The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne (5 page)

Now, something within her recoiled at his closeness.

And the refined, dignified features, the narrow nose and thin lips, reminded her more and more of a reptile.

“There’s nothing to keep secret,” she lied. Yes, there had been a time when she’d been utterly lost, when she’d told Meeker all. Things she hadn’t thought she’d ever tell another living soul.

Things no lady should ever mention.

But some secrets were too dear. And unaccountably, it felt as though she would be betraying James to tell anyone of the shocking liberties he had taken. The scandalous caresses they had exchanged that one night in the Landbrae garden.

“He was a very passionate young man, eh?”

She started. “What makes you say that?”

“Because, my dear, I know you.” He laughed softly. “Vain girl! Vain, needy, desperate girl! A wife’s place is to serve and obey, not to be needed with desperate passion.”

She closed her eyes and compressed her lips. Yes, he knew all her weaknesses. Her selfish sense of disappointment in her marriage, something she’d never dared admit to anyone else.

He tapped his fingers on her hand. “I can easily surmise what happened. James Blayne saw the unnatural hunger in you. He ran. Believe me, Catriona, he ran.”

He ran.

The words echoed in her ears with damning accusation.

James had stayed away from Landbrae. Away from Scotland entirely. Even when he’d had leave between assignments, he’d chosen to stay in London. Aunt Frances said it was because all the light-skirts were more plentiful and cheaply acquired in London.

Sunny laughed softly, hearing the wicked lilt, the womanly bravado that came from someplace within her that felt alien. But it covered her weaknesses in moments like this. “You think he ran from me?”

“Any sane man would have.”

“But I was just girl.”

“I am sure the seeds of your current state were there. Under the surface and visible to others. You must learn to cool your passions. You must sublimate that unholy passion of yours.”

Dr. Meeker took her hand in his.

Sunny stared at her bare hand, folded between two gray gloves of fine kid leather. She could imagine the cold, clammy flesh, the gnarled hands with the bright blue veins beneath the cloth.

She shuddered. Oh God, those deathly cold hands.

“You cannot hope to recover without me,” he intoned gently but firmly.

She nodded. But she still wouldn’t look at him. Wouldn’t let him probe for her secrets.

“I always have your best interests at heart. Do you think I don’t care? Do you think because I am an old man that I am made of stone?”

Her throat began to burn. There had been a time when this man had saved her from herself. A time when she had seriously considered the supremest sin and he had pulled her back from the abyss.

Was she so ungrateful now?

“I do care for you, Catriona. I do. Do you realize that?”

She swallowed, hard, and nodded. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. She was so ungrateful.

Ungrateful!

“Yet today you don’t trust me.” His voice was smooth as silk.

What could she say? She had begun to distrust his methods for some time now. However, most days, she rejected those doubts. Oh, she was ungrateful to distrust this man who had worked so hard to heal her troubled mind and body. But some days, she couldn’t quiet her doubts. On those days, a certain lucidity—was it lucidity?—gave her a rare clarity. It seemed to her that if he cared for her, he wouldn’t seek to hurt her. He wouldn’t insist on treatments that were a torment to her.

If only she didn’t need his horrid treatments! If only she could escape his care!

But she was too frightened of sinking back into that terrible blackness again.

Or of becoming completely debauched. Wildly out of control of herself.

“If I am to cure you,” Dr. Meeker’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Then you must trust me. You must trust me completely.”

“Well, I am not any better, am I?” She spat the words at him defiantly.

“Whose fault is that?”

“Indeed, whose fault is it?”

“You must trust me, implicitly. Completely. If you will not open yourself to me, if you will not give me that ultimate—”

“I am broken,” she whispered, letting all her anguish into the statement.

“You are determined to withhold yourself from me. Determined to defy me at every—”

She turned to him and jerked her hands from his grasp.

He started and placed a gloved hand to his lapel. “Such a wild, angry expression. Do I deserve that? I am the one who is devoted to helping you.”

“I. Am. Broken!” The words exploded from her.

“Abuse now, Catriona?”

She panted, unable to still the racing of her heart.

He returned her glare calmly. “Take care, my dear. You don’t want to alienate me.”

“I am broken—why won’t you accept that? I shall never be healed, I shall never be whole again.”

“I am the only man who shall ever care for you in a purehearted way. I daresay even your own father could not possibly care for you with my depth of feeling.”

The intense probing of his black stare became too much and she turned away again.

“No, do not turn from me.”

“Are you going to administer—” She swallowed hard. “—treatment today?”

He shook his head. “No, I think a little laudanum will suffice. You look tired. You need a good night’s sleep. I shall return in the morning and administer treatment.”

“Oh.”

“See, I am not without a heart. I shan’t drive you harder than you can bear.” He took her hand again. “You must try to stay open to me. It would hurt me too much, for I know, even more than you can, how badly you need my guidance. I sacrifice so much for you, but I do it gladly. I know you cannot hope to recover, indeed you cannot hope to survive without me.”

She couldn’t be sure of that. Maybe he was right, but dear Lord, she longed to be free of him and his treatments. She wanted to be her old self. He said she could never be whole again without his help.

She felt guilty for doubting him. Yes, there had been that time when she was close to the final despair, and he had been the only person she could turn to. He had brought her back from the very edge.

Did that give him ownership over her life forever?

Torment churned within her.

Dr. Meeker cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to his placid, distinguished features. “Yes, indeed, you are tired.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I shall go and instruct Mrs. Tibbs to administer more medication straightaway.”

Sunny nodded.

What good would it do to fight this dictate? If she refused the medication, they would force it on her. She watched him gather his things back into his black bag and exit her chamber.

Relief made her so weak that she sagged against the coverlet.

No treatments today.

* * * *

Stripped down to his shirt and trousers, James sat on his bed in his old chamber. There had been no point to making Aunt Frances vacate the baron and baroness’ chambers. He certainly didn’t plan on spending much time here, anytime soon. She could occupy the suite until he brought home a bride. He sighed. That would have to be soon. Sometime within the next two years.

His head throbbed, reminding him of the need for self-medication. He took the half-full bottle of whisky from where it was wedged between his knees and put it to his lips and tilted it back, taking a swig. Finally, he put the bottle on his night table then lay back on the bed, waiting for the liquor to quiet the searing pain between his temples.

He closed his eyes, willing sleep to claim him.

A myriad of images flooded his mind, each appearing then going on its way to free space for the next, until one came with such vivid details, such clear edges.

Too clear, too sharp.

He took a deep breath and willed it away. But he could see, as well as though he’d gone back in time, his last day in this chamber as a boy.

The servants had been packing his things.

Aunt Frances had turned her stern expression upon him, her gray eyes like ice as she reminded him for the thousandth time that he must excel at his studies, his appearance must be perfection…

“And for God’s sake, do not forget all your elocution lessons! Don’t shame me by going about spouting gibberish like a savage little Scot,” she said.

His mother, who had sat on his bed, sobbing softly into her handkerchief, looked up, her pale blue eyes red-rimmed. “Oh, Jamie love, you will forget all about me! I know you will!”

He hadn’t known what to say. Her rising hysteria had put a hard, cold knot in his stomach. It was difficult enough to face going away to school in what amounted to a foreign land.

She spread her arms wide. “Oh, Jamie, come here and show me you will no’ forget me!”

He had stared at her, frozen. His heart pounding against his rib cage like thunderous horse hooves on paving stones.

Aunt Frances gave him a sharp nudge in the side. “What an unnatural son. Go to your mother.”

His knees unlocked and he managed to approach his mother, to take her outstretched hands into his own, feeling their iciness. “I won’t forget you, Mother.”

Three months later, she had left Landbrae, wedding the too newly widowed Earl of Fisher and going to live with him at his estate in the Highlands. Six months later, she presented him with a healthy son.

Aunt Frances had been livid, writing a scathing letter to James, letting him know that Sorcha Blayne had been disowned. He was not to contact his mother. Ever.

He’d learnt then the importance of reputation. The other students had attacked him mercilessly over the matter, calling his mother a Gaelic whore. Certain masters had set him impossible standards and exacting punishments. He’d borne it all and met those standards as best he could, and suffered the punishments without complaint. What else could he do but work hard to rebuild a new reputation all his own?

* * * *

Sunny reclined on her bed, and she was just beginning to float.

This was the only time they allowed her any peace. When she’d been given an extra dose of opiates.

Mrs. Tibbs always indulged in wine when she believed Sunny was incapacitated, and slept in the trundle in Sunny’s dressing chamber. But Sunny had learnt to fight the drug-induced slumber. To gain extra moments of freedom. Alone. She waited for the relief to overcome her. But tonight she remained agitated.

I am broken…just broken now!

Satisfaction sang in her blood at how she had flung the words at Dr. Meeker. She was a bad patient. Hopelessly wicked. He was wasting his time and effort on her.

But would he ever listen?

No!

She hugged herself. She was still floating. Or was it flying? She didn’t like this sensation. She hated the opiates. But nothing else would calm her. Dr. Meeker said they were absolutely necessary, along with the other.

The treatment tomorrow would be terrible, but there were hours between then and now.

The clock chimed. The sound seemed abnormally loud and she started.

Seven chimes rang. Her heart took forever to slow its beat.

How long until she recovered? Not just from tomorrow’s “treatment,” but how long until she recovered her former sanity?

When would they allow her to take her widow’s portion and take possession of the little dowager house on the Landbrae estate? Or maybe she would purchase a cozy townhouse in…Or perhaps she would even travel to Mayfair and live there in modest comfort. Quietly.

In privacy.

A sudden sense of desperation crashed over her. Tears streamed from her eyes and she sobbed until her belly ached from the intensity.

No, I can’t keep doing this!

I have to be good…to be safe.

But I earned this punishment; I am a terrible, terrible, terrible person!

But I can’t bear my just punishment. I have to get away.

I have to be safe!

She recalled seeing James that afternoon in the garden.

“Sunny?” James had spoken so softy, caressing her fingers. “You can trust me. I will protect you. You can tell me anything.”

Warmth had filled her. He was so strong, and she felt she could trust him. She’d felt safe, so safe there with him.

“Anything, Sunny.”

James had always seemed so serious, so self-assured. Even when he’d been set on seducing her in the garden, he’d done it with a methodical seriousness. He was like a Rock of Gibraltar a woman could cling to in time of crisis. That had been a great part of his appeal to her when she had been eighteen. Yet admitting that seemed disloyal to Freddy.

But it was the truth.