This…this was not what he had expected. They had just shared a passion such as neither one of them had ever known, a perfect union indescribable in its power. And yet now she was mocking him, after he had humbled himself again and again. Mocking this appalling, overwhelming weakness, this bizarre compulsion, that had brought him to such a pass.
“Do you know what they’re saying, Nuala?” he asked with far more heat than he had intended. “Have you heard the latest rumors?”
“Set yourself at ease, Lord Donnington. I knew the risks of coming to you. I take full responsibility for them.”
“Do you take responsibility for the talk that you have been intent on trapping me into marriage since the moment we met?”
She started up. “I beg your pardon?”
“Erskine told me.”
She fell back again. “Surely you can’t believe—”
“I don’t, but no denials from either of us will halt the rumors once they have taken root.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “And this is the reason you wish to marry me?” She blinked, but the obvious effort to clear her eyes only spilled the tears over her cheeks. “Surely you have nothing to fear, if I am the one who is believed to be the pursuer. I have told you that you need not be concerned on my account. I can live with such rumors and worse. I am not alone in London. My friends will never desert me.”
Every feeling insisted that Sinjin go to her, take her in his arms, but he seemed unable to move. “Do you refuse me because you fear the Widows’ censure for breaking your vows?”
“No!” She took a breath. “No. But you have given me no good reason to…accede to your request.”
How could he so want to strangle her one moment and kiss her senseless the next?
“I will give you a good reason,” he said harshly. “We want each other. And we can have each other whenever we wish once we’re married.”
“We can have each other whenever we wish without the bonds of matrimony.”
“Is that really what you want, Nuala?” he said, closing the space between them. “Sneaking about whenever we meet, or dispensing entirely with Society’s approval by openly becoming my mistress?”
She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest. “Do you think I haven’t the discipline to stay away?”
“I believe we have equal discipline in that regard…none whatsoever.”
“You seem to have forgotten one vital point. I possess certain abilities that you despise.”
“I hope that you can give them up.”
She went very white, leaped up and held the petticoat to her hips with trembling hands. “So this proposal is about controlling me?”
A spark of that inexplicable rage coiled like a striking serpent in Sinjin’s chest. “If you had sufficient reason…”
“Sufficient reason?” She stepped into the petticoat and wrenched it up around her waist. “I do not even know…I cannot control…” She flung fiery hair out of her face. “You have no power to make it stop.”
“Are you so certain?” Sinjin struggled against the irrational anger. “Bloody—You won’t need your damned magic once you’re happily settled like any normal woman.” He lifted his hand in a gesture of conciliation. “I can make you happy, Nuala.”
Ignoring her corset and bustle, she turned her back and pulled on her overskirts. “We could never make each other happy.”
A roaring started up behind Sinjin’s ears, the voice of that other he had managed to hold at bay. He put more distance between himself and Nuala, half-afraid of what he might do.
“What if I’ve got you with child?” he asked.
“That is not your responsibility.”
“Like hell it’s not.”
“There will be no child.”
Sinjin felt as if he had been slapped by that same invisible hand she had used on him before. He didn’t dare speak for fear that his only words would be curses, damning her to Hell.
“You are refusing me, then,” he said.
“I must.” She shrugged into her bodice, fastened the hooks and gathered her shoes. “I do not believe you will regret my decision tomorrow.” He heard her walk toward the door.
“Nuala.”
The door handle turned. “I am sorry, Sinjin.”
A vicious cruelty rose up in him, the black spectre of thwarted desires. “There is something you ought to know about your precious Lady Orwell.”
She turned. “You claimed you did not interfere—”
“I did not.” He opened the drawer to his bedside table and withdrew the folded newspaper. “One of my kitchen maids was perusing this paper this morning. My butler happened to find it in the servants’ hall and brought it to me.” He unfolded the paper. “It is only a gutter paper, not one that anyone in decent Society would ordinarily read. But its editors seem to rejoice in printing evil gossip about their betters.”
Nuala stiffened. “What has this to do with Lady Orwell?”
“It seems the editors have come by certain information regarding the lady’s birth.”
“What information?”
“That she is the illegitimate daughter of a Whitechapel whore.”
At first Nuala didn’t believe him; her doubt was clearly written on her face. She strode to meet him, all but snatched the paper from his hands and began searching the columns until she found the portion Sinjin had marked.
“These are flagrant lies,” she snapped. She threw the paper on the bed. “Who would say such evil things?”
“‘An anonymous source,’ according to the editor. But you’re quite right…it is almost certainly a tissue of lies. Nevertheless, if my maid and butler are aware of the story, it will eventually spread to Society.”
“Why…why would anyone do this? What possible motive…”
“You know Lady Orwell better than I. Has she enemies?”
“Enemies?” Nuala sat on the bed, pressing her hands together. “There has never been any question about her birth, her position…”
“She would hardly be the first by-blow to be raised as legitimate.”
Nuala stared at him blankly, not even taking offense at his harsh words. “Melbyrne must have learned about this contemptible story. Perhaps that is why they—” She blanched. “She must have known about this for days. I knew she was keeping secrets. It explains so much….”
“Does it? What if Lady Orwell knew of it all along?”
“You are contemptible. Of course she did not know…even if it were true, which it is not.”
“Then you still care about her reputation, even though you give no thought to your own.”
Nuala attempted to rise, nearly lost her balance and fended him off when he attempted to assist her. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”
Sinjin braced himself for some hostile manifestation of her magic, but she strode to the door, flung it open and charged down the stairs. The front door slammed.
The room spun around Sinjin like a whirligig. The unconscionable things he had said lay on his tongue like acid. He truly believed himself mad, just as he’d admitted to Nuala. But why? He’d never behaved like such a monster before. Until he’d met her again, he had never deliberately frightened a woman, cursed at a woman, taken pleasure in hurting a woman.
All of it—the voice, the dreams, the poisonous words—had come after he’d met Nuala. And he had asked her to marry him. Something he would never have done had he been in his right mind.
He’d thought twice before that she had bewitched him. Each time he’d dismissed the idea as nonsense. But he could no longer hide behind the shield of rationality. What other explanation could there be for his aberrant behavior?
He sat heavily on the bed and dropped his head into his hands. What purpose could she possibly have for bewitching him? She was not vicious; he would have recognized that much. It would be an elaborate scheme indeed for her to deliberately allow him to cause her pain and then turn about and compel him to propose.
She is
a witch. She means to drive you mad indeed. To humiliate you, to steal away your soul.
Sinjin ground the heel of his palm into his forehead. Be silent!
But perhaps that angry voice knew better than he did. Perhaps it was only the more perceptive part of his mind, speaking out to protect him. A madness with reason.
Yet that supposition provided no real answers. Had he done her such wrong in blaming her for Giles’s death that she felt justified in destroying him? Why would she not have used her magic to overcome his opposition to Lady Orwell’s relationship with Melbyrne from the very beginning? She needn’t have made any kind of bargain with him at all, for her body or otherwise.
Unless…she didn’t know what she did. She had been shocked when she’d wielded her magic against him. Had that all been a ploy, or had it been genuine, as he had believed at the time?
If he were to follow that line of reasoning, he would have to conclude that she was innocent of any deliberate influence on him…that she’d told him no less than the truth when she’d admitted that even she didn’t fully understand what was happening to her.
If she does not, doesn’t that make her all the more dangerous?
Once again Sinjin drove that “other” from his mind. The fact was that he had no answers, and no way of determining what was real and what was not.
“You can’t go on as you are, you know,” Mrs. Summerhayes had told him. “There is one who plagues you. One who speaks with your voice. You must purge yourself, Lord Donnington, or he will ruin you both.”
Mad. Utterly insane. And yet there was something very wrong. As he had promised Nuala, he must get to the root of it. For his sake, and—if she were innocent—for hers.
IN A DAZE, NUALA instructed Bremner to drive her back to London at all speed. She had had two severe shocks this day, both so dizzying that even now she could scarcely comprehend them. What Bremner thought of her liaison with Lord Donnington was the least of her concerns.
Only one thing was important now. She must get to Deborah. She must learn how much the girl really knew, and help her to dispel these horrible rumors.
How could I have been such a fool?
Of all those who knew Deborah, no one should have been better equipped to recognize the extent of the young woman’s distress. Nuala had attributed Deborah’s desire for solitude to her unfortunate experience in Whitechapel; now she was certain that Deborah had been aware of the libel when they’d spoken last night. And she had not chosen to confide in Nuala.
Nor, Nuala suspected, had she confided in anyone else. How long had she known? Was it possible that there was some truth behind the story? Could Deborah have been born in Whitechapel and adopted by parents determined to conceal her true origins?
No. It wasn’t possible. She would have known. And she would not have deceived Society or Lord Orwell; such deception on her part was not to be conceived of.
Who had done this thing, and why? Chewing on the bitter thought, Nuala stepped out from the carriage, entered the house and paused in the entrance hall, forcing herself to think.
What would she say to Deborah? Admit that she knew the truth of what had been printed in the scandal sheet? Assure the girl that such rumor-mongering would never affect her reputation?
She could not make such promises.
Gathering her courage, Nuala started for the stairs and had just begun to climb when Jacques, the footman Deborah had brought from her former household, intercepted her.
“Lady Charles,” he said, his face tight with strain.
Nuala’s stomach rolled over. “What is it, Jacques?”
“We did not know how to find you, your ladyship. We did not know she had gone until—”
“Gone? Who is gone?”
“Lady Orwell, your ladyship.” Jacques was pale, and he tugged over and over at his coat. “We…we suspected that her ladyship was not well. She had been in her rooms so long—” He hesitated, weighing the risks of speaking in so familiar a manner.
“It’s all right, Jacques,” she said, concealing her agitation. “You know that you can always speak freely.”
He nodded nervously. “We have all been worried about Lady Orwell, your ladyship. She had dismissed Stella for the day, and no one had seen her for hours….” He went from white to red. “She took several trunks with her. I am sorry, your ladyship.”
“It is not your fault,” Nuala said, her mind already hard at work. “You could not have stopped her. Do you know where she has gone?”
“No, your ladyship.” He swallowed. “We…didn’t think…”
“How did she leave?”
“A carriage came for her.”
Hired, no doubt, because Deborah didn’t intend to return from wherever she was going.
“Did she leave anything for me?”
“Stella is still away, your ladyship. We did not enter Lady Orwell’s rooms.”
Then there might be something, though Nuala didn’t dare hope too strongly. “Please ask the servants to come to the drawing room. I wish to collect as much information as I can.”
“Yes, your ladyship.”
She hurried up the stairs to Deborah’s room. The bed had been carefully made up, and everything was in its place. The majority of her gowns still hung in the dressing room. She had taken very little.
As Nuala had feared, there was no note. She went to her own room. Nothing there, either. She descended to the morning room, in which Deborah had sometimes written letters. The table was bare.
Deborah had truly intended to disappear.
Nuala found the servants waiting in the drawing room. Their expressions ranged from openly worried to dispassionate, though Nuala suspected that none of them was unmoved.
Taking the nearest chair, Nuala tried to smile. “You need have no fear,” she told them. “None of you are to blame for Lady Orwell’s departure.”
A few of the servants exchanged surreptitious glances, but quickly refocused their attention on Nuala.
“Please listen carefully,” Nuala said, “and answer as honestly as you can. Do any of you have an idea as to why Lady Orwell left so suddenly?”
The silence was too complete. One of the scullery maids seemed ready to speak, but quickly subsided. Nuala began to lose her patience.
I could make them speak.
The notion came into Nuala’s head without warning, shocking her with its vehemence. Yes, she could use magic to make them speak. It would be yet another violation of her long-ago oath to do no harm with her abilities. It would most definitely step over that fine line between gray and black magic.
Deadly, deadly trap.
Nuala laced her fingers together tightly. “I believe that Lady Orwell may be acting against her own best interests and well-being,” she said carefully. “Any information you can provide may help her avoid decisions she may regret.”
The scullery maid shifted from foot to foot and bit her lip. “Your…your ladyship?”
“Ginny? Have you something to say?” Nuala leaned forward and smiled. “I will be grateful if can help me.”
The girl’s courage won out. “Your ladyship…I saw something today. Something awful.”
“Something in the papers, perhaps?”
“Aye, your ladyship.” The girl was on the verge of tears. “It was a story…a story about Lady Orwell.”
Nuala nodded. “I know of this story. You were right to tell me.” She looked from one tense face to the next. “Am I correct in assuming that many of you have also seen it?”
Uneasy glances gave the others away. Harold stepped forward.
“We didn’t believe it, your ladyship,” he said almost fiercely.
“Thank you, Harold. You all may go.”
The servants filed from the room, backs hunched and heads lowered. Nuala waited a few moments longer, collecting her composure, and went directly to her room. There she began writing letters to each of the Widows, briefly explaining the situation and requesting their assistance. When she had sent
the footmen to deliver the letters, she set down her pen and leaned her chin on her hand.
There would be no point in searching madly in all directions. First she must wait for the Widows to come, so that they could put their heads together and plan appropriately. Each of them had a circle of acquaintance that could be tapped for further aid.
Somehow they would find her. And then…
Nuala drifted away from the secretary and sat at her dressing table. Her mirror revealed a drawn, pale face that seemed to have aged ten years from her apparent age of twenty-five. It was not all because of her fear for Deborah.
“Marry me.”
She should not be thinking of Sinjin. Not of his fantastic proposition, so incredibly out of character, nor of the unreasonable elation that had come over her before she had regained her senses.
They had parted for the last time. He had sworn to uncover the source of his madness, but she could not forgive his abominable behavior with regards to Deborah. It was as if that other side of him had reawakened at Nuala’s refusal of his proposal.
“Marry me.”
He had claimed to want to protect her—from rumors, from unfulfilled desire, from her own abilities. Perhaps he had even been sincere. But it had never occurred to him to suggest the one motive for marriage that she might actually have considered.
Nuala let down her hair, still disheveled after her hasty departure from Sinjin’s cottage, and began to repin it. He had not offered that one inducement because he was not capable of the emotion that would make such a motive possible.
She let the pins fall and covered her eyes. What she felt now, so inexplicably, so unreasonably, was not enough. Not enough to breach the dark, looming wall of anger that had come between them. There was a danger here that went beyond her temptation to use questionable magic, or even Sinjin’s bizarre transformations into a man she didn’t recognize.
Whatever that danger was, it could not harm either one of them if they remained apart. If she never let him know she loved him.
Nuala picked up the pins and returned to her work.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MRS. SUMMERHAYES’S HOUSE was not in a fashionable part of town, nor was it particularly large. To the contrary, it was modest to the point of obscurity, one among a number of terraced houses lining a nondescript street in Fulham.
Lord of Sin Page 21
