Wicked Proposition (26 page)

Tieghan nodded grimly and thought his captain
was better off. The beautiful noblewoman put him on edge. There was
something about her that unsettled him and made him feel protective
of his captain.

###

Catherine whimpered in the dark cell. She was
filthy and sat on the stone floor. She could see nothing in front
of her face it was so dark. She heard scurrying in the corner, and
cringed at the thought of what four-legged vermin shared her
prison. The man who had abducted her untied her and shoved her into
the cell weeks before. He had a companion now.

The pair returned with food and water and
changed out the slop bucket daily. They had yet to tell her why
they held her captive. When she tried to question them about their
intent, they eyed her menacingly. She wisely held her tongue. They
provided her with no candle and there was little light.

Terror of the vermin who swarmed the cell, kept
her up until she fell asleep upon the filthy straw mattress in
exhaustion. Catherine was nearly hysterical when she heard
footsteps approaching. She rose quickly, eyeing the figure that
moved forward with a single taper candle with a shocked stare.

Lilly set the candleholder down on the floor and
looked about disparagingly. She sat upon the stool to gaze at her
coolly through the bars.

“You appear well, little sister,” she commented
dryly as she eyed her filthy appearance with a look of malicious
amusement. “How are you finding your new accommodations? They are
not as luxurious as my husbands.”

“Let me out of here!” Catherine said through
clenched teeth.

“Your visit to Thomas’s office was unfortunate,”
Lilly said and sniffed at the musty odor in the dark room. “His
assistant’s description of the young woman who came in was enough
for me to know you discovered our little secret. I couldn’t allow
you to tell Gabriel. There is a matter of your present condition as
well, my dear. Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about the
child?”

“What are you talking about?” Catherine said in
frantic denial. Lilly chuckled and shook her head, wagging a finger
at her to silence her.

“Come now, little Catherine, you always were a
deplorable liar. Mrs. Whitley was only too eager to inform on your
current condition. She assures me you are at least one month along
with my husband’s bastard.”

“What do you want, Lilly?” Catherine asked in a
voice edged with dread.

“The Earl’s heir,” Lilly said brightly,
relishing the horror on her sister’s face.

“You won’t get away with it!” Catherine said,
aghast as she backed away from the venomous gleam in Lilly’s
eyes.

“I already have!” Lilly sneered and moved
forward to grip the bars of the cell with triumph in her icy blue
gaze. “Gabriel came to my bed the day you tried to escape to the
ship. We made love. Do you think he was thinking about you at all?
I can assure you when I tell him I am having his child, he will
believe me. Servants and doctors can be bought. He will have his
heir. He will forget about you, if he hasn’t already!”

“You lie!” Catherine shouted and sobbed, tears
coursing down her cheeks. “He hates you! I have learned enough
about the man these last months to know you didn’t get him into
your bed willingly. You used trickery on him!”

“Did you not use trickery upon him, little
sister?” Lilly said archly. “You had every opportunity to tell him
the truth, and yet you did not. You enjoyed lying on your back for
him so much you didn’t dare tell him the truth, am I right? A pity
you had to ruin everything with your meddling and lying.”

“What do you mean to do?” Catherine said in a
hoarse voice and her hand went to her abdomen protectively. “Mrs.
Silsbee and the other servants at Dunleavy know I am here! You
won’t get away with killing me as you did Clarice.”

“I can’t kill someone who is already dead,”
Lilly said with chilling finality in her voice. “You already died,
my dear, quite ingloriously on a hillside in Dublin. Your body was
so horribly mutilated I am told Brian wept. I’m afraid you never
made it to England. As far as anyone knows you died there months
ago. Thomas delivered your body to the hall himself and was there
for your funeral. It was quite a touching scene. I understand the
children were quite overwrought. As for Clarice, let’s just say she
was dealt with. I can assure you it was not by my hand.”

“You’re a monster!” Catherine said and shrank
from the cackling laughter that followed her words.

“I am just doing what I have to do to secure my
future,” Lilly said harshly. “I will not allow you to spoil all my
plans! You would have told Gabriel the truth! He would have
divorced me and I would have nothing!”

“Gabriel will find me!” Catherine said and
glared at her defiantly. “You won’t be able to keep me locked up
until the child is born! I will scream my head off until someone
comes! He loves me! He will be free of you!”

Lilly chuckled in delight at that and stood up
and trailed a manicured finger along the bar, eyeing her in
amusement.

“You are such a little fool, Catherine. He would
keep you as his mistress. When he tired of you, he would have found
another. Don’t fool yourself it was love. You were just a pretty
whore. He will forget about you soon enough,” Lilly said coldly.
“You must resign yourself to your fate, my dear. Think of the child
and don’t do anything rash. My men are just looking for an excuse
to do what they will with you. One word from me and your stay here
could be quite intolerable.”

“Why are you doing this? You have enough wealth
you could have paid any woman to have Lord Iverleigh’s child. Why
are you doing this to me? I am your sister!” Catherine cried.

“You are nothing to me!” Lilly said with a
scowl. “You are just my father’s brat with his commoner whore of a
wife! You are unfit to bear the same surname as I. If I could have
gotten away with it, I would have smothered you in your crib.”

“You didn’t need me to do this!”

“Ah, Catherine, if you only knew how I despised
you all those years,” she confided with a sneer. “Father saw to
your future, and would have denied me mine, if not for his pathetic
wife.”

“You knew of the contract?” Catherine asked
hoarsely and paled.

“I found it in his office when you were only a
baby. I saw what he intended for you! Yet he did nothing for me!
Thanks to Edward, that was all rectified.”

“Let me go, and I swear I will say nothing!
Please, Lilly, do not do this!”

“It is too late,” her sister said with finality.
“You should make the most of what little time you have left,
Catherine.”

Catherine flinched, but said nothing. Lilly
laughed at her look and continued.

“You owe me this. Because of you and your whore
of a mother, I lost our father’s love, and for that you must
pay.”

“You are insane!” Catherine breathed in a
horrified whisper.

“I am insanely clever, Catherine,” she replied
pointedly and smirked in genuine humor. “There is a difference. I
have succeeded quite admirably at getting what I want. Who is
behind the bars, Catherine? You really should consider the child.
It isn’t good to get yourself so upset.”

“You never cared if he divorced you or not, did
you?”

“As I said, you were quite effective in stalling
that proceeding for me,” Lilly said cheerfully. “You exceeded my
expectations there.”

“You did this for the inheritance Giles St.
Armand left in his will!”

“You have been busy, I see,” Lilly noted with a
pleased expression. “Fifty thousand pounds to deliver a brat was
too much for me to resist. That is where you became necessary.”

“Let me go, Lilly, please,” Catherine begged.
“Jaime and Cullen are alone now. Do not do this.”

“It is already done,” Lilly stated coldly and
her heartless blue eyes met hers through the bars without mercy in
them. “Our brothers will no doubt wind up in an orphanage before
too long. A pity, but they are nothing to me.”

Catherine watched as Lilly turned and walked
out. She felt lightheaded and sick as she realized the full impact
of her words. She was thought dead by all those at Dunleavy Hall.
She had already been mourned months before. Gabriel thought she
paid her debt and left him. He would never find out about the boys.
Nicholas would think she went home, not knowing where that was.

Lilly had thought of everything.

She sat upon the pallet and wept bitterly until
she had no tears left. She looked about the cell and shrank from
the scurrying sounds in the corner and covered her ears, closing
her eyes in fear. She felt something run across her foot and she
screamed.

# # #

Gabriel eyed the woman propped up in her bed
looking radiantly triumphant with a scowl. He waited until Doctor
Farnham left the room to address her. Catherine had been gone a
month and he despaired of ever finding her. He was in a sore mood.
Her summons she had urgent news for him had not prepared him for
this.

“You may have managed to conceive a child, but
it changes nothing between us, do you hear?” he snarled and ran a
hand through his hair raggedly, his dark eyes narrowing as she
pouted prettily and stretched her arms above her head.

“Oh, it changes everything, Gabriel,” she said
and flicked him a dismissive glance. “You heard what Doctor Farnham
said. I am to have your child in several months. You aren’t going
to divorce me and make the child a bastard, and we both know it.
Why can you not be happy? We are to have the child you always
wanted so much.”

“Forgive me if I am not ecstatic, Madam, but
after you drugged and raped me, I sincerely loath the sight of
you,” he said coldly and eyed her in contempt. “Enjoy your victory
now my dear, because after the child is born you are dead to me!
You will have your damned title and everything that goes with it,
but you shall not have my child. Inform my staff when you go into
labor so I may provide an adequate nurse for him or her. Until
then, do not bother to contact me at all.”

“Drugged and raped you?” she repeated with a
snicker of amusement and covered her mouth. “Who would ever believe
that, my lord? I just gave you something to allow your inner
feelings to resurface. I admit I have missed you even if you choose
to deny your feelings. You cannot tell me you didn’t enjoy it.
Remember those nights we spent together after we married? We can
have that again, you and I.”

Gabriel gazed at the woman in utter
astonishment. He thought his wife was insane if she thought he
would move back into the manor as though nothing untoward had ever
occurred. He was done. He gazed at her in simmering hatred as he
neared the bed, his dark eyes flicking over her contemptuously.

“You disgust me, Lillianne,” he said in a low
voice. “The thought of being near you makes my skin crawl. As I
said, inform my staff when your time comes. I never wish to lay
eyes on you again. In fact, I have given it much consideration and
have decided the country would suit you far better than
London.”

Lillianne grew still and her smug expression
faltered at his words. He clearly meant to banish her when the
child came. She sat up in the bed and her blue eyes snapped with
anger.

“You would not dare exile me to one of your
damned estates!”

“Oh, I can and I will, my dear,” Gabriel said
and enjoyed the way she squirmed under his scathing glare. “I am
your husband, after all your efforts for it to remain that way. You
have no choice but to do my bidding. Enjoy your time here. After
the child comes and you are fit to travel, you will reside in
Amberley. Be lucky I do not send you to my Scottish holding. My
mother would not like you as a neighbor. The lady would like
nothing better than to set her hounds upon you. For my mother’s
family’s sake I have chosen Amberley.”

Gabriel stormed out of his wife’s room and made
his way down to the foyer where the staff assembled. He promptly
fired them all with exception to his mother’s former servants and
the Cook. Amy looked alarmed and looked as if she wanted to say
something but he held up his hand to silence her.

“You have proved your loyalty to the Countess,
but she does not pay your wages. I do! You will get your final
wages and be gone from here! You all determined your fates when you
involved yourself in the Countess’s schemes, but no more!” And
without another word he left, shouting for his driver as he slammed
the door shut.

Catherine’s time grew near and a sense of dread
filled her. She gave up crying, for tears had long since ceased to
ease the pain inside her. There was no one to save her.

The two men brought food and saw to whatever
comfort was to be had, locked in a cell for months. Lilly had not
returned.

A small window high above her cell gave her a
disjointed view of the winter, as well as the constant draft in her
prison. She watched the snow fall as she counted the days until she
would bear her child. She knew that Lilly meant to kill her once
the child was born. It was inevitable.

Her knowing about Thomas impersonating Edward
Thornton had sealed her fate. Her captors had hinted at it and
enjoyed the way she quailed in fear at their words. She prayed
daily to whatever God chose to listen to spare her. She hummed
lullabies the child would never hear her sing until her eyes stung
with tears.

She had realized after a few months that Lilly
had been right. The warehouse was deserted and no one would ever
find her here.

###

Myron Chumley waited in Lord Iverleigh’s study
and was listening to the children’s laughter beyond. He smiled
grimly when he realized how the Dunleavy children’s lives had
changed in the last six months. He arrived to find them nearly
starving, all the servants gone, and no money. The only servants
who remained to care for them were their governess, the aged
butler, and the steward, Brian O’Neil.