The Third Heiress (52 page)

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Authors: Brenda Joyce

BOOK: The Third Heiress
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Suddenly she was at peace.
Never had there been so much peace. So much light … and so much peace …
Click. Kate was confused. The noise disturbed her, the light began to fade. Click.
She struggled for consciousness. The lock was turning, and the tower was once again wet and raw and cold. In fact, it was so dark with shadows that she could barely see. Kate clawed the damp earth, shivering uncontrollably now, watching as the door opened, watching as Anne stepped into the tower.
She had never thought to see Anne again. She wondered if she was dreaming. “Help me,” she whispered, but then realized that she was so sick that she could not even speak, not even in the lowest, most inaudible of whispers. She could only speak in her mind.
“Hello, Kate.” Anne came closer, until she was standing over Kate, peering down at her. “Are you still alive?”
Kate wet her lips. Or she tried to, but she could hardly make her tongue move to carry out the action. “Anne.
Please.”
She did not want to die. Not after all. She could not die! Edward and Peter needed her …
“You’re still alive.” Anne squatted, fact-to-face with Kate. “You’re not beautiful anymore, Kate. You’re downright ugly.”
How could Anne have become so hateful, so evil? “Help,” Kate whispered—or she tried to.
“Edward thinks you left him. He thinks you ran off—with another man.” Anne laughed. “Isn’t that amusing?”
Kate squeezed her eyes shut, over sudden tears, suddenly realizing that she clutched the locket in her palm. It was her last hope. Maybe, if she gave it to Anne, Anne would be jolted out of her madness. Maybe she would remember their friendship. Maybe she would have mercy on her.
But Kate could not raise her arm to give the locket to Anne. She could not move her arm at all. The effort was monumental, and it made her break out in sweat.
“Where is Peter? Where is he? He disappeared, damn it, Kate. I want to know where he is!” Anne cried, rising to her full height and staring down at Kate.
Kate closed her eyes, shaking, giving up the struggle to hand Anne the locket. Peter. He was safe. And Anne would kill her after all. She was suddenly filled with determination. Her eyes opened. Her gaze locked with Anne’s. She said, low but clear, “The countess.”
Anne’s eyes widened in shock. “You bitch! You clever, scheming bitch! You think to thwart me from the grave, do you not?” Anne paced, wringing her hands, furious.
Kate collapsed once again. Speaking had cost her dearly, she had nothing left to give.
“Edward and I have set our wedding date. For August. And I will not raise your brat,” Anne spat.
Kate looked at her. And something odd happened. The gray shadows in the tower began to disperse as more bright, pure, brilliant light streamed inside. Anne became bathed in it. Kate watched her slowly disappearing, swallowed up by the tunnel of blinding light.
She smiled. She was floating, and at peace. Death was not, she realized, so very frightening. It was peaceful and calm.
Why had she been so afraid to die?
Anne stared down at her. “Why are you smiling? What is so amusing? What do you know that I don’t?”
When Kate did no answer, but continued to smile, her eyes closed, Anne nudged her with the toe of one shoe. There was no response.
“I won’t let you have the last laugh, and I won’t raise your brat,” Anne cried. She bent and grabbed Kate’s hands, about to drag her, then she paused. She opened Kate’s tightly clenched palm, which felt very cold, as if she were already dead. In it was the locket.
Anne recognized it immediately. Her instinct was to toss it aside. Instead, she paused, opening it, and saw the portraits of two so very young, so very naive, smiling girls—the best of friends.
Oddly shaken, she snapped it closed and slid it into her bodice, beneath the coat and dress she wore. Then she shoved any remorse—and regret—aside. Was Kate dead?
Anne knelt, placing her hand beneath her nose. She seemed to be breathing, but barely.
She dragged her across the floor of the tower and outside. It continued to flurry.
Panting, Anne continued to drag her toward the manor, which was boarded up now. When she came around the side of the house, gasping for air, she finally paused, releasing Kate. If Kate wasn’t dead yet, Anne decided, she would be, soon. In the daylight, Anne finally took a good look at her. Not only was she emaciated and ugly, she looked very much like a corpse. Edward would not think her beautiful and enchanting now.
The doors to the root cellar were open. Anne didn’t hesitate. She
pushed Kate’s body over the edge, and heard her land with a thud on the earthen floor below.
She closed and padlocked the doors. Then she walked away from Coke’s Way, across the street, to the chapel, where she’d left her carriage in the drive.
And deep in the root cellar, the darkness was complete.
January 15, 1909
Dear Diary,
It has been some time since I last wrote. I have just returned from another trip to Stainesmore. My last and final trip there, I suppose. For I surely will not allow Edward to go there when we are wed. The memories for us both would be far too awkward.
It is done. Kate is dead. I have seen so for myself.
Mother and I have never once discussed our secret. That is for the best, as there is not much to say. I do think Mother is in awe of me. But there is little I can do about that. I do not think she ever really believed I would become the next countess of Collinsworth. I had not a doubt.
The wedding is now scheduled for August. All of London is talking about the affair, labeling it the grandest union of our times. I am so excited. I can hardly wait.
J
ill cut the Lamborghini’s engine but left the headlights on. They shone directly on the front door of Stainesmore and the huge, night-blackened windows of the ground floor. The entire stone mansion seemed to be cast in darkness, which was very odd—and very disturbing. At night, lights were always left on. Where was the staff? And wasn’t William, and possibly Margaret, at home?
Alex sat beside her in the passenger seat, head back, eyes closed. It was close to midnight. Jill had never been more exhausted, but bed was the last thing on her mind. Lucinda was dead, and had been taken to the morgue in Scarborough. She had driven to Coke’s Way in the Sheldons’ Mercedes sedan, because the car was still there, parked in the driveway in front of the manor house. Alex’s gunshot wound had been treated at the Scarborough Hospital. They’d both given statements to the local police.
She looked at him, dreading going inside. To her surprise, his eyes opened and he smiled very faintly at her. She had thought him soundly asleep.
He looked like hell. His face remained a ghastly hue of gray, there were dark circles under his eyes, not to mention a day’s growth of beard. The upper right side of his torso was bandaged, his right arm was in a sling. There was dried blood all over his shirt and pants. “You look like a drug dealer,” Jill said, hoping to lighten his mood. When what she really
wanted to do was to pull him into her arms and weep. Not for herself, but for him.
He laughed. The sound was brief, but genuine. Then he sobered. “I feel like shit. Those painkillers suck.”
Jill winced. “You were supposed to take two.”
“I need to think,” he said, staring now straight ahead at the front door of the house.
Jill wondered what awaited them inside.
Alex suddenly reached for the door with his left arm—he’d been shot in the right shoulder, and that arm was now useless—grunting. “Let’s go.”
Dread filled her. Jill killed the headlights and got out of the car, shutting both of their doors for them. All she could think of was the fact that William was inside of the house, probably alone. She felt certain that Lucinda had been his passenger, not Margaret, although perhaps she had not seen a third passenger in the car. But did that make him Lucinda’s accomplice? She could hardly think straight.
“Let me help you,” Jill said, taking Alex’s left arm so he could lean on her as they approached the house.
“You didn’t tell the cops about the cat, the ransacking, or the brakes.”
Jill’s heart began to thud. Slowly. Painfully. “No. I did not.”
“You said Lucinda came after you because of your research into Kate’s life, period.”
“I know what I said,” Jill replied, tense and strained. They paused at the front door, eyes locking. “Lucinda helped me at first. But when the ugliness started to emerge, she became unhinged. Insane.”
“Shit,” Alex cried.
“Oh, Alex, I’m sorry,” Jill cried back. “This is all my fault!”
He flung her a look that was pained, angry, and resigned all at once and stepped inside his uncle’s house.
The foyer was cast in absolute blackness. It had stopped raining hours ago, a few stars had managed to creep out from behind thick clouds, and shadows seemed to dance across the room. The huge entry was achingly silent. Jill’s tension increased.
And with every painful beat of her heart, she prayed that William and Margaret were not involved in the threats made against her, in the assault on her life.
Alex cursed and pounded the wall switch, flooding the foyer with light.
Jill’s eyes widened. William sat in one of the thronelike, velvet-backed chairs against the far wall, unmoving, his face absolutely ravaged with emotional distress.
“Uncle William.”
William stared, and then he stood slowly, showing every one of his years, his hands shaking. “Lucinda. Where is she? Dear God, she’s been gone so long!” And his gaze swung wildly from Alex to Jill and then to Alex again.
He was in love with her
. Jill stared in shock at William, who was beginning to cry.
And suddenly she began to understand.
As Alex went to him, putting his good arm around him and begging him to sit back down, William lost all control and began to weep openly. Jill’s mind raced. Margaret was so elegant, so beautiful, how could this be? But then, love was a strange and odd thing, wasn’t it?
And then she thought about Edward and Kate. Was it the fate of the Collinsworth men to fall in love with women they could not marry?
“Uncle William, something terrible has happened,” Alex said hoarsely.
He looked up. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Alex inhaled.
Jill realized then that William had not once asked after Alex’s welfare. Like a metal stake, pain stabbed through her breast.
“Yes,” Alex said slowly. “There was an accident. She had a gun. It went off.” He closed his eyes tightly.
William covered his face with his hands and wept with the abandon of a child.
Jill tried to think. If William loved Lucinda, then he would have never cut the brake lines to the rental car. Relief overcame her, and she darted forward, to pull Alex aside, to tell him that Lucinda’s accomplice was not William, when William said, “I don’t know how all of this has happened, dear God, I do not!”
Jill froze.
“William.” Alex spoke as if with great difficulty, as if with great pain. “Please. Don’t say anything. Not a word. You need a lawyer.”
“Alex,” Jill tried.
But William shook his head. “I’ve lost the woman I love. The woman I’ve loved for well over thirty years. We never meant to hurt anybody. We only wanted her to go home before she discovered the truth about my mother.” He was pleading, plaintive, and looking now at Jill. “My mother told us the truth about what she did to Kate—she was dying and she couldn’t bear the guilt. But Lucinda told me not to worry. She kept repeating that. She said she would manage everything!”
“Oh, my God,” Alex cried, shocked, gripping both of William’s hands
so tightly that his knuckles turned white—while his face lost the little coloring it had. He was not supposed to use his right arm at all. “Please. Do not say a word. Do not confess. I beg you. I will see to it that you have the best defense team in the country.”
But William was gazing at Jill. “I knew,” he said heavily, “that the day Hal found you, we were all in trouble. What will you do?” he asked. “I am destroyed. Hal is dead. Lucinda …” He broke off, unable to continue, tears pouring down his face again.
“I’m sorry,” Jill whispered. “I only wanted to know if Kate was my great-grandmother, and then I only wanted to know that she ran away to live happily ever after with her love. I had no idea Edward was her lover or that she was murdered. I’m sorry.” Jill realized she was crying, too.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” William whispered. “I thought your brakes would fail right in front of your flat.” Suddenly he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, as tears streamed down his face. “I had no idea Lucinda would be in that car with you. I am so sorry.”
Jill’s heart stopped.
“William!” Alex cried, and it was a command.
But William wasn’t listening to Alex, or even to anyone. He somehow stood up, standing unsteadily, swaying like a leaf. “There’s a trust. My father kept a trust for Peter. He loved him, very much. I believe Kate’s estate was settled privately, between my father and Kate’s mother. The trust he set aside is for Peter and Peter’s heirs, in perpetuity. It’s yours, you know. Edward would have wanted you to have it.” He inhaled raggedly. “I should have been forthright from the first. But Thomas told me you would go home. Lucinda said the same thing.” He started to cry. “The trust is yours. Now will you go home?” he whispered.
That last question had been uttered with the bewilderment of a little boy. Jill nodded, aware of the tears spilling down her cheeks. She realized Alex was staring at her, and she wondered how much he hated her now, for this. When she could speak, she said, “Alex, there’s a bottle of Xanax on my bed table. Why don’t you take your uncle upstairs, give him two tablets, and put him to bed.”
Alex stared at her, every muscle in his face strained. He did not answer her, but walked past her to the closest room, a salon, where he picked up the telephone. But he did not dial. His eyes closed, his shoulders slumped.
Jill ran to him, taking the phone from him and slamming it down. “Who were you calling?”
He didn’t face her. “The police.”
Jill grit her teeth as she pulled the phone right out of the wall. “Take
William upstairs, give him those Xanax, and put him to bed,” she panted. “Okay?”
He slowly turned, and their gazes met.
Jill stared back, watching as his gaze became questioning and then searching. “This is our secret,” she said. “And I promise I won’t tell.”
I
n spite of her exhaustion, Jill could not sleep.
All she could think about was William and Lucinda having a thirty-year affair, and of Alex, in his misery, behind his closed bedroom door.
She could no more stop herself from going to him than she could stop the sun from rising that next day. Jill slipped from her bedroom, clad in heavy socks, a T-shirt, and sweats, tapping lightly on his door as she pushed it open.
One bedside light was on. He was awake, sitting up in bed, the covers pulled up to his waist, which was bare except for the bandages, his face still shockingly pale. He was staring at the fireplace on the facing wall. No fire burned there.
“Can I come in?” Jill asked softly, her heart twisting at the sight of him. In that moment she realized how deeply she cared for him. In that moment, she wondered if she could bear the burden of a life without Alex in it. She felt shaken and stunned and elated and afraid all at once.
He turned his head and almost smiled at her. “Sure.”
Jill faltered, because it was obvious that he’d been crying. His eyes and nose were brightly red. He couldn’t quite look at her.
Jill melted. She hurried to him, sat down beside him, and without even thinking about it, she took him into her arms, holding his head to her breasts as if he were a small child. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, gently rocking him.
“Yeah,” he said roughly, a sob in his voice. “Me, too.”
Jill continued to hold him. He did not move. She bent and kissed the crown of his head. His hair was thick and wavy and it teased her nose, and he smelled so good, a blend of talcum powder and musk, and for one moment, a jolt of need that was physical took her by surprise. She ignored it. He was so still that she wondered if he’d suddenly fallen asleep, right there in her arms.
But after another moment, he raised his head, trying to smile and failing, tears shining in his eyes. “Oh, Alex,” Jill whispered, aching anew for him.
His left hand cupped her nape and he pulled her head down. Their lips met in a gently, barely there brushing.
Jill felt tears form in her own eyes as she somehow slid down the bed so they were on a level, their lips touching tenderly again and again, a bubble of sadness and joy mingling and ballooning in her heart. Alex rolled fully onto his back and Jill didn’t hesitate, moving so that she lay partially on top of him. In spite of the sheets between them, there was no mistaking that he was fully erect. Their eyes met and locked.
“Spend the night with me,” he said roughly. “Please.” Using his left hand to trace the line of her jaw, the tip of her nose, the shape of her lips.
“I want to,” Jill said as roughly. “I need you, too.”
She bent over him again, toward his mouth. This time they kissed with deep need and a deeper hunger. Hard. Alex’s hand slid under her sweats and over her bare buttocks, then lower, down and behind them.
Jill tore the sheets and blanket out from between them; he pushed at her sweats with one hand. Jill shimmied out of the sweats as their lips locked again, with urgency and determination.
She tore his briefs off and slid on top of him. She gripped his full length and he pushed up, inside of her. And they moved as one, with desperation, with tears … until she was crying out, crying his name, spinning out of control, so wildly in love, into the far-flung universe, and he was coming too, hot and wet, deep inside of her, her name a sob torn from deep inside his being.
Afterward, he slept.
And Jill crept back to her own room.
T
he morning was cool and damp, the sky overhead partially overcast, with no real hope that the sun would shine that day. Jill stood staring at the manor and the tower behind it, braced against the chill of the breeze, glimpses of the steel gray sea flashing among the trees along the cliff’s edge. Her hands were buried deeply in the fleece pockets of her red anorak.
Kate was in the tower. Jill felt certain of it. She had been imprisoned there and now she was buried there. But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
Because Jill was quitting and she was going home.

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