Chapter 19
Damien watched Maria and her friends take tea on the lawn. Rather, he watched Maria take tea on the lawn. He had no interest in her friends. The curtains of his study were closed, as they always were. He had moved them aside slightly when the voices of the women had carried to him.
A shaft of bright light carved through, but he avoided it, stepping to one side. Maria was laughing at something one of the others had said. It illuminated her face. Her eyes seemed to shine when she smiled and became stars when she laughed.
She wore a blue gown that complemented her coloring and revealed creamy shoulders and arms. He remembered how her skin had felt beneath his fingers, beneath his lips. The business of his estates called to him; papers were spread across his desk, but Damien could not tear himself from that window.
This is weakness. I am making myself vulnerable to her beauty, giving her power over me.
Maria moved, picking up a piece of paper from the table.
One of the others reached for it, seeming to protest, but Maria held it beyond her reach.
She danced away and out of sight. Damien shifted his position without thinking about it, moving to stand in full sunlight in order to keep Maria in view.
She was engrossed in the letter, whatever it was, seemingly reading from it and then looking at the others as though asking a question.
What is that letter? How does it exercise her so? Who is it from? The orphanage, perhaps? Her father?
Damien’s jaw clenched. If it was a letter from Maria’s father, it had better be one in which the wretched man repented of all his misdeeds and begged for his daughter’s forgiveness.
That was the only acceptable correspondence from him.
Damien became aware of Simon standing beside him, watching him. He jerked the curtains closed.
“How long have you been standing there?” Damien demanded.
“Only a moment. You seemed quite distracted. Your wife is a very beautiful woman, after all. If you will forgive the familiarity.”
Damien went to his desk, sitting down with a thump and perusing his paper estate. He glared at the physician, who was regrettably mostly immune from Damien’s moods and intimidations.
“I do not,” Damien said.
“But you do not disagree concerning her remarkable beauty,” Simon pressed, taking a seat next to the fire and warming his hands. “I wish you wouldn’t shut out the sun as you do. In a stone monstrosity such as this one, it makes for very cold rooms.”
“Her beauty is neither here nor there. She serves a purpose,” Damien said, picking up a statement of account but not seeing any of the columns of figures presented within.
“Well, I appreciate it even if you do not.”
“You will keep your lecherous gaze to yourself!” Damien barked, slamming his hand down on the desk.
Simon watched him, a ghost of a smile on his face.
“So, she is more than simply a means to an end if she can inspire jealousy. How fascinating.”
Damien gritted his teeth, realizing he had been trapped into the admission.
Damn him! He is so dratted perceptive.
“Should I not recognize her beauty?” Damien growled. “Even desire her?”
“I would fully expect it. Why is it so difficult for you to admit?” Simon asked.
Because to admit to the feelings I have for her, the warmth she brings to me at the merest sight, the pleasure I feel at her company, simply being in her company, all of those things bring with them weakness.
But then another thought rose, unbidden, to the surface of Damien’s mind.
I can’t risk letting Maria in… I am cursed. People around me suffer. Even the ones I… care about.
“Why are you here, Simon? I have not called for you,” Damien replied.
Simon sighed, seeing the gates crashing closed against him. He shrugged.
“I have news concerning the rumors from the north. Concerning the rumors of a brother?”
Damien’s eyes sharpened. He leaned forward, hands against the desk, gaze intent on Simon.
“What news? Is there anything to the rumors?”
“Whoever he is, I believe he is real.”
“He?”
“There is an individual, who claims to be your brother. Whether he is an Alaric is another question, and one I cannot answer. But he exists. And he is no longer in the north. I have heard that he is here in London.”
“How have you come by this information?” Damien asked.
“A patient who earns a scurrilous living writing for a scandal sheet. Another who is a prominent lady of the ton and an avaricious consumer of gossip. And a few others. The notion of there being a brother to the Phantom is a popular one in the imagination of our peers.”
Damien sat back, muscles slack. The rumors had spread far, indeed, and there was a specific individual responsible. It was a lot to think about.
How could there be a brother? My father killed my mother, and I remember no infant.
He frowned, trying to bring memories of that time to the forefront of his mind. It was difficult; they were locked behind a door in his mind that he did not wish to open. That locked room had been dark since Damien had been a child.
“If he is real, then why has he not communicated with me?” Damien wondered aloud.
“Perhaps he is afraid?” Simon suggested.
“Of me?” Damien asked.
“Yes, frankly.” Simon paused. “But there are other possibilities, of course. It might be that this man is some manner of villain and claims association with you for nefarious means. If so, it would be rather brazen of him to speak with you, for you would be more capable than anyone of refuting anything that he might claim.”
“Yes,” Damien said. “I suppose that is so, but…why association with me? There are so many lords among the ton with whom an aspiring criminal might claim to be a relation of.”
“I know. And I have no answers for you.”
Damien stood, going to the window and moving the curtains aside. The sunlight fell across his face. Maria was still out there, bathed in light and resplendent as the moon. One of her friends was speaking, relating a tale that had the others laughing.
Maria glanced towards him, and her eyes met his. Damien found himself held to the spot, unable to look away. Unwilling to look away. He saw her lips part, saw the color rise in her cheeks. Did her bosoms heave ever so slightly?
She tucked a wayward lock of hair behind her ear and bit her lower lip. Damien was bewitched, remembering everything about her that was now covered but which he had seen, touched and tasted. He forgot where he was and in whose company.
“Do you have any further instructions for me?” Simon asked after a long silence. “I can try to learn more about this young man. I am certain that someone must know something about him and his intentions.”
Damien looked away from Maria for a moment.
“I would consider this new information for a time. Would you excuse me?” Damien said, softening his tone and knowing that Simon would read it as gratitude.
Simon smiled. “Of course, it’s a lot to take in. I am on my way to Willow Street anyway, I promised Drayford to help check on the progress of the little ones with the fever they were afflicted with. Send for me if you need me.”
Damien nodded. As the door closed behind Simon, Damien looked back at the window. The women were still there, but Maria was gone. He opened the curtain wider to expand his field of view. There was no sign of her.
She has probably gone to refresh herself. No need to assign significance to something that is insignificant.
But he felt regret that she was no longer within his sight.
A sense of loss. Angrily, he turned away, determined to return to his work and forget the nonsense that was nothing more than weakness.
It was only when he stood before the desk, the papers now bright in the sunlight, that he realized how wide the curtains were.
He looked over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes instinctively, expecting pain or at least discomfort.
When it didn’t come, he angrily drew the curtains fully closed.
Such conditions as mine do not disappear in a moment. To believe otherwise is false hope.
Damien stood over his desk, surveying the ledgers and accounts. He could not bring himself to sit and immerse himself once more in their dry pages. His mind roamed beyond the curtains into the sunlight, where Maria had been moments ago, a creature of the light while he was of the dark.
With a sudden flare of anger, he swept the papers and books to the floor, then stormed out of the room, slamming the door closed. He went upstairs to the gallery of his mother’s paintings. But when he arrived, the curtains that kept daylight from the room had been flung wide.
Sunlight bathed every wall, bringing all the stunning paintings to life.
For a moment, he marveled at colors he had forgotten existed in those landscapes—aspects he had ceased to see because he always viewed them in the subdued light of candle, lamp or fire.
Maria stood in the middle of the room, watching him.
“I saw you watching me,” she said.
“I was wondering at the source of the noise that was distracting me from my work,” Damien said.
“That is not true.”
“Do you call me a liar?”
“No. But I think you deceive yourself at times.”
Damien stalked closer to her. She lifted her chin as he approached, never taking her eyes from him. Her gaze was unafraid, even challenging.
“Pray, how am I deceiving myself?” he asked quietly.
“By hiding your thoughts. Your hopes for us.”
She spoke boldly, putting forth her opinions as though daring him to gainsay her. There was something immensely attractive in that boldness. She was a lioness.
“I have never denied my attraction to you. You are extraordinarily beautiful, beyond any woman I have ever known,” he said dismissively. “My hopes for us from the beginning were to cease to be a public curiosity, to effectively kill the Phantom.”