Lord of Ice (30 page)

She opened the wardrobe and pressed against the back of it, but there was no door there. She moved on, nearing Lucien’s dressing room.

As boys, Alec had said, both twins had come down with influenza on the exact same day—though Damien had been miles away visiting some friends. Lucien was left-handed, Damien right. Lucien had a dimple only on his left cheek when he smiled, and Damien had the same dimple, only on his right cheek. Jacinda had told her that they were a phenomenon called “mirror twins.”

At that very moment, Miranda opened the door of the dressing room, and instantly her gaze homed in on a full-length mirror on the back wall.

Her heart pounded as she walked toward the looking glass, ignoring her own pale reflection. Surrounded by a thick mahogany frame, the mirror was large and rectangular, with a curved top. Putting the key in her pocket, she felt around the edge of it with her free hand, then drew in her breath as the whole frame creaked away from the wall, swinging toward her on unseen hinges. Behind it sat a low, narrow door.

Her mouth fell open with astonishment. She stared at it, wide-eyed. Why, the little devils must have knocked a hole in the wall without their parents knowing, thwarting the punishment of being kept apart. She snapped her jaw shut and reached into her pocket, her hands trembling as she fitted the key into the small, black lock.

A perfect match. Before she turned the key, however, she hesitated. It was no mischievous boy in the next room, but a hardened, violent warrior on the very knife edge of despair. She was taking her life in her hands going into that room. But had Damien hesitated for one instant when he had seen her attackers rushing at her on Bordesley Green? She thought. She took a deep breath and turned the key. At first, she tried to push the door open, but felt something blocking it and realized there was probably an identical mirror on Damien’s side.

She pulled the little door toward her instead, then reached through and gingerly pressed her hand flat against the back of Damien’s mirror.

Just as she had suspected, it swung open slowly. She had to duck her head under the low lintel as she stepped over the threshold into his dressing room.

“Damien?”

She shrieked as something grabbed her arm. The candle stub flew out of the pewter holder with the motion and fell to the floor, extinguished, as he flung her around and shoved her against the other wall.

She stared blindly into the darkness. She could not see a thing, could only hear his ragged panting in the room, very near.

“It’s me, Damien. It’s Miranda,” she forced out, trying to sound as calm and rational as possible. “Everything is all right now, darling. I’m here now. I’m here to help you.”

He let out a deafening, wordless roar in her face. She squeezed her eyes closed in terror and flinched away from him, but held her ground.

He fell silent. She flicked her eyes open, and slowly they adjusted to the darkness.

The first thing she could make out was his gleaming silver eyes, as pale and cold as moonlight. The rest of his magnificent body—the hard, angular severity of his face, the sculpted expanse of his bare chest and shoulders—materialized more slowly from the shadows.

“Lucien gave you his key,” he said in disgust.

“Yes.”

“It was very unwise of you to use it. I warned you to stay out.” His muscles rippled as he spread his arms wide and planted his hands on the wall on either side of her, leaning down to her with a feral, threatening sort of smile. Their faces were inches apart. “But, now that you’re here, whatever shall I do with you?”

Miranda swallowed hard. Sweat gleamed on his skin; tangled emotion harshened his features, but at least he had not made his plight worse by drinking, she thought, her heart in her throat. To her relief, she smelled no hard liquor on his breath, only a faint trace of wine.

He flinched as the far-off booming of the fireworks continued hammering away at the house. Damien glanced toward the sound. Tension rippled from him in waves. She could see it in the rigid line of his shoulders and the taut clenching of his jaw.

Here in the windowless dressing room, tucked into the house, the noise was muffled to a constant, dull thudding. It sounded to her very much like a battle, though she had never been at one. Indeed, it did not seem at all mad to her that a man who had spent six years on the front lines should suffer from the memories of his experiences to hear such a sound. Uncle Jason had said that in the thick of the fight there was no time for considering one’s emotions, but though the soldiers could ignore their fear when the hour of their duty was at hand, surely it was bound to catch up with them later.

“I’ve come to help you,” she said softly.

“Help me? Who are you to help me?” he asked with kingly contempt, like the lion of the forest.

“Shh,” she whispered, touching his face, staring into his eyes.

He paused at her touch. His skin felt clammy. He closed his eyes tightly, trembling.

“Get out, Miranda.”

“I will not leave you.”

“Have you forgotten Bordesley Green?” He flicked his eyes open angrily again, and she found herself face-to-face with that immortal angel of death she had run from that night.

This time there was nowhere to run. Nor would she.

His silvery eyes gleamed like the blade of a sword, but she lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily. “I am not afraid of you. I will not be chased off this time, not even if you roar at me. Not even if you try another dirty trick like the one you played in the stable, my fellow
bastard
.”

His eyes narrowed. “So, you’ve found me out. You gave me no alternative.”

“I know that now, but I didn’t come here to argue with you. Hand over whatever weapons you have in this room, right now.”

“Or what?” he taunted her.

“Or I am going downstairs to get MacHugh and Sutherland to come in here and beat you back into your right mind, Damien. Then your whole regiment will find out about this, and I don’t think you want that. Where are they? Guns? Knives? Now,” she ordered.

His eyes mocked her. “I put them elsewhere before I locked myself in.”

“Is this the truth?” she demanded.

“Yes,” he said, relenting slightly.

“Then why didn’t you answer me when I asked you before if you were armed?”

“I’ve still got these.” He held up his hands before her with a bitter smile.

Her heart sank at the feverish pain in his eyes. “Oh, Damien,” she murmured, capturing his hands in her own. His harsh stare wavered as she kissed his hands one by one. “I have also seen your gentleness, my love. You are tender with children, kind to animals, chivalrous toward women, patient with fools. Do not tell me you are a killer. You are a decorated officer of His Majesty’s Infantry, and I am proud of you.”

“What do you want with me?” he whispered in a shaken tone, his bravado draining away, leaving his face stark with suffering.

“All I want,” she said as she laid her hand on his smooth, bare chest, caressing him slowly, “is to take away the pain.”

He held very still, tilting his head back slightly as she ran her hand up his shoulder and cupped the side of his neck.

“Where are you, Damien? Portugal? Spain?”

He nodded.

“How do you feel?”

“Angry,” he growled.

“Tell me why.”

He did not answer for a long moment, fighting with his pride, drawn ever more deeply into his suffering. “You finally get to know a chap, and he gets his bloody head blown off.” he said all of a sudden. His voice fell to a faraway whisper. “It isn’t fair. I don’t know why I’m here anymore, and everything is ugly and cruel.”

“The ugliness and cruelty, these make you angry?”

“And sad. So sad I could die.” He shook his head slightly. “But there’s no time to grieve. Not for me.”

“Why?”

“Details, Miranda. Always minutiae. Dead to be buried. Orders from headquarters to march the troops to the next battle. Supplies and materiel’s to be gotten and guarded. Wounded to be transported to hospital. Promotions to be recommended to replace the officers I just lost in the field, deserters to be punished, displaced civilians to look after. It never ends. Never.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

He stood before her, silent for a long moment as he searched himself. “Relieved. I’d rather work than feel the pain—” He stopped himself with a sharp inhalation. She could feel him holding back, refusing to go any deeper into his memories, yet she knew with an instinctive certainty that he wanted to be rid of it.

“The only way out of the pain is through it, darling,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

“I don’t want any of the ugliness in me to touch you,” he breathed, barely audibly.

“I’m strong. I can take it,” she answered. “I want you to tell me the very worst thing that happened over there.”

“You don’t want to know this.”

“Tell me anyway. Try me. Trust me.”

He looked at her for a long moment, bleary-eyed, then sagged against the wall as his gaze slowly fell. Leaning his back against the wall, he slid down it a few inches, his broad shoulders slumping. “We had a skirmish one evening with French outposts in some high, scrub country. I was just a subaltern, still green. I’d brought this horse over that I owned before Zeus, a real Tattersall beauty, I tell you,” he said wistfully, his gaze a thousand miles away. “His name was Presto. He was a good, tall sorrel with four white socks. Sweet-tempered, fast. I rode him for years.” He paused, and she noticed that his chin began to tremble. “The skirmish started as nothing, really, but then the gunfire drew a few volleys from their artillery. My horse was hit. I was thrown and knocked unconscious against a rock like a damned fool. When I came to my senses, it was dark, my head was bleeding, and I had been left behind by my men, who had scattered, thinking me dead.”

She shook her head with a wordless murmur of sympathy.

“I heard this terrible sound and looked over, and there was Presto. His back legs had been blown off, but he kept trying to get up.” He brushed away a tear that rushed down the stark plane of his cheek. “Damned horse kept looking at me like he wanted me to help him. I sat there on the ground and watched him for half an hour before I could bring myself to go over there and shoot him. I had killed at least a dozen men in battle by that time, but I just . . . couldn’t work up my nerve.” His voice was hollow. “Finally, I went over to him and told him how sorry I was for bringing him to the war when some fop could have been riding him in Hyde Park. Then I put him out of his misery. And he finally died. And so did a part of me, inside, I think. But the rest of me, the outside part, just kept getting up and going on, and sometimes I think it would be best if I put myself out of my misery, too. I’m tired of being in pain.” He looked at her like a drowning man. “Oh, God, Miranda, there’s so much pain. Make it go away.”

“Come back from there, my love. Stay with me,” she whispered, pulling him into her arms.

He clenched her to his chest, taking her mouth with a desperate, almost frantic kiss. She stroked his cheek and his hair, trying to ease him, but his every touch told her that his need was too deep for mere kisses. She pressed him gently against the wall, wanting nothing but to give him solace. He leaned his head back, his fingers tangled in her hair as she wove a trail of silken kisses down the elegant curve of his neck to his muscled shoulder, caressing his chest and belly. He let his hands fall to his sides, but his chest rose and fell rapidly as she tilted her head back and met his veiled stare. Slowly, she tugged her dressing gown open.

His eyes flickered in the darkness. She took a step back. Letting her robe fall away behind her, she unbuttoned her white muslin night rail and watched his glittering gaze slide down her chest. She withdrew her arms from the sleeves and pushed the night rail down to her waist, baring her breasts for him. His stare was riveted to her chest. His tongue flicked over his lips.

She stepped toward him and wound her arms around his neck, hugging him in adoration, clinging to him, pressing her bare skin to his. Staring into her eyes, he ran his fingertips slowly up her back from her waist, tangling his hands in her hair. He held her like that for a second, his angular face fierce with passion.

Then he lowered his head, closed his eyes, and claimed her mouth. She yielded, parting her lips to let him taste of her deeply. His tongue tasted of a sweet dessert wine that he must have been drinking earlier. Madeira, perhaps. As he mesmerized her with his melting kisses, her body trembled against his. Her heart pounded. She was acutely aware of the strength in his powerful arms, the steely hardness of muscle beneath his smooth, velvet skin. She prayed he would not push her away. Then his hand swept up her side and cupped her breast.