Captives of the Night

"Yes."

  "And your work goes well, I hope?"

  "Very well."

  "You have accommodated yourself to London?"

  "Yes."

  The short, fierce syllables announced that he'd driven painting altogether from her mind. That was enough, he told himself. He smiled. "You wish me at the Devil, perhaps?"

  The pink deepened. "Certainly not."

  His glance trailed down to her gloved hands. The thumb of her right hand moved restlessly over the back of her left wrist.

  She followed his gaze. Her hand instantly stilled.

  "I think you have wished me at the Devil since our first encounter," he said. "I even wondered whether it was on my account you fled Paris."

  "We didn't flee," she said.

  "Yet I offended somehow, I am sure. You left without word—not even the simple adieu."

  "There wasn't time to take leave of everybody. Francis was in a great—" Her eyes grew wary. "He had made up his mind to go, and when he makes up his mind, he can't bear delay."

  "You had promised me a portrait," Ismal said softly. "My disappointment was great."

  "I should think you'd have recovered by now."

  He took a step nearer. She didn't move. He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head.

  He was just close enough to detect her scent. It was the same. There was as well the same tension between them that he remembered: the pull...and the resistance.

  "Yet the portrait is reason enough to come to England, I think," he said. "In any case, this is what I told your charming friend, Lady Carroll. And she took pity on me, as you see. Not only did she invite me to join her family and guests in this picturesque town, but she ordered one of her brothers to accompany me, lest I lose my way."

  He raised his head. In her tawny eyes he saw a turmoil of emotion—anger, anxiety, doubt...and something else, not so easy to read.

  "Yes. Well. It would appear that Fiona has lost hers. She should have been here hours ago."

  "Indeed it is a pity, for she will miss the dancing. Already the music begins." He looked about. "I have expected to discover some English gentleman bearing down upon us, seeking his partner for the first dance. But no one comes this way." He turned back to her. "Surely someone has asked you?"

  "I know my limits. If I begin now, I shan't last the evening. I've reserved four dances only."

  "Five," he said, holding out his hand.

  She stared at it. "Later...perhaps."

  "Later you will put me off," he said. "Your feet will hurt. You will be fatigued. Also, I may become fatigued as well, and so I may...misstep. I did this once, I recall—and never danced with you again." He lowered his voice. "You will not make me coax, I hope?"

  She took his hand.

  ¯¯

  "This morning?" Fiona repeated. "You can't be serious. You've been here hardly two days. And I've only just come."

  "You should have come sooner." Leila shoved her russet gown into the valise.

  They were in her assigned bedroom. It was only eight o'clock in the morning, and the party hadn't ended until nearly dawn, but Leila was well rested. She'd slept like the dead. That wasn't surprising. She had gone to bed feeling as though she'd just spent five years at hard labor—with Esmond as the ruthless overseer. The entire evening had been a battle. Actually, she would have preferred open warfare, with real weapons. How did one fight shadow, innuendo, hint? How could he seem to behave so properly yet make one feel so hotly improper?

  Fiona sat on the bed. "You're running away from Esmond, aren't you?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes."

  "You're a fool."

  "I cannot deal with him, Fiona. He is beyond me. He's beyond anything. Francis was quite right."

  "Francis is a sodden degenerate."

  Leila took up a petticoat, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into a corner of the valise. "He isn't stupid, especially about people."

  "He's jealous because Esmond is everything he's not—or what Francis may have been once, but won't be ever again. That cur doesn't deserve you, never did. He certainly deserves no loyalty. You should have taken a lover long ago."

  Leila shot her friend a look. "Have you?"

  "No, but only because I haven't found just the right one. It's not on account of some idiotic principle."

  "I won't be anybody's whore."

  "'Whore' is a man's word," Fiona said. "Reserved for women. A man is a rake, a libertine. How dashing it sounds. But a woman who behaves the same way is a whore, a tart, a trollop—gad, the list is endless. I counted up once. Do you know, English contains about ten times as many disagreeable terms for a pleasure-loving woman as it does for her male counterpart? It makes one think."

  "I don't need to think about it. I don't wish to think about it. I don't care what the words are. I will not sink to Francis' level."

  Fiona let out a sigh. "You haven't even got to the point of flirting with your lovely count," she said patiently. "And he's not going to drag you to bed forcibly, my dear. I assure you, my brother does run a respectable household, and you may stay out your week without the least fear of being sold into white slavery."

  "No. It's...He's treacherous. I don't—oh, how am I to explain?" Leila pushed her hair back from her face. "Can't you see for yourself? Francis was right, as usual. Esmond does something to people. It's like—oh, I don't know. Mesmerism."

  Fiona lifted her eyebrows.

  Leila couldn't blame her. Of course it sounded insane. She sat down on the bed beside her friend. "I had resolved not to dance with him," she said. "It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Then—oh, I know it sounds laughable, but it wasn't. He threatened to—to coax me."

  "Coax you," Fiona repeated expressionlessly.

  Leila nodded. "And immediately, that became the last thing in the world I wanted." Looking down, she saw that she was rubbing her thumb over her wrist. She frowned. He'd noticed even that. He missed nothing, she was sure. The smallest self-betrayal. It had told him she was uneasy, and he used it. He'd threatened to coax her because he knew—the wretch knew—she was afraid he'd addle her even more than he'd already done.

  "I don't think it's Esmond at all," Fiona said. "Your nerves are frayed, and that's Francis' doing, mostly—and overwork, as you admitted weeks ago."

  "What Francis does is of no concern whatever to me. If I heeded his moods, I should go mad. But I know it's the opiates and the drink, and so I ignore it. He's the one with the frayed nerves. So long as he keeps out of my studio, he can tear the house to pieces for all I care. I scarcely see him anymore—and the servants are well-paid to clean up after him."

  "Yet you prefer to go back to that? When you might have the Comte d'Esmond just by crooking your little finger?"

  "I strongly doubt Monsieur comes at any woman's beckoning. Rather the other way about, I suspect. He does precisely as he pleases." Leila rose and resumed packing.

  Despite Fiona's unceasing remonstrances, Leila was finished in another half hour. Very soon thereafter, she climbed into a hired carriage and headed for London.

  She was home shortly after noon. She changed out of her traveling dress into an old day gown, donned her smock, and marched into her studio. Then and only then did she begin to release the turmoil that had been roiling inside her since the moment she'd spied Esmond in the ballroom at Norbury House.

  Fortunately, she didn't have to decide what to do. She had assembled a still life before she'd left, and no one had touched it. The two daily servants never entered her studio to clean unless expressly told to do so.

  The heap of bottles, jars, and glasses seemed merely a haphazard mess, but it presented an ideal painterly exercise. One had to look, concentrate totally, and paint only what one saw.

  She looked, she concentrated, she mixed her colors, she painted...a face.

  She paused, staring disbelievingly at the canvas. It was the face of the man she'd fled.

  Her heart thudding, she scraped away the paint with her pa
lette knife, then began again. Once more she focused upon her subject, and once more the face appeared.

  And she knew why. Esmond's countenance haunted her because he was an enigma. She could read faces intuitively, but not his.

  The mystery had plagued her in Paris. She hadn't seen him, refused to think of him, for ten months. Yet after less than ten minutes in his company, she'd been lost again in the puzzle. She couldn't stop herself from trying to understand what he did, how he did it—whether his eyes told the truth or lied, whether the sweet, lazy curve of his mouth was reality or illusion.

  He had caught her, and understood what she was doing, and didn't like it. She'd seen the anger: one evil spark in those fathomless blue depths, there and gone in the space of a heartbeat. He'd caught her trying to peer behind the mask and didn't like it. And so, he'd driven her off. He'd done that with his eyes alone, with one look of burning intensity...and she'd backed off, scorched.

  Yet some dark part of her had wanted to be burned again.

  Perhaps it was not entirely the artist in her, but this dark part that had kept her with him in the first place. She might have walked away any time, might have greeted him and gone, but she didn't. Couldn't. Wanted to, didn't want to.

  She wasn't an indecisive or unsure woman. Yet she'd remained with him, all the while barely able to think, let alone speak, because she felt as though she were being torn in two. Yes. No. Go away. Stay.

  Now, though he was miles away, she couldn't drive him out of her mind with work. Now he was in the work, and she couldn't get him out.

  Concentration washed away, and anger flooded in. Her temples began to throb. She threw down the brush and hurled the palette at the canvas, knocked oils and solvents to the floor. Furious tears streaming down her face, she stormed from one end of the studio to the other, tearing it to pieces. She hardly knew what she was doing, didn't care. All she wanted was destruction. She was ripping the drapes from the windows when she heard her husband's voice.

  "Dammit, Leila, they can hear you all the way to Shoreditch."

  She swung round. Francis stood in the doorway, clutching his forehead. His hair was matted, his jaw dark with stubble.

  "How the devil am I to sleep through this?" he demanded.

  "I don't care how you sleep," she said, her voice choked with tears. "I don't care about anything, especially you."

  "Gad, you picked a fine time for one of your fits. What in blazes are you doing home, anyway? You were supposed to be at Norbury House the week. Did you come back just to have a tantrum?"

  He entered the studio and looked about. "One of your better ones, by the looks of it."

  She pressed her fist to her pounding heart and looked about at what she'd done. Another tantrum. God help her.

  Then she saw him pick up the canvas. "Leave that alone," she said too shrilly. "Put it down and get out."

  He looked up at her. "So this is what it's all about. Pining for the pretty count, are you?" He tossed the canvas aside. "Want to run back to Paris and be one of the maggots crawling over him, do you?"

  The thunder in her head was abating, but the furious frustration remained. She set her jaw. "Go away," she said. "Leave me alone."

  "I wonder how he'll like dealing with a temperamental artiste. I wonder what he'll think of Madame's little rages. I wonder what method he'd use to quiet you down. No telling with him. Maybe he'll beat you. Would you like that, my love? You might, you know. Some women do."

  She felt sick. "Stop it. Leave me alone. Talk your filth to one of your whores."

  "You were one of my whores once." He eyed her up and down. "Don't you remember? I do. You were so young and sweet and so very eager to please. Insatiable, too, once you got over your girlish shyness. But that was only to be expected, wasn't it? Like papa, like daughter."

  A claw of ice fastened on her belly. Never, since the day he'd first broken the news, had Francis referred openly to her father.

  "Ah, that gives you a turn, does it?" As his glance moved from the canvas back to her, his dissolute mouth twisted into a smirk. "What a fool I was not to have thought of it before. But then there was so little at stake in Paris. What do the French care what your papa did or was? The English, though—they're another matter, aren't they?"

  "You bastard."

  "You shouldn't have made me jealous, Leila. You shouldn't be painting the face of a man you haven't seen in nearly a year. Or has it been? Have you been seeing him on the sly? Was he at Norbury House? You might as well tell me. I can find out easily enough. Was he there?" he demanded.

  "Yes, he was there!" she snapped. "And I left. So much for your disgusting suspicions. And if your cesspit mind isn't satisfied with that, ask your friends—ask anybody. He's only just arrived in England."

  "How did he come to be at Norbury House?"

  "How the devil should I know? He was invited. Why shouldn't he be? He's probably related to half the peerage. Most of the French nobility is."

  The twisted smirk hardened. "Fiona invited him, I'll wager. Pandering for you, as usual—"

  "How dare you—"

  "Oh, I know what she's about. She'd love to help you make a cuckold of me, the black-haired she-wolf."

  "A cuckold?" she echoed bitterly. "What does one call what you've made me? What name does one give the wife? Or maybe the title 'wife' is sufficient joke in the circumstances."

  "What should you like to be instead? A divorcee?" He laughed. "Even if we could afford it, you wouldn't like that a bit, would you? Why not? The scandal might do wonders for your career."

  "It would destroy my career, and you know it."

  "Don't think I won't make a scandal if you attempt an affair." Kicking aside the canvas, Francis crossed the room to her. "Don't think I won't make you pay in private as well. Can you guess how you'll pay, my precious?"

  He stood inches away. Revulsion churned inside her, but she refused to retreat. If she appeared to doubt her own strength and will, even for a moment, he'd doubt it, too. She lifted her chin and gazed coldly up at him.

  "You're not to see him again," he said. "Or Fiona."

  "You do not tell me who I may and may not see."

  "I'll bloody well tell you what I like—and you'll obey!"

  "And you can roast in hell! You don't dictate to me. I won't take orders from a whoremongering swine!"

  "You viper-tongued little hypocrite! I let you go your way—let you deny me your bed—and this is what I get. You skip off to Surrey to wrap your legs about that—"

  "Shut your filthy mouth!" Hot tears welled in her eyes. "Get out! Go drink yourself senseless, why don't you! Eat more of that poison you love so much! Intoxicate yourself to death! Only let me be!"

  "By gad, if my head weren't pounding like a steam engine, I'd—" He raised his hand. He was just about furious enough to strike her, she knew. Yet she wouldn't shrink from him.

  He only stared at his hand. "But of course I can't throttle you, can I? Because I adore you so." He chucked her under the chin. "Naughty baggage. We'll speak of this later, after you've calmed down. And you won't come in and knock me on the head with a blunt instrument, will you, love? We're not in France any more, recollect. English juries are not at all soft-hearted—or headed—about women. They've hanged plenty—even the pretty ones."

  She made no answer, only stood rigid and silent, staring at the floor as he left the studio. She remained so while his footsteps faded down the hall. When, finally, she heard his bedroom door slam shut, she moved stiffly across the room and sat down on the sofa.

  She wiped her eyes and blew her nose.

  She was not afraid, she told herself. Any scandal Francis brought down on her must hurt him, too—as he'd realize when he recovered from last night's debauch. If he recovered. If the drink and opiates weren't destroying his reason.

  In the ten months since they'd come to London, he'd grown steadily worse. Some days he didn't leave his bed until dinnertime. He took laudanum to sleep, and again when he woke, to relieve the
pain of rising from his bed. Always, he needed something—drink or opiates to dull the restlessness or peevishness, the headache and other discomforts. Always he needed something to carry him through this demented existence he called living.

  She should not have quarreled with him. His mind was diseased. She might as well try to argue a man out of cholera. She should not have let him upset her.

  She rose from the sofa and picked up the offending canvas. She should not have taken a fit about that, certainly, she chided herself. It had happened only because she'd let Esmond upset her. What a fool she'd made of herself: running away from Norbury House, after babbling to Fiona about mesmerism, for heaven's sake.

  "Gad, I shall become as deranged as Francis," she muttered. "Just from living with him, probably."

  There was a thump and a crash from down the hall. "That's right, you poor sod," she said, glancing up from the smeared painting. "Knock over the furniture. Throw things about. Maybe that's from living with me."

  She righted the easel, set the canvas back upon it, dug out fresh supplies of paint from the cupboard, retrieved her brushes from various parts of the room, and resolutely set to work.

  Her mind—if not her heart—cleansed by the recent tempest, she eventually succeeded in obliterating every trace of the Comte d'Esmond's provoking countenance.

  While she worked, she told herself she could leave Francis. She could go away from England and change her name. Again. She could paint anywhere. She was only seven and twenty. That wasn't too old to begin again. But she'd think it over later, when she was calmer. She'd talk to Andrew. Though no longer her guardian, he was still her solicitor. He'd advise and help her.

  Hand and mind occupied, she didn't notice the time passing. Not until she'd finished the painting and begun cleaning up did she glance at the clock on the mantel. Then she discovered it was past teatime. She'd been working for hours in rare, blessedly uninterrupted quiet. But where the devil was her tea?

  She was about to yank the bell rope when Mrs. Dempton came to the open studio door bearing a heap of bed linens.

  As the servant glanced into the wrecked studio, her jowly countenance tightened with disapproval.