The Dark Affair (7 page)

Unable to watch him any longer, she peered out at the cold, late-November afternoon. The sun was well since gone, not that they’d ever seen it, what with the low-slung clouds of ominous rain.

Somewhere in the distance was St. James’s Park and then Buckingham Palace. For the life of her, she couldn’t believe she was standing in this grand room. She’d thought that part of her life had ended when her father had turned his back on his own title. It felt so strange to be mistress of all the earl’s opulence. Once, long ago, it had been a part of her life. The great manor house had been as natural to her as afternoon tea. She’d loved her childhood home. But over the years, the silk wall hangings had faded, the marble fireplaces chilled with ancient soot, and the noisy halls silenced as her family was consumed in the mourning for millions. And finally, after the death of her fragile mother, her father had taken his children by the hand and led them down the gravel drive, away from what he’d come to consider a symbol of oppression, and to a small worker’s cottage, where they could all atone for the sins of the upper classes.

Perhaps she was mad to unite herself to this English family. Her father would have hated it, despite the sympathies that both the earl and viscount expressed for the Irish plight. In fact, she couldn’t bear to think of what her father, a converted socialist, might think of her marrying into the height of the British establishment. But the words had been spoken. The vow made, and she’d committed to her decision. Powers needed her now more than ever. For if anyone wishing the viscount ill were to call upon the bishop, the bishop would no doubt be happy to testify to Powers’s madness . . . unless, of course, the good earl sweetened the old sod’s pension.

Such were the ways of the world.

The door cracked open and the earl’s face emerged. He didn’t enter, just leaned slightly forward through the opening, then crooked his fingers, as though she would run.

And, of course, she did. Right now, the old man would need assurance that his son had not taken an irreversible step into an unforeseen oblivion.

She scurried across the gold-and-burgundy rug imported from some fabled Eastern city that she could only dream of. Ready to take her place now as a viscountess and the key to the Carlyle succession.

“T
oday did not go at all as planned.” Powers’s father crossed to the grog tray and poured a stiff brandy into a Baccarat crystal snifter. He didn’t offer her refreshment, but rather took a large swallow, glaring at her over the rim.

She was now a tea drinker and didn’t wish for a tot, but nor did she miss the small slight. “Those doctors you had him under are all as intelligent as a pack of blithering sheep.”

He cocked his head to the side, something steely hardening his jaw. “Indeed?”

She nodded, wishing to explain carefully and thoroughly. It was so important for family to understand the needs of those at risk. “You see, the morphine . . . At present without it, he can’t—”

“My son expressed his desire that they not medicate him upon his release, and I approved.”

Margaret’s thoughts stuttered, certain she had misheard him. “You approved?”

“He’s my son, and he wants to improve. It’s the first decent decision he’s made in years.” The earl crossed to the fireplace and then turned to face her, a king at the head of the room. “It’s my money paying for his care. And thanks to you, we’ve liberated him from that den of quacks. It was they who gave him the stuff that has truly made him so . . . unmanageable.”

Who was the old man lying to? Himself or to her? To both? Astonishment rendered her speechless. Had he simply willed the events of the weeks leading up to his son’s holding from his memory?

“He doesn’t wish to take that disgusting, weakening stuff any longer.” The earl placed the snifter down on the carved marble mantel and then fingered the crested ring upon his little finger. His lips twisted as he contemplated the ruby. “I had a mind to toss you into the street and seek an annulment when you whipped that little case from your reticule and”—he swallowed, disgust rippling across his visage—“and injected him with that poison. I could not believe that you, so lauded for your work, would condone such rashness.”

He lowered his hands, pinning her with a cold gaze. “You are here to help him . . . not drive him further down the path to madness. I will not—”

“And what are your qualifications to make these assumptions?” she demanded sharply.

She’d heard enough. Enough rudeness, enough bullying, enough stupidity throughout her life. And she would not take it now from the man who had sought her out and bought her for his son.

His lips tightened, the blood compressing out of the flesh, before he spat out, “I beg your pardon?”

“Your qualifications to support your son’s ill-thought decision?” She met his gaze, refusing to back down. “I’d like to know them. Now, if you please.”

The older man huffed, snatching his snifter back into his hand. The brandy sloshed in the glass, the liquid snaking over the crystal. “As his father and the Earl of Carlyle—”

“You know absolutely nothing about the workings of the mind and opium.” Though she had meant it as a simple statement of fact, there was a hint of heat and castigation in her words. She inwardly winced, wondering where this deviation in her self-control had arisen from. Abject displays of emotion were beneath her, and they were dangerous. She couldn’t have these men who saw themselves as so far above her claiming, as they did of all women who dared to show the smallest glimpse of emotion, that she was hysterical or completely illogical.

She drew in a slow, steadying breath. A breath meant to bring her back to herself and the cool calm she’d spent a lifetime forming.

Indignation stained his cheeks. “How dare you speak to me thusly.”

You are nothing but a bog-trotting Irishwoman.

He hadn’t said the words, but they spiked the air nonetheless. Why had he even hired her if he was going to contradict her now? But she wasn’t surprised. It was inevitable. The family of whoever she was treating became terrified that their loved one would not recover and would lash out at
her
. It always happened.

Still, her brother’s words echoed in her head,
crushed by their English privilege
. She had to recall this wasn’t about Carlyle assuming he was superior, but rather about his fear for his son.

She forced a conciliatory smile to her lips. A smile that often won hardened old lords, angry mothers, and resentful wives. “I understand how important you are, how important your son is to you. But you’ve brought me into your son’s life to help him, and I thought we had an understanding.” She waved her hand up toward the ivory-painted ceiling, indicating James’s room. “That I would oversee his care.”

“Certainly,” Carlyle conceded, his head nodding quickly, the silver of it shining in the firelight, but then he gruffed, “But there must be stipulations.”

A strange sense of dread shimmied down her spine. She’d been so certain he had desperately cared for his son, wishing only his recovery . . . But now? She’d met hardheaded men who thought they knew best before. She’d left their service. It would be far more difficult to leave if Carlyle proved to be such a man. “Such as?”

The earl took a sip of brandy, his eyes askance. “He is not to go into public until . . . until he can conduct himself in a seemly manner.”

“I agree. It wouldn’t serve him to have another episode. Yet I must ask . . .” She took a step forward, determined to not appear weak. To make him understand she couldn’t be bullied. “What defines ‘seemly,’ exactly?”

“None of his rudeness may remain. His insidious way of speaking is clearly part of his illness.” He waved his brandy glass, then peered down at its empty bowl and immediately poured himself another, larger glass. “A certain degree of arrogance is expected, even desired, but many of his opinions are offensive.”

The earl closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed, pain flashing over his features. “Surely that is a significant part of whatever is ailing him. So many of the sentiments he expresses . . . They are sheer insanity.” He opened his eyes, despair shining in them. “No son of mine in his right mind would utter them, don’t you see?”

She’d never given any sort of consideration to her new husband’s ideologies, and as tempting as it was to ask the earl what they were, she would wait and find them out from James. She had little doubt the old man would skew his son’s beliefs, since he so clearly didn’t understand them. And though many doctors would, she wouldn’t give credence to the idea that opinions made a man mad. Too many people had been shunted out of society for their inconvenient beliefs. “Are you asking me to change his personality?” she asked tentatively.

“Don’t be foolish,” he drawled. And for a moment, his gaze softened. Something of the loving father she had seen before merged to the surface. “I am simply stating that those traits that are a part of his . . . ailment be corrected.”

The change in him was so astonishing. One moment hard, unyielding, a bastard of the old guard, and the next, vulnerable and exposed. She supposed it shouldn’t be surprising. Powers was his son, and he loved his son, but he loathed much about the actual man. “You’re a most confusing person, my lord.”

“Am I?”

Here was the moment. The moment she attempted to have complete honesty between them. It would be a grand risk, but she had to try. “I’m not entirely sure you wish what is best for your son, but rather what is best for you.”

His gaze grew guarded, lacing all the vulnerability right back up. “That is an exceptionally insolent thing to say.”

“Blame it on my Irishness,” she teased, praying that she could coax back out that earlier openness so that he truly could be of assistance to his son and her endeavors to assist them both. “We’re downright stubborn. Many of your people think us mules.”

“Mules serve a very useful purpose.” The words came out in sharp, staccato beats from his gritted jaw. “As will you. It is what I am paying you for, after all.”

She drew in a sharp breath through her nose, counting to three. Men like him were quite common. Land-owning men in Ireland often thought their tenants less valuable than the sheep and cows who ate the grass in the fields. And yet she was sure he truly did care about his son. She’d seen it, and she had to remember that, lest she yank his glass from his fist and toss its contents in his face.

One thing was ultimately clear: he didn’t actually give a damn about her people. He offered to help them strictly to gain her assistance and aid to his son.

He took a long swallow, downing half the glass before he pointed a finger at her. “You will not give him any more morphine. I agree with him and will support his wishes in this even if you will not. In regards to all else, you shall have free rein, within reason, of course.”

And that was key, the fact that the old man agreed. If he hadn’t, she wondered if he would be so supportive of James’s choice.

“When we spoke before, you agreed to give me complete autonomy.”

His upper lip curled with revulsion. “It never occurred to me that you would . . . act with such dubious means.” He wiped his free hand over his mouth, and his shoulders relaxed under the fine cut of his charcoal coat. His movements became muddied as he took another drink, siphoning the brandy until once again the snifter was empty. “Now, I know you can save my son, but you will not do something so shocking again without my consultation.” He weaved slightly as he went for the bottle again. “You understand?”

The shock that uncurled through her nearly dropped her mouth open. She could hardly believe what he was saying. What was happening. The Earl of Carlyle was getting drunk, arguing about his son’s reliance upon morphine. The irony was almost too much. “Perhaps I haven’t been clear about what he will undergo if I immediately cut—”

“You have made yourself plain, young woman. But this shall be best for him in the long run.” He pointed that finger at her again, waving it. Assuring whom, it was impossible to tell. “The men of our family are strong.”

“This has nothing to do with strength, and I don’t wish to see him—”

“I will argue this no further.” The veins in his neck, just above his starched cravat, pulsed. A dangerous red tint was warming his face.

Margaret studied the slight sheen of sweat on his brow and the fervor in his eyes. Perhaps he truly was ill, or at least facing the weaknesses that came with age. But that was no excuse to put his son through the hell that was imminent if she didn’t
wean
him off the morphine. “Then you will be answerable to his sufferings, not I.”

“Suffering is but a means to perfection.”

She gaped. Suffering was but a means to suffering. It did nothing. For anyone. But what could she say now? She’d married Powers under the belief that she could do as she wished. Now it seemed that she should have gotten every bit of it in writing. More fool she for believing the man would do all to assist his son. Clearly, in his misguided beliefs, he thought himself to be doing just that. It was the only thing that kept her from storming out of the room . . . and the fact she would never abandon Powers, infuriating man that he was, to his father’s ill-advised care. But there was one thing they had to be clear on, or all this was for naught. “And as to my funds and your assistance of my brother?”

He sniffed, the talk of money now beneath him. “They’ve been deposited into an account for you. My man will discuss the details and terms soon. Your brother and any pro-Irish bill will take finer consideration.”

Had he heard anything? Had anyone in London? She was going to have to tell the earl, and soon, that her brother was a wanted man. She thanked God that he hadn’t known before the wedding. He might not have so readily offered to be of assistance in such a case.

She stared at the hard-faced, swaying older man.

Where was the desperation? Where was the brokenhearted father she’d glimpsed just days ago in the asylum? Who was this stony-hearted lord in his place? In a way, he reminded her of Powers, hiding behind a mask to protect the vulnerabilities he’d buried deep within.

He raised his glass and declared, “I will have my son back again, and it will be soon.”

She prayed for all their sakes that it would be as soon as he wished.

•   •   •

Matthew lingered outside the Cat and Lantern for several moments, studying the passersby, wondering how humanity could descend into such a teeming mass of destruction. In Ireland, there had been the staggering human corpses, the walking dead just barely holding on to their last breaths and those they loved, and many the lord who didn’t view the Irish as humans at all. Therefore no real loss and perhaps a blessing to the world that so many should perish.

But it had never in a month of Sundays been like this. Now, he’d not once been to Dublin Town, so perhaps it was just as evil, but he hoped not. He hoped that his beloved country didn’t take part in this sort of human misery.

Because of his extensive reading, he knew what the sores on the faces of the begging children meant. He knew how short their lives would be and the pain they would always be in. And Christ, half the women over thirty—if you could even manage to make out their true age—life had so hardened them. They too had the marks upon their faces, covered up with powder, but visible all the same. They’d not be long for the profession . . . Or they’d be working for only the lowest of the low. Men who didn’t care if they had the pox . . . because they had it too and worse.

His stomach turned.

He, Matthew Cassidy, was about something different. Something grand. He was about changing this godforsaken world and the devils who ran it.

There had been a time when he’d hoped, like his father before him, that due process would change things. That if the Irish lords who cared went to London and pled their case before the House, they could at long last convince them that Ireland was worthy of more than the crush of a boot. The absolute failure of their petitions had convinced him that there was only one way that Ireland could find prosperity.

Total destruction of the parliamentary system that ran the most tyrannical state in all the world.

Once the English were gone from Ireland, they could start fresh. Build everything back as God had intended. All these people, maybe even the English peasants, could know happiness and not have to fear cholera, violence, and starvation day after day without their high lords controlling every aspect of their wee lives. And children could grow without the fear of having to sell themselves just to buy a bit of bread or meat not good enough for dogs.