Chapter 25

It was drizzling by the time Newton, a horse with heart if ever there was one, finally brought Celsie to the imposing wrought-iron gates of de Montforte House.

Cold and soaked through, she swung down from his tall back, patted his steaming neck, and bade the groom who came for him to give him an extra ration of hay and oats at feeding time. Then, adjusting her cocked hat and squaring her shoulders, she marched toward the house.

If the staff was surprised to see her, they were too well trained to show it. "Yes, my lady," said the housekeeper in response to her terse query. "Lord Andrew arrived late yesterday and has been closeted in his laboratory ever since."

"Thank you. And where, pray tell, is this laboratory?"

"On the second floor, my lady. You can't miss it."

Celsie removed her damp cloak and handed it to a footman. All the worry, all the wondering, all the tension of the past two days had pinnacled in her heart, leaving only a firm determination to put an end to this nonsense. Still in her riding habit, her whip in one hand, she strode for the stairs.

As the housekeeper had said, the laboratory was on the second floor. And sure enough, the door was locked.

Celsie raised her fist, rapped sharply, and then stood back, rhythmically slapping her whip against her palm in an attempt to keep her temper in check.

"Who is it?"

"Your wife."

Silence. She pictured him on the other side of the door, wondering where he could run to now that she'd found him, probably cursing her from Kent to Cornwall. Celsie's whip tapping increased. Her jaw tightened. And then, to her surprise, the latch lifted and the door swung open.

"Andrew?"

He looked like hell. Two days worth of russet stubble shadowed his jaw. His eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. His shoulders were slumped, his waistcoat hung open, and there were faint smudges of exhaustion under his eyes. He gave a tired smile, and for a moment, she almost thought he looked relieved to see her. But that was ridiculous, of course. If he'd wanted to see her, he would have stayed at Rosebriar.

"Hello, Celsie," he said, calmly meeting her glare. "I suppose I should ask you what you're doing here, but then you'd doubt my intelligence as well as my sanity." He leaned against the door, bent his head to his hand and rubbed at his eyes. "Guess I'm not surprised to see you . . . you shouldn't have come, you know."

"Andrew, when is the last time you got any sleep?"

"I don't know. Maybe Saturday . . . Sunday . . . before the wedding, I think."

"Do you realize I am this far from strangling you?" She raised her hand, holding thumb and forefinger together and glaring at him.

He just looked at her with bleary eyes.

"Come," she said, seizing his hand and dragging him from the room. His toe hit the doorjamb and he stumbled, nearly taking her down with him. "You and I are going for a walk."

"For God's sake, Celsie, have some pity, would you? I need sleep, not exercise."

"Then you should have got some while you had the opportunity." She pulled him, unprotestingly, downstairs and hailed a footman, who took one look at the drooping Lord Andrew and came running.

"Is his Lordship ill, my lady?"

"No, he is merely overtired. Please fetch him his hat and coat. We are going outside for a walk."

"But it's raining," Andrew said, looking out the window and frowning, as if he'd only just become aware of that fact.

"So it is. Just what you need to wake you up."

She took his greatcoat from the footman and helped him into it herself when it became obvious that he was so dazed with exhaustion that his arms would not obey his brain. You shouldn't be doing this, her conscience protested. The poor man is walking in his sleep. For heaven's sake, have some mercy and put him to bed.

What, put him to bed and allow him to regain his energy, only to shove her away all over again? Oh, no. That would not do at all. He was tired, he was vulnerable, and she was going to get to the bottom of this nonsense while she had him right where she wanted him. Besides, if he'd really wanted to sleep, he would have been in bed, not working on a formula to make himself invisible or a machine to mince turnips or whatever the devil he did when he holed himself up in that confounded laboratory. She'd had enough of his tendency toward avoidance. She'd had enough of his running away from what was obviously becoming a serious problem. She had the fox by the tail, and damn it, she wasn't about to let him go.

Calling for her cloak, she slipped her hand within the crook of his elbow, and together they went outside.

There he took off his hat and tilted his head back, closing his eyes and letting the icy drizzle beat down on his face in an obvious attempt to wake up. Then, blinking the water from his eyes, he offered his elbow once more. Celsie did not press him to speak. He would talk to her when he was good and ready, and she had already learned that forcing him into a premature discussion of whatever was troubling him would only yield anger and resistance. And so she said nothing, simply walking beside him, allowing him to set the pace for both their walk and their impending conversation.

At length the drizzle began to taper off, and overhead, low, fast-moving clouds heralded a temporary break in the weather. The wet had done nothing to deter afternoon traffic; horses trotted past, clopping through puddles and splashing unwary pedestrians. Mud-spattered carriages filled the streets, and here and there sedan chairs darted as ladies paid social calls on each other, catching up on the latest gossip and scandal. Andrew seemed oblivious to them all. He remained mute beside her and eventually they ended up at Charing Cross, where they found a tiny coffeehouse and went inside to warm up.

"You had the right idea, getting me out of the house," he finally said, as he seated her at a little table and took the chair opposite. He wrapped his hands around a mug of strong black coffee and looked down into the steaming brew. "I no longer feel as though I'm walking in a fog."

She reached across the table and laid her fingers atop one of his wrists. He looked down at them, his face expressionless. Then he reached out and covered her hand with his own.

"I'm sorry," he said, not meeting her eyes. "You deserve better than what you got."

She only squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers back. Neither looked at the other, he staring into his hot coffee, she at their clasped hands.

"I trust Sheik behaved for you?" she asked, resorting to small talk in the hopes of breaking the ice between them.

"He's a fine little horse."

"I nearly collapsed when I heard that you'd taken him and hadn't returned."

"I should have asked."

"No, no, it wasn't that," she said, her thumb roving up and down his hand. "He has nearly killed every man that's ever gone near him. He was abused, you know. He hates men."

"He didn't hate me."

"No. " Her glance lifted briefly, to his. "You must have charmed him, then."

He shrugged. "We de Montfortes have always had a way with horses. His liking me had nothing to do with any charm I may or may not possess."

He sipped his coffee, a damp wave of mahogany hair falling into his eyes as he gazed down into the mug. He blinked, and a few strands of the hair caught in his eyelashes. He didn't bother clearing them away, and Celsie suddenly wished she felt comfortable enough to just reach out and brush the hair away for him, but no . . . not yet.

Go easy, go slow, and maybe you can win his trust such that he'll let you do a lot more than just touch his hair . . .

She took a sip of her own coffee, though she didn't release his hand. "So . . . why haven't you been sleeping?" She smiled, trying to put him at ease, trying to get him talking. "Are you so wrapped up in some fabulous new discovery, some incredible new invention, that you haven't had time to go to bed?"

"No." He looked up then, and his gaze — so direct, so intense, beneath sleepy brown lashes — met hers. "It wasn't that at all."

"I see."

"You don't see."

"Very well, I don't see."

He bent his head to his hand, kneading his brow. "I'm sorry. I'm irritable. I'm tired. I'm not good company."

"Then let's go back home, Andrew. I was wrong to drag you outside when you really ought to be catching up on days of missed sleep."

"Don't apologize, the fresh air did me good. You do me good, though most of the time I don't seem to realize, let alone show it." He finished his coffee and, plunking some coins on the table, got to his feet. "Come, let's go. I promise to try and be in a better mood."

He offered his elbow, nodded to an acquaintance who sat at a nearby table reading a newspaper, and escorted her outside.

"Bloody hell," he muttered.

Celsie groaned. "It's Lady Brookhampton."

"Why, hello, Andrew! Celsie!" The countess, her feet in iron pattens to protect her shoes from the mud, lifted her skirts and hurried across the street toward them. "I was wondering how married life was treating you . . . You're looking a bit peaked there, Andrew!" She smiled slyly. "Your new bride tiring you out?"

Andrew's eyes went strangely flat, the way they always did when he was reining in his anger. "If you will excuse us, madam —"

"I still think it was perfectly heinous, the way the duke tricked the two of you into marriage! Why, all of London is talking about it. Oh, it must be dreadful, pretending civility toward one another when you have anything but a love match."

Celsie smiled and moved closer to Andrew, impulsively slipping her arm around his waist. "What makes you think we don't?" she asked with false sweetness.

"Come now, Celsie, everyone at your doggie ball saw the way you two were glaring at each other. But oh, never mind that, I have just heard the most incredible rumor concerning your brother! Why, everyone's talking about how he's taken a sudden fancy to Miss Sarah Madden, whose papa — frightfully bourgeois, I'm afraid — is desperate to buy into the aristocracy." She leaned closer, her eyes gleaming, her voice dropping to a conspiring, excited whisper. "She's an heiress, you know. A very significant heiress with a dowry the size of London. More wedding bells in the future, if I'm allowed any predictions! I say, is your husband all right?"

Celsie turned.

"Andrew?"

He was staring at something across the street. Puzzled, Celsie followed his fixed gaze. There was nothing over there but endless buildings and a few people walking the pavement, going in and out of the shops and about their business. She tugged at his arm. He remained rigid and unmoving.

Lady Brookhampton took a step backward. "I say, I think you'd better get him to a doctor," she advised, frowning. "He's as white as the snow in Scotland."

"Andrew?" Celsie said again, her voice rising with dread.

He was still staring across the street, totally oblivious to the fact that she had spoken, to the fact that Lady Brookhampton was staring at him, to the fact that a group of well-dressed gentlemen, their laughing, twittering ladies on their arms, had also paused and were now eyeing him most peculiarly. Around them, people were beginning to whisper.

He didn't hear them. "Dear God . . . Indians. Do you see them, Celsie? Coming out of the shop there — look." He seized her arm and pulled her close to him. "Look!"

Celsie looked. She saw only a very ordinary looking old lady, stooped and frail, leaving a pawnshop and clutching a canvas bag in one gnarled hand. The woman was not even in the line of Andrew's fixed gaze. A kind of sick panic seized her. Oh no. Not again. Not here —

"Andrew," she said nervously, pulling at his arm as she tried to get him to move. "There is nobody there. You're only suffering from lack of sleep. Come, let's go home."

But Andrew knew he was suffering from far more than just lack of sleep. Just as a sleeper may realize he's dreaming, but still be caught up in the reality of the dream, Andrew knew he was having one of his episodes . . . though what he saw was terrifyingly real to him.

And what he saw were Indians. Mohawks, probably, from the New World, their heads shaved and leaving only a wedge of purple hair sticking straight up like the helmets of Roman soldiers, silver rings in their noses and eyebrows, their bare arms thrust through strange waistcoats of black leather bristling with little cones of steel.

From far away he heard his own voice, felt Celsie tugging at his shoulder.

"Andrew. Andrew, let's go —"

"But don't you see them?" He stared at her. Stared through her. "Bloody hell, they've spotted us; get behind me, Celsie, they may be dangerous!"

"Andrew, let's go home, now —"

"Damn it, Celsie, don't just stand there, get behind me!"

He grabbed his sword, yanked her behind him, and charged forward to protect her, but his foot slipped off the edge of the pavement and he went sprawling into the muddy street, the wheels of a passing carriage just missing his outflung arm. A lady screamed. The group of gentlemen came running. Alarmed shopkeepers came charging outside, Lady Brookhampton stood staring down at him in horror, and all around, people began to murmur in shocked, speculative whispers.

Andrew raised himself up from the mud on one elbow, and blinking, looked dazedly, uncomprehendingly, around him.

"Celsie?" he whispered.

But Celsie was already there. Positioning herself so that her body shielded him from the gathered onlookers, she had knelt beside him and now pulled him up against her, uncaring that he was filthy with mud. He was trembling violently, his skin waxy and cold beneath a film of sweat. She held him close, talking gently to him as excited whispers darted back and forth above their heads.

"Why, it's Lord Andrew de Montforte! I say, what ails him?"

"Got an opium habit, I'd guess . . . what a waste. . . ."

"Genius ain't without its price, eh, Smithson?"

"Aye, he's done so much thinking he's melted his own brain."

Celsie raised her head and glared fiercely up at them all. "I can assure you that my husband does not suffer from a drug habit, madness, or shortcomings of any kind, he is merely exhausted from three days without sleep! Had any of you gone three days without sleep, you'd be seeing strange things, too! Now go on, all of you, and give us some space and privacy!"

One arm still around her fallen husband, she made an angry, shoving motion with the other.

"I said, go!"

Mumbling, the crowd began to disperse, guffawing loudly as someone made a lewd remark about just why the newly wed Lord Andrew de Montforte hadn't got any sleep in three days. Celsie's face flamed, but at least she had deflected attention away from the real question of what was wrong with her husband, and that was all that mattered.

And then she looked up to see Lady Brookhampton still hovering above.

Celsie opened her mouth to deliver a stinging command —

"Shall I hail a cab or a sedan chair for him?" the older woman asked, with unexpected kindness.

Celsie gave a weary sigh. "Yes." She rose to her feet, pulling Andrew up with her. "Yes, that would be ideal."