by C. J. Archer
How could I have been so wrong?
"Will you consider going to her and telling her now?"
He shook his head. "She didn't go to him last night of her own accord. Did she?"
"Of course not. She was tipsy."
"I should thrash him."
I patted his shoulder. "Be sure there are no witnesses. It's bad enough without Bollard here, we don't want you to be dismissed as well."
He kissed the top of my forehead. "Thank you, Charity. I'm glad you're here."
"Come on. Let's make that tea."
***
I wore one of my own gowns to dinner. Sylvia didn't offer to lend me hers again. She lay on her bed, eyes closed, and didn't stir throughout my preparations, although I suspected she was awake. The evening was as stilted and awkward as the afternoon had been. Langley didn't dine with us, nor did Lord Frakingham. Tommy glared daggers at Malborough and dropped a bowl of warm peas in his lap. Tommy apologized, but Malborough still looked like he wanted to seek him out after dinner and thrash him.
I intercepted Malborough as we left the dining room and quietly spoke to him, choosing dull topics to take his mind off his anger. Afterward, I couldn't even recall our discussion, it was that inconsequential, but at least he seemed to calm somewhat.
I decided to retire early and not join the other ladies in the drawing room. Samuel escorted me to my bedroom. His chivalry earned him a parting glare from both Ebony and his mother, but neither made an issue of it.
"Good night," he said at my bedroom door. "I hope you can sleep despite your worry over Sylvia."
"Don't concern yourself with me."
"I can't help it." His smile was grim but tender. Before I knew what I was doing, I touched my fingers to his mouth. He turned his face into the palm of my hand. He kissed my wrist, his lips warm against my skin. "Charity," he murmured. "I can't help thinking about you. You're on my mind, day and night. I close my eyes to sleep and you're there, in my dreams."
My insides melted at the quiet rumble of his voice and the delicious meaning in his words. They slid across my skin like the softest, sleekest silk, and wrapped around me. Holding me. Trapping me. My head began to buzz. I felt my will slipping away, and my desire for him blooming. It had always been there, deep within, but now it rose to the surface like a rising tide.
I stepped forward and he opened his arms to me. I felt his warmth through his dinner jacket and his breath in my hair. His arms folded around me and I nestled there, safe and warm against his solid chest. He sighed contentedly. I pressed my lips to the hollow at his throat and breathed in the scent of him. He smelled like the headiest wine and tasted like Heaven.
"Samuel," I whispered against him. "Kiss me."
He tensed. Then he gripped my shoulders and peered into my eyes. "Charity?" He swore softly. "Come back to me." His voice lost that velvety tone and I felt my awareness snap back as if he'd let it go. I still desired him, however, just as much as I had when under his hypnotic spell. Yet it was now mingled with a sense of dread and the familiar knot of fear in my gut.
He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead as if he could drive out the demons lurking there. "I'm sorry. Christ, Charity, I don't know why this happens when we…"
"Don't apologize. It's not your fault." I backed away and opened the door, keeping him in sight. "Goodnight, Samuel."
I closed the door on him, but I knew it would take more than that to scrub away the memory of his face as he blinked back at me with desolate eyes.
I leaned against the door and breathed deeply. My chest hurt, but not from lack of air. From heartache and confusion. I hated being under his hypnosis. Hated the way I felt so weak in both body and mind. Hated not being in control.
Yet I liked Samuel very much. I desired him. Would it have been so bad if I succumbed?
I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed away any thoughts of surrendering to him. I wouldn't do it. I'd fought so hard to win back my free will that I wouldn't—couldn't—give it away now. Not even to him.
I removed my gown and unbound my hair in the darkness. Sylvia breathed softly as she slept on. Once I set the last hairpin on my dressing table, however, the strangest sensation came over me. I didn't want to go to bed. I wanted to leave the room and go to the guest chambers.
I grabbed a candle and, dressed only in my thin cotton shift, slipped out of Sylvia's bedroom. I fled in bare feet along the hall runner. It was so odd. I tried to stop myself, tried to turn back, but I couldn't. Every time I slowed, my gut would churn and my head ache as if I were in the grip of fever. I could not stop myself knocking on his door, even though I tried with every piece of will left in me.
He opened it with a soundless gasp. "Charity? What are you doing here?"
"I've come to seduce you." The words just tumbled out. I couldn't control my tongue. "You were right all along. I do want you. Kiss me, Bert, then make me yours."
CHAPTER 11
Bert frowned. "You want me to kiss you? But I thought you abhorred the idea of becoming my mistress."
I do! "Of course not," I heard myself say. Why was I doing and saying these things? Why couldn't I stop myself? Every part of me screamed at the wrongness of it and wanted to run away, yet my feet were rooted to the spot.
My hand rested flat against his chest. I stared at it, wondering how it had got there. His heart beat erratically through his shirt. His fingertips stroked my jawline, hesitantly, as if he were afraid he might shatter the moment.
"Is this a joke?" he asked, huskily. "Because it's a cruel one."
"No," I whispered, tilting my face toward his. "Kiss me."
No! I closed my eyes and willed myself to break free of the madness that had taken over my body. Had I been hypnotized? Was I still under the spell Samuel had unwittingly cast over me? Why would hypnotic desire transfer to Bert?
Yet I knew I didn't desire Bert. When Samuel hypnotized me, I wanted him with every fiber of my being. I craved to kiss him and felt like I would wither if I didn't. This was different. It wasn't a craving but a compulsion. I needed to kiss Bert, but I didn't want to. It was an important distinction.
But I couldn't escape from it any more than I could rip out my own heart.
His hand cupped my cheek. The palm felt cool and a little damp. "You changed your mind." His whispered words warmed my lips. His mouth was close. Too close.
Move, Charity. Pull away. Run!
I couldn't. I could only lean toward him and offer my mouth up for his kiss.
I began to cry. It seemed my tears, like my true desires, could not be controlled by the hypnosis. "Kiss me now," I murmured.
His hand left my cheek. I could no longer smell his breath. I opened my eyes to see that he'd stepped away. He stared at me with a mixture of sorrow and anger.
"Bloody hell," he muttered with a shake of his head. "This isn't right."
I reached for him. "It is," I said, the words spilling from of my mouth. "Let's go into your room. You'll see how right it is."
He swallowed heavily. In the light of my candle's flame, his face glistened with sweat. He shook his head.
"What is this?" Samuel's growl rumbled through the darkness before he appeared. "Let her go!"
Bert's hands flew up in surrender. "I'm not touching her!" His voice was pitched high, thin. "It's her. I swear, it's all her!"
Samuel came into the arc of light. He looked like he wanted his brother's blood. I opened my mouth to protest, but I was too late. His fist slammed into Bert's chin.
Bert reeled backward and fell onto the floor with a grunt. "I didn't bloody touch her, you prick!"
"It's true." I felt compelled to defend him. "He didn't."
Samuel's chest heaved with his deep, ragged breathing. He skewered his brother with his sharp glare.
"She came to me," Bert said, rubbing his jaw. "As evidenced by her being at my door dressed in nothing but her unmentionables."
Samuel finally looked at me. His eyes were unfocused and it took several moments
before he spoke. "Charity?" he rasped.
Samuel, help me. "I must have him," I said with a shake of my head and a fresh bout of tears.
"What do you mean?" he whispered, searching my face. "Did he hurt you?"
"I couldn't stop myself from coming here, from kissing him. I have to do it." I turned away, not wanting to see the hurt in his eyes. I moved into the room toward Bert. The compulsion to stroke him, kiss him, was too strong to resist.
Samuel caught my arm and spun me round to look at him once more. "You've been hypnotized?"
I blinked back at him, unable to confirm yet not wanting to deny. I hoped he could see the plea in my eyes, even though I couldn't speak it.
"Come back to me, Charity," he said in that honey-thick voice that I usually recoiled from. This time, I was immeasurably glad to hear it. "Break the hypnosis and regain your free will."
My head cleared. I hadn't been aware of the fog clogging it until it was gone. I stopped moving and my body relaxed. My legs no longer wanted to take me to Bert. I hadn't realized how hard I'd been straining against the hypnosis until I felt the soreness in my muscles.
"Charity," Samuel began.
I couldn't face him, or Bert. I pushed past Samuel and fled along the corridor to the room I shared with Sylvia. But I didn't go in. I didn't want to wake her. Didn't want to answer any questions about why I was dressed in nothing but my underclothes.
My candle had gone out. I stood at the door in a daze. It was a little like when I was hypnotized and my head filled with wooliness, but this time I was aware that I had a free will. I just didn't know what decision to make.
"Charity." Samuel's murmur alerted me to his presence. I'd not heard his approach over my loud breathing. I could just make out his shape in the darkness and see the sheen in his eyes as they glittered back at me like two dark gems. "Put this on."
He placed something around my shoulders. It must have been his dinner jacket. It smelled like him. I breathed deeply, drawing in his scent, and my nerves stopped trembling.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"I…yes. But I don't understand," I said, my voice small. "How could your hypnosis continue after you already pulled me out of it? Has it grown stronger?"
"I don't know." He stood very close, having not moved away after giving me his jacket. I could feel his heat, hear his soft breathing. "It doesn't make sense. If this was a residual effect from my accidental hypnosis earlier, why did you appear to snap out of it at the time? And why did you go to Bert and not…?" His voice caught. He looked away.
"And not you?" I shook my head, although he wouldn't have seen it in the darkness. "It was very specific. I felt compelled to go to him and no one else."
"If it were my doing, you would have desired me, the hypnotist. Unless I ordered you to switch those feelings to Bert, of course, which I can assure you, I did not."
He didn't need to speak so vehemently. I knew he wouldn't have directed me to his brother, or anyone else.
"There was no desire involved," I told him. "Only compulsion. I couldn't stop myself, yet I knew it wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't like the times you've hypnotized me."
"Bloody hell. I don't understand it."
I shivered, despite the jacket. If Samuel didn't know what had happened, how could we stop it from happening again?
"Is Bert all right?" I asked.
"His jaw is a bit sore, but he'll be fine." He blew out a ragged breath that rustled my hair. "I think I'm more disturbed by my reaction than he is."
I wanted to reach out and touch his hand to comfort him, and be comforted in return. Yet that might fuel our desires for one another, and every time that happened, he hypnotized me. I couldn't risk that, and I suspected he didn't want to either.
"Christ," he muttered. "We've got to find some way to fix this so it never happens again."
"Think it through." If I focused on something that set my mind to work and not my emotions, I could quell my feelings for him. I would conquer them. I had to. The alternative brought on the hypnotism and that caused my deepest fears to surface. "If it wasn't you," I said, "it must have been Myer. But I haven't seen him since we visited him at the Butterworths'."
"And you weren't alone with him there. I would have noticed him hypnotize you."
"If you hadn't been, would the hypnotism work in advance? Could he hypnotize me and suggest that I do something the following day?"
He nodded. "He would set some sort of trigger. He might tell you to go to Bert when Bert says a certain phrase, or when you blow out your candle, for example. It could be anything, but it would need to be specific."
"The compulsion came over me when I undid my hair. It was the last pin that did it. I set it on the dressing table and that's when I had to go see him."
"Then the act of removing the last pin was the trigger." A moment passed, two, in which I could feel the space between us simmer with his anger.
"The last time I saw Myer was yesterday," I said. "I removed my hairpins last night and nothing happened. Besides, as you said, you were with me when I spoke to him."
"Perhaps you did meet him today and he directed you to forget."
"He can do that?"
"He can ask you to do anything while you're under hypnosis, including forget that you were hypnotized. It's how we get away with just about anything."
'We', meaning he'd done it before. To the girl he'd supposedly raped? To others?
"Bert must have asked him to do it," Samuel ground out. "I'll kill him. I'll bloody kill him."
The shaking began again. My teeth chattered and my skin prickled. Was this how my life would be now? Forever worrying about Myer hypnotizing me and directing me to the beds of his friends, or of men who paid him? Would I ever be safe? If Myer could come to the school any time he wished and hypnotize me, I wasn't even safe there.
If Samuel could…
No. I mustn't think him capable of the same low acts as Myer. He wasn't the same sort of man as Myer. I had to believe that, or I might as well leave Frakingham immediately and not tell anyone where I was going. Perhaps I'd once thought he could do such a thing, but not anymore.
"There's one way to solve this," I said. "Ask Bert."
"Ask me what?" he said, approaching us from along the corridor, candlestick in hand.
Samuel straightened. "You have a lot of explaining to do."
Bert shifted his jaw left and right as if testing it. "That's why I'm here."
"Took your time."
Bert's lashes lowered. "I almost didn't come because I knew an explanation would look bad for me."
"And you were right."
"But it will also look bad for the one who hypnotized her."
"Myer," I said.
He shook his head. "Douglas."
"Lord Malborough!" I stared at him, hardly able to comprehend it. Malborough could hypnotize. And it seemed he had even less scruples about using his power than Myer. It made my blood run cold.
"You'd better tell us everything," Samuel snarled. "Before I hit you again."
Bert nodded quickly. "He saw me watching Charity yesterday. I…I must have had a certain look on my face because he approached me and asked if I wanted her."
I pressed back against the door. "Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"Why were you watching her?" Samuel sounded dangerously close to losing his temper again.
Bert leveled his gaze on Samuel's. "Why do you think?"
To my surprise, Samuel looked away first.
"He laughed about it," Bert went on. "He seemed to find my predicament amusing. Then he offered to help me."
"By hypnotizing her."
"He told me he was adept at getting people to do whatever he wanted. I immediately thought of you, Samuel, and asked him questions. It became clear he was talking about hypnotism."
"Did you mention that I was a hypnotist too?"
"No!"
"But you did tell him to go ahead and hypnotize Charity," he
said, jaw clenched.
Bert's swallow was audible. "I did, then changed my mind after last night. When Charity told you that she wanted to be with me, I didn't understand why at the time, but I did know that it meant she wasn't after you for marriage, money or position. It proved that she wasn't a…" He cleared his throat. "It proved that she could be trusted. I realized she cared more about you and your happiness than her own."
Samuel's lips parted and his breath hitched. Even by the weak light of the candle, I could see the simmering heat in his eyes dissipate as he turned to stare at me. I felt more aware of him at that moment than any in which he'd touched me. He lifted his hand an inch, but dropped it again as Bert spoke.
"I've felt overwhelming shame ever since," Bert said to me. "Today, when you saw me speaking to Douglas in the garden, I told him not to go ahead. I thought that was the end of it until you showed up at my door. Of course, I immediately realized what had happened."
He hadn't, but I didn't reveal his lie. He seemed ashamed enough and I didn't want a return of Samuel's anger. The last thing I wanted was for the brothers to fight.
"I never dreamed he would still do it," Bert said with a shake of his head. "The man has no principles. We should all be very careful after this. Samuel? Are you listening?"
"I'll make him leave," Samuel said. "Tonight. I'll speak to Langley now."
I laid a hand on his arm to stop him. My action was instinctive. His reaction was too. He immediately stopped, as if he weren't capable of pulling away. His muscles trembled beneath his sleeve, and his breath quickened.
"Come with me," he said, perhaps thinking that was my reason for touching him.
I shook my head. "We should speak to Malborough first. I have an inkling this goes beyond his hypnosis of me. It's possible he's responsible for Sylvia's predicament too."
He blinked in surprise. "You may be right. I'll confront him about it."
"I'm coming with you."
"As am I," Bert growled.
"Give me a moment." I opened the door and slipped inside. I quickly pulled on my gown, not bothering to fix my hair. Sylvia still lay sound asleep in the bed. I didn't wake her, even though this affected her. Hopefully, by the time she awoke, I would have good news to impart.
