“Very good, Selkirk,” the Enforcer said, his tone gloating. “Open yer mouth.”
Callum immediately did as he was bid, and the Enforcer shoved the now-familiar opium into Callum’s mouth. He had fought it every time, but he could not fight as he had now. He would relent for Constantine. He would be broken to save her. He would give his life, his soul for her.
A feeling of intense pleasure immediately swept through him, followed by a rush of warmth and the sense of no longer being in danger. He struggled against the feelings, trying to cling to the truth that he was in immense danger and so was Constantine, but the truth was slippery and so hard to keep in his grasp.
“Every one of these men around us has heard ye speak of yer wife and how ye will return to her,” the Enforcer said, as Callum felt like he was floating above himself momentarily. “They admire ye. They think ye intractable, honorable, and ye’ll show them now no man is undefeatable. Ye’ll show them now that ye’ve no honor, that the man they should look up to and admire is me. Are we clear?”
Callum nodded, though the motion felt odd, as if his head was very heavy.
The Enforcer chuckled. “Ye’ll show them that the wife ye said ye would escape for actually means nothing to ye. Ye’ll show them that yer will to escape is gone.”
Constantine’s image swam in and out of focus. Was she truly approaching him?
Suddenly, he felt hands upon his legs, and he blinked, seeing the woman the guard had brought in kneeling before him, smiling. The Enforcer’s face appeared beside hers. “Show them yer wife does not matter to ye and take the pleasure she gives ye. Show them ye have been broken, or I will visit yer wife…”
Constantine was the first thing Callum saw when he awoke from the nightmare—the one he had every night, the one he sometimes became violent during if anyone tried to wake him or simply aid him. In his sleep, he was fighting against being touched by a woman other than Constantine, fighting against his worn-out body’s base reaction to the careful ministrations of the prostitute who’d been brought to the asylum. Shame burned his gut as he recalled the release that had eventually been ripped from him into the woman’s hands. Even while insensible on the opium, the shame he felt as reality came back to him in waves had been near unbearable.
“You’re awake!” Constantine exclaimed, and she exchanged grins with Peter and White. Those grins, those looks of friendship, told Callum immediately bonds had been formed between the three of them while he’d been out of his mind fighting the need for opium.
He glared first at White, who looked appropriately sorry, and then at Peter, who scowled back. Callum frowned. Peter looked different. “What happened to you?”
“Constantine makes me bathe, and she cut my hair,” Peter said, scowling, but the look of adoration Peter gave Constantine sent jealously slithering through Callum that Peter seemed to be so easily leaving the horror of the asylum behind. Callum wondered briefly what it would be like now to touch her, to let her bathe him, to feel a deep connection with her once more, but he cut off the musings. He couldn’t let her close to him to even see what it might be like, what he might feel, which was why he had instructed them to send her to the country, so she would be protected from him.
And it wasn’t just his violent nightmares he was shielding her from. Those nightmares had seen him break Peter’s nose, before they’d moved Peter out of his cell, so yes, he was very dangerous to her when he was sleeping, and he had no notion if the nightmares would ever stop, if he would ever be a whole man again. Perhaps after he meted out justice upon his cousin. Even if the nightmares did stop, she might never forgive what he’d done that day in the courtyard with the prostitute. There was no point in hurting her and telling her, when he didn’t even know if he could ever truly be a husband to her and give her the life she deserved. He’d been broken at the asylum physically and mentally, and he wasn’t even sure the man he had been could ever be located again.
“Callum, did you hear Peter?”
Callum stared at her and felt the first shocking awakening of desire. She was beautiful still in her simple, modest gowns, with her hair flowing around her shoulders, and her eyes brimming with concern. Was it even real concern, though? Anger flared and jealousy sank its sharp claws into his heart and shredded what was left of the organ. He suddenly recalled what she’d told him about his cousin returning to look for him again and again—a calculated ruse on Ross’s part. And Callum recalled her tears when she’d told him she did not want to wed Ross but that her reputation was too tarnished for anyone else to offer. He knew she desperately wanted a child, and he believed her when she’d said that desire was the only reason she wanted to be wed at all. Christ, he did. He believed her. But it didn’t change a thing. He could not allow her to stay. She was not safe here with him, and she might never be. Allowing her to stay would only be a temptation. He could not show her his torment, his confusion, only indifference.
“Why are you still here?”
“I think this is best discussed in private,” she said quietly.
Good God, the notion of being alone with her made his desire for her burn brighter. Well, the question of whether he wanted her still or not had certainly been answered quickly. “We’ll discuss it now,” he replied, purposely cold.
“Very well,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting up her chin, her posture becoming rigid. He was struck with the thought that she looked more like a soldier about to do battle than a fragile woman he needed to protect at all cost. “We still have an agreement. I gave you my fortune, and in return, you have to give me a child.”
White started coughing and shifting from foot to foot, and Peter was grinning, looking between the two of them as though he were watching a play.
Blast her beautiful face. She didn’t even blush when she announced their agreement in front of Peter and White. Callum would have expected her to blush. His wife had always been the sort to do so. She had changed in his absence. She was confident in a way she’d not been before. He was both glad for her and sad that he had not been here to see her grow.
“And I told you,” he said, shoving himself all the way up in the bed and against the pillows he could hazily recall her arranging when he’d been so ill. He would not be grateful. Gratefulness would lead to some other emotions, such as the wish for a long talk with her like the ones they’d had in his art studio years ago. Those had been the best days of his life. “Our agreement is off.”
Damn, but he felt as if he’d been run over by a carriage. “How long was I in and out of consciousness?” he asked.
“A little over a sennight,” she answered.
That explained why he felt as weak as a babe. A sennight on one’s knees retching up the contents of one’s stomach and in a state of sweaty delirium would leave anyone feeling tired. If he had not already taken care of the two men responsible for holding him down, tying him up, and shoving opium down his throat day after day for a year, he would have done so now, even if he had to crawl to Scotland to manage the job.
“White, escort Lady Constantine to her bedchamber and help her pack.”
White frowned, and Constantine scowled at him. “That’s not well done of you to put White between us.”
Damn her beautiful eyes for being correct.
“White,” she said, turning to White and setting a hand on his forearm as if they were old friends, “please go tell Cook to prepare a luncheon tray for his lordship.”
Cook? Who the devil is Cook?
