The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (33 page)

“Are those his words? Did he say he believed you were too coddled? Too ungrateful for his discipline?” James had practically spat the last word.

“He didn’t mean it unkindly.”

“He did more than cane you, didn’t he?”

She breathed, slow and long inhalations, trying to draw the strength to answer. “Yes.”

“Christ.”

“He had to. I had to be retrained.”

“Exactly what did he intend to retrain you to do?”

“To come only for a man, for a husband.”

She could sense James’ whole body having gone rigid beside her.

“And he substituted himself as a husband?”

She nodded slowly, each motion painful.

“How?”

“You mean how did he…”

“Yes.” Pain resounded in his tone.

“His hand. He touched me—intimately…” Her voice broke. It was difficult to breathe. Cold queasiness spread through her stomach. She could see herself bound and spread open to the doctor’s flinty dark stare. She could see the blue-veined hands, the thick, knobby veins that shone through skin as white and papery dry and rough as coarse parchment. She could feel their iciness as he touched her, relentlessly trying to force her to feel things she could not. Dr. Meeker’s voice, full of sorrow, admonishing her for holding herself back from him. Telling her that he was only trying to help.

She was the uncooperative one. The ungrateful one.

James released his breath loudly. “And you made me promise not to kill this blackguard?”

“I consented to his treatments.”

“Treatment?” The word sounded torn from him. “It was no proper medical treatment, and you were in no fit mental state to consent to anything.”

“It is the latest thinking from some of the most learned medical minds of our times. The tension a woman carries in her womb can drive her mad, just as it did me. He was only trying to redirect my sexual energies so that I could more properly—”

“Oh damnation, Catriona, can you truly be so naïve? Can you possibly be so blind?”

“He was only attempting to help.”

“No, he wasn’t! For God’s sake, see it for what it was. He was having it off with you!”

At his tone, which shook her very bones with its outrage, shame burnt her. “He was my doctor. Aunt Frances called for him.”

Her voice went very small, for the final effects of James’ angry yet self-confident tone hit her, searing through layers upon layers of assurance that Dr. Meeker had laid there. Soft blankets of assurance that had comforted her in her darkest moments.

Yet, now, it was as if an obscuring fuzziness had been lifted and she could see clearly, even if for just the briefest glance.

Could Meeker really be the blackguard that James insisted he was?

James was intelligent, shrewd, and a fine, able judge of character. He had known many types of men in all kinds of situations.

James would never lie to her. He would never intentionally hurt her. This she just knew in her bones.

But she’d often had her doubts about Meeker, especially of late.

And for once, that thought was not accompanied by the pangs of guilt and a feeling of having betrayed a protector.

Oh, God!

Had she been such a poor judge of character? All this time?

Well, why not? She’d been lost, utterly lost in every other way.

That little thread of doubt she had struggled to deny for months came undone, much like a loose thread unraveling a ball of yarn tossed down the stairs. Thoughts and emotions hurled themselves through Sunny’s mind.

What if she had had this whole matter the wrong way around?

What if Meeker had truly been having it off with her, as James had so angrily put it?

Oh God, oh God, oh God!

Emotion churned within her. The fierce wave overwhelmed her.

Make it stop!

But it would not stop. Her doubt, now brought sharply to the surface, would not be suppressed again. In its wake came anger. Her long-denied anger.

A spell had been broken. Yes, that was what it was like. Her anger became a fist striking a mirror, shattering the glass and revealing an open window to the outside, letting light into the darkest corners of her mind.

I have been asleep. Walking and talking, yet my mind has been submerged.

Her anger turned toward herself. She had told Meeker every secret of her marriage. Things she ought never to have told anyone. Freddy’s deepest shame shared with another. What kind of wife did such a thing?

She moaned and covered her ears, wishing she could quiet the accusing voices in her head.

Faithless wife!

Faithless!

Her inner voices screamed with self-loathing, with shame and the heaviest guilt.

She clutched her hands over her ears tighter. “No!” she moaned. The bed rocked again and James’ weight settled against her. He pulled the quilt down and then his hands clasped her shoulders and he pulled her against himself.

How strong and solid he felt. He could protect her against Meeker and whatever else the world could throw at her.

But he couldn’t protect her from her own weaknesses, her own shortcomings.

He caressed her back. “Darling, darling, you are not to blame.”

At his gentle tone, something broke inside her. She choked on a sob, feeling tears burning at her eyes and her throat. She swallowed hard against the sensation.

“Oh mercy, you are right about Meeker.” She sobbed. “I could no’ see it.”

“You had an inkling.”

“I had doubts but I was too afraid to act on them. Too cowardly.”

“That’s not true at all. You came to me. That was right. That was brave.”

“I suppose. But it was also selfish of me. You are an important man and you have higher duties than to play nursemaid with me here and hold my hand.”

His arms tightened on her. His lips brushed the top of her head. “Shh, shh, I’ll hold your hand for as long as you need me to.”

She couldn’t picture a time when she wouldn’t need that from him. Already she’d grown too dependent on the warm, safe feeling it gave her when he coddled her like this.

“Oh, James, it is so bad. Terrible.”

“What is?”

“I should no’ have told Meeker all the secrets of my marriage. They weren’t mine alone to share; they belonged to Freddy too.”

“You’ve told me.”

How could she tell him that he didn’t know all? She took a deep breath and continued. “You are a Blayne, you were Freddy’s cousin. It does no’ seem so bad.”

“Hush, you had to tell someone. Meeker tricked you into trusting him.”

Yes, she would have gone completely mad if she had not been able to share her inner hell with Dr. Meeker at the time. “I should have been able to see it. I can see it all so clearly now. Why can I see it now but could not then?”

His large hand cradled her head. “You were nearly prostrate with grief, you were not yourself—you were in no state to make clear judgments or protect yourself. Then they kept you drugged and unsure of yourself. I should have been there.”

“How could you have been there?” She could hear the sobbing catches in her breath, coming in between her words.

“I don’t know.” His voice sounded strangled. “But I should have been there to protect you when no one else could.”

“There was a war.” There was a ludicrousness to her simple statement, made to a man who had fought in that war, who had known nothing but risk and peril. She hadn’t even been able to survive a marriage and the death of her husband.

“What the hell was wrong with Aunt Frances,” he said.

“She did what she thought was best.”

“She behaved like a hysterical peahen.”

“That is unkind.”

“They have all treated you as a criminal.”

“You don’t know me, not fully. You don’t know the things I have done!”

“You had an affaire with a servant.”

“Well, that’s not all.”

“What else is there?”

“I killed Freddy!”

“Nonsense. His heart gave out.”

The assurance in his voice enraged her. The lies had been spread so easily. Lies told to protect her.

Her heart broke. “Did it?”

“Didn’t it?”

“No.” She sat then yanked impatiently at the fallen shoulder of her chemise. “You’ve been told the same fictions as the rest of the world.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

James touched her shoulders, his fingertips caressing. Soft. “My poor darling.”

His voice was gentle, full of compassion.

She melted inside.

His sympathy, his belief, was clearly all for her. He was ever on her side.

Oh, but he didn’t know how ill-deserved his faith in her was.

“Tell me.” His voice was firm.

Everything within her yearned to spill the whole matter out. She bristled to harden herself against the seductive urge.

He made a tender, comforting sound. “You can tell me anything.”

“I can no’ tell anyone. Ever.”

“You told Meeker?”

“No, I never told him this. I told him everything else but not this.”

“But it weighs on you?”

“Aye, it weights heavy on me. I swear it will bear me down and push me into the grave.” Yet she wanted to tell him, to let him absorb it all and be the judge. Frightened more than before that she would give in and tell, she shook off his hand.

“I have told you, I can no’ tell anyone. Ever!”

She bolted from the bed and fled the chamber. As she ran through the corridors of the house, her chest tightened and she felt she couldn’t draw a full breath. Panting frantically, she made her way to the rear staircase and scrambled up the steps to the roof. Heedless of the dark night, she kept running. The stones chilled her feet and the damp went clear to her bones by the time she reached the iron railing. Eyes closed, Sunny leaned over the railing and let the breeze dry the tears that had begun to sting her eyes.

What manner of wife are you?

The words seemed to carry on the wind.

“I was the best wife I could be!”

She shouted the words, only to have the wind suck them away. Tears streamed down her face and her body shook.

The best wife would have adapted. She would have been the kind of wife her husband needed. She would have loved him in the way he needed.

“I tried. I tried!” She hurled the words at the gusts, leaning further over the rail. “It was never good enough. I could never be good enough!”

And it was too late. Freddy was gone.

She could never give him what he needed now.

Her inability to give him what he had needed, in the way he had needed—it had hurt him.

It had killed him.

She put her hands over her ears, trying to shut out the sound of the wind, trying to block the voices that seemed to carry to her on the gusts. But she couldn’t.

You killed him!

“No!”

Your selfishness killed him!

“I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!”

Too late! He’s gone.

Gone!

Sunny!

Freddy’s shout carried over howling of the wind.

“Forgive me!” she cried out, forcing the words past the growing rawness in her throat.

Sunny!

Why wouldn’t Freddy leave her in peace?

A sob tore up her throat and her eyes popped open. She stared down the distance to the ground.

Dizziness swirled over her. Unsteady, she lurched forward. The ground seemed to rush up. The sight transfixed her.

An iron band wrapped around her waist. Jerked her backwards. Held her against a solid frame.

She gasped for breath, the harsh pants forcing themselves out as she stared up at the stars swirling against the blue-black night sky.

“Didn’t you hear me shouting for you?” James’ voice rumbled through her, rattling her bones.

Or had he given her a fierce shake?

She couldn’t yet speak. Though her breathing was slowing now. Gradually.

“You would destroy yourself over the likes of Freddy Blayne!” His angry voice boomed over the howl of the wind. He shook her, definitely this time. “Don’t tell me you would throw yourself over this railing for love of that feckless coxcomb!”

“What?” Her mind reeled. Tears streamed down her face.

He shook her again. “Answer me! Stop keeping secrets from me!”

“No…no…”

“You dare say no to me? I am the only one here for you!”