Even if she tried, she couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her lips. She liked this man. His tempered rebelliousness. His compassion. And why had she not noticed before now that when he grinned, a small crescent-shaped dimple made an alluring appearance just below his right cheekbone? She leaned harder on her crutch lest she sway towards him, for such was his draw. “Then it shall be our secret, Mr. Lambert.”
All emotion drained from his face, and he stared at her queerly. “You are quick to make a pact with a stranger, Miss Balfour.”
She shook her head. “I find nothing strange about you, Mr. Lambert. It is Mr. Peckwood who concerns me.”
Propped against pillows, Colin sat immobile, transfixed by the shadow animals that had been cavorting in his room for the past several hours. Camels. Crocodiles. Bears and weasels. Even a tufted titmouse swooped the perimeter now and again, chased by a red-eyed goshawk.
With a monumental effort, he pinched the bridge of his nose, willing sanity to return. How did one know if one was mad? Did a lunatic believe himself normal? Because other than an underlying light-headedness and a tongue of cotton wool, he felt perfectly ordinary—save for the beasts and birds parading about. Either he’d gone daft from Mr. Peckwood’s procedure earlier that morning, or the draught he’d swallowed packed quite a wallop. Regardless, the grit in his throat must be washed down, for there would be no more denying his thirst.
Grabbing the bedpost, he eased his feet over the side of the mattress, then rose by careful increments. The room tilted, but only for the span of a few breaths. He dared a tentative step, and another, pleased to find his legs still worked. Even so, he scowled, fighting the urge to lunge back to his bed when a black bear swiped its claws at his head.
“Go away,” he whispered.
Bah! What sort of man pleaded like a little girl cowering in a corner? He threw back his shoulders, sick of this nonsense.
“Begone!” His voice rattled the windowpanes.
Not waiting to see if the phantoms actually slunk back to whatever hell they’d sprung from, he strode to the door and out into the corridor. Bad decision. His gut churned as the world slanted cockeyed. Pausing, he closed his eyes.
Breathe. Just breathe.
Slowly, he blinked his lids open. Late afternoon sun filtered in through the lace panels on the window at the end of the passage. The walls appeared straight. The floor squared. Nothing tilted anymore. Best of all, not one animal had followed him.
Once again he set off, rounded the corner towards the stairway, and ran into a man-of-war in a steel-grey skirt.
A sharp yelp cut through the air, followed by, “Oh! Mr. Balfour. You caught me quite off guard, sir.”
“My apologies.” He reached for his sister’s maid, steadying her with a grip to her arm. “I was—”
Dizziness stirred once again. Harder this time. If he didn’t release the woman, they’d both topple headlong. He flung out his hand, shoring himself up against the wall until the swirling faded.
Tentative footsteps edged near. A mix of concern and trepidation clouded Betsey’s dark eyes as she peered at him. “Is there aught I can do for you, sir?”
What a lionhearted soul. On his best days, he could scare the fur off a rabbit. But after his harrowing morning and lying abed most of the day, he surely must be a sight. No wonder his sister didn’t hesitate to travel the wide world with such a stalwart woman at her side.
Still, a layer beneath her fortitude, a very real fear of him could not be hidden. Heaven and earth, but he was tired of this. Weary of the horror he birthed and the resulting loneliness. Weary of life, really. As much as he despised Mr. Peckwood’s awful machine, if it did work and he came out on the other side a changed man, no longer frightening women such as this, it would be worth it.
With a last deep inhale, he straightened. “Actually, yes, there is something you can do for me. I was on my way to hunt down a drink, but I think I should like to have one brought up instead. Could you arrange it?”
“Why, I’ll do so straightaway myself, sir.” After a stiff nod, she turned and disappeared down the stairs.
Colin eased himself around. No sense making the world spin on purpose. He edged along the wall, taking his time in case the vertigo returned, when his toe hit something and an object skittered against the baseboards. He bent slowly, for it was a long way down to the floor for him, and swiped up the forgotten item. When he held it at eye level, his heart stopped.
A cat.
A toy cat.
But was this animal real or just another imagining?
He wrapped his fingers tight around the carved tortoiseshell and squeezed. When the sharp edges of the ears cut into his flesh, he was more disturbed than ever.
Wheeling about, he whaled the thing down the corridor, not caring in the least if it broke the window or nicked the plaster. Children did not live here! Just him and his sister and a handful of servants. All were well beyond toy figurines.
To believe anything other was insanity.
NINE
“He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity.”
