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  Jancy was a new viscountess and would one day be a countess. She was also an outsider, a person known to be of lowly birth and with no ton connections. Many would be looking to find fault. Everything would go more smoothly if she, her home, and her entertainments were up to snuff.

  Dare rose. Mara noticed he’d not touched his tea or cake. “Please excuse me. I, too, have matters to deal with, but I’ll make sure all is in readiness. How many servants will you be bringing, Simon?”

  As he and Simon discussed the details, Mara turned to Jancy. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “As Ella said, it is a little quiet here and I’m a sad bother to her.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea. I’d be terrified of London in my own home, never mind living in a duke’s house. Simon laughs at me, but it’s not easy.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll soon find your feet, especially with me to help.”

  Mara hurried upstairs to supervise the packing of her trunks, resolving to keep her silent promise to Dare. She wouldn’t pester him. She would act the perfect young lady and wait for him to court her.

  But please let it be soon!

  Dare traveled back to Yeovil House in a coach that now seemed full of memories of Mara. Perhaps even her light perfume lingered.

  They’d been face-to-face in here for so long and at times it had felt overwhelming, yet he’d had no desire to escape. Her bright eyes, her attention, her very presence had been light for his dark spirit.

  She’d said she loved him.

  He should be fleeing back to Somerset. For her sake. Instead, he’d invited her into his home. What insanity had possessed him? True, he’d invited Simon and Jancy, but all the same. To invite anyone…

  He’d seen no choice. How could he not offer hospitality to his closest friend when he had eight empty bedrooms?

  He closed his eyes and rested his head back, aware as always that a little opium would wipe all these cares away. He’d taken his noon dose at the Yeoman Inn, congratulating himself that he’d carried it all morning without succumbing to temptation.

  He’d never tried that before. He’d truly felt no temptation until the oppressiveness of the Tower had weighed on him—prison cells, cages, poor trapped animals with hate in their eyes….

  Mara hadn’t seemed to notice his distress, thank heavens, but it had been a blessing that she’d tired. If she’d wanted to explore every nook and cranny he didn’t know what he’d have done.

  She’d said she loved him.

  Despite her scrabbling attempts to escape, she’d meant it. At that moment, she’d meant it and hunger had roared in him, hunger worse than that for opium. To claim her, to possess her, to feed off her light and beauty.

  To consume her.

  That was what he feared above all. That the darkness inside him would swallow all the light—in his family, in his friends, but especially in Mara St. Bride.

  The damnable, magical St. Brides.

  As a tribe they were too tenderhearted for the real world. The hungry must be fed, the sick cared for, the injured healed, the oppressed defended. Those cursed with Black Ademar’s hair were the worst. They would plunge into an inferno in their cause.

  That had almost killed Simon. Nothing must be allowed to harm Mara, most especially himself.

  She’d said she loved him.

  When he broke free of the beast.

  If he broke free of the beast…

  What if he stopped now? If his recent dose was his last? In a few weeks he could have victory.

  If he could endure it this time.

  Surely he could with such a prize at the end.

  But as he reached the house, he realized he had put that option out of reach for now. Simon, Jancy, and Mara would arrive within hours, so he couldn’t flee London to endure hell.

  He descended from the coach and went into the house, where he summoned Mrs. Hunstable and gave her instructions.

  “Two bedrooms. Viscount Austrey and his wife should have a parlor as well, I think. Which ones face the street?”

  “The blue and the brown, sir. And the brown has a parlor adjoining. Both are noisier, however.”

  “They’ll do.” He saw her realize that they would be farthest from the ballroom at the back.

  “Provide all that might be needed. Wines, fruit, brandy. And the meals will need to be more varied, especially dinner….”

  What else?

  “Don’t you worry, my lord,” the housekeeper said. “Just let me know if there’s anything in particular the ladies and gentleman would or wouldn’t like, and I’ll see to everything.”

  She might as well have patted him on the head. In his attempt to appear normal, he was acting as he never had before. In that other life that seemed a distant dream, he’d have carelessly told her the number of guests and left it all up to her.

  He escaped to his room. Salter was there, assessing him for the ravages of the expedition.

  “I’m alive and in one piece, but there’s a problem.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  When Dare explained, Salter said, “A little early for this, sir, but these aren’t strangers.”

  “No.” Dare couldn’t find words to speak of Mara. “I thought of giving it up entirely.”

  “Most unwise, sir.”

  “You’re right, of course. Get Ruyuan. We need to discuss strategy.”

  Dare waited for his mentor, inhaling and exhaling, as he’d learned could calm his desperate mind, aware of a new and unforeseen burden.

  The thought of taking opium when under the same roof as Mara St. Bride revolted him.

  Chapter 11

  At half past three, Mara traveled to Yeovil House with Simon and Jancy, excited, but tense with awareness that she was returning to the house she’d so scandalously visited three nights ago. No one could possibly recognize her. No one but the kitchen boy and the groom had even seen her, and she’d been huddled in the blanket. Yet her nerves were wound tight.

  She would be under the same roof as Dare. They would meet a dozen times a day. She must make absolutely sure not to embarrass them both again. But she seemed to lose control of her wits around him.

  “Sit still,” Simon said. “You’re as fidgety as a five-year-old. Was Ella’s as dull as all that?”

  “I spent most of yesterday sewing clothes for orphans,” Mara complained. “And nearly every night we had politicians for dinner.”

  “Tasty,” Jancy said, causing laughter.

  “Tough as old boots, I’d think,” Simon said. “Poor Mara. No dissipation at all?”

  Smile brightly. “Not a scrap. Speaking of which, I long to go to Astley’s. Dare wouldn’t take me.”

  Simon studied her. “How does it come that he’s squiring you around at all?”

  Mara’s mind flashed to her misadventure with Berkstead so fiercely that she felt her brother would see everything. “I asked.”

  When Simon shook his head, Mara saw an opening. “Should I not have done that? He seems recovered. Not his old self, but healthy. He did seem a bit blue-deviled, however, so I thought it would be good for him as well as for me. I do cheer people up—you know I do.”

  “Or drive them demented. I assume he’s able to tell you to go to the devil if he wishes.”

  “I doubt he’d be so rude.”

  “Which is the problem. Sometimes you require it.”

  Mara’s “Don’t be horrid!” clashed with Jancy’s “Simon!”

  Mara smiled at her sister-in-law. “You know we squabble all the time. Seriously, Simon, how is Dare? I assumed he was free of the opium, but now I wonder.”

  Simon grimaced, clearly unwilling to share confidences. “He’s reduced his dose to a low level, but it seems that the final break is very difficult.”

  “Why?”

  “None of your business. You have Jancy’s company now and my escort. Leave Dare alone.”

  Mara wanted to snarl or cry but she tried calm reason. “I’m going to be under his roof, Simon. Might I not need to know a l
ittle about these things?”

  “Oh, very well. The doctors can’t agree on cures for the addiction. Many think there’s no point in trying and that it’s better for the opium user to simply take a little every day.”

  “I know that. I assume Dare won’t accept that.”

  “No, but stopping suddenly is horrendous—it can kill—so he’s chosen the slow reduction method. It’s worked pretty well thus far, and it’s given him time to recover physically, but it seems the end must be taken at a leap.”

  Mara frowned. “And he can’t do that? I would have thought Dare up to anything.” Simon’s surprise made her aware of her words, which sent heat into her cheeks. “I’ve always thought him splendid. You know that.”

  “Yes.” His look was speculative, however, and not pleasantly so. Mara almost asked what he’d think about her marrying Dare but she had some sense and control left.

  She was saved by the carriage rocking to a stop in front of Yeovil House, but she descended feeling as if the woman’s-head door knocker might cry out the scandal of her last visit here. All that happened, of course, was that the door was opened by an impassive footman and they walked in.

  Last time, distressed and by the light of only one candle, Mara hadn’t noticed the paneling, the ornaments, and the weighty portraits of men and women in robes of state, including the present king and queen.

  Mara braced to behave perfectly toward Dare, but their only welcome came from the footman, a maid, and a cap-wearing woman in a brown-and-gold-striped dress and white lacy apron. She introduced herself as Mrs. Hunstable, the housekeeper, which surprised Mara, for housekeepers generally dressed more soberly.

  They were taken up the grand oak staircase to front-facing rooms next to each other. Hers was only a bedroom, but Simon and Jancy also had a parlor.

  As she waited for Ruth and her luggage to arrive, Mara took off her outer clothing and surveyed her new quarters. She decided she liked the room better than the one she’d had in Ella’s house, perhaps because it reminded her of home.

  She hadn’t realized how much she liked a carpet that showed slight paths of wear and upholstery that was a little faded. She even liked the hint of time in the air that blended with the lavender sachets.

  She sat on the small sofa by the fire, taking the first calm moment for hours. Simon was right. Now he and Jancy were here, she had no excuse to tease to Dare into taking her out and about. At least she’d be with him in the little ways, the family ways.

  Unless he avoided her.

  He’d said he had business to attend to, but she thought that had been an excuse to flee. If she were fanciful she could say she sensed him somewhere in the house now. If he was avoiding her, she didn’t blame him. How could she have been so foolish as to blurt out her love like that?

  Because she’d never been in love before. She’d fancied herself in love, but it had never been like this.

  She rose, unable to sit still. This feeling—influenza, he’d said, which made her laugh even though it had been thrown up as a shield—was all-consuming. She wanted to prowl the house in search of him. To stand in a corridor in case he should pass by. She remembered stories of Lady Caroline Lamb haunting Byron’s doorstep, often in disguise. She was going to be a similar laughingstock!

  More to the point, she was in danger of distressing Dare when he already lived on a perilous edge.

  A knock brought distraction—the luggage and Ruth. It also provided an excuse to leave her room, but where should she go? Simon and Jancy seemed to pine for time alone together. She’d never understood that lovers’ behavior before, but now, if she could share a private room with Dare, she’d never want to leave it.

  She went out into the carpeted corridor, its walls hung with paintings, and set with occasional tables, chests, and chairs against the walls. The house was quiet enough to be deserted though she supposed the children were in their quarters.

  She could go in search of them and thus, perhaps, find Dare.

  Stop that. She went downstairs and asked a footman for directions to the drawing room.

  “There’s the large and small, milady, and also the library, where the family often likes to sit.

  “The library then.”

  Books would distract her mind. She had her novels, but they were being unpacked upstairs. And besides, she needed no more tales of fancy or husband hunting. Some sensible sermons would be more the thing.

  The Yeovil House library was more parlor than library, for the shelves held a small collection that turned out to be mostly gazetteers, almanacs, Hansard, and bound annuals of magazines.

  She was browsing the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1815, looking for reports of Waterloo, when the door opened. She knew who it was before she turned, her heart thumping.

  Dare was clearly as startled to see her as she was to see him. And wary. Was he afraid of what she might do or say?

  Thank heavens that bright cheeriness came so naturally. “I hope you don’t mind my exploring here. Such an interesting collection. I mean, eclectic. A bit of this, a bit of that.”

  She turned to put the book back on the shelf, wincing. There was cheeriness and then there was inane babbling.

  “I hope everything is as you wish,” he said.

  “Perfectly.” She composed herself and turned back. “It’s very kind of you to invite us here.”

  “That’s as ridiculous as suggesting Ella is kind to invite you to her house.”

  “Because Simon’s like a brother to you. You didn’t precisely invite me, however.”

  And I am not your sister.

  “All the same, you are welcome.”

  “Am I?” It popped out and he almost flinched. “I won’t distress you, Dare, as I did in the carriage—”

  “No—”

  She raised her hand to stop him. “I did. Such silliness. But I do care for you. You’ve been part of my family for years. We all care for you, but we can be overwhelming and now here we are in your house. A Brideswell invasion. You know what that means. Intrusion and interference, fuss and hovering, all with the best intentions.”

  “I—”

  “If we disturb you, tell us to go to the devil. If we can help, ask.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and she thought she’d blundered again. But then he smiled. She could see the strain behind it, but it was a true smile.

  “A Brideswell invasion,” he said. “I should welcome you with flowers and pealing bells. As I said to Simon once, please just put up with me. You’re right. Having anyone here is a strain, but sometimes strain is good for us. Or at least necessary. I am too much alone.”

  “You were at the theater last night.”

  “The insistence of friends. And…”

  He seemed to stop himself saying something else, but he came farther into the room. Mara turned to watch him, to study his expressions, seeking guidance. Should she leave? Had he moved merely to open the way to the door?

  He stood by the fireplace with his back toward her. “I’m addicted to opium,” he said. “I’m sure you know that. I’m fighting to be free. I will be free. I thought the process would be…not easier, but simpler. Steps to be followed. Steep steps, but not impossible. Now I wonder if it’s possible.” His hand on the mantelpiece tightened to a fist. “If even when I stop taking it, I’ll hear its siren song all my life…”

  Mara gently closed the door, her heart thundering at this intimate revelation. She longed to take him in her arms. Not as a lover, though she wanted to be his lover, but as she would a sister or brother in pain.

  He turned to face her and it was as if his features had previously been held in normal lines only by willpower—willpower that was now exhausted.

  She stepped forward, but stopped herself. Fragile as cracked glass, she remembered.

  “I’m taking as little as I can bear,” he said, “three times a day. It’s rather a long time since the noon allowance, so please excuse any present peculiarities.”

  He’d taken so
me at the Yeoman Inn? That explained so much. His distress in the Tower. His delay in joining her. His subsequent brightness. But had that precious wit and clarity all come from the drug?

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked. “In general, I mean.”

  “No.” She saw his chest rise and fall. “I do hope to win.”

  “You will. Of course you will.”

  She needed to do something. Looking down, she saw the flower brooch set at the low neckline of her gown and fumbled it free. She went to him, watchful for distress.

  “In the past, ladies gave knights favors to wear for victory in combat.” She reached for the lapel of his jacket. When he didn’t resist, she fixed the brooch into it, aware of his warmth and perhaps also of his frantic heart. “May all your enemies be vanquished, my lord.”

  Though his face remained drawn, a smile showed in his eyes at their old joke. “With your favor, my lady, how could it be otherwise?”

  He took her hands and raised them to his lips, first one and then the other, pressing his lips to the knuckles of each. His own hands were too cold, so she curled her fingers around them, trying to share her warmth.

  “Dare…” she said, seeking the right words.

  “Mara?”

  Mara and Dare jerked apart and turned to where Jancy stood in the doorway, turning pink. “Oh. I…I came to see if you wanted to go for a walk.”

  Mara desperately employed her bright smile. “An excellent idea. I’ll get my outer clothing and be with you in a moment.”

  As Mara hurried away, Dare met the clear blue eyes of Simon’s wife. Jancy was young, as young as Mara, but like Mara she was not at all naive or silly.

  “I won’t hurt her,” he said.

  “Of course you won’t. Why even think it?”

  Because she truly loves me and I may be as helpless to resist that as I am to resist the beast. Her touch steals my breath; her look makes me believe I’m a better man. But I’m not. I’m too painfully aware of having her beneath my roof and of her lovely ripeness for bed. Even though I’m not sure I’m capable of love anymore—of the sort of love a jewel like Mara deserves—I’m discovering that I’m very capable of lust.