Page 51 of Fortune’s Final Folly

“Do shut up, you caterwauling shrew.” Whatever the man held at her throat receded until Kate barely felt the pain of its sharp point. “Now, Katherina, why could you not simply have perished in the fire? It would have saved me a lot of trouble, and you much pain.”

She slowly opened her eyes. As she focused, she peered into A’laya’s hardened stare. Her mother’s rigid posture and penetrating gaze did not hide the tears that seeped from her eyes as she glared at the man behind Kate. Her mother, likely much the same as Kate, sat in one of the chairs that were usually tucked close to the tiny table that Kate and her parents had dined at in her youth.

She moved her arms a bit and twisted slightly. Nothing bound her to the chair but the threat of the blade at her throat. It was the same thing that kept her mother frozen in the chair across from her.

“However, I do see the advantage of having both of you here at the same time,” the man drawled, drawing out each word with agonizing slowness. “Doing away with just one meddlesome female would not have solved my problems, I understand that now.”

Terror must have shone in Kate’s eyes because her mother mouthed the word, “Sorry,” over and over again.

“It isn’t your fault,” Kate declared, the blade cutting into her neck once more. A fiery trail snaked down her throat and under the collar of her blouse. There was little doubt who the man at her back was. Pierce De Vere—her father. And he’d set the fire that had nearly killed her.

Now, he’d returned for a second attempt at doing away with her.

Only now did Kate understand why he’d seek to do it. She was nearly old enough to have received Walter’s letter when her bequest ran out, and her full inheritance was made available to her.

And her mother was in trouble, too.

“Please, let A’laya go,” Kate pleaded. She knew it would do no good, and if anything of the man were to be believed, he was not above being cruel for cruelty’s sake, but she had to try. “She stands to inherit nothing from the Shrewbury estate, and I don’t even know her.”

“Do you think me simpleminded?” the earl snarled.

“You certainly are not an intelligent man,” Kate prodded, only achieving a quick press of the blade before he once again eased back. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” His tone was deranged, his pitch rising with each word. “I want what is rightfully mine. What I earned.”

“Earned?” A’laya scoffed. “You’ve earned nothing, you treacherous beast.”

Pierce stood behind Kate, the knife leaving her throat as he rushed at A’laya, the blade pointed at her.

“Don’t touch her,” Kate screamed, kicking out her leg until it tangled with his, sending him off balance as quickly as his punch had knocked her down earlier. “Run!”

As he slammed into the table, bashing his hip against the unforgiving wooden top, he cursed.

Kate glanced at her mother but noticed that she hadn’t run. Instead, she stood, grasping the chair with both of her hands as she swung it, catching the fiend in the knees. He collapsed.

There was no time to commend A’laya on her accurate blow.

Pierce’s howl of pain echoed in the small room as he fought to gain purchase on the table while still keeping the knife in his grasp.

Kate attempted to make her way past Pierce and toward A’laya to the door of the upstairs’ landing behind her. Pierce halted her, swinging out his arm and swiping the knife at her thigh, ripping through her skirt. Kate grabbed at the area, staggering back, but the blade hadn’t made it through her underpinnings to cut her flesh.

“You bastard!” Her mother darted past Pierce and took hold of the copper pot from the pellet stove. “I will never allow you to harm Katherina again.”

A’laya held the cookware high above her head and brought it down, crushing Pierce in the shoulder.

He dropped, and the knife skittered across the floor into the far corner.

When he didn’t immediately move, Kate lifted her stare to her mother’s enraged face as she seethed with anger, her heavy breathing audible even over the pounding of footfalls on the stairs.

“Mother,” Kate said, rushing to catch A’laya before her knees gave out from her trembling and she tumbled to the floor. “Are you hurt?”

“No, child.” A’laya rubbed at her shoulder as Kate slipped her arm around her mother’s waist to help support her.

“What in the bloody hell?” Joshua rushed into the room, out of breath from his dash up the stairs, another man close on his heels. His face drained of color when he spotted Pierce crumpled on the floor. “Kate, A’laya, are you both okay?”

“Go to him, Katherina,” A’laya whispered. When Kate trained her gaze on her mother, A’laya continued, “Go, I will be fine. Sore from my old age, but I am well. Very well, indeed.”

With a smile, Kate kissed her mother lightly on the cheek, surprising even herself with the intimate gesture.