Mary winced as faint light pierced her aching eyes. Despite her attempt to suppress it, a low groan escaped her throat. She’d taken laudanum, too.
It couldn’t be her laudanum they were speaking of?
“Mary?” one of the men called urgently through her haze.
She longed to roll away from him, but she could barely flutter her lids. As she fought to keep them open, she caught sight of the ivory ceiling painted with gold leaf.
Gold leaf and plasterwork?
Where was she? She somehow knew the elaborate decor. Even if she did know one of the voices, she couldn’t recall who the people in the room were or what they might do to her. “Wh-who?”
A weight pressed down on the bed. Fighting the agony in her limbs, she grabbed the sheets and struggled to pull away.
She had to leave before anyone tried to hurt her. She had to get free—
A warm hand circled her fingers. “It’s Edward.”
Instinct commanded she fling the hand away, but she stilled, a warm sort of unfamiliar hope giving life to her heart. Edward?
She slowly turned toward the man sitting beside her on the wide bed. Jet-black hair fell over his hard brow. Black eyes stared down at her, intense with a hint of wildness that verged on the frightening. A faint shadow of black beard dusted his square jaw and the V of skin, bared by his unlaced linen shirt, exposed taut muscles.
Every bit of him looked imperious and entitled, even in dishevelment. Yet a haunted air played at the planes of his face.
The duke.
A fresh wave of horror crashed through her. This man was meant to protect her and she’d—
She couldn’t even recall what she’d done. One moment she’d been standing by the fire waiting for him, terrified of how she’d respond to being alone with him and the advances men always made, and in the next the world had rattled out of her control.
“Forgive me,” she begged, then felt the rock of self-loathing spasm in her stomach. Once she had been petted and loved, and had had everything she could ever want, before she even knew she wanted it. Now she had no power at all. And had to beg forgiveness for every moment of her weakness.
Why did she have to keep doing things to be forgiven for? Hate laced through her heart. Hate for the man who had done this to her. Her father had longed for her to be broken. How happy he would be if he could see her now. He would merely say it was in her blood, that she had fulfilled her mother’s mad strain.
“There’s no need for forgiveness, my darling, and you must never ask for it again.” There wasn’t an ounce of sympathy in Edward’s statement, just a sort of sadness deepening his tones. That factualness was far more comforting than all the soothing platitudes in the world.
Nothing to be forgiven. Yvonne had said it, too. But they couldn’t possibly mean it. She was a disgusting creature not meant for society. Her father had made sure of that.
How she wished hot tears would sting her eyes, but none would come. She stared up at Edward, unflinching. “You don’t deserve this.”
“You have no idea what I deserve.” His big hand clasped hers softly.
To her shock, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she savored the touch, stunned by how right it felt.
His lips pressed into a tight line before he drew in a long, careful breath. “I must ask . . . Did you—?” He looked away, clearly unable to go on as his face darkened with some emotion she couldn’t quite identify.
She shook her head slightly. What could shake this powerful man so? “Did I what?”
Another face came into view, one that had doubtless been in the room the whole time but had stayed hidden. He was an older man whose white hair shone silver in the candlelight. Heavy lines had turned his face into a beaten yet kind map of emotion. “I’m Dr. Carrington, my dear, and . . . what the duke wishes to ask is, did you mean to destroy yourself?”
Stunned, she looked from the doctor to Edward. They think . . . She opened her mouth to shout a torrent of fierce and offended denial. Before she could, she thought of the laudanum she had taken, and the wine . . . Of course they thought the worst. What else would one think?
She pulled her hand from Edward’s and looked toward the damask-curtained windows. “No. I would never give up the only thing that is mine.”
Edward let out an audible breath. Of relief? She turned back to face him. His eyes had lost their haunted look and whatever demon had been holding him these last minutes seemed to let go.
“That is what I had concluded,” Dr. Carrington said. “The laudanum you drank was well over three quarters opium. Who gave it to you?”
Mary closed her eyes, a wave of nausea rolling over her. “It doesn’t matter.” She doubted she could keep talking about this. Or anything for that matter. She felt so ill.
“It matters,” Edward gritted out. “You almost died. And someone else could die if they take something of its like.”
Humiliation claimed her, a thick weight on her already worn heart. He was going to think so little of her—not that he already thought much. But she wasn’t sure she could bear to see disappointment in his eyes. She didn’t know why, but it was important that he not see her how she truly was.
No, she did know why.
For one brief, illusive time, he’d seen her as more than a wounded animal who needed saving. He’d seen her as a beautiful creature. A fascinating woman to keep. Now he would cast her out like the sick, used-up woman that she was. Carefully, she pressed her hands into the silken-smooth sheets and shoved herself into a sitting position. She swallowed back the rising sickness at her throat. “I think I should go.”
Edward leaned toward her. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have nothing you could desire.” Her own surety was surprising, given how paper-thin she felt. “I have neither mind, nor strength, nor a body that could make me of use to anyone, let alone you.”
She could feel his eyes burning her, intense yet cold with calculation, the kind of calculation that only the most intelligent and hard humans could produce.
“Dr. Carrington,” Edward clipped. “Leave us.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Footsteps shuffled quickly out of the room, then disappeared as the door shut quietly.
Mary took in her body, small and draped in a coverlet. Her bare shoulders peeked from the linen, nearly exposing a small breast. Where was her gown?
She looked to the floor. The purple fabric lay drunkenly amid a cracked hoop skirt and a twisted corset. Of course. He’d had to remove them.
Slowly, it came back to her. She stared at the shimmering fabric and tortured undergarments. She’d almost died. The power of it was worse than the humiliation she had been feeling. Her near death hadn’t been at the hands of the madhouse keepers, or the frigid cold of the black, icy nights of York. It had been here, in a duke’s home, safe, warm, and beautifully clothed. It was her own hand that had nearly driven her from the world that she so longed to take her place in. She forced her eyes up to his face. “You . . . saved me.”
His dark eyes widened, startled. “I . . .”
It was fascinating, the struggle working across his strong face. His brows drew together and he pressed his lips into a knife blade of a line. Vulnerability hovered in his eyes. The vulnerability of a little boy who knew the world was not the fairy tale he’d been told by his nanny, but rather an ugly, unkind place bent on crushing those who could not stand on their own.
She contemplated comforting him with her hand, a foreign, shocking desire. She allowed herself a moment to fortify herself before she reached out and, for the first time she could recall in years, willingly took a man’s hand in hers. His hand. “Thank you.”
He looked to her pale fingers entwined with his stronger ones. “Get well and that will be all the gratitude I ever require.”
The world slowed as his words came down upon her. Was he indeed so foolish? Under that harsh exterior lay the heart of a true idealist? While it was beautiful and unbearable to behold, she found herself
struggling to give his sentiment credence. “Edward. Sad though it may be, I don’t know if I shall ever be entirely well. Not after—”
His face tensed and those onyx eyes sparked with anger. “You shall. You must. I will restore you.”
The sudden passion on his austere features gave her pause. “Why?”
A muscle flexed in his cheek before he said darkly, “Because I wish it.”
Suddenly, her heart ached for this good man who wished for something that would most likely never occur. “And your wishes are always realized?”
“Always.” He declared it with ease but there was something . . . unknowable in his eyes that revealed that his true wishes, the wishes of his soul, were all dead.
She slipped her fingers from his surprisingly callused hand. A brew of ill portent and anticipation spun her insides. “I know men like you.”
“Men like me?” he echoed, staring at her hand now a safe distance from his own, which rested lightly on her abdomen.
“You’re a good man, Edward, but all the same you must have what you want when you want it, and if you don’t get it . . .” Mary inwardly shuddered, the rage in her father’s eyes coming to her mind. He had always been so kind, so generous, until one denied him. Then his generosity froze into a glacial cruelty that didn’t stop at unkind words. She hadn’t realized that when she was small. Not when she was his little pearl. The diamond and the pearl. That’s what he had called her mother and herself. Two jewels to be kept and owned and, when rebellious, beaten into submission. Made to fit their settings as her father determined.
“I’ve known men like that, too, Calypso, and I am not one of them.”
It would be the height of foolishness to believe in him and allow herself the naïveté she’d once basked in. “You’re not ruthless, then?”
“I can be,” he admitted without shame. “A man of my standing must be.”
She let out a long sigh. This conversation alone made her a fool. She should keep her mouth firmly shut and simply allow him to do and think whatever he wished. What did it matter as long as she kept him pleased? Yet it did matter. She wanted to speak the truth with this man, even if she had also seen how hard her mother had worked to please her father. How frequently she had failed.
“You cannot force me to be better, Edward.”
He contemplated her, those black eyes sharpening. “Mary, I will not force you into anything. I will, however, treat you with kindness, with politeness, so that you see that you deserve so much more than you have known.”
She smiled, a glib, humorless twist of lips and teeth. “I have little experience in politeness and will not likely recognize it.”
“Why is that?”
“We were discussing your circumstances, not mine,” she redirected.
“So we were,” he drawled. “To be clear, I do not derive pleasure from the suffering of others.”
How she longed to believe him, to trust him, but she saw it in his eyes. He was holding back, hiding something as he tried to convince her he was nothing like the men she knew. But he had made people suffer. He would make people suffer still.
She would never tell him which girl at Yvonne’s had given her the laudanum. Anger simmered in him, just under his calm surface. Anyone who attempted to hurt her would see that fury unleashed . . . In that, he was just like her father. No one was to blemish his diamond or his pearl. No one but himself.
“Let me try to help you,” he insisted softly.
Mary inhaled slowly as she realized it wasn’t for her that he desired her happiness. A force deep inside his ailing heart was driving him. “If I allow you to try, will you admit you may not succeed?”
“No, Calypso.” Ever so slowly, he lifted his beautiful hand, a hand that any sculptor would sell his soul to set in immortal stone, and carefully cupped her hollowed cheek. “In this, I will not admit defeat. Nor should you.”
Emotions dueled within her soul. One urged her to rest her cheek in his strong palm, giving over to a moment of safety and care, no matter how false. For, surely, it would prove false. She could not forget her father’s lesson that all men wore masks hiding their true natures beneath. The other emotion, the one beating loudest through her blood, pushed her to run. Despite his seemingly pure wish, she longed to run from the inevitable destruction that came from men like him.
Despite her fear, she let the heat and strength of his touch hold her. It was a luxury she could ill afford, but perhaps this man’s touch was worth the risk?
His soft breath of appreciation at her trust punctured the room and for a brief instant she felt safe.
Closing her eyes, she forced herself back to another time. A time when she had offered herself up to joy. Happiness was something she had once been immersed in from the first moment of morning to the last breath she took before sleep. Even in sleep her dreams had been full of a glittering future as a duke’s privileged and well-loved daughter.
Yet she’d discovered every precious moment of it had been a treacherous lie, waiting to unravel under her father’s carefully woven spell.
Mary opened her eyes and strained to take in the blindingly austere, creased white linen covering her body. He was going to continue to insist he could make her happy. She knew it from the many times her mother had attempted to reason with her father. No matter how she tried, or what point she made, it would end in fruitless defeat. It was a lesson she’d learned well. She carefully withdrew from him and said, “I need rest, Edward.”
“Of course.” He rose from the bed, the sudden relief of his weight causing the bed to shift. “One of the chambermaids will be available for whatever you require. I shall return to make sure you are . . . well.”
She plastered a grateful smile upon her lips. After all, she was grateful to this powerful man. “Thank you.”
He headed for the door, his strong legs easily cutting across the large room. Good heavens, his back was broad and strong. As if one could hammer him a hundred years and nothing would crack that proud carriage. If only she could lean upon it. If only she could allow herself to give herself unto that protection.
“Edward?” she called impulsively, pulling the sheet tight about her frame. “You insist on helping me to become better?”
He let his fingers rest upon the gold-plated door handle, his broad shoulders tensing under his linen shirt before he turned back. His profile appeared cut from stone as the light from the hall bathed him in a holy glow. With his black hair, cold eyes, and defined body, one might have said it was an unholy fire that encompassed him. He smiled, an unnatural expression on his daunting, chiseled face. “Yes.”
“And you?” Dear god. Each word that dropped from her tongue dripped with foolishness. Still, that desire to be truthful with him compelled her to speak. “Do you need no help?” Her hands dug into the sheet, knowing the answer already, but needing to hear him admit the truth. “Do you allow anyone to help you?”
Edward stared back at her, the spark in his eyes dimming until they were two flat black pools. “Good night, Calypso.”
Chapter 8
The instant of waking was one of unerring recrimination. Mary knew it well. That moment when her eyes snapped open from a black, mindless sleep only to realize she couldn’t recall significant amounts of time. The wish echoed in her hopeless soul then. That long ago she had had the strength to spit her laudanum in her keepers’ faces or not swallow when they forced it into her mouth and plugged her nose.
If only death were truly preferable to this poisonous feeling, she would have allowed herself to be beaten into oblivion rather than take the laudanum. But every time she had taken it instead of choosing to die. Now she needed it. In fact, she’d come to welcome it down her throat with great greedy swallows and the anticipation of a child desperately longing to wake from a nightmare. Only, her waking was the hell of visions and regret.
That unforgiving need for laudanum was what held her here, terrified and awake in a baroque bed of beautifully carved wood, where sh
e stared up at the intricately swirled gold in the plaster ceiling.
Her fingers brushed over the silken sheets. The fabric felt so perfect against her tainted skin. Was there nothing she could do to free herself from this jagged path?
Gingerly, she rolled onto her side, testing how badly battered her body was. Her insides still ached with a dull, throbbing wave, but at least her stomach no longer felt as if it might suddenly hurtle out of her skin.
She pushed back the heavy goose down covers and swung her shaking legs over the bedside. Cold air swallowed her, prickling her skin, and her bare feet dangled six inches above the floor.
It was an immense bed, meant for the great old lords. There had been several in her father’s ducal mansion in Kent. Once, she’d skipped from room to room, playing on the towering beds, pretending she was Queen Elizabeth sending Sir Walter Raleigh off to claim as much treasure for her queenly estates as possible.
The only thing she was queen of now was of the mad.
Blinking down at her pale skin, she frowned. Carefully, she lifted the blanket higher, revealing more white skin. Naked. She was completely naked. Mary sucked in a slow breath and her gaze darted toward the door as if she might see him now even through the mahogany wood.
The beat of her heart thumped fast and loud to her own ears. Her fingers tightened about the sheet, drawing it closer to her naked body, as if she could turn the silk to armor.
Had he seen her?
Of course he had. He’d been the one to strip her bare. She turned her attention to the floor. Her corset and gown had been removed; she could still recall seeing them scattered on the woven wool carpet the night before.
She should have been filled with mortification and resentment. After all, she’d hated the men who had stripped her, dumping buckets of cold water on her during her monthly bath. They’d forced her into nakedness. They’d jeered and taunted and pinched.
But she somehow knew he must have brought an odd gentleness to it, as he had with everything. The strangest, most traitorous question whispered through her mind. Did he like what he saw?
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