by Shirl Anders
***
Adam closed the door on the doctor's carriage and stepped back. The driver up top set the conveyance into motion and Adam turned back to his step uncle's mansion.
"She's going to be all right," he muttered to himself, still feeling bone-deep relief. Yet he walked to the door in conflict. The doctor had said not to bother Beth until morning, but he worried about leaving her alone … at night. So vulnerable. At the same time, he wanted to tell the authorities about the woman in the woods and he was uncommonly nervous about Lady Ariel and what she might be doing.
Beth won, of course. He couldn't leave her where Fanton might soon be lurking, so he retrieved a wingback chair from the front parlor. He carried it to her door, set it down, settling in for the remainder of the night. Once the quietness soothed his body into relaxing, his mind wouldn't forget the evenings perplexing questions.
"Who is Christian Blacknall?" he muttered. "What is he?" Whatever they were, and Adam knew the Blacknalls were not human men, they seemed to have a code of morality about them. "Men who many times look like men but are not men?"
He tugged a hand through his hair, shrugging in the chair, remembering the last sight he had of Christian Blacknall. The man's handsome face had looked fiercely primal. Adam knew he would sound insane trying to tell anyone about the things he'd seen that night. Something, however, inside him wanted to keep Christian Blacknall's secret. All the Blacknalls had helped them. They'd saved Beth. He wondered what she'd seen, and what she'd think once she had calmer thoughts.
It appeared to him Lord Trinity had intimately saved Beth's life. From what? What kind of man could rip apart a human body like the one he'd seen? Yet now he knew there were other than men that walked the earth. He worried his fingers over his temple as his thoughts just made more confusion and less answers.
"What leaves you sitting in a chair in the hall, stepbrother?"
Adam's body jerked from being startled at the sudden voice. His gaze leaped upward to see Fanton wearing pristine eveningwear, standing two feet in front of him. Bloody hell, how did Fanton get so close to him without him hearing?
"Fanton," Adam expelled, quickly standing as he watched Fanton look as though he were barely sniffing the air, while his gaze latched onto the door behind Adam's back.
"Who is in there?" Fanton's eyes gleamed toward the closed door.
"Where have you been, Fanton?" Adam demanded, angrily.
It seemed hard for Fanton to turn his interest away from the door. "At a whorehouse, if you must know," he answered. His voice was a lazy drawl as his black eyes slowly turned to Adam. "After Lady Ariel couldn't tear her thoughts away from you or Beth, I became bored and left." Fanton seemed a little taller or broader … he definitely appeared to have more glossy perfection about him, as he added snidely, "I tell you, that is why I never attend society events. They are so trite and wearisome."
Adam frowned, barely able to keep from grinding his teeth. "Were you in the garden tonight, Fanton? At the ball?"
Fanton's gaze instantly sharpened. "No, stepbrother, I cannot think of one reason I would be in the gardens."
An outright lie, Adam thought, because Lady Ariel placed him there at least for a few moments. Why would Fanton lie if he were not hiding something? Adam decided he didn't want Fanton to know the full of what had happened that evening, so he held back.
"Beth's turned her ankle," he said watching Fanton's reaction, which oddly turned into a smug look. "The doctor's been around and she will be fine with some rest."
"And you've just decided she needs a guard outside her resting place … in her own home?" After slinging his barb, Fanton adjusted his tailored evening jacket.
Bastard. Adam knew Fanton was toying with him and they both knew it, but neither would reveal themselves to say it. "It should be obvious I'm here to help her should she need assistance in the night."
Fanton frowned with a gleam growing in his eyes. "You are always such a dutiful brother to little Beth."
"At least I would never leave her unattended to an event I'd escorted her to," Adam replied tersely.
Fanton stepped closer with a new fierce look on his features, and Adam nearly stepped back with the power he could feel emanating from him. "Be careful, Adam. It's not wise to provoke me."
Adam tensed his posture, attempting glare for glare. "What's happened to you?" he demanded. "You're not the same ever since our parents died."
"Killed themselves, you mean." Fanton spat the heresy as though he enjoyed the thought and didn't care his father had died.
"I'll still never believe that," Adam responded hotly.
"You can't believe your mother would do such a thing? Stab him in the neck," Fanton gloated with a hiss. "I'm fucking glad he lived long enough to stab her back," he spat.
"No!" Adam shouted, and his anger raised his fist toward Fanton's sneering face. "He killed her!"
Adam thought he was going to have the rash opportunity to smash Fanton's face as his fist swung toward it, but suddenly Fanton's hand was there. Fanton snatched his swinging fist, stopping the force of his punch as easily as if he were holding a small child back.
Impossible, Adam thought, as he groaned at the crushing pressure Fanton squeezed over his clenched fist. Fanton pushed with unbelievable strength and a sneer of white teeth. Adam was forced backward, disbelieving the power as he toppled against the chair, pushing it to the side, then his back hit the door with a thud.
"Fanton," Adam gasped at the pain and immense pressure that seemed to build around him. He saw Fanton's eyes with flashing red centers as Fanton growled an animalistic sound. Adam knew Fanton was set to kill him as his littlest finger snapped beneath the crushing pressure of Fanton's hand. Adam bellowed in pain, fighting not to let Fanton push him to the ground.
Abruptly, through the haze of pain clenching his eyes, he saw a beam of sunlight fall across the side of Fanton's face. It was dawn and the light was streaming in from the hall window. He was going to die at dawn!
Suddenly, Fanton shouted a horrendous groan and stumbled back, releasing him. Adam clutched his hand as he bent at the waist in pain, but still looking up at Fanton in horror.
"What are you?" Adam shouted fiercely over his pain.
Fanton was glaring at the ray of sunlight across their path as though it were a vile thing. Then he turned his body, gathering his cloak around himself, and stalked away.
Chapter Ten