Charlotte Mede
ISBN 978-0758223678
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“The less you know about Ramsay, the better…”
Lady Helena Hartford knows nothing about Nicholas Ramsay. Rumored to be the richest man in England, he appears out of the shadows and commands her to trust him. Newly widowed, Helena is the target of powerful forces determined to seize her fortune by committing her to an asylum. Losing her wealth means nothing, but losing her freedom to the fetid air and hopelessness of Bedlam would be a never-ending horror.
Nicholas has his own reasons for pursuing Lady Hartford. Familiar with the scandalous reputation her artwork has inspired, he is focused on revenge but supremely unprepared for the immediate, gut-clenching desire she invokes.
As their uneasy alliance gives way to intense passion, enemies are circling ever nearer, intent on a shocking agenda. And Helena has no choice but to trust this mysterious, unpredictable man who could be her savior, or the means of delivering her to her worst nightmare…
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Chapter One
June 1860
Oblivion is what she craved. Strands of blue smoke snaked along the low ceiling. The room was hushed, its plush red upholstery absorbing sounds of both pleasure and pain. It was a place people came to forget, to slay their demons by slaking their desires.
Helena Hartford sank deeper into her chaise, unable to resist the images that bled before her eyes. It was always like this. Her work could make her forget anything, even the tightness in her lungs and the fear gnawing at her bones.
Her mind was already elsewhere and her fingers itched for her palette and brush, the crimson, blue, and flesh tones of the room fusing in a cacophony of color. That man in the corner. She watched as his high, starched cravat was loosened by the nimble fingers of the half-naked young woman kneeling by his side. His eyes were closed as he sucked hungrily on the opium pipe between his lips. It was an Hieronymus Bosch canvas come to life.
Nearly three hundred years ago, the Dutch painter had captured all too well the symbols and iconography of sin and human failings. She noted several men, lounging next to the broad stairway, eager to make their ascent to the private rooms on the second floor.
Helena’s eyes narrowed at the assembly of guests, all of them scions of England’s noblest and wealthiest families who in the dark pursued pastimes that wouldn’t hold up to the bright light of day. The world could be an infinitely forgiving place—if you were male. And a friend of the noble Duke of Hartford who now lay deep in a cold grave.
Helena’s smile was cynical as she focused on the small blue pipe delicately balanced on the side table so that its contents would not drop out. When she had first arrived a few minutes past midnight, there were several raised eyebrows, an unusual reaction in a venue renowned for its discretion. Helena Hartford, the widow of the old Duke of Hartford, was known for her flaunting of society’s strictures. But this…
She took hold of the pipe with surprisingly steady hands. The warm smoke filled her lungs, its sweetness a new sensation. Another inhalation, then another. To forget, to obliterate the fear, to fall into the comfort of nothingness.
They would never dare to look for her here. She knew she was safe for the moment because for anyone to divulge her whereabouts would be to disclose secrets so ugly that even society could no longer look away.
She sank into the cushions of the alcove just as her limbs began to relax, the room coalescing into a swirl of patterns on a canvas. Time was suspended in a blanket of pure physical sensation.
The voices beyond receded like a bad dream. With vision simultaneously sharp and blurred, she examined the pipe with preternatural concentration. The contours were smooth beneath her fingers, etched with a stream winding into an endless horizon, a perfect, perspectiveless landscape. She placed it carefully on the side table before welcoming the soft red cushions that enfolded her in their embrace. She was alone in her private cocoon. Images, elusive as butterflies, danced behind her eyes, their scorching yellows and virulent blues carrying her away to a place where she was finally free. No father, no husband, no fears.
She blinked slowly, then focused.
The hand on her wrist was beautiful, large and strong, and male. A sinewed forearm, the shirt cuffs turned back, led to shoulders that blocked her view of the salon. Broad shoulders, but sculpted beneath the fine linen shirt, no cravat, and a waistcoat with the top two buttons undone. A torso she suddenly ached to draw.
She couldn’t see his face against the dim light of the chandelier. He was sitting on the chaise, leaning over her, saying something. The deep voice was rough velvet.
“I’ve seen your work.”
She pushed away the haze clouding her thoughts, unable or unwilling to concentrate as a ribbon of fear unfurled deep in her chest. “You have.” It was more of a statement than a question. Her artist’s eye traced his body, a sculpture that was large-boned, long-limbed, but elegantly made. Like nothing she had ever seen in real life. More like a hallucination or a bronze at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
“It’s magnificent.”
He was so close that she could detect his scent, the ocean, sun, and something else. Languorousness seeping into her bones, her words were slow to come. “I must have misunderstood.” She heard herself laugh, the sound throaty and low. “Most of the critics, not to mention the friends of my late and beloved husband, aren’t that generous in their praise.”
“You’re bitter.”
The blue-gray smoke combined in the air between them. “How discerning of you, sir. Whoever you are.” The metallic taste in her mouth stung as a flare of panic flickered in her chest.
She made to sit up and couldn’t. Although he wasn’t touching her, she instantly felt caged by his body limned in the shadows of the alcove. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut him out, following the shapes and patterns her imagination conjured. A stream distorted by sunlight. A face shattered into geometric planes. A rough-hewn mountain range. She was only vaguely conscious now of the low and constant sounds of strangers humming in the background.
Then the hand skated down her arm and a jolt of awareness pulled her back. And all she could do was focus on his touch, as compelling as the opium in her bloodstream, the calloused fingers moving slowly over the sensitive skin of her wrist before he pressed one finger into her bare palm. A shiver traveled from the top of her spine to the tip of her womb.
She opened her eyes. What if he is one of them? The thought crawled out the thick morass that was her reality. She wanted to move, to run, but she couldn’t, held down by a force of nature invading her senses. The urge, out of nowhere, was contradictory and overwhelming: to reach up and loop her arms around his neck, then trace the hard muscles and warm skin of this man’s body. First to feel and then to draw him.
“What’s in that head of yours, Helena? In your mind’s eye?” The low gravel voice mesmerized and she’d barely registered that he knew her name. His hard fingers traced a sensual pattern on her palm, the fine veins of her wrist.
From under heavy lids, she strained to discern his features. He was so close she could track the cadence of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest. “What I see?” Her breath was shallow and the words cost her some effort. “Inspiration? You think this is where it comes from?” She gestured to the small blue pipe with her free hand. “Not from here, not from this.”
“Then from where?” The dark voice led her on, as surely as if he’d leaned closer, his lips hot on the curve of her neck. Beneath the heaviness of her limbs, she felt an unfamiliar need, a tightening in her chest that was equal parts desire and dread.
“Most people believe I’m mad.” It was more of a whisper than a statement.
“Why?”
She shook her head against the enveloping, smothering cushions. “Because of what I do and how I do it.” Explaining anything more would not help, even if she could.
“I saw your entries in the Salon des Refuses in Paris.” He cupped her cheek, sketching her ear, the slope of her shoulder. Her insides turned liquid and her skin hot.
Desire coursed through her, foreign and frightening, desire for this stranger whose face she couldn’t see. His voice and his body, the here and now that could blot out the terror that hovered in the air around her. From far away she watched herself as, with leaden arms, she reached up to pull him down toward her. His muscles were granite beneath her hands.
Her blood rushed and she breathed in his scent. “You’re what I need,” she murmured. “To escape, just for a little while . . .”
She was on the margins of awareness, her physical senses as keenly attuned as the finest instrument. The heaviness pooling in her abdomen and the swelling of her breasts were exotic terrain, her body suddenly alien to her experience.
She felt the heat of his breath with its tinge of warmed brandy and tobacco. “I can do that for you, Helena. I can do whatever you desire.” His voice caused a muscle to spasm low in her belly. A strong arm slipped under her back, caressing her waist with infinite slowness, burning through the protective layers of skirt and undergarments. His fingers ran up the middle of her back and her shoulder blades tightened in response.
Helena’s body inclined toward him with the inevitability of a magnet to the south pole. He was there, his warm breath inches from her mouth, and all she wanted to do was touch him and be touched by him.
“Good Lord, who’s that you’re rutting with, man?”
A voice intruded, like a rock hitting the stillness of a pond, heavy with alcohol. A shuffle of footsteps and then the slurred exclamation. “Not that I can see from this vantage point, but I’d swear by my dead mother-in-law, hellish harridan that she was, may she rot in hell, that you’re about to rut with the widow Hartford. Not bad, not bad at all, I’d say. You’ve done well for yourself, old boy.”
The words penetrated the thick fog of opiates and desire. Helena stiffened. Wide shoulders still blocked her view, but the man who held her was as fixed as a mountain range and didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t have to.
“You must have a death wish, Lord Beckwith.” The threat, in that low gravel voice, was as casually delivered as the crack of a pistol shot at dawn.
Helena closed her eyes, willing reality to disappear.
Lord Beckwith’s casual tone suddenly took on a distinct quaver. “Good God, I meant no disrespect. . . . Truly, I didn’t quite realize…who you…er…were…are.”
