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| Jacqueline comes for Johnathon |
The blistering sun hit the Island of Welshport like a bright white light. It almost felt as if it was sanitizing the entire village. Clearing away all of the decay and cruelty that had lived there for decade and decades. But this was only the surface. The truth was the darkness only hide from the light and would return again.
If anything, Churchill Green Asylum was proof that the sun in the sky shining so brightly was actually there to illuminate the sickness the village and island of Welshport held on to. And one woman was determined to get what she needed out of a day like today.
Jacqueline Gray, who had shapeshifted and posed as nurse at the asylum, walked into the ward as herself poised and stoic -- as the wife of Johnathon DeViana Lord would. She was dressed in her best dress, the shade of dark eggplant and long sleeved with a slight flowery trim and a hat with a long black feather that lifted high into the air. She looked around the lobby, feigning she had no idea where to go, but then clocked the front desk and a very curious nurse.
"May I help you madame?" A male nurse asked.
Jacqueline smirked smolderingly, her eyes devouring the handsome man in front of her but only for the male nurse's audience. "I'm here to see my husband, can you help me?" She asked.
"Your husband? Um well, it's a bit before lunch time and we usually don't allow visitors so close to when patients eat..."
"I think he'd like to see me." Jacqueline jumped in.
The nurse sighed as he looked deep into Jacqueline's eyes. He noticed a spark, something daring even, coming from her. There was a scent in the air. Flowery, almost like gardenias in spring. The scent flowed over the skeptical male nurse like an invisible wave of air. It was a powerful pull to Jacqueline's gaze that the male nurse fell for, she knew he would. It was her favorite spell; in fact it was the one that nabbed her Johnathon in the first place.
The make nurse, trapped in the beautiful witch Jacqueline's honey trap allure, agreed to let her see her husband. It was Jacqueline's final decision to return to the real world as herself.
A first step of a plan.
The nurse walked Jacqueline down the many corridors to Johnathon's room. Dr. Julian Pascal was standing with another nurse looking over a patient's forms and watched Jacqueline pass. He furrowed his brow, wondering who the beautiful stranger was, her scent just as alluring to him, but not as spell binding.
"He's right down there." the male nurse said pointing towards the room. "Room C12."
"Thank you James." she said with a seductive wink. The male nurse did a double take when she said his name. He had never mentioned it.
"How did--- " James began to ask, but Jacqueline vanished into Johnathon's room.
Inside the room, Johnathon was sitting at a small rectangular lattice framed window. The glass in each frame had been formed with a wire mesh for added confinement of the patients. Johnathon traced the wire with his fingers watching the day slipped away. A book open on his knee tempting him to finish the chapter.
Jacqueline slipped in and held the unlockable doorknob with her hand while a powerful wave of heat came from her hand melding the metal inside creating a lock -- ultimate privacy.
"What are you doing?!?!" Johnathon shouted, seeing his wife in her true form, not as Isabel.
"I have an idea." She said.
"What? Did anyone see you?" He asked.
"Yes, they saw your wife." She said proudly.
Johnathon furrowed his brow, unsure of where she was going.
"Johnathon, listen to me, during your session with Dr. Pascal, you -- you gave away information that may have given him a bit more meat for his hungry studies of you." She explained.
Johnathon sighed, he knew what he said, the memory of the hypnosis that was supposed to be helpful and healing -- a form of therapy to expel his personal demons only brought more up to the surface and in his face.
"I -- I didn't mean to." He replied, his voice like an embarrassed child.
"No, no, of course you didn't." Jacqueline reassured him rushing over to him and cupping his handsome face in her hands. "I would never think that. Celeste doesn't think that of you either."
"Celeste?"
"She and I talked. She thinks we need to get you away from Pascal, somehow. It's just better for you to be away from here. Being subject to this kind of therapy is, well, helpful, but could put us all in a very difficult predicament should too much be revealed."
"I would never do it on purpose. NEVER." he replied.
"I know, she knows, but there's already been a bit too much said. So, I've come up with an idea and it's bound to work. You see, I'm still your wife and even though you and I have had a rough way back to where we were, nothing can take away that I am your most powerful next of kin. Wife outranks sister. Even if she is Mrs. Jacob Lord." Jacqueline said.
"What is it that you are going to do?" He wondered.
Jacqueline smiled and grabbed his hand. She kissed his fingers. She put his hand on her breast, he could feel her heart beating deep in her chest. It was the heart of woman who would stop at nothing to keep herself and now her husband in control of every situation they'd be in.
"Your wife is back, she's here to stay and she's getting you out of here. Right now."
"You can do that?"
"I know I can."
Johnathon hugged her, kissed her and hugged her again. "And then we can leave. We can leave this fucking town, this fucked up family and finally be together safe and sound away from all of it. Away from Jacob, and the money and the vamp---" he paused "and Sebastian." He said, holding his breath to see her reaction when he mentioned her former lover.
She smiled noting this. He loved her so much he feared losing her so quickly. "Together." she said and kissing him passionately. His body felt so hot. Her began to unbutton her dress. He reached in, felt her skin. It was hot to the touch. She reached down, undid his trousers. He pushed her back, slightly so that she would fall back on the bed, the small white sheeted cot. He lifted up her skirt, she pulled down his trousers and there in his hospital room they made love for the first time in a very long time.
She felt him thrust into her. She ripped off his shirt and let her head fall back. His mouth began to follow the small lines of her throat down to her clavicle and down to her chest. Her legs accepting every part of him. She held on to his back, the passion reaching a moment they both could no longer hold back from. Like a breaking cloud finally releasing it's summer rain on a hot night the two became awash in love and lust.
As he lay on her, body sweaty and sticky, she played with his hair twisting the short curls around her finger tips.
"We can't leave Welshport yet." She said softly in his ear, his hand on her breast.
"What?" he asked softly.
"There's something I have to do before we do leave." She replied.
He looked up at her, their bodies still tangled in a beautiful lover's knot. "What?" he asked.
"It's -- its Mary." She replied. "She's in trouble and I can't leave knowing she's not safe."
"What do you mean?"
Jacqueline sighed and began to tell the whole story of Verity's return. It went into Johnathon's mind like a knife to his brain. A striking story of magic and sorcery taking control of a life fraudulently. It hurt Johnathon's heart to know Filipe was being manipulated. Johnathon had been there before -- suffered the lies of a witch, and even if his witch seemed reformed, he too wouldn't allow Verity to get away with it.
"Filipe deserves to know the truth." Johnathon said.
Jacqueline agreed.
"So what do we do?" He asked her.
"First, lets get you out of here." She said with a smile. "Then we go and get Mary out of where she is. She's ill and it'll only get worse if I don't help her. Then when all is said and done you and I ... we're free."
He smiled back and kissed again, their bodies still slick with sweat.
Their future together was in grasp, but old ghosts needed to be vanquished before they could finally set their course anew.
****
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| Jacob & Lear discuss business |
Meanwhile, Jacob Lord sat in Tirymor House's large study. The five long rectangular windows faced the west side of the mansion and were under the shadow of the trees from the edge of the close by garden area. Jacob, cloaked in this shadow, sifted through papers awaiting his cousin Lear.
As the clock struck a few minutes past one in the afternoon as Lear slowly made his way in.
"You're late." Jacob said with a snarl, his eyes never lifting from the pages in front of him.
Lear rolled his eyes. "You do know what's been going on don't you? I haven't exactly been able to get my rest, so you'll excu--"
"Yes, yes, I do know." Jacob interrupted. "I've given Aaron some time off and I'm happy to pay for poor Cora's funeral arrangements. I’m very sorry. Cora didn’t get the chance at life she deserved."
Lear’s eyes watered at his cousin’s words. “I don’t think I ever imagined saying you ever sorry about something.”
Jacob arched a brow “I'm not a monster Lear.”
"Ah yes— You just choose to hide." Lear joked, finally getting Jacob to soften with a smirk.
"Listen, we should get down to why I asked you here in the first place. We have to act fast."
"Yes, well, I have it all set up but I don't see how you think this will work. I've looked over all of the documents you had delivered to me and, honestly Jacob, the Board will not like the idea of you consolidating control of Lord Publishing to just you." Lear explained.
"They don't have a choice. My mother is divorced now, or widowed, which ever came first, and that goes against the loophole in my father's will giving her voting power so long as she was married. Plus, she's been convicted of killing someone. There's no one left but me. They'll have to choice but to--"
Lear repaid the earlier interruption with how own and slammed three files on Jacob's long cherry wood desk. His young face expressed a blank stare. He hated dealing with the infighting of his Lord family cousins, it wasn't why he agreed to be their personal lawyer but here he was, doing the bidding of one of the very last blood family members at Tirymor.
"What's that?" Jacob asked of the files.
"Open it." Lear instructed.
Jacob did, it was a long list of family members the Board at Lord Publishing had put together to be sure that no single person in the family could control the entire company for themselves. There was Gabriel, and Fabian, two children who were alive and had rights to having someone represent them in the company board should it come to it. Then, as Jacob turned the other page, a sick feeling fell over him.
There on the list were Johnathon's name and Albert Lord's two siblings, Calgary II who had died years ago, Calgary's son Calgary III, Albert's younger sister Alixandria and her daughter Athena.
"It’s a list of trustees for Fabian and Gabriel the board may look at." Lear replied.
"Well, Johnathon's in an asylum, there's no way he'll be able to be involved." Jacob said.
"He's still Albert's son."
"Bastard son.” Jacob corrected smugly. “I'm still working on that one."
Lear looked at him disgusted.
"And Aunt Alix and Athena have never shown interest in the family business -- not ever. They've been very happy living off of Alix's dead husband's fortune in Vienna or Prague—no Munich. Why would we even think of them? They haven't lived in this country in decades. Alix would never leave the laps of European luxury for Welshport." Jacob scoffed.
"And Cal?" Lear asked.
"He's an artist or something out there too, the last I heard. Junior not interested in his late Uncle Cal’s connections. He’s only been here on summer vacations as a teenager and sat around all summer sulking. He wants nothing to do with Welshport. So I’ve heard."
"Wrong." Lear replied. "They're all in Berlin. Together. Cal moved in with your Aunt Alixandria and has been there for 4 years. He's 36 now, Athena 25. They're of age and engaged. To each other.”
“What??” Jacob asked in shock.
“Some ways of keeping old money in the family never die. Jacob together, if given the power, Cal and Athena could vote on the board in their own names — and there would be nothing you can do about it."
"That’s ridiculous! My grandfather built this company and the only child that wanted to be involved was my father Albert. Uncle Cal and Aunt Alix took their inheritance and went to Europe. There's no legal way this is happening. None, Lear! And you're going to convince the Board of this."
Then, a voice entered the room. "There's always me."
Lear turned, Jacob looked around Lear who was blocking the door to the study. The shadowy gray light from the window beamed down and illuminated the face of Christopher Wesley, or as he was known from birth David Lord.
Lear turned back to Jacob realizing Christopher, as Jacob's brother was right. He did have rights to the company.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jacob asked. "You'd washed your hands of us."
"I'm here about our mother. She was transferred to Augusta today." Chris said.
Lear looked at Jacob and nodded, confirming this.
"Well, god speed to mother." Jacob said patronizingly.
"How could you? How could you turn her in without talking to her first. You just through her to the wolves." Christopher protested.
Jacob stood up form his desk. He dropped the papers down and looked at his brother's face. The face he thought dead long, long ago. He stared at it as if it were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. David was extremely handsome and Jacob had always been secretly jealous of that and so much more. There was a fire lit inside Jacob every time David, or Christopher as he chose to be called now, entered a room or was around him. Those old jealousies roared again, like wind on a flame. It made him sick that he felt this, but it was raw and real and he hated it.
"Get out." Jacob said. "You don't belong here anymore and you don't have any right to tell me what I should and should not have done about Rebecca. She killed someone, she committed a crime and she needed to pay for that."
"This coming from you? Are you serious? Think about you own history Jacob before you cast stones, because everyone knows you've never once paid for a damn thing. Mother deserved to be punished but she should have been able to do it on her own terms, not by her own son. You know she would have come to her senses." Chris answered.
"You have no idea what she's like. You've been gone for years. She hasn't been in her right mind since..."
Chris interrupted "Since her eldest son killed her daughter-in-law and framed her younger son for the crime?"
Lear's eyes widened. His stomach knotted as Jacob tossed down a pen he had been clutching in his hand down on the desk. "Perhaps I should leave."
"NO, cousin, stay. You're family too. You should hear this." Chris said.
"He knows." Jacob replied.
Lear's eyes narrowed, he knew? He knew nothing really. He had always heard rumors and speculation and as the family lawyer he never wanted to know the real truth. It would have been harder for him to defend should he knew it all. "No, seriously, I should go." Lear said again.
"Sit down." Jacob told his cousin. "Christopher, is done here, it's too late for him to act like a loving son."
Jacob's voice was now cold, stone cold. The darkness of his eyes was proof that he had no time to deal with Chris and his guilt trips. There was an Empire to take over and nothing was going to stop him, not Lear's new revelation that the Board at the Publishing House was about to envelope more outlying Lord family members to build a more secure family structure within the company and certainly not his wayward brother entering the room to cause a scene with old family secrets.
"Loving son?" Chris asked with a chuckle. "You wouldn't know what a loving son was if Fabian came into this room and said it himself."
Chris's use of Fabian turned the fire in Jacob into a blaze. He rushed from around the desk and lunged at Chris. His fist tightened around his brother's lapel and pushed him back into a wall knocking over a small portrait of Sebastian, Chris's son.
Jacob squeezed and the tightening began to restrict Chris' air flow. Jacob began to berate his brother. Calling him a coward, a petulant child, a con-artist and a man who abandoned his own son years ago, referring to Sebastian, who's portrait was shattered on the ground.
Lear jump to separate them; he pushed Jacob back who quickly adjusted his coat and straitened his tie. Chris gasped for air and fixed his shirt as well.
"I -- won't -- let you do this." Chris said, his breath finally catching.
"Do this?" Jacob asked.
"I'll go to the board. I'll tell them what I want and how I Johnathon still have rights to control the company with you."
Jacob went silent. His eyes narrowed and his jaw set with tension. He wanted to see his brother bloodied right there in the study. He hated him, he loved him, he wished him gone, he wished him disappeared like when everyone thought him dead.
There was a beat of silence -- Lear slowly made one step to block Jacob from getting any close to Chris, causing Jacob to finally break his stone face with a smirk to his cousin. Jacob patted Lear on the chest to calm the situation.
"You do that." Jacob said to Chris. "Go to the board. Tell them who you are, and we'll see who they choose. Tell them our crazy half-brother Johnathon wants in too, see how they react. I'll be there to catch it all, and I will relish it when they look at you as if you have seven heads because not a single member on this company's board with any sense in their brain's would allow you, a man who faked his death, ran away from his son, lived in London in hiding for decades, much less our mad secret half-brother Johnaton. It's me they'll choose David. I'm the one who's been here since father died. It's me who's made them millions and millions of dollars in printing and paper revenue, book sales, and so much more in licensing fees. Me. Rebecca was just the co-signer, but I am the one who brought those checks in. But yes, go there, and see how they'll laugh you out of that board room. A board room that I in fact paid to decorate. Lord Publishing has my blood sweat and tears wrapped in every chair, wallpaper, carpet fiber, book biding reem of paper, elevator button, brick and floorboard. Remember that."
Chris said noting. He almost wanted to cry. He turned around and made his way out of the room, now unsure of his next move.
"You didn't have to attack him." Lear said softy.
"Oh, don't worry cousin. He won't sue me for battery." Jacob laughed. "And if he does show up at this meeting with the board, I have no doubt in my mind they'll see it my way."
"How can you be so sure?" Lear asked.
"This whole situation is to mitigate a family scandal. Chris, the back-from-the-dead David and Bastard son Johnathon aren't exactly ideal for scandal mitigation. You'll see."
Lear collected his papers. "I guess we will. What about the other's?" Lear asked.
Jacob did not answer. He walked over to the 5 rectangular windows and watched as far off in the distance, Chris walked off towards the village. Two brothers so broken in their relationship were now in a new battle for the rights to rule the family Empire.
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| Jacqueline & Johnathon find Filipe |
At the very same time, Jacqueline and Johnathon had managed to get him signed out of Churchill Green. They'd come down to the docks to get to Mary themselves when they came face to face with Filipe.
It was almost a slow-motion action, Filipe looked up and saw Johnathon and Jacqueline together. He was confused at first, why were they together, why was he out of the hospital and why were they at the docks coming his way. It was a chance encounter that perhaps had more to do with destiny and fate than anything else.
Filipe stepped out of the boat, the rope about halfway unraveled from the cleat. He stepped back up onto the dock as if to block Johnathon and Jacqueline from something, Goode Island perhaps.
"What's this?" He asked them, his words laced with distrust.
"I've discharged my husband from the hospital." Jacqueline replied.
"Oh, have you now." Filipe answered, knowing full well Jacqueline was not to be trusted.
"What have you done now witch?" Filipe said in a soft, low growl reaching for Jacqueline’s forearm as Johnathon tried to push him back from her.
"Im sorry." Jacqueline noted, quietly.
"No, how am I supposed to believe this coming from you—after all you’ve done to us. This is some sort of trick of yours. I know that Mary hasn't been herself lately but that has more to do with the traumas you put her through during the witch trial. Don't think for a second Jacqueline that we all forgot that it was you who started this. If you hadn't set the people of this town on -- " Filipe began before Jacqueline lifted her hand up in the air and snapped.
Filipe tried to speak but couldn't.
"Are you going to calm down because there is absolutely no time for accusations. I may have done terrible things — I admit that — but I swear to you Filipe, this is no trick of mind and I had nothing to do with Verity’s return and what she’s done . In fact, it’s been weighing on me day in and day not being able to help Mary out of this. I’ve been bound to intervene — but I can no longer hold on to this. I’ve seen Mary where Verity her her held and she is unwell. Time is of the essence."
"I want to know everything — no lies!" Filipe exclaimed.
They began to head out to sea, on the small boat through the small straight of ocean that separated Goode Island from Welshport Island, a 15 minute boat ride.
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| Rebecca’s note |
"We were cleaning out Casador's cell." The officer replied.
"Ok?"
Justin folded the note and put it down on his desk.
The officer didn't know, even the new Constable felt a bit unsure of where to start revealing this new bit of information.
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| Julian worries for Johnathon |
"OH! This is about Patient DeViana?" She asked, almost relieved.
Pascal nodded.
But for all his work to get close to the truth of what -- and who-- the Lords were hiding felt like it was quickly vanishing out the front door of Churchill Green. The opportunity squandered to know more about the mysterious Lord family and the curious members of their family.
And like a dog with a bone, Dr. Julian Pascal wasn't going to give it up very easily. He was on a very special mission, and Johnathon's reveal had gotten very, very close.
