The Dark Affair (4 page)

The old man had even mentioned her brother. Had he known? Had he heard whispers her brother was in trouble and was willing to help? If he had, how could she turn him down? She couldn’t. She’d be a fool.

It was a traitorous, devilish thought, though. With money and the earl’s support, there was power. Wicked to even think it, but wasn’t this world wicked? And hadn’t she done her best to accept it and make do?

“Mag Pie?”

“I’m thinkin’, Matthew.” Oh, she was thinking all right. She was thinking of selling her soul for others. Carefully, she studied Matthew’s face. What a different man he would have been if but a few powerful people had truly cared and then actually done something about that care.

Out of habit, Margaret crossed herself. She’d long ago ceased believing in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, but something inside her now made her wish that God had not left her people so coldly, so cruelly, and so wholly. Maybe if he hadn’t, her brother would be a beautiful boy still, with a bright future awaiting him instead of a hangman’s noose. “I’ll help you, Matthew. God help me, but I will.”

T
he iron door swung open. Margaret summoned her courage and stepped over the threshold into the grim morning light that spilled in through the slit of a barred window hovering just under the stone ceiling. “My lord?”

“Ah. At last.” His voice cut across the small space, echoing up from his big frame still strapped to the bed. His long silver-blond hair splayed over the pillow, and as he attempted to turn his head, the lush strands slipped down the sides of the bed like captivating icicles. “Devil woman.”

Though she felt no merriment and he couldn’t see it, she cracked a half grin. “Aye. ’Tis me.”

He relaxed his head, his face staring straight up, forced into submission by the leather belt, and yet nothing was submissive about his tigerish body. “To what do I owe the honor of this illustrious visit?”

He smirked, a slight pursing of his seductive mouth. “Come to cure me? Or did you wish to say my name again?”

She didn’t rise to the slight dare. A man like himself could engage in endless debate. In her tragic experience, the smarter the man, the harder he was to
cure
. For he could argue all in sundry and always win around to his way . . . but in the end, he lost. Lost first his tortured heart, then his soul, and at last, his broken body. She didn’t want that for him.

But that wasn’t why she was here anymore. No angel was she.

Even so, her fingers itched to untie him. First she needed to speak, lest she lose her courage. And for this, she felt it best he remain restrained. Even the best of men might not react in the most positive light to her intentions. “Forgive me, but I must discuss a matter of import with you.”

“I’ve a pressing schedule for the day,” he drawled. “Please do come back when I have a free moment.”

This time, a faint twist of amusement managed to tingle through her. Odd man that he was, she felt a strange kinship to him and his determination to not be cowed. “Sorry that I am to hear it, I will have to insist.”

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Who am I to disappoint a lady?”

How was it possible that a man strapped to a bed in an asylum could be so . . . so fascinating and not as some bizarre specimen? An evocative and compelling force came from his sinfully big body. “I thought you the gallant sort.”

At that, he snorted. A strong, derisive sound. “Will you at least have the courtesy to undo the strap at my head? I’ve been staring at the ceiling these many hours. It is a most uninspiring view.”

“Of course.” She quickly crossed to the bed and leaned over him. Yet when she looked down upon his face, she froze, her hands midair. His eyes, shocking blue, blue as razor-sharp diamonds, stared up at her, assessing, penetrating, full of fury . . . and a strange brew of calm.

Given that he’d been laced on morphine, his clarity was remarkable. There wasn’t the bleary tragedy that usually lurked in her patients’ eyes. Oh no. His were stripping her bare straight down to her soul.

But how long could that last? On a continual diet from the doctors, how long would his bold defiance survive? For some time, she imagined. And then? Then he’d begin to shatter, this gorgeous, noble beast howling and flailing itself at his bars. Once she’d seen a tiger in the London zoo. An animal from Bengal. All fierce with wild yellow eyes and teeth that were daggers in themselves. It had paced and let out sounds that had made her soul quake. Its muscled body had thrashed about, but there had been one moment. One moment when she could have sworn it looked full in her face. Souls connecting. Eyes begging, pleading to be freed from his hellish prison. Demanding death before this kind of dishonor. Tears had dashed down her cheeks, but she hadn’t looked away. She’d watched the madness reclaim its eyes. Watched it hurl itself against the bars, twisting its length into unnatural shapes in its fury.

That would be Powers if she didn’t get him out of here. And for some indescribable reason, that felt like the greatest possible sin.

“Madam, are you deaf?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, realizing she’d been holding it and had been lost entirely in her own thoughts. She didn’t like it. Not one bit. She’d put an iron cast about her heart and soul some years ago, and she’d let no one in, let alone a half-mad lord who drowned himself in opium and gin. But given his current clarity, he was going to become agitated with need very soon. So she had to speak quickly.

“Where’s the fierce lass from yesterday? You may come nearer, you know.” His lids narrowed. “I shan’t bite you, if that’s what you fear.”

She shook her head and let her fingers slide over the leather at his forehead. As she worked the binding free, her fingertips trailed through his thick hair. It slid over her hands like liquid silver, and she found herself disconcerted by it. Hungry for more of it. She was possessed by the strangest urge to plunge her hands into the strands and wind her fingers about it. Perhaps his madness was infecting. Her cheeks heated, and the oddest sensations bloomed in her chest, warming her breasts. But he was her patient, which made her actions exceptionally dangerous.

And yet his father had made it quite clear that she was to be his wife. It made her position difficult and fascinating.

The buckle clunked as she dropped it against the side of the iron bed. Its binding dangled limply. Her hand remained aloft, suddenly bereft. For the first time she could recall, she had no idea what to do with her hands. Where to place them. They were lost between the desire to press into his hard chest and feel his heart beating and to go where they belonged, folded calmly before her.

Slowly, he turned his head left to right. He then proceeded to arch his neck in a most peculiar way. A loud cracking pop resounded through the room, and he let out a sinful groan, which one might have assumed arose from some entirely darker pleasure. “Much better.”

It would be appropriate for her to remain standing, hands rigid at her sides. Yet if she did so, she’d have to stare down at him in the most condescending of ways, and what she had to discuss warranted something entirely different. Without ceremony, she sat beside him, her bottom barely on the edge of the bed, given his size and the annoying fullness of even her economically cut gown.

As her skirts fanned out and spread over his thighs, his eyes widened. “My dear Ms. Nightingale. Hast thou come to soothe my fevered brow and assuage my illness?” he mocked.

She arched a brow. “No. Quite the opposite, I should think.”

He shook his head. “Pity. I should have liked you to stroke me.”

Her spine, which had already been rigid within the confines of her corset, straightened to the point of breaking. “None of that, my lord.”

“None of what?” he asked innocently, his gaze peering up at her with a feigned and infuriatingly lamblike manner.

“Your innuendos,” she said flatly. She’d spent enough time with men just in from the battlefield to know that permitted innuendos would eventually lead to more vulgar or disrespectful behavior. She cleared her throat, girding herself to broach a subject she never would have dreamed of twelve hours prior. A future she’d never imagined for herself in any capacity. “Not if we are to . . . assist each other.”

A mild flash of amusement lit his eyes. “If you think that is an innuendo, my dear, you have been treating virgins. And I believe I made it clear upon our last meeting that I have no desire for your
assistance
.”

She was tempted to set him down for suggesting she hadn’t heard worse given her experience with rough men, but the point of the conversation was rather imperative. He was a master of catching one up with trifles. And being caught up in one would not serve either of them. He
did
need her assistance. And now she needed his.

Twisting her fingers together and savoring the bite of her nails into her soft flesh, she looked down at him with practiced serenity. Had hell existed, her next words were about to condemn her to that fiery pit . . . even if truth lurked in them. “New circumstances have arisen . . . circumstances that I believe will induce you to comply with my offer of assistance.”

He rolled his eyes, then turned his head to the side as though she were some trying harpy come to harangue him to death. “Indeed?”

She swallowed back any hints of reticence or soul-trying guilt and rushed, “I believe your father is unwell.”

His head snapped back toward her, and his body ratcheted against his straps. “Unwell?” Shock edged his tone before he gritted, “Tell me.”

The command was sharp and compelling, and she tasted more bitter guilt upon her tongue. After all, she was using him now for her own ends, even if she might help him in the process. And good God. The way his body moved. There was that tiger again, sinews wild and feral anger humming as its bound body madly attempted to tear free of his cage. Every muscle in his chest strained against his thin linen shirt, and his face drew into a hard mask.

“Tell me,” he hissed.

She sat quietly. Hating herself for using him so cruelly. But she couldn’t allow herself to be moved. Too much was at stake. Her brother’s safety, the viscount’s freedom, and the fulfillment of a purpose she’d struggled to meet since the famine.

His harshness softened into a sort of desperation before he pleaded gently, “I beg of you. What has happened to him?”

“He is ill,” she whispered, her throat tightening traitorously . . . because her words were very likely as true as they were manipulative. “It is just the few things I have noticed. A weakness, a tiredness in an elderly man such as your father has left his heart weakened. You can see it in the pallor of his skin.”

Powers’s gaze traveled carefully over her face. “He never said such a thing to me.”

“He would not, would he?” It was so simple to play upon the strange relationship of father and son. Yet there was nothing easy about it. “Especially given recent events.”

Powers turned his face away from her, his gaze fixing on the ceiling.

Another sharp, nasty little dagger of guilt chinked at the armor around her heart. “And he is most worried about you, which adds to his weakness.”

“He needn’t be,” he said tersely. “I shall be well when these bastards leave off. After all, there’s not a damn thing wrong with me.”

“You’ve a fine way of showing it, have you not?” She gestured to their surroundings. “I understand you were most . . . out of countenance when you were brought to this place.”

“It was a mistake. Putting me here. I could have sorted myself out had they left me to my own devices.”

She bit back the reply that according to the accounts she’d read, he’d been in no state to stand, piss in a pot, or make anything but wild conversation, and apparently, it had been the second time in only a few days that he’d been in such a way, which was why his father had brought him to this place. “But you are here. And the doctors are on the verge of declaring you incompetent.”

His eyes flared as indignation heated his features. “They sodding well can’t.”

“But they can,” she replied evenly. He had to understand just what a predicament he was in, and she had to lead him to believe marriage to her was the best way out of it. “If you continue in your present and often public displays in which you do seem quite mad to onlookers, you will be permanently locked away for your own safety, and then there is no heir for the earldom and no escape for you.”

The fire sifted out of his gaze, and a muscle clenched in his claw. “And that is why my father is worried?”

The note of regret that stained that simple question nearly reversed her tactic, but she’d already come too far to cease marching down this damning path. She’d not turn back for fear now. “It is not the only reason for his concern, but of course, as a peer, he is concerned for the lineage of such a prestigious family.”

“And you?” he asked hollowly, his hands flexing and unflexing despite the bindings over his body. “Do you care?”

“About your lineage?” She pursed her lips as if considering. “No. I don’t give much of a tinker’s damn for your silly English traditions. But about your ability to live as a free man? Yes, I care very much.”

He stared blankly before arching that one damning brow. “Do you think me a freshly born babe?”

Her lips twitched at the very idea. Powers had no doubt been born domineering and dripping sarcasm the moment he had popped into the world. “Hardly, my lord.”

“You want something,” he stated flatly.

She nodded. Unsurprisingly, it appeared the best course had to be straight for him to follow her lead. He would sense it if she laced too much sweetness into her proposition. “I do at that.”

“Out with it.”

She cleared her throat, the words oddly discomforting. “’Tisn’t just for myself, you understand, what I’m about to suggest.”

“How noble.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, knowing this was much like ripping off a bandage that had stuck to a wound. She simply needed to do it quickly and with authority. “I should like you to marry me.”

The silence that followed was punctuated by a mad cackle somewhere down the hall.

Powers contemplated her, his face an odd mask of dispassion. “And they say I’m mad.”

She couldn’t help but say, “They do indeed.”

He blew out an agitated breath. “My good woman—”

“Hear me out,” she said loudly, determined to cut him off and finish off her bargain.

He attempted to inch away from her, a rather hilarious spectacle, given the narrowness of the bed and the tightness of his leather straps. “I’d rather bash my brains out against the wall.”

Well, this was going splendidly. “Do you revile me, then? Find me repugnant? Repulsive?”

That seemed to stop him, and he eyed her with a careful curiosity. “That is a great many R’s. Is your vanity wounded by my reluctance to tie myself to such as yourself?”

Such as herself? It was extremely tempting to pursue that line of thought, but she was not leaping to that bait. “That you’d rather be judged mad than marry me? Yes, I suppose my vanity is a wee bit trampled.”

He scowled. “You are an exceptionally beautiful woman, for which I am sure you are already cognizant.”