Madness

by Sorcha MacMurrough

  At last the golden-eyed man calmed, and looked around at the dilapidated castle and then at Gabrielle in silent inquiry. His expression said it all: The castle was naught more than a ruin. Yet last night…..

  She shook her head, warning him not to pursue the subject further in front of Blake.

  She looked over at her sister, but to her dismay, saw at once that Lucinda was in her usual state of torpor. For once Gabrielle was glad she could not say anything and make their friend think they were insane.

  Blake said. “Come. The sooner we get out of here, the better. This place makes me nervous.”

  “Why?” she dared to ask, shivering with dread herself.

  “Ah, well, it was a bit before I cane down here, actually, but a particularly nasty man, the Earl of Ferncliffe, lived here and gave Jonathan Deveril’s wife and brother-in-law a hard time."

  "Oh?"

  "I don’t recall all the particulars, just that he tried to trick Pamela into helping him restore this Gothic horror, the better to try to seduce her and steal her family’s property.”

  “And his brother-in-law?”

  “Yes, Alexander was supposed to be the true heir to his place. But it was a long time ago now, and he and Sarah are happy as they are.”

  Simon said, “I can’t understand in how anyone could let a charming old building like this fall into such disrepair.”

  “True. I think it’s got, er, potential,” Gabrielle said with a look around the room.

  Blake shook his head at the holes in the ceiling and the smashed windows, the rodent droppings, nest debris and guano everywhere. “You can evidently see something I can’t. But never mind that now. At least it gave you enough shelter so that Lucinda and baby are safe." He looked up at the sagging roof with a shake of his head.

  "There have been trees down all over the district, roads washed out, livestock drowned. It took me hours to get here. I would just as soon hurry back before the rain starts again, if you don't mind. He began gathering everything he could lay hands on back into the main pile on a not too dirty section of the stone floor.

  "Randall would have come, but the children were terrified and worried about you. He didn’t dare leave them.”

  “It’s all right. We’ve managed. We're all fine, as you can see,” Gabrielle replied.

  He looked up from his work to peer at Simon more closely. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Mmm, yes.” He rose from the floor slowly but steadily, and when he saw that he was able to manage on his own, he began to fold the blankets, and then helped Gabrielle gather the rest of their supplies.

  “Are you better now, dearest?” she asked Simon after a time.

  “Aye."

  "What do you think happened?"

  He shrugged. "I thought I had been here before. But it was probably just a trick of the light, the flashes in the storm.”

  But he didn’t meet her eyes as he said this.

  Gabrielle looked around again, and shivered once more, with unease more than fear.

  Clutching each other’s hands tightly for a brief moment, they bustled about gathering their things, and then Lucinda and the baby into Blake's carriage, eager to leave the mysterious old medieval ruins as soon as possible to get back to the brightness of Barkston House.

  “But I saw it,” Gabrielle said later in the privacy of their room, once Lucinda and little Christopher were safely asleep in their room. “I saw it with my own two eyes, felt it. Fenton did too. All of us. It wasn’t my imagination. I don’t want you to think for a minute that you’re mad.”

  He shook his head. “If we are, then all four of us are together.”

  “I don’t undersand it, but it was quite clearly a sign. Of what I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe that there’s a benevolent deity?”

  She looked at him for a time, considering his words carefully. At length she said, “You told me the house looked familiar.”

  “Yes, though don’t ask me why. It's something from my childhood I’m afraid to try to recollect for fear of having a seizure.”

  “There’s only one thing wrong with that theory.”

  “Hmm?” Simon said, evidently very uncomfortable with the topic.

  “If I was something from your childhood, well, that would be twenty or thirty years ago even, wouldn’t it?”

  Simon did some quick calculations. “Yes. I don't recall my precise date of birth, but I would say that’s a good guess.”

  “Except that all those fabrics and furnishings in the castle, in the rooms we saw, well, they were the latest styles and fashions. Remember? We even saw some of them in the shops around Bath yesterday.”

  He paused to consider that for a moment, then nodded. “So what do you think happened? That our wishful thinking made us, what, create a house for ourselves? That we all conjured up the ideal home out of thin air, and that it looked the same to all of us?”

  “What did you see?”

  He described the room in burgundy and blue, and then consulted with Lucinda when the baby woke a short time later demanding to be fed.

  She agreed with them. “The sofas were just like the samples we saw in Lawrence Howard’s new shop window. The Peking Drouguet with the navy background, burgundy flowers and thin gold stripe,” she confirmed, before turning her undivided attention to the baby once more.

  Gabrielle frowned. “What was it, a fantasy, a vision of the future?”

  “I don’t know. But it was lovely and it felt, well, like home.”

  “And this doesn’t?” she asked quietly.

  He looked around. “It does too, but I think that felt like our future home for our new family. Christopher is a sign of that future. And I would love it if you would fall pregnant, my love, I have to admit.”

  She gave him a loving kiss, running her fingers through his raven locks. “I don’t mind trying if you don’t. We can leave off using Eswara’s sponges.”

  “Not now, pet. But sometime soon?”

  “And the castle?” she asked softly.

  “We can make discreet enquiries, and see what turns up.”

  Gabrielle sighed, and tried to pull them out of the fantasy and back to practicalities. “But it would be a huge undertaking, and more money than we could ever hope—”

  “It might be something to aspire to,” he suggested. “I suppose it’s pretty odd, though. I mean, I never imagined in a million years having a home one tenth as fine as this, let alone that. Not when I was locked in Bedlam.”

  “I can just imagine. Even thinking of a little bedsit of your own was probably a vision of Heaven."

  He nodded.

  "But then ever since we met, all our wishes have come true. We’ve made them together as we’ve built our life with each other.”

  He stroked her cheek tenderly. “And you made the children’s dreams come true too, Gabrielle, for we came home with half the goods in Bath, and a new baby brother.”

  She grinned at him. “You have to take at least half the credit for that.”

  "Gladly, my love."

  “Thank you again.” She kissed him soundly. “Anyway, just try to put the whole affair out of your mind. It’s over now.”

  “What was the place called again?”

  Gabrielle frowned. “Blake said Fern- something. Ferncliffe. Ferncliffe Castle.”

  Simon’s expression at once changed and he fell to the floor with a shriek. The back of his head cracked against the corner of the bedstead, and blood began to spurt from his nose.

  “Oh God, no, no!” Gabrielle ran for the bell pull and yanked on it furiously.

  The little maid who appeared squealed in horror at the sight of so much blood.

  “The doctor, quick! Or Eswara or Ash! Hurry!”

  Chapter Thirty

  Gabrielle managed to get an unconscious Simon into the bed with the help of two burly footmen, and Randall and Michael.

  She bathed his face and clung onto his hand, weeping all the while.

  Blake came a
short time later, and put one knee on the bed to examine the unconscious man.

  She told the doctor what had happened, and finished tearfully, “It’s the worst seizure I’ve ever seen him have.”

  “The strain of helping your sister must have been awfully great for him,” he guessed.

  Blake examined him thoroughly, with Gabrielle lingering by his side fretfully wringing her hands. Why had this happened? And just when he had been doing so well?

  "I don't dare give him anything for the pain due to his past addiction, so all I can say is cold compresses, camphor, and prayer," Blake said with a sigh.

  "Thank you, I'll do exactly as you say."

  Gabrielle tended to him for several hours, never leaving Simon's side even though everyone in the house, from the Dowager Lay Hazelmere down to little Adeline, and each one of the servants, offered to take a turn.

  "No, it's fine, really," she said, waving away the offer each time. "I thank you, but he'll want me as soon as he wakes up."

  As the sun went down he finally stirred and opened his eyes. There was no mistaking the relief on Gabrielle's face, or the worry in her gaze.

  “Where am I?” he asked dazedly. “What happened?”

  “You had a fit, a bad one.”

  He tried to sit up, then grimaced. “God, it feels like I've been kicked by a horse.”

  Blake came in from the next room, where he had been looking over Lucinda and the baby. He examined Simon carefully, and a short time later, pronounced him fit enough, with no concussion, and said he would come back in an hour to check on him again.

  The Avenels, on hand a short distance down the hall in Randall and Isolde's room, were completely relieved, and tiptoed out, leaving the couple alone.

  “What day is this?” he asked, looking around, then squinting at her.

  “Thursday.”

  He digested that for a moment in silence. “Weren’t we supposed to be going to Bath today?”

  Gabrielle stared. “No, darling, we went yesterday. How could you forget? The big storm, the castle?”

  He shook his head. “I think I remember Bath, but no storm or castle.”

  She stared at him. “Do you remember anything about Lucinda and the baby?” she asked gently.

  He immediately became agitated. “No. Is she all right? She hasn’t miscarried or-”

  “No, not at all. She has a fine healthy son.” She stroked his brow until he calmed once more, and tried to hold back the tears.

  “Oh, thank the gods.”

  She stared at him. Was his memory of the event of the previous evening all really gone, or had something wiped it away?

  “Can you tell me what you remember about yesterday?”

  He frowned in concentration. “We went to Bath. Bought everything it sight. We came home.”

  “What did we do when we got home?”

  He laughed. “The usual thing we do when we’re alone together." He ran his hands over her curves with a smile.

  "Why, what’s wrong?” he asked when she didn't smile back.

  She shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. Really. Everything is fine. Lucinda has a healthy baby boy, Christopher Simon Randall Howell.”

  "Wonderful news. The best, And that's very kind of her, the Simon part."

  "And she wants you to be godfather, along with Randall, if that's all right."

  She watched him closely for any signs of recollection, but felt heartbroken that there was none. What could have happened to have wiped his memory clean of such a remarkable event as the birth of a child he clearly adored and deemed his nephew?

  "All right? I would be honored." He smiled happily, and stroked her cheek.

  "Good, thank you."

  “So, my love, now that that is all settled, do you suppose we can do that usual thing we do when we’re alone together?” he asked, his eyes alight with hope.

  She giggled despite herself, and managed a convincing smile. “Not now. You’ve had a nasty blow to the head when you fell and had one of your seizures. But in a couple of days, just you try to stop us.”

  "Oh, all right," he sighed. "I am awfully sleepy now." His deft fingers tweaked open the bodice of her gown, and he fell asleep with his face buried in her fragrant cleavage.

  Gabrielle held him close. His loss of memory was something that she could bear. But the loss of him from her life was too dreadful to even contemplate, she loved him so. She wrapped her arms around him, and prayed with all her heart that his next terrible seizure wouldn't take him from her forever.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  After Simon’s severe fit, he was subdued and tired for a couple of days, but took great delight in the new baby.

  Gabrielle made sure he didn't overdo things, and had to admit there were some distinct advantages to having him in bed all the time.

  He was certainly becoming an increasingly bold and inventive lover. Gabrielle couldn’t seem to get enough of him as they did what they had agreed, and began to try for a baby of their own.

  He was always coming up with the most thrilling surprises for her. One night about a week after the baby had been born, she came into the room to find all their pillows mounded up at the foot of the bed.

  He came around behind her and began to undress her slowly, tenderly, with a kiss for each part of her body as it was laid bare to his gaze.

  When they were finally both naked, he requested softly, “Lie on the edge of the bed with your hips on these bolsters.”

  Gabrielle perched as he suggested, so that her shoulders lay on the mattress and her legs spread wide, suspended over the floor.

  “Now just relax and trust me.”

  “I do, you know I do.”

  He stood between her knees, staring at her most secret flesh as if memorising every detail. He began trailing his fingertips over her mound of soft curls in fascination until at last her blushes subsided and she began to actually enjoy his heated regard. He certainly knew how to make her feel like the centre of his whole universe.

  Now Gabrielle closed her eyes and let her feminine core become the centre of her consciousness. For he began to massage her now with purposeful intent, teasing the delicate peaks and valleys from every angle and with every finger.

  Knowing he was eager to learn all about her pleasure, she let out a soft pant or sigh whenever the bliss grew particularly acute.

  Then he would concentrate there for a moment, building upon the joy until she would moan louder.

  Even more devastating though was when Simon would deliberately move his finger a maddening millimetre away and evade all of her attempts to squirm and wriggle back to where he had been.

  Finally he would touch the magical spot, and her senses would soar even higher than if he had just teased her there in the first place.

  He was a true master of eroticism, bringing her so close, then letting her waft down, so that the next plateau she built up to was even higher and more compelling.

  She throbbed with desire, yet was powerless to control the sensual cascade which tumbled through her, sweeping all reason and sense with it. Gabrielle could only wring the sheets and beg for release.

  “It’s all right, darling. It’s only going to get better,” he reassured her. “There’s no need to be hasty or greedy. We have a lifetime.”

  He reached for one of her hands and interlaced his fingers with it for a brief moment, then slid them apart in a beguilingly sinuous manner which nearly set her soaring once more.

  He now stroked those same fingers lightly over her belly using just the tips.

  “Any part of your body can bring you the ultimate pleasure, with patience and understanding. But now I want to see you at your most extreme. Your upper limit of need, of climax. Then I want to take you even higher.”

  She could feel her taut body loosen at his words as she at last completely opened to him, flowing like a river, holding nothing back. There was no need for shame or reserve.

  He loved her, would do anything to make her happy.
She was no longer a young girl; he had truly made her all woman, sensual, voluptuous, just as he had always said she was in all of his sweet, sexy whisperings whenever they made love.

  In return her tenderness and trust nurtured, healed him, and gave him the most exquisite pleasure.