Obsession (8 page)

In some distant place in my mind, I noted the sudden silence of laughter and chatter, of all heads turning at once to fix me with looks of curiosity. My gaze still locked on Maria—who sat on a quilt, dressed in a simple blue cotton dress and resting back against the tree. I moved through the grouped men like one in a trance.

How clearly blue were her eyes—not gleaming, but bright and steady. They were fixed upon the rising sun with a sort of wonder-look, as if they could see what no one else surrounding her could see—something profoundly splendid. Such vast depths of emotion showed in them that it seemed her very spirit was shimmering from within her.

Upon her normally colorless complexion, the brisk air had kissed a blush of color upon her cheeks. Her lips looked tinted as if she had been eating berries straight from the briar. Full they were, and deliciously red, the corners tipped up slightly as if she were reminiscing upon some fond image.

The women remained silent as I walked to the edge of the patch-work quilt and stood staring down into Maria’s face. Her hair—clean and shining—fluffed softly around her magnificently shaped head, a soft, curling bang drifting over her forehead, nearly to her eyes.

My throat tight, I eased to one knee and whispered, “She’s so beautiful again.”

Bertha beamed, and the women all smiled and nodded among themselves.

In a quiet voice, Bertha said, “She’s been havin’ a right nice talk with Paul this mornin’.”

My face froze and my cheeks flushed with discomposure. “Christ.”

“Right spirited conversation,” a diminutive woman with gray-streaked brown hair and dark, twinkling eyes declared, then giggled. “I vow they was givin’ each other a right go over. Back and forth and back and forth—”

“And she ain’t ’bout to have any of it,” a younger woman said. They all broke out in a pleasant tittering, making me wonder if they were all as tiched as Maria.

I looked from face to face—ruddy-cheeked, with sparkling eyes despite the hardship of their lives. Their expressions appeared…discomfitingly knowing, as if they could easily read my thoughts, and pitied me for them. I suddenly felt as if I were the only lunatic among them.

“She ate a right goodly amount of porridge,” Bertha informed me. “Pleasant as a babe, she were, though I got the impression it were more to please ’er brother than to pacify ’er own hunger. They was quite close, I take it.”

I nodded, my attention focused on Maria’s face. In that moment, her lunacy seemed little more than a trick of my imagination. She looked as sane as the women around her.

Yet as I moved closer, she appeared to draw away, her features to dull, the light in her eyes to diminish, until her mien became numb once again, blank and immovable, as if the sun had suddenly been absorbed by storm clouds, leaving the world—her world—gray as fog.

Bertha leaned forward and placed her hand on my shoulder. Her eyes looked deeply into mine.

“ ’Tis a woman’s touch she needs now. Give ’er time, luv. She’ll cum round when she’s good’n ready.”

As I stood, my frustration mounting, Bertha stood with me, caught my arm with a surprising fierceness, and pulled me aside. A sternness drew her face into hard planes and deep creases.

“Mind yer temper, sir,” she declared. “I can see yer a man of little patience and even less understandin’ of a woman’s sensibilities.”

She lowered her voice. “I know where she’s been, sir. Aye. ’Tis there on the inside of her arm, the asylum’s mark. They brand ’em like sheep, they do, in case they escape. Now, I ain’t gonna ask ya right off wot she were there for, but I got me own ideas. I ain’t fallen off a turnip wagon on me head lately.

“The two of ya…ya ain’t hoosband and wife, I sense that much—aye. She’s runnin’ from sumaught, and I ain’t decided yet if it’s from you or sumaught else. And I got me own ideas of why she’s gone palsied of the mind. I’ve been that close to the edge meself more than I care to remember. Leave ’er t’me, sir. For a while.”

“If anyone can bring ’er round, me own Bertha can,” came her husband’s voice, and I turned to find him smiling fondly into his wife’s eyes. His night’s labor showed in weary creases in his face; his big hands were scratched and scabbed by new blood.

He thrust a frothing pint into my hands. “The name is Thomas, by the way. Thomas Whitefield. Now cum ’long and I’ll interduce ya to the lads. They’ll be eager to make yer acquaintance.”

I
SAT AMONG THE TWO DOZEN MINERS, DRINKING
ale, my attention drifting between their boisterous conversation and Maria, who continued to sit with her beautiful face tipped up toward the sky, her expression one of sublimity. I hardly noticed when the talk and laughter fell to a heavy hush.

A frail woman draped in a shawl moved through the streaks of morning light to join them. One by one, the men all stood. The women’s smiles became grim, their gazes watchful and worried.

Once, she had clearly been a comely lass, with thick dark hair that had become faded by years and stress, as had her green eyes. She carried a paper fisted in her hand. She focused on Thomas, who stepped forward to meet her.

“Is it Richard, Lou?” he asked, as she stopped and raised her chin, her bottom lip quivering.

“If yer askin’ if me husband is dead yet, then I can say that he’s alive still, bless his tormented spirit, though the blood is comin’ frequent now and the pain grows more unbearable by the day. God forgive me, but I wish He would take him and be done with his sufferin’.”

She glanced at each of the men’s faces as if daring them to judge her. When her gaze found me, she looked me up and down slowly, eyes narrowing before turning away and drawing back her shoulders, raising her fisted hand into the air.

“It’s come. The demned company is tossin’ me and me near-dead husband out of the house. We’re to be gone by week’s end. The bastards say that if he’s too sick to work to pay for his rent, then best get out so they can put a healthy man in his place.

“He’s devoted fifteen years of his life to the company, and this is all the thanks he gets. They won’t even let him die in peace, when it’s the poison from their own mine that has killed him.”

“I’ll have a word with them,” Thomas said gently.

“I’ll not have ya riskin’ yer jobs any longer for me. And I’ll not take another pence from any of ya. Y’ve got yer own lives and families’ welfare to think about.”

Bertha moved up beside the woman and put her arm around her. “We’ll not have one of our own lost to the company, lass. Now, come sit with us a while.”

“I’ve got to be back to my husband, Bertha—”

“Just for a minute. I’ve someone here I’d like ya to meet. Her name is Maria.”

As the woman reluctantly joined the others, Thomas turned back to the silent men. “Well, there ya have it. The demned mine has leeched the life from another of us, and what thanks does Richard get for it? A grave yonder and a widow unable to care for herself.”

“I say we strike,” one declared, punctuating the comment with a thrust of his pint, causing the brew to slosh over the cup lip and spatter on his dusty boots.

Thomas shook his head. “There ain’t a one of us who can go without our salary, not with families to feed and shelter. Besides…”

He drank deeply from his cup, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We c’not risk pissin’ too loudly ’bout our sorry lot, can we? Not with the demmed Warwick Minin’ Company threatenin’ t’ shut us down.”

I watched the woman sit next to Maria, the anger on her face melting into one of friendly compassion. She glanced my way and nodded, her lashes lowering slightly before she turned away.

“What will happen to them?” I asked, causing Thomas to look toward the troubled woman and frown.

“What usually happens, once we’re of no consequence to the company. They care aught about us other than what we dig out of the demned pits.”

Thomas looked back at his friends, their faces black with soot and carved by hardship. Fear shone in their eyes, each man knowing that he faced a similar fate.

8

“I
’M SORRY,”
E
DWINA CRIED AS SHE WRUNG
her hands. “I didn’t mean to leave the door unlocked. I forgot—”

“You forgot,” I sneered. “At least be honest about your motives. You want Maria dead; admit it. You’d like nothing more than to see her pitiful little body a worm’s feast in yonder crypt.”

I stalked her as she backed away, her face colorless and her throat constricting. “You’ve become a maniac again. As senseless as she.”

“I should send you to hell, Edwina, where you might at long last find the company of one who can appreciate your bent for cruelty.”

“You sanctimonious hypocrite. You have the heart of a devil.”

“Aye.”

I wrapped one hand around her throat and pushed her against the wall, pressed her there like a butterfly pinned beneath glass.

“If I thought for a moment you had intentionally left that door unlocked, I would snap your neck in two and toss your voluptuous little corpse to my starving swine.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth curved. “Wonderful! There’s hope yet. You’re sounding more like yourself every minute.”

Eyes narrowing, I turned away, walked to the liquor cabinet, and poured myself a drink.

Edwina moved up behind me. “So what have you done with her?”

I tossed back the Scotch and poured another. “What do you care?”

“I suppose any hope that you returned her to Menson would be—”

“Idiotic.”

She ran her hand up my arm. “You’re filthy, darling. Why don’t I have Iris draw us up a warm bath—”

“Why don’t you have Iris draw
me
up a warm bath?” I smiled at her dryly. “I do believe you were just leaving.”

Taking the glass from my hand, she eased up against me. “Really, darling, can’t we at least be civil to one another?”

“My dear Edwina, there hasn’t been anything remotely civil about you since you were old enough to spit out your first insult.”

“Your Grace,” came Herbert’s slurred voice from the doorway. “You have visitors.”

“Christ,” I said, “not my grandmother.” I was too bloody bone-weary to take her on right now and hope to survive.

“Grandmother, indeed,” declared the jovial voice that I immediately recognized as Lord Darian Parkhurst.

As he stepped into the room, he bowed slightly and gestured at his legs wrapped in rough leather riding chaps. “Your Grace, am I not walking on these appendages? Had I been your dowager duchess grandmother I would have
slithered
in on my belly.”

“Smashing!” cried Oscar Whitting from the atrium. “Quite a good one, old man. The Salterdon hydra strikes again.”

Whitting entered the room with a flourish of his coattails and tossed his hat on the nearest table. His wild hair blazed orange as a pumpkin, as did the freckles on his face.

“Ah, the blushing couple. I expected to find you both absorbed in your disappointment over having the nuptials spoiled at the last moment. Yet here you are, looking at one another as scornfully as ever. Are we too late for the fits of tantrum, heaving bosoms, and tearing of hair?”

Edwina gave a huff, spewed several vulgarities, and flounced from the room.

“Imagine it,” Oscar said as he watched her go. “I finally succeeded in insulting her. Declare, Salterdon: has the wench an actual fiber of feeling about her?”

Having poured another Scotch, I moved to the window. “Who can tell?” I felt suddenly drained of energy. “With Edwina, ’tis all or nothing, isn’t it?”

Parkhurst joined me at the window as Whitting poured them generous servings of brandy. Leaning one shoulder against the windowsill, he crossed his arms over his chest and fixed me with his green eyes.

“I’ve seen sick swine look better than you, Trey. Had a rough go of it, have you?”

“How did you find the gel?” Whitting asked as he joined us, handing Parkhurst his drink.

I stared out the window toward the thin stream of black smoke rising over the moor. I touched the claw marks on my cheek—as yet slightly tender—and tried to force away the image of her in Menson.

“She’s quite mad,” I said softly, the admission a tear in my throat.

They stared at me a long moment, their mouths open.

Finally, Parkhurst cleared his throat. “Too bad, old man. What do you intend to do about it?”

“I…don’t know.”

“Where is she?”

“Do tell,” Whitting cried. “What have you done with her?”

I sipped the drink, my gaze shifting from one bounder to the other. Suspicion crawled up my spine. I knew them only too well; knew the lengths they would go to for a farthing or two. I was, or had been, one of their own not so long ago.

“Did my grandmother send you here to ferret out information about me?” I asked in a soft, threatening tone.

They looked at one another and burst out laughing.

“Imagine it.” Whitting choked and gasped for air. “The old crow daring to ask
us
for a favor. She would gnaw her own heart out before acknowledging our existences.”

“Come, come, Trey.” Parkhurst gave a toss of his head, causing a wave of dark brown hair to spill over his brow. “You know us better than that.”

“I know for a fact that you’ve blown through your monthly stipend and your father refuses you another farthing for the moment. I also know that you’re in debt to your ass to the Groom Porter—just as I am. If they’re threatening you with collection as doggedly as they’re threatening me, you would do just about anything to get your hands on money.”

Whitting declared, “This from the old dog who would have sold his soul to Edwina to settle his financial woes. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

“At least I wouldn’t have been stabbing my best friend in the back…would I, Whitting?”

Whitting snorted and turned away.

Parkhurst gave me a sardonic smile. “Seriously, my Duke. You look like hell. Is it really that bad?”

“Worse than you could ever imagine.”

The humor disappearing from his face, Parkhurst followed my gaze to the moor. “Sorry to hear it. I suppose there’s nothing we can do to help?”