Nicole stepped backward. “Where are the twins?”
“With the devil, for all I care. I wanted to get you up here alone. I want you to take a little journey with me.”
“I have work to do. I—” She stopped when she saw the pistol in Gerard’s hands.
“Now I have your attention. Or does any man who points something large and hard at you get that?”
Nicole curled her lip and cursed him in French.
Gerard smiled at her. “Quite colorful! Now, I want you to go with me—quietly.”
“No.”
“I thought perhaps you’d say that. Remember how you thought my dear wife overheard that Bianca was planning to murder Armstrong? For once in that crazy woman’s life, she was right about something.”
Nicole stared at him, her eyes wide, enormous. “You killed my mother,” she whispered.
“Clever girl. Too clever. Now, if you ever wish to see your lover alive again, you will obey me.” He waved the pistol. “Through there, and remember that his life depends on you.”
Nicole walked through the woods, away from the mill, then down to the river where Gerard had a rowboat hidden. He delighted in the fact that Nicole had to row him across while he sat in the stern and gave her orders. He talked constantly of his cleverness, of how Nicole had enticed him and teased him since he arrived.
They landed at a far corner of the Armstrong plantation. There was a vacant tool shed there, half hidden under a tree, its door hanging off a broken hinge.
They had barely reached the door when Bianca came from the trees. “Where have you been? And what is she doing here?”
“Never mind that,” Gerard snapped. “Did you do it?”
Her eyes, almost hidden by her grotesquely fat cheeks, were unnaturally bright. “He wouldn’t go riding. He wouldn’t do what he was supposed to. I fixed the saddle with the glass like you said, but he wouldn’t go.”
“What happened?” Gerard demanded.
Bianca had been holding her skirt together. Now she released it. There was a great deal of blood down the front. “I shot him,” she said, as if she were surprised at the fact.
Nicole screamed and would have started running toward the house, but Gerard caught her by the arm. He hit her hard across the mouth, sending her sprawling inside the tool shed.
“Is he dead?” Gerard demanded.
“Oh, yes,” Bianca said. She blinked at him, and her voice sounded strangely like a child’s. She pulled her other hand from behind her skirt. “I brought the other pistol.”
Gerard grabbed it from her hand, then pointed it at her. “Get in here.”
Bianca frowned in puzzlement, then stepped inside the shed. “Why is Nicole here? Why is my maid here?” she asked simply.
“Bianca!” Nicole screamed. “Where is Clay?”
Bianca turned slowly and looked at Nicole as she stood pressed against the wall. “You!” she whispered. “You did this!” She half fell toward Nicole, her hands like claws.
Nicole was nearly suffocated when Bianca’s great weight came crashing down on her.
“Get off her, you fat whore!” Gerard yelled. He tossed one pistol onto the floor behind him, put the other into his belt, and began to pull Bianca off Nicole.
“I want to kill her!” Bianca sneered. “Let me kill her now!”
Gerard pulled his gun and pointed it at her. “It’s you who’ll be killed, not her,” he said.
Bianca smiled. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It’s me, remember? The woman you love.”
“Love!” Gerard snorted. “What man could love you? I’d as soon mate with one of the sows!”