All the while, Olivia had simply sat on her side of the carriage with the babe in her arms, silently staring at the passing scenery. He’d attempted to talk to her, to ask her what had happened and who had done this to her. Yet, she would not answer him—seemed incapable of even looking at him. She’d responded only to the babe, the sound of its mewling cries drawing her out of her reverie. As if some deeply ingrained part of her recognized it as being her own and urged her to care for it no matter her own state. She would hold the infant to her breast to feed, and ensure its swaddling remained clean and tightly wrapped. Aside from that, she was unresponsive, driving Adam deeper and deeper into the doldrums of despair with each passing day upon the road.
Getting her home would fix things; it had to. Surrounded by her familiar home, with him there … and Niall … yes, Niall, who loved her. He would help Adam bring her back. It could not be too late to bring her back.
Yet, as he rushed up the front steps into the warm house, his hair and clothing dripping all over the tiles, something inside of him fractured. It tore to shreds and sank into his gut, landing there with all the weight of a cold stone.
It was the realization that Olivia would never be the same again.
Servants seemed to rush at him out of nowhere—maids in white aprons and mobcaps, footmen in livery, Niall with his scarred face twisted in a mask of horror and concern. None of them seemed able to believe what they saw any better than he could. They’d known her as a vibrant soul—not this limp, lifeless thing in his hold.
For a long moment, they all stared, eyes wide, mouths hanging open. One maid burst into tears, sobbing noisily into her hands. They all seemed locked in some sort of thrall—despite the fact that he’d sent word ahead to ensure the household would be ready for his return. Here they all stood, as expected, watching and waiting.
For the earl to command them, to spur them into actions. He was now the earl. He was now Hartmoor.
The squalling of the infant resting in the hold of the servant who had entered behind him seemed to break the spell, and all at once, the vestibule descended into chaos. Servants bustled about, mentions of tea and hot baths mingling with an order for the newly hired nurse to be sent for.
The sudden movement and sound helped him to snap out of it, and as the woman he’d been told was the best nurse in Edinburg stepped forward to take charge of the babe, Adam strode to the stairs with his sister, following the cluster of maids rushing up ahead of him. The heavy footfalls behind him proclaimed Niall’s nearness, a welcome development. While his job was to tend the horses, Adam would not have wanted him anywhere else. He hoped that Olivia would want him near, too, that knowing she was surrounded by the people who loved her would help ease the strain of whatever she’d endured.
They reached the second landing, and he found maids already beginning to fill a copper tub using buckets of steaming water. Two others moved about preparing linens and clean garments. He set her on her feet as best he could, keeping his arms around her to steady her as more maids descended on them, plucking her from his grasp and taking her into their midst.
A woman he recognized as the housekeeper approached him, hands folded before her, face fixed in a stern expression. “I know you wish to look after her, Master, but you’d best clear out now and let us tend her.”
He blinked, taken aback at being addressed in such a way.
Master.
That was him.
It would take a bit of getting used to.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he nodded. “Aye, then. Send for me the moment she is dressed and the physician had arrived.”
“Of course, Master,” she replied with a swift curtsy, before turning to join the other ladies in helping Olivia shed her damp layers.
He turned away and found Niall standing in the doorway, an expression of naked grief slashing across his hard face. He seemed unable to move, as devastated by her emaciated frame and haunted, blank stare as he was. Taking the man by the shoulder, Adam steered him from the room, closing the door to give Olivia her privacy.
Despite all that was being done to help both his sister and her babe, he felt utterly useless, unable to do anything other than stand about and wait. It was driving him mad, when he was used to acting, taking charge of every situation. One aspect of the earldom he found himself already prepared for.
With a frustrated grunt, he turned and fled, trotting back down the stairs in search of a drawing room with a stocked sideboard.
“Adam!”
Niall’s voice called out to him, the other man’s heavy tread on the stairs telling him he’d been followed. He balled a hand into a fist as he used the other to push open the nearest door, relieved to find three filled decanters on a sideboard near the hearth. Striding toward it, he took up the first one his hand fell on and unstopped it, filling a tumbler to brimming with a shaking hand.
“Adam,” Niall called again, lingering in the doorway.
Shaking his head, he took half the liquor in one swallow, wincing at the sting as it went down. He needed to dull his senses, to take the edge off the white-hot anger making him tremble from head to toe. He felt as if he itched from the inside, the sensation deep and visceral—something he could not reach with his bare hands. He wanted to pound his fists against the wall and tear the house down to his foundation, to rip at his skin until he could reach that place inside of him, the place where the rage and grief twisted about inside him like a jumble of snakes.
He needed to make it stop.
Finishing off the rest of his brandy, he poured another measure, his hands steadier now. After taking another healthy swallow, he sighed, finding the edge only slightly taken off his torrential emotions. It was enough that he could think past the roaring in his ears.
“Hartmoor!” Niall bellowed, seeming to have grown impatient waiting for him to respond.
He glared at the groom … a man he’d befriended as a lad, when Niall had only been a stable boy. He’d loved Olivia then, just as he did now, and would be sure to want the blood of Bertram Fairchild just as much as Adam did.
“Do not call me that,” he snapped.
“That is who ye are now,” Niall countered, folding his arms over his chest. “The Earl-of-Fucking-Hartmoor. So, tell me, Master … who did this to her, and what are ye going to do about it?”
Shaking his head again, he took another drink, dousing the flames in his belly and trying to resist the urge to strangle Niall for speaking to him this way. It would be hopeless, he knew. Niall was the only servant who could get away with treating him like an equal.
“Some bloke named Fairchild,” he growled, the very mention of the man’s name making him want to hurl his tumbler across the room and shatter it against the wall. “I know it was him … the child has his red hair, and half of London saw them together before … well, I am not entirely sure what happened, as she will not speak to me on the matter. She will not speak at all.”
He rested a hand over his face, breathing deep, blinking back the tears stinging his eyes. That was the most hurtful part of it all—that the girl who’d loved to laugh and chatter had gone stunningly silent. He might never hear her voice again.
Niall’s touch on his shoulder drew him out of his reverie, and he glanced up to find the other man staring at him, also with tears in his eyes. He brought a hand up to the back of Adam’s neck and held fast, commanding his attention and focus.
“The earl was a cold son of a bitch, but he didnae let anyone trifle with what was his,” he growled. “He’s gone, and now yer him. Yer the only one who can make it right. I’m just … I’m only …”
He trailed off, his voice cracking as he seemed to wrestle with himself, with his emotions.
Adam heard what Niall did not say. As a servant, a man on one of the lowest rungs of society, his hands were tied. He could not pursue a vendetta against the son of a lord … not unless he wanted to face the hangman’s noose.
Reaching up to mimic Niall’s actions, using
his free hand to clutch his friend, his brother, the only man of his age who seemed to understand him, he nodded. Determination focused all of his anger and grief, gave him a purpose outside of serving an earldom that meant nothing to him compared to the woman languishing upstairs.
“He will pay, Niall,” he promised. “I’ll take everything from him. When I’m finished, there won’t be a part of his life I haven’t touched and destroyed.”
The groom nodded, nostrils flaring and jaw clenching as if gripped with the same resolution as Adam. “I have your back, always.”
That, he knew without question. Wherever he went from here, whatever he did, Niall would help him see it done. More importantly, he would not judge Adam for the lengths he would be forced to sink to, the things he’d be forced to do in order to destroy the man who had destroyed his sister.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Within a few hours of their arrival at Dunvar House, the physician came to examine both Olivia and the babe while Adam and Niall paced the corridor. The man had seen to the baby girl first, declaring her to be in good health—nothing short of a miracle, given his sister’s condition. The nanny had brought her to him, placing the little bundle in his arms. He’d stared down at the girl and taken inventory of all the things marking her as the seed of Bertram Fairchild. The red hair. The large, blue eyes peering innocently up at him. The shape of her mouth.
The parts of Olivia he could see were overshadowed by the clear lineage of the man who had been courting her throughout the Season. How that had led to his pregnant sister being dumped in an asylum, he had not yet puzzled out. But he would.
When he did, Fairchild would wish he’d never laid eyes on Olivia.
He’d gazed upon the babe for a long while, prepared to feel hatred knowing where she’d come from. Yet, he could feel nothing but the same painful squeeze around his heart as when he looked at Olivia—loved intermingled with grief. This child was his niece, perhaps not by blood, but by a bond far stronger than that. He would protect her … he would not fail her as he had Olivia.
The nurse had taken the girl off to feed her, promising to take care of the babe as if it were her own. She’d asked Adam what to call her, and he’d been annoyed at not having an answer. However, he did not wish to give the babe a name if Olivia had already done so. Eventually, she would talk—she had to—and then, they would know her name.
After the doctor had slipped into Olivia’s room, they waited for what felt like hours. When the man finally emerged, a grim expression upon his long face, Adam felt the last of his hope crumbling away into dust.
“It is quite peculiar, m’laird,” the man said, adjusting the lapels of his coat. “Physically, there seems to be nothing wrong with her. She’s a bit thin, but a proper diet should have her back to a healthy weight. She appears to have recovered well from giving birth. However, her mind …”
Adam heard Niall’s sharp intake of breath, felt his own lungs beginning to burn as he waited for the diagnosis. It had to be something his Livvie could recover from. He refused to accept that she would never be the same.
“Perhaps … an asylum …” the physician stammered.
Before he could utter another word, Adam was on him, gripping the man’s lapels and lifting him clear off the floor. The doctor cried out, trembling when Adam slammed him against the nearest wall and pinned him there. His chest heaved with the fury he barely kept in check, tremors wracking him from how hard he fought not to rip the man’s head clean off his shoulders.
“Speak that word under this roof again, and I will rip out your tongue,” he growled. “In fact, you were never here … you never laid eyes on Olivia, and as far as you are concerned, the babe she birthed died before taking its first breath. Do you understand?”
The doctor nodded, quivering in Adam’s hold, his lower lip trembling. “Of course, m’laird. I’ll never breathe a word.”
“Good,” he muttered, lowering the man back to his feet.
The last thing he needed was for everyone in Edinburgh to know that his sister had gone mad … or that she’d birthed a child out of wedlock.
“Now, tell us what we can do for her,” he said, smoothing out the doctor’s lapels before stepping away and allowing him space to move away from the wall. “Anything … we will do it.”
The physician sighed, avoiding Adam’s gaze. “Disease of the mind is not well understood, m’laird. There are those who eventually find their way back … but most do not. Keep her comfortable, avoid setting her off if you can. As well … when she became agitated, I administered a small dose of laudanum. It seemed to calm her, and she is resting more easily now. Perhaps it might help.”
Adam nodded slowly, the man’s words tumbling about his mind in a jumble he could hardly understand. The doctor had given him hope and taken it away in one breath. There might be hope for his sister … there might not. The uncertainty of it all would drive him mad.
“Thank you, Doctor,” he said, his voice low and rough.
The man gave him a pitying glance and reached into his leather bag, coming out with a small bottle. “Here. Until you can send for some of your own.”
Finding the glass bottle half full of the sickly-sweet-smelling laudanum, he nodded his thanks. Niall ushered the man to the stairs, and he found his own way out, leaving the two of them alone in the corridor.
The door to Olivia’s room stood ajar, the stillness and silence broken suddenly by her soft voice. The low tone made her words unintelligible, but Adam’s eyes widened as he exchanged glances with Niall. As one, they ran for the door, Adam reaching it first and throwing it open with Niall hot on his heels.
Together, they rushed to the bed, where Olivia sat propped up by several pillows, the bedclothes resting around her waist. A white nightgown seemed to swallow her petite frame, and her hair had been brushed until it gleamed, hanging around her gaunt face. She stared off across the room with unfocused eyes, her lips moving and the soft wheeze of her voice coming from between them.
Her voice was so low, they had to lean close to hear her, each perched on either side of her on the bed, exchanging concerned glances as they tried to decipher her words.
“Just a taste …” she whispered, a soft sob following the words. “Just a taste, love …”
She lowered her head and sobbed some more, her slender shoulders trembling with a force that seemed too great for a body as small as hers.
He gritted his teeth as she realized what she was trying to tell him.
“Is that what he said to you?” he rasped, heat and rage rising in the back of his throat until he felt like he could spew flames. “The man who did this to you?”
She nodded slowly, glancing up to look at him through the curtain of her hair. “You weren’t there, Adam … you weren’t there, and I … I tried to fight, I tried …”
Tears pricked his eyes, and this time, he couldn’t hold them back, the hot droplets wetting his face, one splashing the back of his hand. “Livvie, you have to try to tell me. If this man … if he raped you …”
He could hardly get the words out, his stomach twisting and churning violently as he tried. It was one thing when he’d thought perhaps Fairchild had ruined her and simply failed to do the right thing afterward. But this …
“Just a taste, love,” she whispered again, with another sob. “Held me down … it hurt … it hurt so much, Adam. I screamed, I cried.”
Lowering his head, he tried to take in deep breaths, tried to calm himself. Across from him, Niall stared at the wall, fists trembling in his lap, jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as he seemed to fight for control, too.
“Who was it, butterfly?” he urged, needing to hear her say the words … to be absolutely certain that he would be targeting the right man when he set out for London. “Say his name, and I will make him pay.”
He pushed her hair back from her face and cupped her jaw, forcing her to look at him, willing her to take from him whatever strength she needed. Even if it were only enough for h
er to be able to say his name.
“B-Bertram,” she managed, squeezing her eyes shut as if trying to block out unpleasant memories. “Bertram Fairchild.”
Just as he’d suspected. So, the cur had not only lied to him, he’d defiled his sister and thrown her away in that wretched asylum, leaving her to languish away to nothing. Adam felt certain that Olivia would have died if he had not found her. And then, where would the newborn babe have ended up?
As if she’d read his mind, she gasped, looking about the room with wide eyes. “Where … where is she? Where’s my daughter?”
She began to cry again, clawing at him, trying to heave herself out of bed. He took hold of her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.
“She is here, Livvie … she is safe.”
She clung to him, trembling and sobbing and sniffling. “My Serena … don’t let them take her away.”
He frowned, trying to make sense of her addled words. “Serena. Is that her name? Who wants to take her away?”
“Fairchild,” she said between hiccups. “Not Bertram … the other one. They’ll hurt her, Adam … they’ll kill her! Don’t let them … don’t …”
He pulled her against him, holding her head to his chest and rocking her like he might a child. She stilled in his arms, sobbing into his shirt.
“I’ve got you, butterfly,” he whispered. “You and Serena are safe now. No one will hurt you ever again.”
Tipping her head back to look at him with eyes gone glassy from laudanum, she grinned, the motion a macabre slash across a ghostly face.
“Hart,” she whispered. “I remember.”
Hart: A Villainous Short Story Page 4