Mark of Caine Trilogy: Book Two: Whispers in the Shadows (Victorian Villains) Read online

  MARK OF CAINE

  Book Two: Whispers in the Fog

  Victorian Villains Saga

  Gothic Romance Serials

  §

  CATHERINE LLOYD

  Copyright 2015 Catherine Lloyd

  Electronic Edition 2016

  Writewood Creations

  261 Lac Bernard Road

  Alcove, Quebec

  Canada J0X 1A0

  [email protected]

  www.writewoodcreations.blogspot.com

  ISBN 978-1-988003-26-9

  All rights reserved.

  This publication remains the copyrighted property

  of the author and may not be redistributed for commercial

  or non-commercial purposes.

  Cover image by Ivan Bliznetsov

  Cover Design by Writewood Creations

  Table of Contents

  MARK OF CAINE

  Also by Catherine Lloyd

  From the Publisher

  MARK OF CAINE TRILOGY

  Book Two ~ Whispers in the Fog

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  About the Author

  Victorian Villains Saga

  Mandrake Falls Four Seasons Romance

  Dark Redeemer Medieval Adventure Romance

  Also by Catherine Lloyd

  Mandrake Falls Comedy Romance

  The Jilting ~ Summer

  Lie for Me ~ Autumn

  The Way Home ~ Winter

  Love Rising ~ Spring

  Dark Redeemer Medieval Romance

  Wanton

  Wastrel

  Traitor

  Soldier

  Victorian Villains Saga Gothic Romance Serials

  Windemere Hall Trilogy:

  Betrothed ~ Betrayed ~ Beguiled

  Mark of Caine Trilogy:

  Hidden in the Shadows ~ Whispers in the Fog ~ Revealed in the Mist

  From the Publisher

  Whispers in the Fog is the second book in the Mark of Caine Trilogy. Haunted by a curse and a dark past, Tanner Caine struggles to control his growing feelings for his mark, Laura Mayhew. Meanwhile, Laura is plagued by dreams of a sobbing child sealed up behind a brick wall and remains determined to find him. Dangerously drawn to the mysterious man she was compelled to marry, Laura succumbs to a night of heated passion in his bed—a night that pushes Caine to the brink, forcing him to make a hellish decision.

  Mark of Caine is the second trilogy in Catherine Lloyd’s Victorian Villains Gothic Romance, historical romance in the tradition of Phyllis A. Whitney and Victoria Holt. The novellas will be released in three installments like the “penny dreadful” of the Age. Each episode ends in a cliff-hanger. These are steamy romances containing scenes, language and themes written for a mature audience.

  Victorian Villains

  MARK OF CAINE TRILOGY

  §

  Book Two ~ Whispers in the Fog

  Chapter One

  LAURA MAYHEW was jolted out of sleep by a man’s shout followed by a scream of terror. The sound echoed down the hall, reverberating in her bones and clutching her by the throat. She stumbled to her feet and whirled about, disoriented. In that fraction of time between sleep and consciousness, Laura had forgotten where she was. Slowly, the memory returned. Hawthorne Hall ... the wedding ceremony at Gateshead ... Tanner Caine.

  A second cry rose from the back of the manor house. Laura darted from the sitting room and ran down a dark hallway to the kitchen.

  Tanner was asleep at the table. He was muttering, crying, his fingers clawing the table so viciously that his nails left scratch marks behind, and a thin trail of blood.

  Laura approached the sleeping man cautiously. Caine’s unkempt ebony hair shielded his face like a curtain. The room was lit by a good fire over which he’d hung a kettle of water to heat for her bath—the last request she had made of him before she dozed off.

  Caine mumbled a string of profanity in his sleep. A cast iron skillet hung against the wall. Her eyes flicked to it and for a moment Laura imagined herself raising it over his head and bashing it down on his skull. After what he had done, she felt justified in committing murder.

  A tiny flame of a rage burned within her, a flame she would not allow to go out until she could exact her revenge. But in the meantime, Laura Mayhew needed Tanner Caine.

  She shook him by the shoulder. “Tanner? Mr. Caine, you are dreaming. Wake up.”

  He leapt up from his chair sending her reeling back and the chair crashed to the floor. Tanner spun around, snatching up a pistol he had concealed under his chest. He stumbled back and lifted the barrel to her face. His black eyes were glazed and unfocused. She could see at once that he was still asleep.

  Laura’s mouth dried as his finger curled around the trigger of the pistol.

  “Tanner, it is Laura. You must wake up.”

  His expression cleared; he seemed to be baffled by his surroundings at first, but then Tanner Caine saw Laura. He stared at her, blinking away sleep.

  “See? It is only me.” Laura nodded encouragingly. “There is no danger. You were dreaming. You must’ve dozed off. I did as well. The fire in the drawing room was lovely and warm. I curled up under the shawl and fell asleep. Then you cried out in your sleep and I came to help. Everything is all right. You can put the pistol away.”

  Tanner Caine began to shake. His arm was fully extended, the pistol was gripped in his hand and his finger was on the firing mechanism. He raked his other hand through his hair and met her eyes again. Sweat beaded his brow mingling with the tears that stood in his eyes.

  In a voice splintered by anguish, he said: “What are you doing here?”

  Laura was at a disadvantage for she could not read Tanner’s thoughts. She had come to depend on her gift too much of late. Without it, she was helpless.

  “You brought me here. Think back, Mr. Caine. Try to remember. You were hired by Princess Louise to liberate me from Gateshead Asylum. We were forced to marry to obtain my release and you brought me to Hawthorne Hall. But I assure you, I am not insane. I do not want to hurt you and you do not want to kill me. You may put the pistol away. All is well.”

  Tanner stared blankly at the weapon he held in his hand. He met her eyes again, a long look that took her breath away. What had grieved him so deeply? She saw in his tormented expression, the vestiges of the nightmare. Laura suddenly had a vision of a small boy, frightened and alone, and inexpressible compassion for the man wrenched her heart.

  The moment passed. Tanner straightened his shoulders, scraped his charcoal hair behind his ears and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He tossed the firearm to the table like it was a harmless nothing and turned from her abruptly. “The water will be hot now. I only have a copper bathtub. I hope that will suit. It’s behind the screen.”

  The transformation was too rapid for Laura. “Why do you have a pistol?”

  He did not answer. Tanner emptied the hot water into the copper tub and then went to the pump house to refill the kettle with cold water. Laura glanced at the pistol, noting evidence of gun oil and gunpowder staining the rough wood surface of the table. Her ersatz husband had cleaned and loaded the weapon while she was asleep in the drawing room.

  Laura wondered why.

  “What threat could find us at Hawthorne?” she asked Tanner when h
e returned. “I doubt many people are even aware the manor house is here. It is so well hidden by the brambles and wilderness. And Dr. Rutledge and Mrs. Sutherland were glad to see me married; they are not likely to raise alarm, even if they do contact my father. Legally, I am your property now. It is not a romantic word to describe my status, but for once the law is on my side. I am protected from powerful people who would have me shut up in an insane asylum for speaking my mind.”

  His expression was scowling, dark, and revealed little. “These powerful people you speak of, I assume you mean Queen Victoria. How can you be certain Her Majesty is responsible for having you put away?”

  “You forget I have had the honour of serving in Her Majesty’s household. The queen is resourceful at covering her tracks. The order to have me committed was a royal one. Rutledge would have had difficulty holding me otherwise.”

  Gingerly, Laura reached out and stroked his disfigured cheek. The right side of Caine’s face was breathtakingly beautiful. The left side was marred by a deformity that pulled down his eye and mouth as though smeared by the thumb of a jealous god.

  “It could not have been easy for you to marry a complete stranger,” she said. “If you knew what it was like in there, you would understand why I would have done anything to get out. What happened between us later was a mistake. I am not insensible to the strain you are under. I forgive you for your loss of control. I can see that it has caused you grief.”

  “If you are referring to the consummation of our marriage, you overestimate my scruples, madam. I am not tormented by guilt for taking you. I shall receive a Bill of Divorcement within the week and likely never give this assignment, or you, another thought.”

  Her temper was rising. He thought he could hurt her but Laura was as disinterested in marriage as he was. She had a promise to keep to Princess Louise and this detour into wedlock was not going to get in the way of keeping that promise.

  Perhaps Tanner Caine would not give her another thought as he claimed but he was tormented by something. If it wasn’t guilt over taking her virginity, then there was some other crime troubling his conscience. And the pistol had a role to play. Why would he have prepared it to shoot if he did not anticipate firing the weapon?

  Tanner emptied the cold water in the kettle into the steaming bath and then withdrew to one side, hiding in the shadows. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Get in before it gets cold.”

  “Aren’t you going to leave the room?”

  “No. You are my wife. I have the right to see you naked.”

  Laura drifted to the side of the tub, uncertain of how to proceed. She should have hit him with the skillet while she had the chance. Blood streaked her thighs, evidence that she was no longer pure. How quickly he will forget what he has taken, she thought. Tanner Caine was an invading despot. He had changed the landscape of her soul.

  Her husband flung himself on the settle with a laugh of derision and propped his muddy boots up on the edge of the table. “For God’s sake, take off your dress. I won’t look.”

  Caine’s mercurial moods were unsettling. Laura opened the screen and stepped behind it. She unhooked the bodice and removed her skirt, acutely aware that he was only a few feet away. She hesitated before opening her chemise and removing her petticoat because then she would be completely naked, but Tanner seemed to be honouring his promise not to look.

  She stepped into the steaming bath and could not suppress a sigh of gratitude. The luxury of soaking in a tub of warm water had been denied her for eighteen months. The only baths they were given at the asylum had huge chunks of ice in them. Hydrotherapy treatment, they called it. Laura had almost forgotten how comforting and soothing it was to be in warm water.

  “Is there any soap? I believe I shall wash my hair! You must forgive my enthusiasm. It has been a long time since I’ve been permitted to attend to my personal grooming. My hair will have to dry in front of the fire but I must have it clean. Even if I do catch a chill.”

  “You talk like a child. I forget that you are barely out of girlhood.” He handed her a bar of hard-milled lavender soap that smelled as fresh as spring.

  “I’m well out of girlhood now,” she said bitterly. “You have seen to that, Mr. Caine.”

  Tanner shrugged, demonstrating his lack of remorse and returned to his place on the settle. He could not see her behind the screen and he did not attempt to shift the obstacle to get a better look. Perhaps the man was more bark than bite.

  Laura lathered the soap in her hands. “What was your dream about?”

  “Why do you want to know?” His voice was sharp with suspicion.

  “You are my husband,” she retorted. “I have a right to know everything about you. It is the sort of question a loving wife would ask.”

  “What makes you think I was dreaming?

  “You cried out in your sleep and when I came to investigate, I found you in the throes of a nightmare. That is what makes me think you were dreaming. A fact observed with my own two eyes,” she said impatiently. “I don’t know why some people feel the need to deny facts. If I didn’t know better, I would swear you were working for Queen Victoria for this is her strategy as well. Her Majesty believes if she denies a fact long enough it will stop being a fact and become something else altogether. You were crying in your sleep. Look—your fingernails made claw marks on the table! It was clear you were in a dream so terrible that when I tried to wake you, you held a pistol to my head to defend yourself. I thought you were going to kill me.”

  Tanner Caine stepped around the screen and stood over her. Laura instinctively covered her breasts and her lower region with her hands.

  “Don’t,” he said in a quiet firm tone. “I would like to look at you. Tonight may be our last night as man and wife. We may have been forced into the vows we took in Gateshead Chapel, but for the few hours we have at Hawthorne, you are my wife and I am your husband.”

  Laura’s heart began to pulse at the base of her throat. She could scarcely breathe. “What does that mean?” She was terrified of his answer.

  “It means we are one flesh.” he said. “You were created from my rib and I was set aside for you from the beginning of time.”

  Her veins thrilled at his look and his words. “The beginning of time,” she scoffed in weak defence. “Time that began when I arrived at Hawthorne and will end when I leave it. A moment ago you said you will petition for a Bill of Divorcement and would not give me another thought.”

  “Concern yourself with our parting when the time comes.”

  Laura leaned her head back against the copper edge, apprehensive and awkward. Tanner Caine confused her. She sensed that he did not dislike her, but she was baffled by his cold manner. Strangely, she was persuaded to do as he asked even though she was beginning to fear him.

  “You will need clean water to rinse your hair,” he said.

  Tanner left her side to fill an earthenware jug with fresh water from the pump room. How he was controlling himself, Tanner did not know. He returned with the pitcher and knelt down beside the tub, aware of the darker intention he had.

  Laura’s knees were propped up and her arms dangled over the side. Water droplets trailed down her creamy skin. She gazed at him, her wide green eyes were slightly apprehensive.

  “I’m going to wash your hair,” he explained. Her innocence was unmanning him by the hour. He had waited too long. Don’t think. Just push her head under the water and hold it there until she stops thrashing. You’ve done it before. Just do it—now.

  “Lean your head forward.”

  Laura bent over, her ivory back curved and her lustrous hair screened her face. “Shall I tell you a secret about myself, Tanner?” Her voice was muffled. “I have never been kissed before. You were my first kiss—my first everything. I’ll be a divorced woman at the age of nineteen, but at least I am not ruined. I doubt I’ll marry again. I’m not sure I like it much.”

  Laura Mayhew was precisely in the position he needed her to be for a clean
kill. Her drowning could be made to look like an accident. Or even suicide.

  “Will you marry again do you think? I suppose it is different for a man. He can marry as often as he likes without scandal. When I’m older I might change my mind about marriage, but only if I meet a nice man with promise. The main thing he would have to have is—”

  “Good God, do you never stop talking?” he shouted. Tanner’s body shook. “This prattle is getting on my nerves.”

  She sat up straight, biting her lip delectably and lifted her shoulders. Her breasts lifted with them, peaking above the surface of the water. “I’m sorry. It is just so refreshing to talk to someone who is in his right mind.”

  “I won’t be for long if you keep up this chatter. Now bend over so I can get your hair wet.”

  Only amateurs developed feelings for their targets and he was not an amateur. He’d compromised the mission long enough. Marrying Laura Mayhew and bringing her to Hawthorne—neither was necessary or done according to plan. The moment he saw her, Tanner’s decisions had stopped making sense. Those things he’d said about her being his wife, he was only trying to keep her calm, to keep her from fighting back. Of that much he was certain. The girl was a dangerous troublemaker and threat to the Crown. Laura Mayhew did not have enough power over him to make him forget his duty to his Queen.

  You are behaving like a man half out of his wits. Hold her head under the water and get it over with!

  Tanner scooped up handfuls of bathwater and poured it over her hair, dousing the floor around the copper tub. “Is the water warm enough?” he asked gruffly.