Eve Silver (12 page)

Darcie glanced at the miniature, wondering why, if Damien loved that girl, he had not asked her to marry him.
Passed over. Left unclaimed.
Like Abigail. Yet another betrayal, this one of a young girl in a picture, a girl she did not know.

“Come,” Damien said, abruptly changing the subject. “I have something to show you. It is the reason I was late this morning.”

Always the gentleman, he waited for Darcie to precede him out the door. Together they descended the stairs. He led her to the back door, the one that opened onto the cobbled back drive.

They walked side by side to the carriage house. Darcie held her breath as he unlocked the door to his laboratory. At last, he would bring her to his lair.

Damien turned to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I warn you, Darcie. What you see in this place may give you pause. But you are my hands, the extension of myself. I need to know that you can do what must be done.”

His words hovered around her heart like a bee near a flower. He had called her an extension of himself, though she doubted he had meant that in any personal sense. She was an artist and he was not. She must not read anything special into his comment.

Lifting her gaze to his, Darcie nodded. She would do what he willed.

He studied her face for a moment, then turned and led the way up the narrow wooden staircase to the upper floor of the carriage house. As they entered his laboratory, Darcie wrinkled her nose in distaste. There was a smell, like medicinal powders and alcohol and soap all mixed in one. But there was something more. Metallic and strong, the scent filled her nostrils.

“I have drawing implements here.” Damien led her to a small, scarred wooden table that was pushed against the far wall, the one farthest from the main house.

The shades on the windows were drawn, and the room was dim and dull. Darcie stepped forward and stared down at the tabletop as Damien lit the candles of a large candelabrum set close at hand.

“Why don't we open the shades? Natural light is often best.” Darcie reached for the shade as the rank air of the room filled her lungs, and she thought that she would like to open the window as well. Her heart rate increased as a wave of inexplicable anxiety washed over her. She wanted to see the light of day. Suddenly, it seemed unbearably necessary for her to see the light of day.

Catching her hand, Damien pulled her away from the window. “No. Don't open it. I want no prying eyes.”

She tugged lightly on her hand, freeing it from his grasp, and allowed it to drop to her side.

“No prying eyes,” she repeated, feeling breathless.

“Here. Look.” Damien stepped to the center of the room where a second table stood. This table was high and rectangular in shape. There were no chairs pulled next to it. Darcie thought it a strange piece of furniture, for it was long and narrow with a raised rim around the outer edge, and a hole at one end. Glancing down, she saw that there was a bucket placed on the floor beneath the hole, and the smell she had detected earlier was wafting from that bucket, filling the air, making her feel faintly sick to her stomach.

Damien grasped the edge of a dark cloth that covered a small mound at one end of the table. He tugged the cloth free of the mound and revealed a cone-shaped lump approximately the size of Darcie's fist.

Frowning, she stepped closer, uncertain of exactly what he was showing her. Then the smell hit her, like aged meat, tinged with the sickly sweet scent of blood.

With a gasp, she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and stepped away. “What is it?”

“A heart. Draw it whole, then I shall dissect it and we can see the inside, the valves, the septae, the chordae tendineae.” He sounded quite pleased.

“A heart,” she repeated woodenly, appalled at the thought. Then her common sense took hold. A heart, perhaps from a pig or a cow. Likely the cook was even now wondering what had become of the makings of a meal. Swallowing, she steeled herself and asked, “From the kitchen?”

He looked at her oddly. She had seen that expression before. It was the look he wore when she asked something he could not grasp, something he found inexplicably strange.

“From the kitchen?” he repeated, as though he was trying to place her question in some sort of intelligible context.

“From the butcher, then,” Darcie muttered hopefully.

“No. Not the butcher. I believe he is quite hale and hearty. Though he most certainly would not be if this was his heart,” Damien replied.

“Ohhh,” Darcie breathed the sound. “Then whose...”

“Does it matter?” He shrugged, then grabbed a chair and dragged it closer. “Here. Sit.”

“But the heart is h-h-human?” Why was she so disturbed by this? She had known her role as his assistant. She had known she would have to draw human remains at some point. But the reality of the task was far more unnerving than she had imagined. And the question of where the heart had come from…

“Yes. Of course.” He picked up a pair of tweezers and pulled at the surface of the heart, separating a layer of thin, glistening tissue from what lay beneath. “See this layer? In fact it is not one, but three layers. The heart is protected by a three-layered sac. The pericardium.” Glancing at Darcie, Damien gestured towards the pen and ink on the far table. “Come now. Make a quick sketch and then I will strip it away so you can draw the heart wall beneath. There is an area of necrosis at the tip of the left ventricle that I find particularly interesting. Then I shall hook it up to that apparatus”—he pointed to a series of hooks and wires that draped over the far end of the table—”and you can watch it beat.”

“B-beat? But it's dead!” she squeaked, taking a small step sideways, and then another, her eyes never leaving the heart that sat, glistening wetly. “I thought…that is, I mean...” She swallowed, then blurted, “It looks wet!”

“Well, it's fresh,” Damien stated matter-of-factly.

“Fresh.” She choked on the word. A fresh heart recently torn from a living, breathing being. No, she reminded herself. From a body; from one no longer of this world. Like Steppy—

Swallowing convulsively, Darcie fisted her hands in the material of her skirt, struggling to steady her nerves.

The room spun before her eyes. A crimson haze colored her vision, as red as the stains she had seen on Damien's shirt the previous night. The breakfast she had so stoically shoveled in was suddenly trying desperately to claw its way back out.

With a moan, she whirled and fled the doctor's laboratory, nearly stumbling as she clattered down the narrow wooden staircase in her haste to escape the terrible sight of the disembodied heart lying vulnerable, stripped bare on the cold, hard table.

Leaning her forehead against the cool wall of the carriage house, Darcie dragged deep, desperate breaths into her lungs, letting the fresh air wash away the stench of death and decay that soured her nostrils and filled her mouth with a bitter, metallic tang.

She had made a fool of herself, fleeing the laboratory that way. Now that she was away from that room, standing in the midday sun that had finally peeked out from between the clouds, she felt silly. It came as no surprise that he wanted her to draw an actual specimen. She had known he was an anatomist, had been well aware that he carefully cut human bodies to pieces in order to study them. But faced with the reality of a heart, pulled from what had once been a live human being, she had crumbled.

Her heaving stomach had quieted some. She was no longer in danger of losing her breakfast. Well, at least that was something.

“Darcie.”

She felt Damien's hand on her back even as he spoke her name.

“Not well-done of me, I’m afraid,” he said ruefully. “Are you quite all right?”

“I'm fine.” She sniffed. There had been no censure in his tone, only quiet concern. “I was overwhelmed for a moment.” Turning to face him, she bolstered her courage and said, “I'm ready now if you wish to continue.”

Staring down at her, his gray eyes slightly narrowed, he took a long moment to study her face. “You are white as a corpse.”

She winced at his analogy. “Yes. I expect that I am. But it will pass. Come. We have a job to do.” And with that she lifted her skirts and determinedly attempted to stride past him towards the laboratory stairs.

Damien raised his arm and pressed the flat of his palm against the wall of the carriage house, blocking her path, halting her in her tracks. She looked at the solid barrier of his arm, then turned her head towards her right shoulder and looked directly at him. The concern she read in his eyes stunned her.

“I'm fine,” she said again. “Really. Fine.”

“Fine is a terrible word,” he replied carefully, his tone measured. “It can mean so many things, while meaning nothing at all.”

Staring at the firm line of his lips, Darcie nodded. Oddly, she knew exactly what he meant. “Well, then I am wonderful, astounding...remarkable.” Her voice rose to a higher pitch as she said the last word.

His eyes darkened as he took a step closer. The warmth of his body spanned the minimal distance between them, sending tendrils of heat undulating through her limbs.

“Remarkable. Yes, that describes you exactly.”

Darcie opened her mouth to reply, but shut it again without uttering a sound as his words penetrated, and she realized exactly what he had said. He found her remarkable.

She found him irresistible. She found him exciting, dangerous, and terrifyingly beautiful.

“Darcie.” His voice was melted chocolate pouring over her. Rich and warm, flavored with the promise of untold delight.

He took a single step towards her, bringing their bodies flush against each other, leaving Darcie no doubt that they had long passed the boundary of acceptable interaction. With each shallow, panting breath, her chest brushed lightly against his, and the tips of her breasts began to burn and ache, sending heated sensations rioting low in her belly. She had a frantic urge to press herself against him, to wriggle back and forth.

A pleading sound escaped her lips. Floundering in a tumult of novel perceptions and riotous emotions that were both thrilling and shocking, Darcie latched onto a single thought. Retreat. The muscles of her legs quivered and shook, as though they could no longer hold her weight. She reached back, resting her palm on the solidity of the carriage house wall. With a sigh, she collapsed against it, seeking support for her trembling limbs.

Damien watched her through eyes of molten silver, the heat in his gaze singeing her as surely as any flame.

With her quaking limbs supported by the welcome solidity of the wall, Darcie tried to get her ragged breathing under control. Oh, what was wrong with her? She wanted to flee, while at the same time she wanted to grab his waistcoat, twist the fabric in her hands and drag him full against her. She wanted—

“What is it you want, Darcie?” he asked, the words a direct reflection of her secret thoughts.

“I want...” Her gaze flicked to his lips once more. Full, sensual lips formed in a firm, masculine line. Her mind registered only a vague notion of what it was that she wanted; yet her body seemed to know exactly what it yearned for.

He closed the distance between them once more, standing close enough that she could see the fine lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes and count each individual lash. But he did not touch her.

Suddenly the answer came to her with the clarity of a revelation. The emptiness inside of her, the terrible ever-present loneliness dwindled in his presence. She longed to feel him reach out and pull her into himself, to have him heal the isolation, the desolation of her soul.

“Touch me,” she whispered, only to wish she could call the words back. He was her employer. A man with infinite power over her life. Moreover, he had his own secrets, his own demons, tightly leashed.

He was a dangerous enigma. And she could never trust him.

Too late she realized what her whispered request had released. She had but a second to assimilate the sudden flare of desire that hardened his features, and then he was there, crowded along her, his muscled body resting full against her breasts, her belly, her thighs, pressing her to the hard wall at her back.

His lips sought hers. The feel of his mouth on hers, the luscious caress of his lips, his tongue, robbed her of all vestiges of equilibrium. A sensation of liquid heat blazed at her core, threatening to consume her. Shifting slightly, he brought his knee between her thighs. Darcie whimpered against his mouth, clutching at the loose fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer still.

The pressure of his knee both soothed and fanned the fire. She moved awkwardly against him in a futile attempt to ease the terrible pressure that built inside of her.

Damien's fingers tangled in her hair, and he shifted above her, angling his head, taking her mouth now in hungry kisses, his tongue probing, withdrawing. Her only conscious thought was that she could taste him. At last. And he tasted better than fine wine or chocolate.

Their limbs tangled in her skirts. Darcie wished that she could be rid of the encumbering clothing. She could feel the solid thickness of his arousal rubbing against her. Of its own volition, her hand slid down over the side of his waist to the bone of his hip, then lower. She wanted to explore the length and width of him, to see him with her fingers, investigate him with her touch. The memory of how he had looked, shirtless, his breeches riding low on his hips, tantalized her.

Suddenly, she felt his fingers close around her wrist, stopping her exploration before it had truly begun. With a low chuckle that stroked her already sensitized nerves, he dragged her hand away from what it sought and arranged her arm so that it curved around his waist.

“I hadn't intended this,” he muttered, resting his chin on the crown of her head, dragging in a ragged breath as he finished the sentence. “There is something about you that makes me forget who and what I am. You have a healing quality, Darcie. You calm even the darkest soul.”

Darcie said nothing. She had no answer for his musings, no secret understanding of the blazing attraction that sizzled between them. He, too, made her forget, made her cast aside the memories of what had been done to her, made her dream the dreams of any young girl.