Reassured by his promise and held securely against him, Faith felt herself drifting. She had never felt so safe in her life before, so well cared for. She had never been this well cared for. His voice rumbled above her head, its soft, low tone the epitome of intimacy. “I’ll go on one condition.”
“Hmm?”
“That you agree to marry me. Soon.”
She snuggled against him and lifted one leg to tuck around his. “I don’t think I have much choice.”
Faith awoke with a start. Broad daylight streamed through the unshuttered sash windows of her room, the curtains of her bed still tied back. A fire burned brightly in the grate. She was stark naked, lying in sheets roughly pulled around her to keep her warm, but so obviously rumpled and tumbled in passion. She groaned.
“Good morning, my lady.” Jane, the housemaid deputed to act as her maid, glided forward, a tray in her hands. Faith buried her head in the covers. “I’ve brought you a nice cup of chocolate and some toast. You look as though you need it, if I may say so.”
Faith lifted her head and shoved the hair away from her eyes. “What do you see, Jane?”
Jane, a dumpy girl of medium height, stared back impassively. “Less than I saw when I came to light your fire at six, my lady. I saw two people here then.”
How could they have fallen asleep? She’d planned to get up, chivvy him back to his room and rinse the sheet, letting it dry before the fire. She’d had it all planned, and then she’d fallen asleep? She couldn’t blame Gerard, not with the lethargy that gripped him.
All her fears would be realized. Her name would be bandied around London, and the jealous matchmakers wouldn’t give her a chance. They’d label her whore by nightfall, and then her father would come back, claiming his daughter no fit person to care for her idiot brother. “Who have you told?”
“No one, my lady. His lordship made it very clear I would not be in employment for very long if I mentioned it to anyone.”
Faith would need to delve into her meagre store of guineas to find a substantial vail for the girl. Ellesmere’s threats wouldn’t keep her quiet for long.
Making the best of the situation, Faith sat up in bed and pulled the covers around her. The maid plunked the tray on her lap and turned to go, her deference almost entirely absent. “Order me a bath, if you please,” Faith said, her chin trembling but held high.
“Yes, m’lady.”
Faith heard the slur but didn’t call the maid back to scold her. She didn’t feel strong enough. Left to herself, she sipped her chocolate and pondered over the amazing events of the night. She didn’t dare wonder if Gerard loved her. He liked her, thought she would make a good countess, desired her, but that didn’t equal love. She was a fool for even thinking of it.
Gerard decided to go out. He needed to think and to luxuriate in the events of last night, but not here. He would go to the coffeehouse, where he could sit quietly in the corner amongst the usual uproar. Maybe mention his betrothal and let the news filter across the city.
When he passed his father’s study door, a voice called for him. On the brink of pretending he hadn’t heard, Gerard quickened his pace to make his escape, but before he could do so the door was flung open and his sire confronted him.
One look told him all he needed to know. His father’s face was stone white, his mouth a tight, compressed line. He had heard where Gerard had spent the night. Gerard wrenched his mind back to the present. Tension tightened his forehead, and a headache threatened. But he felt better, more able to cope with the symptoms. A good night’s sleep, he presumed.
“Come in, please.”
Sighing Gerard followed his father into the study but refused to sit down. “I’m expected at the St. James.” One of the political coffeehouses and one he had no intention of visiting, but it would make his father think he was pursuing Fareweather business.
“Then I’ll be brief.” His father stood close, intimidating his son. Except that Gerard wasn’t intimidated and hadn’t been for some years. Not that the duke knew that. Gerard had allowed his easygoing nature to lead his father to believe his son was still under his jurisdiction. “What do you mean, boy, by toying with that woman under my roof?” The duke glared at him.
Gerard stiffened. He didn’t like hearing Faith referred to as “that woman.”
“I believe men are allowed some liberties with their fiancées that aren’t permissible otherwise. We are betrothed, sir. Faith is my intended bride.” And would remain so. The remembrance of Faith’s delectable body shot through Gerard with the force of a fork of lightening.
“No longer.” His father kept his cold stare fixed on his son.
Gerard met it. “Now more than ever.”
The stare turned into a distasteful grimace. “How can I receive a slut as my daughter-in-law? How can I let you marry anyone who disgraces herself in such a way, has such little respect for you or for herself? It makes me wonder how many men she has welcomed into her bed before now, how many she seduced and discarded before she realized she’d need more money.” Boscobel turned on his heel and walked away to stand behind his desk, in the full glare of the early spring sunshine that streamed through the window behind him. “I suppose the woman planned all this. First get into this house, and then into your bed.”
Gerard smiled reminiscently. “She wasn’t in my bed, sir. I was in hers. Did Jane tell you?”
“Who?”
“Jane. The housemaid. She saw us.” Gerard was now as calm as his father was furious. His vision of Faith helped control his temper and put the astonishing information Stretton had given him into the background for the time being.
“No. My man told me. What does it matter? The news will be all around town by this evening. We’ll be a laughingstock.”
Gerard shook his head. “Not if I marry her quickly. I can obtain a special licence. We can marry straight away and see to the contract later. The marriage will stand without the financial arrangements for a while.” He had said it out of a spirit of devilment, at least he thought so until the words had left his mouth. Then he realized that was what he wanted, what he really wanted. To make Faith his, with no possibility of escape for either of them. To do it quickly, while he could still enjoy her, before the lethargy that had him in its grip took hold completely. He had to make the most of the time he had left, and last night had persuaded him that he could remain in enough control of himself to enjoy it with her. He would persuade her somehow.
Boscobel stood as if turned into stone. His hand, in the process of reaching for a paper knife, hovered in midair. In a much quieter voice he said, “I don’t believe you just said that.” He finished his action and gripped the knife between white fingers. “I suggest you maintain the dignity appropriate to your station and send the woman back to her father. We’ll lose Fordhouse, but it can’t be helped.”
Gerard took a moment to rein in his temper. If he lost his temper in his father’s presence, that would put him at a disadvantage against the wily old fox, but never had he been closer to it recently, or of quitting his father’s presence altogether. Let Boscobel see how much satisfaction he could get out of his power, knowing that after his death everything entailed must go to a man who hated him.
The only thing that stopped Gerard was the thought of Faith. Her presence in society already precarious; a rift with his father over her would finish her chances completely. If she decided—God forbid—that she didn’t want him anymore, she should have her freedom without any gossip wrecking her reputation about his quarrel with his father over her. Which, he realized, they were currently doing. It must never be allowed out of this room. His head throbbed. He ignored it.
Gerard took a firm stance. “Sir, I beg you to believe this. Faith and I came together last night in the expectation of marriage. I have promised it to her, and the only way it will not happen is if she withdraws from the arrangement. I want her, and I will have her.” He took a step forward. Just one. “If you agree to this you’ll have Fordhouse�
�s influence, that precious vote you need. And believe me, sir, when I say that if I do not sire your heir with Faith, it will be with no one.” That was no lie. He knew better than to appeal to the duke’s humanity. Better to talk to him about matters dearer to his heart. He waited to let the points sink in.
His father remained silent, but put down the paper knife. The dull click reverberated through the room.
Gerard stood perfectly still, all his attention centered on his father. “If you do not agree to the marriage, you’ll estrange me from your side. You don’t want that, sir. You don’t want to turn me away from you.” The last two sentences reinforced his message.
The duke showed no sign of his capitulation, but merely grunted, “I’ll consider it, although it would go against the grain. The woman is a—”
“Don’t say it.”
The warning was enough. Boscobel made great play of drawing the elaborate French enamelled watch out of his pocket instead of consulting the clock set on the mantelpiece. The chimes of the watch tinkled out in the silent room.
“If you’ll excuse me, sir.” Gerard bowed and made good his escape.
Faith spent the morning in her room and the afternoon with her brother. When Gerard tried to talk to her over dinner, she responded shyly, with a reserve he hadn’t noticed in her before.
The reason was obvious. Their night together had become public knowledge. The servants in the Boscobel household were the elite of their type and well able to convey knowledge and interest without putting a foot wrong. There was nothing on which Gerard could catch them out, but he knew, and they knew.
Damn. She thought of some of the foul words her father sometimes used and tried them all out. They didn’t help her feel any better.
Stretton had kept to his room and gone out later while Gerard was at his own club. Their paths had not crossed. A frustrating day.
However, after dinner they had another trip to the theatre planned, so at least he had the pleasure of his betrothed’s presence, although until they reached their box and he had seated her they’d had no privacy at all.
Gerard took care to seat Faith at the end of the box, with her brother opposite her, within sight but not easily spoken to without leaning over. Only the three of them and two footmen were present tonight. Until Stretton entered.
The first Gerard knew was when a voice came from behind them. “Good evening.”
“Stretton.” Gerard clipped out the word.
Stretton took his seat immediately behind them. “I heard the news all around town.”
Gerard was deeply aware of that, and aware of Faith’s uncomfortable reaction. Fans fluttered, laughs and gossip centered on them. Whenever Gerard’s gaze moved to a box, gazes averted. It was as though their attention formed a magnet in reverse, and the audience so many iron filings, repelled by direct contact.
“I intend to bring the marriage forward,” Gerard said. He sensed rather than saw Faith turn to him. “This gossip will not do.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Rumour is faster than the wind.”
The music started. Gerard smiled at Fordhouse’s small exclamation of pleasure and then heard Stretton’s voice behind him.
“Nobody can hear us now. It’s probably safer to talk here than it is in your father’s house. You know he sets spies at every door, I take it? Your escapades last night were not bruited abroad by Jane the chambermaid, who has been dismissed for her transgression. They were spread on the orders of his grace himself.”
Gerard’s mouth firmed. “I suspected as much, but I’m never sure. He has more footmen than is usual, even for a duke.”
“It’s safer here, if we keep our voices down. I could tell you mind to mind, if you prefer.”
Spoken like that, as if it were a normal part of life, sent a chill down Gerard’s spine. Confirmation of a secret that he and his sister had striven to keep private for so long opened the possibilities. He listened to Stretton, his voice sharp but quiet, Faith’s hand tucked in his.
“Now, if you please, I’ll tell you what you want to know. How is it you didn’t look for the rest of us?”
Gerard refused to answer with his mind. “What do you mean, ‘the rest of us’?” He didn’t turn around.
“I have a question of my own first. What makes you think you are dying?” Stretton demanded softly.
My blood is clear. I am plagued by increased lethargy, so that I spend more time asleep than awake. I have terrible headaches. He couldn’t say it out loud.
Gerard lifted his quizzing glass to depress the pretensions of a particularly inquisitive stare from a man in the pit. The man looked away and Gerard felt some satisfaction. He wouldn’t be surprised if the evening ended with him calling someone out. Most likely Stretton. He was sure he could keep awake for long enough to get a decent shot off, or to run him through.
“The clear blood is usual in an Ancient,” Stretton told him. “I have it, though I’m certainly not dying. Thanks to your father, there are fewer of us than there used to be.” Gerard heard him, shocked that yet another crime could be placed at his father’s door. But what crime? He stayed silent and listened to Stretton. “I put myself into Bedlam to gain ingress into your house. I needed to observe you more closely before I spoke to you. Now that I’m sure of my facts, I have to tell you more.”
“Then get on with it,” Gerard growled softly. “And I would appreciate a modicum of proof.”
“You shall have it.” A soft sigh warmed the back of Gerard’s neck, telling him how close Stretton had leaned towards them. “Thirty years ago, the Olympians indulged in one of our infrequent reunions, and it was on your father’s land. In the old castle, to be exact.”
“The fire? You couldn’t have been much more than a babe in arms.”
“I’m five hundred years old. Give or take a few years.”
Gerard caught his breath and heard Faith do the same. He felt her hand in his. He gripped it tightly, no longer caring who could see and what they thought.
“Thirty years ago I met the others for a meeting, just a social gathering. The castle blew before it caught fire. The basement was seeded with gunpowder.”
“How could that be? No bodies were ever found.”
“We cleaned it.” The pause was more telling than words, as was the break in Stretton’s voice at the end of the sentence.
The orchestra swelled in an emphasis to some dramatic point being made on stage. The actors there seemed as real as anything else in the theatre. Or as false.
Stretton cleared his throat. “I should explain the mind communication. I’m not using it tonight because no one can overhear this, and Faith is not yet completely proficient at channelling her thoughts. If I hadn’t stopped you last night, you would have told all of our kind what you were at, as surely as if you had performed in public. All babies are born communicating in that way, Ancient or mortal, but within a short time of birth the barrier comes down and never goes up again. It seems to be a natural barrier, developed for defence.”
“You mean everyone can communicate with each other?” Gerard felt Faith’s shudder of revulsion through their joined hands, although her mental door was firmly closed. “How terrible.”
Stretton nodded. “Precisely. Terrible never to be alone, to share every experience, every private moment. The barrier isolates the individual. There are people like Faith who are able to lift the barrier, and people who discover the ability quite by chance, but our kind does not. We never lost the ability to use and control others with our minds. We learned how to open and close the barrier at will. The mind has many layers, like an onion, and it’s crucial to learn to control them all. Your ability is well advanced, but Faith’s is new and she hasn’t yet learned the knack of closing it to all but a few. It’s our kind’s primary weapon.”
Gerard’s hand tightened around Faith’s. “Our kind?” He glanced at Fordhouse, but George was leaning forward, too intent on the performance on stage to take any notice of anything else.
; “Our kind. The Ancients. We’re different, Ellesmere, in case you hadn’t noticed. We can communicate and control, using our minds. We are extraordinarily robust. We have blood that runs clear. Our blood can kill mortals on contact.”
Gerard caught his breath. Could it be possible? He dropped his head into his hand briefly, then looked back, a society smile firmly pasted into place to cover his shock. “I thought I was dying.”
“Who told you that?”
“London’s most respected physician. I was told it was a sexual disease, that I could transmit it to a woman.”
“When did you last make love to a woman?”
“Dear God, Stretton.”
“When?”
“Years ago. They told me she died.” Shock tore through Gerard. “You mean I can have—relations with women without killing them?”
Stretton’s threw back his head and laughed. Peals rang through their box, and the audience seemed to break into startled laughter, but it was only something happening on stage. The actors bowed, acknowledging the gratifying response to their small jest.
“Oh dear.” Stretton tried to regain his composure and eventually succeeded. Apart from exchanging a speaking look with his betrothed, Gerard waited patiently for the tumult to subside. “It’s not your seed that’s poisoned—it’s your blood. Your clear blood. The ancient Greeks called it ichor. They knew it was poisonous. If a red-blooded person comes into contact with it, it kills them. We are trained to use a trick of the mind to persuade others they are seeing it as red. It comes as second nature after a time. Didn’t you know? Haven’t you had any messy accidents? Fall out of a tree when you were a child?”
Smiling, Gerard shook his head. “I was lucky.”
Stretton frowned. “Not if you thought your seed killed. My friend, you are as powerful as I am. You are different, that’s all.”
This was too much. If it was anything like Stretton’s power, he wasn’t sure he wanted it. Faith released his hand. The sun went out of his life. Did this mean they could never have a life together? If he was to live so long, then he couldn’t ask her to stay by his side.
Lightning Unbound: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1 Page 13