Sheer Madness

by Laura Strickland

  “There must be a fortune in it, and greed is a powerful motivator.”

  “But he already has all he needs. You’ve seen that house.” She slid her palm across the skin of his chest, naked beneath the shirt he wore. “Enough—more than enough for anyone.”

  Before he could reply, she drew a breath and went on. “And it’s not as if he doesn’t understand the depth of the harm he does. He must have been able to feel Rose’s distress. I could feel it! My God, Rom, she’s thinking of killing this new body in which she’s trapped rather than endure living in it.”

  He turned her face gently till her eyes met his. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. I doubt Patrick Kelly will permit her to do any such thing.”

  “Pat?”

  “He seems to have taken her under his metaphorical wing—which is not a bad place to be. When you think about it, he might prove her perfect protector. He understands her quandary, and there are only so many demands he can make on her.”

  “Pat? And Rose?”

  Romney smiled. “Rather, I think, their equally troubled spirits. If we’ve learned one thing from all this, Topaz, it’s that spirit bonds with spirit. Everything else is pure window dressing.”

  He brushed her lips with his. “Though I have to admit I’m intensely attracted to your window dressing.”

  “And I to yours.”

  “Will you make love with me?” he asked simply.

  She gazed into his eyes and saw there, in equal measures, her strength and her weakness.

  “Only try to stop me.”

  Chapter Thirty

  “Mr. Gideon, I need not tell you this is a matter of utmost confidence. Here in England we have hatched a monster of distressing proportions. And now that he has fled our shores, we have a responsibility to recall that which we have unleashed upon the world.”

  Romney looked at the diminutive figure who sat before him, clad all in black with a white lace cap on her head. Repugnance twisted her rather plain features, and horror filled her eyes.

  “Yes, your majesty.” He inclined his head.

  Impulsively, Victoria leaned toward him. “We know we can rely upon your discretion, Mr. Gideon, even as we have in the past. The Hyde Park Strangler springs to mind, and the situation with the Parliament atrocities. You have proved yourself the foremost of my agents.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “And this time,” the Queen went on, “I must send you forth like a hawk after a crow—all the way across the ocean.”

  “Our information places Clifford in New York, ma’am,” Gideon agreed. “Not the big city of New York but a smaller one on the Niagara Frontier—Buffalo.”

  “Why there, do you suppose, Mr. Gideon?”

  “Your majesty, it’s a border city adjacent to your dominion of Canada. I suppose he thought that would give him easy entry and possibly a bolt-hole back to the dominion if things should go wrong for him there. Also, our intelligence puts him in touch with a man who lives there—a spiritualist named Frederick Hathor.”

  Victoria lifted her brows. “Spiritualist, you say, Mr. Gideon?”

  “Yes, ma’am, by all reports one world-renowned and far more powerful than any with whom he worked here in England.”

  “Ah.” The Queen’s hands fluttered in distress. “That does not bode well for us.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Gideon, I charge you: this man’s appalling activities cannot be permitted to continue. What will come of it, I ask you, if the dead are brought back to life indiscriminately? What of the respect owed those whose bodies have been laid to rest only to have this monster raise them for his own purposes? How long before he begins choosing host bodies that are less than perfect or, worse, contracts the deaths of those whose living bodies meet his clients’ criteria?”

  “Aye, ma’am. That is what I fear also.”

  She said, “I, above all others, my dear Mr. Gideon, know what it is to love—and to grieve. The loss of my dear Albert drove me to the greatest depths of mourning. But, even to experience again the presence of his spirit, I trust I would never engage in such a dire abomination!”

  She widened her eyes. “Go to America, Mr. Gideon. Apprehend him for us—at any cost.”

  ****

  Romney awoke abruptly and sucked a great, painful breath into his lungs. Yes, Romney actually was his given name. But his surname was…

  Gideon.

  How strange that amid all the pain, distress, and disconnection he’d managed to retain the name Romney while connecting it to the marshes where he’d been born. A place he loved most in the world—even now he had only to close his eyes to see the vast green expanses with the gray sea beyond. The same place, as Victoria had reminded him in his dream, that had spawned the unnatural creature who had seized, confined, and tortured him.

  At any cost, Victoria had said. And he had already paid a high cost—and failed. Danson Clifford could not allow him to live, at least not sane and with his memory intact. Just as he could not give up his mission now and allow Danson Clifford to succeed. A classic battle.

  And what weapons did he, Romney Gideon, possess? The sanction of his Queen—a holy writ—and the memories even now returning to him in pieces. The strength of this woman in his arms.

  He drew Topaz still closer, reveling in the feeling of her naked flesh meeting his. Before falling asleep they’d made intense, deliberate love; she had given herself to him fully and generously. Did she realize what she meant to him: his strength, his desire, and quite possibly his sanity? Did she know when she looked at him with those amber-colored eyes or even touched him in passing he lost the capacity to resist her?

  He hadn’t bargained for this when he went to serve at Victoria’s bidding. He’d had no place in his life for love. As for this need that staggered him every time he so much as looked at Topaz…

  Yet he now knew he would have to sacrifice even his love for her, if asked, in pursuit of Clifford.

  But not this night.

  That thought curled through his mind as he placed his hand on Topaz’s breast, marveling at her warmth and softness. She stirred in her sleep but slept on.

  In a wordless pledge of devotion, he bent his head and placed his lips on hers, which even in her sleep she parted for him. He explored the inside of her warm mouth with long, leisurely strokes of his tongue, remembering how it felt when he entered her on a strong current of passion. Before the kiss ended, she awakened and began to participate with unbridled enthusiasm.

  She tasted wild and sweet, of musk and bright delectable desire and the fire that lit the world.

  Take her now, his soul whispered. Tomorrow may never come.

  “Umm.” She made the sound in her throat as she invited his tongue in deeper. She shifted and slid beneath him so the weight and heft of him pillowed on her thighs.

  He stopped kissing her to say, “You truly are a goddess, Topaz Hathor.”

  She laughed huskily. “I do not mind hearing you say so. But is that the best use to which you can put those talented lips of yours? I can think of better.”

  So could he. The rosy, erect buds at the tips of her breasts awaited his pleasure and hers. If this be the last time we lie together, he thought, even as he ran his mouth down the swell of her breast and caressed her with his tongue before latching on, only let it last. Let morning never come.

  “Shall I show you?” he whispered across her damp nipple. “Shall I worship you as you deserve?”

  She shivered with delight. “I know not what I deserve. I want whatever you will give me.”

  He laughed and trailed kisses across her belly downward, moving ever more slowly. When he reached the nest of black curls between her legs, she arched her back and opened for him.

  Paradise! The heady scent of her spurred still sharper desire, the need to plunder her so thoroughly and completely with his mouth she would never, never forget this night.

  A purely physical act, but he could feel the strength of her
soul burgeoning, holding and uplifting him even as he urged her thighs farther apart with gentle hands, as he entered her with his tongue. He felt the fusing of their spirits when she tangled her fingers in his hair, and his passion rose with hers as he wooed and opened her more and more to him. And when the waves of pleasure came, he drank her passion and made it his own.

  Only after she lay in pieces, shattered beneath his hands and tongue, did he kiss his way back up her body, rear over and enter her, watching her face in the faint, ambient light that sifted through the window. To his amazement, she quickened once more for him, and they came together in a joining so complete he experienced both her emotions and her physical pleasure.

  Ah, so this was what it meant to be joined at the soul level. He eased down on top of her with his face at her throat, inhaled her scent, and felt her tremble.

  For one priceless instant his existence became complete—no past, no future, no impossible task to perform. Only this woman bonded to him as indelibly as his own flesh.

  She turned her face and sought his mouth with hers, poured words and kisses upon him.

  “I love you. I don’t know how it happened. I guarded my heart so well! But I’m not so foolish as to deny it now. I love you, and I’m yours for good—forever. If it be a year, a day—an hour.”

  “I love you, Topaz Hathor,” he told her with equal fervor. “There can be no truer, stronger bonding than this.”

  “I’m utterly yours,” she breathed, “as you are mine. No—don’t you dare.” As he moved, intending to withdraw from her, she wrapped her arms about him fiercely. “Stay where you are. Give me my completeness.”

  So she felt it too, the exclusiveness of the emotions between them. Giving himself up to the joy humming through him, he whispered in her ear, “Call me Romney.”

  “Eh?”

  “I want to hear you say it again now that I know it for my true name. May I introduce myself, Topaz Hathor? I’m Romney Gideon.”

  “You’ve remembered?”

  “I dreamed it and know, now, I was called after the wild marshes where I was born.”

  “Romney,” she whispered it. “Rom.” She laughed. “There’s irony for you: a Rom for the descendant of the Rom. That’s what I am, you know.”

  “My wild gypsy.”

  “But things are truly coming back to you?”

  “Yes, and all because of you. I was shattered when I found you, Topaz, splintered body from soul, sheared off into madness. You’ve healed me, and every time we’re together like this my strength grows.” He sobered. “But I’m on a dangerous mission, charged by Queen Victoria. That means I cannot spare myself. I cannot worry about whether or not I will have a future.”

  “Well, my fine Romney, since we don’t know what approaches or if we will ever have the chance to lie together again, I suggest we make the most of this night.”

  “Just what I thought before I woke you.”

  “This night will last as long as we let it.” She shifted in his arms. “Romney Gideon, look into my eyes.”

  He did. Despite the dim light, they glowed with golden fire.

  “I make this vow,” she pledged solemnly. “I may not be much more than a gypsy, and a warrior gypsy, at that. But I will fight for you however I may and with everything I have.”

  And from his heart he answered, “I never doubted it.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “We’re in for a real fight,” Patrick Kelly said gravely, somehow managing to convey his vehemence without changing expression. “I want you to know, Miss Topaz, I will stand with you—I and whatever members of the Irish Squad are willing. But despite Mr. Romney’s involvement, it cannot be in an official capacity. I am unable to go to the authorities without exposing Miss Rose, and that I refuse to do.”

  Topaz glanced at Rose, who occupied one of the chairs in the Kilters’ parlor, looking very much as if she didn’t want to be there. She’d been given a new set of clothes, a warm coat, and a hat that she wore pulled down to her eyebrows, but she appeared no happier than when Topaz had last seen her.

  She raised her eyes to Patrick and spoke in her old woman’s voice, “I told you, let me murder this body in which I’m trapped and you will no longer need to concern yourself with me.”

  Pat turned toward her. “And I have told you I cannot allow that. I will protect you, Miss Rose, even if it is against your wishes.”

  Distress flared in her eyes. “Officer Kelly, would you truly force my spirit to remain trapped in this body I abhor?”

  Pat made the grinding sound that, for him, represented laughter. With a fine show of Irish sarcasm, he replied, “Aye, lass—for I would not know, at all, how that feels.”

  Topaz looked at Rom Gideon, who stood beside her. He raised his eyebrows and quirked his lips; at this point she could almost hear his thoughts. He’d been right; a deep and curious relationship had developed between these two.

  At Topaz’s other hip stood Greta. The big yellow mongrel had been lying outside the guest room door when Topaz opened it this morning and had since refused to budge from her side.

  Pat resumed, “Miss Topaz, I have spoken at length with your brother in an effort to persuade him to our cause. I feel he would make a valuable ally, and we will need all the help we can get.”

  “Let me guess—he refuses to have anything to do with any plan that includes me.” Topaz could hear the pain in her own voice.

  Pat didn’t prevaricate. “Yes. And you, Miss Topaz, are our most valuable asset of all.”

  “How is that?”

  “Panic has gripped your father’s household. Your father and the man who has been working with him—”

  “The Undertaker,” Rose said in a spectral voice that made Topaz jump. “That’s what the other man, the one who trapped me, called him.” She shivered in response to her own words.

  Pat went on, “They do not know where Miss Rose is at present, and they cannot have her loose in the city—in the world. Already your father searches.” He looked at Topaz. “With every skill at his command.”

  A spear of disquiet pierced Topaz. “You mean he searches spiritually? For her soul?” As she knew all too well, every spirit had a signature. She would now be able to identify Romney’s spirit among a seething throng of others. “But how can we possibly conceal her from his mind?”

  “That,” said Pat, “is where you come in. I have in the past done some reading on the subject and know there is such a thing as psychic shielding.”

  “Possibly.” Topaz stared at Rose and the automaton at her side, ruing not for the first time her past refusal to learn the lessons her father had sought to impart, knowledge that now might be used against him. “But you can’t expect me to turn away my father’s mind. He’s far too powerful.”

  “Miss Topaz,” Pat said determinedly, “you are my friend. I feel I know you well enough to say that above all else you are a warrior. What difference if you fight with your stiletto or your mind?”

  “It is different. My father is a master spiritualist. How can I hope to go up against him?”

  Pat leaned toward her. “Not to differ with you, Miss Topaz, but how could you, a mere woman, as society might insist, and in need of a protector, hope to defeat men in hand-to-hand combat? How fend off potential abductors and would-be assassins? How organize other women in this city, the most vulnerable of them, to defend themselves?”

  “That’s muscle and determination, not—” She stopped speaking because her throat closed. Rom took her hand, and she felt immediate strength flood through her. Greta pressed closer against her hip.

  Pat said, “Quite obviously you will not stand alone.” He gestured almost gracefully at Rose. “The decision, of course, is yours. But I thought you might want to hear the details of Miss Rose’s story before you make up your mind.”

  Topaz nodded. Reluctantly, Rose got to her feet and drew a breath. Topaz wondered what it would be like to breathe through someone else’s lungs, see through someone else’s eye
s. The bruises and burns on Rose’s skin had faded only slightly. She looked at once robust and strangely unwell.

  “I will tell this swiftly, since Patrick says we have little time. As I’ve already related, I was in an abusive marriage. You cannot imagine—and I will spare you—all I suffered at the hands of my husband, a wealthy man with dark perversions. Suffice it to say that the night he killed me I found release and took it with great joy. Joy and relief. There is a world beyond this one that I cannot hope to describe, filled with light and peace.

  “Upon death we review the life we have just lived—examine and catalog what we learned and failed to learn during that time. I had a sense this can take very little or a considerable amount of time.” She paused and swallowed with difficulty. “I’d barely engaged in this process when I felt a psychic net fall into place around me. It’s the only way I can describe the sensation. I fought against it. But you are right, Miss Hathor. Your father is strong.”

  Topaz hissed, “There’s no question that he did this to you?”

  Rose inclined her head. “No question. He ensnared me and then hauled me to that house of his—to a room in the cellar. There the true horror began.”

  Topaz shifted uneasily and glanced at Romney. His face had become almost as unreadable as Pat’s.

  Slowly Rose resumed. “Others had been trapped just like me. I could feel them, though your father was careful to keep us separated, in psychic cages. I continued to fight against mine, to no effect. Meanwhile I became aware of what was intended for me.

  “I could hear them talking, you see. Through the bars of your father’s mind, I could. There were four entities that worked over us: your father, the monster called the Undertaker, and two highly sophisticated steam units. Those are all I saw before you found me, Miss Hathor. One of those mechanicals was destroyed in the steamcab crash. Three remain who know the truth about me.”