The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (45 page)

Sam led Sunny down the corridor with the floor creaking mightily the whole way. She couldn’t stop thinking about Ailise in the tree, her thin form with the white dress floating around her. Had she been able to make it down the tree? Was she safe at this moment? Sunny’s legs quaked both in fright for the girl and for herself, there in the darkness walking toward her own fate.

Thin light shone through the crack at the bottom of the second door on the right. Sam stopped and opened the door. Candlelight fanned out from a small table set for two off to the right. Against the left wall, a large, tall bed draped in rich red velvet hangings was shrouded in shadow.

“Good evening, Sunny.”

She started when Dr. Meeker emerged from the shadows beyond the table.

Sunny stood unable to move.

“Nothing to say to me?”

She broke from the trance. “No, I’ve absolutely nothing to say to you except for a plea that you let me leave.”

“I can’t do that.” His black eyes glittered.

Glittered with lust.

He boldly raked his gaze down her body. “Even though you’re not properly dressed for dinner—” He swept his hand over her body, calling attention to her wrinkled pale green day dress. “—you still look more beautiful than any woman I know. I was enchanted by you from the start. You distracted me from my work and that’s something I just couldn’t abide. I had to have you so that I could concentrate again. But, of course, you were so innocent. You couldn’t imagine all the delightful things I wanted to share with you. Games of power and desire and love.”

James had been absolutely right. It had always been about sex with Meeker. The truth of that struck her like never before.

“You gave me some kind of medication that made me—”

“A little something to enhance your wonderful, natural sensuality. That’s all, Sunny. That combined with the opiates should have worked to increase your willingness to surrender to your deepest desires.” Suddenly he looked sad. It made him appear much older. “I had hoped you would surrender to those desires with me. But your mind proved too rebellious.”

Sunny hugged herself and rubbed her shoulders. “Oh, heavens,” she whispered under her breath.

She wished she hadn’t asked about the medication. She wished she hadn’t felt the need to know that bit because now it made the whole thing seem far more horrific than it ever had before.

She was standing alone with the most dangerous and devious person she had ever known.

She couldn’t help making another plea to his better nature. If he had one at all. “Please, just let me leave.”

His gaze sharpened. “What about little Ailise?”

“Yes, let me and Ailise go.”

Meeker’s face wrinkled with concern. “I just want to have supper with you, Sunny. Is that so terrible?”

She needed time for Ailise to escape. “I am not very hungry,” she said as if in doubt.

“Don’t be petulant, Sunny.”

“What do you want from me—I mean ultimately, what do you expect to gain from luring me here today?”

His silver brows raised. “I should think that is obvious, Sunny. I want you in my bed, at my mercy. But first, a little romance. ”

She wanted to say that rape didn’t require romance, but why force his hand if Ailise might return with help?

“As you wish,” she said.

“First, you need a bath,” he said.

She rolled her shoulder in a sign of acceptance then watched him walk to the bell pull with her heart pounding in her ears.

Soon there was a knock on the door and at Meeker’s order, Sam appeared and he and two other men brought a hipbath and heated water.

And then she was alone again with Meeker. “Surely you do not expect me to bathe in front of you?”

“I hate false modesty.”

Her heart rate accelerated. “I hate to be leered at in the tub.”

His black stare cut into her, chilling her to the bone. But she kept her chin high and met his gaze.

Finally he broke the stare. “Very well, you have half an hour. “

“I can’t possibly bathe properly in half an hour!”

His gaze narrowed. “Forty-five minutes will have to do. But Sunny, I hope this is not a sign of things to come. As I said, I loathe false modesty and other female machinations.”

Once alone, she breathed a sigh of relief.
Oh please, dear God, let me stall for enough time to allow Ailise to make it to safety.

Meeker had underestimated her.

Everyone always did.

But this time being underestimated, being seen as meek and quiet and helpless, had worked in her favor.

She sat on the bed and lifted her skirts to reveal the small pistol she had strapped to her thigh with several garters. She pulled back the covers on the bed and crawled underneath them, pulling the coverlet up to her chin.

And waited.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Sunny jumped at the creak of the door opening. Surely, Ailise had escaped. If she hadn’t, Meeker would have burst into the room angry. She watched as he stepped into the doorway. First, his gaze went to the hiptub, then the table. Lastly, the bed. He couldn’t possibly discern her face in the shadows, but she slitted her eyes, nonetheless.

He crept inside and quietly closed the door. Beneath the covers, Sunny gripped the pistol with both hands. After getting into bed, she’d been up twice, undecided if perhaps having dinner with him wasn’t a better idea. She’d even tried the door. But, as expected, it was locked.

Ailise needed time to escape. But between requesting scented bath oil and powder—and then fretting that the coarse linen towels would make her skin too raw and that she absolutely must have something softer—Sunny had managed to drag her bath out until an hour had passed. Surely that was more than enough for Ailise to get far away from this horrible place. The longer she stalled Meeker, the better her chances of rescue. In the end, however, she realized she couldn’t risk him taking the pistol from her—nor could she risk losing her nerve. Most important, she couldn’t risk him going after Ailise. Her only advantage was the element of surprise.

Meeker took a candle from the table and approached the bed. Sunny started to close her eyes to feign sleep, then feared him getting too close before she shot him. He neared and their gazes met.

His cold black eyes glittered with lust.

Sunny’s stomach lurched.

He set the candle on the bedside table on his side of the bed.

She began to tremble. Could she really do it, could she shoot a man? The pistol would make a fearsome noise. It would alert Sam and that leather-faced matron. She’d have mere moments to dash down the stairs and escape.

He gazed down at her.

Her stomach roiled with revulsion.

“I can’t believe you are finally here, where you were meant to be,” he said those dark eyes still devouring her. “I am going to be so good to you, Sunny. I will take care of you.” He braced one knee on the bed. The mattress rocked as he placed his other knee on the mattress. 

Heart thundering in her ears, Sunny drew the pistol from beneath the covers and leveled it on him.

His eyes widened.

She aimed at the center of his chest. Pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Her heart stopped.

He gaped at her.

“I warn you, I know how to use this.”

Meeker’s expression eased into the slightest of smiles. “Where would you have ever learnt how to use a pistol?”

“James taught me.”

Suddenly, Meeker didn’t look so certain. “Don’t be foolish. You don’t want to do anything to cast further doubts on your sanity.”

Then she remembered something from a lurid novel of highwaymen that she’d once read. She must ready the weapon.

With her thumb, she drew back the hammer. Nothing.

“Sunny, what are you doing?”

Her teeth rattled.

The hammer clicked into place.

Meeker went white. “Now Sunny, don’t be rash. All right, so you’re not ready, you’d like to leave for tonight, you want to think on matters—”

“Yes, I want to leave. Now.” She leveled the pistol with his heart. Her hands shook.

“Sunny, you’re not capable of actually shooting a man.”

“Yes, I think I am.”

“No, I am your doctor, I know everything there is to know about—”

She closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.

The force of the weapon firing rocked through her, the sound exploded in her ears. She dropped the pistol.

Meeker fell backwards off the bed.

She began to shake hard, bone jolting quaking. Her mind screamed for her to run, but her body didn’t obey. She couldn’t bring herself to even open her eyes.

A few moments passed and she managed to open her eyes. She pushed onto her knees and crept to the edge of the bed. Meeker came into sight, lying motionless on the carpet.

His face was ashen-gray. Bright red blood poured from a wound near his shoulder.

Heavens!

He wasn’t dead. Only knocked cold from the impact of the bullet with his shoulder.

She sucked in her breath and backed away on the mattress. She fell off onto the floor, then leapt up. Her feet tangled with her chemise. She stumbled, then righted herself and dressed only in her chemise, fled the chamber.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Pistol at the ready in each hand, James winced when the stair beneath his left foot creaked. He paused, straining for any sounds of life in the dilapidated house. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. It was nothing short of a miracle that Ailise had reached Greythorn House from Whitechapel. He hadn’t waited for an explanation of how she’d managed it, but when she told him Meeker held Catriona prisoner had ridden like the devil was after him to get here.

He had easily broken in through a window and had searched the sitting room and kitchen downstairs, but found them deserted. A deathly quiet hung in the air. Fear rammed through him. If Meeker had taken Catriona away—he cut off the thought and started up the stairs again.

James reached the landing and surveyed the doors. Dim light appeared beneath only one of them and he went to it then kicked it open.

A large bed dominated the chamber and a heavyset matron bent over a man’s body. She mopped his forehead with a cloth. Scarlet blood streaked the white sheets and the man was pale and looked very old. James took a step closer and recognized Meeker.

He edged a step closer, then halted at a muffled cry to his right. He jerked in that direction and saw Catriona, tied to a hard backed chair. She wore only a torn shift and a cloth was tied around her mouth. Her wide eyes held his. Fury swept through him.

Heavy footfalls sounded in the corridor. James whirled. A short, stout man rushed through the doorway at him. James fired. The man stumbled. James glimpsed the dark stain spreading across his dirty shirt over his heart in the instant before he dropped to the carpet.

The matron jumped to her feet, screaming as she ran to the fallen man. “Sam! Oh God, Sam!”

James thrust the discharged pistol into his waistband and sidled over to Catriona, one eye on the woman. He reached her and saw the small silver pistol that sat on a table beside her. He stuffed the pistol into his waistband and pulled out the knife he’d slid into the side of his boot. He cut the rope binding her to the chair.

“You’ve killed him,” the woman wailed, but James ignored her and pulled Catriona up to his side. She seized the gag and dragged it up over her head, then threw it to the ground.

James yanked the loaded pistol from his waistband and pivoted toward Meeker.

“James,” Catriona cried.

He took two steps toward the bed and aimed the weapon at the unconscious man.

“No!” Catriona’s shout sounded in unison with the discharge of the pistol—and she shoved his arm upward.

He spun on her. “You would save him?”

She looked up at him, eyes large. “No,” she said quietly. “I would save you.”

He stared. Did she mean—

She touched his sleeve. “Please, I want to leave.”

Tears moistened her eyes.

James took her home.

****

Sunny sat back against the squabs in James’ carriage, weak with relief, her mind and emotions swirling too quickly for her to catch any of them.

“When we reach Greythorn house, I will call for the magistrate. Meeker will hang.”

She licked her chapped lips and nodded. A man like James would not allow such an insult to pass. The doctor had kidnapped two women under his protection. The man would pay. She would dearly love to see Meeker pay, she hated him like she hated the very devil.

Such violence of emotion shocked her but she wouldn’t deny it.

If you cannot be good, at least be honest.

“I thought you were gone to Sussex,” she said.

“I had some unfinished business here. I left matters in a very bad state.”

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say. Her body, she realized, had begun to shake.

James reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a silver flask. He extended it toward her. “Here, this will help.”  Sunny accepted the flask and took a small sip. The watered whisky tasted sweeter than the best lemonade and she took several drinks. It did help. She took one last gulp and gave it back to him.

He stashed the flask then took her hand. Warm, slightly calloused flesh touching hers.

She tried to pull free but he held it firm.

She held herself stiff and kept her gaze averted to the window. She stared unseeing at the dark night. She wouldn’t soften to him.

“I thought that I loved you, all those years ago at Landbrae. You were eighteen and I was twenty-eight. So young.”

He loved her then? She had never suspected. But wait he’d said he
thought
that he had loved her then. Her head spun. Heavens, she couldn’t have this discussion now.

“I thought that I loved you then, but now I know it was just infatuation.”

Now she
knew
she didn’t want to be having this discussion.

“I was drawn, as everyone else was, to your cheerful, entertaining personality. I adored the way you made me feel, all warm and alive inside. I had been so cold, my whole life, I don’t think I had quite realized it before. But I wanted that warmth. I needed it. You were so full of energy. You were Sunny and never has a name captured a girl more.”

She looked at him. The dim light of the carriage kept his expression hidden from her. “Well, I shall never be that girl again. So this discussion is pointless,” she said. But then something nagged at her. It had been eating a little hole in her heart for some time. “You never call me Sunny any more.”

He tightened his hold on her hand. “No, I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because Sunny the girl no longer exists.”

A terrible sinking spread through her stomach. “I can no’ help that. I can no’ bring her back.”

“I don’t want to see her come back.”

Stunned, she tried to make out his features. She could only see the white of his eyes, the curve of his jaw. “You don’t want to have Sunny back?”

It was odd to speak of herself as though she were dead. It was morbid and a chill shuddered down her spine.

But it was also truth.

Sunny, the ever-cheerful, ever-radiant, ever-energetic girl was dead. Forever.

The admission ripped away the last of her self-delusions. She would never, ever be that favored, adored, loved girl again. Never would she simply be able to smile and have people rush to bestow favors and gifts upon her. She could no longer charm her way to what she wanted.

She wasn’t loveable or worthy of adoration anymore.

There was devastation in admitting the truth. But there was also freedom.

“I adored Sunny. But Sunny is gone,” he said.

She swallowed hard and turned back to the window. She was trying to face all of this bravely but her eyes began to burn. She closed her eyes tightly and swallowed again. “Yes,” she said. “Sunny is dead.”

And now buried.

She was now simply a common-born woman, possessed of an informal education and moderate intelligence and a tolerable singing voice. She was blessed or cursed, depending on the circumstance, with a woman’s curves and the ability to feel deeply. This was all she had to recommend herself.

She was nothing special. One could walk down the streets of London and find hundreds of such women.

And in regards to this nobleman sitting beside her, this man who owned her heart, she didn’t possess a single trait that could make her interesting enough to capture and hold his love. His fleeting sexual interest, yes, certainly. Gentlemen loved variety and a woman held appeal simply by her femaleness and newness.

But there was nothing to make him love her.

He would only love a star.

Sunny had been a star but she was dead.

“You loved Sunny,” she said, hearing the sadness in her voice, the regret that belied her intention to be brave, to be accepting of what had happened.

“I don’t need Sunny,” he said. “In her place I have Catriona. A woman not a girl. A woman who bleeds and needs and hungers. A woman marked by life and all those cuts have shown me her many facets. She is heart and mind and soul and cunny, and I love each and every one of her facets.”

She jerked her gaze onto him.

“I love you, Catriona.”

Her heart seemed to stop. Then it resumed its beating, hard and pounding in her ears. Fear gripped her. Fear that she’d somehow conjured what she had must wanted to hear. She couldn’t trust her own ears. Suddenly, the last vestiges of energy drained from her and she went limp, leaning against the carriage frame. She was so weary and she desperately needed sleep. Wetness streaked her cheeks. She wished with all her might that she could be alone. She couldn’t trust her own senses, her own mind. Not at the moment. It was just too much. It had all been too much.

He murmured something.

He had done that before and with his tender appeal had torn away all her defenses. All she had now was her defenses. She balled her fists and tried to hold back the tears that kept streaming down her cheeks.

He grasped her shoulders.

She twisted in an effort to free herself.

But he proved stronger.

He drew her across his lap and held her close. She felt his warmth, his strength enfold her. His scent surrounded her.

She wanted to collapse into him. To allow herself to believe. But how could she? He had done all of this before, had seduced her with tenderness and affection and understanding. His acceptance.

But then he had shunted her aside.

“I am so weary,” she whispered.

“Shh,” He caressed her hair. “Just sleep. We’ll be home soon. Very soon.”

****

Catriona sat at her writing desk, trying to compose a list of all the things she needed to do before the upcoming trip to Sussex for Christmas. Trying to take her mind off James’ note of yesterday, the one where he had told her that Meeker had died of infection and fever from the gunshot wound to his shoulder.

Don’t worry. You’ve done nothing to feel guilt or pain over. He brought this on himself.

James reassurance played over and over in her mind the previous night and she was glad of it, for it was not easy to know she had been responsible for a man’s death, even one so evil as Meeker. She had wished most desperately for James to be with her in the flesh. But she couldn’t trust him like that again, could she?

No, not possibly.

The pain of his betrayal had been too great.

Yet, she had decided to go and play hostess for him. It was the least she could do for the man who had saved her life.

But she couldn’t allow herself to soften to him.

There was a knock on her bedchamber door.

“Enter,” she said.

Expecting it to be her maid come to begin the packing, she didn’t turn, not even when she heard the soft footfalls on the carpet.

A sealed letter dropped to her desk. She didn’t recognize the heavy embellished wax seal and she glanced up to meet James’ silver blue eyes.

“Open it.”

She hesitated, then took her brass letter opener and carefully wedged the seal open then unfolded the vellum and read. But she had a hard time comprehending what she read, it was all in solicitor’s speak. But she thought she had the gist. Only it didn’t seem possible.

She glanced up at him again. “This house is…
mine
?”

He nodded, gravely. “It’s yours, to do with as you choose. You may invite Ailise to live here with you.”

“But you are sending her away to school.”

“I thought about it, and came to the conclusion that you are correct. She has apparently experienced some abuse and pain at the hands of my half-brother. She should spend some time quietly with her family now. That is more important than what any school could give her.”

“Oh, yes, thank you for reconsidering.” Catriona said, woodenly, her wits completely scattered in the wake of this unexpected change in him. She didn’t know what to think. Could she really trust him?

She glanced again at the deed.

It certainly looked real.

He had been cruel to her in the past weeks. But he had never been duplicitous. Yet still she couldn’t let go of her self-protection.

Self-protection was the only solace she had left.

“There are plenty of chambers here,” he said.

“Yes, it is quite large for my needs.”

“You could find space to make a place for Benjamin here?”

She caught her breath.

“A bedchamber and a schoolroom?” he continued.

She nodded then released the breath. “Yes, he would be most welcome.”

“Now, Catriona, he must go to university within a few years, but seeing as he was so close to his mother and the suddenness with which she was taken from him, I think he should also spend a couple of years with us.”

Feeling caught in a dream, she nodded. “Thank you.”