Chapter 19 #2
“No,” Maria shook her head, “that is what you tell yourself. It is what I told myself. But I do not think it true, any more than your affliction which renders you vulnerable to daylight.”
“I have had that affliction since…”
“You stood in full sunlight watching me. You stand in full sunlight now. I believe the sight of your mother’s paintings, revealed so brilliantly in the sun, took your mind off it. I flatter myself that watching me distracted you earlier.”
Damien refused to let his emotions show on his face, even though what she had said resonated within him.
I was distracted by the sight of her. Or rather by her sudden absence. I did not notice how wide I had opened the curtains just to try and catch sight of her.
“I was distracted, but not by these pictures. I know them all so well. The distraction was always you.”
He looked around the room, feeling uncomfortable at the brightness of the light and the nakedness he felt at his admission. But the pain in his eyes was far from what he had felt in the past.
“I am merely trying to break down the wall you insist on building between us!” Maria cried, sudden passion breaking through her own self-control.
Damien’s attention had been drawn back to the paintings, his eye caught by a seascape suddenly revealed to be a patchwork of blues and greens in subtle shadings that he had never been able to appreciate before. Except…
“I remember that one. I remember…”
He turned slowly, eyes fixed on the painting. Maria was at his side as he moved towards it, watching him.
“My mother painting it. I watched her painting it. I had forgotten until now. She sat… there!”
He whirled and pointed to a point in the room flanked by two tall windows. That was the brightest point in the room. Damien strode to it and fell to his knees, his hands on the bare floorboards.
“There was always paint over these boards. It has been scrubbed away over the years. I should not have done that. It was something of her.”
Damien was looking inwardly, a door in his mind opening that had been locked since he was a boy.
It had always been a dark room, filled with shadowy things that must never see the light of day.
Now he knew it to be the opposite. The darkness was without, the locked room was full of light. Full of her. He smiled.
“She told me how she painted the waves to make them seem alive. How each color interacted with the other, how she introduced light. God, I remember!”
Maria was on her knees beside him, listening intently, smiling encouragingly. Damien saw her face, realized what he was doing, how much he was giving away. The smile fled from his face. He stood abruptly. Maria caught his hand, remaining on her knees.
“It seems my condition has lessened without my knowledge. That is curious, but I’m sure Simon will have a theory as to why.”
“Don’t…” Maria began, her voice breaking.
“Don’t?” Damien replied, but he did not break away from her touch.
“Don’t shut me out again. I can only bear it so many times.”
Damien felt a flare of sympathy, a guilt at the pain he was causing her. He stepped on that sympathy brutally, attempting to crush it from existence.
“You now know more about me than any other living person. I feel that you are well within my keep.”
“It is just that I expect the gates to slam shut at any moment.”
Damien took a deep breath, looking into Maria’s eyes.
“Walls do not necessarily exist to keep intruders out. They can be used to keep something in,” he said, quietly.
“And what do you keep imprisoned that I am in such danger of?”
“A very real curse that a thin piece of leather protects you from,” Damien said, tapping the mask.
“You hide behind that, I think,” Maria accused him.
“I state facts. I did not ask you to ride dangerous roads alone at night,” he said.
“Nor did I! I was on a mission of mercy. Had I been able to reach Bedlam and return to Willow Street without ever setting foot in Winterleigh, I would have done so. The evil of men brought me to your door. Their evil and your good.”
Damien smiled. “Good? Do you mistake opportunism for altruism?”
“Do you mistake me for a blind fool that cannot see what is plain!”
Maria rose, holding his hand in both of hers now. Her eyes were wide and her cheeks hot.
“I would never call you a fool,” Damien said, looking up at her.
“Should I simply go? Our marriage contract provided a stipend for us to settle somewhere and live modestly and quietly. Deliver it and get rid of me.”
There were tears in her eyes, but she controlled them valiantly. Her lips trembled, but she refused to let the tremors into her voice. Her hands squeezed his as though anticipating him trying to pull away from her. Damien watched her closely, holding her gaze and trying to see into her soul.
Are the eyes the windows of the soul? Then let me see the contents of hers. Let me divine the truth and be rid of this doubt forever.
Damien found that he did not want to release himself from Maria’s soft hands.
When he understood this, he ripped himself from her grasp.
He found that he did not want to look away from her deep eyes.
Understanding he turned his back, fixing his eyes on the paintings.
He found that he did not want to write a cheque and be free of her forever.
He opened his mouth to agree with everything she had just said.
“No!” Damien said impulsively, then clamped his mouth shut before any more treacherous words could escape.
“I will not live on the edge of a knife, Duke of Winterleigh. And I certainly will not allow Gilbert to have any more uncertainty in his young life. So, I will know now!” Maria all but stamped her foot.
Damien rounded on her. He wanted to tell her that it was over, be rid of her now that the ghouls seemed to have been dissuaded.
His mouth opened and he pointed at her. And his finger trembled.
He lowered it, staring at her. He saw her standing before him proudly, controlling her fear, defying it and him.
He was so accustomed to being looked at with fear.
I am cursed. Everyone is afraid of me. Everyone has always been afraid of me.
But the fear which Maria sought to master was different.
She was not afraid of the Phantom. Not afraid of the mask or the curse.
Damien was afraid of it, afraid of what it could do.
Maria looked at him with open eyes and an open heart, holding back nothing.
She was afraid of being rejected. Of being unable to protect her charge, her adoptive son.
She is not afraid of me at all. How is she not afraid of me?
“I do not know what to do with you,” he said. “You knew I was a monster when you married me, and you expect—”
“You are not a monster,” she said. “And I expect you to be better than most men. I know that you can be. I know that you are.”
Damien laughed in disbelief. “What ever would give you that ridiculous notion?”
Something in her face softened. “I was speaking with Evelina about—about you.”
His jaw clenched. “Were you?”
She stepped closer. “Yes. And I want to thank you,” Maria said slowly. “For… what you gave me.”
He stiffened, uncertain of what she might say next. “I gave you nothing.”
“That is not true. You gave me something that I know not every woman receives. Even those who are married. Even those that are happily married, if such women exist.”
“It is said, but I do not believe it.”
“Nor I. But I experienced something that my friends have never spoken of. If they had experienced the pleasure that you have showed me, I think it would be all they spoke of!”
He knew what she was referring to. It set a glowing warmth within him. He knew that men cared little for it, concerning themselves only with their own pleasure or the need to procreate.
“I was thinking of my own pleasure, I assure you,” he said, clenching his own emotions tight, attempting to throttle the life from them. “To indulge in such intimacy is a thing of great allure.”
“Well, I am glad that you are capable of such generosity even in your most selfish moments,” Maria said, wryly.
“Say the words. Set me free or keep me chained to you, and you will find I am the happiest prisoner you have ever known,” Maria said with a smile.
Damien chuckled, and Maria’s smile widened.
“A prisoner? What a tempting offer,” Damien said.
The very suggestion awakened something fierce within him, as he imagined Maria bound to his bed, not with chains but with lengths of silk about her delicate wrists and ankles.
“Isn’t it, though?” Maria said.
The tension between them eased with the laughter.
“Will I be the only one, though?” she asked, her expression coy.
That sent a jolt through Damien. He stepped back, snatching his hand away from her, half turning, looking back with suspicious eyes. Had she learned about the prisoners he kept in his dungeon?
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
Maria looked confused, and Damien began to suspect that he had misunderstood her intentions. He withheld a sigh of relief.
“It was another joke. It does not mean anything. I did not wish to cause offence.”
“It does not cause offence, it causes suspicion.”
“Suspicion?” Maria demanded, “How could it. Suspicion of what? Oh, for the company of a small child. Gilbert has not yet learned to lie or conceal his true feelings.”
“I am concealing nothing.”
“No, you show your thorns openly. Like a bramble!”
“If you do not care for thorns, then wear gloves,” he said.
“Gauntlets, from one of your suits of armor.”
Damien almost smiled. Almost laughed. He was enjoying the banter. Enjoying being this close to her, looking at her. The argument gave him reason to stare without looking away. “I do not think I would appreciate a woman’s touch communicated through cold steel,” Damien said.
His eyes darted to her gloved hands, and he imagined himself slowly, delicately peeling them down her arms until her hands were warm and bare in his own.
Damien shivered, all thoughts of the earlier conversation dissipating like morning fog when he thought of her touching him, caressing his chest with those delicate hands.
“Would you not? Perhaps I should not give you the choice,” he said, lowering his voice. “It seems that when I give too much, there is always the risk of you bolting in the opposite direction.”
Damien seized her, holding her tightly against him, his embrace as firm as the grip of any knight encased in steel.
“Had you considered that I am the prisoner? Chained to you?” he asked.
Color rose to her face, down her neck and chest. Damien’s gaze snapped to her full bosom, her breasts practically heaving above the neckline of her bodice. His fingers ached to caress them with his hands and to make those rosy nipples pert between his fingers.
“I had not,” Maria replied breathlessly. “How can one be a prisoner when one holds all the power?”
“Do I? It is you who can come and go as she pleases. It is you who can be free with whom she sees and, more importantly, who sees her. It is you who has me so closely bound to you that I dare not push you too far lest you sever our ties and disappear from my life.”
“I will not disappear. I do not want to disappear,” Maria replied.
Damien gazed down at her, his eyes afire. His body seethed with desire for her, with the need to tell her everything and anything. To be naked before her, weak and vulnerable.
He was certain that she would treat him gently. Perhaps, even with reverence. Damien would be the first man she ever touched, the man who stole her maidenhood, and he would be just as careful with her body. Maria would bloom like a rose for him.
Hang it all! What use is strength in isolation?
But then there was the curse. Always the curse. He could not expose her to it. Could never live as a true husband. Could never drop the mask.
He hissed between his teeth and dropped his hands, so boiling with want that he feared he might be overcome with passion if she lingered even a minute longer. “You should return to your friends,” he said, forcing his voice steady.
Maria glanced to the window and sighed deeply. “I suppose I must.”
The air seemed to cool with the iciness of her disappointment, but Maria did not linger for any longer. She simply swept past him, and Damien watched the doorway long after she had left.