Obsession (9 page)

“No.”

“What do you intend to do now? About your grandmother, I mean. I vow the whole of England is holding its breath waiting for your next move.”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll tell you this: she’d better stay away. From Maria. And from me.” I cut my gaze to his. “You might pass on the word should you happen to bump into her along the way.”

I
AWOKE SUDDENLY, SHIVERING.
I
HAD BEEN
dreaming again of Maria, of falling to my knees beside an abandoned mine shaft, calling her name, and looking down into the dark where flames writhed like serpents.

Only it wasn’t her face that looked back at me from the inferno, but my own, mouth open in a silent scream of horror.

Naked between my sheets, I rolled my head and did my best to focus my blurred vision on the open window. Night shadows were fast creeping over the landscape, and I found myself watching, breathless, for the first flicker of light from the smelts. The breeze rolling in felt bracing, and I shivered again as the memory of Maria in a blue cotton dress sparkled in my mind, obliterating the nightmare.

My need to see her in that moment, to assure myself that my removing her from the asylum had not been a dream, filled me with a desperation that made my chest ache. Yet Bertha had told me to stay away—just for a while—as if my presence agitated Maria’s sensibilities.

Daft bastard, of course my presence would agitate her sensibilities, I reminded myself. If there was a solitary ember of sanity left in her, she would—should—hate me with every fiber of her being.

“You missed dinner,” Edwina whispered into my ear.

I turned my head and stared into her drowsy eyes. Her naked breasts were nestled against me, one thigh resting over my loins. Her hair formed a copper blaze upon the pillow.

“God,” I said hoarsely. “I didn’t get
that
drunk, did I?”

“What do you think?” She gave me a languid smile.

“I seem to recall telling you to get the hell out of my bath—that was just before Parkhurst and Whitting burst in with some wild rambling about Herbert falling headfirst into the rain barrel.”

She slid her hand down my belly. I caught her wrist, stopping her.

“Then I recall sending you to see about the poor bastard. I’m quite certain I was fully embraced by oblivion by the time you returned. Besides, I sense no fresh claw marks on my ass.”

With a huff of exasperation, she rolled to her back.

“Have Parkhurst and Whitting gone?” I asked, glancing again toward the window, where the first tinge of firelight had begun to glimmer on the distant craggy summit.

Soon Thomas would be trooping with others into the mine, and I found my mind drifting to that deep, dark place where men toiled to survive. Normal men. Those who had not been born in a privileged family. To…aristocracy.

And what of Maria?

Christ. I had waited three long years to embrace her again, and yonder, beyond my ability to see her, to touch her, she remained with a total stranger.

“Quite the contrary. They’ve ensconced themselves very comfortably downstairs. I’m sure they’ve slugged back your last precious bottle of port by now—along with sending Iris into the vapors by demanding smoked pheasant for their meal. When she told them you were fresh out of smoked pheasant—in fact, smoked
anything
—they very seriously told her to go out and shoot something.”

“What
did
she feed them?”

“Pigeon.”

I winced.

Sighing, Edwina stretched, causing the sheet to slide off her breasts and rest across the small mound on her lower belly.

“It moves constantly now,” she informed me. “The child, I mean. Flutters around inside me like a bat in a cave. There! It’s doing it again.”

She took my hand and slid it beneath the sheet, cupped it around the swelling, and held it there. We both stared at the ceiling; then—

The being moved against my hand.

I might have jerked my hand away, but she held it there, and again it skittered along my palm as ticklishly as a feather.

We turned our heads at once and stared into one another’s eyes. A grin touched my lips. Hers quivered. Suddenly, her enormous eyes filled with tears that streamed down her cheeks.

“What shall I do, Trey? I’m…terrified.”

She rolled her body into mine again and clung like a frightened child, her face buried in the crook of my neck. Her tears fell hot and wet upon my skin as her body shook. Oh, that the body in my arms, so willing and heated, was Maria’s. The ache for her settled like a hot stone between my legs.

“Damn it all,” Edwina wept. “It seems all I do is cry anymore. And eat. Then vomit it up. Then cry some more. And my breasts hurt, among other things.”

Lifting her wet face, she looked into my eyes. “Don’t you feel a little sorry for me?”

I forced another grin. My skin felt hot and clammy. “A touch.”

“I’ll stand no chance of landing another husband now.”

“What makes you think so?”

“All those rutting animals care about is my body.”

“Don’t forget your money.”

“Really, Salterdon, you’re not
that
daft. There are plenty of wealthy women around just begging to take on a husband. The only difference between us is that at least while they lay me, they needn’t cover my face with a pillow.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Rolling, I grabbed my pillow and covered her face with it.

Letting out a scream, her tears turning to giggles, she kicked and beat at my shoulders. We wrestled until I fell beside her, laughing and breathing hard. Spreading her body over mine, she gazed down into my face, her own pale in the deepening darkness.

“We were so good together,” she said softly. “Admit it.”

“We had our moments,” I admitted, nudging a coiling tendril from her brow.

“Many of them.”

“You’re not going to get weepy again?”

“Only if you promise me that I’ll remain as desirable after I’ve given birth.”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“How could we? Our bodies distend to the bursting point, breasts and belly ravaged by scars—I understand men never enjoy us as much, if you know what I mean.”

“If that were the case, Edwina, there would be very few siblings running about.”

She pressed her lips lightly against mine, and for an instant—just for an instant—I responded, the surge of lust for Maria still full and hot inside me. I buried one hand in her hair and drew her closer, opened my mouth over hers, and thrust my tongue inside her.

She made a sound in her throat—more like a laugh than a groan of desire—a growl of conquest that slammed me back to reality, and made the rancid bite of acknowledgment roll over in my gut.

A woman’s body has been your curse since you were old enough to take your first whore. You simply can’t help yourself…. Will you ultimately grow weary of her naivete and hunger for the whore? I’m sure of it. We’re much alike—you and I. We’re…empty, and starving to be filled. It’s what bonded us, I think. Our neediness.

I thrust her away and rolled from the bed.

9

I
MANAGED TO SURVIVE THE NEXT TWO DAYS OF
frustration by occupying myself with Parkhurst and Whitting as they hunted grouse and pheasant, joined them in depleting my dwindling stock of liquor, played cards until I grew too stupid with boredom to hold open my eyes—while Edwina lounged in my bed, vowing herself too ill to travel. I didn’t doubt it; how could I, when I was forced to witness her heaving into a chamber pot whenever I entered the room?

It was Parkhurst and Whitting I didn’t fully trust. They weren’t the sort to waste their time whiling away their days and precious nights rambling around the cold and drafty halls of a country estate without a good reason.

They weren’t fooling me. Not for a moment. My grandmother had got to them…bribed them, bought them off. Somewhere close by, she was waiting like some wily fox for them to return with whatever information she needed to initiate her next plan to further ruin my life.

What surprised me was Parkhurst’s duplicity. I could only surmise that his debts were so vast and urgent that he must bow to my grandmother’s scheme or suffer dire consequences.

For that, I was forced to forgive him. Such extreme desperation had been my constant companion for most of my adult life, and was still. It lurked more apparent every day—as bleak as the gathering winter clouds on the horizon.

In truth, their reasons for coming here and remaining bothered me very little, compared to my mounting hunger to be with Maria again. The growing need boiled my blood. It drove me from my bed to wander the hallways all night, surely crazed as any Menson lunatic.

I would return to the music room again and again, sit in a chair and stare as if in a trance at the dust-covered pianoforte, the diapasons of
Maria’s Song
swirling between my temples, memories of my own mental confusion making my heart beat rapidly.

My mental confusion had been caused by an injury to the head.

Maria’s, however, had been caused by an injury to her heart.

More and more, my patience grew thin.
Give her time,
Bertha had suggested.

How much?

A week? A month? A bloody year?

Was it not enough that I had spent three long years suffering over her disappearance? Imagining her in the arms of another man, loving him as I loved her?

What hateful realization, to acknowledge my own culpability for her madness—that she languished in that dreadful place while I hated her, believing she had married another.

What irony that we had both wasted our minds and hearts, not to mention our lives the last years.

Damnable waste.

Damnable evil!

V
IOLENT THUNDERED THE WIND FROM THE NORTH,
cold and roaring like lions amid the crags of the house’s dark stones.

As I stepped from the house into the midnight tumult, I paused and glanced around, my eyes narrowed against the gale, my ears deafened by the howl of the wind in the trees.

No light shone from the windows of the rooms where Parkhurst and Whitting slept. I knew what I was risking, even though they had fallen drunk into their beds. Should they discover me gone, they would search. They might even find me.

I was willing to risk it. I had no choice. The need to see Maria had become unbearable. I had to assure myself that she was all right. I had to touch her, and smell her, look into her eyes and embrace her soul.

Yet the wind beat me back, piercing me with cold, robbing me of breath as if all the demons of hell were intent on keeping me from her. I fought my way along the gill, caught my breath as I splashed through the stream, shivering as it clawed its way up my legs, colder and deeper now due to the rains further north.

At long last topping the wind-swept summit, I paused and looked back. Low black clouds skittered along the desolate fields and bent fir tops, revealing the hulk of the manor house briefly before it vanished from my eyes. But not before I noted a light in a window—where before there had only been darkness.

“Parkhurst, you bastard,” I said between my teeth.

I had no choice. I had come too far already.

The very thought of seeing Maria again had infused me with an energy that propelled me onward.

Fixing my sight on Whitefield’s house, its window shining with light, I trudged down the footpath, half running and stumbling as the wind careened around my legs. Finally arriving at the house, breathing hard from my exertion, I cautiously moved to the window and looked in.

She was there! Before the fire. Sitting in the little ladder-back chair, wearing the blue dress, gazing serenely into the flames.

Dear God, how angelic was her profile. How pale and perfect! There was no lunacy in that mien now. No hysterics; no fear. She looked as normal as any young woman lost in her thoughts.

“She ain’t ready,” came Bertha’s voice, and I spun round to look down into her stern eyes, illuminated by the light through the window. The wind whipped at her skirt as she moved around me for the door, a basket in one hand, the other raised to shield the sting of the wind from her face.

“She looks fine,” I countered.

“Well, she ain’t. Not yet. Y’ll do ’er no favors by confrontin’ her now.”

“When?” I demanded.

“Patience.”

I slammed my fist against the stone wall. “Madam, I am
not
a patient man.”

“Aye, I know that. Ya needn’t state the obvious.”

“I’ve waited too
bloody
long—”

“Y’ll wait longer. A day, perhaps. A week. A month. Until she’s ready.”

I stood stubborn and rigid, my hands fisted and trembling from an anger so fierce, I felt frightened for Bertha in that instant.

“The hell, you say,” I sneered. “A month? I’ll take her this very minute—”

“Go on, then. Take ’er.” Bertha reached for the door as she glared at me. “I’ve got no right to ’er. ’Twon’t be me own conscience that’ll be screamin’ if she passes.”

Looking back through the window, I focused on Maria again, her slightly bowed head and her pale profile as she gazed into the flames in a sort of strange anticipation.

What a damned twisted strait. What
should
have been my life’s joy was, instead, an agony so dreadful it coiled in my chest like something evil.

Guilt!

Bitter consequence!

Their venom burned in me, retribution for all the sins I had perpetrated in my life. What better reprisal for my iniquities than to rob me of what I most coveted and craved?

“Tell me the truth,” I choked. “Is she lost to me?”

Bertha placed her hand on my arm. “Not so much as I first believed when me hoosband carried her through this door and put ’er on the cot. Not even so much as the mornin’ ya went away. ’Tis a tenuous thread on which she totters, sir. She cums and goes. Sometimes to the very brink of a sort of breakthrough, then she fades again. But yer not wrong. It’s yer right to take ’er, if ya want. She’s
yer
lady love. No other’s.”