by TJ Bennett
My gaze returned to Gerard, who regarded me with a wary but resigned expression, his eerie fog-gray eyes searching my soul.
“It is impossible,” I whispered, and then remembered the same faint marks upon my own skin after he had rescued me. “Impossible.”
“‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth…’” Gerard murmured and reached for my hand.
I drew back instinctively, overbalancing and dropping onto the straw behind me. “What are you?” I whispered, staring at him in wide-eyed incomprehension.
Gerard flinched as though I had slapped him.
His face hardened and he rose, swaying. Two of the men caught him, but he pushed them away, the proud tilt of his chin and the erectness of his back defying anyone to assist him again.
He approached the groom. “These men are in your charge. If they are injured on your watch, it’s your responsibility.”
The man blanched but lifted his chin. “And well I know it. I check the gear daily on all the carriages. Maintain them myself, or see that it’s done right. That one,” he indicated the carriage in question, “was in top shape. What happened here weren’t no accident. The pin bolt’s been sheared away.”
“Are you saying it was tampered with?” Gerard practically growled.
The groom nodded. “Don’t know by who or why, but if the pin had broke while the horses were in harness and the carriage on a hill—well, ’twould have been bad for anyone inside, that’s all I’ll say.”
A muscle jumped in Gerard’s jaw. “Check the other equipment. Make sure nothing else has been tampered with. And question the men to see if anyone was near the stables who shouldn’t have been here in the past few days.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Report to me as soon as you know anything, understood?”
With a worried look, the groom turned to attend to the horse.
Retrieving his dinner coat, Gerard carefully folded it over his arm and strode out of the stable, never once looking back at me.
“What is he?” I asked again to no one in particular, for I would not find the answers to that question in this place. Gripping my skirt in my hands, I ran after Gerard into the yard to confront him.
Although I was only moments behind him, he had already disappeared.
…
I careened in a very unladylike manner through the door connecting the back of the house to the gardens, startling a footman standing there. I saw no sign of Gerard, but knew he must have passed this way.
“Where is your master?” I panted. “Where has he gone?”
“He has retired to his private chambers, ma’am.” The footman was one of the ones who had accompanied me into the village. He shared my curse of red hair and fair skin, and he flushed as he spoke to me. “He will need to rest after…” He trailed off and indicated with a discreet nod the direction from which I came.
“Please show me.”
His eyes widened. “I don’t think so, ma’am. Should I tell him you’re wanting to see him later?”
“No, you must take me to him now. I think he might be ill.” It was true. He had not looked at all well after he touched Lucas. Whatever he had done to the man’s leg had taken a great deal out of him. “I must see him. I promise I will bear any consequences on your behalf.”
The footman shifted his feet. “If he was displeased…you mean well, ma’am, but I am sorry.”
I chafed at the rejection. Something told me I had to see Gerard now, before too much time had passed, if I was to learn the secrets of Ynys Nos.
I forced my smile to soften and sidled closer to the footman, trying to remember how to work my feminine wiles on a man when I was so hopelessly out of practice.
I batted my eyelashes, hoping I looked alluring and not like the simpering fool that I felt. “What is your name?”
He blushed again. “Bill, ma’am.”
“Bill, perhaps you have noticed,” I said in a breathless voice, “the solicitude which your master pays me. I believe he would be…shall we say, pleased to see me. In fact, we had arranged an appointment earlier in the library when we were interrupted by this unfortunate accident.” I waved my hand in the direction of the carriage house. “I only wish to continue what we, ahem, had already begun. You, as a strapping, healthy young man, can certainly understand that, can you not?”
The footman flushed an even deeper shade of red, his slightly dazed gaze drifting over me. “Yes, ma’am, I certainly can.”
Cheeky fellow. However, my subterfuge appeared to be working. He glanced over at the west corridor, and I knew Gerard must have gone that way.
Bill scratched behind his left ear and shifted his feet again. “Well, I could just take you most of the way there. Tell you the rest of the way to go.”
I nodded heartily. “Oh, yes. I could even say if there were any consequences, I found my way on my own. Such a clever fellow you are,” I added, and he preened a little.
I smiled brightly, and with a reluctant sigh, he gestured for me to follow him. Astonished at my success, I paid attention to my surroundings as we went up the staircase to the second floor, noting that some of the passageways were beginning to become familiar to me.
After giving me directions for the rest of the way Bill abandoned me just shy of my goal. Gerard’s suite of chambers seemed to occupy most of the floor. I approached the door, the brass knob gleaming in the softly lit corridor. My contorted reflection stared back at me from its polished surface, daring me to interrupt its master when he so obviously no longer desired my company.
Being here was the height of impropriety, of course, but I realized nothing between Gerard and I had been conducted as it should be. Since my arrival on Ynys Nos, we had lived by a different set of rules. Why stop now?
I gathered my courage and rapped on the heavy wood with my knuckles, wincing at the impact.
Nothing.
No sound of any kind escaped the barrier. I pressed my ear to the door to hear if he was within, for I sensed his presence as I had on that first day in my room. I truly wished to speak with him—no, I needed to. There were too many unanswered questions, and they raced in my mind, chasing each other like hounds after a fox.
I knocked again, louder this time; still no answer. I twisted the doorknob.
The door was locked. Sighing, I stepped back, defeated, but the lock snicked and the door swung soundlessly open. No one stood behind it, almost as if it had opened of its own accord.
“Gerard?”
He had lit no candles within, and I could not see past the threshold.
A chill ran down my back. I hesitated, uncertain whether to pursue this.
“Gerard?” I called again. Perhaps he was too ill to respond.
I stepped inside, having gone only a few paces when the door swung shut behind me, plunging the room into darkness. I jumped and suppressed a gasp of fear, my hand to my throat, and let out a shaky breath.
“There is nothing in the dark that is not there when the lamps are lit,” I reassured myself.
A mocking laugh sounded from deep inside the chamber. “Do not be so certain of that, Catherine.” Gerard’s voice, low and gruff, resonated through me.
We were alone. I knew it. Yet from the direction of his voice, I could tell he was some distance from me. So who had shut the door?
It must have been a gust of wind, but I felt no breeze from an open window. In fact, at the moment, it was as though I was enclosed in a large mausoleum from which no noise entered or escaped. Gerard must have had the room soundproofed. He slept most of the day, so perhaps he did not wish to be disturbed by the servants going about their duties.
Surely, it was not so strange to wish to have a room cut off from all sound and light. Why, I was certain many a young gentleman of the Ton must do the same when they had spent their days sleeping the hours away after the dissipation of a long night. There were probably rooms like this all over London.
My reassurances did nothing to smooth the goose bumps forming
on my arms. “Gerard, would you please light a candle? I wish to speak with you about what just happened.”
“No.” His voice was close; startled, I swung around to face him. A tremor shot through me, exhilaration and anticipation colliding together.
“I like it this way,” he said, circling me and forcing me to turn to keep track of his voice in the dark, “and since you have come to my room, I get to choose.”
“I came because you did not stop when I called you,” I told him, trying to slow my accelerating heartbeat. “I want to know what happened. I want to know how you helped Lucas. I have a right—”
“You have no rights here.” His words cracked over me. “I am master of this place. Never forget it.”
My eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, and I could just make out his shadowy shape as he stalked me. I felt the thrill of the hunt from the prey’s perspective, and instinct told me to keep him in front of me as I continued to circle with him in a bizarre waltz. “I am hardly likely to forget you are master here, Gerard, when everyone constantly reminds me of it.”
“Then you would do well to show me greater deference, madam.” He stopped circling. “Perhaps I should require you to call me Master as well.”
I should be insulted by his attempt to dominate me, but somewhere deep inside, a part of me responded to his mastery.
I squinted up at him in the dark. “Gerard? Are we not friends?”
“Are we?” he said, his tone remote.
I hung my head. “I thought we were. I had hoped so, at least.”
He did not speak for a long moment. “Then why did you pull away from me?”
I heard the hurt buried in his question and understood it at once. The thought that I may have ruined our friendship with my thoughtless actions made me feel small and mean.
“Oh, Gerard, forgive me. I was caught off guard. I did not know what to think.”
“You feared me,” he accused. “You thought me some kind of monster.”
“No!” I shook my head, even though he could not see me. But then again, perhaps his eyes had adjusted, for he had found me unerringly in the dark. “Oh, damn it all, I did not mean to hurt you.”
“Swearing, Catherine?” he murmured, a trace of humor in his voice. “You must be beside yourself.”
Perhaps the worst had passed. Perhaps I was to be forgiven after all. “Will you light a candle, Gerard?”
“No.” He spoke the word in my ear at the same moment his hand slid around my waist from behind, pulling me against him. “I told you, I like it better this way.”
He had moved so silently, I had not heard him. One hand spanned my midriff, and his other clasped my shoulder. I held my breath, motionless. I could feel his heat and hard muscles all along my back, tension coiling in him like a spring. My legs trembled, the imprint of his iron-hard body against mine sending swift, flashing signals to every nerve beneath my skin.
“Catherine.”
Just my name, spoken in a whisper, his breath against my ear. I heard the desire in that word, and I closed my eyes, even though it was dark, my breath shuddering out with each heavy beat of my heart. I longed to respond to him, to lift my hands to his head and pull it down to mine, but I was afraid. I simply was not ready for the consequences such an action might invite.
“I can smell you,” he whispered. “Like crushed lavender warming in the sun.”
I did not speak. I flushed with embarrassment, not knowing what to say. My response to him was not normal. I could not understand it. It was almost as though it rose from outside of me, as though something else was triggering my response. But how could that be?
I attuned myself to his breathing, to his presence. Something warned me that I needed to calm him before things went too far, but I did not know how.
His mouth trailed down to where the pulse pounded madly in my neck, and he pressed his lips to it, raising a spark of electricity that raced over my skin. His fingers followed the spark, encouraging it, tracing any exposed territory he found above the lace tucked into my bodice. I squirmed against him, desperate to escape.
“I have learned something about you, Catherine. You yearn for freedom, for pleasure, for sensation, and yet you run from it. Tell me why.”
I stilled, panting softly, terrified of answering him. How could he know me so well? He could not. He was bluffing.
His fingers smoothed across my throat. The darkness pressed close, cocooning us from actions and consequences alike.
“Why?” he demanded again.
“I-I don’t know what you mean.” My dry mouth made it hard to speak the words.
He fingered the chain around my neck. “Hmm. Don’t you?”
The cameo glided up, slipping from between my breasts as he pulled it into the open. I caught at it, fearful I might have to explain its history to him, but then realized he would not be able to make out the images in the dark.
He traced over the surface, his knuckles brushing across my skin, but he finally dropped the cameo back into my bodice, saying nothing. The warmth of his palm briefly touched the high slope of my breast. His hand trembled, and then it was gone.
His arms wound around my waist, and he held me, just held me. I struggled with myself, intense yearning battling with caution, then decided to allow his embrace. Long enough so he would know I was not afraid, at least not in the way he thought. I laid my head back against his broad chest and covered his hands with mine, willing him to calm.
His scent, his strength, his very essence surrounded me, exuding darkness and turmoil, power and vulnerability, yet it was as though he was not the man I knew—instead he was someone tormented and strange to me.
“Be at peace,” I whispered, over and over. Hoping the words would penetrate, I waited for Gerard to resurface, believing deep inside he must if I would only be patient with him, if he knew I would not fight him or flee to safety. He was in a perilous place and danger emanated from him in subtle, seductive waves.
He shuddered once, his hands on me tightening. Finally, I felt the tension in him ebb, the muscles locked against me slowly relax until he was himself again: the man who smiled at me over dinner. He rested his chin on the top of my head and swayed with me slightly, as though he listened to music only he could hear.
His lips brushed my temple and he sighed.
“Will you still give me the time you promised me, Catherine? Or have I run out?”
I turned in his arms, seeing the faintest outline of his jaw and the strong column of his neck. “Tell me what happened. Explain it to me, and I will try to understand. I promise.”
He tapped the tip of my nose with his finger. “So single-minded. So focused.” He stepped away. “So be it.”
The air stirred before me as if he made a sweeping gesture with his hand.
“And the master said, ‘Let there be light.’”
A candelabrum flared to life on the fireplace mantle across from where we stood. I jerked, blinking against the brightness.
“And it was good,” he murmured, the sardonic tone back.
The flame flickered and glowed. I stared at it. He had not lit a match, nor any other kindling device. In fact, he had not moved from my side.
“Another of your inventions, Gerard?” My voice trembled, and I cleared my throat to steady it. A tiny flicker of fear licked at my insides. “Self-lighting candles? Very clever.”
“Not science, my dear…magic. Behold!” He gestured with a flourish, and several more candles set about the room flared to life, as well as the fire in the fireplace, revealing a large suite dominated by dark wood and burgundy velvet even more opulent than mine.
Shocked, I stood still as a mouse before a cat, then swallowed hard. “How…dramatic.”
He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Fire is one of my specialties. I fancied showing off a bit. Were you impressed?”
“Decidedly.” I could not let him see how disturbed I was at this display. “How is it done?”
He smiled
then, but it did not reach his eyes. The glow of the flames reflected there instead, turning the gray to molten gold. “I told you, Catherine…it is magic.”
“You mean the way you healed Lucas’s wound was magic?” I persisted. What I had seen was not possible through any science or medicine known to man to effect what he had done. “Repaired an open fracture which should have killed him?”
He rocked on his heels. “He would not have died. There is only one way to kill a person on this island, and that is not it. But the pain would have been unendurable. I did what was needed.”
I crossed my arms before me, mainly to hide my tremulous hands from him. My blood pumped with a heavy pulse at the base of my throat. Yet I believe I managed to appear calm, as I had countless times in front of wounded soldiers when the battle lines had swung too close to our hospital. A thrill of the same adrenaline rushed through my limbs now.
“And how did you come by this ability?”
He gave me a sly look. “If I told you everything, Catherine, it would take away the mystery. I would hate to become a bore. Let us just say I was born with it.”
“Can everyone here do what you can do?”
“I am…different,” he said darkly.
I had known that, of course. Only now did I begin to suspect just how different he was. “What exactly can you do? Heal wounds, make fire—is that all?”
“More or less.”
He would not meet my gaze, and I knew he was hiding something. “Move objects without touching them?”
“Yes.”
“Explain to me how it works.”
He returned to the fireplace and stared into its flames. The exhaustion in his posture, the fist resting upon the mantelpiece gave evidence at his resentment of my questions.
“I can accelerate organic objects through their natural cycles. Command inorganic objects with my will. It allows me to speed the healing process of an injury, to convert fuel into energy, that sort of thing.”
My mind boggled. “Handy.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Quite. The activity is not without consequences, however. Every blessing has its curse. Every gift its price.” He rolled his head upon his neck. “Too much of such activity tires me. Lowers my guard and makes me susceptible to…”