“So when will you discover ’tis time to sleep at night?” Apryll whispered, pulling the tiny, dark-haired infant from her small crib.
The baby stopped crying and busily nuzzled at Apryll’s swollen breasts. “In a minute, in a minute.” She carried her daughter into the lord’s chamber and settled into the bed again while the fire quietly burned and downstairs the castle was waking. A rooster crowed and somewhere down the hallway a woman was singing off-key. Tonight the castle would be open to celebrate the revels. Oh, so much had happened since last year’s. One of Devlynn’s most trusted knights was ruling Serennog and Sir Brennan and Father Benjamin were advising him.
Father Hadrian had slipped into the night upon hearing that Apryll was to marry Devlynn of Black Thorn, and Geneva, poor woman, was still grieving Payton’s death, though, Father Benjamin had reported, she seemed to be healing after nearly bleeding to death from the loss of her infant and the rape.
Dear God, how had such horrid things happened? Apryll wondered. How she’d misjudged her brother and the man who had become her husband. Serennog had prospered in the last year and though Apryll had visited twice, she now believed this was to be her home. Her destiny.
Mayhap Geneva’s prediction had been right, though the sorceress had confided that she’d conjured up the whole idea, not so much to betray Apryll, but to satisfy Payton.
She glanced down at her babe, now suckling hungrily at her breast. Sweet little Rowelda of Black Thorn, a thing of mystery to her older half brother.
Devlynn stirred beside her, rolling over and opening one eye. “Again?” he asked and stretched.
“She is insatiable,” Apryll said, lifting a brow. “Like her father.”
“Aye, and her father is jealous.” Devlynn scooted closer, kissed his daughter’s head, then kissed Apryll’s plump breast where a pearly drop of milk had collected.
“Uh-uh-uh,” Apryll admonished, then smiled secretly. “Later.”
Devlynn laughed and, despite his wife’s warnings, kissed first the nipple and then her lips. “Tell me not what to do,” he warned. “Or I shall have to punish you.”
“And how would you do that, my lord?”
“Slowly,” he said. “Very slowly. Until you beg for mercy.”
She laughed as if the idea were preposterous. “Me? Beg? I think not. Now, I think that mayhap I would be the one who punishes you.”
“Never.”
“Hmmm. I have ways, you know.” She shifted the baby to her other breast. “We shall see, husband.”
“That we shall, wife,” he promised with a wicked gleam in his eye. His fingers delved under the covers to trace the length of her thigh. “That we shall.”
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed Wild and Wicked. I had a great time writing the book and thought of it as the classic fairy tale, “Cinderella” meets O. Henry’s “The Ransom of Red Chief,” with a few twists and turns, of course. I loved the adventures of Apryll, Devlynn, and Yale.
My next book for Signet, Impostress, is a little different. This time the heroine, Kiera, has to repay an old debt to her sister, Elyn. The payment isn’t what she expected. Elyn demands that Kiera become Elyn for one day—the day Elyn is to marry Baron Kelan of Hazelwood, a mysterious dark lord to whom Elyn has been promised. Kiera balks, but Elyn vows it will only be for one night, a night in which the baron will be drugged… . He’ll never know the difference. Or will he?
Impostress is a rich, lively medieval romance, one I hope you’ll like. It will be on bookshelves in early 2003.
In the meantime, please visit my Web site at www.lisajackson.com to let me know what you think of Wild and Wicked and to keep up with my latest releases. If you sign my guest book, who knows? You might just win a contest!
Keep reading!
Lisa Jackson
c/o Signet Books
New American Library
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Turn the page for an exciting excerpt from
Lisa Jackson’s next romantic suspense novel,
COLD BLOODED
Available from Zebra Books
June2002
New Orleans, Louisiana
November 22
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” the woman whispered, terrified, repeating the lines he’d told her to speak. But she didn’t believe them. Not for a minute. She wasn’t penitent. Just scared. To think she was one of God’s creatures. She was quivering with fear and shivering in the cold, but that would soon change. Smoke was already beginning to waft through the vents in the tiny bathroom. Flames would soon follow. “Forgive me, forgive me,” she said, eyes wide. Naked, terrorized, knowing she was about to die, she was suddenly religious. On her knees, chained to the pedestal sink, she begged for mercy, not understanding the magnitude of her sins.
Pathetic creature.
He placed a gloved hand upon her head, as if to calm her, and from somewhere outside, through the cracked window, he heard a car’s wheels whine on the wintry streets of the Esplanade.
“Let me go … please …” she pleaded, trying to keep the tremor from her voice as he fiddled with the radio from which the sound of familiar music wafted through the speakers, fading to the sound of a woman’s calm voice.
“This is Dr. Sam, with one last thought on this day when one of our finest presidents’ life was taken so brutally… . Take care of yourself, New Orleans. Good night and God bless. No matter what your troubles are today, there’s always tomorrow… . Sweet dreams …”
He switched the station, heard static, chirps, then finally found it: pipe organ music. Turning the radio to its full volume, he positioned it on a tiny shelf in the shower. Soothing notes. A hymn. He was sweating beneath his mask and the whore inched forward, bunched her fingers in the hem of his alb. “I’ll … I’ll do anything, but please …”
“Be still, my child. The Lord’s justice is swift and merciful.”
“Justice?” she repeated, looking up as he reached beneath his robe and found the hilt of his sword. Blue eyes beseeched him. Tears ran down her cheeks. “No … what are you doing? Why? Why me? Oh, God …” she squeaked.
Slowly he withdrew the weapon from its hiding spot. “Oh, God, no!” She was frantic now, pulling at the chain. Screaming. Scrambling away. “Please no …” Frantic eyes, the look of a trapped animal. “Help me! Someone! Help me!”
“Shh … it’s too late.” His voice was measured, calm, but inside he was shaking, trembling, not with fear but anticipation. Adrenaline, his favorite drug, sang through his veins. From the corner of his eye he noticed flames beginning to lick through the screen of the vent. Good.
“No, please, don’t … oh, God …” She was pulling at her tether now, vainly trying to hide behind the pedestal, her wrists bleeding and raw from her bonds. “I’ll do anything,” she swore, sobbing, her eyes wild with fear, “anything.”
His pulse throbbed, pounded in his brain as he reached down and grabbed a fistful of curly blond hair. She squealed like a wounded pig. For a second he felt a tingle against the back of his neck, like the breath of Satan, and he glanced at the mirror, searching the shimmering surface, looking beneath the reflection of his own image of a tight black mask, feeling as if someone were watching through the glass. Witnessing his act. Impossible!
His fingers coiled more tightly in her hair.
The blade glinted, shifting gold, reflecting the flames.
“No!” she screamed again, coughing and choking.
Jezebel. Harlot. Whore.
Sweat slid into his eyes as he lifted his sword so high his arm ached. Smoke burned in his lungs. Bloodlust ran through his veins. He was hard between his legs, his erection nearly painful, his own act of martyrdom. “For your sins, Cecilia, and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I commit your soul to hell.”
Olivia’s eyes flew open.
Her heart was a drum, her body drenched in sweat, the dream lingering as clearly
as if she’d just witnessed a murder. It had seemed so real. The smell of smoke was still in her nostrils, the girl’s screams rang in her ears, and her skin crawled as if blood had truly spattered her face.
Reaching for the bedside lamp, she scooted up in the old bed and tried to calm her racing heart. It was only a dream. Nothing more. Nothing.
But she knew better. Just as she had before. “Damn you, Granny Gin,” she muttered as the sounds of the night floated in through the open window, the chirp of insects underscored by the hum of traffic, eighteen-wheelers on the distant freeway and the rattle of a freight train on faraway tracks. At the foot of the bed, Granny’s dog, Hairy S, raised his head and peered at her with bright brown eyes. A mutt of indecipherable lineage, he was all scraggly bits of hair, mottled gray and brown with splotches of white. He whined, then belly-swamped up to the pillows next to her. Absently, she ruffled his coarse hair and wished she could tell him it would be all right. But it wouldn’t. She knew better. The dreams had become more vivid.
Dropping her head into her hands, she massaged her temples. She’d experienced these visions before. Long ago. As a girl. When her mother had been alive. But Bernadette Benchet had never herself been visited by macabre dreams that had become real, nor had she believed in them.
“Coincidence,” she’d told her child often enough, or, “You’re making this up. It’s just a cheap attempt to get attention! Now knock it off, Livvie, and quit listening to Grandma. She’s touched in the head, you know, and if you aren’t careful … you hear me?” she’d said sharply, shaking her daughter as if to drive out the monsters in her brain. “If you aren’t careful you’ll be touched too, not by some ridiculous gift of sight as Granny claims, but by the devil.”
On one particularly vivid occasion Bernadette had pointed a long, red-tipped nail at the end of her eldest daughter’s nose. They had been in the kitchen of this very house where the smells of bacon grease, smoke, and cheap perfume had adhered to pine cabinets yellowed with age. A fan had sat near the ancient toaster, rotating on the corner of the countertop and blowing hot air around the tiny room.
Bernadette had just gotten off the day shift of waitressing down at Charlene’s. She was standing on the cracked linoleum floor in bare feet, a white blouse, and trademark black skirt. “Listen, child,” she’d said seriously. “I’m not kidding. All this mumbo jumbo and hints about voodoo are just bullshit, you hear me? Bullshit. Your grandma has delusions of being some damned voodoo priestess or some such nonsense, but she’s not. Just because way back when there was some octoroon blood mixed in with the rest, doesn’t make her a … a … damned psychic, now, does it?”
Bernadette had straightened, adjusted her short black skirt, and sighed. “Course it doesn’t,” she’d added, more, it seemed, to convince herself than Olivia. “Now go outside, will ya; ride yer bike or skateboard or whatever.” She picked up an open pack of Virginia Slims on the counter, shook out a filter-tip, and lit it quickly. With smoke seeping out of her nostrils she stood on her tiptoes and reached into an upper cabinet where she pulled out a fifth of whiskey.
“Mama’s got herself a whopper of a headache,” she explained as she found a short glass, cracked ice cubes from a plastic tray, and poured herself a drink. Only after taking a sip and leaning her hips against the counter did she look at her daughter again. “You’re an odd one, Livvy,” she said with a sigh. “I love ya to death, you know I do, but you’re different.” With the cigarette planted firmly between her lips, she’d reached forward and grabbed Olivia’s chin, moving her head left, then right. Narrowed eyes studied Olivia’s profile through the smoke. “You’re pretty enough,” Bernadette finally allowed, straightening and flicking ashes into the sink, “and if you use your head and don’t go spouting off all this crazy talk, you’ll land yourself a good man, maybe even a rich man. So don’t go scaring ’em off with all this weird talk, y’hear me. No decent man’ll have you.” She rolled the drink in her hands and watched the ice cubes clink together. “Believe me, I know.” A sad smile curved her lips. “Someday, honey, you’re gonna git yerself outta this dump”—she fluttered her fingers to take in all of Granny Gin’s cabin—“and into a fancy house, just like Scarlett Damned O’Hara.” She had managed a wider grin. “And when you do, you’re gonna take care of your mama, y’hear?”
Now, thinking back, Olivia sighed. Oh, Mama, if you only knew. Olivia would have done anything to make the demons in her mind be still. But lately, those dreams she’d repressed had come back with a vengeance.
She had to do something about the visions. And she had to do something about tonight. About that poor terrified woman. She threw off the covers of Granny Gin’s old bed and walked to the antique desk. Hairy S was right on her heels, toenails clicking across the hardwood floor. Flipping on the desk lamp, she looked through the cubbyholes and withdrew a tattered piece of newspaper, an account by the Times of the latest rash of murders in the Crescent City. According to the reporter, a detective by the name of Rick Bentz had been instrumental in solving the bizarre killings. He’d been the man who had discovered the link in the crimes and how they were related to Dr. Sam—Samantha Leeds—host of the talk-radio program Midnight Confessions.
No one else had helped her. Maybe Bentz would.
He had to.
Olivia glanced at the clock. The digital readout glowed bright red. Three twelve A.M. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep, she tucked the newspaper clipping into the pocket of her robe and headed down the old stairs to the first floor where she planned on brewing a strong pot of coffee while she waited for the sun to come up over the bayou. But as she reached the bottom step, the dog shot in front of her, racing to the French doors. Glancing through the paned windows, she saw a glimmer of light that grew into a faint glow in the horizon, an orange haze, through the thick stands of cypress and live oak.
Her insides twisted.
The fire.
She knew before the firemen or the police that somewhere in the raging bowels of that hellish inferno was the body of a woman, her head nearly severed, chained to a pedestal sink.
Lisa Jackson, Wild and Wicked
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends