He’d laughed then, his heart as light as air. “Funny, I don’t feel cursed at the moment.”
A weak smile broke over her lips, fighting with a frown. She was not completely convinced. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks.
“The fire is your strength, what protects you when I cannot. Do not fear it, but embrace it, for it is part of your soul. You know how to use this gift, Miranda. Inside, you know.” When she released a shuddering sigh and gave a short nod, his hand tightened on the back of her neck and drew her near, need and lust rekindled just by holding her close. “Kiss me.” Set me afire again. And again.
Next to him, Miri gave another soft sigh. Pure lust shot through him as he watched her elegant back lift and fall. Even now, should he roll over and slip his hand down that sweeping curve, over the rounded tightness of her bottom, she would turn to him, her slim arms open, that luscious mouth soft in invitation.
Despite his personal vow to give her some rest, he found himself moving to touch her as he craved when the image of a young urchin knocking on his front door came sharply to mind. The boy handed Gilroy a small white box tied with a silver ribbon. For Lord Archer, guvnor. Cold, dark dread sucked Archer away from Miranda. He swung out of bed and headed for his dressing room, aware of each instance that his feet struck the floor, and of every hard beat of his heart. The world had caught up to them.
Gilroy greeted him with some surprise as Archer trotted down the stairs, his dressing robe snapping around his ankles. From somewhere to his right, he heard a sucked-in breath. One of the footmen. Archer had left off his mask, forgotten it entirely in his haste. Did it even matter anymore?
The innocent-looking box lay in Gilroy’s white-gloved hand. A silver ribbon wrapped round it. Christ.
His pulse pounded at the base of his neck as he drew near. “The box, if you please, Gilroy.”
His stomach lurched at the light weight of it, and the faint feeling of something sliding about within. A smell drifted up. Death and rot. Archer thought he might be sick.
He headed for his library, only vaguely aware that Gilroy followed. The ribbon slipped from his fingers twice. Finally, the lid lifted, and with it, the floor seemed to slide beneath him. Miranda’s fragile butterfly mask, spotted with dark blood, fluttered in his hand as he lifted it from the box, and then he spied what lay beneath. Shriveled and brown, one might think it a withered bloom. Merryweather’s ear. Pain sliced through him, white-hot like a brand to his heart. He stood for several moments simply trying to breathe through it, Gilroy’s knobby hand upon his shoulder, holding him steady. But the pain would not abate, nor the terror that made him want to scream. Because his time was up. He’d have to part from her. Miri. He sank to his knees, away from the box, and the card that fluttered to the floor, its message written in a simple scrawl.
—Cavern Hall. On the new moon.
Chapter Thirty
Tender and sore and very nearly exhausted, Miranda stretched luxuriantly along Archer’s bedroom couch with a sigh. She’d never felt better. Her skin tingled, her chest felt both tight and filled with a sense of largess, as though the world might fit inside her. Like a girl she giggled, turning her head toward the leather backing to feel its cool smoothness.
Archer had gone out with a newly hired security specialist. They were to survey the grounds for points of possible weakness, he claimed. Rather a bit of overkill at any rate, Miranda thought, as she and Archer were a far greater threat than any fence. For the first time in memory, she felt truly grateful for her power—her gift, as Archer called it. Her strength would protect them, and the rest they would solve together.
“It will be only a short while,” he had promised with a kiss.
“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish,” said a familiar, sharp voice.
Miranda whirled around to find Eula scowling at her.
“Here you are, stretched out like the cat that ate the cream, and His Majesty is sauntering about the house mask-less and whistling like a kettle.” Her mouth puckered as though filled with lemons.
“That is quite the number of eloquent metaphors, Eula,” Miranda retorted, too happy to spar even with her. “Have you more to heap upon my head? Or may I help you with something?”
Eula’s wrinkled face turned puce. “I have been taking care of him for the whole of my life. The whole of it. Seen the suffering that curse has caused him. And you two think one night of passion will solve everything.” Miranda sat up, surprise and outrage warring within her, but Eula’s puckered mouth broke into a wide grin, and she spoke over Miranda’s sputtered protest. “Package for you, madam.”
A rectangular package sailed from Eula’s hand and slapped lightly upon Miranda’s thighs. The knowing look upon Eula’s face as she left the room caused Miranda’s heart to trip as she curled her legs up before her and ripped open the box.
A calling card slipped out. One that she recognized with a flush of irritation. He’d left a note on the back, scrawled in his slanted hand.
Every woman deserves to enter a marriage fully armed. One day Archer will thank me. Even if he’ll never admit it.
—I
That Mckinnon seemed oddly concerned for Archer’s welfare left her cold and confused. With a shaking hand, she tossed the card aside and reached inside the box. A gilt frame slipped onto her palm. She pulled the tissues back and her ears began to buzz. There, in precise and masterful brushstrokes, lay a face well-loved and unmistakable. The same ironic brows, gently curved tip of the nose, fine gray eyes full of humor. Archer. A mad snort left her lips as she spied a tiny dot of black just above his left eyebrow. Archer’s beauty mark—mole, rather. Men, he had insisted, do not have marks of beauty. Debatable issues aside, it was he. Unmistakably. And dressed in a double-breasted waistcoat, frock coat with tails, and a high, swaddling collar. A man of an earlier time.
Even if she could invent a reason for his antiquated dress, she could not overlook the painted date upon the portrait: 1810. Nor the engraved plaque that read, LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER, THIRD BARON ARCHER OF UMBERSLADE. It might all be tricks. But her heart knew it was not. She had let herself be lied to. Because it was easier.
More papers drifted from the box, her eyes picking up the relevant details as though pinpoints of light touched upon them in illumination: BENJAMIN ARCHER, BROTHER OF RACHEL, KARINA, CLAIRE, AND ELIZABETH. SON OF KATORINA AND WILLIAM. LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER TO RETURN FROM ITALY. LORD ARCHER TO ATTEND SISTER ELIZABETH’S FUNERAL. And the final nail: LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER, DEPARTING FOR AMERICA, OCTOBER 20, 1815.
Archer’s family. Archer’s loss. Archer’s lie. Of course it was.
Numbly, she picked up the papers, tucking them away. One thought revolved sickly around in her head. Benjamin Archer had drifted through life, unchanged, since 1815. She knew him too well not to know that he’d been searching for a cure all that time—and had failed. Even more distressing—what did it mean to Archer physically should he find a cure?
He came home shortly after three. She heard his light greeting to Gilroy in the hall, followed by the rapid tread of his boots up the stairs. Her heart pounded overloud in her breast at the thought of confronting him. She had sat like a statue for the rest of the day, barely able to think or to breathe, only to wait. Now he was here.
Sliding to the foot of the bed, she set her feet on the floor. Determination to have her say steeled her spine. The connecting door to their rooms opened a moment later. His eyes went immediately to her, and a smile broke over his face. “That,” he said shutting the door behind him, “took inordinately long.”
He tore the silk mask from his head as he came near. Miranda’s resolve softened as she saw the joy in his eyes in doing so. It was the first time he’d taken the mask off in front of her. Black kohl encircled his eyes, and her lips twitched.
“You look like a bandit,” she said as he bent to kiss her.
Archer paused, caught between a grin and a grimace. “Right.” He brushed a kiss over her nose and then strode toward her bathing roo
m, impatiently pulling off his suit coat as he went. Her heart stayed locked in her throat as she stared after him.
He emerged not a minute later, freshly scrubbed and wearing only his drawers and shirtsleeves. “Is it unmanly to say that I prefer your face cream to mine?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt with a deftness and speed that entranced her.
“No.” Nothing about him could ever be considered unmanly. Again the flash came, of him not changed but whole and unaffected. Golden skinned. His hair not shorn but with glossy raven locks. Ben.
The shirt fell to the floor, and her breath hitched. He was simply beautiful. From the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms, to the little hollow between his collarbones, and the flat, matched ridges running down his abdomen like paving bricks, all of it was beautiful, and enough to make words fail her.
He read her look and grinned wide enough for small lines to dimple his cheeks. “Hello,” he whispered before catching her up. She could not think. It was like a drug taking hold of her when they kissed. She pressed against him, her lips throbbing under his ministrations. Could a man be an addiction?
His quick fingers made short work of her laces. Her bodice fell free, and his thumb ran under the curve of her breast. Hot shivers fanned out along her belly. She pulled away, her hands going to his shoulders to hold him off. “No,” she said. “Stop.”
Her tone froze him. Slowly he moved off the bed and sat back on his heels. His gray eyes searched her face and, reading what was so plainly there, he set his chin firm—a fully guilt-ridden gesture if ever Miranda saw one.
“Were you going to tell me?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” The pulse at the base of his throat throbbed as he sat watching her, his body still as stone, and the ache in Miranda’s chest turned to pain.
“Well, that is heartening,” she snapped, her fingers digging into the covers. “Honesty above all, is it?”
“Who was it?” he said, still frozen in place. “Eula? Mckinnon?” A hot wash of color rose up over his left cheek, and he jumped to his feet. “Son of a bitch.”
Miranda jumped up too. “What does it matter who told me? It should have been you!”
“Tell you?” he snapped, his color rising. “You, who professed the possibility of what I was a nightmare?”
She winced at that, but her anger flared higher. “God! How stupid I’ve been.” She paced in a helpless fury. “I asked you flat out. And what do you say to me? ‘Lord Benjamin Archer died in eighteen-fifteen!’ ” Her voice rose as she punched the air. “When really it was you all along! Lord Benjamin Aldo Fitzwilliam Wallace Archer, third Baron Archer of Umberslade.”
Ben watched her rant, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw tight. “Yes, I am the third Baron Archer of Umberslade,” he said tightly. “Does it really change who I am?”
“Of course it does!” She spun round. “It makes you a liar. When I have given you all of my truths.”
He took a step forward, the flat muscles along his abdomen bunching. “By degrees,” he said, flinging his arm wide. “Doled out like pieces of Sunday cake. And I understood that. It is what we all do.”
“That is not at all the same thing! There is a difference between refraining from divulging the truth and outright lying.”
Archer snorted. “Which appears to be knowing what questions to ask.”
Her fists balled at her sides in an effort to hold still. “You ought to have believed in me. Believed in us. And those men, those poor old men. You’re as old as they are!” She pressed her hands to her face, wanting to scream but unable to. “God.”
“And what should I have said?” His dark brows rose in inquiry. “ ‘I’m sorry, darling, but even if I do get better, I might turn into a withered husk and most likely die within months.’ Would that have eased the way?”
Hearing it come from him hit like a slap. The floor tilted beneath Miranda. She could not stay and watch him be destroyed. “I’m leaving,” she said through numb lips.
She turned for the door.
He was in front of her in an instant, slamming the door shut with his fist. “No.” He grabbed her shoulders, spinning her round, shoving her back against the wall. “No,” he said again, his voice breaking. His lips crushed against her, his fingers biting into her flesh.
She yielded to the pressure, and his tongue dove into her mouth. Miranda sucked it hard, needing to taste him, and he groaned. His fist pressed into her back, holding her tight enough to take her breath away.
“You can’t leave me.” He took her lower lip between his teeth. “I won’t let you go.”
She nipped back, her legs clenching his hard thigh. Shaking, his hand tore at her chemise and the fabric ripped.
“No.” She wrenched her head to the side, away from his seeking mouth. “No!”
“Miri.” It was a whimper of pain.
Suddenly she was hitting him, striking his hard chest with her fists. “You should have told me!”
He took her assault without flinching, and her hands fell to her sides. Hurting him only hurt her more.
He gazed at her sorrowfully but made no move to touch her. “My only excuse is fear,” he whispered thickly.
“A sorry excuse,” she sobbed, breathless from her spent fury. “When have you ever felt fear? The dauntless Lord Archer. When I think of how you looked upon Cheltenham’s body… you didn’t even flinch. It was as if you felt nothing.”
“Felt nothing?” he hissed. His brow wrinkled as he stepped back. “Felt nothing!” He moved with a blur of speed and struck the side of the wardrobe. The thick wood tore like paper under the impact of his fist.
He spun back to face her, the fine muscles along his shoulders and chest tensing as a milky light pulsed through his changed flesh—the sight of which alarmed Miranda more than his fury.
“It was all I could do not to scream when we found Chelt.” He grasped the short hairs upon his head as though he’d tear them out. Words poured from him like a purgative. “Cheltenham and I visited each other in the nursery. Merryweather and I roomed together in Cambridge. And Leland… Leland was my best mate. He brought me into West Club, then helped cast me out of London.”
His large frame began to shake as if he’d soon break apart. Miranda moved toward him, the pain of seeing him suffer stronger than her anger, but he glared at her fiercely. “Do you have any idea…” His breath hitched. “I’ve had to watch them age, turn gray. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get away. That is the true reason I left, not because they told me to go. And when I came back they were old, withered. A reminder of what I should be.”
He took a shuddering breath, and his shoulders fell. “I’ve watched you age. From a lovely young creature to this woman who is so achingly beautiful… God!”
He spread his arms wide in entreaty before letting them fall. “I lied. I lied when I said your beauty does not affect me. I look at you, and I’m breathless, dizzy from it. I want to kneel at your feet and worship you. While the baser part of me wants to fling up your skirts and stick my cock in you until we forget our names.” His nostrils flared as he glared at her, accusation and pain mingling within his eyes.
“But none of that matters,” he said, trembling before her, “because every day that I am with you, I am more convinced that God made you just for me. For in ninety years on this earth, no one has made me feel the way you do, as if every day is an adventure. You make me laugh. And I never laugh. I go around smiling like a witless fool. So yes, I kept it from you, because I am so desperately in love with you that the knowledge that you might love me too was irresistible. And I was afraid it would turn to dust should I take off that mask.”
A sound tore from his throat, and he turned away to lean against the wardrobe, resting his forearms over his head. The silver lines of his body glimmered in the afternoon sun that slanted through the lacy curtains. His voice drifted out, rough and choked. “How am I to resist the one thing I’ve ever truly wanted?”
His forehead hit the wood with a t
hud. “I am sorry, Miri,” he finished weakly.
Miranda’s vision blurred. There were lies, and there were lies. She went to him, sliding between his strong body and the wardrobe. Despite his distress, his arm automatically reached out to cocoon her against him as he breathed raggedly. “I’m sorry, Miri,” he whispered against her hair. “I’m sorry…”
She smoothed his back. “Hush.” Her lips brushed across his collarbone. She looked up at him through her tears and found his eyes red, his thick lashes clumping like spikes. “Do you think it is any different for me? I want you so much it is a constant ache.”
He made a sound, and his lips found her temple. Soft kisses to ease her tears, yet her heart grew cold. She was losing him. He was retreating. Behind thick walls where feelings could not hurt him. She felt it as surely as the lips upon her brow. Miranda had lived in that cold dark place for most of her life.
She turned toward him, her cheek caressing his chin. “I need to hear your voice every day or I despair. You are the balance of my soul. I cannot lose you, Ben. I would not live through it.”
The very idea caused her to sob, and he caught her mouth with his. “Don’t cry,” he whispered against her lips, his big hand cupping her cheek. “I can’t bear it.” He kissed her tears as she kissed his cheeks, eyes, and beloved jaw line.
She closed her eyes and let her forehead rest against his as they breathed together. Sick dread slid down her belly. She could sense the wild desperation filling him. She would lose him to this madness.
“We can solve this together.” She kissed him softly, desperately. The taste of him broke her heart anew. “We will find a cure. And this killer… It takes only a thought for me to finish him. Do you understand?”
Suddenly he went utterly cold. “Yes.” He closed his eyes and released a deep sigh. The fight in him seemed to drain. “I understand you perfectly.”
When she moved to kiss him, he cupped her face in his hands, and his gray eyes searched her face as if to commit it to memory. “Know this, there is only one truth left to me.” His trembling fingertips caressed her jaw. “That I love you.” He said it again, his voice broken, his arms pulling her tightly against him. “I love you. The rest is darkness.”
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