Angel In My Bed

by Melody Thomas

  And still, he wanted to touch her, because being with Meg did something to him inside—as if selling his soul to her once was not enough.

  He waited until he had her full attention. “If I put a Bible in your hand, would you swear that you didn’t rendezvous with your father?”

  She hesitated several seconds, as the question began to sink through the muddle of her thoughts. “You actually think I went out that morning because you believe those tracks belonged to my father and you thought…? After everything you know about him—”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. There is a Bible in the other room.”

  It was just like David to trust what anyone would swear on a Bible to be true, no matter the crimes and sins in a person’s soul. She started to tell him she would put her hand anywhere he wanted. Before the thought stopped her heart.

  The family Bible held the births and deaths of everyone who had ever lived in this house. Nathanial’s birth would be recorded there. Was she ready to tell him her deepest secret?

  Suddenly, she was terrified for her son all over again, afraid of telling anyone the truth, when there was so much danger around her. For a moment that afternoon in the cellar, she had forgotten that David was part of that danger. She had forgotten who he was and what he wanted. His only purpose to find her father and finish what he had begun years ago.

  “Is this where tit for tat ends?” He put his finger to her jaw, and she sensed a strange unsteadiness in his hand. “No more spousal heart-to-heart?”

  “Is that what happened between us just now?” Victoria adjusted her boots and swept past David to retrieve her cloak. “I have to go.”

  He pulled her around, and she faced him with eyes flashing. “The problem with you, Meg, is that you have always known the difference between right and wrong. Yet you choose wrong. Who are you trying to protect with your silence? Your father?”

  Her fingers trembled as she tried to disengage his hand. “I don’t need insight into my character, or any rousing stiff-upper-lip, God-save-the-queen speech. Obviously some of us don’t have your moral clarity. Let me go.”

  “How hard can it be to choose?”

  She yanked her arm from his grasp. “Some people make choices that no one will ever know about.”

  “Tell me why you are so afraid of your father?”

  She walked to the chair where she’d laid her cloak and stopped, hating the wretched memories that came with the helplessness. But she composed herself and spoke of something she had never told another soul.

  “When I was a little girl, my father told me my mother hated me and ran away with an artillery officer in the army. Years later, I tried to find her.” Her voice faltered.

  “What happened to your mother?”

  Scraping the hair from her eyes, she looked at David. “I found out that the artillery officer in question had vanished one day shortly after he and my mother had gone away. Months later, his shriveled head had been discovered in his bed, but no body and no blood was ever found in the bungalow.” She straightened her shoulders. “I have no doubt my mother committed adultery or that my father believed his act of vengeance was justice. All while he used me to rob people blind. My sire, if God wishes to call him that, is a monster. Don’t ever accuse me of siding with him again.”

  He paused there, looking at her. “Yours was the anonymous tip that led the authorities to him all those years ago. Wasn’t it?”

  Her heart skipped then thundered. She could not say the word, so deeply buried was her betrayal. She’d spent nine years protecting Nathanial from the threat that one day her father would find them. Except it had been David who found her, and now she was just as afraid, no longer at peace in a life that had given her nine years of happiness.

  “I’m not asking for your approval.” She folded her arms to keep from touching him.

  “You did the right thing with your father.” His voice held her gaze, his eyes her heart, and she did not know how to tell him everything else. Only that she should. “I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you growing up as you did,” he said.

  “You were in Calcutta. You knew what my father had been like. Will you insert yourself into my mind now? Soften me up?” She flicked at the V of his shirt, easily rallying around her anger when he was wont to let her vent now. “Or is this the part where you’ll offer a few more minutes of ecstasy in exchange for all the secrets in my soul?”

  His eyes lost their expression and grew still. “I am glad that your pleasure and mine still coincide so completely, Meg. Fooking you is the best thing I’ve done in years.”

  She gasped. “And that out of the mouth of a former man of God. Maybe you didn’t retire.” She pointed a finger at him. “Maybe you were run out of Ireland with a stake at your back, your halo shattered when people began to see through your mask.”

  “Have I touched a nerve?”

  Ignoring him, Victoria arranged her hair to one side and flung the cloak over her shoulders, nearly sweeping a crystal lamp from the table between two winged chairs.

  “Someone needs to touch something inside of you. Hell, I don’t know.” He scraped his fingers through his hair, leaving the ends standing all over the place, then peering at her as if his state of frustration were her fault. “Maybe all we both need is another round at each other. Upstairs in bed. Nothing so miserly as a few minutes between us next time.”

  “Truly, David. You can be such a bore.” She flipped up the hood on the cloak and waltzed past him into the foyer.

  This place needed dusting, she realized in some distant portion of her mind as she yanked on her gloves. Retreating in silence, she didn’t want to think about this house, any more than she wanted to dwell on David or his hateful accusations. Or wonder how she would ever reconcile her life now to her past.

  Her hand pausing at the door, she shut her eyes. “I swear, I have not seen my father in nine years,” she said after a moment, her voice muffled by the cloak.

  When he didn’t reply, she looked over her shoulder and found him leaning negligently against the newel post, his eyes burning with something other than anger. “Beware of dead men and the secrets they hold, Meg,” he quietly said, folding his arms. “If you want to live, then I suggest you stay away from cemeteries.”

  A hot flush stained her cheeks. But if David thought he knew her reasons for going to the cemetery that night, he was wrong. “There are some things in which I am innocent, whether you believe me or not, David.” She flung open the door to the late-afternoon chill, the cloak flowing out around her as she hurried down the steps.

  Stepping outside onto the porch, David watched her flee, her head and face hidden by the cloak’s hood. Rockwell waited with the cart on the drive, but Meg swept past him.

  His mood remained mired in uncertainty, because she was his wife—and he wanted her, despite everything. With her height and her hood shielding her face, no one would have recognized her finer feminine side, hidden beneath the heavy layer of the cloak.

  Unfortunately, he knew all too well that ivory perfect flesh, and ached to touch her again. Let her think she was fleeing him.

  “Go after her,” David said, as Rockwell looked in his direction and shrugged with that now-what look of exasperation that seemed to plague everyone when dealing with Meg. “It’s a long walk back to the cottage.”

  Still standing in the doorway, he was ready to turn, when a flock of blackbirds startled and rose from the fields, swirling like a black funnel cloud against the stark blue sky. His sixth sense kicked into alert just as a rifle report sounded from a distance, like a hunter’s shot. An innocent enough sound, but not on his property. He looked toward the church steeple visible above the other buildings.

  Rockwell’s shout drew David’s focus back around. Ian had leaped from the cart and was moving at a dead run to where Meg should have been standing.

  Chapter 11

  Victoria struggled to push herself up on her hands, raising her head as Ian knelt beside her. “Ja
ysus, my lady.”

  “I’m all right.” Her heart thumping wildly, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, tasting blood. “I…bit my tongue.”

  “Meg—” David was suddenly kneeling beside her, his breath misting the air. He put his hand on her waist to support her effort to stand, then pulled it back. Blood covered his palm. She felt a stream of warmth soaking her clothes.

  She smiled weakly. “You wouldn’t by chance have a lump of alum on you to stem the bleeding?”

  Two servants came running toward them on the drive. David yelled for them to go back for the cart. “Bring the horses around,” he told Rockwell, easing his shoulder beneath hers and helping her to her feet, lifting her. “And get my coat. Now!” he said when the younger man hesitated a heartbeat too long.

  “I can walk, David. Find the man who shot that rifle.”

  “Whoever fired that shot is gone.” David carried her to a spot beneath the cover of a tree and lowered her feet. “Or he’d have taken another shot.”

  “This makes no sense,” she said, too angry to feel anything but numbing shock, and shook off his help. “My father wouldn’t shoot me…”

  David opened her shirt at the waist. “The bastard would cut your heart out if you let him, Meg.” He gripped the fabric, rending it easily with his bare hands. “I bloody should have killed him years ago.”

  She watched his hands work to stem the tide of blood. “Vengeance, David?”

  Another length of fabric gave way in his hands. “Whoever did this just made the biggest mistake of his life.”

  Closing her eyes, she schooled her pain into a calm façade.

  “You’re hit just below the rib.” He tied the cloth at her waist, then rose to his feet when he’d finished. “The stays will help with the pain. The bullet didn’t pass through the cloak. The wound isn’t deep.”

  She listened to the rhythmic rattle of approaching hooves. “Is the blood dark?”

  The ice had thawed from his eyes. “No,” he said quietly.

  That was good news at least. She started shivering and looked away. The pain helped bludgeon her emotions into an impression of calm. “This must be an accident,” she said in a weakened voice. “Someone poaching.” But what if it wasn’t? another part of her questioned. “Someone needs to get to the cottage.”

  David’s arms came around her. “Come here,” he whispered, fitting her cheek easily against his shoulder, and just when she thought she would not be affected by his actions, he sundered all her carefully tended illusions in half.

  “The cart is almost here,” he breathed against her temple.

  “I’ve ruined your warm cloak,” she said, shivering. “It’s the only wrap I’ve ever worn that fit my height perfectly.”

  “I’ll buy you a fur-lined one,” he said against her hair.

  She smiled into his collar. As she spoke the words against his shoulder, she could hear the crunch of gravel as the cart came to a stop. “I thought priests were supposed to give up all their worldly possessions?”

  “They are. And I did. But it seems my family kept some of my worldly shares of certain family enterprises locked away in a trust.”

  “Are you wealthy?”

  “Not by any means.” His voice rasped in amusement. “But I like expensive soap.”

  She inhaled the scent of his hair. He was warmth and security, and a hundred memories all wrapped into one. She’d felt this way long ago when he’d taken her into his arms and danced her across the breadth of a glittering ballroom floor. “Do you believe in fate? Everything happens for a reason and all that?”

  “Meg…”

  “I’m glad we had our little…discussion today.”

  David heaved an exaggerated sigh of surrender. “There was nothing little about it.”

  The comment made her laugh. She flinched against the pain that the movement caused. A few minutes later, David had her loaded into the back of the cart with orders to take her to the house. Ian galloped up on a fine bay mare, holding the reins of David’s horse and a greatcoat in his other hand.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Shoving his hands into his coat sleeves, David spoke to another man standing with the driver, one of his people that he’d brought from Ireland. “Make a perimeter check. Keep everyone inside for now.”

  “David?”

  He looked down over the side of the cart at Meg. “Shh.” He placed a finger against her lips and walked beside the cart as it started to move. “We’ll discuss anything you want when I get back.”

  “I need you to make sure Nathanial is safe.”

  “I’m sure he’s safe, Meg.”

  “You cannot know that for sure.”

  “Sir—” Rockwell said from behind him, “someone needs to fetch Sir Henry.”

  “We’ll get her inside the house, sir,” the driver said.

  Standing in the drive, David watched the cart move away.

  He had promised he could protect her and her family. But he didn’t have men to send to watch over Sir Henry’s grandson, nor did he believe the boy was in any danger.

  Stepping into the stirrup, David mounted his horse. He held the high-prancing stallion in check as he looked over his shoulder at Rockwell. “Go to the churchyard. That shot was fired from there.”

  “Deer overrun these bluffs. Maybe it was an accident.”

  “Think about it.” David’s gaze went to the remote church steeple. “To hit anything at all from the distance that shot was fired, the shooter would have had to have been high off the ground. A tree? A belfry maybe?” The horse pranced sideways. “Blakely is staying at Doyle’s cottage. Get over there and find out what he might have seen.”

  Back at Sir Henry’s cottage, David dismounted and, glancing around the empty yard, jogged up the back steps. He opened the door into the kitchen. Esma Shelby and Bethany were standing inside, and he saw them as he ducked out of the mudroom.

  “My lord, ’tis you.” Esma’s hands crushed the skirt of her apron. “Sir Henry heard a gunshot. He went to the fields with my husband. Sometimes there be poachers about. He was angry that someone would be shooting so near to people in their homes.” She dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “But what if it be Tommy Stillings, my lord. That blackguard doesn’t hold the same favor toward Sir Henry as he does Her Ladyship.”

  “I’ll find Sir Henry and send your husband back,” David assured her, knowing he had no time to smooth away her fears. He looked at Bethany. “But right now, I need you to go upstairs and pack a change of clothing for Lady Munro.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “But why?”

  “Just do it, Bethany,” he said. “I don’t have time to explain.” As he returned his attention to Mrs. Shelby, his tone became softer. “Show me where Sir Henry keeps his medical bag.”

  She led him to Sir Henry’s chambers in the back of the cottage. A few minutes later, David uncovered the physician’s bag beneath a quilt someone had thrown atop a chair.

  “Everything else be back in the surgery, my lord.” She pushed aside the folding panels connecting to yet another room, then set a sulphur match to the lamp. “He sees his patients here. Since his illness, he has not traveled so much anymore.”

  Medical books filled one entire cabinet, some penned by Sir Henry Munro himself, David realized as he looked in the case next to him. Bound by a thick ornate frame, Sir Henry’s royal commission in the navy hung on the wall next to a medical degree. He’d taught at a medical university in London.

  “Check on Bethany,” David said over his shoulder.

  Vials and jars lined glass shelves stretching across one wall; boxes, canisters, and bandages filled yet another. He walked to the cabinet and shoved accoutrements into the bag. Nearly three dozen miniature photographs and daguerreotypes lined the top of the cabinets and followed the shelves along the back wall to the heavy mantel over the fireplace. Too many faces to be family.

  The rattle of a cart sounded from outside. David peered out the window
. Esma’s husband had ridden into the drive. He was alone. When David turned from the window, he knocked a pair of photographs from the desk. One shattered on the planked floor.

  Caught by the image of Meg, he picked up the frame, shaking away the shards of broken glass and dropping them into the refuse can. He held the image in the sunlight. He recognized Bethany wearing a ruffled frock, no older than twelve, and Sir Henry standing beside her. A dark-haired boy dressed in black velveteen short trousers and black-buckle shoes sat on Meg’s lap. He tilted the photograph, caught by something he could not explain.

  “My lord.” Esma bustled into the room, flushed and breathless. “My husband has just returned. Sir Henry is at Rose Briar. He sent my husband back for his medical bag—”

  “How long ago was this likeness taken?”

  Mrs. Shelby glanced down at the image in David’s hand, too shaken to enlighten David about dates. “I don’t know, my lord.” She twisted her hands in her apron. “Some years ago. Please, my lord. Sir Henry is waiting for his bag.”

  David shoved the photograph into his coat pocket.

  “Swallow the medicine, Victoria.”

  Warm licorice passed between her lips. She drank.

  She didn’t remember much after Sir Henry cauterized the wound. Only the voices. She drifted away again and became lost in a fog of pain and frightful dreams. Dreams that involved Nathanial. She searched for her son and, with a mother’s instinct, knew he was in danger. She called David’s name.

  Someone came to her side, but it wasn’t David.

  Later, she remembered a young girl helping her with her private ablutions and eating soup. She awoke again at daybreak with streamers of sunlight squeezing through the cracks in the curtains. Sir Henry was sitting beside the bed, an unlit pipe between his lips, his blue eyes bereft of his usual good humor. Confused by his presence, she faced him with a thudding ache in her head.

  “He’s been up here twice asking about you,” Sir Henry said.

  In the firelight, her sight touched the familiar bed frame, the tiered yellow and lavender fabric draping in swathes from the canopy. She was wearing a clean nightgown. Her entire body felt as if she’d been shoved through a meat grinder. She found the simplest movement brought pain and with it a renewed sense of urgency as she realized she had not been having some awful nightmare.