by Heather Snow
“When they make sense!” she countered, eyes flashing. “Yesterday was a setback. That is all.”
“A setback?” he roared, his eyes fixed on the ugly bruise. “I could have killed you. What if I’d shoved you harder than I did? What if you’d hit that corner table with your temple instead of your forehead? Or what if I’d punched you? Or snapped your neck?” An image of Penelope limp and broken at his feet flashed through his mind, and his knees weakened. “A setback?” He snorted in disbelief.
Pen’s eyes had gone wide during his tirade, but besides that she didn’t seem daunted by it.
“A setback,” she repeated slowly. “It happens even in the most successful cases. And this one—” Her voice broke as sudden tears glassed her eyes.
His anger deflated in the face of her distress.
“—is my fault, Gabriel,” she went on, as a lone tear slipped down her face. “I never should have pushed you so hard to remember the horrors of your past, not when you were already strained by the carriage ride and the upcoming hearing. I should have pulled back. And now look at what I’ve done to you.” Her lip quivered violently.
Damn it all. He’d known she would blame herself if all didn’t go well. His heart squeezed at the sight of her pain. He took back what he’d thought before about being glad he’d gone with her. He would give anything to go back and make her leave him at Vickering Place—to save her from this.
He stepped toward her and cupped her face in his hands. “This is not your fault, Pen. You’ve done nothing but heal me, in every way imaginable.”
“Then come with me,” she insisted.
“To what purpose?” he said, letting go of her. “The hearing is scheduled for tomorrow. It is over.” And even if it wasn’t, he would never trust that another “setback” might not strike him at any moment.
“There are options, Gabriel,” Pen said earnestly. “We could try to negotiate with your brother to call off the hearing, or postpone it at least. You could agree to temporarily sign over power of attorney in return for a trust—enough to buy a small cottage somewhere tranquil where we can continue working on getting you well. That would buy us time—”
“Edward, or rather Amelia,” he amended darkly, “would never accept such a proposition, not when they are so close to having it all free and clear anyway.”
Pen released a disgusted huff. “You’re probably right.” She closed her eyes for a long moment, just long enough for him to wonder what was going on in that mind of hers.
But then she opened them and pinned him with a fiercely determined gaze. “There is another option,” she said steadily. “We can marry.”
He sucked in a breath so quickly that he choked. “No, Pen.”
“Yes. You’ve already procured a special license,” she argued. “If we wed today, before your hearing, the marriage will be legal. Or at least it would be more of a challenge to set aside. If you are declared non compos, your brother still gets what he wants, which is control of the marquessate, so he would have no reason to try to force an annulment.
“And I would get what I want—control of your person. As next of kin, I would dictate your care. There would be no Vickering Place, no blistering or cold baths. Just all of the time in the world to make you whole.”
He stood gaping at her, stunned. Not even Pen would be self-sacrificing enough to do such a fool thing if she didn’t love him, would she?
“Why would you do that?” he whispered, needing to know. “Why would you tie yourself to another madman?”
She pressed her lips together in irritation. “I’ve told you, I do not think you’re mad.”
“But if I am—”
“Then you are mad!” she cried, shocking him to his toes. “I will marry you anyway. At least I would know where you are—how you are. Do you know what it has been like for me the past day and a half? Watching people I don’t trust drag you away from me? Being utterly helpless to stop them? To not even have a say?”
Some strong emotion flared in Pen’s eyes, strangling the breath in his chest.
“I lay awake, agonizing over the unknown,” she said, her voice cracking. “Were you recovered from your episode or were you still in the throes of it, lashed to the bed and hiding your eyes from the light? Had you awoken surrounded by the enemy, wallowing in despair because you thought your madness had returned?” Her eyes had gone bright and glassy. “Did you lie there all alone, wondering if I had abandoned you?” she asked, her chin trembling.
“No, Pen,” he whispered. “Never.”
Her features firmed and her eyes gleamed with resolution. “Good. Because I never will. I don’t care if you are mad, Gabriel. If that is the case, then we will live with it. We will learn to fight it together.”
At her words, his heart filled with a searing, bittersweet joy. She loved him. She had to, to be willing to enter into another marriage like her first. To risk living every day wondering when the madness would next strike.
He couldn’t not take her hands in his. He had to touch her one last time. “I am humbled,” he whispered. “Deeply. Truly. But I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me.”
Her eyes closed. “Gabriel—”
“Look at you, Pen. Bruised. Exhausted. Emotionally spent, and this just in two days. You are a nurturer, love. You will kill yourself trying to make me whole.”
She blinked up at him, unable to deny that truth.
“And it would kill me to watch you do so,” he said.
He brought her hands to his lips and brushed a kiss across each. “You taught me so much in our time together. How to forgive myself for the things I cannot control. How to take control of the things I can. Well, I can control this. Staying here is my choice.”
The tears that had been brimming in her eyes spilled over. “You’re not just going to give up. You can’t.”
His memory flashed back to that night at Vickering Place, when he’d tried to send her away the first time. She’d been so stubborn about seeing him well, right from the start. He heard her fervent vow as if she’d spoken it yesterday:
I cannot know if we’ll meet success. But I do know that as long as you are still fighting, I won’t give up either. I swear it.
They’d been holding hands just like this then, too. And now they’d come full circle.
He knew what he needed to say to set her free.
“Yes, I can. I’m through fighting my madness, Pen. I accept my fate.”
He pulled his hands from hers, even as it killed him to do it. Christ, he loved her. That was the only thing that gave him the strength to say the rest.
“And you must, too.”
Penelope curled her fingers over her palms, desperate to hold on to the warmth from Gabriel’s touch, which was fast slipping away from her, just as he was.
He wasn’t coming with her.
He wasn’t coming with her and there was nothing she could do about it. He would stay here, and she would be forced to leave. Tomorrow his family would present him for his hearing, and by nightfall he’d be locked away in Vickering Place once more.
Fresh tears spilled beneath her lashes as she closed her eyes. God help her, she’d never felt so helpless in her life.
And she couldn’t even be angry with him. He was convinced he was broken and that he needed to protect her from himself. As misguided as he was, she couldn’t help but love him a little more for it.
But she still didn’t think he was mad. Even in the face of his relapse, everything in her remained convinced it was not lunacy behind his episodes. But she also meant what she’d said. Even if Gabriel was mad, she still wanted to be with him.
Because she wasn’t afraid anymore. Gabriel wasn’t like Michael. Michael had embraced his madness. He’d found it necessary to his happiness. He’d craved the highs, no matter what it had cost him—and her.
And she didn’t care what Gabriel said right now. The man she knew would not be able to lie down and accept this forever. Eventually, he’d be ready to fight
again.
She had to make him see that no matter what was causing his illness, they were both better off fighting it together. She opened her eyes even as she prayed for the right words to come. “Gabriel, I—”
A light scratching was the only warning before the door opened a few inches. A maid entered, pushing the door open wider with her hip since she carried a large tea tray in her hands.
Penelope turned her body half away and dashed her tears with her hands as discreetly as she could. As she was busy righting her appearance, she heard the click of the metal tray meeting wood as the maid set it down on the table just inside the door.
Penelope tamped down her irritation with the girl. The poor maid was just doing her job. She had no way of knowing that she was interrupting a discussion on which Penelope’s future happiness precariously hung.
With her back to the room, the maid said, “Here you are, m’lord. Just the way you like it.”
It wasn’t until she turned with the steaming cup that she seemed to notice Penelope’s presence. “Oh!” She hastily dipped her head into a bow, snatching the cup she’d been offering to Gabriel close to her chest. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know you had a visitor. Should I fetch another cup from the kitchen?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No, thank you, Janey. Lady Manton will be leaving shortly.”
Penelope’s heart squeezed. No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not until she’d convinced him to come with her.
The maid glanced awkwardly between her and Gabriel, still clutching the tea. She started to back out of the room, cup in hand. Penelope wondered that she didn’t just give it to Gabriel as she’d intended. “I’ll—I’ll just come back later, then.”
Tiny hairs rose on the back of Penelope’s neck. Why had the girl stammered? She could be the nervous sort, or embarrassed to have come upon her master with a crying stranger. And yet . . . She narrowed her eyes on the maid, trying to see her face as the girl turned away.
“Wait,” Penelope said impulsively. Both Gabriel and the maid looked up at her in surprise, and she flushed. She was probably making a fool of herself, but something seemed wrong here.
She looked more closely at the maid. There was something familiar . . .
“You were in the parlor the other night,” Penelope recalled. “You held the compress on my wound after I fell,” she said, remembering where she’d seen the girl.
The maid’s cheeks pinkened, and she dropped her eyes to the floor as if embarrassed to be singled out. The girl gripped the teacup nervously. “Yes, m’lady.”
“Thank you for your aid,” Penelope said, and she swore a flicker of guilt flashed over the woman’s face. Odd.
This was the same maid who’d given Gabriel the brandy he’d drunk just before his episode, too, wasn’t it?
Her mouth went dry. Gabriel hadn’t had an episode for weeks until he’d come back here . . .
Her eyes dropped to the teacup that the maid still held close to her, the one the woman seemed to think better of giving to Gabriel in front of Penelope. Could it be?
No. No. Liliana had said it was possible for Gabriel to ingest something that accounted for his mania, but she’d never unearthed what that substance might be. And besides, he’d had episodes both at his home and Vickering Place. Who would be able to slip him something in both places . . . ?
Penelope gasped, her eyes flying back to the maid. Of course she’d seemed familiar. Penelope had thought it was because of the other night, but now she remembered where else she’d seen her. “Miss Creevey?”
The maid flushed.
“Forgive me for not recognizing you before,” Penelope said, trying to mask her astonishment for social embarrassment, so as not to alert Miss Creevey of her suspicions. “I didn’t recognize you in your uniform.” Or outside of the hooded cloak she’d been wearing in the garden of Vickering Place.
“I wouldn’t expect you to, m’lady,” Miss Creevey mumbled.
A million thoughts flew through Penelope’s mind at once as she scrambled to put them together. Gabriel had said he’d found the mad widow’s sister a position sometime last year. He just hadn’t mentioned it had been in his own household. He must have installed her in his country house in Birminghamshire, so that she could be near her sister.
His episodes had started nine months ago . . . at home in Birminghamshire . . . episodes that, she’d said from the beginning, seemed strange and unlike any madness she’d ever seen.
But then what was Miss Creevey doing here in London? Maids didn’t typically travel between households unless specifically assigned to one of the ladies of the house. Could she be lady’s maid to Gabriel’s mother, then? Or . . . Amelia?
How she came to be here wasn’t what was important right now, however. Penelope’s gaze fixed on that teacup as Miss Creevey glanced back at the door, clearly wishing to leave.
Dash it all. Everything in her screamed that there was something in addition to tea in that cup. But how could she prove it?
“Well, if that is all, m’lord, m’lady,” Miss Creevey said, preparing to escape.
If she left with that cup, Penelope would never know if what her instincts were screaming was true. And Gabriel would forever think he was mad.
She raced to the maid and snatched the cup from her, spilling a bit on both of their wrists.
Miss Creevey gasped as Gabriel gave a startled, “Pen!”
But she paid neither of them any mind. She tipped the teacup to her lips and gulped, quite noisily. The warm, sweet milky taste splashed over her tongue, flavored with a healthy dose of brandy. To mask the taste of whatever else was in the drink?
When she’d finished it all, she looked up. “Sorry.” She gave a fake smile and a shrug. “Thirsty.”
Both Gabriel and Miss Creevey were looking at her as if she were mad. Well, with any luck, she soon would be. It had come upon Gabriel very quickly the other night in the parlor.
Miss Creevey, she noted, looked more than stunned. She looked nervous as she backed the rest of the way to the door and slipped away.
No matter. If what she thought was about to happen did, they’d have plenty of time to catch Miss Creevey and figure out who she was working for. Gabriel’s rotten brother and his wife, no doubt. Maybe even in collusion with Allen.
Gabriel whirled on her as the door closed. “What’s gotten into you, Pen?” he asked, half appalled, half bemused, if his expression were to be believed.
“I just wanted some tea,” she said lightly.
“Obviously,” he said, his lips twitching.
“Did Miss Creevey often prepare your tea when she visited you at Vickering Place?” she asked. Lord, it was getting hot in here. Penelope tugged at her bodice, wishing she’d worn something easier to get out of.
“Yes. No one pours a cup like Janey. She even smuggles in a bit of brandy to top it off with, now and again. At least I’ll have her visits to look forward to when I’m sent back,” Gabriel was saying, but he sounded very far away.
Oh. My. Her skin prickled mercilessly. Penelope scratched at her arms. When she looked down at them, she cried out. Hundreds of ants scurried all over her, engulfing her bare flesh in a wriggling mass of black.
Gabriel blanched and ran to her. “Pen?”
No. No. It is just some sort of drug, she tried to remind herself, but panic was quickly overtaking her senses. I’m not really seeing ants. But her throat closed and her heart rocketed. They certainly looked real, and her skin was crawling. And, Lord, she was thirsty. So thirsty. And the light brightened unbearably, causing her to squint against its harshness.
Gabriel’s hands cupped her face, and he tipped it up to his. “Pen, what is it? Oh Christ!” he cried. “What is wrong with your eyes?”
“Your madness,” she whispered. And that was the last thing she remembered.
Chapter Twenty
“You knew it was drugged, didn’t you?”
Gabriel’s voice floated and echoed, reverberating and washing over her.
Penelope struggled to open her eyes. When at last she got them slitted just a bit, she let out a cry and slammed them shut again. Dear Lord, she hurt everywhere.
“I suspected strongly,” she said, pushing the “S” sounds around a tongue that felt two sizes too big and dry as dust.
“Christ, Pen,” he muttered. “You do realize there was more than enough poison in that cup to send a grown man into a fit?”
Drugged. Poison. Even through all of the aching pain, her heart soared as she realized she’d been right. Gabriel wasn’t mad. And more important, he realized it, too.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” came Liliana’s worried voice somewhere off to her left. She cracked her eyes open again, very, very carefully—and only enough to make out her cousin’s profile.
Penelope groaned. Her stomach rolled and her head pounded mercilessly. She let her eyes slip closed again. “Yes, well, I don’t feel so lucky right now.”
She heard the dripping sounds of water, like a rag being dipped and squeezed out, and then coolness touched her forehead. Penelope sighed with relief. Liliana must be wielding the rag, because Gabriel had both of her hands in his, squeezing so tightly she wondered if he meant to ever let go.
She hoped not.
“What time is it?” she asked, trying to get her bearings. She opened her eyes again to help with that. As they began to adjust, it got easier.
“Nearly noon,” Liliana answered her. But that didn’t make sense unless— “You were gone from us for more than a full day.”
Which meant— “The hearing?” It was scheduled for ten thirty tomorrow—er, today. How strange, to have lost hours she would never get back.
“Once presented with the evidence,” Gabriel said, “Edward withdrew his affidavit. And before you ask, no, Miss Creevey was not poisoning me at the behest of my brother, or even Amelia.”
Penelope’s muzzy brain tried to work that out. “Then why?”
She felt, more than heard, Gabriel’s sigh. “She blamed me for her sister’s madness.”