Mad for the Marquess

by Jess Russell

  “Well, I am Mrs. Coates, matron at Ballencrieff. Hobbs did not meet you?”

  She shook her head. “Once I determined the direction, it was not far.”

  “In this weather? Useless boy. Couldn’t find a rock in a quarry, that one. Or lock the door, apparently.” Mrs. Coates sucked her teeth and signaled to one of the lingering women to go and secure the door. “I am sorry for your introduction to the place, but I’m afraid I cannot say this scene, or the weather for that matter, is all that out of the ordinary. Though, I am pleased to know you are not squeamish. The last girl from Ardsmoore was a hopeless ninny. Spouting Bible verses with her every breath, afraid of her shadow.”

  Mrs. Coates seemed more concerned with Anne’s comfort than censuring her for unseemly behavior. But then, the matron had not been inside her body and could not know its turmoil.

  Lord Austin coughed.

  “Oh, excuse me, your lordship, I am forgetting my manners. May I present Miss Winton?” Mrs. Coates nodded to her. “She is come to be a general companion to Lady Tippit and Mrs. Nester.”

  “Miss Winton.” He nodded. “I must apologize for my brother. Despite Mrs. Coates’s assertions, he is not usually so…charged.”

  She curtsied. “Lord Austin.”

  “He did not hurt you, did he?”

  “No, my lord—that is, I—no, he did not.”

  “If you will excuse us, sir.” Mrs. Coates snapped closed the watch on her chatelaine. “I am short staffed what with poor Major Cummings”—she shook her head—“I must make sure every patient is accounted for and then deal with the marquess’ room.”

  “Mrs. Coates.” Lord Austin released a heavy sigh. “I would like to see my brother’s room now.”

  The matron looked toward the gallery, then at the floor, and back to Lord Austin. “Your lordship, sir, there is a great deal of…damage. If you will give me an hour, I can get someone to clear up the worst of it.”

  Having no wish to sit about mulling her shame, or worse, imagining Lord Devlin’s near-kiss, she ventured to speak. “Mrs. Coates.” A long loop of hair grazed her cheek. It must have escaped when Lord Devlin’s fingers wove their way into it. Ignoring another flush staining her already heated cheeks, she straightened her bonnet and pushed the lock behind her ear. “Perhaps, if you have no need of me, I might assist with the cleaning?” The older woman shook her head, but Anne pressed on. “I would like to be of service, ma’am. I know this kind of labor will not be part of my regular duties, but I assure you I am used to all manner of work and would be up for the task.”

  Once again the matron sucked her teeth. “Well, if Lord Austin is agreeable, then I suppose I will not look a gift horse in the mouth.” The frazzled woman turned to his lordship.

  His gaze raked over her, and she resisted the urge to stand taller than her scant five feet. “She will do very well, Mrs. Coates.” He nodded. “Thank you, Miss Winton.”

  “I will have Esther bring water and such as soon as I can calm the girl.” Mrs. Coates spied Anne’s bags beside the now closed door. “Is that all you brought?”

  Anne nodded and went to retrieve them.

  “Do not bother yourself. I will see they get to your room. Eventually,” she muttered.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” She slipped the soiled handkerchief into her pocket and turned to Lord Austin. “Then I am ready, sir.”

  His long strides had her picking her skirts up nearly to her knees to keep pace as he ascended the far staircase.

  “Sir.” He did not stop. “Lord Austin!”

  He turned impatiently and she almost collided with him. “What is it?”

  “I believe the marquess, your brother, might have a weapon.” She swallowed. “Will he be punished for that?”

  “A weapon?” He glowered. “Impossible.” He started back up the stairs.

  “I felt it.”

  He wheeled on her. “You felt it? Where?”

  “I believe he had something hidden underneath his…fall.”

  Lord Austin frowned, shook his head, and then laughed. “Miss Winton, you are truly an innocent.”

  “I am not afraid. I am only concerned for others. And for him, the marquess.”

  The man swiped at his eyes as if trying to school his features. “You should be afraid, Miss Winton. What you perceived is a weapon—one Dev is all too adept at using—but it will not kill.” He turned away, shaking his head. “Perhaps slay, a la petit mort, but not kill.”

  Little death? Her rudimentary French did not help. “I am not used to riddles, sir. I am afraid I do not understand.”

  “No. Better you don’t, Miss Winton. Much better you don’t.”

  He continued leading her through a warren of passages, rooms, and staircases. She pressed a hand over the stitch in her side. They must be at the very top of the house. A massive door stood partially open at the end of a long hallway.

  As they drew nearer, the beautifully carved wood shone with a patina honed over years of regular oiling. However, an incongruous, heavy-looking bolt bisected the door, an, just at eye level, a crude hatch had been cut into the wood. As Lord Austin pushed wide the larger door, the smaller hatch swung open revealing a grill of thick, black bars.

  She released her aching side and took a deep breath. The room she was about to enter was no common chamber tucked away in an ancient Scottish castle. For all her fanciful, romantic flutterings, this was a cell for a madman.

  His lordship stepped over the threshold, ignoring a huge rat that lapped at a bowl of spilled gruel. Anne covered her mouth, lunging back as the vermin scuttled down the hallway.

  “Merciful God.” Lord Austin had stopped just inside the room. “Perhaps you should leave, Miss Winton. I can manage well enough on my own.”

  His wide shoulders blocked her view, but she would not shirk her duty. “I am not afraid.” Not precisely the truth, but she needed to get used to this new world. And quickly.

  Her calm outward manner must have convinced him. He stepped aside and gestured her forward.

  Oh, dear Lord.

  “It is his blood,” she whispered.

  Chapter Two

  The chamber’s walls had been used as a huge canvas. Black coal leapt out against the stark white, punctuated with wild swipes of brownish-red. Even the ceiling had not escaped Lord Devlin’s artistry.

  Anne spun round, trying to take it all in. It seemed to be a full-length self-portrait, but the body was dismembered. His head—the face quite beautifully drawn—had huge horns. The skin at the hairline was flayed back, held by tiny demons, exposing twisted coils of what must be the brain. The arms were spread wide, very like the crucified Lord, only they were slashed open, showing bone and muscle. His chest was cracked wide to reveal a blackened, bloody heart.

  Just to the left of this last painting was what looked to be a tower painted entirely in the brown-red color. It leaned as if about to fall, its peaked roof spewing a fountain of black. Situated in the middle of two low lying hills—no… Legs? Part of his body? But it was far too big and too… This could not possibly be—

  Her gaze shot to Lord Austin.

  Sure enough, he had been watching for her reaction, but blessedly, he turned away to move farther into the room.

  Inhaling sharply, she spun away as well, her mouth gaping like a simpleton.

  Clamping her lips shut, she stole another look at the “tower.” Not a total innocent, she knew what the male anatomy looked like. Alison Pierce had received a book on Greek myths from her aunt one Christmas. Always on the periphery, Anne had just managed a peek over the shoulders of the other girls when, drawn by the brouhaha, Mrs. Abbot had swooped in declaring it to be “Heathen trash,” and took the book away. But not before Anne had gotten a glimpse of the utterly nude Apollo.

  The golden-haired god had filled her dreams both day and night. But in the book his member had been small, a few inches at most. And it hung limply against the sack behind. Nothing as large as the weapon-like thing that had pressed hard a
nd heavy against her belly.

  “Dev is a genius, really,” Lord Austin’s voice startled her. “A sort of Leonardo da Vinci, if you will. Ran off to study anatomy with Barton Wainwright, mostly to learn musculature, but I suspect he relished the thrill of poaching the bodies just as much as the actual science.” Lord Austin traced one of the painted arms. “If he weren’t heir to the Malvern duchy, my brother would have made a very fine surgeon…” He tilted his head upward.

  An angel hovered over them, its wings spanning more than half the ceiling. Though Lord Devlin’s palette of color was obviously limited, she would swear this Lucifer had golden hair and a face very like that of Lord Austin. It also had horns and a forked, snake-like tongue. The perspective so keen, she would swear that tongue could lap her up in a trice. Where the other images were fascinatingly gruesome, this devil-angel made her flesh crawl.

  “Da Vinci, however, had discipline. My brother possesses many gifts, but self-control is not one of them.” Lord Austin’s smile never reached his eyes. “Still, he should not be shut up like this. Our father is not…a liberal thinker,” he said with a shrug and then bent to inspect something under the bed.

  At one time this room must have been quite lovely. But it had been stripped down to nothing. Only the beautifully inlaid floor and a few moldings remained of its former opulence. Even the fireplace, where he must have fished for his coal, was walled off by ugly iron bars.

  A huge chair stood away from the wall, looking as if it had been unearthed from a medieval torture chamber. Against its back, at the head, chest and waist, leather straps lay in U-shapes, their ends disappearing through slots where they must be cinched. The chair’s legs were bolted to the floor, and heavy chains ending in iron and leather manacles lay pooled there. Chains and manacles also dangled from its age-blackened arms. Arms that were stained with whitish crusts—old food? And then darker spots…

  “They will not bleed him? Will they?”

  Lord Austin straightened from kneeling by the cot. “Honestly, I do not know, but I would think he has done a right job of that himself.”

  A knock at the door startled her. When had his lordship closed it?

  He went to answer. “Just leave everything outside in the hall, Esther. Miss Winton will fetch it later. You may go now.”

  The door closed again.

  She had never been alone with a man, never mind such a well-favored one. Still, she wished he had left it open.

  “I am impressed, Miss Winton. I confess I was not sure you were up to this task.”

  She said nothing as he took stock of her.

  “You were at Ardsmoore?”

  Panic, slick as a silver fish, darted in her belly. How much more did he know? She nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “Five and ten years, my lord.”

  “You must have arrived as quite a young girl?”

  “I am not yet twenty, sir.”

  “Ah. I have not been to that particular school, but if it is anything like its boys’ equivalent, Ackermoore, then you are to be pitied. I am afraid your lot has not improved by coming to Ballencrieff.”

  Terrible images crowded her head. Madge Barrow frothing at the mouth, raising up and pointing an accusing finger. The horror in Headmistress Abbot’s eyes, and finally, Mr. Harlow’s shock as he pulled Anne away. All a carefully orchestrated act wrought by a jealous girl. But one that had nearly ruined Anne’s life.

  She swallowed. Ardsmoore was behind her.

  “I am hoping to be of service, sir.” Simple words that could never convey her need to make this place a home.

  “Hmm… Yes. You might very well be, Miss Winton. You might very well be.”

  She held his gaze. His blue eyes were beautiful, but they left her cold. So different from his brother’s warm pewter.

  “Well, I must leave you. I am going to try to see my brother before catching the train back to London. I presume you will be well enough on your own? There is a proper ladder outside and plenty of water and lye soap.”

  She nodded and then remembered to curtsy.

  “Welcome to Ballencrieff, Miss Winton.”

  Lord Austin’s footfalls sounded farther and farther down the hall until all was silent.

  The tiny devils’ mouths, open in frozen screams, mocked the utter quiet. At Ardsmoore there was never such cold, empty silence. In chapel, Marion Peebles wheezed, Agnes Bromley constantly fidgeted with the pages of her Bible, and any number of girls could be heard sniffling and coughing.

  Even the wind had stilled now. This was how death would be. Heavy and palpable.

  Enough. She untied her bonnet and then stripped off her cloak and threw it over the gruesome chair.

  Lucifer would go first. He hovered above her, his hideous tongue just waiting for her to put a foot wrong so he might lap her up. Good thing he had not been in the great hall when she’d arrived…

  After situating the ladder and the various buckets and brushes, she found herself drawn to that dark red column—a man’s sex. How could it grow so big? So hard? Lord Austin did not dispute it as a weapon. She touched her belly, where it had pressed against her. Closing her eyes, she tasted her lips.

  ****

  Red against white. Blood red against pure white.

  The contrast of color beat like wings against his brain.

  Red—white—red—white—red—

  Dev could not feel his body. The devils had his head. They pricked him in his throat, behind his eyes, even his gums. They whispered in that deep red color on his chalk-white brain. He would scrape them off just as he used his palette knife to clean a bit of canvas, but he could not feel his arms.

  Ah, the strait-waistcoat again.

  Even without the confining vise, he did not think he possessed the energy to raise an eyebrow, much less a limb.

  They must have dosed him again. The devils always came in droves when he was given the stuff. Poison, he was sure.

  The small room was familiar—and the smell. So thick with dank must you could carve it off the walls. He had been here before. Many times. But what had he done this day?

  Blood, the devil whispered.

  He shook his head trying to knock the word from his mind.

  Blood, it whispered louder.

  “Blood,” he echoed, now taking it in. Now understanding. His blood against her pale, calm cheek. Her perfectly winged brows streaked with red. And the eyes beneath those brows that spoke so clearly of awe and mercy. He inhaled sharply.

  The girl.

  He had wanted to kiss her.

  Seeing that innocent warmth in her eyes, he had wanted it for his own. He had wanted to steal it from her and push it deep within so it might kill the cold, blank emptiness inside him.

  He had blighted that pure creature with his vileness. Shock had come over her face when he had pressed against her, but it had not diminished its openness, or the hope that lay behind her deep sable eyes.

  And, merciful God, she had wanted to kiss him back.

  He shivered despite the strait-waistcoat swaddling him from chin to cock. The freezing dunking pool had taken care of his erection. Jesu, he must be truly mad to have got so stirred over such a mouse of a girl. No, more like an owl, shrouded in her dull brown cloak. Small mouth. Pointed chin. Huge, luminous eyes. A common brown owl had his cock stiff as a pike. Yes, I must be mad.

  “I hope to God at least the bloody moon is full.”

  The voice out of nowhere startled him, yet it seemed familiar. The moon?

  “Why?”

  The word jolted him. He squeezed his eyes shut, wanting to block it out. Wishing to think instead of a small, warm, feathered owl, her wings softly fluttering against him.

  “Devlin. Dev, look at me.”

  The sound persisted no matter how hard he tried to snuff it out. The warped voice focused itself into a face. The face of his brother, Austin.

  “Why did you do it?”

  His brother’s features shifted with his words, fl
oating like feathers in the air. He could not catch them. Could not pull them into his brain to make them into sense. Do what? He knew better than to answer before knowing the game.

  “I don’t know why I bother. Honestly.” His brother’s hands dug through golden blond curls. The hair sprang back to angelic perfection. “I thought we had begun to make some progress.” Austin wheeled and began another circuit of the small cell.

  Dev closed his eyes to make the world stop spinning.

  “Cost me five pounds to Macready this time. I swear I’ll end a pauper at the rate you are going.”

  Something touched the place below his pounding head. The devils moved though his body now, a heap of limbs cobbled together by the heavy linen of a lunatic’s waistcoat. His hands prickled wanting to defend himself, but he couldn’t make them move.

  “Be easy, Dev.”

  Warm breath fluttered against his cheek. A cloth swiped his chin. A bitter taste on his tongue. His breakfast. Macready at work again. No wonder he felt so muddled.

  He opened his eyes to his brother’s frowning face. “Poison.” He tried to form the word clearly.

  But Austin only shook his head, his attention now on Dev’s belly. He followed his brother’s gaze. Red seeped through the stiff waistcoat. Blood.

  Images began to fall into place. Last night the moon had tormented him with its brilliance as it moved freely against the sky. He had broken the window pane to smother it, to squeeze it between his fingers and crush its luminous light. But he could not reach so far. The moon-face still hung to mock him and his bleeding hands.

  “You did not do this to yourself because of Major Cummings, did you?”

  Red pain flared. He reared away from it, cracking his head against the stone wall. Not now. Please don’t make him think of that. He shook his head despite the pain.

  “Good. It is well you do not dwell on what cannot be undone.” Austin stood. “I must get back to Father now.”

  Father? Austin was leaving? But he had just arrived. Dev reached out, but he had no arms. They lay locked and bloody against his roiling stomach. He smashed his head again.