Seduced by a Stranger (21 page)

“We need a bath.”

A bath. In the middle of the day. The servants would bring the tub and hot water. And they would know. Even if she hid behind the privacy screen, they would know. She was uncomfortable with the thought. It was her nature to be private, even more so now that she had been the object of gossip for so long. She preferred not to draw such notice.

“I have no wish to cause inconvenience,” she demurred. “I can make do with the basin and pitcher.” She dipped her head toward the washstand.

“No, you cannot.” Very deliberately, he tugged the embroidered ribbon to summon a servant. When the maid came, he spoke through the door, giving the order for the tub and hot water to be brought up.

From her place on the bed, she studied him, his broad shoulders, his now-rumpled coat and waistcoat. The inequity irked her. He was completely clothed.

She rose from the bed and went to him. He only watched her, saying nothing, his eyes narrowed.

“I want to touch you,” she said, unable to believe she had made love to a man who had not so much as removed his coat. There had been a certain delicious decadence to that at the time, but it left her a little uncomfortable now.

“Do you?” he murmured.

“May—”

He put his finger to her lips, staying her words.

“Take what you want, Catherine. Take it. I will not have you looking for my permission.” He offered the barest smile. “I told you I would not have him in my bed. You are a different woman now than you were then. Whatever he did to you, it is gone. Past. Dead”—she gasped, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks, then drain completely away. Did he know? Did he? But he offered no answer to her secret fears, only kept his finger on her lips, stilling her words—“You want to touch me? To feel my skin beneath your palms?”

She could only nod, wanting that, wanting him, again.

“Then take what you want, love.” He dragged her hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss to her palm, then held his arms out, offering her leave to do what she willed.

Sliding her hands beneath his coat, she slanted him a glance through her lashes. Then she clutched the fabric in her fingers and yanked his coat down his arms, leaving him in shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

Something dark crossed his features, and for a moment, she had the strange thought that he would stop her, that he did not wish to disrobe before her. Her gaze raked him. Broad shoulders. Flat belly. Hard contours of muscle apparent even beneath the cloth. What possible reason could he have for refusing her this?

None. He could have none. She was weaving obstacles where none existed.

Next came his waistcoat. Then his cravat of red merino that she slid from beneath the high folded collar of his tucked front shirt. It was only when she went to remove the latter that he caught her wrist, his fingers forming a gentle but firm vise.

“What is it?” she asked. “Has the bath come?” She had not heard a knock.

“No. And when it does, it shall be set in the dressing room. I have no wish to be disturbed, nor to subject you to the servants’ scrutiny.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, touched by his thoughtfulness. “What is it, then?”

His lips tightened, but he said nothing more. Instead, he reached back, caught the collar of his shirt, dragged it over his head, and tossed it to the floor.

Her mouth went dry. He was magnificent. Cool hard planes and angles. Perfect shadows. Supple skin shifted over smooth muscle as he rolled his shoulders, but as her gaze lifted to his face, she read wariness and a guarded watchfulness. Why?

Reaching out, she laid her hand on his chest, stroked along his muscle to his shoulder, his arm, his elbow. There she stopped, her breath catching. Understanding came to her.

He was scarred.

The crooks of his elbows and the front of his forearms bore a multitude of thin white lines, side by side, some overlapping, some of the scars raised and wider, leading her to believe the place had been cut repeatedly.

He had been bled. More than once. More than a hundred times. Someone had opened his veins again and again and he bore the marks of that on his skin.

Her gaze snapped to his. Not by the flicker of a lash did he betray his thoughts. His expression was calm, reserved, his muscles relaxed. But she sensed the expectancy in him. He waited for what she would say.

And so she said nothing. Not yet. She needed to think on the right words. He had trusted her with this knowledge of him. Exactly as he had said: a gift.

She bent and pressed her mouth to the crook of his elbow, to a raised scar there where she knew the vein lay close to the surface. A faint tremor took him as she kissed him there.

With her fingers resting lightly on his shoulder, she straightened and walked around him to place both palms on his broad back, feeling the play of muscle under smooth skin. He was incredibly beautiful, perfectly formed, his waist lean, his buttocks tight, the curve of his spine a valley between wedges of taut muscle on either side.

She stroked his hair from his nape, a spill of honey gold, wanting to kiss him there. He tensed, then relaxed, the movement so subtle she might have thought she imagined it except…She blinked. Frowned. Here, too he was scarred. An odd-shaped mark on the back of his neck was raised and uneven. She had a scar like that, a small one on her knee where she had fallen as a child and the scrape had gone deep and filled with dirt and it had taken a very long while to heal. It had left just such a mark.

But why would he have such a thing on the back of his neck? How would he have injured himself there?

Slowly she finished her circuit, looking her fill, touching him, leaning close to breathe the scent of him, to trace her tongue along the swell of muscle that capped his shoulder, the bulge of his biceps, the raised plane of his chest.

Then she slid his trousers down his thighs, sinking to her knees before him to slide off first one shoe then the other, one trouser leg then the other until he was as naked as she. She sensed he suffered her leisurely ministrations and perusal, but suspected he was not relaxed in this.

And as she peeled away the first of his stockings, his foot resting on her bent knees, what she saw made her certain.

Something terrible had been done to him.

“Who hurt you?” she asked, swallowing the fury that welled in her heart. She knew the marks of a burn well enough, and his feet bore not one such mark, but many.

On her knees before him, she tipped her head back and met his gaze, wanting answers, uncertain exactly what questions to ask. Then from the adjacent dressing room she heard the sound of the tub being prepared, water pouring, a footman’s murmur and a maid’s reply.

“Your bath awaits,” he said, looking down at her, his arms loose by his sides.

She shook her head. “It can wait.”

“The water will grow cold.”

Leaning forward, she rested her cheek against his thigh. “Then we shall bathe in cold water.”

There was a long moment of silence that made her look up, seeking his gaze.

“I do not bathe in cold water. Ever.” There was ice in his tone, colder than any winter storm. “And henceforth, neither do you.” An order. A pledge. It wasn’t about the discomfort of a cold bath. There was something more here.

The fine hairs at her nape rose.

In an easy, fluid motion, he scooped her in his arms and, kicking open the door to the dressing room, carried her through, ending any discussion.

As he sank into the tub with her, sloshing water over the sides, he kissed her, hard. He made love to her again, there in the bath, and when the water cooled, he carried her to his bed once more, taking his fill of her, and offering her the same in return.

But though her questions were diverted and delayed, they were not forgotten. Later, as they lay together, warm beneath the sheets and coverlet, soft pillows beneath their heads, she asked him again, “Who hurt you?”

Hanham, England, 1814

Gabriel peered out the window of the coach, anxious to know their destination. Mother offered no answer when he asked. Not the first time or the second or the tenth. She only shook her head and tried to make her mouth form a smile, but it was more of a grimace and it never reached her eyes. Her eyes were sad and afraid and she sat on the seat opposite him, not beside him, as though she could not bear to be close to him.

Father had not come for the carriage ride today. He had stood on the drive at Cairncroft, his hands linked at the small of his back, his mouth drawn tight.

Of Geoffrey, there had been no sign.

Gabriel could not find any part of himself that was sad for that. He still bore the scar where Geoffrey had stabbed him, low in the gut, the stick passing clear through. In time, the wound had healed. A miracle, the doctor called it, for Gabriel had been so very sick, feverish and weak. But his parents never called it that. At times, he wondered if they thought it more a curse that he had lived.

He had lost his place as his mother’s favorite, lost his welcome in her embrace, and he knew not what he had done to warrant it. She had begun to watch him in a strange way, her expression pinched, her hands always fluttering like two hummingbirds. Somehow, he thought she blamed him for being injured, for becoming ill, for the pain and grief and worry.

Too, she had grown confused since his recovery, calling him by his brother’s name and his brother by his name. It was disconcerting to see her behave that way. He felt sorry for her, and he missed the way she used to be. At first, he corrected her each time she erred, but she grew so agitated, so angry, that he soon began to keep to the shadows, to try to blend with the furniture. Better she not notice him at all.

The time since that day in the woods had not been kind to his family. He and Geoffrey could barely stand to be in the same room with each other now. Neither of them had been sent off to school, though at their age, they had expected to be. Gabriel was made to feel that it was somehow his fault, that he had created the tension and dark cloud that hung over the abbey.

Then, last month, they had found the dead girl. Murdered. Lying in a pool of her own blood. No one had known who she was or where she had come from. She was found in a shallow grave, the dirt barely tossed over her, her body mutilated, her chest cut open.

Sebastian had been visiting Cairncroft. It was he who had found her and then Geoffrey and Madeline had followed close behind. Gabriel had only heard the news when he overheard the servants gossiping. The maids had been upset. And Mrs. Bell, the new housekeeper, had sobbed and wailed behind the closed door of her quarters. Gabriel had heard her as he clung to the shadows, listening.

In the end, they had buried the dead girl in a corner of the abbey’s ancient graveyard, her marker bare of a name, saying only the date they had found her, for they did not know the dates of her birth or her death, did not know who she was. Or who had killed her.

There were days that Gabriel thought he knew, that memories and images came to him and painted a terrible, terrifying picture. But he thrust those thoughts aside, refusing to believe.

In recent months, the cloud over the abbey had become heavier still, and Gabriel had felt himself a stranger in his home, an outcast in his family. He had slowly begun to lose interest in any of his normal pursuits, while his twin, Geoffrey, gained interest in those same things. Where it had always been Gabriel who was anxious to read, to learn, it was now Geoffrey who professed a love of books. And Geoffrey had begun a strange game, playing into their mother’s odd behavior, answering whenever their parents used Gabriel’s name.

At first, Gabriel had gone along, answering to Geoffrey’s name, believing—as his brother insisted—that it was best to humor their mother who was sad and confused. He likened it to the games they had played as children where they traded places and tricked anyone who was near. In truth, they were identical, able to fool anyone save each other.

Geoffrey laughed at that, and said, “Perhaps we can learn to trick even each other.”

Gabriel thought such a thing absurd. How could he be tricked to believe he was other than himself?

Soon the game had turned sour for him, and though he insisted he was Gabriel, not Geoffrey, he was not certain his parents believed him. Certainly his cousin Madeline seemed positive that he was Geoffrey and his brother was Gabriel.

The longer Geoffrey played his tricks, the more Gabriel’s sadness and weariness grew, until he was loath to roll from his bed each morning. He stopped answering to any name at all, because no one believed he was who he said he was.

His parents had taken to closeting themselves away, taking first Madeline then Geoffrey into the room for hours at a time. But not Gabriel. Never Gabriel. Not until that day last week when three men in black suits had come to Cairncroft. They had sat with him in the sun-drenched parlor, the windows at their backs, making it hard for him to read their faces. They had asked him all manner of odd questions, one of them making detailed notes in a black, leather-bound book as Gabriel made his replies.

At first, he answered readily. But soon, a cold dread had come upon him, though he could not name a reason for it, and his answers had become terse, his voice betraying his anxiety.

But today things had dawned brighter. Mother had invited him to ride with her in the carriage. Only him. Not Geoffrey. Not Father or Madeline. Only him. She had exchanged a long look with Father and then called Gabriel by his own name, not Geoffrey’s.

He knew then that he had done something right, though he had not managed anything right since that horrible day in the woods. The day he had almost died.

The carriage turned now, and stopped. Massive iron gates blocked their path. On either side, extending as far as the eye could see, was a high brick wall. This must be a fine estate indeed to warrant such protection. The gates swung open, and Gabriel could hear a clunking sound from within the small lodge adjacent to the gate.

“Do you suppose there is a mechanism there for opening the gates, Mother? Could we stop? I should like to see it.”

But she did not answer. She only stared out the window, her skin stretched taut and thin across the bones of her face.

They went slowly up a long drive with vast squares of open lawn on either side. They were close to the village of Hanham, his mother had told him earlier when he asked. Eager now, he scooted forward on the seat.

“What place is this?”

His mother continued to stare out the window and still did not look at him. “Hanham House,” she replied, her voice thick.

He knew that sound, the sound of choked tears, but he knew better than to ask why she was sad. He had stopped asking that question months past. She never answered, only looked at him with eyes that did not see what was before her, but rather something far, far away.

He wished he could change the past. He wished he had never followed Geoffrey into the woods that day, never seen him twist the neck of that baby bird, never run through the woods with his brother pounding at his heels. Never been stabbed with the sharp end of that stick. There were even days that he wished he had never recovered. They had thought he would not. He vaguely remembered endless pain, and the heat of his fever, and doctors coming and going. His mother’s sobs. His father kneeling by his bed.

Oft times, he thought they had mourned his passing, and were somehow distressed that he had lived instead.

He wished, too, that they had never found the dead girl in her shallow, leaf-strewn grave. Better if she had been left to rest there quietly. Things had only gone from bad to worse, then.

Once, Madeline had even asked him why he had killed her. Stunned, he had at first made no reply. Then he found his voice and practically snarled at her an order to never say such a thing again. She had run to his father and said he had threatened her, and his father had only looked at him with eyes narrowed and cold. Madeline made certain to leave any room he entered, after that. She was never alone with him again, a situation he had not found overly disappointing.

He had disliked his cousin before. He despised her now.

The carriage rocked to a halt again, and he looked out at a massive house, nearly as large as Cairncroft Abbey. Then he saw it was not one house, but several, built close together.

On the seat across, his mother began to fidget. She played with her collar, her pearls, her hat. She did not meet his gaze, and he felt suddenly afraid. His mother never fidgeted.

The door opened and three men stood all in a row, their faces somber, their hands clasped behind their backs as they stared at him with eyes dark and beady. They were the same men who had come to Cairncroft and asked all those odd, unsettling questions.

“Does your head ache at times? Does your brain feel overheated? Do you suffer seizures or sweats in the night?”

He had only stared at them, befuddled.

“What is your name?”

“Gabriel.”

They had looked one at the other with raised brows.

“What is your name?”

“Gabriel St. Aubyn.”

“Gabriel? Not Geoffrey?”

He had pressed his lips tight and refused to reply. They had looked to each other and stroked their chins and nodded and muttered about complete delusion and appropriate care.

The sight of them now, standing all in a row like three black crows, frightened him. Their posture reminded him of his father’s that morning, but the look they leveled upon him did not. He thought now that his father had looked at him with pity, but these men seemed to look through him. Beside them was a stocky woman in a black dress, her hair scraped back from her face, her expression austere.

“Step down,” his mother whispered as he turned his face toward her. She looked as though she might swoon, her eyes rolling back, her lips and cheeks bloodless, her face chalk white in the shadows of the carriage.

He did not want to step down. He was terribly afraid.

But he was a good son, and he did as he was bidden, stepping out of the dim, hot carriage into the bright sunlight. The breeze caught his hair and ruffled it.

One of the men moved forward and closed his hand around Gabriel’s arm, the grip tight. Restraining.

“Mother!” Gabriel cried, his voice rising now, his certainty clear. There was something wrong.

She leaned forward, but did not leave the carriage. Her face was streaked with tears, and her hands clawed so her nails dug into her own forearms through the cloth of her dress.

“Good-bye,” she whispered. “Geoffrey”—her voice broke on the name—“be a good little man. Good-bye.”

Another man stepped forward and slammed the carriage door as Gabriel stood, stunned and uncomprehending. Only as the carriage rolled away did he come to himself and scream, “Gabriel. I am Gabriel. Not Geoffrey.
I am Gabriel
.”

None of the three men touched him now. Only the nurse swooped forward like a hawk and grabbed hold of both his arms and held him fast as he tried to run. Then she dragged him, kicking and screaming, up the front stairs and through the front door where another woman came and together they wrestled him, one on each side, up a staircase to a long bright hallway, the sun pouring through rows of windows. Finally, they reached a small bedroom and they pushed him inside and slammed the door. He heard the click of the lock and the thud of their footsteps and he was alone with only his terror and his thoughts.

In the weeks that followed, he tried everything to make them listen. He was rational and calm, explaining again and again that he was Gabriel. Not Geoffrey. But they would not listen. So he screamed his name at them each time they called him Geoffrey.

At first, they did nothing other than try to correct him, and the three dark-garbed men came and poked him and prodded him and asked him questions. They asked him to say his name. To write it. To spell it aloud. He found it ridiculous, and in the end lost his patience and told them so.

They did not like that.

That day, the nurses came again and dragged him to a massive, dim room with icy floors and no windows. There, they restrained him in a long, narrow box, with walls like a cage, made of thick bars. His screams for release grew hoarse. In the end he was silent.

Still, he would not answer to his brother’s name. Again the three doctors came and asked him all manner of ridiculous questions. Then they took him to a different room and stoked the fire and applied hot irons to his feet to raise blisters. They said that would draw the overabundance of blood from his overheated brain.

“So young to be here,” one doctor, newly arrived at Hanham House, observed some months later. “And such complete delusion.”

“Please,” Gabriel begged, thinking the observation indicated sympathy. “There has been a mistake. I am Gabriel.
Gabriel
. Not Geoffrey. I have done nothing wrong. I swear it. I swear it.”

The doctor only shook his head and put him in a device that whirled him round and round until he was dizzy and sick, until dry heaves racked his body because there was nothing left in his belly.

Weeks—or was it months?—passed. A letter came for him from his cousin Sebastian. He leaped upon it like a drowning man on a floating board. Then he saw his brother’s name,
Geoffrey St. Aubyn
, and he understood that even Sebastian was in their thrall.

“Whose thrall?” the doctor asked. “Tell me.”

“My brother. Maybe my mother. My father. My cousin. I do not know,” Gabriel babbled. “I do not know. I only know they have done this to me and I should not be here. I should not be here.”

“Cold water baths,” the doctor said after he had summoned the nurse once more, and Gabriel was taken to a different room and forced into a different type of box, no wider or longer than a coffin, but with holes in the top and sides.

“Please,” he cried. But no one heard. No one listened.

The box was dropped in a vat of icy water again and again. He knew how to swim. There was a lake at Cairncroft Abbey. After the first plunge, the shock and terror of it, he knew better what to expect, and he held his breath as he felt the box drop with him in it. But sometimes, he could hold his breath no longer and the water poured into his nose and mouth and throat, choking him, drowning him.