Shadow Play (48 page)

"You're very beautiful. I can understand why Morgan
fell in love with you. You remind me of my mother. You look very much like her. She, of course, was a slut and a bitch. I killed her, which was no great loss, believe me. I did the world a favor by getting rid of her. She was a parasite. A disease. I have no patience with people who don't work to their potential, who feed off other's sweat and toil and expect to prosper. Morgan and I had to fight for everything we attained."

"Morgan is dead," she said. "You killed him."

He looked at her, his pale hair blowing. "Ye of little faith," came his soft voice. "Of course, I thought so too at first. My God, you can't know of the grief I experienced the moment I pulled that trigger. It was an accident, you know. I didn't mean to shoot him, but there was the struggle ... I only meant to frighten him into coming back to me. Then, as I was recuperating from my injuries, the realization came to me, just as it did on the night I killed my mother, that he didn't love me and he never would. It's the rejection; I can't stomach it, Sarah. It's a wretched weakness, I con- fess, and I detest myself for it. I should be stronger; alas, I'm not... I suspect he'll be here soon."

"You're insane."

"No, I'm not. That's what makes me so dangerous, you see."

Occasionally a coach rolled by. A pedestrian or two appeared, then disappeared through the darkness. Teeth chattering with cold, heart hammering with fear, Sarah watched the streets in hopes that a policeman would happen by.

King took her arm and they moved into the church, closing the heavy door silently behind them. Their footsteps rang out as they hurried across the marble-floored entry, walking swiftly over the slab of black marble that marked the crypt of Christopher Wren. All around them the soaring glass portraits of Christs and angels stared down at them, their kind, serene faces glowing with ethereal light, their white hands extended, offering salvation. At last Sarah and King moved out of the nave into the transept, whose domed
roof rose hundreds of feet above them. The ornate room was known as the Whispering Gallery; its acoustics allowed a person to whisper at one point along the wall and be heard with absolute clarity a hundred feet away. It was true. She could easily hear King's every breath and... something else ... some living sound, or presence, that brought a rise of fear and expectation crawling up her back as she stared down the unlit corridors branching off the room.

That was when she saw Morgan.

She closed her eyes, refusing to believe it. He was dead. Dead! That he was walking toward her through the dark, dressed in his white suit, was proof that she was as crazy as King.

"Ah," King said. "He's here."

Knees shaking, she looked at Morgan again as he passed beneath a wall sconce and stopped not ten feet from her, his hands in his pockets, his hat cocked low over his eyes. His lips smiled, and he said, "Hello,
chere."

She sank against the wall. King caught her, laughing as he righted her. His eyes and smile appeared kind when he said, "Go to him if you want. I'll not stop you."

She stared at King, speechless, too shocked to move or contemplate the reasons for his indulgence, too numb to accept Morgan's appearance as anything but some trick of her imagination.

"Sarah," Morgan said. "Come here."

"No." She shook her head, tears burning her eyes, and cried, "I don't believe it!"

"I'm very much alive,
chere.
I rented the Sunderland place and watched you the last weeks."

She moved to him, cautious, her thoughts fragmenting while she struggled to retain her sanity. Dear God, if she reached for him and found he was an illusion—

Then he was reaching for her, pulling her against the very real and firm wall of his chest. His presence swallowed her, as always, wrapped around her, and brought her senses to a straining peak. Burying her face in his coat, she wept and
clutched him as hard as she possibly could, absorbing his scent, feasting on the rhythm of his heart against her ear.

He brushed her hair from her brow, cradled her head in his hands, and turned her face up to his. He kissed her tear- streaked cheeks. "Sarah, love, I've missed you."

Her shoulders shook. "Why? Why did you let me go on thinking you were dead? Didn't you know how horribly I've grieved?"

"I suspected King would be watching you, waiting for me to approach you."

"But we could've gone to the authorities—"

"I wasn't prepared to take you away from Norman unless I was certain that you weren't happy."

"I love you, Morgan. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. How could you think that I would return to London and meekly marry Norman with no thought of what we'd shared?" Searching his face, noting the creases of fatigue about his eyes, the pain that had deeply etched the lines around his mouth, she wept again.

"This is all very heartwarming," King said behind her. "But we really should get on with business."

"Which is?" Morgan asked.

His hands in his pockets, King shrugged. "A life for a life. I let Sarah go if you come peaceably with me."

"No!" Sarah swung around to face him.

"Shut up," Morgan ordered, then, taking her arm, turned her around and shoved her away. "Walk out of here and don't look back."

"No."

His voice angrier, Morgan repeated his demand.

"I refuse. I stood on that damned dock and watched you sacrifice yourself once before, and I won't do it again!"

Grabbing her face in his hands, he bent his head near hers and whispered harshly, "I stand a better chance of survivin' if I ain't got you underfoot, lady. Now get the hell out of my hair; for once in your life, do what I tell you."

He pushed her again, and this time, caught between her need to scream at him and kiss him, she stumbled into the dark.

She glanced back once and saw both men standing face- to-face, as they had that night on the dock. All the horrible memories came rushing back, flashes of King and Morgan fighting, then the horrible roar of the gun exploding. For a moment she covered her ears, certain she had heard it again, and she had—dear merciful God, they were struggling for the gun; it was falling to the floor and Morgan was kicking it away, into the
distant shadows.

"Run!" she cried.

Morgan shoved King with all his strength, knocking him to the floor; then he spun and ran for Sarah. They had covered no more than a few yards before he was forced to slow, then stop. Bent at the waist, his hands twisted into his clothes, he groaned and gasped for breath. "Go on," he told her. "I can't go any further. I'm still too weak."

She looked around and did her best to get her bearings. Wrapping her arm around Morgan's waist, she walked him more slowly through the cavernous room, doing her best to keep to the shadows, listening for King's approach, which miraculously didn't come. Sarah eased Morgan into the first pew she came to and went down on her knees to better see his face. "You're alive," she said. "Oh, how I have fantasized about this moment. I am almost too frightened to believe it. Perhaps it's only another dream—"

' 'No dream.'' He touched her face, traced her mouth with his fingers. "Still love me?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"No." He shook his head. "I've watched you grieve for me. I wanted to reach out to you so many times, Sarah, but I was afraid that Randi would do exactly what he did."

"We could have gone to the authorities—"

"And what? He's committed no crime here." Morgan closed his eyes and drew Sarah close, wrapped her in his arms.

A door opened and closed.

Sarah pulled away and took hold of his arm. "I can't," he told her. "I hurt too much,
chere.
Besides, I won't run again. I decided to end it for good in Belem. It was damn bad luck that he got the upper hand."

"I won't allow you to remain here just waiting for him to kill you." Taking his face in her hands, she looked him in his eyes—those wonderful eyes. Even now they made her tremble. "If you think I intend to lose you again after all I've suffered, you're dead wrong, Kane."

He grinned. "You're crazy."

"So they say. Would you have me any other way?" Smiling, she helped him stand, just as King's voice called out:

"Morgan, I'll allow the girl to leave, but you and I have unfinished business. You can run the rest of your life, but I'm going to find you. My patience is growing short, Morgan.

You know I grow weary of these adolescent games."

Morgan moved away so suddenly she could do little but follow, catching a glimpse of King as he struck out after them. They passed the choir stalls with their exquisitely carved woods and elegant wrought-iron grilles and gates, and continued on through the cathedral. As they burst out of the nave, a priest stood riveted in the shadows, a look of shocked disbelief on his features. Morgan made for the entrance, and the clergyman called, "I've just locked those doors!"

Morgan tore open a side door, and with Sarah behind him, took the steep curving stairs two at a time, driving himself on despite the pain. King's voice floated up through the dark. "Stupid, Morgan. Very stupid. Where the hell will you go from there? Do you think your God will reach down and pluck you from harm's way?"

They reached the platform where the colossal bells hung silhouetted in the night. As King's footsteps drummed up the stairs beneath them, Morgan grabbed Sarah, and stepped through the open portico onto the bell-tower ledge, where
he shoved her against the wall before disappearing again.

The wind whipped her hair and burned her face as she stared out over the city hundreds of feet below. Snatches of voices came to her, first King's, then Morgan's. She did her best to concentrate on the words, but the wind cast them away before she could understand. Far below her, she saw the priest run from the church and into the street. Closing her eyes, Sarah prayed harder than she had ever prayed in her life, took a deep breath, and swung back for the tower, jumping into the chamber just in time to see Morgan and King fighting for the gun King clutched in his hand.

She searched for something to use as a weapon. There was nothing.

The men struggled, grunting, feet shuffling. Morgan slammed King's hand against the wall in an attempt to dislodge the gun.

The shriek of whistles sounded, and as Sarah looked down at the street, she saw the police converge on the church. "Hurry!" she cried. Then there were footsteps booming up the bell tower...

"You won't kill me, Morgan."

Sarah turned and wept in relief to find Morgan with the gun and King standing in front of a stained-glass window depicting the Archangel Michael casting Lucifer from heaven.

"You couldn't kill me in cold blood," King said. "You wouldn't be able to live with the guilt."

"Shut up," Morgan said. "I've waited nearly two years to do this."

"Then why haven't you pulled the trigger? I'll tell you why. Because you know deep in your heart that you're no different from me. I just took advantage of opportunity, while you let it pass you by."

Sarah moved close, her eyes on Morgan's pained, sweating features. "The police are coming," she told him as quietly as possible.

"If you're afraid he's going to murder me," King said,
"don't be. He doesn't have the guts to pull that trigger. Do you, friend? After all, I'm the only human being who ever thought you were worth—"

Midnight, and the bells pealed out the hour, causing Sarah to scream and cover her ears just as the police stormed into the tower, their shouts drowned by the earsplitting knell. Yet Morgan stood his ground, gun pointed directly at King as the patrao said again, "You can't kill me, Morgan." But she couldn't hear anything except the screaming bells. Then King was smiling, throwing back his beautiful blond head in laughter before he spun and leapt for the window, crashing through the multicolored glass where Lucifer writhed amid the paradise he had destroyed, cast down by a righteous sword.

The bells fell silent. The police swarmed around them, easing the gun from Morgan's hand and speaking to Sarah, although she could not hear them. Her gaze was locked on Morgan, unbelieving as an officer snapped cuffs on his wrists and turned him back toward the door. Morgan's eyes came back to hers, and he smiled.

By morning the papers were emblazoned with every shocking detail of King's death. The headlines shouted speculation as to the cause of his demise. Had Morgan shot him? Even Sarah didn't know, Morgan was silent, remaining in his cell, refusing to see Sarah throughout the night. The police who had witnessed King's fall had been strangely divided in their reconstruction of the events. A few swore they saw or heard the gun go off, and were certain that it was the impact of the bullet that had hurled King through the window. Others attested that what they saw was a man who had seemed to laugh in the face of death; who had foolishly believed he could somehow defy God. Hours into the new day, the coroner found no evidence of a bullet wound in King's body, declaring that the fall to the street had killed him. At last Morgan was released from Scotland Yard.

* * *

Sarah and Morgan were married three days later, a quiet ceremony in the registrar's office with only Kan and the Indians in attendance. The marmoset ran up the official's leg, causing him to grow apoplectic. He refused to continue the ceremony until Morgan tucked the chattering monkey into his pocket and made him stay there by bribing him with Brazil nuts.

It was late by the time they returned to the town house, dismissed the servants, and settled amid the clutter of potted palms and ferns and bamboo. The parrots squawked and whistled as Morgan uncorked a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass. Settling on the settee beside Sarah, he touched his glass to hers.' 'To my beautiful wife.''

She smiled and took his glass, put it on the table along with hers.' 'I can think of better things to do on my wedding night than drink champagne."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She tugged at the buttons on his shirt and breeches, sliding her fingers beneath his clothes, her fingertips brushing the bandages still binding his waist. Burying her face against his chest, Sarah inhaled his scent, touched the tip of her tongue to his flesh, and reveled in the taste.