Lorraine Heath - [Lost Lords of Pembrook 03] (27 page)

Starting to bundle it up, she realized that something was in the pocket of the waistcoat. Gingerly, she dug her fingers into it and retrieved a key. It very much resembled the one in her door, one she never turned because a mistress shouldn’t lock out her lover. And then she knew. This brass object provided entry into
his
room. Clutching it to her breast, dropping the clothes, she snapped her head around to stare at the bed.

He was still there, had not moved a single muscle. Sleeping soundly.

She turned her attention to the door separating their rooms. What was behind it that he protected so fiercely?

As quietly as possible she crept toward it, her heart hammering, her breathing unsteady. Reaching the door, she unfurled her fingers and stared at the blood smeared over the brass. His blood.

She would not feel guilty for wanting to know everything possible about him. It was unconscionable that they were intimate physically and yet he held secrets. What might be behind that door had been taunting her. Now she would know. It wasn’t as though she was really doing anything awful. She would see the room when the house became hers exclusively. So where was the harm in seeing it now?

She peered over at him to make certain he was still asleep. Deeply based upon the snores he was beginning to emit. She didn’t know he snored. She didn’t know so many things about him. It was the reason that she wanted to take a peek into his room. Just a peek. Was the bedding dark? Was the bedchamber filled with globes?

Once she opened the door, she couldn’t unopen it. She looked at him again. If he trusted her, if he cared for her, he wouldn’t remain so mysterious. He would bare all. By opening the door, wasn’t she indicating that he couldn’t trust her? Even if he never found out, she would know.

Placing her hand on the knob, she moved the key nearer to the keyhole—

T
hey were holding him down, beating him, monsters with hideous smiles and cackling laughter. He wanted to kick at them, strike out with flailing fists, but he had no arms, he had no legs. Nothing. He could do nothing, not even roll. Everything was pressing in. His chest was going to cave in. He couldn’t breathe.

He heard the whimpering, the fading cries for help. They were coming from him. They weren’t coming from him. They stopped, and that terrified him even more.

“I’m a lord! You can’t treat me like this! I’m a lord! My father was a duke! My brother’s a duke!”

But they only laughed louder, pushed harder, wrapped more tightly. They were putting him in a cocoon, like the one he’d once seen a caterpillar create. Being inside it had changed the insect into something else, something beautiful. He’d seen it emerge. But he knew he wouldn’t emerge from this. He was going to suffocate, die. He could feel less and less of himself. He was disappearing while the monsters loomed larger. When he no longer existed, he wouldn’t be free of them. They would follow him into hell.

He had to escape, he had to fight. If only he could breathe. He could regain his strength, he could fight them off. He had to show them he was strong, that they couldn’t beat him. But his lungs were going to explode.

Air. Air. There was none to breathe because all the space was filled with screams.

T
he screams woke her. She shot out of the chair near the bed, disoriented and groggy. She’d meant to watch over him, not fall asleep. She was horrified to see him thrashing about as though caught in the grip of a horrendous nightmare.

Climbing onto the bed, she fought desperately to grab his wildly flailing arms. “Rafe. Rafe! Wake up! It’s only a dream.”

“Get it off! Get me out of here!”

His wayward fist smashed into her face and sent her reeling backward off the bed, slamming against the floor, jarring her teeth. Pinpricks of light danced in front of her eyes, her head spun. With determination she struggled to her feet.

“Rafe?” Dear Lord, her jaw ached.

He glared at her with an unholy feral gleam in his eyes, like those of a cornered animal she’d once seen at the zoological gardens. He was a man possessed, battling the covers, as though they were the enemy.

“Oh, dear God.” His rule slammed into her with the impact that his fist had only moments earlier. He didn’t like to be held, and she had tucked the covers in snuggly around him. When she was ill, she drew comfort from being nestled beneath a mound of them. But he had to feel as though the widest arms on earth were holding him. Grabbing the covers, she began jerking them free. “Calm down, calm down. I’ll get them off.”

As their hold loosened, so he began to still. When she had dragged the last of the dampened sheets to the floor, he scrambled off the bed. Breathing heavily, he glanced around wildly. She could see blood seeping through the bandages.

“Where are my clothes?” His voice was rough, harsh.

He was still in his trousers. Surely he wasn’t planning to go out. “They were ruined. I had one of the servants take them to a rubbish bin.”

“My key. I have to get—”

“I placed it on the bedside table there. I found it in your waistcoat pocket.”

He spun around, pinned her with an accusatory glare. She knew what he assumed, and she was so grateful that she could speak the truth.

“I didn’t use it. I didn’t go into your room.” She’d not been able to bring herself to open the door. Everyone had secrets. She had decided he was entitled to his. “Please, lie back on the bed so I can tend to your wound.”

Ignoring her, he snatched up his key and staggered to the door. She didn’t know if it was the pain, the final throes of the nightmare, or the lingering effects of the laudanum, but he was having a devil of a time putting the key into the keyhole.

She darted around the bed, hurried to the door. “Allow me.”

“No.”

“Rafe, I want to help you.”

“Then leave me be.” He finally jammed the key in, turned it. “Go away, go away now.” He opened the door, slid through the narrow opening.

“You need help. You’re bleeding again,” she said, determined to help this obstinate, proud—

She staggered to a stop in muted disbelief.

“Well, now you know the truth of it,” he said, his voice laced with anger, resignation, shame. “You’re the mistress of a madman.”

Chapter 18

E
velyn glanced around at the disarray of clothes strewn about, the buttons littering the floor, the mattress stripped bare, the curtainless window, the dust-coated floor.

“Please leave,” he muttered, hunching over slightly, pressing his hand to his side, no doubt suffering excruciating pain from his wound. But she saw more: his humiliation at her discovery of his secret.

The strong man who had protected her, provided her with sanctuary appeared defeated, and it tore into her soul.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Sit in that chair by the fireplace while I get sheets for the bed.”

“I don’t want sheets. I can’t stand them.” Gingerly, he eased himself into the chair. “They make me feel as though I’m smothering.”

And she had tucked them in securely around him. Quietly, she walked over, knelt before him, and lightly placed her hands on his knees. Holding his gaze, she said, “You’re not mad.”

“Look about you. Of course, I am.”

She could argue until she was blue in the face, but he was obviously past the point of listening. “Please, let me tend to your wound.”

“The bandage wrapped so tightly is killing me. I need to get it off. And my trousers. I need you to leave.” She watched his throat muscles work as he swallowed, his gaze on a distant spot on the wall. “Please go, Eve.”

The rough, ragged plea nearly sliced open her heart. Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t leave you alone, not like this. I’ll take off the bandage and your trousers. You can lie on my bed. We won’t put the covers back on, but I can stop the bleeding. Then you can rest.”

Reaching up, she tenderly combed back the hair from his brow. He grabbed her hand. She expected him to fling it aside. Instead, he turned his face into her palm, and pressed a kiss to its center. He closed his eyes, and she thought he might be drifting off to sleep, holding her like that.

“I just need a few moments in here,” he whispered.

Bending down, she picked up a shirt. It was ripped, several buttons missing. “I can mend—”

“I don’t want them mended. I gather them up occasionally. Take them to a poorhouse. They can mend them.”

If he wasn’t having the clothes repaired, then he was purchasing new. She supposed he didn’t want the servants or anyone else questioning how his clothing came to be so tattered. “Your tailor must absolutely adore you.”

He chuckled low, the sound vibrating against her hand where it rested against his throat. “He does.”

He was breathing less erratically. It appeared the bleeding had stopped. An intimacy was weaving around them, something deeper than anything they’d shared in bed. She was loath to bring an end to these moments. “People aren’t usually born feeling as though they’re smothering. What happened?”

He lowered their hands to his lap, hers cradled within his, her palm upturned. It was as though he were studying all the lines, searching for the answers, or perhaps merely the words to explain the unexplainable.

“I won’t tell,” she whispered. “I promise.”

His eyes slid closed, his voice raspy when he finally spoke. “Promises hold no sway, Evie. They can be broken.”

“Not mine,” she said with conviction.

He opened his eyes, but still didn’t look at her, his finger tracing over her palm. He released a long slow sigh. “My brothers left me at a workhouse. Horrid people owned it. But it costs money to manage a place like that, and the people inside certainly haven’t the means to pay. So they had an agreement with the owners of a nearby coal mine. Before the sun rose, we were woken up, fed our milk porridge, and marched off to the mines. We worked there until long after the sun set. It got to the point that when I did see the sun, it hurt my eyes.”

He trailed his finger over one line and then another as though he were etching his story on her palm.

“I was a coal bearer. I carried the coal that others dug up from deep in the pits. Backbreaking work. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever be able to stand up straight again. Then one day several of us were gathering up our burdens, when someone shouted at us to run. I wasn’t very nimble. In spite of the fact that I’d lost weight, I wasn’t as slender as I would become. Not then. So I was slow. Another lad and myself. The ceiling and walls caved in on us. We were pinned there. In the dark. The lanterns had gone out.

“I was fortunate. My head, shoulders, and one of my arms were free. I started to try to dig myself out. Then I heard the other boy. In the pitch black, I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t find him. I could only hear his cries, his whimpers, then his silence. His silence was the loudest of all. As impossible as it seemed, it had echoed around the cavernous pit, through my mind, straight into my soul. I knew he was dead. And I was alone again, certain that death was going to claim me as well. I could find no air to breathe.”

She desperately wanted to wrap her arms around him. “But someone came and rescued you.”

“Eventually. I don’t know how long I was there. Hours, days, weeks. Perhaps only minutes. I knew only that the weight of the dirt and the coal and the beams would crush me, just as it had the other boy. I don’t even know his name. I don’t know why it didn’t flatten me. I was digging frantically when I wasn’t fighting off the rats who wanted a nibble.”

“Did they send you back there, to the pits?”

“Oh, yes, the next day. We had quotas you see, and there were always more children to be found. It was a few weeks before I managed to escape and make my way to London. As frightening as it was to be on my own, it was better than being in the pits.”

“I hate that you went through all of that.”

“The cave-in was the start of it I think, my aversion to being confined. Sometimes I lose my sense of calm. Before you were here, when I came to the residence, the first thing I did was come to this room to strip off my clothes and prowl through it until I regained my composure.”

Now he came to her room and stripped off his clothes. It was an improvement she supposed, but still she wanted to weep for the child he’d been, the one who thought death was coming for him, who had heard it snatch away another.

“You think you’ll lose your calm if I hold you?”

“I know I will. I struck out before at someone who tried to hold me.” He trailed a finger around her face. “I won’t risk hurting you.”

“You should have explained all this to me sooner so that I would have understood, could have helped you with it.”

He scoffed. “Explained what? That I would be naked all the time if it were acceptable? Even my servants aren’t allowed in here. It’s my dark secret. I share it with no one. I certainly had never planned for you to find out.” He angled his head, studied her. “Did I strike you?”

Gently, she touched her fingers to her cheek. “It’s more that I got in the way, I think.”

He slammed his eyes closed. “Ah, Eve.” When he opened his eyes, she saw the remorse and regret mirrored there. “I’ve tried to be so damned careful not to lose control.”

“It’s not as though you did it on purpose. You were locked in the throes of a nightmare.”

“Can you not see that I’m mad, that if I don’t keep a tight rein on myself, I risk becoming a barbarian?”

“I can see that you’re a man who’s battling demons. That’s not the same thing. And you don’t have to fight them alone. Let me help you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

She couldn’t blame him for his hesitancy. He’d been alone for so long now. But there could be so much more between them. She was certain of it. Yet it would require patience. He’d told her far more than she’d ever expected him to, but she was left with the notion that he had failed to reveal everything. “Please, come to my bed and let me tend to you.” Rising to her feet, she held out her hand and waited. She could see the indecision crossing his face as he warred with himself. Where would he seek his sanctuary? Here alone, or with her? She prayed he would choose her. Finally, he placed his hand in hers and came to his feet, sending the smallest spark of hope through her that more would eventually exist between them.

“Perhaps,” he muttered, “we’re both mad.”

R
afe awoke, momentarily disoriented by the silken sheet beneath his back and the velvety canopy above his head. He was as bare as a newborn babe, his wound uncovered. The stitches pulled when he rolled onto his hip. And there she was, turned on her side, a hand resting beneath her cheek, her long lashes lying gently against her skin. Her knees were drawn up, her nightgown having gathered at her calves. Her toes curled and unfurled as though she were dreaming of skipping over green fields. He inhaled her fragrance with each breath, watched her rhythmic breathing.

She’d left a lamp burning just low enough that he could see her clearly, and yet the shadows still formed a gossamer layer over her. He almost found himself envious of the shadows. He remembered how gentle her hands had been as she’d tended him, careful to touch him as little as possible. During that time as her hands had moved so tenderly over him, he’d experienced an unfamiliar sensation: of being loved. And the feelings he felt toward her had very nearly scared the bloody hell out of him. He’d wanted to ask her to never leave him. No, not ask. Plead. Beg.

She’d not been appalled by what she’d discovered in his sanctuary. She’d understood his aversion to clothing, had not thought him mad, had almost succeeded in convincing him that he had nothing of which to be ashamed. She was the most remarkable, kind, generous woman he’d ever known. And she was his.

Until he tired of her or she began to look elsewhere for protection. Not that anyone else could provide her with the security of which he was capable. As long as he was the one to call things off, she stood to acquire a great deal, would become an independent woman.

In the deepest recesses of his soul, the corners that he refused to acknowledge, he wished that the relationship between them was different, that she was here because she wished to be, not because of what she would gain. But then if not for the reality of their arrangement, she wouldn’t be here at all.

Opening her eyes, she gave him a soft smile that was nearly his undoing. “Hello there. How are you feeling?”

“As though I’ve had far too much cheap whiskey.”

“I doubt you know the taste of cheap whiskey.”

“I didn’t always have so much.” Once he’d had nothing at all. “Why didn’t you unlock the door when you found the key?”

She sighed, stretched like a cat that had just woken up in the sun. “Because it was something you wanted to hold secret, and I thought a mistress should respect your privacy.”

A mistress. Always that was between them. That she was here not by choice.

“Your wound is red.”

“I suspect it’ll be angry for a few days. I’m barely aware of it.”

“Only because you’ve suffered worse. I might have had a similar life if you hadn’t taken me in.”

He hadn’t taken her in. He’d offered her sanctuary, but at an incredible cost. He hadn’t considered it then, hadn’t thought of anything beyond his own wants and needs. When had he become such a selfish bastard, thinking only about himself? He was not the sort of man into which his father would have shaped him had he remained alive, had he been able to assert his influence. Sebastian and Rafe were closer to the lords that they all should have been. Of course they were older, had their father in their lives for more years. Still, he could not help but believe that his father would be disappointed in him.

She rose up on an elbow. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Thought you were sleeping.”

“Before I drifted off to sleep. What if I didn’t hold you, but just touched you? I dream about it all the time, you know? Stroking my hands over your shoulders and your back.”

He slammed his eyes closed and growled, “Eve, don’t.”

“You must think about it as well. Just light touches, as though we were waltzing.”

He swallowed hard, before he opened his eyes. “I’ll hurt you.”

“No, you won’t. I trust you.”

“You’re a fool.” Rolling from the bed, he was light-headed. He took a moment to regain his balance before walking to the window and gazing out. He should go to the bedchamber with the stripped bed, where he slept with no danger of getting tangled in sheets or blankets. He didn’t cry out in there, but he was loath to leave her.

He heard the hushed padding of her bare feet, didn’t look down when he sensed her presence beside him.

“Why are you so certain?” she asked softly.

He didn’t want to travel this path. It was as ghastly as listening to a boy die in the mines. But she needed to understand, even if it put her at risk of leaving him. His darker secret, the one that ate at his soul.

“I’d not been long in London. I scavenged for food, sought shelter wherever I could find it, usually in an alleyway, beside rubbish, in a dark corner. One night, I woke up to find a man holding me down, tearing at my clothes . . . he told me to stop fighting, that it wouldn’t be so bad if I’d stop struggling.”

“Oh my dear God.”

He couldn’t look at her, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t. “I don’t remember how I got away from him, but I did. Before he got my clothes off, before he did what he intended to do. I don’t remember beating on him, but I did. I beat on him until I killed him, until he would never again touch another boy.”