Obsession (15 page)

Shoving aside my brother, I moved to the store of liquor and poured myself a drink, walked to the window and flung back the drapes.

The panes were damp with condensation, and I swiped it away to look out over the barren countryside that was fast being blanketed with snow. I pressed a cold, wet finger to my hot brow and felt a fresh stirring of hate for the dowager duchess, whose gloating face rose in my mind so demonic-like, I felt staggered.

I turned and looked into my brother’s eyes, then took a deep quaff of the port. “So tell me…how are your sons, Clayton?”

Clayton and Miracle stared at me, their surprise obvious. In all the years of their marriage, I had never asked about the welfare of their children—their three sons all older than Maggie, but equally handsome.

Clayton and his wife exchanged bemused glances before Miracle replied softly, “They’re well, sir. Thank you for asking.”

Edwina moved close, her expression curious and concerned. “Are you going to answer us or not, darling? What did you learn at Menson?”

I watched the child sit before the fire and nuzzle the kitten. “The boys are how old, now?” I asked, ignoring Edwina.

Clayton cleared his throat. “Sean is ten. Jason is eight. And Michael is seven.”

“Happy and healthy, I assume. Certain to follow in their father’s esteemed footsteps, revered and adored by all.”

Clayton’s eyes narrowed. “Get to the point, Trey. You’ve never given a damn about my children. What are you about?”

Edwina touched my arm, drawing my gaze to her eyes, which were as sharp as knife blades. With the exception of Clay, she alone recognized my moods and my thoughts before I spoke them.

She smiled encouragingly. “Maria has improved tremendously since you’ve been gone, darling. As docile as a kitten. She gets on particularly well with Miracle.”

“It seems she’s always docile as a kitten whenever I’m not around. Perhaps I would do her a tremendous favor in simply disappearing.”

I moved toward Maria, the heat from the hearth and my mounting irritation inviting a rush of fire in my blood. As I stood beside her, staring as she smiled into the doll’s lifeless face, I finished my port in one deep drink, then said, “Would that please you, Maria? Would you like me to leave? Get the hell out of your life?”

She rocked the doll and hummed sweetly, stroked its matted hair. I looked down into the doll’s eyes that seemed to sear into my own, an accusatory stare that caused every essence of guilt to rouse, and with it a madness as depraved as that which occupied Maria’s mind.

With a curse, I snatched the doll from her arms, intent on ridding myself of all reminders that I had sacrificed her sanity, and perhaps our child, for the sake of my own and Clayton’s future.

I flung the doll into the flames.

There followed a chorus of astonished cries from Edwina and Miracle, a string of expletives from Clayton. As horror washed over Maria’s face, she jumped from the chair and flailed like a blind woman as she screamed for Sarah.

Slammed by my own cruelty, I stumbled back, Maria’s pain wrenching me from my momentary insanity as I realized what I had done.

“Oh Christ,” I groaned, and dove toward the flames, the heat searing my hands as I attempted to grab the doll that was already incinerating.

Clayton grabbed me and flung me aside, his fists gripping my lapels as he sneered in my face, “Too late, you jackass.”

As Miracle hastened to calm Maria, Clayton drove me back, his teeth showing in fury. “You sick son of a bitch, what the hell are you doing? I should thrash you, you idiot. Are you attempting to destroy her completely?”

For the first time in my life I had put Clayton’s happiness and welfare before my own. And before Maria’s, as well. Yet in his ignorance over my behavior, he now glared at me with such loathing I wanted to kill him.

I drove my fist into his face hard enough to send him spiraling back, the sound of the awful impact turning my stomach. He sprawled on the floor, his mouth bloodied and shock glazing his eyes.

From a distance, I heard his wife cry out, drowned by Maria’s continued sobs and Edwina’s excited babbling. The dogs leapt to their feet, adding to the racket with their protective snarls and ear-splitting yaps.

Too much!

It all crashed upon me in a cacophony that made my head swim with confusion. I stumbled from the room, knocking aside Herbert and Iris, who were rushing into the parlor, and hurried like one chased by demons from the house, into the driving wind and snow, oblivious to the biting cold that raked at my body with freezing spears.

I ran, attempting to flee my own mania and shame as much as the women’s cries of alarm.

Thorny needles of the bent firs scraped my flesh as I hastened along the slippery paths, my shins crashing through stunted brush, the image of the burning doll juxtaposed against the shock in my brother’s eyes.

At last I found myself at the edge of a glassy pond, ankle-deep in the peat from the muddy shoal. There I fell upon a bench where Maria and I had once shared stolen moments, enjoying the scent of wildflowers and the serenity of gliding swans. My burned hands throbbed, and I swept up palms full of snow and curled my fingers around it, the cold temporarily easing the pain of my singed flesh.

I bowed my head and closed my eyes, listening to the silence.

Oh, that I could quiet the thoughts in my head, obliterate all but the memories of those precious moments when I had held Maria in my arms, making love to her magnificent mouth, immersing my senses in her taste and smell, the precious warmth of her body as the summer heat beat down on us as fiercely as that which had raged in our loins.

How long I remained there, I know not. Until the snow in my hands had long melted and the pain of my burns had been numbed by cold. Until my clothes and hair had become powdered with snow. Until the chill had penetrated my soul and made me shake uncontrollably.

As I opened my eyes, I looked up to find Edwina sitting beside me, tucked within her hooded cloak. There was no condemnation in her face. There wouldn’t be. She was the only person in the world, besides Maria, who had ever understood my lapses into depravity, and forgave me for them.

“Are you all right?” she asked gently.

“I hit my brother,” I said. “My brother. As often as I’ve wanted to smash him, I’ve never done it, until now. My God, if I ever hoped that I had the smallest inkling of decency left in my soul, I know now that I haven’t. What was I thinking, to subject Maria to that cruel display, then to drive my fist into Clayton’s face?”

She covered my cold hand with her own. “Something has upset you, darling. What is it?”

I pulled my hand from hers, moved to the water’s edge, and stared down at the surface, dark and still beneath the thin coat of ice.

“Tell me, Edwina. Would you love me still—would you have loved me at all—had I been untitled? Had I been nothing more than a blacksmith or a carpenter or a sheep farmer? Or a miner? Would you have found as much pleasure under my body if my hands had been hardened from labor?”

“That’s a silly question, Your Grace.”

“Of course it is. Despite your own sordid reputation, you wouldn’t have given me a nod, had I been less than a duke. Despite the fact that I have made a muck of my finances, my title would open doors and opportunities for you. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“At first,” she replied, her voice cautious. “But I’ve since admitted to you how I feel.”

“So you declare, yet I saw your repulsion when I worked the mine. You cringed when I touched you with soiled hands.”

“Such menial labor is below you, darling. I was appalled that a man of your rank would stoop to such behavior. It simply isn’t normal.”

Turning, I looked into her eyes. “And if I now told you that I’m not a duke at all—in fact, if I were to tell you that my entire blue-blooded lineage is a lie, would you hasten back to London in search of another titled bastard to offer your child legitimacy?”

“This conversation is ridiculous. What has it got to do with anything, Trey?”

“Answer me.”

She opened and closed her mouth, stared at me through lashes that were dusted with snowflakes. “I—I don’t know.”

“Just as I thought.”

I turned back to the pond, fresh anger igniting in my chest.

Edwina moved to my side. “I fear something has happened to unsettle you. Tell me.”

I drew in a deep cold breath, then said, “There is a child. A daughter. Born seven months after Maria’s incarceration at Menson. The dowager duchess removed her from the asylum and sent her off. I don’t know where.”

“Do you intend to find her?” came the tremulous response.

Drawing my shoulders back, I replied, “No.”

“F
OR OUR ENTIRE ADULT LIVES,
I
’VE WATCHED
you sully our father’s good name and reputation. I’ve tolerated your belligerence and the embarrassment you inflicted on me by your abhorrent behavior. I don’t really give a damn that you punched me. Hell, you’ve wanted to do it for years; get it out of your system if it will make you feel better.

“But now you confess to me that Maria had a child—your own daughter, your flesh and blood—and you have no intention of finding her, even though it may help Maria, a woman you profess to love? I’ve never felt more sickened to look at you, Trey. Christ, you disgust me.”

His mouth swollen and his cheek bruised, Clayton paced as I slouched before the hearth fire in my bedroom, staring into the flames as I imbibed my third glass of port.

“Fine,” I said. “Get the hell out. Go home and take your wife and kid and snarling mutts with you. I didn’t invite you to Thorn Rose anyway. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I wanted to help in some way.”

“Clayton the philanthropist. The do-gooder. Destined for sainthood. You turn up on my doorstep with food and I’m supposed to greet your generosity with great favor and appreciation, when all it does is remind me of my own failures.”

“I’m your brother, for God’s sake. What do you expect me to do?”

He stopped and glared at me, his expression contemptuous. “I thought when you fell in love with Maria, you had a chance at redemption. I understood from my own experience how the love of the right woman could change a man. I found that with Miracle.

“The night you told our grandmother to go to hell and rode off for Huddersfield to find Maria, I knew in my heart that you could—would—turn your life around. I understood the anger and grief you experienced when she disappeared and you believed she had married another.

“The following years, when your character went totally to hell, I excused your behavior as belonging to a man whose heart had been totally shattered. But now you have Maria back. Granted, she’s ill. But you’ve just discovered a cure that might save her, and you’ve chosen to neglect it.

“But more appalling than that—despite Maria—you have a daughter, Trey, and the fact that you don’t give a damn is a blatant sin against God. I’ve a good mind to totally disown you.”

“Be my guest.”

The door opened and Miracle said, “Both of you come quickly. It’s Maria.”

As Clayton joined her I looked into his wife’s eyes, which regarded me with as much judgment as her husband’s—anger and disgust.

Clayton paused at the threshold and said, “Are you coming?”

I remained silent, and the two left the room, Clayton cursing under his breath and his wife attempting to calm him.

I sank more deeply into my chair, allowing the heat of the port to replace the cold that had earlier chilled me, allowing the inebriation to numb the emotions inflicted by my own behavior and Clayton’s tirade.

He had every right to feel disgust. But it was no greater than my own.

Aye, out of resentment for my brother I had often acted like an ass.

But despite that, each time I had looked into his face, a mirror of my own, I had known a bond that had been stronger than life itself. Until the moment that I had been confronted by the dowager duchess’s spiteful blackmail, I had not known the extent of that bond. I had not recognized the bond for what it truly was.

Love.

What hateful irony that I should recognize it now, when forced to choose between Clayton’s happiness and reputation…and Maria’s. How did a man destroy one love for another? I, a man who once believed himself incapable of loving, now found myself ripped apart by the emotion.

At last I roused and left the room, my steps like those of a man on his way to the gallows. Herbert, who stood outside the salon, turned his face away as I looked at him, his disrespect making my face hot and reviving the anger and frustration roiling in my gut.

Entering the salon, I stopped. Clayton, Miracle, and Edwina appeared frozen, focused on the heart-stopping image of Maria, her expression filled with sublime bliss. My body ached to turn and rush from the room in complete despair.

Precious little Maggie sat on Maria’s lap, her head resting on Maria’s shoulder. Maggie’s tiny hands gripped one of Maria’s, and she kissed it gently as she smiled up into Maria’s beaming face.

“You mustn’t cry anymore,” the child crooned. “Promise you won’t cry anymore. It makes me very sad.”

“I promise,” Maria said. “Never again, my darling Sarah.”

15

D
ESPAIRING,
M
IRACLE WRUNG HER HANDS
and looked from her husband back to me. “What shall we do? What in heaven shall we do?”

Clayton glanced at me. “Don’t even think it. I shan’t sell you my daughter.”

My eyebrows went up and I leaned one shoulder against the door jamb and crossed my arms. We did have a dilemma.

I had cast the doll into the flames. Should I wrench little Maggie from her arms now, I might destroy Maria forever. The time had come, at long last, to do my best to convey the truth to yon frightened and confused lady.

Ignoring the glower from Maggie’s father and mother, I moved cautiously across the room and sank to one knee beside Maria. The child’s beaming eyes regarded me with an understanding that set me back on my heels.

Attempting a smile—something I could not normally conjure easily—I took Maggie’s little hand in mine, and for the first time realized how smooth and soft and tiny were her fingers. The idea occurred to me that I had never so much as touched a child. Had barely looked at one with little more than a feeling of nuisance.