Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel Read online

  “Trickery!” Gabriel accused. “Water that does nothing to wet the throat. Clothing that burns.” He scratched at his arms, and Penelope winced at the white lines that appeared on otherwise swarthy skin. Was that why Gabriel had shed his clothes? Because they’d irritated his skin?

  What madness was this? She’d never seen anything like it.

  Penelope held her breath as the attendants and Mr. Allen closed in on her cousin-by-marriage, a man on either side with the director standing near the center of the chaise. Her heart sped, thumping against her throat as if she were the one trapped. She prayed they did not hurt Gabriel in their bid to subdue him.

  One of the men lunged for him then, attempting to catch him about the waist. She gasped as Gabriel leapt vertically, pulling his knees high as his feet landed upon the chaise in a move most reminiscent of a large cat. The attendant missed, falling to the ground with a surprised grunt.

  “My lord!” Mr. Allen shouted, then raised his hands in what Penelope assumed he meant as a soothing gesture. “My lord,” the man said again, more calmly as Gabriel straightened. “Please, there is nowhere for you to go.”

  Penelope’s gaze darted to the other attendant, who was creeping behind the chaise while Mr. Allen had Gabriel’s attention.

  “We mean you no harm,” the director said, his voice a soft lull.

  But she could see that Gabriel was beyond words. The skin on his face was pulled taut in a terrified grimace. He wasn’t even looking at the director at all, she realized, but rather at the floor. He looked as if he longed to run for it, but was afraid to step down. His eyes darted to and fro, clearly seeing something that wasn’t there. Something that frightened him terribly.

  “No,” he groaned. “No! Stop tormenting me so. There was nothing more I could have done!”

  The intensity of his fear raised gooseflesh on Penelope’s skin as tears pricked hot against the backs of her eyelids. What on earth did Gabriel think he saw?

  Just then, the second attendant clipped his boot against the leg of the chaise, alerting Gabriel to his presence behind him. He tensed, crouching low on the chaise again. Mr. Allen chose that moment to make his move.

  And so did Gabriel.

  He flew. Leapt, really, but with an energy that seemed inhuman. With the added advantage of the chaise’s height, he easily cleared the top of Mr. Allen’s head, who had bent to try to capture him. But how did Gabriel think he was going to—

  The tinkling of thousands of crystal teardrops rang in the air as Gabriel’s outstretched hands found purchase in the lowest tier of the massive chandelier above them. His momentum turned the chandelier into a pendulum, swinging him away from his captors.

  Penelope watched in awe as the fast-moving glass caught the weak winter sunlight from the mullioned windows and cast shards of colored light dancing upon the walls. Dozens of snuffed candles lost their mooring, raining down like wax-covered twigs in a particularly vicious windstorm. Light and shadow played against Gabriel’s naked skin, muscles flexing as he held fast.

  Lord, he’d be beautiful to paint.

  Penelope blinked. Goodness, where had that inappropriate thought come from?

  So shaken was she that she didn’t even register that Gabriel was swinging right toward her until far too late. She threw up her hands to protect her face at the last moment, but nothing could protect her from the force of fourteen stone slamming her to the hard marble floor.

  “Oh!” Pain exploded in more places than she could feel at once. Everything hurt. Her backside, mostly, which had taken the brunt of the impact. But her left shoulder had come down hard next, and the back of her head smarted terribly, as, curiously, did her chest.

  She blinked to clear her vision, glancing down to find the top of Gabriel’s head, his face buried directly in a rather delicate position. So that is what had caused that sharp jolt of agony. His forehead must have collided into her breastbone when he landed atop her. She winced. That was going to leave a bruise for certain.

  As other sensations returned to her stunned system, she realized she lay quite pinned beneath Gabriel’s larger frame. His naked, still dripping wet frame. Even the layers of her widow’s weeds couldn’t shield her from feeling him against her or from the moist heat that seeped through to her skin.

  “Mmph,” she groaned. She bent her elbows and planted her palms on either side of herself in an attempt to wriggle free.

  Gabriel’s head jerked up then. His eyes fixed on her, and Penelope couldn’t contain a gasp. She’d never seen pupils so dilated. They reminded her of an eclipse—only one where the new moon passes between the earth and the sun, not quite blacking out the larger star entirely. Instead, the warm gold-flecked iris that remained made a fiery ring around the enlarged black pupil. The effect was startling. And unsettling.

  They both went entirely still. Indeed, it seemed if the very world did. Even the scuffling of the other men in the room seemed to slow and fade away. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, as wild as the man lying atop her.

  “Penelope?” he rasped, sending a jolt of sympathy rushing through her. He blinked several times, either trying to focus or in disbelief that she was actually here. Probably both. For all that they’d been friends once, they hadn’t seen each other since Michael’s funeral.

  “Yes. Yes, I—”

  Gabriel tightened his arms around her in a sudden grip that forced any remaining breath from her lungs, as if she were the lone buoy in a turbulent sea.

  He held her tight to him for a brief moment. But at the clumping of three pairs of boots rushing toward them, Gabriel released her and whipped his head around to glance behind him.

  He jerked his gaze back to her. “Penelope,” he said again, his voice urgent and harsh. “Help me.”

  “I will,” she vowed, just as urgently, even though she had no idea if she even could. What she’d just witnessed was much worse than she’d been led to expect.

  Gabriel tensed, shifting his weight so he could scramble away from his pursuers. She tensed, too. If he kept running, kept fighting, she wouldn’t be able to help him. No one could in his current state.

  “I will,” Penelope whispered once more, knowing there was only one thing she could do.

  She wrapped her arms and legs around him, locking them as best she could around his larger, thrashing form, and held on for dear life. She had to keep him here long enough for Mr. Allen and his men to reach them.

  When Gabriel realized her intent, he let out a howl of angry betrayal that sent a shiver coursing through her. Belatedly, Penelope wondered at her foolishness. Gabriel could snap her in two if he so wished. The man she’d known would never have done such a thing, but he was clearly not in his rational mind. Even Michael, who had loved her, had hurt her in his mania. She cringed, but tightened her grip on Gabriel all the same.

  Penelope panted with effort. Dear God. She wasn’t certain she could hold on to him much longer. The muscles of her arms and thighs trembled with strain and ached like the very dickens.

  “Shhh,” she crooned. She tried to turn her death grip into more of an embrace, meant to soothe. “’Twill be all right, I promise,” she whispered, even though her voice trembled with what very well might be a lie.

  Gabriel struggled for a few more seconds but then relaxed with a groan of defeat.

  Had her vow to help him been a lie, too? After what she’d just witnessed, she was very much afraid Gabriel was beyond help.

  As he was pulled from her arms, Penelope prayed she was wrong about that.

  Chapter Two

  A harsh groan pulled Gabriel from a dreamless sleep. Odd. He very rarely didn’t dream . . . not unless—

  The groan came again, close this time. Too close. Had that pitiful sound come from him? Gabriel fought to open his eyes, but the struggle hardly seemed worth the effort. It was as if his lids were sealed together with wax.

  A light touch brushed his forehead. Just a cool arc of sensation, like delicate fingertips caressing his skin. The
phantom stroke brought a whiff of mandarin and vanilla, but it faded quickly. He’d probably imagined it, as he did so many things these days.

  Still, he tried to reach out and capture the—

  He couldn’t move his arms! Alarm clenched his gut as Gabriel strained harder, panic clawing its way up his throat and forcing his eyes to unstick.

  “Ah!” He sucked in a pained breath and slammed them shut again as blinding light seared them.

  “Dim the lamps,” he heard a woman’s voice command. “I believe his eyes are sensitive to the light.”

  Gabriel desperately wished to see who was speaking, but he didn’t risk the agony. He tried again to move to no avail. His heart hammered faster as he fought against whatever held him down.

  God! Christ, not again!

  Harsh, rapid breaths echoed loud in his ears. His own, he knew. He could feel the hot puffs of air against his upper lip.

  Calm yourself, man.

  Gabriel forced himself to think. She’d said “dim the lamps.” There were no lamps on the battlefield to be dimmed. Nor did he smell the stench of blood and death or the horrid aftermath of decomposition. He was not in Belgium. He was not. That was . . . years ago. He was sure of it.

  He flinched as a hand touched his face.

  “Shhh, Gabriel. ’Tis all right.”

  Again, the scent of mandarins and vanilla teased his nose.

  “Cease your struggles,” the woman crooned in the darkness.

  Gabriel relaxed, turning his face into a soft palm.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Sleep.”

  He drifted in and out of consciousness, his stomach churning in rolling waves. He had no idea how long he floated in that turbulent sea, but his first thought as true awareness crept in was Devil’s balls. He hurt everywhere. It was as if he’d been tossed violently onto a beach by an angry Poseidon and now lay naked and bruised in the surf. His skin felt stretched and dry, as though he were covered with a coat of rough sand that had been baked on by the sun.

  He moved to stretch his knotted muscles, but his arms wouldn’t budge. His eyes flew open and he squinted into near total darkness. But he could see enough. He’d been strapped into a bloody straight-waistcoat. Again.

  Hell. He’d had another episode.

  Gabriel grimaced, and even that hurt. He searched his mind, but gave up after a few moments. There was a great void where his memory should be, and his head felt swollen and thick. The last thing he remembered, he’d been . . . reading. Yes, reading crop reports Edward had sent up from the estate. Benign business matters. Nothing that should have sent him into such a state that he now found himself trussed up like a madman.

  Like a madman? Gabriel, you are a madman.

  A sharp ache twisted in his middle as everything in him screamed denial. But how could he continue to think otherwise? It was getting worse. How long would it be until the madness overtook him completely?

  “You’re awake.”

  Gabriel started as a woman’s voice reached him in the darkness.

  The heavy velvet drapes that hung around his bed parted, and a silhouette appeared in the void. Females were not allowed to attend to male guests at Vickering Place. Yet here one stood. Her lithe shape was unmistakable. Not curvaceous but most assuredly feminine.

  He must still be in the throes of the episode, then. People who’d witnessed his madness told him he often talked to people who weren’t there while he was in the grips of his delusions.

  “Your body seems to have cooled,” the figment of his imagination murmured, nodding as if that made her happy. “Dare we risk a little more light?” she asked him.

  He had no idea what he dared, but he nodded anyway. Something about this apparition made him feel safe, and truthfully, he wished to see what pretty face his mind had conjured up to soothe him, even if he wouldn’t remember her later. He never did.

  She reached up and tugged the drapery to one side. The fabric scraped roughly along the wooden canopy. Daylight slowly crept in, revealing the shape of a nose, the curve of a lip, the tilt of a chin—

  Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Every scintilla of good feeling flew from Gabriel in a rush.

  Penelope? “Do you know where you are, Gabriel?” she asked him.

  He must have looked as horrified as he felt, because she raised one hand out before her in a calming gesture. “’Tis all right if you don’t,” she assured him.

  “Of course I know where I am,” he snapped defensively, as mortification fast forced out his confusion, replacing it with shame.

  Of all the people to see him thus.

  And yet . . . what the hell would Penelope be doing here? He’d not seen her in two years. In fact, she wouldn’t even know he was in Vickering Place, would she? She couldn’t be real.

  He tried to blink away the remaining blurriness in his dry, burning eyes as he looked more closely at her. She was dressed entirely in black, as he’d seen her last at Michael’s funeral. That made no sense. A woman was required to wear mourning clothes for only half a year after the death of her husband. Penelope should have long moved out of her blacks and into the happier colors of her youth. Wouldn’t the real Penelope be wearing something sunnier by now?

  That meant he’d invented her, didn’t it?

  Well, he’d just put her to the test. Ask her a question only he and she knew the answer to.

  A grim snort of amusement escaped him. Idiot. If he knew the answer, so would a phantom Penelope, given she would have sprung from his mind. That would be no sort of proof.

  There was nothing for it but to swallow what was left of his pride and ask the question.

  “Are you real?” he croaked, feeling desperate. Pathetic. But maybe, if he conversed with her long enough, he would get his answer one way or another. If she weren’t real, eventually she’d say something that made no sense.

  Penelope’s blond brows knit as her head tilted slightly left. “You . . . you cannot tell?”

  He gave a slight shake of his head, but even that small movement threatened to send his world spinning again. He fixed his eyes on her to steady himself, looking for any clue that might tip the scales one way or the other. “Usually I can. But you must admit, your being here is not usual.”

  Her features pursed in an expression he’d not seen on her before. An interesting mix of perplexity and . . . guilt? “Your mother did not tell you she asked me to come, then?”

  Gabriel’s stomach clenched. Mother had mentioned she’d arranged for someone to see him. Someone who might help him kick this horrid affliction. He’d agreed to see this new doctor, of course. He’d do anything to regain control of himself.

  But Penelope wasn’t a doctor and therefore wasn’t real. His mind had just mixed his fantasy with an actual conversation he’d had with his mother.

  Gabriel released a pent-up breath as relief infused him, overwhelming him so much that he almost forgot he was restrained like an animal.

  Phantom Penelope’s lips quirked. “What has put that smile on your face?” she asked, her voice tinged with amused curiosity.

  Gabriel smiled wider. He couldn’t help it. “I just deduced that you are not really here.” Belatedly, he feared that by voicing his realization, he might make her disappear. While he’d never wish the real Penelope to witness his disgrace, he was strangely comforted by the imagined one. He didn’t wish her to go—not yet.

  “Ah,” she answered. Her brows dipped further, but she didn’t try to convince him otherwise. “And this makes you happy?”

  “Indeed.” What could it hurt to speak the truth? She was only in his head, after all. “I could not live with myself if you ever truly saw me like this. However, since we’ve established that this isn’t real, let us talk of other things.”

  “Mmmm.” She nodded slowly. “Such as?”

  “Such as . . .” Gabriel felt one side of his mouth rise in a half smile of chagrin. What did one talk about with one’s fantasy woman? He had no idea.

  But he did know
what he would say to the real Penelope—if he were a whole man again. Words that had burned in his soul for months, years even.

  He was grateful that he’d never had the courage to voice them. It would have been a horrible mistake, unfair to both of them, especially given everything that had happened to him since Michael’s death.

  But he could say them to this Penelope. Maybe that would be enough to finally purge her and the damnable hope she’d wrought in him from his heart. Yes, maybe that’s why his mind had called forth her image, so he could once and for all let the hope of her go. Because the bleaker his future became, the more that impossible hope hurt.

  Gabriel took a deep breath, amazed at how hard his heart hammered in his chest even though none of this was truly happening. “Such as how I feel for you. How I’ve always felt for you.”

  “Gabriel—”

  “I’ve wanted you for so very long.”

  Penelope’s mouth hung open, much as he imagined it really might have done had he been fool enough to utter those words to her after Michael’s death.

  But saying the words aloud did seem to lighten his heart, so he pressed on. “There is something about you that awakened me, Penelope. From the moment we met, you made me yearn for things I had long put away. I never would have told you then, of course. You were my cousin’s wife. But after Michael died, it was torture for me not to—”

  “Please!” Her voice rose on the imperative even as her palm clamped down over his mouth.

  Funny, he knew the mind to be a powerful thing—after all, his had tricked him considerably in the past months—but her “touch” jarred him more than he would have expected. The heat from her hand, the warm, sweet citrus smell of her skin, the pressure of it—it all felt so very real.

  “Please,” she repeated more softly. “Say nothing more you will regret.”

  A man’s muffled voice came from somewhere behind her. “Mr. Carter informs me our patient is awake and speaking.”

  Allen?

  Penelope’s hand disappeared from his lips as the draperies were pulled wide.