The Trouble With Moonlight (24 page)

That, however, was far more difficult than she had imagined. She pulled on his arms without success till she was afraid either her arms or his would pop out of their sockets. Never had she imagined that a man so quick and agile would prove harder to budge than a cairn of rocks.

“Help me!” she cried to the open windows of her home, well aware of the danger that neighbors might respond as well. Damage to her reputation would be a small price to pay to save James. “Aunt Eugenia!”

But it was Portia in a summer wrapper who first arrived in the garden. “Good heavens, Lusinda, did you kill him?”

“Portia, run out to the street and see if Locke’s driver waits. Bring him back here. Hurry,” she added when the girl didn’t immediately run.

Aunt Eugenia followed close on her heels. “So much commotion! What in heaven’s name . . . Lusinda, what have you done?”

“I didn’t cause this.” She cringed, surprised to be accused as the culprit. “I wouldn’t hurt him.” She wiped his face again with tenderness and compassion, pain slicing into her heart with every twitch and contortion of his face. “I don’t know what is wrong.”

Aunt Eugenia pulled her robe tighter. “He looks like he’s having a fit of some kind. We can’t leave him out here. Do you think we can move him into the house?”

In answer to her question, Portia returned with the driver Lusinda recognized as Fenwick. He tipped his hat to her before glancing at the body sprawled along her side.

“Mr. Locke has taken ill. Can you carry him into the house?”

The burly man grunted. Together, he and Lusinda managed to get Locke upright before Fenwick slung him over his broad back.

“Put him on the divan in the parlor,” Aunt Eugenia instructed.

“No. Take him to the first bedroom at the top of the stairs,” Lusinda corrected.

“But Lusinda, that’s your room,” her aunt protested. “Where will you sleep?”

“I won’t. Not till he’s recovered.” She hurried after Fenwick, imploring him to be careful and ignoring her aunt’s tsk-tsk of disapproval.

“Portia, be a dear and fetch me a bowl of clean water and a cloth,” Lusinda said as she passed. “Bring it up to my room, love.”

She hurried in front of the driver and lit the gas jets before assisting with the clumsy lowering of James into the bed. She asked the driver to remove Locke’s boots while she wrote a note to Pickering. Though she wasn’t fond of the man, he obviously cared for James and might provide a clue as to his mysterious and sudden ailment. To her recollection, there had never been a need to send for a doctor in their household. Aunt Eugenia’s herbal potions had kept them all healthy. She wasn’t even sure how to go about summoning a doctor. Perhaps Pickering could assist in that as well. Once she sent the driver on his way, she proceeded to undress James.

Portia appeared with the water. Her eyes widened as Lusinda unfastened the buttons on Locke’s shirt.

“Should you be doing that?” she asked with a mixture of suspicion and fascination.

“The man collapsed to the ground, Portia. His shirt and pants are dirty.”

“Can I stay and watch?” she asked hopefully.

“No, you may not,” Aunt Eugenia answered from behind her, placing a hand over the young girl’s eyes. “It’s not appropriate. ”

“But Lusinda gets to—”

“Lusinda is older. Besides what would your Mr. Ramsden say if he knew you were planning to undress other men?”

“I wasn’t going to touch him,” Portia complained. “I just wanted to—”

“Dear merciful heavens!” Lusinda exclaimed after she pulled James’s arm free from a sleeve. She had turned him to his side so she could push free the material of his shirt.

“What is it?” Aunt Eugenia moved forward, forgetting for the moment to protect Portia’s innocent eyes.

“His back. Look at his back!”

Twisted red scars sliced across the broad plane of Locke’s back in thick, cruel diagonal lines.

“This man looks as if he has been whipped,” Aunt Eugenia said in shock. “Who would do such a thing? The wounds have healed, but not well. He didn’t receive decent care.”

“Tortured,” Lusinda amended. She should have expected as much. The conversation she overhead with Ramsden that night in the library. The slight wince whenever someone clapped him on the back. Even Pickering’s overprotective nature. It all fell into place.

Portia reached out as if to touch the angry puckered skin. But Aunt Eugenia slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch it, Portia.”

Her eyes widened. “He won’t feel anything. I just wanted to see—”

“But you might.” Her aunt forcibly turned Portia away, her tone stern and commanding. “Listen to me. You’re not to come into this room again while Mr. Locke is in residence. Do you understand me?”

Portia nodded, surprise evident in her face.

“I’m telling you this for your own good.” Eugenia glanced toward the window. “Go get some sleep while you can. Day-break isn’t too far away and the day promises to be a busy one.” She pushed her toward the door. “Off with you now.”

Lusinda carefully lowered James back to the sheets, then worked on freeing his other hand from the sleeve. Was it only last night that James had asked her to free him from the shirt that held him captive? In the carriage, his shirt had fallen off his shoulders, behind his back. The scars would have been exposed had she bothered to notice, but she hadn’t. She had been too involved in experiencing the pleasure he had provided for her with his lips and fingers. A single tear splattered onto the linen cloth of his sleeve. She swiped at the corners of her eyes with her palm. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.

“What was that about?” she asked her aunt once Portia had left the room.

“Whatever do you mean, dear?” Eugenia blotted Locke’s forehead with a damp cloth while Lusinda moved onto the buttons on James’s trousers. “Do you really need to remove those? Perhaps you should wait for that man of his to arrive.”

Lusinda glanced up at her aunt. “I meant why did you chase Portia from the room like that?”

“She’s a young girl, Lusinda, too young to be witnessing the bare chests and buttocks of handsome young bachelors.”

“There’s something else.” Lusinda watched her aunt shift uncomfortably. “Something about the scars . . .”

Her aunt’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not the only one with special abilities, Lusinda. The nature of your ability couldn’t be kept from you, but Portia . . .” She looked toward the doorway. “I would prefer that she remain normal a bit longer.”

“Portia has abilities?” Lusinda felt her jaw hang open like a gaping fish. “What can she do?”

“Nothing that will help this young man here,” Eugenia said. “Let’s put all our attentions on him for the moment, shall we?”

LUSINDA PULLED A CHAIR ALONGSIDE THE BED SO SHE could stroke and soothe his face whenever a tremor shot through him. As the night wore on, these occurred less and less. In time, he slept and she felt her own heavy eyelids drift shut, only to fly open at an insistent banging at the front door.

By the raised voices downstairs, she deduced Pickering had arrived and insisted upon seeing Locke immediately, ignoring Aunt Eugenia’s protests to the contrary.

“What have you done to him?” he asked as soon as he charged into the room. He held a package bundled with string that Lusinda suspected was a change of clothing. She had suggested in her note that such would be needed.

Without waiting for Lusinda to respond, Pickering started to shake James’s shoulders. “Wake up, lad. Snap out of it.”

James started to rouse if for nothing more than self-defense.

Pickering glared at Lusinda. “Tell me girl, did you poison him?”

“No,” Lusinda insisted, insulted. “I did no such thing. How dare you even suggest—”

Locke put a restraining hand on his servant’s arm. “It’s all right. I’m awake. Miss Havershaw and her family are blameless in this.”

Pickering glanced down, still holding on to Locke’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”

James nodded. “Bad dreams. You know the ones.”

Pickering gave one head bob and released Locke’s shoulder. He turned his head toward Lusinda but focused his gaze on her hands, not her face. “I apologize, miss. I see you only meant to care for Mr. Locke. I suppose I was mistaken about your intentions.”

He turned back to James. “I brought some clean clothes. If you’re ready, I can help dress you and attend to your needs.”

James’s eyes widened as if he suddenly realized he was bare chested and more. He gnawed his lip a moment and glanced askance at Lusinda. Her cheeks warmed in response.

“Could you excuse Miss Havershaw and me for a moment, Pickering?” His gaze swung upward toward his manservant a moment before it returned to settle on her. “I would like to discuss something with Miss Havershaw in private.”

Pickering scowled toward Lusinda as if to register a complaint. “I’ll be just below if you need me, sir. I’ll hear you if you call.”

Pickering’s words were directed at him, though Locke had the distinct impression they were really meant for Lusinda’s ears. Why the man harbored such distrust of Lusinda troubled him, but it wasn’t something that required James’s immediate concentration. No. Something more important required his focus.

James waited until his overprotective servant’s heavy steps had pounded their way back downstairs. An uncomfortable silence filled the room. James could barely glance at Lusinda. Explanations needed to be made, but that didn’t make the process easier or less painful. He studied his hand, still now, absent of tremors.

“You saw my back?”

She didn’t answer, but he sensed her nod. Logically, he knew he shouldn’t be ashamed of the scars. He had stood up to the whipping like a true Englishman, held his tongue throughout the ordeal. He bore the scars of a patriot. However, at this moment, her approval weighed heavy on his heart.

“Do they hurt?” she asked.

Her voice held a strained quality, most likely the result of hiding her disgust. His lips tightened, remembering another’s physical recoil when she first saw his back.

Hideous, she had called him. Grotesque. She had run off with a noncommissioned rather than remain engaged to a monstrosity. Colonel Tavish had counseled that it was probably for the good, that a wife would have been a liability for the work ahead, just as he would remind him anew when Lusinda left in disgust.

“Occasionally,” he said, wondering why he had allowed another woman to get close enough to scar him in less visible areas. “There will be a sharp twinge or a brief stab of pain.” At the moment, his scars burned as if freshly opened, searing with humiliation. This, of course, would go unsaid, but never unfelt. He grimaced. “Most of the pain lies in the memories.”

“Of a place without faces,” she said without expression.

He glanced to his left to see her tight-fisted hands twisting a poor linen handkerchief. She’d remembered. He’d forgotten he mentioned that, yet she remembered.

“Yes, it was a prison in Bokhara. Ramsden and I were captured as spies and tossed in a hole no bigger than a coffin, to rot. I never thought I would live to see fields of grass or fresh-faced young misses again.”

“Did they whip Mr. Ramsden as well?” Her voice sounded strained, yet tightly controlled.

He couldn’t raise his gaze to her face, afraid she might see his shame. “They reserved that treatment for me.”

It wasn’t an unexpected question. When they had finally found their way back to camp, his superiors had questioned them both at great length about why only one man’s back was split to ribbons.

“I don’t know why they spared Marcus, but it proved good fortune. I’d never have survived without his strong back bearing my weight back to camp.”

His lips tightened in a failed attempt at a smile. Impossible to smile with those memories so fresh at hand. Would it ever change? Would he ever be able to leave the memories in his past where they belonged?

“Since that time, I’ve had . . . difficulties in cramped quarters. I need evidence of a window or some other means of escape. In the dark, my mind travels back to that time, and my hand . . .” He glanced at his traitorous hand. “Last night—”

“My lunarium,” she interrupted.

His gaze rose to her face, expecting to find it twisted in repulsion, rejection evident in her eyes. Instead he saw compassion, concern, and something deeper. Something that stirred him in a manner he had never experienced.

Two tear tracks marked her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I thought we’d be able to talk in private. I never meant—”

He reached over and took one of her hands and brought it to his lips. He felt a shudder go through her. Not a shudder of revulsion. No. In her deep blue eyes he saw only acceptance. Was it gratitude that expanded his chest and warmed his heart, or was it something else? Rekindled yearnings that he thought extinguished long ago fluttered back to life. Could it be possible that he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life alone?

Caution, my boy
, he heard Colonel Tavish in his head.
You gave up that life. You know what the enemy can do. You haven’t the right to make another a pawn in their game. Think of England. You haven’t the right . . .

He dropped his gaze and placed her hand back in her lap. Some things never changed. It was a consequence of birth. From the day his mother left him in the orphanage he knew he hadn’t the right of happiness. Tavish was right. He couldn’t ask Lusinda to make the same sacrifices.

In that moment, the small flame of hope sputtered out so thoroughly the bitter taste of ash lingered on his tongue.

“I haven’t the right to ask, but I need . . .” He swallowed. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her all he truly needed, all he truly wanted. Someone who wasn’t afraid to share a quiet life with a damaged man of poor background. Someone with a soft, loving, accepting touch. His heart twisted inside his chest. He glanced at her eyes and saw all the things he was denied. “You . . .” he said, reluctant to finish.