The Heir - Catherine Coulter [119]
“I risked your life because I wanted to trap the little bastard. It was all I could do not to wring his mangy neck today, Arabella. But the game is soon up. He will not leave here until he has made a last try to get into this room and retrieve what it is he is looking for.”
“You know he killed Josette.”
“It sounds like you had already guessed as much yourself. It makes sense. It was you who pointed out that she had no candle with her to guide her in the darkness. Yes, it only makes sense. Did she threaten to expose him? I don’t know. I suppose I could simply beat him until he’s either dead or he tells me the truth of why he came here.
“But before he leaves on Friday, he will try again. When he came running in here to tell us you were trapped in the old abbey ruins, I immediately began running to the front door. I turned to see him going quickly up the stairs. He trapped you so that he could get me out of the way, come to this room, so he could retrieve what it is he is after.”
“Let’s kill him. Now.”
He was shocked into silence, his brain numb, but just for an instant. She was like no other woman he had ever known in his life. He laughed, even as he was kissing her ear. “You delight me. You’re no fainting miss, and that pleases me. You will probably flay me with your tongue many times in the future. I shall relish each time. You are magnificent. Now, tell me. How shall we kill the bastard?”
“I would like to tie him up and leave him in the abbey ruins until he tells us why he came here.”
“I like it,” he said, nibbling now on her earlobe. “Will we give him water?”
“Water, but no food. He will be utterly alone. You will visit him but once a day to ask him one question. If he fails to answer, you will leave again. I predict he will break in three days, no longer.”
“I’m sorry, Bella, but I don’t believe we can do it. However, I do appreciate the way your mind works. Now, there is Elsbeth to consider. What will we do about Elsbeth?”
She swallowed. It was decision time. But she couldn’t, not yet. She turned to face him. “Not yet, not yet. Love me again, Justin. Love me.”
He did, and it was wild and frantic, and she still didn’t know what to do when she listened to his breathing even into sleep.
Life wasn’t simple. It was vastly irritating, particularly since she had her husband again and wanted nothing more than to have him love her until she was unconscious, which should require at least several years, by her reckoning. She had all of him now, finally, and it was beyond splendid. She wanted all of him forever.
But forever didn’t seem to be measured in a very long stretch just now.
29
The earl flung back the heavy curtains that covered the long row of narrow mullioned windows in the family portrait gallery. He brushed a light layer of dust from his hands, mentally noting to bring this neglected room to Mrs. Tucker’s attention. He would have liked to open the windows to air the room, but a fine gray drizzle had become an earnest downpour.
He was not certain why he had come to the family portrait gallery, save that he wanted to be alone. He gazed down the length of the long narrow room, scarcely wider than the second-floor corridors, his eyes resting briefly on the portrait of his great-uncle, haughtily staring at the world beneath the dark flaring Deverill brows, his dark hair covered by a white curling wig. What a proud, lecherous old man he must have been, the earl thought, his mouth twisting unwillingly into a grin.
Both he and Arabella had fallen asleep deep in the middle of the night. He had awakened first this morning, kissed her, then realized he shouldn’t make love to her again so soon. She was certainly