The Dark Affair (24 page)

M
argaret couldn’t stop smiling. It was a rare condition for her. But she adored it. It had taken more than a year of mourning for her brother, longer even, but she and James were finally beginning to feel a semblance of joy again.

James still struggled with the urges to head to the East End and have his brains pounded in. To which she reminded him that it would be far more pleasurable if she were to receive all that . . . pounding. Still, on the days he insisted on going to fight, she accompanied him, cheering him on louder than anyone.

It had taken her gradual steps to open up to him even more about the famine and her experiences in the Crimea, but she had, and she’d never felt more at peace.

Nor had she had more friends.

Mary had turned out to be as great a friend to her as her husband, and though certain special conversations were reserved with James, Margaret felt Mary far preferred to laugh with her whenever the chance arose. After all, her husband could be quite a troublesome fellow.

“Maggie, what the devil are you thinking?”

Margaret gave her husband a playful scowl. “None of your business.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re always my business, and you’re supposed to be helping me compose my lecture for my club on the benefits of promoting the rights and health of women.”

She strolled toward him, her hands behind her back. “Do you remember what you threatened to do to me when we first met?”

He paused. “No.”

“You threatened to tear off my arms.”

“How utterly barbaric,” he observed, then pulled her tightly to him, pressing his hips into her stomach. “Do you know what I was thinking?”

Her eyes widened. “No, as a matter of fact.”

“Well,” he began. “It involved the floor and your skirts being in a much higher position than they are now.”

“James,” she cried, her cheeks heating.

His gaze grew soft with love and passion. “You know, I think it would just be best if I showed you.”

She grinned. “I wholeheartedly agree.”

Miss the first book in the Mad Passions series?

Read on for an excerpt from Máire Claremont’s

THE DARK LADY

Available now wherever books and e-books are sold.

England
1865

T
he road stretched on
like a line of corrupting filth in the pristine snow. Lord Ian Blake clutched the folds of his thick wool greatcoat against his frigid frame as he stared at it.

If he chose, he could simply keep on.

The coach had left him at the edge of Carridan Hall a quarter of an hour past, but if he took to the muddy and ice-filled road, he would be in the village by dark and on the first mail back to London. Back to India.

Back to anywhere but here.

For perhaps the tenth time, he faced the untouched wide drive that led up to the great house. Snow lay fluffed and cold, crystal pure upon the ground. It dragged the limbs of the fingerlike branches toward the blanketed earth. And after almost three years in the baked heat and blazing colors of India, this punishing winter landscape was sheer hell.

Despite the ache, he drew in a long, icy breath and trudged forward, his booted feet crunching as he went.

Eva hated him.

Hated him enough to not return his letters. Not even the letter begging her forgiveness for her husband’s death. But then again, Ian had failed her. He had promised her that he wouldn’t let Hamilton die in India. But he had. He’d made so many promises that he’d been unable to keep.

Now he would go before his friend’s widow, the woman he had held in his heart since childhood. To make amends for his failures, he would do whatever she might command. His soul yearned for the ease she might give him. For, even as he walked up the drive, following the curve to the spot where the trees suddenly stopped and the towering four-story Palladian mansion loomed, he didn’t walk alone.

The unrelenting memory of Hamilton’s brutal death was with him.

He paused before the intimidating limestone edifice that had been built by Hamilton’s grandfather. The windows, even under the pregnant gray sky, heavy with unshed snow, glistened like diamonds, beckoning him to his boyhood home.

The very thought of standing before Eva filled him with dread, but he kept his pace swift and steady. Each step was merely a continuation on the long journey he’d set upon months before.

Even though the cold bit through his thick garments and whipped against his dark hair, sweat slipped down his back. Winter silence pounded in his ears, blending with his boot steps as he mounted the brushed stairs before the house, and as he raised his hand to knock, the door swung open. Charles, his black suit pressed to perfection, stood in the frame.

That now greatly wrinkled face slackened with shock. “Master Ian.” He paused. “Pardon. Of course, I mean, my lord.”

Ian’s gut twisted. It had been years since he had seen the man who had chided him, Hamilton, and Eva time and again for tracking mud from the lake upon the vast marble floors of the house. “Hello, Charles.”

The butler continued to linger in the doorway, his soft brown eyes wide, his usually unreadable face perfectly astonished.

Ian smiled tightly. “Might I be allowed entrance?”

Charles jerked to attention and instantly backed away from the door. “I am so sorry, my lord. Do forgive me. It has been—”

Ian nodded and stepped into the massive foyer, shaking the wisps of snow from his person. He couldn’t blame the old man for his strange behavior. After all, the last time Ian had seen the servant had been when he was invested as Viscount Blake, just before he’d left for India. The title should have prevented his traveling so far and risking his life. But life didn’t always unfold according to the dictates of tradition.

Three years had passed since his departure with Hamilton. Now, Hamilton would not join his return. “I should have informed you of my visit.”

As the door closed behind them, it seemed to close in on his heart, filling his chest with a leaden weight. Not even the beauty of the soft blue and gold-leafed walls of his childhood home could alleviate it.

Charles reached out for his coat and took the wet mass into his white-gloved hands. “It is so good to see you, my lord.”

The words hung between them. The words that said it would have been preferable if he had not returned alone.

He pulled off his top hat and passed it to the butler. “I should like to speak to Lady Carin.”

Charles’s mouth opened slightly as he maneuvered the coat into one hand and stretched out the other to take the last item. “But . . .”

Ian glanced about as if she might suddenly appear out of one of the mazelike hallways. “Is she not in residence?”

Charles’s gaze darted to the broad, ornately carved stairs and then back. “Perhaps you should speak to his lordship.”

Ian shook his head, a laugh upon his lips, but something stopped him. “His lordship? Adam is not three. Does he rule the house?”

A sheen cooled Charles’s eyes. “Master Adam has passed, my lord.”

The unbelievable words, barely audible in the vast foyer of silk walls and marble floor, whispered about them.

“Passed?” Ian echoed.

“Was not Lord Thomas’s letter delivered to you in India?”

The world spun with more force than his ship had done rounding the Cape of Good Hope. “No. No, it was never delivered.”

He had never met the boy. Nor had Hamilton. They had both only heard tales of him from Eva’s detailed and delightful letters. In his mind, Ian had always imagined the child to be an exact replica of Eva. Only . . . he was gone. He shifted on his booted feet, trying to fathom this new information. “What happened? I don’t understand.”

Charles drew in a long breath and stared at Ian for a few moments, then quickly jerked his gaze away. “I shall leave it to Thomas, the new Lord Carin, to inform you.”

What the devil was going on? Charles had never avoided his eyes in all the years he’d known him, and now . . . ’Twas as if the old man was ashamed or fearful. “Then take me to him at once.”

Charles nodded, his head bobbing up and down with renewed humbleness. “Of course.”

They spoke no more as they turned to the winding staircase that twisted and split into two wings like a double-headed serpent.

They followed the wide set of stairs that led to the east wing. Their footsteps thudded against the red-and-blue woven runner. Ian blinked when they reached the hallway. Hideous red velvet wallpaper covered the walls and massive portraits and mirrors seemed to hang upon every surface. “Lady Carin has redecorated?”

Charles kept face forward. “Lord Thomas is undergoing renovations, my lord. He began with the family rooms but intends to alter the ground floor this spring.”

Decorations should have been the lady of the house’s domain. Another mystery. One that added greatly to his unease.

The place looked little like the house he had left. Gone were the cool colors, beautiful wallpapers of silk and gold or silver, framed with stuccoed accents. Once, this house had been the height of beauty, with airy hallways and bright colors. Now dark, rich tones wrapped the house in melancholy. The elegant honeyed oak had been ripped out and replaced by mahogany to match the red velvet wallpaper. In the brief days since his return, he’d noticed the change in society’s fashion, the departure from light and the acceptance of oppressive furnishings.

But he’d never thought to see Carridan Hall so changed.

At last, the two men paused before the old lord’s office.

Charles knocked. Quickly, he opened the door, edged into the room, then shut the door behind him. The panel was thick enough that the voices were muffled. But Ian didn’t miss the sharp silence that followed the announcement of his name.

The door opened and Charles announced, “Lord Blake, my lord.”

Ian strode into the space. As he entered, Charles made a swift retreat, shutting the door with a thud.

Tension crackled in the room. So thick Ian was sure he could reach out and grab it.

Hamilton’s little brother, Thomas, sat behind a solid desk of walnut. His brownish blond hair thinned out over his pale scalp and a light brushing of hair curled at his upper lip. His sunken green eyes watered as he stood. ’Twas hard to believe the man was not even five and twenty.

Slowly, Thomas reached out his hand in offering, the crest of the Carin family on the gold ring displayed prominently on his finger.

Thomas was lord at last.

How Thomas must have longed for it these years in the shadows of the house, separate from everyone and everything, watching for any chance to betray Hamilton, Ian, and Eva’s adventures to his father. Desperate for any sort of attention from the old lord.

But that was hardly charitable of Ian. Perhaps in the years since he had left, Thomas had improved. Perhaps he was no longer the jealous—and often cruel—boy he had been.

Ian doubted it as he allowed the young lord’s hand to linger in the air.

Though every instinct told him to push away the nicety, a man never made an enemy out of a source of information. And right now Thomas held all the information Ian needed.

Ian forced himself to take Thomas’s hand. It was cold and limp. Thomas had not cared for sports or outdoor activities. But nor had he cared for studies. Even now, Ian was uncertain what it was that Thomas had ever enjoyed.

“Ian, I am so glad you have come back.”

’Twas a voice he hadn’t heard in three years, and the reedy, affected sound struck Ian as distinctly strange for such a man not yet of middle years. Had it always been so thoroughly unpleasant? Or had it slowly become thus?

“Thank you.” Ian pulled his hand back, resisting the urge to wipe it on his coat. “I regret that I was unable to bring your brother.”

Thomas lowered his head, half nodding, seemingly unable to quite hide the satisfaction that he had at last superseded his brother in something. “A true tragedy.”

“Indeed.” If you could reduce a man’s passing, his guts ruptured by a blade, to such a simple word. “Tragedy” really just didn’t seem to express the horror of it.

Thomas eased himself into his leather wingback chair.

Ian remained standing, taking in the crowded room, willing himself to accept this strange reality unfolding before him. But still, he could not.

This room had once been another man’s. A great man’s. Hamilton and Thomas’s father had undoubtedly ruled with an iron fist. Perhaps he had not known how to love as a father should, but he had managed his estate and fulfilled his duties with admirable skill.

Ian could only hope that, now, he would do the same for his own tenants and lands.

And once, this room had been remarkable in its serenity, the green silk walls slightly reflective of the skittish English sun, encouraging study. It had been uncluttered, allowing Hamilton, Ian, and Eva to play out mock battles with toy soldiers on the simply woven rugs from the East as the old man read over the estate reports.

Now every space was littered with round and square tables, lace and fringe covering them. Bric-a-brac filled their surfaces. It was a veritable explosion of trinkets. The chamber was choking Ian, and he suddenly knew what a tree surrounded by encroaching ivy must feel. He swung his gaze back to his cousin. “This family has known a great deal of tragedy, it would seem.”

Thomas’s fingers rested on the edge of his elaborately carved desk. “It has been a very bad few years for the Carins.”

A bad few years?

Ian arched a brow and glanced to the glaring windows. Snow fell slowly in heavy flakes. And even though a fire blazed in the hearth not ten feet away, the cold wouldn’t leave his bones. He wished he hadn’t given up his coat. But even he knew the cold he felt had little to do with the ice feathering over the glass panes. “Where is Lady Carin? I wish to speak with her.”

Thomas cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, the creak of leather piercing the silence.

Ian returned his gaze to Thomas. The man’s face creased into a series of lines. Still, Thomas said nothing. Ian waited, unrelenting, as he gazed upon his cousin.

Thomas swallowed, fidgeting slightly, then waved a hand at the empty cushioned chairs just behind Ian. “Forgive me. Do sit.” Thomas stood and slowly made his way to a table standing near the fire. “Very rude of me. The shock of seeing you, you know.”

“I prefer to stand.”

“Certainly. A drink then?” Crystal decanters reflected the bare, dull light. Thomas’s shadow fell over the tray of libations and he quickly pulled the crystal stopper free of the brandy bottle and poured out two drinks.

Thomas cradled the two snifters, then crossed over to Ian. His dark blue suit drank in the darkness of the late afternoon, making it appear black. “Here.”

Ian took the glass, fighting the desire to reach out and tug it away. “Thank you.” He tossed the contents of the drink back in one quick swallow, the taste of expensive brandy barely registering on his tongue. “Now, please tell me the whereabouts of Lady Carin. I wish to see her.”

Thomas turned his back to him, facing the fire. “Seeing Lady Carin isn’t a possibility.”

“Bullocks.” The coarse word gritted past his teeth before he could stop himself.

Thomas’s shoulders tensed, his pale hair twitching against his perfectly starched collar. “No. It’s not.”

The bastard didn’t even have the guts to face him.

Ian gripped the glass in his hand, the intricate crystal design pressing deep into his skin. “Where the hell is she, Thomas?”

Thomas whipped back to him, that damned ring winking in the winter’s gloom. “She’s not here. She’s—”

Ian tensed as fear grabbed his guts. She’d never returned his letters, something entirely unlike the Eva he’d always known. Christ, he hated his sudden uncertainty. Even more, he hated the words he was about to utter. He had lost Eva to duty once; to lose her again would be beyond what he could bear. “Has she died?”

Thomas shook his head. “No, though it would have been better if she had.”

Ian slammed his glass down on Thomas’s desk. The crystal cracked, a nearly invisible line snaking the length of the snifter. “That is a damn despicable thing to say.”

Jumping, Thomas edged away. “You say that now, but if you had seen—”

Ian locked eyes with his cousin. “I haven’t traveled halfway around the world to play this out with you.”