Catherine Nowells

Chapter 12 - Magnificence

He had been looking for her for practically two bloody months. She had paid spies, lackeys and mercenaries to find her whereabouts but it seemed that she had been swallowed by the earth and the convicts of Fantasy did not want to let go of her. She felt like she was standing on a tightrope and she didn't like that, she hated losing control of everything that mattered to her or was part of her life. 

"Since when do you care about that brat?" Marcus Raynolds said to himself, sitting down in the chair in his office to receive one of the most coveted informants of the moment. Yes, he knew that her feelings for her were greater than simple affection. He saved her from certain death when she was barely thirteen years old and he sentenced himself with her to penance for having dragged her from the devil's arms to earth. Since he saved her, everything had been persecution, espionage and endless harassing acts towards her person. Catherine Nowells had spent most of her life on her heels. He could still remember her, only fifteen years old, hiding under the bed in her bedroom. When he discovered her, all he said was that she loved him. "I love you Marcus Raynolds," she always told him with those tricking gray eyes. She had practically grown up under her nose, she was nothing more than a child to him. But still, he had to admit that she had grown into a spectacular woman. So spectacular that she had not been able to enjoy the bed with any of her courtesans, lovers or predisposed widows for two months. Only she occupied her thoughts and her most torrid dreams. She was quickened by the mere idea of having her in her bed again, naked and next to him.

She and the happiness that he had felt going inside in that cabaret chamber, were his only worries. Happy Catherine! She had bewitched him, he was sure. He had put some concoction in her drink and that's why he had become obsessed with the memory of her. His brown ringlets, his immaculate skin, his graceful freckles and his spectacular voice... When he closed his eyes and as if the devil himself wanted to torture him, he felt the playful fingers of little Nowells on his torso. Some fucking fingers! He was getting older, and though he was only in his early forties, he was pretty sure he was freaking out. He looked around, high ceilings, the best fabrics on the market, and marble on the floor. Only with his office could all the families of the poorest neighborhood of London be fed. He couldn't help but imagine the capricious Catherine between those walls, wanting to trade satin for silk and marble for gold. Why did he have to picture her in her house? He had sworn that no one would take Roxanne's place... No one!

 "I can pass?" requested the spy, Thett, after having knocked several times on the door without success. 

"Oh yes, of course." He realized his own derangement. Pass Thett -, he got up fitting his hand to return to sit in an unfriendly position. He was not in the mood, he was in a terrible mood and he couldn't stand anyone. 

"I've found it," he said with such simplicity and vulgarity that Marcus almost admonished him for it. Oh my God! That he had just revealed the cure of his terminal illness! He waved for her to continue, "She's in New York, at a cabaret called..." She looked at the papers, "Nicole", she performs there." Marcus felt strangely annoyed that the man said that, in Actually, he would be upset with any man who confessed to seeing Nicolette acting. "And... Oh yeah! The other day he fell off a trapeze and he hasn't acted again, but I haven't been able to find out why. She is alive, yes, because I have seen her go in and out of the building. Accompanied by...", he searched the documents again, by a tall man very similar to her, one who is in charge of one of her gold mines...

 "Yes, it's her brother, Albert" he meditated on how little it was the world and in the coincidences of destiny. She had sent that sick man away from his family and now the family had gone to his side.  

"She also goes out accompanied by another man, one who seems to be about forty years old and who also performs in the cabaret. He has black hair..." 

"Harold..." he subconsciously gritted his teeth, annoyed by the confirmation of what he already suspected. That idiot was close to Catherine...