Page 83 of Black Widow

Yes, that was it.It had been his idea at first. She had repeated the request so often in the following years, she’d forgotten that detail. For years, she believed it had been her plan from thestart.

The golem hissed in her ear, and she started in fear.Of course. She had to recite her lessons. “Decem, viginti,triginta…”

As if on cue, the clay hands moved to her bodice, but the woolen gown didn’t havelacings.

Amelia opened her eyes wide.Now. She had to do this now before she lost her nerveentirely.

Turning around slowly, she rose to her feet in a slow sensualmovement.

If she was right, there was a twisted little fragment of Sir Clarence in there that had been waiting, longing, for thismoment.

“Happy birthday, SirClarence.”

The kisses she had been forced to give him once a year had been perfunctory—quick closed-mouthed pecks finished as quickly aspossible.

This was not one of those. Amelia stared down at the golem, imagining she could see Sir Clarence’s whiskered face between her hands. Then she knelt with parted lips that it met with a slow heavy movement of itshead.

Ignoring the sharp exhalation of air that accompanied the creature’s hissing speech, she met its clay mouth with her own. It didn’t have lips, just a slash of an opening. But it acted as she predicted—like a man aware of awoman.

A little more.Amelia gingerly parted her lips. Her tongue touched the edge of paper—the chem. Fortunately for her, it stuck, allowing her to withdraw it enough to grasp it with herteeth.

Snatching it back, she reared away before the golem—Sir Clarence—realized what she haddone.

It seemed to know. It looked at the chem, crumpled in her hand, and hissed a final time before slumping over. The light in its eyes dimmed anddied.

Amelia stared at the creature for a long moment. The hazy outline blurred, and she realized she wascrying.

Whatever Sir Clarence had been in life, he hadn’t deserved becomingthis.

And I didn’t deserve what he did to me.That was something she had never admitted to herselfbefore.

She shed a few final tears and resolved that the golem would stay here. She wouldn’t let Gideon take it out. If he insisted on destroying it, he could send men here to do it, but this place—this would be Sir Clarence’s finaltomb.

Picking up the hem of her woolen gown, she turned around and walked away, leaving her most terrible memoriesbehind.

Chapter 33

“My lord, we heardher!”

Manning and John came running up tohim.

“Where?” Gideon asked, his heart in thisthroat.

“Back up at the house. Simmons was standing near the hole in the Abbey floor, and he heard her. We yelled, and she answered. Justher.”

Oh, thank the good Lord.Gideon staggered, accepting Clarke’s bracing hand before he fell out of sheer relief. Together, they struggled up the narrow cliff path. Heedless of how he looked to the other men, he ran across the grounds and into the house like amadman.

“Amelia?” he called down into thepit.

“Gideon!” Her voice was a little hollow as it echoed through the vast space below theirfeet.

Tears blurred his vision as he got down on his hands and knees. “Are you all right? Where is thegolem?”

“It’s dead, Gideon. I destroyed thechem.”

Stunned, he stared down at the dark. Was it his imagination or was the touch of white herface?

“My lord, we have ropes, but they’re too short,” Manning said. “We are tying them together, and thought we would secure a lantern to the end so we can see herbetter.”

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