Dark Season (34 page)

Goose bumps had risen on her skin as he spoke. She couldn’t suppress a shiver. He lifted the sheet and tucked it around her shoulder, smoothing it down beneath her chin. This gentle gesture was so at odds with his grim monotone.

“How old were you?” she asked.

“Eleven.” His voice was tightening. “Phillipa was only seven. But she tugged at my arm. She whispered to me. She said I didn’t have to go with him. She said her father would protect me. I rose anyway, but she was quicker than I was. She was at the doorway in an instant. No one ever stood up to my father. It was unthinkable. But she put her tiny body between us, and she looked right into his face. ‘Isidore wants to stay with us,’ she said.”

He fell silent, struggling with himself. Ella waited.

“My father didn’t so much as glance at her. He fixed me with those eyes, and he asked me if it was true. Did I want to stay with them. And I said no. I left with him and without even looking at her. I didn’t have the courage to stand by a girl of seven. I hated him, but I was his creature. That night, he had a fire built in the parlor, and we played snapdragon. He made me kneel, and he held my hand in the flames.”

She wanted to weep, but what good would her tears do for that little boy on his knees, suffering in that long-ago winter? The skin of his hands must have reddened, blistered, blackened. He must have screamed for mercy and hated himself for it all the more. She was mute.

“She never mentioned that night to me.” His voice, so close to breaking, held. “But I never forgot. How brave she was for my sake. How I failed her.”

“It’s easier to be brave when you’re loved.” She swallowed hard. “Phillipa was surrounded by love. You had no one.”

“I had her after that,” he said. “And you’re right. It was easier.”

In the silence that intervened, she listened to his heart, steady and strong. His life was precious to her. She wanted to make things easier for him, brighter, more joyful. But she wasn’t fashioned to bring happiness. Ah, but it was a cruel thing, their meeting. She wasn’t sorry, wouldn’t be sorry. But it was cruel, cruel, cruel.

“Your mother … ” She didn’t know what she wanted to ask.

“Died in childbirth along with the babe. I wasn’t six.”

“But you remember her.”

“I remember her,” he said. “She was dark-haired and gentle. And sad.”

Of course. She would have to have been sad married to such a man. But she would have known happiness as well, in Isidore.

She said: “The fact of your existence must have comforted her.”

He breathed out heavily, almost a sigh. “She would come into the nursery and weep by the window. I would try to get her attention, but she wouldn’t look at me. It was as though she didn’t see me. Sometimes, if I clung to her long enough, she would touch my head and sing. Sometimes she would play for me.”

Until my father smashed her violin.
She was spinning now. It was too much to comprehend, the sorrow and the violence. How had Isidore survived? How could he reach out to another human with tenderness? As if he listened to her thoughts, his fingers slid through her hair, a soothing motion.

“Louisa gave me a violin after my mother died so I could practice with Phillipa. I used to play in the woods and pretend my mother could hear me. One day … the groundskeeper told my father.”

She made a strangled noise, her throat constricting. “He cut your ear.”

“For my own good,” he said. “To keep me from womanly pursuits.”

“What makes a man so vicious?” she whispered.

“Tradition.” His fingers paused in their stroking. “It’s the Blackwood way. I saw the scars once on my father’s chest. Each the size of a farthing. I’ve thought often of how long you’d have to hold a cheroot against the skin to burn a mark so large … ” His fingers tightened, straining her hair at the roots. At her sharply indrawn breath, he relaxed his hand.

“Christ,” he swore and lifted her off him. She knelt by his side, watching him, aching at the misery in his eyes.

“I hurt people,” he said, with finality. “I am a Blackwood through and through.”

“You’re a Blackwood.” She looked into his blue eyes, which must be so like his father’s. He was born of Blackwood blood and had suffered for it. She knew what it was like to suffer from an accident of birth. “You can decide what that means,” she said. “You don’t have to be the same kind of Blackwood. And you’re not.” She said it fiercely. “I
know
you. You’re … ” She stopped, gulped, shook her head wordlessly. Tears threatened to fall.

“What?” He was looking at her strangely.

The man I love.

She buried her face in her hands. He sat up and gathered her against his chest.

“Shhhh.” His lips brushed her temple, nipped the rim of her ear, and pressed there, seeping warmth.

“You help me believe it,” he said. The strength of his embrace made her bones creak, and then she melted into it.

“Come,” he said at last, roughly, kissing the top of her head. “That’s enough talk before breakfast. You must be hungry. How do you feel about ham?”

• • •

Isidore fetched the breakfast tray himself. He wanted to protect Ella from the stares of the footman. It meant that he exposed himself to the stares of Mrs. Potts. The good woman passed him in the hall outside the kitchen with an odd, abrupt signal, as though warding off evil. He nodded cautiously, and she spun on her heel.

“You’ll do right, my lord, I’m sure,” she said. She wasn’t sure at all. Her chins were quivering.

“Yes, Mrs. Potts,” he said, with a docility that surprised her.

“Well.” She snapped her mouth shut and bustled off to strike fear in the dust. The rhythmic jingle of her keys underscored her words. Do right. Do right. Do right. He
would
do right, or die trying.

When he reentered his bedchamber with the tray, Ella was sitting at the table with Xenophon open. She was wearing the robe he’d put out for her. It was very plain, gray wool; she’d tucked one side tightly behind the other and cinched it with the sash. A nun might have worn such a garb without complaint. Her hair was still loose, hanging down her back like a spill of light. She looked up and smiled. His pulse accelerated. What unexpected pleasure, this. To open the door to his chamber and see her, wrapped in his clothing, curled up with a book, waiting for him, looking at him as though she were happier now that he was there.

He felt as though whatever rush of excited blood made his cock “stand,” as she put it, was now doing the same thing to his heart. Dear God, an erection of the heart. This was why he was not a poet. He grinned stupidly, and she didn’t seem to mind. Two thoughts came to him simultaneously.

He could have this every day.

He wanted this every day.

Greed made him rush to her and set down the tray with an inexpert crash.

“Eggs, toast, ham, coffee.” He arranged the plates and silver on the table. She pounced on the food, buttered a piece of toast avidly, and bit into it. The crunching that ensued was not delicate. She caught his eye and coughed, choking on crumbs. He handed her coffee and slapped her back while she wheezed, color rising in her cheeks. She took the coffee in both hands and swallowed. Her smile was sheepish.

“I am hungry,” she said, and her blush deepened. She added more milk and sugar to her coffee, and he took note. Almost white and sweet as golden syrup. He didn’t approve, of course, but he’d remember. He’d prepare it for her just like that. Next time.
Next time.
Those words filled him with delight. She bit again into her toast with a loud crunch. He even liked the way she ate. Determined. She examined the toast as though looking for the best angle of attack.

“You’re not?” she asked pointedly.

“What?”

“Hungry,” she said.

“Oh.” He laughed. Christ Jesus, she’d made him forget the ham. He folded two slices on toast with an egg hard-boiled and dispatched it within the minute. They didn’t speak, concentrating on chewing, and the silence felt companionable. Yes, they could eat together, read together, sit together without conversation, their silence a knowing silence, a conspiracy of contentment … The coffee vitalized him and reinforced his sense of well-being. He’d shown her the dark corners of his consciousness, and she’d blown away the cobwebs. He glanced up and saw her watching him with those unfathomable, dark eyes.

“You read Greek?” he asked, gesturing, and she looked down at the book, closed now on the edge of the table.

“A little. I didn’t take to it. I preferred Latin.” She tipped her head, giving him an oblique look. “I never would have guessed you liked to read, let alone in Greek. When I first met you, that is.”

“Why’s that?” he asked airily, as though he wasn’t hanging on her every word. He helped himself to more ham.

“You’re too tall,” she said.

“For books?” He put down his fork. She nodded gravely.

“By four inches at least.” Her mouth quirked. She was
teasing
him. He wanted to leap out of his seat and whirl her straight back to bed.

“No spectacles. No whiskers. No ink stains.” She shrugged. “You just don’t look the type.”

“I’ve been told I’m more in the Byronic mold.” He glowered at her.

She raised an eyebrow. “Very good,” she said. She sipped her coffee and added—dear God—yet another spoonful of sugar. “I suppose there are all sorts of literary men.”

“But the spectacles, whiskers, and ink stains … ?”

“My father.” She smiled. “He lived in his books.”

“It was your father who taught you Greek and Latin?” He watched the slight change in her expression, a melancholy stealing across her features. She sucked in her cheeks. The action plumped her lower lip distractingly. Her gaze drifted up to a distant point.

“He didn’t always have time for supper, but he had time for the classics.” She laughed, a low, throaty sound, reminding him that he hadn’t heard nearly enough of her laughter. She and her father had laughed together. He could see it in her eyes.

“You enjoyed each other’s company,” he said. The smile still lingered on her mouth as she looked at him.

“He was my best friend,” she said simply.

“Ella.” He poured himself more coffee. He considered the steaming liquid then her. “Why did you leave Somerset?” She continued to butter her second piece of toast, which suddenly required all of her attention.

“My cousin,” she said. “I told you.” Her cousin. The hunter. She’d worn this same look the last time she’d spoken of him. A hunted look. He supposed it was fitting. She sighed and laid the toast on her plate. “He never liked me. I didn’t think he would inherit. No one thought it. But my brother died, and then my cousin Charles, then Benedict. When my father died last year … well, the estate fell to him.”

She
was
wellborn. No shock there. But … “The
Reed
estate?” He lifted his brows. Her toast had again become interesting. She broke it in half then broke the halves into quarters. He leaned back in his chair, tipping it back onto two legs. It was that or drum his fingers on the table.

“Reed is not my name,” she said.

“No?”
Damn it all.
He hadn’t meant to strike that tone of mock surprise. She bristled.

“No,” she said slowly, warily. “I adopted it as a precaution. I don’t want my cousin to find me.”

“He’s looking, then?”

Her posture began to change: chin tucking in, shoulders drawing up to her ears. She was trying to disappear into herself.

Confide in me.
He pushed aside the plates and took her hands, holding them on the table, trying to press this message into her palms.

“The valuables you had in your possession,” he began.

“Were mine!” She was magnificent in her defiance, her back straightening and her eyes throwing sparks. He released his breath in a low whistle. She didn’t hear it, swept away by her sudden passion. “The law that declares it theft is unjust. He has no claim to them I recognize. They were gifts my father made to me. And to my mother.” She sagged in her chair. “I have so little of her,” she said. “But I didn’t take those things for sentimental reasons. I took them to sell.” Her voice turned almost cold. That restraint he had seen in her from the beginning was taking over. Even her hands felt cooler, stiffer, like claws. At any moment she would try to pull them away.

“So your cousin pursues you for trinkets?” He watched her closely. He had gained, perhaps, a few more pieces of the puzzle, but he had come no closer to putting them together. She withheld too much. “And you have no friends, no other relations, no one to turn to?”

“That’s right,” she said icily. “So you see why it is important I find paid employment immediately.” She tugged her hands, and he tightened his grip. “I am quite alone in the world.”

“You have me.” She went dead white when he said it. He wondered if his face too had drained of color. He’d surprised himself. But now he had to press forward. “Reed is not your name. You’re afraid to claim your real one.” He looked at her widened eyes, her parted lips, the pulse fluttering darkly in her neck. “Take mine.”

Her pallor had a greenish cast. She looked positively sickened. He squelched his misgivings—
She doesn’t want to hear this, not a word of it
—and plowed on.

“I know I’ve said nothing to recommend my name. I’ve considered it a curse more often than not. But perhaps, if you too were a Blackwood … ”
Spit it out, man.
“Perhaps if we shared the name … I wouldn’t find it so distasteful.”

Even when she’d vomited river water she hadn’t seemed so overset. A clicking sound was coming from her throat.

“I’ve despoiled you of your virginity,” he said. God, it was clunky. “I want to make right by you.” He wouldn’t thank Mrs. Potts for this phrasing when he saw her next. Ella’s nostrils pinched.

“You do me great honor,” she intoned. It was the very voice of death. “I regret I cannot accept your offer … ” She stopped, rigid, even her vocal cords paralyzed. He pushed back his chair and circled the table, falling to his knees at her side. He wanted to shake her until she woke up, until he saw
her
again peering through the dark glass of those distant eyes. But he jerked her chair around and laid his arms on her knees, gripping her legs, staring up at her fiercely.