Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 (19 page)

Harry had no doubt that the fever was another symptom of their attempt to break the spell. It was this or confront the person who had cast it. That was why he had left anyone who might have administered it at home. Even his mother, who had previously done everything in her power to keep him safe, might have done it as an attempt to find him the wife she wanted for him.

Several changes of horses later, as twilight was giving way to night, they reached the house. The servants had lit the candles. He saw the glow from some way away, once they’d scaled the last damned hill before it, and crossed the last brook.

Aylsford was at the top of Lake Windermere, a long stretch of water that people inclined to sailing and rowing praised for the quality of the sport there. Harry had no time for such activities. If he wanted to cross water, he hired someone to get him to the other side safely, and that was enough.

On his fourth horse now, he had not dared enter the coach. His wife’s fever had increased apace, and he was afraid he’d do nothing but cradle her in his arms and will her to get better. Or worse. If he allowed prolonged contact, that whip of attraction that had snapped through him when he’d touched her forehead would have gained the upper hand. He would have made love to her and increased both of their discomfort. How could he even think it, with Virginie so ill?

He explained their early arrival as the result of his wife’s being taken ill. “Put her to bed,” he told Darlestone, the maid. “I will come up to see her as soon as I’ve put off my travelling dirt.”

He needed time to compose himself. By now he was desperately worried. Had he done too much? Should he have found a way of weaning them from the addiction more gradually? But in his heart he knew he was taking the right path. D’Argento had advised him of the best ways to break this kind of enchantment. Though at the time they’d assumed a continuation of the spell cast on them by Eros, some kind of self-perpetuation, not a renewal or a fresh spell.

Eros had enchanted Venus and Mars. He had not met Harry before that evening at the theatre. If he’d speared Harry, by God, Harry would have made sure Eros knew all about it.

Harry changed, disdaining the use of a servant. In accordance with his plan he had left his valet at home. Apart from the man’s delicate hand with a razor, Harry could do everything else just as well for himself, especially with country clothes. He’d brought footmen who had no deep connection with his family, a coachman and outriders who had nothing to do with the people inside the house, and two relatively unknown people as personal servants for him and his wife. If he had travelled with none, the idea might have roused suspicions. As it was they had barely escaped without taking Fenton with them. She had pleaded with Harry to take her, but he’d told her he could not interfere with his wife’s decisions.

He dragged a razor over his chin, cursing the stubble that meant he had to shave twice a day if he wanted to keep his chin smooth. Then he dragged a fresh set of clothes from his baggage, ignoring the creases to his shirt and breeches as he put them on. He had to call for help to remove his well-crafted riding boots, but that was all. He slipped on a pair of shoes and hurried to the room set aside for Virginie.

She had a well furnished room, with oak furniture and what looked like Jacobean embroidered drapery. It could not be that old, surely, but the drapery around the huge, old-fashioned four-poster bed only merited a quick glance. He was far more concerned with the woman nestled between the sheets.

The maid had done her work well, stripping and washing her mistress before putting her in a fresh night rail and helping her to bed. Virginie was flushed, and her eyes were closed. “I got her to drink as much as I could before she fell asleep,” Darlestone informed him.

Contact be damned. He couldn’t stand by and watch someone else care for her. He would just have to resist the temptation tearing through him, turning his internal organs to rags. Virginie was far more important than anything happening to him.

He pulled up a big wing chair, dismissed the maid, and waited on events.

They didn’t have long to start. Virginie sat bolt upright in bed, the sheets falling away. She tore off the nightcap Darlestone had put on her as if it burned her and her golden hair tumbled free. Her eyes shot open and she stared blindly at something in front of her. Something Harry couldn’t see.

Lifting a hand, she pointed her shaking finger. “Look! Can’t you see? It’s a demon, come to take me to hell!”

Harry almost saw it. The enchantment had affected him, but not as much. So he was merely hot and aching, where she had entered another place, one of her own. She had been taking whatever had done this for much longer.

“There is nothing there, sweeting,” he said softly. “It’s merely an illusion.”

“No, I can see it.” After a moment, she lowered her hand. “He’s gone,” she said sadly, as if the vision was something she wanted.

She lay down again, but did not sleep, only lay on her back with her hands folded under her breasts, watching the canopy of the bed. “It’s like a room in itself, is it not?” she said, as if continuing a conversation.

“Beds like these afforded our ancestors some privacy,” Harry said, answering her in as rational a way as he knew. “They could close the curtains and shut out the world. In the old days houses had no hallways. You went through someone else’s room to get to your own.”

“Goodness, is that true?”

He had no idea. “Yes, especially in houses this size. This house has but seven bedrooms. Modest sized, suitable for the gentry. My father spent much time here as a boy, hunting stags, but I have never taken to hunting with the same enthusiasm.”

“What happened to your father?”

“He died.” He would have to tell her what had really happened to his father, but not now. Anything more taxing than ordinary conversation, and certainly something as black as his own early life, would have to wait for another time. “He was a lover of country sports and preferred to avoid London, even before he met my mother. She resented that, but learned to cope, or so she has always told me, and now she dislikes London as much as he ever did.” Strange, that. He’d have assumed that his mother would have raced to the metropolis as soon as she’d decently buried his father. But she had, for the most part, stayed in Cheshire, where he’d passed most of his childhood.

But he knew why, did he not?

Pushing the memories away, he concentrated on Virginie. She was quiet now, but in a few moments she woke, stirred and looked at him. “Come to me,” she said. “Let me love you. We can end this now.”

Even with her hair tangled, her face pale and yet gleaming with sweat and her eyes wild, she was perfect. Every feature depicted exactly what a woman should be.

And he wanted her. Whatever she was, however she appeared, he would always want her. He closed his eyes, imagined her features distorted, a larger nose, smaller eyes, maybe uneven features, a thinner mouth. But she would still be Virginie and he would still want her. Would still love her.

Instinct made him grasp that notion. If anything could save them from the swamp of desire, then it was a pure, sincere emotion for him to anchor his feelings on.

“I will not come, Virginie,” he said. “Then we’ll only have to go through this again. There is water on the nightstand. I also have wine and brandy. You can have that after you’ve eaten.” Alcohol might help her to sleep, or counteract the addiction. He was desperate enough to try anything.

Anxiety strained his every thought, and that mingled with the arousal brought on by the spell. Only the knowledge that he should not feel this way towards a sick woman kept him from going to her when she held her arms out to him, when she pulled up her night rail and exposed her body, trying to tempt him in the most blatant way.

She sat up, and cupped her breasts, offering them to him in a grotesque parody of what they’d shared. He reached forward, snagged a corner of the sheet and threw it over her. “You do not tempt me,” he said, lying through his teeth. “Go to sleep, Virginie. You are ill.”

After growling at him and throwing some choice curses his way, she drank several glasses of water before demanding the bathroom. “Will you carry me? I’m so weak, Harry.”

“Only if you are so well wrapped up that I can’t feel you. You will not tempt me, Virginie.” He reached for his cane. “You’re welcome to borrow this.”

She climbed off the bed, snarling more curses, stuck her chin in the air and strode off to the powder room. As he was starting to wonder if he should go in after her, the door opened and she returned. She’d brushed her hair to shining golden silk, donned a fresh night-rail, this one with lace trim, and she’d washed. When she passed him she left a drift of perfume in her wake. He leaned forward, sniffing it like a butcher’s dog after a succulent bone.

No!
Gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white, he forced himself to remain where he was. She was finding this harder than he—he had to be strong for both of them.

Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, this would all be over. According to d’Argento, this would break the spell. Total abstinence, not even touching, for a day or two. If they went three days without any lessening of symptoms, Harry would use one of the pigeons he’d ordered stacked in the coach and contact him. Mental communication did not work at this distance, sadly, but the pigeon would be with d’Argento soon. He could remember d’Argento’s words as if he was standing next to him reciting them aloud.

“If, after three days, the fever is still with you, give in to it, because otherwise it will kill you. Send for me. I will come.”

Living with that fever worried him. It would weaken them, and eventually they would become nothing. Refuse to eat or drink, and starve to death. A curse rather than an enchantment.

He sat and watched her. At first she pleaded with him. Then she climbed out of bed and went to him. He rose and walked out of reach. “If you don’t get back into bed, I will leave.” She did as she was told, her shoulders drooping.

Harry stayed awake. If he slept, she would rise and touch him and they’d have to start all over again.

At one point he wondered if he was mad. Why not send for her maid?

Could they break this terrible curse on their own?

Chapter Nineteen

The answer came fast on the heels of the question. He would not leave her alone because he didn’t trust his wife with anyone else. And because her proximity was soothing his beast enough for him to bear his own pain. That was not nearly enough, but it would do. Leaving her just wasn’t possible. But if this went on much longer, he’d call her maid to ensure his wife didn’t touch him. He’d pay her handsomely and pray her gossip wouldn’t make sense. He was too jaded to believe for a minute that the maid would not gossip.

So he sat, forced his eyes open and found something to read from the small bookshelf he kept there. And he watched her, responded to her protests, and her pleading, sponged her forehead when she sweated, careful to ensure his skin didn’t touch hers. When he left the room to use the necessary, she pleaded and cried. When he strode around, trying to get the kinks out of his legs and neck, she asked him to come to bed in a voice so sultry only Venus could have managed it.

All his energy went into resisting her pleas, her angry shouts and worse, her seductive attempts. The last were the worst. They sank right to the bottom of his soul. She pulled him in an instinctive, terrifying way that really brought home to him that he still wanted her.

All night he waited, and finally she fell asleep at four a.m. He took out his pocket watch, turned off the chimes so they wouldn’t wake her, and had a brainwave.

Opening the top drawer of his dressing chest, he found two neckcloths and made a loop in each. With a great deal of effort he slipped her wrists into them, dropping them over her hands carefully, so as not to wake her. Then he tightened them, not painfully.

She was sleeping on her back, so he found it relatively easy to secure the other ends of the neckcloth to the bedposts, thanking heaven for the presence of the four-poster. At home they used a canopy bed, covered but without the big posts at each corner. He would have found a great deal more difficulty using that.

With a sigh of relief he returned to his chair and leaned his head on his hand. He doubted he could sleep long like this.

The click of the door made him jerk out of sleep.

The sun had risen. He didn’t know the aspect of this house, so he couldn’t tell what time of day it was, just that dawn had long gone. The sun blazed in the sky, full on his face. He blinked, accustoming his eyes to the light, anger simmering inside him. Who had the temerity to open the curtains when he was trying to keep his wife asleep?

With eyes damp from the sting of the light, he turned his attention to the bed. The sheets were rumpled, creased and twisted, the covers thrown aside.

The bed was empty.

Leaping to his feet, Harry nearly stumbled, but grabbed his cane and regained his balance. His good leg had cramped, and he had to stamp the floor a few times to settle it. An infuriating delay. Where was she? Had someone taken her?

“I should never have slept,” he muttered. “She could be anywhere.”

“She’s here.”

He swung around too hastily, his cane catching in the rug under his feet. When he pivoted, it twisted around the wooden haft, and he lost his balance.

Rushing forward with a susurration of silk, she caught him.

They froze, staring at each other.

She had her hand around his wrist. His
bare
wrist. But no frisson of sensation ribboned up to his spine. Only warmth and pleasure that she was touching him, an involuntary reaction but not a violent one.

“How did you get out of the bonds?” he asked.

She shrugged. “You didn’t fasten them tightly enough.”

“Thank you for not leaving.” His formal words couldn’t begin to express the turmoil in his heart.

“It’s gone.”

“You’re sure?”

She nodded. “We slept for a long time, Harry. It’s nearly five in the afternoon.”

Shocked, he counted the hours. He’d been asleep for thirteen hours? How was that possible? Slowly he shook his head.

“Yes,” she said softly. Her voice no longer rang with seduction, even though he enjoyed her soft tones. “Look at me, Harry. Do you see me now, and not Venus?”

“What are you talking about?”

“At the worst of the addiction, I saw you as perfect. Even your leg, at one point, seemed healed. But I look at you now and I see Harry.”

He hadn’t realised that illusion had happened to her too. He looked at her more closely. Oh, she was beautiful. She could never be anything else. But her mouth quirked up more at one corner than the other. Her brows were a slightly different shape and her lips did not form a natural pout. They smiled. He liked it, but although he still wanted to kiss her, he didn’t feel that terrible compulsion.

“How can you be sure?”

“It’s gone. I know it. I feel free.” She frowned. “It’s been so long, but finally I feel myself again.”

“Do I know the real you?”

“Yes. She was always there. Would you come to bed now if I asked you?”

He turned a dubious eye to the state of the sheets. “I suppose we can make the bed.”

“I just called the maid to do it. I ordered food as well.” She smiled. A sunny smile without any shadow, or any seduction. “Perhaps after that.”

“Perhaps.”

She released him and turned to the door. “We can eat downstairs. I’ve been exploring. It’s a lovely house.”

“It gets very cold in winter.”

She was right. He no longer wanted to throw her down on the nearest surface and roger her senseless. He wanted food. The thought of going to bed with her heated his blood, but it didn’t drive him to a fever of impatience.

The spell had gone.

“Will it return if we spend time together?”

“I do not know. But I would like to try.”

So would he. “If I asked you to sleep apart tonight, would you?”

A slight smile curved her lips. So appealing on different levels, not just the intimate one. “Yes.”

He could do it. Perhaps not with ease, but he could sleep apart from her. The obsession had gone.

Relief and joy filled him when he realised. He was seeing her as she was, not as his fevered imagination had it. She’d washed, but she wore no face paint, and she had a loose silk robe wrapped around her, and dainty slippers on her feet. “You’re right. Will we start our marriage tonight, then?”

“Yes, we will.”

Virginie let him show her the house, although she’d toured it with the housekeeper earlier. She’d explained her absence as an illness. “Such a shame, my lady!” the housekeeper said. “So are you well now?”

She liked the housekeeper. The woman was friendly without over-familiarity, efficient too, if the state of the house was any judge. When she ordered a meal, the woman told her it would be available in an hour. “Or sooner, if your ladyship would wish.”

“An hour is fine.” It gave her time to have a proper wash, to strip and let her maid help her wash all over. She wanted everything gone, all the memories, all the perspiration, everything. Refreshed, she allowed her maid to find her a clean shift, but refused the stays. She chose her most comfortable gown, the pink one with the big pleats at the back. Why women didn’t wear these unstructured garments more often, she wasn’t sure, because once she had it on she was loath to remove it.

Weariness suffused her, and she couldn’t remember ever being so hungry. But a weight had lifted from her shoulders. Light-hearted, she wandered around the old house, enjoyed the sight of the heavy, old oak furniture and the varnish-encrusted portraits. This place was so unlike anywhere else she had lived that she felt as if she were making a new start.

As she was. New husband, new life. She could put her past behind her and look to the future. She felt almost human.

But not quite. Her goddess remained with her, as she always had. Except now she was closer to Virginie than Venus. When the enchantment had been upon her, she’d been nearly all Venus, afraid Virginie would get lost completely and unable to do anything about it.

The morning parlour was furnished in the style of a generation ago, but it had a solidity and a permanence that soothed her. While she understood why her husband had not visited often—this was wild country—its very isolation, plus the auspices of a good housekeeper, had made this house a sanctuary.

Then she returned to their room and he was awake. Instead of instant lust, she wanted to touch him, reassure him, and live something approximating a normal life.

She found him tired, but content. Content was new to her, and she found she liked it. They took dinner in the dining room downstairs. The high-backed chairs and snowy linens pleased her. “This house is like somewhere that stopped existing a hundred years ago.”

“It’s too old fashioned for you?”

She hastened to reassure him. “No, I love it. It’s—somewhere else, a place we can come without bringing our troubles with us. I’m not sure I know what I mean—”

He laughed when she broke off. “That’s the feeling exactly. As if we’ve stepped out of time. So we’ll keep it this way, shall we? I would live here all the time if you wanted to, but the winters are vicious.”

She could imagine the bitter wind that would sweep down the sides of the mountains behind the house and the damp that could rise from the lake before them. “For occasional use, I think.” She dipped her spoon into her soup. “Although the cook is to be commended.”

He tasted the bowl before him. “Indeed. She makes simple country fare delectable.”

They had but four removes to this course. Virginie could take her time savouring the dishes set before them. They had no footman to help dispense the wine and the viands. They had dismissed him. “We should come here in the summer months, and not tell anyone where we are.”

He toasted her with his wine, the goblet glistening with ruby liquid. “An excellent notion.”

They ate and chatted. Virginie had not even dressed formally, something she was so used to doing these days that sitting to dinner in informal dress felt almost sinful. She loved it. She wanted to do it again, and then do it some more.

The company helped. Her husband proved an interesting man. Already after one meal she was learning more about him, and reinforcing impressions she’d received when they’d been otherwise occupied.

After the meal she felt in no haste to leave for the drawing room. Inwardly she delighted when he got up from the table, came over to her side and offered his hand. “You are still convalescent, my lady. I should take you to the bedroom and leave you be.”

She clutched his hand. “But you won’t, will you?”

“Probably not,” he admitted. Before he opened the door, to go into the hallway where no doubt servants lurked, he murmured, “I’m still not sure this is wise, but if we make a mistake, I can send for d’Argento.”

“We can do this,” she assured him. “We’ve broken it. It’s gone. Now we have to discover each other.”