Chapter 47
I ’m having such a great time with this man , Amiya thought.
That was the idea that Amiya kept balanced at the uppermost surface of her mind.
She hoped it translated to the expression on her face, the shine in her eyes, the ripple in her laughter, the roll of her hips.
She needed Westbrook to believe he was winning her over, that his conquest was advancing successfully toward a long night of sexual decadence in his private quarters.
Secretly, she intended to kill him before such a thing could happen. Her success in that endeavor would hinge on timing and opportunity.
He led her on a tour through the estate, and she oohed and ahhed at all of the appropriate moments, and she took small sips of her wine. In between such things, she studied the musculature of Westbrook’s pale neck and contemplated the knife resting deep in her pocket.
She could have slit his throat in the dining room, but it would have been the wrong place. She needed somewhere more private.
What surprised her was that she felt no compunctions about the idea of killing him.
She realized that his very existence was an affront against nature; he had no business walking the earth and was long overdue for a permanent grave.
That made the prospect of murdering him infinitely easier, from a moral perspective.
She kept those ideas mostly suppressed as he showed off his possessions, and Westbrook seemed fooled by her act.
Like many men with narcissistic tendencies, he believed he was irresistible to women anyway.
Her growing acquiescence to his supposed charms meant she was merely falling in line as he expected she would.
After he had shown off his art collection in the parlor, she smiled, and in a voice she hoped made her sound slightly tipsy (and perhaps she was), she said: “How about taking me to the wine cellar and showing me your fabulous collection of Bordeaux?”
“A lady after my own heart,” Westbrook said and paid her a crooked grin.
He led her to another wing of the mansion.
As they traveled along the gleaming hardwood corridors, he let his hand trail to the small of her back.
When she offered no resistance by swaying out of his reach, he got bolder: he smoothed his palm across her undulating hips, teeth exposed in his shark’s grin.
Just you wait , Amiya thought. I’ve got something for you, mister eager hands.
Westbrook brought her to a carved oak door at the end of the long corridor. A brass handheld lantern stood on a small table near the door, the flame already flickering. Westbrook removed a silver loop of keys from his pocket.
“The good stuff is kept under lock and key, hmm?” Amiya asked. She paid close attention to the key he used to disengage the padlock on the hasp.
“The best of my collection, yes.” Westbrook unlocked the door and drew it open. Blackness yawned beyond the doorway. The cool air carried the rich scents of oak and raw earth.
Westbrook picked up the lantern, clasping his wineglass in his other hand.
“Stay close behind me, lady,” he said. “You could trip on the steps down here without a light.”
They started through the doorway, but were stopped by a voice.
“Master Westbrook?” Miss Lula said.
The house manager hurried toward them along the hallway, long arms swinging, pearls bouncing on her heavy bosom.
Shit , Amiya thought, and tried to conceal her frustration. What does she want now?
“Yes?” Westbrook paused on the threshold, eyebrows raised. “I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment, Miss Lula.”
“Sir, I saw you coming this way. Is there something you need the staff to retrieve from the wine cellar?”
“I’m taking the lady on a tour,” Westbrook said. He winked at Amiya. “She requested to see my Bordeaux.”
“Did she now?” Miss Lula’s gaze slid over to Amiya. A scowl settled over her features. There was no mistaking it: she suspected Amiya was up to no good.
Amiya offered up her best innocent smile. Miss Lula’s scowl deepened.
“The lady has an appreciation for the finer things,” Westbrook said. “What is your concern, Miss Lula?”
Miss Lula blinked. “If it pleases you, sir, I’ll wait here at the open doorway. In case you need anything.”
“I’ve already got everything I need for the evening.” Westbrook scanned Amiya from head to toe, openly undressing her with his gaze. “But suit yourself, my dear.”
Westbrook turned away. Amiya started to turn but Miss Lula tapped her shoulder.
“Behave, lady,” Miss Lula said with a narrowed gaze. “I’ll be up here listening, and I have a very keen sense of hearing.”
Amiya responded with an indifferent shrug, but the woman’s suspicion was going to complicate matters. She followed Westbrook onto the wide, descending staircase. Her heels clicked on the stone steps. The lantern flame cast huge, shifting shadows on the rock walls.
“This is my favorite area of the house,” Westbrook said. He paused, glanced over his shoulder at her, blue eyes twinkling in the candlelight. “Well, after the bedroom.”
He’s laying it on thick now , Amiya thought. This guy really believes he’s going to get lucky tonight.
They reached the bottom of the staircase.
The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees.
The cellar was a wide, low-ceilinged space with a smooth stone floor.
A wooden barrel stood just ahead, in the center of the room.
On three sides—back, right, and left—wooden wine racks were built into the walls.
A bottle occupied nearly every slot, hundreds of them.
They glimmered darkly in the flickering light.
“This is impressive,” Amiya said.
“Isn’t it?” Westbrook strolled to the barrel and placed his lantern on top of it. He gestured toward the bottles. “Have a gander, lady. If you find one that intrigues you, we’ll select it for our next round.”
Down here, the walls muted the din of the household. Amiya assumed the obverse of that perception held true: anything that took place in the cellar would go unheard by anyone on the upper levels of the residence.
But how much would Miss Lula detect while posted at the open doorway?
Her heart thudding a slow lub-dub , Amiya stepped to a wall of bottles.
She was no expert in Bordeaux; one bottle was as good as another in her limited experience, and presumably Westbrook had acquired only vintages worth owning.
She ran her fingers along the necks of the bottles, pulled out one after another to glance at the labels.
All of them, of course, were written in French, a language for which she possessed only a middling fluency.
She finally picked one that she thought she could understand. She slid the bottle out of the slot and presented it to Westbrook.
“This one,” she said. “Chateau Marguax.”
“A fine selection.” Westbrook nodded his approval. “While we’re down here, I think I’ll go ahead and pick another that I was thinking about as I was standing here.”
Westbrook brushed past her, his hair rustling like dry leaves. His back to her, he contemplated the collection of bottles.
Amiya had slid her hand into her pocket and clasped the knife handle. Her fingers trembled. She gauged the distance between her body and his, the length of her arm, the height of his neck.
“Aha,” Westbrook said. “Chateau Lafite. You’ll love this one, too, my lady.”
He drew the bottle out of the rack and turned around, a grin plastered on his pale face.
Using a backhand motion, a movement she had mastered from years of playing competitive tennis, Amiya whisked the edge of the blade across his neck. The cutting made a sound like scissors tearing through paper.
Westbrook’s lips froze in the midst of his shark smile.
“I thought . . . we were getting along well, lady,” he said softly.
He collapsed to the stone floor, blood pumping out of his carotid artery in great dark gouts. As he fell, the bottle flipped out of his hands and bounced against the stone with a clang, but the glass did not break. The wine rolled against the floor and came to rest at the edge of the barrel.
Amiya exhaled. Her heart slammed painfully.
“Is everything okay down there?” Miss Lula asked.
Hurrying, Amiya bent and searched Westbrook’s still body. She located the set of keys. More important to her immediate needs, she found the gun, too.
“Master Westbrook?” Miss Lula called out.
Westbrook’s gun was a silver revolver with a pearl handle. It looked like an antique, but she quickly figured out how to swing open the cylinder. The gun was already loaded.
Miss Lula was descending the staircase, heavy footsteps clopping against stone.
Amiya snapped the cylinder back into place. Holding the revolver in both hands, finger curled around the trigger, she rose just as Miss Lula reached the bottom of the staircase.
“You—” Miss Lula started to say, mouth spreading into a large “o” of shock.
The booming gun cut off her sentence as Amiya shot her point blank in the chest. The gun’s report was painfully loud in the cellar, punishing Amiya’s eardrums.
Letting out a sharp cry, Miss Lula rocked backward against the wall, bottles of wine clinking in her wake.
But she did not go down. Her eyes glowed with fire.
“Gonna have to do better than that, lady,” she said.
With a grunt, she began to push herself upright.
Amiya dashed across the cellar, high heels clacking. The shoes slowed her down, and she kicked them off.
Snarling like a bear, Miss Lula lunged for her. With her long arm, she was able to snag the hem of Amiya’s dress. She yanked. Fabric ripped, and Amiya spun around like a top, losing her balance. She tumbled to the floor. The gun clattered out of her grasp and slid away into the shadows.
“I knew you couldn’t be trusted, bitch.” Miss Lula lurched toward her, blood soaking the front of her dress.
Amiya scrambled across the floor. The nearest item in her vicinity was the bottle of Bordeaux that had fallen against the barrel. Screaming, she grabbed the neck of it and swung around with all the strength she could summon into her arm.
The meat of the bottle smashed against Miss Lula’s head. Glass shattered, and fragrant red wine flew in a dark spray. Eyes rolling up to expose the whites, Miss Lula dropped to her knees with a soft moan.
Down, but not dead , Amiya thought.
Amiya raced past her, the torn dress rippling like flames around her legs. She reached the bottom of the staircase and hustled up the steps, the stone cold against her bare feet, but she had so much adrenaline surging through her bloodstream she barely felt it.
She burst through the doorway. She looked around for the padlock but couldn’t see it, realized Miss Lula had probably taken it with her to keep herself from getting locked in, ever the calculating house manager.
Downstairs in the darkness, Miss Lula bellowed, sounding like some creature from an abyss. Soon, she would be back.
Amiya turned and saw Ossie rushing toward her down the long corridor. Perspiration glistened on his face. His eyes were wild with excitement.
“Someone’s setting off bombs!” he shouted. “Everyone’s running around like crazy!”
Nick , Amiya thought immediately, and felt such an intense crush of emotion that if Nick had been nearby, she would have smothered him in kisses.
She grabbed the sleeve of Ossie’s tuxedo jacket.
“Come on, that’s our signal to get out of here,” she said.