The Wicked One

by Millard, Nadine

  Selina didn’t exactly trust his staff not to spit in her tea or something, but she nodded her consent, nonetheless.

  Timothy needed her help and in order to help him, she needed Lord Breton to be willing.

  “As long as you taste the tea before I do, I’ll stay,” she said with a grin, hoping to break the tension in the room.

  Rather than smile along with her, however, his scowl deepened.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For how they behaved.”

  Selina shook her head in dismissal of his apology.

  “It’s to be expected,” she answered pragmatically. “I’m different. And there’s nothing quite so frightening to people as those who are different. Agnes taught me that.”

  “Agnes?” he questioned as he stepped back to allow her to leave before him, reaching out and plucking the basket from her hands. “The lady whose cottage you share?”

  His manners were impeccable. And he treated her as though she were a grand lady and not a gypsy from the woods.

  “You know Agnes?” She turned to stare at him and was shocked by the sheepishness in his expression.

  “I might have enquired as to your identity,” he answered.

  “Ah. And you still trusted me with your son?”

  She meant to make the quip light-hearted yet for some reason, his answer and his trust were important.

  They’d reached the elaborate staircase that would lead to the living rooms below but before Selina took a step to descend, his hand shot out and clasped her gently around the upper arm.

  She turned to face him, trying and failing to ignore the frisson of awareness at his touch.

  “I do trust you with Timothy,” he said seriously. “And I don’t listen to idle gossip.”

  Selina was touched beyond measure at his faith in her.

  To cover the confusing, riotous emotions that swirled inside her, Selina shrugged her shoulders.

  “It matters not,” she said with only a faint tremble in her voice. “I don’t care what they think of me. I only care about your son.”

  Chapter Six

  P

  hilip cursed himself as they descended the stairs, disgusted at the pang of disappointment he felt at her words.

  How selfish a bastard did he have to be to be feel anything other than relieved at her words?

  Why would he suddenly, inexplicably wish that she cared about him, too?

  It was just the heightened emotions of the night, he told himself fiercely.

  Whatever happened in that nursery – and he had no idea what had happened – had shaken him to his core.

  And yet, he’d felt it.

  Much as he didn’t believe in witchcraft or gypsy magic, hauntings or ghosts. He’d felt the very air change around them when Selina had been with Timothy.

  He’d seen, too, what the connection had taken out of them both.

  Timothy at least slept, his nursemaid sent back up to sit with him.

  But Selina – she was pale, drawn. Her eyes seeming bigger and darker than ever in her pale face.

  And Philip could admit that he was worried for her. Perhaps even more than he should be.

  They reached the bottom of the staircase, and he pointed the way to his study. Unfortunately, it was the only room downstairs with a fire lit and any sort of warmth.

  She would have been more comfortable in one of the drawing rooms.

  Still, there was little he could do about it.

  “Does your head pain you, Miss – er “

  He realised that he’d been thinking of her as Selina but of course, he couldn’t address her thus.

  Bad enough that he’d been alone in Timmy’s bedchamber with her.

  Bad enough that he was now meeting privately with her, in the middle of the night.

  Yet, he knew she didn’t care about those things. And truth be told, right now, neither did he.

  “Selina.” She spoke wryly as though she knew his inner struggle. “I know that’s a terrible crime among your kind, my lord,” she continued laughingly. “But my name is Selina, and there’s nothing either of us can do about that.”

  “Selina.” He nodded, waiting for her to take a seat on the chaise before he took his own, not behind his desk but on the chair across from her. “And you must call me Philip.”

  She raised a brow that seemed to scream, “I was going to anyway,” but didn’t comment.

  Philip felt uncommonly nervous as he rang the bell for a tea tray.

  “Your head?” he prompted when they’d both sat.

  “It hurts a little,” she admitted with a grimace. “But I am well. It just – it tired me.”

  With her softly spoken words, the atmosphere in the room changed, and Philip prepared himself for a conversation he didn’t want to have and wasn’t sure he’d even believe.

  Yet he’d seen it himself, hadn’t he?

  Charlotte’s face peering out from Timothy’s.

  The silence stretched on while Philip steeled himself to ask a question he didn’t want the answer to.

  “What happened, Selina?” He couldn’t seem to get any strength in his voice, yet he knew she heard him.

  Her impossibly dark eyes stared back at him, and he was glad she didn’t flinch from the question. Glad that he knew she would at least be honest. Whether or not he could believe her remained to be seen.

  She took a deep breath, as though preparing herself for something difficult.

  “Timothy. He is – troubled,” she said, and he got the impression she was choosing her words carefully. “What happened to him? What happened to his mother?”

  Philip blinked in shock.

  “He told you about his mother?” he asked.

  Timothy never spoke of Charlotte.

  He’d asked one of the many supposed experts about that, but none of them had thought it important.

  The advice he’d received had ranged from sending him away, to beating him, to ignoring him.

  None of which had given him any confidence in the purportedly learned men he’d consulted.

  “No,” she said now, interrupting his thoughts. “He didn’t.”

  Philip shook his head.

  “Then how —?”

  He stopped, the dread that he’d felt since the episode in Timothy’s nursery exploding inside him, veering toward panic.

  “Did you —?“ He hesitated to continue the question, knowing he would sound fit for Bedlam.

  And yet, he remembered Selina’s words.

  Let me help him.

  To whom had she been speaking?

  “What did you see, Selina?” he whispered.

  Before she could answer, a knock sounded on the door heralding the arrival of a tray laden with tea, sandwiches, and small pastries.

  “Thank you,” Philip hurriedly dismissed the maid as soon as she’d placed the tray on the table between them.

  He knew the gossip in the kitchens would be rife. Could only imagine what would be said about them both between the servants when they inevitably discussed tonight’s events.

  Yet, this wasn’t exactly a conversation he wanted the staff to be privy to.

  He sat there expectantly, waiting for Selina to pour.

  When she blinked at him, he realised that she wasn’t exactly the type of lady to pour tea.

  For some reason, he liked that about her.

  Since he was worried that she was still quite pale, he leaned forward to do the honours himself.

  What he really needed was a stiff drink, but he could hardly start drowning himself in brandy while in the company of Selina.

  “Here.” He held out the cup, which she took with a little smirk. “Would you like to eat something?”

  “No, thank you. I cannot stay much longer in any case.”

  Panic, swift and unexpected, seized Philip at the idea of her leaving.

  He felt better when she was around. Felt that Timothy was safer.
/>
  Something of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, for she smiled that mysterious smile of hers.

  “Agnes will be expecting me,” she said. “And though I don’t conform to all of your rules, I draw the line at staying the night in a man’s house.”

  Philip nodded, ignoring the punch of desire at her mention of staying the night.

  All manner of wicked things tried to clamber into his brain but of course, he pushed them aside. Not least because he needed to focus on Timothy right now and not his own, base desires.

  “Of course,” he said a little stiffly.

  She sipped her tea while he sat there awkwardly.

  The silence stretched on. There was so much he wanted to say, to ask, yet he couldn’t think of a single question that didn’t sound utterly insane. He wanted to bring the conversation back to where it had been and at the same time, he didn’t.

  Finally, when he couldn’t stand it any longer, he jumped to his feet.

  “I need a real drink,” he said apologetically.

  “Thanks be to God,” she whispered before she grinned up at him. “At least tell me you’ve decent Irish whiskey?”

  He was so surprised he could only stare at her for a moment and then suddenly, he found himself answering her grin with one of his own.

  It didn’t feel strained or unnatural.

  And in spite of all the fear and darkness, the worry and guilt, Philip felt – happy. Just a little and just for a moment. But he felt it all the same.

  He poured himself a brandy and her a whiskey from his grandfather’s old bottles, thanking providence that there was still some around, before sitting back in front of her and handing her the tumbler, the tepid tea between them forgotten.

  Selina took a healthy swallow of her drink, not even flinching as the potent liquid disappeared down her throat.

  Another reason to marvel at her, Philip supposed, before he got his rogue thoughts under control once more.

  He sipped from his own drink, gaining courage from the brandy’s slight burn before he took a steadying breath, looked her dead in the eye and blurted out the oddest question he’d ever uttered.

  “Do you think my dead wife is haunting my son?”

  Chapter Seven

  S

  elina watched Philip’s face as he asked her the question. He winced slightly as though expecting some sort of death knell just because he’d spoken the words out loud.

  She’d tried thinking of him as Lord Breton, but it seemed foolish. Not after what he’d experienced in Timothy’s bedroom. Not after he’d trusted her so implicitly with his son.

  To give the man his due, he didn’t laugh or scoff when he asked. He didn’t sneer. His voice didn’t drip sarcasm.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t believe, she decided while she watched his ice-blue eyes cloud over with fear. It was that he really didn’t want to.

  After finishing her drink in one gulp, Selina placed the glass on the table before clasping her hands together and leaning forward in her seat.

  “Why don’t you tell me about your wife?” she said by way of answer.

  She suspected the man wasn’t as ready for her answers as he was trying to be. And she really needed his honesty if she were going to help.

  As she watched, his eyes dulled with such sorrow that Selina’s breath caught.

  “You loved her a great deal.”

  It was a statement, not a question, and she was disgusted at the envy that clawed at her.

  Philip stared at her, seeming to measure his words before he spoke them.

  “Charlotte was – fragile,” he said carefully. “I cared a great deal for her. Looked after her. Took care of her.”

  Did that equate to love? Selina wondered.

  But she kept her thoughts to herself.

  What would she know of it, in any case?

  “Charlotte’s family were acquainted with mine, and the match was made while I was still at Oxford. I – I wasn’t averse to it. She was pretty and kind, and she had the sweetest disposition.”

  Selina nodded, though there was little need. The earl had become lost in his thoughts.

  “We were married two years before she fell pregnant for the first time.”

  He darted his eyes to her, no doubt thinking that such delicate things shouldn’t be spoken of between a man and a woman, and Selina rolled her eyes.

  She’d delivered countless babes with Agnes. Women who would never deign to speak to either of them came seeking help when the lives of their children were at stake.

  “The pregnancies – they didn’t last past a couple of months, and every time she lost a babe, I swear she lost a piece of herself, too.”

  Selina’s heart clenched both for the dead woman and for the man reliving his pain.

  “I didn’t want to keep trying. It didn’t matter to me. I had cousins enough to be able to pass on the title. But Charlotte – she’d been raised to believe that a lady’s job was to marry well and provide heirs. And nothing would convince her otherwise.”

  Selina couldn’t move. She was frozen, trapped in Philip’s painful memories.

  “She begged and pleaded with me. Said she didn’t feel like a real woman. That she felt like a failure. That…” He gulped loudly. “That she would hurt herself or —”

  He jumped up from the chair suddenly and paced to the fireplace, raking a hand through his chestnut hair.

  “I never could say no to her.” He smiled, but it was grim and humourless. Filled with bitterness and regret. “When she was enceinte with Timothy and stayed so past three months, it seemed like a miracle. Finally, she would have her babe. I thought it would make her happy. So I –“ He swallowed audibly before continuing. “I ignored so much of her behaviour. She wasn’t sleeping. Barely eating. And I kept telling myself that she was just worried. As soon as the baby was born and she saw that everything was fine, she would get better.”

  “She didn’t,” Selina said gently, keeping any inflection from her tone.

  “No.” He shook his head. “She got worse. So much worse.”

  Selina couldn’t bear the raw pain in his voice. Without conscious thought, she rose from the chaise and walked toward him.

  “I sought help from everywhere. Her mother came to stay. Mine thought she should be sent to Bedlam.” His fierce glower was proof enough of what he’d thought of that suggestion.

  “The doctor gave her laudanum to sleep, and she began to rely so heavily on it that she was barely awake during the day. And Timothy, her longed-for child – sometimes I wasn’t sure if she was even aware of his existence.”

  He heaved a sigh from the depths of his soul then turned suddenly to look at her. His blue eyes glittered intensely in the firelight.

  “Eighteen months ago, the pain became too much. At least, I assume it did. I wasn’t – we didn’t share a bedchamber.”

  Selina wondered at his guilty tone. It was common for Quality not to share rooms, after all.

  “I was in my study. Drinking myself to a near enough stupor, I’m ashamed to say, and –“

  He swallowed again, and Selina’s skin prickled.

  “The first I knew of it was Timothy’s scream. I raced up the stairs, and even as I ran I could hear the chaos. More screams. Crying from servants.”

  He shuddered and closed his eyes.

  “Timothy had gone searching for me. Charlotte didn’t – she wasn’t able to, to care for him. When he didn’t find me in my bedchamber, he went to hers.”

  Selina knew then. Knew what had happened. Knew what the boy had seen.

  “She threw herself from the window, and he saw it.”

  Where his voice had been filled with raw emotion before, now it was empty of it. It was flat and dead as though he’d shut off all feeling just to be able to tell his sorry tale.

  “Ever since then, Timothy has had these nightmares. More than that – these terrifying incidences. Half the time he
’s awake when it happens.”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face.

  “I hoped coming here would help. I had such an urge to travel here. New surroundings, a house I’d been happy in as a boy.”

  He grimaced slightly.

  “Charlotte had never come here. She didn’t travel well. And I thought perhaps it would help. No memories. No reminders of what he’d seen.”

  He shook his head despondently.

  “As you can tell, it’s no use. Nothing is working. I thought perhaps I was pandering to it too much as my mother claimed.”

  His mother sounded like a dragon to Selina’s way of thinking, but it wasn’t her place to say.

  “That if I sent him back to a nursery, stopped letting him stay with me in my rooms, it would help. Well, you can see how well that went.”

  Suddenly he spun to face her fully, his hands reaching out and clasping her upper arms in a vicelike grip.

  “Please.” His eyes held the same desperation as his voice. “Please, tell me you can help him. Tell me how to fix this.”

  “I don’t have all of the answers,” she began, but he cut her off.

  “I’ll try anything,” he blazed. “Anything at all. Earlier, I thought I saw –“

  He stopped abruptly, shaking his head as if to rid it of images he didn’t want.

  “You thought you saw what?” Selina asked.

  He dropped his hold on her.

  “Nothing, I just – I’m tired. It must be the exhaustion. Timothy hardly sleeps, and I don’t like to leave him alone when he’s upset.”

  This time Selina closed the distance between them, her hand reaching up to touch the corded muscles of his forearm.

  “What did you see, Philip?” she demanded.

  He lowered his head, staring unseeing into the fire. He didn’t speak for an age, and Selina’s heart thumped painfully as she waited.

  “You’ll think I’m insane,” he said hoarsely.

  “I’m positive that I won’t,” she responded without hesitation.

  Finally, he looked up at her. Fear and confusion stamped across his face.

  “I thought I saw Charlotte’s face,” he mumbled. “I thought – when Timothy was sitting there. When I was holding him.”