A Dangerous Beauty (16 page)

Oh God, someone had broken Ata’s hand. Not for a moment did she think it was Luc. It wasn’t even remotely possible. “Who was Lucifer?” she whispered, not daring to meet his eyes.

“I am,” he said it in a tone which defied her to refute him.

The rain beat hard against the panes, water sluiced through the eaves in a rushing noise. “Don’t be ridiculous. Was that your father’s name, too?”

“Barbas Henry St. Aubyn,” he replied.

“And your grandfather’s name?”

“One guess, and I’ll think you a simpleton if you’re wrong,” he said, an odd glint in his eye.

Anger pooled in her fingertips. “Did you know? Did you know he did this to her?”

“Henry and I deduced the truth, although we weren’t fool enough to discuss it with anyone else. It wouldn’t have changed anything if we had, as our dear grandfather possessed the good sense to die before either of us was born.”

“But why…” She tried to think.

“Haven’t you guessed? Generations of St. Aubyn barbarians killed their neighbors for their property, raped the land, hurt their women, and generally enjoyed themselves immensely in the process. There was a reason they were given the title Helston.” The storm was on top of them and it was as if God was warning her to take seriously the namesake of the fallen archangel.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“You’re a fool if you’re not. I’m trying to warn you. Helston is the infamous stone covering the gateway to the underworld right here in Cornwall, although in my opinion we were ever and always in the devil’s inner circle rather than hovering above it.”

“You
are
trying to scare me.” She shook her head. “You know, I’ve never believed in superstitions. Perhaps it’s because I tired of Sylvia’s proverbs. But more so because I always accumulated misfortune no matter how much good luck I practiced. Your stories don’t frighten me. The only question is why you feel it necessary to warn me of the evil Helston past.”

“Because the past has a remarkable ability to color the present, as well you know.”

“Perhaps.”

“And because man is too stupid, for the most part, to deviate from what he knows.”

“There, you’re utterly wrong.”

He crossed his arms and offered her his blackest expression. “I had thought living with the delightful Baird cousins would’ve cured your more ardent romantic notions.”

“You’re the most cynical gentleman of my acquaintance, and yet probably the finest man I have ever—”

Rosamunde rushed forward when she saw him sway. Even in the dim light she could see he was pale, despite his bronzed features. “Whatever is the matter?” She didn’t wait for an answer, instead forcing him to sit on Ata’s bed.

“Wait,” he said between clenched teeth. “It’ll pass.”

Panic crept in on silent feet and clutched at her hands. “Luc, I suppose I should warn you I’m not a very good nurse.”

“So now you tell me.” He swallowed. “Not very sporting of you, as I’ve just sent the others away.”

“Devil’s rules.” She licked her dry lips nervously. “You taught me well. So perhaps you’d better not take ill. You’re just fatigued. I’m certain.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she was.

He flexed his fingers and they stared at the redness radiating on the backs of his hands. “It’s the damnedest thing. Like pins and needles, only different.” He
shivered and then looked pained. “It always amazes me how a great many things can go wrong in the shortest span of time. But then, a wedding always brings disaster in its wake.”

He stood up and swayed again.

“I think you’d better lie down.”

“Advice from the wretched nurse?” he mumbled.

“Advice from someone who is fairly certain she won’t be able to lift you if you faint.”

He gripped his head. “Ata—”

“Ata will be watched,” she interrupted. “I’ll stay with her.”

“Or perhaps Grace. She’s an exceptional caregiver.”

Rosamunde tried not to feel slighted.

She reached under his broad shoulder and he suddenly slumped against her, his weight staggering. Were there any footmen left? With stark clarity she remembered Mrs. Simms’s dragging in the copper hipbath and making Cornish oaths about cowardly male servants afraid of a silly cold.

She looked up into his eyes and he attempted a lopsided version of his devilish grin but failed miserably, his face sagging. “’Fraid my—my legs aren’t working properly. Can’t—”

“Shhh…just tell me where your apartments are.” Rosamunde half dragged Luc out the door, until he pointed at the chamber next to her own.

What?
“Don’t tell me you’ve been next door all this time?”

“You’re not going to warm my ears now, are you?” He mumbled, nearly unintelligible.

“Your timing has always been impeccable,” she said under her breath. “You had better not be faking…”

He shuttered his eyes.

“You’re faking, aren’t you?”

“I have renewed appreciation for your dear husband. I—I think I’d better—”

And then his head lolled back and Rosamunde was forced to use every last ounce of strength she possessed to kick open the door and stumble toward his massive dark mahogany bed. When she fell onto the goose-down coverlet carrying him, the enormity of the situation hit her.

He might die.

She looked at her hands and they were trembling. She would think about the possibility in one hour. That’s what she would do. Never let it be said she couldn’t follow her own excellent advice.

But he could die
. She almost wailed.

She tried to collect her thoughts. She would call for cold water and compresses. She sprang up toward the rope pull, and then remembered Ata hadn’t had a fever and had hated the compresses. She sat back down and touched his forehead. It was as dry and cool as her own. She used the last of her strength to pull back the thick eider-down duvet, lift his legs onto the bed, and push him toward the center.

His lids moved. “Ata…” he groaned.

She jumped. “Right. I’ll get help.”

As she rushed down the myriad staircases to the bowels of the house, forgetting all about bell cords and such instruments of modernity, a black feeling of
dread coursed through her. It wasn’t the first time she had felt alone, but it was the first time it scared her all the way down to her toes and back.

The refined splendor of Grace Sheffey waited at the kitchen door, a silver tea service in her capable hands. Never had Rosamunde felt so grateful or so incompetent.

Weaknesses,
n. pl.
Certain primal powers of Tyrant Woman wherewith she holds dominion over the male of her species, binding him to the service of her will and paralyzing his rebellious energies.

—The Devil’s Dictionary, A. Bierce

I
t was the worst feeling in the world, trying to hang on to consciousness when the blissful threads of sleep or something else wound themselves in and around the edges of Luc’s vision. It would be so easy to let go…to a place that promised peace.

But something nagged at the corners of his mind, and he couldn’t give in to stupor. A new small, agonized voice whispered in his psyche…“
He hurts. Mustn’t tell. Mustn’t tell Luc…”
He jerked back into his skin. It felt like a battalion of ants was performing marching drills on his extremities. He shivered and he
could have sworn that even his teeth wobbled. He was sicker than a green recruit in his first storm and a hell of a lot more uneasy.

For Ata. For Rosamunde. Hell, for all the widows.

He groaned as he remembered the insane promise Ata had forced from him—marriage and an heir. Damnation, he would never be able to accomplish it. Perhaps one but not the other. The one woman who was a remote possibility clearly could not fulfill Ata’s fondest wish.

A low melodic voice floated into his brain.
Her voice
. The voice of reason—and goodness. Must hold on to it…

The vision of Rodger St. Aubyn drifted through his thoughts. His blasé fourth cousin thrice removed stood next in line to wrest the duchy from his shoulders. He’d never considered the chance of dying before Ata. He’d be damned if he’d allow that effeminate wastrel to take control and consign Ata to some pathetic dowager’s ruin on the edge of nowhere with a ha’penny quarterly allowance. Why, the last time he’d seen his cousin, at the ripe old age of fifteen, the young fop had been beggaring his addlepated father into an early grave.

Just before one of the longest days and nights of his life gave up the ghost, Luc wondered at the cursed absurdity of his last thoughts on this green earth being of his feckless relation instead of the winsome Rosamunde Baird in the throes of newfound passion. God certainly had more of the sense of the ridiculous than he had previously thought. Perhaps
there was some hope for his tarnished soul after all.

The soft oblivion of helplessness enveloped him despite his desperate grab for more time.

He awoke, simmering in uncertainty and confusion. He had no idea if he had slept for several hours or a fortnight. The ill ease of not knowing exactly where he was prickled down his spine and he wished for a candle since he couldn’t see a blasted thing in the pitch of night. With a curse he fumbled for the nightstand as he slid his feet to the side of the bed and attempted to stand. A dizzying wave reeled through his head and he sat back down quickly.

“Luc,” a woman’s hoarse voice whispered nearby.

He felt about with his hands. Nothing. “Rosamunde?” he croaked.

“Thank God,” came her reverent whisper. He felt the side of the bed sag under her weight and a cool hand found his.

“How long have I been—”

“About two days.”

“Ata…” he said suddenly, his heart pounding.

“Is much, much better,” she finished. “I just left her. It’s you we’ve been worried about. The doctor has been here several times. You keep shivering but have no fever.”

“You’ve been with me all this time.” It was a statement for he knew the answer. Another wave of dizziness swept through his frame and he sank deep into the bedcovers.

She touched his brow.

“I thought you said you were a wretched nurse.”

“I am. My only other patient died.”

Her miserable husband.
He would have laughed if he had had the strength. Right now he felt rather like the fires of hell had left their mark on every inch of his hide. He groped for the glass of water that was always within reach on his bedside table.

“Here you go,” she said softly.

His hands clutched at the glass and he drank long and deep, emptying it. “Light a candle, would you?” he asked and sighed.

A dark silence descended, the kind of stillness that claws at the brain. “Rosamunde?” Why wasn’t she fumbling about, scratching at the tinderbox, illuminating the heavy veil of night?

A flutter of air fanned his face and he instinctively reached and grasped her wrist. “Rosamunde?” he asked more harshly.

“Luc, close your eyes. I’d forgotten.” An edge of panic laced her fragmented speech. “The doctor. He said to wrap cloth about your head, that your eyes would be sensitive to light.”

“You’re lying. Light a candle.”

“Luc, let me put this—”

A band of fabric touched his face and he pushed it away roughly. “
Don’t you ever…
Light a candle, I say.” He reached for his nightstand, glad to feel the familiar edges of the table in his room.

“But it’s full day.” Her voice cracked awkwardly. “There’s no need.”

Vicious, evil torment snaked through him and cur
dled his senses. A deep chill welled in the pit of his stomach. “I can’t see a damn thing.” And then the truth needled him as painfully as the burning on his hands and feet.

He was blind.

“Tell me—precisely,” he ground out, “what the doctor told you. And if you’ve a notion to dissemble, think again.”

She rushed on, “He doesn’t know what this illness is. It seems to have affected everyone similarly but with a few variations.”

“And?” he nearly shouted, the blood pounding in his head.

“And Ata is weak, but improving. She still has tingling in her hands. She said her teeth felt loose. No one has had a fever. It’s definitely not the plague. The undercook is almost on her feet.”

“And is anyone else
blind
?” he roared.

“No,” she whispered so softly it almost sounded like a sigh.

“Damn you, Rosamunde. If I can’t see, the least you could do is speak up.”

“No,” she said louder. “Although I haven’t any reports from the neighbors who took ill. I’ll send someone or ride out as soon as you say.”

“Go.” He turned his head away. “No, wait. Have Grace write a letter, and Brownie—is he still here?”

“Yes,” she assured him.

Tell him to carry a letter to Dr. Davis at the Royal College of Physicians in town. Tell him to come. To…” He couldn’t force another word from his lips. Thank
God Rosamunde didn’t touch him, didn’t try to comfort him. He might very well do bodily harm to anyone who would dare, except his bones felt like they had turned to jelly.

“I’m going. I promise Mr. Brown will find the doctor and I’ll bring news from the neighbors myself.” Her voice came from afar, her steps on the floorboards echoing behind.

The door shut and with it went any sanity he still possessed. He ground his fists into his eye sockets until shards of light should have appeared. Nothing.

Bloody nothing
.

It had always been his greatest fear. The memories of his father’s method of punishment had played on that terror. And now it all vividly filtered through his mind. His father, calling him a damned weakling, taking away his books, blindfolding him, forbidding him to remove the cloth for a full day. For two days the next time he was caught, and then three days the last time. He had begun to take heed when his father started burning the books each time he was caught spending more than an hour a day with his nose between the pages. And so he had learned.

He had learned to carry a pair of spurs or a light sword with him, always pretending to be on the hunt for his brother to ride or fence should his father come upon him. And he had learned all the blood sports from his brother for good measure, in exchange for writing Henry’s papers at Eton.

He was paralyzed.

Fear rooted around in his brain and trickled down
cold to the base of his skull. The inability to see the words on a page, the inability to dip a quill in the black sap of civilization. It was the very thing that brought light to the world. There was nothing that could compare to reading or writing a combination of words that formed the perfect thought. He had brought the mountains and valleys of the world into his small yacht cabin or the tragedies of the kings of lost centuries into his study. And he could create them.

But now.

But now…

Now he was lost.

He would rather be—

A barely audible knock sounded at the door. It was too soon for her return.

“Go away,” he shouted.

She rode like a gypsy, not bothering to put on a hat or a cloak. She had ordered saddled the largest, strongest animal in the stable, a stallion that had apparently bolted from his owner’s paddock and had appeared yesterday at Amberley, trying to tear down one of the stall doors in an effort to get at the mare behind it. The horse’s mood suited her perfectly.

The young stable hand’s eyes bugged out as Rosamunde gathered her skirts and mounted astride, showing more leg than the boy had probably seen in his lifetime. The animal reared slightly, then broke into a dead run down the estate’s wide tree-lined lane, which spilled into the main cart path toward the village. He skidded around the curve and bucked his displeasure,
sending a spray of muddy gravel into the hedgerow.

She leaned forward as the massive shoulders of the animal collected beneath her to jump a largish puddle of water from the rains that had flooded the countryside for the past two days. It was the first time she’d been outside, and the crisp clean Cornish air filled her lungs, forcing out the bitter smells of the sickroom.

Each time her mind dared touch upon the man who lay helpless in the growing distance behind her, she spurred the horse forward.

God couldn’t, wouldn’t be so cruel.

Oh, but he could.
He would.

She forced her mind to map out the fastest circuit to the village green and the three nearest neighboring estates who had reported the illness within their confines. The blurred edges of the whitewashed houses of the town came into her line of vision, and she pulled the horse back into a trot as she made her way to the smithy.

Within half an hour, Rosamunde had gone ’round to all the cottages occupied by the people who had attended the wedding. There was not a single report of blindness. For once in her life, she had held her head up high on her quest for answers despite the whispers plaguing her back at every encounter. She knew she should care. She always had in the past. But really, truly for once, she didn’t care what these people thought of her.

Mrs. Murch and her sister, two village spinsters, had averted their eyes before one said to their only servant, “We don’t know this person. Please have them leave.”

The spineless creature had cringed when Rosamunde had shaken an answer about the illness from her.

And so it went. Rosamunde galloped between the far-flung estates, crossing the patchwork of fields filled with bare-armed laborers reassembling storm-tossed haycocks. The stallion’s flanks became lathered while her own mouth became dry and her confidence shriveled as she became less and less sure there would be any positive news. She traveled over hills she knew from her girlhood, not seen for almost a decade, and she felt heavyhearted yet free, like the falcons soaring on an updraft over Kynance Cove.

And she felt like crying for the years she had wasted as a cowardly recluse, digging—constantly digging in her garden as if she could crawl away to the other side of the world to get away from the hurt of her father’s abandonment and the horrid life she had made. And now just when she was making new memories and on the precipice of a different life for herself, she was forced to witness the new hellish cage of the very person who had freed her.

Tears coursed down her cheeks. She would not cry in his presence. She would not show an ounce of pity for him. Receiving sympathy was the most detestable feeling on earth. It carved chasms. She should know.

In a burst of courage, she grappled the reins and turned toward her first home.
Edgecumbe
. The home of her heart, her blood, her very spirit.

He
would know what to do. “Father,” she pushed the word into the wind rushing past her face. It was
the word she had thought she would never be able to utter in his presence again. Today, she would taste it once more. “Father, help me,” she moaned again while she nudged the horse beyond the ancient Celtic stones flanking the entrance to Edgecumbe.

She didn’t care if he didn’t love her anymore. She didn’t care if he tried to refuse to see her. She didn’t care if he humiliated her. But he would help her. She would make him help her. For him.
For Luc
.

The audacity of her action became very real when she jumped off the horse and faced a stable hand she didn’t recognize. She handed him the reins and brushed her cheeks with the backs of her bare hands. She could only guess how hoydenish she must appear.

The normally imperturbable family butler, Mr. Shepherd, opened the door and Rosamunde’s nerve faltered when she encountered his expression.

“Good day, Shepherd. Is my fa—my brother receiving?” Oh, she wasn’t making any sense. No one would ever ask if their own brother was receiving. It sounded so very ridiculous.

“Which one?” he responded before quickly glancing behind him and rushing on. “Lady Rosamunde, may I be permitted to say how very glad I am to see you? Do come in.” He grabbed her arm and nearly dragged her inside as if he was afraid she would run away. He began muttering as he always had in the past. “I told him…you must want tea…I’ll return in a trice.”

She was almost flung into the library. Truly, it was amazing old Mr. Shepherd had this kind of strength
at his age. She took a deep breath and her sensibilities reeled from the scents of the past. Her father’s pipe tobacco, the heather and sage eau de toilette, even the same slight tinge of lemon wax hung in the air. She very nearly gave in to her panic until she spied a young girl peeking at her from the crack in the doorway.

“And who might you be?”

The little girl widened her eyes but stood her ground. “You first.”

Rosamunde stifled a nervous snort. “Rosamunde Baird.”

“Oh my.” The girl’s eyes rounded even further. “You’re her.”

“You’re
she
.”

“What? I am not her.”

“No. I mean you should have said ‘she.’ ‘You’re she.’”