Echoes in the Darkness (6 page)

Once there, I found instant popularity. Some of the men who hired me just wanted to spend time with a naked girl, which was rather sad and occasionally sinister. Many of them were talented artists and, now and then, I was privileged to witness signs of real genius. I was fortunate to be hired by one famous artist who painted a whole series of pictures of me wearing nothing but a carnival mask. That exhibition earned us both good deal of money. Sometimes I would get requests for erotic poses, which I politely refused. There were one or two occasions when I sensed I was in real danger. But Magda, and life, had taught me well. I could take care of myself. Naturally, I was also regularly offered more money in return for sex. I never took it. Did I
ever
have sex with the men I worked for? Of course I did. I was young and desirable, and some of them were, too. I wasn’t promiscuous, but I wasn’t celibate, either. There had been no one special in my life, however. My thoughts flickered wistfully toward the memory of a pair of fire-gold eyes, a flashing smile and hands that could play my body like a well-tuned instrument. Determinedly, I turned those thoughts away.

I scanned Eddie’s troubled face as we viewed the paintings. I wished I could find a way through the walls he was systematically building around himself. We both knew this strange non-betrothal of ours might yet turn out to be a horrible mistake. But we had always been friends. Now I could feel him slipping away from me.

One of the canvasses was unfinished. In it, I was seated astride a chair, with my back to the artist, looking provocatively over my shoulder. I had finally succumbed and allowed Eddie to paint my face on the understanding that he would never sell or display those pictures. Although we had never had a sexual relationship, I knew he became aroused when he painted me. I recalled a comment one veteran artist made to me. “If I don’t have an erection while looking at the beautiful, naked body of my model, I cannot expect my pictures to reflect true passion.”

Eddie stared hungrily now at the painting, taking in the long sweep of my naked back, the wild tumble of my hair and the curve of my buttocks. Unexpectedly, he pulled me into his arms, a look of desperation crossing his features.

“We should finish that picture,” he grunted. “Here, now.” I felt his hardness press insistently against my stomach. “Feel what you do to me,” he demanded harshly, his breath coming fast and ragged. Catching hold of my hand, he drew it slowly down to his bulging crotch. His eyes fluttered closed. I felt a brief, welcome thrill of desire sting my nerve endings into life. It was a dim flicker in comparison to what I had once felt. But it was no use pining for that which I could not have. Perhaps this was what we both needed. Second best might be better than nothing at all.

“Look at me then,” I murmured, and Eddie’s cobalt eyes flew open. Abruptly, his dreamlike expression changed.

“Eddie? Dita?” Eleanor’s voice called from outside, and Bertram charged through the door. Eddie immediately sprang away from me, turning to bend over a stack of canvasses to hide his face. Eleanor burst in and began to chatter excitedly about a letter she had received from a friend who was planning to visit. Mechanically I expressed interest in her conversation, all the while watching Eddie from under my lashes. It wasn’t Eleanor’s arrival that had driven the forceful passion from his mood—of that I was sure. It had happened before we heard her voice, when he had opened his eyes and seen
my
face before him. Could it have been thoughts of someone else, not of me, that had stimulated his lust? It was a deeply uncomfortable thought. And, hard on its heels, there came another question. Who
was
he thinking about?

* * *

“It’s high time you showed your face in the regional offices, Eddie. You can start by going to London to supervise the negotiations for this export contract.” Tynan had abandoned his wheelchair and, although he still leaned heavily on a walking stick, his strength seemed to be returning.

“What about Cad? I thought negotiations were the clever brother’s forte?” The bitter note in Eddie’s voice when he spoke of his brother made me wince. I didn’t believe he could truly take his rightful place as the heir apparent until he could purge that venom.

Tynan shook his head firmly. “Cad is dealing with a delicate issue at the Lancashire mills, and anyway, you must begin to take control. It will enhance your status if the London employees get a glimpse of you.”

“What about it, Dita? D’you fancy a London-ward trip?” Eddie’s eyes were alight with restless excitement, and I realised that, although he had no desire to engage in Jago business matters, the idea of a trip to the capital—or perhaps anywhere that was not Tenebris—most definitely appealed to him.

“You are, of course, most welcome to remain here in Eddie’s absence, my dear,” Tynan assured me with gentle, old-fashioned courtesy. He left us then to take a leisurely stroll around the lake, while Eddie and I trod a more strenuous path toward Athal Cove.

“My parents have a townhouse in London.” Eddie was full of plans for our escape. “We can stay there. You will love London, Dita. There is so much to see and do. All life is there.”

“When a man is tired of London…” I began.

“He is tired of life,” Eddie finished Doctor Johnson’s famous quote.

Below us, towering sea stacks stood like sentinels of awe and majesty guarding the colourless winter. Smooth boulders, worn ledges, jagged upturned rocks and crumbling cliffs lent texture and drama to the scene. The surf announced its arrival with a roar. Within that sound, I could sense the approach of another tide, this one a screaming torrent of danger. I had no desire to remain here and place myself in its path.

“London town it is then,” I said.

Seized with sudden, frenzied elation, Eddie picked me up and twirled me round until I was dizzy and gasping for breath.

“Don’t you see, Dita?” he asked, planting a smacking kiss on my cheek when he finally set me back on my feet. “I’ve faced my Jago demons and survived. I can go to London with a clear conscience. I think it’s going to be all right after all.”

* * *

I had been feeling unwell for a day or two. At first I put the general feeling of malaise that assailed me down to the strange atmosphere of the house, my guilt about my false engagement and my fears for Eddie’s well-being. That was even before I thought about Sandor’s rage when he arrived in Paris and found me gone. I woke one morning, however, feeling dizzy and shaky. But I was never ill. Telling myself not to be so feeble, I forced myself up and about. Eddie was full of plans for our journey to London, and I did my best to enter into his enthusiasm. As lunchtime approached, however, I could no longer ignore the pounding in my head and the fact that none of my limbs seemed to belong to me. Eddie and I joined Lucy and Eleanor in the parlour, and I was content to sit quietly, letting their conversation wash over me.

When Porter announced that lunch was ready, I rose to follow my companions into the dining room. The edges of my vision darkened abruptly, and the room began to spin wildly. I slid back into my seat. The next thing I knew, I was lying back on the elegant chaise while Lucy held a cold compress to my forehead.

“You fainted. No, don’t sit up—try to lie still. Could you be expecting a baby?” she asked bluntly, holding a glass of water to my lips. I shook my head. “Then you must see a doctor at once,” she informed me briskly. “There has been an outbreak of influenza locally, several of the servants have succumbed to it and I am told that it is a particularly nasty strain.”

I attempted to protest that I would be fine after an afternoon’s rest, but I felt too weak to be forceful, and she overruled me, anyway. Eddie carried me up to my room, and I clambered gratefully into bed. By the time the doctor arrived a few hours later, my head was aching, my throat was on fire and I was beset by alternating chills and heat that made me shiver violently.

“You are right, of course, my lady,” the doctor informed Lucy after he had examined me. “It is the same strain of flu that has half the county laid up.” He lowered his voice. “And Miss Varga here seems to have taken a bad dose. She’s young and healthy, no reason why she shouldn’t make a full recovery. But she will feel considerably worse before she begins to feel better, that much I can predict.” Horror stories of influenza outbreaks that killed thousands penetrated my tired brain. Doctor Munroe proceeded to issue a lengthy list of instructions for my care and promised to call again in the morning.

“But I have to get up,” I grumbled feebly. “We are travelling to London tomorrow.”

“Eddie must go without you,” Lucy explained in her calm voice. “You are in no fit state to travel.”

When Eddie came to see me later, he sat on the bed and studied my face with interest. “You look like shit, Dita,” he informed me cheerfully. I promptly burst into tears, surprising us both. When I had subsided weakly against his shoulder, exhausted from the effort of crying, he smoothed my hair gently, saying, “I wish I didn’t have to go, but my father tells me this wretched business won’t wait.”

“I want to go with you,” I gulped. “I don’t want to stay here without you. That was never part of this ridiculous plan.”

“I know,” he sighed. “This place is poison. It saps my strength. I’m sorry I have been so bloody since we got here. I was looking forward to getting away, to being able to plan what we should do next. But my mother is right—you can’t travel. You must stay here and rest. She’ll take care of you, and I’ll get back down here as often as I can. When you are well, we can talk more about getting away from Tenebris, maybe making London a permanent home. We could rent a house there, and be roommates once more instead of having to maintain this charade. It will be like Paris all over again.”

“But you will be the next earl,” I pointed out fretfully. “This is where you
should
be. And I need to move on, Eddie. I’m an impostor. This arrangement isn’t fair on anyone.”

“I wish to God I wasn’t the heir to anything,” he said moodily, getting up and going to the window. He fiddled restlessly with the curtain cord, looking down on the scene below. “All I want is to go back to Paris and spend my life painting. Cad would be so much more suited to the role of heir apparent. He loves Cornwall, Tenebris, the family name—all the things I cannot find it in me to care about. My father says he seems to have been born with those insights. It was a cruel quirk of fate that made Cad the second son.”

His attention waned as his eyes were drawn to something outside the window. I spoke his name several times with no response. We lapsed into silence. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the mantel clock and the faint popping of apple-scented logs on the fire. I could hear the occasional yap from Bertram drifting up from the lawn below, followed by his mistress’s laughing reply. A slight, sad smile trembled on Eddie’s lips as, trancelike, he watched the scene below.

In the end, I felt so ill that I was content for him to go to London alone and to remain confined to my bed. Oddly, I was glad to be relieved of the responsibility of caring about Eddie and worrying for his health. I might have cheated my way into their home, but I felt inexplicably comfortable with Lucy, Tynan and Eleanor, and was saddened when I remembered that my acquaintance with them was destined to be fleeting.

* * *

The fever that held me in its thirsty embrace kept me tossing and turning in my restless bed. I seethed and chafed and felt like a nest of scorpions had taken up residence in my brain. On the second day, Lucy placed a cool hand on my sweat-drenched brow and, pursing her lips, sent once more for the doctor. He looked more serious on this visit and, through the burning tunnel of delirium, I heard him muttering to Lucy. Phrases such as “next twenty-four hours,” “crucial” and “dangerous heat” brought a frown to my efficient nurse.

Lucy’s presence did much to comfort me, and she eased my raging temperature by bathing my brow with lavender water and making sure I sipped freshly made lemonade. Eventually, soothed by these ministrations, I fell into a troubled sleep.

It was several hours later when I woke, and Lucy had gone. The room was in darkness, except for the glow of a dying fire. Something about the room was different, and I closed my eyes in an attempt to recapture sleep. It eluded me and my eyes flickered open and scanned my surroundings fearfully. I had been wrong in my first impression.
Everything
about the room was different. Black oak panels lined all four walls. Heavy oil paintings and rich tapestries caught the edges of my vision in the dancing light. The bed in which I lay was a mammoth four-poster, supported by carved columns and hung with crimson velvet curtains. The coverlet clutched under my chin in nervous hands was thick and stiffened by intricate embroidery. My tired, sickly mind had apparently taken me back in time to another century. Feebly, I closed my eyes to shut out these unwelcome fantasies. But I could not dismiss the faint but vaguely familiar scent of mingled iris root, cinnamon and musk. It was an evocative aroma that made my stomach knot with an incongruous mix of fear and remembered arousal. A peach-fuzz of electricity set my nerve endings alight.

A slight noise close to the foot of the bed reached my ears and my eyes flew wide again, searching the gloom. My heart gave a wild thud against my breastbone. A man was leaning casually against the bedpost, watching me. His head was bent, leaving his face in shadow. The cinch-waisted coat he wore hinted at an earlier decade, and his boots and trousers were mud splattered as if he had been riding. His head was uncovered and a lock of ebony hair flopped onto his brow. I gasped and scrambled into a sitting position, even though the effort of doing so caused my head to spin.

My movement made him look up and directly at me. His eyes reflected the golden glow of the firelight. A quiver of recognition ran through me and disappeared in the same instant as I caught a glimpse of a fine scar marring the perfect contours of his left cheek. As I gazed numbly at him, he flashed me a wicked smile and his white teeth gleamed bright. Then—later I could never recall quite how it happened—he was gone. The room returned to normal. Pale, flowered wallpaper replaced the dark panels. Chintz curtains and framed pastel landscapes softened the mood. The coverlet under my fingers was soft, quilted silk.