Mad for the Marquess

by Jess Russell

  “What an extraordinary notion, Miss Winton. This is precisely why you must leave the therapies to the experts who have studied these cases.” Doctor Hives adjusted a fold in his cravat and cleared his throat. “I was most displeased Mrs. Coates allowed you to enter the marquess’ room. However, she assured me you did not seem fazed by his…artistry.”

  She considered how best to answer. “I will not lie. I was shocked, but seeing his pictures allowed me a glimpse into his world, if only through a small window.”

  “His world is narrow, Miss Winton. Lord Devlin has lost crucial memories. Recouping these memories is vital to his cure; however, he must recover them in his own time.”

  “Yes, certainly, Doctor Hives.”

  “And, thus far, my efforts at hypnosis have not proved efficacious. So, we move on.” The doctor traced the golden seal on the letter in front of him. “You are not the only person to broach the subject of the marquess painting again. Lord Austin has been hounding me with his own ideas. Would that I could do as I saw fit without a passel of laymen to muck up my work. But I am dependent on others for my living and the running of this place, so I must bow to them. At least for now.”

  Doctor Hives hefted himself onto his legs and waddled to the window, pulling aside the curtain to look out at the rain. “I do not like this painting idea. The marquess turns excitable and his humors become…disturbed. However, Lord Austin believes if his brother can produce a work of calm beauty, it can be used as a kind of testament to help win their father over. The idea has some merit as Devlin’s lewd and almost pornographic paintings were part of the reason he came to be confined here.”

  “I also understand there was a—event that traumatized his lordship?”

  He dropped the curtain and turned to her. “Has Mrs. Nester been gossiping again? That incident is none of your concern, Miss Winton. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “The Duke of Malvern is not well. It is now vital that I make progress with his son. His Grace wants to secure the succession before his demise, and he is pressing me to find Lord Devlin compos mentis. However, in good conscience, he will not go so far as to release a lunatic into the world. So for now, I still hold the reins.”

  He seemed to require an answer of her. “Of course, Doctor.”

  “Believe me, Miss Winton, I would like nothing better than to deliver the duke a viable heir. Do you imagine I wish to remain here at Ballencrieff, tucked away in an obscure corner of the Highlands? I have important work to do.” He stared off into space and seemed to have forgotten her existence.

  She cleared her throat and his gaze jerked back to her. “Miss Winton, we have a window here, and you must help me open it wide enough so I may provide a cure for his lordship.” He adjusted a wilting curl that had the audacity to slip lower on his forehead. “I have laid out a whole new regime for the marquess.” Hives lowered his voice. “Macready has been replaced as Lord Devlin’s keeper. And we will try this painting. In accordance with my instructions, the marquess will paint his brother. He will depict Lord Austin’s pristine, classical beauty. We will see if it proves a panacea.”

  A beginning, at least.

  “I wish to see how far your talents go. I will observe you with Lord Devlin to determine if you have a similar effect on him as you have on the other patients. If so, I believe it might be advantageous that you attend these sittings.”

  Her stomach flipped. She would see him again.

  “I trust you will be unbiased and will alert me the moment Lord Devlin becomes the least unbalanced or lewd. Of course, I do not believe you pose any kind of fleshly temptation, but how he behaves with a woman, will be yet another indication of his character.”

  She knew she was no beauty, but to be dismissed out of hand still hurt. She stood taller.

  “Do not engage him with too much talk. I find the patients reveal far more when they are forced to hold up the conversation. I will be concealed in the next room, observing from a spy hole in the wall, however, Lord Devlin’s new keeper will be there should you require him.”

  Anne nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said, firmly.

  “Lord Austin, while well-meaning, is prejudiced and not likely to report small infractions. I do not need to tell you, Miss Winton, we all have much at stake with this experiment.”

  “You have my full cooperation, Doctor Hives.”

  “Very well, you will attend the marquess in his room tomorrow just after prayers.”

  Chapter Six

  A key rasped in the lock, and Ivo stopped sucking the grime from beneath his nails to stand at attention. A small white hand came around the door and then the hem of a dark skirt. Dev’s breath hitched uncomfortably. A woman? He schooled his features.

  The little owl.

  The air he’d been holding released in a hush as the door swung shut. She turned to it, startled, as if the noise sealed her doom.

  “Ah, Miss Owl.” He stood awkwardly—being bound in this damned strait-waistcoat often played havoc with his balance. The manacles around his ankles clunked against the oak floor, music to his ineptness.

  She flinched.

  He’d forgotten what a shock seeing his restraints could be to an innocent. Covering his ire, he made a reasonably elegant bow.

  She swallowed and dipped into a curtsey.

  “You have flown into my cage.”

  Her eyes darted to the spy hole in the wall just to the left of the fireplace. The one he was not supposed to know about, but which was as obvious as a whore in church.

  “Or perhaps you have been thrust inside? A mousey tidbit to bate the tethered falcon?” He did not really expect an answer but wanted to gauge her reaction—to divine her allegiances. Austin had written of Miss Winton’s concern for him and of her help in scrubbing his room back to its present dead white. “But, as you see, you are safe. I am sporting my jesses for the occasion.” He indicated his bindings, though any fool could not fail to see the grotesque chains and shackles. He nodded to the only other chair in the room. “Please sit down.”

  She perched on the very edge of the chair as if she might fly away at any moment.

  He felt remarkably well considering his recent confinement in the hands of Macready. Still, he shifted his eyes away from her. He did not want to chance her seeing the devils who often used his eyes as windows. He would thwart the bloody bastards. Let them do their evil work within him, but by sodding Satan, he would not let them get a glimpse of her beauty. They would steal her from him—make her afraid of him. That, he could not stand.

  “I am told by Dr. Hives I must apologize for my rude behavior when we met. Is he correct? Do I owe you an apology?” He risked a glance at her. Her cheeks were pure cream now, but he could still see them streaked with his blood. He swallowed the burn of guilt. “The moon was full, and I was not myself that day.”

  The girl’s hands fluttered in her lap, but she clasped them together and then shook her head. Cream cheeks turned red again, but this time, a charming blush.

  “Ah, good, I do so loathe apologies.” He sat. “Forgive me. I am unused to female company. I must dredge up my manners and my polite conversation.” The injuries on his hands itched beneath the bindings. He shifted, trying to get comfortable. “Let’s see… The weather is always a safe beginning, is it not? How do you find our Scottish spring, Miss Winton? It is Miss Winton?”

  She nodded again but remained mute.

  “What, are you not authorized to talk to me? Do not engage the lunatic?”

  Again she turned toward Hives’ spy hole.

  Sharp disappointment pricked him out of nowhere. “They send me fools and ninnies, Ivo, with not a thought of their own.”

  He sucked in cold air and expelled slightly warmer. “Yes, the weather continues bone chilling and dreary, do you not agree, Lord Devlin?” he mocked in a slightly higher pitched voice. “Oh yes, Miss Winton, I must concur. The Scottish weather is certainly something to be relied upon.”

  He
r winged brows drew together. She did not seem to appreciate his little tête-à-tête.

  He ground his teeth. They had sent this girl as some sort of test, and old Polonius Hives was squirreled away to see if he passed.

  Again, no bitter taste in his breakfast porridge, best take advantage of this lucidity. Perhaps the devils would leave him be today. “Let’s see, the weather exhausted, what else is there to say?” His voice was too loud. He crossed his ankles, his chains dragging. “My days are so full I hardly know where to begin. Up at six, put into my stylish waistcoat while Ivo shaves me. Can’t let me have anything sharp you know. But surprisingly, Ivo here has proved a very credible valet.”

  Her gaze went to the boarded up window.

  He gritted his teeth against another stab of humiliation. This young innocent a witness to the aftermath of his poisoned mind.

  The devils be damned. He focused on her calm beauty. She did not seem repulsed. Could the fiends be frightened of this little bird?

  “Where was I?” He scrambled to play the gallant. “Oh, yes. And then I break my fast—the good doctor allows me to feed myself now. Not much damage one can do with a spoon. Very good porridge today, Ivo. I think the cook must be doing something a bit different. Perhaps a bit less salt?” He stared at Hives’ spy-hole.

  “Next, I while away the hours, sometimes doing mathematical equations in my head, sometimes, I do…other things.” He favored her with a rakish grin. She only blinked. Humph. Served him right, trying to get a rise out of a naïve virgin.

  However, he could just imagine Hives scribbling that little jewel down. A tidbit to masticate over in their next session.

  “Let’s see, what else to amuse myself? I used to breathe against the glass and play noughts and crosses, but as you see that luxury is no longer afforded me.” He jerked his head toward the boarded up window. “Then dinner is more porridge, this time, with yummy mutton. And when I am a very good boy, I am dressed up for tea and paraded before my fellow lunatics. Needless to say, I have not seen them in a long while.”

  Her silence enveloped him. Too intense. Somehow too personal. He wanted to fling himself at her feet. Or out the boarded up window. He could not be sure which.

  “I am forgetting my manners once again and dominating the conversation. How are you getting on, Miss Winton?”

  To be fair, she did look as if she wanted to answer him, but obviously thought better of it, continuing to sit like some Madonna, her hands open, one folded on top of the other as if expecting the Christ child to drop into her lap.

  Hives be damned—or maybe the devils had finally slipped into his brain—but it was time to get a rise out of her. He leaned forward and whispered, “I must say I thoroughly enjoyed our first meeting. It seemed you did as well, despite my having a weapon.”

  That did it. He was rewarded with another blush even short-sighted Lady Tippit could read. And, blessedly, Anne Winton’s wholesome gaze slipped to her lap. Most ladies would have flown up into the boughs in outrage. But, by God, he gave Miss Winton full marks for not turning tail and running.

  “Don’t be such an owl.” He prodded her again, partly because she was so delightful wreathed in blushes. “You had to know Austin would share that juicy morsel. I get so little entertainment.”

  She recovered, looking him straight in the eyes.

  He sat back. “Come now, you must have at least one question wedged behind those huge sable-brown eyes. Let’s have it and then perhaps I can stop concentrating on you and what you are not saying, and go back to contemplating the walls. This distraction is becoming tedious.”

  “Why devils?”

  The low, richness of her voice surprised him as much as her question. “Pardon?”

  She licked her lips and sat up straighter. “Why do you paint devils?”

  He stepped away from her words as surely as he would flinch from a crumbling precipice, taking shelter in mockery. “That’s it? That is your burning question? The question that has been brewing these last endless minutes while I have rattled on?”

  She said nothing.

  “You disappoint me, Miss Owl. I would have thought perhaps you might ask why my sire can stand by—or rather lay low, I am told he is ill—while his son and heir is imprisoned in this hellhole? No interest?” His head suddenly pounded. “Or perhaps you might want me to elaborate on some of the antics that have brought me to this fateful place?”

  She frowned and bit her lip.

  “Ah, I see you must have heard some of them. I’m sure those cackling crows you attend have more than filled your ear with my evil deeds?”

  He paused to give her an opportunity to refute him, but she didn’t. He spent an uncomfortable moment wondering what she had heard and if she believed the drivel. Blasted ballocks, he couldn’t remember a shred of his past.

  “How about why God is so cruel as to bestow the venerable Malvern duchy on the evil, mad son instead of the angelic, perfect one? No? No interest in that one?”

  She shifted on her seat and tucked her feet completely under the hem of her skirt, but remained mute.

  “Shocking. I must own I find myself deliberating that particular thorn over and over in my mind. I confess I am always confounded when it isn’t foremost in others’ as well.”

  He had a terrible urge to push harder to see when she would fly away from his onslaught of rudeness. Or perhaps she was simply a dullard and not worth the effort.

  God, he despised himself. When had he become such a loathsome toad?

  Focus, damn it. He didn’t know why yet, but he needed this woman. She had drawn him to her like a sea siren that first day. But why was she here now?

  Hives must be testing her as well. Whatever the reason, Dev wanted this girl near him if only to gaze into her beautifully clear eyes.

  “But I digress. You are desirous of an answer, and I cannot bear your quiet and oh-so-solicitous waiting.” He tried out his most charming smile. After all, it had worked beautifully at their first meeting. Nothing. “Pardon, I sound very like that bag of wind, old maid Tippit, rattling on without a rejoinder in sight.”

  He waited hoping she might favor him with some remark, or perhaps an answering smirk?

  “Right. Why do I paint devils?” He glanced at the spy hole. “The answer is simple, Miss Winton. Any good painter paints what is in his heart.” He felt suddenly exposed, as if he had come into a room without any clothes. He rushed to fill that empty yawning space—to cover himself. “There, not so exciting or illuminating, is it? The truth rarely is.”

  “I do not believe that is your truth,” she said without hesitation.

  “Ha!” Her jaw line twitched. His expletive a harsh smack against her softness. Served her right. “Well, well, you presume to know me—my heart even—after so little time? Astonishing, considering I hardly know myself these days. Very well, I will play, my little owl.”

  He stood and strode to her, his chains snapping taut.

  Ivo jerked forward, no doubt startled into action by the clank of chains and sudden movement. The henchman glanced nervously at the spy hole. Miss Winton did not. Bless her.

  “Since you are so wise…” He pointed his chin to his breast. “Tell me what lies here.”

  She hesitated only a moment before rising and, without breaking eye contact, made a staying gesture to Ivo who looked like a cur on too short a leash. She took the three steps to close the gap between them, this girl-woman with her soulful liquid-brown eyes and quietly elegant bearing. His head throbbed, and his nerves ratcheted up until he thought his heart might burst through its cage of bone.

  She raised her hand, her gaze burning into his breast.

  Swaddled in his strait-waistcoat, he had no way to defend himself against this tiny woman with her huge presence, so he made himself into pillar of rock.

  She too seemed to freeze. Her hand hovering in the pulsating air, her eyes wide as her lips opened in a silent “oh.” Her gaze flicked up to his. Astonishment reflected there. Dear Satan,
he had the terrible urge to kiss her again. But her gaze had already dropped.

  She touched him.

  Involuntarily he jerked, shocked by the sensation of her small palm and the pulse which radiated out her fingers. They stung. Even through the thickness of the strait-waistcoat, he could not tell if they were burning hot or freezing cold—the feeling was the same. Intense cold-fire. But whichever it was, warmth began to spread into his cold stone body just as it had during their earlier encounter. His heart seemed to want to migrate into that small, comforting hand, to be cradled in her soft-petaled fingers.

  Used to his cock jumping to attention at every fantasy he concocted in his demented mind, after all, he was relatively healthy—at least that part of his body was. Certainly it had risen to the occasion when he’d first met this girl, but his heart? No, that particular organ had not stirred for some time now. No wonder he felt raw, as if his skin had been turned inside out—

  He bucked her hand away, disgusted with his vulnerability, and retreated a few steps.

  “You are naïve and not so wise if you think this rather tame outward package reflects what lies within,” he whispered. But he was lying. For other than his wildly beating heart, he had never felt so peaceful inside. So warm. Perhaps his devils had been burned by her fire.

  They would be back. He would not be lulled into thinking they would be vanquished by a tiny woman with huge eyes and the trick of heat within her hands. Hives was just toying with him.

  “Surely you’ve heard the truism, ‘do not judge a book by its cover’?” He turned away to his blocked up window. It was far easier to wax philosophical than to meet her quiet challenge. He squeezed his eyes into fists because his hands lay useless and trapped within the lunatic’s coat.

  Lord, this encounter had not gone at all as he wanted. He took a breath, his best smile in place.

  When he turned back, all he saw was the swish of her dull brown skirts licking the doorway as the door swung closed.

  Damn. What had she thought of him? The devils had not come, and his breast still held the heat of her touch. Who was this magical girl? And would he ever get another chance to find out? He could still hear her lovely voice.