"You believed she was having affair," I said.
He raked his hand through his hair. "The possibility began to torment me. I demanded to know the truth; she laughed at me and called me a fool. But I could not shake the suspicion. Once planted, the seed could not be eradicated. Its roots dug into me, its thorns shredding any pretense of happiness. I felt myself changing. With other women, I had not doubted myself; I had not known the pain of insecurity. But my thoughts became obsessed with Isabella. I went with her everywhere. I challenged men to duels over the slightest provocation—the way they smiled at her or looked too long at her décolletage. Each minute I agonized, I cursed myself for being a fool, yet I could not stop. So under her spell was I that when my own parents died, I could not bear to leave her to attend their funeral."
It was hard for me to imagine Hux as anything but dominant and supremely confident in his masculine appeal. What had his countess done to him, to bring about this change? Did she not know the suffering she had caused him?
"She knew," he said, reading my expression correctly, "and she delighted in it. In leaving me on tenterhooks, never knowing if my wife was with another. There was never any proof to confront her with—just the suspicion that became like a madness eating at my soul. The more I raged at her, the more her power over me grew. She drew upon my anger, as if it were her lifeblood. Even when we were making love, she taunted me, laughed at me. The passion between us became a darkness I could not escape. We ... we did things to each other, Abigail. Things which to this day shame my soul."
He broke off, his hair turbulent black waves around his pale face. Even his eyes lost their vibrancy, iced over by hatred and pain.
"What happened next?" I asked quietly.
"She became pregnant. She was so delighted at the prospect that the hope in me renewed. She spoke of having a daughter, a beauty like herself. I did not care about the sex of the child. All I wanted was a fresh start for us—no more jealousy, no more lies. I took her out of Florence, into the countryside where I rented a villa overlooking fields of grapes and wildflowers. There was temporary peace as Isabella spent her energies designing the nursery, and I let go of the past, focusing on the future. On the child we would bring into this world."
I remembered Mrs. Beecher had told me the countess died in childbirth; my heart seized in anticipation. His next words, however, delivered a shock.
"She gave birth to a healthy babe. A boy. I named him John. He had the same steady, loving disposition as my brother."
"You had a son?" I gasped.
Hux looked at me. I knew that expression: he had worn it that night I spied upon him in the gallery. The lines of his face contorted with unspeakable grief.
"I loved him," he said in a low voice. "I loved him as I had never loved another. Those first weeks, I stayed with him every day in the nursery. I dreamed of a future for him—all happiness and no suffering. I was going to protect him, Abby. It was my duty to see him safe."
I had a sudden notion about what had happened. It was a ghastly thought, one beyond comprehension.
"Something was wrong with Isabella. Not physically, for she had risen from childbed within a week, but with her—her mental state. Her attitude toward John was unnatural, disturbing. She refused to touch him, to see him; she left his care entirely to the wet nurse. When I confronted her, she accused me of failing her, even in this."
"Because she wanted a daughter," I said, chilled with disbelief, "and not a son?"
Hux nodded. "I could not understand it, her coldness. She was seeming less and less ... human to me. 'Twas as if she was transforming in front of my eyes. She allowed her hair to grow untamed; her eyes lit with a wild fever. She disappeared for days on end. Rumors began again, this time about her behavior with the local lads. I could not stop her, and I stopped caring. She had killed my love for her, and in its place I had another—more intense and true than any I had felt before. I spent all my time with John."
"On the eve of my son's sixth month in this world, I came home from riding to an empty house. None of the servants were present, which was odd. A strange panic overtook me. I cannot explain it, but I knew at that moment something was wrong. I ran up the stairs, toward the nursery on the second floor. The door was open. The crib empty. And there, by the open window, Isabella ..."
His words choked off as he hunched over the table, gripping its edge. Going to him, I placed a gentle hand on his back; the muscles were rigid and quivering. He turned suddenly to me, crushing me with the force of his embrace, his need. I let him. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I pulled him with me to the floor. We sat with our backs against the cabinet and held onto each other in silence. His hands clutched mine fiercely.
"She had John dangling out the window." His tone oozed pain like a raw, festering wound. "She held him there with a hank of her hair wrapped around his small neck. She was like the demon you saw last night, only far more powerful; her eyes blazed with fire, her hair rising like a thousand arms, lashing out as I tried to reach my son. He was crying, he was so afraid. And I could not get to him."
Helpless to do anything else, I touched a hand to Hux's face. Wetness slid over my knuckles.
"What good is a male brat to me? she said. If you want him, then here he is. I struggled to get to my boy, shouted for her to stop. But it was too late. She released him, flung his tiny body down to the stones below. Despair and wrath beyond words possessed me. I went out of my mind. I tore past her battalion of hair, through the spears of her laughter, and my hands closed around her ivory throat."
"Who are you? I yelled. Why do you torment me so? I backed her against the ledge of the window, bent her over the precipice where she had cast my love. A smile spread across her lips, red and poisonous as the first apple. In a voice that shook my soul, she told me at last who she was. Who I had married and bedded with."
I waited, my chest pulsing with agonized expectation.
Hux drew a shuddering breath. "She told me she was Lilith, the Mother of all demons. And then she flung herself over the edge."
*****
Lilith.
The name released a deafening roar of sounds and images in my head. Flashes of my lifetime coming together in one sharp focus: the singing demon of my dreams, the whispering presence in my visions, the coiled smile of the painting. Everything familiar at once. The pull I felt on my mind and flesh, the one I could not escape. All my fears, asleep and waking, merged into a sudden evil truth.
"Abigail."
Someone was shaking my shoulders. I heard my name repeated—Hux's voice—and I snapped back to reality.
He was looking at me, his eyes bright with concern. "Ah, my poor darling. You have suffered a shock from the burdens I have heaped upon you. Come, you must drink this."
The smell of the brandy turned my stomach. "No spirits. Please, I—I'd rather have some tea."
I let him lead me to the settee. I needed the time to collect myself, to steady my reeling center. I took the cup and saucer he offered. The brew was no longer hot. I sipped at it, willing the familiar smoky taste to calm my unsettled nerves. But the cup continued to clatter in my hands.
"I am a brute to do this to you." My gaze lifted blankly to Hux. Sitting beside me, he was studying a point in the distance, his jaw harsh-set. "I vowed not to let harm befall you, Abigail, yet time and again I have failed to keep that promise. Because of me, your life was in danger last night. Because of me, you sit there, beset by horror, your innocence torn to shreds."
"I am not as innocent as you think," I managed.
"Are you not?" His lashes lowered, shadowy fans against the pallor of his skin. "Do you think me mad, Abigail? I would not blame you. The story I have told you—it reeks of lunacy, does it not? How many times have I thought myself insane—how many times have I wished it. Better to be mad, I told myself, than to look evil in the eye."
His words were an eerie echo of my own thoughts. Yet he was not mad—and neither was I. What ... was I? My heart ticked fast
er, and urgency pitched my voice. "How can I think you mad after seeing what I saw last night? Tell me the rest, Hux. What happened to Lilith? How does this all connect to the events in the tower room?"
A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "Ah, my Abby. I was not wrong, was I, in observing that your sensibilities are hardier than most." He paused, his shoulders lifting. "As for Lilith, nothing happened to her, I'm afraid. She discarded the human shell she had possessed for those many months—that of Isabella Del Blanco, whom I married but never knew. 'Twas innocent Isabella who lay there broken upon the stones, and I had a hand in putting her there. Lilith disappeared, and to this day I have not seen her again."
"And the woman last night? Who or what was she?"
"She is one of Lilith's offspring. What is known as a Lilin."
My mouth opened to ask more questions, but Hux held up his hand. "Perhaps it would help if I explained what happened after Lilith's disappearance."
Reining in my impatience, my burning desire for answers, I nodded.
"For weeks after, I wandered in a hopeless fog. Losing my son ... it was like losing my brother all over again. For a second time, I had caused the death of one who I loved." Hux inhaled deeply; I set my cup down so that I could take his hand, lend him the strength to finish this story. "The pain of it—I cannot describe it to you, Abby. There were times I wanted to die. To escape grief with endless sleep. One night, after drinking a bottle of whiskey, I went to the nursery. I opened the window, and I looked down upon the stones. I still remember how they glinted in the moonlight, how they called to me."
A tremor, his or mine, ran through our joined hands.
"I put a foot on the ledge, ready to end it all. But as I stood there, on the threshold of deliverance, a flash of silver blinded me. It was so bright I that I stumbled back from the window. When my sight recovered, I saw a figure floating in the darkness. He was outlined in white light; he was ghostly yet angelic and despite the transparency of his form, I knew him straightaway. This boy who had been my heart's companion all those years ago; the boy whom I had missed ever since."
"It was your brother John," I whispered. "He came to you."
Hux shook his head. "I thought so too, at first. He looked like John, and yet he was not. The holy authority with which he spoke was not a boy's; the voice was beyond anything human. It controlled my breath and the flow of blood through my veins; it made the tattered edges of my soul tremble. My knees pulled to the ground, and I was made to look up into the blazing light as the voice burst into my head."
"Do you seek redemption for your sins? Do you seek salvation for your brother's soul? Then I knew the power of the spirit before me, for he brought to light my deepest yearnings, the stuff of all my prayers."
"All those years," I said, aching for him, "you believed John took his own life."
"Yes," Hux said hoarsely. "I always questioned it. How could I not, knowing what John had suffered? And now this divine messenger was announcing that there was something I could do to bring my brother peace. It was a miracle, I thought. There wasn't anything I would not do for John. No price I would not pay to bring my brother's soul home."
"Who was this messenger?" I whispered. "And what did he ask of you?"
"He told me he was Michael, Captain of the Army of Light. He told me to listen carefully, for he could not sustain the heavenly visit for long. He was seeking a foe: Lilith, Queen of the Demons. He told me that if I defeated Lilith and her offspring, God would pardon my brother's sin and let John be at rest at last. Michael gave me a blessed sword and knowledge of the words and ritual to cast a demonic force from its humanly shell. In doing so, I could smote the evil in its vulnerable state. He told me all this, and then he was gone."
My mind struggled to take in all that he was telling me. "Last night, that was what you were doing. You were trying to lure the fiendish spirit out from that woman ..." Another realization dawned upon me. "My God, Hux, all those rumors about your ... amorous conquests. All those women. Have they all been a part of ... this?"
"Not all." A hint of dryness entered Hux's voice. "But, yes, more than a few. That is the way to drive the Lilin from their human form, you see. Lust is their guiding force. They thrive off carnal energy—they need it to survive. So they find humans within whom that need glows brightly." A red flush tinged his high cheekbones. "I suppose that is how Lilith found me in the first place."
My palm grew damp and hot where it lay against his. Licking my dry lips, I tried to pull my hand away. His hold on me tightened; I felt the pulsing of his life blood, the throbbing of his vital flesh against mine. This single point of connection sent a dangerous thrill over my skin as I had the unbidden thought: How potent must a man be to attract the attention of the Queen of Demons?
His grip loosened, and I yanked free.
I returned my hand, trembling and sweaty, into my lap and tried to gather my thoughts. "So you hunt the Lilin? In hopes of finding Lilith?"
"Each Lilin I destroy rids the world of another pestilent force." I could hear the quiet venom, the undiluted hatred in his voice. "I would kill them without a second thought and for the pleasure of doing so. But, yes, my ultimate goal is to draw Lilith out once again."
"H-how?"
"Before his power faded, Michael gave me the location of an old hermit. Learn all you can from him, the archangel said. So I found the recluse living in a hut high upon the Apennines. He had once been a priest who traveled the Holy Land studying the religions and mysticism of the Semitic peoples. He told me what he knew of Lilith, The Demon Goddess, including the prophecy of her return."
"What did he say?" I asked faintly.
"According to the hermit, it was prophesized that the day Lilith's thirteenth daughter met with danger, she would rise again."
"And how many have you ...?"
His eyes blazed into mine. "Last night, 'twas number eleven I dispatched back to hell."
TWENTY-THREE
I had thought myself accustomed to madness. Nonetheless, Hux's words cast a thick blanket of unreality over my senses. My hands were numb; I felt nothing. It was like being in a vision, with space and time warped around me. I did not know how long I stared unseeing into the blur of flame; eventually, I registered the sound of my name, the voice filtering to me as if through a layer of ice. I thought to respond, but my earthly self seemed lost to my control. I could not speak. I could not move.
I could only think that he had seduced and killed eleven demons. Two more to go before the Queen of Darkness herself would rise to seek vengeance upon him. My Hux, in as great a mortal danger as could be imagined. And like a lightning rod in the storm, he was calling the destruction upon himself. Welcoming it, with an anguish that would accept no other appeasement.
"It disgusts you, doesn't it Abigail," I heard him say. "What I have done, what I intend to do."
Blinking, I saw his pain-tautened features. "No." The word squeezed through the dry passage of my throat. "No."
"You needn't lie," he said. Embittered lines slashed his lean cheeks. "You think me repulsive or mad—'tis quite a pick, I should think. In either case, you needn't worry. I will involve you no further. The only thing I require of you is your pledge of secrecy. Then you will leave in the morning, with enough money to see you comfortably through the rest of your days."
"I don't want your money," I said, stunned.
For some reason, my words brought fire raging into his eyes. "Goddamn you, Abigail," he said in low, thick voice. "Do you find me so revolting, so sordid that you will not accept even that pittance from me? Would you rather starve, with only your righteousness for company? By God, I will not have it. You will take my bloody money, or I shall ram it down your throat."
He seemed suddenly half-wild. Tension leaping off his powerful frame, he glared at me with untamed violence in his eyes. Any sane person would be moved to fear. Any sane person would seek to defend herself or to run from this damaged beast.
I did neither. Instead, I reached f
or him and pressed my lips to his.
I felt the shock of contact run through him. My instinct had been to gentle him, to soothe the injuries which had been so cruelly visited upon him. Instead of me quieting him, the reverse occurred. His ferocious passions overtook me. The soft kiss I initiated vaporized in blistering heat. His lips consumed mine, demanding my surrender. Shuddering, I could not resist. His tongue came inside and unleashed an onslaught of sensation. The sustaining burn of whiskey and male penetrated my senses. Hunger gnawed at me.
My fingers went to his hair, speared themselves into the raven thickness. I pulled him to me, my mouth fully open, my desire sliding hotly, slickly, against his. He groaned my name, and I knew he had regained his senses because he spoke it as a question. But now I didn't want to think; I couldn't bear to. I abandoned myself completely to impulse. Mindless craving unfurled, a dark blossoming from my core. A sound escaped my throat like yes or please, and his mouth closed over mine, the pressure deeper, harder than our kiss before.
Shaking with need, I felt his fingers work down my spine. His touch was sensual magic; buttons and laces gave way, my breath becoming freer yet more labored as the desire swelled within me. The layers shed from my upper torso like an old skin, and 'twas not fear but liberation singing in my veins. He pushed me back against the cushions, his sinewy weight stretching atop me, the rough brush of the settee beneath my bare back. Everywhere we touched the friction of his firm edges set off sparks of delight. Mindlessly, I wriggled beneath him, rubbing softness against hardness, seeking relief from the tension coiling within me.
"Patience, Abigail." He hovered over me, his eyes coal-black, ringed by brilliant blue. With his lips, he caressed my eyelids, the corner of my mouth. "Soft and easy, my sweet. Let me take care of you. Let me love you as I have longed to do."
I could not speak for the swell in my throat. Then his mouth coursed over my neck and chased away any possibility of speech. My head arched back as he strung hot, wet kisses above my collarbones. He caressed my shoulders, down my sides, against the aching curves of my breasts. His touch was slow, tormenting. Aroused beyond bearing, I clutched at his shoulders; rigid muscle flexed beneath velvet, and I had the desperate urge to touch him without barrier. I tried to shove away his jacket, his waistcoat, and I heard his startled laugh.
Abigail Jones (Chronicles of Abigail Jones #1) Page 18
