Page 53 of The Pearl (The Godwicks 3)

And finally, worst of all, when they’d found the book lying open to the painting of the woman in the pearl necklace, and Regan worried there’d been an intruder, Arthur transformed in front of her eyes from whore to hero, searching the penthouse with no weapon other than a kitchen knife, and sleeping on her floor to guard her all night…

What would her mother think of her, sleeping with a Godwick, giving him her body? Bad enough. But giving him her heart? A true betrayal.

She’d always admired the art of the Italian Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Her most famous work had been an oil painting titledJudith Slaying Holofernes,a graphic rendering of the Biblical story of Judith, a brave and beautiful widow, who’d played seductress to the enemy general Holofernes, tricking him into lowering his guard so that she might cut off his head and save her city.

Imagine if instead of Judith killing General Holofernes, she’d fallen in love with him. Judith would never have done something so stupid. Sleep with the enemy? Maybe…but never fall for him.

And neither would Regan.

Banishing Arthur and his whole wretched family from The Pearl was the right thing to do. Keeping the painting was the right thing to do. Making Charlie suffer for his actions was the right thing to do. Never seeing Arthur again, never calling him Brat again, never coming on his cock again, never feeding him out of her hand again, never letting him take her pearls off her neck and slip them one by one into her cunt again, never letting him protect her again, dance with her again, touch her again, fill her with his come again…

That was the right thing to do.

She knew it was right, even if the very thought of never seeing him again made her want to sleep until the end of the world.

Emotions exhausted her, which is why she tried never to have them.

She’d simply take a little nap and when she woke up, she would feel fine. She’d put Lord Malcolm’s portrait into storage and never give the Godwicks another thought.

* * *

When Regan openedher eyes again, it was dark. She smelled incense and woodsmoke. She rose from her bed only to find the bed was gone, and she lay instead on a pile of silk pillows. A rustle of heavy fabric and a woman appeared, an older woman, with lines deep as furrows on her face. She carried a dripping candle in her hand.

Regan was dreaming. She knew it. Now, she would wake up as she always did when she realized she was dreaming.

Yet she stayed asleep and the dream played on…

“He’s ready for you,” the old woman said. “If you still have the stomach for it.”

Words came to Regan’s mouth, and she spoke them like she belonged to the dream, to this tent, to this story. “I have the stomach, the heart, and the will if you have the blade.”

The old woman nodded, touched her billowing skirt and said, “I have the blade.”

Regan could only nod as the old woman ran a wooden comb through her long dark hair, parted it in the center and let it fall in waves down her back. This wasn’t her hair anymore; this wasn’t her body.

Regan wasn’t her name.

Her name was Judith.

The old woman helped her into a loose silk gown of red, a harlot’s color. This was a harlot’s task, but General Holofernes had taken no interest in the harlots of the city. Only she, Judith, had caught his eye. For days, she’d put him off, playing the grieving widow and so far it had worked. But now she had to go to him. The word had come that day that the general’s army had their orders to sack her city tomorrow. If she wanted to save herself and her people, she must go to him.

“There, that’s done,” the old woman said. “No man would turn you away from his tent.”

Regan hoped it was true. Regan? No. These were Judith’s thoughts. The how and the why could wait, because it was time for her to see the general.

They walked along the city streets under the light of a full white moon. At the gates, the keeper took one look at her and spat at her feet, thinking she’d gone to sell herself to the enemy.

“We have to take care of ourselves,” she said, playing her role in case any of the enemy Assyrian soldiers were watching the gates.

Once out of the city, she and the old woman headed deep into the center of the army camp, past a hundred tents filled with soldiers. She felt as if she were walking through a den of sleeping vipers and with one wrong step, one sound, she would wake them all and they would swarm…

And there ahead was the tent of the king of those vipers.

Holofernes.

The man she’d come to kill.

A young soldier stood watch outside his general’s tent. He held up his hand to stop her.

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