Lions and Lace (41 page)

He heaved a sigh and ran his hand through that dark hair she secretly longed to touch again. "I shouldn't have spoken like that to them. Now they've seen I'm no better than their servants. That won't help anybody."

"You're an Irishman. Why must you speak like someone else? You should speak like yourself."

"Mara and Eagan are Americans. They speak like Americans. I'll be damned if my brogue will hold them back."

Her voice fell to a whisper. It was foolish to say what was on her mind. She knew better than anyone else that her husband was like a wild cat, purring one minute, poised for attack the next. But in the end she relented to his stark handsome profile and her heart. "I—
like
your brogue, Trevor. I wish—I wish you'd use it, even if just to speak to me."

His surprised questioning gaze met hers and held it. But she could see the distrust there, hewn from so many years of fighting poverty and injustice. "So you can feel yourself superior?
As they did?"

"No." She wanted desperately to wipe away his suspicion, wanted him once and for all to see she didn't care how anyone else judged him, indeed had never cared. He broke her heart at times, but still she saw things in him, noble things that were worth defending. He'd proven his nobility in his treatment of Mara, and for that alone he was more than worthy of the Four Hundred. Her only despair was that in his eyes she would never be worthy of him.

"Go on to dinner," he said. "I'm sure after that scene you'd prefer to be on someone else's arm for a change." He turned back to the windows, his gaze amazingly steady and unfeeling.

"Take me to dinner," she whispered, determined to show him that she didn't judge him by what others thought. They might get their annulment, their marriage might be doomed, but it would never be because he was Irish. "Give me your arm and escort me there. Please."

Slowly he turned to stare at her. His gaze was filled with uncertainty and distrust. Hesitating, he held out his arm. She took it, her grasp tight and trembling.

"I don't think I'll ever understand you," he murmured almost to himself, still looking down at her as they proceeded to the ballroom. "You've done so many things I don't understand."

She smiled, near tears, nodding to a matron or two in passing and holding proudly to her husband's arm. It was difficult to speak the truth. "You don't want to understand, Trevor. That's the source of all your troubles."

He didn't answer, and the rest of the evening he drank heavily. More than once she caught those unusual green-gold-brown eyes brooding upon her, but every time, just as her gaze caught his and she searched for a current of understanding, he would shutter his eyes and like the cold Irishman he was, he would look away.

Mrs. Astor's soiree was becoming the social event of the century. In three weeks her ballroom was to be transformed into a miniature version of Versailles. The matron was going, appropriately enough, as Marie Antoinette, and Backhouse had even bought her a suite of jewels that had once belonged to the notorious Queen of France.

But Alana hardly cared to attend. If she did go, it would be to hear the duke say his farewells and to read the stunned expressions on the faces of Four Hundred when he announced his engagement to their outcast Mara Sheridan.

That he was going to propose was almost a certainty. A week had gone by and the duke had been at Mara's side at every opportunity. Alana did her best to chaperone them around the city, but she suspected Mara was meeting Granville during her buggy rides, and she had no doubt both were as smitten as Eagan and his fallen angel.

Eagan had shocked everyone with the Irish girl. Though neither he nor
Caitlín
would admit a fondness for each other beyond the realm of employer and employee, it was obvious to those watching them.
Caitlín
was not working in the household yet, but had been given every kind of luxury.
Shivhan
had a bassinet with pink satin bows, a layette of fine Irish linen sewn by the nuns at St. Brendan's, and most absurd of all, a nanny that Eagan demanded when he rationalized that Caitlin was too weak after her ordeal to care for her babe.

But that was untrue. Caitlin was as strong as a horse and almost needed to be strapped into her bed to be kept from beginning her duties. She was obviously desperate to repay this man who had saved her and her baby, and clearly embarrassed by his gifts and attention. Alana even suspected she was frightened by him.
Caitlín
, for all her worship of Eagan, didn't quite trust him. And the more doubts she displayed, the more Eagan showered her with gifts to dispel them, only creating more doubts.

Alana tightened her lips. She didn't know how the budding relationship between Eagan and
Caitlín
was going to turn out. Eagan could go back to his strumpets at any time, but somehow she couldn't see him doing that.
Shivhan's
birth had affected him. He looked at women in an entirely different light after that experience in the elevator. He'd seen their victimization up close and he'd seen their strength. Now he looked at Caitlin with a reverence in his eyes that Alana had never seen him display with any other woman.

"Your carriage is ready, Mrs. Sheridan," Whittaker announced, breaking into her thoughts when he stepped into the drawing room.

Alana stood, already dressed in her dark blue traveling suit, the one she always wore to go to Brooklyn. She'd been so engrossed in Eagan and Mara's problems that she'd forgotten her own. "Thank you, Whittaker," she said, and as an afterthought, though she doubted anyone would notice, especially the master of the house, who had virtually ignored her since they returned from the cotillion, she added, "If anyone should ask, I'll be back for supper."

"Very good, madam."
Whittaker held the door and watched her walk across the marble foyer past the cast-iron statuette of Cupid ready to shoot the first arrow. The elderly butler saw her to the carriage,
then
went back into the house. His aged feet carried him across the same marble foyer, past Cupid, and paused at the open entrance to the library.

"She's in the blue traveling outfit, sir, surely off to Brooklyn. I've taken the liberty of readying your carriage."

With a grim set to his face, Trevor picked up his blackthorn and departed for Brooklyn.

"She's not doing well, Mrs. Sheridan. I urge you to return to Manhattan. We'll send a note when she is more amenable to company." Nurse
Steine
tightened those thin lips and peered down her nose at Alana.

"What's happened?" Alana asked, clutching her small beaded purse in fear.

"She's deluded herself into thinking she's remembered the night your parents were killed. She's had to be sedated. We've given her morphine. Now is not the time for a visit."

"I must see her! She needs me now," Alana cried, beside herself that
Christabel
was going through such hell. "Where is she?"

"Mrs. Sheridan, I urge you to calm down and reconsider," the nurse commanded.

Alana began to cry. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, "Does she believe she killed them, then? Is that why you don't want me to see her?"

"It's worse than that. She's delusional. If you go in there, she'll probably accuse
you
of killing them. Now I strongly suggest you return to your carriage and spare both her and you a dreadful experience."

"No," Alana stated flatly. "I want to see her. She needs me."

"We'll have to have the physician's approval. And he's not here right now. It may take all day for him to return." Nurse
Steine's
lips disappeared altogether.

"Then I'll wait." Alana removed a linen handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. Her chin took a defiant set.

Nurse
Steine
looked at her, her lips pursed in disapproval. "Very well—"

A scream cut off the rest of her words. Startled, Alana looked down the corridor. A transom was open over a closed door, and she could hear a woman struggling with two attendants. "That's my sister," Alana snapped. "The doctor be damned, I'm going in there!"

"You cannot!" Nurse
Steine
shouted as Alana ran to the room and threw open the door.

What she saw nearly destroyed her. Christal was a ghost of her former self, rail-thin and wild-eyed. She fought to rise from her bed as two blue-and-white-gowned female attendants held her down. Next to her on the night table morphine salts and a used syringe revealed that she had just been drugged.

The morphine was already taking effect.
Christal's
will to fight soon gave way to apathy. The attendants were able to tighten the bed straps to her arms and legs. Finally Christal just
lay
there, a dull, glazed sheen on eyes that had once sparkled with life and happiness.

"Oh God!"
Alana choked out, going to her. She touched
Christal's
matted blond hair and wept.

"You see, this isn't helping her," said Nurse
Steine
.

"Why is this necessary?" Alana grew furious. "She's never needed treatment like this before."

"We warned you this was coming, should she ever remember."

"But she didn't remember. You said she was delusional."

Nurse
Steine
faltered, but she quickly composed herself. "Yes, but she believes what she remembers is true, and because of that, there's no rationalizing with her. To her, everything she thinks is as real as you or I."

"What does she remember?"

"I've already told you, it's nonsensical. She accuses everyone."

Alana had the distinct impression Nurse
Steine
was lying, but she believed it was because the woman was trying to justify her sister's treatment. "I want her out of this institution immediately. In fact, pack her things. I'm taking her today."

"You cannot do that, Mrs. Sheridan. The superintendent of police allowed her to be put in here. Only he can withdraw her to another institution."

"I will get his permission. Until then, prepare her to come with me."

Nurse
Steine
turned cold and hard, and to Alana's shock, she looked at Alana as if she hated her. "When you have a signed letter from the superintendent of police that
Christabel
Van
Alen
is to be released into your custody, she will go with you. Until then, I've a duty to your uncle and the people of New York to see that she is here where she was intended to be."

"But you've a greater duty to be humane! Can't you see?" She began to cry again. "
Christal's
only sixteen! She
can't
be treated like this!"

"She's a danger to herself and to others." Nurse
Steine
pierced her with her icy gaze. "So I suggest you leave now, Mrs. Sheridan. And until you have that letter in hand, I pray you will have the sense not to return."

Alana stared at the woman as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Christabel
, now peaceful, moved only her lips in silent protest. Swamped with impotent rage and frustration, Alana ached to free her, but when she looked back at Nurse
Steine
, she knew the only way to save her sister would be to get the letter—an impossible task.

"Good day, Mrs. Sheridan," the nurse prompted, showing her the door.

Furious, Alana kissed
Christabel
on the cheek and ran from the room, her hysteria building to a fever pitch. She thought the cool air would calm her down, allow her to think, and she burst out the main door, gasping for breath between sobs. If her last day on earth had to be spent petitioning the superintendent to allow her custody of her sister, she would do just that. But in the meantime the idea of
Christabel
enduring this treatment was enough to drive her mad. All these years Park View Asylum, the most modern and expensive sanitarium in New York, had pretended to offer her sister humane care, but now when Christal was most fragile and vulnerable, they did nothing but tie her and silence her, a throwback to the Dark Ages.

Feeling betrayed, Alana burned for retribution.
But when she looked at the drive for her carriage, the threadbare strings that held her senses together suddenly snapped. For there, not five yards away, stood her husband, arms crossed over his massive chest, leaning indolently against his black-lacquered
landau,
the only clue to his emotions a rather grim twist to his lips as he met her gaze.

She'd been betrayed twice.

Nothing moved for an entire second. Even the birds ceased their twittering in the elms that lined the drive.

"I asked an attendant. She told me that there is a patient here named
Christabel
Van
Alen
." His voice became as gentle as a whisper. "She's your sister, isn't she?"

Alana stared at him, despising everything about him at that moment—his handsome Irish face, his blackthorn walking stick, his vulgar foreign mannerisms. "You lied to me. You promised never to follow me here. You're a liar. Liar!" she rasped, pelting him again and again with that word.

He walked to her, his expression hard, as if he'd expected her
rantings
.

She wanted to beat him away. All her defenses were shattered, all her secrets revealed. She didn't know how she would make things right again, or how she would protect herself and her sister now that Trevor Sheridan knew every vulnerability. She said venomously, "You're despicable. We had a bargain. You promised never to follow me. You promised—"

"Alana!" He harshly cut her off. "I had to know. I couldn't let you trot off another day without knowing. It was something I had to do."

"You're a liar," she repeated as if the word could wound him.

His features hardened to stone. "Yes, I lied. But I couldn't stop myself from coming here."

"What are you going to do with this information now that you have it? How are you going to hurt me with it?"

"I didn't come here to hurt you."

Panic swelled in her. "Don't hurt my sister," she said quietly. "Don't hurt Christal. I'll do anything to protect her—I'll give you anything to protect her—you can have—
anything
—just don't hurt her!" Her thin emotional armor clattered to the paving stones. All the horrible ideas of what he could do now to her played through her mind. Her life was falling apart. Everything seemed beyond her ability to repair. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep again.

She barely felt his hesitant touch. As her crying continued, he took her into his arms, his cane against her back as he held her. But she was hardly aware of any of this. The agony of
Christabel's
situation overwhelmed her, and defeat loomed like an insurmountable fortress on all sides. There weren't tears enough for her sorrow, frustration, and hopelessness, and for one moment she was forced to succumb to her pain so that she might find the strength to continue.

Minutes ticked by, and her tears abated. Reality came back to her in small doses until she realized he was holding her, his walking stick pressed uncomfortably into her spine, his hand stiffly stroking her shoulder. For a moment his arms seemed so strong and so safe, she almost believed he wanted to help her, but her sanity returned. She knew that his embrace could lie.