by Faye Hall
Only now there was one major difference—Duncan was not as naive as he once was. He knew what his family would ask of him, and he knew if he were not careful he would fall from grace straight after the rest of his family when the police were finally called in.
This was something he couldn’t allow to happen, not now that Phoebe was involved.
This was why he had hired David Pola and his men. They were hired criminals, smart enough to know how to do the crimes he would ask of him and not get caught. They were being paid more than enough to cover their tracks well, allowing the blame to fall only on his father and Gordon.
Travelling into town early the next morning, Duncan knew that after this moment there would be no turning back. It was for his love of Phoebe that he would do this...and this would be his only reason.
Dismounting from his horse, he threw the reins to the sleepy stable hand and walked hesitantly up the long driveway. Letting out a deep sigh, he carefully knocked on the door to his parents’ house and waited.
Chapter Twelve
Following the butler to his father’s study, Duncan couldn’t help but look around at his surroundings and take notice of how little things had changed in his years away from The Lester Company and from his family.
The stone house was grander than most in the area, the gardens grand and extravagant, an obvious show off of his family’s excessive wealth. The servants were as always quite, not daring to speak for fear of speaking out of turn and suffering any number of punishment, the least of which would be their dismissal.
Stopping at the study door, Duncan dismissed the butler. This was an encounter he didn’t want an audience to.
Holding his breath he knocked loudly, waiting for his father to bid him enter.
Walking into the study after having been bid enter, Duncan instantly noticed the coldness around him. As a child he always feared any encounter he needed to have with his father, especially if it was to partake in this study. Usually if he was called up here then he knew he would leave having felt the sting from the back of the old man’s hand.
Steadily approaching the desk, Duncan looked at the aging figure of his father and he knew he should feel guilty about the deal he had made with the police. Still remembering all he had been made to suffer at the hands of this old man, and all the pain he had been ordered to inflict on the unsuspecting people of the town, he found himself failing to feel much remorse.
“Hello, Father,” he said stopping in front of the solid oak desk.
His father removed his glasses, and throwing them on the desk rose from his chair. As if unbelieving of what he was seeing, the white haired man walked slowly around the desk and toward his son.
“What the hell are you doing here, Duncan?” Charles MacAllester asked, stopping inches away from his son. “Last I seen of you, you were damning me to every hell there was.”
He tried to hold his nerves at bay, knowing he had to play the regretful son, and not the vengeful man he had become.
“I want to come back to the family, Father,” he begged the old man. “I want to come back to the family business.”
Charles laughed loudly. “You cocky little son of a bitch. You honestly think you can just walk in here and slot back into the position you left? Back into my company?”
He shook his head. “I expect nothing, Father. All I ask is for a chance to prove myself to you again...to prove my loyalty to the family.”
The old man studied his son as if looking for a lie. “You think I’m foolish enough to think you came back here out of loyalty, Duncan?”
He raised his eyes to his father’s, his gaze holding strong.
“I miss the life you gave to me, Father,” he finally confessed. “I miss the money...I miss the women…”
Duncan bowed his head in shame. “You were right when you told me I couldn’t live without the help of the family business.”
Charles stepped slowly behind his son. “You want your old position back in the company then I presume? You want to be back calling the shots...back in power?”
He nodded.
“But your brother, Gordon, took up the position you so carelessly threw back in my face, Duncan. He has been loyal to me in more ways than one, without question and without opposition. Surely you can’t expect me to now push him aside all because you have finally come to your senses?”
He looked straight ahead, not daring to look at his father in case he was caught out in his lie.
“Gordon doesn’t have the smarts for the position, you know that, Father. He will run the company into the ground.”
Charles walked behind his son, coming to a stop beside him. “Your brother has proved his loyalty, Duncan. That means more to me than his so-called smarts.”
He nodded.
“I am not saying he is not an asset to the company,” Duncan continued. “My brother is a good hitman, Father. One of the best in fact. But I wonder if his cruelty is drawing more attention to the company than is really welcomed. Workers have been turning up dead near the river, their bones broken...workers that are openly known to Gordon. The profits are half of what they were when I was the chief executive, and my brother’s gambling debts are running out of hand. Is the company going to dig him out of financial ruin again, Father? Or are you just going to wait for his brutish behaviours to finally allow the police just what they need to shut the company down for good?”
Charles returned to his seat, eying his son carefully.
“Brave words from a deserter,” his father mumbled, his eyes scanning over the papers in front of him. Hesitantly he pushed a piece of paper toward his son.
“Your brother sent us word a few weeks ago from Ravenswood. He said he had tracked you there. He claimed that you were with some woman. How do I know this isn’t just some trick?”
“You don’t, father,” Duncan said. “I was in Ravenswood with a woman. She was a bounty I was being paid to retrieve. Nothing more.”
“A bounty?” his father asked. “Why were you fetching bounties?”
“I needed the money to pay off some debt collectors,” he explained.
“Who is she?” Charles finally asked. “This woman you were sent to retrieve.”
“She was Gordon’s fiancée, now his wife, Phoebe Porter.” Duncan answered him. “She claims he planned to kill her to gain some fortune she inherited.”
“A death that close to the family would allow the police to make an enquiry into the family business,” the old man mumbled to himself.
“As I said, Father,” he interrupted. “Are you sure a man with Gordon’s temper and greed is the right person to be running your company?”
Just then there was a knock on the study door.
Upon his father telling them to enter, Duncan turned around to see his brother Gordon walking in.
“What the hell are you doing here, Duncan?” Gordon roared, storming toward his father. “Father, you can’t honestly be considering welcoming this bastard back home?”
Charles leant back in his chair, his eyes darting between the two grown men before him. Slowly he nodded. “Yes, Gordon, I am.”
“Father—”
The old man held up his hand. “You would be smart to remember your place, Gordon!” Then he turned to Duncan. “You prove what you just told me, Duncan, and you can come back to the company.”
“But Father—”
“Enough!” Charles yelled, cutting off Gordon. “Now get out, both of you!”
The brothers were at the door when Charles called Duncan back.
“Duncan, there is one other thing.” his father continued. “Before you left, a marriage was arranged for you. That marriage still stands if you return to the family.”
He nodded. “Of course, Father.”
Turning back away from their father, the two brothers left the study.
* * * * *
No sooner had the study door shut behind them when Gordon’s hand went around Duncan’s mouth, his other hand holding his broth
er’s arm behind his back painfully. Struggling with him, he forced him down the hall and into the basement.
“Why are you back?” Gordon asked, sitting Duncan on a chair and binding his wrists.
Removing his hand from his mouth, Gordon glared at his brother and Duncan could see him struggling to control his anger.
Duncan held strong against him, showing no signs of weakness or surrender.
“I realised you were right, brother.” Duncan answered him. “I couldn’t leave this life behind, nor the privileges it allowed me.”
Gordon studied him, looking for a lie.
“Did you come back for her?” Gordon asked him. “Is she the reason you are here playing the regrettable deserting offspring?”
“What are you babbling about, brother?” he asked feigning ignorance. “Come back for whom?”
“You know who!” Gordon’s anger was starting to grow, and reaching out to his brother, he struck Duncan hard across the cheek. “Did you think to come back to take up your place in Phoebe’s bed?”
He shook his head. “You are welcomed to her, brother. After all, Phoebe is your wife now from what I hear.”
Reaching for the small dagger in his belt, Gordon cut a line through Duncan’s shirt and into his chest, blood spilling over and staining the cotton material. He knew his brother wanted to hear him cry out in pain. He studied Gordon as he watched...waited...to hear him cry out in pain, to beg for him to stop his torture and have mercy on him.
He stayed silent though, not giving into his brother’s desire, barely flinching as the blade cut into his skin.
“Did you have her?” Gordon asked close to his ear, the dagger still threatening, this time at his throat. “Did you fuck her, Duncan?”
When he didn’t answer, his brother sliced his chest yet again, deeper this time.
“Did you?” his brother demanded, his anger bubbling over at Duncan’s minimal reactions.
“No!” he finally yelled. “I swear I never touched her, Gordon!”
Gordon struck him across the face again, blood spilling from his lip.
“Phoebe said you slept with her...that you gave her a child.”
Duncan still seemed nonreactive, though blood now freely trickled down his chest. “She offered herself to me as payment for not returning her to you. I refused.”
“That isn’t like you, brother. In years gone by you would have debauched her without a second thought.” Gordon’s gaze again narrowed, his fist raised, ready to strike again. “Why would you refuse such a willing attractive woman?”
“We are brothers, after all,” was his only reply.
With that, Gordon’s clenched fist lowered, and walking behind him, he used the bloody blade of the dagger to cut the ropes loose from his wrists.
“You would do well to remember that too,” Gordon demanded as he turned and left the basements.
* * * * *
Duncan walked into his station house, his bloodied chest throbbing, his bruised face aching.
“You look like hell,” David exclaimed from his seat near the fireplace, a cigar in his mouth.
Duncan glanced at him as he carefully removed his shirt, needing to clean his wounds. “Seems my brother doesn’t approve of me returning to the family business.”
“If your brother keeps to his current business practices, there will be no family business left to speak of, Duncan,” David replied.
“Explain?” he asked, wetting a cloth and washing the drying blood from his chest, wincing slightly at the stinging pain.
“Because of Gordon’s unsavoury business practices, there are many in this town moving their business, legitimate or otherwise, away from The Lester Company. As a result, the company is desperate to make business deals of any kind just to stay afloat.”
“What of my brother’s debts?” he asked. “Have they been called in yet?”
David nodded. “They have, but Duncan are you aware of whom these families are your brother owes money too? Some of the families are far wealthier than your own once was. The Barrys...the Conners...the Michelins...Gordon must have been a fool or just desperate to ever call upon these families for money. They have killed men for far less than a debt of money.”
He slung the blood stained cloth over his shoulder. “Gordon’s demise is the least of my concerns. If these families kill him then it will save me doing the task myself.”
David stood from his seat, walking over and pouring himself another drink.
“I thought you said you no longer had it in you to kill a man, Duncan?” he asked. “After all, isn’t that why you hired me?”
He nodded. “You are right, David, I don’t, but my brother is not so much a man as a monster.”
When Duncan went to walk past him and out of the room, David called him back.
“What do you require of me tomorrow, Duncan?”
Duncan stopped, turning to face him. “Tomorrow you come with me to meet my father. You are to act as a smuggler and request my father to transport several dead bodies, losing them in the seas back to England. There is also to be goods that need transporting, expensive goods that would be worth thousands on the black markets back in England.”
“Will your father not think such a proposition suspicious?” David asked. “After all, you’ve only just approached him about your return to the business.”
Duncan shook his head. “I told him I would do whatever it takes to see myself cemented back into the company. He will see this as me keeping my word and nothing more.”
“And my men?” David asked. “Are they to stay here at the station and help your aboriginal friends?”
Duncan stalled. “Send one of your men to Phoebe’s parents. Have them sign a confession that Gordon was willing to kill his wife in order to obtain Inkerman Downs Station.”
“And if they don’t agree to sign?” David asked.
“Tell them my father will be visiting them next to collect the debt they owe in full. They will sign it.”
* * * * *
Phoebe stood looking at her reflection in the silver lined full length mirror, admiring the beauty of her gown. It was one of the latest fashions; the skirt very thin, with no train, Pannier drapes covering where her already curvaceous hips filled out the silken fabric. Her bodice showed more vertical lines, extending down in a V shape near her hips. The V-neck of the gown settled subtly against her ample cleavage, the lace trim enticing any man into knowing what may lie beneath. Her bruises had faded enough, and with some help from some carefully applied makeup, she was able to also wear a sleeveless gown, the small straps settling just off her shoulder.
There was little doubt that she would indeed be the belle of the dinner party tonight at her in-laws, but remembering why they were in fact going made her heart sink in her chest. Phoebe didn’t want to be going tonight, not with Gordon and certainly not to see Duncan. She had heard talk around the town already of his new lady love, and his new, growing business associations that were helping him to quickly climb the ranks of his father shipping company.
She knew that by going to dinner tonight, she would have to play the dutiful wife of Gordon, something she was well aware she wasn’t. She would also be expected to smile and greet Duncan and his fiancée, acting as if she were little more than a casual acquaintance to him.
This too was something she was well aware she wasn’t.
Not a day had passed her by when she didn’t ache to have Duncan back by her side again, to be held in his arms again, his hands stripping the fabric from her flesh, his lips caressing her, and milking her passion from her.
“Are you ready, Phoebe?” Gordon asked, stopping at the door to her room, completely oblivious that he was intruding upon her lustful musings.
She didn’t turn to look at him, only continued staring at her reflection. “Can I stay home tonight, Gordon...please? I feel unwell.”
She wasn’t lying. The thought of going to see Duncan again, only now with another woman draped on his arm made her
gut crawl. The idea of another woman being allowed into his bed, to experience the passion he had once filled her with, and to now have this reality shoved beneath her nose was something Phoebe doubted she could stomach for an entire evening. Suddenly she felt firm hands gripping her upper arms and she flinched as she was dragged from her thoughts.
“Gordon, let me go...please,” she begged, her words laced with pain.
He only squeezed her arms harder, not seeming to care about the bruises he had already inflicted that were now hidden under the fabric of the bodice.
“I told Father we would both be there tonight and we will be, Phoebe. I am the chief executive of his company and I have an image to uphold, an image that at least for now you are required to play a part in.”
Letting go of her, Gordon threw her against her dressing table. “Now get yourself ready. I’ll be waiting for you in the carriage. You have five minutes, Phoebe.”
Waiting until he left her room, she straightened her crumpled form, clenching her eyes tightly shut hoping to hold her tears at bay. Looking in the mirror, she reached for a handkerchief and dabbed at her makeup correcting what her husband had done. Carefully she straightened her gown, making sure there were no signs there had been an encounter. She didn’t want to go tonight, fearing what she would have to see, but she feared more what would befall her should she disobey Gordon. He didn’t need any more excuses to beat her, and she’d be damned if she’d give him a reason.
Walking as steadily as she could from her room, Phoebe walked out to the waiting carriage and to her husband within, her heart aching at what she was sure she would have to witness this evening.
Chapter Thirteen
As the carriage pulled up in front of his parents’ house, Gordon reached for Phoebe, his fingers tight on her wrist, holding her to her seat.
“You will smile, my dear, or you will see far worse than just the back of my hand!”
She pulled free of his hold, and went to step out of the carriage, but Gordon stopped her.