A Heart Possessed

by Katherine Sutcliffe

  "It looks like some sort of brand," she said half to herself.

  Jerking my arm from her hand, I clutched it to my side and forced myself to explain evenly, "It is a burn and nothing more." "But it looked like—"

  "A burn," I repeated, angry at my own carelessness. Grabbing the clean gown, I said, "Please help me to dress before someone else comes in."

  With no further discourse on the matter, Adrienne did just that. After smoothing the coverlet over the bed and tucking it around the mattress, she said, "Matilda is anxious to send up tea and cakes if you're ready to eat something."

  I thanked her with a smile, but as she turned to leave the room, I asked, "Where were you and Trevor

  when I fell?"

  Adrienne's face was smooth and her eyes oddly cold. "Playing cards," she said. "We heard you scream, but by the time we arrived we found Nicholas standing over you."

  She left the room and I sank again into my pillows, my mind searching desperately for answers. As usual, Nicholas had planted doubt of his guilt in my mind, and though my better judgment screamed a warning I could not find it in my heart to listen. Someone had pushed me down those stairs. If I was to believe in my husband's innocence, then I would have to assume that someone other than my husband wanted me dead. But why?

  Matilda soon appeared with my tea and scones. "Tilly," I asked. "Where were Adrienne and Trevor when I fell?"

  Her face flushed with concern, she placed the cup and saucer in my hands before replying. "They were playin' gin in the Great Hall, mum."

  "You're certain?"

  "Aye. I were standin' there with 'em when y' screamed."

  I sipped the tea while Tilly fluttered about my room, righting this and dusting that. She seemed greatly distressed. Finishing my tea and placing the china aside, I tried to focus on her face and asked, "Is something wrong?"

  Wringing her hands, she glanced toward the door, lowered her voice and said, " 'is lordship gave me strict orders, mum, that I wasn't to distress y', but y1 should know. We've 'ad a number of the girls quittin' the last couple of days. Kate left yesterday and Polly went this mornin'."

  Watching her mouth move, I tried very hard to concentrate on her words. But they came to me like an echo that drifted away before I could grab them. My mind wandered.

  "There's been some strange goin's-on, mum. First there was yer fallin', then Trevor found 'is office tore up this mornin, as if someone 'ad been searchin'. All 'is cru-cru—"

  "Crucibles," I whispered.

  "Right. They was shattered all over the floor and 'is books were scattered about . . . I've 'ad food stolen from the larder. And Polly ... I know she wore always prone to superstition and all, but she swore she seen a woman ..."

  My eyesight blurring, I looked at the teacup and thought, Oh God. Oh my God.

  Chapter 21

  Fighting the opium's effect was futile, or perhaps I had no heart to do it. Time passed. How long I could not be certain, for one hour was just like another, filled with voices and pictures that were too fractured for my confused mind to make any sense of them.

  I dreamt once that I awoke to find Bea standing over my bed, her face inches from mine, so close I could count the open pores on her nose and smell the stench of her breath in my nostrils. "I warned you," she rattled, but when I struck out at her she vanished like smoke, leaving me thrashing and screaming for help.

  My husband came and went. His cool hands stroked my face, my body, soothing me. Each time I opened my eyes he was there at my side. Odd that I should feel such serenity in his presence when in reality I should still have been crying for help. For here, in all his imposing mien, was, in fact, my would-be murderer. Jane's murderer.

  She me some proof, my heart demanded.

  I could not, so I chose to believe—hope—pray—that I was wrong. That we were all wrong.

  On the third day after my accident I awoke without the groggy after effects of the laudanum to find Belzeebub on the pillow next to mine and my husband in a chair beside my bed, reading a book. I held my breath and watched him.

  Something of daylight still lingered: a gentle, misty haze of gray that spilled through the window and silhouetted my lord's features. I might have been watching him again from my hiding place at the tavern, noting the broadness of his shoulders, the width of his noble brow, and the length of his thigh. He wore a loose white shirt with full sleeves and a slashing vee collar. This was tucked into leather breeches and the breeches were tucked into knee-high brown boots. The sight of him made my heart tremble, not with fear— but with love and pride and desire. My veins glowed with an odd heat that brought a flush to my skin.

  My lord husband, I thought, it seems I am fated to love you despite everything.

  As I lay there watching him in secret, my mind tumbled back over all that had occurred to me since my arrival at Walthamstow: my first premonition of danger while I waited in the rose garden, my discovery that Nicholas was being drugged, our marriage and the sudden appearance of the cloaked woman in the cemetery, and the woman and room in the closed wing of the house. The woman hadn't appeared to me until after our marriage . . . Perhaps because until that time I had not been a threat. Perhaps she had been trying to frighten me away, and when that did not work she thought a shove down the stairs would do it.

  But who was the woman? Bea? Adrienne? . . . Samantha? There was no proof that anyone, other than my husband, might have pushed me down those stairs. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Nicholas was looking at me.

  "Enjoying your book?" I asked softly.

  "It is most interesting." He flipped it closed, keeping one finger between the pages to mark his place. "Perhaps you've read it: An Experimental Inquiry into the Properties of Opium and Its Effects on Living Subjects, by John Leigh. I believe it won the Harvein Prize in 1785, or so it says here." He thumped the cover. "I've learned that it takes very little opium to affect judgment, and that one can become addicted to it after only a few doses .. . Did you know that the majority of addicts are women of wealth? They are the only ones who can afford it, I suppose." He opened the book again and began to read aloud. "Opium is frequently given to dull pain, induce sleep, alleviate cough and ... to control insanity." His eyes came back to mine. "Of course, not all addicts are women."

  Trying to sit up, I asked, "Did you get the book from Trevor?"

  "No."

  "Then from whom?"

  "Your friend."

  "Brabbs?"

  My husband nodded. "He's been by regularly to check on you."

  "And you allowed it?"

  He grinned. "You might say we've come to an understanding where you are concerned."

  "I hope it is a rather good understanding," I told him. "To see the two people I love most in this world at odds with one another grieves me more than you know."

  I saw a softening of his features, and he blinked slowly. Placing his book aside, he left his chair and approached. Did I cower? Nay, I did not, though his presence left me helpless and weak as a leaf in a whirlwind. Dizzy, I rested back on my pillow.

  Sitting beside me on the bed, he lifted one hand up to my face, but did not touch me. I watched, disappointed, as those long, powerful fingers curled into his palm. "Are you better?" he asked. "I was about to go prepare me a drink. Shall I prepare one for you as well?"

  "Drink, sir?"

  "Tea. Not a drop of sherry has passed my lips through this entire ordeal."

  I returned his smile and told him I would enjoy a cup of tea.

  Without another word he walked to the door, hesitated, and turned back again. "I may be awhile. Matilda is under the weather, and since the help quit—

  "The help quit?"

  "Most of them. After your accident . . ." He looked away and without finishing his statement left the room.

  I rested, still tired and sore and slightly groggy from my ordeal. Minutes passed. I heard the clock chime the half hour, then the hour. Daylight waned. Darkness encroached, filling the room with shado
w. Several times I glanced at the candle on a table across the room, wishing it lit. I thought to leave the bed and light it, but my body rebelled, forcing me back into my pillows.

  I heard a noise and lifted my head. Bea stood in the door. A sense of revulsion swept through me at the sight of her stooped shoulders and limp, black dress. The rounded toes of her thick-soled shoes showed beneath her hems, and I noted they were covered in mud.

  As if reading my thoughts, she said, "I've been to the cemetery to pay my respects to Jane." She shuffled to the candle and lit it. The flame cast a harsh orange light over her sunken features as she approached me.

  Bending over me, she said, "He pushed you, didn't he? Everyone knows it. That's why they've gone." She smiled. "I have something to show you. Would you care to see it? It's proof of what I say." Tottering backward, she crooked her finger at me. "Come along, if you can. I'll show you. Then you'll see him for the monster he is. Quickly! Before he returns."

  Her words had an odd, hypnotizing effect on me. Somehow I managed to leave the bed, and force my stiff legs to move. We reached Kevin's room. Shaking, I stood by his bed, watching him sleep while Bea limped to her room. In a moment she was back. I recognized the rectangular, white shape of a canvas in her hand.

  I backed away. "I have already seen the abhorrent portrait," I told her. "I don't care to see it again."

  She swung the canvas up. "You'll want to see this, milady."

  I staggered back as my eyes fixed on my portrait, slashed to pieces. Spinning, I ran from the room, stumbling over the hem of my gown. I almost fell, but suddenly there were arms there to stop me, steadying me and righting me on my feet. Only then did I realize I was weeping.

  "What's this?" Trevor said. "Ariel, what has happened?"

  I looked up then, and saw my husband walk out of our bedroom, followed by Adrienne. When he saw Bea, he sprang for her with a growl, ripping the canvas from her hand and staring at it with fierce savagery that was terrifying to behold. "You conniving bitch," he hissed. "What in the name of God have you done?"

  She stumbled backward, her arms thrown up for protection. "You did it! Polly found it hidden among the others you tossed out. She brought it to me before she left. Fiend! Murderer! She won't admit it, but you pushed her down those stairs!" She pointed at me.

  He looked toward me, his face like white granite as I huddled, trembling, in Trevor's arms. "I didn't do this," he said.

  "Liar!" Bea screeched.

  Pushing me aside, Trevor sprang for my husband before he could throttle the cowering woman.

  I fled to my room, passing Adrienne, threw myself across the bed, and did my best to block out the angry voices in the hallway. How long I laid there, weeping into the bed, I cannot say. Minutes. Hours perhaps. I became aware of the silence just as the door slammed.

  Rolling to my knees, I stared at my husband, my breasts heaving with anger and fear. "Stay away from me," I said.

  "I didn't slash that portrait."

  I covered my ears. "I don't want to hear it. I am tired of the excuses and the lies." He moved toward me and I threw myself back against the headboard. "Stop!" I screamed. "I should have listened to them, but, no, I had to believe you!"

  As he moved around the bed, I rolled to the opposite side and jumped to the floor. Sweeping up a teacup from the tray he'd brought up, I hurled it at him. He ducked. I picked up the small pitcher of milk and flung it as well. It crashed against the wall, sending milk puddling on the floor and fragments of glass flying over the room.

  Nicholas moved slowly around the bed, his movements cautious. "I did not slash that portrait," he said evenly. "Listen to me. I did throw out some canvases several days back, but I swear to you that portrait was not among them."

  "I don't believe you."

  "I have rarely left this bloody room since your accident, my lady. Anyone could have taken the canvas at any time by entering the studio through the hall door."

  Again I fought that nagging need to believe him, but the deep timbre of his voice and the gentle look in his eyes were having their desired effect on my shattered nerves. The burden of trust fell again onto my shoulders, and I cursed it with all the strength I could muster from my aching body.

  The tension swelled and hovered over us like the night's shadows. Then the sound of retching rose up from the darkness at the far side of the room, and my knees turned to water.

  Nicholas spun. "What the . . . ?"

  Silence. Then a scratching, thumping noise, and a guttural groan that sent ice racing through my veins. Silence again.

  Cautiously I approached the place from where the awful sound had arisen, stopping just behind my husband. We both searched the shadows, and in the same moment sighted Belzeebub's grotesquely twisted corpse lying against the wall, his whiskers still covered with milk.

  Poison! I backed away, terror choking me speechless as I witnessed my husband's features, grim now and resolute. Whirling, I raced for the door and threw myself against it as if my frail body could somehow obliterate the barrier. Then his arms were around me, peeling me away from the door while I kicked and clawed and tried with all my strength to scream.

  He clamped his hand over my mouth, and I bit it savagely until I tasted blood on my tongue and heard him curse. He flung me on the bed, and before I could roll away, threw his weight atop me. He pressed his palm over my mouth and nose so forcefully I thought for certain that, having failed with the stairs and poison, he would try suffocating me to death.

  I ceased to struggle. My will to live evaporated with the realization that I had been wrong about my husband all along. I had given him my heart while alive. I would yield him my soul in death.

  Closing my eyes, I mumbled against his hand, "Go on, then, and do what you will. Kill me."

  He remained quiet and I thought I heard his heart pounding in my ears. Perhaps it was mine. Finally, he whispered, "Don't be an idiot."

  I looked at him again. Nose to nose we stared into one another's eyes while the heat of his body warmed me to melting. He whispered again. "If I remove my hand, will you promise not to scream?"

  "Nay, I will not."

  "You will not promise or you will not scream?"

  "Take your chances."

  He left his hand where it was, biting into my lips. "You will hear me out, Lady Malham, and when I am finished if you care to scream down the rafters you are free to do so. Now, answer me with a nod of your head. Were you pushed down the stairs?"

  I nodded and his body stiffened.

  "I did not push you," he said.

  The narrowing of my eyes told my husband that I did not believe him.

  "I was nowhere near you when you fell," he countered. "Trust me."

  At that I nearly laughed. Trust is what had gotten me into this perilous predicament in the first place. As he slowly removed his hand from my mouth, I snapped, "Liar!" Then I lunged, nearly toppling him from his position astride me.

  Grabbing my flailing hands and pinning them to the bed, he glared straight into my eyes. "For one who practices deception as a way of life, you are hardly in a position to be calling anyone a liar . . . Maggie."

  I had suspected that he knew, but to now be sure brought me more fear than a thousand threats of death. I briefly swooned. Then, opening my eyes again, I managed weakly, "How long have you known?"

  "I've suspected since I first tried to paint your portrait. I had trouble capturing your likeness because my mind remembered one face while my eye saw another." Releasing my hands, he swept aside a strand of black hair that clung to my cheek. "You've changed, Maggie. The lass I fell in love with two years ago would not have attempted to destroy me by revenge."

  "The good lord I fell in love with two years ago would not have attempted to murder me with poison," I countered.

  So, there we lay, breast to breast, loin to loin, each having laid our cards on the table, so to speak. Finally he slid to one side, though he kept one heavy leg thrown over my thighs and an arm tossed across my waist.
"Maggie," he finally stated. "I want you to listen to me now. It is past time for honesty. We must trust one another. I did not try to kill you. And that means, much as it grieves me to admit, that someone else in this house has tried to kill you. Not once but twice. The difference is, I believe the second time the attempt was directed at us both."

  I lifted my brow in disbelief and refused to look at him. To do so would be my undoing.

  "The tea was to quench the two of us," he pointed out.

  "And you prepared it. Will you deny that simple fact?"

  "No. Which means that at some time the poison was added to the milk after I poured it into the pitcher."

  "I suppose the poison just hovered over your head until you turned your back. Then it dove like a rock into the milk before you could discover it."

  "Twit, someone has just tried to murder me. My mood is too foul to tolerate sarcasm."

  "So what else is new, sir?"

  "You have a bite like an asp, Maggie. I'm trying very hard to remember why I fell in love with you in the first place."

  "Because I was the only one who could tolerate your immense conceit, sir."

  "Aha. Thank you for pointing that out."

  "You're welcome."

  I felt him smiling at me, though I continued to stare in the opposite direction. The next thing I knew, his lips were next to my ear, and he was saying, "I left the kitchen for some ten minutes to check on Matilda. I believe I mentioned earlier that she is ill."

  "A likely alibi."

  Swearing, he rolled from the bed and paced the floor. "Dammit, Maggie, if I had wanted to kill you I would have thrown you over the cliff at the cove."

  "You were just lulling me into a false sense of security."

  "For God's sake, you sound like Brabbs."

  "He thinks you are insane."

  "Remind me to thank him when I see him again."

  I rolled to the far side of the bed, but from there I could view Belzeebub's stiffening form. Shivering, I crawled to the opposite edge and awaited my husband's next move.

  He continued to pace for some time: to the window, the bed, the door. Finally he pulled a key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. My eyes widened as the bolt ground into place, barricading us in.