A Heart Possessed Read online

  * * *

  "I HAVE NO RIGHT TO EVEN THINK OF TOUCHING YOU."

  He said so softly I barely heard him, "I would only hurt you, like I have everyone else."

  The fire crackled and hissed.

  Then he turned very slowly to face me. There was desperation in the depths of his eyes, in the bunching of his jaw, the slant of his mouth. Then his fingers closed around my throat and slid up my neck, where his thumb pressed into my chin, lifting my face toward his. His throat rumbled with a hoarse groan before he admitted, "I want to kiss you."

  "I want to be kissed," I confessed, feeling no hesitation, though he looked as wild and powerful in that instant as the rolling fog that had consumed the earth and sky outside the house. I repeated, "I want to be kissed, my lord . . . by you."

  For a moment neither of us moved, then his hands came up and cupped my face, slid into my hair, and clenched. His dark head lowered over mine and he growled, "Then God help you."

  * * *

  A HEART POSSESSED

  By Katherine Sutcliffe

  * * *

  For my own Yorkshireman:

  My husband, Neil, who has possessed my heart

  from the moment we met.

  And for his family: Ellen, Donald, and Adrienne Sutcliffe, and

  Charlie and Annie Wheeler,

  who welcomed a Yank into their homes and hearts that blustery Christmas ten years ago.

  I love you all.

  * * *

  I thought, O my love, you were so—

  As the sun or the moon on a fountain,

  And I thought after that you were snow,

  The cold snow on top of the mountain.

  And I thought after that you were more

  Like God's lamp shining to find me,

  Or the bright star of knowledge before,

  Or the star of knowledge behind me.

  —from The Love Songs of Connacht

  * * *

  Dearbhrathair don Bhas

  Fios a chur ar an dochtuir

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  Malham on the Moor Yorkshire, England, 1800

  I did not return to Malham easily. It was here, after all, where my despair had begun, my fall from grace. Where the first seed of bitterness took hold of my life until the ache for revenge possessed my every night and day while I languished in that wretched institution, Royal Oaks, in Menston. I might never have survived it —the humiliation, the pain of being interned at Oaks—had it not been for Jerome Baron. Dear Jerome. We had been companions since childhood, and his friendship carried me through the nights and days of black despair when my only companion was grief. Dear Jerome, how he had begged to marry me so I might save myself the awful confinement at Oaks. But though I loved Jerome as a friend, I could not love him as a husband, and told him so. And of course, he understood. He came day after day of my confinement and talked even when I had no heart to listen. He held me close, moments after the flesh of my arm had been seared by the brand that would forever mark me as whore: His whore: Wyndham of Walthamstow, earl of this village called Malham.

  And then my world came shattering down around me. My uncle, who had committed me at Oaks, died. Without his dismissal I would forever be locked in that godforsaken dungeon.

  The shock was too much. For days I slept, weak and near death, but upon opening my eyes I found Jerome there, assuring as always but withdrawn. He confessed that he had carried out my wishes, and I knew then that for the first time in our lives he would not break the vow of secrecy I had begged him to make. I pleaded and wept to know the truth, then, desperate to use any wile to sway him, I cursed him and turned him out. He returned still. Time and again until, despite my anger, I forgave him his silence.

  It was during that time that I noticed his illness. What could 1 do? I held him when he came to visit, though he tried to deny me, afraid the disease would kill me as well. I didn't care. I had lost everything, so what did it matter?

  Anguished by my depression, Jerome finally confessed the philanthropic deed he had committed on my behalf, of the arrangements he'd made for my release, and of the money that had passed hands and the officials who were more than willing—for a price—to look the other way as I left my prison. His face bloodless and his chest racked with coughing, he convinced me to return home to Malham ... to face Nicholas Wyndham. But he warned me too of the dangers, though I covered my ears and called him liar. I was not one to listen to rumors; they were nothing more than twisted truths from twisted mouths. And so I returned to Malham, having lost my dearest friend to death, the only friend who might have celebrated my courage to follow through on my conviction. Here I would end what had begun that spring day on the moor two years before. I vowed that no love I had once felt for the handsome Lord Melham would deter me from my goal.

  Dawn crept in on misty feet, smelling of the gray-green lichen on the brick wall where I stood. Wild grapevines cast shadows like entwined serpents over the spongy ground. They brushed the folds of my woolen cape and fluttered like tiny amber torches at the corner of my eye. I swept them away lightly, absently.

  Pulling my cloak more tightly around my shoulders, I sank into the shadows. My fingers were numb. So were my feet. I shifted them awkwardly among the bramble, frowning as thorns snagged the hem of my dress and cloak. It is too early to call, I told myself, yet my patience was waning. I had waited long enough, too long, too many weeks and months to act on my and Jerome's plan. "What is one more hour?" I asked myself aloud. Eternity.

  "'Ere now, y' frolicsome bitch, or we'll be havin' trouble afore y' know it!"

  I stumbled backward, the twisted trunk of a rowan tree halting my clumsy escape. I stared through its blazing red-orange leaves across the grounds of Walthamstow Manor, my heart climbing into my throat, then easing as I realized the comment had not been directed at me.

  A black-and-tan hound, her nose to the ground, loped across the gardens, dragging the short-legged keeper behind her. The animal's chesty baying brought a flash of memory that burned the backs of my eyes.

  I slid again into the shadows as silently as possible and made my way down a path overgrown with moss and clumps of tuft-topped weeds. Quickly I swept along, snapping twigs, my footsteps muted by damp leaves that glistened yellow and red and orange in the dim light

  I breathed easier when I reached the foot of the path. Foolish meanderings, I scolded myself, and looked uneasily over my shoulder. Beyond the treetops Walthamstow's slated dormers peeked through winterstark branches. For a moment I imagined a face there, within the window frame-somber, dark, just a flash of features, then it was gone. He was gone. It might have been anyone, I told myself.

  Still, the visage had been enough to wrench my breath. No matter what I had told myself since leaving Oaks, no matter what Jerome had told me about Nicholas Wyndham, the future was frightening. Pressing my fingers against my heart, I waited for its frantic racing to ease, telling myself over and over that my reasons for returning to Walthamstow Manor had nothing at all to do with what I had once felt in my breast for Nicholas. Yet my traitorous heart was not so inclined to agree.

  There was time to pass so I followed McBain's Wall, skipping among stone rubble, pretending to feel happier than I really was. For whom? I wondered. Because I should, I argued. I should feel happy. I had dreamed of this day. Hadn't I? I had planned for this day. Hadn't I? Indeed.

  Malham on the moor was yet asleep beneath the cold, damp blanket of mist. I gathered my cloak about me and, from atop the crumbling dry stone wall, fixed my gaze upon the slumbering town. "Malham." I spoke the name like a sonnet, whispering it to the black-faced sheep that grazed contentedly some distance away. "Walthamstow of Malham, I've come home. Will y' know me? Nay, y'll no
t. For I've grown up, y' see."

  I could not help but smile. Before me was my past, rich in fond memories. And despite the despair of the last two of my twenty-three years, it would carry me a lifetime. Malham, grim and beautiful, her high tops lolled with tumuli and heather, was my future. Turning my face toward the sky, I closed my eyes and repeated:

  'Walthamstow of Malham, I've come home."

  I would not take the path again. Pushing open the ivy covered wrought-iron gate I walked carefully up the brick pathway, my cloak scattering the dry leaves around my feet so they tumbled as lightly as feathers in the rising hire/.e. I stared occasionally through the tree limbs overhead, catching glimpses of bottom-heavy clouds hinting of snow. The air was brittle. My face stung, more from nervousness, I surmised, than from the cold.

  The hedge was overgrown, nearly meeting over the pathway, I might have taken that as a warning that things were not as they used to be. Walthamstow's gardens had been once renowned for their spectacular beauty. Folk from nearby villages would take a turn through Malham just to view the floral scenery that blazed around the intricately sheared shrubbery of the lawns. I swept the hedge aside and brushed away the leaves that clung tenaciously to my cloak. Everything must be perfect, I told myself. Everything!

  Looking up again, I slowed, then stopped. I hadn't expected ... I had never ventured so close ... it hadn't seemed so frightening from a distance. Walthamstow. Three hundred years old. Perhaps she had a right to look rather tattered around her dormers. But I hadn't anticipated such . . . immensity. And a moat. Lord God a bloody moat. On closer inspection, I realized it wasn't a moat at all, only a rain sink covered with lily pads.

  Walthamstow. With all her aged imperfections she was still beautiful beyond my memories or fantasies.

  Her mullioned oriels winked with leaded and stained glass. Ivy crept up her stone walls, arching over windows and doors, but though streamers had tried their best to cling to the slick slate tiles on the roof, they had failed and now hung like maiden's hair toward the ground. And chimneys. I counted five from my position on the walk. Imagine a fireplace in every room!

  I thought to smile at my childish excitement, but then a scream came, shrill and piercing. I stumbled backward, clamping my hands over my ears, shoving the woolen cap of my cape sharply against the sides of my head, hoping to mute the anguished, unending cry. I could not move, and the wail continued until my own hysteria boiled up my throat and threatened to explode at any moment. Then the hands came, squeezing my shoulders so fiercely that pain shot through my arms and sank deeply into my breast. They were weather-raw hands, and twisted. The strength in my knees became water: I nearly collapsed.

  ' 'Ere now, lass, yer all right. Yer all right!" The hands gave me a shake, and the voice continued, "Shut up yet wailin', 'enrietta, before y' scare the lass out of 'er mind. Per the love o' God, yer a pain in the arse. Get y' gone, y' silly fowl, afore we pluck and boil yer fancy feathers fer dinner."

  The peacock strutted across the walk.

  I closed my eyes.

  The hands released me then. "Are y' all right?" came the man's gentler voice.

  I nodded, feeling foolish.

  " 'ere now." He stepped around me, the man I'd earlier seen walking the hound. "The bloody bird is a nuisance. Worse'n any mutt f scarin' off strangers." His bushy gray brows plunged between his eyes in a frown. "Gum, lass, but yer white as a sheet. Were it that frightenin'?"

  "Aye," I said, uncomfortable with my response to the affair. I questioned my own balance, knowing what had caused it and why.

  I le clucked his tongue. "I've been tellin' the doc that we'd best get rid of t'owd bird, but 'e's quite fond of 'er, I think. Keeps away the riffraff, 'e says. Oh, beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, not meanin' yer riffraff—

  "I understand." Anxious now, I looked toward the house.

  " 'oo'll y be 'ere t' see?" he asked.

  Pulling my gaze from the front door, I turned it fully on my companion. He had round, tired eyes that widened as he searched my upturned face. He dragged his hat from his head, and the weight of his once broad shoulders appeared to make him bend at the waist. He shuffled backward.

  "l 'oo're y' 'ere t' see, ma'am?" he asked again in a more respectful manner.

  Opening my clenched fingers from around the crumpled paper in my fist, I took a deep, unsteady breath before replying, "Wyndham."

  lie glanced at the paper. "Ah! Yer 'ere t' see the Doc, then?"

  "I don't think so. No. Not the doc." A gust of wind sliced across the grounds, whipping the hems of the cloak and skirt around my legs. "Wyndham," I repeated a little breathlessly, perhaps a little warily. "Nicholas Wyndham of Walthamstow Manor, I believe . . . Lord Malham." Pleased that I sounded Sufficiently ignorant, I tugged the skirts back around my ankles and looked at him again.

  He appeared surprised.

  "Is something wrong?" I asked him. "Lord Malham's not traveled in the last few days?"

  "Nay, lass, the man don't travel much anymore."

  "Then he's here."

  "Aye, I'll be 'ere, I suppose."

  We each stood uncomfortably attentive, our faces becoming chafed in the cold. Finally he stood aside and swept his flannel-covered arm toward the house. "Mornin' to y', lass."

  With a nod of my head I bid him good morning.

  The air stung my lungs as I took another full breath. But it cleared my head. Moving gracefully up the pathway, I neared the massive double door, but slowed when I spied a gargoyle's face, once bronze but now green with age, peering at me through the dried black leaves and streamers of a death wreath. As I had thought the unkempt gardens odd, so I thought the appearance of the wreath unnatural after all this time. I hesitated once, then, flicking aside the dusty satin ribbon, grabbed hold of the cold brass ring in the demon's nose and whacked it soundly against the plate. Every instinct in my body screamed a warning, but I denied them. I had come this far. I would not turn back.

  The door swung open. A gaunt man well over six feet blinked at me with kind brown eyes. "I'm here to see Lord Malham," I announced, sounding far steadier than I felt in that moment. "Nicholas Wyndham, please."

  There was a moment's hesitation. "Nicholas?"

  "Aye."

  He considered my reply, appearing a bit dubious.

  Then a voice came, rich and deep, from within. "Who's there, Reggie?"

  I held my breath.

  The butler stepped aside and another man appeared, as tall but not so lean. His hair was chocolate-brown and wind-tossed. His nose was red, as were his cheeks, accentuating the blue of his eyes. He wore an expensive wool coat that fit him perfectly, with wide lapels I hut thrust outward like a bird's wings, as his collar was turned up to keep the chill from his neck. His broad smile stretched even wider as he acknowledged in.

  "Gracious, Reggie, you'll freeze the young woman." He caught my arm and tugged me out of the cold. Then rubbing his hands together, he teased, "I'm quite certain he's about gaining me new clients. How do you do, Miss ...?"

  "Ariel Rushdon," I said, relieved. "You're . . . Doc?"

  "I am. Stick out your tongue and say ahhh." He laughed as I laughed. Then he said, "You don't look sick. A bit pale perhaps, but—"

  "I haven't come to see you," I confessed. I searched about the immense foyer before looking at him again.

  "Then you're here to see my sister, I would suppose. What a shame."

  "No." As I shook my head the hood of my cape slid back to my shoulders, releasing my hair in a tumble, around my face.

  I looked again at the paper in my hand, spreading it carefully. My fingers were numb and trembling, whether from cold or nerves I could not guess. Swallowing, I announced, "Sir Nicholas Wyndham: Lord Malham, Earl of Malham."

  It was a woman's voice that intruded then. "Nick? Why on earth would anyone care to subject himself to that?"

  Startled, I spun, my fingers twisting into the paper. Tin* doctor must have noticed. He moved up beside me and kindly covered my hands with hi
s. Looking at MIC askance, he winked in a charming way that warmed my heart. "Forgive my sister," he pleaded. "Adrienne has an appallingly tenny amount of manners when greeting guests. Adrienne, this is Miss . . . Rushdon?"

  "What do you want with Nicholas?" Adrienne asked. She stopped mere feet from me, her hands on her hips. She had the same blue eyes as the doctor, though her hair wasn't quite so dark.

  Behind me the butler closed the door against the cold. The sound echoed throughout the house, startling me from my speechlessness. "The notice," I blurted, feeling awkward and less and less confident of my plans as the Wyndhams waited. "I've come about the notice."

  "What notice?" Adrienne frowned.

  "This notice." I held out the paper for her regard. Adrienne snapped it from my fingers in a manner that conveyed as much irritation as the flash of anger in her narrowed eyes. "It was posted at the Black Bull Inn in Keighley," I managed.

  The woman's fine brows knitted in frustration as she stared at the notice. "Oh, for the love of God, Trevor, he's done it again."

  "Has he?" He smiled at me. "What has he done, fair sister?"

  "Posted these ridiculous notices for a sitter."

  "Oh," He winked. "Is that all?"

  "Is that all? Is that all!" Adrienne rolled her eyes. "I thought we'd done with that madness last month."

  As I looked on, discomfited, I thought I detected a flicker of anger in the doctor's eyes as he looked from me to his sister. "If Nick requires a sitter, I can't see what harm could come of it. Not if it makes him happy."

  "But we had these women traipsing through the house for weeks last time, Trevor. It's most annoying, and you know he'll never find another like her so why does he persist?"

  "It pleases him."

  "It frustrates him, and we both know what happens when he becomes frustrated."

  Trevor Wyndham looked back at me, his handsome face thoughtful. Although his manner was careless and flirtatious, he exuded an air of self-confidence and breeding that managed to define the line between aristocrat and the common man. "Perhaps this time will be different," he said. "Besides, the young lady has led a great distance to see him. I think it's only fair that she is allowed to do so." He turned to the servant "Where is my brother?" he asked him. "