Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel (8 page)

Besides, his form wasn’t the type she’d ever fancied. Physically, he was as different from Michael as . . . well, as night was from day. Michael’s blond beauty and romantic features that had so captured her youthful heart contrasted in every way against Gabriel’s dark appeal.

Perhaps that’s
why
you’re drawn to him,
a voice whispered in her head.
Because he is nothing like the man who broke your heart.

A tear slipped from Penelope’s eye, only to be caught up in the rivulet of raindrops and washed away, hopefully unseen. That was unfair. Michael couldn’t help that he’d hurt her. He had been a sick man.

As is Gabriel.

Something inside her went cold. Penelope wiped at her face, taking in another deep breath. Right. That was precisely what she needed to kill her wayward longings—a healthy dose of reality.

‘Twas a cruel irony that the first physical stirrings she’d felt since Michael’s death were for a man she could never be with. She would
never
again live with the kind of instability that had marked her first marriage. Her traitorous body had best get on the same plane with her mind on this. She was frankly amazed the two were so far apart.

But wait . . . What if they weren’t? She knew better than most that the body oftentimes echoed the mind. Whatever malady plagued Gabriel ignited her curiosity; she could not deny it. She might simply be mistaking excitement from the challenge of his case with physical attraction.

Her body relaxed against him with relief. Yes. Yes, that must be it.

At least that’s what she told herself all the way back to the manor.

*   *   *

The door to Vickering Place opened shortly after Gabriel stepped onto the main path. A servant rushed out with a large black umbrella, followed closely by Dunnings, one of the sanatorium’s more gorilla-like attendants. Allen, Gabriel noted, stayed dry and warm, watching from just inside the doorway.

As the two parties met a few yards from the stairs, Gabriel pulled Penelope tighter to him. It had been an exquisite torture to carry her so close to him. The endless walk had felt as if he were in the second circle of Dante’s hell, the one reserved for those souls who were overcome by lust, with his punishment being to carry the object of his desires for eternity without being able to have her.

Yet he’d be damned if he’d relinquish her to Dunnings.

His worry was for naught, however. “Need help with him?” Dunnings grunted to Carter with a narrow-eyed gaze at Gabriel. Carter shook his head in a quick negative.

Hell, had Dunnings assumed
he
was responsible for what had befallen Penelope and was therefore a danger?

Gabriel let out a harsh breath and continued his trek up the stairs, slowing only enough so that the other servant was able to keep his umbrella over Penelope’s head.

“Lady Manton tripped upon a root,” he said as he gained the top step, just as Allen opened his mouth presumably to ask.

“I can speak for myself,” Penelope scolded, for his ears only.

Gabriel shrugged, drawing a surprised “Oh!” from her as she rose and dropped with the movement, coming to settle more closely against his chest.

“I warned you that this excursion was ill advised,” Allen said in his pinched nasally voice, giving them an equally disapproving look that lingered on the puddles they were dripping on the marble floor.

“Nonsense,” Pen answered in a tone that quite impressed Gabriel. Not every lady could put a man in his place while in the ignoble position of being carried like a child by another man. “His lordship made excellent progress this morning. Had it not been for my unfortunate tumble, I would claim it a complete success.”

Gabriel huffed. Oh, they’d made progress, all right. But not nearly as much as they were going to. If she thought he would let her continue to dodge his questions about Michael, she was crazier than he.

But first he had to get her dry and take a look at her calf.

“Lady Manton has injured her leg. I expect she will be unable to properly walk on it for a few days.”

Penelope started in his arms. “Surely it’s not all that bad.”

“She will require a room here until she recovers.”

This time, it was Allen who started. “That is
quite
impossible, my lord.” He sniffed. “Vickering Place is not an inn.”

Gabriel raised an imperious brow. “I am well aware of what Vickering Place is and is not. However, I am also aware funds are quite dear. I will, of course, cover the expense of her stay plus additional coin for the trouble.” He was still Bromwich, after all. His family couldn’t wrest control of the finances from him until the hearing, at least. “Have the best room made up for Lady Manton immediately.”

“I hardly think—” Pen began.

“Now, see here—” Allen spouted at the same time.

Gabriel ignored them both, turning on his heel with Penelope still in his arms. “
Until
then,” he said loudly enough to overpower their arguments as he strode for his rooms, “she shall wait in my parlor. Allen, go ahead of me and unlock the doors.”

God, it felt good to be decisive again. Better than it had felt to be outside. He’d been so intent these past months on staving off his descent into madness that he’d lost a part of himself. Forfeited it to fear. He vowed not to let that happen again. No matter what the future brought, he would not forget who he was. Not while he had presence enough to remember.

Gabriel moved to the right of the hallway to let Allen know he expected him to pass and do his bidding. After only a moment’s hesitation, the man did, but not without continuing his protest.

“All of the rooms that might be suitable are occupied by other inmates,” the director said as he fumbled with a large metal key, fitting it into the lock. He turned his wrist with a quick flick and the bars opened. “The best we could do would be to find Lady Manton a bed in the attics.
Hardly
befitting a lady of her station,” he intoned.

Gabriel frowned as he carried Penelope over the threshold. That wouldn’t do. He couldn’t have Pen treated little better than a servant. “Unacceptable. She shall have to take my rooms, then.”

“Your rooms?” Allen’s black brows winged high. “And where would you sleep?”

“The attics, of course.”

Allen’s lips turned down into a disapproving frown. “I am sorry, my lord, but the attics are not properly secured for a man of your . . . condition.”

Humiliation burned in his gut. “I have never had an episode right on top of another,” he growled. “A few days in the attic should not be an issue.”

Allen’s face settled into an expression that was supposed to be sympathetic but fell short. “Nevertheless, I cannot allow it.”

He said it in a placating tone—one used on children who demanded privileges they were not yet mature enough to handle. The smarmy prig. Allen clasped his hands in front of him in a show of subservience, but Gabriel knew the man enjoyed lording what authority he had over him.

Well, not anymore. He would no longer allow it. “Very well,” he said tersely. “Have a cot brought into my parlor and I shall sleep there.”

Allen opened his mouth, but Gabriel cut him off. “Have Carter stay here with me, if you must. But this discussion is at an end.”

Allen had good sense enough to retreat. Having a marquess as a patient was quite a boon when trying to convince other well-paying peers to place
their
loved ones at Vickering Place. He wouldn’t want to risk making Gabriel angry enough to demand his family move him to a different sanatorium, would he? The loss of income, not to mention prestige, would be a blow.

Gabriel dismissed the director with a command to bring tea and hot water, and to send for Penelope’s things.

Pen held her tongue until Allen departed.

“I cannot stay here, Gabriel.”

He looked down at her then. It was bad enough he’d had to argue with Allen over the matter. He was not about to fight it with her, too.

He lowered her gently to a standing position, his arms staying loosely around her for support, choosing not to address her statement. “Rest your weight on your good leg while we get you out of this cloak.”

He shrugged off his own coat as she pursed her lips. But she complied. His blood was still boiling over his spat with Allen, but he fought not to let it show. He needed to be gentle with Penelope as he helped get her settled, as she must be quite tender after her fall.

Gabriel carefully removed her sodden cloak, circling her as he tugged so she didn’t have to move any more than necessary. His knuckles brushed against her shoulder, her forearm, her wrist. They skimmed along her back, every incidental touch soothing his anger and yet transforming his frustration into a different sort entirely.

He guided Penelope to a nearby chaise and helped her to sit, then moved a few paces away to put some distance between them. He shook her cloak, flinging the droplets of water that clung to the fur collar every which way. He imagined it was himself he was shaking, willing himself to let his impossible desire go.

“It’s fortunate that you have an eye for quality,” he remarked, trying to get his mind on anything but how the inside of the garment was still warm from her heat. How it smelled of her. “As soaked as your cloak is, your dress seems mostly dry. I feared we might have to raid a maid’s closet until your bags arrive from the inn.”

Penelope sighed, repeating her earlier declaration. “I cannot stay here.”

Damn. It seemed he would have to fight her, after all. “You can, and you will,” he commanded. “I’d wager you tore your muscle.” He laid her cloak over the arm of a chair before dragging an ottoman over in front of her. “It will not heal properly if you go about walking on it. I’ve seen too many soldiers develop a permanent limp because they didn’t have the luxury of staying off of their feet.”

Pen looked down at her lap. Hell. His intention hadn’t been to shame her into acceptance. Penelope, he was beginning to understand, had a keen appreciation for what soldiers had sacrificed to keep England safe and must hate even the implication that she was being ungrateful. Still, he was glad his words had worked.

He settled himself upon the tufted fabric of the ottoman, facing her, and scooted it back until there was just enough room between them that he would be able reach down and pull her calf into his lap to examine it.

When he looked up to tell her what he intended to do, the sight of her sitting so close arrested him. The moment held such intimacy . . . Christ, it was as if they were not Penelope and Gabriel. Not a widow and a lunatic. But instead, a simple husband and his wife, at home in their own parlor, settling in for a quiet afternoon in front of a toasty fire.

A swift ache of longing stole his breath.

He uttered a low curse. He’d thought he’d put aside dreams of her long ago. When he’d realized he was fit for no one, least of all someone as precious as Pen.

Her eyes widened, almost as if she could read his mind. But then her gaze darted away. She shifted in her seat, inching back as far on the chaise as she could get from him. “J-just the same. I cannot stay here. Not with you.”

Her apparent fear was like a swift kick to his gut.

“Of course,” he bit out, understanding dawning. “Even you are afraid of being locked in with the madman.”

“Y
our pretty words of progress were for Allen’s benefit, weren’t they?” Gabriel accused, his face tightening. Penelope had never seen an expression that was both so angry and desolate at the same time.

“
No
, of course not,” she insisted. But why wouldn’t he think that when she was acting like a scared child? Still, she couldn’t tell him it was her own jumbled feelings she feared and not him.

Gabriel pushed away from the chaise. The wooden legs of the ottoman he’d been seated on screeched as he rose and turned his back on her. Several strides away, he came to a halt. He slid a hand through his closely shorn hair in an agitated swipe before fisting his fingers at the back of his neck, as if struggling to contain some fierce emotion.

Penelope wished she could see his face, so she’d know what he was thinking.

After a few heartbeats, he turned back to her, one corner of his mouth lifted in a self-deprecatory smile. “It’s all right, Pen. I wouldn’t wish to be locked in with me, either.”

“Gabriel . . .” What a horrid person she was. A low, awful wretch. She was allowing him to heap coals upon his own head to save her pride. Perhaps that yew root had been a sign—and her tripping over it some sort of divine justice. After all, she’d been running away from him for her own self-preservation, completely ignoring what
he
needed. Which was more important?

Penelope chewed at her lower lip. If she insisted upon returning to the inn, Gabriel would forever believe that it was because she was afraid of him—no matter what she said to the contrary. Even if she returned at first light, damage would surely be done. She’d put all the progress they’d made at risk to save her own heart. She couldn’t do that.

“Thank you.”

His brow furrowed.

“For your rescue,” she said simply, answering his unasked question. “For your kindness. For your chivalry.”

A spot of color blotched his cheekbones, and his mouth pressed into a tight line.

“But you needn’t forgo your own comfort for mine,” she went on, her decision made. “I can certainly make do on the cot.”

Gabriel relaxed when he realized she meant to stay. But an appalled expression quickly twisted his features. “You will do no such thing. You shall sleep in
my
bed.”

His words sent heat licking traitorously through her middle. A vision of the two of them intertwined in tangling sheets scorched her imagination. And although Penelope knew he hadn’t meant it
that
way, her whole body flushed just the same.

“O-only until I am well,” she agreed. Opposing him was likely to do more harm than good. His back was already up over Allen’s attempts to thwart him, and she didn’t want Gabriel associating her with that man. No, she needed to be seen as an ally—or better yet, a trusted friend—if she were to help him find his way back to himself.

Which she intended to get back to doing immediately. She took in a deep breath and lifted her lips into a smile. “Well, now that we have that settled, do you feel up to discussing more about your time in the war?”

Wariness crept over Gabriel’s face, his eyes clouding with it. Then he narrowed his gaze on her speculatively. “That depends,” he said, “on whether
you
feel up to discussing my cousin.”

Her smile died on her face.

Gabriel crossed the room in an instant, dragging the ottoman close to the chaise again. He dropped onto it and leaned toward her, his large hands gripping his knees. His fingers made puckering depressions in the wool of his breeches, and his knuckles whitened.

Sitting lame on the chaise, Penelope was well and truly trapped. Gabriel was not going to relent—not until he got answers, she knew. Answers she wasn’t prepared to give.

“Michael was my first cousin, Pen. Hell, our mothers were
twins
. Our blood may as well be that of brothers. If Michael
was
mad—” His voice cracked on the word. His throat worked, swallowing. “I have a right to know if this lunacy runs in my veins.”

Her chest tightened and her breaths shortened as swirling emotions took the place of the air in her lungs. Grief. Shame. Anguish at the unfairness of it all. She could continue her refusal to discuss her husband. That was
her
right. But it would be wrong of her. Selfish. Gabriel
did
deserve to know what he might be up against.

She felt her chin tremble as she said, “Michael
was
ill, yes.”

Gabriel rocked back ever so slightly, as if her confirmation of his fear had been a blow . . . one he’d expected maybe, but a blow still. “Then there is no hope for me,” he said with a bleakness that chilled her.

“I don’t believe that,” she said fiercely. She didn’t believe any person was hopeless. Even Michael could have been helped, could have been saved. If she would have been different, smarter, a better wife.

But she was not that same silly girl. And she
had
helped soldiers like Gabriel. It wasn’t the same. “Everything you’ve described to me today, all of your symptoms, sound very much like what so many other soldiers have gone through. And recovered from, I might add.”

His gaze pierced her. “And what you saw two days past?”

Penelope winced before she could check the gesture. Gabriel’s episode had been awful. Nor could she explain it. Yet . . . “Your affliction is nothing like Michael’s,” she assured him. “What you are suffering may very well be rooted in your wartime experience—”

“Or it could be
madness
,” he countered hotly, “exacerbated by battle fatigue. Christ, Pen. If the lunacy is in my blood—”

“We can’t know that. Not until we treat the symptoms we can see. And what
I
see is a man scarred by the trauma of his past.”

“Oh?” he scoffed, the word tinged with despair. “And what did you see when you looked at Michael?”

Penelope stopped breathing altogether, the swift slicing pain stealing even the will to draw air. The moment drew out until she had to inhale. But nothing eased the ache in her chest, as memories she’d fought so hard to cage flew free, battering her heart with angry wings.

She scrubbed her hands over her face and buried it in her palms.

Strong fingers encircled her wrists, firm but not forceful. His skin burned against hers as he tugged her trembling hands down to her lap.

“You have to tell me, Pen,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “You know that.”

“Yes,” she murmured. She did. Had to tell him all. She pulled her hands from his and tucked them into her middle. He let her go and straightened back onto the ottoman to give her some space.

Penelope closed her eyes for a moment, marshaling both her strength and her memories.

“I saw what everyone saw,” she finally said, looking at Gabriel once more. “Charismatic, fun-loving Michael. So full of life and vitality. You remember what he was like.” Bitterness crept over her. Not at her husband, but at her own naïveté. She’d seen only what she wanted to see, caught up in her own schoolgirl desires. She’d never looked beyond his handsome face and the excitement he’d roused in her. “I was struck blind by him.”

Gabriel didn’t say anything to that, just dipped his head slightly, inviting her to go on.

“Michael was everything I thought I wanted. Not only did he have the wealth and title that my family required I marry, but he was young and dashing and we even shared our love of painting—” She broke off. None of that mattered now. “I set my cap for him and married him before anyone knew what had happened. I thought I’d made the match of a lifetime.” She huffed. “But I was a fool.”

And that foolishness had cost them both terribly.

She shifted restlessly on the chaise. Curse her strained calf. She wanted to bound to her feet, to get away from Gabriel’s regard. But she couldn’t. She squeezed her hands together so tightly they burned.

“Only a few weeks into the marriage, I realized something was very wrong. Michael had always been an early riser and seemed to go to sleep only after . . . I did.” Heat stained her cheeks, and she glanced away. The one place her marriage had never lacked was the bedroom. Michael had approached lovemaking with the same vigorous exuberance he had everything else in his life, leaving her breathless and exhausted more nights than not. He often had to have her twice or even three times before he would finally sleep.

“But then I noticed a flurry of new paintings in his studio and I realized he could only be working on them at night, when he should have been sleeping. He wasn’t napping during the day to compensate, but neither did he seem lacking in energy. In fact, he was not acting much different from normal. Except I noticed an increase in his intensity. Minute at first, but it built quickly, and within days he would be practically vibrating with it.”

Gabriel was frowning. “I remember something like that,” he said. “Of course, I only saw it when we were young men about town, carousing our way through most nights. He could put our entire set to shame, go on for days. I used to envy him his stamina.”

“Be glad you didn’t have it,” she said solemnly. “The price Michael paid was steep.”

Gabriel tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Well, after weeks of subsisting on that inhuman energy, he inevitably crashed. And from the heights at which he flew . . .” She raised her shoulders in a slight shrug. “The devastation was awful,” she whispered.

Gabriel’s jaw flexed. “And is that when his madness would strike?” he asked. “Would he have episodes then, too?”

She knew he was trying to measure himself against Michael, looking for commonalities that would paint him with the same madness. She shook her head quickly. “No, no episodes—at least not like yours.” She pressed her lips together, thinking how best to explain. “But yes, that was when his madness would strike. Well, part of it anyway.”

Gabriel’s brows furrowed.

She knew she wasn’t making sense. She tried again. “You see, Michael’s illness was one of extreme, intense exhilaration followed by horrid periods of despair. He—he exhibited different forms of mania at both ends of that pendulum.

“I didn’t understand that, though. Not then. I only began to see how much of a problem we had when one day I awoke and he was just
gone
. He’d disappeared without so much as a note to me. I finally learned from the servants that he’d fled to Leeds just before sunrise, taking only his paints and his valet. At least, they assumed he’d gone to Leeds because that’s where he’d always gone when he vanished without word.”

“He left you in the night?”

“Yes.” She remembered the shock. And then the anger at what she considered his utter disrespect toward her. She hadn’t realized then that he’d been sick. Hadn’t realized many things. “As I would come to learn, his behaviors had almost a cyclical pattern, repeating themselves—sometimes not as intense as the time before, sometimes much worse.”

Gabriel’s face lost a touch of color. “My episodes do the same.”

“Repeat themselves, you mean?”

He nodded distractedly, his eyes darkening. “And vary in intensity.”

She shook her head. “But you told me yourself that you’d never experienced high feelings like Michael’s. I do not think you can compare the two.”

He grunted, not sounding as though he believed her logic.

“And your episodes are over in a matter of hours,” she pointed out. “Michael’s, however, would last for days, sometimes weeks at a time.”

That seemed to surprise him. “Weeks?”

“Yes. Both the highs
and
the lows. But I get ahead of myself,” she said, feeling unusually tired. “At the time, I didn’t know what to think of his behavior. I just knew I was not going to stand for it. So I followed him, posthaste. He was thrilled to see me when I arrived. In fact, he acted as if nothing were amiss, proclaiming me the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld, even travel worn and spitting mad as I was.”

She remembered her utter confusion, how at a loss she’d felt. How was one supposed to manage a husband whose actions seemed unreasonable? Particularly when he did not see the situation the same?

“He apologized profusely. Said he must not be accustomed to this husband business yet. He told me he was used to running off to the country when his creativity peaked because he painted better there. Then he begged me to forgive him. He promised not to do it again, and I believed him. I loved him so.” She’d been so innocent then.

“But what I didn’t know was that he was in the middle of one of his high cycles. I told myself he’d simply exhausted himself with his art, and that a nice rest in the country had been precisely what he needed.” She sighed. “But deep down, I think I knew something was wrong. I started paying closer attention. Michael still wasn’t sleeping much, though now he took pains to hide it from me. And his personality shifted.”

“Shifted?” Gabriel watched her closely. “How?”

“It’s hard to explain. Michael was always confident and charismatic, but all of a sudden it was like he was . . . more. More gregarious. More energetic. It was like his mind suddenly overflowed with ideas. He started new canvases only to throw them out half finished because he’d thought of something better. He talked too fast, drank too much, but he was so
happy.
Until he wasn’t.”

She hated remembering this part. The day that had shattered her dreams of her marriage. “One afternoon, Michael hadn’t come down for luncheon or tea, so I decided to bring him some refreshment. I thought perhaps he’d gotten lost in his art and had forgotten the time.

“I went upstairs to the nursery, which he’d made over as his studio while we were in London. He was pacing in front of the bank of windows. The sun streamed in, bright and golden—which was why he’d chosen that room for his painting, of course. Michael’s profile was limned in the shimmering light. He was so beautiful, I caught my breath, and for a moment I remember thinking he looked very like the archangel he was named after.”

She closed her eyes, remembering. “But then I noticed that his hair was disheveled, as if he’d been tugging at it. Also, his easel lay toppled on the floor and paint had been flung all about.