The Viscount Returns (8 page)

“I would suggest you do not move from that spot until I have heard everything my family has to say about your crimes. Then I will decide whether I should turn you over to the magistrate or finish what I was about to do before Stevens came and saved your sorry hide.” This was no empty threat. Robert wasn't ready to waste his breath on anything other than what he had already decided to follow through with. Whatever was about to happen, Jefferson knew his life as he had lived it was about to come to an end. The only thing left unanswered was if it would be in a pine box or behind a jailer’s key.

Turning back to his wife, he asked for help to understand and the confessions that followed were the nightmares that his wife had lived through.

“When last I saw him in this room I had gone in search of Jefferson to discuss certain objects that had once belonged to your father that had gone missing.” Swallowing back his disgust at his own memory, Stevens continued on. “I had searched everywhere and it was when I knocked on your wife’s chamber door that I realized how I had failed you and your family.” Looking dead into Roberts’s eyes, he tried to clarify the best he could. "I knew she held no special feelings for the man and that she would go as far as shrink away from him when they met in passing at the mill. It wasn’t until I saw him rutting on top of her that I knew my suspicions were confirmed. Dragging him from her, I saw how she was in no state to defend herself and I am still amazed to find that I had enough strength to let him live. Dragging him down the stairs and out the front door, I tossed him down the rest of the way, warning him never to return.” Shaking his head in dismay, he pressed on. “I should have sent for the authorities then, but I was not thinking. All that mattered was separating him from your wife.”

“It didn't take long for us to realize what had been happening.” Ruth added, holding Fiona to her, brushing back sweaty locks and trying to soothe the poor woman who was suffering from a mild form of shock. The trauma of what she had just experienced and the residue of the Laudanum still in her system left her in a near frozen state.

“What we learned was beyond our belief. He had been drugging the Viscountess and taking liberties through methods of the tonic and blackmail.”

Blinking awake, she tried to pull herself free. Crying out, Fiona begged for them to stop. It was Robert who took her back in his arms, but she did not cease the fight until she collapsed in a gasp and lay limp in her husband’s arms. Her heart was weak, but she was breathing. Rolling her in his arms, Robert held his wife close to him as he met Stevens’ eyes and spoke softly, but with authority.

"Take him to the wine cellar and tie him up. I need time to decide what to do with him. Then send for the doctor and magistrate, but tell them nothing and give them no chance to delay. Do not disclose this to anyone and should any word of this spread, do not let a soul know that this was not the first time. After everything that my family has suffered, I will not risk anyone questioning my wife’s loyalty or my son's birthright." His word was law and they did not hesitate to follow out his orders.

Fiona felt warm and soft in a cocoon. Whatever dream she was living she prayed it would never end, the nightmares that had terrorized her nights were gone and all she felt was peace as she heard a deep familiar voice call out to her. Was this heaven? Had Jefferson returned and finished what he had always threatened?

"Please, my love." Came that voice again. "I cannot face this life without you. Don't leave us."

If this were a dream, she hoped it wouldn’t end.

"I will never forgive myself...I never knew what I was leaving you with." His voice sounded tired. "Forgive my selfish soul and I will spend the rest of my days trying to make myself worthy of you. I love you...I love you...I love you."

Never had she known a dream to be so sweet. Night after night she had heard these same words spoken to her with the same voice, but never had her heart brought such passion and fire to her dreams. All these years she had held on through all the darkness to one dream and one dream only...that her wayward husband would return to her bursting with the love that she had once found for him in one dark night of passion.

"I never should have left you. I never should have..."

What was that? In all of her dreams she had never heard him break down like this. In all these years of dreaming night after night he had taken her in a passionate embrace after proclaiming his love for her, but now he was crying crumpled over her. Her arms tickled from the brush of his hair, and weighed down by his head over her she could feel him shake from his overwhelming emotions.

This was not a dream? He was not her phantom husband?

Blinking awake, Fiona was blinded by the bright light of day that had filled the room. Circling the room, her eyes moved from one corner to the next, seeing no reminisce from the night before. There was no sign of the binding that had held her down for hours. Perhaps it had all been a dream. Perhaps she had even dreamed up that nightmare of Jefferson’s invasion?

"I never wanted to leave you. I only ever wanted to provide for you." The deep, strong voice she had come to melt under was weakened with grief.

She dropped her eyes to her husband’s head buried into the bedding that covered her. He had not seen her wake? It all felt like a voyeurs dream.

"I never knew a woman like you. You were my first and all I wanted was to do right by you." He continued to confess. "I never knew it could be that way with you. You belonged to me and I wanted to do right by you. I thought I had done right, I thought that I was giving you the life you wanted...I never knew what I left you with...who I left you with...God forgive me. I am sorry...sorry...sorry..." The last few words were muffled and lost in the material.

His pain tore at her. This was the man who abandoned her, the man who left her to fend for myself while he traveled the New World with his lover while she was left at the mercy of his father and later Jefferson. Alone she had to face burying their son while birthing dear Sprout...dear God, there was still much he did not know!

Pulling her hand free from under the bedding, she attentively ran her fingers through his thick hair and was greeted with silence.

"Shh. There is no need for tears, my husband." Her voice was hoarse and weak. How long had she been in bed?

Massaging life back into his broken heart, Robert froze under her touch. Never had he prayed so desperately for anything as he did to gain her trust and forgiveness. If in his faults and mistakes he had lost the chance to win her love, life would cease to hold its glories.

"Shh, my husband." Her soothing voice was a blanket over him. "It is your strength that I need now. You are my Lord and Master."

Taking a few clarifying breaths, Robert tried to push back his grief and raise his eyes to her. She was glowing in firelight with her hair a mess from where Ruth had tried to tie it back. Wisps and curls framed her face. Unable to resist the temptation, he stretched out and twirled one wayward curl around his finger.

"You humble me, wife." He broke into a broken grin.

Panning from her halo of curls to the crease forming across her brow, he was stunned as always by her beauty. She was a natural beauty that could drive a chaste man to lustful sin. How things had changed since that first day he met her. So much had darkened their lives, ripping them from every chance at finding each other and yet here they were. Would they both take this chance at happiness together now that their villain had been cast out?

Reaching up, she cupped her head, pulling from his grasp of the thin curl.

"What a mess I must be? I fear what you must think of me in such a state." Closing her eyes, she turned her head away from him. The sparkle was dashed away in that instant and was replaced with a dark sadness. She was pulling away from him and leaving him to drown.

"No." Struggling to keep above water, he cradled her chin that was tilted down away from him. There was no fight from her as he turned her to look at him again. Her eyes had a glimmer of longing and hope? "Do not hide yourself from me again. You are more beautiful than I could ever express. Never doubt that." Holding her face with one hand, he brushed her head with the other.

"From the first moment I saw you I couldn't think of another," Robert confessed.

Blood rushed to her cheeks and Fiona fought to look away. Life was coming back to the room and her blush was a playful reminder that they needed to find a foundation to grow on. Perhaps her blush was a confession that she had shared the same thought.

"Have I stumbled on a confession, wife? Could it be you thought I was not as much an ogre when you first saw my face?"

"How could that be, given that when I first saw you I didn't see your face, but your...your..." Her giggles began to run through her and soon she was red faced and shaking, trying her best to hide herself. To Robert she was a vision of the past, a playful loving young woman.

"Speak, I charge you!" Launching into some well placed tickles, she surrendered instantly.

"Your naked backside!" The words erupted before Fiona pulled the blankets over her head.

Robert took a couple of seconds to decipher what she had said. He could understand how his backside had come into play or when she had ever had the chance to see it. Even when they had shared their one night in bed the candles were out and the bed curtains had been drawn so even the firelight did not add assistance. Tugging the blanket away from her head, she read his questioning eyes and no doubt had expected his confusion by offering an answer before it had been called upon.

"When I first saw you it was perhaps hours before we were properly introduced." Clearing her throat, she focused on brushing away the folds and wrinkles in the bedding. "I had arrived here with my father in order to make final arrangements with my intended..." She nodded her head to him long enough to clarify, "... your brother Dominic.
"
Avoiding the heaviness in his stare, Fiona focused on the bedding so she could continue. "We were just on the outskirts of the forest when one of our horses threw a shoe. My father and I were left in the carriage to wait while our groom was sent ahead for help. I took the chance to explore a bit of what would soon be my home. Passing through a couple of trees, I could see the glimmer of water...a small pond."

There was one question as to which pond she spoke of or of what it was she had seen. Jefferson had always demanded so much of Robert and fornicating out in the open for anyone to see had been an exhibition that he had insisted on. He remembered that day quite well. After going to Jefferson demanding that they end their affair so that he might follow in his brother’s example and seek out a proper wife, Jefferson had wrestled him to the ground, demanding that Robert surrender his control to him. Robert had submitted under the illusion of what he believed to be love. It was years later when Robert realized that what they had shared was not love, but simply sexual gratification. Choking back the dread of what she thought of him, he wondered if he could recover from her disgust and scorn over what she had witnessed.

"Beside the pond on the warm grass there were two bodies...I say bodies for I knew the moment I saw them that they were not a normal pairing of a man and woman, but a pair of men...naked and moving in a passionate embrace."

"Dear God." Hiding his face with his hands, Robert was full of shame.

"It was beautiful," she confessed and softened her eyes with a sparkle of sincerity. "You were beautiful."

Slowly looking up, they met eye to eye and she read his question from his face before he could put it into words.

"I watched how you made love to Jefferson. The way you touched him and kissed him, the way your body moved with his. I had never seen such loving tenderness. You were sensual and almost…elegant." She twittered with a chuckle. "Of course, having only seen a portrait of your brother at your father’s townhouse and not knowing he had a twin, I was perplexed at how this might affect my marriage, but I did know that I desperately wanted to know what it would feel like to be worshiped the way you worshiped Jefferson’s body."

This was a nightmare that he could not escape. The very idea that she had not only seen him as a sodomite, but that she now reminded him that he never gave her the same respect or restrain as he did with his other lovers, made him feel undeserving of her love.

"You must allow me the chance to defend myself." Robert protested, but she grinned with a twinkle before looking away into the fire. Her eyes were lost in her story.

"Dominic and I had been betrothed for over a year before we were allowed to meet, but he was determined that he could still court me even though the marriage contract had been signed. He said that I deserved to be given the girlish fantasy of being wooed." An innocent break in her grin was a sparkling reminder of the girl she had been that first day he laid eyes on her. "That day I was being escorted to see the grounds that would one day be his. I knew that you two were twins, but I never expected to see double, nor did I know that the match by the pond was not made up by my intended." Dropping her eyes down shamefully, she whispered her confession, "I know I should have been shamed but...but...seeing the two of you embraced excited me and haunted me for the weeks that followed."

He knew the story well. Within two weeks of her stay, Dominic was thrown from a cart when Jefferson fought to control a team that had been spooked. Dominic struck his head from the fall and died couple days later. Dressed in black and grieving for the loss of his brother, their fathers had come to the decision that it would be best to alter the name on the marriage contract and to push the wedding on. It was on his wedding day that his father told him that perhaps he had not pushed their union if he had not heard the disturbing accounts of his ongoing affair with Jefferson and that a fortnight after he was to wed, Robert would be sent away to their lands in the continent, leaving Jefferson and his bride behind while he learned to do his duty by his family and bring wealth back to their family name. After their wedding night when he had lost himself in his passions for his wife, Robert had decided that instead of following his father’s plan and investing time and energy in the failing businesses in Spain, he would travel to the new the colonies where several others had found great wealth. He was determined to do right by his loving and beautiful bride and provide for her, agreeing to leave Jefferson behind as his father had requested. Never had he imagined that this would take him away for so long, but a year soon became three and after being gone for so long without an answer from any of his letters home to Fiona, he began to wonder if it would be in her best interest to remove himself from her entirely.

Now he knew the truth.

Jefferson had never delivered those letters and the man who he once thought himself to be in love with was only using him for his own evil end. Seducing him and then forcing his Fiona to bed were some of the darkest of his sins. Jefferson had occasionally expressed his jealousy of the privileges that Robert and his brother had had in their birth, but he never imagined how deep that jealousy ran or that it could drive him to such evil.

"I know that I was not the fantasy that your young heart had hoped for when you had been courted by my brother." Stumbling over his words, he cursed himself for his lack of tact and genteel manner. "I should have shown you more care in those couple of days we had to prepare for our vows. I should have given you the wedding night that was due to a Lady of honor. I should have come to you that night, leaving your night clothes on and only lifting your hem to your apex. I should had done my business gently and be done with you quickly and left after as my father instructed and that was my plan..." Running his hand through his hair, he was coming undone, as was his confession. He was opening the one thing he swore he would always protect from her—and until the moment he saw his wife bound to her own bed—his heart. "But from the moment I kissed you I was possessed. You awakened a demon in me that I never knew existed and I couldn't control myself." Confession perhaps was good for the soul, but this confession was going to kill him. "You were the first woman I ever shared my body with. In fact, you were the first woman I ever kissed beyond a chaste peck to the cheek or back of the hand. You were the first woman I wanted to bed."

Robert stood from the bed and crossed to the fire, trying to find strength across the room from her.