“Mad? If anybody is mad, it is you, Sebastian! What were you thinking, running away like that?”
Fox staggered to the door and peered into the hallway. “Hobbes!” he hollered. “Bring me some coffee, will you?”
“Thur?” The old man shuffled into sight and looked nervously from Fox to Richard and back.
“Coffee.”
“Yeth, thur.”
With the flat of his hand, Richard banged the door shut. “Listen to me,” he growled. “You will pack your things and go back to Rawdon Park with me.”
With a sigh, Fox turned and wandered over to the washstand. “No, I will do no such thing,” he said calmly, knowing full well that his calmness would enrage Richard even further. He pulled his rumpled, sweaty shirt over his head—Lawk! he smelled like a pig—and let it drop onto the floor, before he began to wash himself with the icy-cold water, which Hobbes must have prepared for him the evening before. From the corner of his eye, he shot a glance at his brother. Richard looked ready to throttle him.
Fox raised an eyebrow. My, my, he thought with malicious glee. The unflappable, dignified Lord Rawdon was throwing a temper tantrum.
Glaring at him, Richard put his hands on his hips. “Does it not interest you at all that bliss Bourne has taken ill and—”
“No.” Fox splashed some water into his face. “Not at all.” Yet this time, it was more difficult to force his voice to remain calm. How he had loved her! His heart clenched. What a bloody fool he had been—and still was, to bemoan the loss.
“You’ve got an obligation to her!”
“No.” Fox reached for the towel and rubbed his face dry. Straightening, he turned to Richard. “Did you not hear what was said in your drawing room the last time we were all assembled there?” He bared his teeth. “It was all a lie. A lie.” He managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice, if not his soul.
His brother took a deep breath. “You’re still engaged to marry her.”
For a moment, all was silent in the room. Silent enough for Fox to hear somebody clumping down the stairs and the crunch of carriage wheels at a distance in the streets. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
“You, Lord Rawdon, must be mad!” Abruptly he sobered. “Marry a sorceress? Who lied to me for goodness knows how long? Who probably was in this whole plot from the very beginning?” he hissed. “I don’t think so. Heavens, I don’t even like the chit!” Lawk, how much her lilting, mocking voice had grated on his nerves, and how she must have laughed at him these past weeks!
Richard’s eyes nearly bulged out of the sockets. “How can you be such a cold-blooded bastard?” he roared. “How could she have been in any plot? She saved your bloody life!”
“Is that so?” Fox’s voice was arctic.
“Yes, it bloody well is!”
Fox turned his back to him and continued his morning ablutions. “Tut-tut, big brother, the language you’re using.” He could hear Richard taking a few deep breaths.
“Look,” the earl said, his voice rigidly controlled, “if you don’t care for the girl…” Another deep breath.
Fox clenched his jaw. To hear Richard talk, one would have thought she was a fragile little flower! What rubbish!
There was a knock on the door. Since his brother wasn’t making any move to open it, Fox strode forward while Richard continued, “But you cannot possibly break the engagement without bringing dishonor to our family name.”
Fox snorted. “You must be out of your mind!” he snarled over his shoulder. “To marry a witch? You have seen the things she is capable of! How can you be so matter of fact about this?” He flung the door open.
“Your c-coffee, thur.” The tray Hobbes held out swayed gently back and forth.
“I’m not matter of fact about this!” the earl shouted, for once in his life forgetting that it didn’t do to speak rashly in front of the servants. “But she saved your life!”
“So?” Fox shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “Perhaps she only didn’t want to lose the foolish fellow who had become her sex poppet.” He stepped back to let the old butler pass. “Thank you, Hobbes. Put it on the nightstand. And afterwards you can show my brother out.”
But Richard had already brushed past and, with enough force to make the windows rattle, banged the front door shut behind him.
~*~
In the following days Fox spent more and more time at his club, and once or twice even at one of the more disreputable gaming hells of London. He drank a lot, lost an indecent amount of money, won some of it back… and all of the time felt his heart bleed dry.
It had all been a lie. Each look, each touch, each word they had spoken—all damned lies. The most complete bliss he had felt in all his life: a bloody delusion.
One evening after a week or more—Fox had long lost track of the passing days—Drew cornered him in the club and dragged him home to Albany, where he poured impossible amounts of coffee down Fox’s throat while Hobbes clucked around them like a worried mother hen.
“Really, Foxy,” Drew said in reproachful tones, “it can’t go on like this.”
“Like what?” Irritated, Fox waved Hobbes aside when the butler would have poured him some more coffee. “Heavens, will you both stop it! Now I need to have a piss.” He marched into the bedroom to relieve himself in the water closet in the dressing room. Slamming the door, he scowled at the stylish water closet as he already felt the effects of the coffee kicking in. The whisky he had drunk this evening had cost a small fortune—money down the drain. How extraordinarily wonderful.
The door was thrust open and Drew strode in. “Really, Foxy, has nobody ever told you that running away is hardly constructive for discussions?”
Hobbes’s wizened face appeared behind the other. The butler nodded earnestly.
Fox ground his teeth, and indicated the used water closet. “Does that look as if I fobbed you off?” he growled.
His friend continued as if he hadn’t spoken: “Rawdon told us that—”
“I don’t care one fig what my brother told you.” Fox decided it would be better to button himself up again, since Drew seemed hell-bent on having this little conversation right now no matter what.
For the moment, he gave Fox his best sad little puppydog face. “Oh, Foxy, you don’t really mean that!” His expression brightened. “Is it true that Miss Bourne saved your life with some… uh… magical healing powers? How very curious!”
“Fantastic,” he grunted. The mere mentioning of her name was like a dart to his heart. “Are you done?” It was just his bad luck to have a friend who was suffering from childish enthusiasms and who thus no doubt found the notion of devilish magic vastly intriguing.
A line appeared between the other’s brows. “Won’t you at least inquire about her health? Rawdon said—”
“Andrew,” Fox warned.
“—that she is in ill health.”
“How ill can she be?” He snorted. “She is a sorceress! A witch! She will be chirping merry by now.” Fox rubbed his temple. He really didn’t want to talk about this. About her.
Especially not about her.
All lies and flummery.
And the damned thing was, the pain became less bearable the more time passed. If this should continue he would soon howl at the moon like a dog. All over a broken heart.
Broken heart? Bosh!
He roused himself. “Chirping merry, indeed. As will I be soon.” Chirping merry, oh yes, he knew what it would take to achieve such. “Bring me my hat and my coat, Hobbes, will you?”
Drew’s expression turned weary. “Whatever are you going to do?”
“What do you think?” Chin up, Fox strolled into the study to retrieve his gloves and take his coat and hat from Hobbes. “It’s still early enough to catch a nice little bird at Madame Suzette’s.”
Hobbes’s eyes widened. “B-but, thur!” The butler sounded genuinely shocked.
Fox raised a brow. “Perhaps that sultry doxy of the Italian hue, eh, Drew?”
Oh yes, all lush curves, soft flesh…
…golden hair and pansy-blue eyes…
He groaned. No no no! Why could he not stop thinking of her? He must be still under that horrid spell! But it was time to exorcize her, once and for all.
Drew gripped his arm. “Shouldn’t you take your responsibility to Miss Bourne more seriously? After all, you’re engaged to marry her!”
“The hell I am.” With a brusque movement, Fox freed his arm. “I tell you something, Drew: If you’re so worried about her, why don’t you marry the chit yourself?”
Somewhere at the back of his mind, Fox knew full well that he was behaving abominably. But he didn’t care. All he knew was that he had to get away from their reproachful looks, escape to a place where nobody knew her name and couldn’t torment him with it. He would go insane if he stayed-mad with grief over something that had been only a stack of lies.
What an utter ninny he was!
“And for now—adieu. You can see yourself out, Drew, can’t you?” And Fox whirled and left his rooms, to disappear into the cold London night.
Chapter Sixteen
The heavy knocks cracked his skull open, surely they did. Groaning and swearing, Fox opened one eye. Like lightning, sunlight splintered his retinas. A flood of oaths streamed over his lips. A flood of coarseness, of vileness, the worst curses he could think of.
His muscles sore, he rolled off the armchair where he had apparently spent the night, and tripped to the front door. The knocks had not ceased; if anything, they had increased in volume.
“What the devil?” He jerked the door open.
“Good morning.” His friend Cyril, disgustingly neat and stylish, regarded him with faint interest.
Fox rubbed his hands over his face. “Whaddya want?”
Cyril raised an eyebrow. “Where’s Hobbes?”
“He left,” Fox growled. Eleven years the old man had been in his employ, and now he had left because of Fox’s supposed cold-hearted desertion of a lovely young woman. Truly, the whole world had turned into a madhouse! “Look, what do you want here, Cy?”
“Talk.” The other pushed past him into the apartment. “What else? God, what has happened to this place? Has somebody broken in and trashed it?”
Fox slammed the door shut—and immediately wished he hadn’t. Grimacing, he rubbed his aching head. “Talk?” He followed his friend into the study. “What kind of nonsense is this? Drew has already been here to ‘talk.’ Days ago. The same day my bloody butler left, actually. What are you doing?”
“Letting in some fresh air.” Cyril turned away from the window he had flung wide open. “This place reeks like the worst kind of distillery. And no wonder…” With distaste he surveyed the array of empty bottles that littered the room. “God, Fox, what have you been doing to yourself?”
Fox leaned against the doorframe and shrugged. If only it weren’t so deucedly bright in the room. “What all wealthy young bucks do around town: drinking, whoring, and gaming. What else?” He gave another shrug and tried to stick to a nonchalant pose, even though a brownie with a large drum seemed to have taken residence inside his skull. “Close the shutters, will you?”
His friend stared at him. No, actually, I won’t.”
“Great! Wonderful! Do whatever you please!” Fox threw up his hands, then trudged into the room and slumped down on the armchair he had abandoned earlier.
“Drinking, whoring, and gaming?” Cy echoed. “When only a few weeks ago you swore never-ending love to—”
No, he simply couldn’t let his friend say the name. “It was a lie!” Terrible pain sliced Fox’s chest, cut his heart to ribbons. Heavens, why did Cyril have to bring this up, when Fox tried so hard to forget? He shuddered. “All a blasted lie!”
Unperturbed by this outburst, Cy looked at him with perfect calmness. “Was it?” he asked.
This was certainly more than any man should tolerate. “Yes! Goddamn it, yes, it was a lie!” Fox roared. His fingers clenched into fists, and he had to suppress the terrible urge to bash them into Cyril’s face. “And she knew it. She knew it all along; otherwise how could she have told me before—”
All at once the rage ebbed away and left only the ashes of despair behind. Like a rag doll, Fox sank forward and, with a groan, buried his face in his hands. His fingers dug into flesh and bone, the skin surprisingly intact despite the raw pain that filled him. “You want to hear a funny thing? Hilarious, really,” he said, his voice muffled against his palms so it sounded like a stranger’s even to his own ears. “Despite everything, she is still in my blood and I can’t get her out. Not that I haven’t tried. Oh, how I’ve tried!” He pressed the ridges of his palms into his eye sockets. “To drown her in alcohol, forget her over the thrill of the card table or in the bed of another woman. And all I succeeded in doing”—he gave a harsh laugh—“was to make myself the laughingstock of all the larks in London.” Wearily, he looked up. He felt battered, even though he hadn’t taken a physical beating. “The Fox has lost his edge.”
Cyril’s gaze was still perfectly calm. He stood, seemingly relaxed, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “And so we talk.”
Fox shook his head. How tired he felt! “What is there to talk about?”
“Oh, there’s plenty to talk about. For example, why you while away your time here in London instead of being at the side of—”
“She is a witch,” Fox said sharply. No, he really wouldn’t be able to bear hearing her name.
“You feel sorry for yourself.” And still Cy’s voice remained calm, hatefully calm.
“It was all a lie,” Fox forced out between gritted teeth. Blast it! Why didn’t they understand? Hadn’t they heard a word of what he had told them after his return? He had been under the influence of a bloody love potion—still was, as far as he could tell—and she had known it. She had known it and had said nothing. Not one word. And worse: the things he had seen her do. It was unnatural—like his obsession with her. All unnatural.
“You are engaged to marry her,” Cyril pointed out in that same hatefully composed tone.
“The hell I am! She is a goddamned witch!” Blood throbbed in Fox’s temple.
“She is still your fiancée.”
It was too much. Fox jumped up like an irate bull with the matador’s spear in his side. “Blast it all, Cyril! Haven’t you heard a word of what I said? She is a bloody witch! You don’t know what she is capable of! She was in this plot to destroy my family from the very beginning!”
His friend just arched his brow. “Was she? Perhaps that was a lie. Have you thought about that?”
Mute, Fox shook his head. For even if what Cyril suggested should be the case, she had still lied to him, had kept him caught up in an illusion so he could make an utter fool of himself.
“I heard she saved your life,” his friend continued relentlessly. “At least that’s what your brother claimed when he came to London after you. Are you saying he didn’t tell the truth?”
Fox clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. “He did,” he growled. “But that doesn’t change anything! She is—”
“Still your fiancée, the woman you claimed to love.”
“It wasn’t real!” Fox tore at his hair. “Don’t you understand? None of it was real! It was all that bloody love potion, all sorcery!” he spat.
“And she is dying,” Cy added calmly. “Is that real enough for you?”
Fox stared at him. He opened his mouth, yet no sound emerged. Only his breath whistled softly in and out of his lungs.
Cyril regarded him with something like compassion. “You didn’t know that, did you?”
“No,” Fox said. All at once he felt lightheaded. The blood buzzed in his ears like a swarm of angry bees.
“It’s all over town: the beautiful Miss Amelia Bourne wasting away from an unknown ailment. The mourning cards have already been written, or so I’ve heard.”
Fox swayed.
The beautiful Miss Amelia Bourne wasting away from a
n unknown ailment…
The beautiful Miss Amelia Bourne wasting away…
The beautiful Miss Amelia Bourne…
Amy.
His Amy.
Small, plump Amy with the impish smile and the pansy blue eyes. Eyes that turned to midnight blue when she came apart in his arms, when they moved skin to skin, when her smallness became so great it encompassed him, enveloped him, let him drown in her arms, in her sighs, her scent, the words of love she whispered into his ear.
His Amy.
Dying.
“See?” Cyril said softly. “That’s what we needed to talk about.”
~*~
He rode like a man possessed. He ate up mile after mile, changed horses, and let the pounding of hooves fill out his whole being. Mud flew up to cover his boots and trousers and, merciless, the wind bit into his exposed skin. Yet he neither cared nor noticed. For him, the world had narrowed to the strip of muddy brown ahead of him, to the movements of strong equine muscles beneath him, and to the fear, the all-encompassing fear that he might be too late.
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?
His eyes burned, yet if he shed tears the wind whipped them away.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child.
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were…
Pansy blue, midnight blue, the color of the quiet ocean, the color of the sky on a sunny summer day.
Fox could no longer deny what was in his heart and what he had taken such pains to bury underneath his bitterness and anger. What did it matter now whether his feelings for her had been induced by a love potion or not? The truth was, he could not imagine a world without Amy, without her sweet smile and teasing voice.
He rode like a man haunted by the seven hounds of hell, like a man racing against death.
Wintry twilight fell all too soon and turned the sunny brilliance of snow to ashes, the whistle of the wind to Herne’s hounds yapping at his heels. They chased him across the land where canals bisected snow-dusted meadows and fields, chased him past ruins of once-proud castles and over old battlefields, until finally he came to the valley filled with bare elm trees. In their midst huddled a sturdy manor, the windows blazing golden in the gray wintry afternoon.
Bewitched Page 23
