CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NICHOLAS
It doesn’t take me long to get to my father’s other residence. It’s on the other side of the estate. It’s the place he takes the whores, and judging by the noise coming from his bedroom, he’s already at it with one. I swallow down the bile that comes from hearing the screams.
“Tell him I want to speak to him, now,” I growl toward a guard who’s conflicted about what he should do. It’s a case of deciding which devil is worse between my father and me, at the moment. The fact that my fist is inches from breaking his nose forces his hand, and he scuttles up the stairs to interrupt my father’s pleasures. I settle myself into a chair and wait impatiently
“Nicholas.” My father saunters down the stairs in what I suspect is nothing more than a housecoat. “I was in the middle of something rather important. What’s it you want? And what have you done with the girl?”
He walks straight past me and pours himself a glass of red wine from a decanter on the table.
“She's somewhere safe.”
“You’ll have her back at Oakfield Hall by dusk, and I’ll have Doctor Fallen confirm that you’ve treated her honorably. I know your reputation.”
“It’s no different to yours,” I snap back and jump to my feet.
“I think my satisfaction rates are much higher than yours.”
“No, your hospitalization rates are more widely known than mine. There's a difference. Does the whore upstairs know what she’s letting herself in for?”
He smirks.
“Oh, she’s fully aware and looking forward to it.”
“She’s insane.”
He laughs.
“Just say what you’ve come here to say and leave. I’m a busy man.”
“I’ve made my decision. You can end the trials and start making arrangements for the wedding. I’ll be marrying Victoria Hamilton.”
At first, my father doesn’t say anything. He just continues drinking his wine in a cold and calculating way.
“Do you know what I did last night after that stupid girl decided to decorate my hall with her brains? I went out and organized the final task. I want this over, and it won’t be until the tasks are done. Elizabeth Sandford undertook hers a few hours ago and succeeded. We have a nice, new Picasso to hang up on the wall. A stupid private collector was insufficient with his security. She was good. I’ll have to show you the video at some point.” He places his glass down. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck start to rise. I don’t like this one bit. There’s something not right.
“At the time, I couldn’t find Miss Hamilton, no doubt, because she was sitting on your dick somewhere.”
“She’s pure,” I lie through my teeth. I won’t have him disregard her and seek to destroy her this way.
“Yes, about as pure Charles II favorite, Nell Gwynn, was.” He waves his hand toward a stolen painting of the famed courtesan on the wall. “Anyway, it was fortunate that you chose to phone your butler this morning. I’ve had a trace on your phone since the day you got it.”
The blood must drain from my face because my head starts to spin.
“What’ve you done?”
“At this very moment, I suspect that Miss Hamilton is being taken from your mother’s summer house — it’s a good place to go, by the way, and proves you’re as weak as she was. Miss Hamilton will be put in location to steal her painting within the hour.”
I don’t wait to hear anything else from him. I’m out of the room, out of the house, and running across the grounds as fast as I can to the summer house. I leap over the formal gardens, filled with summer blooms and edged with boxed dark green yew. A water fountain has me skidding in a different direction, but, eventually, I burst in through the doors of the summer house.
“Victoria?” I call, but the only answer I get is Reggie, falling to the ground in front of me. “Reggie.” I leap forward and pull him into my arms. He’s holding a wound to his chest.
“I tried.,” he splutters, and blood drips from his mouth. “I’m sorry they took her.”
“Shush,” I urge him and press my hand against what looks like a knife wound in his chest. “I need to get you a doctor.”
“No,” he gurgles. “Too late.”
“It can’t be.” I’m shaking my head. Reggie has been the father I’ve never had. He’s looked after me for as long as I can remember. "Let me try?” I’m pleading with him. I can’t lose him.
“I’m old. She’s young. Help her.” He coughs again, and his eyes roll back in his head.
“Reggie.” I shake him, but there’s nothing to be done. The room goes silent as he passes away. I lay him down on the floor. I can’t breathe. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to go to my father and be marrying Victoria. Victoria, she’s got to steal. I need to think. We have a list of works that we want. Which one would it be? Oh god, the ultimate prize. Would my father send her after that? The Mona Lisa. I have to hope that he has some sort of heart amongst the ego that dominates his body. I spin around, ready to finish this, but my father stands in the door, a tablet in hand, and a microphone headset on.
“One less expense on my budget, then.” He looks over my shoulder to where my butler lays dead.
“I want the guard who killed him. I’m going to tear him apart, limb by limb.”
“So dramatic.” My father rolls his eyes
“Reggie wasn’t just staff. He’s been more of a father figure in my life than you’ve ever been”
“Well that explains the weakness in you, then. He always did pander to your whims when I thought you should be beaten black and blue, to instill some balls into you. I should’ve had someone stick a knife in his chest years ago.”
“Give me the guard,” I repeat.
You’ve more important things to worry about than the staff.” He hands me the tablet.
“What’s this?”
“I thought you would like to watch the woman you love.”
I swipe the screen quickly, and it brings Victoria up. She’s in a dimly lit room, but I can make out her silhouette.
“Miss Hamilton” ‒my father addresses her, and she jumps‒ “I trust you had a good evening with my son. I know you were expecting him to come back and whisk you away into a happy ever after, but I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen. I don’t believe you’d be the best choice for Duchess of Oakfield. You’re what I’d call ‘a little too headstrong’. Alas, I have to go through the rules, and you must be given a chance.”
“Fuck you,” Victoria shouts out into the darkness, and I smirk at her bravery.
“I don’t do sloppy seconds, Miss Hamilton. I’m afraid you are spoiled goods, now. When I prove it, I’ll have you executed for your disregard of the rules, but, for now, this is much more fun.”
“Let her go!” I snarl at my father.
“Nicholas?” Victoria must hear my voice.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t give into his demands. Remember, I’m stronger than I look.”
I smile because I have a feeling that my father is the one who’s doing the underestimating of the situation, when it comes to Victoria.
“I won’t.”
“Hush,” my father snaps. “Miss Hamilton, you have half an hour to retrieve a painting from the vault you are in. If you fail to do it in that time, then you’re at the mercy of the collector. I’d wish you good luck, but I’d be lying. Your time starts now.”
My father takes the headset off his head and throws it on the floor. I stare down at the screen, and the lights come on. I don’t recognize where she is but breathe a sigh of relief as I know it’s not The Louvre, in Paris. The Mona Lisa isn’t the picture she’ll seek.
“Victoria isn’t headstrong. She’ll make a good Duchess of Oakfield.”
“She’ll destroy the rules, and the society will be left penniless.”
“Is that such a bad thing?” I ask. “Haven’t enough people died?”
My father yawns. “You’ve become such a bore. That’s why I’ve had to do things this way. You gave me no choice. It’s your mother’s fault. She put weak genes in William, and they seem to have gone in you as well.”
The door behind him creeks, and Elizabeth Sandford appears in the doorway.
“Your Grace, she drapes her arm around my father. He greets her with a kiss on the cheek and pats her stomach.
Oh, Fuck!
“There’s only one way that this will end, Nicholas, and it won’t be with you marrying Victoria. You'll marry Elizabeth and claim my son as your own. You'll then disappear, taking the bitch with you if she survives, and you still want her. I don’t care. You'll leave me with the title until my, sorry, your son comes of age. I'll do this again. This time correctly and without your mother’s weakness. Elizabeth Sandford is perfect for the mother of a Duke.”
“Go to hell.” I spit at them both. “Elizabeth Sandford is a title grabbing bitch. She’d just as soon stab me in the back as she would you.”
Elizabeth smirks but doesn’t deny the accusation.
“And that’s why I trust her better than anyone. She’s a devil, just like me. She’s what you should be. We'll raise a boy together who’ll make this society the greatest it’s ever been. We'll eclipse the royal family for whom the society was originally designed, to provide them with our support. We'll become the royal family. Everyone will bow to us. Worship us. We'll be gods.
“You’re delusional and will be thrown into a mental asylum.”
My father laughs.
“Actually, maybe I should have you declared insane, instead of making you disappear. That would be fun.”
“Please, stop now. This is no longer your decision to make,” I plead with my father. I’m pretty sure I’m wasting my breath, though, especially when he stabs a pudgy finger at the screen of the tablet that I’m holding.
“You’ll do this, Nicholas, or she’ll die in that room. There'll be no way out with the picture that she’s stealing.”
“No.”
Elizabeth kisses my father’s cheek.
“I’m glad I chose the father over the son. He’s a fool.”
“He is, and one who’s about to watch the woman he loves die.”