by Kery, Beth
“You mean . . . you mean you’re not going to tell Lady Anne or the police?”
“No, of course not,” he said softly, stroking her. He was becoming aroused, feeling her young, supple body plastered against him . . . seeing how vulnerable she was. “As long as you do whatever I say.”
She blinked, wariness freezing her expression. She started to back away, but he pulled her tighter against him, trapping her with his arms.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “What do I have to do?”
“If you don’t want to be arrested for stealing a valuable piece of jewelry from a guest at Belford Hall, then anything I say.”
“Like what?’ she asked, horror creeping in to her delicate features.
“Don’t look so alarmed,” he laughed. “Hardly nothing.” He made a mock-impatient sound when she continued to stare at him in rising fear. “All right, if you want some examples. I’m leaving Belford tonight, and I’d like it very much, if the occasion should ever arise,” he said kindly, loosening his hold on her by degrees when she didn’t attempt to flee. “If you said I was here with you all night, letting me fuck you just as you have been for the past week. That won’t be too difficult, will it? And well worth it, to cover what you did.”
“I never did anything!” she said, anger and helplessness straining her voice.
“Oh, but you did. Because I said you did. Who do you think people are going to be more likely to listen to, a maid with a history of theft, or the future Earl of Stratham?”
He pressed his thumb to her trembling lower lip and rubbed it. Her nostrils flared, but this time, she didn’t try to back away. She knew she was caught, he thought. He shifted his growing erection against her belly.
“And as far as other things you might have to do for me to assure my silence, it won’t involve anything you haven’t been doing for me already. It hardly seemed like a trial for you to see to my needs previously. Why should it matter if you have to continue to do so whenever I request it? Like now, for instance. I have a small amount of time before I have to leave—a quarter of an hour or so—and I’d like to spend it pleasantly. Wouldn’t you?” he asked, now palming both sides of her delicate face. Her trembling seemed to grow more violent. She refused to take part when he began to kiss her coaxingly, but he continued, undaunted.
He smiled against her lips when he felt a slight shudder go through her, and she began to participate.
Somehow, her kisses were even sweeter now than they had been from a willing mouth.
* * *
Francesca had debated how to tell James and Anne that she was leaving and had finally left a letter, apologizing profusely for her departure and explaining that it related to Ian, assuring them at the same time there was no cause for worry. She said she would return to finish her sketch as soon as she could. She felt guilty about hiring a ride and sneaking out so secretly, but was worried that Anne and James would try and talk her out of going. Ian had told his grandparents he wanted her to stay there, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to disguise her concern for Ian if she spoke to them face-to-face. In conclusion, she promised them to be in touch very soon, and begged them again not to worry.
While she was at the airport, she researched the location of Trevor Gaines’s home. She was able to find a local article about Gaines’s arrest years back that mentioned his address. With the address in hand, she flew into a small airport in northern France and rented a car from there.
Aurore Manor was an hour and a half drive from the airport. She didn’t reach the remote mansion until the sun was beginning to set. Even though Aurore and Belford Hall were both fine, aristocratic homes, the setting couldn’t have been more different, Francesca realized as she drove down an untended, crumbling road through unkempt, wild-looking woods. Her gaze was caught by an odd vision within the shadowed trees where the sunset light penetrated. What appeared to be half of large a man—the upper portion only, the waist of his figure at ground level—moved. Then the shadow lowered and vanished completely. Francesca blinked in shock, her hand jerking on the wheel and she nearly lost control of the rental car. She shivered, unnerved by the impossible sight, strange associations to ghosts and fairy folk and mythical forest people popping into her brain.
Half a man melting into the ground? What in the world had she seen?
That impossible vision added to the oppressive quality of her surroundings—not to mention the knowledge of who had once owned the property—and only mounted her unease on arriving.
The house itself reminded her of some kind of dark, giant bird of prey hovering against the brilliant sunset, a patiently waiting vulture. She felt a little weak with relief at the vision of the two very normal-looking, luxury sedans parked in the weed-infested circular drive before the house. She was starting to feel like the only living thing in a landscape of death and ghosts. Her eyes widened when she realized a tall man wearing a dark coat stood in the arched stone portico leading to the front door, his body eerily still. He moved into the evening light when she pulled her economy rental car behind the sleek silver one.
Ian.
She watched him in rising amazement as she put the car into park. He stalked toward her, his dark, unfastened overcoat billowing out behind his tall, honed body. He wore a pair of jeans that fit his long legs and lean hips to perfection, brown work boots, a simple white T-shirt, and an unbuttoned overshirt. His jaw was darkened by whiskers. She was poignantly reminded of the lonely, noble savage she’d painted on a desolate Chicago city street years ago. His blue eyes blazed as he pinned her with his stare through the front windshield. He did not look pleased to see her.
He also looked as if he’d been expecting her. How had he known she’d arrive?
He opened her car door.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded without preamble.
She recoiled slightly at his rough question, but her chin went up defiantly. “I came looking for you, of course. How did you know I’d be here?”
“Short,” he muttered, his mouth rigid. A cold breeze howled through the open door. She shivered, but Ian seemed unaffected.
“Arthur Short? James’s employee? But how—”
He reached for her elbow. “Come inside.”
“Let me get my bag,” she said when he drew her out of the car and slammed the door shut.
“Leave it. You’re not going to need it,” he bit out.
“Ian, I’m not leaving,” she said with conviction as he bustled her to the front entrance. He didn’t reply, but his thundercloud expression was answer enough as to what he thought of her plans.
He opened the door and urged her forward. Francesca stumbled across the threshold, pulling up short when she saw Lucien enter the large, cavernous foyer where they all stood. Unlike Ian, he appeared as well-groomed and calm as always. The door slammed shut behind her, making her jump. She glanced back at Ian and then over at Lucien.
“How could James’s business associate have told you I planned to come to France?” Francesca asked.
Lucien just raised his eyebrows in a wry expression and glanced at Ian.
“Because he’s not Grandfather’s business associate. He’s the security guard I hired to watch over you,” Ian said with barely subdued, blistering heat.
“Security guard? But I told you—”
“We said we’d discuss it,” Ian interrupted. “But we never got the chance before I had to leave, so—”
“You just took it upon yourself to do whatever you wanted without bothering to consult me.”
Ian scowled darkly. “It doesn’t matter. You left so abruptly, Short barely had time to follow you. It took him by surprise. He followed you to the airport in London—”
“He followed me?” Francesca asked, spinning around to face Ian, appalled at the idea of being spied upon without her knowledge.
“For as long as he could,” Ian said
bitterly.
“He tailed you into the airport and heard where you planned to go when you bought your ticket,” Lucien said from behind her. “He didn’t have his passport with him, though, so he couldn’t follow you. He wasn’t expecting to have to leave the country so quickly, given what Ian had told him,” Lucien explained when Francesca gave him a perplexed glance over her shoulder.
“Idiot,” Ian said succinctly, looking extremely annoyed. He narrowed his stare on her, watching her from beneath a lowered brow. “Who told you I was here?”
“Gerard,” she said.
His jaw stiffened. “Gerard? How did—”
“He said he overheard you two talking.”
His lip curled every so slightly in an expression of . . . what, she couldn’t quite say.
“Ian? What is it?”
“Nothing,” Ian replied through a tight mouth. “Francesca, I don’t want you here.”
She dropped her arms and straightened her spine. “I’m not leaving. Not unless you come with me.”
He looked mad enough to bite through a chain-link fence. She stood her ground, but something in his blue eyes made it difficult to do.
“You’re here now. Come inside. It’s freezing in this foyer,” Lucien added from behind her, and she knew he was trying to give Ian time to cool down and see reason. Ian made a savage, furious sound in his throat and stalked out of the foyer ahead of them without another word.
“I had to come,” she whispered to Lucien desperately. “It’s crazy, him being here of all places. Is it true Ian has bought this place?”
“He owns it, yes,” Lucien said succinctly, his tight mouth telling her he shared in her disquietude. “Are you going to come in? We were just sitting down to eat in the parlor. It’s one of the only livable rooms in the house . . . one of the only warm ones as well,” he added drolly.
“When did you get here?” she asked Lucien as they walked.
“Late last night, at around the same time as Ian.”
She followed him into a firelit, shadowed room filled with heavy, ornate furniture covered in dingy, once-luxurious fabrics. An unpleasant odor of dampness and mold seemed to pervade the entire place. Ian sat on a deep couch facing the gigantic fireplace, eating a plate of food mechanically without acknowledging her arrival in the room.
“Are you hungry, Francesca?” Lucien asked politely. “It’s just chicken, potatoes, and fruit, but we’ve got plenty of it.”
“Yes, please,” Francesca replied, realizing for the first time how hollow her stomach felt. She hadn’t eaten all day. When Ian still refused to speak or look at her after Lucien left the room, she sighed and fell onto the couch next to him. The heat from the fire felt good. A wave of exhaustion hit her.
“Are you just going to ignore me?” she asked tiredly after a moment.
His whiskered jaw hardened. He swallowed and shoved his plate onto the coffee table before him. “How can I possibly ignore you when you’ve shown up here uninvited?” he said, anger simmering in his deep voice. “I don’t want you staying here, Francesca. This place is . . . tainted. Poison. I don’t believe in ghosts, but if I were ever to think a place was haunted, I’d think it was Aurore. It’s not a place where I want you to be.”
“Well it’s not a place where I want you to be, either. Come with me, and we’ll both be happy.” Her flash of indignation faded almost as fast as it came. She peered around the shadowed room, making out the dark, depressing paintings of pale-skinned, hollow-eyed people and the massive, hulking furniture, some of which was covered in stained sheets. She could almost feel the dust and mold accumulating in her lungs as she breathed. “What an awful place.”
Ian’s irritated grunt seemed to say, Didn’t I tell you? He leaned back on the couch, his profile rigid. Francesca wanted to demand that he tell her what specifically he was looking for on Trevor Gaines’s property, but was worried he’d get up and refuse to speak to her further. Knowing him as well as she did, she understood that the majority of his anger at her presence came from helplessness. And perhaps shame at her seeing this dark part of his past.
As she was quickly learning, his shame wasn’t logical. But that didn’t mean he could shake it just because she wanted it.
Eager to change the topic that would sidestep his discomfort and fury, she landed on the disconcerting vision she’d seen as she drove onto the property.
“I can well believe you’d imagine this place is haunted. You won’t believe what I saw just now in the woods,” she said as Lucien walked into the room carrying a plate of food and a glass. “Thank you,” she said gratefully as Lucien placed her dinner in front of her on the table.
“What?” Ian asked, turning toward her slightly, his brows knitted together.
“Half a man disappearing into the ground,” Francesca replied matter-of-factly, picking up her plate and settling it in her lap. She took a bite. The chicken was moist and flavorful. “This is good. Did you get it in town?”
“Forget about the food,” Ian said impatiently, peering at her. “What do you mean, half a man?” Lucien, too, was listening intently from where he sat in an armchair near the couch.
She paused to explain what she’d seen. When she finished, Ian shared a significant look with Lucien.
“It’s him. Kam Reardon,” Ian said to Lucien. “He must have some kind of hideout underground. It’s what I suspected. I’m convinced there’s a tunnel entrance into this house. He gets in, but I can’t figure out how. If he’s underground, that’s why I haven’t been able to find him when I search the grounds.”
“Who’s Kam Reardon?” Francesca asked. She quirked her eyebrows up in an expectant gesture when neither man spoke. “Well?”
“He’s a wild man who lives on the estate,” Ian answered flatly.
“He’s our half brother,” Lucien added.
Francesca froze in the process of chewing some potato. Ian stood abruptly, startling her. He was such a big man, but he moved with fast, razor precision at times. “I’m going to look for the underground entrance. I’m dead set to talk to Reardon. He’s got to know plenty about Gaines, if he lived here his whole life. There’s still a little light left to search,” he told Lucien.
Lucien stood as well. “I’m coming with you. Reardon doesn’t sound like the type to be too thrilled at the idea of anyone poking into his den.”
Francesca set down her plate and got up. “I’m going, too.” She ignored Ian’s fiery, furious glance. “I’m the one who saw where the entrance was,” she said. “It’ll be tomorrow morning if you go looking for it by stomping up and down every square inch of land at the side of the road.”
She headed toward the front door, praying Ian would cooperate for once in his life and follow her.
Chapter Fifteen
It took a little doing to find the spot. Darkness was falling, especially under the cover of the trees, even as skeletal as the limbs were with winter upon them. Thankfully, Ian had grabbed a powerful flashlight on the way out. Francesca led them to the general vicinity of where she thought she’d seen the “half man,” recalling a singularly shaped stump of a tree that she’d almost run into in her shock upon seeing the unlikely vision.
There was barely any light left by the time Ian paused, pushing his foot down several times on the ground. Francesca heard a hollow, thumping noise.
“This is it,” Ian said, his gruff voice in the cold, still air causing a shiver to course down her spine. She and Lucien drew near the flashlight and Ian’s shadowed form. He knelt and moved his hand over the dead leaves, his gloved fingers seeming to stick on something.
“Back up a bit,” he instructed. Lucien and she stepped back, and he lifted. The forest floor opened like a two-by-three-foot lid. Ian pointed the flashlight downward, revealing a dark hole and a wooden ladder. Francesca could barely make out his shadowed face as he peered downward, but she saw that he was
scowling. He flashed a glance at her, and she knew he was deliberating on how best to proceed . . . undoubtedly wishing she wasn’t there so he didn’t have to worry about her.
“I’ll go first, and call up to you if I think the coast is clear,” he told Lucien.
“We’re going with you, Ian. We’re not going to stand up here in the freezing cold with no light,” Francesca stated.
Ian gave her a repressive glance. Without another word, he shoved the flashlight in Lucien’s direction and lowered into the hole.
* * *
“Holy Jesus,” Lucien muttered in awe several minutes later. The three of them stood at the mouth of a large underground chamber that was lit by electrical lamps. The room had been at the end of a long tunnel, the floor earthen, the walls reinforced by wooden timbers. After only several seconds of being underground, they’d been able to see the light in the far distance and follow it unerringly.
“What is it all?” Francesca muttered dubiously, staring at table after table filled with odd, intricate mechanical devices, computers, and scattered tools. Many of the devices were moving, tiny metal cogs spinning, pendulums swinging. The sound of dozens of muted ticking noises resounded in the silence. Some of the mechanisms were large, but one table near them held tiny metal objects and delicate tools along with an electrical magnifying-type lens that reminded Francesca of something she’d seen in an eye doctor’s office.
“They’re all clockwork mechanisms, aren’t they?” Lucien asked, approaching one of the tables and examining its contents in fascination.
“Different types of escapements,” Ian said. Francesca looked at him in bewilderment. “The basic mechanism of a clock or watch. There are different kinds,” Ian said, peering around the room. “Gaines was considered to be a mechanical genius. He patented several electronic and mechanical devices, many of them associated with clockworks. Reardon has stolen a lot of this from Gaines’s workshop, I think. But I don’t understand some of these things. It’s like something I’ve never seen before—”