Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes)

by Silver, Lily

  “Nevertheless, you will no longer be inconvenienced by my schedule or Gareth’s whims when you wish to enjoy the grounds.” The count informed her. “I have appointed these men as your guards. They will accompany you throughout the day and assist you in any task you require. You recall Mr. Duchamp, and this is Gus O’Leary.”

  The men stepped forward and bowed. Neither smiled. Both were armed, she noted, feeling invisible reins tugging at her, limiting her freedom. “So, confining me like prisoner under house arrest wasn’t enough, now you appoint spies to report my every movement to you?”

  “Nonsense, Cherie.” Donovan replied smoothly. “Your routine is hardly worth noting, much less justifying the salaries of two capable men to observe and recount to me. You rise at nine, take breakfast in your room and then spend the day in a whirl of domestic tedium that is inconsequential compared to the complexities of managing a large plantation.”

  Elizabeth gasped aloud at his belittlement of her place here.

  “Your safety weighs heavily upon me while the criminals roam free.” He added.

  “I hope these men will show more respect to my lady than Mr. O’Rourke has, my lord.” Giles put in bravely. “She should not be subjected to rudeness by anyone in your employ.”

  “Oui, you’ve ground that point fine enough. These men will not trouble my lady. And Mr. O’Rourke will be admonished.” The man himself said in that phony French accent.

  Elizabeth snorted at his comment.

  “Giles sought me out in my laboratory a short time ago, ma petite. He said O’Rourke’s callow behavior made you cry.” He stepped closer. Elizabeth stiffened. A lean forefinger lifted her chin, and caressed her cheek with a display of tenderness. “Is this true, Elizabeth?”

  “Does it matter?” She returned. “I’m hardly worth your notice, my lord. Isn’t that what you just said?”

  “No, I did not.” Crisp, silvery blue eyes pinioned her from behind the mask. “I said you are not being scrutinized as you so fancifully imagine.”

  “Excuse me, my lord. I have more tedious domestic concerns to attend to.”

  The master would not let her slip away so easily. His hand circled her arm. At a nod from him, the three men disappeared. “You create a villain where there is none. I apologize. I should not have yelled at you earlier but I seem to lose all sense of reason or judgment around you.”

  She didn’t want to hear any more. So, it was all her fault. Wasn’t it always?

  “I’m only doing what’s best for you, and you continually damn me for it.”

  “You’re doing what’s best for yourself, none other!”

  “If that were the case I would do this more often and hang the consequences.” His arms surrounded her and those hard lips descended to capture her mouth in a scorching kiss that left no doubt as to where his true interest was concerning her.

  Elizabeth was shocked by his swift possession.

  She didn’t react as she should, with outrage. She leaned into his solid frame, hungry for the feel of his arms about her, starved for some crumb of affection from him as she shamelessly kissed him back.

  The count broke away and stepped back. “Your response, my dear, is hardly in keeping with a woman who desires to be left alone.”

  The ultimate cruelty came when he set her aside and walked calmly away.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Elizabeth was awakened by an angry male voice. She gazed about her. She’d left the home of her childhood years ago, but she seemed to be trapped in the London townhouse again.

  She was in her old room, huddled under the covers, trying to shut out the noises coming from the room down the hall. Fletcher was drunk. He was hurting Mama. Mama was crying, pleading with him to stop. He wouldn’t. He seemed to enjoy her tearful pleas.

  Why am I here? Elizabeth sat up. She shoved the covers away and looked about her. Banked coals glowed in the hearth, bathing her old room in a familiar, orange-red glow. She gazed at her hand. Her wedding ring circled her finger. How could she be married, and still be in the room she’d inhabited as a girl?

  Where is Donovan? Surely he would not allow me to be here, so far from his home.

  “Stop it, William!” Mama shrieked. “Let go of me, you’re drunk—“

  The sound of Papa’s hand colliding with her mother’s flesh made Elizabeth cringe.

  I must leave here. I need to go home. Home--to Donovan, and the peace of Ravencrest. Donovan didn’t return drunk in the night and start tossing furniture-- or people-- about in a drunken rage!

  She slipped from bed and opened the door just a crack, determined to make a run for it while the pair were distracted by their old battle. Suddenly Fletcher was in the hall, dragging Mama toward the stairs. He positioned Mama in front of him and then Mama disappeared.

  Elizabeth tried to scream. Her effort brought only strangled sound from her throat.

  The scene melted away, into another one. Now, she was the one standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at her mother’s broken body. Huge hands seized her and slammed her against the wall. “Spying on me again, eh?” Her stepfather’s eyes gleamed with malice. “Useless bitch, you can’t turn me in if you’re dead!”

  Elizabeth went rushing forward. She tried to catch herself, clutching at air, only to land at the bottom of the stairs with a bone crushing thud.

  The house was plunged into an inky darkness. Elizabeth placed a stunned hand against the throbbing pain in her side. Her body was slick with sweat, making her bed gown cling to her skin as she struggled to recover her wits.

  The ragged sound of her breath catching and rasping in the darkness further emphasized the stark loneliness. Reality surfaced. She wasn’t in the London townhouse, lying at the bottom of the stairs next to her mother’s dead body. She was in her room at Ravencrest, sprawled on the floor where the angry spirit had tossed her while she slept. It was the fourth time this week she’d awakened on the hard floor after dreaming about Mama’s death.

  “Stop it.” She protested, fear melting into anger as she sat up and rubbed her bruising side. Her body was collecting mysterious bruises with each passing day—or rather, the night. This was ridiculous, being bullied by a ghost; one who had been so timid in life.

  The pale specter materialized before her. Mama had always been a beauty. Now, her beauty was distorted by bitterness. “Tell him!” Mama insisted. “I can’t stand this any longer, I shall run mad. You have to tell someone what happened to me!”

  The doors to the master’s suite burst open. Donovan stood in the doorway holding a candle in one hand and pistol in the other. He came quickly to crouch beside her.

  Elizabeth started at his nearness. The man was stark naked. Heat flooded her cheeks as she shifted her eyes to focus on the wavering candle instead of the dark patch nestled beneath a taut abdomen. After determining she was unharmed Donovan handed her the candle, palmed her shoulder in reassurance and stood to confront the shadows hemming them in.

  He turned about slowly, surveying the room. Elizabeth was presented with the sight of his trim, bare backside. Her eyes traveled upward to the peculiar marks on his back.

  Scars confronted her. Hard, inflexible knots. Weals of flesh distorted by torture.

  Oh, my God! How easy it was to forget. This man had good reason to question everything and trust no one, to put up barriers to keep the world out. He wanted the world to leave him be so he could live his life in peace and solitude. It made sense now, his anger at her rejection of him that first night here. He must think she found him repulsive because of his scars. Not so, not at all. Quite the contrary; he was beautiful, majestic, regal as a tiger as he stood before her, ready to pounce on a perceived intruder he believed to be threatening his mate.

  Stunned by this abrupt, awkward intimacy, Elizabeth sat in a golden circle of light provided by the candle in her hand and attempted to distract her eyes from the admiration of her husband’s bum. The flame wavered in her unsteady hand.

  “Who is here? R
eveal yourself.” Donovan crept noiselessly about the room on bare feet, stalking slowly, pausing to inspect possible hiding places with the gun held before him. He assessed the heavy curtains at the windows and the ones hanging from her bed for an intruder. He stepped to the louvered doors leading to the balcony and tested the lock. Usually she left the doors open to allow in the cooling night breeze, but Mr. Duchamp had been adamant about locking them earlier tonight, when he and Mr. O’Leary escorted her to her room.

  “No one is here.” Elizabeth whispered as she rose from the floor with difficulty due to a fluid sensation in her legs. “I had a nightmare, sir, that’s all. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “I was awake.” Donovan emerged from the shadows to stand beside her. Naked, and clearly unashamed for it, the man exuded confidence in his raw masculinity that she found unsettling as he gazed into her eyes. “I heard a loud noise and then you cried out.”

  “I stumbled and tripped in the darkness. Could I . . . sleep with you, just this once?” She focused on his face to avoid the urge to gape at his dangling parts. Sleep, yes. And take her rightful place in his bed. Yes, she would do it without protest if he asked her. Elizabeth hadn’t the courage to tell him. She could only hope he would allow her into his bed again so they might work past this disturbing estrangement of recent weeks.

  “No.” He crushed her tentative hope for reconciliation. “You are safe here. I won’t get any sleep with you beside me.” It was the last response she expected, given his reluctance to allow her to have a room of her own in the first place.

  Two weeks ago he made it clear he wanted her in his bed.

  Apparently, he didn’t want her there anymore.

  He turned and walked back to his room. He closed the doors, leaving her holding the flickering candle against the surrounding gloom.

  *******

  Two days passed. The only difference in Elizabeth’s routine was the presence of her guards. They followed her everywhere but remained silent and unobtrusive, like the mastiffs who followed her about the grounds when she snuck out alone. She tried to resent the guards, but gave up quickly. They were respectful and patient, even when she took advantage of them by going on a meandering walk in the neglected gardens to assess it—just because she could, without fear of her husband’s reprisals. Yesterday, she’d sat defiantly in her fairy bower beneath the gnarled old tree near the gazebo and studied her grandmother’s spell book for three hours in the heat of the afternoon. The guards had nothing to do except stand and watch her. It amused her to see them fidget with boredom and brush the sweat from their brows due to the heat, but cruelty was not in her nature, so she soon gave up punishing them and sent one up to the house to have lemonade brought for them all.

  Today, she had set upon a plan that would make use of their strength. After lunch, she took up her household keys and led them up to the third floor, to Marissa’s old room.

  Despite her best intentions, Elizabeth had been reluctant to return to Gareth’s mother’s room. It was an eerie place, fraught with mystery and tragedy. Part of her feared being trapped in the room by an unknowing servant seeing the door open and closing it without realizing it was occupied, or by deliberate malice from the spirit realm. With two burly men to watch over her, there was little fear of that.

  Elizabeth unlocked the door and stepped inside. O’Leary and Duchamp followed her.

  “Ach, a queer place.” O’Leary said, noting the barred windows and locked door.

  “Yes, a sad place.” Elizabeth responded, surprised by Gus O’Leary’s confession.

  The men didn’t talk much, even to each other. Mostly they answered her inquiries with monosyllables, particularly Mr. Duchamp, who had a sullen nature.

  “I intend to make it a more welcoming place. And you are going to help me.”

  The pair gazed at her as if she spoke in language they didn’t understand.

  “Mr. O’Leary.” She instructed, “I want you to go downstairs and fetch whatever tools you’ll need to remove those bars from the windows and to remove the outer lock on the door.”

  The sailor stared at her with disbelief. “We ain’t footmen, me lady—“

  “Do it.” Duchamp said brusquely.

  Mr. O’Leary gave an indignant huff and shuffled from the room.

  Elizabeth held the Frenchman’s gaze, uncertain if thanking him for taking her part was the right tact. Duchamp didn’t smile, nor did his dark eyes offer a flicker of emotion as he regarded her. He nodded, and then his lanky body melted effortlessly into a courtly bow. In that brief exchange, she understood; she had his unswerving allegiance, the same as her husband.

  O’Leary returned with the tools. She set the men to work on the window, directing them to try to loosen the bars on the outside from within the opened window. Their clattering echoed about the chamber. Elizabeth surveyed the room, wondering if she should box up the personal items for Gareth, as they were his mother’s.

  The room could be turned into a private sitting room for a governess or a nurse. The unbidden thought brought a peculiar yearning within. A governess—that meant children, her children. Would they have Donovan’s crystal blue eyes and dark hair? Elizabeth never considered the idea before. She would like to have his children one day. She yearned for his acceptance and his love. But she lied to him. And that lie could not easily be forgiven.

  The awareness of a presence nearby slowly curled about her. It wasn’t malicious. It was a frightened, transparent blur edging about the chamber like a hesitant mouse. “It’s all right. Let me help you.” She whispered, confident the men would not hear with their pounding.

  Marissa became a faint, wavering golden light dancing about the room. She circled Elizabeth, almost playfully, save for the room’s foreboding overtone. The weaving orb floated ahead of her. Following it, Elizabeth stepped toward the full length mirror, noting the spider webbing of cracks on the silvered glass. A shard was missing from the bottom of the mirror. She gazed at her distorted reflection, unsure what the spirit wanted. “What happened here?”

  Amid the clanking and hammering of the men, she waited for an explanation. None came. Instead, the wavering sphere of light guided her to the bathing area beyond the privacy screen. Elizabeth studied the small ornate dressing table. The mirror above was coated with heavy dust, as were the beautiful bottles of perfumes and lotions lined up along the table. She glanced at the copper tub in the corner and clutched the chair as she squelched a rising scream.

  A lovely dark woman was lying naked in the steaming bath, her head tipped back, as if she’d fallen asleep. The water was crimson with her blood. A baby was crying loudly from the bassinette in the opposite corner of the room. She heard the sound of a lock turning at the door, and hurried footsteps. A tall, blond man, his face a mirror image of Donovan’s, save a moustache and goatee of burnished gold, stepped past Elizabeth and sank to his knees next to the tub. He spoke to the dead woman with a heavy Irish brogue. He clutched her wrist in both hands. His white shirt became smeared with blood as he cradled the scored wrist against his heart and sobbed out his anguish while the babe shrieked frantically in the background.

  Elizabeth gasped aloud. Her head felt light, and she thought for a moment she might do something stupid, like swoon. The feeling faded. “Why do you remain?” She asked Marissa, “You aren’t a prisoner anymore. You’re free now, you can move on.”

  “I can’t.” Marissa responded. “I can’t leave him. Not until I know he’s well and truly cared for.”

  “Gareth?” Elizabeth asked, surmising the woman was concerned for the child she left behind. “He’s a grown man, Marissa. He’s here. He’s well, and he’s loved by the family.”

  “But what of his birthright? Richard promised me he would have a bright future, a share in the estate income.”

  Elizabeth didn’t know how to respond. What could she say? Without a written document, there was no proof of Marissa’s claim regarding Gareth’s share in the estate profits. It was somethin
g she might take up with Donovan---someday--if they were ever on speaking terms again.

  Marissa’s spirit looked so broken and full of despair. She wanted Elizabeth to help her. The spirit moved to the shattered mirror. She gestured to it insistently, as if there were some hidden meaning there. Elizabeth watched, feeling sorrow for the poor woman.

  “It’s here!” Marissa whispered. “It’s right here.”

  Elizabeth was about to question the spirit further, not comprehending her meaning as she kept gesturing to the spider webbing of broken glass held in place by the gilt mirror frame.

  “My lady!” Chloe’s hectic voice intruded and Marissa’s spirit melted into the wall. Chloe came trudging past the hammering men, breathless with excitement. “Madame, we’ve been searching all over for you. You have visitors. Captain Rawlings and his nephew are awaiting you in the salon.”

  *******

  Half an hour later, Elizabeth was alone with Captain Rawlings. He dismissed her guards easily, citing his wish to speak to the countess alone. As he was their captain, the men didn’t dare question him. He sent Peter to the kitchens for a snack, took Elizabeth’s arm and led her outside and down the cobbled path toward the stone terrace at the edge of the gardens.

  After looking about to see if they were alone, he asked, “What can I do for you, my lady?”

  There it was; her chance to share her fears, her chance to escape. Did she dare take it?

  “I won’t betray your confidence. What’s wrong? Is it Donovan?”

  She nodded. And then she was weeping, unable to prevent the onslaught of tears at finding someone who cared about her and had come to help her.

  “Don’t cry, my lady.” The captain crooned, pulling her into his arms. “Tell me what’s happened so we can make it right.”