The Sapphire Heiress (The Silver Order #1)

5 Revenge

Chapter Five

Revenge

“W hy did you not tell me of her existence in the first place?” Locke’s clenched jaw barely allowed the words to escape. He threw his gaze across the modest sitting room to where Ellsworth sat a good five yards away.

His mere presence made Locke uneasy. Ellsworth might have called himself a guest in Locke’s home for the moment, but that did not make them friends. Locke would sooner slit Ellsworth’s throat. Their newly struck deal certainly did not make them partners, either. Not with his pathetic excuse for strategy and rather lacking arithmetic skills. The man hadn’t even surmised that Locke should have been just as old and gray as he.

“Don’t tell me you fancy she will help us!” Ellsworth laughed in a storm of exaggerated outrage.

“If we are persuasive enough, why not?” Damn it, he wanted his freedom. He needed to recover the stone and soon. It was only a matter of time before his enemies returned. “Don’t be a fool. She would go to Mr. Rosewood at once. She’d like nothing better than to see me hang.”

Locke’s patience with the man had grown so thin these last few days, he would hardly mind the same. At the moment, though, Ellsworth and his precious clue were necessary .

“I don’t care what your reasoning. Only a Blackthorne is meant to find the vault. She is the last one!”

Only an idiot would let such a detail fall between the cracks. Not including the land they owned, Blackthorne Manor was extensive. Without Miss Blackthorne’s assistance, the search could otherwise take months, maybe even years.

The sooner they found it, the less time he had to spend in the company of that Rosewood girl. Ellsworth frowned. “She’s shiftier and more conniving than one might think.”

“How curious.” Locke crossed his arms. “That was hardly my impression.” Nor how he would describe her. A word more like frustrating seemed more fitting. Not to mention distracting . Far too often, she occupied his thoughts. The things she had said seemed to linger. He was still waiting to see a wisp of Alastair in her, but there was no likeness yet. Which made her more intriguing.

“Pretty, don’t you think?”

Locke shrugged.

“I suppose she might be to some. But don’t be deceived.” Ellsworth leaned back and sipped his tea. “You mustn’t forget who raised her. Blackthorne was a shipbuilder, but a dirty, shifty one at that. I say”—Ellsworth’s lips flattened into a quivering line—“their downfall could not have come to a more deserving family.”

Locke resisted an urge to roll his eyes. He hated when Ellsworth turned the conversation away from their goal, but at the same time, he took an interest in Miss Blackthorne’s past.

“Your families were competitors, then.”

“Bitter rivals,” he replied. “My father built up the business. We were one of few that could keep pace. In my hands, I had not a doubt of our continued success. Like my father, I have an ambitious nature and a talent for innovative ship design. Nothing dared stand in my way…”

“Yet the business failed? ”

“Just about. The Blackthornes undercut our prices at every turn. We couldn’t compete.” He rose from his seat in a tremor of anxious movement. “We lost thousands. A fair price. That’s all I wanted, but the prodigal son was ruthless.”

“‘The prodigal son’?”

“Miss Blackthorne’s late brother. William Blackthorne.” He stilled before the stone fireplace tinged with decades-old soot. “I had to dismiss dozens of my men and still, we were in debt. I even…” He cleared his throat. “My father gave me every opportunity.” He turned to Locke. “He’d later wish he’d saved his efforts. At least that’s what he told me the night before.”

“‘The night before’?”

“He killed himself.”

Locke almost smiled. Fascinating what shame can do to a man , he thought. Or rather, those who are less.

“Miss Blackthorne’s brother.” A dangerous glint took hold in Ellsworth’s eyes. “How fitting for him to have died of suicide too.”

“Quite.”

Locke bit back his growing frustration. He wasn’t at all pleased with the bitterness that would undoubtedly plague their plans.

“Now I intend to set my business to rights. With my cut, I could reinvest in a new venture. I could create the empire I was always meant to, give people the jobs my father had intended for them. Perhaps then she might finally see her mistake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For rejecting me! Miss Blackthorne had her chance. We didn’t have to be like everyone else. If we had wed, our businesses combined would have been saved. I had the land and supplies for it…but what did she do? She chose to become penniless. She chose the life of a governess .”

Locke’s stomach twisted, the notion of Miss Blackthorne marrying the man making bile rise in his throat .

He fought to keep his face from screwing up with disgust. “I suppose I’d feel insulted too.”

Mae’s life would have been easier in a lot of ways if she had accepted. And yet she’d refused. That had taken some backbone and plenty of courage.

“She wasn’t fit for the type of life I could offer, anyway. Couldn’t dance or dress worth a damn, spent far too much time on that horse of hers…”

“Outrageous for a woman.”

“Almost wasn’t worth her father’s assets.”

“Maybe you should be relieved, then.”

“Not in the least. If a penniless immigrant would not have me, who else would? Society turned on me. ‘There must be something wrong with me,’ they said. ‘Madness in the family,’ that sort of nonsense.”

Locke sniffed, shoving down an urge to laugh. The only one who was mad was Ellsworth.

“Now you want her to suffer, eh?”

Despite himself, pity blossomed in his heart again for Miss Blackthorne and when it took hold, the anger he had felt for years toward her father seemed to cool. But like an ember, it remained, ready to burn bright again.

“Indeed.” Ellsworth brought Locke back to his pathetic tale. “In the name of the men I put out of work, for the very families that starved at my hand. Quite frankly, she may never suffer enough.”

Locke was tempted to call him a bitter fool , to tell him all the revenge in the world could not have made him a better man in the eyes of his father, but he held his tongue. Wasn’t revenge exactly what he, himself, once wanted? Seeing Ellsworth’s sudden rage, the sickening, maddening kind of rage that had simmered and festered for years, Locke felt disgusted with himself.

“No shame in trying this out, I suppose. Nothing ventured…” El lsworth re-lit his pipe and breathed in the calming effects of tobacco. “I’m just not certain it is worth the risk. How do you expect to make her agreeable?”

“Through deception, of course.” Locke chose his words carefully. “We promise her a third of the fortune and—”

“And the moment it’s within our grasp, we break her neck, eh?” Ellsworth’s eyes gleamed.

Locke went rigid, tasting bile again. He’d had enough of bloodshed, distrust, and betrayal. He needed no more fuel for his nightmares. The look she’d given him in the office that night when she caught him had pained him enough. Just thinking of it, his throat went dry, rendering him barely able to speak. He knew that look too well. It brought back memories, dreadful ones his mind would never let him forget.

“I-I…” He swallowed. “Yes.”

Although he wanted to scream out against the notion, Ellsworth would take it as a sign of weakness. Maybe it was.

Locke was already starting to have his doubts about all this. But he still needed to get to the vault. He clenched his teeth.

“’Tis an excellent plan.” Ellsworth stood up and slapped him on the back. “I suppose you’d like to be the one to finish her?”

Locke swept round and met his eye.

“No need to feel guilty,” Ellsworth said. “The Blackthornes took a whole fortune and then some from you—just like they stole business from me.”

Locke cringed at the similarity Ellsworth had drawn between them. The idea that they were anything alike dug at his pride.

“I don’t think revenge would be too much out of order.”

“The fact does not escape me.”

Locke looked at the floor, in need of masking his true feelings on the matter, particularly his intention to stay well-armed. If Ellsworth tried the smallest thing to hurt the governess heiress, Locke swore to himself he’d stop it.

“Would you rather I dispatch of her? Perhaps I could throw her into the ocean. Make her walk the plank, as it were. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He smiled with cruel mirth. “Perhaps I might even have a moment with her first. I would hate to see her die unspoiled…”

Locke’s gaze fixed on him. He had no control over what followed next. Ruled only by his fury, he thrust a hand onto Ellsworth’s chest and slammed him into the wall. “Say not another word,” he growled in the voice from his earlier days, his crueler days.

“Fine, fine.” Ellsworth let out a slew of choked laughter. “She’s yours.” But when Locke held still, all hilarity left him.

“You need me.”

“Hardly.” Locke shoved him backward. He was so disgusted with the man, he took three strides backward. He needed every bit of distance between them. “With a Blackthorne in my sights, do you really think I need your measly clue?”

“Your task will be easier with my clue. Faster.”

“How is that?”

With some satisfaction, Locke noted a bead of sweat glistening down the other man’s temple. Ellsworth smeared it away, his expression lifting back to its usual zeal.

“I’m a new man since all that’s happened,” he said. “I’m quite well-known in London. The bad parts of town, mostly. I’ve started a few…let’s say, illegitimate ventures there. They’ve kept me afloat these last few years.”

“How wonderful.” He rolled his eyes.

“I employ a great many men, Locke. Dozens, in fact. All of whom I think you shall find very useful. Londoners are quite different from country bumpkins. I daresay”—he pointed at Locke’s neck with his cane—“they notice things like men who wear necklaces.”

Locke touched the small, glass bottle hidden beneath his thin, cotton shirt. “It’s a lucky charm, is all. ”

“We could be partners well into the future, you know.”

Locke grumbled. Not in a hundred years , he thought. And time these days was precious. He was aging again. He had been for the last seven years. Right where he had left off. He at least had the blue elixir.

He touched the smooth surface of the bottle. There was a reason the two items had been paired together. The sapphire he surmised could only stop the aging process but it couldn’t heal one from injuries.

“I’ll be retiring,” Locke said. “A portion of the woman’s fortune is more than enough for me.”

“Is it now?”

“Believe me.” Locke opened a window to release the gathering smoke. “The Blackthorne fortune is generations in the making and with what I have added to it, you will be able to live like a bloody king.”

More importantly, once Locke retrieved the stone from the vault, he’d be able to shake off his last and final enemy. A man he only knew by the name Pierce. He wouldn’t have to run anymore.

“I’ll have my men attain Miss Blackthorne tomorrow.” Ellsworth pulled him out of his reverie.

“No!” Locke near shouted. Was it not enough that they were taking her inheritance—what might be her only ticket out of her pitiful life as governess? The woman deserved better than that. No, he would not risk hurting her in the process—especially in the grips of the scum Ellsworth employed. “Would it not be easier if I brought her to you instead?”

“Whatever you say.” Ellsworth blew out a puff of smoke and grinned like the crackbrain he was.

“Wait.” Locke stilled Ellsworth’s retreating steps. “Before we take it all for our own, I want your word on something.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll shed no blood of Miss Blackthorne’s. Not a drop. Not even a bruise until the vault is discovered. Only then is she fair game.”

This would give him time, he reasoned with himself. During their search, he’d think of a way to keep her out of harm’s way.

“Want her to yourself, do you? Unspoiled?” His eyebrows rose suggestively.

“And unscathed.”

“I give you my word.” Ellsworth bowed his head, his eyes sardonic.

“Good.” Locke nodded. But as hard as he tried to accept their plan, he knew he had handed Miss Blackthorne a blow from which she would never recover. And each day led closer to her ruin.