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Chapter Twenty-seven The entire evening had been carefully orchestrated for the sole purpose of obtaining the letter from Eve. As soon as it was written, the festivities summarily concluded—Raj took the letter and immediately left the hall. Instead of an attendant, an armed guard escorted Eve back to her quarters; another guard was now posted outside her door. Once inside, she heard the key turn in the lock behind her. Eve quickly surveyed the suite of rooms to see if she was alone— Minakshi was gone—then she went to the wardrobe on the wall next to the bed. She shoved the clothes aside and ran her finger along the crevasse in the back left corner, feeling for the latch. Her finger found what it was looking for, and gave it a solid tug. There was a ‘click’ and the back of the wardrobe swung silently inward exposing a dark opening just wide enough to crawl through; she felt the cool rush of stale air coming up out of the passageway. Eve pulled the panel closed again and heard the latch fall back into place. Good, she thought, I’ve got at least one secret they don’t know about.
Eve had been there a week when she realized she needed to start keeping track of the days. Her confinement was solitary—she had not spoken with a single soul since the dinner with Raj. A sparse meal was simply shoved through the door each evening; boredom was taking its toll. She had been there a fortnight, when late one evening, there came an unexpected knock on her door. Eve went to the door, and after a moment’s hesitation, tried the handle. To her surprise, it was unlocked. Before her stood an attractive young man—medium build and height—probably in his mid thirties. He was holding a decanter and two crystal goblets. “May I come in?” he asked, not waiting for an answer. He’s the spitting image of Aaron, Eve thought, shaken. “Who are you?” she asked weakly—he looked like her dead husband at his youthful best. “My name is Draco—I’m your host. I thought it was time we met,” he said, pushing past her into the room. “Will you join me for a nightcap?” Eve could not find her tongue to speak and simply nodded. She was wearing a short, thin night dress, her long legs and much of her upper torso exposed. “You can’t be Draco,” she said, regaining some composure. “You’re much too young—Draco would be an old man now.” “A simple matter of pharmacology,” he replied. “Surely your husband told you—members of the Order live extraordinarily long lives.” Draco poured a healthy measure from the decanter into each of the goblets, and flourished as he handed one to Eve. She took it and sat down in a chair by the fire, quickly gathering her wits. “Thank you,” she demurred, raising the glass in his direction and giving him an appraising look. “I haven’t had an evening caller in quite some time,” she said, settling back a little. Then she asked, whimsically, “Do you plan to stay the night?” The question caught Draco completely off guard, and now it was his turn to be flustered. “I’m—I’m sorry, but you’ve misread my intentions.” “Have I?” she said vexingly, not giving him any quarter. He had inadvertently stumbled into the one game Eve played instinctively—better than anyone. Draco left Eve in complete isolation for a fortnight to demoralize her. His objective that evening was purely business—to begin Eve’s subversion to his way of thinking. Nothing else had even crossed his mind. He was simply there to seduce her intellect. Eve’s sexual predation was the last thing he expected or was prepared for. “Come over here and sit beside me; I want to get a closer look at you. You so resemble my dead husband—you know—the nephew you murdered.” Eve’s voice dripped with irony. Draco had never in his entire life been so unnerved, as he was in that moment, by this woman. His heart was beating ferociously in his chest and he felt panic rising—feelings that were completely foreign. He was frozen by the table where he had just placed the decanter—like a rabbit frozen by the passing shadow of a hawk. Eve finally said, “Well, if you’ll not come to me, then I’ll come to you.” As she rose up onto those long bare legs and started toward him, with a confidence even he could appreciate, Draco knocked over the decanter and fumbled to set it right. “I think I better go—perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea,” he croaked, turning toward the door. The door closed swiftly behind him, and moments later, almost as an afterthought, Eve heard the key turning in the lock. They both had a sleepless night; both were in turmoil; neither was what the other expected; both wondered what the other had thought—or might be thinking now.
Draco’s success over the years was due, in part, to his thorough preparation, and an insightful understanding of the people and cultures he conquered—he always found their weaknesses and had the skills to exploit them. In his assessment of how to undo the Great Alliance, the Marlo part of the equation was part of his own personal history. After all, he was once the dauphin groomed to become the Chancellor. Understanding the Langdon part of the equation was a different matter. First, Draco was confounded by the union of the Marlo and Langdon dynasties—the marriage of Aaron and Eve. For the first time in history, those two houses stood united. Historically, they functioned as countervailing forces within the Alliance—one spiritual, the other secular—frequently at odds with one another. Their union would prove problematic for Draco’s ambitions. Part of his reason for injecting Helron into the Alliance and plotting the affair with Eve had been an attempt to sunder the marriage binding those two Houses together. Draco studied the problem for almost thirty years, and without realizing it, his interest in Eve had steadily grown from fascination to obsession. Without ever having met her, feelings for this woman had taken root deep within his psyche—just waiting to be aroused. What no one would ever know, knowledge Aaron took to his grave, was that the union had been part of a plan devised by the Order while Aaron was still in training there. Aaron’s faithful execution of that plan would delay the collapse of the Alliance by more than thirty years—buying time—time the Order needed to prepare.
Eve awoke drenched in sweat. How she longed for the strong hands of a man on her body—an orgasm to send her over the edge into peaceful sleep—like the body on a funeral barge going over the Great Falls at twilight, being committed to the void beyond. Since Aaron’s death, Eve had learned to subsist on memories—she had not been with a man in a very long time. But now, that old familiar beast was stirring. In those brief moments with Draco, she felt the power of her sex in all its former glory. She did not yet have a plan for Draco’s undoing, but at least now, she knew she had the means. For the next week Draco was brooding and irascible; even Raj gave him a wide birth. Some strange power now possessed him, and he was trying desperately to exorcise it from his being. Draco walked the floors at night and got no sleep for days. He would suddenly get up in the middle of a conference and stalk around the room, fuming to himself, then simply walk out. When everyone around him was at their wits end, it was Raj who finally took him to task. “Draco...Draco!!! Are you listening to me?” Raj implored. “What has come over you? We have all been tiptoeing around you for more than a week now. This is not like you—come to your senses!” Raj moved around behind Draco’s chair and put both hands on the nap of Draco’s neck—squeezing first—then massaging. Draco allowed his head to sag forward, letting out a deep groan. “That woman has possessed you,” Raj said. “It is not good having her around. Let’s move her somewhere out of sight and out of mind—until her purpose has been served. She has been on my mind as well, but I have not lost my grip.” Draco twisted his head around momentarily and gave Raj a quizzical look. “Yes...I too am smitten by that confounded woman!” “I’ve always faced my demons, Raj. But this one is new to me…it has me by the balls. What advice do you have for me—oh wise one?” Draco said with mocked deference. “Before you slide any further into that spider’s funnel, consider the absolute worse she could possibly do to you, and be prepared for her to do it—because she will.” Raj thumped Draco on the top of his skull then paced around to the other side of the table, squaring off with him. “You have got to get control of this. It is affecting all of us. In almost twenty years of serving you, I have never seen you like this before. You are besotted—only one brief encounter—and you are besotted! This new demon of yours is love, but in your case, it has no rational basis and will drive you mad if you are not careful. Consider—you have only seen this woman once—just once!” “Ah, but Raj, I’ve been studying her for years—literally decades. She’s the most intriguing creature the human race ever produced. You know her history as well as I do—she’s a legend. And the power of her mere presence in a room; what it’s like just being near her?” Draco paused for either effect or thought. Raj rubbed his hands together and became more strident. “Yes, damn it! I felt it too! But I had the good sense to get away from it and not dwell on it. I had no more contact with the woman than was absolutely necessary to get what we wanted from her—and I suggest you do the same! As long as Eve Langdon is alive, she will be your nemesis!” “Raj, I didn’t like the sound of that. I want your assurance no harm will come to her.” “I cannot give you that assurance,” said Raj, shaking his head in frustration. “We have a lot at stake, and you have not been yourself since your encounter with that woman.” Draco drifted into the thoughts that had been troubling him for more than a week, speaking them aloud “...her union with my nephew—she found her true match there. I spied on them for years, watching their setbacks—amused at how well my nephew suffered her contempt—her indifference. But he would not be thrown off—I admired him for that. In his own way, he mastered her—in the only way she would be mastered. Aaron was the only man I ever envied—Raj, did you know that?” “Then how do you rationalize what you did to them. You groomed Helron, you trained him, you planted the seeds for his thoughts and actions—and the death of your nephew.” “Ah, well, it was business—a means to an end. True, I knew what the outcome would be. Helron was a soulless creature whose ambitions knew no bounds. In time, I’d have killed him myself, if she hadn’t.” “Well, unfortunately, he is now dead and our objectives have not been achieved,” Raj said hotly. “Your feelings for that woman are a disaster in the making—you are playing with fire—no good will come of it!” Raj stopped his pacing and sat down opposite Draco again, folding his arms emphatically to punctuate his point. “Thank you Raj, you’ve always been good at taking me to task when I needed it.” Draco took a deep breath and let his head loll back for a moment with his eyes closed, then stood up abruptly, rolling his head around to loosen his neck. “All right,” Draco said, “you’ve made your point. Now let’s get back to work, there is much to do and this distraction has caused us to fall further behind.” |
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House of Marlo |
