His Wicked Ways

by Lorraine Beaumont

  The note was a last resort really.

  Lucian was going on a hunch. Just like the horses, he bet on, and lost, which is why he was in this mess in the first place. He raked his hands over his face hoping that for once his hunch would pay off.

  Of course, in the end, that didn’t pan out either and after Cecily betrayed him to the very person he was running from, he ran again, leaving everything. Taking the paltry amount of money he had left; he had somehow ended up here, in North Carolina, with a girl who had somehow managed to put a hole right in the middle of the wall he had built around his heart.

  Hell, she might even end up being the one—the love of his life. How ironic, right? Just when he thought his life was over…a monkey wrench was tossed in the mix and his life was irrevocably changed forever.

  Now, he was in the middle of nowhere, in a cave, hunting for emeralds, and very possibly, definitely, falling for a girl he barely knew.

  He shook his head. It was funny how things worked out when you least expected them to, he thought wryly.

  He was so lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice how cold it was getting or that when he exhaled, his breath was turning white.

  ♣

  Molly took another deliberate step backward. This time she wasn’t tripping or falling clumsily like she was before—this time, she made certain that each step she took was sure footed on the path behind her… because if she didn’t, she knew that she may very well end up being as dead as the skeleton lying in a heap a few steps away from where she was right now. “Lu…Lu…cian,” she chattered, louder.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  Lucian’s mind slowly came back to the present and with it, the realization of how cold it had become while his mind had wandered. His heart thumped against his ribcage, gaining momentum as the seconds ticked by.

  “Molly,” he frantically yelled as he took off running back the way he had just come.

  Molly held out her hands. “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” she told the ghost of Rebecca whose very real looking eyes were flitting between Molly and the skeleton on the ground.

  “What did you do?” the ghost asked very plainly, like they were having a conversation about the weather, or it would have been like that if the anger emanating from her ghostly form wasn’t quite so palpable.

  Right then Molly decided if anyone ever told her that they saw a ghost she wouldn’t doubt them ever again. She would tell Lucian that as soon as she saw him…if you ever see him again, her sick twisted mind taunted her.

  “Oh, just shut up,” she told herself and immediately regretted it because Rebecca’s icy gaze focused on her again.

  “You killed my father,” Rebecca sobbed, holding her arms akimbo.

  “No, I didn’t…” Molly defended, holding out her own hands to somehow try to stop Rebecca from coming closer, which was so ludicrous, she almost laughed, albeit a hysterical and unintentional laugh. It was something she did when she was nervous or scared and right now she was at her beejeebies limit.

  “Why did you do it, Luc? Why?” she cried as glistening tears streamed down her crystalline face.

  Molly frowned. Wait? Who the hell was Luke? She lifted her eyes back to the ghostly form of Rebecca and was exponentially relieved Rebecca wasn’t looking at her any longer but rather at someone over her shoulder.

  Lucian couldn’t get his legs to move. He felt frozen in place like the many statuary spread throughout the halls of Ravenhurst when he was younger. “You aren’t real,” he said, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

  Molly gasped when she saw who Rebecca was looking at with such anguish and palpable hate.

  It was Lucian. He was standing about ten feet behind her. His face reflecting what Molly was sure hers would look like if she was to see herself in a mirror right now.

  “Why did you kill my father?” Rebecca screamed suddenly directing the full extent of her anger towards Lucian.

  Molly recoiled from the frigid blast of air. She felt like someone had opened an ice box and put an industrial fan in front of it on high. It was that cold.

  “Molly,” Lucian called, keeping his voice low and even. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fa…fa…fine,” she chattered, still feeling the residual effects from the icy blast.

  “What do you want?” he asked, this time his question directed at Rebecca.

  “I want to know why you killed my father, Luc!” The way she said his name was like nails scrapping down on a chalkboard.

  Molly shivered so hard she thought her skin would shake off. “Lucian, I think she thinks your someone else.”

  “What?” He had to forcefully pull his gaze from Rebecca and finally focused on Molly once more.

  “I think this…” She pointed at the skeleton with a smashed skull. “I think it’s her father.”

  Lucian was having a hard time understanding Molly. She sounded miles away. “I can’t hear you.”

  Molly was getting angry now, not a Lucian but at the bitch that was messing with him. “That’s not Luke, Rebecca,” Molly yelled and in turn was once again the target of Rebecca’s ire.

  Rebecca turned her cold unfeeling eyes on Molly. “What do you know?” she scoffed. “You are nothing more than a dalliance to him, he wants me, he has always wanted me.”

  Slivers of doubt pricked at Molly.

  Lucian did yell her name, not once but twice… “but he told you why,” her niggling conscience put in its two cents.

  “No.” Molly’s head shook forcefully and she was actually having a hard time getting it to stop moving of its own accord.

  “He loves me.” She didn’t know why she said that but it seemed the thing to say—too bad it was only wishful thinking on her part.

  Rebecca looked from Molly back to Lucian. “Luc…” her voice broke. “You love…her?” her voice dripped with a combination of disdain and disbelief.

  Lucian felt like he was miles away, everything he was hearing was coming at him like he was standing at the back of a very long and very narrow tunnel so it took a moment for him to respond.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I think…” He pushed past his doubt. “I do love her.”

  Molly would have melted on the spot if she wasn’t frozen in place by some whacked out ghost. He loved her! He really loves me, her mind repeated over and over.

  “You killed my father for the emeralds? Not to give me, but for her?” Rebecca’s face, even as cold as it looked seemed to shudder under thready looking wisps of white smoke.

  “I didn’t kill your father,” Lucian said calmly. “This other man did, not for you but for the emeralds. He didn’t love you or anyone else. He only loved himself.”

  “What?” Rebecca’s image shuddered again and more thready wisps of white smoke escaped making her less solid than moments before.

  Lucian didn’t know how he knew that. Maybe it was just a shot in the dark from his own experience of what greed could do to a person. And what lengths they would go to keep it for themselves—Hell, he was that person only a few short days ago, just like his father had been, but not now. Not since he met Molly. He found out there was much more to life than the luxuries that money could buy. There was love and no amount of money in the world could buy that or replace it. “He didn’t love you.”

  Rebecca seemed to absorb what he said which was a weird thing to say considering she was just a puff of smoke at this point. “You want the emeralds,” she taunted. “You would take them over her, wouldn’t you?” A bag of dazzling emeralds appeared near the outstretched hand of the skeleton on the ground.

  Molly held her breath. Why wouldn’t he take the emeralds over her? He barely even knew her. Granted they had some good sex, “outstanding sex, you mean,” her naughty voice chided her. That was true enough, Molly acknowledged to herself. But he would be rich and didn’t he say he needed the money?

  So, Molly being Molly, prepared herself, or tried to, for the inevitable moment, that she was going to be dropped like a
hot potato, in other words—dumped.

  “No.” He shook his head from side to side. “I don’t care about your emeralds,” he was saying, which didn’t quite register with Molly at first. “She is worth more than those emeralds. And if I had the choice, if she will have me, I would take her over an entire mountain of emeralds any day.”

  “Who says you have a choice?” Rebecca snapped.

  “I do.” He stared her down.

  “But you would be rich beyond your wildest dreams,” she dangled. “And we could finally be together, forever, like we talked about. Have you forgotten what it is like to be with me so soon.”

  An image of Rebecca in the throes of passion entered his mind, just like she did when he was with Molly and he shivered to his core.

  Molly saw the look on his face and her heart sank. It was the same look he had after he said Rebecca’s name after they had sex.

  Lucian shook his head, breaking free of the memory. “I don’t care,” he said finally—forcefully. “What I have with Molly money could never buy.”

  “What is that?” Rebecca asked, looking bewildered by such a prospect.

  “Love.”

  “Love,” she repeated.

  “Yes, love,” he said as his gaze slid from Rebecca to rest on Molly’s surprised face.

  “Ree…a…lly,” Molly chattered, as hot tears slid down her frozen cheeks.

  “Yes, really,” he said. “I promise.” He crossed his heart.

  “You can’t mean that,” Rebecca sobbed, turning on the waterworks. “You promised me. You told me if we had the emeralds you would marry me.”

  “I’m sorry, but that wasn’t me.”

  “It was…” A look of panic crossed her face. “Where did you go?”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “You do.” She frowned. “Although…” She paused. “You do seem different. Younger perhaps…but it’s you. I knew it the moment I saw you with her.” She pointed a shaky finger at Molly. “I’ve been waiting for you all these years, to come for me and here you are, just like you promised.”

  “Rebecca,” Molly spoke softly. “You are dead.”

  “I am not…dead…” A look of panic crossed her face. She held out her hands and turned them over, staring at them.

  Molly’s heart went out to her. She could only imagine what she must be feeling to have found out that she was screwed over by the man she loved, waiting for him to come back, only to find that she had waited in vain because she was no longer alive.

  “You came back for the emeralds. Not me.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I came here with her,” he said, lifting his finger, pointing at Molly.

  “Why?”

  “Because I found your map.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the map to show her.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Inside your piano,” he said. “There was a hidden compartment”

  “That is not mine,” she said.

  “If you didn’t make it, then who did?” Molly asked.

  “I bet it’s the person that killed your father,” Lucian told Rebecca as he stared down at the map. In the far corner, there was a name, barely legible in the faint light. “Drake Lucian Scott,” he read aloud. His vision became blurry and he dropped to his knees. “This can’t be happening…”

  “Lucian,” Molly screamed as he hit the ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  “What happened?” Lucian asked groggily, sitting up.

  “You passed out,” Molly explained, helping him.

  He rubbed his aching head. “Where did she go?”

  “After you passed out she disappeared.”

  “Did she say anything to you before she…”

  “Vanished.” She shook her head. “No.” Well, that wasn’t completely true. After Rebecca ranted and raved for a few minutes about the unfairness of it all, she looked pointedly at Molly and said, “You better watch out because apples usually don’t fall far from the tree.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.

  Lucian uncrumpled the map in his hand and held it out for Molly.

  “What do you want me to do with that?”

  “Read the name.”

  Molly squinted down at the aged parchment. “It’s hard to see.”

  “Just try.”

  Molly lifted the light. “Drake Lucian Scott.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He scrubbed his hands over his face.

  She frowned. “Wow. What are the odds that guy’s middle name is the same as yours?”

  “Yeah,” he said in disbelief. “What are the odds.”

  “Do you think he was the one that killed her father?”

  “I hope not.”

  Confused, Molly looked down at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because that’s my father’s name.”

  ♣

  “How is that even possible?” Molly asked, staring down at the picture they had taken off the wall when they got back to the museum. It was the one with Rebecca and all of her admirers.

  “Can’t you see the resemblance?”

  “Well, now that I look at it, yes, he does look like you but an older version.”

  “How the hell did he end up there?”

  “Are you sure it’s your dad?” she asked trying to sound supportive even though he was talking about crazy impossible stuff. “Maybe he is just some ancestor of your family’s.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you are right. Maybe he is just some ancestor of mine, but what if…” He shook his head, knowing how crazy he sounded. He scrubbed his hand over his face and then dropped it back down to his side. “Remember when I told you about the legend of Ravenhurst?”

  “The one that I said sounded more like a curse?”

  “Yeah. That’s the one.”

  “What does that have to do with all this?” She waved her hand over the picture.

  “My father took a walk one day and never came back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. He was an asshole.”

  “Okay, but I am still not following.”

  “I’m reaching, like really reaching, but what if he somehow traveled back in time…what if he….” He couldn’t get the words out.

  “Didn’t leave you and your brother on purpose?”

  “Yeah. What if?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He exhaled and raked his hand through his hair. “You think I’m out of my mind, don’t you?”

  “No. I just think you are trying to make sense of something that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “But if he did…do you think he killed her father?”

  Molly could see how upset he was. “I’m sure he didn’t,” she lied because she wasn’t sure what to think and telling someone she cared about that his father, or the person he thought was his father, was a murderer wasn’t something she would do, ever. Besides, it was a moot point anyway. It happened over a hundred years ago and it wasn’t like they would ever know for certain unless his missing father somehow came back. But that wasn’t possible…or was it?

  “Maybe if it was him, he will come back someday and tell us what happened,” he said as though he read her mind.

  “Yeah, maybe, someday…” But that was a story for another time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  “Wait?” Peggy said. “You mean to tell me that cockamamie story we were told, was actually true?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true. I swear.”

  Peggy’s voice was doubtful on the other end of the phone. “How much did you drink?”

  “A lot, but I swear it’s true. I even saw her ghost.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Peggy sounded doubtful. “But you don’t have the emeralds?”

  “Nope.” Molly smiled at Lucian across the room.

  “Let me see if I got this straight. You mean to tell me the supposed ghost took them back?”

  “I
t would seem so.”

  “Well, since I can’t see your face I will give you the benefit of the doubt, for now, but when I get back, I expect all the dirt. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “I better go or Marshall is going to end passing out from heat exhaustion in the hot tub before I get in.”

  Molly laughed. “Wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  Peggy grew quiet on the other end.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah. I just remembered something.”

  “What?”

  “Have you seen Dan?”

  “Not since the night of the wedding. Why?”

  “Because he is with Tracy now.”

  “Good for him, they deserve each other,” she said automatically.

  “Didn’t you say Dan told you she left?”

  “Yeah, that’s what he said. Why?”

  It took a moment for Peggy to answer. “Not sure but Wendy told me that Dan left with Tracy the following morning.”

  “How did that happen?” Molly asked, remembering that she had pushed Dan in the room adjoining hers. And knowing Dan, he passed out.

  “That is what’s weird,” Peggy said. “Marshall spoke to Dan and apparently Tracy was already in there taking a shower when you pushed Dan inside the room but once he saw her, well, you can imagine what happened.”

  “Eww.”

  “Yeah, eww is right.”

  “They deserve each other,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, they do,” Peggy agreed. “Any way, got to run. See you soon. Tell Lucian I said hi. Kisses.”

  “Yeah, I will. Kisses.” Molly hung up her phone.

  She set her phone on the table and walked to the bathroom door, leaning on the frame. “Peggy say’s hi.”

  “Did you tell her I said hi?” he asked as he checked the water temperature for the bath.

  “Yep. I sure did.”

  “Is she having fun?”

  “Yes. Very much.” Molly frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I was just wondering about something.”

  “What might that be?” His brow hitched up.