The Dark Affair by Máire Claremont Page B

mustn’t forget to mention the presence of his father.
    The earl had seen that debacle. No doubt, at this very moment, the old man was securing him a private room lined with mattresses in their country estate up in the wilds of Yorkshire.
    But that was something he would deal with later, when his brain had come back to its usually razor-sharp working state, though given its present feeling, he was terrified it might only ever again be the dull sharpness of a bread knife.
    He needed water, and he wanted out of this bed. He grunted. That wasn’t true exactly. He longed to sink into the mattress and be entombed by white feathers. Feathers that would tickle and caress him with a gentleness he’d never allowed himself to feel. A gentleness that would eventually stifle him and allow him to leave this world of pain and memory.
    Casting off his self-pity, he inched for the side of the bed. Every movement a seeming tidal wave of nausea. He wasn’t going to vomit. He would not tolerate that indignity. A man such as himself could hold his opium and liquor. He would not prove himself to be a total infant.
    Even so, by the time he had managed to push himself upright and swing his legs over the bed, the sweat that had simply been light upon his brow now trickled down his back. He panted. Each breath an ordeal necessary to keep the world from spinning and his rebellious stomach in check.
    He blinked several times, then surveyed his room. Unlike himself, everything else appeared to be in order. The dark shadows resembled his chairs and tables, except one of the chairs seemed to be moving ever so slightly.
    More proof he was standing at madness’s door?
    But the shadow proceeded to speak, the rustle of fabric accompanying the musical voice. “Ah. And it’s glad I am to see you’re awake.”
    He grimaced. A sense of unfamiliar humiliation mixed with his already unpleasant feelings of incapacitation. “Unless I am sleep walking, one would think my wakefulness was quite obvious and did not bear the need for observation.”
    She shifted on the chair, her voluminous skirts spilling about her like impenetrable, deep, black waters. “Well, ’tis clear to say your tart hasn’t entirely abandoned you, weak lamb that you are, but I had hoped you’d sleep longer.”
    He gagged on a hint of vomit, longing to put her quickly in her place for asserting that he belonged with the sheep. Instead he mumbled, “My disobliging nature is simply one of my traits you will have to accustom yourself to, Viscountess.”
    She shrugged. “And didn’t I always know you’d be difficult?”
    Was she teasing him? Did the woman have that gall? He considered. Yes. Margaret Cassidy . . . No, Lady Stanhope, Viscountess of Powers in all purposes but one as of yet, most definitely had the gall to tease. Something he found himself liking for some irrational and most irritating reason. “Hmm. Glad to meet your expectations.”
    She didn’t smile or grin. Instead, her face eased into a sympathetic but knowing mask. “Oh, my lord, I should imagine you shall exceed them.”
    Despite his internal struggle, it truly hit him then that she was his wife and calling him “my lord.” Long ago, he had made a vow that no one would ever call him by his name but his wife, the wife he had so utterly failed, and now he found himself in another perplexing situation. One to add to a multitude. This was the moment. Dare he venture out and suggest she call him anything but his title?
    He couldn’t give his name. Not yet. It was the only way he had of honoring the woman who had died so many years ago now, a victim of society’s hammerlike command that she be a woman of perfection in every way.
    Wincing at the sudden and painful memory of his thin wife, in her beautiful gown, pushing away her plate and offering him a gentle smile, he considered. Was his honoring of his long-deceased wife taking the wrong form?
    He tried to force his name from his lips, but the word simply