Wicked Deception (53 page)

She opened her eyes once her breathing
was at last under control. A dazed look out the window told her
they had made it only halfway down the hill. She stared into his
eyes, finding him so beautiful at that moment she wanted to weep
for the emotions within her.

Caspian eased her off him, his features
flushed with satisfaction. He eased down her skirts, his eyes
filled with some emotion she feared to name.

“
I don’t want you to think
of anything but your own pleasure while we are here, Catherine. No
worries, no grief, just your own desires.”

“
I have four children with
me if you haven’t noticed,” she replied tartly with a disbelieving
look. “When do you suppose I’m to have such a luxury of time to
loll around in my own self-gratification?”

Caspian brought her hand to his lips.
“I have thought of everything, sweets, surely you know that by
now.”

Catherine smiled and felt a delicious
thrill as his words. “Dare I hope this castle has another nanny in
it?”

“
I have hired only the best,
my sweet minx,” he assured her as his hand stroked her hair back
into some semblance of order. He looked at her with tenderness in
his eyes. “For the time we are here, you’re not to lift a bloody
finger unless it is to gesture to me to come join you in our
bed.”

She sighed in obvious delight at the
image. “That may prove too taxing for me.”

Caspian kissed her lingeringly. “Then
we need not leave the bed at all.”

~ ~ ~

Devlin arrived at Lord Iverleigh’s home
the next morning, demanding to know where Catherine went. Gabriel
looked like he was hung over and glared at Devlin, seeing the clock
and groaned at the hour as he stomped down to him in his breeches
and dressing robe. The two men disappeared into his
study.

“
Do you have any bloody idea
what time it is, Devlin?”

“
Catherine and the children
are missing!”

Gabriel tossed the note at him across
the desk, his dark eyes filled with annoyance.

“
She slipped away to one of
my estates for some much needed peace and I think it the best thing
for her.”

“
Cat left in the night with
the clothes on her back,” her uncle argued. “That doesn’t sound
like her.”

“
Given the fact a madman
stalks her; do you think she could have left any other way?”
Gabriel asked and rolled his eyes. “She could hardly pack up her
household and children and leave unnoticed. Do not
worry.”

“
Which estate has she gone
to?” Devlin demanded and Gabriel grinned.

“
I have eight estates after
my marriage, including all of Gillian’s holdings. I’m not quite
sure which one Catherine stays at. In my opinion, it is for her own
safety she didn’t tell me.”

“
It doesn’t sound like Cat
at all.”

“
She won’t see her son for
half a year, Devlin,” Gabriel pointed out in annoyance. “Do you
really think she wants to be tripping over armed guards this last
month she is here?”

Devlin reluctantly thought the Earl had
a point. He worried needlessly. What person being taken against
their will leaves instructions with their butler? He felt like he
over reacted now. His niece’s husband would likely be alarmed to
think she’d been followed, but given the fact even the Earl had no
knowledge which estate she went to made him relax slightly. His
expression softened. Catherine needed time away, especially now
that this new threat loomed.

“
I think I’ll be happy when
my niece is on that ship,” Devlin grumbled with a sigh. “I’m sorry
for wakin’ ye up so early, Iverleigh.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I know you’re
worried about her. She is fine. If you’re that concerned, I can
send men to check on her, but it will take some time as my estates
are scattered to all four corners of England.”

“
That won’t be necessary.
She deserves some peace. I heard ye married again.” Devlin chuckled
as he saw the Earl’s grimace.

“
Yes, it appears good news
travels fast.”

~ ~ ~

Lilly snuck cautiously up the
backstairs and listened. The house was quiet. She moved quickly up
the narrow stairs to the upper level. She crept down the hallway,
alert to any noise. She arrived at a thick-paneled door and tried
the knob. It opened and she went within.

She stood over the bed, regarding her
former lover lying naked between two of his serving girls with a
disgusted expression. Some things never changed. Christian’s tastes
never would. The youth of the two girls made her roll her eyes.
Some noise must have alerted him. One lazy blue eye opened and he
looked alarmed to see her standing over his bed.

She put a finger to her lips, smiling
in smug appreciation for his shock. “A word, if you please, Lord
Lyndon.”

Christian sat up and slid away from his
bedmates, jerking on his discarded robe without ever taking his
eyes off the woman standing in his bedroom. They retreated to the
sitting room next door. Christian gazed at her
incredulously.

“
You’re alive? But how?” he
asked, still bemused by the sight of his former lover very much
alive in his home.

Lilly raised an eyebrow. “You mean who,
don’t you? Lord Dartmouth and Lord Rudd saw to my escape before the
hanging. I would not regale you with prison life. That is not why
I’m here. You owe me, Christian. Certain promises were made prior
to your running off to Paris and leaving me in the
lurch.”

“
Lil, it is such a pleasant
shock to see you alive,” he remarked with an easy smile, wary of
her. His hooked prosthetic hand reached out and touched her ivory
cheek, it’s coldness a reminder they had not ended on the best of
terms. “Allow me to say I never thought you would be caught. I
believed Gabriel dead when I left, as did you. Imagine my surprise
to return and find him very much alive.”

She smiled with a brittle gleam in her
eyes. “It appears your shooter missed his mark. I need your help
once more.”

Christian frowned, knowing what she
would ask. “Still trying to free yourself from Iverleigh the old
fashioned way, Lil? He thinks you dead. He has remarried as well.
Why do you not just leave?”

Lilly laughed with a scornful look at
her lover. “I’m sure that would please you, given what I know about
you, darling. I heard you’re quite close with his new wife. Does
she know you wish her husband dead?”

Christian stiffened at her mention of
Gillian. “She has no love for the man and might even appreciate
being widowed very soon.”

“
Come now, we both know you
seek to recoup your fortune by regaining Rudd’s money through his
sister. Did Lady Atwell arrange this little scenario for you?
Clarissa does like her little dramas.”

Christian smiled without warmth.
“Unlike you, we all had to pay very dearly, Lil. Clarice never had
time to tally your account, fortunately for you. The rest of us
haven’t been so lucky.”

“
You blame me for all of
this, I see?”

“
Had you not panicked and
had Sullivan break into her office for that damned diary; we would
have gotten the list ourselves. None would have had to die and all
our fortunes would have been recouped. Now it is floating around
with all our names on it and you take no responsibility for
it?”

“
Come now, do you really
think that silly list means anything?” Lilly asked and made a
disgusted sound.

“
Maybe not to you anymore,
but the rest of us had our own skeletons we wished to remain
buried, Lil.”

“
You owe me this, Christian.
I want my sister dead once and for all.”

“
What of your
husband?”

She smiled with a feral light in her
eyes. “You have that under control, do you not? Clarissa wed the
girl to him for a reason, didn’t she? Do not tell me you all do not
have plans for Gabriel too?”

Christian smiled silkily and his steel
hook rode up to her throat, tracing its ivory length to her
neckline. “Rest assured your husband will get his due. I haven’t
forgotten or forgiven his insult to me.”

Lilly relaxed and gazed at him with a
pleased expression. “When do you plan to kill him?”

“
Nobles have dropped like
flies this last year, Lil, as you know. I thought it prudent to
wait until his wife delivers his heir. No need to raise a
fuss.”

“
What do you intend for his
widow?”

“
I plan to marry her then,
of course. With her fortune and Iverleigh’s combined; I will be the
richest man in England. You could say it is a means to an end, this
wait. The others are content they will get back what Clarice took
in due time.”

“
About my matter,” she began
and he held up his hook.

“
Fine, consider it done. Do
me a favor and let none of the others know you still live. They are
not as forgiving as I. They rather liked the thought of you
dangling at the end of a rope.”

Lilly chuckled as she thought of the
others, all salivating over the infamous list going missing
recently from Rudd’s safe. They all had much to lose and had over
the years.

Clarice had bled them all dry. Then to
add insult to injury, she left everything to Gabriel when she died.
The account with all their fortunes in it had not been discovered
by her husband yet, but it was only a matter of time.

In order to get all their money back
that Clarice took from them over the years, they needed Gabriel to
die. They also needed control of his heir. It was fortunate when it
came to light his current heir was illegitimate. They had their way
to him now.

“
I need a place to stay,
Christian,” she informed rather than asked him. “The men who seek
me have cut off every avenue of escape. I don’t dare return to the
room I stay at tonight.”

“
Stay as long as you need
to,” Christian agreed and frowned suddenly. “You really came back
at a bad time, Lil.”

~ ~ ~

Nicholas glared over the water as he
stood at the rail of his ship, frustrated by Catherine’s recent
disappearance. Devlin assured him she hid at one of Gabriel’s
estates until she sailed, but he was uneasy.

“
We should go ahead with our
plan,” Tieghan said at his side. “Catherine is away and we can use
Elise to draw her out. It is perfect. No one knows she is even
gone.”

Nicholas glanced at him with a brooding
look. “Something troubles me, Tieghan.”

“
What is that?”

“
Catherine is not one to
leave town in the middle of the night in such a manner. I know my
wife. She had help in this.”

“
You mean
Caspian?”

Nicholas scowled and stared back over
the water. “Who else could have managed to get by all of us? He
knew our routines, watched our men leave and change shifts. While
none of us were looking; he took her away under our
noses.”

“
Isn’t that what you asked
him to do, Nicholas?” Tieghan looked away in disgust. “The man is
not high on my list of favorites, but he has done his job. She is
alive and it is because of him.”

Nicholas said nothing. There was little
he could say. The thoughts he had now were laughable considering he
had set all in motion when he killed himself off. Catherine thought
him dead now and he was aware of Caspian’s infatuation with
her.

While he had worried so much over her
going back to Gabriel, he never considered another man would enter
the arena, one sent there by him too. He cringed to know he brought
this on himself.

~ ~ ~

Jacques Dumas tossed several coins on
the bar at the inn and walked away, his head down as he travelled
behind the three coaches he followed. His beady eyes glowed to know
he had Caspian Roth in his sights.

Roth erred in hiring him. The contract
out on the notorious crime lord proved too irresistible. The woman
he wished him to find was incidental now. He agreed to do the job
just to gauge Caspian’s whereabouts. Following him that night was
dangerous and highly informative. He watched as the coaches were
loaded with women and children.

He followed them here, to a sleepy
village just hours from London. Roth stayed at the castle not far
from there, the women and children his guests.

Dumas chuckled as he went to the livery
and got his horse. Roth travelled with his retinue of guards but he
already tipped his hand. The dark-haired woman was what lured Roth
out from under his rock.

Jacques knew the way to Roth was
through the woman he travelled with. He grinned showing blackened
teeth as he considered the easiest way of killing Caspian Roth and
collecting on the contract.

He had over twenty armed guards at all
times, circling the castle grounds and changing shifts hourly. They
were loyal and could not be bought. Efforts was made to penetrate
Roth’s inner sanctum before. Those men always wound up face down in
the Thames. Jacques was up for the challenge. Roth had come to him
after all.

~ ~ ~