During those months spent in the dark and damp French prison cell, he had often wished he had no knowledge of the language. At least then his tormenters would not have been able to mentally torture him with their taunts of what they were going to do to him next. It would have been preferable not to know rather than anticipate the pain yet to come.
Heather gave a rueful smile. “How little we really know about each other.”
Maxim knew that was partly due to his not being able to talk of his work in France for the English. But also because words had not been necessary between the two of them six years ago. They had spoken with their desire and passion for each other, with kisses and caresses, the taking of each other’s bodies. To know that he abhorred the ballet but adored the theater had not seemed important, any more than Heather’s likes and dislikes, apart from during their lovemaking, had seemed of relevance. The two of them had communicated on a physical level Maxim had never experienced before or since.
“We have the opportunity to learn more of each other now,” he said huskily.
“To what purpose?” she challenged.
He frowned his impatience. “For Ralph’s comfort? So that his mother and brother are not constantly at odds with each other?”
Heather’s gaze became flinty. “I doubt that will be necessary, considering the number of times you have been here to see him or the interest you have taken in him the last five years.”
Maxim easily met that hard and dismissively gaze. “It has become obvious to me in just a few days that Ralph is sorely in need of a male companion.”
“And you believe that companion should be you?”
“Who else?”
Her mouth firmed. “He has my brothers and father. He does not need to become overly fond of a man who will disappear from his life for years at a time.”
“It does not have to be that way—”
“But it is that way, Maxim,” Heather snapped. “It has always been that way. You are that way, appearing totally involved one day and then completely gone the next.”
Maxim had a feeling they were no longer talking about Ralph. “I had a duty to my regiment and the Crown.”
“One that prevented you from sending word either by letter or courier of your well-being and when you would return?” she scorned, confirming Maxim’s thoughts. “Your father was very worried when he was unable to contact you for almost a year, and then you just swanned back into our lives without so much as a word of explanation for your long absence.”
“My father was worried?”
“Yes.”
“But not you?”
“Why should I have been worried?” Her gaze glittered as it raked over him contemptuously.
Even so, Maxim looked at Heather searchingly, looking for something, some sign that might tell him she had been worried by his long absence too. There was nothing except that glittering challenge in her eyes.
Her chin rose. “Shall we resume eating our dinner before it becomes cold? I do not believe discussing the past to have ever been of any benefit to anyone,” she added dismissively.
There were still so many questions Maxim would have liked to ask her.
Had she been at all bothered by his long absence?
Had she made any effort to seek him out?
Had she loved him then?
Did she care for him now?
He asked none of those questions as they resumed eating their dinner. Heather’s cold expression gave clear indication her emotions were so closed off to him now there was no common ground upon which they might agree or converse. She did not even seem to approve of his deepening friendship with her son.
Maxim found himself liking Ralph for his own sake rather than because he was the boy’s brother and male guardian. Ralph obviously adored his mother, but not in any way that made him a mama’s boy. Instead, he was an adventurous and outgoing child. A brother to be proud of.
Not that Maxim thought Heather would be interested in hearing that from him either, as she steered their conversation to the safer subject of the estate and his future plans for it, if any.
Maxim was aware that his responses to their conversation were becoming shorter and shorter as the meal progressed. Telling him—a warning—that their earlier conversation regarding his absence from Cornwall for all those months and the reasons for it, would require he drink an excess of brandy tonight until he passed out. If he did not he would be plagued with the nightmares that haunted him when he could no longer fight the memories of his capture and torture.
Heather was completely disoriented when she woke in the darkness of her bedchamber, having no idea what could have brought her awake so suddenly.
The silence and stillness in the house told her it was very late—or very early, considering she had not been able to fall asleep the previous evening and had lain reading a book until well after midnight. She—
Heather sat up abruptly at the sound of someone shouting. Had a previous similar outcry been the reason for her interrupted sleep?
What on earth—
She quickly threw back the bedcovers to stand and pull on her robe before venturing out into the candlelit hallway.
Her brow creased as she was met with only silence.
Perhaps she had still been asleep and only dreamed that sound of shouting—
“Putain de betard!”
Maxim…?
It certainly sounded like his voice, but who on earth could he be swearing at so harshly in the middle of the night?
A burglar, perhaps?
Except…
Maxim was talking in French.
Heather padded softly down the hallway on bare feet, not absolutely sure what she was going to do when she reached Maxim’s bedchamber. But if he continued shouting, he was going to wake the whole household—
“Non, vous connard!”
Heather knocked briefly on the door before quickly entering. There was a single candle alight on the dressing table, revealing the man lying on the bed as he thrashed about, his closed eyes showing he was still asleep and obviously in the grip of a nightmare.
A naked man lying on the bed.
The clothes Maxim had been wearing the evening before lay scattered about the floor of the bedchamber. The bedcovers had been pushed to the foot of the bed, and they now lay in a heap on the floor. A fine sheen of sweat covered his completely naked body as he continued to fight his nightmare assailant.
A body that was as lithe and muscular as it had always been, perhaps even more so, but which was also covered in scars from his neck down to his feet. The most predominant one encircled his waist from his back around to his navel.
Heather was barely breathing as she closed the door softly behind her to cross the room and stand beside the bed. She avoided looking at the flaccid but still lengthy cock that lay against Maxim’s thigh, but noted there were several scars at his groin, very close to but not quite touching the furred sac beneath that flaccid cock.
The numerous scars on Maxim’s body were more livid than ever close up. Dozens of them. Some ragged, as if the flesh had been torn. Some obviously from a whip. Others clusters of straight lines that might have been caused by a knife or other blade. These had not healed well but resulted in ridged, red lines.
Because none of these wounds had received treatment or stitches, Heather would hazard a guess. Whoever had done this to Maxim had intended inflicting the most pain possible and given no aftercare.
But how?
Why?
More to the point, what could she now do to help him escape from his nightmare?
Chapter 8
Maxim woke slowly the following morning, his head pounding from the brandy he had consumed in the library the previous night before staggering up to his bedchamber. He vaguely remembered removing his shoes and throwing off his clothes before falling face-first onto the bed, and then—
Nightmares.
Those same horrific nightmares that had haunted him for five long years.
>
Of being kept in the bowels of the rat-infested prison, in complete darkness, until his tormenters returned to inflict yet more hours of torture.
Of being cut, repeatedly, until the blood flowed unchecked down his body.
Whipped mercilessly until he passed out, remaining on his feet only because of the chains attaching his wrists to the ceiling.
On one very memorable occasion, his French jailers had even allowed a starving dog into his cell and laughed as it ripped into his thin and emaciated body. They had not laughed for long. Even chained to the wall hand and foot and weakened from lack of food and water, Maxim had managed to get his hands about the dog’s throat and broken its neck.
He had received another whipping for spoiling their enjoyment too soon.
They had even threatened to cut off his cock and balls one night, the cuts in his groin moving closer and closer to that vulnerability. He had almost broken then, almost, at the thought of going through the rest of his life as a eunuch.
The only thing that had stopped them carrying out their threat were the frenzied screams of another prisoner and then shouts for help from one of the other guards, causing his own jailers to rush out of his cell to offer assistance. The screams were cut off suddenly several seconds later, and Maxim had not needed to be present to know his fellow prisoner was now dead. Their blood lust satisfied, his jailers had not returned to Maxim’s cell, but instead he heard their laughter becoming fainter as they obviously returned upstairs to celebrate with the other guards.
To Maxim’s everlasting shame, he had then wept, not for the death of the other man, but in relief at keeping his manhood when he had already lost so much else.
Oh God, had he called out in his sleep as he often did when beset by those memories in his dreams?
Maxim heaved a sigh of relief when he did not recall anyone coming to his bedchamber or being shaken awake from his torment.
Dear God, he stank, he realized as he swung his legs to the floor and sat up. Of sweat and remembered pain, along with the dread of the next round of torture being devised for his jailers’ amusement.
He stilled as he realized his rank smell was not the only aroma in the room.
Lilies and lemons.
Heather’s subtle perfume.
French perfume.
She always wore it, six years ago, and now.
His gaze flitted about the room until it alighted on the now-gutted candle that he always left alight when he went to sleep. It was always gutted by morning but kept a soft glow of light in the room during the hours of darkness. Another remnant of his torture; after eleven months in the dark cell, he could no longer bear to sleep in a completely darkened bedchamber.
He stood and crossed the room on bare feet until he was able to look closely at the extinguished candle. There was some sort of liquid among the now hard and set candle grease below. He lifted the candle holder up to his nostrils and breathed in.
Lilies and lemons.
His hand was shaking as he carefully set the candle holder back onto the dresser, taking care not to spill any of the perfume from its base.
There was only one explanation for the perfume being there: Heather had to have come to his bedchamber while he was asleep. Brought here by his shouts as he relived the torture that had almost broken him?
Had she seen his scars? Heard the foul words he shouted at his jailers as they sliced into his body again and again, with either knife or whip?
Dear God…
“Ralph has suggested we might all like to take a picnic down onto the beach today.” Heather smiled brightly as she handed Maxim the cup of tea she had just poured.
Maxim had been surprised to find Heather seated at the breakfast table when he entered the family dining room only minutes earlier. For the other days of his stay, she had always breakfasted in her bedchamber.
Could this change have anything to do with the fact her perfume permeating his bedchamber showed she had so obviously been in his room during the night? Brought there by his shouts in the throes of his nightmares…
“Heather—”
“I believe Ralph has the ulterior motive,” she continued lightly, “of wishing you to help him learn to fly the kite he received for Christmas from my parents.”
“We need to talk,” Maxim maintained in the face of her inconsequential chatter. “About last night.”
Her gaze became guarded. “What of it?”
He sighed heavily. “You came to my bedchamber during the night.”
Her eyes widened. “Not for any nefarious purpose, I assure you.”
“I never for a moment assumed it was,” he drawled self-derisively.
Heather busied herself pouring her own tea as she avoided meeting his gaze. “I was awakened by your shouting. When I came to your bedchamber, it was obvious you were having a nightmare. My mother told me long ago that breathing in the smell of a pleasant perfume might dissipate bad dreams.”
Maxim drew in a sharp breath. “Did you see…”
“I saw nothing but you thrashing about beneath the bedcovers, obviously in the grip of an unpleasant dream,” she stated firmly. And untruthfully. Those scars she had seen upon Maxim’s body were imprinted upon her brain, and she had no doubt they would remain so for the rest of her lifetime. “Your modesty is safe from me,” she added mockingly, knowing from Maxim’s scowl he had no wish to discuss those numerous scars.
His jaw tightened. “You would not have seen anything you have not seen dozens of times before.”
Except those scars. Horrendous, disfiguring scars that must have caused considerable pain when they were inflicted.
Both her brothers had spent several years in the English army, fighting against the despot Napoleon. Jory had even received a French saber wound on the calf of one leg, which he would show off proudly at the slightest encouragement.
Maxim’s scars, apart from the one circumventing his waist, were nothing like that but more uniform in appearance. Except for the ones that looked as if he had been attacked by rats or wild dogs.
She suppressed a shudder, not at the disfigurement, but at the pain Maxim must have suffered to have received such scars, and the nightmares that now haunted him.
Which was not to say she did not intend to make enquiries that did not include Maxim. She accepted, from his guarded reaction to her knowing of his nightmares, that Maxim did not wish to discuss the reason for them with her. But she fully intended to learn when and under what circumstances Maxim had received these terrible wounds. His father had certainly not known of them, or James would have discussed the matter with her.
“I hope the perfume helped,” she dismissed, drinking down the last of her tea.
“I believe it might have done, yes,” he answered guardedly. “The perfume is French, is it not?”
Heather laughed softly. “Fishing again, Maxim?”
“I believe that was yesterday,” he answered dryly. “Today we are to have a picnic lunch on the beach.”
“So we are.” She stood. “And to satisfy your curiosity, my mother’s French relations have been sending me that same perfume for years.”
There was so much more Maxim wanted to say to Heather, wished he could tell her in regard to his nightmares and any of his scars she might have seen. But his role as an agent for the Crown, his imprisonment and torture, were not things he had permission to talk about with anyone outside of the government apart from his friends, the other seven Sinners.
Besides, he was not the only Englishman who had suffered in a French prison. The nights he had not been tortured himself had been filled with the screams and pleadings of the other men suffering in other cells.
“We will leave for the beach at twelve, if that suits?” Heather suggested. “Ralph has his lessons, and I have some household matters and letter writing to deal with this morning.”
And Maxim could use that same time to make enquiries regarding the possible movement of illegal contraband. “Twelve o’clock suits me perfect
ly.” He nodded, watching Heather from between narrowed lids until she had left the breakfast room.
He was still uncomfortable with the knowledge she might have seen more of his scars than she was admitting to. But as she refused to confirm that, there was nothing he could do but leave the subject alone.
And there was no denying that the scent of her unique perfume had helped him to sleep the night before.
Having the woman herself in his bed would no doubt have banished them completely.
Maxim gave a self-derisive snort at the chances of that ever happening. Heather had made no secret of her contempt for him, as well as claiming to already have a lover.
“What are you doing?” Maxim watched in alarm as Heather removed her boots before sitting down beside him on the blanket they had spread over the sand. She pulled up the skirt of her gown to remove one of her garters and then rolled down her stocking to place it inside one of her boots.
She spared him barely a glance as she did the same with the other garter and stocking. “Ralph likes to paddle in the rock pools looking for crabs and small fish, and I always join him.” She raised her head at his silence. “To quote you from earlier today, I am not revealing anything you have not seen dozens of times before,” she dismissed dryly.
And Maxim’s body was reacting in exactly the same way it had done then, his cock now fully engorged and erect inside his pantaloons at these tantalizing glimpses of Heather’s bare and shapely legs.
His mouth had gone dry. “Are you wearing drawers?” He had not seen so much as a glimpse of cotton or lace when she removed her garters.
She nodded. “Black silk ones.”
The dryness of Maxim’s mouth made it difficult for him to swallow. “French?”
Heather shot him a derisive glance. “They are far and away the most fashionable as well as comfortable.”
They were also illegal until trade was fully resumed between the two countries.
She stood up to tuck the sides of her gown into the legs of those black silk drawers. “Take off your boots and join us?”
Wicked Deception Page 7
