“You have your gifts, we have ours,” said Deborah. She crossed the room to Gerard, put a proprietary hand on his shoulder. He leaned back to her touch, as once he had into Faith’s.
“It’s wrong,” Faith said.
It is indeed. Don’t fight them, Faith, they are too strong for you. I will come and get you soon, but you must not fight. Stretton, in that tiny part of her mind she’d reserved for him, where even Gerard could not go.
“No, my dear, it will make matters right again.” The duke’s voice was still gentle, still persuasive.
I won’t leave without Gerard, Faith said.
We’ll try. Stretton’s reply was gentle but understanding. It didn’t shake her resolve.
Faith played for time. “So you wish Gerard to make a child with his sister, and you will leave us alone.” Her mind cringed at the thought.
“Yes. Only after your death will changes occur. You will not see them.”
Faith glanced at Gerard, but then looked away again. She could not lie to him. She knew in her heart that if he did this, even once, she could not let him into her bed again.
She heard his voice, anguished. No. Don’t deny me that. This is for you, Faith, so we can live in peace. If you refuse me, nothing is worth it.
Gerard faced his father, pulling the open edges of his dressing gown closed. “Faith is distressed, Father. Allow me some time to explain matters to her.”
Boscobel sighed. “That may not be possible, my son. It is her instincts that rebel, not her mind.”
“I won’t do this if it means losing Faith.”
“If you wish to keep her, you must persuade her. Now.” The duke’s voice hardened, the threat there for all to hear.
With a sudden movement, Gerard knelt at Faith’s feet and reached for her hand. She let him take it, let her hand lie unresistingly in his. All the time she was aware of the hardness in her mind, like an edge of sharp steel waiting to be unsheathed. She knew what it was. Boscobel, waiting for a wrong move, for her to run or protest too strongly. Gerard had opened her mind, and because his father occupied his, Faith’s was open too.
“Father merely wishes me to give him a child he can be sure of. He wishes me to father a child on Deborah. Or rather, Juno.”
Soft waves blanketed her thoughts, filled her mind with love. Faith found herself going under, as though drowning, and with a panicked struggle she found herself again. When she tried to close her mind, she heard Stretton. No. They will force it and that could damage you. Let them in. Respond, make them think you agree, then the pressure will lessen.
Help me.
I’m here. I’m helping you. So is Mercury. We won’t leave you, Faith.
She had little choice. She couldn’t resist this anymore. When she opened her mind, the waves came, silky, warm clouds of reassurance, love and peace. “You will do this?”
“Only if you agree.” It was the first thing Gerard said that made him sound like the Gerard she knew, always so careful of her opinions. Faith felt his hand firmly holding hers, as though keeping her prisoner. He caressed the back of her hand. Normally she would respond with a thrill of desire, even to this light touch, but now she felt cold. Nothing. “I can’t lose you.”
“How long will it take?” Her lips were numb.
“A month, maybe two.”
Faith glanced at Deborah. She was gloating, smiling with a desire she had kept well hidden until now. Now there was no need. “You will send him back to me?”
“If he wants to come.”
It was a challenge, directly issued. Looking at Gerard, Faith realized he hadn’t felt it, couldn’t see it. “You want him?”
“I’ve always wanted him.”
This was wrong, profoundly wrong. Whatever kind of creatures they were, this was basically, fundamentally, wrong. It would condemn them.
Faith pushed the thought away in case anyone detected it. She had to get out of here. She still had George to think of, even if Gerard was lost to her. “I can’t stay here. Not while you do this thing. Are you determined on it?”
Slowly, Gerard nodded.
“Then promise me this. Don’t do it tonight. Just tonight, while I’m still here.”
“You won’t leave me.” Gerard’s hold on her hand tightened.
Faith tried to stay calm. “I can’t stay. I can’t be under the same roof while you—you and she—” She broke off, unable to voice the appalling pictures that came to her mind.
“Oh quelle domage!” Deborah exclaimed lightly. “I wouldn’t have minded if you’d watched us. I like to be watched.” Revulsion lanced through Faith’s mind, instantaneous and unstoppable. Deborah laughed. “A shame you’re such a little provincial, my dear. We might have had some fun.”
Faith felt Stretton, simmering emotions only just held in check. She was deeply distressed, could think of nothing but the mental images Deborah provided her. She swallowed her panic and disgust and turned back to her husband, the only person she had the least hope of persuading. “Please, Gerard, not tonight. I will stay at Stretton’s with my brother for a while. We can say that George is ill, and I have gone to look after him.”
Gerard glanced at his father. Faith didn’t look away, and when Gerard looked back at her she saw a deep sadness shadow his eyes. “You won’t stay? I don’t know if I can do this without you.”
Pain shot through her, such agony it shocked Faith into silence. It took her a minute to get her breath back, but when she did it wasn’t her pain she felt. It was Gerard’s.
There was no longer any doubt that they were controlling him. Crude but efficient, Stretton remarked laconically. We need to get him away.
“The sooner we can start, the sooner we’re done,” Boscobel said. “Let her go, Gerard. It is clear her feeble mind cannot cope with matters of gods. You may have her later if you still wish it.”
Stretton’s voice came laconic and hard. Leave, Faith. Come to us. You can’t fight this on your own, you haven’t the expertise, and what I can do for you at this distance is limited. If you stay any longer, they will draw you in.
Looking at the faces around her, Faith knew he was right. She had to retreat if she could. She got to her feet, finding it hard not to flinch away when Gerard put a steadying hand under her elbow.
She allowed him to escort her to her room, but when he turned, after she had closed the door, arms wide for her, she moved away. “No, Gerard.”
“Faith? I’m doing this for us.” There was real bewilderment on his face. Could she break the hold his father had on him somehow?
No. Get out of there. They will know if you touch him. Leave it to us.
“So you want to leave me.”
She confronted him, tears blurring her vision of him. “No, Gerard. That’s the last thing I want to do. But I can’t stay in this house, not if—not if it means knowing you’re here, but not with me.”
Faith could hear Stretton’s voice in her head, urging her to leave, now, before it was too late.
She closed the mental door on him.
Chapter Twenty
“Faith?” Gerard sounded bewildered, as bewildered as Faith felt.
“Gerard, I tell you truly, I can’t stay with you, knowing you’ve done this thing.”
She saw him swallow. “May I come to you when it’s all over?”
“No.” Faith knew then, as clearly as anything in her life, that she couldn’t live with him again, knowing what he had done. She wondered what she would have felt like had she discovered Gerard in flagrante with anyone else. It would have proved hard and deeply damaging to their relationship. It might have taken a long time to regain their trust, the bedrock of their love.
But not Deborah. Whatever else they were, Gerard and Deborah were full brother and sister. While she knew that in his right mind Gerard wouldn’t even consider such a thing, she also knew that if he did it, she couldn’t ever receive him again as her husband. It would always be there—the mental images conjured by her unwilling imagination,
the knowledge that any child of hers had a sibling with its aunt.
She refusing to consider it. It would not happen.
“Faith, I’ve had a long conversation with my father and my sister. There are some merits in their arguments.” Gerard sounded desperate, but Faith would not turn to him. She needed to put her expression under iron control. “They wish only to help, to prevent war and deprivation taking hold of the country.”
And their own self-aggrandizement. Faith said nothing aloud and did not share her thoughts. It felt strange, being on her own again, alone in her own mind. It felt lonely.
“I cannot approve of their methods, but they do have a point. I have seen how my father works, and it is by persuasion and argument. He must mean what he says.” Faith heard a strain in Gerard’s voice. Could she attack him there? No, impossible. She didn’t need Stretton to tell her that Boscobel and probably Deborah too were constantly with Gerard, waiting only for her trust in him to reappear to take control of her as well. She would not allow them to do that. Gerard moved closer and Faith resisted the urge to turn to him, as she so longed to do. “None of this will matter to us. They won’t begin until their child is older and ready to help them.”
Faith knew he wasn’t in his right mind. This wasn’t the Gerard she loved. Neither was it a stranger. Enough of her husband remained for her heart to ache for him.
She wanted him, so much. When she felt his hands on her shoulders, she could no longer resist, but turned into his body, allowing him to surround her with his warmth, his scent.
It would be so easy to give in, but she would not. It was wrong. With every bone in her body, Faith knew this course was the wrong one to take. She played her last, most desperate card. “If I stay with you, will you promise not to do this thing?”
His arms went around her, holding her close and his hands roamed her back in a series of soothing strokes, making her want to arch to him. When she lifted her head, he kissed her.
She opened to him, allowing the freedom of her body but keeping her mind firmly closed. It was difficult to resist his loving, and after a brief struggle with her conscience, she gave up trying.
He lifted his head and gazed at her. “I’ve promised to do it, in return for our complete safety.”
Faith stopped the words rising to her tongue. She wanted to remind him how perfidious his father was and what he was likely to do. Instead, she said, “We’ll never agree on this, Gerard. You probably know him better than I do. Will you agree on a compromise?” He smiled down at her, nearly stopping her heart. “Promise not to take the ultimate step for a few days—a few days, Gerard. Until I can accustom myself to the idea. I won’t come back to this house. I’ll find somewhere safe and stay there. A few days, that’s all.” Hearing the pleading in her voice turning to desperation, Faith stopped talking.
He lifted a hand to brush aside an errant curl with such delicacy, Faith felt it as a gentle breeze on her face. She kept her mind firmly shuttered against him and everyone else. If anyone tried to break through her puny defences, she had no doubt they would succeed, but at least she would know about it. With barriers down, the approach could be covert and unnoticed until too late.
“A few days,” he repeated, and then, firmer, “until Saturday, then.”
Today was Wednesday.
Faith stared at him and then paused to send a mental message to Stretton. I’m safe. I will come to you later.
There’s a carriage outside. It’s mine. Come out now.
Then she closed again and gave all her attention to her husband. He must have seen her withdrawal, because he was watching her. “I told Stretton I was safe,” she said.
“Good.” He bent his head and took possession of her mouth.
When she felt his hands at her gown, undoing the hooks down the front, she pulled away. “No, Gerard. I can’t.”
“Sweetheart, I’m doing this for us.”
She was making him weaken his resolve. “I meant what I said. I can’t make love to you if you do this. That starts now.” The idea repulsed her. His kiss felt the same, his hands so secure now, but this wouldn’t work.
She refastened her gown. “I can’t make love, knowing what you plan to do.” If she was tempted to take him one more time, the thought of him with his sister killed her desire as dead as a stone.
She had made up her mind. “I love you, Gerard. Never forget that.”
Pausing by the door, she took one last look, knowing it would have to last her a lifetime. She went downstairs, slipped out of the front door and got into the waiting carriage, her heart breaking.
Stretton held Faith while she wept and said nothing. When they reached her destination, he helped her out and inside, but stood waiting. Faith faced him. “Society will talk if I sleep here,” he explained. “D’Argento has rented a house, and I’m going there. The servants are all mine; they won’t betray you. You’re safe here.”
“Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. I’ll come back in the morning. I have your brother here. He’s sleeping off the effects of the drugs they gave him. James is with him.”
With a bow he was gone, leaving her to her own thoughts. Faith determined not to be maudlin. She went to bed in the room next to the one they’d given to her brother, and willed herself to sleep.
Stretton and d’Argento arrived much too early for fashion the next day, but Faith had risen even earlier and dressed simply. Her maid had followed her to the house, and after enjoining her to silence, Faith deliberately gave no explanation. George had woken, but she had left James to dress him and give him breakfast.
After she poured tea and dismissed Baker, Stretton began. “I went out last night and put a word into a few ears. When it is known you are living here, there will be gossip, there’s no hope of stopping that, but I did what I could. I said that your brother has been taken ill with an infectious disease, and that is why you are here to nurse him, and not at your home. Your husband and your fatherin-law have not had smallpox, but you have, so you decided that it was best to separate yourselves from his house.”
“But that means we can’t take George out. He must get some air.”
Stretton shrugged. “I’m sorry for it, but it can’t be helped. It won’t be for long. I only keep a few servants here, and except for your maid I can trust them all. You may trust the butler and housekeeper implicitly. They are not Ancients, but they have served me for many years and they know what I am. They’ll keep the maid away from George’s room and explain it is his illness.”
“You are very thorough, sir.”
“Practice.” Stretton got to his feet and strode to the window. “I’ve been doing this for many years.” He stared outside, and they heard the sounds of ordinary life, the carriages bowling down the street, the street sellers raucously calling out their wares. He turned back to Faith, his face bleak. “Perhaps you and Gerard are in the right, my dear. A long life is undoubtedly a burden, but I don’t know any other way. Sometimes I pray for a sudden accident.”
He stopped as though he’d bitten off his words and came back to his chair. As he passed, d’Argento his friend gave him a speaking look, and Faith knew sympathy and understanding. Had d’Argento lost a love, then? It was difficult to tell, in a man of such changeable moods. And Faith was in no mind to speculate.
“What do you plan to do?”
Stretton stared at her, and she understood and opened to him. That’s better. I want you to know I am completely sincere in this. It’s our way to open like this. He spoke aloud. “I saw enough yesterday to know what has happened. It will be difficult, but it won’t be impossible. At least I hope and pray it will not. Your husband has been subtly converted. He expected attack from your father and guarded against it, but by pretending to kidnap his sister, Gerard was open to her, totally trusting.”
“So she did it.” Faith remembered the friendliness Deborah had shown her, the welcome she had always shown, and she understood. She also recalled that edge of doubt she’d
always felt for the other woman, times when Deborah had hesitated, looked at her strangely or seemed less than her friendly self. Faith had been too quick to dismiss the niggles bothering her, because she loved Gerard and he loved his sister.
She should have listened to her instincts.
“She was in his mind before he realized what she was doing, and by then it was too late. The trip to Bedlam was the distraction, enabling them to do the work they needed. They left part of him open to you, so you would suspect nothing wrong. We were too busy dealing with your father to concern ourselves with him, other than ensuring his safety.”
D’Argento sighed. “One of us should have gone with him. It was foolish.”
“The duke engineered his plot well.”
D’Argento sighed again. “Juno. I should have guessed, I should have known. Juno was always jealous, always possessive, and it wouldn’t take much to turn her back that way. Her father must have poured poison into her ears since her birth. A clever move, to keep her private, in reserve, so to speak, in case his son should prove a disappointment.”
“I believe he had this in mind all along,” Stretton said, his voice rough with anger. “To breed from Gerard, then kill him. Otherwise, why convince him he was dying?”
The silence fell heavily on the room. He was right. Everything pointed to it. “So they didn’t plan on my arrival, ” she said.
“It was the only thing that could have helped, diverting Boscobel from his carefully laid plans.” Stretton smiled at her warmly, despite the anger still sparkling in his eyes. “It was the best thing that could have happened. It saved Gerard’s life.”
“Boscobel is still on track to succeed,” d’Argento pointed out, “Unless we can prevent it.”
“That’s what we’re here to do.”
Brighter, Stretton said, “George seems none the worse for wear. I went to see him before I came back downstairs.”
Faith smiled. Her relief this morning at finding George much better after a long sleep had gone a long way to reconcile her to the thought of this meeting and the decisions they needed to make. “He is, much better. He lives in the moment and takes things as they come. It makes him much more resilient than the rest of us.”
Lightning Unbound: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1 Page 26