by Faye Hall
Allowing herself to be pushed from the room, the adjoining door abruptly shut behind her, she turned and pressed her ear to the wooden panel. Hearing the door open and Tristen walk inside, she lifted her hands up to cover her mouth, fearful she would be heard. She didn’t want Tristen to find her there, nor did she want to explain why she was there. She couldn’t flee as she had been instructed though, at least not until she could find out why Tristen had come to see a man he claimed wasn’t his friend.
Chapter 15
Tristen heard the sound of pounding horse’s hooves, and he turned to see what was happening. What he saw was Amalie kicking the animal hard in the flanks and riding off in the direction of town.
“Sir, are you all right?” one of the station hands asked, coming to a stop behind him.
Tristen glanced over his shoulder. “I think you men can handle things from here. It appears I need to make a sudden trip into town.”
He ran to the stables and saddled his horse quickly before swinging up onto its back. Kicking it in the flanks, he steered it toward town.
As soon as he arrived at the Anabranch Hotel, he dismounted and threw his horse’s reins over a nearby railing. He looked around for any sign of Amalie or the animal she had ridden into town, but nothing stood out. Maybe she hadn’t come to town after all.
Either way there was something she wasn’t telling him, and he needed to know what it was. He had hoped to talk to her when he returned to the house, but it appeared she had other plans. Who could she have gone to see though?
At first he wondered if the man she spoke of, the man who found her after Albert Heather’s death, was in fact Bastian. The brutality of the person who found her sounded so much like him. But even if Bastian had been the one who found out about the murder, it didn’t explain any kind of relationship between them. After all, he was the bastard who caused her to lose their baby. And if Bastian was responsible for hurting her now, why did she not tell him about it?
Tristen had so many questions he needed answers to, and if Amalie wouldn’t answer him, then there was only one other who could. Walking into the hotel, he went straight to the bar.
“I need Bastian Tanner’s room number.”
“Room six,” the bartender replied. “It’s the third door on the right.”
Climbing the stairs at a quick pace, Tristen hurried to the room number he’d been given and banged on the door. “Bastian, it’s me!” he yelled. “Open up. Now.”
After a few moments of what sounded like people moving around hurriedly in the room, the door opened and there stood Bastian with a smug smile on his face.
“Yet another visit from the recluse. To what do I owe the honor, Tristen?”
“I want to speak to you about Amalie. I want to know what you know about her employment with Albert Heather.”
Bastian shrugged. “I don’t know what you think I could know. I was her fiancé, not her bodyguard. And as I’ve already told you, I didn’t keep track of her every action after I ended our engagement.”
“As I am aware, still you were always one to find out information that you could use to your advantage. Given your association with Albert, I suspect you know something, and I want to know what it is.”
Bastian walked over to the drinks tray on the desk and poured himself a drink. “It’s pretty simple really. Amalie had been sleeping with Albert for several weeks. One day she thought to overstep herself and demanded he choose her over his wife…permanently. She was dismissed from his service immediately. Given what happened to Albert, I’d say she didn’t take too kindly to being pushed aside.”
Tristen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t want to. The thought of Amalie being with another man sickened him to his stomach. Remembering what he knew of Albert and his reputation with his staff, it was more likely that Amalie was trying to escape the old bastard while he tried to rape her.
“You shouldn’t look so surprised,” Bastian continued, interrupting his thoughts. “Amalie has worked for several other estate owners, and they all tell similar stories. I was even told she was suspected of stealing from some of her employers, selling the items on the black market for coin.” He downed the last of his drink. “She’s not a woman you should trust, Tristen. She uses who she must for what she wants, and then tosses them aside like an old petticoat.”
Tristen remembered that feeling. It wasn’t one he wanted to relive. Looking around him at the meager surroundings Bastian now lived in, he began to wonder how the man knew so much about Amalie.
“I was told someone saw her running from Albert’s house around the time of the murder,” Tristen mentioned, testing to see if the other man had also heard such a thing. “You don’t happen to know who that was, do you?”
Bastian shook his head. “All I know is there was a man on the road who she ran into, acting for all to see as hysterical. Apparently, he took her in when no one else would and protected her from the law that was chasing her. When he demanded payment for his protection, she protested. Came at him with a knife. There was a struggle, and Amalie ended up with a knife wound just below her right rib. It left her with a nasty-looking scar too, almost as bad as the one on your face.”
Tristen knew the scar the other man spoke of. He had seen it. What he wondered was how Bastian knew it was there. After all, he had it on good authority that Bastian preferred men to women in his bed. So if he hadn’t seen it himself, how did he come to know about it?
“For someone who claims not to have kept track of her, you seem to know quite a lot about Amalie and what has happened to her.”
Bastian poured himself another drink. “As you said before, I make it my business to find out what information I can. You never know when it may prove to be useful.”
“Is that how you found out about the woman who was seen running from the workers’ cottage the night Jacob died?” Tristen asked. “Did you think finding out who the murderer was might prove helpful to you?”
“Oh, I have found that more useful than you would think,” Bastian said, smiling smugly. “It appears she may have been more connected to you than your friend though. Informants have recently hinted to me that the fire may have in fact been intended for you that night, and not Jacob.”
“Why would any woman want to kill me?” Tristen asked, suspicious by this man’s change of opinion. “I have never done anything to hurt a woman.”
Bastian shrugged. “If I had to guess, I’d say any woman who found out she was in a relationship with an engaged man would be most eager for revenge. Someone like your best friend’s little sister.”
“Are you suggesting Amalie lit that fire?” Tristen demanded to know. “Do you honestly think she would do such a thing knowing she would also endanger her brother’s life?”
“Maybe,” Bastian replied. “How well did you know Amalie while you were sleeping with her?”
Tristen narrowed his gaze, suspecting he was again being baited. “I never said I shared a bed with her,” he muttered, defending her reputation. “Nor have I ever admitted to being in any kind of a relationship with her.”
Bastian raised his brow. “So you’re claiming you and her were little more than acquaintances? Then why were you so desperate to see her after the fire?”
“I was being accused of murdering my best friend and my fiancée,” Tristen exclaimed. “As one of the victims was Amalie’s brother, I needed to see her and clear my name.”
“And now it appears you might have been wanting forgiveness from the very woman who tried to kill you,” Bastian smirked.
Tristen shook his head. “There is no reason Amalie would want to kill me. After all, what would she have to gain by my death?”
Bastian shrugged. “Maybe it was jealousy. Or maybe she thought to steal some of your wealth to help her father’s failing business out.”
“Is that why you called off your engagement to her?” Tristen asked, positive what he was being told was little more than fabrications. Amalie had no reason to want him dead, but Ba
stian had every reason to want him to think that. “Did you find out the Fergus family didn’t have the money you were so hungering for?”
Bastian sipped his drink. He stood there swirling the liquid around in the glass. “I found her searching through my papers one night, looking for deed papers to steal. When I confronted her, she attacked me. I called off the engagement immediately.”
Tristen narrowed his eyes at him, thinking he could catch him in a lie. “Is that how you lost all your properties?” he asked, knowing full well how Bastian had lost everything.
Bastian glared at him, and Tristen waited for him to explode as was his usual custom. Instead, Bastian just sipped his drink.
“She is some of the reason, yes,” he declared. “She accused me of stealing her father’s assets and she wanted them back. I tried to tell her I didn’t have them, but she wouldn’t listen. I told her whoever stole hers most likely took mine as well. I sent her to search for the papers at some rich bastard’s estate, but she claimed she couldn’t find them. I’ve had others out searching for the rest of my property papers too. When I finally get them back, I’ll make whoever took them pay dearly.”
Tristen thought on his words, something about them familiar to him. Turning away from Bastian, he left the room and walked through the tavern toward the exit. He needed to get home immediately and see if Amalie had returned. Now, more than ever, he needed to talk to her about how she had spent the last few months.
His conversation with Bastian mulling around in his head, he knew something wasn’t quite right. Despite the man’s claim that he knew very little about Amalie, and hadn’t kept track of her after their engagement ended, Bastian still seemed to know quite a lot about her and where she ended up almost a year later. He even knew about the scar under her rib and the missing deed papers. Tristen was confused though, because he never made any secret of buying up all the Tanner estates and assets, so why was Bastian now pretending to know nothing about the owner?
Tristen had been certain his lawyer made it quite clear who purchased everything, especially in Bastian’s case. He needed him to know that he could still take everything away from him, despite the fact he had lost Amalie to him. But had he really lost her? Amalie confessed time and again that her father called off the engagement prior to his death, a story quite the opposite to what Bastian had told him.
And what about Bastian’s recount of the murder Amalie was supposedly guilty of—he knew far too much about it to pass it off as hearsay and rumor. What if Bastian was the man she ran into out front of the Heather estate the night of the murder? That would explain how he still knew so much about her. It would also give reason to why Amalie had turned up on Tristen’s doorstep after so long.
Pushing his way through the crowded drinking area, Tristen was almost at the door when he ran into a woman, seemingly trying to flee the tavern. He reached for her, his hand on her arm, trying to stop their bodies from colliding.
“Let me go!” she screamed, struggling against him.
“Amalie?” he asked, spinning her around. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Her eyes were large, her body seeming to be momentarily frozen on the spot, resembling a deer caught by a hunter. Thinking of all the things that could’ve brought her there, Tristen’s heart sank at the thought of the most obvious reason.
“You were here to see Bastian, weren’t you?” he asked, needing to be certain.
As tears welled in her eyes, his heart ached with what that could mean. She tried to pull away from him, but his grip tightened, holding her firm.
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because I have no choice!” she finally admitted, her struggles lessening. “If I leave him, he will go straight to the police and tell them where I am. When he promised to keep me safe, I didn’t realize that he would continue to use me as he has.”
Tristen dragged her away from the now curious onlookers to a quieter corner at the front of the hotel.
“He’s the man you ran into on the day of Albert Heather’s murder, isn’t he?”
She nodded.
“And he’s the reason you came to my estate that day, isn’t he?”
“Bastian gave me a place to hide when I had nowhere else to go,” she explained. “He promised he would get my father’s station back for me and take me away from the life of servitude I’d been forced into.”
“He sent you to my station to steal the papers back,” he said with a heavy heart.
She nodded hesitantly.
He pursed his lips. “And was it his idea for you to fuck me in order to get them?”
She struggled against him, but he wouldn’t let her go. He needed to hear her answer.
“Answer me, damn it!”
His raised voice made her jump, and she stopped struggling. “I wanted you to tell me yourself if it was you who killed Jacob and Amanda,” she finally rasped out. “I wanted to hate you for your desertion of me, but…”
Her hand went to his face, her fingers tracing over the scars there. Tristen pulled his face away, and her hand fell back to her side.
“When I saw you again, I was reminded of the man I used to love. That’s why I slept with you. And that is the only reason I have stayed with you.” Her brow furrowed. “I hoped you would keep me safe, and that once I was with you I could be free of my past, but Bastian won’t ever let me go.”
His hands fell away from her. “So why are you here now?”
“Bastian sent for me. He demanded I give him the property papers you’ve got hidden in your study. I’ve tried to tell him I can’t find them, but he refuses to listen. When you arrived at his room, he told me to leave, fearful you would see me and discover my connection to him. I hid in the room next door though and listened to your conversation. I heard the lies he was telling you about me and about what I’ve done, and I was so scared you would believe them.”
“Why were you so sure I would believe him?”
“Because no matter how close I try to get to you, you continue to push me away, doubting I have any genuine affection for you after our months apart.”
His hand rubbed the scars on his chest unconsciously. “Can you blame me?” he asked. “You are a beautiful woman, Amalie. How could anyone as stunning as you ever truly love a monster like me?”
She reached for his hand and laced her fingers with his. “Because you are you, Tristen. The first time I was near you—the feel of your skin against mine, the haunted look in your eyes—you were the man that I loved.”
“And now?” he asked. “What am I to you now?”
“I can’t ask you to believe my love for you, not now that you know about the man I have killed, or the hold Bastian has over me.”
He studied her for a moment, thinking of the situation they were both in. “And what if I can remove the hold he has over you?”
“You would do that for me?” she asked.
His hand went to her face, cupping her cheek. “I would do anything for you.”
“Tristen?” a woman’s voice called from behind them.
Amalie stepped away from him, his hand falling back to his side as she glanced around him to see who it was.
“What is Helen Desmond doing in a place like this?” she asked.
His hands reached for hers and held them, needing her to stay focused away from the woman that had just called out to him. “You need to go home now before Bastian finds you with me,” he ordered. “I’ll follow you shortly and we can finally figure out a way to get you free from Bastian’s hold.”
Waiting until she nodded and started to walk out of the hotel, he turned and stepped toward the woman who had called his name.
Stopping before her, he raised his brow. “I thought I told you we should meet in private, Helen.”
She took his hand in hers. “You need to come with me,” she said, pulling him behind her to a secluded corner at the back of the hotel. Maneuvering him onto a seat against the wall, she sat down on his lap.
“
What are you doing here?” he asked, not ignorant to how their familiarity must look. “I thought we agreed to meet in a few days.”
Helen laced her arms around his neck, looking for all to see as if they were lovers. “I know that, but I was here on other business when I saw you.”
When she leaned into him, her lips grazing the side of his mouth, his hands on her hips pushed her away. “What do you want?”
Helen pouted. “Is that any way to talk to me after everything we shared?”
He couldn’t help but chuckle softly at her words. “We shared rumors, and nothing more. And you know that we only encouraged them so as to avoid some very unwanted engagements.”
Her hands went to his face, her fingers tracing the stubble on his chin. “I would have been happy for our relationship to be more than just lies, but you seemed so besotted with Amalie Fergus that I could barely catch your attention.”
“I’m pretty sure you didn’t demand this meeting to flatter me.”
Her hand fell away from his face. “You asked me to find out what I could about Bastian Tanner.”
He nodded. “And what kind of relationship he had with Amalie. I’ve just come from his room upstairs, but everything he tells me is laced with a web of lies. I no longer know what is the truth.”
Helen leaned into him, appearing as if she were whispering sweet nothings to him. “Bastian used to visit Amalie before the fire. He was near obsessive about it. She tried her best to avoid him, and apparently she declined every offer of marriage he gave to her. After a while, he started visiting Amanda Dix, again offering marriage. She wasn’t as strong as your Amalie though, and she couldn’t always avoid him.”
“My lawyer told me Bastian preferred the company of men in his bed though. He even was seen frequenting a molly house regularly.”
She nodded. “That’s correct. I was told he was seeing an Albert Heather, at least until the old man pulled out of some business deal. Bastian became so enraged with being dismissed without even a penny, he lunged at the old man. The only thing stopping him from murdering Albert right then was the servants that came in and dragged him away.”