Chapter Forty-Three

They were driving through country lanes in Lauren’s huge limousine. One guard sat on the seat beside Jenna, his grip hard on her upper arm as though he expected her to dive out the window. A second man sat facing her, a gun pointed directly at her head. She could have taken the man who held her—could probably have taken both of them—except she was cuffed, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t take a bullet in the brain.

“Shit,” Lauren said from her seat opposite Jenna.

She closed the lid on her laptop and looked across at Jenna, her eyes narrowed.

Jenna had heard Lauren’s ultimatum to Luke and could only hope he would go ahead. He must know she wouldn’t want any more deaths on her conscience.

From Lauren’s furious expression, she presumed he must have succeeded and blown up the stock. Jenna’s muscles tensed as she waited for something to happen. Would they kill her straightaway?

Christ, how far had she come that she could consider such a possibility and not be reduced to a quivering heap of fear?

Too far.

Lauren frowned at her for a moment. “Let her go.” She spoke to the man who sat beside Jenna, and the grip on her upper arm loosened.

“Don’t worry,” Lauren said. “I’m not going to kill you. Though I have to admit it goes against my better judgment to not carry through with a threat.” She drummed her fingers on the top of the laptop and stared out the window. After a moment, she picked up her cell phone and hit speed dial. “Mark, did you see that?”

Her ear close to the phone, she listened for a moment so Jenna couldn’t catch the other side of the conversation.

“Send in a cleanup team. If Hockley is alive, keep him that way.” She ended the call and placed the cell phone on the laptop.

Had Luke been hurt? She forced the question out. “What happened?”

Lauren pursed her lips. “To your boyfriend? We’ll have to wait and see, but from my experience, he’s not that easy to kill. No doubt, he’ll turn up again.”

Jenna pushed down her panic but sent up a silent prayer that Luke was alive and unhurt. Then she put the thought of Luke aside. If she was going to die, at least she wanted the truth first.

“I don’t suppose you’d uncuff me?”

“Why not? You might be strong, but you’re intelligent enough to know you won’t survive a bullet.” She nodded to the guard, and he pulled a key out of his pocket.

Jenna shuffled around so he could reach her wrists and a moment later, she was free. She sat back and rubbed at her arms through the thin material of her T-shirt as she studied the other woman. It was hard to believe she was a contemporary of her father’s. He would have been fifty-six this year. This woman appeared nowhere near that age, with her smooth skin, pale blond hair pulled up into a perfect chignon, and dark blue eyes.

She caught Jenna’s stare and raised an eyebrow. “So, tell me, what’s been happening to you?”

The question took Jenna by surprise. “What? Aren’t you going to torture it out of me?”

Lauren laughed, genuine amusement in the sound. “You are so like your father.”

“How did you know him?”

“I met him when we were at university in Cambridge. He was a brilliant student.”

“Were you…?” She paused, not sure whether she wanted to know the answer.

“Were we what?”

“Lovers?”

Lauren frowned. “Hardly. Your father was gay. He was sleeping with your friend Merrick at the time. I believe they resurrected the affair later when they were working for me.” Lauren studied her. “You seem shocked. You mean he never told you?”

Jenna admitted it to herself—she was shocked. Not that her father was a homosexual, but that he had kept it a secret from her for so long. Christ, she’d been a fool. But he must have had a relationship with a woman at some time, otherwise where had she come from? Unless he wasn’t actually her father. She was finding it hard to believe her father’s whole life had been a lie.

“Was he really my father?”

“Oh, yes. You can see it clearly in your face. Your bone structure comes straight from John.”

“My father was dark. His eyes were brown.”

“Your hair and eyes come from your mother.”

Jenna bit her lip. “Who was she?”

A small almost mischievous smile curved the corners of Lauren’s lips. “Well—” She broke off as the car slowed to a crawl. “We’ve arrived. I think this conversation will have to wait until later.”

Jenna wanted to scream her frustration, but she knew it would do no good. The car came to a halt in front of a set of double steel gates that slid open, and the vehicle drove through. Jenna peered back over her shoulder and saw the gates close behind them.

She should be afraid, but instead, a sense of fatalism settled over her. If she was to die, so be it. At least Luke had succeeded, and the poison was destroyed, so they had done some good.

They drove slowly along a curved drive and finally pulled up outside a large Georgian manor house. It stood four stories high, and lights gleamed from the ground-floor windows.

A man hurried down the stone steps in front of the house and opened the car door. Lauren stepped out and gestured for Jenna to follow. She did, climbing from the car and looking around her. The grounds were set in smooth lawns dotted with oak trees. The gates had disappeared around a curve in the long drive, but she could see a tall stone wall that ran around the property.

Could she make it to the wall if she ran?

Her muscles tensed. As if sensing the movement, Lauren’s head swung around. She stared at Jenna, one arched eyebrow raised. “Don’t,” she said, and Jenna took a deep breath, felt the tension drain away.

The man who had opened the car door was late middle-age but looked lean and fit in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie.

“This is Summers,” Lauren said. “He takes care of the house for me.”

The two of them set off up the wide stone steps. Jenna hesitated a moment before following. At the top, a set of oak doors led into a hallway, while off to the right a sweeping staircase hugged the wall. Lauren came to a halt at the bottom.

“Show Ms. Young to the blue room, Summers.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She turned to Jenna. “There are a few things I need to do. Your friend has made life a little difficult for me. My people do not take kindly to failure, and Hockley has managed to delay our timetable considerably.”

Jenna frowned. “So you’re not in charge of the Conclave.”

Lauren glanced away as if deciding how much to reveal. Then she shrugged. “Some of it. Some of the time. Maybe one day I’ll explain how it works, but not right now.”

Five minutes later, Jenna stood in the center of a large, elegant bedroom. The walls were a pale eggshell blue, the carpet and soft furnishings a deep, rich sapphire. After waiting until the door closed behind Summers, she crossed the room and pulled aside the brocade curtains to peer out into the darkness. There were bars on the windows, and through them she spotted an armed guard directly below her and another under the trees a little way off. Dropping the curtain back in place, she sank down onto the bed.

The world had taken on a surreal quality. She was being treated like a guest, but that could change any moment—she was pretty sure those guards would have orders to stop her should she try to leave—so it looked like for now, she was stuck here. But she desperately wanted to know how Luke was. Was he even still alive?

The strange thing was she felt no fear of Lauren. She had to remind herself this was the woman directly responsible for the murder of Luke’s family. That she had been part of a plan to release a poison into London that would have killed thousands, if not millions. Yet she didn’t seem evil.

Leaning her head against the bedstead, she hugged her knees to her chest and waited.