Dirty Aristocrat (23 page)

‘I’m fine. I’m just glad to see you James. How have you been?’

‘Not good. I’ve haven’t been able to find new employment. I’m too old. And the missus is sick so most of my inheritance is gone.’

‘Oh no. You must let me help you,’ I cried, horrified to know what had happened to him.

‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘Yes, you must tell me everything.’

‘Will you allow me to buy you a coffee?’ he asked.

‘Of course. But you must let me buy it.’

‘No, please. For once let me treat you.’

I smiled. ‘All right.’

We walked together to the coffee house on the third floor. I sat down. ‘Do you mind if I call the missus and tell her I’ll be a bit late?’ he asked, taking his phone out of his pocket and holding it respectfully in his hand.

‘Of course not,’ I said with a smile.

He called and told her that we had met in Harrods, and that he would be a bit late. He listened, then looking at me apologetically, said, ‘No, Martha. It wouldn’t be appropriate.’

‘What wouldn’t be appropriate?’ I asked.

He took the phone away from his ear. ‘Martha wants me to bring you home for tea. She’s always been dying to meet you.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I remembered then that James had mentioned her before. Not only that, once she had even baked some cookies for me, and I had gone out and bought her a beautiful designer handbag as a gift.

He put the phone back to his ear. ‘Maybe another time, Martha. Lady Greystoke is busy.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Where do you live?’

‘We live in West Kensington. It’s just up the road. We’d love you to come, but I realize you’re probably too busy. Just say no if you can’t. You can come another time.’

‘No, no,’ I said with a smile. ‘I’ll come today. I’d love to meet your wife.’

‘Are you sure?’ James asked, his eyes bright.

‘Of course, I’m sure.’ The truth was, bumping into him couldn’t have come at a better time. I needed to not be alone. I needed to talk to people from my old life, from before Ivan came into it.

James ended his call and beamed at me. ‘My car is parked one street away from here. I can bring it around or we can walk. I know you enjoy a good walk.’

It was good to be with someone who knew me so well. ‘Let’s walk, James. As you said, I’ve always enjoyed a good walk.’

We walked to his car. Like a true gentleman, he held open the passenger door while I got in. He closed the door before going around to the driver’s side. He started the ignition and was about to drive away when the back door opened suddenly. I twisted my head around in surprise and stared into Dr. Spencer’s pale blue eyes.  

Oh, dear God!

‘Hello, Lady Greystoke,’ he said, and slipped a needle into my arm.

I barely heard him. I looked at my arm in frozen shock. In a flash all the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place. James had spiked my drink. They were all in this together. The picture was now complete. Ivan was talking to the doctor yesterday. Of course, the good doctor always hated me. Oh no, I was beginning to feel disorientated. I was going to black out.

Then everything went black.

Tawny Greystoke

“I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”

                            
- Samwise Gamgee

                                            (A Hobbit & the real hero)

D
r. Spencer was holding smelling salts under my nose when I came to. My head lolled about but my seated body was totally immobile. I tried to speak and realized that my mouth taped shut.

I coughed and blearily tried to make sense of my surroundings. I was immobile because from my shoulder to my ankles I was tightly mummified in Clingfilm.

One look at the ceiling and I knew that I was in Barrington Manor. I swiveled my eyes around and saw there were other people in the room.  My vision was still fuzzy and they appeared as blurred shapes. I blinked to clear my vision.

‘Can you hear me Mrs. Maxwell?’ Dr. Spencer asked calmly.

I pulled my eyes back to him and focused on his face. There was no expression at all on his thin, sallow face, but he was wearing what appeared to be a white boiler suit.

I nodded.

‘She’s fine. She’s was always as fit as a horse,’ a woman’s voice dismissed rudely, and Rosalind came into my sight. She was wearing a similar white boiler suit. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter if she’s not. She’ll be dead soon.’

My blood ran cold at her words.

‘I can’t have any chemicals found in her system,’ Dr. Spencer explained patiently. ‘It
has
to look like an accident or we’ll all be going to prison.’

‘Look, can we get this over with. This place is giving me the creeps. All these fucking sheets over the furniture look like ghosts, Bianca said with a shudder. She too was dressed the same way.

‘Don’t be such baby. We have to wait for Ivan,’ Rosalind scolded her sister.

‘And me,’ an amused man’s voice said.

Dorian came into view. He was not wearing a white suit.

‘For heaven’s sake. I thought I told you stay away. What are you doing here? And why are you not wearing one of these.’

‘Ivan asked me to come and why should I wear those ridiculous things. It’s not like I’ll be the one who’s going to do the deed.’

The mention of Ivan’s name hurt me more than I cared to admit.

‘Why did Ivan ask you to come’ Rosalind asked suspiciously.

‘I think he didn’t want to leave any loose lips and, figured correctly, I might add, that I might have loose lips. All who benefit must be implicated was what he said.’

Dorian strolled over and stood in front of me.

‘Why on earth is she covered in plastic?’

‘We didn’t want to leave tie marks on her wrists or ankles,’ Dr Spencer explained. It has to look like an accident.’

‘What kind of an accident?’ he asked almost childishly.

‘An accidental drowning in the lake. I’ve already prepared a large pail of lake water that her face will be submerged in until she drowns and then she will be put in the lake so it looks like she fell into the cold water and drowned.’

‘A pail of lake water?’

‘Yes, if she downs in the bathtub the type of water inside her will be different than the lake’s.’

‘Fan of CSI, are you?’ Dorian asked sarcastically.

‘No,’ Dr Spencer denied stiffly. ‘Unlike you I thought it out.’

I listened incredulously. They had thought of everything and I had been led here like a lamb to slaughter.

‘I’m far too squeamish for details like that.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Goodness is it kinky that all this plastic is giving me a hard on.’

‘Shut up,’ Bianca said nervously. ‘None of this is funny.’

Dorian ignored his sister and turned to Dr. Spencer. Can I fuck her very quickly?’

‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’ Rosalind fumed. ‘Just once you couldn’t come sober.’

‘Chill out, sis. I had half a glass of Merlot at lunch. It isn’t like I was going in bareback. I’ve got condoms.’ He comes closer to me. ‘I’ve always wanted to give her one. Ivan got to, I don’t see why not me too.’

‘God, you are such an idiot. Do you want to leave your calling card inside her,’ Rosalind sneered.

Dr Spencer cleared his throat. ‘Yes, you definitely don’t want to leave your DNA on her. Even the smallest particles can incriminate you.’ He lifted up his hands to show that he was wearing surgeon’s gloves.

Dorian shook his head regretfully at me. ‘All you had to do was fucking share.’

In his weak jaw I saw my chance. The weak link in the chain. I made a muffled sound and begged him with my eyes.

He stared at me for a moment as if considering my request then suddenly reached his hand out and viciously ripped the tape off my mouth. I gritted my teeth to stop myself from crying out with the pain.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ both Rosalind and Bianca screamed.

‘Relax, what’s she going to do? Scream and alert the neighbors. There’s nobody for miles in this godforsaken part of the world. Let her have a few last words. Besides I like hearing her talk. I like her lips.’ He leered as he said that.

‘I can give you money,’ I cried.

He sighed exaggeratedly in a pretend sad way, the way Mafia killers in movies do. He was really enjoying this. ‘I allow you to talk and this is what you say. Disappointing. Truly disappointing.’

Tears burned the backs of my eyes. I knew my last hope was my secret. I had vowed never to tell, but there was no point in keeping it any more. In fact, I no longer knew why Robert had put me through this whole charade. In the end I still ended up their prey. I wanted to live and I would do what it took to survive.

‘I’m not who you think I am,’ I cried out.

Dorian smiled, the sick twisted, smile of a nasty boy pulling the legs off insects just because he could. ‘Go on then. Who are you?’ he taunted. The others said nothing.

‘I’m not your stepmother. I’m your half-sister. I’m Robert’s daughter.’

Dorian’s eyes bulged with shock. ‘Bollocks’ he shouted.

‘No, it’s not. I can prove it. I have the results of the paternity test. It’s with my solicitor. We’re flesh and blood.’

Rosalind stalked towards me. ‘You’re telling me, you’re my sister?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And why are you telling us this now? Do you think that we will take pity on you because one microscopic sperm from my father, one that should have been flushed down the toilet, instead impregnated a whore’s egg and produced you?’

‘My mother was not a whore,’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘Yes, she was.’

‘She wasn’t. She was a dancer.’

‘Oh well, here’s something you didn’t know. Your mother sold her body to pay for her treatments.’

I felt angry tears flood my eyes and start dribbling down my face. ‘I don’t believe you,’ I shouted angrily. My mother was the one pure thing in my life.

‘Believe what you want. As if I care either way. You’re not my sister. I hate you and I’ve always hated you. If anything this makes me even happier to get rid of you. How could Robert favor you over us? If we didn’t have to preserve your face, I would love to punch it in.’

‘Don’t even think about,’ Dr. Spencer interjected. ‘Keep the emotions out. Or we’ll all be rotting in prison.’

I concentrated all my attention on Rosalind. ‘The money was not for me. It is supposed to be used for the charity.’

She frowned. ‘That ridiculous turtle nonsense?’

‘Yes. It is not for me. I’m just supposed to administer it. Make sure the foundation carries on in the way Robert wanted.’ Then an idea occurred to me. ‘But I can sign it all over to you.’

She stiffened suddenly. ‘Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I’ll just do it the old fashioned way. Murder.’

‘That’s just stupid. Why take such a big risk? Don’t you think the police would find it very suspicious that I came here for no reason at all and drowned in a shallow lake?’

‘Maybe, but if there is no proof of foul play… ’

‘Are you sure you covered all your tracks Rosalind. In this day and age there are many way to trip up a murderer? How did you get here? How many CCTV cameras caught your face, or Dorian’s, or Bianca’s?’

Then I saw a tiny glimpse of hope. A look crossed her face. Uncertainty.

I pressed home my point. ‘My marriage is not legal. You have the proof sitting in my solicitor’s safe. You can contest the will.’

‘You must think I was born yesterday. And while I’m doing all this, you’re not going to tell anyone that we kidnapped you and brought you here intending to kill you.’

‘Who would believe me?’

She shook her head. ‘Nope. I’ll take my chances with murder. It’s worked for millennia. It’s how all my ancestors got rid of their enemies.’

I could feel the adrenaline pumping in my blood. I could take her. Even bound up I could whoop her ass. She was not as clever as she thought. I stared at her fiercely. ‘You don’t get it. I’ve already transferred all my money into the trust. None, of you can touch it without me.’

Dorian and Bianca froze.

‘You’re lying,’ Rosalind shouted, but I could see that I had unsettled her for the first time. For the first time I had the upper-hand. I could do this.

‘How do you know?’ I challenged, my voice strong and sure.

‘Because you haven’t,’ Ivan’s voice reverberated around the room.

At the sound of his voice my body sagged. The betrayal was complete. He came into the room.

‘You made a phone call yesterday to his office and you have an appointment for tomorrow, but even so, without my say so you cannot make any such decision. So my darling, as it stands, the Maxwell fortune is still all in your name.’

He stood in front of me in his black leather jacket, a total stranger. Did I dance goofily with this man in a sex club called The Dirty Aristocrat?

‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, his eyes quickly and impersonally pouring over my body. Where had all the passion gone?

I wanted to spit in his face. I knew there was no point in trying to ask him for mercy. He knew I was in love with him and he could do this to me. I glared at him with murderous hatred, and he smiled. ‘That’s my girl,’ he whispered softly and turned away.

‘Are we all agreed that we do this?’

Without the silence of hesitation every single person in the room spoke up and offered their agreement.’

‘Right. Let’s get on with it, but first there’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very fucking long time. Faster than I could blink, he swung his fist out and crashed it slap bang into the middle of Dorian’s face. The thud was rather delightful. I thought I heard bone crunch.

‘Fuck,’ Dorian screamed in pain, clutching his nose with both his hands. Blood rushed out between his fingers like a bubbling brook. ‘What the fuck? You broke my fucking nose.’

Ivan grinned. ‘I did you a favor. Now you won’t be the prettiest bitch on your prison block.’

‘What?’ Rosalind screeched. ‘You asshole you.’ She went flying towards him in a fury.

‘We’re done,’ Ivan shouts and all of a sudden the place was crawling with policemen and other people. I was in such a state I couldn’t make sense of the scene before me. Men were grabbing Rosalind and she was screaming wild abuse at me and them. Bianca was sobbing and telling everyone that she was innocent. She had been forced to cooperate, and Dorian, with blood pouring down his face, looking stunned and stupid.