To Rescue a Rogue Read online

  And then the cramps would come and he’d try not to scream and she’d run away so that he could.

  She slept whenever she could no longer stay awake, falling into bed dressed sometimes. Salter made her eat. She tidied herself only for her visits to the church so the villagers wouldn’t think her mad or, worse, mistreated.

  She walked into Brideswell one day and halted, suddenly terrified. Something was missing in the house, like a rumble silenced. She raced upstairs, colliding into Ruyuan on the landing.

  He caught her. “He sleeps, Mara.”

  She stared at him, still half thinking he meant that Dare was dead, but he smiled and said it again. “He sleeps.”

  She crept into the bedroom to confirm the miracle. The window stood open and country sounds drifted in. Dare was indeed in a true sleep. He was under the covers, so she could only see his lank hair, but she knew there was no knotted tension in him. No agony in the head and bones, no acid in the veins, no tortured rebellion of the organs.

  “Praise heaven,” she whispered. “The victory is won?”

  “With another, I would say maybe, for the lure can linger powerfully in the mind, but not with Darius. His abhorrence is more powerful than any pleasure opium has to offer. But he will not be well for some days and not truly well for a month or so. His body must heal.”

  Mara looked at the clock, but it only told her that it was twenty minutes past three. “How long has it been?”

  “Five and a half days.”

  “An aeon. May I sit with him?”

  “Of course, but I hope he will not stir for many hours.”

  He left and Mara went to the bed, taking off her bonnet and gloves. She longed to slip under the covers and lie with Dare, but she mustn’t wake him. Instead she quietly drew a chair up by the bed and sat to watch, guard, and pray.

  It was evening when he stirred. He seemed to struggle to open his lids and then he winced.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  He did open his eyes then, but she wasn’t sure he saw her. “Not yet.”

  She placed her hand over his covered chest. “Ruyuan says it’s over.”

  “He might be right.” But then he said, “This is difficult.” His voice was hoarse. From screaming, she realized.

  “You’re in pain? Where?”

  “Can it really have stopped?” He couldn’t hide the fear. “Forever?”

  Mara realized she no longer had to worry about waking him and got into the bed, dressed as she was, to hold him as tightly as she could. “Ruyuan says so, and that you will not relapse. It’s over, my love. It’s over. You won.”

  He gripped her in turn, but she could feel weakness beneath desperation, and that he’d lost weight. In less than a week he’d become frail, but oh so strong. She kissed his chest, which no longer ran with sweat, though he was, she admitted, rather pungent.

  “I wasn’t always brave,” she confessed. “I couldn’t bear to see you in such agony.”

  He stroked her back. “I knew you were near.” He moved a little more, rolling his head and flexing his body, seeking pain, she knew, like someone probing a decayed tooth.

  He wasn’t decayed, however. He was whole, and soon he would be strong again.

  She eased away. “I’m going to order you a bath.”

  He smiled, and now he did see her, with humor in his eyes. “Is that a complaint?”

  “You’ll feel better for it,” she evaded with a grin and went to call for Salter. She would have stayed away, but Dare asked for her, so she washed his back and hair, and they kissed in the warm steam. But he’d had to be almost carried to the bath, and he needed Salter and Ruyuan to stagger back to the freshly made bed.

  “I feel a strange kind of peace,” he said.

  The light was going, so Mara lit a candle. “Why strange?”

  “Because I’d forgotten the taste of it. I thought I might miss the tranquillity that opium brings, but this is sweeter.”

  Someone knocked on the door. “Come,” he said and Salter entered with a bowl. “Mr. Feng says you must eat, sir.”

  Dare eyed the bowl uneasily, but he struggled to a sitting position and Salter gave it to him. Dare stirred the soup with the spoon. Mara could tell it wasn’t completely an English recipe.

  He drank one spoonful. “Many parts of me are wondering what this strange activity is.” After four spoonfuls, he said, “That will do for today.”

  Mara wondered if she should argue, but a few moments later, he vomited the soup back up into a bowl Salter had to hand. Dare fell back, clearly in pain again and Mara went to complain to Ruyuan.

  “He cannot eat yet,” she said.

  “His innards must learn anew, Mara. It will not take long. Dare took a bath. You should, too.”

  Mara blushed to think what she must smell like, and obeyed. It made her feel better altogether, and for the first time in days, she thought about what to wear. She sent for Abby, the kitchen maid, to help her into a corset and a pretty dress of sunshine yellow. When she returned to Dare’s bedroom, she was rewarded by a smile that lit his eyes.

  “Come here,” he said.

  So she went, and they kissed.

  “You look better,” she said.

  “Ruyuan compelled me to eat more of his soup, and it stayed down. There’s a battle going on inside me, but perhaps the forces of light are winning.”

  He looked exhausted still, but not ready for sleep, so she said, “Would you like me to read to you?”

  “Having rescued me from durance vile, shouldn’t we rescue poor Canute?”

  That all seemed part of another world. “I didn’t bring my notes, but we can re-create them.”

  By candlelight, they recalled Canute and Anne Whyte, Casper and the eyeless monk. “Who must be named Samson,” Dare said.

  It was tentative, but the beginnings of creativity and humor that had nothing to do with opium.

  He fell asleep, between one word and the next. Mara returned to her room and prepared for bed, but then went back to curl up against him, to comfort herself with his warmth and steady breathing, and to give him anything she could.

  She woke to a kiss and his clear eyes, and they kissed both slow and long, with sweetness but not with passion, yet. When he got out of bed, he swayed. When he tried to walk, he crumpled to the floor. “I seem to remember this feeling,” he gasped, lying there. “After being run over by a cavalry brigade.”

  “At least you’ve no broken bones this time,” Mara said and called for the men to help him back to bed.

  She’d been too hasty to put on a pretty dress and changed back into an old one, for Dare still needed massage.

  “His chi must be restored to its natural flow, Mara,” Ruyuan said, “or he cannot heal. All healing comes from the rightness within. If you will permit, I will do this for you. You, too, have fought and exhausted yourself.”

  Mara was very startled by the idea but she let Ruyuan take her to her room, where she lay down on the bed. He began by running his hands over her body in a way that would have shocked her to death mere weeks ago. Then he said, “I will work through the hands and feet.”

  It was strange to have him pushing, pulling, and pressing at her feet, but it soon felt as if she could be floating up off the bed, every limb relaxed. When he began on her right hand, she asked, “Can I learn to do this?”

  “Certainly. It is nothing magical. Merely a matter of allowing the chi to flow. When we are unwell, in pain, in distress, channels close, and if we leave it so, everything becomes worse.”

  “The exercises do the same thing, don’t they?”

  “The tai-chi? Yes. They are very beneficial, but especially for the mind.”

  Still floating, Mara asked, “Have you been to St. Bride’s? To the church?”

  “I am not a Christian, Mara.”

  “I think the chi is particularly strong there. I’d like to get Dare there as soon as possible.”

  “Then when he wakes, we will go.”

&n
bsp; When Dare next woke, he managed to walk across the room to a chair by the window. There he ate a whole bowl of beef soup. After a half hour they all agreed that it would stay down. When the expedition was explained, he quoted from the Bible: “‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”

  “Then we’ll drive,” Mara said.

  While Salter and Ruyuan dressed him and carried him down, she ran to get the gig. She had it by the door when he staggered out, more or less on his feet.

  Salter and Ruyuan walked beside the gig, and it was probably as well that it was dark as the strange procession passed through the village. When they made it up to the church door, Mara didn’t need to find the key, for the church was unlocked, waiting for them.

  She led the way in, finding the church eerie in the light of the one small lamp before the altar. Dare collapsed into the pew nearest to the door, looking exhausted.

  Ruyuan said, “Ah, yes,” and walked around the small church, then sat in the center of the aisle, crosslegged. He gave no instructions, but Dare struggled to his feet and leaned on Salter to walk down the aisle. He found a spot and sat, then lay down, spread-eagled on his back.

  Salter took a seat in a nearby pew. Mara might like to lie on the flagstones, too, but it felt too much, here in the family church, so she sat beside Dare’s patient guardian.

  “Do you feel anything?” she asked quietly.

  “Can’t say as I do, milady, though I’m not one to deny what others find beneficial,” Salter answered.

  “Will you stay with Lord Darius?”

  “No, milady, but I’ve found this satisfying work. I may try to find another with the same trouble, and perhaps persuade him or her to seek Mr. Feng’s help, though people can be very fearful of anything that seems strange.”

  Mara tried to imagine how she would have reacted if presented with this situation without preparation. She might have rejected it, but no one with an open mind could deny that something special flowed around this site, or that Ruyuan’s chi had spiritual power.

  God worked in mysterious ways.

  When Dare stirred, he struggled to get to his feet, but he seemed stronger and steadier. Ruyuan rose and took his hands. Then he beckoned Mara and Salter. They went, though Mara could sense Salter’s uneasiness, as if a rope held him back.

  “Stand to either side of Dare,” Ruyuan said. “Take his hands and mine.”

  They obeyed, forming a circle, and Mara felt it. It was like a hum passing round and round, rippling through her body, strengthening her, raising her mind.

  Salter broke the circle first. “Very interesting,” he said gruffly, and Mara knew he, too, was fearful of something he found strange.

  They all walked out of the church into a soft, peaceful night. “Sometimes the whole earth is sacred,” Mara said.

  Dare kissed her hair.

  “There’s a small field just beyond that hedge,” she said, “that still has a line of foundation from the monastery. We could build a house there. It would be a modest one with a small garden, but that is all we’ll need and I’m sure the chi runs strongly there.”

  “For we are commoners,” he said, “not a real lord and lady, so a small piece of heaven will suffice.”

  They walked on in each other’s arms, and if he leaned against her, she still sensed the new strength inside him. “Thank you, God,” she said to the starry sky.

  “Amen,” he said.

  “So when do we marry?”

  “I believe we already did.”

  She elbowed him. “Our families will perfer that we legalize it.”

  He rubbed his face in her hair. “It’s for the lady to set the date, but I’ll do you more credit in a month or so. On midsummer’s day perhaps?”

  “Just after the summer solstice? Perfect.”

  “And my birthday. What better gift?”

  Chapter 32

  It rained on June twenty-fourth, but it was a soft rain that sparkled in fitful sunshine. Mara recited the old tradition: “Rain on midsummer day, the angels do pray.”

  She was with child. Eventually everyone who could count would know, but she hadn’t told anyone except Dare. He’d suggested bringing forward the date, but she’d refused. “I like the idea of marrying on your birthday. At least you’ll never forget the date. And I want you full of strength and vigor on our wedding night.”

  Tonight, she thought as she walked with her family to the church. The showers had stopped, and this would be a simple country wedding so walking was the right thing to do. She wore a new dress of blue and a hat trimmed with flowers. Dare’s family waited in the church along with most of the village, but there would be no other outsiders. There’d been talk of all the Rogues attending, but Dare had put them off. Instead, he and Mara had promised to join a gathering in a week at Marlowe.

  “An exorcism,” Simon had said. Of the cold house, but also, she knew, of the dark thread begun by The´re`se Bellaire in 1814.

  Delphie walked beside Mara, holding her hand, with Mariette, in yet more new finery, in the other. For once, the two children had agreed to be apart, for Pierre was with Dare. Mara suspected this was a plan on the children’s part to make sure nothing prevented the marriage.

  Then she saw Dare and Pierre waiting by the well along with many villagers.

  “You’re supposed to be in church,” she said.

  His eyes twinkled. “I want to see if my bride is chaste.”

  “She was,” Mara said softly as he scooped out well water and offered it to her to drink. She drained the scoop. When she didn’t keel over dead, everyone cheered.

  She linked arms with Dare, and they walked into the church with an escorting child on either side. They said their vows—the approved ones this time—but as they looked into each other’s eyes, they knew that their real vows had been said months before.

  They walked out to pealing bells and showers of petals and grain, and on to the village green, for their wedding feast would be the midsummer fair, with contests, feasting, and dancing. Though they longed to slip away, they waited until dark, when the traditional bonfire was set ablaze. They joined hands in the circle that danced around it and Mara giggled to see the duke and duchess taking part. Gravenham and his wife must have left, for she didn’t see them, but Lady Thea seemed to be having a wonderful time.

  Then Dare directed everyone’s attention to a dark corner of the green. “As a special treat,” he said, “I have persuaded Monsieur Dubourg of the famous cork exhibit to bring his model of the volcano Vesuvius here to demonstrate its wonders.”

  Mara looked at him. “You didn’t!”

  “I promised you would see it explode.”

  “Erupt,” she corrected with a grin.

  Two torchbearers illuminated the mound and Monsieur Dubourg gave a judiciously short lecture on the volcano, emphasizing the horrid nature of its eruption, which had caught the people of Pompeii in their sleep and killed them on the spot.

  Then he applied a torch and the dark mound began to glow with heat. Amid gasps and oohs and ahhs, red appeared to bubble up and over to run down the sides into the buildings of the town.

  When all went dark again, the audience applauded wildly and many of them wanted to poke around and see how it all worked, but guards had been provided, and they returned to the bonfire and more drinking and merriment.

  Dare took Mara’s hand and drew her away.

  “So that’s why you insisted on staying until dark,” she said.

  “And on one of the longest days of the year. Bad planning, but I hope it sets the tone.”

  “Eruption?” she asked, tingling.

  “Precisely.”

  They didn’t have far to go, for Mara’s widowed aunt Phoebe had given them her village house for the week.

  As she prepared for bed, Mara said to Ruth, “It’s going to be quite strange doing that here.”

  “Never you mind with doing that where, Miss Mara, especially as you’ve been doing that before you should.”
/>
  There’d never been any hope of keeping the secret from Ruth. Mara hugged her. “You find yourself a good man and do that, too, Ruth.”

  Ruth went red and left.

  Mara climbed into bed and waited. Not long after, Dare came in, wearing a banjan she remembered, loosely tied, which showed that he wore nothing else. He was completely and splendidly recovered. He raised a brow at her prim nightgown.

  “I thought I’d do this properly,” she told him.

  His eyes danced. “Should I extinguish the candle and fumble under layers of cloth?”

  “Should you?” she teased.

  He shrugged off his robe. “It shall be as you command, my lady, but I doubt a volcano can erupt with propriety.”

  Her mouth dried at his beauty and strength and a ripple of desire flowed through her. “Then I command you to ravish me, my lord.”

  He slowly drew the bedcovers down off her. “My beautiful lady. Exactly how ravished do you wish to be?”

  Mara’s heart was racing and her toes curled. “Utterly,” she said.

  Epilogue

  The dinner table was set up in the marble hall of Marlowe, the heart of the chilly house. As Nicholas Delaney had remarked, “I doubt it has a soul.”

  Despite being enormous, much of Marlowe was for show. Simon and Jancy had struggled to house ten couples and their children, for all the children were present from the oldest—Bastian Rossiter, Leander’s stepson, to the newest—Nicholas’s Francis.

  For this dinner, however, the children were settled in their quarters with servants and the ten couples sat around the table.

  The round table. That had been Dare’s mischievous idea and Simon’s doing. At first seeing it, Nicholas had laughed. “I told you and told you we weren’t King Arthur’s knights, merely Rogues.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have chosen twelve of us,” Lucien said. “We’re either King Arthur’s knights or the apostles.”

  Now, with the summer sun still shining in through the glass cupola, joining with dozens of candles to drive away any evil spirits, they talked and laughed and remembered. Ten men’s memories went back to boyhood, but ten women’s memories went back as far because of tales their husbands had told them. And some of these women had been deeply involved in the dark adventures that had finally ended.