by Karen Ranney
He laughed, a smug, self-congratulatory laugh that grated on her nerves. Still, she managed a small moue of discontent.
“Your business doesn’t involve a woman, I trust?”
As if any woman in her right mind would willingly involve herself with Garrow Ross.
Garrow turned to his mirror again and smiled at her in the reflection. He really did need to watch his intake of food. He was getting downright portly, and his derriere was vastly unattractive, what with all those dimples.
“Do not concern yourself with my business, Theresa. A woman grows masculine when she’s too occupied in a man’s concerns. I would hate that to happen to you.”
“You think me masculine, Garrow?”
She threaded her fingers through her hair, letting it tumble over her shoulders, and artfully parted the wrapper further, allowing him a sight of one breast. He returned to the bed and stroked his knuckles across one nipple.
She tilted her head back and smiled up at him. Sweet little kitten, grateful to be petted. Dear heavens, she really should think of a career in the theater.
“You’ll remain in London, then?” he asked.
“If you wish it, Garrow.” Was that enough idiocy for him?
“I wish it,” he said. His thumb tweaked a nipple.
“But what shall I do about Davina?”
“Evidently my nephew has become unruly. Since your niece left him, he’s become more and more unstable.”
A chill raced down her back, and Theresa had the sudden, unwelcome feeling that Marshall was in danger. From the tone of Garrow’s voice, he didn’t care whether Marshall was ill or healthy. She should alert someone, possibly Lord Martinsdale. He would know how to protect the Earl of Lorne.
“A missive from your housekeeper? What is it she expects you to do?”
He looked annoyed at her curiosity, and she smiled sweetly at him. He dropped his hand and returned to the mirror.
“I think the time has come to make arrangements for the poor boy. He’s become a danger to himself and an embarrassment to the family.”
Since there were only two people in Garrow’s family, and one of them was Marshall and the other his wife, grieving, from all accounts, over their separation, then the only person who was embarrassed was Garrow.
What utter rubbish.
Garrow sold people by the shipload. He traded in Chinese peasants the way other men traded in spices. He used the port of Macao as a source for his inventory, selling his wares in Cuba and Peru, anywhere slaves were traded for gold, and he was embarrassed by Marshall?
She focused on her bare feet, trying to regain her composure.
“But that is none of your concern,” he said.
“Of course not, Garrow. Forgive me for asking.”
By the time she looked up, she knew her expression revealed nothing of the hatred she felt for him.
“Kiss me good-bye, darling,” she said, stretching out her arms.
He bent over her and kissed her on the forehead. “You must cure yourself of this lamentable habit of being too direct, my dear,” he said. “It’s not an appealing trait.”
She only smiled. What a pity the Crown had agreed to turn him over to the Chinese. She would have loved to have seen him hang.
Less than twenty minutes later, Davina was ready.
“Go as quickly as you can,” she told the driver, looking up at him in his perch.
Night was full upon them, and the journey would be slower due to the darkness. Still, she would not wait until morning.
Jim, already seated in the coach, opened the door and leaned out, offering his hand. She took it and pulled herself up into the carriage.
He sat opposite her, Nora beside him. Davina didn’t have the heart to tell her to remain behind at Ambrose.
She said nothing to either Nora or Jim, choosing instead a calm and resolute silence. There was nothing she could accomplish with words. Nor could she make the situation better or easier to comprehend by complaining about it. Instead she chose to marshal her energies, and wait until the moment of confrontation. She fingered the objects she’d placed in her pocket, hoping that it would be enough to gain Marshall’s freedom.
Greed would have to feed justice.
After a few moments, Davina leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. Now was not the time to surrender to her emotions. However, she was perilously close to weeping.
She’d known pain in her life. The pain of being a strange, bookish girl who didn’t quite fit in with groups of her fellow students, who was giggled at and whispered about when time came for her introduction to society. That pain was like a pinprick, multiplied a hundred times. It captured her attention, but it didn’t wound her all that deeply.
The pain of her mother’s death was from long ago but still with her. That loss left her with a curious feeling of emptiness, as if there was an echo in her heart.
There was the pain of her own awkwardness—of being unsure about her body, how it would work and where her legs would take her. She’d been coltish for too long and without any discernible grace. Her eyes were not strong, necessitating spectacles, which only added to the ungainly nature of the whole. She was simply different, and while she claimed to be proud of being unique, the secret was she longed to be just like everyone else.
When she’d finally emerged from her own chrysalis, life was not easier. Nor was it painless. Beauty did not exempt her from loss and grief.
Her father’s death had been an agonizing red-tinged mist covering her entire world. She could hardly breathe for the pain of it. But over the last eighteen months, the sharp and tensile grief had muted to become only a dull and constant reminder of his absence.
What she was feeling now was unlike any pain she’d ever experienced. This was a spear to the heart. This pain traveled outward to numb the tips of her fingers and chill the whole of her body. This pain was so monumental that it surrounded her, merged into her, and became who she was. She was no more separate from it than a bright spring day was devoid of sunlight or a storm was without thunder.
How naïve she’d been only a few short weeks ago, concerned for things that were foolish, unnecessary, or simply inane. She’d been worried that someone else would ordain her life. She’d wanted complete autonomy, never truly realizing that autonomy was simply another word for loneliness. Nor had she known that being part of something was more enjoyable than being separate and free.
She’d been part of Marshall’s life. Disjointed, odd, confusing, and sometimes frightening, that life was better than the existence she’d created in Edinburgh for herself.
Marshall was her partner, her lover, and her friend. He hadn’t demanded her capitulation. He hadn’t wanted to rule her. Instead it was almost as if with one hand he bid her join him in this great adventure of life and with the other he pushed her away.
Exactly as she had done.
The revelation so startled her that Davina sat up. Had she, too, invited people to come closer and pushed them away at the same time? Had she used her curiosity as an excuse to play at love, knowing full well that her heart was not involved and she could pull back and away if caught? Had she used knowledge as a shield to keep her from making friendships with the girls in school? Had she done the same with the women in her circle at Edinburgh?
She’d protected herself so completely that it was no wonder she and Marshall each had an affinity for the other. Perhaps he’d seen in her a little of himself, just as she was beginning to recognize that she, too, had been in prison. A prison created by her own fears.
He hadn’t repudiated her at all, only stood by the door she’d opened and refused to keep her there. He’d made Ambrose a haven, and if she’d wanted to leave it, he wouldn’t stop her. Prison had been an anathema to him—he wouldn’t make Ambrose a prison for her.
Nor would he keep her there by force of his will. She must want to stay. All along she’d not recognized that. She’d not realized that he’d wanted h
er to come to him as a woman, not a little girl. A woman with the knowledge that she could walk away any time she wished, but that she wished, most of all, to be with him.
He’d known what was happening to him. He’d known and he’d wanted comfort in the way that all creatures need to be consoled. What had she done? She’d run away. She’d been a selfish creature who’d thought only of her own pain.
He’d thought himself beyond redemption and unlovable, and she had validated his fears by leaving him.
“Your Ladyship?” Nora reached forward, handing Davina a handkerchief. “You’re crying.”
“Am I?” Davina said, taking the handkerchief and blotting her cheeks.
Nora and Jim both looked at her with concern, but she didn’t comment further.
Had Marshall realized that his sanity was slipping from his grasp?
She needed to find a way to save Marshall and, if possible, salvage his sanity.
Please God, don’t let it be too late for that.
Chapter 26
A massive structure hunkered against the night sky. The building, its edges blurring into the shadows, looked almost like a crouching monster guarding the top of the mountain. A creature called up from myth and legend to defend this piece of the Highlands.
Scotland was all the rage, made popular by the Queen’s fondness for the country. Davina had become accustomed to English tourists as well as English neighbors, and it was only occasionally that she reminded herself that she was a Scot and not English after all. It had been more than a century since the last battle had been fought between the two countries. The Empire stretched around the world, encompassing Scotland easily within its net.
At this moment, however, staring up at the towering building, a brick structure that looked as if it had been crafted in defiance, she felt the stirrings of pride in Scotland’s past. She didn’t feel civilized at all, but a woman who might’ve taken up the tartan not because it was favored by the Queen, but because it was a most convenient and familiar garment. She would have fought beside her husband, or behind him. His cause would have been hers.
She could do no less for Marshall now.
If madness overwhelmed him, she was determined to keep him at Ambrose and care for him with all the gentleness and love of which she was capable. But no one, no one, was going to imprison the Earl of Lorne again.
“It’s a fierce-looking place,” Jim said.
Davina nodded.
“What are you going to do, Your Ladyship?” The question came from Nora, but Jim looked as interested in her answer. All of them were not that far apart in age, but at the moment, she felt older and wiser.
“I am going to take Marshall home,” she said.
“Can you do that?” Nora asked.
Davina only smiled, as confidently as she was able. “I am the Countess of Lorne. Of course I can.”
Tears peppered her eyes, and she turned her head away so that no one else could see. She could not be weak, not now. The timing was simply not right to faint, give in to the vapors or the dozen or so other ways to avoid difficult situations sometimes chosen by her Edinburgh acquaintances.
Marshall needed her.
She pulled on the gloves she’d grabbed from her dressing room at Ambrose, as well as her bonnet. When she’d left Ambrose three weeks ago, she’d deliberately left some clothing behind, only packing a modest amount of her belongings. In the beginning, she’d thought that the separation from Marshall would be a short one. Marshall was going to come after her and demand that she remain with him. But of course he hadn’t, and now it was a blessing in disguise. At Ambrose there were duplicates for all those items she’d left behind in Edinburgh.
She was now a properly dressed countess, and not a hoyden. She’d replaced her slippers with shoes and was now tying the bow of her bonnet beneath her chin. Her reticule sat on the coach seat beside her.
No one would find her appearance the least bit startling, especially not the authorities who ran Brannock Castle.
“Can they do that?” Nora asked, staring up at the structure. “Can they simply take you away from your life and put you somewhere?”
Unfortunately, Davina’s curiosity had never extended to the care of lunatics. Granted, the Royal Edinburgh Asylum had been operating for many years, but it was never mentioned in polite company. She fell back on the only answer she could give, one couched in truth and determination.
“They cannot do it to Marshall,” she said.
The approach to Brannock Castle was a serpentine road, lit only by the carriage lamps and much too dangerous for Davina’s peace of mind. Her imagination furnished countless scenes of people being brought here without explanation in closed coaches. Would they be terrified and unable to understand why their relatives were consigning them to a strange and isolated place?
What had Marshall felt?
How very odd to think of Julianna at this moment. What an even stranger time to realize that Marshall’s mother could have easily gone to Egypt if she wished. Or she could have demanded that her husband stay at Ambrose and act the part of earl. Instead, Julianna had simply been accepting of her fate. Was it her very placidity that had spurred Aidan to live in Egypt?
Wasn’t that the true lesson of Julianna’s journals? Life was a great gift that should not be thrown away without recognizing its true value. Love was the second most prized possession belonging to any person, and it should not be traded for a paltry thing like pride.
Julianna had lived the life she’d chosen for herself, never realizing that she could have made a different choice until the very end, when it was too late.
Davina would not sit at Ambrose and wring her hands in despair. Nor would she remain in Edinburgh mired in grief. Instead, she’d scour the length and breadth of Scotland for experts who studied melancholia, be it in Glasgow or Paris or America.
The wheels echoed, a hollow sound indicating to Davina that they were crossing over a wooden bridge. She smoothed her hands over her skirts, wishing she’d donned one more petticoat. Her palms felt damp and her pulse was racing. Her mouth was suddenly dry, but there was nothing she could do about that, or about the fear spreading through her.
She wanted to curl up in the corner, cover herself with a blanket, and pretend that none of this was happening. But that would make her a child, not a wife.
The carriage slowed, and she heard the driver shout to someone. The coach finally stopped, the wheels rolling back several feet as it did so.
The castle sat atop a promontory of rock, and looked to be accessible only through a narrow archway carved into the black-streaked stone.
“It’s not exactly welcoming,” Nora said.
Jim didn’t comment at all, but the glance he gave to Davina was not reassuring. He evidently doubted their mission or their possibility of success.
Davina focused on the castle. Lanterns had been lit around the structure and swayed from tall poles stuck in the ground. Up close the brick was red, but from the base of the mountain the structure had appeared as black as its soubriquet.
For the longest moment, none of them said a word. Nor did any of them clamber to be the first to depart the carriage. The coachman was under no such restraint, however, and she watched him disappear through the portcullis, followed a few moments later by the echoes of pounding blows against wood.
“What is Chambers doing?” Jim asked.
“What I should be doing,” Davina said.
Did she follow him or remain where she was?
Before she could compose herself enough to follow Chambers, the door to the carriage suddenly opened. The coachman stood there accompanied by another man, dressed all in black except for a tiny bit of white at his collar. A Puritan?
“Your Ladyship, this is Dominic Ahern,” he said. “A proper Irishman, I think. He says he’s the warder of this place.”
“I am not a warder, Your Ladyship,” Ahern said. “I am the custodian of Brannock Castle.”
The man was shorter than
the coachman and about half his weight, with a narrow pinched face and a thin mustache that unfortunately curled differently on either side of the man’s nose, as if one side was pointing toward his chin, and the other toward an ear. Davina found herself oddly fascinated by the sight of it. His face, otherwise, was young, deceptively so because he could not be that young to have assumed such a position of trust and responsibility.
Private asylums like the Black Castle were run for profit, and the owners would hire neither a neophyte nor a fool.
“I understand that my husband is here,” she said as a greeting. “Marshall Ross, Earl of Lorne. I’ve come to take him home.”
“I’m afraid that is impossible, Your Ladyship,” he said, bowing before her. Since she had not yet descended from the carriage, it was tantamount to the obeisance given the Queen. “An emergency certificate was issued in the matter of your husband. In such cases, I am required to observe the patient for three days. I cannot release the earl before that time. However, if I deem it necessary to keep him longer, I will inform you of my decision.”
She pushed open the door all the way and descended without the aid of either the coachman or Jim behind her. He followed her, as did Nora, the two of them standing close behind her.
“Who issued this certificate?” she demanded “Dr. Marsh,” he said, making another little bow.
“I am not familiar with the name, and I don’t believe my husband is, either. Can anyone simply decree him mad and sign a certificate to that fact?”
“We are a private institution, Your Ladyship. We follow all the laws established for the health of our patients.”
She understood immediately. “In addition, you’ve been paid.”
He inclined his head in a gesture of assent.
“By whom?”
“I guard the privacy of those who employ me, Your Ladyship.”
She stared at him for a long moment. She’d been wise to go to the Egypt House.
