Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  “These are your guests.” Patrick turned to Romney and Topaz. “Names, I fear, are not in order—for your own safety, you understand.”

  The woman fixed Topaz with a level, hazel stare. “Well I can certainly give you my name. Catherine Kilter and—oh, here’s my husband, James.”

  A man had entered through a door at the back of the building, silhouetted by the bright morning light. Romney had time only to note his height, which nearly matched Kelly’s, and the powerful way he moved before he reached them.

  Romney still held Topaz’s hand and felt her twitch when she saw the man’s face. Or should Romney say his half face? Dark auburn hair sprouted from the left side of his head—on the right, scar tissue prohibited any hair growth. The damage, no doubt the result of severe burns, extended down the right side of his face in a livid mask. But his blue eyes held a kind expression, and Catherine looked at him as if he illuminated her world.

  “Welcome,” he said, and his lips twisted in a half smile. “I’m Kilter—James.”

  Romney stuck out his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Kilter, for offering us a bolt-hole.”

  “Any friends of Patrick are welcome here.”

  “I thought since it is a refuge,” Kelly put in, “two more would not hurt.”

  “Certainly not. I prepared our spare room after I got Pat’s message this morning.” Cat shot another adoring look at her husband. “Not so long ago we were shuttled hither and yon from one safe house to another. Remember, my love?”

  She doesn’t even see his scars, Romney thought, and his heart bounded.

  Topaz turned to Kelly. “What about your other guest?”

  “She was able to impart the rest of her story to me last night. I will share it with you when we have more time. For now, I think it best to house her elsewhere.” His face did not change expression, but Romney felt his caution. “The miscreants will come after her. They cannot do otherwise.”

  Topaz nodded unhappily. “And my brother?”

  “One of the Squad will bring him here as soon as he’s finished at the hospital. Meanwhile, I urge you to keep your heads down.”

  Romney placed his arm around Topaz and drew her against his side. Keeping her acquiescent would be a challenge. But he said, “We will, and thank you for all you’ve done.”

  Kelly left after shaking hands with James Kilter.

  “Have you had breakfast?” Cat asked. “Our quarters are upstairs. Would you like me to show you around first?” She smiled impishly. “Only I’m always hungry these days.”

  “She can eat prodigious amounts, for such a tiny thing,” Kilter put in, his voice a caress.

  Cat leaned toward Topaz confidingly. “It’s the baby. I think it’s going to be a boy, a big one.”

  Together they toured the large building, which had a reception room in front, a small area that served as a surgery, and a number of indoor cages, all immaculately clean. The cages were occupied—one by a mother cat and her kittens, another by a nearly bald rat. Out back in the sunshine, feeling miles from the bustle of the city, sprawled a yard filled with kennels, many occupied by dogs, and a small paddock area holding two horses.

  “I never would have guessed all this was here,” Topaz said in wonder.

  Cat laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “All James’s doing.”

  “With Pat’s help,” Kilter put in. The clear, outdoor light revealed the worst of his disfigurement, but the animals, who all pressed forward eagerly at the sight of him, did not seem to care any more than did his little wife.

  “The dogs come to us as found,” Kilter said. “The horses were both taken in cruelty cases. Bobby there—the white horse—was far too old to be working when we found him. Jenny—well, you can see the scars from the whip, if you look.”

  “What will happen to them?” Romney asked.

  “We doctor and rehabilitate those that need it and search for good homes.” Kilter slanted a look at them. “I hope you don’t mind dogs, for there are some upstairs who seem to have become permanent residents.”

  “Come on,” Cat invited. “I’ll show you.”

  The quarters upstairs, bright and sunny, had been extensively remodeled. New windows, floors, and wall coverings made the rooms feel homey. A small horde of dogs came to meet them, everything from a tiny ball of white fur to a large yellow lurcher that held back standoffishly.

  “That’s Greta,” Cat explained. “She’s looking for James.” Kilter had stayed below in the yard.

  “How long have you lived here?” Topaz asked curiously.

  “Since we married last June. I’m due in March.” Cat blushed charmingly. “We didn’t wait, you see.”

  Love fills this place, Romney thought, rooted like a primrose blooming on a stony street. A lesson, perhaps? For the love here clearly went beyond the physical—and even the barriers of species—to spirit.

  But surely Kelly, an automaton, couldn’t have brought them here merely to show them that?

  ****

  He hung in the darkness again with the voice—that hated voice—once more in his ears. Pain flicked through his body like the bite of a whip, and he shuddered.

  “Remember. What do you remember? Where were you born?”

  Writhing where he hung, dreading the next touch from the electrodes, he strove for the information. They had been over and over this: his questioner knew he could not retrieve the answers to his questions. Why continue to torture him?

  But suddenly strength flooded through him, beating back the darkness, burgeoning, and uplifting him. Knowledge streamed into his mind, whole.

  South Sussex, Romney Marsh—the great green wastes of his childhood, unchanging and serene, that yet this monster who now tormented him would taint with his unnatural practices.

  But he could not, he would not tell his tormentor that. Nor that he’d been sent to stop the Undertaker at any cost, even if that cost included his life.

  “It’s all right, hush. Hush. You’re safe here with me.”

  A second voice intruded on his panic. This one curled through him like an extension of his own being—like comfort, hard won. He breathed again.

  “Topaz?”

  “Yes. I’m here.”

  The pieces of reality fell into place and he suddenly knew where he was: the small room to which little Mrs. Kilter had shown them, the one that overlooked the big yard with all its refugees. He lay in the bed. More importantly, he lay in Topaz Hathor’s arms.

  That knowledge allowed him to draw still more air into his lungs. He could not see her, but he could feel her—arms, naked breasts, spirit.

  She moved in the bed and began to sit up.

  “No,” he said.

  “I am just going to light the lamp.” She spoke as one might to a child.

  She swore as she fumbled with the lamp on the bedside table. She struck a flame which seared Romney’s eyes. By its radiance he saw her leaning above him, black hair raining down and eyes full of concern. His world abruptly steadied.

  “I’m sorry. I left the lamp by the door burning—I didn’t want the dark to find you. It must have gone out while we slept.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I dreamed—but that doesn’t matter either.” He caught hold of her, seeking to impart the magnitude of what he had to tell. “Topaz, I’ve begun to remember.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes—not all of it, but enough. Bits and pieces. I know the rest of it will come.” He gazed into her eyes. “And it’s because of you. You’re the answer, the connection. Topaz, I do believe I was meant to come to you—you, not your father—that first night. There’s some meaning in it. Every time I love you, I grow stronger. You make sense of everything.”

  “Just by loving you?”

  “By joining with me. Don’t you see? It’s the two of us together that makes the magic.”

  “I need no persuasion to share myself with you. But,” she sobered, “if we fight my father and Danson Clifford, we face an uphill battle indeed. My father is a spi
ritual master and fully invested in finding Rose. If he employs all his power to search for us—”

  He cupped her cheek in his hand. “You have power also—I’ve felt it. It’s grounded me, pulled me back from the brink. Maybe you can use it to shield us now.”

  She shook her head. “Against my father?”

  He told her with absolute conviction, “I believe in you.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “And I would sooner die than fail you. Yet I’m but a fledgling. I never applied myself to the lessons my father tried to teach me. And now it’s too late.”

  “You’re the only one who can challenge or thwart him.”

  Wildly now, she shook her head again. “I’m not strong enough.”

  “We will strengthen each other.” And he pulled her into his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Topaz rose from the bed with a parting glance and caress for the man she left behind. As always when she looked at Romney, her heart stuttered in her breast. Of all the emotions she’d experienced in her life—daring, confidence, anger, loathing, or even fear—she found this tenderness the hardest to bear. Softness did not come easily to her, or this love that she felt, fierce as it might be.

  He didn’t stir, still exhausted by what had befallen him at Grayson as well as their activities during the night. She knew just how deep his debility reached—she’d felt it on the most intimate of levels. By rights they shouldn’t be making love until he healed.

  Yet he would have her believe lying with her restored his strength, along with his memories.

  She hoped so, for she didn’t think she could give him up now if she tried.

  Quietly she finished dressing, twisted her hair into a braid, and tiptoed from the room. In the dining room she found Mrs. Kilter along with a circle of dogs, several of which greeted her.

  “Good morning.” Cat Kilter waved the toast in her hand. “Where’s your companion?”

  “Still sleeping.”

  “Come and have some breakfast. James has gone to do a job for his friend Tate Murphy. It’s just me and the animals.”

  Topaz, nothing loath, pulled out a chair and sat down. Her inner sense—which once limbered now seemed to operate on its own—sensed only light and a great deal of joy filling this woman’s spirit.

  “Help yourself.” Cat gestured at the generous selection of dishes on the table. “Tell me about yourself, at least what you can. I gather from what Pat said you shouldn’t give away much.”

  “Better not.” Topaz eyed her hostess cautiously. She’d never been close with her older sisters and had very few female friends apart from the streetwalkers she helped train.

  “Maybe,” Cat suggested, “just enough to satisfy my curiosity. How did you and your lover meet?” She dimpled. “That’s what he is, right? Your lover?”

  “Yes.” Admitting it made it more real. Topaz helped herself to toast and sausage. “As for how we met—you wouldn’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  The small white dog jumped up onto Cat’s knee. The two of them—animal and woman—watched Topaz with identical hazel eyes.

  Cautiously, Topaz asked, “Did Pat give you any idea who I am?”

  “Said it wasn’t safe to tell me. But he didn’t have to. I recognize you—and I know who your father is. Most people in this city must.”

  “Then you’re aware of his reputation, his…abilities? I inherited some of them. When I first met my lover, it was not in the flesh.”

  “Oh.” Cat contemplated that and shrugged. “Not so inconceivable. As you may imagine, my attraction to Jamie didn’t begin with the physical, either.” Blithely she added, “Though I adore every inch of him now.”

  Obviously.

  “Some more than others. But I do believe I fell in love with his spirit almost immediately—strong, kind, and so beautiful.”

  “He’s a lucky man that you saw all that in him.”

  “I assure you, I’m the lucky one.”

  Ruefully, Topaz said, “From the very beginning this has seemed like some mad dream, all of it. And I confess I can’t see our way clear of all the difficulties.”

  Cat leaned forward and covered Topaz’s hand with hers. “I know how that feels, to despair over anything ever coming right. I was where you are once. But just look at me now.”

  Topaz nodded gravely. The biggest of the dogs, the short-haired yellow lurcher Cat called Greta, sidled up to Topaz and fixed her with an enigmatic stare.

  “Just look at that,” Cat remarked. “You must be special; Greta rarely responds to anyone.”

  Topaz put out a hand, and the big dog placed her head under it. Fur like warm velvet met Topaz’s fingers.

  “James will never believe that. He rescued her from a pit back before I met him.”

  “A fighting pit, you mean?”

  “Yes. If you look under the fur you can see her scars. She has a warrior’s heart.” Cat fixed Topaz with another enigmatic look. “Maybe she senses a kindred spirit in you.”

  Before Topaz could answer, a knock sounded from downstairs. Barking immediately broke out, and Cat jumped up, the white dog caught in her arms.

  “Somebody’s here.”

  She went off and returned in a few moments followed by Patrick Kelly and Sapphire. Topaz leaped up and immediately froze, arrested by the expression in her brother’s eyes.

  “Carlotta?” she questioned even as Greta pressed against her side.

  Usually bold and careless, Sapphire’s face now wore a pinched look and grief filled his eyes.

  “Oh, no,” Topaz lamented.

  “We lost the child,” he blurted. “Carly—she’ll survive. But the little one is gone.”

  Grief and remorse crashed over Topaz in equal parts. She barely saw Cat and Patrick Kelly leave the room. Most of the animals followed; only Greta remained at Topaz’s side.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Sapphire looked at her accusingly. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened?”

  “I…” How best to explain? “I used the key you got for me and searched the cellar. Sapph, I made a terrible discovery.” She knew Sapphire’s feelings toward Frederick were as complicated as her own, but she doubted he would easily accept the ramifications of this thing in which his father was now involved. “I couldn’t leave her there—Carly, I mean. I thought you’d want me to take her to safety.”

  “You thought!” he exclaimed bitterly, his pain a weapon. “And you always know best, don’t you?”

  “Me? I know nothing.” Topaz stated it with complete veracity.

  “She was safe there.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I meant to fetch her away the next day.”

  “I know that now. But I wasn’t sure where you were and, Sapph, listen to me—that new partner of Father’s…”

  “I don’t care about that! All I know is if you’d left her where she was, our child would still be alive.” Disconcerting tears filled Sapphire’s eyes. Topaz couldn’t remember ever seeing him cry, not even as a small boy. “Alive,” he emphasized, “instead of just a spirit released back into the ether—gone forever.”

  “No,” Topaz breathed, appalled. “You’ll have other children.”

  “Carly says no. She insists she’ll not marry me now, insists the only reason I asked her was because of the baby. She says she wants to go away; she sent me from the hospital, and—”

  “Oh, Sapph! She’ll come round. She loves you. That’s just shock and reaction talking—and grief. But she’ll want to see you later.”

  “You know that too, I suppose. Just like you knew it must be a good idea to take a fragile, pregnant girl out in a steamcab on icy streets.”

  “I did what I thought best.”

  “Yes, well,” he said savagely, “now you can live with the consequences. The steamcab driver died at the hospital. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “His wife was there. They have two teenaged children. Alone now, tha
nks to you.”

  “Sapphire, please—” Instinctively, she reached for him, but he drew away. “Don’t touch me. And stay away from Carly, understand? Don’t try to find either of us. We don’t want to see you again.”

  Topaz withdrew from the heat of his anger and the hatred in his eyes. Her brother might be many things but he had never been hateful—at least not toward her.

  She flinched even as did Greta, who slunk away from the confrontation, her tail between her legs. Sapphire spun on his heel and stalked out, leaving Topaz’s heart bleeding.

  ****

  “He’ll forgive you.” Romney drew Topaz closer in his arms, in their bed. Night had come; Topaz wished she could crawl into it like a black sack and hide from everything. Everything, that was, except this man who held her.

  She could feel so many things about him: his pain that flickered through his body like the remnants of lightning; his bone-deep weariness; and the steady light that burned like a flame deep inside him. She nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

  “That was his grief talking,” Romney went on. “His fear.”

  “I know.” Topaz bit her lip. “But you don’t understand—we were always so close. He was the only one in my family I could turn to. Now he hates me.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “And, damn it, he has a right to hate me. Why didn’t I leave Carly at the house?”

  “You had no way of knowing he meant to collect her so soon.”

  “I just couldn’t bring myself to leave her in the same house as…him.” Horror crawled up from Topaz’s belly to her throat. “Not once I realized what he’s been doing—trapping spirits… Well, I always knew he did that. But to force them into other bodies—dead bodies reanimated by that fiend, Clifford. Getting Carly out of there was a gut reaction. Sapphire will never see it that way.”

  Romney kissed her temple. His concern flooded through in a wave of comfort.

  “Frederick Hathor’s my father,” she went on, revulsion sounding in her voice. “I always found it unbearable that he interfered with the spirits that were on their way to—well, to wherever they’re meant to go. I could feel their bewilderment, their fear, and their longing for their past and their future, both. But this is so much worse. What’s happened to Rose, that’s spiritual slavery. How could he do such things? He, above all others, who knows what it is to bond with those who come to him.”