Pierce? On his way home?
Madeline struggled to breathe evenly. She thanked the woman, reminded her that she and Grace would be gone to the zoo all afternoon, then waited several moments to make sure the housekeeper had left before she jumped into action.
How long? she wondered, completely panicked. How long until Pierce walked through that door? She turned back to Grace’s suitcase and did a quick inventory. She would just have to leave the rest; they would have to make do. There was no time. No time.
“Mommy!” Grace squealed with delight. “Look!”
Madeline swung around in time to see Grace emptying the pouch of gems into her lap.
With a cry, Madeline leaped across to her daughter. “No! Bad girl!” She snatched the pouch from Grace’s hands. The jewels flew, scattering across the wooden floor.
For one moment, Grace stared blankly at her, as if in shock. Then she burst into tears.
Madeline hardly ever raised her voice with Grace. She could count on one hand the times she had yelled at her.
“I’m sorry, honey. Daddy wanted us to have the pretty stones for our trip. But they’re very special, we mustn’t play with them.” She hugged her daughter. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Come, help me pick them up. Can you do that?”
Still whimpering, Grace nodded and together they retrieved the stones, put them back into the pouch, the pouch into the suitcase, Madeline painfully aware of each passing moment. She snapped the case shut, locked it this time, then did the same to Grace’s. “Come on, sweetie, time to go.”
The nursery door opened. Madeline swung toward it and froze. Not Pierce on his way home, she realized. The other Mr. Monarch. Worse, much worse.
Adam took in the scene before him, realization crossing his features. His face went from passive to enraged. “Going somewhere, Madeline, dear? On some sort of a trip?”
Madeline wetted her lips. “This isn’t what it looks like. It’s—”
“Going on a trip,” Grace chirped up, happily playing with her baby doll. “Daddy can’t come. He has to work.”
“You lying, conniving bitch.” Adam took a step toward her, his expression murderous. “So this is what you’ve been up to. This is why you’ve been such a perfect little wife. So agreeable, so helpful. You’ve been planning to steal my granddaughter.”
Madeline took a step back, heart thundering. “She’s my daughter, Adam. Mine.”
“Pretty stones,” Grace said. “Daddy sent pretty stones for our trip.”
Adam looked at Grace, drawing his eyebrows together in question, then back at Madeline. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”
“You can’t stop me.” Madeline jerked her chin up and stiffened her shoulders. “I have to protect her. I’ve tried to tell you about Griffen, I’ve tried to make you—”
“Griffen’s her brother!” Adam’s face mottled with rage. “He’s my grandson. A Monarch, for Christ’s sake!”
“But he’s unbalanced!” she cried. “He’s dangerous! You have to see it! You have to believe—”
“Believe what?” he demanded. “The delusional ravings of a woman who believes she can see the future? Please.”
“I told you what I walked in on! I didn’t imagine that. He was holding her down, he had his hand—”
“Shut up!” he shouted, nearly purple with rage. “You’re the one who’s unbalanced. You’re the one who needs help.” He advanced on her, flexing his fingers. “Let’s get this straight. I don’t give a fuck if you leave, you crazy bitch, but you’re not taking my granddaughter.”
“I have to protect her. You can’t stop me.”
“I can. And I will. She belongs here, she belongs to Monarch’s.”
“She’s not property!” Madeline cried, putting herself between Adam and Grace. “She doesn’t belong to the family business. For God’s sake, she’s a person!”
He shook his head, calm suddenly, his eyes burning with a fanatical light. “She has the gift, Madeline. You know I can’t let her go. You know I won’t.”
Madeline took a step backward, frightened. “Adam,” she said, trying to reason with him, “be realistic. How do you know she has the gift? She’s just five years old. How can you be so certain—”
Because he was crazy, she realized. Obsessed with Monarch’s. Obsessed with the notion that a “gift” was passed from one generation of Monarch daughters to the next. Twisted by the belief that without Grace, without the one with the gift, Monarch’s would crumble.
Dear God, he was as disturbed as Griffen.
She pushed past him, intent on grabbing Grace and running; he caught her arm and spun her back toward him, his expression contorted with rage and hatred. “You’re not going anywhere, Madeline.”
She yanked free of his grasp. “The hell we’re not. You’ll hear from my lawye—”
Adam struck her. His fist connected with her cheek; stars exploded in her head. With a cry of pain, she stumbled backward. She hit the edge of the dresser, and the Mother Goose lamp crashed to the floor.
“Mommy!”
Adam snatched Grace up and started for the nursery door. She began to howl and kick. “Mommy! I want my mommy!”
Madeline dragged herself to her feet, though her head felt as if it might explode with the movement. “You’re not taking my daughter from me!” She launched herself at Adam’s back, clawing at him, digging her fingernails into the side of his neck.
With a grunt of pain, he loosened his grip on Grace. She dropped to the floor. Adam swung around and struck her again. Madeline flew backward, hitting the side of the bed, falling across it. Even as she struggled to sit up, she saw him advancing on her.
He meant to kill her.
With a cry, she struggled to her feet. He knocked her back again; then fell on top of her, closing his hands around her neck. “You demented bitch. Did you really think you could get away with this? Did you really think you could take our girl away from us?”
Madeline clawed at his hands, trying to free herself. She twisted and turned and kicked; he was too strong. She heard Grace’s hysterical sobbing and her father-in-law’s grunts of exertion. She heard her own silent pleas for help.
Her lungs burned; the edges of her vision dimmed. Above her the beatific face of the stained-glass angel gazed down at her. The angel that guarded the children. The angel that had been unable to guard her child.
Madeline flailed her arms. Her right hand connected with the cut-glass vase on the nightstand by the bed. The leadedglass vase that had been a baby gift from a family friend. The one she kept filled with pink tea roses. She closed
