Protection (20 page)

“And?” Nicholas waited. He despised flattery. If this handsome, pseudo-European sycophant tried to flatter him, to lie or prevaricate, Nicholas would turn him out at once, the sale of Grantley be damned.

Another man might have backed away. Mr. Ulwin did not. This close Nicholas could see that the other man’s eyes, black in the firelight, were flecked with gold.

“You galloped alongside the stallion. Caught its bridle. It reared again and pulled you from your own mount,” Mr. Ulwin said. “As you fell, you freed Peyton’s leg from the stirrup. But the stallion trampled you.”

“And?”

“Would you have it as I heard it in the public house?”

Nicholas nodded.

“Once home, you were presumed soon to die. The village doctor tended your wounds, some of which cannot be named.”

Nicholas chuckled, finishing his glass of port. “Is that how it was presented to you, Mr. Ulwin? I suffered unspeakable wounds?”

“The villagers said your lower half was broken. To stop the worst injuries from festering, the doctor castrated you. Then ran away with your wife.”

Something about the calm, unsympathetic way Mr. Ulwin recited this pleased Nicholas. For so long he’d existed in a torturous limbo where everyone knew his most intimate secrets, yet none would speak of them to his face. He was supposed to be grateful. Instead it made him furious, frustrated, incapable of striking out as he so desperately wanted. The irony that this feeling could best be described as “impotence” was not lost on him.

“Let me correct you on one point. It was the stallion, Storm-Born, that castrated me, or as near as makes no difference. Dr. Graham merely cut away the ruined flesh. The rest, including Dr. Graham’s egress with my former wife, you have quite right.”

Mr. Ulwin’s eyes slid away. He affected sudden interest in the Turkish rug.

“You look uncomfortable. Come now, Mr. Ulwin. In all your travels on the Continent, am I the first eunuch to make your acquaintance?”

“Far from it. In point of fact, I have known many eunuchs over the years.” Mr. Ulwin’s gaze had lost its vibrating intensity. He was just a man now, open rather than embarrassed. “But none so capricious or bad-tempered as you.”

The sound of Nicholas’s own laughter surprised him. He found himself smiling at Mr. Ulwin, pleased when the other man smiled back.

“Have no cause for alarm,” Nicholas said. “I am no longer capable of true rage, any more than I am capable of true lust. But anger, bitterness and cruelty?” He shrugged. “Ask any woman. No bollocks required. Sir—please, be at home, I beg of you. Sit down. Take some port.”

“With gratitude.” Mr. Ulwin seated himself in the nearest chair, a seasoned leather wingback. His grin was wide, uninhibited, animalistic. “May I confide something, Mr. Robinson? In all my years acting as my father’s agent, never has an interview gone so terribly wrong.”

“Doubtless you never dealt with so recalcitrant a subject. But remember, I am the only eunuch for at least a hundred miles.” Rising, Nicholas poured the other man a glass of wine. “It’s my solemn duty to shock the newcomers.”

Passing over the wine glass, Nicholas returned to his seat, gratefully stretching his legs again. By this time of evening his lower half ached whether he remained quiescent or forced himself into activity. Storm-Born’s hooves had broken his pelvis in two places, snapped one femur and cracked both his kneecaps. By the time Nicholas had regained enough consciousness to realize the full extent of his injuries—that he’d lost his health, his manhood, even Lydia—the pain in Nicholas’s bones had kept him grounded. It was impossible to believe oneself in a waking nightmare when the pain was so very real.

Lifting his glass, Nicholas saluted Mr. Ulwin. “You’ll find it quite good.”

“Usually I never drink wine,” Mr. Ulwin admitted, taking a small sip. “Yet this evening, I consider it very welcome. Might I trouble you for one further detail?”

Nicholas smiled. Did he despise this man, or was he beginning to enjoy his company? At the moment it didn’t matter, so long as Nicholas was distracted. Distraction was priceless. In the early days of his injury he’d thrown tantrums. Wept, cursed God, even burnt a Bible in his bedroom hearth, hurling handfuls of coal atop it when the oilskin cover refused to catch alight. But now, four years later, Nicholas had learned to exist mostly inside the confines of his own skull. He could no longer hunt, fish, ride or sample the joys of the flesh. Martha, his laboratory experiments and the rare satisfying conversation had to be enough.

“Ask whatever you wish,” Nicholas said, meaning it.

“How fares your friend Peyton?”

“Dead.”

Mr. Ulwin winced.

“His skull was cracked. Though I freed his boot from the stirrup, John died within the day. His father shot Storm-Born in the head, or so they tell me. After suffering the loss of my best friend, I felt no particular vindication, but I suppose we must accept such vengeance as Fate affords.”

Mr. Ulwin sat quietly. Then he leaned forward, an odd smile pulling at his lips. “The villagers say you are a man of letters. Of higher learning. Of science.” Those gold-flecked eyes met Nicholas’s. “Do you imagine Fate affords vengeance? That She intervenes in the lives of men?”

“Not at all. I believe Storm-Born reared because he was contrary, or needed gelding,” Nicholas said. “I believe John died because he struck his head once too often. I believe I am both eunuch and cripple because I lacked the strength to overpower a stallion. Fate, Providence, God Himself—not one was needed arrange the aforementioned.”

“It’s a rare man who will set his personal philosophy against what humanity has accepted as true for thousands of years.”

“Are you a devout Christian, Mr. Ulwin?” Somehow Nicholas doubted that. Like Nicholas, Mr. Ulwin was handsome, but in an altogether different way. His face was square, mouth wide, chin unyielding. As a boy, Nicholas had been called pretty; there was no prettiness to Mr. Ulwin, and Nicholas doubted there ever had been. The lines around his eyes and the deep creases across his brow signaled either privation or dissolution. Mr. Ulwin’s harsh masculinity owed either to youthful disasters—horrors he hid beneath that smiling urbane façade—or to wealthy dissolution, an overabundance of gambling, drink and whores.

“I am not.” Mr. Ulwin sighed, sounding appropriately remorseful. “But I am a great believer in the unseen. In Fate. In mystery.”

Nicholas couldn’t decide how to reply. For a moment he’d nearly lost the thread, squeezing his wineglass while simultaneously forgetting it was in his hand. Mr. Ulwin’s eyes were truly black—not just dark brown with black lashes, but black, so black the pupils were invisible. And in the midst of that blackness, the gold winked like stars…

“Your gaze is very candid.” Mr. Ulwin’s voice was soft, soothing. “Do you find some fault with me?”

“I find you—very much the lord of the manor,” Nicholas heard himself say, surprised by how earnestly he meant it. “If I sell Grantley to you, I have no doubt you’ll make a go of it. Have you a wife, Mr. Ulwin? Children?”

“Please. Call me Bancroft.” The other man took a second small sip of port. “Would you wish me married?”

“I can scarcely imagine such a thing,” Nicholas said, hearing his own voice from what now seemed like miles away. “I know your sort.”

“Do you?” Bancroft put his glass aside. In one blurring motion, he was at Nicholas’s side, down on one knee, both hands clasping one of Nicholas’s. His touch was hard and cool, cool as river stone.

“I’m safe from you now,” Nicholas continued. Either he was utterly drunk or dreaming. Whatever the case, he felt blissfully beyond control. “I have nothing to offer you.”

“Don’t you? You have the finest eyes I’ve ever seen. The reddest lips, within that beard.” Bancroft’s long, cool fingers were playing over Nicholas’s hand, massaging his flesh in a startlingly intimate fashion. Rising slightly, Bancroft caught Nicholas’s face beneath the chin, tracing the shape of his mouth and smiling when Nicholas shivered. “I want you. I need you. And I need Grantley. Sell it to me. Tonight.”

Nicholas suffered the same miserable twist in his lower gut he always felt when something bestirring—something erotic—presented itself. He was injured beyond pleasure, or at least beyond satisfaction. Only Lydia had seen him unclothed after his injury, and she had been repulsed. Nothing could make him fully stiffen, nothing could bring on that earth-shaking release. The fact that he even still wished for it was sad, delusional, the symptom of a deranged mind. Why couldn’t he settle into the indolent, passive life of the unmanned? Why did he hate everyone, resent everything and smolder so desperately inside that even this man … this handsome, hypnotic man…

“What did you say?” Nicholas whispered. His own voice echoed in his ears. He wasn’t dreaming. His words were real. What was happening now, in his study, between him and Bancroft Ulwin, was real.

“I said I want you. I’ll stay with you. Show you…” Bancroft put their faces close together, close enough to kiss.

Nicholas, shocked and powerfully aroused, felt another twist of pain in his gut. That devastating blow from Storm-Born’s hoof had done more than rupture Nicholas’s manhood. It had half-severed his penis. Dr. Graham, opportunistic lust for the former Lydia Robinson aside, had labored mightily to save the organ, telling Nicholas he would need it to piss through, or be left forever incontinent. As Dr. Graham hoped, the organ had healed with its eliminatory function intact. And with the ability to stiffen slightly toward the root—just enough to torment Nicholas, and remind him of all he’d lost.

“Show you how grateful I’ll be. If you sign Grantley over to me,” Bancroft murmured, lips parting and tongue flicking out to caress Nicholas’s mouth. Even the man’s tongue was cool, making Nicholas shiver with lust, misery and a preternatural awareness his scientist’s mind couldn’t explain or defend. The man holding his hand and kissing him, pushing that cool tongue between Nicholas’s hot, unresisting lips, was not human. He was the enemy of humankind, the Other, the Being so many religions formed to combat and then forgot as the centuries advanced.

“I need … my manservant. Hart,” Nicholas said, pulling his face away with a supreme effort. What did it say about the power of this creature that he could inflame such unnatural passions, even in one as pathetic and damaged as Nicholas Robinson?

“Let me call for him,” Nicholas continued, rubbing at his eyes and trying to ignore the insistent throb in his groin. What good was such residual sensation, except to make a man run mad? Better to believe in nothing, no Fate, no Providence and no God, than to accept that such an all-seeing entity would do this to him, make him survive so hideously broken when John Peyton and even Storm-Born received the peace of the grave…

Bancroft drew back slightly, smiling. “Go ahead. Let him fetch down vellum and writing pens and pots of ink. I’ll dictate excellent terms. And then bed you, my beautiful one. Show you pleasures you’ve been denied for much too long.”

Nicholas got to his feet with difficulty. Forced to accept Bancroft’s help, he feigned a smile as he located his cane. His coat was too heavy. Shrugging out of it, Nicholas tossed it aside, beginning to unbutton his waistcoat. Still on one knee, Bancroft smiled at Nicholas curiously.

“What are you doing?”

“Undressing for you.” Nicholas didn’t have to infuse his voice with false lust. It was already present, utterly true, shameful and unnatural yet undeniable. He knew what passed between a certain sort of man—once he’d chanced upon a footman and a boot boy in the act and veered quickly away. One took the dominant role, thrusting wildly. The other played the subordinate, first wincing in pain, then keening in pleasure. Just moments ago, Nicholas had wanted Bancroft to have him. To give pleasure with his body even if he could no longer take it…

“The villagers said young Nicholas was a great beauty,” Bancroft said, rising with a smile. “But I find the man quite compelling. The set of your mouth. The knowledge in your eyes. Even the beard…”

Nicholas broke the lamp open with one
crack
of his cane. Dousing his waistcoat in the oil, he wrapped it swiftly around the cane’s end.