The Dark Affair (17 page)

He lifted his silver brows. “I thought you were mad yourself at first. I didn’t see how coming to the part of town my son had so often debauched himself in could help. But it has.”

“He needed to see others’ pain,” she said softly.

Lord Carlyle reached out and took her hand in his. “Why couldn’t he see at home that he’s not the only one? That I too have lived in pain since Sophia’s and Jane’s passing?”

She gently pressed her hand back into her father-in-law’s, amazed that at last she was beginning to feel as if this man accepted her. “That’s something you shall have to ask him yourself.”

As she stared at James across the room, she felt a moment’s fear. He was doing exactly as she wished, coming to terms with his past. And yet, as open as he was becoming, she was terrified that he would be keep asking her questions about herself, as he’d been doing. How could she keep him at bay? For if she let him in, he would surely see that she had no answers. None at all. That in truth, she couldn’t face her own memories at all. She could barely face the present and her brother’s circumstance.

At all costs, she couldn’t let him see inside her flawed soul. His recovery and her future depended on it.

•   •   •

Before he could give it another thought, James sputtered, “I’d like to help you. Financially.”

Mrs. Lafferty tensed, her easy smile vanishing. “No, thank you.”

James shifted on the bench, shocked by her tone. “But—”

“No, thank you,” she said, her good humor entirely gone, like summer at winter’s first chill.

“Don’t be foolish,” he protested. “You can use assistance.”

The little girl swung her gaze up and gave him a hard stare. “Don’t you say that to me mam.”

“I think you’d best go, my lord.”

He didn’t.

He couldn’t. He wanted to help them. To give them the care they so clearly didn’t have. But by offering in such a coarse way, he’d hurt the young woman’s pride.

Pride was something he understood as well as any in this place. He’d refused to acknowledge he needed help, after all. He still hadn’t been able to actually verbally
ask
for help. “Do forgive me. That was exceptionally rude and something someone of my thoughtless class would do. It is I who is the fool.”

The mother fiddled with her spoon, lifting it to her lips but not eating. After a moment, she pushed her bowl to her daughter.

Powers gripped the bench, his fingers digging into the wood. He savored the pierce of a splinter, praying it would help him sit through this. Praying the young woman would forgive his tremendous faux pas.

He’d made a complete mess of the situation with his own pride. Now he had to accept whatever decision she made, even if it was that he get up from their presence and never return to it. Even if he wished to know them better.

The room seemed to still and grow silent as he waited. The mother looked up, her eyes narrowing. She took her daughter’s slight arm and pulled her close, hugging her.

James swallowed, wondering where his words were. He could speak for hours and had a quip for any moment. Now? He couldn’t make his mouth move. All he felt was his heart slamming against his ribs. What if they rejected him?

The mother lifted her gaunt face. “We told ya. We don’t want any of your charity, my lord.”

He wanted to run from this woman, who was just as determined in her unyielding nature as he had been. Her refusal was just one more reminder that he had failed another mother and daughter who had needed his help in the past.

And he couldn’t help thinking that if he had just tried harder, pushed another step, and never have left his wife alone, she and his daughter would still be alive.

Christ. He could feel his damn heart cracking.

The little girl pulled away from her mother and looked up at him, her little face twisted up in question. “Are you sick, then? Is that why you let your tongue run on? You didn’t eat something spoiled? I did that once and looked as green as you. Truly, you do look sick.”

James’s eyes stung, and he had to gulp before he spoke. “I’m not well. I’ve offended you both and am so very sorry.”

The little girl frowned. “And that’s made you sick?”

James forced a smile. “Memories have made me sick, my dear.”

The mother’s anger seemed to dissipate. “You’d best stay seated, then, if you’re not well.” She hesitated, then gave a small nod. “And thank you for the apology. Must be hard for a grand man like yourself.”

“Somehow I think you’ve faced as much, if not more, hardship than I have ever seen.”

The young woman shrugged, the movement emphasizing the thinness of her shoulders. “Sure and haven’t we all stared the devil in the face?”

“That we have,” he said, feeling the smallest degree of hope that he was righting this situation. “And truly, will you except my apology? I was arrogant beyond all belief.”

A bright laugh suddenly bubbled from her throat. “That you were, but you’re forgiven. Shall we start again?”

“I’d like that very much,” he replied solemnly.

“I’m Elizabeth Lafferty and this is my daughter, Bridget.”

Bridget stuck her hand out. “It’s grand to meet you . . .”

Carefully taking the small hand in his big one, he smiled. “James. And I’m very pleased to meet you, Bridget.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Well, now that that’s out of the way. What’s a lord like you doing here? Come to win your place amid the angels?”

He laughed and shook his head. “I think I’ve permanently given up that place.”

“Ah.” She grinned, her eyes sparkling. “Well, as long as you get to heaven before the devil knows you’re dead. Nothing’s certain.”

The words sank in, and he stared at her for a moment before laughing again. Where had the gaunt woman with wary eyes gone? Her cheer lit up her face. “A good point.”

Bridget stuffed a bit of bread into her mouth, chewed quickly, then said, “You didn’t answer Mam’s question.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I’m here to learn I’m a conceited, self-centered fellow.”

Bridget quirked a brow. “Did you not know that before?”

“That was an incredibly cheeky thing to say, young lady,” he replied, fighting another laugh. It was damned strange, all this laughing.

“It was,” she agreed. “Wasn’t it?”

Elizabeth Lafferty rolled her eyes. “I beg your pardon. Bridget lets anything in her head fly out her mouth. She’ll be off to confession for sure this Sunday.”

“Ah, it wasn’t that bad,” Bridget protested. “He’s smiling, after all.”

And he was. “Listen, might I call on you two later this week?”

Elizabeth hesitated, then gave him a warm smile. “It’d be a pleasure. But bring your lady friend along.”

He glanced back over his shoulder.

Margaret was bustling near the now-empty pots, organizing items to be taken back into the kitchen. Several coils of red hair teased her face. As she worked, he wondered if she knew that the soul inside of her was far more beautiful than her lovely face. And he didn’t know if he would be able to or be capable of repaying her for helping him obtain a second chance. “She’s not my lady friend,” he said firmly. “She’s my wife.”

J
ames pulled back the velvet curtain and let the gas lamp light spill over him. The warm glow danced amid the raindrops pummeling the glass. Any other day in the last years, those gas lamps would have lured him out into the night, seeking forgetfulness.

But not now. Today had been a good day. A strange day in which he’d felt adrift but also free. By focusing on Elizabeth and Bridget, he’d left his own pain behind for a few hours.

It couldn’t be that simple. Could it?

He scowled as he envisioned his life the way Margaret no doubt saw it for him. A life spent day in and day out in the works of doing good. Someone who might have once gained a touch of his respect but also his mockery for having no life of their own.

Could he continue to do as he had done today every day? For the rest of his life? His fingers curled against the curtain. A life of always being present, of constantly fighting back the pain and never giving in to a few moments of complete oblivion.

It was impossible. He was mad to even contemplate such a thing. Which meant really that he was still damned. Didn’t it?

How could he give up the only comfort he had known in the last years?

The door opened, brushing lightly against the carpets.

He didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Margaret. His vigilant caregiver. He would break her heart, wouldn’t he? Every action he’d taken in the past indicated it.

“You seem most solemn after such a day.”

“I’m thinking of the future.”

“Ah.” Her soft step padded along the rug. “If I may?”

He kept his gaze fixed on the night. “I can hardly stop you.”

“It’s quite vulgar, what I’ve to say.”

He let the curtain go and turned. “Shock me, then.”

She stopped and clasped her hands together, a schoolmarm ready to lecture. “If one keeps one foot in the past and one in the future . . .”

He waited expectantly. “Yes? Out with it.”

Even in the bare light, he could see her blush.

She cleared her throat. “One pisses on today.”

He threw back his head and laughed. She looked so intensely uncomfortable, her shoulders square, her hands clasped, and her prim mouth pursed. How he wanted to steal that primness away from her. To yank away her need to appear perfect. “Margaret, I know you’ve heard worse, but I must admit it is surprising to hear that word come from you.”

“I decided it was worth the risk. The young lads used to say it, especially during the famine.”

“Indeed.”

She nodded, her red hair a fiery blue red in the lamplight. “You can’t live in the past and the future, otherwise you’ll never have a present.”

“I wonder if that would truly be such an unfortunate thing.”

She flinched. “I’ve never asked you this, because I thought I knew the answer, but . . .”

James stuffed his hands in his robe’s pockets. Today they’d been so close, full of understanding and mirth. Now there was unsurety again. He found himself longing for that simple feeling of solidarity. “Ask, Maggie.”

“Do you wish to die?”

He tensed. “That is a bold question.”

“It is, but what you said just now . . . about it possibly being better not having a present.”

“I see your point.” How could he explain it to her? Such thoughts were never spoken aloud, at least not in his experience, but he certainly didn’t wish to give her a mistaken impression. “Understand this. I’ve no wish to end my own life, despite what my behavior in the past months might indicate.” His throat began to close. He paused, willing it to ease. “But there were times after Jane and Sophia died that I wished I were dead.”

“I see.”

“Do you?” He closed his eyes, recalling black nights cowering in his room, a bottle clutched in his hand and an eye on the razor on his desk. “I often felt that if I just ended it, at least I could be with them, but they do say all self-murderers go to hell.”

“And you’re hoping to avoid that fiery pit?”

“By the skin of my teeth, yes. Perhaps that money I sent to Ireland will ensure the gates of heaven aren’t slammed in my face.”

“Is that the only good thing you’ve ever done?” she challenged.

He thought back to not even quite a year ago. Mary. That had been a good thing. Perhaps just one more good thing in a sea of bad. He’d helped to save her. And she’d made him feel again. What a disaster that had been. That feeling. It had driven him deep into darkness.

“Who are you thinking of just now?”

He shook his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“Who crossed your mind? You’ve the most curious expression on your face.”

“It’s none of your affair.”

“Not if you don’t wish to speak of it, no.”

“I don’t.”

She took a step forward, her hands unfolding. “Thank you in any case.”

For some inexplicable reason, he felt a desire to step back, as if she were becoming entirely too close. “For what?”

“For answering my earlier question. ’Twas no simple thing.”

He forced a cold stare. “It was very simple. I either answered or I did not.”

“Why must you do that?” she asked, her shoulders slumping.

“Do what?”

“Pull away just when I feel as if I’m starting to get to know you.”

Because, he wanted to shout, if she were to know him, the real him, she mightn’t like what she found, and to his dismay, he realized he wouldn’t be able to bear that. And for God’s sake, as far as he could see, she did the exact same thing when he asked her questions. He was tempted to throw it in her face. But he didn’t wish to hurt her.

Somehow, in a few days, he’d come to care far too much what this woman thought, and it felt like such a betrayal. Somehow, he had always been the one in control, the one who rescued, not the one who needed rescuing, and that was what Margaret was valiantly trying to do.

She had turned the tables, making him need
her,
not the other way around. In fact, she seemed to refuse to need him.

Surely he could change that. He could make her need him. At least in some way.

“James?”

His lowered his gaze to her mouth. “Mm?”

“You have the strangest expression on your face.”

As far as he knew, there was only one way to make her need him, and suddenly that was more important than anything. “My expression mirrors my thoughts.”

“Strange?”

“I was thinking that kissing you, your mouth under mine, would do me as much good as our outing today.”

Her lips parted, and she swayed. “I—”

“Kiss me, Maggie.”

She glanced back toward the door. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

Color had bloomed in her cheeks, and her breath was coming in shallow intakes, a clear sign that her body disagreed with her words.

He didn’t push. That wasn’t how he wanted her. He wanted her to come to him, open and full of desire. “Why?”

“Because you simply wish to feel good.”

“Would that be such a bad thing? Feeling good?”

“Y-yes,” she stammered. “In a sense. Because as I told you before, you cannot rely on . . . sex to make yourself feel better.”

This time he ventured a slow step forward. “Who said anything about sex, Maggie?”

“Oh.” She raised a hand to her jaw and pushed an imaginary strand of hair away. “Um—”

“I just want to kiss you. To feel you against me. Your pure self. You.”

Her brows furrowed. “I’m hardly pure—”

“Don’t protest a compliment.”

She scowled. “I didn’t realize such a thing from you was a compliment.”

“I lost my purity a lifetime ago and I miss it.” He wanted her to feel the same hunger that he felt. The same need. “I miss that unbridled innocence more than I can say. And when I’m with you, I feel as if I might see the world through your eyes.”

He gazed down at her, studying her. She was holding back. Holding on tightly to something. Control. How he longed to make her lose it. “You’re allowed to want this. Wanting a bit of passion is normal.”

“You’re my patient,” she said tightly.

He took another step forward. “And you’re my wife.”

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered.

“Why?” he asked, truly wishing to know why she would resist something she so clearly wanted.

She lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Because I don’t want any confusion about our relationship.”

“What is our relationship?”

She let out a frustrated cry. “I am helping you.”

He grew cold at those words. Was it so one-sided, as he’d feared? Did she truly feel that was her only role, to help him? That she truly didn’t need him in any way? Or was it fear on her part? The fear of letting go? “Aha. So, you don’t wish to stoop down to kiss your patient.”

“That is not what I meant.”

It would have been so easy to say something cutting, but that’s not what he wanted. He wanted her to open to him as she so clearly expected him to do with her. “Then what did you mean?”

“If I . . . If you . . . If we . . .” She flushed crimson.

He smiled gently, unable to stop himself. He’d never seen her at a loss for words. “My, what a bundle of intellectual speech.”

She gave him a hard stare. “Stop.”

“What?”

She snorted. “Belittling me.”

“Was I?” He hesitated. Yes. He supposed in a way he was. “I’m sorry, Margaret. I don’t think I know how deeply my arrogance traces. I’m learning.”

Her prim lips pressed into a hard line. “Slowly.”

“At a tortoise’s pace, no doubt.”

“I—” She huffed. “It’s a terrible idea.”

A hideous but all too possibly true thought hit him. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe it wasn’t fear on her part. What if she didn’t think he was good enough to kiss her? But he was
good
at kissing. There was that much. Maybe that was enough.

He lifted his hand to her jaw and carefully traced it. “I don’t care if this is a good idea. It’s what I wish. And I think you wish it too.”

He waited. Waited for her to whip away or for her eyes to grow dark with warning.

Instead, she leaned toward him. “God help me, I do.”

“Then give in to a new experience, as I have done. You’ve shown me so much. Let me show you this side of life.” With those last words, James slid his hand to the nape of her neck and lowered his mouth to hers.

After days of living in a hellish no-man’s-land, he was still surprised to find the feel of her lips against his was paradise. Soft and willing, he savored that brief brushing kiss.

He’d kissed her twice before. Once had been a dare. She’d done it because he’d pushed her. The second had been a brief exploration. And now she was giving her passionate kiss freely, and that made him all the hungrier for it.

He pulled her up against him, her corseted breasts pressing against his chest. Tilting her head back, he deepened the kiss, moving slowly, giving. Teasing. Each moment counted. Every move he made was of utmost importance.

Margaret needed to be seduced. Not in outlandish ways, but earnestly, with pure intent.

And he was dragging up the last of his earnestness, something he’d been certain had died long ago, to kiss her so tenderly when he wished to take her body with wild abandon.

She moaned low and soft, and it was all he could do not to thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. Instead, he focused on her lower lip. Feathering his tongue against it.

Her hands touched his torso, then slowly raked up his chest.

That gentle touch sent a shudder of want through him. How long had it been since someone like Margaret had touched him out of more than passing or their previous brief kisses? Years?

Those petite hands grabbed his shoulders and urged him closer. Years of loneliness had been leading up to this moment. Years of denying himself any sort of real intimacy. It was terrifying.

But he didn’t want to stop. Instead, he had every intention of throwing himself into this moment.

Her lips parted on a soft moan.

Carefully, he wove his hands into her tight coif, slipping the pins free. At long last, her soft hair waved over his fingers and brushed his wrists.

She gasped against his mouth. And then he recalled that moment just days ago when he’d asked her to take her hair down, and she’d been unable.

He lifted his mouth from hers, then buried his face in the curve of her neck, drinking in the lavender that wafted from her uncoiled locks.

He leaned back and took in the rosy halo of her hair falling about her face. “Do you have any idea how much it means to me that you are giving yourself to me, that you are being free?”

She shook her head, those lush curls stroking over his hands.

“It means the world, Margaret. It means so much that you are letting me see
you
.”

She gasped when he pressed a kiss to the skin just above her collarbone.

Tilting her head, he kissed along the line of her neck, biting lightly.

“My God,” she whispered, her body draping against his, as if drunk with sudden pleasure.

“Do you like this?” he asked, letting his breath whisper over her skin.

He had to know that she did. That he was giving her pleasure.

In answer, she clasped him tighter, molding her body to his. “Oh, yes.”

Her small frame fit his in the most delightful of ways. Savoring the feel of her breasts pressed to his chest, he forced himself to enjoy just the feel of her and the taste of her skin. He wanted to be fully in every moment with her. He’d forgotten so many others. With her, he never wanted to forget.

She held on tightly. “I want—”

He paused. “What? What do you want?”

“More,” she breathed.

With that simple word, everything changed. She wasn’t his caregiver and he her patient. He was a man and she a woman, entwined together.

And he was losing his heart.