The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah

by Catherine Gayle

  Roman reached inside his coat and tucked it securely away, patting his hand over the front of it as he had done moments before. He averted his eyes for a moment, staring at the fire blazing in the hearth before turning back to her, his expression as impenetrable as a stone. “It’s from the war,” he barked. He linked his hands behind his back, standing straight and tall, as though he were facing a superior or perhaps surrendering to his enemies, confessing a series of war crimes. “From Waterloo. It’s the reason a great many men are dead, including all of those who served under me.”

  Bethanne’s breath caught in her throat. She wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him in some small way. But what comfort could she possibly give? Surely this was one of his secrets, which she’d given him her word that she’d not ask him to reveal. Yet he’d done so, at least somewhat. And what he’d told her only left her wanting to know more.

  Was he angry with her for asking?

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Roman didn’t give her an opportunity to respond. He spun on his heels and marched from the room, leaving Bethanne shivering in his wake without the slightest clue what to do to rectify the situation.

  Over the next four days, Roman and Bethanne maintained a mutual distance. Oh, they still sat in the same room as one another, working on their various projects and conversing ever-so-politely when others were around. He nodded to her and smiled, though the smiles never quite reached his eyes; she was certain hers were the same.

  It was as though they were each walking on broken glass, trying desperately not to cut themselves in the mess they’d created between them—yet neither truly knew what the mess of broken glass consisted of, and so how could they determine how to fix it?

  Bethanne knew the vast array of secrets she’d been hiding, from him and everyone else. And she knew at least part of one of his. But neither had as of yet trusted the other to truly reveal all.

  Each day felt like there were larger, sharper, more jagged shards of glass beneath their feet—and thinner shoes.

  With each day that passed, he also looked more tired. Much as she felt. There were dark circles beneath his eyes, and they were often red-lined and bleary, like a man who’d known too much drink.

  That wasn’t the case with Roman, however. He’d not taken spirits once since he’d come to live in the Cottage at Round Hill. He simply wasn’t sleeping.

  And he wasn’t sleeping because he sat up all night, every night, with Aunt Rosaline.

  Bethanne was determined to find a way to convince him to rest more, despite the fact that she had not been resting properly either. Someone amongst them had to sleep, after all. And the concerns of Aunt Rosaline’s care were hers, not his.

  It would have to wait until after he’d arisen for the day, however. Just now, not long after dawn, he’d finally gone to his chamber to lie down. She’d rather gouge out her own eyes than wake the man before he was well and truly ready to rise. Particularly since she’d now—twice—come upon him when he woke in a fit.

  The memory was more than enough to convince her she needn’t try that again.

  No, today, she needed to find some peace within herself. She needed room to breathe. Since the rest of the house was still asleep, other than Joyce and Mrs. Temple, both already hard at work, Bethanne decided to go into the music room. If she shut the door and didn’t use too much force, she shouldn’t wake anyone with her playing…and it would help to clear her mind so she could decide how best to go about repairing the apparent rift between herself and Roman.

  Once she was closed off in her sanctuary, she took a seat at the bench and pulled out the sheet music for Mozart’s twenty-third concerto for pianoforte. It would be good, cleansing music.

  Careful not to lose herself too much in the swells, she played until the emotions she’d kept locked away inside herself started to pour through, flowing out through her fingers. She could almost feel the release as she moved up the scale.

  When she finished, Bethanne let her fingers rest on the keys for a moment, waiting for the stillness that always came after she played the pianoforte.

  Instead, a massive crash sounded against the wall—the wall connected to Roman’s chamber.

  Perhaps he had just mistakenly knocked something over. Bethanne fought to keep her pulse from sprinting through her veins, but feared it was a losing battle.

  Another crash. Louder, this time.

  Her stomach clenched, grasping for a piece of sanity in her chaotic world.

  And then a scream.

  Before she could register what was happening, she fled the music room and was pounding her fists on Roman’s door.

  “Roman? Are you all right?”

  He screamed again, and a rip filtered through the doorway.

  She tried the knob. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Roman!” She beat against the door, harder, more frantically. He had to open the door. He had to let her in. “It’s Bethanne. Let me in. Let me help you.”

  How she could help him, she had no idea. But she needed to get inside. She needed to soothe him, to calm him. To be for him what he’d been for Aunt Rosaline.

  A splintering crack.

  She pounded on the door again.

  It flung open and she fell inside, directly into large, strong hands that fisted, one about the bodice of her gown, and the other over her upper arm. He pulled her in, both of them screaming. He used such force she left her feet. In an instant, her back was pressed against the wall.

  She couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t scream.

  He glared through her, unseeing, as though she were someone else.

  A hot tear spilled down her cheek, moving all the way down to her lips. Salty. Fearful.

  The vacant, hollow expression left his eyes, replaced by something hard and desperate and somehow far more like the Lord Roman Sullivan she had come to know.

  Then he growled, like a wild animal. Bethanne shivered as his mouth came down over hers in a needy kiss, pressing into her for more than she knew she had to give. His lips moved over hers, almost bruising in their urgency. She moved hers in response, frantic in her need to let him take anything and everything he required.

  Just as soon as it began, he pulled away. His hands dropped from her arm and bodice, the ripped fabric falling to almost completely cover her.

  Panting. They were both panting, gasping for breath. His gaze trailed over her, from her swollen lips, to her ripped gown, to where he’d held her arm like a vise.

  “No.” Back and forth, back and forth, he shook his head.

  Bethanne reached out to touch him, to soothe away whatever madness haunted him and left him in such a state.

  He stepped away from her reach. “No.”

  Then he was gone, with the door to the rose gardens slamming shut behind him.

  Roman stalked through the meandering paths of the rose garden. He had no idea where he was headed, or even where the paths would take him. He just knew he had to get away, now, before he caused Bethanne permanent physical damage or ravished her, or both.

  Hadn’t he told her, time and time again, to stay away from his chamber when he was sleeping, no matter what she heard? Didn’t she realize he was a danger not only to himself, but to all of them?

  But what she realized didn’t matter.

  He knew.

  Roman knew he was unfit to be around anyone while he was like this—might be unfit for the remainder of his life, if the state of things lately were any indication—and yet he’d agreed to stay with them.

  No, he’d insisted he stay with them. Endangering them. Threatening them with his very presence.

  Every ounce of his honor was gone, vanished, dissipated with the mist.

  What a bloody lout he was. He’d finally regained his senses only to realize he was sure to be hurting her with his grip on her arm, sure to be tearing her gown with his hand fisted in the delicate fabric. Not only that, but he’d terrified her to no end. Her eyes had almost bulged out of her head, and she w
as screaming. And then, instead of releasing her and trying to calm her like a sane man might do, he’d kissed her like her lips were the only thing that could save him.

  He wasn’t the one who needed to be saved. She was. She needed to be rescued from him.

  Roman was a monster. An animal. A brute.

  And a bounding fool.

  He stopped suddenly, just before walking headlong into the lake fully clothed. Good God. It was December and freezing outside. But then again, a freezing, drowning death was far better than he deserved after what he’d done, what he’d almost done. What he wanted to do. He ought to just keep walking and see what happened.

  Instead, he laughed. It was a rough, bitter sound on the wind. With his luck, he wouldn’t drown. He’d catch a chill, and the damned pixie would nurse him back to health so he could hurt her all over again.

  So instead, he sat at the base of a tree and tried to slow his racing thoughts enough that he could determine what to do next. Only when his back scraped against the bark did he realize he didn’t have a stitch of fabric on him other than his smallclothes. Not that it mattered, other than the fact that he’d surely unsettled Bethanne with his near naked madness.

  He draped an arm over his bent knee and propped his head on it, watching the sun’s reflection ripple in the water.

  Lady Rosaline’s night fits had slowed until they were almost nonexistent of late. Perhaps they no longer needed him to stay with her at night. He could go back to the Hassop dower house and only come to check on them during daylight hours, like he had done before.

  But what would happen if Lady Rosaline started to have her fits again without his presence? What if his being there with her was the reason she was able to sleep through the night again? Could he take that chance?

  Locking himself in his chamber wasn’t enough, clearly. Nor were his warnings to Bethanne and her staff to leave him be. If they heard him fighting with himself, the kind-hearted fools were concerned and tried to come to help him.

  How could he stay with them, be there to ease Lady Rosaline’s nights, yet not endanger them when he slept?

  “Roman?”

  Devil and blast if it wasn’t Bethanne’s voice. He looked up to see her wrapped in a Pomona green redingote and coming his way, carrying his coat in her delicate hands.

  “What are you doing out here? You’ll catch a chill.” He hated the harshness in his tone. It sounded like he was chastising her for her kindness. Although, he supposed he was chastising her for her thoughtlessness in following him. She needed to take better care of herself than that.

  Particularly if he wasn’t going to be around to take care of her.

  His admonishment seemingly left her undeterred. She kept walking toward him with quite the determined stride. “That’s why I brought your coat, you numbskull.”

  He started to stand, but she tossed his coat at him, then plopped down on the ground beside him.

  “Sit on this. You’ll be covered in dirt.”

  She leveled him with a glare, the same one he’d seen her give to Finn when he didn’t immediately obey her. “I did not bring your coat so I could sit on it. Put it on.”

  He did, staring all the while at her lips. That delicate, heart-shaped mouth was swollen, almost bruised from the force of his kiss. He could only imagine her arm must likewise be almost bruised, if not fully.

  “I must apologize,” he croaked, though the words couldn’t possibly convey what he felt for his offense.

  “Apologize?” Bethanne scowled up at him. “It is a truly sad state of affairs when the first man to kiss me in so many years feels the need to apologize for doing so. I must be abysmal at it.” She turned and stared out at the lake as a fish leapt up over the surface, then dropped back below it.

  “No, you’re…” He stopped himself before he said anything even less appropriate than what he’d already done. “I apologize for taking such liberties with you. It was far from honorable. It won’t happen again.”

  Her gaze shot back up to meet his again. “Not even if I want it?”

  Roman sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, so as not to put it on her as he wanted to do. “Bethanne, I hurt you—”

  “Yes, you did.” She shifted her body until she was facing him fully. Likely do deliver him the set-down he had more than earned. “You hurt me when you kissed me like that and then ran away without so much as a word of explanation.”

  He didn’t know what reaction he’d been expecting from her, but that was far from it. “I…” Roman shook his head, at a loss. “I don’t… I was too rough. I shouldn’t have—”

  “You shouldn’t have been rough with me, or you shouldn’t have kissed me?” Her eyes dared him to answer that without sticking his foot in his mouth, yet again.

  He couldn’t. He couldn’t answer her even if he did stick his foot in his mouth again.

  “I’ve wanted you to kiss me,” she whispered, looking down at her hands as they fidgeted with the buttons on her redingote.

  The beast within him reared its bumbling head up again, desperate to kiss her again. To kiss her properly, like any man ought to kiss her. But what she wanted didn’t matter in this situation. She didn’t know enough to know what she should want.

  So he sat on his hands, forcing them to remain where they were.

  “Are they nightmares?” she asked softly after they’d sat there in silence for several minutes.

  He couldn’t talk to her about this. He couldn’t talk to anyone about this. He’d tried with his brothers after coming home from Waterloo. But Royston and Rawden had put it off as simple nightmares as well. Wake up, Roman, and everything will be all right. That’s what they’d told him, as though he could simply shake off the bad dream as he’d done when they were boys. No one could understand, unless they’d been there. Unless they’d seen what he’d seen and done what he’d done.

  “It’s more than just a nightmare,” he found himself saying, despite his resolve not to. “It’s like I’m still there, fighting for my life, taking other men’s lives. Like the battle has not yet ended and might never end.”

  Roman looked down when he felt Bethanne’s tiny hand on his. It looked so wrong. Something so innocent didn’t belong anywhere near him. Yet she took his hand into her own and held it with a firm, determined grip.

  “The pillow in my hands might be a man’s neck. The bedpost might be a sword. I don’t see anything that is truly before me, just broken and dying men, and more coming after me.”

  “And so if I am in front of you…”

  “It isn’t you that I see, but an enemy soldier who wants to kill me. Kill or be killed. Complete the mission at all costs.”

  “The mission involving your vial.” A statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice sounding just as bewildered as he felt.

  “Aunt Rosaline sees the same things each time, too. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now.” She put her hand back in her lap and almost immediately started fiddling with her buttons again. “There are a few variations, but generally she goes back to the same moments. The mind is a fascinating thing, isn’t it?”

  Fascinating. Debilitating. Roman nodded.

  “It always happens when you sleep?”

  “Only when I sleep. Mainly in the dark.”

  “Ah. Hence the reason you keep yourself up all night and only sleep after dawn.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well…” Bethanne brushed her hands over her redingote, straightening it as she prepared to rise. “I suppose I’ll just have to do a better job of doing as you’ve asked. I won’t come to your door, no matter what I hear in there.”

  She was talking like he was going to stay. Like he was no more a threat to her than a gnat.

  “Bethanne—”

  She stood and faced him. “And I’ll redouble my efforts to keep the servants away as well.”

  “No.”

  Roman hadn’t intended to use that tone with her, the one he used with the men un
der his command when their lives depended on following his every order. Yet he had. She looked up at him, her wide, green eyes twinkling in her confusion.

  He stood before her and implored her with his eyes. “I can’t keep putting you in such danger. Any of you. It was foolish of me to even consider coming here in the first place.”

  She shook her head, as though not comprehending his meaning.

  “I could have seriously hurt you. I could have killed you.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “That’s not the—”

  “You didn’t hurt me, Roman. Not physically, at least.” Bethanne pulled away from him and put a few paces between them. She planted her fists on her hips, in the way only a mother could do. “And as long as you’re locked in your chamber and we leave you be, then you won’t—”

  “How can you be certain? What if I break through the doors? What if I shatter the window?” He crossed to her and tipped up her chin, forcing her to look at him. “What if I hurt Lady Rosaline? Or Finn? What then?”

  She had to see reason, even if he’d tried to blind himself to it for so long.

  Her lower lip trembled, but she didn’t look away, and she didn’t cry. So strong, as always.

  “I’ll hire you a manservant. I’ll find one in town, or if I can’t find one there I’ll send a man over from Hassop House until I can locate one.”

  Bethanne pulled herself away from him, pacing before the water’s edge with her arms wrapped tightly over her chest. After a long minute, she stared him down. “Aunt Rosaline needs you—she has been so much better with you here. If you hire a manservant to stay with us, to protect us from you if such a situation arises again, will you stay?”

  Would a single man be enough to protect them from him, if he was deep in one of his episodes? It seemed too great a risk, though better. Roman started to shake his head, but stopped when Bethanne rushed to him and took both of his hands in hers.

  “Please? Aunt Rosaline needs you.” She took two gulping breaths. “I need you.”

  It took everything in him not to wrap her in his arms and whisk her away, to kiss her until the haunted look left her eyes, to make her his in every way possible right then and there. Since all of that took all of his effort, there was none left to deny her.