He took a step away as if she intimidated him and observed her intently. A pause, then he said, “You know why I’m here.”
“Sex? Intercourse?” Her signing was rapid, vulgar and explicit, and drew gasps from the onlookers—and everyone was looking. “Bullshit. Bullshit! No way. All you want is the one beautiful woman you couldn’t have.”
He spoke the words clearly and calmly. “Now I call bullshit. I haven’t seen you in years. You’ve changed. Aged. I could have found a more beautiful and also less resistant woman than you.”
That knocked Merida back on her heels, made her think, made her silently laugh. Her temper marginally cooled. “How did you find me?”
Again a pause that involved his close scrutiny. “Pure luck. I had an investigative firm looking for you. Then my assistant saw you in the airport. She wasn’t sure. She took your picture.”
Merida had a flashback of rushing to catch a plane—she tried never to be early, to be caught standing around—and noticing a young, tall, smartly suited female fumbling with her phone.
Luck. Rotten luck. Damned fate.
And damn him. Benedict Howard. Always him.
Another man who wanted to make a deal. Another man who would use any leverage, no matter how abhorrent, to force her to sign a contract that would give him possession over her: her face, her body, her presence at his side until such time as he no longer wanted her—or, like Nauplius, he dropped dead.
“Go away,” she signed, gesturing wildly.
He caught her wrists.
She didn’t pause. She didn’t think. She head-butted him in the chest. He stumbled backward, yet held on. She stumbled forward. He hit the fireplace utensils. The clang and rattle as they fell over seemed to awaken him and abruptly, he let her go. Seeking balance, one of his hands swept out. He knocked over the tray of delicate crystal goblets.
Purple port splashed. Glass shattered.
Phoebe cried out in distress.
All at once, Merida realized every eye in the room was fixed on her. She was doing the thing she most needed to avoid: she was causing a scene, calling attention to herself.
Turning on her heel, she stalked toward the entry.
Sean caught her arm and swung her around. “Do you want to file a complaint against him?”
In a fury, she glared.
He let her go.
Clothed in dignity and exuding offense, she left the room. Behind her, she heard the murmur of voices, the general rise of surprised, shocked and scintillated conversation, then Phoebe saying, “Can’t she speak? She didn’t tell me she couldn’t speak. Why didn’t she tell me?”
Merida hoped to escape into her room before Benedict caught up with her. She inserted her key into the lock and turned it. No problem. She tried to input her code into the keypad. She got it wrong. She tried again.
Benedict tapped her shoulder.
She thumped her head on the door, then faced him.
He held up his hands, palms out. “I’m sorry I held you. I’ve been practicing sign language, reading it and speaking it, but I’m slow and I couldn’t keep up and you were … I’m not used to anyone swearing at me.”
She thought about it, then nodded a grudging acceptance. Again she signed, “Why are you here?”
“Is sheer lust not a good enough reason?”
“For years?” Every gesture was emphatic. “With this woman who is so much older than your usual paramours?”
He sighed as if he didn’t quite know what to say. “The thing is—I feel like I’ve known you forever.”
No. “No! You don’t know me. Go away and leave me alone.”
“I can’t. I tried to forget you, but there’s something between us.”
Yes. There was so much between them. Love. Lust. Joy. Betrayal. Betrayal on a cosmic level.
She wanted to grab him, shake him, demand he explain himself … pick up a knife and stick it in his chest, hurt him as he had hurt her.
“What?” he asked. “Tell me what it is.”
God. She would so love to tell him what it was. She would love to hear him deny, grovel, be shocked and appalled.
He would be lying, but she would love it anyway.
Nine years of servitude, and they were all Benedict’s fault. The explosion, the horror of waking and discovering she was broken in face and body … and discovering, also, she could be repaired … for a price, and that price was her freedom. Nine years spent knowing she had signed Nauplius Brassard’s draconian contract, that it was her name on the dotted line, and learning all too painfully that Nauplius had no pity, no compassion, and escape, physically or mentally, was impossible.
The front door slammed open.
Merida’s and Benedict’s heads swiveled to look.
Dawkins and Elsa Cipre stood in the entry.
Dear God, they were still at the B and B. Was Merida cursed?
Dawkins looked indignant. Elsa looked disheveled, or maybe it was simply another one of her odd outfits.
Dawkins proclaimed, “That wave came right at me. Right at me, Elsa!”
Elsa brushed at his jacket. “Dear, surely you can’t believe the ocean conspired to rob you of your dignity. That simply doesn’t make sense.”
“Are you saying I’m not sensible?”
Elsa struggled for words, then caught sight of Benedict and Merida frozen and staring. She seized on them like the diversion they were. “Darling, look! It’s Merida and … and the young man from the ship!”
Dawkins turned to his wife and in an accusing voice said, “So much for your theory that Merida is pining for Nauplius. They must have made an assignation.”
Merida shook her head and spelled, No. No. No.
No to the assignation. No to the Cipres residing here. No to the whole scene.
From the kitchen, another voice spoke, a feminine, high-class Baltimore, superior/nasty voice. With an indignation to match Cipre’s, the woman said, “My God, what kind of disgusting spectacle have I walked into?”
Merida’s and Benedict’s heads swiveled in that direction.
The woman continued to complain. “I should never have made a reservation in a bed-and-breakfast. So … common.”
Merida couldn’t believe her bad luck. Lilith Palmer. Lilith Palmer. Kateri’s sister, the one who had locked them in the basement. Merida and Kateri believed she had hoped to kill them.
She had met Lilith again, too, at some boring charity function she had attended as Nauplius Brassard’s wife.
But … but Merida looked very different now. Different from her teen years. Different from those years of suited and high-heeled bondage.
Yet Lilith’s Botoxed forehead almost wrinkled. “Do I know you?” She sounded scornful, but puzzled, too.
Merida shook her head. No. You don’t know me.
Sean Weston stepped into the doorway. “Merida, do you need assistance?”
No. None of you know me.
Dawkins Cipre. Elsa Cipre. Officer Sean Weston. Lilith Palmer. And most horribly, Benedict Howard. Why were they here? Now? In Merida’s refuge? To her, it seemed as if predator birds circled overhead, waiting for the moment of weakness when they would swoop down and tear her to pieces. She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips.