under the house. Mrs. Devereaux moaned and begged but he calmly cut her throat.
The night was his. He could do anything and everything he wanted to anyone he chose. The sense of power was exhilarating. He was omnipotent.
He waited for the servants to finish cleaning up the kitchen and dining room. Waiting gave him a chance to rest and relive the rape of the judge’s wife under the house. Remembering the pain he caused often gave him enough to masturbate himself to a climax. In jail, he did that every night. He had often wondered if sodomizing might give the same relief, but since he was by himself, that was not an option. Besides, the others in jail would have wanted to do it to him instead and he did not want to be on the receiving end of the pain.
When the house was silent, he went back outside to see if any lights showed in any room. Upstairs to the left, he saw one in front and two in back. He went back inside and moved quietly into the kitchen and through the house. He had not been inside before, but a quick search of the main floor, just to be sure, showed no bedrooms. The broad, carpeted stairs offered silence as he climbed them.
He listened outside the door that had shown light—the one closest to the middle of the house. He heard throaty snores that were definitely not from his fair Lucretia. He guessed it was the fat whore. After all, he had shared a bed with her in a different lifetime, he thought. Filthy bitch was not worth his time now.
Now it was a toss-up. Front room or the room in the back? The back one overlooked a rose garden with fountains and shaded walks, elegant, with an ambience Lucretia might like. The front overlooked a grassy lawn, terraces with blooming flowers and shrubs, and a view of the river and part of the city, which he knew she had enjoyed from the hotel. Damn her! All that money for her suite and what did he get in return? A jail cell! Oh, she must pay and pay dearly.
He decided the rose garden view was more like her. He carefully turned the doorknob and peeked inside. He saw a form on the bed, but could not tell in the dim light who it was. He removed his shoes and walked carefully to the bed. It was the bitch. He hated her. He picked up a pillow and pressed it over her head. She made small noises and began kicking as he struggled with her. She was stronger than he thought. She managed to push him away, forcing him to hit her hard enough to knock her out, but not before she emitted a yell loud enough to be heard if anyone was awake to hear it.
His manhood stood out against his pants as it responded to the violence it needed. He debated whether or not to use her still body or wait. The choice was made for him as the door opened.
Chapter 88
Lucretia heard a stifled voice. At first, she thought she might have imagined it or dreamed it, but some intuition made her rise and investigate. She opened the door to Ruby’s room. There was a figure standing by the bed. Without thinking, she ran as fast as she could, head down, and hit the shadowy shape like a battering ram, knocking the figure down across the bed. She jumped on it, not thinking of Ruby, now unconscious under two people’s weight.
She pummeled the figure with her little fists, but was no match for his superior size and strength. He rolled her off and sprung to his feet. “Well, well, if it isn’t Mrs. Mills or Mrs. Sawyer or whatever you call yourself these days. You are just the person I am looking for.” He caught her hands, holding them in one of his as he fondled her through her thin nightgown. “If you scream, I swear that I will kill the bitch right where she lies.” She saw the knife as he dropped her hands and pulled it from behind him. “Nice little trick I learned in jail. Never go to a kidnapping without a weapon.”
He laughed. “You, my dear, and I are going for a little ride. Oh, yes, and when we get there, I am going for a long, deep ride on you.” His laugh was as evil as she had ever heard. “It would have been so much simpler if you had agreed to marry me. I had it all worked out in my mind. After all, as my wife, I could not hurt you every time I wanted to fuck you, so I planned to have Fat Whore join us on our marriage bed. I would hurt her and shove it to you. See what a thoughtful husband I would have been?
“But no…you ruined everything. So now, I have no choice but to hurt you and fuck you until you give in and marry me. I want you and your money. I will be the perfect gentleman to share all this with you. The kind, gentile folks of this fair city who have looked down their patrician noses at me, the assholes. Now they will see who is the patrician when you give extravagant soirees and elaborate parties. You can afford it!”
“You are crazy.” Lucretia kept her voice low, almost a whisper, as he had done, even in his tirade. “You can kill me, but I will never marry you. You can rape me, but I will never give myself freely to you. You can hurt me as much as you want, but I will never be your woman.”
He ignored her and rambled on and on as he tied her hands behind her back with a robe belt. He ran his hands inside her nightgown and pinched her breasts, hurting her. He rubbed her mound, even so far as sticking his gown-covered finger inside her softness, deliberately causing her pain. He pushed his tongue into her mouth as he sucked her lips, feeling them cracking under his teeth.
“Oh, yes, we are going to have such a good time. Come now, sweet bride-to-be, we are going to take your carriage to my house. The bank took it and locked it, but we will get inside. It will be a little dark, but we will have no trouble doing what I want. Now, not a sound or I will come back up and kill the bitch.” He insured her silence by shoving a kerchief in her mouth.
Ruby heard voices, but in her semi-conscious state could not react. She drifted in and out, thinking she was dreaming, until her pain reminded her of what had happened. She heard the carriage leave, as had Sam and Peg.
Sam was bewildered that anyone had gone out this late at night without calling him to drive. He arose and looked out just in time to see the carriage turn the corner and head north. A sense of dread filled his head. He drew on his pants and padded barefoot down from the third floor where he and Peg shared a room. From the end of the hall, he heard a groan. He ran to see Miss Ruby trying to stand. At the same time, he noticed that Miss Lucretia’s bedroom door was open.
Ruby saw him. “Sam, go for the police. Devereaux has taken Lulu. Hurry. He plans to kill her at his house.”
Chapter 89
The train ride from Cottonwood Creek to New Orleans was on time, which seldom happened, but for the two men watching the landscape go by, it was slower than the proverbial snail. They did not talk. Each was lost in his own world and memories, but the same sweet face filled both minds.
Jed Dryer remembered every minute of the ride from the depot to the fort. Lord, how he envied the man into whose arms she threw herself. He remembered her smile every time she looked at her husband. He remembered thinking she had a halo over her head the evening she led them in the Lord’s Prayer. But mostly, he remembered her smooth skin, soft breasts, and legs wrapped around him. He tried to forget that she had only done what the devil forced her to do, but to him it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened. He had loved her from the first moment he laid eyes on her, and that night only cemented how he felt. He would die for her, of that there was no doubt.
Black Eagle Grant tried to think of other women. Anything to put her out of his mind. Then what the hell was he doing on this damn train to New Orleans? As much as he tried to deny it, even t
o himself, he knew why. Because someone said Lucretia needed him, and he knew down in his very soul that he would follow her to the ends of the earth, if she needed him.
Eagle had not loved her from the first moment. He thought her to be another spoiled rich girl, and about that, he was right. What he did not think was that she had spunk and could handle herself, at least in a verbal bout, as she had shown him in the officers’ office. She was white…no, she was yellow and pink, as he later found out.
She showed strength that he could not have imagined any white woman having. She did not scream and wail as he had expected, but remained calm and strong, just as she had been assisting him in surgery. But the memory that always won out was of her locking the door to her cabin, dropping her clothes, and moving into his arms. The sex that night was more than sex…it was love. He loved her, even as he hated her. She asked for nothing from him but what he offered and gave so freely.
He tried to forget how he had humiliated her and his young troopers by forcing them together, thinking they were going to die the next day. The cruelty of it was to punish her somehow for making him love her. It was the ultimate punishment, knowing that he had lied to them…telling them that they were not going to die. He could still see in his mind the pure hate she poured from her body and soul over him. He knew he deserved it, and more.
When the train finally arrived, it was well after dark. By the time they retrieved their horses, it was near midnight. Jed asked for directions to the bank, but it was closed, so he asked how to get to the police station. At the station, Jed was unable to obtain any information as to where Lucretia Sawyer and her companion might live. He turned, frustrated, and shrugged at Eagle.
The officer at the desk looked up as the taciturn man moved to stare down at him. In a voice so quiet it was hard to hear, he spoke. “My friend here asked you a question. It was not a hard question, so I will not have to repeat it to you, now will I? Where can I find Mrs. Sawyer?”
“I am not at liberty to give out such information to anyone who asks. Ladies living alone are entitled to protection and we do our best to see that they are protected. That includes divulging their addresses. Come back tomorrow and talk to the chief. Maybe he will help you.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he found himself dangling from the hand that held him aloft. “You have one more second to tell me or I will beat it out of you.”
Jed smiled. “You better listen, ’cause he can beat an answer out of a dead man. Seen him do it couple times.”
“Six blocks east, then four blocks north. Big house with four stories, on the northeast corner.” He dropped to the floor and waited until they were leaving before continuing. “I will be filing charges for assaulting an officer. You will go to jail…” He was talking to air.
The sound of their horses’ hooves on the cobblestone streets echoed from building to building. An elderly black man was running barefoot toward them, yelling, “Police! Police!”
Eagle pulled his horse to an abrupt stop. “Tell me, old man, what is wrong?”
“He done take Miss Lucretia. He gonna kill her.”
“Where did he take her? Can you show me?” The man nodded as Black Eagle pulled him up behind him. “Which way?” Sam gave him directions and hung on for dear life, afraid he would fall under the thundering feet of the two horses. When they were a short distance away, they stopped and followed Sam on foot as he led them into the overgrown yard of the dilapidated LaClaire house.
No one knew the grounds or house the way he did. Sam had worked his entire life there until the past few weeks. Motioning them to follow him, he shoved through a hedge that grew so high along one side of the structure that the windows were nearly covered with foliage. At the base of the hedge, he pushed against a door that swung open on rusty hinges.
Once inside, he lit a lantern by the door. “We is in da cellar now. Stairs goes to kitchen o’er dere. Right round the corner in a kitchen is more stairs, go up to ’nother floor. Bedrooms is dere. Mr. Devereaux is in corner o’er udder end of house from da kitchen. Dat be where he prob’ly take her.”
He led the way up the steps and opened the kitchen door. He showed them the second set of stairs and moved out of their way. Eagle blew out the lantern. “Stay here, old man. We will call when it is safe.”
They slipped off their shoes. “Damn it, Jed, if you can’t walk quieter than that, just stay here. You sound like a herd of buffalo stampeding. No, I mean it. Stay here and do not move again until you hear something.”
Jed swore under his breath, but understood when Eagle disappeared into the black and he could hear not so much as a whisper of movement. Damn Indian, he thought.
Eagle heard a voice as he neared a close door. “All of them, Lucretia. Take it all off and lie down on that bed. You can see it, same as I can. I am going to hurt you, then fuck you to death. Bitch.”
Black Eagle heard the sound of a fist hitting skin. He pushed through the door, knife drawn. In the shadowy room, he could see white skin on the bed and the form of a man hovered over her. Without another thought, he released the knife and the man fell sideways to the floor. He ran to the bed, scooped up the wet-faced little woman, and held her close.
Jed heard Eagle’s voice and raced to the open door. He saw and heard what Eagle and Lucretia said to each other in the following moment. It was as if a knife cut through him, but he had known this was true since the night before their rescue. She was not his and never would be.
“Lulu, you are safe now. I swear to God, no one will ever hurt you again as long as I am alive.”
It was too dark to see, but she knew who it was. No other arms in the world could feel like this. No other man had his smell or the body that held her to him. He kissed her eyes and felt the cloth in her mouth as he touched his lips to hers. He pulled it out and kissed her torn lips gently. “I love you, Lucretia Lucinda Sawyer. Now and forever.”
“And I love you, Black Eagle Grant. Now and forever.”
THE END
www.simsbooks.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beverly grew up on the Oregon Coast where the stormy surf and rugged cliffs made perfect backgrounds for her first few novels. Her move to Central Florida, where she now lives with her husband, opened a new world of bayous and critters that live in them, and set the scene for another novel.
She and her husband love traveling this great country in their motor home. You never know what might be around the next bend.
To love to write is to love to read.
www.simsbooks.com
[email protected]
Also by Beverly Sims
Blizzard of Lust
Plantation of Lust
Oasis of Lust
Caroline’s House
Black Bayou
Witness Tree 1: The Legend of Summer Swan
Available at
BOOKSTRAND.COM
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
The Major's Wife Page 26