I did not stop to think where I was running until I found myself in the bright, warm confines of Kevin's room. Standing inside the door, I basked in the brilliance of light, feasted with my eyes on the cheerful faces of dancing sheep and the welcoming hiss of the fire in the distant hearth. Here I was safe from demons and madness and—
"Ah, Miss Rushdon, I see you're still here/' came Nick's voice. Startled from my reverie, I spun around, searching out the deep-timbred voice that I knew too well.
He sat in a high-backed chair of simple design, long legs spread slightly, his right arm curled possessively around Kevin's shoulders. Kevin, with his back resting on his father's chest, slept in peaceful oblivion.
"You will join us?" my lord said.
I recognized the directive and hastened to his side. I noticed then the open door beyond us. In that small, stark room, in a chair similar to the one Nicholas lounged in, sat Bea. Her eyes, like tiny round beads of glass, watched us intently.
"Ignore the hag," he said.
I turned my face from her as I was told.
The earl ran long fingers through his son's hair before looking up at me. I was struck in that instant by their similarities. Wounded by them. My lord Malham looked young and yet old, the skin of his face unlined but for the deep creases between his eyes. And his eyes, how they touched me, warmed me yet made me shiver.
He stared at me a long while, absently rubbing his chin round and round the top of Kevin's head. Finally he asked, "Have you searched me out to tender your resignation, Miss Rushdon?"
I thought the query odd, so I frowned. "Why should I do that?"
"I thought by now you must have realized the folly of accepting my employment. Tell me, did you enjoy your tour of the stables?"
My heart thumped in my breast.
His hand stopped its stroking. "Well?"
"Very much, milord." I looked away.
"Look at me." When I did so, he continued, "God, how sick I am of people diverting their eyes when I walk into a room. Is there something distasteful in the way I look, Miss Rushdon?"
"Well—"
"Have I grown a wart on my nose?"
I covered my smile with my fingers. "No wart, sir."
The cold gray of his eyes suddenly danced with warmth. "That's better," he said more gently. "You made me smile earlier in the day; I've returned the favor." He pointed to a stool covered in a frayed brocade cushion. "Take that seat and sit before me."
I pulled it to his feet.
"Closer," he directed.
I tugged it closer, nearly between his knees, and took my place upon it.
"Tell me, Miss Rushdon, what you think of my son."
I looked into the angelic face and felt my cheeks warm. My throat grew so tight with emotion I barely managed to speak. "I think, milord, that he is the most beautiful child ever created."
My lord's thick black lashes lowered, and I perceived a trembling of his eyelids. "Yes," he responded in a subdued tone. "I pray on my knees that he will grow to be stronger than his father in heart and soul and mind. I pray that this . . . disease that inflicts me will not be inherited in his manhood."
The quiet crackling of the wood-ash glowing red in the hearth was the only sound in the chamber as we watched Kevin sleep. I yearned in those moments to never leave this room, or the child or man. Having put rumors and portraits of madness from my mind I was content to wile away my years never straying from this very chair.
"Ariel," came Nick's soft voice, and I loosed myself from my daydreams and looked to his eyes. I felt a softening in my heart, a spinning in my head that was neither new nor unusual; I had experienced it a thousand times in his presence.
"Sir?" My words were steady.
"You have a melancholy look on your face. Are you sad?"
"I am distressed, milord."
"Tell me why."
"I cannot understand your malady. What brought you, milord, to hurt your sister this morning?"
"I'm a lunatic."
"I deny it."
"I'm a monster."
"Ah absurdity."
He caught my chin in his long, hard fingers; his eyes bore into me like the sharp, shining steel of a double-edged rapier. Leaning toward me slightly, his mouth coiling like a whip around his words, he said, "Little fool, you have eyes; open them. See me for what I am. I am a liar and a rakehell. I entertain myself by luring hearts and breaking them. I'm a lunatic from a long line of lunatics. I'm a murderer—"
"Stop!" I leapt to my feet and covered my ears with my hands. "I won't hear it."
"Then you are an idiot," he said calmly.
Lowering my arms, I looked at him fiercely. "I fear you are right, sir, but that is my prerogative."
"Sit down, Miss Rushdon."
I obeyed him. Sitting very still, I continued to watch the child. My gaze drifted occasionally to my lord's fingers, their slow circular movements in Kevin's hair mesmerizing me. I wanted to lift my eyes to his, but I dared not. Oh no, that would have been disastrous. For I felt such expansion in my breast at the sight of father and son that one look into his stormy eyes would have been my undoing.
Suddenly Nicholas stood. Gently he placed Kevin in his bed and tucked his blanket about him.
Walking to the nursery door, he paused, half turned and commanded, "Come along, Miss Rushdon." With some regrets I joined him.
-__ We entered a great room with a high-pitched ceiling with such magnificent moldings I could scarcely contain my appreciation. The walls were dark with wain-scotted paneling, but glowed with light from the peat fire in the hearth.
I waited just inside the room as Nicholas approached his desk. As if undecided, he stopped and pressed his fingertips onto the smooth, mahogany plane for several moments. I noted with distress a slight sinking of his shoulders and a drop of his dark head.
I had opened my mouth to speak when he turned again to face me. His face looked pale, as it had that first morning of my arrival to Walthamstow. His eyes were sunken and dull, his eyelids heavy. "Come here," he said in a low voice.
Dare I?
He leaned a little against the desk. He tried to erect his shoulders. "Having second thoughts, waif?"
"No, sir."
"Then come here." When I had done so, keeping a respectable distance between us, he pointed to the open ledger on his desk. "Can you read?" he asked me.
"Enough to get by, milord."
He looked pleased. "Then tell me what you see written under today's date."
Turning the open book toward me, I studied the scrawl. "Adrienne's wedding day," I read aloud.
"There. You see, I didn't imagine it."
"But, my lord," I closed the book, "surely you knew those plans had been canceled."
"I thought I did. Yes. Yes, I knew it. Dear merciful God, I knew it."
I looked at the toes of his boots and asked in a whisper, "Then why?"
His sudden laughter sounded fierce and savage. "Why? It was that gift. That goddamned bolt of lace. I don't recall buying it, Miss Rushdon. When I found it wrapped in paper and ribbon and placed there on my desk I actually imagined I'd dreamt the entire humiliating scene at my sister's soiree. It wouldn't be the first time. I oft times imagine things, as you will learn should you continue to live here. I live in a constant state of confusion, and when I found the gift . . ." His voice dropped, defeatedly. "I simply did not think. I did not reason. On impulse I grabbed it up and—God in heaven, I would rather wrench my arm from my shoulder than hurt Adrienne."
"Then tell her so."
He looked at me askance. "Little innocent," I heard him say. "You see before you two men. Lord Malham, Wyndham of Walthamstow, earl of this village called Malham, would never hurt his sister, but the other— ah, the other, what would he do? Hmm?" He lifted his hand and placed it on my cheek. "There is madness in me, I won't deny it. It is there in my head now, swelling against my temples until the pain drives me to oblivion. Those are the hours I dread, when blackness falls in on me and I
can account for nothing, not even my name. When nothing exists but flashes of faces and voices; when I am dependent on family and friends— sparse as they are—to inform me of my activities when I'm rational enough to care."
He dropped his hand, and the cool rush of air that replaced it seemed to blister my skin. I yearned to grab
I yearned to grab the beautiful hand back and press it again to my face, to turn my mouth into it and drink in the texture and smell of it until I was overcome. But most of all I yearned to heal him.
He prowled the room slowly, time and again pressing his-fingers to his head. He walked to the bowed window behind his desk, and there stood for some time, staring out into the wet darkness. It seemed to me in that moment that he spent his entire life looking out on a world that was familiar and yet foreign to him. What did he seek there? Penance? Truth?
And then it struck me. It struck me as he lifted his hand and pressed it flat against the frosty pane of glass. The blow winded me, squeezed the breath from my lungs so I was forced to lean upon the desk for support. It was not the gardens on which he looked, nor the village of Malham or the moor beyond. It was himself: the reflection of the stranger he had become,
I fled. Back to my room, through the cold and darkness to my solitude I ran, closing my door and locking it. I cannot do this, I vowed. I will go now. Go and never look back,
I unlocked my door again and flung it open. I walked with purpose back to Kevin's room, stood outside the door and looked upon the distant cradle at the sleeping child. I approached him on tiptoe, casting a cautious eye toward the room where the jackal resided. I listened, then moved with caution along the wall, peeked around the doorframe. Just as I thought. She still sat in her chair, her bony hands clasped in her lap, her head fallen forward in repose.
I hurried to the bed, eager to act on my plan. Kevin lay on his back. I stared at him a long moment: his fair complexion, his cheeks like apples. My heart hammered in my breast as I slid my hands around him. His dark hair slid over his forehead, revealing the cut above his brow. Only then did I think of Nick, of his hands trembling in worry as he gently touched the boy's head.
The moment was as painful as any I had ever spent. As black, as shameful. I was rent by my own selfishness.
Replacing the lad in his bed, I returned to my room and there spent the next few hours in such miserable indecision I forgot even my fear of darkness, and hardly noticed when my candle wick sputtered and went out. The sleep I was able to summon was neither peaceful nor restful. I tossed and turned on my mattress, rueing the promises I had made to myself and Jerome. Poor Jerome. He should have left me buried at Menston, for all the good my purchased freedom had brought me. I was without courage. I was confused. I was yet in love with Nicholas Wyndham, shacked by heart to a lunatic. Alas, my despair was complete!
Chapter 7
He came for me that midnight. At the sounds of his knocking I rolled from my bed, the key still clasped tightly in my fist. Even as I felt my way to the door I heard him pacing. He did not hesitate as I opened the door, but swept across the threshold and walked directly to the window. Throwing open the drape, he stood silhouetted against the silvery glass.
I waited, discomposed by his state of mind.
"Were you sleeping?" he finally asked, and I noted a difference in his voice.
"Yes, milord."
"And are you a sound sleeper?"
'Yes, sir."
"Then you heard nothing? No footstep? No voice in the hallway?"
"Only yours, sir, when you knocked on my door."
I saw his breath condense like a fog upon the glass, Then he leaned his head against the pane, indeed, pressed his cheek against it as if its bitter cold would somehow soothe his feverish state. "No footstep. No voices. How can that be?"
"Were you bothered by these things?" I asked him.
"They woke me."
"Perhaps it was the help. Matilda or Polly or Bea—"
"The hag is asleep. I checked her."
"Then—"
"It was my wife."
I dropped the key. In the dark it sounded like a crash of cymbals. Falling to my knees, I swept my hand over the floor until my fingers brushed against the key.
"It was my wife," he said more loudly. He turned from the window, and though I could not see his face I knew he had spotted me where I knelt on the floor. "It was my wife," he said yet again.
"Your wife, sir."
"Are you going to tell me that I imagined it?"
"I can hardly tell you anything, sir, since I did not hear it."
"Then you are saying, since you did not hear it, that it was all a figment of my imagination?"
"No, sir. I simply did not hear it."
"Then you will insist that it was the help."
"Insisting anything to your lordship would be overstepping my limits. I shall never do so, sir, in your presence."
"Of course you won't, Miss Rushdon, you will huadle by the fire come morning, perhaps in the kitchen, perhaps the butler's pantry, and you will run off at the tongue—"
"No I shan't. I am not a talebearer."
"But you don't believe me."
Standing again, I thought of lighting my candle. Arguing with a shadow was disconcerting to me.
"Well?" Lord Malham continued. "If I tell you 1 heard my wife calling my name from outside my bed room door, will you tell me I'm a lunatic?"
"No, sir, I won't. Idiot I may be, but I am not daft."
Now he became silent.
Finally he moved closer. I could better see his face it appeared haggard. His hair tumbled, blacker than the shadows, over his brow. His white shirt was open.
"Miss Rushdon," he stated. "Do you oftentimes sleep in your clothes?"
"If the occasion suits. And you, sir?"
Silence again. I watched a pale gray vapor leave his mouth as he took a breath, then released it. Dragon! I thought.
Gripping my skirt in my fingers, I asked, "Will you paint, Malham?"
He considered my question before replying. "In five minutes." Stepping by me, he disappeared into the hallway.
In five minutes I had taken my place on my perch. Nicholas had taken up a clean canvas, a pallet of fresh, glistening paints, and begun to work. Again, he turned me slightly away from him. I could not help but ask: "Sir, why do you disregard my face in this matter? Is it so unappealing?"
His head came up. His eyes peered at me over the top of the canvas. "Au contraire," he responded. "You have a most appealing face."
I basked in the compliment. Then I said, "But you have some preference to the back of my head. My hair, perhaps my shoulders are more to your liking?"
His left eyebrow arched.
I closed my lips and looked toward the window. Half an hour passed before I spoke again. "Sir, I have an idea. Perhaps it was not Bea or Matilda or Polly you heard outside your door. Perhaps you dreamt you heard your wife."
"I wasn't asleep when I heard her voice the second time, Miss Rushdon."
"But perhaps, sir, you thought you were awake. Oft times my mind lapses—"
"I was awake, miss, and sitting up in my bed."
"In that case I will make this suggestion: Mayhaps it was the wind." I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. "Could that be possible, milord?"
"No,"
Until that moment I had forgotten the laughter I had heard during my secret visit to this room. Had anyone tried to convince me at the time that the awful sound was nothing more than howling wind, I would have devoutly denied it.
In that moment Nicholas dropped his brush. I watched as he stooped to retrieve it. I noted then that the candle I had earlier dropped lay near his foot. To my discredit I blushed.
Wyndham straightened, rolled his brush between his fingers, and scowled as he contemplated the canvas. I looked again at the candle. I looked again at him. His eyes, cold and hard as lead, assessed me. It was a queer look that he passed me, not so fierce that I was frightened, yet threatening. Sitting stra
ighter, I looked back toward the window. He continued his painting.
At half past ten in the morning I stood inside Trevor's office, my sleeve rolled up to my elbow. The potion on my arm stung at first. I fixed my eyes on the small man wedged in a chair between shelves of medical books and a table stacked high with papers. His elbows were propped on his knees, and his head rested in the palms of his hands. As he groaned I looked at Trevor and said, "He appears to be in pain."
"Hell wait his turn," he snapped. Then, bathing the welts one last time, he muttered, "Silly old bugger has been in three times this week for his bloody bowels and head. I've bled him so he's weak-kneed and still he comes back."
I was stunned by his tone of voice, but I didn't show it. "Have you tried calomel?" I asked. Then realizing what I had asked, I bit my lip, fixed my eyes on the moaning patient, and held my breath.
If Trevor heard me at all, he didn't let on, He turned to the table, recorked the bottle, and threw the linens onto the floor, missing the basket.
" 'ere, doc," came the gent's weary voice. "Me 'ead is splittin' and me guts no better. Is there 'owt you kin gi' me whilst I wait?"
"I'm no miracle worker," Trevor answered, too abruptly for my liking.
Rolling down my sleeves, I approached the old dear, noting his color was off and his eyes were slightly glassy. He looked at me rather pitifully and shook his head. " 'e's gonna bleed me agin. I've little blood left in me as it is."
I looked around as Trevor approached, a knife in one hand and a cup in the other. I took tie gentleman's hand in mine. "You'll be very brave, won't you?"
"I won't be squealin' like a pig if that's wot y' mean. But I'll be tellin' y' this. I'll be bloody ^lad when Doc Brabbs returns, 'e's been off too long, I vow. Why, Mary Francis took to 'er bed a fortnigh ago and ain't been up agin. A pitiful sight she is andgrowin' softer by the day. I'll vow she won't see the new month if Brabbs don't get back."
Trevor slammed his cup onto the table, took up his knife, and fixed his blue eyes on his patient's face. "Where do you want it this time, Donald? The throat, perhaps?" When I looked at him, surprised, he smiled and shrugged. "Very well, then, you oil bugger, give me your head. I shall make this as painless as possible."
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