Sam anguished.
Not the normal kind of worry which usually plagues young ladies of the time but stomach-churning, soul-wrenching agony.
She deliberately disobeyed the wishes of not only her brother, Edward, but those of her future husband, Benjamin, Lord Westwood—the two men she loved deeply. Worse, she abandoned Wilhelmina, her brother’s wife, to host a luncheon without the guest of honor—her, the future Lady Westwood. Those transgressions were horrendous enough; however, she also neglected to leave a note regarding her whereabouts, or better, her destination, the townhouse. Or whatever was left of it after last night’s horrific fire.
Her mind replayed the prior evening—the moment of panic when she realized the significance of the fire burning in the distance, the worry etched across Edward’s face, and Benjamin wrapping her in his arms, a protective gesture. His scent overwhelmed her senses, drifting through the carriage, as though he were seated next to her. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air tasted like his skin. Her mouth curved into a smile; unconsciously, she arched her neck, leaning into his invisible embrace.
Tingles danced across Sam’s arms. She felt Benjamin’s sinful lips nibble a delectable path across her collarbone. The ghostly sensation elicited a tremble, which originated in her shoulder blades and shot down her spine. Sam blushed deeply, her eyes jumping to her cousin, Mr. Franklin Morris who stared out the window, absentmindedly rubbing the edge of the curtain between his thumb and forefinger. Pulling aside her curtain, Sam peered out the window, endeavoring to hide the telltale color of her wayward thoughts.
There was no need to upset Franklin further with intimate details of her inability to remain a proper lady in the presence of her fiancé. She shuddered at the title. Never in her life did she expect to hear the word fiancé attached to any gossip surrounding her name. Miss Hastings engaged to Lord Westwood—the sentence would be the main headline in the society pages for weeks. Franklin only just learned of her engagement the prior evening. He appeared devastated by the announcement.
Poor Franklin. He was such a dear man. Sam’s eyes raked over his oblivious visage. Why he had been unable to find himself a suitable match? Surely a man with Franklin’s humor would have no trouble attracting the fairer sex. A few thinning hairs would hardly stop a woman’s interest. Perhaps Sam could enlist Wilhelmina’s help; her sister-in-law did introduce Samantha to Lord Westwood. Although that particular introduction was not intended to encourage any permanent attachment to her temporary guardian, Sam allowed. She bit her lip and swallowed a smile, fighting the blush creeping back into her cheeks. Benjamin’s late-night visit last night was definitely not on Wilhelmina’s list of acceptable activities. Sam sank her teeth into her lower lip.
Franklin chose to look over at that exact moment, his dark eyes flicking over her face, an unreadable expression passing through his features. Franklin tilted his head as he studied her. A shiver ran the length of Sam’s spine; she was not sure if the sensation was caused by a sudden draft under the carriage door or the odd way Franklin wordlessly continued to watch her.
Rubbing her arms for warmth, Sam regretted her hasty departure—no gloves, no shawl, hair unbound. Traveling in mixed company in such a state did not add to her colorful reputation. Who would kill her first upon returning to the Westwood estate? No doubt, both men and Wilhelmina would volunteer for the opportunity. Sam grimaced; Wilhelmina would beat both Edward and Benjamin to that happy task.
How would she explain her reckless behavior? Treasure hunt hardly seemed like an acceptable justification for missing her own engagement party, even if it was to retrieve the ransom demanded by her father’s faceless murderer. Although the threatening missive—currently hidden underneath an inkwell in Lord Westwood’s bedchamber—did not explicitly state to recover the missing Hastings’ family jewelry, Sam was certain those were the items requested.
After several minutes of silent inspection, Franklin spoke, his hollow voice barely carrying across the coach. “Are you alright my dear, you seem preoccupied?”
“I should have informed someone of our destination,” blurted out Sam, unable to control her tongue a moment longer. “Edward will be extremely worried.”
“I see,” replied Franklin in his soft voice. He steepled his fingers over his slightly protruding belly, resting his arms for a moment. “We would not want to cause Edward any undue strife. Perhaps you would like to send him a note before we begin our little adventure?”
Sam nodded, gratitude seeping through her body. Her muscles relaxed, and she leaned back on the bench. “That is an excellent idea, Franklin.”
A short letter would ease both Edward and Benjamin’s minds, but it would not alleviate Wilhelmina’s anger, no matter how eloquent the prose. That particular apology would need to be done in person… after Sam ensured her father’s killer never threatened the family again.
Her eyes swept over Franklin. His companionship during this particular expedition was reassuring. Even though she only intended on searching the townhouse, Sam hesitated at the idea of completing the task alone. Franklin’s presence eased many of the fears dancing around in her erratic mind.
“I doubt you will be able to send a missive from the townhouse. With the extent of the fire damage, there is no way you will be able to find paper and ink, let alone a safe place to compose the letter,” said Franklin quietly, tapping his fore-fingers absently. “I keep an apartment nearby. You should be able to find everything you need to allay your brother’s overprotective tendencies.”
“You know him so well.” Sam grinned.
“While you are corresponding, I will have an opportunity to gather supplies for our little treasure hunt.” Franklin returned her smile with an exaggerated wink.
Concern scrunched Sam’s forehead, deflating her excitement. Certainly, it would be prudent to pen a quick letter to Edward. However, an engaged woman should not visit a man’s lodgings without a chaperone. Even though Franklin was her cousin, his overly friendly attachment to her could be enough to start the societal tongues wagging. She bit her lip with indecision.
Franklin sensed Sam’s hesitation. He smiled slightly, the emotion barely reaching his dark eyes. “Mrs. Clark will be most delighted to converse with you again. She is currently residing in town with me and finds my lack of visitors most discouraging.”
“I would be delighted to visit with Mrs. Clark again.” Relief washed over Sam, tension ebbing quickly from her, disappearing under the carriage door like wisps of smoke. “It will give me the opportunity to personally express my gratitude for the lovely birthday cake she sent. Thank you, Franklin.”
The coach turned on its own accord—without direction from its occupants—and headed down a nearby street. Sam’s stomach grumbled, protesting a lack of food. She had rushed out without even a piece of toast.
“Perhaps Mrs. Clark has prepared breakfast?” Sam inquired over another loud rumble.
“Possibly,” Franklin replied and offered his empty smile again. He fell silent, twitching aside the curtain and watching the cityscape move past his window.
Fifteen minutes later, the carriage stopped in front of an older building in an unfamiliar neighborhood. As Sam gaped at the shabby townhouses, one shed a piece of its roof, which clattered to the broken cobblestones below and shattered. A collection of building debris cluttered the length of the street, hiding a thin layer of grime. Why did Franklin choose to keep his lodgings in such a dilapidated part of town? This must be the reason he had very few visitors.
Producing a key ring from his waistcoat pocket, Franklin emerged from the coach—his lips pressed into a thin line—and gestured for Sam to follow. He glanced to his left and right before marching up to a decaying door.
An ominous squeak emanated from ancient hinges as he wrenched it open, the sound echoing down the empty street, causing rats to scatter from a nearby trash pile. A scream bubbled in Sam’s throat. Franklin grabbed her wrist, tugging her into the dingy darkness of the dwelling.
The door closed, aided by a strong yank from Franklin who wrestled it shut with a muttered curse word. The door groaned as it latched. Wordlessly, Franklin led Sam up a winding staircase to what she calculated was the third floor of the building.
He leapt lithely over the last step onto the landing. Sam glanced down at the stair and noticed the rotting wood already bowed under the weight of a tiny mouse which scurried ahead of Sam into the hallway and disappeared under a crack in a door. Sam bit her tongue and made no mention of the staircase or the mouse. Franklin must be having financial difficulties. Perhaps she could speak with Edward about offering a loan to Franklin.
Turning to his right, Franklin rapped three times on the only door visible in the hallway, the same door under which the mouse had disappeared. There was no answer. He tapped again, repeating the same knock and waited. Again, no one appeared at the door. Franklin shrugged, offering Sam a half-smile. He lifted the key ring to eye level and flipped through several keys.
“Ah!” He shoved a brass key into the lock and twisted the large piece of metal firmly, pushing the door open. Sam expected the peeling door to scrape along the floorboards, but it swung easily, the hinges noiselessly complying with his request.
“Mrs. Clark must have gone to the market,” Franklin said as he led Sam into a small foyer. Squeezing past her, he inserted the brass key again and locked the outer door. He dropped the key ring on a small ornate table near the front door and murmured, “This part of town is not quite as sheltered as where you reside.”
“Franklin...”
“It was a few bad business decisions, I will recover in time.” He patted Sam’s arm. “Thank you for your concern, dear cousin, but I shall be fine. Please, allow me to show you my apartment.”
Franklin’s lodgings were tastefully decorated, radically different from the depressing exterior. The sitting room, bedecked in deep hues of green and gold, reminded Sam of the German forests Franklin described from his exotic travels. The entire apartment was spotless, scrubbed from the rafters to the floorboards, a tribute to Mrs. Clark’s efficiency. Elephant statues of varying sizes littered the room sporadically. Sam wondered how long Franklin had been collecting them; he never mentioned an affinity for pachyderms. The statue nearest her looked to be as large as a horse. She laid a hand gently against the cold surface, marveling at the pristine ivory.
Shaking off his coat, Franklin laid it carefully over a nearby chair and gestured to his left. The study, doubling as a guest room, was situated off the sitting room. It was this room which Franklin directed Sam toward, pointing out the desk featured prominently near a dirty window. The window seemed out of place in Franklin’s otherwise immaculate accommodations. A large spider web stretched intriguingly across the frame, leading Sam to believe the room had not been cleaned for quite a few months.
“Please make yourself comfortable,” Franklin said brightly from the doorway. “There should be ink and paper on the desk. I will scrounge up some breakfast for us. It may not be as delicious as Mrs. Clark’s cooking, but I daresay, I do have some culinary talents.” Franklin patted his belly and wandered toward the back of the apartment, his footsteps fading down the hallway.
Sam glided over to the desk and sank down with a sigh. Already she had written the note countless times in her mind; however, putting a quill to paper made the task more difficult. How does one explain why they intentionally broke a promise? There was nothing she could say that would excuse her thoughtless behavior. She sighed again and extracted one heavy sheet of creamy paper from the stack on the far corner of the desk.
The scent of roses hit her nostrils sharply. Sam glanced up, perplexed, expecting to find a bouquet of fresh flowers in the room. There was not one visible rose. She peeked out the door into the sitting room but found the smell lessened as she moved away from the study. Curiously, Sam returned to the desk and lifted the sheet of paper to her face, inhaling deeply.
Rose-scented paper. Sam’s hand began to tremble, the page clasped in her fingers vibrating wildly. Sam’s mind flashed on the threatening note she’d hid in Benjamin’s chamber at the Westwood estate. It was the same smell. It was the same paper. The paper slipped from her fingers and floated featherlike to the floor.
It was Franklin.
Franklin sent the threatening letter to her brother. Franklin set fire to the townhouse. Franklin murdered her father and attempted to kill Edward as well. Franklin was the sinister face behind the mysterious terror gripping her family. Sam’s mind sifted through the past, quickly analyzing all her interactions with Franklin; it did not seem possible. How did he fool her so easily? Her childhood memories of her parents’ last ball bubbled in her brain—Franklin whirling her in dizzy circles, her father laughing merrily, the beautiful necklace adorning her mother’s slim neck. Did Franklin know at that moment he would commit cold-blooded murder later that evening?
“My dear,” Franklin said as he entered the room with a plate of fruit and cheese. “You look as though you have seen a specter.”
Sam glared at him with rounded eyes. “How could you, Franklin? He was your cousin!”
Franklin laughed, the hollow, mechanical sound ringing in Sam’s ears. “My dearest Samantha, I fear you may have deduced my little secret.”
Sam nodded mutely. Her eyes searched the room, darting from the tiny, filthy window over the wooden floorboards, and to the open door, yawning widely behind Franklin, his wide frame blocking the only exit.
“How did you figure it out?” he asked languidly, popping a grape in his mouth as if they were discussing the weather.
“The paper,” whispered Sam as she gestured to the innocent stack in the corner of the desk. “It smells like roses.”
“Damn.” Franklin shook his head with a disgusted grin. “I have always loathed scented paper. However, I am surprised Edward shared my little note with you. He is usually so secretive when it comes to questionable affairs.”
“He is unaware I read the note,” replied Sam. She rolled her shoulders back, elongating her frame—her feeble attempt to appear intimidating.
Franklin’s lips stretched across his face, forming a thin grotesque smirk. “You are an intelligent little thing. I always told Uncle Ephraim it was a terrible decision to educate a girl; more trouble than it is worth. I see now I was correct in that assumption.”
Sam’s eyes skipped about the room again, focusing on the door leading into the sitting room. How would she escape? If she charged Franklin, would she have enough strength to knock him over? Where was Mrs. Clark? Surely, she would not permit Franklin to slaughter Sam. Sam took a deep breath to calm the macabre thoughts dancing through her imagination.
Franklin tilted his head, baring his teeth. “There is no one to hear your scream.”
“M-M-Mrs. Clark?” Panic bubbled in her throat.
“Mrs. Clark is happily working at my country estate. She refuses to visit town for any reason; she has never been to this apartment, nor does she know of its existence.”
“Why, Franklin?” Sam asked, her eyes flashing back to the grimy window. She needed a distraction. Conceivably, she could squeeze through it and climb down the roof to safety. She could also slip on the loose slate and fall to her death.
“I think you are going to be more of a nuisance than I originally anticipated.” Without warning, Franklin lunged forward and struck Sam with the plate. It split in two as it crashed down on Sam’s head, sending the fruit and cheese flying in various directions. Sam crumbled to the floor, unconscious.
Humming, Franklin stepped over Sam’s immobile form and extracted a rope hidden underneath the bed. He dumped Sam’s body unceremoniously on the mattress and lashed both her arms together at the wrists. His eyes fell on the rose-scented paper. Plucking it from the floorboard, he laid it on the desk, and sat down, staring at the blank page. With a nod, he lifted the quill from the inkwell and penned a quick message. Leaning out the window, he called over a boy passing underneath, tossing the letter and a coin to him with strict instructions to deliver the message to the Westwood estate.
Wilhelmina scoured the house for Samantha, stomping through empty rooms, snarling at the staff. As she crossed the foyer, a knock sounded at the front door. Scowling, she jerked open the door, her eyes falling on a small boy who held out the missive with a trembling hand. Once his soiled fingers released the note to Wilhelmina, he spun and dashed off, running until his legs became a blur of gray.
Ripping open the letter, Wilhelmina pursed her lips, expecting to read the far-fetched excuse Sam invented in order to forego her own engagement party. Instead, Wilhelmina fainted.
Mr. Hastings,
I bid you good afternoon. I wish to thank you for the generous donation of your sister’s life to my worthy cause. Interestingly, Miss Hastings seemed more than willing to assist me with my current endeavor. If she proves most helpful, I shall return her body to you for a proper funeral. However, if she becomes willful, as she has proven to be in the past, I regret I will only be able to return pieces of her to you.
Rest assured, once I have found my inheritance, I will no longer haunt your family. I appreciate your patience in this matter.
Please give my regrets to Lord Westwood for stealing his fiancée so young. However, I do believe he will be happier without her.