A Stolen Heart (34 page)

Her eyes strayed to his lips. She remembered how they had felt against hers. The truth was that she wanted to feel them again. Brazenly, right here in the drawing room in the middle of the morning, she wanted him to pull her into his arms and kiss her.

“Dammit! You were a maiden, naïve or not. Why are you so stubborn? Why won’t you marry me?”

Because you haven’t said you love me,
she wanted to cry, but she held back the words. Words of love were no good if they were forced.

“You are a British lord. You can scarcely marry an American nobody.”

“I can do whatever I please. I usually do.”

“I have told you about my mother,” Alexandra reminded him stiffly.

“Yes. What does that matter?”

“You think your family would want you to marry someone with madness in her family?”

“She is probably no madder than a good number of peers I’ve met. Every noble family has one or two skeletons in their closet. Mrs. Ward would probably be considered merely an eccentric.”

“Don’t be flip. She is…peculiar in her actions and her words. People would be bound to notice, and they would comment on it.”

“I believe I have told you how little public opinion means to me.”

“But you have to think about the future—your heirs.”

“I am thinking about the future.” The expression in his eyes sent heat spreading through Alexandra’s loins. “You are the woman I want to have heirs with. I know you, Alexandra, and I see little chance that you could have a child who was not quite sane.”

Alexandra turned away, breaking the spell his eyes cast on her. “No. Please stop.”

“I won’t,” he replied. “Besides, your reason is most likely invalid, anyway. The way things look right now, Mrs. Ward probably isn’t even your mother, so it doesn’t really matter whether she is wholly sane or not.”

“But we don’t know!”

“There are many things we don’t know. We cannot foretell the future. But we cannot live our lives in terror that something bad might happen.”

He started toward her again, but much to Alexandra’s relief, her aunt walked into the room at that point, and Alexandra seized the opportunity to flee.

T
HERE WERE NO UNTOWARD EVENTS
over the next two days. No one tried to break in; there were no fights; no more ragamuffins came knocking on the door wanting to give them information.

However, Alexandra found the atmosphere anything but tranquil. It was extremely unsettling to have Sebastian around all the time. It was not that he irritated her nerves, for she discovered that he was surprisingly companionable. Nor was it that he bored her, for he was ever an interesting conversationalist. But she could not be easy. His constant presence was a reminder to her of the night they had shared—and of the many more nights they could share, if only she gave up her scruples.

But she refused to go into a one-sided marriage, where she loved and he did not, and Sebastian was maddeningly silent on the matter of love. Sometimes he tried to persuade her with reasoned arguments about the ruination of her reputation. Other times he teased her, laughingly reminding her of what a catch he was on the marriage mart. Now and then he lapsed into a brooding silence, watching her. And, far too often for her peace of mind, he looked at her with hot, hungry eyes or slipped behind her in one of the corridors and planted a kiss upon her neck or ear or cheek, and asked her in a husky voice when she would give in to him.

But never once did he say that she was the love of his life, that he could not live without her. Alexandra supposed it was a foolish thing to expect, especially given the businesslike transactions that British noble marriages seemed to be. But she could not help it. She wanted a marriage of passion, not reason. She wanted a husband who loved her beyond all else, the way her father had loved her mother.

She spent an extra amount of time in her mother’s room, relieving Willa and Aunt Hortense. At least Sebastian did not disturb her there. But sitting alone with her silent mother, she found that she could not escape her thoughts, and those invariably returned to the night of love she and Sebastian had shared.

One afternoon she was sitting beside her mother, her hand clasping Rhea’s, talking to her about her indecision regarding Sebastian, when she felt her mother’s hand close around hers.

“Mother!” Alexandra was instantly on her feet, leaning toward Rhea. “Can you hear me? You squeezed my hand. Are you awake? Do you understand me?”

But Rhea’s face was as blank as ever, and her hand was already slack again in Alexandra’s.

“Willa! Aunt Hortense!” Alexandra rushed to the door of the room and called into the hall.

A moment later, both women came hurrying into the room, their faces anxious.

“She squeezed my hand!” Alexandra announced.

“What?” Willa looked dumbfounded. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I am positive. I was talking to her, holding her hand, and suddenly she pressed my hand. I’m certain of it.”

“The doctor said sometimes their muscles will involuntarily contract when they are in this state.”

“It wasn’t that. I am sure she heard me—on some level. She hasn’t reached full wakefulness yet. But it will come. Surely this means that she is beginning to wake up.”

Aunt Hortense grinned. “Yes. It must mean that. We must watch for more signs.”

They stood around the bed, gazing at the still, silent woman. Rhea did not stir or twitch. But Alexandra was not discouraged. She resumed her vigil, not leaving Rhea’s side until it was time for supper and one of the maids came to take her place.

Alexandra had thought to go back to her mother’s side that evening, but supper seemed unusually long, and after that, they had to sit through a tedious piano recital from Willa. Hearing her play, Alexandra wondered if the Countess was forced to sit through her piano pieces every evening. If so, she must have the patience of a saint, Alexandra thought. Whatever warm and wonderful qualities Willa had, she was not an accomplished pianist.

Alexandra began to feel quite sleepy. She yawned, trying to cover it so as not to hurt Willa’s feelings, and more than once she jerked awake and realized that she had nodded off. She decided to go straight to bed, only stopping by her mother’s room to say good-night to her unresponsive form.

She sighed and left the room, trying not to let Rhea’s lack of response discourage her. It would happen; she would awaken. She must just have faith.

Alexandra stopped abruptly a few feet from her door when she saw that Sebastian was standing beside it, leaning negligently against the door frame.

“What are you doing here?” she asked irascibly, walking around him to open the door.

“Waiting for you,” he replied, reaching out and catching her wrist with his hand.

He stepped closer, looming over her. “I have been having trouble sleeping, Alexandra.”

“I hardly see how that is my concern.” Alexandra replied lightly, although warmth was already stirring in her at the implication of his words.

“It is because of you. I used to be quite content with being by myself. I find that I am not any longer.”

Sebastian bent his head and brushed his lips against her hair. “I want you in my bed again.”

“If this is another ploy to try to convince me to marry you…”

“No, just the plea of a desperate man. I was watching you all through that execrable piano recital. I kept thinking about that night in the highwayman’s lair….”

He raised her arm and kissed the tender inside of her wrist. “Come to my room tonight.”

“Are you mad? Under the same roof with my aunt and mother? Not to mention Willa.”

“Then marry me, and we shall be under our own roof.”

Alexandra grimaced. “You are not getting around me that easily. Besides, I’m terribly sleepy. Didn’t you see me yawning all evening?”

“I thought that was due to Willa’s piano playing,” Sebastian said, and Alexandra chuckled. He brushed his knuckles slowly down her cheek and leaned over her, saying in a low voice, “I’ll lay you odds that I have a remedy for your sleepiness.”

His husky voice stirred a longing in Alexandra’s loins, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him.

“Stop.” Alexandra shook her head in mock exasperation and went on tiptoe to brush her lips lightly against his cheek. “Good night, Sebastian.”

“You call that a good-night kiss?” His arm swooped around Alexandra, and he lifted her into him as his mouth came down to claim hers in a dizzying, lengthy kiss.

When at last he released her, Alexandra stood for a moment dazedly gazing into his face, her lips slightly parted. He let out a groan.

“If you continue to look at me like that, I can guarantee that I won’t leave you.” He bent and pressed his lips against Alexandra’s forehead. “Dream of me tonight.”

He turned and strode briskly down the hall toward his room. Alexandra let out a shuddering sigh and went into her room. One of the upstairs maids was waiting to help her out of her dress and into her nightgown.

Languidly, Alexandra let the girl brush her hair and tie it back with a pink ribbon. Usually she hadn’t the patience for letting someone fuss over her hair like that; she wouldn’t even have used the services of a maid if it had been possible for her to reach all the tiny buttons down the back of her dress. But tonight, she was too tired and lazy to protest. Indeed, her eyes drifted closed as she sat on the bench while the maid brushed her hair.

“Miss!”

Alexandra opened her eyes and blinked at the maid standing over her, her hands on Alexandra’s shoulders.

“You drifted right off there,” the maid told her. “You’d best get up and into bed.”

Alexandra tried to smile. “Yes. Thank you. I can’t imagine why I’m so tired. It must all be catching up with me. Good night, Rose.”

She stood, and the maid bobbed a curtsey and lit a candle from the oil lamp on the dressing table. “Good night, miss.”

Alexandra picked up the lamp and crossed to her bed, which the maid had already turned down for her. Yawning, she set the lamp on the narrow table beside the bed and bent to blow out the flame. She crawled between the sheets and was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

S
HE WAS DREAMING THAT SHE WAS
sitting before the fire. It was too warm, and she tried to move away from the heat but could not. The damper must have been closed, too, for smoke was billowing into the room, making her cough. Then the Countess was in the room with her, shaking her roughly and telling her that she had to get out of her chair.

She shook her head, saying, “No, I’m too tired.”

But the Countess would not stop. She kept shaking her and saying her name. Then Alexandra realized that it was not the Countess at all, but her mother.

She opened her eyes. And there was her mother’s face, looming over her in the darkness. But it wasn’t dark, exactly. Rather, the air was thick with smoke, and above, the smoke flames danced, racing along the tester above her bed and down the long fall of the open curtains at the four corners of the bed.

“Mother?” Alexandra began to cough as she sucked the smoke into her lungs.

Her mother was tugging at her, and Alexandra saw in dazed astonishment that tears were running down the woman’s cheeks. Everything seemed so strange and unreal. Her lungs felt on fire, and the air was thick with smoke. She was surrounded by fire, yet she could not seem to make herself move.

Suddenly several large sparks fell on the bed beside Alexandra, and the sheets began to burn. Alexandra gasped, and Rhea batted them out.

“Alexandra! Get up! What is the matter with you?” Rhea grabbed Alexandra’s shoulders, wincing with pain as her burned palms touched Alexandra.

She jerked again, and this time Alexandra managed to push herself out of bed. Rhea staggered back under her weight, and the two of them fell heavily to the floor. The fall stunned Alexandra for a moment. But the air was clearer here, and she was able to breathe in air that was not smoky. She coughed, clearing her lungs. Shakily, she rose to her feet, reaching to help Rhea. They started groggily toward the door. The smoke was so thick, she could barely see, and she fell into another paroxysm of coughing. Rhea stumbled and went down on her knees, and Alexandra leaned over her, trying to help her up.

It was hard to breathe, and the room started spinning around her. Coughing, she fell forward onto the floor beside Rhea.

S
EBASTIAN LAY STARING AT THE TESTER ABOVE
his bed. He was having no luck going to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, all he saw was Alexandra. All he could think about was kissing her, holding her, making love to her again. They were not images that were conducive to sleep.

Sighing, he sat and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He might as well get up and dress and go to the library to see if he could find something to read. With any luck, he thought, there would be something dull enough to make him nod off.

He had pulled on his trousers and was in the process of buttoning his shirt when he stopped and lifted his head. There was the oddest smell, he realized—a smell of smoke, as if a chimney weren’t drawing properly. He glanced instinctively at the fireplace in his room, but even as he did so, his brain registered that it was a warm summer night and the fire had not even been lit.

Fear gripped his chest, and he hurried to his door and flung it open. He could see nothing unusual in the hall, but the smell of smoke was stronger. He started down the hall, not pausing to light a candle or lamp, navigating by the moonlight drifting in through the long windows at either end of the hallway. As he drew closer to Alexandra’s room, he could see wispy tendrils of smoke curling from beneath her door.

“Alexandra!” he cried, and ran the rest of the way to her room.

He flung open the door, and a thick pall of smoke rushed into the hallway. He saw at a glance that Alexandra’s bed was on fire, the tester above the bed and the heavy bedcurtains blazing merrily, and flames were already starting across her sheets and bedcovers.

But Alexandra was not in the bed; he could see that much. He glanced frantically around the room, and his gaze fell on the two bodies lying on the floor a few feet from the foot of the bed. He ran to Alexandra and picked her up, carrying her from the smoky room. He bellowed for help as he laid her gently on the floor, then went into the room for the other woman.

Coughing and fanning away the smoke, he bent over her, surprised to find that it was not a maid or Aunt Hortense, as he had assumed, but Alexandra’s mother. He picked her up and ran into the hall, where Aunt Hortense and Willa were crouched beside Alexandra. Several servants came pounding up the stairs and stopped, gaping at the scene before them.

“Stop gawking, you idiots!” he roared. “Can’t you see the room’s on fire? Get some water—now!”

They jumped to do his bidding as Sebastian went to Alexandra, moving aside her aunt and the Countess’s companion and pulling Alexandra down the hall, out of the doorway.

The servants pounded into the room with buckets of water, and Aunt Hortense and Willa went to Rhea to minister to her. Sebastian knelt beside Alexandra and lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest.

“Oh, God, don’t die on me now, love,” he whispered, feeling for the pulse in her throat. He could not hear her breathing, so he draped her limp form forward over his arm and thwacked his open palm against her back until she began to cough.

“Thank God. That’s it. That’s my girl.” He cuddled her to him again, running his hand down her hair and back and raining kisses over her sooty face and hair. “Stay with me. I couldn’t bear to lose you now.”

Alexandra coughed, and her eyes fluttered open. She saw Sebastian’s face looming over hers, streaked with soot and torn with anxiety. “Sebastian?”

As she said the word, she gave way to a fit of coughing. Sebastian held her as she coughed out the smoke that had overcome her. Finally, with a sigh, she settled in his arms. It felt deliciously warm and safe there.

“Thank God you’re alive,” he murmured against her hair. “I was afraid I had lost you, love. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“What did you say?” Alexandra asked, sitting up and turning to face Sebastian as the import of his words sank in.

He looked at her oddly. “I said I was afraid you were dead.”

“No, the other part—did you call me ‘love’?”

“Yes.” He frowned in puzzlement. “Alexandra…are you all right? You seem a little muddled.”

“Did you—did you mean it? Calling me your love?”

“Yes, of course. Surely you must realize that I love you.”

“No. No, I don’t. You never said a word about it.”

“But, darling…why else would I want you to marry me? Do you think I would marry any woman who came along?”

“But that was because of the scandal. Because everyone knew we had been together that night after the balloon took off.”

“I have weathered scandal before.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “If I was willing to run off with a married woman and earn the polite world’s contumely, do you honestly think that a little gossip would frighten me into marrying someone I didn’t want to?”

“Not when you put it that way,” Alexandra admitted. “But I thought, since I might be the Countess’s granddaughter and you are fond of her, that you would feel you had to marry me. Besides,” she argued, “you never spoke a word about love. Only about the scandal and my reputation.”

“I was trying to persuade you,” he retorted. “I didn’t think my love would do so. You don’t seem to reciprocate the feeling, so it seemed better to present the practicalities.”

“Not reciprocate!” Alexandra stared at him in astonishment. “Can you honestly be that obtuse?”

He gazed at her for a long moment. “Are—are you saying that you do? That you—”

“Yes! Of course! I love you!”

“Alexandra…” He pulled her to him, his arms wrapping tightly about her, and kissed her. When at last he raised his head, he looked at her, his hand caressing her soot-smeared cheek. “Then you will marry me?”

Alexandra frowned, a chill coming over her happiness. “But there is still the problem of—oh!” She sat up straight, pulling away from him. “How could I have forgotten? Mother! She was with me in the bedroom. I saw her, leaning over my bed.”

“Yes. I pulled her out, too.” Sebastian nodded toward where Rhea lay on the floor a few feet away, Hortense and Willa beside her.

Alexandra turned, pulling away from him, and crawled to her. “Mother?”

Sebastian followed, crouching beside the others. “How is she?”

Aunt Hortense shook her head. “She is breathing, but she’s unconscious. Her hands are burned. I cannot imagine what she was doing in there.”

“She was awake. She woke me up,” Alexandra said. “She said my name, and she tried to pull me out of bed. She put out the sparks with her hands, that’s why they’re burned.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“We need to get her back into bed,” Sebastian said practically. “Let me carry her there, and Miss Ward can clean and bandage her burns.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” The women stepped back as Sebastian bent and picked up Rhea.

Alexandra walked behind Sebastian as he carried her mother down the hall. Although she still felt groggy, her brain was beginning to work.

“What happened?” she asked as Sebastian laid her mother on her bed.

“What do you mean?” Aunt Hortense said as she poured water into the washbasin and carried it to the bed.

“I mean why was my bed on fire? Why was Mother in the room?”

“I don’t know.” Aunt Hortense dipped a cloth into the water and wrung it out, then began to wash Rhea’s face and, very gently, her arms and hands. “All I can think is that for some reason Rhea finally came out of her coma. Perhaps she smelled the smoke and that was enough to snap her out of it.”

“Remember how she squeezed my hand today when I was talking to her?”

“She must have been close to the surface,” Aunt Hortense reasoned. “Tonight she woke up. Probably she smelled the smoke and followed it to your room.”

“That’s how I came to find you,” Sebastian added. “I began to smell smoke, and when I went into the hall, I saw the smoke coming out around the door.”

“But what happened? Why was it on fire?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I don’t know. I presume you must have left a candle burning. You were very sleepy tonight, remember.”

“I didn’t have a candle burning. I had an oil lamp, and I distinctly remember blowing it out.”

“Are you saying—you think this was another deliberate attack on you?” Sebastian’s eyes flashed silver in the darkness, and he turned, and strode to the door and threw it open. “Murdock! Murdock! Dammit, man, where are you?”

Murdock appeared in the doorway a few moments later, coatless, his hair disheveled, breathing hard. “Fire’s out, my lord,” he reported. “Bed’s ruined, and it damaged the room a bit, but no major harm.” He cast a glance toward Alexandra. “Is Miss Ward all right?”

“I’m fine, Murdock,” Alexandra assured him, going to the door. She had become rather fond of the square-set man over the days he had been guarding their house. He was intensely loyal to Sebastian, and thereby, she had found, intensely loyal to her. He was hardly what one would picture as a valet, but Alexandra felt sure that he was, as Sebastian had said, a good man to have on your side in a fight, and certainly that was more important than any refinement of manner. Even Aunt Hortense had approved of the man, saying that if she hadn’t heard him speak, she would have sworn that he was an American, not a Britisher.

Murdock nodded toward her. “Glad to hear it, Miss.”

“Murdock, could someone have gotten into the house tonight?” Sebastian asked. “Miss Ward is certain that she did not leave a light burning. That would mean that someone must have sneaked in and set the bed curtains on fire.”

“No, sir. Couldn’t nobody have got into this house tonight—or any other night since I’ve been here.” He turned toward Alexandra somewhat apologetically. “I’m sorry, miss, I’m sure you’re right about the lamp, but I don’t see how anyone could have got past me and my men. I have a footman patrolling the outside of the house continuously, three shifts of them, three hours each, so they don’t get sleepy. To keep things right and tight, I patrol, too, half a lap behind him, just to make sure and keep the footman on his toes. Halfway through the night, Punwati relieves me. Ain’t nobody getting past us, miss.” He patted his side, where a pistol was stuck through his belt. “We keep a watch during the day, too.” He paused, frowning. “Not so tight, of course, but a footman makes the circuit every few minutes. And the house is full of servants. I don’t see how anyone could sneak in during the day and hide till nightfall, either.”

“No,” Alexandra agreed. “It sounds very thorough. I am sure you and Mr. Punwati are doing a wonderful job.” Alexandra frowned. “But I know I blew out the lamp.”

She thought of her mother in her room. It seemed so odd that Rhea had awakened just at the moment that her bed curtains had caught on fire. She thought of tales she had heard of madmen setting things afire, their warped minds drawn by the crackling flames. They could not know, after all, what had been fermenting in her mother’s confused mind during the long period of unconsciousness. And perhaps, she thought, Rhea had not been unconscious the whole time. She remembered her mother gripping her hand this morning.

But, no! What was she thinking? Her mother was a trifle off, perhaps, but she wasn’t mad in that way. She would never try to hurt Alexandra, no matter how fevered her mind might turn. Besides, she reminded herself, Rhea had tried to save her from the fire. She had awakened Alexandra and pulled her from the bed, had beaten out the fire with her bare hands when it lit on Alexandra’s sheets. Alexandra felt ashamed for thinking such a thing even for an instant.

“Perhaps Mrs. Ward woke up.” Willa spoke, surprising everyone. They all turned to look at her, and she blushed but went on. “Of course she would want to see her daughter. So she lit a candle and went down to Alexandra’s room. Maybe as she leaned over to look at her, her candle caught the bed curtains on fire. They would probably have been in flames in an instant. So she tried to awaken Alexandra.”

Alexandra felt a wave of relief wash through her. “Of course! That makes sense. Much more so than that someone could have sneaked into the house past the guards.”

It was also much more reasonable than the coincidence of Rhea awakening at the precise time that Alexandra’s room caught on fire.

“Yes, that explains it.” Alexandra could hear the relief in her aunt’s voice, and she wondered if she had had the same doubts about Rhea that Alexandra had. “A simple accident.”

“It was my fault,” Willa went on, her voice laced with guilt. “I should have kept better watch over Mrs. Ward.”

“You cannot possibly stay awake watching over her all night,” Alexandra pointed out reasonably. “You sleep in her room so you could hear if she needed something. No one could expect you to do any more.”

“Yes, but I was so heavily asleep,” Willa said. “I generally don’t go to sleep that early. But tonight, my head was incredibly heavy. I could scarcely keep my eyes open. Then I slept so deeply that I did not even hear Mrs. Ward leave the room! I should have heard her. I should have awakened.”

“Nonsense,” Aunt Hortense said stoutly. “You had no way of knowing that Rhea would awaken tonight, or that she would take it into her head to go visit Alexandra. None of us did. After tonight, we shall make sure that someone is up with her all night. We shall take shifts.”

“Yes,” Alexandra agreed, but her mind was only half on her aunt’s words. A chill had run through her at what Willa had said. Willa had been unusually sleepy tonight, just as she had been, and she had slept heavily, finding it hard to wake up. Alexandra remembered how groggy she had felt when her mother woke her. She had felt almost…drugged. What if she really had been drugged? And Willa, too? What if someone had made sure that both she and Willa would be sound asleep tonight?