Speak Only Love

by Deana James

  He arched his back and rolled his shoulders. "Will you share a brandy with me, Sister... I beg your pardon. I don't believe we've been introduced."

  The nun shook her head.

  "Oh, for God's sake! Please. Out of the goodness of your heart, answer me," he begged wearily. "I assure you, Sister, God does not know. And if He does know, let it be my sin. Tell Him I forced you." He had poured two glasses of brandy from the decanter in the small cabinet. Now he returned with them and pressed one into the nun's hand. "I thank you for your faithful­ness." He toasted her.

  Accepting his accolade with a nod, she lifted the glass to her lips.

  He put his hand on her wrist. "Before you drink. Tell me your name."

  She shook her head. Her teeth caught the edge of her lower lip.

  He tossed the brandy down. Her obstinacy irritated him. "Damn it. I am a suffering human being. Don't I need a benison? Tell me."

  Trembling with strain, she took a sip of the brandy shuddering at its potency. She shook her head.

  "Damn you. I’ll have no more of this. Speak to me." Swiftly, roughly, he reached out and caught her face in his hand. His thumb pressed into her cheek. "Put that ancient superstitious nonsense to rest," he commanded.

  She clawed at his wrist.

  "Ah, evil. Evil. Scratching me." He tipped more brandy down his throat. "You'll have to spend hours on your knees to get rid of that mark against your immortal soul. Hours of penance. So have two. Speak. And I’ll let you go be about it."

  She twisted and turned, without success. The brandy glass shattered on the floor as she clawed at him with both hands. His thumb sank deeper into her soft cheek. Her mouth was inexorably opened by the pressure on her jaw. Her frightened breathing filled the room. Tears started in her eyes.

  They were beautiful eyes, he realized suddenly. Drowned eyes. Crystal blue, blue ice, shimmering and shifting like water. Wide with panic, the dark lashes swept up onto satiny skin below the brow. And her lips were palest pink. Her lower lip trembled, surprising him with its sensual appeal. He could feel the blood pulsing through the vein beneath her jaw. "Why, Sister?" he asked, softly. "Why won't you speak to me?"

  She held herself stiff against his hand, refusing either to confirm or deny. Crystal tears welled over her lids and slipped down her cheeks.

  And the wimple and veil disappeared, leaving only a hurt beauty that he could not resist. He bent his mouth to hers and kissed her, tasting her lips, caressing their softness. Feeling them open in a voiceless protest, he slid deeper into the kiss, tasting her sweetness.

  She clawed at his wrist, but her short-clipped nails made little impression. Then she drew back her sturdy shoe and kicked his shin with all her might.

  "Damn!" He tore away, staggering back a step.

  She twisted out of his grip and sprang across the room. Her mouth was open, her hands out in front of her to ward him off. Her eyes showed only too clearly her terror.

  His jaw tensed. Then his hands dropped to his sides. "You didn't have to kick me," he said mildly. "You could have told me."

  She shook her head desperately. The black veil flapped round her shoulders.

  "You can't speak? You really can't speak?"

  Free, her only thought was escape. She sprang across the room, hands reaching for the latch. Flinging the door open, she fled down the hall.

  He stared after her for a moment, his face twisted. Then with a shrug he lifted the brandy to his mouth and drank it all. The shards of glass crunched beneath his half boots as he walked back to his mother's side.

  Chapter 2

  On wooden legs Vivian tottered to the narrow cot and sank down. Delayed shock set her body to trembling. Gingerly she touched the spot on her cheek where the viscount's hard thumb had pressed into her flesh. What sort of monster was he? She shook her head remembering the hatred that had blazed between the dying countess and her husband. What sorts of monsters were they all?

  Her lips burned. She tasted his brandy on them. He had kissed her despite the fact he believed her to be a nun. She shuddered. The habit was sacred. All men recognized it and respected it. Except him.

  She looked around her despairingly. She should pack her things and leave immediately. She hugged her arms around her trying to stop shaking. Her feet ached to the knee from standing beside the countess's bed for almost twenty-four hours. Her back felt permanently bent. Her hands were blistered from wringing hot water out of the towels and holding them close to the countess's face, in the hopes that the steam would clear the ulcerous throat.

  In the end all her efforts had been to no avail. All the energy she had expended had put her in the way of the humiliation she had endured at the hands of the viscount. His mother had died. Only one consolation had arisen out of the horrible scene that had taken place in the sickroom. The countess's passage had been relatively peaceful and painless, just a gradual stopping of the breath. Vivian could not doubt that the old woman had sunk into a deeper sleep, exhausted by the anger swirling around her. Probably in some deep inner consciousness, she had been relieved to go.

  No more relieved than Vivian would be herself. Heaving a sigh, she rose and began to undress. The wimple and veil slipped off together, and her hair fell down her back. Inclining her head, she swung the skein around to the front to comb it through and through with her fingers. How good to be free of the weight of starched linen and heavy black wool!

  Next she untied the lacings on the habit pulled it away from her neck. Of all the garments she had adopted at the behest of the order, it was the most constricting, the most uncomfortable. She hung the habit on a peg in the wall, unlaced the stout shoes, and rolled down the thick woolen hose.

  At last, clad in a simple cotton shift, she sank back on the bed. For a few minutes the chill of the room felt good to her overheated skin. Eyes closed, she combed her fingers through her hair allowing the gentle tugging at her scalp and the silky feel to soothe her shattered senses. At last she shook it back over her shoulder where its ends swept against the coverlet on which she sat.

  If the countess had died peacefully, how terrible by contrast had been the death of Sister Grace. Vivian could not rid herself of the old nun's poor mutilated face. With it came consciousness of the humiliation of the footmen rolling the body up in the carpet and carrying it away-as if the wise and dedicated woman were part of the soil that would be cleaned from it.

  Shivering suddenly, Vivian tucked her feet into bed and pulled the covers up around her. Wearily, she recognized the mistake she would end up paying for all the long night. Her bed was dank and cold, and she had allowed her precious body heat to escape. Teeth clenched to still their chattering, she pulled the feather pillow around her ears. To surround herself with softness was a trick she had learned over the last nine years. She drew her knees up to her chest and tucked her shift over her toes. The bed was so cold.

  Silent tears began to trickle into the pillow. In the chill darkness she struggled against self-pity.

  The silence. The damnable silence! The frustration of being unable to communicate her ideas, to answer questions, to object to injustice. If she had only been able to speak, he would not have put his hands on her. Neither his father, nor the obnoxious housekeeper, nor the viscount himself would have treated her as they had done. She gritted her teeth in anger. Her hands slid round her throat; her thumbs pressed bruisingly against her Adam's apple.

  Make a sound! Any sound! Something!

  Her doctor had held some hope once upon a time that she would regain her speech probably when she suffered some shock such as the one that had robbed her. Or, he had added sagely, when she forgot the reason why she could not speak. Of course, he was a fool. Every doctor she had ever seen had earned her like estimation. She could not remember what had hap­pened to her at all, much less forget the reason.

  Certainly this evening had been full of shocks. Most shocking was the viscount's mishandling of her person. She had been coldly furious. Why had she not been able to answe
r the bastard?

  Bastard!

  Pressing her lips together to form the first letter, she willed the word to come. Air exploded from her mouth, but not a single sound came from her. Not a sound.

  Not a sound!

  She clenched her fists until her nails cut into the palms of her hands. How did she get this way? Her earliest memories were of herself speaking. She knew words. And how they were formed. She understood everything that was said to her. But no matter how hard she tried, when she opened her mouth, no sound came.

  She could remember her mother as a beautiful, loving person from her childhood. Her father she could not remember at all. They were both dead now. And somehow their deaths were associated with her condition. Had she witnessed their deaths and been struck dumb with horror? More terrible! Had she caused their deaths and been struck dumb with guilt? Why could she not remember when everything else about her life seemed so clear? She rolled over on her back. Staring into the darkness, her jaw clenched, every muscle tense, she asked herself again and again.

  Why?

  ************************************

  Piers Gaveston Maximillian Larne sat in a deep wing chair with his booted feet resting on the fender of the fireplace. He had given up drinking from the glass once he had emptied it for the first time. Now he lifted the bottle to his lips, letting the fiery French brandy roll down his throat. With a sigh he let the bottle fall into the space beside his hip.

  His mother. He thought of his mother. The awful stillness of her face and hands, of her whole form appalled him. One minute she had been moving. Her chest lifting and falling, her eyelids fluttering ever so faintly as if she were dreaming. The next she lay still. The very blood had stopped and fallen back down the tubes of her veins giving her a terrible white shrunken appearance.

  He had stayed beside her for hours watching the swift change from life to death. When they had lifted her to bathe her body, the thin skin on the backs of her arms and shoulders looked as though it had been bruised where blood had run back down to pool in the lowest parts of her body.

  He took another swallow of brandy. Why did he allow himself to think such thoughts? They only made him nauseated and could do his mother no good.

  Felders! There he could do some good. He had expressly forbidden her to come into the countess's room. Never mind that he had called for her when the old nun had dropped dead. She had disturbed his mother's dying moments with that hateful smirk on her face. He sucked air sharply in through his nostrils. He would see the bitch turned off without a farthing if it was the last thing he ever did.

  He took another swallow of the brandy. Usually he could laugh at life, snicker at the catastrophes as examples of his sure and certain sense that the world was a mad, godless place. If not, why had the old nun just spun around and fallen over dead? He had heard of such things happening, but for the first and hopefully the only time, he had witnessed one. He took another drink of brandy and this time he did manage a ghoulish chuckle. Just fallen over dead, like a black statue knocked off its pedestal. He kept the corners of his mouth turned upward in a travesty of a smile.

  His father had offered to join him in a watch beside the bed. Hypocrite! Lying, smiling hypocrite. His parents had hated each other almost from his earliest memories. To pretend at the deathbed made him nauseated. He took another burning swallow.

  The other nun was a voiceless half-wit by all appearances. But she had at least put up with no insults. He had to smile at the memory of her drawing back to throw that hot towel in Felders's smirking face.

  He should have let her throw it. What harm could she do? He gave a soft bark of laughter. God! The sickroom had resembled a madhouse in those few minutes. His mother had probably been glad to die to get away from the mess.

  ************************************

  Tristram Alexander George Larne, Earl of Larnaervon, lifted the sheet of paper, turning it so the light fell more folly on it. His dark eyes scanned it closely. A tobacco-stained finger, its nail long and ridged, led his eye back and forth across the page.

  He chuckled softly. "So, Vivian Marleigh. There you are. Under my roof at last."

  He laid the paper to the side and took up the one that had been beneath it. This time his finger ran down a column of figures then leaped back up to the top to trace another column. His breathing quickened as he came to the bottom of the page. As it began to vibrate, he let it fall and leaned back in the chair.

  Suddenly, pain lanced through him. With a grunt he spread his hands against his mounded belly and stared downward in pain and disgust. He hated the crumbl­ing, aching thing he had become, hated his son for having the vigor that he had enjoyed in his youth. Hated the copy of himself that insolently lounged around the house, wasting time and substance. God! To have his body straight and fit again.

  The pain intensified. He gasped. His face contorted. Reaching over his shoulder, a movement that caused him to wince and clench his teeth, he found the bell cord and tugged it feverishly.

  While he was still tugging, Mrs. Felders came hurrying through the door. "Larnaervon!"

  "Emma," he croaked. "P-pain." His face was gray. Sweat trickled down his temples.

  "Oh, my dear." She swept around beside him and put her hands over his belly. He turned his face into her bosom shuddering. "There," she whispered, kissing the top of his head. "There. There. Don't take on so. It'll go away in a minute."

  "It better." His comment was muffled: "Damn dyspepsia."

  "Yes, yes. I know." From the pocket of her dress, she fished a small bag of horehound candies. "Here. Suck on one of these."

  He turned slightly and she slipped it between his lips.

  For a long time they remained silent and still except for the gentle rhythmic movement of her hands. One massaged his belly; the other combed through his sweat-dampened hair. Occasionally, he shivered. When he did, she pressed him tighter against her.

  At long last he pulled away. "Bring me some brandy."

  "I don’t think—”

  "Bring me brandy. It'll help. At any rate it won't hurt."

  She moved some books aside in the bookcase and withdrew the bottle hidden there. Pouring two fingers into a water glass, she brought it to him.

  He accepted it with both hands and turned it up to his lips. The liquid sloshed against the sides of the glass, so shaky were his hands. A generous swallow and he sat back with his eyes closed. At long last he spoke. "I don't think this is dyspepsia, Emma."

  She frowned. "Of course it is. It can't be anything else. The cook's just putting too much pepper in the food. I’ll let him know about it as soon as I leave you. With the loss you've suffered—”

  He raised one white eyebrow. "Suffered?" he mocked. "Oh, of course. How I suffered! To be sure."

  Mrs. Felders did not answer. Color rose in her face. "You'll feel more the thing in a few days," she insisted.

  He shrugged and yawned. "I'm tired now. I think I can lie down."

  She smiled coyly. "I’ll help you to bed, sir."

  He watched the lowering and raising of her eyelashes over her dark eyes. He managed a smile in answer as he rose and put his arm around her shoulder rather than reaching for his cane.

  She put her hands on his back and chest. Moving together as one, they walked to a recessed door between the bookcases. The library opened into a small room made up into an ornate bedroom suite. "Call Mackery," Larne said.

  She took a deep breath. The action rubbed her breast against his chest. "Do you really want Mackery?"

  He looked down at her, one corner of his mouth lifted. "I thought you might be tired."

  Emma Felders's fingers slid the buttons of his vest out of their holes. "Oh, Mackery is the one who's tired. And Watkins, too. They've taken turns in that hot, smelly sickroom rolling and shifting and fetching and carrying."

  "Poor beggars!"

  She pulled the end of his stock. It came untied and she tossed the end over his shoulder. "I can take care of you."
r />   He lowered his head, his voice a rumble in her ear. He could smell her female scent. Georgina had been fond of bathing. He had not found her nearly so stimulating as Felders. Unfortunately, he was in no state to perform the man's part for her. Still, he led her on. His hot breath played along the tiny hairs at the base of her scalp. "Yes?"

  She slid his shirt off his shoulder. Her lips moved across the thin blue-veined skin. Above the collarbone she bit him gently.

  He winced. His voice dropped to a breathless whisper. "Vixen. How dare you show your teeth to me."

  She pulled the shirt off his other shoulder. His chest was wide, the hair on it a mixture of white and gray but crisp. Her lips traced a path down through it until they came to the pale flat nipple.

  He moaned softly, then groaned as she coaxed it delicately with her tongue, until it erected. Then she bit him gently. "Emma! Beware!"

  "Never, milord. I know I’ve nothing to fear."

  He put his arms around her pressing her against him. "Proud vixen."

  She pressed body,, breasts, and belly, against his side, so he could feel the jointure of her thighs along his hip. They walked together to the bed where he stretched out to allow her to pull off his shoes, his small clothes, and his hose. When he was naked, she covered him with a quilted spread and then a fur. His eyes narrowed to slits as he enjoyed the feel of her hands on his body. His voice became a rumbling purr. "Ah, Emma."