She might not have known who had brought her here in the first place, but she knew who was behind it, and all her fear and doubts about her cousin had coalesced into an unthinking terror. Miriam was going to exact her stern punishment. And if the punishment for daydreaming had been harsh, the punishment for fornication and murder would be a great deal worse.
She moved more slowly this time, trying to keep her stomach from revolting, her head from spinning off her shoulders. Carefully she rose to her knees, peering through the darkness around her. She knew where she was. It had to be one of the empty bedrooms on the third floor, made for servants, but Miriam allowed no servants to stay, not even the faithful Gertie. Emma staggered to her feet, moving toward the door. To her astonishment it opened beneath her hand, and she stepped out into the deserted hallway, her heart pounding so loudly she thought surely Miriam could hear it.
She edged toward the stairs, going by instinct rather than by sight. The darkness was eerie, threatening. There were no lights in the house at all—it was as still and quiet as death.
Emma slipped off her shoes. Over the years she had learned to move silently through this house, and she needed that silence now more than ever. She descended the narrow flights of stairs and stopped at the bottom, suddenly afraid. There was death in the air, death and disaster, and she wanted to turn and run, as far and as fast as she could. She knew this house well, better even than Cousin Miriam did. She could find a place to hide until the light that filtered into the old house grew marginally brighter. She had no idea what time of day it was—early evening, midnight, or close to dawn. She wasn’t even certain which day it was, or how long she had lain in that upstairs bedroom in a drugged stupor.
She only knew that sooner or later it would have to grow lighter. If she just found a place to hide, she’d be safe. She needed time to get her bearings, to get her stomach back in reasonable shape.
The door to Miriam’s sitting room was open, and the hallway was cold and dark. She could just picture her cousin sitting there, dark and -malevolent, waiting for her, as she had over the years. Ready to force her to her knees, to confess sins that never existed.
Emma had lived through that too many times. She wouldn’t do it again. Not when her sins were real now, and not regretted. She wasn’t going anywhere near that room. She turned, ready to run, and heard a faint, piteous moan.
She wasn’t a coward. She walked forward, into the darkened interior on silent, unerring feet, her eyes growing accustomed to the faint light. A fire spread a specious warmth through the room, illuminating the huddled shape of a woman lying on the floor.
“Gertie!” Emma cried, forgetting her caution and rushing to the woman’s side. She lay in a pool of blood. She was alive, and conscious, but just barely, and her eyes were glazed with pain. Her clothes were torn, her skirts rucked up around her sturdy legs, and Emma stared down at her in horror, at the swollen, distorted mouth and bruised face.
Gertie whispered something, but Emma couldn’t understand her. She sank to her knees beside the woman, grasping her cold hand, and leaned closer. “Who did this, Gertie? Who hurt you? Where is Cousin Miriam?”
Gertie’s mouth struggled to shape a word. “Run,” she finally managed to whisper. “Get out of here, miss. Before they hurt...”
A light blazed in the room as someone struck a tinder, and Gertie sank into silence, perhaps an eternal one. Her insides like ice, Emma looked up toward the light.
She hadn’t seen her cousin Miriam in more than two months. In that time she’d almost forgotten the woman’s power. She sat in a straight-backed chair, her stern, colorless face composed in lines of judgment and hatred, and her drab clothes covered a body that was thin and strong and hurtful. She folded her hands in her lap, and Emma could see blood on them.
“Miriam,” she whispered, trying to quell the sudden onrush of fear.
“So kind of you to return to your home,” Miriam said in a cool, monotonous voice. “I wondered if you would ever be willing to face your judgment.”
Judgment, Emma thought with renewed horror. She knew all too well what Miriam’s judgment could constitute. “What have you done to Gertie?”
“She’s sinned,” Miriam said calmly. “She needed to be punished. Fornication is a crime, and she is ungodly. She sought wicked congress, and has paid the price.”
“What are you talking about? Gertie is as good and kind a woman as ever lived!”
“She was going to interfere. She told me I was mad. That she wouldn’t stand by and let me hurt you. As if I’d hurt you,” Miriam said with a faint sniff, her pale eyes alight with a fevered glint. “She confused justice with cruelty. I had no choice. She needed to be punished. As do you. We intend to see to it, you know. It’s for the best—a pure death is far preferable to a life of sin. It won’t be easy, though. Pain and suffering are needed to wash your soul clean.”
Emma sat back on her heels, fighting down the panic. Gertie lay still, her breathing shallow and labored. “There’s no need to kill me, Miriam. I left. I’ve given up all claim to the money. You can have it all—I don’t want it. You can just forget about me.”
“I can’t do that,” Miriam said. “Nor do I want to. He wants to keep you alive. He wants to make sport of you as he did with that slut there, but I shan’t let him. You’d take pleasure from it, I know your wicked soul. He shan’t have you. No one will.”
“Who, Miriam? Who shan’t have me?”
“I believe she must be referring to me.”
The drawling lisp came from directly over her head, and Emma froze. She had almost forgotten the man’s existence. She turned and looked up into the puce-clothed dandy’s glittering eyes, and she knew who had brought her back to this place.
“Lord Darnley,” she whispered.
“None other,” he said, stepping over Gertie’s body without a glance. “Your cousin and I have been unlikely confederates. I do believe that that connection has now served its usefulness.” He glanced at Miriam’s stony face. “I don’t want her dead,” he said pleasantly. “At least not until I’ve had my fill of her.”
“She needs to be punished.”
“Oh, I’ll see to that. You may even watch if you so desire. You liked watching me with that old woman, I know you did. I could hear you panting in the background.”
“No,” Miriam said furiously. “I’ll kill her first. After that you may take whatever pleasure is left from her.”
“An interesting notion. You are a creative witch, aren’t you? But I want her first. Alive and kicking. Struggling. If you like, you can hold her down for me. You can pray for her soul while I do her.”
“Ungodly!” Miriam shrieked, leaping up from her chair and hurling herself upon Darnley. He struck out at her, and the two of them went down, amidst a thrashing, grunting struggle, horrifying amid the dancing shadows of the darkened room.
Emma didn’t hesitate. She ran from the room, from the smell of hate and violence, blindly unsure of where she was going, only knowing that she was running from certain death.
She hurtled against something large, something solid, something that hadn’t stood in her way before, and she screamed, a short, shrill sound cut off abruptly by the hand clamped over her mouth. She fought the imprisoning arms, fought wildly, until a voice she thought never to hear again hissed in her ear.
“Keep still, you idiot. Do you want to bring them down on us?”
She stopped fighting. She stopped thinking, going limp in his arms in shock and relief. Killoran had come for her. Killoran would save her from those two ghouls.
“How did you find me?” she babbled. “How did you get here? They’ve killed Gertie, I know, and they’re trying...”
He shook her, hard enough that her teeth rattled and her head snapped back, hard enough to shake the hysteria out of her. “Be quiet,” he said, his hands strong on her arms.
“You aren’t taking me to them, are you? You won’t let them hurt me?”
“Damn it, Emma!”
r />
“You said you were going to give me to Darnley. He’ll kill me. He’s already killed Gertie, and Miriam will watch and I don’t—”
“For God’s sake,” he hissed, dragging her up against him. “I won’t give you to Darnley. I’ll kill him for you—would you like that?”
She thought of Gertie’s body, lying in blood. She thought of those mad blue eyes and the vicious mouth. “Yes,” she said, shocked at herself. And then: “No. I want to get away from here. Take me away from here, Killoran. Please.”
“Sorry, darling, but I’m afraid I can’t go with you. I have some unfinished business.”
“Killoran, no!”
She heard him coming. The glow of candle-light, like a golden specter, signaled his approach, and she pulled at Killoran. But he was immovable, and there was a light in his eyes, a curious, deadly delight about him.
Darnley stood in the doorway. There was blood on his hands, on his clothes, and at one side of his mouth. “There you are,” he said pleasantly, macabre. “It took you long enough to get here, Killoran. I was afraid you were going to ignore my summons. I should have known the combination of your red-haired doxy and me would be enough to stir you.” He glanced at Emma dismissingly. “I regret to inform you, my dear young lady, that your cousin is no longer with us. She was quite mad, you know. Tiresomely so. Religious fanatics are the worst. They’re so damned certain they’ve been anointed by God to wreak vengeance.” His smile was ghastly in the wavering candlelight. “She was most unwilling to let me be the avenger.” He glanced at Killoran, almost casually. “Are you going to shoot me, old boy? Not much sport in that, is there?”
“I find I’m no longer interested in sport,” Killoran murmured. “However, I’m more than happy to indulge you. I’m more than a match for you no matter what the weapon. How would you like to die?”
“Bastard,” Darnley snarled, suddenly dangerous. “You killed my sister. Did you know that, girl? He seduced and then abandoned my darling Maude, and she took her own life out of despair.”
“You’re mad,” Killoran said abruptly. “I never lay with her.”
“She told me,” Darnley said. “I made her tell me. All the details, everything. And then I made certain that she would never let another man touch her again...”
“You raped her, got her pregnant, and then drove her to suicide” Killoran said in a deadly voice. “She haunts you, just as she does me.”
“If you aren’t responsible, why does she haunt you?”
“Any number of reasons. Because I didn’t care enough about her to help her when she came to me. I turned her away. She wouldn’t name her seducer, and I didn’t believe that it hadn’t been her choice.”
“She wanted me,” Darnley cried.
“She hated you.”
“Damn you!” Darnley lifted his hand. The pistol exploded. He must have missed, for a moment later he leapt toward them. But instead of Killoran he caught Emma, falling to the floor with her and rolling, as she fought, until they ended up entwined in a ghastly embrace, Darnley’s knife at her throat, his foul breath choking her.
“Let her go, Jasper.” Killoran’s voice was soft, beguiling, more Irish than she had ever heard it. “You don’t want to hurt her. What good would she be to you if she were dead?”
“Oh, she’d be most useful.” Darnley giggled. “You’d mind, you see. You’d mind more than if I killed you. I’m going to cut her throat and have her bleed to death right in front of you, and there won’t be a thing you can do. I’ll do it slowly so you won’t be certain that it’s fatal, but you won’t dare move, because you know that then I will slash, so deep that I might take her head right off, and that will be a far worse pain than anything I could have …”
“Hurry up, then.” There was no lilt now. Only cool, calculated boredom.
“Don’t try to fool me into thinking you don’t care for the wench. I know better.”
“Do you, now?” Killoran’s voice in the darkness held amusement. “What in God’s name made you think I had a tendre for an overgrown bourgeoisie? Kill her, by all means, but get on with it. I want to finish this up and get home to bed. I’m going to kill you, Darnley, as I should have killed you years ago. One woman is much the same as the next. It makes little difference to me if you take Emma with you into hell.”
He was lying, Emma thought. He was trying to trick Darnley into releasing her; that had to be it. But he sounded so calm, so reasonable. So very much like Killoran.
“I don’t believe you,” Darnley said, his voice a little less sure.
“Have you ever known me to show an ounce of sentiment? To care for any living creature other than myself? Kill her, by all means. And then I’ll kill you.”
Darnley staggered upright, hauling Emma with him. The knife pricked her throat, and she felt a faint trickle of blood course down her neck. In the dim light she could see Killoran, leaning casually against the wall, hands tucked in his pockets, as if he had all the time in the world.
“You won’t—” Darnley said, and then jerked. A moment later an explosion rang in Emma’s ears, and Darnley was flung backward. She spun around in shock, but Killoran’s hard hands were on her arms, yanking her away.
“Don’t,” he said coolly. “The man’s dead.”
She struggled for a moment, dazed. “But perhaps—”
“I shot him in the face, Emma,” he told her flatly. “He’s dead.”
She stopped struggling, staring up at him. There was no remorse, no emotion whatsoever on his dark, handsome face. “Did you mean what you said?” she asked hoarsely.
“What do you think?” His voice was savage. “Shall I stand over Darnley’s corpse and give you tender declarations of love? I care for nothing and no one. I’ve told you that. I don’t know what else I have to do to make you believe it.”
She pulled away from him, and he let her go, without a moment’s hesitation, leaning against the wall once more, an enigmatic expression on his face. “I believe you,” she said in a dull, lifeless voice. “I’m going to check on Gertie.”
She picked up the candelabrum and moved down the hall, back to the salon. Gertie lay still and silent on the floor. Miriam’s body rested in the chair, the blood pooling beneath her.
Emma knelt beside her old friend. There was still a faint pulse, and she glanced around her, looking for something to cover the woman. And then she froze.
Miriam towered over her. The knife protruded from her thin chest, and she reached down and yanked it free, staring at it with a kind of numb surprise. And then she looked down at Emma, kneeling at her feet, and her smile was horrible indeed as she turned the knife blade toward her.
For a moment the world stood still. Miriam would kill her, and there was nothing she could do. Emma watched numbly, and then life surged through her, taking hold. “No!” she screamed, as loudly as she could, surging to her feet. “You won’t hurt me ever again.” And she lunged for the knife.
But before she reached her, Miriam’s pale, mad eyes had glazed over. The knife dropped between them, skittering away. And with a final, choking sound, Miriam collapsed onto the floor, a lifeless, harmless bag of bones.
There was no sign of Killoran. Emma had thought he would come when he heard her scream, but the room was still and silent, only Gertie’s labored breathing, mixed with Emma’s panic, breaking the stillness.
He’d left, she thought numbly. He’d already abandoned her, final proof that he didn’t care. The grief, the pain, were so powerful they took her heart and twisted it, and she wanted scream with the agony of it. But then Gertie moaned once more, and Emma shook herself. There would be time enough for grief, for anguish. Now she had to get help for Gertie.
She heard footsteps approach the room, and joyous relief swamped her. She ran to the door, ready to fling herself in Killoran’s arms, only to draw herself up short. Nathaniel stood there, his face dark with shock.
“Are you all right, Emma?”
“I’m fine. Gertie…” Sh
e gestured toward the woman lying by the fire.
“I’ve sent for help.” He looked past her, at Miriam’s corpse, and shuddered. “Let me take you out of here. There’s nothing more you can do.” He started to drape his cloak over her shoulders, but she tore it away, carrying it to Gertie’s still figure and covering her.
“Where’s Killoran?” she asked, succumbing to the weakness, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer.
“Um... he’s gone.”
She smoothed the cloak over Gertie, then glanced up at Nathaniel’s troubled face. “Gone? Where?”
“I have no idea.” He caught her arm and tugged her to her feet. “Come away, Emma. You’ve done all you can. I just thank God I made Jeffries tell me what that note said, or God knows what would have happened.”
“I would have survived. Killoran would have killed Darnley and then abandoned me, just as he did. And I would have been fine.” Her voice quavered, and she tightened it, firmly. “I want to stay with Gertie.”
“No!” Nathaniel’s voice bordered on panic for a moment, oddly so. “Lady Seldane is outside in her carriage. Come away, and I promise I won’t leave Gertie.”
She looked up at him. But finally shock and exhaustion won out, and she nodded. “I’ll go,” she murmured. “You stay here.”
“You promise me you won’t run away?”
“Where would I go?” Emma whispered. And she walked from the room, from the house, from her childhood, without a backward glance. To fling herself on the warm, comforting bosom of Lady Seldane.
“She’s gone.”
Killoran looked up into Nathaniel’s troubled face. “She is a headstrong wench, isn’t she?” he said weakly. He’d slid down against the wall, unable to stand any longer, and it had been sheer luck that Emma had stormed out without peering into the shadows.
“Help is coming...” Nathaniel said.
“No. Get me out of this place.”
“You shouldn’t be moved. You’ve lost a lot of blood...”
“I’ve been shot before. It’s not going to kill me,” he said, struggling to his feet, leaning breathlessly against the wall.