He merely smiled, knowingly, and let his gaze slide heatedly down her throat . . . over her collarbone . . . to her breasts, tingling with fire beneath their bombazine shield.

  "I mean it, Morninghall."

  "Really, Lady Simms. Do you think I'm going to leap out of this chair and —" he lifted one wicked eyebrow — "ravish you?"

  The very thought made her heart pound. She bent her head, her face hot as she fumbled through her reticule for her notebook. "I don't know what to think anymore, Morninghall. You're a man of many facades — and surprises." She remembered his strange wariness, his anger, when she had accused him of having a heart, and slapping her notebook on the table and leaning forward, she pressed her own attack to deflect his. "I'm still wondering about this sudden display of compassion on behalf of that boy."

  He looked down at the ledger, casually flipping a page. "I told you, it was guilt, not compassion."

  "You're not nearly as hard-hearted as you think you are. That boy proves it."

  "Yes, and Satan was able to charm Eve before he brought about man's downfall, too."

  "Satan was once an angel of God."

  "I am no angel."

  "No, but you took pity on that boy, took him into your care, and here you sit, going through these tedious records and digging through pages of figures, and for what reason? Your conscience? This heart you say you don't have?"

  "To get you out of my life," he snapped, growing angry.

  "Try again, Morninghall. I don't believe you for a moment. I see a spark of goodness in you, and I'm going to do everything I can to fan it into a flame that consumes everything in its path."

  She sat back, smiling with triumph, her arms folded smugly across her chest.

  Damon looked up slowly, his hand stilled where he had been turning another page. He did not say a word, merely stared at her until her confident smile began to wane, her color faded, and she straightened up in the chair, wary now, her hands lowering to her lap as though she were poised to flee.

  "What did you say?" he asked softly.

  "I . . . I said that there is goodness in you and that —"

  "There is no good in me," he ground out with such fury that her eyes widened and she leaned backward, paling.

  There isn't, he thought savagely, releasing her from his gaze and angrily turning the page. The very idea that there was made him feel uneasy, defenseless, afraid. Goodness drew people to you, made them want to see inside your soul, be inside your soul — an intimacy that sent threads of terror straight out to his fingertips. Intimacy made you vulnerable, and if you were vulnerable, people humiliated you, hurt you. It was better to be diabolical and wicked and keep people at arm's length, and best to be so damned intimidating that no one would ever challenge you.

  "Morninghall, I didn't mean to —"

  "I said, there is no damned good in me!" he snarled, furious now. He flipped another page, nearly ripping it from the binding. "There's nothing admirable, worthy, or lovable about me! My own damned mother knew it; she hated me, hurled wine bottles at me, abused me, hit me, hurt me, humiliated me! Every time people have been nice to me, they've turned on me, and despite that pleasant exchange in your garden, I know you're no different from any of the rest!"

  She stared at him in shock. He didn't care. He realized he was breathing hard and fast, and he didn't care about that either. Another page nearly ripped as he turned it with violent force. How dare she assume he was something he was not? She could not see, could not feel, his darkness! She did not live in his devil's body with its charred, black heart, its constant yearnings for something to which he could not put a name, its paralyzing sense of despair, envy, fury, and self-hatred. She was light and he was dark. She was good and he was evil. The dark hated the light, hid from it, and there was nothing she could do to change that . . . nothing! Stupid female, she ought to flee, run as far and fast as she damn well could before it was too late for her!

  She's getting too close, isn't she, old boy?

  Fear snaked through him. He began to feel hot, shaky, sick.

  Too close to what? He didn't know, didn't want to know. The core of him, probably. The darkness. Why else did he feel this unexplainable fury, just because she'd proclaimed him good? Fury, just because Billy had brought him some daffodils? It was the same violent anger he felt every time he saw the love and tenderness between a mother and her child, a pair of lovers, a boy and his dog, the same thing he felt every time he regarded something delicate and pretty and fragile: impotent rage. He didn't know what spawned it, but whatever it was, it was dark and ugly, and he was afraid to look at it too closely.

  And if Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms ever figured out what it was — some deficiency within himself that Damon could not, would not, examine — he knew that he'd be as vulnerable as a snake freshly shed of its skin.

  Too late, he realized he was sweating, trembling, breathing too fast. Too late, he realized an attack was upon him, that he couldn't get enough air, and oh, God, there was the terrible gray tunnel, lingering on the perimeter of his vision. Dread coursed through him, and, with it, nausea. Oh, hell. Not now. Not with her here to witness his ultimate humiliation!

  He jumped to his feet, gasping, his chair crashing back —

  "Morninghall?"

  "I've got to get outside —"

  She caught his hand and held it down on the table, misinterpreting the source of his agitation. "The depth of your self-hatred knows no bottom, does it, my lord?" she asked softly.

  Shivering with flashes of heat and cold, suffocating and short of breath, Damon wanted only to run, to flee, before it was too late. A drop of sweat rolled down his temple, and beneath her cool palm he made a fist, trying desperately to regain control before everything exploded. There was the humming in his ears now, getting louder by the second, the fatal racing of his heart —

  He raised his head and turned the full force of his stare on her in a last effort to save himself.

  "Kindly remove your hand from mine, Lady Simms, or I will not be responsible for what I shall do to you."

  She only looked at him — and did not let go.

  Too late. The roaring started in his ears, cold sweat burst from every pore, and he saw the dizzying rush of the gray tunnel imploding on his vision.

  God help me.

  The attack struck.

  Chapter 13

  "My lord?"

  He tore free of her and lunged blindly across the room, the panic chasing him, a thousand demons shrieking in his ears, strangling him, dimming his vision. I'm going mad! he thought. He saw Lady Simms' horrified face, Rothschild running from the back room, sunlight and shadows, the door. I must reach the door!

  He never made it. He collapsed, the floor smashing into his hip, the plastered wall against his shoulder and cheek. As he lay there, propped against the wall, gasping, shaking, dying, he heard Lady Simms come running across the room, smelled peaches as she fell to her knees beside him.

  "Go, Rothschild, fetch a doctor!"

  Her hand gripped Damon's shoulder.

  "It's all right, Morninghall," she said firmly, her face close to his, her voice sounding as though it came from a hundred miles away. He made a strangled noise, unable to breathe, his body shaking violently. Her hand was cool against his brow, smoothing his hair, and through the thunder of his heartbeat, through his half-closed, staring eyes, he saw her green dress and knew it was the last thing on earth his eyes would ever behold.

  "I'm dying" — gasp — "I'm dying" — gasp — "help me, I'm dying — dying — dying . . ." He heard only his own desperate panting, felt only terror as death came whooshing in from all sides, reducing him to a whimpering, helpless animal cowering against the wall. Shuddering convulsively, he shut his eyes and pressed himself against the plaster, each deafening thump of his racing heart, each gulping breath of air surely his last. Oh, God, he couldn't breathe. Help me —

  "Please, hold me," he wheezed, too terrified to be ashamed. "Please . . . I'm dying . . . hold me."

  "You're going to be all right." Her voice came in undulating waves from far away. "Don't just stand there, Rothschild, get a doctor!"

  "Hold me." His breath was roaring through his lungs, yet still he couldn't get air. "Please . . ."

  White with alarm, Gwyneth knelt close to the stricken marquess and, without hesitation, put her arms around his heaving shoulders. The violent tempo of his breathing bounced her up and down. Great, rippling shudders racked his powerful frame, and his shirt was hot and damp beneath her cheek. She looked up at his head resting against the plaster wall, the beads of sweat rolling down his flushed brow. His eyes were half shut, and through the veil of his lashes, she saw they were wild and glassy.

  "Why now . . . why now, of all places? . . ." he murmured.

  She sat down on the floor with him, managing to pull him away from the wall and up against her body. He turned his face into her chest, his hot breath blasting the swell of her breasts, the violent shuddering tearing through his body with merciless cruelty as she held him close.

  "Damon." Her voice was gentle yet firm.

  He turned his face to the side, his ear against her breastbone, trying to draw breath. "Hold me, madam — please — don't leave me. Oh, damnation, this is so bloody humiliating — so — so —"

  "Calm down," she said, stroking his hair and holding him close against her breast. "You're not dying. You're not dying, Damon. Do you hear me, you're not dying! Now take deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths, in through your nose, out through your mouth."

  "I can't — can't breathe — dying —"

  "Deep breaths, Damon. I have you. You're not going to die."

  He tried, but his lungs were already starved for air, pumping madly, and he could only gasp helplessly. Then, on a last, defeated exhalation, he sagged in her arms, his weight nearly sending her over backward.

  For one terrible moment Gwyneth thought he was dead — until she realized he was still breathing, softly and calmly. The short, rapid gasps had leveled out and returned to normal.

  It hit her then. Just like Morganna.

  The door opened and Rothschild was there. She hadn't even heard him run out.

  He came sheepishly forward. "I couldn't find a doctor, m'lady."

  "Never mind. I think he's going to be all right now."

  "What's wrong with him?"

  "I don't know."

  "Too damned highbred, if you ask me. High-strung. All that inbreeding and blue blood, no wonder he had a fit."

  "I don't think it was a fit, Mr. Rothschild." It occurred to Gwyneth that it was quite improper to be sitting here on the floor with the prone body of the Marquess of Morninghall in her arms, but she didn't care, for her memory was reaching back over the years . . . reaching back to her little sister. Morganna had been terrified of thunderstorms, and whenever one had rolled in over the hills, she had displayed the same behavior just exhibited by the marquess. The sweating, the shakes, the blind terror, the utter conviction that they were dying, the out-of-control breathing until unconsciousness restored everything to normal — yes, the symptoms were exactly the same.

  "What do you think it was, then?" Rothschild asked, squatting well away from Morninghall, as though he feared contamination.

  Gwyneth smiled and stroked the marquess's hair, caught up in those long-ago memories.

  "My little sister used to get them," she said softly. "The doctor never did figure out where they came from." A long moment went by, the ticking of a shelf clock the only sound. "But I did."

  ~~~~

  Consciousness came back to him by degrees, nudging his brain awake with a varied offering of scents: fresh peaches . . . beeswax . . . the faint pungency of his own sweat . . . the damp mustiness of an old room. He became aware of the floor beneath his thigh and legs, of fabric and warm flesh against his cheek, a heartbeat beneath his ear, and somebody's arms wrapped around his shoulders.

  His heart was no longer racing. He could breathe.

  Slowly, dazedly, Damon opened his eyes.

  The first thing he saw was Rothschild, squatting on his heels, staring at him. The second thing he saw was a green bombazine sleeve two inches from his nose — and suddenly he knew just who was holding him.

  Lady Gwyneth Evans Simms.

  Mortification blazed through him. He remembered his shameless, childish pleas just before he had passed out, remembered how pitifully he had begged to be held. God help him, he had never been so embarrassed, so utterly, crushingly, humiliated in all his cursed life.

  Realizing he was awake, she relaxed her hold on him. "Are you all right now, Morninghall?"

  Her voice was full of pity, compassion, tenderness — enough to send him fleeing from it and straight into another attack.

  "Bloody hell. Damnation." He pushed her arm aside and shoved himself out of her embrace, driving his fists into his eye sockets as though to obliterate the memory of what had just happened to him — and how he had reacted. He could not look at her, could not face her, after the attack had reduced him to a groveling, terrified child. Gone was the image she might have had of him, of a man of strength, intelligence, sanity. She had seen him for what he was: a lunatic, a madman, a coward.

  He lurched to his feet, pushing a fist against his clammy brow, and on unsteady legs reeled his way back to the table. The ledger lay just as he had left it. A stack of leather-bound books, which Rothschild must have dumped there as the attack had struck, made a haphazard pile beside it. He threw himself down in the chair, his brow bent and resting in one palm, his eyes on the page so that he wouldn't have to look at either of them.

  The expectant silence was unbearable. Neither one of them had moved, and he could feel them both staring at him.

  Hold me . . . please . . . I'm dying.

  Bloody hell, he wanted to die, wished he had died, if only to escape this humiliation.

  Go ahead, laugh at me. Laugh at me for my weakness. Ridicule me, I dare you!

  But she wasn't laughing. She hadn't laughed at all.

  He turned the page, blind to the writing before him. A moment went by, then he heard the rustle of her skirts as she got to her feet and moved across the room, toward him. She pulled out her chair. It made a faint scraping noise, a sound amplified a hundred times in the awkward silence. He stared down with what he hoped was calm insouciance, his face burning.

  And Rothschild, that miserable wretch — Damon jerked his head up and saw the contractor standing in a corner, his expression a mixture of scorn, malice, and fear.

  "Go on, get the hell out of here!" he roared, lunging half out of his chair and shooing the contractor off with a violent motion of his hands.

  The old man fled.

  Damon sank back down into the chair and raked his hands down over his face. Lady Simms sat quietly across from him, not saying a word. Unable to stand it any longer, he looked up and impaled her with a stare hot enough to melt rock. "I suppose you think me a raving madman now, don't you?"

  She only sat looking at him quietly. There was no mockery in her eyes, no ridicule, no fear, nothing but tenderness. For some reason that was more frightening, more awful, than any emotion that soft violet gaze might've conveyed.

  She took a great, bracing sigh. Then, as though the incident had never happened, she pulled one of Rothschild's books toward her and calmly opened it. "Right. Shall we start with January?"

  ~~~~

  Midshipman Foyle didn't get any respect. He didn't get it from the prisoners, he didn't get it from the other midshipmen who served in Portsmouth's real naval ships, he certainly didn't get it from that fire-breathing bastard of a captain, Morninghall.

  Earlier in the week Morninghall had found out that he and Radley had been lying to him about the conditions below, and the marquess' rage had been of the sort that Foyle never wished to experience ever again. He dreaded to think what would happen if the captain found out that he, in partnership with Radley, was stealing food and clothes from the shipments meant for the prisoners and selling them back to the contractors for a profit.

  His eyes swept contemptuously over a group of prisoners scrubbing the deck. He didn't see why the captain suddenly had decided to care so much about them. They were only prisoners; they didn't count for anything, except as something on which to take out one's anger. Oh, yes, they were definitely good for that. Who would know if he withheld the food of some wretch who'd given him a dirty look? Who'd know if he cracked a rib with his musket because one of them had failed to get out of his way? Not Morninghall, and it was all the better when that arrogant tyrant was off the ship, because then he could bully and threaten to his heart's content, swaggering up and down the quarterdeck, hands behind his back, chest puffed out against his uniform as he surveyed his command.

  In Morninghall's absence his word was law among these wretched masses.

  Except this morning, Morninghall — who had never bothered to go belowdecks, before — had caught him tormenting one of the French prisoners, an old man with a peg leg who'd needed to be shown who was boss.

  Given Morninghall's apathy toward the prisoners, Foyle hadn't expected to be punished, but Morninghall had shown no sympathy. Grabbing Foyle by the ear, he had marched him topside, and there, in front of all the other midshipmen, the marines, the sailors, and yes, even the prisoners, given him such a fierce dressing-down that Foyle's ears were still ringing.

  Foyle directed a baleful glance at the empty cabin. His Lordship had gone ashore, and it was no secret he was checking Rothschild's records against the ship's. Foyle dreaded his return, because if he found the discrepancies, heads were going to roll.

  And two of those heads would be his and Radley's.

  Cold sweat ran down his back, but at least he now had an ally, Admiral Bolton. Fit to be tied, the port admiral had come aboard first thing this morning, marching straight to Morninghall's cabin, shutting himself inside, and hopefully giving the bloody nob the lecture he so richly deserved. Five minutes had passed. Ten. Then the door had banged open and Admiral Bolton, red-faced and furious, had emerged. Immediately spying Foyle, he had called him aside.