“Sara, your safety is important to me, and I explained to you that trust was paramount in this relationship. Blind obedience is trust. You agreed to that when you accepted my proposal.”
“And you evidently look down upon me for doing so. I was afraid you might. Alexander Mallory certainly did. Why should I expect more from you?”
“Do not include me in that company,” he growled.
“I was wrong to come here . . . to hope for your respect.”
“Balderdash! You know better.” He loosened his grip, but he didn’t let her go.
“I know nothing of the sort! You treat me like one of the servants—someone you can order about . . . someone beneath you. While that may be true, I am hardly a scullion. I am the daughter of a colonel in His Majesty’s Royal Army—a knight, and a hero recognized by the Crown, who fell prey to the lure of the gambling hells, and died in dun territory. Do not tar me with the same brush. The only gamble I’ve ever taken was coming here. As you can see, I have no talent for it.”
“Why did you agree to this?” he murmured.
“I was dying in that place,” she said, “eating maggoty food, fending off two-legged predators, when I wasn’t fending off the four-legged variety. I wouldn’t have lasted, having to fight and claw my way through each day—each hour—with nothing save more of the same to look forward to. Oh, I could have borne it in the physical sense, I suppose, but it would have made me like the others . . . someone I couldn’t bear to become—someone I would have had to become in order to survive. Your . . . invitation came at a most fortuitous moment. They were coming to select girls for the brothels from among the younger prisoners. I would most certainly have been taken. Virgins bring a higher price. The jailers would have been only too happy to turn me over for a handsome reward. Your missive was like an answer to my prayers, as if all my dreams had come true. But those dreams have turned into a nightmare.”
Something terrible lived in his eyes—rage and terror beyond bearing, and she looked away. She was close to tears, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Why did you climb down to the strand?”
“I was following you.”
“Why?”
“To finish our conversation earlier. I did take advantage of the footmen’s presence in the breakfast room to make my point, but there are some things even I choose not to discuss in front of the servants. I wanted to speak with you alone. It seemed the perfect place to do that.”
“What did you want to say to me, Sara?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t important. I want you to let me go, Nicholas. I shall seek employment as a governess, or a companion—whatever respectable position I can find—and pay back every halfpenny you’ve spent upon me if it takes me the rest of my life. I beg only that you do not return me to that place. I would rather be dead than sold to a brothel.”
“You are my wife, Sara, I cannot let you go,” he said.
“So I am a prisoner here, after all!”
“No,” he groaned.
“What then? What am I, Nicholas? I don’t know what you want. You don’t know what you want. One thing I do know, you do not want me. I’m a bride who isn’t a wife, a companion who isn’t even a friend. I want to be both, but you won’t let me, and you won’t tell me why. How dare you speak to me of trust? How do you dare!”
His eyes were boring into her—those terrible eyes that had the power to melt her resolve. She couldn’t meet them. All at once she was in his arms. Crushing her close, he took her lips with a hungry mouth, and parted them with a skilled tongue and one swift thrust. It took her breath away. Cupping her head in his hand, he tasted her deeply, feeding on the moan in her throat, matching it with his own feral growl that seemed to come from the very depths of him, resonating through her body in a way that weakened her knees.
He slid his hand along her arched throat, and spread the wrapper wide, then tore the sash from his dressing gown and wrenched her against his naked hardness. Sara held her breath. Seizing her hand, he drove it down to his sex. She uttered a muffled cry through lips trapped beneath his bruising mouth as it responded to her touch, throbbing like a pulse beat. He drew his head back, gulping air, his hooded eyes dilated with desire.
“Does this feel as though I do not want you, Sara?” he panted, wrapping her fingers around his engorged member. “It is all I can do to resist you . . . to keep from ravishing you, but I can, and I will, because I must. I cannot have the luxury of you in that way.”
“But why?”
“I cannot tell you why . . . not yet . . . perhaps, not ever. That remains to be seen.” He released his grip on her wrist. Her flesh was on fire. It was as though molten lava were flowing through her belly and thighs, moistening the mound between her legs that pulsed like a heartbeat matching the rhythm of his manhood—his very life shuddering against her fingers. She let her hand slip away, and he leaned back, closing her wrapper with painstaking control. “I am asking you to trust me,” he went on, “to do as I say, and give me time. I told you once that, please God, this is only temporary.”
“I shall not embarrass you in front of your guest,” she murmured, trying to sound as though she had command of her runaway emotions. It fell flat. How could he believe it, when she could not? She was a shambles, mortified and cold, standing there in the clinging wet negligee. Her whole body ached for the passion in his, which he denied her. Why? It was time to force the issue. “I shall advertise at once,” she said.
“You cannot do that,” he barked. “Baroness Walraven cannot go into service. You know better than to suggest such a thing.”
“Well, be that as it may, you have until Dr. Breeden leaves to explain yourself, my lord,” she said, “because, unless you do, when his coach arrives I shall leave in it with him.”
“And go where?” he returned.
“I’ve no idea, only that I must. If you cannot answer me by then, I will have to conclude that I am right, or that you are mad. Either way, I will go mad if I stay. I’ve said my piece. It’s your coil to unravel now, Nicholas.”
He snatched a towel from the chiffonier. “Cover up. You shall catch your death,” he said, as though he’d just realized she was standing barefoot in a puddle of scented water, in a wrapper still dripping on the parquetry. “I shall make your excuses. You cannot come downstairs in such a state. I shall have Mrs. Bromley fetch up a dinner tray, and an herbal tea to warm you. Dr. Breeden has prescribed a rose hips tonic . . . to build you back up after your ordeal in the priest hole.”
“I don’t need ‘building up,’ ” she snapped.
“You will do as he says,” said Nicholas unequivocally. “I shan’t have consumption on my conscience. It’s burdened enough over you as it is.”
“To borrow your favorite phrase, ‘do we have an understanding,’ Nicholas?” she said, clutching the towel against her.
“Sara—”
“And I want the hall boys dismissed from my suite at once,” she put in. “I will not live under guard.”
“That has already been done,” he said on a sigh. “I . . . I concede on that one point, but only so long as you keep your doors latched. Alex has not turned up yet. While he is at large, you are in danger. I know you do not understand this, but you must obe—humor me in this.” He tugged his dressing gown closed in front. He was still aroused, and he raked back the damp hair from his brow. She took a step toward him. “No!” he growled, backing away. “Do not touch me! Do not tempt me . . . again—never again!”
“Very well, Nicholas,” she said, “but there is one more condition. Do not think to harm that dog. You are not to lift one finger against him again, or I shall have the guards in. I shall leave in the clothes I came in. You may keep everything you’ve given me, but when I go, Nero goes with me.”
He turned on his heel and stormed from the dressing room then. She flinched when the door slammed, though she watched him fling it shut
. Frozen to the spot, she stared after him for a long moment. When she took a step toward the bell pull to summon Nell, her foot caught in something and she tripped. It was Nicholas’s dressing gown sash. Snatching it up, she ran through her suite, through the bedchamber to the foyer only to pull up short on the threshold. The door was wide open, and there, in a crumpled heap at her feet, lay his dressing gown spilling into the hall. Nicholas was nowhere in sight.
Nero ran in circles before the hearth in the master suite dressing room, his plaintive howl echoing over the voice of the storm. Faster and faster he pranced, his sharp nails clacking on the hearthstone and his footpads thudding on the Aubusson carpet, as his path grew ever wider, skirting Mills, who was standing with a quilted throw at the ready.
He howled again, a mournful supplication trailing off on the wind, and sprang into the air, no more than a blur of shaggy fur and sinew expanding to Nicholas’s full height, surging into a sweaty mass of naked flesh and muscle, whose cords were strung like bowstrings. Panting and heaving like the animal he had left behind, Nicholas dropped to his knees before the hearth, his tousled head bowed.
It had happened again. Twice in one day. Dry sobs and a moan left his throat, and he pounded the parquetry at the edge of the rug with both his clenched fists.
“Take ease, my lord,” said Mills, covering him with the throw. “It’s over now.” A mad, misshapen laugh was Nicholas’s reply, and the valet took hold of his arm. “Here, let me help you up.”
“I left my dressing gown behind in her rooms,” Nicholas groaned, struggled to his feet.
“You have other dressing gowns, my lord,” said the valet, settling him in the wing chair. “I shall fetch you another at once.”
“That isn’t the point,” Nicholas returned. “How shall I explain it?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my lord. Calm yourself. There’s nothing to be done about it now. I shall be but a moment.”
Nicholas leaned his head back against the tufted chairback, and indulged in a long, lingering moan. No region of his body was exempt from the pain of the stressful transformation, no tendon spared the torturous effects of strain. Making matters worse, his libido was charged, as it always seemed to be when he was exhausted. He was beyond exhausted now, and there had been no release. His sex still throbbed for need of her—still grew for want of her, and he shifted uneasily in the chair.
Mills shuffled back across the threshold carrying a blue brocade and satin dressing gown, and helped him into it. His cordial waited on the chiffonier, and the valet brought it to him.
“Drink it, my lord—all of it,” he said, offering the strong-smelling concoction.
“It’s too late for the damnable nostrum now,” Nicholas snapped, refusing the glass.
“For this time, perhaps,” the valet persisted. “Please, my lord, you were doing so well.”
Another mad laugh was his response, and after a moment, Nicholas took the glass and tossed back the cordial with a grimace.
“You mustn’t be discouraged, my lord.”
“Mustn’t I?” Nicholas growled. “I’ve dismissed the hall boys from her suite, and made a fool of myself doing it after swearing not to.”
“Was that wise, my lord?”
“It was necessary,” Nicholas returned, “else one of them see what happened to me just now. I knew I was at risk for the transformation when I went down there. That’s why I couldn’t chance it fully dressed. It was a wise decision. I almost didn’t make it out of her rooms, Mills. I know she won’t lock that door, and now she’s unprotected. I shall have to keep watch myself, whenever I can, which shan’t be easy, while Dr. Breeden is in residence. I’ve neglected him shamefully what with all this.”
“Believe me, he understands, my lord. Why, he’s closeted in that herbarium below stairs day and night. He isn’t here to socialize. He knows that.”
“I want you to make up the bed in the green suite across the hall from my lady’s apartments, and take some of my things down there. I’m too far removed up here to be any use in an emergency should one arise, which is almost a foregone conclusion considering her past record in this house. Do it yourself. I do not want the staff privy to this. It will only arouse suspicion, and give the servants more fodder for stories we can ill afford here now.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You shall attend me here as usual during the day. I will have to fend for myself in the green suite, so see that I have everything I need. You cannot be seen coming and going.”
“Yes, my lord. I shall attend to it while you are at dinner.”
“My lady will not be joining us in the dining hall. She is having a tray in her rooms. Take care that she doesn’t see you, and look sharp. I needn’t remind you that Alex is still missing. I shall be closeted with Dr. Breeden in the master suite after dinner until quite late. Perhaps you ought to stay in the green suite until I relieve you. She has given me an ultimatum. I have until the doctor leaves to explain myself, or she will leave also. I cannot let her do that, Mills. She has nowhere to go, and she’ll end up right back in that bridewell carted off to the brothels.”
“Very well, my lord,” said the valet. “Begging your pardon, but don’t you think you should tell her? With Dr. Breeden here to address both your concerns—”
“Tell her what, Mills?”
“About her real role in this madness. It is, after all, the reason you chose her—because you felt of all the females in the realm, this one might be persuaded to understand . . . to end your loneliness. My heart goes out to you, my lord, but you have to take the initiative and trust someone. You cannot expect it of her and not return it in kind.”
“If I tell her the whole truth, about her father’s involvement in all this, I shall have to tell her the rest.”
“Not necessarily, my lord. Mightn’t you just tell her enough to appease, just . . . something? You cannot let her go, my lord. You love her . . . and she loves you.”
“Well, it isn’t quite that simple, old boy, because she loves someone else, as well.”
“My lord?”
His lips gave a wry smile. “She has just informed me that when she leaves, she’s taking Nero with her.”
Seventeen
“The technique I wish to try is not my own, my lord,” said Breeden. “I learned it under the tutelage of Anton Mesmer over forty years ago. I was not yet twenty, as green as grass, and awestruck by the great theosophist, unable to believe my good fortune in being able to study at his home and hospital on the Landstrasse in Vienna. Early on, he practiced healing with the use of magnetized objects with much success, but shortly after I joined him, his methods changed. You see, he began employing what he called ‘animal magnetism’ in his practice, and that was the beginning of his downfall, I’m afraid.”
“Animal magnetism, sir? Wasn’t there some sort of brouhaha about Mesmer, and his practices?”
The doctor nodded, taking a sip of sherry from his glass. They were seated in the sitting room of Nicholas’s suite, where the doctor had assembled an eclectic assortment of objects on the drum table.
“Yes, there was,” said Breeden, “and still is. According to Mesmer, ‘animal magnetism’ is a substance, an invisible liquid, if you will, which can neither be seen, felt, smelled, touched, or tasted, that every man does possess, in different degrees of strength. This substance can be employed to heal . . . and to adjust the consciousness, so that suggestions might be given the recipient of the therapy that will evoke behavioral change.”
“But we have already dismissed the theory that my condition exists only in my mind.”
“Yes, we have,” said Breeden. “However, the mind can be trained to overcome all sorts of physical behavior.”
“And you are hoping—”
“I am hoping that some of Anton Mesmer’s theories might benefit you, my lord. To what degree, I cannot say. You are quite correct about the brouhaha. It’s only fair to warn you that he was denounced as a charlatan in Austria for his anim
al-magnetism therapy. He went to Paris, where he wrote a report hoping to redeem himself, in which he stated that animal magnetism was not some sort of mysterious secret cure-all as the Austrians feared, but rather a scientific phenomenon that wanted study in order to reap its benefits for mankind.
“His cures were phenomenal. The clergy, of course, attributed all that to the Devil, but the French aristocracy revered him as a saint. He had much success, and the favor of the Queen of France, but the King ordered an investigation. While the appointed committee could not fault Mesmer’s results, they would not sanction something too illusive to be perceived by the five senses, and he was denounced again. Then came the Revolution. With neither fame nor fortune, and having lost what friends those attributes attract, he left Paris and settled somewhere near Zurich. Then two years ago, he went to Meersburg, where he died this past March, working amongst the poor. I tell you all this because I shan’t use methods of which you do not approve. My personal belief is that the man was ahead of his time, and that one day his methods will be appreciated—even revered. There is no question that they work; how well in your case, remains to be seen.”
“You have used these methods on others?” said Nicholas.
“Yes, but none with your particular affliction.”
“What must I do?”
“Relatively little, my lord,” said the doctor. “Little more than you’ve already done.”
“I don’t understand. . . .”
“When you were shot, and in pain, while we waited for Mills to bring Mrs. Bromley’s nostrum, I used my ‘powers,’ if you will, of animal magnetism, which Dr. Mesmer helped me develop in my training, to ease your suffering. Do you remember?”
“I remember you telling me to concentrate upon your words . . . upon the candle.”
“And what happened, my lord, when you did as I bade you?”
“The pain was lessened. We had an almost normal conversation.”
The doctor nodded. “I was trying to see if you would be receptive to my methods.”
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