Eva frowned, her brow furrowing with distress. “I would not have you die so.”
“Then promise me something.” Lord Carin’s gaze burned with desperate fervor. “Both of you.”
Ian had never thought to shirk from anything Lord Carin might ask, but suddenly he felt his future in the balance. Yet there was nothing he would not do. Not for the man who’d given him everything. “Whatever you wish.”
“Hamilton is going to India. Joined the Khyber Rifles.”
“Yes.” Ian knew this. Everyone did. Despite being the eldest son, Hamilton was to go two months after his wedding to Eva. It was largely hoped that service in such a prestigious corps would set him to rights. Lord Carin had pulled in many favors to buy his son’s commission in that hallowed group of men.
“I’ve arranged for you to go with him, Ian. An officer in your own right. And I want you to help him.” Lord Carin shifted on the bed, suddenly agitated. “You must. You must put your own pride aside. Help him become the man he was meant to be. Hamilton must . . . must find himself.” Lord Carin’s hand shot out, grabbing Ian’s. “Swear you will do all in your power to save him.”
Ian stared at the man who could have been his father and felt a roar of anger and helplessness charging up his throat. He swallowed it back. He owed this man so much. But more than that, he loved him. And if he had indeed stolen Hamilton’s place, the least he could do was help him now. “I promise.”
Lord Carin nodded, his body relaxing. “And you, sweet Eva? You will be a good wife to Hamilton. You will marry him, and shape him as only a good wife can?”
She paused for a moment, her gaze flying to Ian. But that resolved look didn’t linger. Her spine straightened. “I shall do my duty, my lord, and be the best of wives.”
Ian fought the burning urge to shout no. But Eva had been on this path her whole life. She’d made her choice, and no matter what he said, nothing would change that. Not even if he told her what had happened with the horse. She’d chosen her duty, and so he couldn’t tell her. Ever.
He wouldn’t ruin her marriage before it had even begun.
Lord Carin rested his head back on the pillow. Peace eased his features. “Thank you, my children. Now go. I love you both. And I am sorry that I have failed you. I never should have loved you above my own children. I should have loved you all equally. If I had, I would need not ask such things of you now.”
Ian looked down on Eva, her face smooth and unreadable as a statue. She didn’t love Hamilton. She couldn’t. Oh, she could never be his . . . But somewhere deep in his heart, Ian had always secretly hoped that a corner of her heart was just for him. Even if she had to do her duty, fulfilling a promise made long before to marry Hamilton.
Duty was a hard master.
And this promise made on a deathbed was even harder.
“Send in Hamilton and Thomas,” Lord Carin said on a sigh.
Eva rose, her skirts rustling. She left without a backward glance for Ian or for Lord Carin, but given the straightness of her spine, Ian knew, her heart wept for what she was losing: her father figure and her independence.
Ian stood for one long moment in the room, suddenly feeling as if his childhood was racing away from him, that all the days of summer were fast slipping away and that a very cold winter was about to sweep him up. But like Eva, he knew his duty and his duty he would obey.
England
The present
Mrs. Palmer stared down at the blank sheet of cream-colored parchment sitting next to a letter from Lord Thomas Carin warning her about the arrival of a cousin who would insist on seeing Eva. The letter explicitly stated she was not to permit such a visit.
The foul note tainted her usually meticulous world.
She’d been outthought—outmaneuvered—by a bastard of a man who had led her a merry dance. She drew in a sharp breath, desperate not to let her calculations fall to baser emotion, emotion that would cloud her vengeance.
Her fingers inched toward the quill, half ready to write the necessary letter. A letter that would make her look an incompetent woman.
Rage, an emotion she’d known full well since she’d been a little girl, threatened to break free of its carefully built prison. That rage howled for blood and punishment at her humiliation.
She smoothed her fingers over the parchment, ensuring there were no wrinkles in its surface. Feeling the thickness of it soothed her for a moment, gave her purpose. She was going to hurt Eva Carin for this. She was going to make Eva pay in blood and flesh and terror for disturbing her carefully constructed world. And then she’d deal with the bastard who’d stolen her away. Perhaps there was a room here in the asylum she could find for him, until a hole could be dug out back with all the other holes that had been dug over the years.
It was a fantasy, of course.
Viscount Blake couldn’t be killed so easily. But Eva could. Her destruction was surely the best way to pay back the high-and-mighty lord who had so played her for the fool.
But first, she had to write the letter.
She jerked her hands back from the parchment and eyed the quill as if it were a mortal enemy.
It was almost impossible for her to admit, but she had made a mistake. A significant one, which was even more infuriating because she did not make mistakes. She was an impassable gate through which lies could not slip.
Lord, she should be, for she was a prodigious liar herself. A creator of ephemeral and delicately spun half-truths to ease the minds of her clients who, though brutal, longed to believe they weren’t quite as inhuman as they indeed were.
Monsters, the lot of them. Men who ruined the lives of their women. But she had got the better of them. Finding a place of power over even the most powerful. Yes. She was untouchable. Or at least she had been, until the man who had come to collect Lady Eva Carin had sneaked under her gate. His lies had seemed like perfect truths to her well-trained ears, and now . . .
She ground her teeth down, her gaze blurring.
One hundred guineas seemed an insubstantial sum in the wake that had been left behind Eva Carin’s abduction.
Her very safety was threatened. The asylum was threatened. And she had not outlived her own brutal husband to be destroyed now by a laudanum-addled woman and her brave, but no doubt hypocritical, white knight.
There was nothing for it but to let loose her dogs. She shoved the blank parchment aside, not yet ready to set pen to paper and write Lord Carin that his ward was missing. Oh, no. Mrs. Palmer rose, heading for the door. That was something she could not yet confess.
There were other avenues she could first pursue, crueler, more permanent avenues, before she took that humbling step. And pursue them she would.
Chapter 10
After having sent Digby to buy a simple gown and a pair of traveling boots for Eva, Ian had tromped around in the muddy snow for an hour. It had taken that long in the insidious cold to ease his grating frustration and return to the inn. He was uncertain whether he would ever adapt to England’s climes again after being so long in India’s heat.
He clapped his frozen hands together, desperate to invigorate his blood flow.
The inn’s sign, a Viking helm, swung in the chill breeze. He headed toward it, easily avoiding the shouts and wavings of the Yorkshire hawkers. The local street vendors certainly could have learned a thing or two from the far more determined bazaar tenders of Calcutta.
After all, he’d yet to have something living shoved directly in his face.
Ian stopped a few feet before the entrance of the inn and stared up at the windows. Despite his frigid limbs, he didn’t go directly in, because something entirely foreign held him back.
Hesitation.
Seeing Eva consumed by the need for laudanum had nearly undone him. It was only going to grow worse. And he would have to watch, unable to do more than simply take care of her physical symptoms. For the longer she went without drinking the stuff, the more she’d rail, until she was finally free of it.
; He’d been hard with her today. But his dear Eva had not even seen the lengths he’d go to keep her safe, even if it was from herself.
Finally, a flower seller stepped in front of him, her tattered skirts sweeping against his leg. Her worn face became hopeful at his slowing. She thrust a bouquet of bedraggled white and red flowers before his face with her mittened fingers. “Blossoms, sir?”
No played at his lips, but he gave pause. When was the last time Eva received flowers? He thought back to the filthy yard of the asylum. Eva deserved beauty in her life. Nodding to the seller, her lips blue with cold, he reached into his pocket. “I’ll take the lot.”
The woman, her gray bonnet bound about her head with a thick brown scarf, blinked at him. “Th-the lot, sir?”
He nodded and pulled two sovereigns out. The coins clinked as he put them in her gloved palm. “Here.”
A ridiculously brilliant smile pursed her chilled lips at so much money for a bunch of buds. The grin bared chipped and browning teeth. “Thank you. Thank you, gov.”
Ian nodded, swiped the flowers from her fingers, and marched into the inn.
Heat from the fires enveloped him and he let out a contented sigh, feeling momentarily transported. He would never be quite as warm as he’d been in India, but this would do. For now.
He stomped the snow from his boots in the entryway and then headed up the narrow stairs. Hopefully Eva had eaten a bit of porridge. Then again, she might have thrown the entire lot on the floor.
She’d always been stubborn. Something he’d always loved about her, even if it could be infuriating. He prayed they wouldn’t war with each other. Surely, she’d see he only had her best interests at heart?
At present, he hoped she’d drifted off to sleep. Rest was the only thing she needed as much as food. She’d be upon the bed, her body entwined in the covers. God, but he wanted to strip that horrid piece of cloth from her body, slip her into a hot bath, and massage the worry and pain from her muscles.
He slipped the key Mrs. Marlock had given him from his pocket, balancing the packages and flowers with one arm as he stuck the bit of iron into the hole.
The door swung open and he entered quietly, not wanting to wake her if she slept. But the moment he stepped in the room, his gut clenched.
The blue quilted covers of the bed remained in perfect place. The few chairs were empty and the food lay untouched, though the porridge had been cleaned from the floor.
In short, the room was empty with barely a sign that anyone had been there at all.
Ian dropped the packages and flowers, the pale petals scattering at his feet. He whipped around, panic blurring his vision.
He thundered out into the hall, not bothering to shut the door behind him. “Mrs. Marlock!”
Could Thomas be onto them so quickly? Had Mrs. Palmer’s henchmen taken her?
“Mrs. Marlock!” he shouted again, rushing down the stairs and into the main hall. The sound of a clock ticked in the silence, mixing with his ragged breath.
“Ah! Mr. Blacktower.” Mrs. Marlock hurried toward him, her face beaming beneath her cap.
“Where is she?” he demanded, coming to an abrupt halt.
Mrs. Marlock’s brows creased ever so slightly, her lips still arranged in her smile. “Mrs. Blacktower? Why, she went out, sir.”
“What?” His heart thudded hard in his chest, drowning out the panic rushing through his brain. It was all he could do not to commence yelling at her as if he were still at Khyber Post supervising drills.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice slowing with confusion. “She borrowed a frock and a cloak. She went out about an hour ago.” Mrs. Marlock nibbled her lower lip. “She said it was most important, I assure you.”
Ian snapped his gaze to the door. An hour. And she was not yet returned. “Did she say anything else?”
Mrs. Marlock’s smile vanished at his panicked tone. “She did say she needed an apothecary. Is the young lady not well, sir?”
Ian closed his eyes. Christ! He should have known this would happen. And he’d been a damn fool. The damnedest fool. “She is quite well. ’Tis my mistake. She’d mentioned she planned to step out.”
Mrs. Marlock’s smile returned, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “There, now.” She folded her hands before her assuredly. “I knew all was well.”
“Yes. Of course.” Ian nodded, his mouth drying. “Which way did you direct her?”
“Johnson’s Apothecary. It’s just a few lanes over.” Mrs. Marlock’s smile flitted from her face as she started to fiddle with her gown.
“Yes?” Ian urged. There was something the woman didn’t wish to disclose.
“Now, you mustn’t be angry.” She looked up at him, her eyes wide and pleading. “I tried to convince her to wait for you or my kitchen boy, Ned, to come back from the shops.”
Ian took a step toward her, narrowing his eyes. “What exactly are you trying to say?”
“I told her she must be wary at Bickling Lane. Some rough men do hang about there.” Mrs. Marlock rushed. “But it’s morning and most likely they’ll be sleeping off the night—”
“You let her go?!” he roared, fear gripping him so hard he barely caught himself from grabbing her.
“Well—” Her voice pitched up to a squeak. “I could not make her wait. She was most insistent, and what with her ways of a great lady, I didn’t feel I could order her to stay—”
Ian lifted a finger and pointed it at the ridiculous woman. “If anything happens to her—” He couldn’t quite finish. Good God, what had he done? This was his fault, not this poor woman’s. “Forgive me.”
“I am sorry, sir, if I am to blame,” she rambled pathetically.
“You are not.” He shouldn’t have left Eva alone. He shouldn’t have trusted her to stay. “You are very kind.”
Praying to God that after all this he wouldn’t find Eva in the snow, knocked down by toughs, he whipped around and ran for the door.
The very image of her bloodied on the ground shot him down through the street, oblivious to those around him. Heading as fast as he could in the direction Mrs. Marlock had indicated. Praying he wouldn’t be too late.
Eva clutched the small brown bottle of laudanum in a fierce grasp. In less than a quarter of an hour she’d measure out a tincture and the world would be right again. Then she would not feel as if she might crawl out of her skin at any moment.
Her feet made fast dips in the snow and she stared straight ahead as she avoided the looks of strangers. There were few people on this street, which was only the more comforting. In truth, she could barely stand the abrasion of being out amid the bustle of life.
Gritting her teeth, Eva picked up her pace. The thin leather shoes she had borrowed didn’t fit. With each stride, she clenched her toes into the bottoms to keep them from catching in the snow.
She looked ahead. Only three more lanes up, a right turn, and then a short burst to the inn.
The apothecary had looked at her quite strangely when she’d insisted he send the bill to Mrs. Marlock, but he hadn’t argued, recognizing the quality of her speech if not her clothing and appearance.
Now, which lane had Mrs. Marlock said to avoid?
Eva stopped at a crossroads. Carriages and carts choked through the small yet busier way. Blicker Street. This must have been the one to avoid. Yes. Her mind fluttered as she tried to recall exactly what the woman had said.
Goodness, she had not been so long without her medicine since . . .
Balking at the hint of remembrance, she shook the thought away before it could take root. It mattered not. In a few moments, she would slip away from such things.
She waited for the heavily laden coal cart to pass and then she darted across the narrow intersection, avoiding piles of steaming horse leavings. With a healthy measure of relief, she charged up the street and turned down the next lane. She didn’t even look at the narrow street sign screwed into the building. If she went this way, she’d be heading to the inn.
/> It took her several moments to realize the surrounding silence was broken only by the distant rattling of carriage and cart wheels.
Once it occurred to her, she slowed and came to a halt. The strangeness of it gave her pause. The sides of the buildings were tall, blackened bricks. Windowless, they stretched just like the never-ending walls of the asylum.
Her eyes widened and her breath increased. She’d made a mistake. There were no doors in the walls, either. But there were little lean-tos of oddly put-together pieces of wood. Smoke drifted up from the cracks of the makeshift homes, proving that there were indeed people who lived in such hovels.
She stopped. This was not right. A hunted feeling crept over her, worse than the feel of needing her medicine. Quickly, she turned to go back, but she stopped at the sight before her.
There was a single figure standing near the entrance to the alley.
A man.
Eva clutched the laudanum bottle. The same fear that had slithered inside her when Matthew would come about snaked down her spine. She snapped her gaze back over her shoulder to the other end of the lane. If she kept walking, she’d have to pass the lean-tos. And the Lord alone knew who might be inside. On the other hand, if she turned back, she’d have to brush by the man.
Steps crunched in the snow. She was obsessed with steps. Steps she didn’t know, but the same dreadful, heavy sort of steps that had echoed on many a night in the asylum. Eva ground her teeth down and twisted toward the man at the end of the alley.
Slowly, he sauntered forward. A bent top hat sat atop his greasy black hair. Coal and dirt smeared his face and hands. Just like a streak of blood, a jaunty red scarf circled his thick throat.
He stopped, his legs braced wide, stretching his ratty black trousers. “You lost, luv?”
That rough voice rumbled down the alley.
She glanced right, then left, her skin crawling as she desperately looked for any form of escape. “I—”
The Dark Lady: Mad Passions Book 1 (Mad Passions (Eternal Romance)) Page 9
