Page 82 of Black Widow

The golem was sitting against a stone wall on a big boulder. It looked right at her and hissed, the sound sending a bolt of fear throughher.

Oh, God. Oh, God. What do Ido?

Amelia clutched her hands together, afraid to breathe, let alonemove.

It hissed again and shetrembled.

Stop. Don’t panic. She needed to think clearly or she would never get out of this—never see Gideonagain.

Meeting the monster again was terrifying, but also revealing. Its massive size mocked her earlier resolve to destroy it. She didn’t have the strength—and then there was her child to thinkof.

According to Mrs. Spencer, the golem had taken some of Sir Clarence’sanima, so there should be enough of him in there to understandher.

“You should congratulate me, Sir Clarence. I’m carrying Gideon’schild.”

The banked hellfire of its eyes brightened to red glowing coals and the hissing grew so loud it hurt herears.

Amelia clapped her hands over them and sobbed, immediately contrite. “I’msorry.”

The creature didn’t respond, but the hissing abated. Sniffling, she racked her brain for what else the mistress hadsaid.

Mrs. Spencer hadn’t been able to get close enough to get the chem, the script with the sacred words, out of the golem’s mouth. Would it let Amelia get closeenough?

Sir Clarence had never been an affectionate or trusting man. Pretending it was him and trying to hug it wouldn’twork.

Amelia’s stomach roiled when she remembered the only time Sir Clarence had allowed—nay demanded—she be close tohim.

After mylessons.

A pit opened in the bottom of her stomach, threatening to swallow her up. More than anything in her childhood, she had hated going to her guardian’s study to recite what she had learned in her lessons thatday.

Her hands shook as she brushed an errant curl out of her eye.This is the only way to get closeenough.

She wiped away the moisture that was making it hard to see and stepped forward, her head down, hands clasped in front of her, the way she had every time she’d done this as agirl.

“I’m finished with my tutor, SirClarence.”

She waited, and then inhaled sharply when it whistled and moved its hand to wave her over, exactly the way Sir Clarence alwayshad.

Inch by inch, she stepped closer, her thrumming heartbeat deafening her. She couldn’t even hear her ownfootsteps.

The clay hand reaching for her was an abomination. She knew that. But buried inside the earthen automaton were the memories of a man—Sir Clarence—whose consuming lust she had been trying to evade her whole adultlife.

She had to use that now.Amelia nodded to herself, reaching deep inside for the detachment she had discovered those long-ago afternoons in Sir Clarence’sstudy.

When she reached the golem, she curtsied. It leaned back, making room to let hersit.

Just like before. Sick with fear, she turned around and sat on the golem’slap.

Buried memories rose. In her mind’s eye, she could see Sir Clarence’s hands opening her bodice, stroking her fourteen-year-old breasts. She’d already had a womanly shape by then, but Sir Clarence had insisted she was still a child—even when he was touching and weighing their fullness while asking, almost to himself, what he was going to do withher.

All the details she had avoided recalling for so long came rushing back—the sickly sweet smell of tobacco and stale peppermint. To this day, she couldn’t abide tobacco smoke. Then there was the way he would sit, positioning her so her backside would rub along his hardstaff.

It had never progressed farther than that. Amelia had been so ignorant back then; she hadn’t even known what she was being spared. All she had known was that she abhorred Sir Clarence’stouch.

She had been too ashamed to tell anyone…even Martin. But he had found out anyway when he’d arrived home from school unexpectedly one afternoon. Martin had walked in on them. Sir Clarence had yelled at him and sent him away, but he’d come to her later and she’d burst intotears.

That was the afternoon he’d first promised to take heraway.

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