“I couldn’t make it all out, but it seems as if, the other Viscountess that was, Lady Florence, had been betrothed to him at one time.”
“I think you misheard, Collins… But I will look into the matter.”
The maid nodded, but her expression remained grim, prompting Olympia to wonder if she had the whole truth.
On the short journey back to Darkwood Hall, Olympia steeled herself for the confrontation to come. She needed the truth from him now, whether he wished to share it or not.
Thirteen
Olympia entered the drawing room upon her return, unwilling to be imprisoned in her room again for the remainder of the day. Hiding from Lady Florence was hardly a long term solution to her situation.
No sooner had she thought the name than the woman entered, sweeping into the room wearing an elaborately embroidered day dress in soft shade of violet. Her hair was arranged in a confection of curls that looked as if one loosened pin would send the lot of tumbling down her back.
“Oh, you’ve been shopping, I hear!” she cooed. “The village is rather disappointing… not to mention very grim. You should accompany me to Liverpool. I have a wonderful dressmaker there, and she makes the naughtiest little underthings.” Lady Florence stopped and then giggled. “But I don’t suppose you’ll be needing those. I understand Griffin is quite reluctant to cement your marriage.”
How would she know that? Mrs. Webster, of course. “You’re quite interested in the goings on within our chambers… And yet I hear there is an endless stream of footman lined up at your chamber door.”
Lady Florence shrugged elegantly. “Not an endless stream…two or three that I dally with when the fancy strikes. You will too, one day. Having lovers, Lady Darke, is infinitely preferable to having husbands. And when Griffin inevitably succumbs to the curse that befalls all men of this family, you’ll understand precisely why that is. The name Darke is quite fitting… for they are that. Black to their souls.”
Olympia shivered. He’d said the night before that the weeping woman had once been his sister but that if there was aught left of her it was buried beyond his reach. Was this the same kind of affliction that Lady Florence spoke of? Would he become like Cassandra, a violent and wounded creature lashing out at those around him? Screaming in the night?
“You are certainly a doomsayer, Lady Florence,” Olympia said, regaining her composure and schooling her features into a neutral mask. “My husband is quite sound and the picture of health.”
Lady Florence laughed heartily. “Oh, he is! And so handsome, too! Did you know that it’s illegal for me to marry a man who was my nephew by marriage? I checked. I thought perhaps that would be the perfect answer… but alas he turned me down flat, even when he desperately needed a bride to claim the inheritance left to him by that horrid old bat, Honoria. I thought it was just a convenient excuse, but he was actually telling the truth… Of course, it can still be arranged if one gets special dispensation from the bishop. And given that my marriage to Roger produced no children, and there is no blood relation between us, and that Griffin and I had a previous relationship—.”
The conversation with Collins in the carriage came back to her then, along with a feeling of dread. “What previous relationship?”
Lady Florence smiled. “We’ve known each other for ages, you see.”
“What is your point, Lady Florence? You try my patience!”
She rose then and walked over to where Olympia stood, leaning in to whisper next to her ear. “He turned down my offer of marriage… but that’s all he rejected, Lady Darke. Did you really think a man as virile as Griffin would exist in this isolated place without any feminine comfort? He’s been my lover for years. Enjoy it when he comes to your chamber. I fully intend to enjoy it when he returns to mine!”
It couldn’t possibly be true, Olympia thought. But as Lady Florence smiled at her, she knew that it must be. The woman was too beautiful by far. Lovelier than any she’d ever seen. Why else would he have turned her away in the library last night when she freely offered herself to him? Because his needs were being met elsewhere. The realization of it sank into her with the weight of stone. Had she been a fool to believe his words? Were his promises of a slow seduction merely an excuse to delay the dreaded act of being her lover?
“Good day, Lady Darke,” Florence said and left the room in a swish of violet skirts.
Olympia sank onto the settee and tried to quell the sick feeling in her stomach. Had he truly been lovers with his uncle’s wife? There was only one way to get an answer. She would simply have to confront her husband as she’d planned.
***
Griffin had stripped to his shirtsleeves as he worked. The small hothouse was kept at a steaming temperature for the survival of several rare plants that he’d cultivated in the hopes that their medicinal properties would provide some relief for Cassandra. And yet, he’d found nothing that worked.
Perhaps Mrs. Webster was right and it was time to give up. But the idea of placing her in an asylum, to be cared for by strangers, was something he could not bear. Of course there was also the brutal nature of their treatments. He couldn’t allow that to happen to her if there was any other option. That he would continue to care for Cassandra as she had was the last promise he’d made to his mother before the fever took her.
Thinking of his parents, of the unfairness of their deaths—the dark days before his father had succumbed to madness and his mother’s untimely death, his mood grew dark. And as he weighed the dilemma of his sister’s affliction, Griffin felt darkness growing in him. The futile anger and the urge to lash out that always accompanied it were something that he tried desperately to keep at bay, but it times it proved too much for him.
With the last of the new cuttings repotted, he brushed off his hands, put away his tools and walked from the room. His father had loved horticulture, had believed adamantly that the cure for every illness could be found in nature. He’d schooled Griffin to continue his work, to keep searching for answers. There was no joy in it for him, however. Only duty. The plants his father had procured over the years, some purchased, some gifted to him, and yet others carefully carted home from the journeys he would take before his own condition had worsened were the only legacy he had left of the loving father he’d been.
Annoyed with his melancholy thoughts, Griffin left the conservatory, and the memories it stirred, behind him. His decision to put away his work for the day had naught to do with the fact that he was eager to see his bride, to find some excuse to have a few moments alone with her. A stolen kiss would improve his mood.
Climbing the stairs two at a time, he retreated to his chamber to wash up and don something that didn’t leave him looking like a field hand. While Olympia appeared to be more than understanding about the informality and the unusual way in which his household was run, greeting her in his dirty shirtsleeves was hardly the best way to get on.
Stripping off his soiled shirt, Griffin poured water into the basin. It was cold, but he hadn’t thought to have warm water sent up, so he would suffer it. He scrubbed his face vigorously and had just began to wash his chest when a soft knock sounded on the connecting door.
It would be Olympia, and it would be foolhardy to let her in. Stolen kisses were all well and good, but alone in the privacy of his chamber, he would want much more and he was not yet certain she was prepared for that.
He should speak to her through the closed door and then meet with her in the drawing room. If he meant to take his time in wooing her, establishing some sort of rapport with her before simply taking her to his bed, then entertaining her in his chamber was a temptation he could ill afford.
But where she was concerned, poor decisions were proving to be the rule rather than the exception. He crossed the room in long, quick strides and opened the door. It would shock her and part of him wanted to. He wanted to see her rattled by him in the same way that he was by her.
Taking in her expression, he watched her eyes widen, watched
her tempting lips part then saw the stain of her blush creeping over her porcelain skin. She blinked several times, but in doing so, her eyes roved over him. He could feel her gaze on him like it was a weight. When she managed to turn her face away, she swallowed convulsively. She said nothing, but her actions told him all she needed to. She wanted him, whether she understood what that meant or not.
“Did you need something?” he asked. It was a subtle double entendre, one that would escape her entirely. But his own mind was supplying the answer for her. She needed him, and God help him, he needed her.
“I wanted to talk to you about some things that happened while I was in the village today,” she said. “And also about some things that I have learned since Lady Florence has returned to Darkwood, but it can wait. I didn’t realize you were—.” She stopped abruptly as her mind failed to supply the words she needed.
“Undressed?” he offered helpfully.
“Indisposed,” she corrected, using the more politely accepted term.
Griffin noted that, though she kept her gaze averted, he could see the pulse beating at the base of her throat. It fluttered wildly, a clear indication of just how unnerved she was by him and his current state of undress. “We are married, Olympia. The lack of a shirt should hardly keep you from saying whatever it is that you wish to say to me.” His tone was casual, belying the fact that her nearness, the scent of her, incited a lust in him that he hadn’t known himself capable of. It went far beyond simply desire. It was a craving that burrowed into him, digging in with teeth and claws. There was something dark in it. Dark and ugly, but it was also insistent and would not be denied.
“Come in, Olympia, and speak your piece,” he offered. It was a challenge and they both knew it.
Fourteen
Olympia felt the pull, the fire that burned just beneath her skin, raging and roaring to life every time she was in his presence. Desire, if that was truly what she was experiencing, was not the pleasant thing she’d read about in scandalous and forbidden poems. It was much darker, stronger, pressing in on her and driving her to behave in ways that she didn’t understand. Even angry as she was, hurt and with her pitifully wounded pride, she still felt those stirrings of desire for him.
As she stepped over the threshold into his room, she knew that she was taking a step that was irrevocable and would alter everything in her life. She trembled slightly under the weight of that knowledge and of the questions about what was to come.
He didn’t step back from her immediately, but stayed near the door so that their bodies brushed as she moved past him. That simple touch created a hitch in her breath, raised gooseflesh on her skin and heightened her awareness of him to the point she could think of nothing else but the way he smelled, the way he had kissed her.
“You were correct when you said that I would not be well received in the village,” she said, ignoring the fact that her voice sounded thin and tremulous. “Even the vicar was somewhat less than cordial.”
He didn’t smile, but his mouth did turn up at the corners in a slight quirk, his expression an odd mix of amusement and sadness. “I warned you. And what did our lovely villagers have to say about myself and Darkwood Hall?”
“Very little. Vague hints, misdirection and all flavored with an overarching sense of disdain and disapproval,” she summarized. “Except for John Short. He and his wife were lovely. They also presented me with a packet letters. Swindon has written to you.”
“I will answer it later,” he replied. “I fear that this conversation may be more important.”
Turning to face him directly, she forced her gaze upward to his face and ignored the distracting vision of the planes and ridges of his bare chest. “I must know what happened here, Griffin. It is an unfair thing to expect of me… that I should live in this house, under the stain of whatever occurred while being completely ignorant of any details.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and lowered his head as if in deep in thought. It afforded her an opportunity to study him at leisure, to take in every detail of his form. The liquid heat that suffused her, that pooled in her belly, prompted her to take a step back from him. It wasn’t him as much as it was the temptation he presented to her. She wanted him. While her knowledge of carnal matters was limited, it was sufficient to allow her to admit that. But it terrified her as much as it tempted her, because she understood the power of it.
Giving herself to him would be to give him a kind of power over her that she feared and craved. She wanted to know passion and desire. She wanted to know what it would be to lose herself entirely.
“My uncle was a violent man,” he finally said. “He was always a violent man, lashing out at anyone near him. And in the last years of his life, he went quite mad… And his violence grew worse. In a fit of rage prompted by something none of us understand, he murdered both his sons.”
Olympia gasped, her face going pale at the horror of what he disclosed. A small bench at the foot of his bed was the closest place to sit and she needed to. He’d called it a tragedy and it was, but it was also much worse than that. Sinking onto the bench, she clasped her hands in her lap so tightly that her knuckles went white. “When did this occur?”
“Less than a year ago,” he stated simply. “In the dining room.”
Horror blossomed inside her when she recalled their dinner the night before, sitting in a room that had witnessed such horrific violence from a father to his sons. “How can you bear to sit in that room?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “This house has seen many horrors over the years, Olympia. Were I to avoid every chamber or room that had witnessed violence I would have to sleep in the stables.”
“What?”
His gaze was dark, his eyes cold and distant. “We’re all mad, you see… Every man who has ever borne the title of Viscount Darke has gone quite mad. My uncle was not the first member of this family to commit atrocities against his relatives. But I mean to be certain he is the last… and that is why we will never have children, Olympia. That is why I mean to let the line die with me. There is something broken inside us that should not be passed on.”
“How can you know that?” she demanded.
“I told you of my sister Cassandra, but what I did not tell you is that… she is afflicted with the same violent tendencies as my uncle. But unlike him, she is never sensible and just driven to fits of temper. She is like a wounded animal, lashing out viciously at anyone who comes near her. I would not visit that fate on anyone. And I would deny you children before I would condemn you to see any son or daughter you bore suffer in such a way.”
“Madness can be caused by many things, Griffin! You cannot be certain that any children we might have would be afflicted so!” she retorted.
“Certain? No, I cannot be certain. But it would be selfish to risk it. I will not do that, Olympia. I will not bring another person into this world to suffer the way my sister has… and while I display no symptoms now, there is no guarantee that years from now, or even months from now, will not succumb! My own father was fine for years, until one day he simply wasn’t.”
She rose then, frustrated by his answers, frustrated by things she did not understand. That frustration prompted her to pace as she considered how best to respond. “There are treatments—.”
“And they are cruel and ineffective,” he snapped. “You cannot understand the reality of what I have endured until you see it first hand.”
Before Olympia could ask what he meant, he grabbed her by the arm and with his free hand, snagged a key that lay upon the mantle. She struggled to keep up with him as he stalked down the hallway toward the very door Mrs. Webster had barred he from entering. Once through it, he slowed somewhat, but the tension in him seemed to grow. Every muscle was taut and one ticked perceptibly in his jaw as he led her up a narrow flight of stairs.
The room was part of a turret or tower, the walls rounded and the windows heavily barred. But it was the girl in the center of the room that caught Olympia’s
eye. She looked like Griffin with her dark hair and eyes, but at the sight of them she shrieked like a banshee. The sound reverberated off the stone walls, the sound so chilling that Olympia could not stop herself from taking a step back.
When she did, Griffin turned on her. “You wanted to see. You wanted to understand,” he reminded her in a fierce tone. “Well, now you have. This is my sister, Cassandra. We must keep her restrained to keep her from doing harm to others. At times, we must restrain her even further to keep her from doing harm to herself.”
Olympia said nothing. She recognized that there was naught for her to say. He wasn’t angry. Oh, his tone was sharp and his words could cut like a blade, but she’d seen it in his eyes when he looked at her. He was hurting. Griffin was in a kind of pain she couldn’t fathom because he could not save someone he loved.
“She has torn at her skin until it is bloodied. Ripped handfuls of hair from her own head. No servants attend her. The last time I allowed a maid into this room, Cassandra nearly killed her,” he said softly, turning away from her to take in the bloodied hands of his sister as she clawed at the floor.
Following his gaze, Olympia could see the bloodied, smeared fingerprints on the floor. “We could put down a rug for her. It might help.”
He smiled, but it was not an expression of amusement. There was a wealth of sadness in that expression. “We tried. And she nearly suffocated herself with it… and selfish as I am, sometimes I even wish I’d found her a few moments later. Then her suffering and mine would be at an end.”
Fifteen
Olympia had no response for that, but none was required. While the statement had been uttered with conviction, it had also held a world of regret. But as she surveyed the broken woman before her, Olympia did not judge him for such a thought. If she’d had the misfortune to be in his present situation, she couldn’t imagine that her own thoughts would be any different, or even as charitable.
A Love So Dark (The Dark Regency Series Book 4) Page 10
