Passion

by Gayle Eden

  Everything was as usual when I walked out of the study, the butler in the foyer, pulling open the door, my crested coach awaits, and the footmen are opening the coach door for me. I was half way to the formal supper before I realized the wheels even turned from my curb.

  My cape and gloves on, I stand amid the crush awaiting entry to the hall. Heads turn my way, greetings, gushing from most, and I am aware that I generally nod, never smile, and habitually use these times to compile the lists I will send to the steward of Stoneleigh manor—seed, manure, wine for the cellars there, plan the rotation of crops for fall.

  Later, I am seated amid the 100 guests. Some of the most powerful men in England are present, royals, diplomats, half the House of Lords, several Generals—one who is escorting a foreign princess. I am favored with friendly nods and given a sly wink from a grand Duke, who I invite boating every summer.

  I feel someone regarding me and glance to the left as I sip wine, encountering the gaze of Lord Marcus Stratton, beside him as usual is not his younger child bride Lillana who supposedly spoke no English, but the ever present Damari, her brother, a pale-eyed Adonis, slight of build, petulant of mouth, but having that something which made my skin crawl.

  The sheer intensity of sixty-year-old Stratton’s dark blue gaze was rude and offensive. Stratton wore his silver hair short, waving back from his forehead. His clothing was expensive, rich silk cravats and velvet coats. He had some minor title. But, was in essence a rich planter with plantations in several parts of the world. However, by rep, a moneylender who had ties, according to rumor, to some of the worst brothels and gin houses, a man who employed thugs from the docks as bodyguards...

  It wasn’t the first time I wondered how he managed to move in such elevated circles—who he knew, or who owed him some favor—or debts, more like. Though many at the table had vises, it was unusual to mingle them in their highly scrutinized social lives.

  Moreover, this was not the first time I found myself under his scrutiny. Stares were not uncommon when I was present. I had long since found my looks more a hindrance than asset when it came to being taken seriously—I had remedied that, not only with my success at keeping my estates and fortunes growing, but by my private conversations with gentlemen of intellect and import, who were thrice my age, and my contributions to the more serious societies and foundations.

  This evening I found it more difficult to brush off Stratton’s attentions. I choose, for now, to believe it is because of my speeches and writings on the abolition of slavery in the British dominions—and his use of slaves on his own plantations, as well as providing them for others through his supposed merchant ventures, that provokes his rudeness.

  Music, voices, the sparkling of chandeliers off the crystal and silver, the mingling of perfumes, scents, food and flowers—too loud laughter from Chauncey, the old Duchess’s spoiled nephew who starts his drinking at dawn, distracted me from Stratton’s stares. I lose count of the wine I drink. Faces swim and blur. I converse, I hear myself doing so and am distantly amazed that I have perfected so much of my actions and speech, I do not need to think about it. It comes out flawless.

  I sit through two hours of conversation, cheroots, a half hour in the Duke’s study, brandy and talk—mostly politics. I usually manage to ruffle a few feathers—but tonight, it does not privately amuse me.

  I take my leave, kiss feminine hands, and do the bows and speeches.

  Out in the damp London air, I stand with the door of the coach open, my hand on the roof of it feeling the world rock and shift around and under me.

  I am being blackmailed.

  A night that beforehand was only a blur begins to warp through my mind. Images of myself are clear, but the young male is not. I keep seeing the morning sun and feel the sharp pierce of it that woke me. I reek of spirits and sweat and stumble on the bed sheets arising. It slows in motion, as usual, the moment I realize there are trousers on the floor with mine, and boots, not a gown and stockings, no corset and hair pens. The sickening deluge goes over me. I know nothing before. I remember nothing—but the seal and crest on a tangled chain lying amid the shirt and neck cloth.

  Now, at present, I am both chilled and sweating. Someone steps out and asks if I am well? I reply with calm (perfectly well) and get into the coach. My gloves land in the floor. I close my eyes, breathing too shallow, too fast. The cape is like led on my shoulders.

  I all but run once the coach stops—through the door, I eye the stairs as if there is a haven above, though I know there is not. Servants are everywhere, taking my cape, asking something, bowing, curtsying, and I bark something—distantly seeing the shock on their faces.

  I feel as if I am stumbling toward the stairs but I stride with my usual pace. The butler is on my heels, the bloody man. He dares to catch my arm, and God knows what shows in my eyes when he detains me.

  My lord, he says, this came, urgent it says. I snatch it, open it, aware he has left, that he is shooing servants out. Everyone is scurrying to leave me be.

  I loose my hold on the stair rail, turn and sit heavily down on the bottom tread. The missive sheets in my fingers, dangles.

  It reads: I will grant you audience on Thursday noon, to discuss your request concerning, Lady Caroline. I hold you in the highest regard, Lord Stoneleigh, but as you are aware, Lady Caroline is only in her second formal season. As her Mother came from royalty, she is held in “reserve” for a possible match in that quarter. However, I have observed your intimacy with those circles yourself, and since you enjoy a faultless standing with those of import, I am inclined to consider your suit. It is signed respectfully His Grace, David Bordwyc, 6th Duke Bordwyc.

  I am torn between panic, a feeling completely foreign to me—and a gut-sick dread that there is more evidence, some trace of guilt, that someone possesses—the blackmailer doubtless, that will not only cause my social ruin, it will get me hung—depending on what is accused. I feel bile in my throat and rise, rushing up to find the basin in the water closet, where I empty my gut.

  I am glad the valet is not hovering, touching me, I may well do violence. I am fevered and chilled as I rinse my mouth and start taking off my clothing.

  In my trousers, I lay on the bed, my clothing in an un-neat heap, another first, on the floor near the wardrobe. I keep rubbing my face as if some veil will lift and I will see through the fog of that night. I never do.

  Jules LeClair, 4th Earl of Stoneleigh

  * * * *

  I have no bloody clue if 'tis day or night. I am relieved to disembark from the Hospital ship, even if it is humiliating to be led by a young Sergeant. I resign myself to sounding grateful, though it comes out through clinched teeth. He calls a hack whilst I am straining to hear the noise on the docks and distinguish them. It is nearing dark, I think. Directions are given after my bag is put in, and I smell sharper scents on the way to Sir Langley’s.

  I had not agreed to a private physician, but since I lost my sight in the blast of shrapnel, everyone acts as if I have lost my intellect and senses too.

  The coach stops. The streets are crowded. I use my cane but loathe it. The driver helps me to the door, knocks. Sir Langley’s butler takes over. I am walked by the arm to some seating. I smell cooked beef mingled with a medicinal odor.

  Sir Langley enters. I stand, shake his hand, and though he has a pleasant voice, deep, mature and calm, I can almost feel his fingers itch to take off the bandage and get a look at the mess. I give in. He walks me somewhere, murmuring to me in a low voice—directions, counting steps, watch out for the door.

  I am seated and he asks about the injury, I inform him of it, detached, having repeated it many times by now. The bandage comes off and I have enough hope left in me to pray that I can see.

  I cannot.

  He probes and makes jests about my hair being clipped. It is a wavy dark brown, and where I could once tie it back, it has been cut to an inch. I respond, feeling the swelling and stitching he is probing, feeling the dressing he replaces. H
e tells me what I expect he will, that I could be blind forever, or it could come back fully, partially.

  I am asked questions, about my father, my brother—Jules still inspires awe amid society I gather, and he enquires if I have a place to stay. I have a house, so I tell him I do. He calls another cab when we are done, and informs he will call once a week, tend the wound, and check on my progress. He gives me the name of a private house, a place where blind war veterans are learning to navigate—to do all things blind, including ride. It is run by the saint someone, sisters of mercy or whatnot, I bloody cannot wait to attend, I think sarcastically.

  My house—not as well addressed as my lofty father and brother, is yet decent for a military man of rank. Nevertheless, I suddenly did not want to exit the hack, knowing my neighbors were military also and wishing to be spared the nightmare of being led to the door…

  A male comes to the hack and pays. His voice was vaguely familiar.

  The door opens and he takes my arm as I go to step out. He says he is Ry, or Ryland, my cousin, who I do not remember at the moment. As I enter the house, he is telling me he has recently left the Army, and that my father sent for him since he had not any set plans for his civilian life. I want to dislike him but he is damned witty, a bit sarcastic, and he had released my arm in the foyer, simply telling me where the stairs were, how many steps. He informs me we are the same height and stride.

  I make it upstairs. A young valet is waiting to divest me of the uniform I will no longer don. My head throbs, the salve on my lids does not keep my eyes from watering. I hear Ry in the other room talking to me, but I am changed into trousers, a linen shirt. I refuse a dressing gown.

  Telling the lad to set me by the window, I dismiss him after Ry brings me a brandy. I vaguely recall him now, some summer he had visited and we had fished. I drink the brandy, thinking of the Laudanum I will consume to sleep later. I am listening to the street sounds, glad my cousin does not ask me about the war, the wound, if I will ever see again. I figure he’s father’s spy, but I do not really give a damn.

  I can tell he is leaning against the casement, listening to the sounds and watching the lamp lit street. I think of the months I have been in hospital, probed, and prodded, admonished by my superiors for refusing to resign the last time I was wounded—knowing I should have. However, this has been my life since I was old enough to know what I wanted to do.

  I was not father. I sure as bloody hell was not Jules. I did not much resemble my elegant, lean muscled brother. Jules looked the Earl to his fingertips. He had that aristocratic, high cheek boned face, the ice green eyes—the personality to match them. I was six foot tall, too bloody competitive in school and often in trouble for it. A scrapper, the tutor called me. However, the head masters had not been so indulgent. I was so used to being punished, deserving it. I did not bother with an explanation.

  The only time I had defied authority however, was when a riding crop was employed to my back by a riding master. I was sent down for it, but even that did not get the Duke’s attention. The Duchess…Ah, yes, mother sent me to the vicar for an additional beating, two nights of reciting scripture in the church, and to my rooms without supper for three days. I did my penances and went back to school. Age eventually took care of the discipline, and a conversation with a history professor stirred my interest in the military, and gave me direction.

  I had light brown eyes and wavy dark brown hair, and some of the most grueling work my first officers could invent built my body from the bone out. They had mocked me, shunned me the first year, and bloody dubbed me “lady LeClair” because of my powerful father and lofty brother. I earned every drop of respect I had gotten— and every promotion afterwards.

  Finished with the drink, my cousin asked if I wanted anything else. It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes. I wanted a woman. I wanted to crawl between a set of warm thighs and sink deep into a juicy sex, to purge my frustrations.

  I was not ready for pity though. Not even from a whore. I was not ready to find out if my cock would even stand at attention. Trauma…that is what the surgeon said when I had been caught cursing my flaccid flesh when one of the nurses had ran her hand under my blankets.

  I was not considered a lover beforehand. I stuck to the whores, because the one woman I had had who was not, called me a detached and cold bastard.

  I was.

  No, I said to cousin’s question. He started to leave, but I heard him turning down the bed. He or the valet had unpacked my bag. He cautioned me about the laudanum. I said something but could hear him mixing it with water in the right dose. He left.

  I stood, fumbled around for my bag, managed to get a cheroot lit, and seat myself again, without falling out of the window. I smoked and mentally cursed. I had invented a few since I discovered I could not see. I invented more after all the well wishes, and pats on the back, from my superiors. I had a great list of them now, knowing I would have Jules and the Duke on my doorstep eventually. I did not dwell often on our years before school took us away from Eastland Hall. When the Duchess died, I was away from England, and left father and Jules to do what they did best—pretend, for the ton.

  I had not planned to ever leave the Navy. I had not planned for this….the blindness, the end of my career, the bloody likelihood that the Duke would now want to make a pretense of fatherly affection. After all, I’d been listed as wounded in the papers, and the men in hospital had read with great jesting the long lines of my ancestry, of the Duke and Earl, and how I’d added to the rich history of my noble family—(someone having dug up a moldy old story of the Lombardi Duchess having a dead war hero in the ranks) as if I’d joined and fought for that.

  I made it to the bed and sat on the edge, removed all but my trousers and drank the laudanum. Lying back on the coverlet, I could hear my heartbeat, feel it in my eyes, like spikes tapping the back of the socket.

  When the drug went through my blood, I had visions of myself dressed in formal clothing, all my medals pinned obscenely on my lapels, being led around ballrooms by the Duke and Jules, with my shaved head, wearing a bloody dressing. They were saying repeatedly, my blind son, my blind brother. I was then outside myself, watching as they led me to a nude beauty on a couch and then they took away my clothing. There were hundreds of people around as I crawled between her thighs…she was laughing. Everyone... was laughing.

  I was sick, appalled at my dream self, which kept thrusting unresponsive flesh toward the woman. The laughter grew to a roar. I could see my father and Jules dragging me off and dressing me again, and they walked me out—every face wore expressions of embarrassed pity. Poor blind man, they whispered, poor impotent creature.

  I awoke sweating. My heart was beating louder, faster. I sat up, fumbled for the water left in the glass, and drank it. Lying back, I wanted to rip the bandages off my eyes and open them, but the salve had them shut.

  My hands fisted. Suddenly, I surged up right and reached for the bottle of laudanum.

  A hand clamped on my wrist. I knew it was my cousin and I roared every foul curse I could summon at him.

  In the struggle, he took my hand and lifted it then forced it to up to his face. I could feel him peeling something back and then I knew I was touching a mass of scars.

  When he dropped my hand, I sat on the side of the bed, my hands over the bandages, head pounding with lust for escape, for an end.

  It was the beginning of a long night.

  Among the demons and wraiths of the present and the mocking, unknown future, was a strangely familiar and wounding memory of boyhood needs—unspoken, unmet. I was aware in the same distant way that Ry sat in the room and drank. The scent of whiskey mingled with the scent of my sweat and the pungent smell of the dressing over my eyes as it dampened with tears of self-derision. I do not weep. I have never wept in my life.

  Captain Blaise LeClair. Retired, Royal Navy.

  * * * *

  I noticed Jules LeClair seemed—different—the last I saw him. Sometimes I cannot ta
ke my eyes off him. He is quite stunning for a male, that aristocratic face, long silken black mane and ice-green eyes. Everything, his form, his height, his movements, is perfection. Other times, I cannot quite decide if I loathe him instead. I have known, the way one of high birth always knows, that he observes me without seeming to.

  I have likewise been aware of the requirements, on the surface at least, to reach the status of having the most powerful men of all ages want you for a wife. Many things I learned as a child, but more after my father began taking me out in society, short stints to show off my grace, charm, and pretty manners. I was aware that my mother, Clara, loathed society, and spent more time before her death at her seaside retreat with her friends, than was ever spent under the roof with us.

  I have strawberry blond hair, too curly for my liking, although the maid does it up beautifully, and aqua blue eyes—which I got from my father. I am barely five feet tall and have an average figure, with a face some call appealing, although it is a constant battle to keep freckles at bay. It is not my looks though that attracts men like the, Earl of Stoneleigh, it is my bloodlines and fortune—the fact that we have a few drops of royal blood on my mother’s side. In a time where everyone scratches and claws for the top, when connections are everything, and in a society where power is envied, ‘tis an advantage.

  I was taught not to express my opinions, to obey rules, and that a high-ranking union, and a powerful husband, was the golden ring—the pinnacle, of success. My past two seasons have been enlightening, to say the least. As far as hypocrisy goes, I have seldom seen more play-acting on the stage than is being done at ton gatherings, and in the homes of the aristocracy. Of course, one might say that my eyes have been opened, thanks to discovering the root of my parents being strangers, and the fact that my father had a young mistress and sired a daughter.

  I have made a friend, a forbidden and frowned-upon by some, young woman, named Harry (Lady Harriet Brunswick.) I have no clue why I was drawn to so bohemian a bluestocking, so shockingly independent a woman.