by Karen Ranney
Davina had disliked her from the very moment she looked up to find the woman staring at her. Now, knowing what she did about the woman and Marshall, her jealousy was understandable. Although the woman excelled at her position, Davina would just as soon she left for Edinburgh.
The two of them looked at each other, and for a brief instant of time, there wasn’t any pretense in either of them. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or the strangeness of the circumstances, but Davina could almost feel Mrs. Murray’s antipathy.
Marshall outlined what was needed, and Mrs. Murray nodded. “I’ll have a room prepared immediately, Your Lordship.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jim said. “Not just for your hospitality. But for everything.”
Marshall only nodded, but didn’t explain Jim’s comment.
“You were in China, weren’t you?” Davina asked the young man.
Three sets of eyes turned to her.
Davina clasped her hands together and refused to look away from Jim. He stared down at the table and then at Marshall and finally at her.
“Aye, Your Ladyship. I was in China.”
“Jim was one of your men,” she said to Marshall.
He didn’t answer. Neither did he look away.
If Mrs. Murray hadn’t been standing there, looking too interested for a good servant, Davina would have continued her questions. Instead she forced a smile to her lips, bid them good night, and slipped from the room.
But she was determined to speak to Jim at her earliest opportunity.
Chapter 21
Marshall didn’t return to Davina’s room but to his own. She would be awake and want answers, and there were some things that he couldn’t discuss now. Perhaps he couldn’t ever divulge them.
Jim. He’d never expected to see the young man again, and especially not in that condition. He’d been close to starving. Marshall had deduced what Jim had not said—separation from the navy, while something he’d desperately wanted, had not been easy.
He probably hadn’t been able to find work. Or perhaps Jim had been unable to work because of his experiences in prison.
China dug its tentacles into a man’s soul and never let loose.
Instead of heading for his bed, Marshall went to his study, unsurprised to find that the lamp was lit, the decanter of wine refilled—all was in readiness for his comfort, thanks to the efforts of Mrs. Murray.
He sat and poured himself some wine, knowing that sleep might not come at all tonight. Seeing Jim had brought back memories he’d managed to tamp down in Davina’s presence.
She couldn’t be his talisman all the time. No one could wipe out the sounds and sights his mind furnished only too easily now.
He’d been taken prisoner hours after arriving in China. The Treaty of Tientsin had not been signed by the Chinese, and it was an embarrassment to the Empire. Queen Victoria had sent him to China for the purpose of acquiring the emperor’s signature. The Chinese, however, were still angry about the importation of opium into their country, and not willing to sign a document that would legalize the trade of the drug. To show his displeasure, the emperor had ordered Marshall and his men, all forty of them, imprisoned at once.
Davina had once asked him if he missed being a diplomat. The truth was remarkably simple and remarkably sad. He could no longer, in good conscience, represent the British Empire. If the Queen had not known of opium’s effect on the Chinese people, then she’d been a fool. If she’d known and willingly blinded herself to it, then she’d been worse than criminal.
No longer would he do the bidding of a corrupt government. Nor would he sell his soul for anyone ever again. But because he had, once, because he’d shamed himself and his name, he was doomed to nights like this.
Dawn was hours away, as was sleep.
He felt nauseous and his ears were ringing. Not now. He couldn’t bear the visions tonight. The past had rushed in and captured him unawares. He would be defenseless against the men he’d given up to their deaths.
He left the study, intent on the Egypt House. As he passed Davina’s suite he hesitated for a moment, tempted almost beyond his strength to remain with her. Finally he continued past the door. He started to sway at the top of the landing but he caught himself, holding on to the banister with a clenched hand.
As he descended the staircase, Marshall caught sight of himself in the mirror on the opposite wall. The man in the reflection looked out of focus, his eyes crazed. Behind him he could see the beginnings of a cloud. A shape, forming in the wall.
Peter, coming to bedevil him again? Or Matthew, perhaps, with his enduring patience?
Let the specters look for him tonight. Let them wander through the halls of Ambrose, unseen and searching. He wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
The Egypt House was dark, eerily lit by the moon. A perfect night for a haunting. He was surprised his father’s spirit hadn’t begun to walk. Aidan would be the perfect ghost, buried in the family crypt in an Egyptian sarcophagus.
Marshall lit the gas lamps at the base of the stairs. At the top, he swayed again in the act of lighting more lamps. He would not sit in the dark tonight and see blood as a black pool. Let them bring him gore in all its vibrant color. Let them seek him out and deliver hell to him in grand measure tonight.
He sat at the desk, his nausea returning in force.
Davina’s perfume wafted up to him, a reminder that he could have been next to her in her bed. He would have held her while his world swirled around him, hoping that she’d be enough to keep these night terrors at bay.
She wasn’t, and to test her in such a way was dangerous.
He heard the loud, bright tones of the Chinese zither, the guzheng, and the guqin, accompanied by the flute. Smells came to him, not exotic perfumes or rice dishes but the distracting scent of roses. Davina.
She’d never appeared in a vision before, but perhaps it was only a matter of time.
“Marshall?”
He looked up to find her standing there.
“If I’d known that you were given to wandering around so much at night I would have donned my heavy shoes,” she said, glancing down at her feet. “As it is, I’ve only my slippers, and they’ve been ruined by the dew.”
Was she a ghost? The air around her wavered. But his visions had never spoken of such things as feet before, and it gave him hope that she might be real.
“My apologies,” he said. “Send for a dozen from Edinburgh.”
“The slippers don’t matter,” she said, coming into the room. “My husband does.”
She came and sat on the chair beside the desk, and placed her hand on top of his. Her skin felt warm, as warm as her expression. She was real, then. Either that or his visions had become so advanced that he could no longer tell what was true and what was fantasy.
Wasn’t that the definition of insanity?
“Your husband craves a bit of solitude.”
She didn’t comment to that, and he was grateful for her silence. The air shimmered, and Paul appeared just over her left shoulder, his disembodied head looking just as it had when the Chinese presented it to Marshall at his noon meal.
“What is it, Marshall?”
He shook his head and then changed his mind about that particular gesture when his nausea was abruptly made worse and his dizziness increased.
“Go away, Davina.”
“What did I do?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just leave me alone.”
She stood, but didn’t move away from the desk. He wished to God she’d leave before anything else happened.
Blood pooled on the carpet at the doorway, and then spread on the carpet like long fingers, reaching out for him.
“What are you seeing?’
He closed his eyes. Coming here was not a good idea. He had no locks on the doors and there was no bellpull to summon a footman to take her away.
She took a step closer, and he was powerless to prevent her approach.
“Tell me why, Mars
hall. Tell me why I must stay away from you. Are you afraid you might run me through with one of your sabers? Or are you afraid that the craving for opium might be so much that you would harm me?”
“I could kill you,” he said, and closed his eyes at the look on her face.
How many days had she been married? Barely a month. Not even that. In that time, she’d felt passion, despair, anger, jealousy, and hope. She’d laughed and wept, empathized and agonized. She’d doubted herself and him. She’d mourned for a woman she never knew, and examined her character with great intensity.
Yet, in that time, she’d also fallen in love. Not mildly or sweetly or even easily, but roughly, and raggedly, and with reluctance. Once loved, however, Marshall Ross could not be unloved.
He stood, wavered, and caught himself with his hands on the edge of the desk. He looked at her, and then swiftly to the left. She followed his line of sight but couldn’t see anything in the corner other than another stone pediment, no doubt the base of a missing statue.
She turned back, to find that his features had taken on a stern cast, his lips thinned, his eyes narrowing. If she were a recalcitrant servant, or a tradesman who’d provided an inferior product, she might have been frightened at that moment. But she was the Countess of Lorne, Davina McLaren Ross, and the title alone gave her some bravado.
She stiffened her back and faced him. “What do you see, Marshall?”
He shook his head. “Davina, I think it best if you leave.”
She folded her arms and stood where she was. She had absolutely no intention of leaving the room. He would have to bodily carry her from here. His head turned suddenly, and he stared at something on the far wall and then on the floor.
“What is it, Marshall?”
He sat again, placed his elbows on the desk blotter, and covered his eyes with his fists. “Please go, Davina. Please leave me.”
“You’re seeing things, aren’t you?” she asked. “Tell me what you’re seeing, Marshall, please.”
He laughed, and it was a sound curiously lacking in amusement. Instead it held a hint of desperation, so much so that for a moment she contemplated doing what he asked and leaving him. But she could no more desert him at this moment than she could someone in pain. Because it was evident, from the look on his face, from his every gesture, that Marshall was in agony.
She came around the side of the desk and knelt on the dusty floor. Placing her hand on the arm of his chair, she let her fingers brush against his sleeve at the wrist.
“Please, Marshall,” she said softly. “Let me help you. Let me do something to help.”
“Take the last two years from my memory,” he said slowly. “Give me wisdom and guidance so that I was not such a naïve fool. Take my memory of China from me. If you cannot do that, Davina, leave me.”
“I can’t leave you, Marshall.”
He looked toward the other end of the room. Whatever he’d expected to see was still there. His eyes widened ever so slightly, and she could tell that he forced himself to look away.
“You don’t see anything, do you?”
“No,” she said gently. “There is no one here but you and me.”
“My mind knows that you might be correct,” he said. “My mind always knows that. My eyes, however, tell a different story.”
“Then you must simply command your eyes to ignore what they see.”
He turned his head and smiled at her. “As easy as that, is it? My monsters aren’t horrifying at all?”
“They probably are,” she said. “I’m sure I should be terrified. But wouldn’t it be easier to face them with someone else at your side?”
“No,” he said tiredly. “Your being here will only put you in jeopardy, and lengthen their visit. They want me to themselves, you see.”
“Why?”
“Do you never grow tired of your own curiosity? Does it never wear you down? Is there never a day when you awake and you say to yourself, Today I will simply accept all that I see? I will not question the entirety of the world today?”
“No,” she said softly. “There isn’t. Especially not about you. Especially when you’re in pain and there’s something I can do to help.”
“There is nothing you can do, except leave.”
“Because you’re the Earl of Lorne? Because you must face everything alone? Has there never been a time when you’ve reached out to other people? I’m your wife. Doesn’t that mean that I should stand with you?”
“What is it about you that makes you hammer at something relentlessly?” he asked.
“Obstinacy? The courage of being right?”
“You mustn’t be this loyal, Davina. I don’t deserve it. I’m responsible for the deaths of twenty-two men under my command.”
“Did you shoot them?” she asked.
He looked startled at the question.
“Did you run them through with a sword? Or poison them? Or injure them with your mind? With a glance? With a wish? Are you that powerful, that you can kill with simply a thought?”
She smiled as she ran her hand up his sleeve.
“You did not kill them.”
His glance flickered over her. “But I did.” At her silence, he continued. “I did kill them. It was a choice between my life and theirs, and I chose them to die. So don’t tell me how virtuous I was and how noble. Don’t say that I think I’m somehow special among men. I know exactly what I’ve done and how.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe it. I chose them by name. I was given the choice to die or choose one of my men, and I did so. Peter was the first one I chose. He was tortured. It took him two days to die. You want to know about obstinacy? Peter was too damn stubborn to die.”
She stood, looking down at him. He stared straight ahead as if addressing one of his specters.
“Matthew was the next. I chose him because he was an irritating son of a bitch. He needled me constantly. He didn’t scream as much as Peter.”
He glanced at her, his smile almost tender.
“Now you know what happened in China. Are you satisfied? Are you happy? Is your curiosity assuaged?”
She had no words for him, nothing that could travel past the constriction in her throat. Nor did he seem to expect anything from her, and that fact alone forced her to speak.
“I’m going back to Edinburgh. It’s evident you find the addition of a wife to be rather restricting. I would not like to keep you from your dour moods or your self-flagellation, Marshall. No doubt, with me gone, you can be about the business of filling your universe with guilt.”
She folded her arms and stared at him. “You certainly have the right to forbid me to leave, Marshall. And you can certainly forbid the stable master from arranging for a carriage. And should I take a horse instead, I’m sure you could report me to the magistrate for stealing. No doubt should I indicate that I had the desire to walk to Edinburgh, as Jim accomplished, you will imprison me in my room.”
“You know I would do none of those things, Davina.”
“No? You’ve given me to believe that you are the most horrible person alive, a monstrous character. Why wouldn’t you do any of those things? Surely the man who killed twenty-two of his own men would not hesitate to punish a recalcitrant wife.”
“Damn it, Davina.”
She tilted her head a little to the side and regarded him steadily. “Isn’t it odd, but I just realized that my name goes quite well with a curse word. Damn it, Davina. It certainly sounds complementary, one word to the other, so to speak. I think I shall have to get used to hearing a great deal of it, at least if I am to live my life the way you want me to do it.”
“What way is that?”
“Accepting everything you say, of course. Believing that you’re a hideous monster, that you’re mad. I cannot cower in the corner like some poor little damsel, waiting to be rescued. I’m not afraid of dragons, Marshall.”
He looked at her. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re not afraid o
f anything?”
“Then you’d be wrong,” she said firmly. “I am very much afraid of a great many things. I don’t particularly like the darkness, although I dare myself to be out in it. I hate to be sick. I loathe it. When I get a headache I’m cross because I have a headache, not because it hurts. But I never was truly afraid of things until I came here. Before I became a wife.”
“And have I made you afraid?”
“Not of you, Marshall. Nor what troubles you. I’m afraid that I’m willing to give you my heart and my soul, and you value neither of them as a gift, but see them only as an encumbrance. I’m afraid that you will choose your misery and your despair and your past rather than a future with me.”
She’d never seen a person’s face close off the way his did. It was as if he made an effort to block every single one of his thoughts from her. Even his gaze was fixed on the far wall as if he kept it there rather than look at her.
“I’m going, Marshall. I think it’s the best, all things considered.”
He nodded, just once, a gesture so easily accomplished that it broke her heart. She turned and walked toward the doorway, carefully avoiding looking at him. At the threshold she turned, again not glancing in his direction. She didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes. Instead she stared out the window behind him, at the faint shadow of Aidan’s Needle.
“I suppose this is delicate, but it is a necessary topic.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally she spoke again, her composure once more restored. “I shall send you word, Marshall, if I’m with child. If I am, then I’ll return to Ambrose for the birth, of course. If I am not, then there is the matter of an heir to consider. Perhaps you might visit me once a month. We can consider your visits like a stallion covering a mare. Strictly to produce a foal.”
He didn’t respond to her goad, and she turned fully in the doorway, her temper rising. “Have you nothing to say? Your wife is leaving you, and you remain silent as if it’s the good and decent thing to do. Have you nothing to say to me, Your Lordship? Have you no words to convince me to stay? Are you not insulted or irritated or even angry? Do you not allow yourself to feel anything, Marshall?”
