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I put him at the back of my mind. He was not important now. I watched Dr. Kane’s car drive up. Inside me a serpent twisted and spewed its poison into my veins. The effect of its acid was immediate. My hands started to tremble. I clenched them into hard fists.
God, I hated that bitch. How I hated her.
She was supposed to die in that car accident. Anyone else would have just given up and died, but her? Noooo. Like an unwanted, ugly weed she sprouted up again. And now she was setting roots, becoming strong. Worse, she found a man to champion her. I had underestimated the cunningness of my step-daughter. The cheap little whore had done what cheap little whores do. Opened her legs and ensnared him. Now he was hers to bid.
The venom bubbled. It felt as if it was eating me up from inside.
I gritted my teeth.
What an awful miscalculation it had been to send her to him. How I regretted it. It kept me awake all night knowing that it was I who had arranged their meeting. I should have done my homework better. I should never have picked a man who was so physically beautiful, a man even I could have loved. I thought tragedy had felled him, made him an irredeemable shadow of himself, but I was wrong.
I remembered too late what my mother had told me. She said that all men could be described as boxes of goodies hanging on strings from a tree branch. There were three types of boxes. Empty, nearly empty and full. It was very easy to recognize the nearly empty boxes. They rattled a lot. They were always showing off, telling you how much money they had or what amazing lovers they were. The problem was distinguishing between the empty boxes and the full boxes since they both spoke very little.
I thought Dr. Kane was an empty box. But I was wrong. He was the full box my mother had told me about.
I heard the doorbell ring.
If only the little bitch had died in the accident. I closed my eyes and took a long calming breath. I was not beaten. All was not lost. I was resourceful. I could handle Dr. Kane. I could always handle a man. All men are susceptible to me.
She is not as beautiful as you. But the reflection of my face in the glass pane was marred with a frown. The truth was I was not sure how to mold him to my wishes.
He stood apart from other men. I saw it for myself at the dinner when I purposely invited the proudest and most caustic members of our set. And they did what I knew they would—deliberately set out to make him feel small and insignificant. But their veiled insults and disparaging comments were useless. He cared nothing for their good opinion.
Not only did he not recognize them as his betters, he refused to obey the social etiquette set by them. Instead he made his own rules without fear of what society thought of him. Men who will not be bullied by the artificial rules of society are more dangerous than men with knives. For they cannot be controlled.
And such a man was now my enemy. I did not want him as my enemy, but he was my foe, as surely as I was Olivia’s.
Marlow
She stood when a servant showed me into her drawing room. She was dressed in a way that accentuated her fine figure and her hair was loose around her shoulders. Her face was perfectly made.
‘Hello Dr. Kane,’ she said with just the right amount of warmth.
‘Lady Swanson,’ I greeted with the slightest emphasis on the word Lady.
She looked at me sharply, but her voice was honey. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
She was relying heavily on the assumption that I was a drunk. Well… first mistake. ‘No thank you,’ I refused. ‘This is not a social call.’
‘You won’t mind if I have one,’ she said and ordered a glass of brandy from her footman.
The door closed quietly behind him.
‘Will you have a seat?’
‘I won’t be staying long enough to bother.’
She straightened. ‘Well, we might as well get it over with.’
‘I’m marrying Olivia and I’ve come to tell you to arrange the biggest most fantastic wedding for her.’
A slow smile hit her face. ‘Your slip is showing. You’re not supposed to be so eager for the money. A less obvious approach would surely stand you in better stead.’
With my eyes fixed on her I took a step forward. I saw instantly that she was flustered. But oh how hard she forced herself to stand her ground. I took another step and I saw her swallow. So I closed the distance some more.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ she blurted out.
I smiled. Slow. She knew me not at all. ‘Why Lady Swanson, your slip is showing. You’re not supposed to look so guilty.’
