A Dark Heart (21 page)

“Let’s get out of here,” Rowan said, pushing him towards the alley’s
entrance.

Elijah obeyed numbly, following Rowan and Miss Bartholomew into the
Covent Garden throng. The vibrant sights and raucous sounds passed by in a blur
as Rowan steered him towards a stand of hacks. Rowan hired one and waited for
Miss Bartholomew to climb inside first. He began to mount the wooden steps behind
her but paused halfway up when he saw Elijah making no move to follow.

“Elijah, let’s go back to the townhouse,” Rowan said, holding out his
hand, as if coaxing a child. “You can tell us what happened when we get there,
and we can sort out what to do next.”

Elijah stared unseeingly down the street. “Nothing to tell,” he said
flatly. “Ehrengard wants the boy, and O’Connor’s too scared of him to do
anything but what he’s been ordered to do.”

“Surely there’s more. Something happened back there…”

“Nothing happened,” he said quickly, his stomach souring as every moment
of his encounter with O’Connor swirled through his mind yet again.
The best
lay I ever had
. “Go on without me.”

Rowan stepped completely out of the hack and frowned at him in concern.
“What shall I tell Lady Christiana, then?”

He groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands, as if that could somehow
erase the worst of the memories from his brain. “I can’t do this, Rowan. I
can’t be what she needs. I
can’t
…”

Rowan sighed. “I should have never let you go in there alone. What the
devil did he say to you, Elijah?”

He couldn’t bear to think about it, much less recount it. They stood
together on the street corner in silence as the world passed them by. He didn’t
know what Rowan wanted from him, but he knew he couldn’t get into that hack,
and he couldn’t return to Ana. Not now. Perhaps not ever. O’Connor’s words had
brought home just how disgusting and unredeemable his past was. He could never
let her know the truth. He could never bear to see the look on her face.

“Elijah, I’m the one who found you that night,” Rowan said quietly,
gently, some time later. “After the fire. It wasn’t the Metropolitan Police at
all. It was I. You were the only survivor I could find, and I brought you to
the Earl’s.”

Elijah turned to face Rowan, a shiver of dread passing down his spine.
“What are you saying?”

Rowan’s amber eyes were so bloody compassionate Elijah wanted to claw
them out in his shame and horror. “I know what sort of place that was. I know
what you must have been, what O’Connor must have done to you, Elijah,” Rowan
said.

Elijah couldn’t breathe at all anymore. He had to get away. Far away.

Rowan put a hand on his forearm, stilling his flight. “Easy, Elijah. I
won’t tell Christiana. But
you
must. Stop destroying yourself, and stop
destroying her.”

Elijah shook his head. “
That
will destroy her,” he said hoarsely.

“When I said you didn’t deserve her,
this
is what I meant,” Rowan
said bitterly. “She deserves someone who loves her enough – who
believes
in her enough – to trust her. Your opinion of her can not be
very high, if you think she’d turn from you once she knows the truth.”

“That’s not it at all,” Elijah protested, even though he knew deep down
Rowan was right. He had uncovered Elijah’s most secret fear, the one Elijah had
not even known about himself until today.

“Then prove me wrong, Elijah,” Rowan urged. “Love her as she deserves,
and leave the past where it belongs.”

Elijah backed away from Rowan’s outstretched hand, shaking all over like
he was still six years old.

The best lay I ever had.

What had he been thinking this morning? How could he have even for one
moment believed he could have Ana as his own?

“I don’t know if I can. Not after today. I want O’Connor dead. That is
all I am certain of anymore,” he said, and before Rowan could witness his
complete breakdown, he turned away and faded into the crowd.

THE moment
Christiana saw Rowan’s face, she knew something was wrong. He came into the
Romanovs’ drawing room where she’d been pacing for half the afternoon, his
clothes torn and his expression bleak. Her heart sank to her knees when Elijah
never appeared in his wake.

“What happened?” she demanded, jumping up from her seat. “Where is
Elijah?”

Rowan strode to Sasha’s sideboard and poured himself a tall shot of
Russian vodka and tossed it back. He took two more in quick succession before
he seemed composed enough to turn around and face her.

“What is it? Were you attacked?” she asked.

He gave her an odd look. “Not precisely.”

“What does that
mean
? Please tell me Elijah is not…”

Rowan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He was alive last I saw
him. He took off after he talked to O’Connor.”

“And you let him go?”

“What was I supposed to do? Haul him back here over my shoulder? We would
have torn each other to pieces. I could not reason with him.”

“I must find him,” she said, starting for the door.

“Tell me he’s worth it, Christiana,” he said, his desperate words stopping
her flight. “Tell me you love him unconditionally.”

“How can you even ask that?”

“No matter what he tells you, no matter what has happened in the past?”
he demanded urgently.

“Of course I do!” she cried.

“Then make him talk to you when you find him,” he said cryptically. “Make
him tell you everything.”

She stared at him in surprise as his words sank in. “You’re not going to
try and stop me from going to him?”

“Could I?” he asked with an arched brow. She shook her head, and he
smiled wryly. “I didn’t think so. I still think you’re out of your mind, but I
want you to be happy. Perhaps one day you will be, with him.”

God, she hoped so too. She blinked away her tears and started out the
door.

“But this can’t continue forever, Tia,” Rowan said to her back. “You
can’t keep running after him trying to put him back together again. He must fix
himself
if this has any chance of ever working.”

Rowan was right. After this morning, and the tentative understanding they
had reached, she had begun to cautiously hope she and Elijah had a future
together. Even though she’d been uncomfortable with Elijah’s reasoning – claiming
that he only wanted to live because of her, for instance – she’d thought
it had been a step in the right direction at the very least. But her fragile
hope had begun to wither the moment the rest of the world had intruded. She’d
noticed Elijah’s slow drift from her over the course of the morning, his
growing restlessness, and the way he’d left the townhouse at the first
opportunity, as if he couldn’t wait to escape her company.

She knew she should have tried harder to make him stay, but there had
been no opportunity to coax him back to her before he was out the door. She had
a feeling she wouldn’t have succeeded anyway. When it came to Nick O’Connor,
Elijah seemed to lose all sense of proportion.

She found Matthews in the kitchens with Fyodor and the Bartholomew clan
and pulled him aside, briefly explaining the situation. With every word she
spoke, his expression grew heavier and heavier.

“’E’s gone back to his flat, I’d wager,” Matthews said dismally, shaking
his head. “Chasin’ the dragon again.”

She didn’t want to believe Matthews was right, but she was thinking the
same thing all the way across the city in Matthews’ borrowed police steamcart. Elijah’s
dependency on the morphine was too strong to be changed overnight, and if he
was upset, he was even more likely to turn back to the drug.

She’d never been to Elijah’s flat, but she’d been into the East End a
number of times. Whitechapel was a far cry from the spacious, almost sterile
environs of Mayfair, but it wasn’t anything new to her. When they arrived at
Elijah’s neighborhood on the far eastern side of the district, however, she was
unprepared for the squalid desolation that greeted her as she exited the
steamcart.

How broken he must be inside to live in such a place
, she thought
to herself forlornly, as she entered Elijah’s building and began the long,
steep climb to the top, where Matthews had directed her. When she arrived at
Elijah’s door, she knocked and waited, then knocked again, her pulse skittering
in her veins. There was no guarantee he was there, or that he would even answer
if he was, but she’d not leave until she knew for sure.

Just as she was about to return to the steamcart to elicit Matthews’ help
in breaking into the flat, however, the knob turned, and the door slowly swung
inwards, revealing Elijah in nothing but his shirtsleeves, a dead expression in
his eyes. He didn’t even react to seeing her, merely stood to one side as she
entered the room, staring sightlessly beyond her.

She’d always wondered what his flat would look like. Now she knew. Like
the barrenness of his soul, the room was spartan, primitive at best. The
furniture was ancient, dusty, and broken. Books scattered about the room, the
only sign that someone actually lived there. No pictures adorned the walls or tabletops,
no possessions cluttered the shelves.

She wondered how anyone could live like this, without a single comfort,
without joy. She turned to him. He was still standing by the door, watching
her, a dark, detached look in his eyes, and her heart sank. Any progress they’d
made that morning was gone. He’d retreated from her, and from the way he’d
rolled the cuff of one sleeve past his elbows, he was ready to flee straight
back into the morphine oblivion she’d tried so hard to keep him from.

Furious, trembling, beyond caring about breaking him, she went to him and
seized his arm, looking for fresh marks. She could see nothing in the dim
light, so she took his head in her hands.

“Look at me!” she demanded.

With reluctance, with clear resentment, he complied. His mismatched eyes
were weary and still unnervingly aloof from her, but his pupils were undilated.
He hadn’t taken the drug … yet.

“Where is the morphine, Elijah?” she said quietly.

He tore away from her and sat down on an old stool next to a table with three
legs. He shook his head but said nothing.

“It is why you came here,” she insisted. She walked around the flat,
throwing the drawers open, searching every corner. She went to the wardrobe and
rifled through the pockets of his clothes, unable to hide her fury. He sat
watching her, blackly silent, while she tore apart his flat.

She found nothing.

“You’ve hidden it,” she said, rounding on him.

“No.”

“Then why are you here? What happened today? Why did you run away?”

“Run away!” he scowled. “You make me sound like a child.”

“You’re acting like one,” she retorted.

Then she saw it. Underneath a stack of newspapers on the three-legged
table. Hastily, clumsily concealed. Elijah’s expression hardened when he
realized she’d spotted it, but he didn’t even bother stopping her when she
reached for the glass vial.

A low wail escaped her lips. She couldn’t help herself. She’d known what
she’d find when she set out for his flat, yet holding the vial in her hand made
her failure real.

She met his angry, self-loathing eyes. “How could you? After everything?”
she cried.

He looked at the vial with a hungry expression in his eyes, a pulse of
amber fire flashing quickly through them. For a moment, she thought he would
jump across the table and try to take it back from her. It was enough to break
her heart.

But he didn’t move. Some horrible internal battle seemed to grip him
until at last he leaned over the tabletop and buried his head in his arms, as
if he’d simply given up.

“I don’t understand it,” she murmured. “I thought you were … better.
Happy, even, this morning.”

His fingers clawed through his hair, his shoulders began to tremble, and
for a horrible moment she thought he was crying. But it was even worse. He was
laughing
.

“Happy? Happy?” he scoffed. “It is torture. You
torture
me, with
your damned …
virtue
, your damned self-righteous crusade to save me.”

She gripped the vial into her fist, tried to hold her tears at bay. “It’s
because I love you.”

“If you knew what I really am, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to save me.
You wouldn’t
love
me.” He nearly choked on the last couple of words.

“I’d never stop trying, Elijah,” she said quietly.

He groaned as if in agony and covered his face with his hands. “I can’t
bear this anymore!” he cried.

“What is it? What is it that torments you?”

“Besides you?” he snarled.

She went to him, placing the vial on the table, and grabbed his hands,
pulling them away from his face. “Tell me, Elijah. Just tell me,” she said
gently.

His snarl dissolved into a look of desperation. He shook his head, shut
his eyes as if to block out the world. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“Why? Tell me why?” she demanded.

“Because I’m afraid. Afraid and ashamed!” he cried hoarsely, trembling
all over from the admission.

 “Why are you ashamed? For the past?”

He nodded hesitantly.

“But I know, Elijah,” she said softly.

“What do you know?” he snapped, pushing her hands away, averting his eyes.

“I know you were on the streets before you came to Llewellyn House. I
know you must have suffered.”

He was silent for a long time. “You don’t know anything about it,” he
said at last in a dead voice.

She wanted to shout at him that she did. She knew a great deal about
suffering, for she had suffered for two decades loving a man who didn’t even
see her. Who
wouldn’t
see her, name her, love her like he should. And
she wanted to know
why
.

“Then tell me. Explain to me what happened to you.”

“My mother was a whore,” he said venomously. “I was born in a brothel.
Raised in one. The only memory I have of her was watching her bleed to death
after she tried to get rid of another bastard growing inside of her. I don’t
even remember her face. Just the blood.”

She felt sick. “Elijah…”

“I hated her. I still hate her. She left me alone in hell.”

She felt chilled by the barrenness of his voice, the blankness of his
expression. She wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, but she knew that to
touch him now would be a mistake. He had retreated deep inside of himself.

He toyed with the vial standing between them with trembling fingers. At
last he looked up at her. His eyes were desperate, his jaw rigid.

“Do you want to know my shame, my lady?” he asked mockingly. “Do you
truly want to know the monster you’ve been helping?”

“What shame could you feel for what your mother was? You cannot choose
who gives birth to you. You aren’t your mother, Elijah.”

He jerked his hand through the air in fierce dissent. “No,” he said
tersely. “I
was.
I was
just
like my mother.”

A growing dread began seeping over her mind, over her soul. “What are you
saying?” she cried.

With a startling abruptness, he stood and crossed to the only window in
the flat, staring out into the gray afternoon, bracing his arms on the sill,
his shoulders stooped. It was a long time before the words came, words she was
not sure she wanted to hear after all, once they started.

“After my mother died, her …
procurer
… took an interest in me.
Eventually sold me to men with a certain predilection. Do you know what that
means, my lady?” he said bitterly.

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move. She could do nothing but stand
there mutely, tears streaming down her face.

“Oh, I was good at it. I was a pretty boy,” he said caustically, not
daring to turn to her. “I suppose I must have looked like my mother. The whores
all said she was a great beauty. Do you know what it is like, to see a monster
every time you look in the mirror?”

“You were only a child…” she began helplessly.

“My childhood ended when I was six and Nick O’Connor raped me for the
first time,” he said flatly.

“My God! My God!” she breathed.

“I remained O’Connor’s …
property
for two years. Two years of
debasement. He would not give me anything – no morsel of bread, no stitch
of clothing – unless I
earned
it. And did I ever earn it. With
him. With the men he sold me to. He held my life in his hands, and I came to be
grateful for every day he allowed me to breathe air. I even came to be
grateful
for his touch, for it was the only time he ever let me out of the damned room he
kept me in. Such was my perversion by the end. Do you think anyone’s soul could
survive such a thing?”

She hung her head, covered her eyes with her hands, unable to absorb the
enormity of Elijah’s revelations. The
horror
of them. In her naivety,
she had never guessed that
this
could be the source of Elijah’s demons.
Bad, evil things happened in the world – she knew that – but this …
this
was beyond the pale.

An image of him as a little boy, smiling tentatively up at her after
reading his first full sentence, flitted through her mind. He’d had shadows in
his heart even then. Shadows she now realized had been put there not by the
fire he’d barely survived, but by the monsters who’d
used
him.

“But you escaped that life,” she whispered, when she had recovered enough
to find her voice, if not the right words.

“I never escaped it,” he whispered desolately, running his fingers down
the scar on his cheek, staring out into the fading afternoon light. He might as
well have been on the moon for the distance between them at that moment.
“Sometimes I think I never got away.”

“But you did, didn’t you? You set that fire, didn’t you?” she asked.