The Dark Lady (7 page)

Ian slipped a handkerchief before her face and she took it. “Thank you,” she murmured as she dabbed it at her mouth. She pressed the square of linen to her lips, then leaned back into the coach. His hands helped ease her back onto the soft seat.

“Forgive me,” he said softly.

She blinked at his words, hardly understanding how he could speak them. “Why? You’ve saved me.”

“It wasn’t enough. I should have come sooner.”

She could have sworn the words
I never should have
left
passed his lips. They hadn’t. It was only a phantom. A wish, made by her wrecked brain.

She stared back, finally capable of truly seeing him. On the last edges of her medicine, her mind was almost fully sharp. His black hair teased his forehead. The only boyish thing about him now. Slightly almond-shaped green eyes probed her. There was nothing soft about his face. His cheekbones were two hard slashes and his jaw looked as if it dared one to punch it. A slight shadowing of black beard dusted his skin.

His white linen shirt was mussed, as was his burgundy cravat. He’d opened his champagne-colored waistcoat and his black coat was unbuttoned and splayed about him like great wings. Muscles filled out those clothes. He was almost twice the size of the young man she recalled.

This was not the wild and carefree youth she remembered. The boy she’d wished she could marry though duty forbade it. But it was still Ian. She could see it lingering in his eyes. He really did believe he hadn’t done enough.

This was the new Ian. A man never content. A man driven to the edge—not unlike herself. Except he had kept his demons imprisoned. “You have done enough, Ian.”

A grim resolution shadowed his visage. “I will not have done near enough until I have you entirely safe,” he said firmly. “I don’t care what I have to do.”

Safe. The word mocked her. Once, she had known what it meant. “I don’t think I shall ever be safe.”

His dark brows drew together. “Why would you say that?”

“What I’ve done. Tonight. And before . . .” Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew why she would always be in danger, but she couldn’t recall it. An image
of Thomas, his envious face, white lipped and angry, hovered in her vision. She blinked and it vanished. “I don’t know. I just won’t be.”

Ian hesitated for a long moment.

Eva struggled not to shift under his unrelenting gaze. She knew what he was thinking. He loathed her. Loathed her for letting Adam die through utter foolishness. How could he not? Her stomach churned again. She swallowed back her pain and fear. It had been the one sacred charge in her life, the protection of her son. And was she responsible for his death?

The answer was a resounding yes, though she could not give utterance to it. It was she who had insisted on taking the curricle out into the rain. On lashing the horse with the whip, to hand deliver a letter to the post, a letter that she could no longer recall. And it had been she who had tucked her son in his basket beside her. Despite the warnings, despite the roads, she had driven out and her son had not come back.

Ian didn’t move, his body like a statue when he broke the silence. “I swear, as long I breathe, I will dedicate myself to your safety.”

She opened her mouth slightly to protest and then she realized, with a stunned and selfish gratitude, that he was in absolute earnest. It burned in his eyes with a terrible brightness. It struck her he was just as mad as she. Perhaps his demons did indeed own him, too. “Thank you.”

“It is an honor and my duty to you.”

“Duty?” she echoed. Duty had destroyed them. Duty had married her to a man she didn’t love. Duty had sent Ian halfway around the world to protect an unworthy friend.

Once, they had been friends and would have done anything for one another. She, Hamilton, and Ian . . .
they’d been inseparable. The “Merry Band,” as Hamilton’s father had called them. But as they’d grown older, cracks had formed in their perfect friendship. And slowly, over time, Ian and Hamilton had begun to compete against each other for so many things. For marks at school, for Hamilton’s father’s affection. But Hamilton had never been quite as good as Ian.

And because Hamilton had not been able to bear that, their unbreakable friendship had cracked amid lies, disappointment, and the desperate wish to recover that which could never be had again. She narrowed her eyes, wondering whether Ian would ever forget the night Lord Carin had admitted to loving him more than his eldest son. How that love had first twisted Thomas and then had driven Hamilton away from the path of right. It was that night Ian had promised to protect Hamilton in India and the night she had promised to uphold her arranged betrothal. A sharp wave of sadness crashed upon her at such memories, and she swallowed back the misery. “Why are you here?”

He shifted uncomfortably on the seat, abruptly looking away. “I—I promised.”

She drew in a slow breath, her limbs growing heavy. An unfortunate side effect of her medicine, even if it had been some time since her last dose. It wouldn’t be long till she hungered for more. “Promised who?”

“Hamilton, Eva.”

She could have sworn he wasn’t telling her the full truth. But once again, perhaps it was just her imaginings. She nodded. Hamilton. She’d tried so hard to love her husband, even though her heart had always belonged to Ian. But Ian had not wanted her heart.

He had abandoned it.

Sweat broke out on her skin and she closed her eyes. God, she hated this part. The moment when she realized
how much she needed her medicine. Especially at the mention of the past. “You make too many promises.”

He blanched.

It was a cruel thing for her to say and her heart cried out at the way she could wound him now. Her savior.

“Do you wish to talk of him?” he asked, despite the tension marring his face.

Eva licked her lips. Her hands were beginning to tremble. Not a propitious sign. “Who?”

“Hamilton,” he bit out. “Do you wish—do you wish to know how he died?”

“No,” she whispered, averting her eyes. “I have no wish to speak of him.” How she wished tears could sting her eyes. But she didn’t cry at the past anymore. She couldn’t think about it. Or she would drown. “Or anything else.”

“Should I restrain my comments to the weather?”

She opened her eyes, no mercy left in her soul, not even for her savior. Not when she was unraveling so quickly. “Do you wish to talk about the war? Do you wish to tell me about the people you killed?”

His lips pressed into a hard line and then his hands balled into fists. “No, Eva.”

“The weather,” she said evenly, forcing herself to form every word perfectly even though she longed to let her head loll back against the cushions, “is a very fine topic.”

Then she closed her eyes against his questions.

Against the past.

She wasn’t mad. At least he prayed she was not.

She certainly was unstable. Of course, even if she were as sane as Plato, that place would have addled her brain. She was definitely fading in and out of laudanum-induced thoughts.

That would end. Never, absolutely never would he see
that filth cross her lips again. It would be a long road through her withdrawals, which would not even begin until every last drop of laudanum was burned from her stomach. And then . . . then she would be driven wild with need for days, if not weeks.

Ian tried to relax against the coach seat, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d found her. He’d freed her. But now what?

How could he tell her about the circumstances of Hamilton’s death? Should he even try, given her state? How could he explain now that he’d failed his friend so utterly and, in turn, had failed her? She wasn’t ready to hear that she would have to live on. Even if her son and husband were dead.

And he would have to live with his dark secret, a dream that would never leave him peace. A truth that rang in his head with such vicious repetition that he would never hope for redemption. Though he would never have peace or forgiveness, at the very least he could make amends.

Ian lifted a hand to his face and rubbed it over his eyes. God. Mary had killed that keeper, but blood had slicked Eva’s hand, too. It didn’t bear imagining, the way she had had to fight for her freedom.

The keeper had deserved his brutal death. No question. But such things couldn’t be done without affecting Eva’s beautiful, battered soul.

In the last five years, he’d killed. Blood was on his hands, and they would never come clean. He’d borne witness to things he never would have believed possible. It would be unimaginable for him to judge Eva if she had killed Matthew, but for a jury of men? She’d swing for it.

A vision hit him of her small body swaying at the end of thick rope knotted about her slim throat. With how
light she was now, she’d be lucky to die in five minutes. Would he be able to have done as he’d seen others do for their loved ones—pull on her feet to help her strangle all the faster?

Thank God Mary had claimed the blame. And he prayed that she was indeed too important to be harmed or given over to the authorities.

A heavy knot formed in his throat. He swallowed quickly before letting his attention wander unrestrained over Eva, taking his time on her face. The hollowed cheekbones, faint shadows beneath her eyes, the pallor of her skin and the slight parting of her full lips struck his heart. Even like this, she looked as she did when he had first met her and she was all of six years old. An elfin creature who had wandered into this world from some magical place. She didn’t belong among mere mortals.

She looked so familiar, even if she was no longer that girl—the girl who had stolen both his and Hamilton’s hearts.

If only he had not been such a fool. If only he had known that leaving her would rip his guts out and leave him an empty shell. At the time, he’d had no other recourse. Not after what the old Lord Carin had said on his deathbed. But in fact, leaving had been the greatest mistake he had ever made. And he was paying for it.

Eva had already paid for it. Dearly.

Now all that mattered was how he could help heal the woman across from him.

Especially since a particularly strong feeling ached to ease her off the opposite seat and curl her against his protective body. Christ, he longed to comfort her, but so much had passed, he no longer felt the right to draw her into his arms.

Eva’s face should have appeared childlike in sleep, what with her short hair and her nightshift of a dress.

There wasn’t a damn childlike thing about her.

Instead, her eyelids twitched and a frown pulled at her full mouth. Every now and then her fingers fluttered as if searching for something. Nightmares. Laudanum would help her sleep, but it would fill her dreams with specters. Did she dream about Adam, her infant son, even now?

Or perhaps Hamilton?

The very thought bothered him, and that fact bothered him even more. He had no claims on this woman, except those of a protector over his ward. It didn’t matter that once he had secretly longed to make her his. But he couldn’t go back. In his mind, she would always belong to Hamilton.

The man he had betrayed.

Yet a disturbing, possessive tug urged him to claim her for his own forever. It mattered not that he would never be able to touch her. All he longed to do was give her safety and shelter for the rest of her life.

He’d fought these protective feelings all his life. All his life he’d longed to break the expectations of the old Lord Carin and fight for her hand, but obligation had compelled him to silence.

Now she was Hamilton’s widow. She belonged to the dead man. He could never allow himself this wanting. Dropping his head back against the velvet cushions, he tried to turn his gaze from her face, but was unable.

It was as if he were a man who had searched for water for days and finally come upon an oasis. Eva Carin was more trouble than he might find in any rebelling village or bigoted officers’ camp, but he felt drawn to her.

Drawn in the manner in which a moth flies to the flame only to die, anguished and burned. Even with such knowledge, he kept looking. He was certain that somewhere deep inside this shell of a woman was the Eva he had known all his life.

If he could find that Eva, perhaps the part of himself he had left behind in India with Hamilton’s corpse could be found as well. It was a dangerous game he was playing, this all-consuming need to alleviate the grief of his dishonored soul.

He plunked his elbow against the side of the window and leaned against his fist.

Thomas had claimed she was stark raving mad and guilty of rash action resulting in her son’s death. But what was madness? He had seen men kill themselves, their brains splattered against their tent walls because they spent too many coins at cards.

That was madness.

And Hamilton . . . When he’d arrived in India, he’d begun to change even more. That swift shift in Hamilton’s moral attitude toward the natives had shocked Ian. It had been remarkable and horrifying the way Hamilton had swallowed the swill that the Indians were somehow subhuman.

To grieve over a child? Over a husband? Could such a thing be construed as madness? Perhaps. To someone who had never loved, who had never lost.

Smallpox had claimed Ian’s parents while he’d been at Eton. He thought he might go half mad himself. But the old Lord Carin, his father’s best friend, had taken him in, not committed him to the madhouse. Still, Thomas had intimated that Eva had attempted to drown herself, the final straw before her committal.

No doubt in a few days Thomas would know what Ian had done. And Ian had no idea how Thomas would react. After all, Ian had used his name and liberated the very woman he had locked up. There were no other words for what Thomas had done—that asylum rivaled Bridewell Jail for horror.

Eva shivered in her sleep.

Without giving it a thought, Ian took his thick wool coat and slipped it over her small frame. For the briefest of moments, her frown eased and she rested.

It was the most relieved his heart had felt since before Hamilton’s brutal death.

There was no question he’d made a bold and irrevocable move. He was certain that Thomas would not have approved. In fact, he very much expected a detective from the Bow Street Runners upon his doorstep within days.