Lady in Red: A Novel of Mad Passions

by Máire Claremont

  Yvonne held her carefully. “You will always have my help. I hope it will be enough.”

  Mary nodded, then pulled away. She longed to drink her wine to the dregs and pour herself another glass, but she wouldn’t. Not now. Not before Yvonne. She’d wait. Until she was alone. When no one could see what she had truly become.

  Chapter 6

  Bone weary, muscles protesting as if he’d run from here to Dover, and brain as twisted as a wet cloth wrung by an overly vigorous washerwoman, Edward climbed down from his black lacquered coach into the dense evening fog. He contemplated offering up thanks that he had survived attending to his mother and the subsequent trip back to London. But his belief in a benevolent god was negligent, so he abstained.

  Visiting his mother always drained him of any real will to do anything but sleep.

  He mounted the waterfall-like crescendo of granite steps to the towering family home overlooking Green Park. He often felt he should have burned the place down until it were naught but Pompeian rubble. Only bad memories dwelled in this place. Bad memories . . . and himself.

  The tall, elaborately carved double mahogany doors opened smoothly before him and a beacon of golden gaslight illuminated the steps. His boots and pressed trousers were immediately bathed in its infuriatingly cheery glow.

  Grieves stood at attention, his black suit, stiff white collar, and starched cravat more perfect than those of even Her Majesty’s own majordomo.

  Edward entered and passed his heavy black cashmere coat and beaver hat to his waiting butler. He needed a hot bath. The scent of his mother’s opium was on him and it left a vaguely sick sensation at the back of his throat.

  He strode to the wide, curved staircase at the end of the Italianate foyer, more than ready for a strong drink and his nightly bath.

  “Your Grace?”

  Edward halted and waited for Grieves to unburden himself of whatever could be so important as to disturb his usually undisturbed progress.

  “There is a young woman upstairs.” Grieves hesitated. “I believe she is expected?”

  Edward blinked, the words processing through his fatigued brain. She was here. Calypso. Mary, according to Yvonne. Whatever she was called . . . she was here. As if the fates had heard his plea the other night, Yvonne had come to him with a proposal, and Calypso was now his.

  Edward stormed the stairs, not acknowledging Grieves. As he took the steps two at a time, he couldn’t decide upon a scowl or a grin. A scowl felt more appropriate, given the afternoon’s frustrations, but the feelings flooding through him bested such dismal emotions.

  In the general displeasure that surrounded his visits to his mother, it had escaped him that Calypso was to arrive this evening. He’d thought about it all morning, deciding his home, while not the usual place for a mistress, was the best place to ply her with food, wine, and perhaps some conversation if she proved willing.

  He’d looked forward to being in the presence of her broken soul, the broken soul he was going to repair. Now that she was here, he wasted no time getting to Calypso.

  His boots ate up the long, dim hall. The room he’d arranged for her was next to his, connected by a door and a small sitting room. The room, in fact, had been meant for his duchess, a duchess that would never materialize. It was perfect for keeping Calypso close, especially if she was in danger as Yvonne had suggested.

  For the first time he could recall since childhood, Edward paused before a woman’s door. Excitement and doubt, a torrid mixture of emotion in his usually stoic being, was marvelous and unfamiliar.

  He opened the door and quietly stepped in.

  Deep, frighteningly large traces of opium drifted toward him, blooming forth just like the lush smell of an exotic flower on the night wind. Only . . . only this scent meant death. Panic grabbed his guts as he desperately glanced around.

  Where was she?

  Gas lamps lit the large room, but she was nowhere in sight. The Chippendale chairs were empty and the cold pheasant on the brocade-draped table by the fire hadn’t been touched. The carafe of wine, on the other hand, had been dipped into, a good measure of it missing. The crystal stopper lay abandoned on the emerald carpet.

  Christ. Wine and opium. Did the woman wish to destroy herself? He swallowed back the nasty thought . . . As my mother tried to do.

  Dread drove his every step toward the bedchamber. What had she done?

  “Calypso?” he ventured.

  There was no answer and he forced himself to take another step into the adjoining room. His eyes trailed to the four-poster bed draped in champagne silk and azure curtains. A large swath of purple silk draped over the rich coverlet.

  There on the bed lay his warrior.

  “Mary!” Childhood fear churned his innards as memory stormed upon him full force. He could see his mother stretched out facedown before the banked fire. The same alluring scent of opium. Only mixed with blood . . . So much blood his boots had squelched in it.

  Edward swallowed back the unbidden specter before he darted to the bed. His Calypso was in serene repose on the velvet counterpane. Maddeningly beautiful, even with her eyes closed, her black lashes dusted blue-tinged cheeks.

  A gown of purple silk wrapped about her slender frame. It billowed out about her lower body, creating the illusion she was merely sleeping. But he knew that sleep.

  He’d been here before. He’d been in this moment. The moment of knowing that hell was very real.

  Her pale arm dangled over the side of the bed, the diamond bracelet he’d given to Yvonne to bestow on Calypso shimmering in the candlelight. Her delicate hand was stretched open as if holding something.

  As he moved through what seemed to be mud thick enough to imprison his legs and arms, he took in every detail with rapid glances. A small clay vial lay on the floor. Shards of a crystal goblet, tainted with the faint red hue of his favorite Bordeaux, were scattered on the carpet near the bed. The jagged pieces sparkled like errant tears.

  Dread gripped him to the point of strangulation. He shouldn’t feel so powerfully for a woman he didn’t know, but he did. His own life was in the balance. And somehow she’d put him there. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if she’d chosen to end her life.

  Finally, he pulled himself free of the paralyzing emotions and darted forward, grabbing her with both hands.

  Faint, rough breaths lifted her chest. He nearly cried with relief. Then he realized she was just clinging to life, each rise and fall of her breast a tortured wheeze.

  She was not safe.

  “Mary?” he demanded, his voice harsh with horror and white-hot anger. “Mary?!”

  She remained limp, her body a rag doll under his jerking hands. Her head, with its short black hair, lolled about her shoulders. Her eyelids were violet with the bruised look of the dead.

  Edward released her. Wheeling around, he dashed from the room. His legs pumped so fast it was a miracle he didn’t skid along the silk carpet runner. The tapestried walls blurred around him as he raced back down the hall to the stairwell. At the top of the landing, he ground to a halt.

  There was no time. No damned time.

  “Grieves!” he shouted. Leaning over the balustrade, he scanned the mosaic floor below, willing the butler to come. “Grieves!”

  Footsteps clattered on the tile and then the butler’s white hair came into view. The old man craned his head back. “Your Grace?”

  “Send for the doctor! And bring up water and soda.”

  Grieves’s myopic blue eyes widened so abruptly with shock it was a miracle the orbs stayed in his head.

  “Now, damn it!” Edward boomed, his own voice ripping at his throat.

  Though Grieves’s face twisted with fear, he didn’t reply. With surprising agility, he bolted through the narrow paneled doorway leading to the servants’ hall.

  Edward sprinted back to Mary’s room. He didn’t stop running until his feet scrambled to a halt before the wide foot of the bed. His chest thudded with each racing beat of his heart.
Once again, his gaze darted over her body. She was still breathing. But each breath was a struggle.

  Without thinking, Edward reached forward and grabbed her purple silk bodice with both hands. In one quick motion, he ripped. The shimmering fabric tore raggedly, threads of soft silk flying like miniature streamers into the air.

  He yanked the fabric free of her body, then stared down at the tightly laced corset. Ivory silk edged in Venetian lace peered back at him with the clear intent to tempt a man with wicked innocence. Right now, it was only crushing his Calypso’s ability to breathe.

  Mercilessly, he flipped her onto her stomach. The long swaths of her skirts tangled and her wooden hoops banged and cracked like old bones.

  A groan slipped from her lips.

  “That’s right,” he growled as he yanked at the ties. “Wake up.”

  He pulled the ribbons through the metal grommets. Years of removing corsets from countless women had prepared him for this moment. His fingers flew, but it took him far too long before he could pull the slick fabric free from its last loop and peel the corset from her chemise-covered flesh.

  Without hesitating, he jerked at the tapes of her skirt and hoops, working them free of her lower body. He moved carefully now, to prevent cutting her legs with a broken crinoline.

  Just as he slid the massive swath of skirts free, Grieves’s solid footsteps thudded into the room. Edward didn’t look away from his task as he threw the ruined garments to the floor.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Edward spied Grieves rush up beside him. He presented a frothing glass upon a silver tray.

  “Here,” Edward snapped, still half kneeling on the bed.

  Grieves thrust the tray forward, his wrinkled forehead as creased as a sandy beach after the tide. “What’s happened, Your Grace?”

  Edward ignored his butler’s question and snatched the glass from the tray. “Do what I say.”

  Grieves nodded, his mouth agape.

  “I’m going to hold her still.” Edward shoved the crystal glass into the butler’s hand. “You’re going to force this down her damned throat.”

  Grieves’s eyes flashed with alarm, his gaze traveling from the fizzing glass to Mary’s prone, half-naked body. “Your Grace?”

  Edward mounted the bed, positioning himself against the pillows and headboard. With more roughness than he’d intended, he grabbed Mary’s upper arms and dragged her weightless form up the length of his body. Sucking in slow, sure breaths, he rested her against his chest so that she sat upright. He could feel her delicate bones against the muscles of his chest. He found himself willing his own ferocious capacity to live into her. “Do it.”

  Grieves flinched, then edged up to the side of the bed. He dropped the silver tray to the floor and the dull thud echoed through the room.

  Edward curved his palm against the base of Mary’s head, bracing her so she could slide neither right nor left. Then he gripped the nape of her neck, tilting her back.

  With a look of pure determination on his face, Grieves opened Mary’s mouth and pressed the glass to her lips.

  “Drink,” Edward whispered against her ear, aware of the way her silken hair felt against his lips. Even the scent of laudanum and red wine were not enough to cover the faint touch of tea roses emanating from her soft locks. For some unfathomable reason, it was this simple thing that ripped him apart with the desperate hope she would survive this.

  The bubbling soda water flowed into her mouth. The liquid merely spilled from the corners of her lips and dribbled down her cheeks.

  Grieves lifted his gaze to him, dismayed.

  “Pinch her nose,” Edward ordered, his heart slamming like a hammer against his ribs. There was no way in hell they were giving up.

  Grieves didn’t wait. His white-gloved fingers pinched Mary’s small nose and he kept pouring the drink into her mouth as if he could somehow will her to come to.

  At last, she swallowed in one great, tortured gulp.

  Her body jerked against Edward’s. She gagged, then coughed. Shaking against him, her chest expanded in a huge gasp. She flailed her arms, struggling weakly to get away from his demanding grip and Grieves’s unrelenting pouring.

  Edward didn’t let up, nor did he feel relief. They were a long way from safety yet. “Give her a moment to breathe. Then do it again.”

  Grieves pulled back, his worried old eyes flicking over her. He held the glass at the ready, and as soon as Mary had stopped gasping, he pressed it back to her lips and pinched her nose closed again.

  She drank. Her body convulsed around each swallow.

  Grieves didn’t relent until every last drop had been forced down her throat. When the glass was empty, he stepped back. “Now what, Your Grace?”

  Edward rocked Mary carefully against him, imploring her to stay with him. “We wait.” Edward grimaced, willing her to respond. “And grab the chamber pot.”

  It was only a matter of moments before she jerked, her throat working as her stomach rebelled. Quickly, Edward turned her. Grieves was there, the chamber pot ready.

  The poison came out of her mouth in one fast go.

  “There you are, Calypso,” Edward said gently, his hand stroking her back. He wished he could tell her the worst was over, but he knew it wasn’t so.

  She shuddered and groaned.

  Gently, Edward pulled her back up and rested her against his chest. He whipped a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped it softly against her mouth. He longed to wrap his arms about her and clasp her to him in a vise, but that would not aid her fragile body.

  “Will the young lady require water, Your Grace?” the butler asked with surprising calm.

  “Certainly.” Mary was not going to want to ingest a damned thing, but water was the only thing that would help her now.

  The butler took a step back, transfixed by Mary’s still form.

  “Grieves.” Edward stayed his butler, rocked by a level of gratitude that astonished him.

  “Yes, Your Grace?”

  Edward paused for a moment, aware that he might have never before said these words to a servant. “Thank you.”

  Grieves’s brows lifted slightly in shock. “Of course, Your Grace.” The older man bowed, then headed out the door at a brisk clip.

  As soon as he was gone, Edward allowed himself the brief luxury of closing his eyes. He savored each strong breath Mary drew in. He hadn’t been mistaken. His Calypso hid a depth of experiences and emotions that it would take a lifetime to uncover.

  Any man in his right mind would drop her back on Madame Yvonne’s doorstep.

  Any man would have judged her beyond saving. She had been at death’s door, knocking determinedly for hell to let her in. Perhaps she had no wish to be saved. If that was the case, could he still manage it? Could he force her out of hell?

  As he stared down at her, his need to keep her close was so fierce he burned. He brushed his fingers over hers, needing to believe she hadn’t tried to kill herself. Not like his mother. He’d seen Calypso’s strength, and those tempered by such determination didn’t try to take their own lives. But what if she had?

  Edward closed his eyes, and for the first time in years, he prayed to a god he didn’t believe in. He prayed with all his might that she longed to live.

  Chapter 7

  “Can you tell me her family name?”

  Mary felt herself pulling away from the safety of her dreamless void. Fractured and in shocking pain, a healthy dose of panic laced through her as voices murmured in the shadows of her mind.

  She held absolutely still, not sure whether she was truly hearing this muted conversation or whether she was just imagining it.

  Dear lord, she had no idea where she was. Or what had happened in the last hours. Mary struggled to keep her breathing even, lest she make the men aware she was awake. She needed time. Time to understand what was happening and time to decide upon her next course of action.

  She wasn’t at the asylum. Of that she was sure. There were no kind voi
ces in that prison.

  “I don’t know her family name.”

  This last voice. It was familiar. She’d heard it before. Sensual and strong. Genuine. Now it was hard and strained with tension. She waited. Waited for any indication that she might be in danger, and if so she should bolt.

  She strained to hear what these disembodied men would say next.

  If she was lucky, the voices were a figment of her tortured imagination. They would disappear, leaving her to heal in solitude.

  The length and breadth of her body burned. An ember crashed to the cruel, hard ground.

  Everything hurt.

  From the tense muscles at her neck to the throbbing pulse screaming inside her head, she was a mass of punishing sensation. She didn’t even like to think of her belly and the roiling agony pulsing within.

  “This laudanum was very poorly mixed,” the older voice said. The tones were firm, yet reedy with the effects of a long life. “’Tis almost entirely opium.”

  There was the rustle of fabric, a drawn-out silence. The other voice, slightly shaking now, asked, “You don’t think she tried to—to end it all?”

  The acidic pain humming through her flesh indicated this was all too real. But who had tried to destroy herself? It was foolishness to toss aside so carelessly the only gift one had. Life.

  Mary struggled to think who could have attempted such an unforgivable thing. At the asylum, only one girl in the three years she had been there had triumphed against the keepers’ watching eyes. The girl had died, hanging at the end of her twisted bedsheet, a pathetic figure dangling in her icy room. That was the last night they’d had coverings for their hard sleeping pallets. Henceforth, they had been stripped of anything that might have given them escape from their wretched existence. Even spoons had been deemed contraband, reducing them to animals, scooping their gruel into their mouths with blackened fingers.

  “No, I don’t think she did,” the softer voice finally replied. “We will have to ask her, of course, but the doctor who prepared this tincture should be hanged and quartered.”