* * *
He didn’t come back until two in the morning.
Awakened by an awful banging at the front door, Ravenna rushed downstairs to let him in. Surely he’d be drunk. Nasty and selfish, he’d probably yell at her, rave about being locked out in the rain instead of whatever really bothered him, and she couldn’t help wondering, What was in that letter, Christian? What could possibly frighten you so badly?
Yet with every step, each crash of the heavy door against the stone casing, she became more frightened at the thought of what she might find outside on the doorstep. The thud of the timbers resounded through the house. Each booming echo was interspersed with a beat of silence until halfway down the staircase, she realized just what he was doing. He wasn’t beating his fists against the door. He was beating himself against it, and hard—hard enough to rattle the chandeliers.
Oh God, she thought, taking the steps faster as a flash of blue glanced off the paintings beside her. Thunder, loud as cannon fire, shook the house. It made the banister tremble under her hand, but when the sound died away, in its wake there came something even worse, something that affected her more than she liked: her name, over and over again. Christian was wailing it, and as he threw himself full force against the door, the need in his voice made her break into a run.
She reached the door, unbolted the locks. Her hands were shaking as he pounded from the other side, for he’d obviously been wounded, had fought some duel and come staggering home, only to bleed to death in the street…She talked to him through the oak as she envisioned such things, fighting the ancient bolts and telling Christian to hold on, that she was hurrying, that she’d send for a doctor and everything would be fine.
When finally she threw back the door, she gasped. Christian stumbled, fell to his knees. In the dim lamp light, she could just see the rain running down his smooth cheeks. His waistcoat was ruined, but there was no blood on him. He wasn’t wounded. His linen sleeves were soaked, clinging to his slight arms, and his hair, usually powdered and always drawn back, now hung dripping and loose about his shoulders.
Looking up, his brows crushed together in a grimace. “God forsake me, but I love you,” he said, his breath coming fast. “Whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it for you.”
“Are you OK?” She bent down, offered him a timid hand.
He pushed it away. “Will you lay me to rest?”
“Christian, I don’t under—”
“Will you lay me to rest?” His teeth were clenched, and with every fiber of his miserable being, he beseeched her, narrowed his eyes upon hers.
Ravenna straightened. There was whiskey on his breath, she could smell it now. “You’re drunk,” she said as gently as she could. “You’re not making any sense, and I don’t know what you mean by—”
“Put me out of my misery, will you?” His words were slurred as his eyes tore into her. “Tell me that you…that you love me, Ravenna. Do you? Could you just once say the words?”
Hearing this impossible request, she couldn’t move, even when his wet hands slipped into hers, urged her with a desperate grip. “Please, Beloved,” he said to her softly.
She forgot about Nootka then, about everything he’d ever threatened. She saw only his needfulness, the pain welling up in his big gray eyes as slowly, with the caution and care of a nun, she reached down and helped him to get to his feet.
Shutting the door against the rain, she put her arm around his waist; she led him toward the stairs, not minding the way he staggered and swayed. “Everything’s going to be fine,” she whispered. “You’re all right now, and I’ve—”
“Tell me,” he said, staring as they walked together. “If you don’t, I’ll go to my grave without your words.”
She stopped at the foot of the stairs. He leaned against her heavily, demanding an answer by refusing to look away, but she ignored him and made certain once more she’d not missed any blood, that he was well and unharmed.
“Would a wound prove my love?” he asked, watching her examine him. “Is that what you want? He requires no weapon, but I could draw one in his stead. I could finish it and you’d suffer me no longer, just let me die hearing those words.”
“Who needs no weapon?” She steadied him, watched him swaying beside her. “Christian, what are you talking about?”
The storm flashed and thundered again, and beneath the skylight, Ravenna saw the struggle in his coltish face. “He’s coming for me,” he said, swallowing heavily. “He’s coming and I shall burn in hell.”
“It’s Lord Oliver, isn’t it?” She remembered that night in London, the Cork man’s admission he hated Christian. “Or Andrew Richardson, I know you owe him a lot of money.”
He shook his head forcefully. “No no no, death himself.” Tears spilled down his twisted face, lingered at the corners of his down-turned mouth. “I love you so, but God forgive what I have done.”
And leaning down heavily into her arms, he kissed her.
Ravenna didn’t move. His lips pressed clumsily into hers, and she stood stock still as his blundering tongue pushed over her own, hard and thoughtless for anything but easing his own insatiable, insufferable pain. Listening to the rain on the skylight above them, she endured it, but her heart ached at the seams for what she held back, that long ago lingering of Paul’s jovial presence, his Irish faith and Irish desire.
Suddenly, she felt him falter. Softening his kiss, he withdrew from her mouth. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say it the way you said it to him.”
Waiting for her to comply, he caressed her with a cold and hesitant hand. But even with the obvious effort he made to brave such things, to be kind to her, to be respectful and loving, still she couldn’t say it. “I know how hard this has been for you,” she told him, sliding her hands up his rain-drenched back, “but think how hard it’s been for me. Paul hasn’t even been gone a year, and no matter who I were with, you know my answer would be the same: I need more time.”
“But I don’t have more time.” His touch at her arm hardened a little. “Don’t you care for me at all? After all I’ve given to be with you?”
“Let go of me, Christian.”
“No,” he said, “not until you afford me that tone of voice.” His manicured nails gripped her tighter, bruising her as he stared her down. “Say you love me. Give me at least that.”
“You’re asking me to lie, and I don’t see why I should—”
“There’s nothing left for me but lies!” His eyes moved rapidly across her face. “Don’t you understand? He’s coming and I have nothing, only delusion and your words to foster it, and if you’ve an ounce of mercy, you’ll grant me relief before my time with you runs out!”
She stepped back from him. “If you don’t let go of me right now, it will be too late. Too late for everything, do you understand? Let go of me.” Wincing from his hold on her, she tugged at his hand, tried to loosen it.
He only stood more firmly against her. “I’ve given you everything, do you know that?”
And with a sudden, violent shove of his hand, he knocked her backwards.
She fell hard against the newel post, wrenched her arm as she landed on the risers. She must have cried out, for in the seconds that followed, she heard the echo of it diminish into the sound of the rain on the skylight, the ragged breaths Christian drew as he wobbled before her on whiskey legs. “Reputation, career, my immortal soul—,” he waved his arms, smacked his fist into the banister, “—God has taken it all in your name, and I’ll suffer eternally! Forever, Ravenna, without even so much as a kiss.”
“You threw it away,” she said, rubbing her arm.
“Only to protect you, to be with you!”
“I didn’t ask you to do any of those things, you can’t—”
“There has been no other path!”
His breath hung in the air between them, a cloud of warmth in the chill of the staircase. Stupidly, Ravenna gazed at it, in shock at what was happening around her, and still he raged on. “Had
I ever a choice but to love you? I love you by God’s design, God’s will. There’s no recourse with destiny, no appeal, no escape—I have only you, Ravenna! I’ve naught to breathe without you, and now I’ll die unmourned and godforsaken, he’s coming and I shall rot in hell!”
She glared up at him. “Keep pushing me around, and maybe you should.”
He lurched toward her then, his hand shooting down to encompass her wrist. He yanked her to her feet, and with the pain surging through her injured arm, she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t fight as he took her in a steeled embrace.
“You are my life,” he said to her evenly. “We’re connected at the soul’s very seams and should I wish it, I can repay my suffering for you in spades; shall I take you down with me? Is that how it ends?”
Under her hands, she felt his chest heave and his heart beat fast in holding her tighter, letting his strength bear down on her bones. “Say it, Beloved,” he whispered close. “Do me the kindness and I needn’t hurt you.”
“My name is not Beloved.”
“Beloved, Beloved, Beloved,” he hissed, “you’ll be so ’til the day I die—,” and with a harsh tug to the back of her neck, he kissed her again. By the time she screamed against his soft, hairless cheek, fighting him all the way, it was done. He released her so quickly she staggered backwards. “You know better than anyone what lies in wait for me. Hell has sent for me. You know that, and for us both, there can be no other way.”
Drunkenly, letting his devastation be known by the violence in his lingering stare, he backed away into the darkness.
The footmen came running.