The Ravencliff Bride (23 page)

“But it . . . might be possible to consummate this marriage?”

“I say again, at the risk of repetition, you need to tell my lady. She ought to be prepared, no matter which way the pendulum swings. If she were willing to risk it, that might ease the tension in you that makes transformation under those circumstances likely. If on the other hand she is content to remain your wife without conjugal fulfillment, knowing
your predicament, that gives you another option. If she is not, or if the situation is too repugnant to her, she needs to know it now, before things go too far between you.”

Nicholas sighed deeply. “She has given me an ultimatum. I am to explain myself before you leave, or she plans to leave for London with you. I cannot tell her the truth and risk her carrying tales if she chooses to leave Ravencliff, and if I don’t tell her, I shall lose her. There is more. You know, of course, that she is convinced it was Nero that I fired upon. She believes I mean to be rid of him one way or another, and she intends to take him with her when she leaves.”

“That isn’t possible, my lord!”

“But she doesn’t know that.”

“All the more reason why you must tell her.”

“Mills thinks that I should tell her something short of the whole truth, something to appease her while we sort out this coil.”

“A half-truth?”

“Exactly.”

“Or you could let her go, concede that you’ve made a ghastly mistake, and put the whole unfortunate business behind you.”

“It’s already too late for me to do that. I didn’t expect to fall in love with her. That was not part of the bargain, and I have done everything within my power to discourage her. I’ve allowed her to perceive me as an ill-mannered tyrant, and a boor. I’ve insulted her intelligence . . . hurt her feelings. She has no idea who or what I am as a man . . . as a gentleman, and still . . .”

“Love, my lord, will go where it’s sent. Cupid’s arrow has never been known to give quarter to obstacles it its path. If it is true love, it will withstand the truth. If it is illusion, it will fall by the wayside.”

“But at what cost?”

“Whatever the cost, it is not too dear for the purchase of truth. No union can be built on a foundation of lies.”

“Every instinct in me warns to hold my peace.”

“Then you must follow those instincts, but at the very least examine them thoroughly.”

“There is something else that we need to discuss before we commence,” said Nicholas. “I had to dismiss the hall boy outside my lady’s suite. If I hadn’t, he would have seen me transform this afternoon. I shall take his place.”

“
You
, my lord?”

“I shall be sleeping in the green rooms across from the tapestry suite until all this business with Alex has been resolved. He must be found, and no one but you, Mills, and myself can search for him now. It’s been too long, Dr. Breeden. He would have transformed back by now if he could. Unless I miss my guess, he remains in wolf form. We needn’t expect that the baroness will not lock her door. She means to protect Nero from
me
, and that leaves her vulnerable to
him
. I doubt I shall do much sleeping, but I shall be better able to help her from there than from this distance, and she must be monitored.”

“A wise decision, my lord.”

“No one but Mills and yourself must know this, Dr. Breeden. I cannot have the servants bandying it about, making their own conclusions. The guards came ’round this morning because of
on-dits
they’ve been spreading in the village about Nero, and Mills tells me that a plot is hatching below stairs to kill him outright. They must not be involved in any of our activities here now.”

“I quite understand.”

“Keep your pistol loaded and at the ready. I shall see that Mills is armed as well. Just take care which wolf you shoot.”

Nicholas was too agitated for the magnet treatment to work. It wasn’t like he hadn’t warned the doctor; there were just too many thoughts tumbling around in his mind to allow Breeden’s soft voice to come to the fore. The magnets didn’t present enough outside stimulus to attract and capture his attention. All he could think of was Sara, and how
close he’d come to consummating their marriage. His loins ached to finish what he’d started, his heart was standing in the way of common sense, and his head was reeling with dilemmas—one greater than the next.

It was not so with the armonica, however. The doctor had prepared the glasses to give off pleasant tones not unlike the soft strains of a lullaby. Aside from a dwindling fire in the hearth, only one candle branch was lit on the drum table. Nicholas’s eyelids began to slide shut in the soft semidarkness, as he reclined on the lounge listening to Dr. Breeden’s skilled fingers extract music from such simple elements as glass and water.

“That’s it, my lord,” Breeden murmured, his soothing voice seeming to flow on the strange melody. “Listen to the music. Let it carry you away. See where it takes you. Imagine yourself floating in the quiet waters of a tide pool. Let the water buoy you . . . let it bear you up. You are drifting now, free of all cares. They are draining away, flowing out to sea. They are almost out of sight. You can no longer recognize them. They cannot return. The music bars their way. You feel lighter as you float in the water. You are protected, like a child in its mother’s womb. Drift, my lord . . . just . . . drift—”

“Would one of you please tell me what is going on here?” said a soft voice from behind.

It was Sara, standing on the threshold, Nicholas’s burgundy dressing gown and sash looped over her arm.

Nicholas vaulted off the lounge at sight of Sara, and Dr. Breeden’s fingers struck a discordant, high-pitched squeak as he gripped the edge of the snifter he was circling. The glass shattered, piercing his thumb.

“This belongs to you, my lord,” Sara said to Nicholas, dropping the dressing gown on an antique Glastonbury chair beside the door. “You left it behind on my doorstep.”

Nicholas swallowed. He was caught out, and he cast a sidelong glance in the doctor’s direction, but there was no help for him there. Breeden was binding his wounded thumb with his handkerchief.

“What the Devil are you doing up here at this hour, madam?” Nicholas snapped. Anger had always been his best defense with her. He was hoping he hadn’t lost his touch, but he was still groggy from the doctor’s experiment, and at a distinct disadvantage. “You could have rung for one of the servants to return it. Did you hear nothing I said earlier? There are dangers here of which you know nothing.”

“Well, I think it’s time that I did know something,” she said, tapping her foot, “beginning with
that
.” She gestured
to the dressing gown. “You seem to have a propensity for going about in the nude, sir. This is thrice now that I have come upon your clothes without you in them. Would you care to explain this quirk?”

“I would not,” he snapped.
Thrice?
He could only recall two occasions, both that very day. When was the third? “I dismissed the hall boys from outside your rooms in good faith,” he said. “I can just as easily reinstate them. The house rules are simple. Why can you not abide by them? You have come to harm twice now for defying my authority and ignoring my directives. I should think by now you’d be ready to yield to the dictates of common sense, madam! There are dangers—”

“Yes, yes, dangers of which I am unaware. So you’ve said. I can give no credence to any such ‘dangers’ without an explanation of them. If they are not serious enough to warrant being clarified, they are of no consequence to me, sir, and I cannot—no,
will not
—take them seriously. Well? I am waiting, Nicholas. Tell me what dangers lurk in wait for me in your house, sir.”

Just then Mills skittered to a halt on the threshold, his arrival raising Nicholas’s eyebrow.

“Well done, old boy,” Nicholas said, his voice edged with sarcasm.

The valet winced, then glanced about and settled his attention on the doctor, who was still fumbling with his injured thumb.

“You’re bleeding, sir,” he said, “let me help you.”

“It’s nothing, Mills,” said Breeden. “Just a scratch.”

“How have you cut yourself?” said Sara, craning her neck toward the drum table. “Is that some sort of parlor game you two were playing when I came in just now? Somewhat hazardous I should think, if it results in bleeding.”

“Perhaps I should leave,” said the doctor. “It’s late, and I need to tend to this. We shall resume tomorrow, my lord.”

“I would appreciate that you stay, Dr. Breeden,” said
Nicholas. “Mills, help him with that in my dressing room.” He flashed narrowed eyes at Sara. “This shan’t take long.”

“Yes, my lord,” Mills responded, leading the doctor away.

Nicholas spun toward his wife. “Have you gone addled?” he seethed. “As soon as Mills comes out of that dressing room, I shall have him escort you back to your rooms, and you are to
stay
in them, madam.”

“Not without some explanations,” she returned, taking a seat on the lounge with a flourish. Why did she lean forward like that? The neck on her oyster-white muslin frock was problematic. The last thing he needed was to be reminded of what lay barely concealed beneath that fetching décolleté.

“You gave me an ultimatum, and I agreed to adhere to it in the time allotted—not here in my rooms, with . . . with an audience, for God’s sake! Have you lost all sense of propriety?”

“I prefer to call it a ‘challenge,’ my lord, our little bargain. But you put paid to that when you shed your dressing gown on my doorstep. I want some answers, and I am not leaving these rooms until I have them.”

Nicholas began to pace the carpet. Mills was right. He had to tell her something, but what? The woman was intelligent to a fault. She would not be easily duped. There was one consolation, however, and he almost laughed aloud when it came to him. The answer she so eagerly sought was so bizarre that the very intelligence that led her to this moment would never accept what he laid at her feet. Literally. He hardly believed it himself, and that the doctor did was only due to his theosophical persuasions. Had he been a conventional medical practitioner, Mark Breeden would have certified Nicholas a bedlamite; he was certain of it.

“I am waiting, my lord,” his wife said.

“I am . . . unwell, Sara,” he began, stopping in front of her as inspiration struck.

“You look perfectly sound to me,” she said, her gaze sliding the length of him. It settled uncomfortably on the bulge
in his faun-colored pantaloons. “All essential parts in working order,” she concluded.

“What ails me cannot be seen by the naked eye. It is an internal problem, and Dr. Breeden’s visit is not entirely a social one, which I am sure you have gathered. He is here to attempt to correct it, and he may need to extend his stay if these interruptions continue.” It was half-truth, but truth nonetheless.

“You’re serious,” she murmured, clouding. “It isn’t something . . . grave?”

“It could be, which is why I need my privacy right now.”

“What sort of illness is it, Nicholas?”

“Oh, it isn’t contagious,” he responded. “I suffer from . . . lapses, and often cannot remember what has transpired during them afterward.” The muse he’d courted for inspiration was still with him. The yield was sheer genius if he did say so himself. He had managed to put paid to both issues at once . . . or had he? Why was she looking at him like that?
Pop!
went his euphoria.

“And you couldn’t tell me all this before?” she said. “I don’t believe you, Nicholas. There’s more to it, there has to be. There is no reason why you couldn’t have confided that from the first. I am hardly bird-witted. I want you to tell me the truth.”

Nicholas threw his arms into the air. “I have done!” he thundered. “But you wouldn’t recognize truth if it sneaked up and bit you on your beautiful behind.”

“I beg your pardon?” she breathed.

“I shall say it again: I suffer from lapses. The condition is . . . hereditary. They often come upon me when I am angry . . . or aroused, and I am neither saint nor eunuch, which is why I cannot let what happened between us earlier continue. There was never to be anything . . . physical between us. You were told that at the outset. I made it quite clear to you. That is the truth. Since you do not believe me, would you have it from Dr. Breeden?”

“Yes,” she said flatly, folding her arms.

“It is all quite true,” said the doctor, entering with Mills through Nicholas’s adjoining bedchamber, his thumb bound in linen. “His lordship did not wish to worry you, my lady, nor did he wish to raise your hopes.” He exhibited his thumb, and crooked it toward the broken glass Mills was attempting to clear away. “That contraption is part of my method,” he explained, “a glass armonica, after the fashion of Dr. Anton Mesmer.”

“The charlatan?”

The doctor smiled. “The very same,” he said, raising her eyebrow. “He was denounced twice, it’s true, and accused of black magic as well—a victim of little minds, which is often the way with genius. His methods are revolutionary, my lady, but they have proven most successful.
I
have succeeded with them, and one day his practices will astound the world. Of that I have no doubt.”

“What does that armon . . . that thing do?” she queried.

“It relaxes the subject, so that the practitioner may address his subconscious in hopes of alleviating problems which exist in his conscious state.”

“It does sound like black magic,” she mused.

“To the untrained, I expect it would,” said the doctor. “Put your mind at ease, my lady. Whatever your differences with his lordship, set them aside for now. They will impede the process. His mind must be clear and free of stress if I am to succeed. You may rest assured that what we undertake here is for the good, and let us be about this business privately.”

“This is all very well,” said Sara, rising, “but I have yet to hear what ‘dangers’ keep me prisoner in my rooms. What insight can you offer in that regard, Dr. Breeden?”

“None, my lady,” he replied. “I am not qualified. My expertise does not extend to house matters.”

“I can answer that,” said Nicholas, “but I doubt my lady would wish me to do so in company.”