Margaret snapped her hands together, clinging to composure. She then grabbed a long sheet of linen. “Take him to his bed.”
The footmen nodded and started for the bedroom.
Powers didn’t protest. His glazed eyes stared blankly. “W-what’s happening?” he murmured as they struggled to carry him.
Margaret winced. There was a note of boyish fear in Powers’s strong voice. She longed to shout that she’d told him the consequences of abrupt withholding of morphine, but it was of no matter now. So she bit her tongue. “It will be fine, Powers.”
Despite the footmen holding him, she began to towel his body down. Her own frame shook with anger at herself. She never should have agreed to let Powers cut himself off so abruptly from opium, but she couldn’t go back now.
With the discipline she’d won in hospitals during the hell of the Crimea, she forced herself to work methodically. Forced herself to see this man as only pieces of body, of flesh needing tending and repair.
As the footmen slid him back between the covers, his body was limp, his head rolling to the side.
Carefully, she tucked his long silver hair back from his face. “Rest now.”
He blinked, those bleary eyes registering for a brief moment. “Maggie? What is happening?”
She swallowed the burn at the back of her throat. “You’re getting better. The hard way.”
• • •
Margaret swung her gaze to the little brown satchel that bore her morphine kit. It would be so easy. So easy to take him out of his wild suffering.
“Jane!” he screamed, his body convulsing off the ornate bed.
She darted forward, her hands bracing against his shoulders, urging him back toward the bed.
This was a particularly bad case. She’d rarely seen such a strong reaction to morphine withdrawal. Perhaps it reflected the darkness of the emotion he’d hidden for so long. And now it was clamoring to get out.
His eyes, wide and feverish, searched for some unseen specter. “Jane?” he called, waiting several seconds before shouting, “Come back,”
“Jane’s safe,” she insisted gently, tempted to stroke his forehead, but unsure if a man of his temperament would take to such comforting even in waking dreams. “She’s completely safe.”
And in a way it was true. His daughter was safe, away from the pain and trials of this world. Even so, it pained her that he was suffering so brutally for the loss of his child.
He swallowed and turned his head toward her, his white-blond hair glowing like burnished silver in the candlelight. “Is she with her nurse?”
Her throat tightened. The hate for herself and his father bubbled up in her so hard she nearly choked. She wanted to help him. Some way. At present, there was nothing she could do except be with him and give him the peace he needed in this moment. Somehow she mustered, “Yes. She’s with her nurse. They’re out in the garden, taking the air.”
He calmed slightly, but he couldn’t stay still, his limbs twitching. “She must eat.”
“Of course, lovely hot milk and perhaps some porridge with jam.”
He grabbed for her hands, his fingers working desperately over hers. “She hasn’t been eating.”
“Ah, and isn’t she a little thing. Little things don’t eat much.” Her eyes stung with the horror of what she was doing, but she knew the dangers of arguing with someone in his state. The worst thing she could do was tell him his daughter was dead. To try to make him believe it. Crueler even than what she was doing now.
He looked away, his face creasing with dark worries. “Don’t understand. She won’t eat . . .”
Margaret frowned. Not eating? The little girl, no more than a baby really, had died in an accident with her mother. There’d been no mention by the earl that the little girl had been sickly.
“Doesn’t play.” His fingers twitched and then pulled away, grabbing fistfuls of the blankets. “Not normal. She needs to play.”
Her thoughts sped quickly. The deluded often ranted during this time of breaking with opium, but sometimes their darkest fears, honest fears, rushed to the surface. Jane had been two years of age when she passed, an age when play and racing about madly was called for. She shook the suspicious thoughts away, focusing on the present. “Ah, we’ll make a fine game for her, shall we?”
“Bring her to me.”
Her stomached coiled at the direct request. Distract him. She had to distract him. “Your house. It sure is a grand one, my lord.”
He blinked and then turned his face to her and smiled gently. “Old. Very old.”
“So I can tell. Who built it?”
His smile broadened, touched by clear pride. “Inigo Jones.”
He thought they were in the country.
But then the smile vanished, replaced by terrified concern. “Where’s Jane? Nurse mustn’t take her down to the lake.”
She’d grown used to it over the years, the quick bounce of thoughts of those either on or easing their way from the drug. So she said, “Of course she won’t.”
“You won’t understand.” He thrashed up, his legs swinging toward the edge of the bed. “Drowned. She can’t—can’t go there.”
Those icy eyes of his were glassy with tears and hallucinations. Dread coiled in her belly. If she couldn’t calm him, he’d be out of hand, big man that he was. She had to assure him everything would be all right. But how did you assure someone the dead were fine? Especially when their brains were muddled and one moment his little girl was alive and the next she’d drowned but still needed to be kept safe.
She reached out and cupped his cheek, a daring but necessary gesture. His skin burned fiery under her cool hand. “And didn’t I give her a talisman to protect her from the water?”
He stilled under her touch. “What?”
Gently, she turned his face so that she might look into his eyes. “You know us Irish. We’ve got the powers of the spirits, and I gave her a spell of protecting.”
His chest pumped up and down like a bellows as he considered her words. “Thank you. Thank you.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it wildly. “You’re too good.”
Tears filled her eyes as she lifted her free hand, stroking his hair back from his face. “’Tis no bother. Now lie back.”
Just when his head touched the pillow, he lurched up. His feet braced against the floor, and he swayed as he pushed himself up. “Must check. Must check myself.”
She strained against him, using the soft touch of her palms instead of force, fearing if they grappled she would be knocked to the floor. “Worry not, my lord.”
“You don’t understand.” He grabbed both her hands in a strong but careful grip.
“Rest,” she soothed. “Rest.”
“No,” he roared. He shoved her as he rushed for the door, and she darted in his way. As he scrambled to get around her, his elbow hit her cheek.
Pain sliced through her face, and she fell to the floor. The layers of gown protected her knees but not her elbows as they rammed into the hardwood by the door. Her vision went dark for a moment and she blinked. “Charles! Dawson!”
Footsteps thundered on the other side of the door, and it jolted open. The two young footmen rushed into the room. They spotted her on the floor and took in Powers’s wild stance. Charles, the younger footman, held up a gloved hand. His brown eyes flashed with indecision as he pled, “My lord. Please go back to bed.”
Powers’s breath came in wild gasps. “I have to—I have to—”
Dawson, his wig askew, edged around the viscount. Each step he took inched him closer.
“Please now, my lord,” Charles begged, his face burning red with upset at the very idea of having to manhandle a viscount.
“You’re keeping her from me,” Powers bit out, his hands curling and uncurling into twin fists that when used in violence would feel like hammer
s.
“No, Powers,” she eased, trying to stumble to her feet, but the wide hoops made it bloody difficult.
His face contorted with horror. “What have you done to her?”
Whipping his head right to left, he eyed the two men. Even in his state, he was capable of far too much. It took only a moment of indecision before his body tensed. Then he ran, driven by the misplaced but very real need to find his daughter.
Charles grabbed for him, but Powers made a fist and pummeled the lad’s face with it, and the footman dropped to the ground. Dawson took one look at how quickly Charles had gone down and stepped back
“Jane!” Powers yelled as he escaped into the hall.
Fear and fury pounding in her heart, she shoved herself to her feet and propelled herself after him. He had to be stopped before he hurt himself or anyone else. Her lungs protested as she ran in the ridiculously heavy skirts.
She passed the butler, Fellows, and shouted as she ran, “Bring up all the footmen. Now.”
She barely caught his nod and look of shock.
In the distance, she could hear Powers pounding down the stairs. Just as she reached the landing, she spotted him at the foyer, his bare feet sliding over the black-and-white marble.
He looked left and then right, as if suddenly confused by where he was, for surely this looked nothing like his country house.
“Jane?” he called, a more plaintive sound this time.
She caught herself, her breath coming in short jerks as she began a slow descent down the wide, curving stairs. She couldn’t startle him. Not if she wished to get him back up to his room in semi peace.
“My lord?” she tested.
He whirled toward her, his face a mask of confusion. “Where am I?”
She approached slowly, her hand sliding easily down the banister. “You’re in London.”
He nodded slowly. “Of course.” And then his face twisted with irreparable sorrow, and he choked out, “Jane’s dead.”
“Yes,” she said softly. “She is.”
He brought his hands up to his head, cradling it. “Should be in the madhouse.”
In all the years she’d worked with men on the edge, she’d never felt much of anything but determination. At this moment, the hard walls of her heart softened. It was all she could do to stop herself from taking him in her arms. Who had comforted him when his wife and child had died? Who had held his hand? Suddenly, she knew. No one. He had been alone.
He had been alone ever since.
“No, my lord,” she assured. “This will pass.”
Doubt worried his features, as did the feral fear in his eyes that he was no longer in control. “You promise?”
And in that moment he was such a little boy. Completely open and vulnerable, his heart broken, the world a disappointment, and in need of so much more than opium or any sort of doctor’s treatment. He was in need of the one thing she couldn’t give him.
Love.
• • •
“We have a very serious dilemma, young woman.”
Powers’s father was a master of manipulation. That was the only explanation for the way he’d hidden this arrogant and controlling streak from her in that first meeting. “Do we, indeed?”
Once again, she’d been called upon the carpet like an errant employee. The study was an oppressive room, made all the more unfortunate by her repeated impressions of its master within its walls.
“What was that business this morning?”
“That, my lord, is the product of extreme removal from opium.”
“Ah. I see.”
“Do you?”
“You are attempting to blame me and my son for your own inadequacies.”
Quite unbidden, her mouth opened into an O of astonishment. “Did you speak with my former employers at all?”
This gave the earl pause. “Of course I did.”
“Then you should already understand that my methods are generally productive. Despite your current doubt, they shall be again.”
He blanched. “I’ve never met a young woman such as yourself.”
“I’m certain you’ve not, but understand this, my lord, I’ll not be trampled upon.”
“And I’ll not have my son ranting and raving about my house.”
It was tempting to ask him to relent and allow a small dose of morphine be given to Powers. But now she wouldn’t do it. If she did, the last forty-eight hours of his suffering would be for naught. “Then perhaps he and I should repair to the country.”
“Perhaps you should do the job for which I have secured your livelihood.”
Her spine stiffened. “I know you love your son and that is why you are acting so impulsively. Why you are so desperate to place blame. Such emotion at this time is natural, my lord, but it won’t serve you.”
“Emotion?” he echoed. “I am at my wit’s end, and the very person I thought to help me”—his voice broke—“is doing nothing. You sit up there holding his hand like some bloody nanny.”
She resisted the urge to reach out to him. He needed to feel whatever it was he was feeling, whether it was failure as a parent or fury at his lack of control.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked, willing him to put his frustrations into words.
“More. Anything,” he lamented before his words faded to a whisper. “Something. But no more of his crazed behavior.”
“This, unfortunately, is the natural course—”
“Let me make this plain. If I do not begin to see more immediate results in my son’s cure, I will have no choice but to have your marriage annulled, the funds I’ve given you removed from your disposal, and I will have him removed to a more permanent, more private dwelling, with men who can better attend him.”
Her spine stiffened, shocked at his abrupt declaration. “You can’t do that.”
“Can’t I?”
Oh, God. He could. Of course he could. Unless she bedded Powers. Christ above, and wasn’t she on the fastest road to becoming a disgusting creature? But as she closed her eyes, she envisioned her brother dancing from the hangman’s noose.
And she didn’t care what that bargain made her. Not in the least. For there was no way she’d let this old English bugger win.
Chapter 12
James hauled his legs over the side of the bed and savored every damn burning pain that ripped its way through his guts and his sinew. He deserved it. He deserved far more. In fact, he had every intention of finding his father’s walking stick and then offering it to Maggie so she might brain him with it. Later he’d find a way to apologize to the poor footmen. He doubted the young men would be open to bashing in his skull. Maggie, on the other hand, would most likely do it with aplomb.
His toes touched the cold floor, and he shuddered with pleasure. For the last several hours, he’d felt like a living furnace.
He swung his gaze around, and once again, he spotted Maggie sitting silently in the shadows, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Those indigo eyes studied him carefully, some strange edge in them. How long had she been quietly watching? The whole damn night?
Daylight filtered in through the windows. That strange London light marred by clouds and smoke. What time was it? He had little doubt she had guarded him for hours, vengeful angel that she was.
He met her gaze, allowing the silence to expand, swallowing them whole until the room pulsed with a strange, hypnotic tension between. The strong part of him, the part that knew he was the path of her destruction, desperately wished to never set eyes upon her again. To never have to face what he was in her depthless eyes. But she was his mirror, shining back his true, ugly self. A man hell-bent on destruction. The noble thing to do would be to send her on her way.
But he was no longer noble, and even now, after the hell he’d put her through, he needed her to stay. To sta
y until he could prove that he was not driven by madness and weakness. It would be only a matter of time until he could completely deaden his heart. And once he could no longer feel the pain that seared his heart and soul, he’d let her go.
His fingers dug into the bed, willing her to say something to break the god-awful silence in which he felt utterly exposed. Perhaps she thought she’d seen him at his worst. If she did, she was sorely mistaken. In one rough go, he cleared his throat, forcing himself to face up to his bad qualities and own them. “My apologies for . . .” His throat closed up as he let his gaze lower to the bruise blooming on her right cheek.
Shit.
“Grand fun as it is to watch you stew, you didn’t hit me on purpose.”
He blinked, struggling to recall what exactly had transpired. All he could recall was her falling to the floor in a tide of black material. But he’d known it had been he who’d put her on the ground. Soul-blackening guilt stretched over him. He’d done the unthinkable. In his entire life, he’d never struck a woman, accident or no.
When had he come to this? When had he fallen so low that he’d been able to do something he truly believed himself incapable of?
“Truly,” she said softly. “You didn’t pop me one, Powers. It was an accident.”
“I don’t need lies.” The words ripped out of his mouth, each one painful as a jagged cut. He deserved a lashing, a torrent of her anger.
“Oh, that I shan’t give you. You clocked young Charles but good. The sawbones had to be called for. Three stitches and a good Highland steak.” She leaned forward, her face unsympathetic but once again without judgment. “You acted like a right ass, but you also said some rather interesting things.”
His heart slammed in his chest. The air suddenly locking in his windpipe. “Did I?
“Mm.” She nodded, her crimson hair glinting in the pale light like a beacon. “About your daughter.”
Jane. His jaw clenched as a wave of emotion threatened to sweep up over him. It was an all-too-familiar feeling, failure. He’d failed his baby girl, and she’d paid for his inabilities with her fragile life. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
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