“Talbot, please…don’t!”
“Admit it, Louisa. You want me,” he said in his British accent. With his free hand he cupped her breast. Then his thigh came up between hers and he pulled the robe from her. She gasped.
“No!” She hit him with her fists but he was undaunted. He grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm back out of the way, tearing her nightgown at the shoulder. The back of his hand came down across her face and Louisa tasted blood.
Fifty-Six
Luc Almquist ran his white stallion hard along the road from Billington. The big horse galloped with Luc laying along his back spurring him ever faster. He turned Avalanche into the entrance at Stavewood, digging his heels into the stallion’s sides. When he reached the house he leapt from the horse’s back and rushed to the door. It was locked. The stillness of the night was broken by a woman’s scream.
“Louisa!” he called out at the top of his voice.
“Luc!” Louisa screamed as loudly as she could and Clayton clamped his hand tightly over her mouth.
“Louisa! Louisa!” Luc yelled again but this time there was no answer. He put his shoulder to the door but it didn’t budge. He tried again.
Clayton took hold of her hair and dragged Louisa across the room. It was just a matter of time before Luc would break into the house. He took a position beside the bedroom door, thinking to shoot Luc as he entered. Louisa shook her head violently, sensing his plan, and tried to talk to him.
“You scream again and I’ll kill you right here and now! You understand me?” Louisa nodded. He let go of her mouth, changing his grip to her throat instead.
“You don’t have to kill him. You don’t have to kill anyone. I’ll get you out, Talbot. We can get out through the passage.”
Clayton quickly considered his options. If Luc got into the room he’d have to shoot him quickly and he’d have to kill him with the first shot. Louisa might interfere as well. The last thing he wanted was to find himself in a fight with big Luc Almquist.
“Alright, Louisa. But if I even think you’re trying anything stupid I’ll kill you and your lover boy in a heartbeat.” He let her go. “Show me where,” he demanded.
She yanked open the closet and began to pull out the bolts of fabric. When the closet was empty, she pulled away the panel at the back of the shelves. Being careful to keep his gun aimed at her, Clayton leaned in and peered down the shaft. There, between the pipes, was the wooden ladder leading down to the cellar. He motioned at her with the revolver.
“You first,” Clayton said.
Once inside the access shaft Clayton pulled the panel shut behind them. Now she could barely hear Luc frantically trying to get into the house as she climbed down carefully. When she reached the cellar, Clayton jumped down bedside her and took hold of her arm.
“This way,” she said, leading him to the shelf with the old paint tin. She retrieved the massive key and took him to the secret door. She took several deep breaths to calm her breathing so she could hear the click of the mechanism and worked the combination. From the depths of the cellar she could no longer hear Luc at all.
The door swung open and Louisa took a lantern from the shelf. Clayton struck a match and lit it, peering into the darkness inside the passage. “Go ahead,” he said. She ventured first down the slippery stairs.
“Nice,” Louisa heard him say. He kept close behind her. “Very eerie and very imaginative.”
Louisa led him on, along the rushing water and across it on the iron girder. A minute later they stood by the loud rushing of the whirlpool. She pointed to the narrow tunnel that led to the rings and up to the gazebo, trying to explain to him over the roar of the water that they would have to climb. He held up the lantern and squinted into the darkness.
“We need to go in there!” she yelled.
Suddenly Clayton’s feet slipped just as Louisa’s had once before. For a long moment he fought for his balance, waving his arms. Louisa saw her chance and lunged at him, hitting his hip with her shoulder and he splashed into the water. The lantern fell with a crash, flames flowing across the wet, stone floor. In the flickering light, Louisa watched him struggle to keep his head above the surface, spinning around in the spiraling current. He cursed loudly and then disappeared, sucked down into the gurgling swirl of water.
The fire blazed brightly until she turned the corner of the tunnel and Louisa had to fumble along the wall of the black passageway until she felt the first iron ring. She climbed in the total darkness as quickly as she could.
Louisa hit her head hard on the trap door, reached up and pushed against it with all of her might. She sucked the night air into her lungs.
“Luc! Luc!” she screamed as loudly as she could.
Luc spun around at the sound of her voice and ran across the yard.
“Luc!” Louisa called again.
He ran around the gazebo, but he didn’t see her anywhere. He was certain her voice was nearby.
“Louisa, where are you?”
“Under the gazebo. Get me out! There’s a way out, find it!”
Luc bent low and looked through the lattice under the platform. In the darkness he could just make her out, struggling with the trap door. He searched steadily around the foundation and, at the steps to the platform, found a hidden hinge. He grabbed the bottom step from underneath and pulled. The entire five-step staircase swung up easily.
Louisa fought to keep her footing on the stone wall. Luc lifted the trap door and took her arm, pulling her up, and they both crawled out from under the gazebo.
“I have to stop him,” Louisa screamed and began to run, stumbling in her torn nightgown across the yard.
Luc whistled for Avalanche and was on his back in a quick leap. He pulled up alongside Louisa and she stopped, panting hard.
“He’ll come up in the creek!”
“Who?
“Talbot!”
“Does he have the diamonds?”
Louisa looked up at him. How did he know? “You’re after the diamonds too? Leave me alone.”
Luc reached out his hand. “Louisa, I would never hurt you. You have to trust me! Get on the horse.”
Louisa clenched her fists and kicked the dirt. She looked up into his eyes and wanted it all to stop. She wanted to trust Luc Almquist more than anything in the world.
“Louisa,” he said. His face was serious and sincere in the soft moonlight. “I love you. You can trust me.”
She reached up and he pulled her onto the horse in front of him.
“Show me where.” He handed her the reins and kicked Avalanche to a fast run. She could feel his powerful muscles beneath her and Luc pressed into her from behind. He leaned with her, his strong arms on either side. They cut through the woodland over paths only the families knew, rushing to Fisher Creek before Clayton would surface, swim free and escape.
Louisa leaned close to the stallion’s back and he ran like the wind. She swung him around the Vancouver house and along the creek. Up ahead, in the moonlight she could see the pool where Clayton would emerge. If only they were fast enough.
Fifty-Seven
Louisa pulled hard on the reins and Avalanche set his broad hooves and came to a jarring stop. The two riders sat silently, riding up and down the bank, scanning the water’s surface and the woods on either side. Louisa had begun to fear Clayton had made good his escape when suddenly she sat up high on the horse and pointed.
“There!” she shouted excitedly.
Floating in the gurgling waters of Fisher Creek was the lifeless body of Clayton Wallace. Once wanted by authorities in three states, the accomplished confidence man had played his last victim. Louisa slipped from Avalanche’s back with Luc close behind her.
She stood beside the creek and choked on her tears. The pale dead face floating lifelessly in the water had been her friend and her enemy, her trusted partner and her worst nightmare. The light had gone out of his startling blue eyes and they shone black in the darkness. His skin had turned cold, white and waxy
. Louisa couldn’t take it any longer. She wrapped her arms around herself trying to breathe, to fight, to survive.
Luc held her and for a moment she allowed it, but then pulled away.
“Louisa,” he said softly.
She looked up into his face and for the first time he saw her cheek was cut and her throat had been bruised. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, looking into her tortured eyes.
“You lied to me.”
“I did,” he said.
“I loved you,” she whispered.
Luc shook his head miserably. “I needed to find them. One of them killed my best friend. I didn’t count on meeting you... or caring for you. But even so, I had to stop them. Please, Louisa. You have to know how I feel about you.”
“I thought I did.” She swallowed hard, the salty taste of blood in her mouth.
“Then let me prove it to you.”
She wanted to trust what she saw in his eyes, to fall into his arms. “Don’t fall,” her father had said. “Just love.” She was in love with him, no matter what.
“Then prove it,” she said.
He bent and kissed her gently, as if he could kiss away all of her pain. Louisa let her eyes close, feeling tattered and broken in heart and spirit. His lips brushed against hers and she surrendered. As his arms encircled her she let herself fall into him, solid and safe. His warmth surrounded her, protected her and soothed her.
She felt the low vibration of his voice as he spoke to her in the darkness, “I love you, Louisa Elgerson.”
Louisa paced the banks of the creek as Luc pulled Clayton’s lifeless body from the water. He retrieved the bag of diamonds and handed them to Louisa and then pulled out the Old Maid and handed that to her as well.
“That’s it,” Luc said, standing up beside her.
“He knew everything about me. He pretended that he cared,” she said. “All of it was an act.”
“Yes, it was, Louisa. I’m sorry,” Luc said. “He was a thief and a con man. I only just found out about him a few hours ago. But he’s not alone. Victor Leach is out there somewhere. I knew about Victor all along, but not Talbot. I’m so sorry, Louisa.”
“He’s killed Victor Leach,” Louisa said softly. “He told me so himself and he said no one will ever find the body.” Louisa’s lip quivered as she continued on. “He killed Birget as well. He said he made it look like an accident.” She dabbed at her tears with the kerchief. “Oh, Luc. I believed in him. I trusted him. I brought him to Stavewood.”
“He was an expert at making people believe in him, Louisa. He’d study them, learn their hopes and dreams and find their weaknesses.”
“I was a fool. I wanted to write a beautiful story about my mother. I never wanted to dig up the horrible things that I found out, to know what I know now.”
“Why did you go looking for me, in town, and in Blue Falls?” he asked.
“I found the secret passageway and came out under the gazebo. I heard two men talking, Clayton and Victor. They were saying they would kill anyone who stood between them and the diamonds. I didn’t know Clayton and Talbot were the same person. I just knew Talbot wasn’t here. I trusted you and I needed your help and then I couldn’t find you. Mark said that, in the offices in town, they would know where you might be, but they didn’t even know who you were. I didn’t know what to think. I went all the way to Blue Falls hoping they had made some kind of mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake, Luc. You don’t work for the government at all. I thought the worst. That’s why I was so angry with you. I should have trusted you, Luc. I should have known better. I’m sorry.”
“No, Louisa it was my fault. You still deserve a full explanation but for now please know that I had no choice. I hated lying to you. It broke my heart every time I saw you and could not tell you the truth.” He looked at Clayton. “We’ll need to get the sheriff out here in the morning. Where has your family gone?”
“They’ve taken Birget to her brother’s place in Wisconsin to be buried. They’ll be gone for a couple of more days.
“Luc, when the sheriff comes I’ll have to tell him I pushed Talbot into the water. I really thought that when Jude found the underground stream he went down the whirlpool and came up here, right near his aunt’s property. I never meant for Talbot to drown. I thought he’d come up too and try to escape. But instead I’ve killed him.”
Louisa tried to imagine her conversation with the sheriff. “Talbot had everyone fooled. No one will believe the incredible story I’ll have to tell, unless…”
“Unless what, Louisa?”
“Unless I tell them everything. All the horrible things I’ve dug up about the past. Things that will hurt everyone. Things about Corissa, and Jude Thomas, and even poor Birget. Everyone will suffer for what I’ve done.”
“He drowned, Louisa,” Luc said after thinking for a moment. “Talbot Sunderland drowned. That’s all. Your family is burying someone they loved who died for no good reason. Now her murderer is dead. What good would come from dragging your family and all of Stavewood through all of that pain? What happened here tonight to Talbot was an accident.” Luc held her shoulders and tried to look into her soul. “Louisa, sometimes the bravest thing to do is to let the sleeping dragon sleep.”
Louisa looked up at Luc beside her and her heart felt heavy and worn. Stavewood and everyone who lived there had suffered and overcome all of the pain in their lives, sometimes with incredible strength. Talbot had drowned and Jude Thomas was long buried. True love was hard won. She looked up into Luc’s eyes as he stood silently beside her, strong and tall and she took a deep breath.
Luc nodded to her. “We need to get you cleaned up and tend to those cuts and bruises. There’s nothing else we can do for Talbot. It’s time that this part of the story ends.”
Fifty-Eight
Louisa sat perfectly still in the kitchen chair at Stavewood, trying not to flinch while Luc knelt down in front of her, tending to the cuts on her face and arm.
She poured them both a tall glass of cold milk and took Luc upstairs where he helped her put the sewing room in order. They put the diamonds back into the space under the floor and replaced the board.
“Whose are they?” she asked.
“They belong to a baroness,” he replied.
Louisa looked at him, puzzled.
“I’ll explain everything.”
She took him down into the cellar and showed him the passageway and the whirlpool. They walked through the underground corridor without a word. Luc knew the torments the Elgersons had endured. As a man he imagined how Timothy Elgerson would have felt, knowing that Thomas was having his way with his wife, right in his own home. He was not a violent man but the premise filled him with pure loathing. He followed Louisa silently in the darkness and she turned the key in the lock with a soft click when they had finished. In the quiet of the stone cellar, Louisa shared everything she had discovered with him. When she finished he took her into his arms.
“I wish I had never found this, any of it. I wish I could just seal it all closed forever so no one could find it,” she said.
“I don’t think that would be too hard to do,” he said. He too felt as if it all ought to be buried and forgotten.
Louisa thought quietly for a few moments, contemplating what she wanted to say next.
“Luc, I know it’s best to let the sleeping dragon sleep, but there is something else to consider. There is a letter, written by Mark’s mother, Corissa. I want to show it to you. It’s something that should not be hidden forever.”
Louisa took a deep breath and led Luc to her father’s den. She removed Rebecca’s photograph from the frame, explaining how her father had put in the picture of an unknown mail-order-bride with his heart breaking. Luc leaned back in the chair and looked at Corissa’s image thoughtfully.
Luc was nearly as tall as her father and the only other person she had ever seen sit in the chair who filled it out the same way. She handed him the letter.
&
nbsp; When he had finished, he handed it back to her and she could see his eyes were glazed with emotion. In that moment she knew she never wanted to be apart from him again.
“Louisa, they have to know this.”
“Then help me find a way to put this in the hands of the good men of my family. The right way. Please.”
He nodded seriously. “I will.”
“I need you to listen to me, Louisa. To every word. You have trusted me with all of these secrets and now I need you to understand mine.” They sat in the parlor before the fireplace in the dead of the night with the flames blazing brightly. Louisa sat on the carpet, the way she had as a child. In the morning they would ride to town to see the sheriff and, before they spoke to anyone, Luc wanted to be sure Louisa understood why he was there.
“Louisa,” he began. “I am indeed a cartographer. But that is just the beginning.”
Louisa listened, remembering a time when she would read stories to her baby brothers and then later, when they were older, they read them to her. She reminisced that in those days she imagined a time when she would be safe and in love. She looked up at Luc as he sat in the big leather chair, his knees apart and his elbows on his thighs. There were still hardships they would have to survive but she knew that they would as long as Luc looked at her the way he was looking at her now.
Fifty-Nine
Luc began his story. “Zhi was a baroness who lived in China and is the rightful owner of the diamonds. Before either of us were born, she fell in love with a young peasant named Piao. Her father, Baron Song, loved his daughter and so, even though Piao was poor, he could see that she was happy and he was glad that she had found love. But Zhi and Piao were not destined to live happily ever after, as they say. A rich and powerful man named Hao became interested in Zhi and desired her for his own. He hired a very influential matchmaker to make arrangements to propose to her on his behalf, as was the custom. Hao had influential friends and political connections and brought a lot of pressure to bear on Song to give his permission to wed Zhi. When Song was still reluctant, the matchmaker, who had criminal ties threatened to make trouble for him as well. Song had no choice but to give Zhi’s hand in marriage to Hao. But Zhi would have none of it and she and Piao ran away together to be married secretly.
The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) Page 18