Obsession (16 page)

Maria’s bright blue eyes turned to me, and fear replaced the shimmering glow of pleasure and heat upon her cheeks.

“Maria,” I said as gently as possible. “Will you take a walk with me?”

“Certainly not,” she replied.

“Just for a moment. I promise to hurry you back to Sarah.”

“But why would you wish to speak to me?”

Though her eyes were bright and blue as robin’s eggs, there was still a haze of confusion about them. Nay, she did not know me. She knew not that I had taken her from Menson.

Whatever wall she had erected in her mind to deal with that hellish madhouse remained yet, and with fresh vigor I wanted all the more to strangle the woman who had used my father’s name for her own selfish gain.

“You see yonder friends? Miracle and Clayton? They swear to you upon the lives of their children that they will not harm your Sarah…or take her from you.”

“I don’t trust you, sir. In fact, I don’t like you.”

I did my best to keep the frustration from my face.

“Why, Maria? What is there about me that you find so distasteful?”

“You…”—she looked away—“are far too fierce. And hateful.”

“Have I hurt you in some way?”

“Yes.”

She nodded and clutched Maggie to her. The innocence in Maria’s face flashed with an anger that made her smooth brow bead with sweat.

“I…I cannot recall now. But I will and you shall be all the more sorry for it.”

I took her hand in mine. “A short walk. A gentle talk. I ask for nothing more. ’Tis time for honesty, Maria.”

“Nay.” She shook her head. “I fear there is no honesty in your words. Only lies.”

I took a deep breath. “Paul is welcome to come if you like.”

A look of anticipation brightened her face and she looked swiftly around the room, her gaze stopping abruptly in the shadows near the window. A moment of silence passed, then she nodded, albeit with trepidation.

“Very well, then. But only a short walk.”

With tremendous reluctance she handed over the child to Miracle, who released a long breath of relief and hurried back to her husband.

With Herbert’s help, we bundled Maria in woolen stockings and thick-soled shoes, then draped her in heavy sweaters and Miracle’s cloak, which hung from Maria’s narrow shoulders as if she were a child wearing her mother’s coat.

I took her small hand in mine and moved toward the door. She resisted, looking back over her shoulder until she appeared certain that her companion spirit joined her.

The snow blew in gusts, and I was pleased when she huddled closer to me, as she had those years ago. We followed the footsteps Edwina and I had earlier imprinted in the white fluff, until we came to the little bench beside the pond.

She appraised it with wrinkled brow and a sharp down-turn of her red lips. Her breathing quickened.

Putting my arm around her, I held her closely, sharing my warmth, fearing she would bolt at any moment.

“Do you recall this place?” I asked her.

“No,” she said with an adamant shake of her head, and I felt her tremble against me.

“We came here often.”

She closed her eyes.

“I held your hand. I kissed your lips. We made love in yonder meadow.”

“Nay. You’re lying to me.” She shook her head and retreated to the far end of the bench. “I would never lay with you, sir.”

“Maria.” I swallowed. “I’m Sarah’s father.”

Her eyes opened wide and her gaze flew across the icy pond. Her breath came in quick vaporous puffs and her hands wrung nervously.

“You lie.”

“You came to Thorn Rose as a nurse. To help me. You healed me, Maria, and we fell in love.”

Jumping to her feet, she glared at me with her hands curled into trembling little fists. She looked away, toward a stand of bent firs.

“He’s lying. Tell me he’s lying. Nay! Even you, my own brother, would defend his reasons for bringing me here?”

I slowly stood.

“Nay!” she cried, covering her ears. “He did not love me. He sent me away. She told me so. Sent me away to hide the bastard child he put in me.”

“No!” I shouted.

“He chose another. He married another!”

“I chose
you,
Maria. ’Twas my…” The words tore at my tongue. “ ’Twas the dowager duchess who sent you away. I thought you went to Huddersfield. I thought you married another. I had no idea about the child.”

She backed away, her world of reality shattering her wall of denial. The memories tumbled in on her, and she spun in desperation in a circle, looking for the spirit of her brother who was no longer there.

She backed away, toward the pond. “Fiend. Devil. You knew about the child. You knew! You locked me away in that dreadful place so no one would know.”

“Not I, Maria. I…loved you.”

“The child yonder, in the house. ’Tis not my own Sarah, is she?”

I swallowed and lowered my gaze. “No.” I shook my head. “ ’Tis my brother’s child, Maria.”

A look of heart-rending pain crossed her face, and she tore at her hair with her frail fingers. “What have you done with her?” she screamed. “What have you done with my Sarah?”

Cautious, I moved toward her, no longer feeling the cold bite of the wind and snow. “I vow to you that I have done nothing to your daughter, Maria. Our daughter.”

“Then where is she? Give her to me now!”

Guilt pressed down on me like a mammoth weight—as if every bone in my body would snap. Maria had every right to despise me. I had never despised myself so much as I did in that moment.

The cold sliced through me like a knife and stung my eyes. The stark look of agony on Maria’s face made me feel hellishly insane. Murderous.

“God damn you!” I shouted, hands clenched. “Listen to what I’m saying. I had nothing to do with this—”

She twirled away and ran onto the iced-over pond, sinking shin-deep into the snow, her cape tangling around her legs.

I called her name frantically, my heart sinking as I first heard the sharp crack of ice, and Maria tried desperately to lunge toward the snow-covered bank.

Too late.

In one horrible moment, she disappeared in the black frigid hole of the thin ice.

I ran. Stumbled. Whipped off my cape and crashed through the ice, feeling its grip upon my legs, then hips, and waist—frigid cold causing my teeth to clamp as I grabbed for Maria.

She slipped through my numbing fingers, disappearing into the dense water. I plunged again, blindly reaching until I found her.

Rising, gasping for air, the brutal bite of the cold air intensifying the pain of my freezing body, I hauled Maria onto the shore, where we lay amid the blanket of snow, shaking, so cold that even the flakes of snow that drifted upon our faces felt warm.

She remained silent as I kissed her brow, her eyes, her cheeks. “Maria,” I whispered. “What shall we do?”

Maria remained silent and limp in my arms. I watched as the snowflakes clung to her long lashes and kissed upon her lips.

There came sounds of footsteps running.

“For the love of God,” Clayton called.

He bent over us, whipped up my cape from the ground and, taking Maria from my arms, wrapped it around her snugly. Then he removed his own. As I attempted to stand, he tossed the garment around my shoulders and repeated, “For the love of God. This is insanity.” In a lower voice, he looked into my eyes and said, “I fear the both of you should be interred in Menson.”

I didn’t argue. I feared he was right.

T
HE HEARTH FIRE DID LITTLE TO ASSUAGE THE
cold that made my bones feel achy and brittle. I sat staring into the flames as my brother wedged a snifter of port between my fingers. Herbert stood to one side, staring at me as if I were a lunatic.

Clayton turned to him.

“Are you daft, man? What the devil are you looking at? Get the hell upstairs and fetch my brother dry clothes before he catches his death.”

“What have you done with Maria?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Edwina and Miracle are seeing to her.”

“It’s useless. I’m a fiend. A devil. Her ruination. She’ll never forgive me. Never.”

Clayton sat beside me. “Look at me.”

I did so. Reluctantly.

“I want the truth from you. About the child.”

Curling my cold lips, I looked him in the eyes. “Trust me, Clayton. For once in your life, trust that I’m doing the right thing.”

“Trey, the right thing in your mind is too often skewed. What you perceive as right—”

“You needn’t remind me that I’m a fool. I’ve never been so aware of it before.”

“I really don’t know why I continue to bother with you.”

Lowering my gaze from his, I felt my face flush with heat as I sipped my port. “We’re brothers. Twin souls—”

“No.” He frowned. “Trey, you have no soul.”

The words slammed me like a cruel fist.

Leaving my chair, my body shivering harder as I left the comfort of the fire, I moved to the window and looked out upon the black night. Snow banked upon the mullioned panes and sparkled with the reflection of the hearth fire.

“God, how you must hate me,” I said.

No response.

Partially turning, I looked at my brother, his back to me. The ache of rejection bit at me as sharply as Maria’s hatred for me. I, who had never given a damn about anyone’s opinion but my own.

“I love you,” I said.

Clayton slowly turned to stare at me.

“What?” I lifted my snifter and swirled the port round and round in the glass. “Is that so hard to believe?”

Still he said nothing.

“I suppose it is, isn’t it? I haven’t been the finest example of a brother. Or human being, for that matter. Is it beyond the possibility that a man can change?

“For what it’s worth, I have said I love you to only one other person in my life. Maria. Ah, to love…and be unloved in return. ’Tis a fair retribution for the havoc I have played with people’s lives.”

“I don’t hate you,” Clayton said in a flat tone.

“No?” I smiled. “You don’t hate me. You don’t love me. You feel nothing. I fear that’s more disturbing even than hate.”

I finished my port as Herbert returned to the room, dry clothes in his arms. He refused to look at me as he helped me undress and don the dry shirt and pants. Upon collecting the wet garments, he left the room without a single utterance.

Clayton stared into the dancing flames as I returned to the chair beside him. We remained silent for a spell. I listened to the tall case clock in the foyer chime eight times, then heard the murmur of discourse between Miracle and Edwina as they approached.

Edwina entered the room, her face pale as she wrung her hands. “The young woman wishes to see you, darling.”

Clayton and I exchanged looks. I cleared my throat.

“Are you certain she’s not hiding a knife beneath her sheets?” I asked.

“She appears very calm.”

“But is she lucid?”

Edwina lifted one finely arched brow and considered me a long moment. Then she shrugged.

“She’s not raving like a banshee, if that’s what you mean.”

“Has she mentioned Sarah?”

“No.”

“Has she mentioned me?”

She nodded. “Briefly.”

I glared at her, waiting. “Well? What did she say?”

“Such language is far too blasphemous to be repeated by a lady.”

Clayton snorted, causing Edwina’s face to flush.

With a flounce of her skirt, she moved to the fire, her narrowed gaze fixed on my brother. “I suppose neither of you have given a thought to what this debacle means to me.”

“No,” we replied in unison.

She sniffed and turned one shoulder to us. “That I should be forced to watch the man I love fawn and grieve over some nose-wiping nurse—the daughter of a meager vicar; a lunatic. ’Tis insufferable! My future is questionable—”

“Spare us, Edwina. I’m hardly in the mood for your theatrics.”

“Or your self-absorption,” Clayton added, causing her eyes to widen.

“My self-absorption?” She tossed back her head and pointed at me. “Your brother epitomizes self-absorption. He defines selfishness. I’m expected to behave as if this debacle hasn’t affected me? The man I was to marry left me at the altar—”

Clayton shook his head. “It’s not as if this sham of a marriage was real. You needed a name for the child you so recklessly conceived with God knows whom, and my brother needed money. You were nothing more to one another than a means to an end.”

A spasm of emotion flashed in her eyes. Her mask of contempt began a slow erosion, melting from her countenance like wax before a flame.

As her gaze moved back to mine, I was once again a witness to the feelings she had shielded during our time as lovers, and the sudden fierce blade of realization and recognition slashed at me.

I understood.

Everything.

I knew the sadness glistening upon her damp eye. The painful swelling of her wounded heart.

Leaving my chair, I took her in my arms, felt the trembling in her body that she so desperately attempted to hide.

“I understand,” I whispered in her ear as I stroked her hair.

“Do you?” She swallowed. “Of course you do. That’s the pity, Your Grace. The damnable pity of it all, isn’t it?”

Placing one hand upon my chest, she pushed me away, lifted her chin, and allowed me a faint, brittle smile.

“What irony that we should discover now that we’re both as vulnerably human as everyone else. Hearts mangled by Cupid’s arrows. It would be hysterical if it weren’t so remarkably pitiful.”

She moved to the door. “For what it’s worth, darling, I suggest that you begin again where the young woman is concerned. Few women can resist you when you’re on the scent. Woo her. Praise her. Make her feel as if she’s the most important element of your existence. Her happiness, of course, is your ultimate challenge.”

She lay a hand upon her rounded belly and quit the room.

16

M
ARIA NO LONGER REGARDED ME WITH
madness.

As I stood before her, watching the firelight reflect from her face—from her eyes that were hard and glittering like blue diamonds—I almost yearned for the oblivion of insanity.