Chapter Two
Herbert Gerard St. John Pelham—known as Sinjin to anyone who didn’t want a drubbing—dropped his robe and let it fall onto the stone floor. The sulphur-tinged steam curled upward from the hot spring, sheening his bare skin. The bathhouse had been modeled after the ancient spas at Bath, reproductions of Roman columns posted at the corners of the large rectangular pool, a wrought iron torch flickering upon each one. Smooth, golden stone paved the deck around the bath and the surrounding walls. The effect was cavernous, womb-like.
Sinjin descended the shallow steps into the glimmering blue-green depths of the pool.Christ, that’s good.He waded deeper, nearly groaning as the warm, silky water lapped against the hard ridges of his torso. He was a man of sensual appetites, and Lord knew there’d been no earthly indulgences during the week he’d been trapped in this godforsaken place.
At least today all the lunatics had been herded to some musicale, and he finally had some peace and quiet. To be fair, he was the one intruding upon their territory: he was no resident, of course, but a special guest staying in one of Mrs. Barlow’s private villas. His father, the Duke of Acton, had brought him here, and at the time, he’d been too disoriented, too bloody shaken, to take full note of his surroundings or ask any questions.
Shame rose like a tide. He told himself it was useless to think about the events of the night that had led to his arrival at Mrs. Barlow’s. Even if he wanted to contemplate the sins he’d committed during those damnable hours, he couldn’t.
Because all that came to him was darkness. The blackness of a hole punched from his memory. He’d tried and tried to remember what had happened, but all he saw was the end result.
Nicoletta’s battered face and blackened eyes. The necklace of fingerprints around her neck. Her sobbing accusation and pointing finger.He went mad and tried to kill me.
Sinjin’s stomach curdled, the contents of his lunch threatening to make a reappearance. Revulsion burned through his veins like acid; his fingers speared through his hair, gripping tightly, as if pain could somehow lessen his fear.
Why can’t I remember? Am I going mad?
He’d have to be to hurt a woman. Sinjin did not pretend to be a gentleman of high morals, butneverhad he committed violence against a member of the gentler sex. The notion made him sick.
At six-and-twenty, he’d led a wild life and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of it. People came and went; in the end, he was the only one he could count on—and thus the only one whose opinion he cared to court. From the time he’d been expelled from Eton through the nightmare years at Creavey Hall, he’d stuck to that philosophy, and he’d survived, with the scars to prove it.
The idea that he would inflict similar abuse on an undeserving victim?Not bloody possible. As bedeviled as he was, he couldn’t fathom it. Hurting someone less powerful than him went against what little he held sacred. But why couldn’t he remember?
I’ll teach you a trick, Sinjin, something I do to calm myself. I grab hold of something: a paperweight, a coin, anything. And I concentrate on that one thing—the sensation of that object in my hand—until my mind is steady again.
His older brother Stephan’s advice surfaced in the vortex of his thoughts. Wise, even-tempered Stephan had been his opposite, his anchor. The only one who’d given a damn about him. But Stephan was gone, too; the familiar grief welled, and Sinjin tried to escape it by plunging into the water for a swim.
The exercise calmed him, focused his thoughts. A week without a drop of drink had been excruciating, but it had helped to clear his head. With the raw, painful clarity of staring straight into the sun, he’d begun to see that, in the two years since Stephan’s death, he’d let his devils get the better of him.
The black devil and the blue devil: that was how he’d come to think of the two opposing sides of his nature. Since his early adolescence, the bloodthirsty pair had staked his mind as their battleground, and even now he could feel their presence, lurking, waiting to make their next move.
The black devil who made him feel powerful and euphoric, limitless. Who lured him with the rush of excitement, the thrill of danger, the numbing high of recklessness. The fast crowd he ran with revered this side of him; like the satyrs and Maenads of myth, they erupted into an ecstatic frenzy at his exploits.
You race like the devil, old boy!his cronies would cheer when he crossed the finish line first, nearly overturning his four-in-hand in the process.
You carouse like a king, they’d crow when he won yet another drinking contest.
You fuck like a god, the wench—or wenches—of the night would purr.
Reaching the other end, Sinjin kicked off the stone wall, propelling his body through the water. He fed off the adulation, even when he knew it wasn’t real. None of them—not his so-called friends or the females clamoring for his attention—knew him. The true him. Who he was behind the fearless stunts and brash confidence. How bedeviled he was by the black beast… and the blue.
What’s the matter with you, boy? Get out of bed. You’re pathetic, worthless.
The duke’s contempt drove him through the pool, shame and anger churning the warm waves. As difficult as his black mood was to manage—in a heartbeat, euphoria could explode into irritability, recklessness into fisticuffs—the blue was infinitely worse. He hated that part of himself. How it turned him into a gutless prat, loaded his pockets with rocks and sunk him into the depths of despair.
Since he’d become the Earl of Revelstoke—Stephan’s title, the one that he, Sinjin, had never wanted—the devils had become even more unruly. He’d tried to play them off each other, using black to stave off blue. All it took was more drink, more reckless feats. More sex. Which was why he’d gone to Corbett’s, an exclusive and infamous bawdy house, a week ago. Why he’d tossed back a few drinks, played a few rounds of hazard, and then gone upstairs with Nicoletta, the club’s newest light-skirt. Why he’d fucked her and then… what?
What bloody happened?
Frustration and anguish twisted his insides. Could the black devil have pilfered a chunk of time from him? In the past, orgiastic sprees had passed in a blur, and he’d drunk himself into oblivion more times than he could count, yet he’d always retained some memory of his escapades. Could it be possible that he’d beaten Nicoletta… and forgotten? There were cuts and scrapes on his knuckles, but since he’d gotten into a tavern brawl prior to visiting Corbett’s, he didn’t know if his injuries were the result of the drunken scuffle… or of beating her. A defenseless female.
His arms plowed through the water harder, faster, as if he could somehow outdistance himself from the reprehensible possibility. As if he could somehow outracehimself—get away from the sodding disaster that he was. From the possibility that he truly was mad.
Lungs burning, he told himself that he was nothing like the others at this “retreat.” He didn’t think a coat rack was a long-lost aunt, didn’t see visions of angels telling him that he was the Savior reborn. He’d been dealing with his devils for more than half his life; he’d learned how to mask and manage them well enough.
Hell, thetonconsidered him a catch.What a bloody joke that was. Even more amusing was the fact that the more he shunned polite society, the more they wanted him—or, rather, his title and money.
Let them be blinded by status and wealth. By the cocky, good-looking bastard who stared back at him in the looking glass. At least he was no object of pity: he’d rather die than be that.
