Lady in Red (8 page)

“Dr. Carrington,” Edward clipped. “Leave us.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” Footsteps shuffled quickly out of the room, then disappeared as the door shut quietly.

Mary took in her body, small and draped in a coverlet. Her bare shoulders peeked from the linen, nearly exposing a small breast. Where was her gown?

She looked to the floor. The purple fabric lay drunkenly amid a cracked hoop skirt and a twisted corset. Of course. He’d had to remove them.

Slowly, it came back to her. She stared at the shimmering fabric and tortured undergarments. She’d almost died. The power of it was worse than the humiliation she had been feeling. Her near death hadn’t been at the hands of the madhouse keepers, or the frigid cold of the black, icy nights of York. It had been here, in a duke’s home, safe, warm, and beautifully clothed. It was her own hand that had nearly driven her from the world that she so longed to take her place in. She forced her eyes up to his face. “You . . . saved me.”

His dark eyes widened, startled. “I . . .”

It was fascinating, the struggle working across his strong face. His brows drew together and he pressed his lips into a knife blade of a line. Vulnerability hovered in his eyes. The vulnerability of a little boy who knew the world was not the fairy tale he’d been told by his nanny, but rather an ugly, unkind place bent on crushing those who could not stand on their own.

She contemplated comforting him with her hand, a foreign, shocking desire. She allowed herself a moment to fortify herself before she reached out and, for the first time she could recall in years, willingly took a man’s hand in hers. His hand. “Thank you.”

He looked to her pale fingers entwined with his stronger ones. “Get well and that will be all the gratitude I ever require.”

The world slowed as his words came down upon her. Was he indeed so foolish? Under that harsh exterior lay the heart of a true idealist? While it was beautiful and unbearable to behold, she found herself struggling to give his sentiment credence. “Edward. Sad though it may be, I don’t know if I shall ever be entirely well. Not after—”

His face tensed and those onyx eyes sparked with anger. “You shall. You
must
. I will restore you.”

The sudden passion on his austere features gave her pause. “Why?”

A muscle flexed in his cheek before he said darkly, “Because I wish it.”

Suddenly, her heart ached for this good man who wished for something that would most likely never occur. “And your wishes are always realized?”

“
Always
.” He declared it with ease but there was something . . .
unknowable
in his eyes that revealed that his true wishes, the wishes of his soul, were all dead.

She slipped her fingers from his surprisingly callused hand. A brew of ill portent and anticipation spun her insides. “I know men like you.”

“Men like me?” he echoed, staring at her hand now a safe distance from his own, which rested lightly on her abdomen.

“You’re a good man, Edward, but all the same you must have what you want when you want it, and if you don’t get it . . .” Mary inwardly shuddered, the rage in her father’s eyes coming to her mind. He had always been so kind, so generous, until one denied him. Then his generosity froze into a glacial cruelty that didn’t stop at unkind words. She hadn’t realized that when she was small. Not when she was his little pearl. The diamond and the pearl. That’s what he had called her mother and herself. Two jewels to be kept and owned and, when rebellious, beaten into submission. Made to fit their settings as her father determined.

“I’ve known men like that, too, Calypso, and I am not one of them.”

It would be the height of foolishness to believe in him and allow herself the naïveté she’d once basked in. “You’re not ruthless, then?”

“I can be,” he admitted without shame. “A man of my standing must be.”

She let out a long sigh. This conversation alone made her a fool. She should keep her mouth firmly shut and simply allow him to do and think whatever he wished. What did it matter as long as she kept him pleased? Yet it did matter. She wanted to speak the truth with this man, even if she had also seen how hard her mother had worked to please her father. How frequently she had failed.

“You cannot force me to be better, Edward.”

He contemplated her, those black eyes sharpening. “Mary, I will not force you into anything. I will, however, treat you with kindness, with politeness, so that you see that you deserve so much more than you have known.”

She smiled, a glib, humorless twist of lips and teeth. “I have little experience in politeness and will not likely recognize it.”

“Why is that?”

“We were discussing your circumstances, not mine,” she redirected.

“So we were,” he drawled. “To be clear, I do not derive pleasure from the suffering of others.”

How she longed to believe him, to trust him, but she saw it in his eyes. He was holding back, hiding something as he tried to convince her he was nothing like the men she knew. But he had made people suffer. He would make people suffer still.

She would never tell him which girl at Yvonne’s had given her the laudanum. Anger simmered in him, just under his calm surface. Anyone who attempted to hurt her would see that fury unleashed . . . In that, he was just like her father. No one was to blemish his diamond or his pearl. No one but himself.

“Let me try to help you,” he insisted softly.

Mary inhaled slowly as she realized it wasn’t for her that he desired her happiness. A force deep inside his ailing heart was driving him. “If I allow you to try, will you admit you may not succeed?”

“No, Calypso.” Ever so slowly, he lifted his beautiful hand, a hand that any sculptor would sell his soul to set in immortal stone, and carefully cupped her hollowed cheek. “In this, I will not admit defeat. Nor should you.”

Emotions dueled within her soul. One urged her to rest her cheek in his strong palm, giving over to a moment of safety and care, no matter how false. For, surely, it would prove false. She could not forget her father’s lesson that all men wore masks hiding their true natures beneath. The other emotion, the one beating loudest through her blood, pushed her to run. Despite his seemingly pure wish, she longed to run from the inevitable destruction that came from men like him.

Despite her fear, she let the heat and strength of his touch hold her. It was a luxury she could ill afford, but perhaps this man’s touch was worth the risk?

His soft breath of appreciation at her trust punctured the room and for a brief instant she felt safe.

Closing her eyes, she forced herself back to another time. A time when she had offered herself up to joy. Happiness was something she had once been immersed in from the first moment of morning to the last breath she took before sleep. Even in sleep her dreams had been full of a glittering future as a duke’s privileged and well-loved daughter.

Yet she’d discovered every precious moment of it had been a treacherous lie, waiting to unravel under her father’s carefully woven spell.

Mary opened her eyes and strained to take in the blindingly austere, creased white linen covering her body. He was going to continue to insist he could make her happy. She knew it from the many times her mother had attempted to reason with her father. No matter how she tried, or what point she made, it would end in fruitless defeat. It was a lesson she’d learned well. She carefully withdrew from him and said, “I need rest, Edward.”

“Of course.” He rose from the bed, the sudden relief of his weight causing the bed to shift. “One of the chambermaids will be available for whatever you require. I shall return to make sure you are . . . well.”

She plastered a grateful smile upon her lips. After all, she was grateful to this powerful man. “Thank you.”

He headed for the door, his strong legs easily cutting across the large room. Good heavens, his back was broad and strong. As if one could hammer him a hundred years and nothing would crack that proud carriage. If only she could lean upon it. If only she could allow herself to give herself unto that protection.

“Edward?” she called impulsively, pulling the sheet tight about her frame. “You insist on helping me to become better?”

He let his fingers rest upon the gold-plated door handle, his broad shoulders tensing under his linen shirt before he turned back. His profile appeared cut from stone as the light from the hall bathed him in a holy glow. With his black hair, cold eyes, and defined body, one might have said it was an
un
holy fire that encompassed him. He smiled, an unnatural expression on his daunting, chiseled face. “Yes.”

“And you?” Dear god. Each word that dropped from her tongue dripped with foolishness. Still, that desire to be truthful with him compelled her to speak. “Do you need no help?” Her hands dug into the sheet, knowing the answer already, but needing to hear him admit the truth. “Do you allow anyone to help
you
?”

Edward stared back at her, the spark in his eyes dimming until they were two flat black pools. “Good night, Calypso.”

T
he instant of waking was one of unerring recrimination. Mary knew it well. That moment when her eyes snapped open from a black, mindless sleep only to realize she couldn’t recall significant amounts of time. The wish echoed in her hopeless soul then. That long ago she had had the strength to spit her laudanum in her keepers’ faces or not swallow when they forced it into her mouth and plugged her nose.

If only death were truly preferable to this poisonous feeling, she would have allowed herself to be beaten into oblivion rather than take the laudanum. But every time she
had
taken it instead of choosing to die. Now she needed it. In fact, she’d come to welcome it down her throat with great greedy swallows and the anticipation of a child desperately longing to wake from a nightmare. Only, her waking was the hell of visions and regret.

That unforgiving need for laudanum was what held her here, terrified and awake in a baroque bed of beautifully carved wood, where she stared up at the intricately swirled gold in the plaster ceiling.

Her fingers brushed over the silken sheets. The fabric felt so perfect against her tainted skin. Was there nothing she could do to free herself from this jagged path?

Gingerly, she rolled onto her side, testing how badly battered her body was. Her insides still ached with a dull, throbbing wave, but at least her stomach no longer felt as if it might suddenly hurtle out of her skin.

She pushed back the heavy goose down covers and swung her shaking legs over the bedside. Cold air swallowed her, prickling her skin, and her bare feet dangled six inches above the floor.

It was an immense bed, meant for the great old lords. There had been several in her father’s ducal mansion in Kent. Once, she’d skipped from room to room, playing on the towering beds, pretending she was Queen Elizabeth sending Sir Walter Raleigh off to claim as much treasure for her queenly estates as possible.

The only thing she was queen of now was of the mad.

Blinking down at her pale skin, she frowned. Carefully, she lifted the blanket higher, revealing more white skin. Naked. She was completely naked. Mary sucked in a slow breath and her gaze darted toward the door as if she might see him now even through the mahogany wood.

The beat of her heart thumped fast and loud to her own ears. Her fingers tightened about the sheet, drawing it closer to her naked body, as if she could turn the silk to armor.

Had he seen her?

Of course he had. He’d been the one to strip her bare. She turned her attention to the floor. Her corset and gown had been removed; she could still recall seeing them scattered on the woven wool carpet the night before.

She should have been filled with mortification and resentment. After all, she’d hated the men who had stripped her, dumping buckets of cold water on her during her monthly bath. They’d forced her into nakedness. They’d jeered and taunted and pinched.

But she somehow knew he must have brought an odd gentleness to it, as he had with everything. The strangest, most traitorous question whispered through her mind.
Did he like what he saw?

Even more confusing, she hoped that he had. That minuscule hope defied all reason and certainly all sense, given her previous experience with men. It was the first time she could recall longing, even if in secret, to be desired.

A dry smile twisted her lips at the wondrous, dangerous realization. How could he have seen beauty in the creature he now knew her to be? She was physical and emotional wreckage. Hardly the type of woman someone like His Grace should find appealing.

She dragged the top sheet from the bed and lowered her feet to the floor. Tucking the folds of the luxurious fabric about her frame, Mary walked to the curtained windows, her bare toes pressing into the plush rug. She pulled back the heavy champagne brocade and stared out through the tall, rain-speckled windowpanes.

Gray light illuminated the gated park that sprawled in front of the mansion. The morning light was so dim, the scattered evergreens appeared oily instead of bright green.

Another heavy gray day of winter pressed in on her from the other side of that glass, but she didn’t mind. The clouds and their pinpricks of rain could do nothing to her. There were more oppressive forces in the world. She knew that well now.

The creak of steps in the hallway sent a shiver down her back, an instinct of anticipatory fear that had taken root in the asylum and would never let go. Not now. Not ever. She whipped toward the door.

The heavy panel swung open and the duke peered in.

She wrapped the sheet more firmly about her frame and lifted her chin, determined not to let him know just how full of fear and self-recrimination she was. He had to see her as still worthy of his help. He must, if she was ever to be free of hell. “I am awake, Your Grace.”

He opened the door wider and stepped in, a perfect black silhouette. Lord, he was devilish male perfection. His black morning coat clung to his broad shoulders and muscled arms in tailored excellence. The lines emphasized his strong waist and long legs. Even the black cravat tied above a black brocade waistcoat seemed to emphasize the edge of danger that exuded from his large frame.