Dare to be Mine

by Allison, Kim

  Slowly turning the knob, Daniel pushed the door open to reveal the cold, damp room. Clumsily lighting a few candles, the room was eerily lit and a cold shudder ran down Daniel's spine. Furniture was covered with white sheets, for the room wasn’t currently in use. Daniel's gaze was drawn to the far corner, where a large square shape was likewise covered. Slowly, he walked across the room. It was the reason he'd come into this dank chamber against his better judgment.

  Finally reaching the object of his attention, Daniel yanked the sheet off, revealing a beautiful painting of Elyssa. A portrait he'd commissioned of her shortly before their wedding day. It was meant to be one of many wedding gifts. Daniel's jaw clenched in discomfort at coming face to face with the likeness after all this time, his fingers caressing his unshaven jaw as he stared at it.

  He recalled her reluctance at his request that she sit for the portrait. Elyssa had insisted she was not sophisticated or beautiful enough to have such an exquisite painting done of her by the most well known and admired portrait painter in all London. Her serene beauty and graceful charm had kept Daniel mesmerized during the entire sitting.

  The portrait now stared back at him, mocking him for his foolishness. Her eyes had been captured so perfectly, so precisely, that Daniel could swear the painting was alive. The sultry set of her lips bespoke of enticing allure and false hope. Her ebony hair had been left long and loose about her slim shoulders. As a whole, Elyssa's image lent an air of both angelic innocence and wanton seduction all rolled into one.

  Daniel took another swig of brandy as his eyes remained on the painting. Turning pensive, he reached out toward it, his fingers tracing her lips, the path of her long tresses. Wishing it was the real woman standing there instead of her cold, lifeless image scorning him.

  With a sudden fury, Daniel's eyes narrowed at her treacherous beauty. His breathing harsh, his hands verily trembled, and he cursed Elyssa for driving him to drink in excess. To fuck other women. To feel a stranger in his own home. The vexing thoughts swirled through Daniel's mind until he could take it no longer. He threw the nearly empty bottle of brandy across the room. The glass shattered, the golden liquid leaving a messqwhi d fy path down the wall.

  He hated Elyssa for using him, for not loving him as she'd been so quick to profess. Yet hated himself even more for falling prey to his own weakness when he'd taken her to bed earlier that evening. Taking one last brief look into her emerald eyes, Daniel smashed his fist into the fragile portrait, roaring her name aloud. The canvas tore beneath his wrath and Daniel snatched the painting from its easel and cast it across the room, where it came to lay amid the shattered remains of the bottle.

  Chest heaving, Daniel rubbed his fist over his heart to try and assuage the pain in it. His heart ached, not only for what he'd just done, but for the scars she had left upon it. Daniel left the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He walked the short distance to his bedroom, lying down on the bed without removing his clothes.

  He had suffered far too long at the hands of Elyssa Monroe Fredrickson. He had never voiced his suspicions to anyone of her involvement in Percy's murder. It was still officially unsolved and the authorities had classified the case as a suicide, no matter that the weapon had never been found. And although he possibly had enough evidence to have Elyssa arrested, Daniel still couldn't bring himself to turn her in.

  The thought of Elyssa rotting away in prison sickened him. She would be abused and fed slop, would be placed in a small cell crawling with rats and vermin and would end up dead. Daniel would not do that to her no matter what she'd done, and he hated himself for still caring enough.

  Still, the time had come to confront Elyssa. It was time for her to give him some answers face to face. In fact, a pleased smile curved Daniel's lips upward, and he wondered why he’d not thought of it before. Elyssa may be so frightened of going to prison that she would gladly give up ownership of Greystone to him. Perhaps all would end well after all.

  ______________________

  CHAPTER ">

  Blake Edmonton came calling the next day for Sophie. Though he hated being in close quarters with Elyssa again so soon, the pretty French cousin had utterly intrigued him. And if he hadn't been mistaken, she too had felt a certain something for him. Of course, the way she'd danced and laughed with every man at the ball, Sophie might have felt a certain something for all the men.

  Sophie was excited to hear that the handsome Blake Edmonton had come calling. She insisted that Annie have him wait in the parlor while she finished getting ready. At Annie's insistence that Sophie was already dressed and coiffed gorgeously, she replied that a man should always be kept waiting a good quarter of an hour to keep him hanging by a rope.

  "A string, you mean?" Annie corrected.

  "Yes, that is it. Keep him dangling on a string." Shooing the maid out, Sophie went to the mirror to check herself.

  Before Annie was able to reach the downstairs to take Blake into the parlor as ordered, Elyssa passed nearby on her way to breakfast. She glanced up into Blake's eyes, and surprised to see him, closed the distance between them and bid him good morning. The awkwardness was still present between them and Elyssa wanted to get things straightened out so they might at least be civil toward each other in the future.

  "Blake, could we talk for a moment?"

  "Are you certain you don't have to run off anywhere?" he replied snidely.

  Closing her eyes briefly to gain confidence, Elyssa finally spoke. "Blake, I am sorry you still harbor resentment toward me for what happened last year. But you don't know my side of the story and I would like to confide it to you."

  "You can't even speak the words, can you? What happened last year was that a man desperately in love was crushed beyond belief when his fiancee cruelly left him at the altar before several hundred guests in humiliation without even knowing why."

  Elyssa had never allowed herself to fully consider the abject embarrassment Daniel had romantic onslaught ignor secondexperienced as a result of her actions. Picturing him standing alone and hurt before a huge audience in all his finery, waiting for a woman that hadn't shown up, tugged at her heart until Elyssa recalled the very reason he'd deserved being left.

  "Daniel was only planning to marry me for Greystone, because Percy left it to me instead of him. He was using me all along. When I found out, I could not allow myself to be used in another loveless marriage. I already suffered that indignity once before and I never plan to again. The only reason Daniel was upset that day is because his plan was foiled. He was dishonest with me from the very beginning."

  Yanking Elyssa by the arm, Blake pulled her mere inches from his face. "You listen here, lady, I don't know all the details about Percy's will, and that is neither here nor there. The fact is, Daniel was a man in love, whether he wanted to admit it or not. And the reality that you preferred money and a grand home over the man you supposedly loved, and refused to share them with him, shows what a shallow willful woman you really are. I say bravo, he's better off without you."

  Crying out at his words, Elyssa snatched her arm away and backed up a step from Blake. "You are Daniel’s friend and would naturally side with him, I understand that. But I don't believe my cousin will want to see you when she finds out just how spiteful you can be."

  "I assure you my motives toward Sophie are purely good and decent." Blake continued, "Good and decent, two things Daniel had never felt in his life after his mother's death, and he actually thought he had found that with you."

  "I did love him!" Elyssa insisted.

  "Daniel has spent the last year facing nasty rumors and being shunned by half of London's elite because of what you did to him. Rumors of abuse or simply being unworthy of love have haunted Daniel, the shallow minds imagining all sorts of evils as to why you abandoned him at the altar. There has even been talk that he murdered his father in order to gain you and Greystone and that all his wickedness didn't even help him in the end. I don't know why he stays and continues to face it except
for the fact that his entire adult life has been spent that way."

  "I didn't realize," Elyssa replied softly, stunned at Blake's revelation. Before she could say anything further, Annie approached and asked Blake to follow her into the parlor, that Sophie would be down shortly. Leaving Elyssa with a curt nod, he followed the maid, glad he'd given Elyssa something to think about. romantic onslaughtug">CHAPTER

  CHAPTER 19

  Sophie had originally planned to leave after spending two weeks with Elyssa, but her unexpected involvement with Blake brought about a change in plans. To Elyssa's delight, her cousin was going to stay indefinitely, or to be more specific, as long as she and Blake continued getting along so famously.

  Elyssa was pleased at least that Blake had not shared his negative opinion of her to Sophie. The girls talked about nearly everything und romantic onslaught, y accomplish er the sun, but when Elyssa spoke briefly about her past relationship with Daniel in vague terms, Sophie had clearly not known any particulars about Daniel's suffering as a result of the called off wedding.

  Blake's words sank in deeper than Elyssa would have cared to admit. His accusations that she cared more about material possessions than her love for Daniel was simply not correct. But when he'd voiced it aloud, it had seemed all too true. Curse the man for making her doubt herself.

  It hadn’t been about materialism, it never had been! It was finding out that Daniel had deceived her. Had never loved her, but had merely been leading her on all that time. Lulling her into a false security and making her believe they would share a life together, when all the time he'd been biding his time. Scorning her a fool, no doubt, as she so eagerly fell into his trap of wedded bliss.

  How long after the wedding would he have waited to toss her out? That a woman's possessions became her husband's upon marriage was a dreadful injustice. Besides, Elyssa would have gladly signed everything over to Daniel after they'd been married. Even before, had he asked. Had he not realized how completely in love with him she'd been? Perhaps she should tell him that. Explain things face to face. Surely she owed Daniel that much after everything he'd endured over the past year at the hands of society's hypocrites.

  Maybe she would see him at the Cutters' ball a week hence. She and Sophie were very much looking forward to the gala, for it was supposed to be the highlight of the season. They'd bought new gowns for the special event and of course Sophie would be escorted by Blake. Elyssa had accepted William Harrison's invitation to go with him.

  Elyssa had spotted Daniel a few times from a distance since her own ball several weeks past. At the opera or the horse races, and always he'd been with a different woman. Elyssa had never approached him, in fact doubted if he'd even been aware of her presence, for each time he'd been too involved with his lady friend to notice. The sight of Daniel with another woman never failed to feel like a knife through the heart, yet hadn't she known his rakish reputation from the beginning? And of course he couldn't be faulted for seeing as many women as he wanted.

  In the unlikely event Daniel would show up at the Cutters' ball, perhaps she would try to explain things to him if he could be gotten alone for a few brief moments. It would be difficult to escape William's sight though, for he was a most attentive beau, at times annoyingly so.

  Elyssa decid romantic onslaught"thied to go for a ride alone on the morning of the ball. She popped into Sophie's bedroom, but her cousin proclaimed her a crazed lunatic did she expect her to leave the warmth of her bed to go gallivanting about in the freezing cold on the back of a wild beast. Laughing in understanding, Elyssa left Sophie to her cozy slumber and proceeded out to the stables alone. Her steps slowed as she reached the entrance, for she heard hushed voices in an argument. Remaining just outside, Elyssa inclined her head in an effort to hear better.

  "Why haven't things changed yet?" a feminine voice demanded.

  "I am doing my best. Now lay off!" the male voice responded in irritation.

  "What's to delay it? All you have to do is cut part of the leather strap and let things take care of themselves, you dolt!"

  The words were fuzzy from a distance. Elyssa thought the male voice belonged to the stable hand, Will, but she didn't recognize the female's voice. Perhaps she should enter the stable and see for herself. In truth, wasn't she the owner of the estate? She had every right to know what was going on.

  Instinct bade Elyssa not make her presence known as of yet, although she did creep quietly inside to get a bit closer, hiding in one of the empty stalls. While still not perfectly clear, the words were a bit more distinguishable now, and what Elyssa heard shot a shiver of pure dread down her spine.

  "I didn't kill his bloody father to have that little bitch get everything! I'm paying you plenty to help me finish her off, now you'd best get the deed done!"

  The voice was unmistakable. Catherine Edmonton! Daniel's lover, out to kill her? Had Daniel involved her in his schemes to finish Elyssa off, thereby gaining everything he'd lost in the first place? She supposed it was possible. That way Daniel would be blameless for either Percy or Elyssa's deaths. Perhaps he even meant to wed Catherine once everything had been taken care of.

  Elyssa rested her head back against the wall, closing her eyes as she strived to comprehend the sinister plans she'd just heard. Her head swam dizzily as she thought about the many times Will had escorted her riding. Had he only been waiting for precisely the right moment to kill her? And all for money?

  Of course, there was always the possibility that Daniel was not aware of any of this. That he too had been an unwilling pawn used in a sick woman's fantasies to trap him into marriage. Daniel told Elyssa over a year ago that Catherine had been getting into trouble since she'd first been able to walk. Her family was on the verge of sending her packing permanently, for she made a continual habit of keeping the Edmonton name associated with scandal.

  Elyssa wanted desperately to stand up and confront Catherine and Will. Wanted to let them know she'd heard everything and was turning them into the authorities. But who was to say they wouldn't kill her right then and there? No, she needed time to think. To make a plan. Should she confide in Daniel or not? Could she trust him, or would he too just go ahead and kill her where she stood?

  Tears of misery escaped her eyes and only after Elyssa heard them depart did she leave her hiding place. She quickly made her way back into the mansion and up to her chambers, trying to decide what to do. One thing was for sure. She would have to set aside all fears and doubts before the ball that evening, or everyone would be suspicious. Doubtless Catherine would be there and Elyssa didn't wish to give her a clue as to her recent discovery of how truly cunning and evil Catherine Edmonton really was. It seemed like a nightmare, one she wanted to wake up from, but there was no mistaking the dark conversation she'd overheard.

  She wanted to confide to Sophie, but the day already promised to be busy getting ready for the ball that evening. Too, she didn’t want to upset her cousin, or end up getting her involved unwittingly. Knowing everything could actually endanger Sophie’s life. Tomorrow would be soon enough to make a decision. Perhaps then she would tell her cousin the whole sordid story. Elyssa would ask her opinion, although the only logical thing to do would be to contact the authorities. She should have already, but the lengthy interrogation would have taken all day. Too, she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to talk with Daniel one on one should he attend the ball that night.

  The hour finally arrived. Blake came for Sophie. They tried talking Elyssa into their foursome going together in one carriage, but she declined. She knew Blake was merely attempting to be courteous in front of Sophie. But Elyssa did have to admit that Blake had genuinely been making more of an effort to become friendlier in the times since he'd made her aware of Daniel's circumstances.

  William arrived a few moments after Sophie left with Blake. Annie led him to the parlor to wait for Elyssa and he nervously sat on the settee, wondering if perhaps later that night he might get up the nerve to propose marriage. He wasn't qu
ite certain he could muster the courage yet, for although he was anxious to be married and start a family, William still found the thought of a permanent relationship with just one woman an intimidating romantic onslaught"thi thing.

  His confusing thoughts fled at the sound of Elyssa's voice. He rose to his feet at the glorious sight of her, for as hard as it was to believe, she became even more beautiful every time he saw her. The sight of Elyssa quite stole his breath away.

  "Elyssa, you look ravishing as always," his deep voice complimented as he tucked her proffered hand into the crook of his arm. "I shall have to keep you by my side during the evening, for every male there will be wishing you were with him."

  Elyssa hoped he wasn't serious, for she didn't need William hovering about her all night like some possessive suitor. He was indeed a marvelous man and a fabulous catch for any female, but at times he tended to be stifling. He simply adored togetherness.

  They chatted easily on the ride to the affair. William complimented Elyssa on her new lavender gown, one that was certain to make her the envy of every woman there. He suggested to Elyssa that she might want to consider buying a London home if only for the season.

  She agreed it was a thought that deserved serious consideration, and William insisted he would help her find just the right one. She could certainly afford a cozy home in London and would be able to see her family more often. Greystone could easily be run without her constant presence and she could forgo the inconvenience of having to travel an hour each way whenever there was a social event to attend.

  William had an appealing wit besides looks and intelligence, and by the time they arrived at the Cutters' estate, he'd managed to put Elyssa quite thoroughly at ease. She was still fighting laughter at the joke he'd told her just before arriving when they were introduced.