Paradise Island (29 page)

“When I kidnapped him,” Estelle said.

“What's this?” Elias said.

“It is a long story, father,” Estelle said wearily.

“The way of fate cannot be questioned. You were meant to meet, fall in love, whatever the circumstances,” Lilura said.

“Then it cannot be fate that it ends like this,” Estelle said.

“It is the prophecy of Amor Fati, the Fates of Love. It cannot just be said. It has to be proven. That is what your lover did today,” Lilura said.

“Lover? He was meant to be her guardian if anything happened to me,” Elias said weakly.

“They were fated to become lovers. The fates were changed when you were taken by this god,” Lilura said.

“It is still not fair. We have our whole lives together, we had a future worth living. For once in my life there was more than just endless days of fighting and anger,” Estelle said.

“Estelle. What has happened to you since I have been gone,” Elias said.

Estelle regarded her father. The hurt, the pure pain that was written on his pale face told of his heartbreak. “In truth only good things as it turns out. I have an island I call home, friends I call sisters and Gregory whom I call … ” her voice cracked.

Elias gathered her in his frail arms. At long last she fell into them and cried the tears that should have fallen all those years ago, but were unable to be let out. She cried the pain of a lost father, a lost youth, and a lost lover. It was a cry of undeniable pain that wracked her whole body. It was the pain of having lost someone she loved to the core of her being.

The pain of wanting someone beyond life.

An idea formed, held, took root. She wiped her tears on her sleeve. Sniffed. Faced Lilura.

“Can you still see our ties?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Lilura asked.

“The ties that you saw that bound Gregory and I together. Are they still there, even though he is in that cave somewhere?”

Estelle waited while Lilura concentrated her eyes grew unfocussed as she looked around Estelle's body as she would study a shadow. “They are beyond this realm, but, yes, they are there,” Lilura eventually said.

“Then that is enough for me,” Estelle said.

She faced Elias. Kissed his cheek. Clutched a hold of his shoulders. “I know you have just come back to me, but I have to go,” Estelle said.

“Where are you going?” Elias asked, confusion crossed his brows.

Estelle pointed to the cave. “In there. If there is a chance that I can save Gregory, I will take it. He gave himself to me, and I will do my best to return that favor. Goodbye, father.”

Without a second thought, without turning her head to see him, her friends and everyone that was dear to her, Lilura, the men she had saved or the spirit guardians of the ancient god, she ran into the cave and dove into the blackness.

She spiraled through the absolute dark, spinning around until she had lost all sense of direction. Up or down. She waited until her body stopped moving. She moved her arms around her, pushed downwards with her feet and felt a vast emptiness yawning all around. She hung suspended without beginning or end.

There was nothing here, no body, no sight or hearing or touch. There was only the knowledge of the sum of who she was and what she felt in her heart. All she had done in her life, a lifetime of learning sparked through her mind like a living book flicking through the years.

She saw her mother as she did as a baby in her arms. Was there at her funeral. Saw her father as a young man through her child's perspective, her childhood friends. As the memories flicked through her mind, she re-felt the emotions as though she lived them again, but this time with the advantage of hindsight.

She relived the good and the bad, the tears, tantrums, laughter. If she concentrated enough she could even feel the textures of the objects and people she touched. The silk edging of her blanket, the little china doll she treated like a baby. Her mother's skin, her mother's love.

She relived the day they came to tell her about her father. The destroying horror of it all. Saw herself, a coveted innocent, being turned out onto the streets by a father who cared too much for his daughter.

Then there were the years she spent growing up all too quickly. The strength, the determination as well as the distrust, the cynicism, the anger that had grown within her. She watched as she took her first voyage at sea, pretending to be a boy as no girls were allowed on board a ship. She knew when her body was not going to hide her as a boy anymore. It was then she had stolen her first ship and saved her lifelong friend Clare, then Dalia.

She felt her anger anew as she relived the memory of when she first laid eyes on Jack Cutlass. She had saved another woman from him that day. A seamstress. Jack had sworn vengeance on Estelle. She had laughed openly in his face, but from that day on had been a constant enemy on the open seas.

She relived the day she kidnapped Gregory. Felt again the first pull of attraction even as she set her toes on the floorboards of the pier. He had looked at her with complete and utter awestruck wonderment that she had felt like a living angel to him. It had been the first time she had been looked at quite in that way. As if she alone had the power of his happiness in the palm of her hand.

She relived the moments before Gregory disappeared into the black cave. The pain, the complete gut wrenching loss immobilized the review of her life. And here she was. Stuck here, envisioning the last moments she saw Gregory in her mind as she reached out for him, desperately trying to stop him from sacrificing himself for her.

And she sacrificed herself back.

Her skin prickled in that intense way when the body senses another. She was being watched; perceived in open curiosity that she was here at all, wonderment, an inability to comprehend why she had chosen to try to find Gregory and sacrifice herself in the process.

She was being studied by the spirit god.

She was but a miniscule speck suspended in the gut of a void which was the god, so small by comparison, but still was teaching it something it had no understanding of.

She knew what it was intrigued by. Could easily name it. The power of love. It didn't understand anything at all about love.

“I want him back,” she said.

The moments stretched and she was not sure that she had been heard at all. The she felt a shift, as though the air crackled, the process of a decision being made. There were no words, but a voice was in her head, asking her a question.

“Why?”

It was asked innocently. There was no malicious undertone, no right or wrong answer. It was asked in much the same way as a waitress might ask if porridge or bread was preferred for breakfast.

“Because I love him,” she said simply.

“Explain,” came the eventual answer, asked in the same nonjudgmental tone.

But how could she put into simple words that power, that contentment, how could she name the attraction, that it made her feel anger, pain, ardor, pleasure. How could she state clearly and effectively how it had changed her from the angry woman she had been, to feeling that the world had some good in it, that she now had a future with children and someone who wanted to grow old with her. How could she explain the enchantment, the passion, the yearning for more, the anticipation of days spent together, forging a life between just the two of them?

How could she explain that all those things were
reciprocated
?

There
were
no words, so she chose not to use any.

Instead she began her song, used her gift to reach out to the spirit god and with her melody she imprinted her feelings, her experiences, her memories, the pictures in her mind of Gregory. She imagined him standing before her, watching her with such deepness of emotion, capturing her enraptured attention so much so that the rest of the world contracted to just the two of them. She let the god feel the peace that washed through her, let it feel the unspoken communication that only two joined souls could ever pass between each other.

She imagined so hard her vision was almost real. That if she were to reach out she almost knew she could touch him. To be able to feel him again was too much to bear. Knowing it could never be, still she lifted her hand and pressed it against his cheek. The stubble was rough against her palm, his skin warm and soft beneath.

He lifted his lips and the smile shone like burning beacons in his eyes. She felt her own mouth pull into soft lines in response. She moved towards him, reliving the memory of how his body fit against her own. How his large, solid chest secured her world. His arms around her protected her. Made all those heady, all-encompassing sensations untangle and wash like a gentle tide through her body, flickering primitive responses, ancient needs into life.

The temptation was too much to bear. She had to see him, had to touch him had to breath in his scent, fell him against her, hear his voice, let him touch her in those ways that made her alive and joyous.

The sum of all that knowledge, all those blessed emotions was that life wasn't worth living if he was not in it with her.

She opened her eyes. And he was there.

“You're real,” she whispered.

He gathered her in his arms, pulled her against him and brought his lips to hers. He kissed her deeply, tenderly, thoroughly, and she knew without a doubt, whatever the reason the spirit god had chosen, that he had been returned to her in flesh and blood.

Soho, London.

The cave was closed. The ancient god lost to him forever. Months of planning, of altering the course of his career by strategic removal of competition, hours and hours of endless meetings and mindless parties, buttering the right people that would put him in front of other people who currently held the balance of power. Employing the aid of super natural powers that could help him advance his dreams. He'd finally been in a position where his careful plans, his sacrifices were coming into fruition.

Now all gone to waste.

Jack Cutlass was a big mistake. He should have known the man wasn't worth his silver tongue and good looks. In the end he was too weak. Everything lost directly at the hands of a worthless woman no less! The Stonebridge daughter. She'd pay dearly for the dent in his plans. By now he should hold the fate of an entire country in the palm of his hands. So many souls to own, to use at his will.

The god had been appeased and had been shut back into the cave now guarded around the clock by the ancient spirits of the land. There would be no second coming.

The carriage halted and jerked to a stop. One of the horses stamped its foot, snorting in the frigid night air. No doubt the animal picked up on the sense of hopelessness in this area. That and the smell of rancid sewage that was never properly washed away, even in the rain of mid-winter. It was the stench of urine that stained the stone and kept the well-mannered, gently bred away.

The type of area he could depend would swallow the secret of his presence. The type where people went missing as a natural event of the day, where life and death were so closely related it was a matter of wonder when children lived. Most of them didn't get a name until they were five years old. But what life to be born into. It was almost a blessing when a child passed away. He could imagine he could be relieved if a child of his died, if he was a sort to have a wife and children. But then again, he'd never been one to keep dependents for long.

The carriage door was opened by one of the guards he'd brought with him. Men that could be bought to keep their tongues from flapping. If that wasn't enough persuasion, they had family they wanted kept alive if it came down to that. Best to keep them on his good side, though. Make them think that following him would be of some greater benefit to their lives. It was always easier to manipulate a certain sort of man if they thought they had a better future. Worthington stepped to the ground, careful not to show the assault on his nostrils.

“This way, sir.” His guard offered a gesture to the steps of a soot blackened building. This particular Gentlemen's Club had gone out of its way to remain anonymous. Entry by invitation only, nameless attendance guaranteed. Yet it was the most popular on the circuit among the upper echelons of the ton.

He hadn't come for the delights the talented women of the club provided. They were well known to be degrees above the average whore. His tastes were more … eclectic … than that. His attentions were drawn to one woman in particular who worked from the relative privacy the rooms provided, offering the types of services he was more interested in. And as long as the room was paid for by the hour, he would be guaranteed a meeting with her.

The front door opened as he stepped to the landing. A large, bland-faced Butler ushered him into a warm but dimly lit reception area. The scent of expensive cigar smoke and cheap perfume hung heavy in the air. Muted seductive laughter amongst the low murmurs of the men could be heard from behind shut doors. And there were many of them that were shut in privacy from the central passageway.

The butler inclined his head and indicated that Worthington follow him. Worthington let his men in behind him. The hallway held little interest for him, although it was decorated in well-crafted paintings of scenes depicting couples in various delicate positions, each lit by a single gas lamp to show off the best angle and to whet appetites. He followed the butler to the end of the corridor, pausing as the man turned with his back to the wall. As he was about the question the Butler, the man swept aside a midnight blue velvet curtain and indicated an alcove behind it.

Worthington gave the man a curt nod and entered the room. He indicated his men to wait for him. They took positioned either side of the doorway. The curtain was dropped behind him and he was left in almost complete darkness, save for the golden glow of a small lamp on one of the walls. He barely saw another midnight curtain within hands reach.