He held the amber glass up to the light, watching how the fluid moved within.
“Strange stuff,” he said as if in a trance. “They say it’s made from poppies. Does it smell like flowers?”
“It’s the stuff dreams are made of,” she said, watching him. “Sweet. At first, it turned my stomach. Now…”
That seemed to get his attention. “Now?”
“I’ll be ill if I don’t have it,” she said honestly. “The scent makes my gums ache with desire.”
“Surely you don’t need it that much,” he said lightheartedly, shaking the thing to watch how the fluid inside reacted.
“Of course not,” she said, affecting a casualness that she didn’t feel. Contradicting him might draw his suspicion that she was a fiend for the stuff. Letitia Delemere hadn’t walked to Londonfrom Wantage after Papa succumbed to influenza just to die in a heap with opium eaters; laudanum was a lady’s helper, and she’d certainly needed help these past few years. It was the only thing that helped.
“Excellent,” he said, and tossed the bottle into the fire. The scent, now with a more pronounced burnt note, filled the room. She wondered if the vapors might be enough to soothe her nerves, but after an initial wave of euphoria, they were just as twisted as ever.
She’d let her guard down, and Anthony made her pay the price. Damn and blast.
“Why did you…?” she asked faintly, fearful of sobbing and revealing the depths of her pain.
“Seems a bad business,” he said blithely, “to be carrying the stuff around. Wouldn’t want to grow dependent, would you?”
Letitia clasped her hands together, hoping to disguise how they shook. He’d become cruel in the years since they’d known each other.
“I hardly think that a reason for tossing my belongings in the fire.”
He waved her off. “I’ll replace it,” he said. “As soon as I can get a doctor here, you’ll have a fresh bottle, provided your ailment requires it.”
Oh, that’s how he wanted to play things? Force her to disclose a diagnosis to a medical man in order to prove the need was legitimate? Rage descended upon her vision, the edges turning dark gray.
Letitia took up the scissors he’d left on the bed.
“What are you—?”
Snip. She cut the braid made with the hair he’d so carefully untangled.
“Letitia, don’t—“
Oh, he admitted to knowing her name now, did he? She took the scissors to the remaining mass of knots he’d been painstakingly working through, slicing the hair at her shoulders and shaking free of that damp, snarled mess at the bottom.
He wrenched the scissors from her hands in a way that hurt. She cried out, all the pain from past years suddenly registering in the twist of a finger.
Anthony was above her. She hadn’t realized it as it was happening, but in the process of overwhelming her physically so he might divest her of the scissors, he’d overset her person, caging her in with his long, powerful limbs.
“I didn’t want you to cut yourself,” he said, his voice less certain than she’d heard him in years. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Nor did I,she thought. But that wasn’t entirely true. Letitia had meant to hurt him in the most temporary, superficial way, for his own benefit. To send him on to the pleasures of marriage and children without a moment of regret.
This familiar position under him softened her spine despite her brain telling her to be on guard, and she raised a hand to the ridiculous silk mask he wore. She recalled herself and pulled her hand back, but not before he noticed.
“Why do you wear it?” she asked. “What’s the real reason?”
His eyes flitted to hers, then darted away.
“I was scarred years ago,” he said hoarsely.
Concern must have shown on her face because he continued.
“A woman flung something in my face and burned me.”
