by Jill Harris
"I won't go."
Branwell shrugged. "Then I'll throw you over the cliff if I have to. But you can't stay here and torture me with your presence."
"You're the most difficult man I've ever met."
"And you," he said, feeling rage coursing through his veins. "Are the most stubborn person ever to cross my path."
"I am a free woman. And I choose to stay so you cannot tell me otherwise."
His hands shot out, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"But it's not safe for you here," he said, his face darkening.
Adeline stepped up, her small figure bristling with indignation beneath him and he looked down on her upturned face and all but melted at the sight of her.
"I don't care," she said. "You've been trying to frighten me off since the moment I arrived but you can't and you never will."
"Then marry me for the love of God, marry me Adeline and let me care for you."
When his mouth crushed down upon hers, the kiss he gave was greedy and furious. He had lost the battle to hold back from her and she too, surrendered. She tasted his struggle and she welcomed it. It was a reflection of her own desire so her mouth gave the same tormented hunger back to him.
Wrapping her arms around his waist, she clung to him.
"Not like this," she managed when his leaned back, the taste of his breath an amber flame. Hs arms around her she stepped back and he forward and they were moving as one until she lay back upon the couch and he above her.
Adeline thirsted for him and she knew that he knew. He knew. He lay atop her, his body pressing down on hers.
"You don't want me?" he said, moving his lips away from hers.
"Not like this."
Her voice said the words, but her heart was hurtling out of control.
"I will never dishonour you, Miss Winslow."
"And I will never allow you to."
He was not the first man to make promises because his manhood was erect and such a simple thing had robbed him of all conscience. But she knew things too, things about Branwell Hughes. She knew he was speaking his truth and he would not force himself upon her even though his eyes burned and his member bulged urgently against her thigh.
Deep down, she could sense he was a gentleman, and his word was his bond.
Adeline, however, was not feeling like a lady.
She reached down to touch him running her hand down his chest. Further. Lower.
The heat of him in her hand. She closed her eyes and gripped him. And everything; time, thought, expectations - flowed away. Her veins ran with electricity. Her body lit up with an ecstasy beyond hunger.
Adeline was extinguished. She become something other, more than flesh, fingers, blood, heart. The pulsing fever in her womanly parts consumed her until she was no more. She was a goddess, fierce and demanding. His body was hers and in that moment, he belonged to her.
And she would have him.
She raised her hips, moving beneath him in a wave. His breath hissed out as she did so.
With renewed vigour, he took her by the wrists, raising them above her head.
"What do you want?" he said.
"Touch me."
The sensation of his hands raking over her chemise, down her skirts, over her thighs sent waves of longing screaming through her. Her desire for him, and his for her, was all that existed.
Then he stopped. Propped himself up on one arm. He stared at her, his eyes hard and wild. "I meant it. If you won't be my wife I won't dishonour you however much you torment me. You must leave as soon as the mist is cleared."
"That is for me to decide," she said. "And you have promised to restrain yourself."
Branwell let go of her wrists, hauled himself off the couch, away from Adeline's small, curvaceous form. The encounter had almost driven him to a frenzy. Almost. He bowed to her, as if that could change the fact that he had tried to devour her. To plunge between her thighs. To take her as a stag ruts a doe.
She was worth so much more than that. His rash proposal had only served to make him even more of a fool in her eyes. Naturally, she had refused him. Branwell was coarse and repulsive. His scars were too deep, and they had twisted him. The demon was becoming a part of him. Soon there would be nothing left of the man he once was, not that he'd ever been anything to be proud of - and they would have to kill him to kill the demon.
He was damned and Adeline was only trying to save herself.
One man had hurt her and she was never going to trust another. Especially someone like him. A flash of hatred for her former lover coursed through his veins.
Branwell turned to hide his shame, rising from the chaise and storming from the room without a word.
Chapter 42
"If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only..."
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Maria had insisted on sharing a room with Adeline, although there were plenty of guest rooms in the east and west wings of Raven's Nest. When Adeline got upstairs she was not surprised to find the child there, sitting on the edge of the bed wearing a white nightgown and a Chinese gown over that tied at the waist. Adeline went behind the screen by the wash-stand and got undressed quickly, her heart still thumping in her chest after the encounter with the Captain.
He had asked her to marry him and she had refused because one day he'd find out she'd had a child outside wedlock and all would be lost. Yet what if he forgave her everything? That thought had only just entered her mind and it seemed too much to consider in her exhausted state. She was overcome and her thinking was disturbed. No man would want a woman like her, she was absolutely certain of it. Nothing could shake her rational summing up of the situation. She'd given in to her weakness for him, but now she must sleep.
And in the morning, she would leave just as he had told her to. She would never heal him and she had to accept her failure with dignity and move on to the next patient.
Before sleeping, the strange little girl shook a ring of salt around the bed.
"Why are you doing that?" Adeline asked.
The girl looked up with eyes older and wiser than her face. "It is one way to repel a demon."
"Are there many ways?"
"I think three. That is a sancti number. Sanctified by the goddess. Aphrodite, born from the waves. She gave us love, and the power of water from the spring of life. Artemis, the huntress, had her bow and arrow. Hestia, the goodwife of the hearth guards us with sacred fire. And Persephone brought salt from the underworld to save us from the darkness. I am the servant of the goddess, you understand?"
Adeline sighed. It was very late, almost three of the clock and this was not the time for such a conversation. The strange child was intriguing and tiring at the same time. She had obviously received something of a classical education and knew the Greek and Roman pantheon. Adeline laid down upon the bed and looked at the child whose head lay next to hers upon the pillow. "Which goddess do you worship?"
"Her name you do not need to know." Maria smiled a thin, tired smile, as if she was the adult and Adeline nothing more than a silly girl. "Do not be afraid. She is here. Her priestess is with us. Another will come."
Adeline rubbed the bridge of her nose. "All this talk of goddesses, demons, priestesses. And men fighting over who will sleep outside my door. It's very tiresome."
She could hear them, the Captain and Sanderson, clomping about outside her door with their heavy boots. She longed to go to him, to her Captain, and tell him she would be his as long as he forgave her for being a woman of low repute, which he never would of course.
"You feel giddy, no?" Maria said.
Adeline did feel somewhat light-headed. "What a day it's been." She still hadn't managed to formulate a rational explanation for the shattered statue, the chandelier or the books flying off shelves as if by an unseen hand. Not even an earthquake could quite account for that, however, she resolutely refused to think of it as the work of an evil presence.
What
ever it was had to have a scientific explanation.
"Today is bad but tomorrow comes the dark moon and so tomorrow he is stronger. Things could be, how do you say, catastrophe? But don't fear for yourself, because we will fight him more than he thinks. He is arrogant and that is his weakness. And we are stronger than he thinks."
Adeline thought suddenly of the crystal ball. Of walking on the beach with the captain. Of that kiss downstairs on the chaise and everything that might happen between them if she gave love a chance to grow. For all his courage, Captain Hughes seemed bowed under the weight of it all. She swallowed hard, overwhelmed with a sense of unease.
She put a hand on her chest, looked at Maria. "Do you really think something will happen to the Captain?" she said.
"You do not know? He is not the prey. The hunter seeks more than him."
"More than him?"
"He has a thirst. For you. For your blood."
"My what? Oh, that's right. I'm the sacrifice. Goodness, this is too much. I cannot understand why a child should say such a thing."
"Sleep now. Tomorrow we will try to save your life."
"That's terribly kind of you," Adeline said, feeling herself drifting into sleep.
The candles in the room flickered, as if they felt the same sense of dread creeping up Adeline's spine. She was overcome by an urge to throw open her door and run to the Captain and take him in her arms and seek his counsel.
She felt as though her grip on reality was slipping and she turned away from Maria, knowing she could not let her weakness show. All her life she had restrained her emotions, kept them locked away and out of sight. Except for one time and that had turned out to be the worst mistake she'd ever made.
And the child had died at birth. A sin punished.
Her bad affair with the doctor had led her here to Raven's Nest and to a man who threatened to break her heart all over again. She was stranded by fog, unable to begin the work she came to do, and despite his declaration of love, she'd been pushed away by the Captain whenever she tried to help him.
On top of everything else, the house was full of peculiar people. Even the vicar seemed mad.
She had never felt so alone.
Maria got up and washed her hands in the bowl, dried them, and made a sign on her forehead, then over her heart. A circle.
She got back into bed and snuggled down. "The Captain loves you, yes?"
Adeline wrapped a bed shawl around her shoulders, pulled the blankets up to her chin. "I'm not even sure he likes me that much and as for love, that's an easy word to say but it doesn't happen in an instant like that, it's a long game. It can't happen in a day or two - that's just impossible."
"Perhaps. But you are falling for him, no? It is bene. Good."
Then she climbed into bed next to Adeline and lay on her back, arms folded over her chest, her hair a dark halo on the pillow.
Chapter 43
The morning brought a misty shaft of sunlight creeping through a gap in the drapes, spreading across the floor towards the bed.
Adeline woke from a dreamless, restful sleep. She sat up, stretched, then padded over to the windows, peering out at the restless sea below. Frost patterns flowered on the windows, and her breath puffed out of her mouth in clouds. She'd been curled in a ball of warmth under the blankets but the bedchamber was an ice house.
She smiled to herself because the night had been uneventful despite the fact that two men waited outside her chamber with swords at the ready. Perhaps the salt had worked some kind of magic after all, although she believed it was simply because she was worn out after the excitement of yesterday and that had led to a peaceful night's rest.
Adeline went back to the bed and searched for Maria to wake her, but the child was gone. Her side of the bed was not even warm. She must have arisen before dawn.
Shaking in the chill of the winter's dawn, Adeline shucked on her Aunt's gown, hoping the weather had cleared and she'd be able to see the view down the cliff to the town at last, she went back to the windows on the north-west side of the room to look out.
She pulled the curtains wide, but her wish was in vain. Once again, the view was totally obscured by fog a dense fog rolling in from the sea over the land. A few crystalline flakes of snow melted on the flagstones of the courtyard. Adeline sighed and it occurred to her that in some odd way, sinister way, Raven's Nest had all but disappeared under a shroud of ice. As if the demon, what was his name? Vedmak. As if Vedmak had trapped them all in this muffled world.
There was a film of ice on the water for washing. Adeline broke it, splashed freezing water on her face. She got dressed, pinned up her hair, picked up the carpet bag. Today, whatever else happened, she would treat the Captain with electricity and her blood ran hot with a determination bordering on mania.
Today she would heal the man she knew she loved, if it was the last thing she ever did.
Adeline marched out of her room to the main staircase. Her temperature rose higher and felt her cheeks flush hot in the chill air.
Her hand tightened on the bag until the knuckles were white.
Nothing was going to stop her. If it came to it, she was prepared fight the Captain to get him to take the treatment, even knock some sense into him if need be.
Outside her room, the house creaked with cold, as if the very foundations were frozen to the rocks below. There was still a slight whiff of sulphur hanging around at the top of the main staircase and Adeline looked down to see what remained of yesterday's destruction. Most of the pictures were back on the walls, but there were visible holes in many of the canvases. Some of the gold frames remained chipped, and the faces of the Captain"s ancestors looked battered and flecked where the paint had been scratched off.
Her mouth still tasted of ashes.
She toyed with the idea of asking Hoxley, Roberts, Gillyflower, and Sanderson, to hold the Captain down while she administered the shocks to him. Adeline rolled up the sleeves of her chemise and strode forwards, her footsteps clicking light and quick on the wooden stairs.
If necessary, she was prepared to tie Branwell Hughes to the wall in order to accomplish her aim. Perhaps there was cellar at Raven's Nest where his ancestors administered torture to straying villagers. If so, she would make use of it, force the Captain down there under the guise of some imagined noise or other, and then chain him up so he couldn't fight her any more. Whatever it took. She could feel the power glowing in her chest, radiating outwards and down both her arms. She could help him. And she would not let him avoid her healing hands for one more day.
Downstairs in the main hall, she found Hoxley and Roberts sweeping up the last of the debris with garden brushes. All that remained of the magnificent chandelier was a hole the size of a small elephant in the ceiling. They greeted her and she said her good mornings.
"Where are the guests?" she asked.
Hoxley leaned on his broom. "They all got up hours ago. Been preparing for the exorcism in the chapel."
"Excuse me?"
"They've been chanting and burning incense all night. The vicar is going to conduct an exorcism. Sounds like the work of the devil if you ask me and no good will come of it, same as always in this cursed house."
Adeline inhaled deeply. So, despite her hopes to the contrary, this demon madness continued. How she longed to visit her cousin and take tea and talk of ordinary things. "There's a chapel here? I've never seen it."
"Captain never uses it. His mother had it built," Hoxley cocked his head towards the west wing. "If I were you, I'd go to him. The master's in one of his moods but he might brighten up when he sees you."
There was the sudden sound of breaking glass coming from the library. Adeline looked up, hoping to see the sky through the hole in the ceiling, as if there might be some answers there to all this nonsense. But she found nothing but fog.
The thick white mist seemed to have grown thicker than ever and was pouring in through the hole in the roof.
"I will go to him of course," Adeline sa
id. She looked down at the floor as she trotted towards the library, glad to see the brightly coloured tiles of the mosaic had not been completely destroyed. She'd grown fond of the depiction of the two-headed human, both male and female and the dragon circling the strange form. The hieros gamos seemed to offer some kind of hope although she couldn't fathom how why that might be.
Last night, the Captain had offered her marriage. Her heart surged at the memory. She hung her head knowing that it could never be because passionate kisses meant nothing in the face of cold facts. Once the Captain found out the secret she kept locked away, he would despise her. He would put her away and never bear to look at her again.
And it was true what she had told him. Love could never be the result of a sudden intoxication. Added to that was the small matter of getting rid of whatever it was that twisted his mind and pained his body. Over time, perhaps there would be something between them.
She could only hope that he would forgive for refusing him.
But first, it was imperative to persuade him to take the electric cure before she left for London.
Chapter 44
Branwell heard her light steps coming down the stairs. He waited for her in the library with his feet planted firmly apart, standing in front of the main window overlooking the sea which was almost invisible, his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the impossible fog.
The terrible mist had isolated the house and that bothered him greatly, believing the demon meant to cut them off in this way. The scar over his eye throbbed, and he rubbed it with the meat of his palm. The throbbing, searing pain in his leg was growing worse hour by hour.
Last night, bloody suppuration from the wound had seeped though the makeshift bandage he had wrapped around it. Every day it seemed a little deeper.
She-Who-Dwells was gone, but the demon was with him. He could smell the stench of its breath, feel its clammy hand closing over his heart. There was a darkness filling his mind, his home. It was as if Vedmak was trying to claw its way into the very core of his being, desperate to blacken his soul, and it took all his strength to keep the thing at bay.
