Fire on the Wind

by Olivia Drake

  physical pleasure. His arms found their home around her slim body. At last he held his English rose, perfect and pretty, delicate and indomitable. His eyes brimmed with tears, and he pressed his face to the crown of her hair. She smelled of sweetness and sunlight. Their lips joined in a hard and hungry kiss.

  The fervor of her response banished the nightmarish weeks of fear and loneliness, and the torment that she might have changed her mind about loving him. Sarah was a part of him, as vital to his body as eating and breathing, as essential to his soul as labor and love.

  She drew back and touched his cheek, his chin, his chest. She laughed and cried at once. “Oh, Damien. You’re alive. You’re alive!”

  “And glad of it.”

  “But what happened? Where have you been? Your charred bones were in the wreckage of the fire—”

  “You found some other poor soul who only resembled me,” Damien said. “The fakir struck me. I blacked out, and when I came to, I was bound and gagged in the bazaar temple.”

  She framed his neck in her soft palms. “But why, Damien? Why did he abduct you?”

  “To exchange an English noble for the imprisoned rebel leader, Bahadur Shah. The fakir held me for a week before I tricked him and escaped. Then the English executed him.” A cannon shot had reduced the fakir to bloody bits. Damien turned his mind from the grisly details and focused on Sarah. “I was devastated when Reginald’s manservant said you’d both already left India.”

  “Merciful God.” She seized his hands and kissed them. “If only I’d known, I’d have waited an eternity.”

  Someone coughed. Lifting his eyes, he saw Bromley beaming and Reginald smiling. The doctor held Kit. Damien’s chest squeezed tight. The baby regarded him with alert dark eyes, then waved his arms and grinned, revealing two new teeth. “Kit...”

  “Isn’t he handsome?” Sarah said, smiling indulgently. “He looks more and more like you every day.”

  As Damien gathered the baby close, the awesome bond he felt for this small, wriggly bundle again brought the burn of tears to his eyes. To think he’d once feared being a father. Now he had enough love in his heart to embrace the whole world. “I’ve missed you, son.”

  Looking over the baby’s head, Damien caught an intense, wordless exchange between Sarah and Reginald. His fear returned in full force. Had she married Reginald after all? No, praise God, neither she nor the doctor wore a wedding ring.

  “Shall I entertain Kit for a few hours?” Reginald said. “There was a display of toy animals at a shop on Regent Street. Then we’ll return to Mrs. Goodson’s.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah murmured. “That would be kind of you.”

  His chest taut, Damien watched the doctor and Kit depart. Bromley bowed and closed the doors.

  How close were she and Reginald? Damien wondered. He wasn’t sure he could face knowing right now. He’d speak to her later. At the moment, he had something else to do.

  He could delay no longer. His throat dried and his palms dampened. Slowly he turned to his mother.

  She sat erect in her favorite chair by the hearth, her hands rigid on the brocade arms. Against his will, the old feelings rose in him, the shame, the inadequacy, the pain. He forced himself to view her as Sarah did. You deserved to be nurtured and loved by your mother.

  She’d grown old in ten years, her posture shrunken and her skin wrinkled, her blond hair gone white as snow. He couldn’t recall her needing the lorgnette she now gripped.

  Gray-faced, she stared as if viewing a ghost. Her lips were parted, her expression startled. She rose and squared her shoulders. Her face hardened into a familiar mask of hauteur.

  “How dare you come back here,” she said. “I thought we were done with you.”

  He wanted to run. He wanted to hide. He almost gagged on a clot of panic. Sarah’s warm hand enveloped his cold one. The memory of her words flitted through his mind: You’ll never be at peace with yourself until you come to terms with your past.

  He coolly returned his mother’s stare. “I’m sorry my presence still disturbs you,” he said. “I was looking for Kit and Sarah. I had to be sure you hadn’t hurt them.”

  The dowager snorted. “I, hurt them? I was kind enough to offer a home to that poor, half-breed child you sired. I can give him far more than your lowborn mistress can afford.”

  Wariness and anger churned in him. Gripping Sarah’s hand, he fought for equilibrium. “But Sarah can give Kit something you can’t. Love.”

  “Love? I’m amazed you know the sentiment.”

  “It took me years, but I learned from Sarah what you should have taught me.” Against all reason, a flicker of hope flared in him. “And I’m amazed you’d welcome my son into your house, Mother. Why would you?”

  Her gaze strayed, but only for an instant. “Like it or not, he’s a Lamborough. I felt a duty to my kin.”

  “That isn’t true.” Fierce as a tigress, Sarah rounded on Damien. “Christopher took a fancy to Kit. That’s the sole reason she wanted your son here, to entertain the duke.”

  Damien’s heart lurched. Hating himself for feeling disappointment, he said flatly, “I see.”

  “Do you?” Her face bleak, his mother took a step toward him. “You’ve no inkling, either of you, of how dreadful it is for me to look at my son every day and know the fine man he might have been. When I find a way to please him, I seize upon it!”

  “Even if it means using an innocent baby as a plaything?” Damien shot back.

  She shook the lorgnette. “You always did begrudge your brother any scrap of happiness. How easily you’ve forgotten your debt to him.”

  Damien sweated beneath a shroud of guilt. To appease her, you’ve sacrificed your peace of mind, your home in England, and your ability to love. The nightmare of pain and confusion lifted. He met his mother’s accusing eyes. “The fire was a tragedy,” he said. “I’ll always be sorry for that. But I won’t spend the rest of my life atoning for a mistake I made as a five-year-old.”

  Sarah clasped his arm. The zeal blazing in her blue eyes confounded him. “You won’t have to, Damien. You never caused Christopher any harm.” Swinging back to the dowager, she snapped, “Tell him.”

  To Damien’s astonishment, his mother crumpled into the chair. Her shoulders drooped into the same defeated posture he’d spied upon entering the room.

  “I refuse to repeat your lies.” Her voice quivered oddly.

  “Then I’ll speak the truth.” Sarah went to the table beside the dowager and gathered several papers. Returning, she held them out to him. “These affidavits prove that Christopher was dull-witted since his birth. You’re blameless, Damien. You didn’t bring about his handicap.”

  He took the papers into his trembling hands. One was a copy of Dr. Finch’s medical record, the other a letter from Nanny Smaltrot. He read both carefully, then in disbelief, read them again. The hearth fire crackled in the silence. He was aware of Sarah standing close by, of the faint scratch of his mother’s nails on the chair arms.

  Comprehension curled warmly around him. From the mist of memory came the recollection of many doctors examining Christopher even before the fire. He really hadn’t harmed his brother. The darkness fled Damien’s soul, and he felt clean and unblemished, as good as he felt standing on a mountaintop in India, as good as he felt while making love to Sarah.

  His mother sat hunched like an old woman. Talons of betrayal dug into him. “Why did you lie to me, Mother?” he asked, his voice grating. “Why did you mislead an innocent boy?

  “You weren’t innocent. You nearly frightened poor Christopher to death.”

  “It was an accident. I never intended to hurt him.”

  “Don’t lie to me, young man.” She pushed herself upright, the lorgnette dangling from its ribbon around her neck. “You were always defiant and wayward, the very image of my father. I had to crush your wildness so you wouldn’t turn out as wicked as he.”

  Damien shook his head in bafflement. “Grandfather died when I
was only a baby. He had no influence over me.”

  “You inherited his bad blood. You gave me trouble from the day you came squalling into the world. You’re cocky and headstrong. You even look like Papa.” She turned to glower into the fire. “He made his fortune at the gambling tables. He ended up dying in a duel to defend the honor of one of his whores.”

  Damien was still puzzled. “Do you begrudge the fact that he left me his money?”

  She whirled. Agony and anger deepened the gold of her eyes. “The money be damned,” she burst out. “I hated him. He was a hard, cruel devil who abandoned me and my mother when I was only eleven years old.” Her words choked off.

  An inkling of perception touched Damien. “But I’m a different person. I’m not to blame for the faults of your father.”

  She threw back her head; her aristocratic nostrils flared. “You’re different, all right. You and Christopher are as opposite as good and evil. That’s why you were always jealous of him.”

  Damien s heart pounded from the effort to keep his emotions in check. “Of course I was jealous. He had your love. I could never please you.”

  “Because you’re a devil!” Her palm hit the table and rattled a porcelain dish. “Christopher should have been whole, not you. I wish you’d died in that fire.”

  Sarah gasped. The hellish nightmare of memory reared in Damien; his mother’s ugly words hung in the air like the stink of sulfur. The urge to toss back a demonic retort rose so high in his throat he could taste its bitterness. In his mind he heard Sarah’s voice: You’ve spent your entire life living up to her image of you.

  He scoured himself of darkness and focused on Sarah. Instantly his heart lightened. Her eyes radiated her shining faith in him. By the fierceness of her expression, he knew she would leap to his defense should he ask it of her. But God! Did she see him as only another injustice to be righted? Would she leave him and move on to another crusade?

  “But I didn’t die,” he said slowly, keeping his gaze on Sarah. “I lived to sire a fine son. And I found a wonderful woman who sees the good in me.” Knowing she’d come here to fight for his son filled Damien with pride. “Though God alone can fathom where she found the patience to put up with me.”

  “For a while,” Sarah murmured, “you didn’t give me a choice.”

  Her smile enveloped him in courage and contentment. He caressed her cheek, her skin pure and silken to his scars. Reluctantly he turned back to his mother.

  As if the outburst had vented all of her steam, she sat wilted in the chair. Tears dripped down her cheeks and made little runnels in her face powder. Pity stirred within him. All those lost years of his childhood, she’d been punishing not him but her own father. And she had become like the very parent she despised.

  But whatever the reason, she’d had no right to persecute him.

  “I did a lot of thinking on the voyage to England, Mother,” Damien said. “I spent days battling anger at you for denying me your love. And grieving for the happy family we might have been.”

  She attempted to sit straight. “You can’t imagine the trials I’ve endured, having a son like Christopher. No doctor could cure him. They gave him potions and possets, but nothing worked.”

  “And so you punished me.”

  She glared with self-righteous dignity. “I never struck you. I could have many a time, but I restrained myself.”

  “Yes, you only struck at my heart.” Damien shook his head in irony. “I grew up feeling unloved, abandoned by my own parents. I needed your affection every bit as much as my brother did.”

  “See? You were always a selfish boy. I gave you fine clothes, sent you to the best schools, but you never appreciated it.” Her wrinkled fingers twisted a handkerchief. “Christopher was always the perfect little gentleman. I just couldn’t let myself believe...”

  “That he was slow since birth? Admit it, Mother.”

  “He was improving!” She dabbed furiously at her eyes. “But after you set the fire, his condition deteriorated. You made him worse. It wasn’t fair that you could excel at mathematics and art and the classics, while Christopher could barely read a primer.”

  At one time Damien would have apologized; now her need to make excuses saddened him. Beset by her own demons, his mother would never change. “You keep trying to turn all your ills back to me. But no more. You should have accepted me for what I was—just an ordinary boy who craved a mother’s love.”

  “You’re evil,” she insisted. “Everyone knew so. You murdered your own father.”

  Beside him, Sarah took a small step forward, her fingers tense around her reticule. Damien sent her a frown and prayed she would support his version of the truth. Not even to exonerate himself could he implicate Christopher. “No, I didn’t kill Father. He fell because he was drunk.”

  “Nonsense. You yourself confessed you’d argued with him—”

  “I only said that because I knew you wanted to believe the worst of me. The truth is, Christopher and I caught him seducing the parlor maid. Father was so shocked by our discovery, he took a misstep and tumbled over the balcony. It was a tragic accident, nothing more.”

  “You’re lying, just as you always do. Christopher would have told me the truth. He lacks your facility for falsehoods.”

  “He didn’t grasp what happened. But it’s high time you knew that I won’t be the scapegoat for every dreadful event that tarnished your sterling life.”

  Her shoulders slumped a fraction. “I never meant you harm. I tried to make you a better man.”

  “I became a better man in spite of you, Mother, not because of you. But I doubt you’ll ever see beyond your own blind interests.”

  “You ungrateful child! How can you say such cruel things to me? And how can you lie to me about Ambrose’s death?” Her voice broke in a sob. Putting her face in her hands, she wept.

  The strident sound made Damien’s belly clench. Like a wax figure in the sun, she drooped in the chair. God, he’d never seen her weep before. Not even when his brother suffered a spell of illness. Conciliatory words crowded Damien’s throat. He’d done this to her. He’d made her miserable.

  He was about to step toward her when Sarah slipped her hand into his. The slight shake of her head brought the light of comprehension to him. His mother was manipulating him again, this time with tears.

  The drawing room doors burst open. Christopher rushed inside. He glanced worriedly at Damien, then hastened to kneel before his mother. “Mama, don’t cry. Please, don’t cry. I was listening at the keyhole, and Damien’s telling the truth. He didn’t push Papa. I did.”

  She lifted her ravaged face. The aristocratic elegance slipped away and her skin went pasty gray, her fine mouth slack with shock. “No...”

  “I pushed him because he wouldn’t listen to me play my drum.” Christopher’s lips quivered and his eyes glossed with tears. “But I never meant to hurt him. I’m so sorry, Mama.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

  “Because Damien told me I must never tell. He said he was going away, so it didn’t matter that you blamed him.”

  He laid his head in her lap. Her age-mottled hands trembled as she stroked his fair hair. Her anguished gaze lifted to Damien. The stark realization of his innocence haunted her golden eyes. But she said nothing.

  Regret saddened Damien. He acknowledged in his heart that he’d hoped to hear her relent. Yet even in the face of overwhelming evidence, she could not reach out to him.

  That was her shortcoming, not his. The thought cleansed his soul. With Sarah beside him, he could accept his mother’s flaws and focus on the people who were important to him.

  He walked across the Aubusson rug and touched his brother’s shoulder. “Chris. You haven’t welcomed me home.”

  Christopher sprang up. In a display of natural exuberance, he opened his arms. Damien pulled his brother close, absorbed his warmth, and breathed in his soap-clean scent. Deep and unending, a river of love coursed through him. For
the first time, he could embrace his brother without guilt and shame.

  Christopher let go. “You aren’t cross with me for telling our secret, are you?”

  Damien smiled. “No, I’m not cross.”

  The tears vanished and his brother’s face lit up. Excitement glistened over the serene features of an angel. “You were always so sad before,” he said, as if they’d parted only yesterday instead of ten long years ago. “But you look happy now. Is it because you have a baby?”

  “Yes. Now I have Kit...and Sarah, too.”

  Damien looked at her, and the deep, abiding love in his eyes bathed Sarah in the splendor of hope. She listened abstractedly as he answered his brother’s questions about India, as he painted vivid pictures of elephants and tigers, snake charmers and sword swallowers. Though the brothers shared the same high brow and cheekbones, they were a pleasing contrast, Damien as deep and dark as the night, Christopher its pure and golden as sunshine. Joy and pride danced inside her. Though Christopher was the duke, she privately thought Damien the nobler of the two. At last he had slain the dragons of his past.

  Blanche Coleridge sat limply, watching her sons. The silk of the chair arms lay shredded beneath her nails. Firelight caught the wetness of tears on her wrinkled cheeks, but she made no attempt to repair the damage. Reluctant sympathy touched Sarah. How sad that the dowager had refused to love a man as wonderful as her second son.

  “I have to be going now,” Damien told his brother.

  “Not yet,” said Christopher, pouting. “You haven’t played with me in ever so long. I have a whole collection of new drums.”

  “I’ll come back after Christmas to see all your presents.”

  The prospect brightened Christopher. “Bring baby Kit. He’s my namesake, you know.”

  “I know.” Damien smiled briefly; then his face sobered as he looked beyond his brother. “Goodbye, Mother.”

  Touching Sarah’s arm, he guided her to the door. “Wait,” Blanche called in a quavering voice. “Will you be staying in London?

  His muscles tensed. He turned. “That depends,” he murmured. “On certain unfinished business.”