Authors: Dark Desires
Her heart stuttered and stopped, then began to pound so hard that it was almost painful. She wove her fingers through his hair, holding him against her.
“But even more than your loss, I fear never having you at all.”
A low moan escaped her, forced out by fierce and untamed hope.
“Darcie… I do love you.” The words sounded stiff, rusty. Damien gave a shaky laugh that grew and swelled until it sprang free, unfettered. “My God, I love you. With everything I am. You are my soul, my breath, my life.” The words flowed with ease now. “You once thought that I robbed graves, but in truth ‘tis you who are the resurrectionist, you who have lifted me from my living tomb. You have resurrected me from a life devoid of feeling, a blank terrain of desolation and loneliness.”
Her legs gave way then, collapsing out from under her, and she sank to the thick rug, supported by his strong hands. Damien caught her against his chest, and she could feel the pounding of his heart melding with the beat of her own. She had so needed him to say it aloud, but more than that, she realized now,
he
had needed to say it. The words had freed him from the past.
“I love you,” he whispered. A wry smile curved his lips. “As you love me.”
“I do love you,” she murmured, her thoughts spinning with dizzying bliss.
Cupping her face, he dragged his thumb across her lower lip, and then claimed her with a wide, open-mouthed kiss that left her breathless.
Damien shifted, as though to roll her beneath him, but Darcie resisted. Placing her hands on his shoulders she pushed him back on the soft rug, pressing hot kisses to his jaw, his chest, the ridged plane of his abdomen. With her tongue, she traced the thin line of hair that arrowed below his navel, her hands grasping his hips as she moved her mouth lower still.
The heavy length of him jutted forward and she pressed heated kisses along his shaft. He rasped her name, tangling his hands in her hair, letting her do what she would, giving himself over to her tender ministrations. She reveled in the pleasure of pleasuring him.
With a hoarse groan he dragged her along the length of his firm body, kissing her hungrily as he scooped her up and deposited her on the bed. She opened to him, welcoming him deep inside.
“My Darcie,” he rasped. “My love.”
Arching her hips she rose to meet him, wilder and faster, until together they crested, tumbling over the edge in wicked delight.
Hours—or perhaps only moments—later, Darcie lay beneath Damien’s welcome weight. Once, as a very young girl she had been permitted a taste of champagne. The bubbles had effervesced through her body, making her feel giddy and dizzy and unbelievably good. She felt that way now, as though she floated on a cloud.
“Until you, I was alone, frozen in a hell of my own making with only my demons for company,” he said, his breath fanning the curve of her cheek. “And I did not recognize it for the bitter and small life that it was.”
He raised himself on his forearms, taking the bulk of his weight from her. “There was no one to care if I lived or died. Some nights, not even I cared. After my sister died, I drank to forget. Not to forget
her,
but to bury my responsibility for what happened. And then one night, I recalled how Mrs. Feather had tried to save Theresa, and suddenly, I knew there would never be a possibility of forgetting, but perhaps I could do something good in my sister’s memory. It was then that I opened my offices in Whitechapel, to care for those in the most desperate need.”
Darcie ran the back of her hand along his cheek, wishing he had never had to suffer such loss.
“Sometimes, I pour myself a brandy and I watch its amber color shift in the light. I smell the promise of oblivion. And I remember what I become when I choose that path. Since that night, I have not had a drink.” He paused, gazing down at her with eyes that spoke of both tragedy and possibility. “And I never will. I need you to know that.”
“I believe in you,” Darcie whispered, and she meant it, with almost all her heart. Yet, there in a dark corner lurked the seed of her unease, the inability to fully trust another living soul. Purposefully, she banished the realization, wanting nothing to destroy this precious moment.
Chapter Sixteen
Much later, Darcie woke to the sound of the clock. Last night as she sat in the parlor worrying over Damien’s fate, she had likened the chime of the clock to a death knell. Tonight, she lay next to her lover and thought the clock’s music sweet indeed. She smiled in contentment as Damien shifted in his sleep, draping one arm over her shoulder. He roused no further than that.
Her stomach rumbled, and she realized she was hungry. While Damien had proceeded to demolish everything on the heaping plate sent up by Cook earlier, Darcie had, for the first time in recent memory, been unable to swallow a morsel of food.
Carefully lifting Damien’s arm, Darcie slid out from under it. She rolled from the bed and crossed to the fireplace. Damien had added fresh coals to the fire just before they had drifted off. Lifting the poker, she prodded the embers and watched them glow with renewed life.
She drifted to the small table that held the leftovers from their meal. There was nothing left on the tray save empty dishes and crumbs. Damien had eaten his food and, at her encouragement, hers as well.
Glancing over her shoulder at the bed, she pondered its inviting warmth, weighing the desire to climb back under the covers against the insistent rumble of her stomach. She would have both, she decided. Food first, and a hasty return to Damien’s bed. Silently, so as not to disturb him, she slipped into her dress and tiptoed from the room.
In the kitchen she fixed a plate of cold chicken and bread. She had just finished her meal when the rapid patter of footsteps in the hall caught her attention. Taking up her lamp, she walked into the narrow corridor, but found no one there. Puzzled, she was about to return to the kitchen, when again she heard a sound of footsteps coming from the back of the house near the servants’ staircase.
She followed the noise, turning right, then left, quickening her pace. When she reached the stairs she skidded to a halt. There, above her, she saw the hem of a skirt and a pair of sturdy boots on the steps. Mary’s boots. She recognized them because of a missing third button that Mary had pulled off one morning as she worked the buttonhook before dawn. About to call out, she hesitated as a second sound came from behind her.
Snuffing her lamp, Darcie melted into the shadows under the stairs and held herself still as the sound of footsteps, slow and measured, echoed in the silence. She was shivering now, pressing herself as tightly to the wall as she possibly could, silently praying that the shadows would hide her from view. The footsteps drew closer, and closer still.
A man’s shadow, elongated and narrow, extended across the floor, cast there by the moonlight that filtered through the house. Darcie clamped her teeth together, focusing on the shape of that shadow. There was something about the way he walked, his height, the size of him…
Poole! She bit back a gasp.
Her head jerked up, and she realized that Mary had turned on the stairs to face him. She did not flee, and she did not cry out.
The idea of Poole and Mary, meeting outside the house after midnight, and then creeping back inside through the servants’ door was so unlikely, so inexplicable, that Darcie almost laughed.
Then, all the possibilities dawned and a shiver shook her. Poole had access to all Damien’s things, including his surgical tools. Poole was a large man, a strong man. Could it have been Poole who attacked Mary? Darcie shook her head in confusion as a thousand questions tumbled through her mind. A man who could attack a woman might be a man who could do murder.
The direction of Mary’s boots turned on the stair as the maid continued on her way up.
Poole hesitated at the bottom of the stairs then turned and strode away. Darcie let her legs buckle out from beneath her and sank down the wall. Hugging her knees, she sat, oblivious to the cold floor beneath her buttocks. The Whitechapel murderer. Poole was as likely a candidate as any, especially given the fact that he could have taken Damien’s scalpel at any time.
But Mary had not run just now. She had not screamed. If Poole were her attacker, would she not have behaved with fear?
With a soft sound of confusion, Darcie shook her head. She disliked Poole, true. He had been unkind to her in the beginning, and then his unkindness had turned to strangeness. She frowned. Poole was aloof and cold and, yes, even nasty, but did nastiness make a man a murderer? What exactly had he been doing, following Mary through the dark hallway just now?
Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the torn scrap of cloth that she had found in Damien’s chamber, for she still carried it with her, uncertain what else to do with it. The sound of her own ragged breathing filled her ears, and that made her feel angry. She would not be afraid! She was no quivering dormouse, shivering at the slightest prospect of adversity.
She pushed herself upright. Thrusting the scrap of cloth back into her pocket, she walked silently through the house, climbing one more story and another, finally making her way to the room that she had shared with Mary. The chamber was dark, but she could make out a lumpy form in one bed. She moved to sit on the pallet beside the window. Folding her legs up beneath her, she ran her palm over the familiar coverlet, an anchor in the unsteady sea of her uncertainty. At length, unsure of her words, but determined to seek out answers, she spoke.
“Mary, I know you are awake.”
“Awake. Awake. I wish I were asleep. I wish I could sleep and never wake up.”
“You don’t mean that, Mary.”
The other woman sighed, and sat up, keeping the covers clutched about her shoulders. Darcie squinted into the dimness.
“No, I don’t mean it. I am blessed, or maybe cursed, with a strong appreciation for life. Or perhaps it is only a fear of death,” Mary said matter-of-factly. “Here. I’ll light the candle.”
The light flared, and Darcie blinked, taking a second to adjust to the relative brightness.
“Mary, what were you doing wandering about like a ghost?”
Mary’s head snapped up at the question, her face a stark mask of apprehension. Her gaze slid away.
“Please, Mary. I want to help you.”
Looking down, Mary meticulously smoothed the creases from her blanket. “There’s none what can help me. What’s done is done.”
Darcie stared at her friend’s bowed head, wishing she could find a way to comfort her. She sensed there was more to Mary’s turmoil than the attack on her person. There was an ongoing fear of something more.
“What are you afraid of Mary? Tell me, please. I’ll talk to Dr. Cole—”
“He’s not the one,” Mary cried.
At that cryptic statement, Darcie’s heart lurched and she tamped down the urge to grab Mary’s arms. Instead, she focused on choosing her words with care. “He’s not the one, Mary? Not which one?”
“You know.”
“You mean he isn’t the Whitechapel murderer?” Darcie prodded carefully.
Mary shrugged, and shot her a questioning glance. “How’m I to know that?”
“Then what did you mean?” She fought to keep her tone neutral.
“He’s not the one who hurt me.”
“I know,” Darcie whispered, unsurprised by Mary’s admission. “Who did hurt you, Mary? Was it Poole?”
Mary’s eyes widened, showing white in the dimness. Looking away, she shook her head frantically. “I can’t say! Don’t ask me to say. Don’t ask me about Poole.”
Darcie blinked, wondering if it was the mention of Poole that had caused the other woman’s dismay, or simply the line of questioning.
“It’s all right, Mary. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
Confused, she recalled the way that Mary and Poole had behaved that morning, the baffling, soft expression in Poole’s eyes as he’d looked at the maid. Mary had not seemed afraid of him then, nor moments ago on the stairs. Struggling with the wave of frustration that crashed over her, Darcie tried to make sense of it all.
Suddenly, Mary rose from her bed. She crossed to where Darcie sat, the blankets trailing across the floor. Sinking down, Mary laid her head on Darcie’s shoulder, holding the blankets close about her throat.
“Do you ever wish you could be a little girl again? You know, young enough that you know nothing of hurt or fear?”
Darcie nodded. “Sometimes. But when I think of the girl I used to be, I feel glad that I am so much stronger than she was.” Even as she said the words, she realized how very true they were. She was so much more resilient now than that innocent young girl had been, so much more able to confront the realities of life.
“I don’t see myself as being very strong.” Mary’s voice was wistful. “I’d like to be, but mostly I just feel afraid.”
Her heart constricting at Mary’s admission, Darcie nodded. She remembered a time, not long past, when she, too, had mostly felt afraid.
“Oh! I nearly forgot!” Mary jumped to her feet and went to kneel next to her bed. From beneath it she pulled out a small wooden box. “I wanted you to read this to me. It came for me this morning.” Smiling shyly, she held a folded letter out toward Darcie. “I’ve never had a letter before.”
Taking the note from Mary, Darcie moved the candle closer and unfolded the parchment. The letter was written in a delicate, feminine hand.
Dearest Mary,
I wanted to write before this, but with the new baby I just could not find the time. Dr. Cole was kind enough to find Robbie a lovely post in the country, and we’re married now. I have my own pretty house here in Shropshire, and Robbie has a fine position. My little girl is named Catherine Joy, for she is my joy. Never did I imagine that Dr. Cole would be so kind. That morning when he came to find me in the scullery and bid me pack my things together, I thought he would toss me out without a reference. Instead, he brought me here and made all my dreams come true. There was no time to say farewell. Mr. Farrell needed a steward right away, and there was no time to delay. Dr. Cole brought us forthwith, and Robbie took up his post. My warmest regards to Cook and Tandis.