The Last Earl

by Lara Blunte

  He looked up at the sky and saw that it was black. It had no stars in it; it was just a dark vault staring down at him.

  "Don't torture yourself," Omar's voice said behind him.

  Adrian didn't turn. "I killed that man," he said, looking down at his hands. His nails were still dark with blood. "I drove a knife through his neck."

  "You can't blame yourself for that. He was part of what happened to her, he was a monster too..."

  "I don't blame myself," Adrian said. He finally looked at Omar and there was something frightening in his eyes. "I wanted to kill him over and over again. I wanted each time to be worse than the time before."

  "Adrian..."

  "I'm afraid that when the time comes, it won't be enough for me to kill Edmund. I think that if he had a thousand lives, it wouldn't be enough." Adrian closed his hands into fists to stop them from trembling.

  Omar shook his head. "He wants to provoke you so badly that he's opening himself up to you. He will start to make mistakes. You must concentrate on the mistakes and on avenging the crimes he has committed ..."

  Adrian interrupted him, "He hasn't committed the worst crime, I have."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You should have seen Catherine, only a few months ago.” He looked at Omar. "She was a miracle of a girl. What business did I have going anywhere near her, knowing what I knew? Look at her now!"

  "She is very strong and she loves you!"

  "Edmund killed my father, he cut my brother's throat, he put a knife through my mother's heart. I knew he was capable of doing everything that is horrible, just on a whim─"

  "He wants you to think that it was your fault, to weaken you!"

  It took Adrian a moment to be able to ask, knowing that Omar couldn't answer him: "Where is our child? Has he killed it too? I don't even know if we have a son or a daughter."

  Omar muttered curses in Arabic, shaking his head. He could only imagine the rage Adrian was feeling; a man might drown in such rage. He moved closer and said, "The child is alive! Edmund needs it and you will find it. But you must remember that you didn't do anything, he did."

  "If you were traveling with the devil, would you take the innocent along? I had no business going near her."

  Putting a hand in his friend's shoulder Omar said, "There is only so much a man can take, Adrian. You can't afford to think about it like this. She would hate for you to think of it like this. She is alive, your child is alive too. As long as there is life there has to be hope, don't you see?"

  Adrian nodded, and repeated, "Yes. We need to help her get well, and then we need to find our child."

  He looked down at his hands and saw that they had stopped trembling. Now he might be able to be in the room with Catherine and not frighten her. He started to walk towards the house.

  Omar called out after him, "Once you have your child back and you have killed him, you will find peace."

  But Edmund had been so clever at creating horror that Adrian didn't think there would ever be any peace, not even after his cousin was dead.

  

  Catherine was lying with her knees to her chest, asleep. Leila kept vigil over her, not daring to stroke her head or touch her.

  Adrian knew that Edmund had used opium to confuse her, and keep her quiet. If they had not found the child in the house it was because it had been taken; it would certainly be used as a hostage for ransom.

  But there was something even more urgent now: withdrawing opium from an addict suddenly could cause death or at least terrible suffering, and Catherine was very frail. He would have to watch what happened to her, hoping that her strength would hold.

  He asked Leila to leave and shut the door. Catherine did not react when he began undressing her. Her body wasn't the body that he had caressed often, beautiful, joyous and responsive. It was as if no one lived in it at all. Her breasts rose from a bony cage and her arms were so thin that he handled them with care, afraid that he might break them. There were bruises on her shoulders and legs. Parts of her skull had dried blood on them.

  He must not think about what he was seeing, or of her giving birth alone among enemies, and having the child snatched from her. He couldn't think of what it must have been like for this girl whom nobody had ever even approached without her permission to have been locked in a room and beaten, to have her hair shorn and her reason taken away from her slowly.

  It was impossible to think of these things and not go on to set fire to Constantinople until he smoked Edmund out of his cowardly hole.

  However, it would take a clear head to defeat that demon, not force. At the moment, he needed to tend to Catherine. He poured the warm water into a basin and with infinite tenderness he washed the blood off her as she dreamt her opium dream.

  V. Three. A Long Deserted Heart

  Catherine slept for a long time, but when she finally woke up she had a moment of clarity. Her mind wasn't in a haze: she understood that she was with Adrian again. She drank a little water and spoke almost urgently to him, as if afraid that she could soon lose herself again.

  "Edmund has our child. I think it's a boy."

  He felt the blood drain from his face. "You think it?"

  "They told me so. But I never saw him."

  Pushing this new information aside with difficulty, he took her hand and saw that she flinched. She obviously couldn't bear to be touched after what she had gone through. He thought of what was about to happen next; maybe it would be even worse.

  She was looking at him with eyes flooded with light; her pupils were mere pinpricks. "Adrian, I know Edmund ought to die. I know we will have no peace until he does. But please, let him win for now, give him what he wants as long as we get our child back."

  Adrian didn't know if it was worse to have seen her unconscious the night before or to witness her anguish now. "I will do anything to get our child back!"

  "He cannot die just because he's ours," she said. "He isn't to blame."

  "He won't die. He's part of Edmund's plan now."

  "Yes, there must be a plan. Edmund cannot live a day without making a plan," she said. "He made me sign papers. He said they were letters to you and to my mother. They must have been something else... I have been holding on to this thought... I had to tell you before I forget! It must be important!"

  Fury started to rise in him again as he was forced to watch her battling not to lose her sanity. It was horrible to see the fear and doubt in her eyes, the hesitation coming from a mind that had been so clear.

  He knew that, for her sake, he couldn't think of what might have happened to her. He had exercised control over himself for a long time, and he gathered every last ounce of it to keep blind anger from overwhelming him. Instead, he said, "Kate, they have been feeding you opium. Very likely your body needs it now. You should be weaned off it slowly."

  She shook her head. "We have no time!"

  He wanted to touch her, but couldn't. He didn't want to make her flinch again. "I am afraid for your life. You are so frail now..."

  Her eyes were tired, but steady. "I don't care. We don't have time, and I don't want the opium. It doesn't matter how much I beg you for it, don't give it to me. Promise me."

  Adrian promised, and hell began that same day.

  

  He could see as the afternoon wore on that she wanted the drug, then needed it. She had developed a bad itch on her legs and arms and at first scratched herself discreetly. As the hours went by she started to seem feverish and ran her fingers over her legs and arms furiously. He tried to hold on to her wrists; her broken nails were full of her own blood.

  At dawn the itch was replaced by convulsions. Her body bent forward and backward as if it were being pulled and pushed by invisible hands. She was covered in sweat. "It hurts!" she cried.

  There were moments of stillness the next day. She told him at one point, "Everything is blue." She held out her hand as if she were trying to touch the air. These moments were almost more frightening, as if
they were the quiet prelude to her death.

  Then the pain and the convulsions would return, stronger than before.

  On the third day he feared both for her life and for her reason, but when he told her he would bring her laudanum she shook her head feebly. "You promised."

  The convulsions gave way to delirium. She had no idea of where she was or even what she craved anymore. Yet her eyes suddenly focused and she said, "We pay for everything we do!"

  "Hush, my sweet, you haven't done anything," he said, rocking her.

  “I didn’t listen,” she muttered. “I never listened…I only wanted what I wanted…My poor mama…Our poor child…”

  When the pain abated on the fourth day, he heard her humming music. He recognized one of the waltzes they had danced together at Halford. Her weary mind was trying to hold on to a faint remembrance of happiness.

  He stood up with her in his arms and started to sing, pacing the room. Her cheek rested on his shoulder. If he stopped singing, she would move her head a little until he started again. He sang to her as if to keep her with him.

  Then he sat with her on his lap as she slept against his chest. He knew that now she would either recover or sink slowly, and not come back.

  “Don't go anywhere, my sweet girl,” he said with his lips on her hair.

  He guarded over her sleep without faltering, praying to no God at all. For one day she slept, and then she stirred and opened her eyes. They were tired, but clear as water, and he knew that she would live.

  

  Adrian helped Catherine into the tub that he had filled with warm water. She sat with her head barely above water as he washed her body and her hair. She didn't protest. He picked her up from the bath and placed her on a large towel which he wrapped around her, then he carried her to a divan by the open window. The air was fresh and the sun warmed her. He dressed her in a clean nightgown.

  They said little to each other. She didn't have the strength to speak or even to avoid his touch, as she had done before.

  He coaxed her into eating a whole stewed apple, which he fed to her. He would try to make her eat again later.

  Leila was allowed back into the room and went to kneel by Catherine, who managed to give her a weak smile. The girl took her hand and kissed it, and she caressed Leila's face feebly. Adrian's eyes warned Leila not to show too much emotion. She understood that her mistress needed to stay very calm.

  After a moment Leila called him anxiously to show him that Catherine's eyes were closing again. He took her pulse and saw that it was beating regularly. He nodded at Leila to indicate that it was all right and told her to stay with Catherine.

  He walked into the next room and shut the door; water had been brought for him as well and he took off his shirt to wash. His eyes fell on a box of Catherine's that Leila had placed on top of the table, near the open trunk with her things.

  Sitting down at the table, he opened the box and found that it was full of trinkets: all the notes he had written to her, the small dance card that he had made on her birthday, the ring he had given her, a lock of his hair, which he didn't remember her taking, and an old daguerreotype of him that he didn't know she had.

  Everything in the box was about him.

  For all her pride, she had been a girl; a girl in love, a girl with no knowledge of the terrible turns that life could take. She had expected happiness, she had been confident that she would bring him joy.

  Then he saw her silver hairbrush, and picked it up. Everything that had happened was worse than what tears could help, so his eyes had been dry for years. Yet, at the sight of the hairbrush, he felt tears rushing to them.

  It wasn't the worst thing that had happened, that they should have shorn her hair; but it was the thing that he suddenly couldn't bear.

  

  Only three days after she came out of her delirium, Catherine insisted that they should move again.

  Adrian became stern and said that she must eat, and that they would leave soon enough. He fed her meat broth with vegetables, rice, yogurt and fruit. He tried to tempt her with dried figs and dates. She ate without appetite, but with a determination to get strong. He could see her hand clutching the napkin as she made the effort to swallow the food.

  He knew that it was the necessity of finding their child that kept her from crumbling under the weight of everything that had been done to her. When he thought that she was able to travel he began to make preparations for them to go back to Constantinople.

  During the days they spent at the villa she wouldn't speak about what had happened and never mentioned the loss of her hair, or the beatings she must have undergone. When she walked about the house or the garden his eyes always followed her, as if he were afraid she might suddenly disappear again. At times she would raise her head and find him looking at her, and she would look away.

  When their journey was arranged, he went to the garden to let her know. She sat under the fig tree playing with a kitten. She had not heard him approach and he had a moment to watch her.

  He saw that her cheek was becoming rounded again, and that curve, with her lashes resting on it, seemed infinitely sweet to him. The nape of her neck looked naked and exposed, and he longed to touch it. It wasn't desire or tenderness that made him stand there looking at her. It was the need to touch her, and a burning compassion for her suffering; it was rage that anyone should have hurt her, and the terrible wish to comfort her; it was a knowledge of her, and a wondering about her; it was all this, and much more.

  She sensed his presence and looked up. As her eyes met his he felt as if an irresistible force were moving through his heart, like a gale blowing through a long deserted house and bursting the shutters wide open.

  V. Four. A Love Too Late

  Adrian didn't know when he had begun to love Catherine.

  It had not been when they first met. Her beauty was unusual, but he had never placed great store on looks. A pleasing countenance, a good mind and a kind heart had always interested him far more.

  Catherine had seemed, at first, a selfish, haughty, vain girl and he had felt no attraction to her at all.

  Then he had seen how playful and mischievous she was: when she found something amusing, she wouldn't simper, she would throw her head back and laugh deep in her throat, her eyes shining. She made him laugh often, as she had a daring wit that was uncommon in her sex, and he liked to laugh.

  Adrian noticed how she inhabited a dress, combining the elegance of a well bred lady with a very rare and powerful sensuality. It was a double act that became fascinating to watch. When he placed a shawl around her shoulders, he could see how aware she was of the fabric moving against her skin, how she would almost wriggle to meet it. When she shrugged with just one shoulder, like a French girl, men would lean forward in the anticipation that she might spill out of her dress, or reveal more of her skin.

  He had observed with detached amusement as man after man drowned in her aquamarine eyes like sailors in some ancient epic shipwreck, knowing that it wasn't only her beauty, but the clear promise of voluptuousness in her that drove them mad.

  It had been clear that she felt attracted to him, a girlish attraction that would dissipate if she didn't see him much; but he had found himself going to places where she would be, to look at her and hear what she would say, to watch her dismiss convention when it was too restrictive so that she could express what she thought or felt. He had been drawn to her little by little, and when he realized that desire was about to overpower them both, he had tried to leave. She was an unmarried girl, and he had not wanted to dishonor or confuse her. He had believed that even if Catherine later married some fool who wouldn't be able to understand her, or some brute full of vices, he had no business spoiling any of her chances to be happy with his horrible secrets.

  But she had come to him, and all his good intentions had been vanquished; he had been alone for too long, and she had been impossible to resist.

  Catherine had been a perfect creature in bed, b
eautiful even when her lips were swollen with kissing and her hair matted with sweat; more beautiful, even, because of her complete abandon. Nothing that had been said to her about virtue had spoiled her nature, and in the world they had created for themselves it had been difficult for him to remember society and its rules.

  After she had become his mistress Adrian had started to find inklings of her true self in the way that she was devoted to her mother, who with endless worries and constant weeping could be trying for someone as intelligent and fearless as Catherine.

  He was surprised to see that she cultivated no friendships with other girls and had little patience for gossip or social scheming, but instead chose to shower affection on her maid. He had never seen a girl of her station kiss and hold hands with a servant as she did, and her love for Henriette betrayed a heart that cut through many of the silly things that she had at first seemed to uphold.

  Adrian had watched her with increasing affection, but it was at Halford that he had finally seen her as she truly was. Most people did not improve the longer one knew them, yet Catherine constantly changed for the better as she moved away from the drawing rooms and shed the layers of protection she habitually wore. Being with her was like unwrapping an unexpected present, something so exquisite that one had never thought it even existed.

  That August she had brought feelings that had been lost to him for a very long time, the enjoyment of the present, a certain innocence that had nothing foolish about it, a way of loving the summer without remembering that it would end.

  She had become not only his mistress, but his friend and companion. When she left Halford every day, he looked forward to the morning when he would see her again; in the meantime, he slept in his haunted castle and had no nightmares.

  He found himself thinking of his brother again, imagining what he would say about something or another. He thought of his mother, not as a mangled corpse, but as a beautiful, loving, brilliant woman. He again walked in the garden as he had done with his father every evening after dinner.