Flowers From The Storm (14 page)

He closed his eyes; sometimes that worked when he got confused, helped to clear his brain. He felt the ring, rolled it in his left hand, then put it between his palms. He turned his right hand over, and the ring slipped away and thudded on the floor.

Christ!

He stared at it, breathing hard through his nose. The pungent burn behind his eyes began to come back.

Maddy retrieved the ring. She moved as if to put it back in her pocket.

He stood up, seized the chair and swung it, sending it crashing against the table and the wall. A chunk of plaster flew free; the chair fell back, swayed for an instant on one leg, and toppled to the floor.

“No,” he said. He held out his open hand.

“Sh’voh—”

“Give!”

Her color was high; she put her chin up and pointed at the chair. “Thamusno throw. Set right.”

He blew out a hissing breath of fury at this impertinence. She held the ring behind her back; it was nothing to wrench her arm in front of her, and when he couldn’t empower his other hand to take advantage of the access, he pressed her wrist between his fingers until she cried out and dropped both the ring and the razor.

He swept the signet up and laid it on the table. He held the edge with his left hand, located his right and put it down flat, slid his fingers until the ring caught on the tip of the third, and by working the band with his right thumb and the seal against the table surface, managed to shove it over his knuckle into place.

That wasn’t the proper way to do it. There was another way, but he had the signet on his finger where it ought to be, and he’d done it himself. He looked up at Maddygirl in triumph.

She’d moved close to the door, holding her wrist, chafing her fingers up and down it.

He turned toward her and she backed away.

That stopped him, held him frozen. It dawned on him that he’d hurt her.

What was happening to him?

He didn’t know what to do. He stood there a long moment, working the underside of the ring with his thumb. She had that wary look, the worst look; he’d rather have her chin lifted and her meddlesome nurse role than that.

Humbly, he turned around and picked up the chair, set it right; he found the chunk of wall plaster and placed it carefully underneath the hole. He would have repaired it if he’d had the means.

The razor lay on the floor where it had skittered off under the window. He picked it up. She made a faint sound and caught at the door behind her. She had the key in her hand.

So naive. Two steps—he’d have her and the key and freedom; the Ape never gave him such opportunities.

Christian held the razor. She looked utterly terrified, but stood her ground. He didn’t like the look; he didn’t like it that she was so stupid as to be brave with him. What if he were really crazy? He could kill her in ten seconds. No way on earth she could get that door unlocked fast enough. The Ape knew; the Ape planned every move on that knowledge; that was the reason for the jacket and garrote and chains.

All these madmen in this place—why hadn’t anyone told her to be careful?

He frowned down at the razor. Then he put it beside the copper bowl on the table, poured lukewarm water and sat down in the chair, attempting to look contrite.

It was not his greatest forte. If he’d had words, had himself; flowers, notes, diamonds, waltzes—he knew how to disarm a skittish female.

She watched him for a long, long moment.

Then she wriggled her wrist a little, as if testing it. With her small, dry smile, she said, “Look pupdog, Sh’voh.”

Well, hell.

“Morlike thou!” she said. She actually laughed, and he realized his repentant expression had turned into a scowl. But her unease had vanished. She dropped the key in her pocket and walked to the table.

He sat quite still as she shaved him. The good razor and her deft touch made it better than the Ape’s bloodbath, even with the water gone cold—which he supposed he deserved. Sitting backwards in the chair, he tilted his head for her, lifting his jaw so that she could reach without bending so far.

He began to smile inwardly. Her Quaker clothes, adorned only with a crossed white scarf at the neckline, weren’t made to be viewed from this angle. With his lashes lowered, he could see down the front of her plain bodice, an enjoyable view, a schoolboy pleasure, but he was reduced to such small satisfactions. He had no intention of foregoing this one.

She finished all too expeditiously. He watched her clean the razor and the bowl with neat, practiced movements and knew how tigers in the zoo must feel, watching warm temptation pass so close to their cage. Only this enticement was bolted inside with him, until she gathered the shaving utensils and carried them out—another clear chance, so easy— and the bars rang closed.

She would do it again. Over and over again. He had to think. He had to get control of his clouded brain and think.

The instant that he saw the new clothes, Maddy could feel the swift rise of his mood. Though he did no more than look at them and touch them, pick up the spurs and hold them, the expectation in his face when he turned to her was something far beyond mere shirt and coat.

She thought he was going to embrace her again. She stepped backwards, but he only pushed at her shoulder, a hint that she obeyed with alacrity, stepping into the hall and closing the solid wooden door behind her. After a few minutes, a single sharp thud from inside signaled her to unlock it.

He held out his hands, impatient while she managed the cufflinks. She tied his neckpiece. He rested his boot on the chair and shoved one of the spurs onto his heel, held the strap and jerked his head for her to come.

She bent over, buckling the leather across the instep, tightening it down against pure black luxury.

Supple, shiny, expensive: no months of blisters and dye-stained stockings, no paper-stuffed toes would be required to break in these boots.

She felt his attention, intense and close on the simple task. As she found the tiny hole for the buckle, he touched her hands, a searching contact, the way her father felt over objects to identify them.

She slowed her movement, opening her hands so that he could see what her fingers did as she tucked the end of the leather through its keeper.

He changed legs, shoved the other spur home. His hand hovered over the dangling strap; he laid it across the boot, staring at it.

“Here.” Maddy took his hands in hers, closed his fingers around the strap and buckle, guiding one through the other. It was awkward; through five attempts with both of them leaning over his boot, Maddy tried to direct his hands and ignore the increasing rhythm of his breathing, the spiraling of frustration that she perceived in his tensing muscles. Bent so close to him, his size and strength felt substantial, an intimidating potential for explosion.

At last the strap caught through the buckle. She grabbed at it before it slipped out, pressed the end between his fingers, bent it back—simple and complex; his hands like a child’s, untutored, and like a man’s, firm and powerful, too large for her to direct readily. She pressed his thumb against the catch; miraculously, it found the hole on the first try. He made a sound, a noise in his throat of success and anger.

Maddy guided his hands to finish the task, slide the keeper upward, push the strap through. Another try, another failure. He groaned beneath his breath. But he kept holding the strap and the keeper, a death grip that hindered more than helped. She nudged his finger onto the impeding upward twist at the end of the strap, holding down the curl.

“Now push it in,” she said.

He did nothing, just held them.

She glanced up at him sideways. His face was close to hers, closer than any man’s she’d ever known but her father. He looked at her beneath black lashes.

He closed his eyes, and moved his hands. The strap slipped into the keeper.

“There. Thou hast it.”

She let go and stood back. He straightened, his boot still propped on the chair. They were both breathing as if they’d been running hard.

“
Go
,” he said, with difficulty. He grinned at her.

It was only then, as she saw him there in top boots and spurs, leather breeches, vented green coat, as smart and rakish as any gentleman who had ever paid court to the ladies’ carriages in Rotten Row, that she realized what she’d done. She’d dressed him to ride. And he looked at her, charged with anticipation, ignited in expectation of it.

“
Go
,” he said again, the effort a sharp exhalation.

Without speaking, she shook her head.

She had nothing to say. It had been her own ignorant enthusiasm—thinking she knew anything about what he would wish to wear, thinking green would compliment rust and tan. And where had she seen that combination and style every day of her life, pray, but among the gentlemen who rode their burnished mounts in the fashionable squares and streets?

In the silence, his grin failed. He looked at her intently, as if by concentration alone he could find what he desired in her expression.

She pressed her lips together, helpless to repair the blunder now. She shook her head again.

Disillusion chilled his face, turned his aspect to dark ice. He gave her one look, one instant that asked why, and then turned away from her. His hand hovered over the buckled spur. He gazed down at it.

With his right hand he worked it free. He propped the left boot up and yanked that spur free with his left hand.

He stood holding the spurs, staring down at the chair.

In profile, a still and intense emotion carved his mouth and cheek. He made no other move, just stood immobile, but Maddy found her feet moving her backward toward the door and safety.

She reached for the key in her pocket. He looked toward her, and not even when he’d looked at Larkin had she seen that depth of venom and contempt in his face.

A thread of terror formed and spiraled in her throat. She looked down sideways and fitted the key into the lock, apprehensive even to turn her back on him completely. She swung open the bars and slipped through. The iron door never shut softly; it always locked into place with a loud reverberation of metal on metal.

He walked to the door. Without thinking, Maddy moved back, even though protected by the bars. One by one, he held up the spurs and dropped them through. They clanged on the metal and hit the floor with a dead thump.

Christian lay on the bed, listening to the sounds of the madhouse.

He hated her. False thee-thou pious bitch. To join them after all, treat him to her own little crazy-begetting games, nothing so crude as the ice-bath, nothing he might have expected, have armed himself against; oh, no—much subtler than that, but devastating.

To make him hope. To make him believe in her. To make him look a fool, a child: a helpless, inept idiot.

He’d thought they were going. Where, how, why; none of that had mattered. Only to go. Only his freedom. Out of the cage with her for assurance that he could manage in the outside.

He hated her.

Hated her.

Hate hate hate hurt cold blood faithless bitch.

Mixed up with it was the pain, a different rancor from the pure and honest malice he had for the Ape. To the Ape, he was a moving piece of meat, an ox to be trussed and prodded like all the other mad and dangerous dumb beasts in this place. It had been, Christian understood, nothing personal— until Maddy had come and toppled the keeper off his throne. It was personal now, and that too was her doing.

He hated her. He felt ashamed. His back ached with the Ape’s punishment, bound now
tight whitehard to breath
. That the humiliation of hope and disappointment could be more fierce than anything the Ape had done to him was a bitter revelation. He’d trusted her, let her see his confusion and hear him speak, guide his hands in their awkward futility. She had brought him his own clothes, helped him strap on spurs, made him into a mirage of himself.

Why, why, why Maddygirl?

Why give him that hope? Just to take it from him? Just for the power to shake her head? Stand there with her key, so easy to conquer, and step out into where he could not go?

Could not. Would not. Was afraid to go alone.

He put his hands over his eyes and through his hair, defying the sharp agony in his back. He’d never known he would be a coward, afraid of what he wanted so intensely. He hated her the worse for showing him the reality of himself—that he preferred this animal cell to wrenching the key from her hand and walking on his own out that door.

He rolled off the bed, breathing hard against the hurt. Up, he prowled the room, touched each of the few things in it. He found comfort in the table, precisely in its familiar place, the chair just a hand’s width from the fireplace grate. Any changes in the room made him angry. He was afraid only a crazy person cared so much about such things, and tried not to care, and still did.

He looked down at his feet in the top-boots. A madman. Crazy, mute, imprisoned animal. He caught the bars on the door and shook them against the steel frame, filling the room and hall with clanging metal.