by Jenny Brown
He felt a gust of relief. It didn’t always. And if she hadn’t responded he would have had no choice but to round up four strong men downstairs and get them drunk enough that they’d be willing to hold her down while he went about his brutal business. But there was no need for that yet. It was going well. Her eyes had rolled up inside their lids, leaving only a tiny margin of white exposed.
Making his voice as steady and monotonous as he could, he began to chant the magical phrases that would put her under.
“You are getting sleepy.”
He said it once, and then twice, and then over and over again. And while he repeated the phrase, in his mind he said the silent, secret prayer that the Dark Lord had told him must remain unspoken.
“Your eyes are feeling heavy.” His voice had taken on the droning tone he remembered his teacher using. “You’re sinking deeper and deeper into a restful sleep.”
He repeated these simple phrases, accompanying them with the mystical intention that would make them do their work And as he mouthed the words that deepened the enchantment, he imagined his teacher standing at his side as he had done at Morlaix so long ago, garbed in his long purple robe, with his golden wand raised high, lending him his strength.
He let his voice meander on, as he chanted word after gentle word that led Zoe into the charmed state where she’d feel little pain and where what little pain she’d feel would be forgotten once he allowed her to awaken. Soon the words seemed to be speaking themselves of their own accord, as he lost himself in the building of the spell, until, at last, subtle changes in her muscle tone told him the spell had her whole body in its power. Now he took the last step.
“Your leg feels nothing. It floats above your body, filled with peace and light. You feel warmth and comfort. Your leg is comfortable and numb.” He gave himself up to the rhythm of the words, repeating this part of the charm over and over, and hoping it was true.
He laid aside the watch. The moment of truth had come.
Zoe lay supine before him, her breathing almost imperceptible. She looked as though she was deeply enchanted. He pulled back her skirt to reveal the blackened wound, picked up his scalpel, and pricked her near her thigh with its tip.
She slumbered on serenely.
The spell had worked.
Drawing a deep breath, he cut deep into the tissue around the wound, swiftly and cleanly, admiring the way the expensive German steel cut. Deftly he dissected out the infection, cutting away the swollen edges where he found the blackened nodules that had formed around the splinters that had penetrated into the wound. Von Faschling couldn’t have done it more speedily even with the screams of his patient urging him on.
Now and again, Zoe moaned, but she didn’t awaken from her enchanted slumber.
As he cut out the poisoned flesh, he continued to murmur the soothing words of the Dark Lord’s spell, reminding Zoe of the gentle warmth she felt coursing down her body even as the blood and pus spurted all over his hand.
When he was done cutting out the blackened tissue, he poured a vial of brandy over the wound. It was another thing he’d seen the Dark Lord do—to rouse the patient’s spirit with spirits of wine—and, superstitious though it might seem, Adam had never been disappointed in its efficacy. Zoe stirred as the stinging fluid bathed the gaping wound, but she didn’t awaken.
After allowing enough time for the brandy to do its work, he picked up a threaded surgical needle. Again, in tribute to his master’s teachings, he waved it through the candle flame while muttering the correct invocation and sewed the wound closed.
The stitches went in smoothly. The edges of the wound were clean now, free of any traces of the blackened nodules. The spell even seemed to have controlled her bleeding.
Hope surged into his heart. He hadn’t lost his powers, despite his lust, despite having touched the cold iron.
Zoe might live.
He was about to bring her out of her enchanted sleep, when he remembered something else the Dark Lord had mentioned, which might be helpful now. He’d said, in passing, that when removing the spell, it was possible to leave some lingering trace of it behind that would give the practitioner the ability to restore the patient to the entranced state almost immediately, should it become necessary, simply by uttering a Word of Power.
Zoe would undoubtedly experience considerable pain in the days ahead, for to heal her he’d had to make her wound deeper. So it would be helpful if he could easily send her back into a healing sleep if the pain became too much for her.
The instructions for extending the spell had not been on the slip of paper he had stored with his scalpel. But he was pretty sure he knew how to work it—it would require only that he add another suggestion to the ones he’d already implanted in her mind before he operated on her. And because of the hours his teacher had demanded he spend reading the ancient books, he was pretty sure he knew the correct Word of Power to use, too.
It must be codladh—the word for sleep in the language of the Ancient Ones.
So with his voice rising and falling in a musical manner, he gave Zoe one last command—that when she heard the Word of Power, she would return once again to this enchanted state.
When that was done, he murmured the final words that would lead her back out of her trance. As he finished, her eyes flickered open. He flung the scalpel down on the table and sank into a chair, exhausted.
Zoe rubbed one eye with her fist. She felt groggy, as if she’d been asleep for a long time, but rested, too, and strangely calm. But hadn’t Lord Ramsay been about to do something terrifying? Yes. Surgery.
Her calm vanished. Obviously he hadn’t done it yet, since the dull pain in her thigh was nothing like the agony she’d be feeling if he’d sliced it open. She braced herself for what must come next. But as the minutes ticked by, nothing happened.
Only when she heard him mutter something to himself did she force herself to open her eyes to find him sitting with his head tipped back and his eyes closed. His long, muscular torso was slumped against the backrest of a chair. He looked drained, stretched to the limit, much the way he’d looked after failing to heal the cottar’s boy.
Had he failed again? A bolt of fear passed through her. Was that why she felt so little pain in her leg? It must be. He must have decided her wound was too advanced to be healed by surgery and given up the attempt. And now she’d die.
“You didn’t operate, did you?” she whispered, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“I did.”
“But there wasn’t any pain.”
“I told you there wouldn’t be.”
She blinked her eyes a few times to clear them and then, examining him more closely, saw the small droplets of blood on his hand. Her blood.
She raised her head and peered down at her wounded thigh, bracing herself for what she’d find. But the ugly sore was gone, replaced by neat stitches that drew together the edges of what now looked to be a much smaller wound. Yet she’d felt no pain.
“It is a very powerful spell,” he said.
“Surely you must have given me laudanum.” She wasn’t sure she wanted his wizard’s magic to be quite that real.
He shook his head. “I have no laudanum. I used only the spell. That, and my skill as a surgeon. I trained at the University of Vienna, you know.” He couldn’t quite keep the pride out of his voice.
“So I haven’t destroyed your magic completely?”
His eyes softened. “No. Nor my skill as a surgeon. You will live, Zoe.”
She felt her breath quicken. It seemed impossible that it could be true. But the calm joy she saw in his face reassured her. “I suppose I would have been well served if my attempt to seduce you had weakened your healing powers so that you couldn’t save me.”
His lip tightened as if her words had come perilously close to his own thoughts. “If I’d lost you. It would have been solely my fault. Not yours.”
“And you would never have forgiven yourself, would you? It would have been
like what you felt when you lost the cottar’s boy, but worse.”
“Far worse.” The words seemed to burst out of him without his having any ability to censor them. “I couldn’t have lived another hour if I’d caused your death.”
His gray eyes were soft, as if all his armor had dropped away, revealing for the first time the emotions he’d worked so hard to suppress. But she mustn’t let herself be deluded by his words into thinking he felt anything more for her than what he always had. If he was expressing emotion now, it must only be a reaction to the fear that had gripped him earlier. It would be fatal to let herself believe, for even a moment, that he was moved by anything else.
“You frighten me when you speak like that,” she said in her sharpest tone. “When I recover, you’ll go back to hating me. Indeed, I shan’t trust that I am truly out of danger until you start snapping at me. Only that will reassure me that I’m safe.”
“Then I must attempt it, if it will help you get better.”
For the first time in many days, she saw him smile. Then his expression grew serious again. “But for now you must sleep. You still have a lot of healing ahead of you.”
His tone was rich and resonant and made her feel engulfed in comfort, as if he’d been speaking the words of love she’d never hear from him. Then he whispered what seemed to be a foreign word, one that sounded like “collah,” but she had no time to ponder its meaning, for she was overcome by a delicious sense of peace and sank back into a deep slumber where she remembered nothing more.
Chapter 7
Zoe awoke to find Ramsay again seated by her bedside, peering at her intently. “Will we resume our journey today?” she asked as she drew herself up to a sitting position.
“Hardly. It’s almost dusk. You’ve slept the day through. But even if it weren’t, surely you wouldn’t expect me to make you travel so soon, after such an ordeal?” His gray eyes widened.
“Have you any choice? The moon will soon be waning and that will make it impossible to travel after dark. If we don’t continue on now, how will you reach the island and begin the Final Teaching?”
“The Teaching will have to wait. Did you really think I’d force you to endure the jouncing of the carriage with your wound still tender from surgery?” His eyes were so filled with warmth, it hurt to look at them.
She must drive it away. Speaking coldly she said, “You had no compunctions about taking me from my home and tearing me away from everything I hold dear. Why should I expect you to stop your journey for me now?”
He bit his lip. “Because I’m not entirely a monster—despite the way I’ve treated you.”
Her plan had backfired. The concern radiating from his lustrous eyes was even stronger. It tore her heart out. Then to her horror, he took her hand in his and gently stroked it.
It would be so easy to believe he cared for her—and so dangerous. If she were to let herself believe that his feelings toward her had softened, she might easily throw herself into his arms and give way to her desire for him.
She must not believe it. When the crisis was past, just as she’d said half jokingly, he would go back to the way he’d been before and allow himself to feel nothing for her save lust and loathing. She was still the daughter of the woman who had killed his sister. That wouldn’t change. She mustn’t forget it, for no matter what had made him treat her more tenderly over these past hours, he’d soon remember. Indeed, it would be better for both of them if she were to remind him of it now. Brutally.
“There’s no reason you should be kind to me,” she snapped. “My mother killed your sister.”
He dropped her hand and drew back, as she’d intended, his lips tightening as he remembered what it was he must feel for her. Losing his regard made her feel forlorn, but she’d get over it. It was only the virgin’s sickness. It would heal with time—and it would heal faster, if he’d continue treating her with his accustomed coldness.
She pressed on. “If we resume our journey now, you won’t have to lose another whole day of travel.”
“Why? I’d think you would take pleasure in seeing my plans come to naught, given my cruelty toward you, whatever my justification.”
“I’ve never seen much point in vengeful behavior.”
“Why not?” His tone became more abrupt. But, of course, his need for vengeance against her mother was the mainspring of his existence.
“Hatred only corrodes the spirit,” she said primly. “And besides, I’ll be safer if I give you no further reason to hate me.”
“Then your behavior is motivated only by cold practicality? You’ll forgive me only because to do so might make your life easier in the future?”
“What else would you expect? Sentiment can play little part in the life of one raised as I was. Would you prefer that I pretend that I act out of love for you?” She attempted a brittle laugh of the kind her mother did so well. “I think not. You’ve made it very clear you wouldn’t wish to hear such words from me. And besides, as you say, you’ve given me little reason to love you.”
“Can you really be only twenty?” he asked with a puzzled look.
“I’ll be twenty-one at the end of August.”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to believe. Your cynicism makes you seem so much older.”
“So you weren’t cynical when you were my age?”
“I was a mooncalf fool when I was twenty,” he said bitterly, “I doubt there was ever a young man so trusting and so green as I was when I ran off to France to live out my ideals.”
He dropped into an uneasy silence, but once again, his hand reached for hers and she was powerless to deny it to him. When he had taken possession of it, he cradled it in his much larger one and his thumb began absently stroking the back of her palm.
Was it to comfort her this time, or himself? His voice, when he resumed speaking, was disturbed. “I earned my cynicism the hard way, as the tumbrels rolled. It must be easier to learn your cynicism at your mother’s knee, as you did, absorbing it a little at a time as a matter of logic and principle, rather than to be taught it all at once as I was, by living through catastrophe. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“Not even the daughter of your worst enemy?” As his eyes met hers, a thrill ran through her body. She waited for the fury to sweep over his features as it always did when she reminded him of her origins, but all he did was grasp her hand more tightly, with a touch that was both delicious and disturbing. She tensed.
She must not turn to this man, of all people, for comfort. She must not be tempted by the intimacy she felt with him now. She must not lose herself in the unearthly beauty of his gold-flecked eyes, even now when they were softened by an emotion so different from lust or loathing.
Ruthlessly, she pulled her hand from his and shoved it under the covers. “Yes, a courtesan’s daughter is spared the pain of disillusionment, I daresay, since we start out disillusioned. But I have no regrets. It’s the illusions young girls have—those foolish dreams of marriage—that ruin their lives. I’m better off without them.”
“Don’t you dream of being wed?”
“How could I, knowing, as I do, that men turn to women like my mother as soon as they become bored with the charms of their innocent brides. I’d much prefer a courtesan’s dishonor to a wife’s slavery—as you of all men have good cause to know.” She shifted her tone to let him know she’d tired of this conversation. “So then, shall we continue our journey?”
“Of course not. I still cherish the hope of saving one patient this week. I beg you do nothing to make it impossible. I came in to see you just now only because I must examine your wound.”
“Oh,” she replied, suddenly feeling very foolish.
He motioned for her to stretch out again on the bed, then knelt down beside her and carefully uncovered her leg so that he could examine his handiwork. As she waited for his verdict she struggled to hide her anxiety from him, lest he favor her again with that caring look that made him even more handsome than before, or
stroke her hand in that alarmingly comforting fashion. She had so little strength left with which to resist him if he did. But she must resist, or the virgin’s sickness might prove fatal. She couldn’t give in to the treacherous yearning to meld herself with him.
When he’d completed his examination, he pulled the counterpane up over her leg. “The wound is no worse. It will be several days until I can be certain it’s healing, but I’m encouraged to see no new inflammation.”
He stood. “Zoe—” His voice softened as he lingered on her name.
She must make him stop before he said anything further. The emotion radiating from him was too confusing. Too tempting. Too unsafe. “If you’re done,” she snapped, “you may leave.”
He shrank back as if she’d slapped him, but all he said was “I am done, so I’ll trouble you no longer. We’ll remain here another day. By then you should be well enough to travel.” Then he strode quickly to the door, pausing only for a moment on the threshold, where he turned back to face her, his eyes, again, luminous.
It was too much. If he were to offer her another word of kindness, she’d have to throw something at him. But he stayed silent as he made his way to the door and closed it gently behind him. When he was gone, she lay back, exhausted, wondering why, when he had done exactly what she’d wanted him to do, she felt so suddenly bereft.
She would live, Adam told himself when he’d returned to his chamber after Zoe’s abrupt dismissal. Perhaps she might even keep her leg. Perhaps, in time, only a jagged scar would remain on that soft, creamy flesh to stand witness to how close she had come to death because of his inability to control the lust she had inspired in him—and inspired in him still.
There was no way of avoiding that painful truth.
If anything, his attraction to her was even stronger, nor could he delude himself it was just lust he was feeling. Had it been, it might have been less disturbing. After all, men were lustful creatures, even those like himself who strove to become something better. But what drew him to her now was more than just the needs of his thwarted body. Her courage enticed him, as much as her long, smooth thighs.