Sweet Madness: A Veiled Seduction Novel Page 7

  “You felt trapped,” she said, understanding somehow.

  He nodded jerkily. “I pushed on, but when I came to the dance floor—” Images assailed him. Whirling dancers, colors swirling about. He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his forehead, just above his temple.

  “Were you dizzy?” Pen asked. “Light-headed and sick to your stomach?”

  He nodded, opening his eyes. “All that.” He took a deep breath, then another. “I had to fight my way out of the room,” he admitted, ashamed of his weakness.

  “What happened when you made it outside?” she asked quietly.

  His heart had hammered so hard and fast in his chest, he’d feared it would explode like the new fragmenting shells his troops had begun using in battle. “Eventually I returned to feeling normal,” was all that he said. “Shaky, but normal.”

  “Did you try to go back inside?”

  He shook his head. “No. I went back to the mess for a stiff drink.”

  “And did that help?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I drank myself into oblivion,” he recalled, “so yes.”

  “Hmmm.” He heard Pen’s breathing beside him as they continued to walk. But whereas before, being outdoors had made him feel free enough to fight off the bad memories, now they were closing in. With each step, he stretched his limbs as far as they could reach, trying to regain that sense of being unconfined. But it wasn’t working.

  “Did you experience such things again?” she asked.

  He wanted to demand that she stop asking so many questions. Every bloody word out of his mouth could only damn him as pathetic and weak in her eyes. He glanced over at her, expecting to see the same pity he’d seen so often on the faces of his family, but instead she looked at him with steady encouragement. As if she expected his answers.

  Perhaps she did. Maybe the other men she’d treated had had similar experiences. Maybe she looked at him that way because she knew she really could help him.

  That flicker of hope inside his chest sparked higher once more. If there was a chance she was right, he’d answer her damned questions as long as he could.

  “No. Everything was fine until I attended another ball,” he forced himself to say. “There weren’t many opportunities for such entertainments, so it wasn’t until Paris in 1814, when Wellington was installed as ambassador to France.”

  “I see. Would you say it was better or worse?”

  “I wasn’t as taken by surprise by it, so in that sense, it was better. But really, it was the same. I avoided ballrooms after that,” he said, “even when I was all but ordered to accompany Wellington to various events.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his greatcoat to hide his clenched fists. “In fact, I didn’t step foot inside a ballroom again until your wedding ball.”

  Penelope turned her face to him. Twin lines formed between her brows as her mind worked. Her eyes cast up and off to the side as if she were searching her memory. “I knew you were uncomfortable,” she said, “but I had no idea it was as bad as all this.”

  It hadn’t been. Not that night. But he couldn’t tell her that it had been her who had somehow kept the panic away. It would reveal too much.

  “But,” she went on, her voice laced with confusion, “you attended several balls after our wedding, both in Town and in the country. Did the dread just fade with time?” she asked, her delicate features rearranging themselves into lines of puzzlement as she studied him.

  No. It had been hell. He’d hated every single one of them. But he’d forced himself to attend, knowing that would be the best place for him to find a wife of his own.

  And after a while he’d given up that pretense and admitted to himself that he’d gone only so that he could be with her.

  But he could never say anything like that, either. Could never tell her that truth. A hot, raw vulnerability scraped through him. “I can’t do this anymore, Pen,” he rasped.

  “You can.” Her voice was forceful and sympathetic at the same time. Her expression shifted to match. “Whenever a topic becomes too difficult, we can just move to another and come back when it isn’t so painful.”

  He shook his head, causing her to rush on. “Let us leave the war behind for a while and talk about your life before you bought your commission,” she suggested. “Perhaps we can find some clues as to why this mania is afflicting you by looking into what you were like before the wars.”

  But he didn’t want to talk anymore. He sped his steps, pulling ahead of her by several feet.

  She followed, of course. He should have known she wouldn’t let him escape her.

  As she came alongside him, she said, “You never answered me earlier, when I asked you to define your bouts of melancholy. Would you say they were severe? Did they last for more than a day or two?”

  He let out a harsh breath. “No. No, I have moments of darkness, but I wouldn’t say they are extreme. Or prolonged.”

  “But did you have them before you went to war?”

  Gabriel thought about her question, wondering where she was leading. He was fast learning that Penelope’s softly spoken queries tended to lead somewhere. “Yes. Some. Not as often as after, though.”

  The crunch of their boots filled the silence between them for several steps. Gabriel glanced up at the sky as they walked without speaking. The clouds had darkened—not quite ominously, but rain was certainly not far off. He might win his reprieve after all.

  He turned his head to Penelope, about to suggest they turn around and head back toward Vickering Place, when she asked, “What about the opposite?”

  He blinked, lost for a moment in the conversation as his mind had been on the impending storm. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, rather than feeling low, have you ever experienced rushes of exhilaration instead? States of excitement where you were so filled with energy that you thought you could do anything? Perhaps even gone without sleep because of it?”

  He huffed. “Why? Is that common with battle fatigue?”

  “No.”

  “Then why have you brought it up?” he asked, hearing the slight bafflement in his voice.

  “No reason,” she demurred.

  But he didn’t believe her. What had she said before she started this line of questioning? That she was looking for clues to explain his mania in his life before the wars. “Are extreme high feelings an indication of madness?” he asked, curious.

  Pen didn’t look at him. “They can be,” she said vaguely.

  “Well, no worries on that count. I have never been anything like that. If fact, the only person I’ve known who could be described as such was”—a sick feeling flooded him, leaving a sour taste on the back of his tongue—“Michael.”

  He stopped walking.

  She did not.

  “Penelope.”

  She stuttered to a halt at his command, but she didn’t turn back to face him for a long moment. When she did, her normally peach complexion had washed white, making the redness on the tip of her nose stand out like a cherry.

  His sick feeling worsened.

  “Are you saying my cousin was mad?”

  Chapter Five

  “Mad?” Penelope echoed, unable to say anything else as her mind whirled.

  Gabriel’s eyes flashed bright as he narrowed them on her face. There was an intensity in his gaze that reminded her so much of Michael that it hurt to look upon him.

  “Of course not.” But her voice sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

  How had their conversation turned so fast? She’d been cautiously thrilled by the progress they’d been making. But then he’d figured out exactly where her questions were leading and turned them on her with knifelike precision. She hadn’t even known she’d been cut until her heart started bleeding.

  She wouldn’t discuss Michael with anyone. She would not.

  “I believe we’ve accomplished enough for this morning,” she said, relieved when her voice didn’t tremble. “I suggest we go back to the manor and
warm ourselves. You can get some rest, and we can start again this afternoon.”

  She tugged the hood of her cloak back up, shielding her face from him as she turned to retreat. Now that her heart was sliced open, every painful memory she’d worked so hard to put behind her seethed in her chest, stinging just enough to let her know they were still there. Waiting for her to uncage them. She needed to be alone when they broke free.

  “No.”

  His voice rang with such command that Penelope immediately stilled. Gabriel closed the distance between them, coming up behind her. She didn’t have to see him to know. She felt him, the way a blind woman sensed things she could not see. She heard the scrape of leather and cloth, smelled subtle hints of sandalwood and sage on the breeze, and her body tingled with the realization that he was close by.

  “You will answer my question. Was my cousin mad?”

  She whirled. Even though she’d known he would be there, his nearness startled her, sending a shimmer of alarm through her. No . . . not alarm, she thought. Awareness. Of him. As a man.

  Oh, no. Her head shook of its own accord. No, no. That was completely unacceptable.

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed further upon her. He thought she was denying his demand, she realized.

  Better that than the truth.

  She backed away from him. “That isn’t relevant,” she said as she turned back toward Vickering Place and started off at a fast clip.

  “The hell it isn’t!” he called after her. “Michael and I share the same blood. If he was crazed, then my madness could be inherited.”

  Penelope kept walking. It wasn’t long before she spotted Carter. The attendant must have given up on following them, as he was sitting on the stump of a felled tree, waiting for them to return. He leapt to his feet as she neared, his face twisting first with an “about time” expression and then with confusion as his eyes darted from her to Gabriel—who she assumed was still some distance behind her.

  Let Carter make himself useful and see that Gabriel made it back to the manor safely.

  “Penelope, wait!” Gabriel’s voice and footsteps were muffled by her cloak’s hood, but it sounded as though he were coming up fast. A second set of footfalls echoed those, letting her know Carter was close behind. Good. Gabriel wouldn’t wish to air his private family business in front of the attendant.

  Still, she sped up her pace just the same, blinking against tears that blurred her vision.

  She was well aware of what she was doing—avoiding. Avoiding Gabriel, avoiding his questions about Michael, and avoiding the sudden recognition of an unholy attraction to a man who was not only her cousin-by-marriage, but for all intents and purposes, under her care. And quite likely mad on top of that.

  But it was the best she could do in the moment. She needed time to think. She dashed a tear away from her eye. She needed time to—

  “Oh!” Penelope’s toe caught on something and she stumbled. A wrenching pain shot up her leg as her foot tried to stay put while her momentum sent her pitching forward. She cried out as she landed hard, first on her knees and then on her stomach and chest, the side of her face coming to rest on the overgrown footpath.

  “Pen!” She heard Gabriel’s worried shout, felt the rumble as he and Carter came running.

  Lord, her calf was afire. And something pricked at her cheek. She lifted her head, blinking as she got her bearings. Dried yew needles stuck to her skin. They covered the path, dropped from the ancient fragmented trees that lined it, their branches stretching and entwining into snarls of barren foliage. Had she tripped over a root? She’d been so caught up in trying to get away that she hadn’t been watching her footing. Fool.

  She wiped the dead needles from her face, groaning as she pushed herself up from the ground. Strong hands caught her beneath her arms from behind and turned her as she eased into a sitting position on the path.

  Gabriel knelt beside her. He smoothed her cloak’s hood off of her head. But his palms remained, warm against her skin, cradling either side of her face as he tilted it gently. The intensity in his eyes had gone, replaced by concern. “Pen, are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, as it seemed her lips refused to utter the lie. Goodness. Her knees smarted, for one, and her right calf burned. Thankfully she’d landed on her front rather than her still sore backside. Between his landing upon her person not quite two days ago and her own just now, muscles she’d never even felt before twinged in protest. “I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “If you could just help me to my feet?”

  “Of course.” Gabriel gained his own feet in a graceful movement. He slipped an arm behind her, beneath her shoulder blades, curving his hand around her rib cage, where he could get a decent grip. The heat of his touch, even through her cloak, sent warmth flowing through her chest. He placed his other hand upon her hip to guide her as he pulled her to her feet.

  Penelope tried to steady herself. The sooner she did, the sooner there would be no reason for Gabriel to touch her. No reason for her to feel sparks where his strong hands gripped her. But as she straightened, she sucked in a pained hiss. Agony flared in her calf as her right leg collapsed beneath her.

  She sagged against Gabriel, shifting her weight to her left.

  “You are hurt,” Gabriel accused, a fierce frown pulling at his features.

  “No, it’s only—” She cried out again as her calf bunched in an unrelenting squeeze. “Oh! Ow!” She hopped on her left leg as if trying to get away from the pain. But the spasms wouldn’t let up. Her muscles rolled and bunched again.

  “Is it your calf? Is it cramping?”

  She bit her lip against the pain, nodding jerkily.

  Gabriel lowered her to the ground. When he released her, she braced herself by placing her palms slightly behind either side of her hips as he came around to kneel at her feet. Without asking permission, he reached his hands beneath her skirts and squeezed them around her calf tightly.

  Penelope gasped as her muscles fought against his grip.

  “Just breathe, Pen,” he encouraged, his gaze catching hers. “Through your mouth, like this.” Gabriel panted in quick, harsh breaths.

  She kept her eyes on his and did as he asked.

  “That’s right,” he crooned. “Just focus on your breathing.”

  “I’m”—pant, pant—“trying!” Pant, pant. But the squeezing was merciless.

  Then his fingers started moving, massaging.

  “Oh!” she cried, throwing her head back. For a moment, the flare of agony was so much worse, she didn’t know if she could bear it, but then . . . it loosened. Just a little. Gabriel kept up his ministrations, molding, squeezing, rolling her knotting muscle until the tide started to turn. Deftly, he kneaded with strokes of alternating length until the clenching subsided.

  Penelope was finally able to take in a deep breath, then another as her body slowly relaxed. But now that the pain was no longer overpowering her nerves, she began to feel other things. Things strangely familiar and yet not. Pleasurable things.

  She tugged her calf from Gabriel’s grasp. “’Tis better now,” she murmured as she smoothed her skirts back down to her ankles. She glanced over at Carter, embarrassed that the man had likely seen too much, but the attendant had thankfully turned his back.

  Gabriel gained his feet and extended both hands to her. “Let me help you up.”

  She stared at his long, capable fingers, encased in gloves of the softest leather. Hands that had touched her with gentle healing, that had rescued her. Her stomach fluttered. It would be a mistake to let him touch her again. Yet she wasn’t certain she could rise on her own.

  She took his hands.

  It was a mistake. Even through both of their gloves, she felt it—a frisson of connection she couldn’t deny. It was as if now that her mind had noticed the attraction, it pulled her inexorably.

  Gabriel lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. She balanced her weight on her left side and gingerly placed her right toe on the ground to test
her injured leg. She winced and pulled her foot up again.

  “What does it feel like?” he asked.

  “My calf quivers like a strung bow,” she answered. She feared it would start that horrid clenching again. But it did not. “There is a deep ache—one that threatens to cramp again with little provocation.”

  He nodded. “You may have torn your muscle. Strained it, at the least. We shall need to keep you off of your feet.” His hand, which was still at her back for support, slid down to her thighs as he made to scoop her up.

  Penelope’s breath caught. In a panic, she pivoted on her good leg, evading his grasp. She nearly toppled as she overbalanced, but with a few little hops, she managed to stay upright and put a bit of distance between them. “What are you doing?”

  His lips flattened. “Carrying you back to the manor, of course.”

  Oh, no. She wouldn’t be able to bear that. Her senses, which had been asleep for so very long, had most assuredly awakened—and it felt as if they intended to make up for lost time.

  “Nonsense,” she said, wobbling a bit. She glanced down the lane. They were a good quarter mile from Vickering Place, she’d bet. Drat. This was going to hurt like the dickens. Still . . . “I can make it back on my own.”

  Gabriel didn’t speak, but raised a sardonic brow at her that spoke volumes.

  “Oh, all right,” she conceded. Perhaps she would need his help, but she had to keep the touching at a minimum. “But there’s no need to carry me.” She glanced over at Carter. “If the two of you would just get on either side of me—sort of like crutches. It will take some time, but I am certain I can make it—”

  The clouds chose that moment to open up, as the storm that had been threatening all morning finally made good.

  Lines of annoyance bracketed Gabriel’s mouth as rain pelted them. Droplets of water found those tiny furrows and traveled them before dripping off of his chin. He started toward her.

  “Gabriel,” she implored, putting her hands palm out before her. “If anyone should carry me, it should be Carter.” She glanced at the attendant, who frowned uncharitably at her. Blaming her for the fact that he was stuck out in the rain when he could be inside, dry and warm, no doubt. Still, better to be carried to the manor by an irritable stranger than to be pressed close to Gabriel all that way. “He’s—he’s burlier.”