Dark Hero; A Gothic Romance (Reluctant Heroes)

by Silver, Lily

  “Damn it, Jack, you’re overstepping your bounds.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll keep coming, until I’m assured she’s not being mistreated, until I hear from her lips that she’s willing to remain with you after the spiteful way you’ve treated her!”

  “Did she ask your help in leaving me?”

  “No, but she did say if she were in England, she’d have taken refuge with her grandfather by now.” Jack returned, looking him square in the eye, “Which speaks volumes to me; the lady is obviously not happy as Mrs. Beaumont and has thought about leaving you.”

  Donovan rose from the chair with his fists clenched. “How convenient—for you.”

  “Don’t you dare accuse me of foul play.” Jack retorted. “I’m here as a concerned friend.”

  “Of course you are, Jack.” Donovan was barely able to contain his urge to throttle the man. “She’s a beautiful woman and it’s a long voyage to England. You’d hardly allow a young lady of quality to make the journey alone. Be honest, you want her.”

  “No.” Jack countered. “What I want is for Elizabeth to feel safe again after all that’s happened to her. She does not feel safe living here, with you. She sought my help because she’s frightened by your behavior. I don’t give a damn what you think, I will not look the other way when a woman I care for deeply is being subjected to intolerable cruelty.”

  There it was. The truth. Donovan didn’t say a word. He just kept glaring at the man.

  Jack didn’t attempt to deny his declaration of having feelings for Elizabeth. “Don’t look at me like that. If the situation were reversed, if my wife sought your help because my behavior frightened her, you’d be right there, your hand at my throat, demanding I set things right.”

  “Get out of my house!”

  *******

  Elizabeth opened her eyes. She gazed about with alarm. She was in a strange room. The candles were lit. It was evening. Her mind wasn’t working properly. She couldn’t remember this place. She gazed at the man sitting in a chair beside the bed. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in my room, at Ravencrest Estates.” The dark haired man leaned close to scrutinize her with pale blue, anxious eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Of course!” She insisted, disturbed by his question and her uncertainty of the answer.

  And then it came to her. Relieved, she loosened her death grip on the covers and smoothed them with her palms. He must not know of her queer mental lapses, the lost bits of time and her inability to recall where she was for a brief span when she emerged from the frightening episodes. “You are my husband.”

  “That’s right, darlin’. What is my name?” He persisted.

  Elizabeth swallowed the uneasy feeling in her throat. “Donovan.”

  The tension in his features lessened a little. “What is the last thing you remember?”

  Everything was fuzzy. It was an effort to think. She tried to sit up.

  “No.” He cautioned, preventing her from rising. “You had a seizure this afternoon. You’ve been unconscious for nine hours. You need to rest, Lizzie.”

  A seizure? That was news. Epileptics had seizures. She wasn’t an epileptic, was she?

  “Can you remember where you were and what you were doing before you collapsed?”

  Elizabeth rolled her lips. She tried to concentrate. She’d been at the fountain, with Peter. They discovered tadpoles. “You—you stepped into the fountain--you ruined your boots.”

  “I can afford another pair.” Frowning, he lifted a candle from the nightstand and held it near her face.

  “Look at me, let me see your eyes.” He leaned down close to peer into her eyes. “Does your head hurt?”

  “No---yes--a little. You stepped into the fountain; you said that you love me?”

  “I do love you. I thought you knew that.” He set the candle aside.

  She didn’t know. He never said it and lately, he’d been acting just the opposite.

  “Count backwards, from ten. Please, dearest, it’s important.”

  Elizabeth did so, and then she was asked to state her full name. Donovan nodded and asked her to tell him the date. She stared at him, unable to do so.

  “How old are you?” He asked when she didn’t answer the previous question.

  “Sixteen—eighteen? Where is Captain Rawlings?”

  “The captain left.” His eyes hardened and the tenderness left his voice as he sat up straight, pulling away from her. “He’ll be back, come morning. Did you write to Jack and ask his help in leaving me?”

  God in Heaven—what did the captain say to him?

  “I never told him I wished to leave you!” She clutched his hand, desperate to make him believe her. “I was frightened; I asked him here to t-talk—I--Oooh---ssss!”

  Pain shot through her skull. Her body felt as if it were all just one great bruise.

  *******

  “Easy, lass, don’t try to talk.” Donovan eased her back onto the pillows. He pushed up the sleeve of her gown to check her pulse and cursed. The back of Elizabeth’s wrist was turning bluish-crimson. Similar marks were forming at her elbow and on her left arm. He stood and lifted the covers. Sure enough, the backs of her legs and her hips were darkening ominously.

  A sick dread settled in his gut. Jack had been insistent about making sure she was not being mistreated. If Jack convinced Lizzie to leave him, this could be the proof needed to petition the court for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty. And Donovan knew his carefully cultivated reputation as Count Rochembeau was enough to make any magistrate suspect him of the charges, regardless of his innocence.

  He could not lose Elizabeth. Not like this, falsely accused of something he didn’t do.

  In her fragile mental state she might be manipulated by a cunning rogue desperate for money--someone with a gallant streak—someone who desperately needed to rescue a woman from a brutish captor to assuage his guilt for not saving his beloved. Someone like Black Jack.

  Donovan tamped down the rising panic. He had to focus on the cause of Elizabeth’s battered condition, not his fear of being falsely accused of vile crimes yet again.

  Why did she have bruises on her ribs? They were older than the ones forming now.

  “Elizabeth,” he asked, unable to keep the anxious warble from his voice. “Where did you get the bruises on your abdomen?”

  Her hand moved protectively to her left side. It must still be tender, he realized. “Sleepwalking. I bump into things, and then I wake up. As I did the other night.”

  He recalled hearing a loud thump in her room and finding her lying on the floor. Sleepwalking? That was cause for concern. “Have you ever awakened outside your room?”

  “No, but I do seem to wake up on the floor a great deal of late.”

  Donovan released his breath. He was relieved, and yet, disturbed by her confession. He patted her leg. “From now on you will sleep here, with me. We can’t have you wandering about, stumbling into things or falling down the stairs.” He added quickly, fearing she’d misinterpret his intentions and protest. She didn’t. She remained quiet, subdued.

  This wasn’t like Lizzie. She always had some smart remark or argument to toss at him.

  He watched her, concerned at her pliant behavior. Well, it had been a very trying day.

  The bruises upset him. Sleepwalking might explain the older marks, but how did she come to be bruised from head to toe tonight? The new bruises weren’t present when he undressed her this afternoon. Chloe could attest to that. It was as if an unseen force had assaulted her while she lay unconscious. That was preposterous—he was here the whole time.

  With his heart pounding, Donovan mentally retraced the events of the day, searching for a logical explanation that would counter an invisible assailant and any suspicion cast on him for her battered condition. This seizure had been much more serious than the one she had on the ship. Her limbs had thrashed violently against the cobblestones. His main concern had been protecting her head . . . and th
e bruises were curiously limited to her posterior. That was it!

  In a quiet, steady voice he explained it to Elizabeth, the hard cobblestones, the intense thrashing of her limbs. She meekly accepted his explanation without argument or accusation. That made the tightness in his chest ease a little more. And yet, he saw that she was frightened by his words, badly frightened, as anyone might be if told they’d slipped into convulsions.

  He gave her a sedative for the pain she must be feeling and talked of inconsequential things as he waited for the medicine to take effect. He spoke of his Arabian stallion and of the foals due in the spring that had been sired by his stallion. He asked if she’d ever seen a foaling. Elizabeth shook her head. She didn’t flinch at the slight movement as she had earlier.

  Satisfied that her pain and her fear were receding, Donovan turned the conversation back to the matter of her leaving him. “I’ve taken care of everything you asked of me in the courtyard. The household knows I’m the count. Giles is your new butler, and I’m hiring a steward to take up the job of Mr. O’Rourke. From now, on there shall be no more disguises or games between us. I meant what I said; I love you, and I’ll do whatever I must to prove it.”

  “Donovan, I’m sorry . . . please, don’t hate me . . .”

  Donovan frowned. Women said the most peculiar things under the influence of Laudanum, a fellow medical student once confessed to him. He was finding it to be true.

  “He said you’d despise me if . . . you knew what he did to me . . .”

  His mind careened to an abrupt stop for a terrifying moment. And then a razor sharp fury replaced his earlier bemusement. He leaned over Elizabeth, his hands pressed flat to the mattress on either side of her shoulders. “Who said that?” Her excuse of sleepwalking no longer seemed plausible. “Who told you I’d despise you if I knew what he was doing to you? Has one of the footmen been trifling with you? Tell me. Was it Elias Jones? I fired him, but if he hurt you, by God, I’ll make him pay!”

  “No . . .” Her grasp on reality was shaky as the opiates coursed through her. “It was that awful captain—the one who kidnapped me. Please, don’t hate me—I tried to fight—I bit him. I tried to make him stop!” The high voice cracked from strain, and then she was weeping softly.

  “Oh, Lizzie, sweet Lizzie, what happened wasn’t your fault.” Donovan countered. He gathered her up in his arms, held her, and whispered sweet words to her until she fell asleep.

  Determination settled upon him. He was not going to lose Elizabeth.

  Not to Jack. And not because of his own churlishness.

  Jack was right, he probably didn’t deserve Elizabeth, but she belonged to him.

  He was not losing her, not without a fight.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Elizabeth awakened to find Donovan hovering nearby. She thought it strange he was not out riding about his estate, as was his habit in the mornings. After making his rounds he usually spent the rest of his day cloistered in his laboratory or out in the stables.

  His routine was not all that had changed. He wasn’t dressed as O’Rourke or the malicious count. Today, he was the gentleman planter she knew from the voyage. A fine lawn shirt replaced the stable master’s worn cotton. His face was clean shaven, his hair restrained in a neat queue, and he wore his signet ring again, proof he was indeed the master. A black silk vest shot with silver, black broadcloth breeches and gleaming top boots completed his costume.

  “You asked me to set aside my disguises.” He said, noting her surprise at his changed appearance. “I have done so as proof of my devotion.” Holding his hands out, palms up, he asked, “Does my lady disapprove?”

  “Oh, no! You are very elegant, sir.”

  Donovan bowed like an actor at the end of a grand performance. As he rose, he smiled at her and said, “Now, you must give me something in return, Madame. I want you to stay in bed today, in fact, for the remainder of the week.” He walked to the foot of the bed and stood with his hands on his hips, observing her in his quiet, pensive way. “You’re not well, Elizabeth.” He chastened, as if expecting an argument.

  She didn’t have the energy or inclination to argue. She was tired of being at sixes and nines with this man all of the time. She was wrong to share their difficulties with the captain, she realized, as Donovan stood before her and she examined her situation in the light of a new day. Donovan should be furious with her. Instead, he was showing a great deal of forbearance, considering she’d maligned him to his friend and made a terrible scene on the front drive.

  “I’ll do whatever you wish, my lord. I’ll be good from now on, I promise.”

  “You are good!” He chastened in a cheerful mien. “You’re my good lass and don’t you be thinking otherwise.” Coming around the bed, he sat beside her and took her hand. “You are also ill, more than you realize. Yet, I’m told you work to the point of exhaustion, scrubbing along with the maids. I hired servants to do the work for you, not to try to keep up with you.”

  “Well, I did need to train them--“

  “That is the housekeeper’s responsibility, not yours.” He cut off her excuse.

  Elizabeth wanted to point out that the housekeeper was useless by lunch due to her ongoing affair with a rum bottle. The fury in his eyes reminded her that she was on thin ice with the man. His ire was justified. It was scandalous for a lady to be caught doing menial chores. Gossip spread quickly via the servants. If they lived in London tongues would be wagging about the eccentric countess who washed her own windows and hung her own curtains.

  “Mark me, there will be no more climbing ladders, polishing furniture or moving it, for that matter.” He lifted her hand and lightly kissed her knuckles. “From now on, I intend to make certain you don’t lift anything heavier than a tea cup.”

  Chloe came with a breakfast tray. The aroma of hot chocolate and crisp, salty bacon filled the room. Donovan stood and moved to the veranda doors. He leaned against the portal, arms crossed about his chest, his back to the women as he gazed out at the sea.

  *******

  Dear, sweet Lizzie. Fletcher made her believe she was an encumbrance to those about her. And her grandmother allowed her to be far too independent for a young lady. Donovan sighed. He had quite the task before him if he were tame his headstrong little mare.

  Alas, they were not at leisure to work through their marital difficulties.

  Jack was here demanding to see Elizabeth, and this time he brought armed reinforcements. And so, they were at odds, both knights fighting for possession of the queen.

  He considered his options. Perhaps Jack’s visit could be turned to his advantage.

  With a plan quickly in place, Donovan went to stand at the foot of the bed, his arms still crossed about his chest. “Don’t dally over your eggs and rashers, my sweet, we must get you ready to receive your visitor.”

  “Oh, not the captain!” She said, taken aback by his statement.

  “Yes. Rawlings is waiting in the salon as we speak.”

  “I can’t see him.” She clutched the covers up over her chest. “Tell him I’m sick.”

  “Come now, you keep insisting that you are not. Surely, you don’t intend to hide behind that flimsy excuse now. I’ll send the captain up directly.” He stalked to the hall door.

  “Please, my lord, if I must see him I prefer that you remain with me.”

  My Lord. Lizzie addressed him thus when she was intimidated. He turned to face her. She looked frightened. It almost gave him pause. Almost. He would not be deterred from his objective. He would learn what was going on between his friend and his wife before the day was out. He steeled himself against that sweet face and turned to sarcasm to deflect the impact of those beautiful, wounded eyes. “Rawlings is here to make certain you are being treated well in my keeping. That being the case, I can hardly stand over you without it appearing as if I am bullying you into answering in my favor, now can I?”

  “Why would he think that?” She asked, appearing confused by his statement.r />
  “I don’t know. Perhaps you gave him that impression yesterday, my dear.”

  He left, before he lost his resolve and gathered her in his arms like a besotted fool.

  Donovan met Jack in the salon. After enduring more of the same arguments from last night, he instructed Giles to escort Jack up to see Lizzie. Once Jack was upstairs, he had Gus and Ambrose take position in the salon as a counter to Jack’s two escorts. Thus fortified, he took the servant stairs to the second floor and entered the veranda through a vacant room. He crept to the open window. Crouching against the wall, he listened to the pair on the other side of the window.

  “---believes bed rest for a few days will make all the difference.”

  “Do you agree with him?’ Jack asked.

  “He is a doctor. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “He could be exaggerating your condition so that you won’t leave him, Madame.”

  “How dare you make such a horrid accusation?” Elizabeth’s voice echoed outrage. “And Captain, why is my husband convinced I want to leave him?”

  “Yes, ah, I might have embellished a little. It’s a tricky situation, Madame. If I take you from him without his consent he could have the law sent after me for kidnapping, regardless of whether you wanted to go or not. So, I’m blackmailing him, I’m using the fearful reputation he’s cultivated with the locals against him. I’ve threatened to bring the authorities here if he doesn’t comply with your wishes and allow you to leave freely—if that is your wish.”

  “How could you do such a wicked thing to him? He must feel very betrayed.”

  “I was worried about you after you sent me that note.” Jack defended. “You did say that it was matter of grave importance requiring the utmost secrecy.”

  “For all you knew I could have been seeking your advice on a Christmas gift.”

  “You wouldn’t send such a dire message to me if something weren’t terribly wrong.”

  “That is very kind of you, captain.” Elizabeth fairly purred. “Donovan thinks I’m a silly, empty-headed girl given to far too much imagination.”