by C. J. Archer
Lord, why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me break his heart?
I should have left with the others, but forced myself to remain. I no longer wanted to be cowardly Charity Evans. It was time to finally set my fears behind me.
"Samuel," I began. "I want to tell you something."
"Really?" he said, lazily. "Because I want to tell you something, too." He got up from the sofa and, to my horror, limped over to me.
"Sit down," I scolded him. "You'll open your wounds again."
"I'm just going to stand here," he said, coming to a halt in front of me. He put out his hand, his uninjured one. "Will you stand with me?"
I hesitated only a moment, then placed my hand in his and rose. Perhaps it was a mistake to do it and let him think things had changed. But I couldn't help myself. He hadn't hypnotized me, yet I was as much in his thrall as ever.
And I didn't mind. I wasn't afraid of him anymore. Samuel was the gentlest, kindest man. Even when he held all the power, he wouldn't hurt me. I knew it deep in my soul.
Only I couldn't tell him. Keeping that from him was my only weapon and my only defense.
He took both my hands in his and we stood together, close enough to kiss. "Charity." The murmured word caressed my forehead, soaked into my skin, my soul. "Charity, my sweet."
I closed my eyes against what would come next. I should have pulled away, should have run from the room, but I wanted to hear him say the words so much. My heart swelled and ached, yet I did not leave. It was so selfish of me. He didn't deserve me.
Yes he does, a small voice said.
"I love you," he said. His thumb stroked my jaw and gently he tilted my face up to his. Tears slid down my cheeks. He smiled, perhaps thinking them tears of joy. They weren't. His own eyes swam as he locked his gaze onto mine. "I love you madly, Charity. I love you with my whole heart and soul. I want to be with you always and forever, no matter where you are. In this life and the next."
I had a moment in which to register my heart sing, then the familiar buzzing took up residence in my head. I felt my will slipping away and the fog descending. He was hypnotizing me again and there was nothing I could do about it.
CHAPTER 15
The last thought that was wholly mine wasn't a fearful one. It was an awareness that I wasn't afraid. I trusted Samuel completely.
"Come back to me," he said, his voice harsher, rougher. "Hell, Charity, I'm sorry."
The fog dispersed and the buzzing stopped. I let go of his hands, but not before squeezing them with a reassurance I had not intended to impart. "It's all right," I said, not pulling away entirely. The look on his face rooted me to the floor.
He screwed up his eyes and bit down on his lip. I almost touched his mouth to force him to stop before he drew blood, but managed to resist.
"I know you won't hurt me," I said. Perhaps it wasn't the wisest thing to say, considering what I was attempting to do, but I couldn't let him believe for another moment that I was afraid. I just couldn't.
He rested his forehead against mine. "I'm sorry, Charity. I don't know how to stop it. I can't control it when I'm around you, like this. I can't control myself."
"I know. Come and sit down." I took his hand and led him back to the sofa. We both sat and I let him go. Touching him scrambled my brain. "Listen to me. I need to tell you that I'm no longer afraid of you when you hypnotize me."
His lips twitched and twisted as a smile threatened to break out. He wrestled with it until it vanished entirely. "You're not?"
I nodded. "Not once have you taken advantage of me when it's happened. If that's not proof enough that you're an honorable man, then nothing is."
He winced and looked down at his hands. "Not entirely honorable."
"But the thing is, it still happens, and I still hate the sensation of being hypnotized. I'm sorry, Samuel. Please understand that it's not you that frightens me, it's the loss of myself that I hate. I don't like not being in control, even in the most intimate of moments."
It was true and yet it wasn't. I didn't like it, but with Samuel, I was prepared to lose control when we were together. Part of me, that wanton side of me that I'd tried to bury, even wanted to lose control in shared moments of ecstasy. But I couldn't tell him that. Couldn't tell him the real reason I wouldn't marry him was because of his family, his reputation, his future. He didn't care about that, but I did. I loved him too much not to. If I were the cause of his downfall, his love for me would wane in time. I couldn't bear watching that happen.
"I know," he rasped. He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. "This is why I wanted that bloody contraption to work."
"Langley's mind-reading device? What do you mean?"
He dropped his hand and blinked at me with bleak, red eyes. "I can't turn off this damned hypnosis around you, Charity, so I thought the next best thing would be if you could see what I was thinking. If you knew my innermost thoughts then perhaps you could accept it a little better when I accidentally hypnotized you."
"That's why you were helping Langley?"
He nodded. "Now it's gone and we're back to where we started. You hating what I do to you, and me…needing you so badly that I'm afraid I'll go mad if I can't be with you."
Seeing him so distressed pierced me like a needle and I couldn't help what I said next. "You could just tell me your thoughts."
He shook his head. "There is something I can't bring myself to speak of. Not even to you. Something about my past that I want you to know, but can't put into words."
Newgate and that girl. "Try," I said. I wanted to hear it from his own lips. It might help him. If I was going to break his heart, I could at least unburden him of his guilt first.
He rubbed his hand over his jaw and looked away.
I cupped his cheek. "You don't need a device to share your thoughts with me, Samuel. You need courage, and I know you have that. Please," I added gently. "Tell me."
He sucked in a deep breath. "This involuntary hypnotism…it's not new."
As I'd suspected. "You've done it before?"
"I think so. Once. About two years ago there was a girl I liked. I thought she liked me too and we…became intimate." His gaze flicked to me then away. It must have been awkward for him to discuss such a thing with me, but he did, with only a slight change to the color of his cheeks. "Then she turned up on my doorstep with her father one day. She claimed I'd coerced her through the use of magic, getting her to do something she hadn't wanted. He threatened to have me arrested if I didn't marry her. I tried to reason with them and talk to her, but it was no use. She refused to retract her accusation and he chose to believe her. I was convinced at that point that she set up the scheme from the beginning and planned all along to accuse me of…of raping her."
"Go on," I said, when he paused. "What did you do?"
"I didn't offer to marry her and she pressed charges. I was arrested and sent to Newgate to await trial." He leveled his gaze on me. "You don't seem particularly surprised."
I couldn't lie to him, even if it was for his own good. "I knew some of the story, but I needed to hear it in your own words. So what happened then?"
"Father stepped in and paid off the girl. He had the whole thing hushed up and I was released. I never heard from her again. I stayed home to see if any rumors came of it, but nothing surfaced. After a year in exile, Father allowed me to return to my studies."
"Were your parents angry with you?"
"They were afraid, more than anything. They didn't believe me when I said I didn't do it. They assumed I was guilty because, as Mother said, I've had an easy life thanks to my hypnosis, particularly when it comes to the opposite sex. They thought that I assumed I had a right to use it. A few days in jail was supposed to make me see the error of my ways and scare me into settling down. I'd been living a wild life up until that point. They were right," he said with a bitter laugh. "I did calm down afterward, but I still believed myself innocent."
"Until you saw my memories," I murmure
d.
"It made me see things through the eyes of a woman, one whose free will had been taken away from her. I hated seeing what had been done to you and it worried me that perhaps I'd used more than charms on those girls, or that one in particular. I began to wonder if perhaps I had coerced her—all the girls—into doing things they didn't want to do."
"No, Samuel. Those girls chose to be with you. They had free will. You didn't coerce them in any way."
"Didn't I? How can we be sure after what happens between us when we kiss? I must have hypnotized the others in the same way. Christ." He grasped his hair by the roots and tugged. "The memories of what I did eat at me. I'm going mad with guilt, Charity. It's like there's a dark abyss, always a mere step ahead of me, just waiting to swallow me up. If it weren't for you being at my side, I feel as if I would have slid right over the edge already."
The raw pain in his voice stabbed me through the chest and tore my heart in two. I didn't want to hurt him anymore, but I knew I would. If not today, then one day. And it would be so much worse if I gave myself to him now, only to lose him in the coming months or years. Worse for both of us.
"I can't," I gasped out through my tight throat. "I can't do this." I shot to my feet, but he caught my hand.
He blinked heavy lids at me. "Don't, Charity. Don't leave me. You can't. I'm afraid of what will become of me without you."
Oh God. How could I ever go through with it? I had to get away, now, while I still had a kernel of resolve left. "Don't be afraid," I whispered. "You're a good man and you must remember that. But I can't be with you, Samuel. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"You are still afraid of me, aren't you?"
I couldn't do it anymore, couldn't look in his eyes and lie to him. Not after he'd opened himself up to me and let me see his innermost fears. He had probably never let anyone see the real Samuel, the vulnerable, small child beneath the charming, strong man. Yet he'd shown that side to me.
And I was trampling all over the honor.
I snatched my hand away and fled. I ran up the stairs to the bedroom I still shared with Sylvia. I locked the door and flung myself on the bed. I cried. Hard. I don't know how long I lay there, but it must have been some time. Eventually my tears stopped, but still they hovered close to the edge. My heart felt bruised and battered, but that was only fair. I deserved nothing less.
I don't know what made me get up. It was as if something called to me. I went straight to the dressing table and opened the drawer. The dragonfly pendent Samuel had made for me lay on top of a handkerchief. I picked it up, not fully aware of what I was doing. My hands trembled as I searched for a simple chain among Sylvia's jewelry. I found a silver one and removed the locket, replacing it with the dragonfly, then clasped the necklace around my neck. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My red, swollen eyes and nose made me look dreadful, but the pendent was a pretty piece that sparkled in the light. I would always wear it, in memory of the man who saw beyond my face and loved me for me. The man who was willing to risk everything to marry me.
I sat on the foot of the bed and stared at the dragonfly nestled against my chest. And stared. And stared.
The sound of muffled voices outside drew my attention away from the mirror to the door. One deep—Samuel's—and the other feminine—Sylvia's. I approached the door and listened.
"I'm not going anywhere," came his voice, thick and rich, but not hypnotizing. "I'm not giving up."
Sylvia said something then walked off. I pressed my cheek to the door, not so much to hear him, but just to feel closer to him. I was quiet, but he must have heard me.
"I know you're there, Charity."
I almost smiled, despite my heartache.
"Come out," he said gently. "Come and talk to me."
"No. It's best if we don't. I think you should leave Frakingham. Or I will."
After a long moment, I heard him sigh. "I'll go, but not until you come out here and tell me you don't love me."
Perhaps, if I didn't look him in the eye, I could manage it. I had to try or he would never leave. He must be in terrible pain. I took a deep breath and opened the door. He was sitting on the floor, his back to the door, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
He patted the floor beside him. I shut the door, and we both sat there, leaning our backs against it. We didn't touch, but I could feel the warmth of his body and the vibrations of his emotions. Yet I felt calmer. The worst was over. I could tell him I didn't love him—if I didn't look him in the eyes.
But he got in first. "This isn't about my hypnosis, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Sitting here, listening to you in there, has made me realize something."
Could he hear me crying? Perhaps I'd been sobbing loudly. My heart had certainly ached enough.
"This is about my family, and your place in it," he said.
Hell. Double hell. He'd worked it out. "What do you mean?" I asked in a small voice.
"You're afraid that any association with you will drag us down. Drag me down."
"It would. You know that."
"I've told you I don't care, but you don't seem to be listening. So let me tell you something that might make you listen. Mother gave me her blessing before she left. Bert too."
I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not. He might have made it up to convince or placate me. Samuel was very good at reading my thoughts, and would know it was what I wanted to hear. "Perhaps it's me who can't face the stares and taunts," I heard myself say. My own words sent a jolt through me. It was true. Yes, I was afraid of lowering Samuel and the Gladstone name, but I was also afraid of what I would be subjected to. And what people might find out about me.
He covered my hand with his own. The simple gesture swelled my heart. There was more love in that touch than any words could have conveyed. "You can face them," he said, "because you're brave. And because I'll be with you."
"I'm not brave."
He turned to me fully. I couldn't look at him, but I was very aware that he was staring at me, memorizing every inch. "The woman I love is the bravest person I know." The rhythmic melody of his voice stroked my skin, filled my heart, yet didn't hypnotize. "She was in hiding for a while, but she's come out again. She's acknowledging her past and is in the process of taking back her future, but she can only complete the process if she stops running."
I gave a small shake of my head. "You don't know that," I whispered. "You can't."
His grip changed. It loosened, not tightened. He gently turned my hand over, palm up, and held it in his own. "I can because I know you don't fear me when I kiss you, or when I hypnotize you. The old Charity would be afraid of me and my hypnosis, but the new Charity isn't. She has conquered her fear and is helping me conquer mine. The new you has helped me see that I'm not to blame for what landed me in Newgate. You believe in me and trust me, and if you can do that, then I know I must be innocent."
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. It was what I wanted to hear. He no longer blamed himself, as he shouldn't. He was right—I did believe that he would never hurt anyone intentionally. But my voice wouldn't work. I couldn't tell him.
"I trust you too," he went on in that quiet, soothing voice. "I trust you to live a full and happy life and not let your past stand in the way."
It was a similar thing to what Langley had once said to me. He'd told me not to let my past define my future. He'd said I wasn't the same girl that the master had taken, and I was only now beginning to see that he was right. I wasn't that shadow anymore. I was someone new, whole. I hadn't known that I had a choice, to be afraid and run away forever or be brave and fight for my future. Somehow I'd made the choice to fight anyway. I remembered once telling Tommy that the girl I had been was gone forever. The master had seen to that. And, in a way, I'd been right. That innocent, carefree girl had disappeared. But in her place was a stronger, wiser woman. It had just taken some time for her to emerge from the ashes.
"You don't have to tell me you
love me," he murmured, his mouth close to my cheek. "Because I already know it."
I tilted my face to get a better look at him. The love I saw in his eyes stopped my heart dead. There was no way I could withstand the force of its strength. I felt my last defenses crumbling as thoroughly as the abbey walls until there was nothing left.
I touched the edge of his mouth, his cheek, his neck. I couldn't get enough of him. Couldn't tear my gaze away from the delicious sight of the man who was all mine. "How do you know?"
He cradled the dragonfly pendent in his bandaged hand. "When you came out and I saw you wearing this…I knew."
I'd meant to tuck it beneath my dress but I'd gotten distracted. "Perhaps I just like dragonflies," I teased.
His mouth crooked up at the corner. "So perhaps I didn't know, exactly. It was more of a guess." His gaze connected with mine, briefly, then flittered away. "Hope." He was still afraid I would turn him down.
It was time to tell him how wrong I had been. I stroked my thumb over his soft lips, wanting to tease a smile from them. "I love you, Samuel."
His chest swelled. His lips widened in a smile that quickly broke into a grin. "You do?"
I nodded. "You're right. I was afraid. Afraid of hurting you, afraid of being with someone who knew so much about me, afraid of what the future held. But I know you'll help me work through those fears."
He nodded quickly. "I will. I'll always be at your side, holding your hand if you need me to. I won't let you battle alone."
I kissed him. I had to. He was so perfect and wonderful, and I wanted him to know that I loved him as fiercely as he loved me.
But our lips had hardly met when the familiar buzzing began. My head felt wooly and thick, but I wouldn't pull away. I trusted him to take care of me while I was under his spell. As long as I could keep kissing him.
He pulled away instead.
"It's all right," I told him, breathless. "Just kiss me, Samuel. Kiss me, hypnotize me, I don't care. I'm not afraid."
