Gift of Fire

of his more energetic moods last night. The man had a way of leaving his mark on her, she thought wryly as she headed for the bathroom.
    And now he wanted to put a ring on her finger. Talk about being marked for life. But when she looked in the bathroom mirror she was surprised at the warm and secretive smile on her face.
    A vast sense of relief flooded through her.
    The decision had been made—she was going to marry Jonas. Now that she’d decided to take the step, she wondered why she’d stalled for so long. She should have trusted her intuition, the same intuition that had sent her straight into his arms the very first time.
    There were no guarantees in this world. It was true that her relationship with Jonas had some bizarre twists, and there were some questions for which there would never be any real answers.
    But she loved him and he loved her. For better or worse they were linked together. And now they were going to have a baby. All in all, marriage seemed reasonable, even right, under the circumstances.
    A strangely familiar restlessness hit Verity as she emerged from the shower and started to dress. She had just put on the red crystal earrings and was reaching for her shoes when she felt a sudden, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
    “Oh, Lord. Not morning sickness,” she begged aloud. She held her breath and the sinking feeling slowly faded.
    She was starting to relax when she realized that her earrings were growing very warm. Verity tensed. She immediately associated the warmth generated by the crystals with a disturbing occurrence of some sort. She looked around the room uneasily. Everything appeared to be perfectly normal, but she could not relax.
    The earrings stayed uncomfortably warm, and the restless feeling became overpowering. She had felt this way yesterday when she’d been driven out of the villa for a walk, and had found Elyssa at the bottom of the cliff.
    “Oh, no, not again.” Verity tried to ignore the growing sense of urgency, but to no avail.
    Then she thought about Jonas outside by himself and she leaped to her feet, heading for the door.
    Not Jonas, please don
’
t let anything happen to Jonas!
    She was out in the hall, running instinctively toward the staircase before she realized that Jonas was all right. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she sensed that it was not Jonas who was drawing her.
    But something was wrong, terribly wrong. The crystals blazed for an instant in her ears and then cooled slightly.
    Verity continued down the stairs, turning down the hall to the kitchen. If Maggie was up she might be able to reassure Verity that everything was okay.
    But Maggie was not in the kitchen. That in itself was unusual. Verity had learned that the housekeeper’s habits were fairly predictable. By this time of day Maggie should have had a pot of coffee made.
    Verity found herself visualizing Maggie Frampton as she emerged from the kitchen. Her uneasy feeling grew stronger when she pictured the woman in her faded housedress and old metal necklace. She climbed the stairs again and walked down the long corridor to the end of the south wing.
    There was no answer when she knocked on Maggie’s door. When she tried the handle, Verity found the door unlocked. Unable to resist, she pushed it open and called out softly, “Maggie?”
    There was no response. Verity turned away, aware of the cold draft in the hall. She started down the stairs. When she reached the first floor, she kept on going.
    On some half-conscious level she knew she was heading for the infamous torture chamber, but she could not explain why. She only knew she had to look for Maggie there.
    A weak light burned in the basement hall. The door to the chamber of kinky delights was closed. The moment Verity touched it she knew she didn’t want to see whatever was on the other side. She also knew, however, that she had no choice.
    Reassuring herself that her imagination was truly out of control this morning, Verity opened the door.
    She faced pitch darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she ran her palm along the wall, searching for the old-fashioned switch. Finding it, she reluctantly flipped it on.
    Two things registered at once.
    Maggie Frampton lay on her back on the floor, beneath the wall of whips. There was a pool of blood beneath her head, and she was not moving.
    The second thing that hit Verity like a blow was that the stone gate opening onto the hidden passageway was ajar.
    For a shocked instant,