Dark Season (35 page)

“I don’t care what you did,” he said. “Whatever it is, you can trust me with it, now, later, never. I won’t let your cousin hurt you. I can protect you with my name. With my life.”

This, at least, cracked her iron control. Her breath whooshed out. Hectic spots of color bloomed across her cheekbones. “You would do this twice.” She shook her head frantically. “You would make this sacrifice twice, binding yourself to a woman to save her.” She looked at him with something kindling in her face. He couldn’t interpret her expression. Desire was there. Tenderness, gratitude too, and regret. Then her face hardened into a mask. “I cannot be saved.”

“Ella.” He’d bungled the proposal with his chivalric cowardice, his talk of his name and her virginity and making right. He didn’t give a goddamn if marrying her made anything right. It could send them straight to hell, and he’d want it anyway. He wanted
her
, wanted to stare into her odd, angular face and discern her moods and spout fooleries until she laughed and made some unexpected sally of her own. He wanted to make her sigh as he tasted her everywhere, learned every crease and hollow of her body. He wanted to listen to her muse about her favorite books. He wanted to play music with her in Castle Blackwood with all the windows open until the ghosts flew with the notes out into the high blue sky. As a thousand sentiments warred for precedence and tied his tongue in knots, she spoke again.

“It’s nothing I did,” she said, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “It’s who I am.”

He reached up and gripped her by the nape, her hair flowing cool as starlight over his wrists.

“You can decide,” he said, echoing her own words. “You can decide what that means.”

“I have.” She exhaled. “My answer is no. What happened between us … it can’t happen again.”

He sat back on his heels. He realized—and the realization did nothing to flatter his ego—that he must look stunned. He stood.

“You accept my answer,” she said uncertainly.

“Of course not.” He forced a grin, and when he saw the fear and confusion dawning in her face he almost pitied her. “But we can agree to disagree. The fun will be in trying to convince each other.”

“Fun.” She said it with disbelief.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “Fun.” He put his hand on the back of her chair, leaning over her. “Marry me, Ella.”

“No.” Her eyes were enormous.

“Tell me no again,” he whispered, leaning closer. “Like you mean it.”

“No.” The word barely crossed her lips so he met it there with his own. The kiss was soft and sweet and fleeting. She turned her head away.

“No,” she said again, not looking at him. He pulled away and crossed back to his chair. His coffee was tepid, but he made himself drink it anyway. Her head was still turned. Her hair had fallen forward and partially veiled her face. He could see only the tip of her nose, the curve of her lips, and the trembling point of her chin. He steeled himself to stay in his seat. He wouldn’t push her harder. Not yet. He would change her mind in time.

What if there wasn’t time? What if her mind could not be changed?

His heart, which had felt engorged, shriveled. She didn’t want him. He’d been drunk on the fiery liquor of her kisses, on the promise of more nights like the one they’d shared. Now his head ached. His eyeballs felt dry and tacky. Revenge would be bitter if he lost her. The peace he gained would afford him the opportunity to contemplate this new emptiness. If he listened, he’d hear that shrunken muscle in his chest knocking with every beat.

Blackwood Mansion was a severe, three-story building with a broad exterior staircase leading into a chilly entrance hall. Ella kept out of the way of the servants who trooped back and forth, conveying chairs, candelabra, and rolled rugs into the dining room. She felt awkward standing useless in plain view, ignored by Isidore and subjected to unabashedly curious stares by everyone else, and drifted at last into the massive library. She sat in a cold leather chair. She thought she’d read, but she ended up sitting stock-still, hands in her lap, staring vacantly. The ponderous atmosphere depressed her. A library should be intimate, cluttered, even shabby, because it was
used.
The books thumbed through and returned to the shelves willy-nilly, pushed in at different depths so the spines made a scalloped pattern that beckoned to browsing hands. Everything about this library was forbidding. She couldn’t imagine extracting a volume from the ordered ranks that lined the walls. If she selected the wrong one, a trapdoor might open, and she’d fall into a dungeon, or the wall would groan around a secret pivot and disclose a torture chamber. Fantastical thoughts, she knew, but enough to send her jumping to her feet, hurrying on through the suites of rooms. In the ballroom, she stood and gazed at the enormous plaster decoration above the fireplace: the Blackwood arms, a blood-red chevron between three wolf heads guardant. No wonder Isidore kept this house closed.

Her skin prickled. She turned, and there he was, coming toward her with that fluid, graceful tread. He made no attempt to soften his face with a smile. Hair fell across his brow, and her fingers twitched with the desire to brush it back. She wadded her black skirts in her hands. She had no right to touch him.
Never again
. She had said
no,
three times
no
, and he had not renewed his offer. During their subsequent interactions, he’d been aloof, not cold precisely, but distracted. The
fun
, perhaps, of convincing her to become his bride had spent itself in that first attempt. He had made a noble gesture that she had nobly refused. That was the end of it. He was relieved, most likely. She should be relieved too.

She wasn’t. She felt like the ruin of a ruin. Like the ruin of a ruin’s shadow.

She tried to smile as he approached, as she had tried to smile last night at supper before retiring to the guest chamber. As she had tried to smile this morning when they breakfasted together, not in his bedchamber but downstairs in the drab but cozy breakfast room. As she had tried to smile this afternoon when they sat side by side in the coach, both erect, silent, their shoulders swaying slightly with every bump but never enough to brush together. As she had tried to smile when he led her into the dining room at Blackwood Mansion and swore over the rugs—
Don’t just hang them. It’s a séance, not a bazaar. Tie another rope. Make a kind of tent. Christ, give that to me—
striding away from her with a “Make yourself comfortable” tossed over his shoulder.

It wasn’t getting any easier. But she couldn’t fade away now. He still needed her. She could see the strain in his posture. Tension corded his neck. Of course he was tense. Tonight he hoped to catch a killer. She was afraid his plan wouldn’t work, and she was afraid that it would. What would he do when the man revealed himself? Attack him in front of a hundred witnesses? She hadn’t asked. She wondered if he’d thought that far himself. A vision of the future flashed before her, both of them in cells, her in the asylum, him in the prison. Suddenly she wished she had a gun. If she had a gun, she could shoot the murderer herself, shoot him as Isidore leapt forward. She would become the deranged murderess, the violent lunatic of Mr. Norton’s predictions. It would be the sanest thing she had ever done. With one bullet, Isidore would be freed. Released from his revenge and its consequences. Her incarceration would be brief. She put her hand to her throat. What would she say on the gallows?

Love cured me of my life. I’m not sorry.

But she had no gun.

He stopped before her, and she caught her breath, lowered her hand. The smile wobbled into place.

“You should go upstairs,” he said brusquely. “It won’t be long now before people begin to arrive.” She thought she saw him wince, regretting the peremptory address, and the next moment he was leaning forward confidentially, adopting a waggish air.

“That is … the Wheatcrofts have the irritating habit of showing up to things on time.” His lips quirked. Sardonic Isidore Blackwood, lord of the manor. But he couldn’t quite carry it off. His voice sounded strangely hollow. He was pale beneath his tan. Sweat glimmered on the skin above his lip. He did not look well. She knew he would not appreciate a show of concern. She tried to match his careless tone.

“Perhaps you should come upstairs too,” she said. “And sit for a bit.”

He shook his head. “I should see to the dining room.” He lifted a brow, as though wryly amused. “The chandelier still wants its cerement. Brinkley promised me he’d transform the table into a catafalque. I must make sure a zealous footman doesn’t spoil the effect with place settings.” This heroic display of humor deserved a reaction. She laughed, and the room gave the laugh back to her from every corner: thin and false.

They looked at each other as the echo went on and on, lasting longer than seemed possible.

“Do you like Blackwood Mansion?” he asked softly.

“It’s … ” She searched for the right word.
Dreary. Doleful.

“Drafty,” she said. He tilted his head. His eyes raked over her body, and she fought the urge to shiver, to give him an excuse to step closer. He had proven himself so adept at warming her with caresses. His tongue was hot as a brand. She swallowed. Even his furtive glance—speculative, covetous—sent a heated wave rushing through her. “I’m not cold.” She spoke quickly, avoiding his gaze. “But I noticed the draft. In the hall, of course, but also in the library. A numbing patch of air. Clammy, as though it wafted from an uncovered well. I attributed it to the Blackwood ghost.” She curled her lip, striving for a light, mocking tone
. I too can be coolly ironic under pressure.

No appreciative chuckle. He looked at her blankly.

“Lady Berners mentioned you had a family ghost.” She felt a peculiar thrill, making a joke at Lady Berners’s expense. She hadn’t enjoyed her forays into London society, but she had gained insight into
his
world, his circle. There was something pleasing in alluding to a shared point of reference. “To hear her talk, you’d think they came with the coronet.”

Now he did bark a laugh, folding his arms across his chest. “The ghost is at Castle Blackwood. She’s Scotch. Wouldn’t be caught dead in London.”

“So to speak,” she murmured, registering the width of his forearms. For the hundredth time.

Fool,
she said to herself.
Ella, you’re a fool.

“My illustrious ancestor took her as a spoil of war, and she defied him by dying. Did Lady Berners tell you that?” His eyes had narrowed.

“Something like.”

“Morbury Blackwood. He rode with the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden. He killed a hundred clansmen that day and carved his monogram into their chests with their own claymores, or so the story goes. There’s a rusting claymore on the wall in the gallery, at least, alongside Morbury’s sword and musket. He’s the pride of the family.” His sneer was a sneer for the ages, for generations of the damned. “The great Blackwood butcher. Every firstborn son takes his name. Isidore Morbury Blackwood.
Tradition
.” He injected the word with scorn.

“Isidore Morbury Blackwood.” She said it slowly. Why did it sound wrong?

“At your service.” He straightened, expanding his chest, exaggeratedly martial in his bearing. “A Blackwood never bends.” Suddenly it seemed he couldn’t catch his breath. His face twisted, and he pressed a fist to his forehead. He stared over her shoulder, but she didn’t turn. She knew what he saw. The three Blackwood wolves, their watchful heads molded in black-painted plaster, staring back at him.

“What am I doing, Ella?” His voice rose in pitch, and the walls whispered it over and over. She could feel the blood pounding in her head. She moistened her lips. He’d sounded wrathful in her presence, sorrowful, anguished, desperate even, but never uncertain, never helpless.

“Louisa’s coming,” he said, brows pulling together. “I just had her note.” His hand went to his waistcoat as though to produce it then dropped, empty. His breath hissed out. “I am about to subject her to a humiliation she never dreamed of.”

“Don’t let her come in.” She feared that she too might cry out and tried to modulate her voice. “Bar the door to her. If—”

“She’ll hear of it,” he interrupted. “Everyone in London will hear of it. Tonight or tomorrow … What difference does it make?” His jaw flexed. If she put her ear to his cheek, she would hear the teeth gnashing. “I lay awake all night, trying to think of another way.”

She flushed. She had lain awake all night as well, waging a war with herself. Right before dawn, she’d lost. She’d risen to go to his bedchamber. The sight of her thin, white hand reaching out to turn the doorknob stopped her. She saw herself, rotted from within, wasted by disease, skeletal, clinging to him, an albatross around his neck. She crept back to the bed and watched the darkness divide into meshes of gray as morning broke.

His eyes were still locked on the wolves. Beads of sweat now stood out on his forehead. She touched his sleeve.

“Come upstairs with me and sit,” she said. She recognized the physical signs of acute psychic duress. His composure was close to cracking completely. “Come.” She led, and he followed, although she didn’t know her way. Panic made him tractable. A glance behind her confirmed that he had no will but hers. He walked with his fingers running along the wall. Afraid he would lose his balance. She linked her elbow with his and took him firmly by the wrist with her other hand. He didn’t lean on her, but she heard him take a deep, shuddering breath, and they ascended the stairs together.

“Left,” he said when she hesitated at the top step. His stertorous breathing had quieted. “Here.” She opened the door to a sitting room. He’d had the house opened, but the third story had yet to be properly aired. The room was stale and cold and dark. They sat in front of the fireplace on chairs with claw-and-ball feet and shield-shaped backs. He put his elbows on his knees and rested his face on his hands. His back was rigid.

“We don’t have to go through with it.” Her voice sounded muffled now that they no longer stood in that vast, echoing ballroom. “Say I fell ill and call it off. Say I’m a fraud. Say whatever you like.”