The Dark Affair (8 page)

“Eh, Matthew!”

Matthew whipped toward Francis McNamara, a burst of joy at the familiar face lighting his heart. “And if it isn’t yourself!”

“It is indeed. Shall we go and get a pint of the finest?” Francis McNamara’s dark eyes glinted, slightly shining, as if he’d already had a few drinks of the good brew. But nothing could ever dampen the glee that seemed a perpetual part of the blond lad’s countenance. Not even his shabby clothes or the dirt smeared across his cheeks and neck to help him blend into St. Giles and the people of Church Street.

Like Matthew, he was the son of an educated man and was also determined to see Ireland shrug off the yoke of the English.

Matthew clapped his hand on the gray, raveling fabric of his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s drink to this hellhole.”

Francis leaned in, his lips tilting into a devilish grin. “And to our brotherhood. And how we can show these poor devils the strength of the Irish.”

Matthew nodded sagely, feeling the first joy he’d felt at stepping on the sod of the enemy. Not even his sister’s beautiful face had lifted his spirits. Even with all his love for her, he still saw their mam every time he looked upon her. Nor would he ever be able to shake her betrayal from his bones. He blinked, trying to forget the pain of it. “And then we must have a drink to Ireland.”

“We’ll make a list of toasts.” Francis laced his way through the small crowd standing outside the pub, avoiding the dung on the cobbles and the trail of some unidentifiable liquid that was no doubt piss and spilled gin. He glanced over his shoulder. “And we’ll drink to them all.”

Matthew pressed in as they crossed the threshold of the public house. The din of drunken voices and shrieking fiddle made any conversation nigh indiscernible. “Are the others in London yet?”

Francis kept pushing forward as he whispered sotto voce, “They’re arriving on separate boats, and Eamon is coming from France. So within the next month, my son, we shall be in the business of revolution.”

A thrill danced down Matthew’s spine. This was what he’d dreamed of for as long as he could remember. Some boys dreamed of sailing, and soldiering, or growing up to be fine men. His dreams had taken form in the desire to tear down the hallowed halls of privilege. “To glory and freedom, then?”

Francis elbowed his way up to the bar, signaling to the barman with two fingers for two pints. As soon as two dark tankards of black-as-sin ale were set before them, their tops frothing with creamy foam, he lifted his and his face turned most solemn. “Aye. To freedom.”

P
owers’s eyelids were seared to his pupils. In fact, his entire body was on fire, turning his muscles into jellied masses under his itching skin. He choked down a rasping breath, wishing to God he could just fade off and never have to face the world again. But that was hardly his general temperament, and he was not about to give his
wife
the satisfaction of watching his complete destruction.

Stoically, he girded himself, then peeled his eyes open.

Some kind soul had shut the drapes. So the room was blessedly dark. Though he was grateful, the dimness did little to alleviate the feeling that someone had ripped his flesh from his bones and then attempted to paste it back on with the insides out.

Christ, what was happening to him? In all his life, he had always controlled every aspect of his person. Nothing had been out of his grasp. Nothing had been unmaneuverable, unchangeable, but now? Somewhere, he’d stepped over some invisible line, which had catapulted him to a different level of the destruction he had immersed himself in some time ago.

He flexed his feet, stretching his toes, the very motion agonizing. An unwelcome reminder that he was indeed alive. His throat ached with the omnipresent desire for water . . . And he was sweating and shaking.

Shaking.

Christ, the sheets were damp from it. Had he run from here to Greenwich without his knowing? He strained to recall how he’d gotten into this bed, an unpleasant though not unfamiliar activity. He searched through the recesses of his opium dreams, looking for images.

One came up fast and hard. A dark angel, wings unfurled, come to deliver him to his fate. Always in the past that fate had been one of fire and damnation. For some reason, this time the recollection didn’t riddle him with resignation, but rather he was experiencing a mournful sort of hope, which made no sense whatsoever.

The angel’s hair had been a lick of flame around her ivory visage, and she had called out to him just before the gates of perdition. She’d dragged him back, not allowing his broken body into that fiery pit.

Suddenly, his stomach jumped up toward his throat and he forced down a jumbling nausea. That angel . . . He groaned. Maggie. The angel had been Maggie, and he’d acted like a complete lunatic at their nuptials. How impressed she must be at his ability to prove his sanity.

It was galling. All his arrogance. Shame coated his skin. Just a few hours ago, he’d stood in that cathedral like a swaggering fool. So certain he didn’t need her help. That he didn’t need anyone’s help.

And one mustn’t forget to mention the presence of his father.

The earl had seen that debacle. No doubt, at this very moment, the old man was securing him a private room lined with mattresses in their country estate up in the wilds of Yorkshire.

But that was something he would deal with later, when his brain had come back to its usually razor-sharp working state, though given its present feeling, he was terrified it might only ever again be the dull sharpness of a bread knife.

He needed water, and he wanted out of this bed. He grunted. That wasn’t true exactly. He longed to sink into the mattress and be entombed by white feathers. Feathers that would tickle and caress him with a gentleness he’d never allowed himself to feel. A gentleness that would eventually stifle him and allow him to leave this world of pain and memory.

Casting off his self-pity, he inched for the side of the bed. Every movement a seeming tidal wave of nausea. He wasn’t going to vomit. He would not tolerate that indignity. A man such as himself could hold his opium and liquor. He would not prove himself to be a total infant.

Even so, by the time he had managed to push himself upright and swing his legs over the bed, the sweat that had simply been light upon his brow now trickled down his back. He panted. Each breath an ordeal necessary to keep the world from spinning and his rebellious stomach in check.

He blinked several times, then surveyed his room. Unlike himself, everything else appeared to be in order. The dark shadows resembled his chairs and tables, except one of the chairs seemed to be moving ever so slightly.

More proof he was standing at madness’s door?

But the shadow proceeded to speak, the rustle of fabric accompanying the musical voice. “Ah. And it’s glad I am to see you’re awake.”

He grimaced. A sense of unfamiliar humiliation mixed with his already unpleasant feelings of incapacitation. “Unless I am sleep walking, one would think my wakefulness was quite obvious and did not bear the need for observation.”

She shifted on the chair, her voluminous skirts spilling about her like impenetrable, deep, black waters. “Well, ’tis clear to say your tart hasn’t entirely abandoned you, weak lamb that you are, but I had hoped you’d sleep longer.”

He gagged on a hint of vomit, longing to put her quickly in her place for asserting that he belonged with the sheep. Instead he mumbled, “My disobliging nature is simply one of my traits you will have to accustom yourself to, Viscountess.”

She shrugged. “And didn’t I always know you’d be difficult?”

Was she teasing him? Did the woman have that gall? He considered. Yes. Margaret Cassidy . . . No, Lady Stanhope, Viscountess of Powers in all purposes but one as of yet, most definitely had the gall to tease. Something he found himself liking for some irrational and most irritating reason. “Hmm. Glad to meet your expectations.”

She didn’t smile or grin. Instead, her face eased into a sympathetic but knowing mask. “Oh, my lord, I should imagine you shall exceed them.”

Despite his internal struggle, it truly hit him then that she was his wife and calling him “my lord.” Long ago, he had made a vow that no one would ever call him by his name but his wife, the wife he had so utterly failed, and now he found himself in another perplexing situation. One to add to a multitude. This was the moment. Dare he venture out and suggest she call him anything but his title?

He couldn’t give his name. Not yet. It was the only way he had of honoring the woman who had died so many years ago now, a victim of society’s hammerlike command that she be a woman of perfection in every way.

Wincing at the sudden and painful memory of his thin wife, in her beautiful gown, pushing away her plate and offering him a gentle smile, he considered. Was his honoring of his long-deceased wife taking the wrong form?

He tried to force his name from his lips, but the word simply wouldn’t form. His name was still Sophia’s. “I suppose you may call me ‘husband’ as well as ‘my lord.’”

She leaned forward, her face coming into the slightly less shadowy light. “How gracious. Since that is what you are.”

God, she was beautiful. That skin . . . so cool, so unblemished, and her eyes were eyes that threatened to penetrate every barrier he had erected and not retreat in disgust and fear as everyone else had done. “On a piece of paper.”

She arched that damned, delightful red brow. “That paper carries considerable weight. It binds us together quite nicely until one of us shuffles off our mortal coil.”

He
hmph
ed. His usual energy for argument was leached by all his powers to keep himself sitting upright.

She crossed the short distance between them and lowered herself so that she crouched, a most unladylike position. “I have a surprise for you.”

“More morphine?” he quipped, though his voice didn’t hold its usual disdain. “That was quite a surprise.”

She sighed and stood, her black gown whooshing. With a decisive motion, she tugged on the bellpull.

Was she still wearing the same gown as at their wedding? Had she sat by his side this entire time without taking the time to change?

“No more morphine,” she said flatly. “None at all.”

Fear and relief spiraled through him. He wanted to be done with it. Forever. He had to be. The episode at the cathedral was full proof that he had crossed a line in which he could no longer return from if he used opium again. He would be lost on a sea of death.

It mattered not that somewhere in the background of his troubled mind he was aware of a pattern growing within him. A patter of abstinence and then abandonment. While he had every intention of abstaining, he was not sure that the darkness would not seduce him. It was a frightening reality that he could lie to himself with such ease. “Very wise.”

She arched a brow, pained foreknowledge turning her blue eyes almost black. “So you think now, but the best course in such cases is to be slowly taken off such things.”

“No,” he countered, mustering as much
noblesse oblige
as he could render from his burning body. “One should rip bandages off and end the agony.”

She eyed him slowly, no doubt taking in his weakened state. “The agony has yet to begin.”

He scowled, reaching for his cool mantle of aloof superiority. He hated that she could see him like this. No one, certainly not she, should see him thus. It was almost more than he could bear. “That sounds particularly ominous.”

“’Twas meant to.”

“And my surprise?” He sighed, wishing to climb back under the covers and hibernate. Surely she could bring him his much-needed water, glorified nursemaid that she was, then hie off to discover her recently bargained for house. “Is it more of this stimulating and foreboding conversation? If so, you may keep it.”

Her lips twisted into a bemused smile. “Lovely as it is to know my conversation stimulates you, I must disappoint.”

Stimulate? Did the bleeding girl have any idea as to the entendre she just uttered? It certainly seemed not, given the coolness of her cheek. He didn’t know what to make of her. An innocent in charge of madmen, dealing with his father to receive her best settlement? And then she had to go and say words like “stimulate,” which even in his condition brought forth that erotic image again of her on the floor, this time on top of his burgundy carpet, the color of her hair a strange contrast with it and her pale legs spread as he studied her pussy with reverent desire.

“My lord?”

“Hm?” Yes. It was a remarkable image, how he would pleasure her, this woman who had clearly known no pleasing touch from a man. He would drive her to the brink. That’s all he wanted after all, to see her unfold before him, and then he would let her go.

“Are you gathering wool, my lord?”

He blinked, forcing the searing image from his mind. “What?”

She propped her hands on her hips and gave him a wry grin. “Your surprise. ’Tis a bath.”

The very idea of pulling himself out of bed, crossing the room to his dressing chamber, and immersing himself in steaming liquid was a most unappealing proposition. He’d much rather stay in bed and dream about her. His dark angel. And how he was going to corrupt her in slow degrees. But from the damn-and-blast determination etched in her stance, she was not to be gainsaid.

Still, he hated her seeing him in this less-than-authoritative state.

He didn’t quite have it within him to call upon the footmen to assist him. Reliance upon his fellow men, servants or no, was not something he wished to contemplate. “I am already too hot.”

“I am aware.” She leaned toward him and slowly stretched out her fingers as she carefully cupped his chin. Urgency brightened her eyes as she oh so painfully turned his face slowly to the right and then to the left. “Soon you will begin to shake more than you are doing at present. It goes rapidly downhill from there.”

It was upon his tongue, a stinging reply, and yet he couldn’t administer it, not with her gentle yet firm fingers upon his heated flesh. Now if he could just get her to lay that cool hand on his brow. “I hardly doubt it shall grow much worse. I simply have a fever. Feel.”

She trailed her fingers a little too slowly, then snapped her back straight. “I don’t have to feel. I know. And it will grow much, much worse, I am sorry to say.”

He snorted his disbelief. He might be trembling ever so slightly, but he wouldn’t worsen. Men such as he recovered quickly from their indiscretions. Though he couldn’t recall the last time he had gone a full day without laudanum to help him sleep.

She narrowed her eyes. “You will take a bath.”

“I thought you were my wife, not my governess.” Though he was most curious as to how far she would attempt to push him, how much authority she actually felt she had over him.

“I am primarily your nurse.” Her cheeks colored imperceptibly, as if she were contemplating her role as his wife and the dangers that might possibly entail. “And you already know my purpose here. Stop resisting and give in.”

He couldn’t help teasing her. It was all too rewarding. Possibly the only thing that was at this time. “My dear woman, didn’t you know resistance is half the fun?”

“Only to men.”

He managed to refrain from saying anything truly indecorous, though he doubted it was out of any delicacy but rather out of tiredness and a slowly growing state of dimness in his head. But one thing he was certain of: he had other plans to unnerve her. Uncouth words were simply too easy, and he’d never chosen easy.

Sensing his defeat by proxy, she offered cheerfully, “Now, would you be liking my assistance in standing?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. He was not an invalid.

She remained silent, folding her hands before her, a movement he was growing to recognize as her fallback pose. A pose which she assumed when things weren’t quite going her way. She was most likely considering her next-best attack in that oh so serene stance. Well, despite his earlier misgivings, he would prove her unnecessary. A miscalculation of his father’s, and he’d hie her off to whatever estate she’d no doubt got out of this arranged marriage.

Moments of doubt aside, he could and would prove himself capable.

Scooting toward the edge of the bed, he ignored the nausea, which had dissipated under their distracting dialogue and now proceeded with full force to roll through him. Just as he drew in a steadying breath, his vision grew spotty. He blinked against it, gripped the mattress, and in one concerted effort, shoved himself to the very edge and placed his feet down.

“Are you all right, then?”