Twice Bitten

by Lynsay Sands

  "Yes, she did," Alex said with a smile. "We stopped to see it on the way up here. One of the bedrooms has twin beds, and Mortimer had a big flat-screen television, and a computer put in it too."

  "Really?" Julianna's eyes widened and she turned to their mother. "Come on, Mom. We can stay down there. That way Victoria and I will have an actual bed instead of having to sleep on the air mattress on the floor."

  "Please, Mom," Victoria begged. "You were the one who insisted Mortimer put guards on her, and like Sam says, they can't guard her from another apartment. Let's just stay down there. You can always come up and visit all you want."

  Martine had opened her mouth on what no doubt would have been a refusal, but paused at Victoria's last words. She was silent for a moment, her expression considering, and then she nodded. "Very well. We will sleep in the other apartment and visit up here."

  "Well, all right, then," Sam said just as cheerfully, slipping the sheaf of papers back into her purse. "If you go pack, we'll help you move your luggage when you're done."

  Martine pursed her lips, and Elspeth was quite sure she was considering ordering the trio to pack and move her luggage for her, but then she apparently thought better of it and turned to leave the room. The moment she was gone, Elspeth felt herself again and knew her mother had released her. And for some reason Martine hadn't taken the trouble to erase the moments since taking control of her from her mind. She remembered her mother's comment about visiting, and she knew exactly what that meant. Her mother would move her luggage down to the lower apartment and spend all her time up here anyway.

  "Well done, Sam. You actually won out over Martine," Alex congratulated her sister.

  "To be honest, I'm not sure I did win," Sam responded thoughtfully. "She gave in way too easy."

  "But she gave in," Alex pointed out. "She's moving to the basement apartment."

  "Yeah," Sam nodded, but then turned to Elspeth and asked, "She's going to move her luggage down there and then come right back up until dawn, isn't she?"

  "Yes," Elspeth said on a sigh and walked over to grab the coffee carafe. She turned to carry it to the sink, her gaze landing on the radio/CD player on the counter behind Alex. Pausing, she smiled suddenly. "Although, if you turn the CD player on, she won't stay long. She hates the CD I have in it and simply refused to allow me to play it at home."

  "Really?" Alex turned to the CD player and opened it to retrieve the disc inside. Turning it in her hand, she raised her eyebrows. "Queen's Greatest Hits?"

  Elspeth noted the way Wyatt stiffened, his expression stilling, and it raised her curiosity, but she said, "Yes. She hates it."

  "You're a Queen fan?" Sam asked.

  "I guess I am," she said with a faint smile. "At least, I love this CD. Other than that, though, I don't listen to modern music."

  "Then why Queen? Where did you get this CD?" Wyatt asked quietly, walking over to peer at it above Alex's shoulder.

  Elspeth glanced to him and shrugged. "It just showed up in my player one day and I listened to it and loved it. It always makes me happy," Elspeth admitted.

  "It just showed up in your player?" Wyatt asked solemnly.

  Elspeth nodded. "At the time, I assumed it was Julianna or Victoria's, but they both claimed it wasn't. So, I'm guessing it belongs to one of my cousins and they left it when they visited."

  "You didn't get it when you went to the play?" he asked carefully.

  Elspeth raised her eyebrows. "What play?"

  "We Will Rock You," he said. "It played at the Dominion Theatre in London for something like twelve years."

  Elspeth raised her eyebrows. "No. I've never seen it."

  Wyatt speared her with his eyes. "Are you sure?"

  "Quite sure," she said with amusement. "I've never been to any play. Mother doesn't care for them, and she certainly wouldn't let my sisters and me go without her. We were lucky to be allowed to go to university without her there holding our hands."

  "You really don't remember," Wyatt said with quiet amazement.

  "Remember what?" she asked with confusion.

  "Going to see We Will Rock You," he said solemnly.

  Her eyebrows rose slightly. "I told you I've never been."

  "You have," he assured her.

  "No, I haven't," she countered.

  "Elspeth," he said, his voice gentle, "I was there. I saw you attend. I took you. You loved it."

  "No, I--You've been to England?" she asked with surprise.

  "Yes. Four years ago. I took you to that play."

  "What?" she asked with bewilderment, unconsciously shaking her head no. She'd remember if that had happened. She'd remember him.

  "I did," he said solemnly and reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet. Opening it, he retrieved a collection of three or four small photos. The first one was of she and Wyatt in front of the Dominion Theatre. We Will Rock You was on the billboard out front.

  They looked so happy, she thought and took the picture to look closer, but paused when she saw the photo underneath. It was of a much younger Wyatt and Merry, in front of Merry's house. Elspeth suddenly suspected she knew why the house had looked so familiar to her when she'd seen it online. She'd seen it before. Wyatt must have shown her that picture when they met years ago, and while her mother had erased her memories, her subconscious had recognized the house. Her renting from his grandmother hadn't been chance.

  Feeling sick over what her mother had done, Elspeth handed back the photo of them in front of the theatre.

  Wyatt took it, but didn't put it away at once. Instead, he peered at it for a moment and said, "This was just after I finished my last enlistment. I took a couple weeks to travel and decide if I should enlist again, and if so, for how long. I was going to tour several European countries while I thought about it. I started in England. France was supposed to follow, but I never got there."

  "Why?" she asked, but already knew the answer.

  "Because I met you. I stopped to have lunch in a cafe the first day after I arrived. You were at a neighboring table. I asked to borrow your vinegar and we started talking. You were playing hooky, you said. You had called in sick to work because it was your birthday." A smile curved his lips. "We ended up sitting there for a couple of hours, and only left when the workers started giving us dirty looks. I was booked for a tour of the Tower of London and was going to cancel, but you said you'd come with me. In the taxi on the way we briefly got held up in traffic in front of a theater that had We Will Rock You playing. The Dominion Theatre. I mentioned I was kind of interested in seeing it and you said, then we should. We'd go on the tour, have dinner, and then go to the play. And that's what we did. We went on the tour and spent the entire time talking and laughing, annoying the heck out of our tour guide."

  He grinned at the memory and Elspeth grinned back. She could almost picture what he was describing. In fact, she could see a ginger-haired Yeoman Warder scowling at them for laughing while he was trying to talk to the group.

  "Afterward, we went to dinner, and then we went to the theater to see if we could get tickets to We Will Rock You for that night. I didn't think we would, but apparently it had been showing for years at the time, six or eight I think the guy said. There were seats available." Peering at her solemnly, he said, "You told me it was the first play you'd been to and I believed it, because you sat there wide-eyed with wonder throughout . . . and I just sat and watched you. I couldn't take my eyes off you."

  "I don't . . ." She shook her head helplessly.

  "Do you remember what you did on your birthday four years ago?" Sam asked quietly when Elspeth continued to just shake her head.

  Elspeth paused and tried to think back. "We always go away for my birthday. Last year we went to Spain. The year before that it was Greece. The year before that was Germany, and the year before that . . ." She thought briefly, and then remembered and was oddly disappointed to say, "Italy. I was in Italy for my birthday four years ago."

  "That's not true. It can't be
," Wyatt said with a frown.

  "It isn't," Victoria announced, drawing their attention to her presence in the open kitchen door.

  Elspeth raised her eyebrows as the twins entered. "Yes, Victoria, it is. I remember we stayed with Raffael, and he took us to a little trattoria for my birthday dinner."

  "We did stay with Raffael that year, and he did take us to a trattoria for your birthday dinner, but it was the day after your birthday," she assured her solemnly.

  When Elspeth frowned, Julianna told her, "It's true. You went missing on your birthday and didn't show up until the day after. Mom freaked. She went into full-on panic mode. Even Dad couldn't calm her down. She must have called the head of the UK Enforcers a hundred times, demanding he take every one of his hunters off any jobs they were on and send them out to search for you."

  "Yeah. I think she nearly drove Scotty over the edge. At least, it looked that way when he came to the house," Victoria said with a grimace.

  "Scotty came out to the house?" Elspeth asked with amazement. Scotty, whose true name was Cullen MacDonald, had been helping out Mortimer the last several weeks. She'd spoken to him several times since moving to Canada and he hadn't mentioned anything like this. Which was probably a good thing since she wouldn't have known what he was talking about, she supposed.

  "Oh, yeah, although at the time I wasn't sure if he was there to try to calm her or kill her," Victoria said dryly.

  "I was sure it was kill," Julianna put in with amusement. "Mom was constantly on the phone to him, shrieking her head off, freaking all over him, calling him an idiot and useless and whatnot. After twenty-four hours of that, I'd want to kill her."

  Elspeth turned to Wyatt with wide eyes. "Twenty-four hours?"

  Wyatt nodded. "After the play we went back to my hotel room."

  "Really?" Alex drawled the word out and leaned forward, her gaze on Wyatt becoming concentrated briefly before her eyes widened. "Not quite after, though. You left early," she said with a grin.

  "Yes," he acknowledged, looking somewhat embarrassed.

  "Why?" Elspeth asked with surprise. "Why would we leave early?"

  "Actually, we were asked to leave," Wyatt admitted almost apologetically.

  "We were?" Elspeth gasped with shock. She'd never been kicked out of anywhere. Ever. "Why?"

  Wyatt blew out a sigh. "I kissed you."

  Alex snorted at the claim.

  Wyatt scowled at her, and then admitted, "It was supposed to be a quick, gentle kiss, but . . ." He shook his head. "It was like an explosion happened. My lips brushed lightly over yours and the next thing I knew, we were tearing at each other's clothes and . . ." He shrugged helplessly.

  "Yeah, that life mate sex is a killer. I mean, none of us intended to ruin the holidays we told you guys about. You just intend to give your loved one a quick kiss in passing and kapow!" Sam said on a sigh.

  Alex nodded. "A kiss, a touch--heck, even a look--and it can happen. Kapow and you're gonzo."

  Elspeth glanced from Alex to Sam. Noting the secret smiles they both wore made her wish she'd experienced what they were talking about. It sounded . . . interesting. And then she recalled that she supposedly had experienced it and simply didn't remember it and heaved a sigh. Another memory and moment stolen by her mother, she thought bitterly, and turned to Wyatt to ask, "So we left early that night, but I didn't show up at home until the next day?"

  "We stayed in bed until midafternoon the next day," Wyatt explained quietly. "And we only got up then because we were hungry. We went to a cafe. I went to the bathroom and when I came back you were talking to some guy. You said he was a family friend and he and a lot of other people had been looking for you since the night before. You said your mother was freaking out. You should have called her, and you had to go home and calm her down. You'd meet me in that cafe the next day, at the same time."

  Wyatt frowned as he recalled it. "The guy was pulling you away as you talked. Afterward, I didn't understand why I didn't intervene. Now I suppose the fellow was controlling me and making me accept what was happening. But I didn't even get a chance to ask your phone number. I tried to follow you, but I had to pay for our meal, and by the time I got out you were both gone."

  "I'm guessing she didn't show up the next day?" Alex asked quietly.

  "I waited for hours for her, but no, she never showed," Wyatt admitted and then turned back to Elspeth. "So then I tried to look you up. I started looking for an Elspeth Pimms in the phone book, and on the internet, but there was nothing. No phone number listing, no Facebook, not even a Google search of your name turned up anything. It was like you didn't exist."

  Elspeth turned to her sisters. "What happened? Why didn't I go back the next day?"

  Victoria exchanged a glance with Julianna and then both turned back to her and shook their heads helplessly before Victoria said, "Mother got a call from Scotty saying one of his men found you and he was bringing you home. Then she sent us out with Father. She said she wanted to talk to you."

  "Dad took us out to lunch and shopping," Julianna put in. "And then Mother called Dad. When he got off the phone, he said you and Mother were meeting us at the airport. We were flying to Italy to stay with Raffael for a belated birthday celebration for you, and it was probably better not to bring up your disappearing act as it would just upset Mother. So that's what happened. We flew to Italy, visited Raffael, and celebrated your birthday."

  "Your disappearing was never brought up again," Victoria finished.

  "Not even to Elspeth?" Sam asked with surprise. "I mean, I understand your not bringing it up around your mother, but why did you never say anything to Elspeth about it? Weren't you curious about where she'd been or what she'd done?"

  "Yes," Victoria admitted. "But Mother kept Elspeth pretty close after that, at least for the next couple of months."

  "She watched her like a hawk," Julianna put in. "I mean, she rarely left her side. She wouldn't even let her go to work."

  "What?" Elspeth asked with shock. She didn't remember any of this either. "I didn't go to work? For how long?"

  "At least two months. Right?" Julianna asked Victoria.

  "Yeah," the twin agreed. "The first day back from Italy she insisted on driving you in to work, but came back a little later with you still in tow and said you had been given a short sabbatical. She'd arranged it with the head of your department."

  "Then she kept you by her side that whole two months," Julianna continued. "By the time she eased up . . ." She shrugged. "Life had moved on."

  "And so had we," Victoria said with a frown and then glanced at her twin and pointed out, "That's about when Mother insisted we move back to York. Isn't it?"

  "Yeah." Julianna nodded slowly, and then said, "By the end of the two months we'd moved back to the family estate there and Mother had arranged a new position for you at the University of York."

  "She arranged my position there?" Elspeth asked with shock. She had some vague recollection of doing that herself. The very vagueness of the memory told her it wasn't true.

  "I'm sorry, Elspeth," Julianna said quietly. "Really. If we'd known you'd met your life mate, and what Mother was doing, we would have said something. Truly. I know I can be a PITA, but I would have told you about that."

  "I know," Elspeth said on a sigh, and reached out to catch Julianna's hand and squeeze it affectionately.

  "Me too," Victoria assured her and then added with anger, "I can't believe she would take that from you. I mean, it's one thing to make us miserable with her overprotective and controlling ways, but to get between you and your life mate? That's just not on."

  "Wait, wait, wait. How could she make you forget like that?" Alex asked with a frown. "Wouldn't that take a three-on-one mind wipe? I mean, Jean Claude had to arrange a three-on-one to erase Julius from Marguerite's mind."

  "Jean Claude wanted to erase something like twenty years from Marguerite's mind, though," Elspeth pointed out solemnly. "He wanted to erase her meeting and loving her true lif
e mate, having his child, and . . . basically he had to erase a whole life from Marguerite--every memory from every one of the days in those twenty years so that nothing would spark a return of them. He couldn't do that without performing a three-on-one," she explained. "But for me, Mother merely had to remove one twenty-four-hour-long first date."

  "And then move you out of London to make sure nothing sparked those memories and brought them back to you," Sam said quietly. "I gather that's why she moved you to York?"

  "And made sure we celebrated my birthday in foreign countries," Elspeth added grimly. "It ensured we didn't accidentally go anywhere Wyatt and I had gone, and that nothing around me would be likely to remind me of whatever Wyatt and I did on my birthday and bring those memories back."

  "Wow," Alex breathed. "That's . . ."

  "Evil?" Sam suggested when her sister seemed at a loss as to what to say.

  "I'd like to say no," Alex said apologetically to Elspeth. "But frankly, I can't think of another description that would fit. I mean, she got between you and your life mate. What if she had done that to Cale and me?" she asked with horror. "What kind of person does that? What kind of mother does that?"

  "An evil one," Sam muttered with disgust.

  "Yes," Elspeth agreed with regret. She'd always given her mother excuses for her behavior, but now--Turning, she raised the carafe she still held. "Victoria, will you make the coffee for me? I need to have a word with Mother."

  "Of course," Victoria took the carafe and carried it to the sink at once.

  "I'll help," Julianna added, moving to collect the coffee out of the cupboard.

  "Thank you," Elspeth said solemnly and moved to the bags they'd set on the counter when they'd entered. Opening the first bag, she began sifting through the contents until she found the pocketknife she'd bought.

  "What are you going to do?" Alex asked, her eyes narrowing on the knife as Elspeth flicked it open.

  "Just going to have a little talk with my mother," Elspeth assured her, slipping the open knife into her jacket pocket. "I'll be right back."

  "Ellie, talk, don't kill," Alex called out worriedly as Elspeth left the kitchen.

  Elspeth moved at a quick clip, not slowing until she reached the closed door of the guest room. Pausing then, she slipped the knife out of her pocket, peered at it silently and considered her options. Pain had helped her resist her mother taking control of her that first night. Hopefully pain would help her resist her control again now, because G.G. was right--she needed to confront her mother. She'd gone way too far intervening between her and Wyatt. Way too far.