“Oh, Lord,” Delia said before her husband got even more surly with his brother. “Are all the Corry brothers such rascals as you two?”
“Not Stephen,” they said in unison.
Then they both laughed.
Curious to learn anything she could about her husband’s family, she took a seat on the settee and asked, “Why not Lord Stephen? He’s the one who married Mr. Keane’s sister and moved to America, right?”
“That’s the one,” Warren said.
“Our youngest brother takes after our mother,” Hart explained as he sat down across from her. “Whereas Warren and I take after . . . I don’t know. Not Father, to be sure.”
Warren snorted. “I imagine it’s some ne’er-do-well far back in the family line.”
“Either that or it has nothing to do with blood,” Hart pointed out. “Father merely spoiled us for stuffy pillars of virtue so much that we went the other way out of spite.”
“Could be.” Warren poured himself a glass of brandy from the decanter kept on the side table, then lifted the glass with a glance at his brother. “Want some?”
“I’ll wait for your butler to bring the good brandy,” Hart said with a grin.
“You know damned well I have nothing but good brandy.” Warren took a sip.
“Ah, but the ‘best’ is the best, which means nothing else will do.”
Before they started sparring again, she wanted to hear more of their family. “So, how exactly does Stephen take after your mother? Is he Methodist, too?”
“God, no,” Hart said. “But he’s reform-minded like her. Always intent upon feeding the poor, healing the sick, providing clothes for little mill-worker children.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” she said.
“It is when Stephen does it,” Warren said genially. “He doesn’t offer his charity with a strong dose of religion, the way our mother did.”
“Yes, I can see why that wouldn’t sit well with you,” she teased. “Given your choice of enjoyments.”
“All of which I’ve given up, now that I’ve married.”
“Surely not all,” his brother put in. “You’re still drinking fine brandy, I see.”
“And going to his club for half the night,” Delia added.
Hart eyed his brother. “That’s only because Warren hates the darkness. He needs lots of light and activity around him.”
“Enough, Hart,” Warren said with a warning glance.
“What? Have you not told her about Mr. Pickering and the cellar?”
She ignored Warren’s muttered oath. “Who is Mr. Pickering?”
“Who was Mr. Pickering,” Hart said. “I heard he’s dead now, the bastard. When we were boys he was our Methodist tutor, stricter even than Mother. ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child,’ and all that rot.”
“No worse than what we got at Eton,” Warren said. “Remember old Chilton?”
“The cellar,” Delia prompted, determined not to let Warren change the subject. “What happened there?”
“Can’t believe he hasn’t told you this.” Hart settled back against his chair. “One time, when Warren was nine and the rest of us were at our grandmother’s while Mother was away in London, Pickering locked Warren up in an old unused cellar to try to, as he liked to put it, ‘purge the wickedness from him.’ ”
“It didn’t work,” Warren clipped out. “And this is a wholly inappropriate subject.”
“I don’t see why,” Delia said hotly. “I’m your wife.”
“And if anyone should hear such things,” Hart said, “it’s one’s wife, don’t you think, brother?”
Warren’s glare spoke volumes.
Delia turned to Hart. “How long was he in the cellar?”
When Hart hesitated, Warren took a long swig of brandy, then said tersely, “Five days.”
He wouldn’t look at her. Which was just as well, or he might have seen the abject shock on her face. Delia could hardly breathe for thinking of the nine-year-old boy locked in a cellar for days. Alone. In the dark.
Oh, Lord, the nightmares! Of course. It all made sense now.
“What about your father?” she asked. “Didn’t he put a stop to it?”
“He was in London with Mother,” Hart said. “Though I doubt he would have even known if he’d been there, much less done anything. He wasn’t what you’d call the coddling type.”
“So he was Methodist, too?”
“No,” Warren said, his face carved in stone. “Just a cold fish in general.”
“Then what about the servants?” she asked. “Why didn’t they protest it?”
Warren poured himself more brandy. “Pickering told them I’d changed my mind and wanted to go with my brothers to my grandmother’s, and that he’d walked me over to the village and sent me off by coach to her house. They took him at his word.”
“Of course they did!” Delia said. “Methodists aren’t supposed to lie.”
“None of us are supposed to lie,” Hart put in, “but we all do.”
“Ah, but I have a Wesleyan servant,” Delia said, “and he takes that stricture about not lying very seriously. The fact that this man lied to cover up such horrible behavior shows that he knew what he was doing was wrong.”
Hart nodded. “Pickering was an arse, always disapproving whenever we boys got away with mischief. Since he knew he’d have Warren to himself a whole week, he decided it was his chance to set my rebellious brother straight once and for all. Pickering stuffed Warren in the cellar and brought him food and drink, but that was about it. Only left him enough oil for the Argand lamp to last a couple of hours each day, and after that . . .”
“Total darkness,” she whispered, pity swelling up in her for her poor husband.
“I think he meant to keep him there the whole week,” Hart went on, “but Warren stepped on the Argand lamp in the dark and broke it, gashing his leg in the process.”
Ah, yes, his scar. Oh, Lord, how awful. “How did you step on a lamp?” she asked her husband.
Warren downed some brandy. “I was trying to stomp on the rats.”
“Rats! The devil you say!” Her heart could scarcely bear the thought.
“I never knew that,” Hart said. “I always wondered how you managed to break that lamp by stepping on it.” He turned back to her. “Anyway, that put an end to the cellar treatment. Pickering had to let him out.”
“So my leg could be treated,” Warren said dully.
Hart shot his brother a look of sympathy. “Pickering was the sort of fellow more focused on the hatred of wickedness and less on the good works taught by the Methodists. Mother was badly mistaken in his character.”
“Was she?” Warren snapped. “Or did she just not care, as long as her minion succeeded in getting the heir to toe the line?”
“Your mother sanctioned the punishment?” Delia asked.
“Of course not,” Hart said. “She was appalled when she learned of it. Dismissed Pickering straightaway.”
Turning to face the fireplace, Warren took a large gulp of brandy but said nothing in response. Apparently he blamed his mother still. Not that Delia was surprised, given how the woman’s neglect had doomed him to a lifetime of nightmares.
Just then, a footman came in bearing the brandy Warren had asked for, along with food and a bottle of wine.
The three of them fell silent while the servant set everything out. But as soon as the man had gone, Hart went to pour himself some of the “good” brandy. “Anyway, Warren used to have awful nightmares about his time in the cellar. Fortunately, he grew out of those as he got older.”
Her husband froze with his back to her.
“Did he?” Somehow she managed to speak past the tears clogging her throat. “That’s good, at least.”
Warren jerked his head around to meet her gaze, a flush rising up his cheeks as his eyes bore into hers.
“They were horrible,” Hart said. “He used to keep everyone in the nursery up at night with his thr
ashing about and his screams.”
She couldn’t take her eyes from her husband. “Then I’m glad to hear he got over them. I’d hate to think of him suffering so for all his life.”
Was that gratitude she saw flash in Warren’s eyes?
It broke her heart. Could he really think she would betray his secret? Because clearly he’d been hiding his ongoing nightmares from his family.
He probably would have hidden them from her, too, if she hadn’t accidentally witnessed one. God forbid that he let anyone see anything he would regard as a weakness. Even his wife.
“Anyway,” Warren said with clearly feigned nonchalance, “that is all far in the past, and frankly, rather boring.” He set down his glass. “So, Hart, what do you say? Shall we go paint the town red as we used to in the old days?”
Hart glanced from Warren to her and seemed belatedly to recognize the undercurrents between her and his brother. “That was before you were married, old chap. Now that you are, I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from your beautiful bride. Especially a mere day and a half after the wedding.”
With a faint smile for her, Hart picked up the brandy bottle. “Besides, I just got off a transport ship after weeks at sea, and I’m exhausted. I never sleep well on those things. So I shall take myself and your fine brandy off to my usual room and my usual comfy bed and let you get on with your evening.” He bowed to her. “Lovely to meet you, Lady Knightford.”
“Lovely to meet you, too, Captain Lord Hartley. I’m so glad to get to know one of Warren’s brothers.” And to get to the bottom of the issue with the nightmares.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, and winked.
Then he sauntered out, leaving her alone with her husband.
Twenty-Two
Warren couldn’t look at his wife, couldn’t bear to see the pity on her face. Or worse, contempt.
Damn Hart for coming here now. For telling her his most shameful secret. For letting her know what a bloody madman he was.
At least she’d kept the truth from his brother—that the nightmares were still plaguing him. And that had to mean she was on his side. That she would defend him even when he hadn’t trusted her with his secrets.
He heard the settee creak as she rose. And still he wouldn’t look at her, couldn’t look at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly.
“It’s not something I’m proud of,” he clipped out.
“What? Misbehaving as a boy? Being locked in a cellar?”
The incredulity in her voice gave him pause. He drained his brandy, relishing the hard burn. “Having nightmares over it at this advanced age.”
“You can’t possibly blame yourself for that.”
The sweet sympathy in her voice both warmed and terrified him. “Can’t I? Lords aren’t supposed to be afraid of the dark.”
“And young ladies aren’t supposed to go gambling in hells dressed as men, either. Yet I did.”
“It’s not the same.”
She came to stand between him and the fireplace, forcing him to look at her. “You mean, because I was merely a miss and you’re a marquess.”
“No. It’s not the same because you acted as you did to help your family. Whereas I have nightmares simply because I’m afraid of the dark. And the quiet. And of being alone in the dark and the quiet.”
There, he’d spelled it out for her. Let her make of it what she would.
Yet she didn’t even flinch. “I’m not surprised. Five days is a long time for a child to be trapped in a cellar. And at the age you were, children are very impressionable, very fearful. I’d think it odd if you hadn’t been profoundly affected by the experience.”
“But I’m not a child anymore, damn it! I should be able to conquer this!”
“Some things are harder to conquer than others. I still haven’t conquered my fear that I’ll lose my home and everything I hold dear. That anything, even risking my reputation in society, is better than being forced to move yet again to a new town, a new country . . . a new house.”
The thread of pain in her voice hit him like a cold pail of water. It hadn’t occurred to him that a fear of loss might be behind her recklessness. It made him admire her all the more.
“But you have conquered your fear, don’t you see?” he said. “Thanks to me and my nightmares, you were wrenched from your cozy life in the country and set down here to live with a madman, yet—”
“Not a madman,” she interrupted. “And you were never the cause of my being ‘wrenched’ from my ‘cozy life.’ That happened long before you came along, because of Reynold and his gambling. If not for you, Brilliana and Silas and I would soon be living in some cottage, trying to make ends meet.”
“My point is, one way or the other, you’ve made the best of your change of circumstances, despite what it took from you. Whereas I am—”
“Fighting your fears.” She stepped closer. “Or trying to manage them, anyway. I gather that your nights out in town are your way of avoiding the bad dreams.”
He gave a jerky nod. She saw too much. Yet too little.
“Tell me about them.”
A chill swept him. “The nightmares?”
“Yes. How often do you have them? Does anything in particular make them occur? How have you tried to prevent them, other than by flitting about town all hours?”
He dragged one hand through his hair. Leave it to his stalwart wife to attempt to solve the problem in a practical way, to seek to dissect it and thus understand it. But he’d done that a thousand times and never found answers that gave him any relief.
A footman knocked at the open door, and they both started.
“Is there anything else you need, milord?” the man asked. “Shall I bring more wine or food?”
Delia glanced at Warren, then said in a lowered voice, “I think we should continue this discussion in more private surroundings, don’t you?”
“Probably.” And once he had her alone in one of their bedchambers, he might be able to distract her from probing further by seducing her.
She turned to the footman with a smile. “No need for anything else, Thomas. Neither of us is very hungry, after all. I believe we’ll be retiring now.”
“Retiring?” Thomas squeaked, having never seen his master go to bed before dawn. Then he seemed to realize that his master had also never before had a pretty wife, and turned beet-red.
“Yes, retiring,” Warren said dryly. “At least for the moment. So that will be all this evening, Thomas. And you may tell my valet—and the maid who’s been helping her ladyship dress—that we won’t require their services any further tonight, either.”
“Very good, milord,” the footman mumbled as he hurried to remove the tray and flee the scene of his embarrassment.
Warren and Delia climbed the stairs in silence, both painfully aware of the fact that the walls had ears. Especially his walls. The lone servant who’d witnessed one of his hellish dreams had quit the next day, but Warren assumed that rumors swirled among the staff about why he avoided sleeping at home except during daylight hours.
Upstairs he opened the door to her bedchamber and ushered her inside, then shut it and took her in his arms before she could jump back into discussing his nightmares.
To his relief, she met his kiss with her usual enthusiasm. But that relief rapidly vanished when she pushed free of his arms and went over to the bed to pick up Flossie, who was dozing there.
“You’re not going to kiss me out of this, Warren,” she said, clutching the cat to her chest like a breastplate. “I want to know all about your dreams.”
“And if I don’t want to talk about them?”
She tipped up her chin. “Then I suppose I’ll have to glean what I can from quizzing your brother about what he remembers.”
Bloody persistent female. “Blackmail doesn’t become you, Delia,” he snapped.
“Evasion doesn’t become you, my darling.”
The endearment caught him off guard.
Made him realize that somewhere down deep, he wanted to tell her. To unburden himself to someone who might not recoil.
Though if she did, he wasn’t sure how he’d bear it.
“Fine.” He released a harsh breath. “But if I’d realized you were going to insist upon continuing this discussion, I wouldn’t have left the brandy behind.”
She gazed at him steadily. “Shall I call for some?”
A smile tugged at his lips, despite everything. “You’re supposed to be chiding me for drinking it, luv. Not offering to fetch me more.”
“You don’t play by the rules, either, so there’s no need for you to play the stoic lord in this. Not with me, anyway.” She settled herself on the bed, with Flossie in her arms. “So tell me about the nightmares. I take it that despite what your brother thinks, you’ve still been having them all these years?”
“Only when I go to bed in the evening, like a normal person.” He began to pace.
“When did they start?”
“The night after I was taken from the cellar. After I’d had two or three a week for months, Mother decided the best thing was to pack me off to school instead of having me tutored at home. She figured it would teach me to . . . buck up and be a man.”
“She just packed you off for someone else to take care of?” Delia said incredulously.
“Essentially, yes.” He’d never thought of it like that before, but he supposed that was one way of looking at it. “Actually, her solution turned out better than you’d think. At Eton, students generally sleep in a long chamber with dozens of others, unless one’s parents pay for one to have a private room and special privileges in some house in the village. Given my rank, I wouldn’t normally have been put in the long chamber.”
He gave a rueful shake of his head. “But thanks to Mother’s determination to teach us that we were like all our fellow creatures—godless heathens in need of redemption—I wasn’t afforded any special privileges or private rooms. And that worked to my advantage.”
“Because you weren’t alone at night.”
“Not only that, but I was surrounded by lads who rarely slept or who snored or who were always getting up to some trouble. Between the whispers and the pranks and the usual boyish nonsense, there was generally enough activity about me to keep the nightmares at bay. That was true at university, too.”
The Danger of Desire Page 23