The Bride of the Unicorn. Kasey Michaels
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but Lord James knew his nephew’s need for information would take priority, leashing his bloodlust, at least for the moment. “The child? Is she still alive? Surely you must know something. Where could she have gone?”
“A whorehouse, if she was smart,” Lord James answered, feebly trying to push his nephew’s hands away. “Chopping turnips in someone’s kitchen if she was stupid. Unless she’s dead. You know the way of orphanages. It’s a hard life. Even harder than mine has been. Maybe that’s why I lost touch. Or maybe I was lied to. Maybe the little brat is feeding worms. What were you hoping for, Unicorn—to lay your head in the lap of a virgin? I’d like that too, for you’d have to die to do it.”
Morgan released his grip on the nightshirt, which allowed James to slump back against the pillows, gasping for breath. “You’re lying, old man. Your story is full of holes. I don’t believe a word you’re saying. You’ve just taken bits of well-known truth and conveniently twisted them around for your own evil motives.”
Was he lying? Lord James couldn’t remember. He had told so many lies. Was this the truth? Yes. Yes, of course it was the truth. He hadn’t made this story up, designed it from bits of truth woven together with clever lies, to fashion a tapestry of revenge against his brother’s son. Had he? Oh, Christ—had he?
But wait. He remembered now. He had proof!
Lord James dragged himself to the edge of the bed, knocking over a candlestick as he groped on the nightstand for the proof that would seal his nephew’s fate, the one piece of evidence that would start him on what Lord James sincerely hoped would prove to be the path to his destruction. The path to destruction for all of them—and the revenge Lord James longed to see, if only from the other side of the grave.
His fingers closed over the pendant, and he fell back against the pillows, holding it out so that the long gold chain swung free. “Here! Here is your proof! I found it around the child’s throat. Take it, nevvy. And then think, damn you. Think!”
Morgan ripped the pendant from his uncle’s hand and held it up so that its gold chain twinkled dully in the candlelight. “It can’t be. I won’t believe it. You could have commissioned a copy. It would be just like you, for you’ve never done one genuine thing in your life. Uncle. Uncle? Do you hear me?”
Lord James was scarcely able to speak. Everything was suddenly moving too fast. Morgan was confusing him. He had wanted to enjoy this moment, draw it out, savor Morgan’s frustration, then leave him with the Gordian knot of the puzzle he had set him. But now he could barely think clearly, and his ears were full of the sound of rushing water.
Fear invaded his senses, washing away the elation, the thirst for revenge. This was real. His death—so long contemplated but never really believed in, never before comprehended for what it represented—was upon him. The pain in his chest was suffocating, pushing him down into a yawning blackness, a total nothingness that terrified him by its absence of recognizable reality.
This was all wrong. He had been wrong. Nothing was playing out as it should. The play was not the thing. Revenge wasn’t sweet. Not at this cost. Never at such a cost. He wanted to live. Longer. A second more. A minute more. Forever. Why? Why should he die?
Oh, God, but he was frightened. More frightened than he had ever been in his life. God? Why had he thought of God? Why had that well-hated name popped into his head? Could there really be a God? Could there be an alternative to nothingness, a substitute for hell? No wonder they had cried, those people he’d killed over the years. It was the terror that had made them cry! The terror of the unknown, the fear of the God he had sworn did not exist.
It was all so real now.
He had been wrong. His revenge against his brother and Morgan wasn’t worth this agony. He didn’t want to go to hell. If there was a hell there had to be a heaven. Why hadn’t he seen that? Morgan was the smart one. Why hadn’t he seen that?
Lord James didn’t want to spend the rest of eternity burning, burning, burning….
Morgan had to find the girl for him! He had to seek redemption for his poor uncle’s most terrible sin, save him from the demons. He’d tell Morgan everything he wanted to hear, tell him now. Tell him the chit’s name; tell him everything he wanted to know; hold nothing back. Confession. He’d give his genuine confession. Confession was good for the soul.
He grabbed at his nephew’s sleeve, trying to anchor himself to life for just a while longer. “Morgan? Could we be wrong? Is there a God? Oh, what if Willy’s right? What if there is a God? What if there is? What if I’m telling the truth? Am I lying? I can’t remember anymore. Help me, Morgan! I can’t remember the truth!”
“Not now, old man,” Morgan said, his voice tight. “Truth or lie, you have to tell me the rest of it, and then I’ll judge for myself.”
“Judge? We’ll all be judged! Save me, Morgan! Save my immortal soul! You already know the name. Check—check the orphanage in Glynde,” Lord James rasped, vainly trying to pull Morgan closer. “In Glynde,” he repeated, his eyes growing wider and wider as he stared up at the ceiling in horror. The demons had migrated, to circle just above him. They were grinning in avid expectation, their long, pointed fangs glinting in the candlelight, the unearthly whoop-whoop-whoop of their black bat wings sucking the air from his lungs.
Lord James heard a sound coming to him as if from a distance. What was it? Oh, yes. Morgan. His dear nevvy was yelling, still asking for proof, his carefully constructed facade of civilization stripped away just as Lord James had foreseen it—yet he could not take pleasure in the sight. For one of the demons was on his chest now, resting on its bony, emaciated haunches, its birdlike legs folded at the knee as it dug razor-sharp talons into him, letting all the remaining air bubble out his mouth, to be followed by a rising river of blood.
“You know. You…must only remember,” Lord James whispered, his voice clogged with blood, with mounting terror. “The murders…our neighbors…the missing child…the searching…”
The play couldn’t be over; the finale had to be rewritten. Yet the curtain had come crashing down…too soon. Too soon. He couldn’t do anything right, even die.
“No one ever told me! I didn’t know!” Lord James shrieked, his voice suddenly strong in his last agony. He felt himself beginning to choke, drowning in the hot liquid that rushed from his ears, from the tin pots—from everywhere in the universe—to pour into his lungs. He clutched at Morgan with a strength born of impossible panic, tearing at the fine white linen of his shirtfront. It had to be the truth. There was a girl—there was! Wasn’t there? “Find her, nevvy—or I’m damned…or we’re both forever damned! Willy…brother…pray for me!”
CHAPTER TWO
Men use thought only to justify their wrongdoings,
and speech only to conceal their thoughts.
Voltaire
THE SUN SHONE BRIGHT as Morgan Blakely and his father, William, duke of Glynde, walked away from the family mausoleum at The Acres, the duke’s ancestral Sussex home. Each man was dressed in funereal black with an ebony satin armband, and each carried his hat while following behind the young minister who had conducted a mercifully short ceremony in the village church.
The duke appeared more than usually frail and wiped at his eyes with a large white handkerchief already banded on all four sides with a thin ribbon of black satin, as if his wardrobe was perpetually prepared for mourning—which, in a way, Morgan realized, it probably was. His father had buried his wife, both his sisters, one of his sons—and now his twin, James—in somewhat less than fifteen years.
Morgan though it must be a depressing way to live, surrounded by all that dying.
He sighed silently and glanced back up the hill at the impressive Italian marble structure that held all his relatives save the one at his side. How long would it be before he took this walk alone, leaving his father’s mortal remains locked behind those airless walls of veined pink stone?
Would