Chapter Eight

James' POV

I wondered where Zilpha was hiding this time. I imagined that she'd hidden herself away somewhere with a book, which seemed to be the only thing that she wanted to do most days. I couldn't understand her sudden fascination with books, they were so bloody boring most of the time. I'd heard whispers that there were some books that were filled with men and women getting naked and the man putting his bit into hers, but you still had to read through things that had nothing to do with nakedness or bits, and I didn't have the patience for any of that.

I didn't call for her, I didn't want my father to hear me and know that I was outside. I had gotten in trouble earlier in the day for breaking a window and that was the first time that he'd given me a spanking since I was three. I was confined to my room and ordered to stay there until he gave me his personal permission to leave. Well, I'd lasted for an hour, pacing back and forth, unable to sit due to my sore bum, and then I sneaked out of my bedroom window and went looking for Zilpha.

Before she had been born, I'd wanted a little brother and there was a part of me that still did. She wasn't a complete bitch like her mother, who thought that my father ought to spank me every day, for all of the naughty things that I was thinking of doing, because she was certain that I had all kinds of evil in my mind. Zilpha was the perfect little lady, as far as her mother was concerned, one who could do no wrong, but lately I'd been able to get her to do some things with me that were a lot more fun.

We had spitting contests, we chased a cat that would wander onto our property, we ate candy that I nicked out of the corner store, we'd make stones skip over the water in the pond. It had taken me awhile to talk her into not being a hoity-toity bitch like her mother, but she was willing to do fun things as long as her mother didn't find out. Maybe she would be willing to help me dig for worms and then we could go fishing…..

I caught sight of her as I got close to the pond and what I saw made my jaw drop. She had been swimming in the pond and was toweling herself off by the edge of the water. I had never seen a naked girl before and I told myself to hide before she saw me, but all I could do was stare. She had tits, not big ones like the butcher's wife, but they would probably grow as she got older. She was small and delicate all over and there was just a hint of hair starting to show on her fanny.

The sight of her made me feel things that were foreign to me, well, not completely foreign, but I'd never responded to her in that way. I knew that it was wrong for me to react the way that I was, it was immoral and sinful, but my body wouldn't listen to common sense that told me to get out of there as fast as I could and not look back. The front of my trousers showed my arousal and that only worsened my feeling of shame, but I still couldn't look away from her. All that I could do was stare at her, and then she slowly raised her head and smiled at me…...

Damn her to hell, she'd known the whole while that I was sitting there watching her. She'd always had a streak of deviousness in her and I'd fallen for each and every machination hook, line and sinker. Fortunately, I was not as gullible as I'd been as a lad. Unfortunately, my sordid past was a subject that couldn't be erased as if it had never existed. I was going to have to face up to what I'd done with my wife and I only hoped that she would not be repulsed by me when she learned the truth.

I wondered where my sister got her gall, thinking that she could sell off our father's holding of Nootka Sound. The funeral had been held and I'd been there, unbeknownst to Penelope. That was the occasion that had given me the first glimpse of my sister in a number of years and though I'd still felt that surge that I'd grown so accustomed to years ago, it wasn't as insistent and overwhelming as it had been at one time in my life.

After the funeral I learned that my father had been murdered and the list of suspects ran the length of my arm and then some. Horace Delaney had made his fair share of enemies throughout his life and it wasn't going to be easy to discover the culprit who'd poisoned him, but I was going to do my damnedest to find the one who was responsible.

And now I had learned that Zilpha intended to sell the Nootka Sound. That would be a clever endeavor on her part, given that the will hadn't been read. I had a feeling that the ponce that she was married to was the driving force behind this deal, though Zilpha hadn't held much love for our father, so she would undoubtedly welcome the money from the sale as well. The only fly in the ointment was me showing up after I was presumed dead and after what had happened to my father, I was going to have to grow eyes in the back of my head to make sure that I didn't meet the same end.

I knew that Penelope was going to be disappointed when she found out that I'd visited my sister without her, but I wasn't ready to introduce the two of them just yet. I could imagine the tension that would be in the room when they each laid eyes on the other. Zilpha had always been one to do what she wanted, to get what she wanted, and I wondered if her years of marriage to that prat, Thorne Geary, had forced her to behave in a way that was more socially acceptable.

I knew that Zilpha wouldn't have murdered our father, she would not have arranged for it to be done either, but what about her beloved? Maybe he believed that my sister would inherit a large sum of money, a handful of properties, some sort of riches that would make the union worth his time and efforts. Unfortunately, there was only a ramshackle home and his land in the Nootka Sound, and while she said that she planned to sell it, she didn't even know whether or not it belonged to her.

There was a crystal tumbler of good whiskey sitting on the table beside my chair. I'd refilled it three times and there was one swallow left in the glass that I was about to gulp back so I could have another serving. I looked around the room, the one that my wife had refurbished for me so that it would be more masculine. She'd chosen a pair of armchairs for me, crafted from mahogany, with porcelain castors and it was upholstered in regency blue colored leather.

There was a round mahogany table sitting in the middle of the room, encircled with eight small brass lion heads. On top of it was a cut crystal vase that Penelope kept filled with fresh cut flowers, to make the room smell good. Beneath that table was an Aubusson rug, that was a mixture of browns and creams, though the majority was the same regency blue as my chairs. There were three round mahogany side tables, one on the side of each chair, which held lamps with light gold bases and alabaster glass shades, and one in the middle that usually held my tumblers of liquor. I also had an impressive mahogany liquor cabinet with a door that opened and held a variety of glasses, drawers that held a variety of wines for my wife, and an open top that held the sort of liquor that I liked to drink.

There was a large mahogany bookcase, the sort with the beveled glass doors and drawers with brass handles. It was a nice piece of furniture, but it didn't have all of that scrollwork that so many people seemed to favor. I'd filled it with books that my father had kept boxed up for me in his home, and Penelope and I had chosen a few new tomes after we were married.

My wife kept telling me that I needed to decorate the cream-colored walls with paintings, but what she didn't know was that I'd hired an artist to create her portrait for my room and that was the only painting that I would ever hang on the wall. I would have liked to have had her pose with nothing, but a sheer cloth draped over one breast, but she would never agree to that. Besides which, I wouldn't want the servants to see it and I'd have to blind the painter once he was done with his work.

I was just about to pour myself another tumbler of whiskey when I heard her soft footsteps in the hall, headed my way. Fuck me, I'd had too much to drink. That was the first thought that came into my muddled mind. The second was that there was some play that she'd wanted to go see and I'd forgotten all about it until that moment. There was no way that I was going to make a decent companion that evening. I decided that I could at least straighten my appearance before she came in, but the damned door opened before I could make myself more presentable.

I knew that I'd really mucked things up when I saw that she was wearing one of her mother's best dresses that Mrs. Sloan had found in a trunk upstairs. Penelope had been over the moon when she saw those dresses, she said that she was eager to wear them, even though they weren't fashionable. They'd all required a little tailoring, but the fact that she was wearing one of them said that I'd royally fucked up.

"James?" she said, stepping into the room and getting a good look at her groom. "My goodness, I don't even have to ask if you're intoxicated, the fumes could knock me over from here."

Damn, she looked gorgeous. All made up for a night of frivolity out on the town and instead she got a bastard who undoubtedly looked like hell and was not only in his cups, he was well on his way to being a man who'd end the night in a puddle of his own piss, shit and vomit. Because now that I thought about it, I'd actually had five tumblers full of whiskey, not three, and I hated to think how fast I was going to hit the floor when I tried to get out of my chair.

"I fucked everything up, sweet girl," I whispered, feeling tears pressing at the back of my eyes while I wondered when in hell I'd turned into a blubbering drunk as opposed to one who fought the first guy who looked in his direction. "I didn't remember that you'd made plans for tonight, Penelope."

I waited for her to start yelling at me, hell, I wanted her to tear into me, but she didn't. She didn't look cross, she looked concerned and that made me feel even worse. This would have been our first venture out as a married couple, and I'd ruined everything. She ought to have been telling me what an inconsiderate son of a bitch I was, but she wouldn't scream at me. She moved further into the room, looking worried, but not the least bit angry.

She walked over to the table and picked up the bottle of whiskey, sighing as she closed it and returned it to the liquor cabinet, and then she returned to stand beside me. I didn't know how she could stand to look at me. In days past I would have lashed out, I would have tried to get her to yell at me, but there was something in her eyes that told me that I should never do that sort of thing to her. I guess that deep-down, I figured that she'd had more than her share of that sort of bullshit, and also, I never wanted to hurt her.

"Oh, James, it's alright," she said softly, smoothing back my hair and bending to press a kiss to my forehead. "There's still so much that you're having to deal with after losing your father and I'm not going to fault you for drowning your sorrows…though I would ask that you not drown them quite so thoroughly next time. You should know that you can always bring your troubles to me as well. I haven't had much practice, but I like to think that I'm a good listener."

I would have laughed if I hadn't been so drunk, but if I'd laughed I would have cried as well, so it was good that I was too sloshed to do anything but stare straight ahead. The last thing that Penelope needed was someone who only stopped howling with laughter so he could sob like a baby. It was bad enough that I kept staring off into space the way that I was. All that I needed was a line of drool running out of my mouth and I'd be ready for Bedlam.

"You're a good woman, Penelope, my sweet girl," I mumbled. "Too good for the likes of me, that's for damned sure."

She smiled and shook her head. "Thank you, love, but I'm not too good for you, not at….."

And then I passed out.

Penelope's POV

I hadn't been able to sleep for most of the night without James beside me, but Morris Stanley, our first footman, had assured me that it would be best for James to sleep sitting up with a basin in his lap. He'd even volunteered to keep watch over the master of the house, splitting the night into three shifts, taking the first himself, while the second was given to Rodney Ferris and the third to Bernard Hughes, both of them footmen.

The house had been abuzz with gossip and as I headed to check on James I caught a few whispers that indicated that my husband had indeed vomited three times during the night, and if Morris and Bernard hadn't been as quick as they'd been with a milk bottle, there would have been copious amounts of urine all over the place as well. I would have to make certain that I added a generous bonus to each man's wages for keeping a close eye on my husband.

When I entered his room downstairs, the stench that filled my nose made me nauseous, but I was determined that I wouldn't flee to a more comfortable room. Morris was back on duty and he'd fetched a cold rag to place on James' head. My husband looked he'd just crawled out of a gutter and he was cursing and snarling at poor Morris, who was only trying to help him. All of the insults seemed to slide off of the first footman's back, until James referred to Morris' mother as a dried-up old cunt.

Morris' face turned red and I watched the muscles in his jaw tighten, as he curled his hands into fists. I seemed to remember hearing some of the men saying that he had boxed in tournaments when he was younger and for one awful moment I was certain that he meant to thrash James. I knew that I would have to intervene if a fight broke out, and I was dreading that, because both men would throw a punch that packed a wallop, and I was not looking forward to placing myself in the line of fire.

"You can go ahead a fire me, Mrs. Delaney," Morris said softly, calmly, the sort of soft and calm that is a signal for the fact that all hell is about to break loose. "But I'm not going to stand by and do nothing while someone talks about my mother that way."

James was staring off into space, lost in a drunken stupor, and he was clearly in no shape to fight, but Morris' blood was pumping and who could blame him? James had said something that was appallingly uncouth about Morris' mother and it was understandable that he would want to have a go, I believe that was the saying, at James, but I hoped that I would be able to talk him out of it.

"I understand your anger, Mr. Stanley," I said, approaching him and tentatively placing a hand on his arm. "What James said was awful, it was hateful and dreadfully offensive. Please accept my apology for the time being and allow Mr. Delaney to express his regrets once he has had time to sober up, instead of resorting to fisticuffs. Would you do that for me, Mr. Stanley?"

Morris was not an overly tall man, but he was built like a bull, he was an ex-boxer, and if he decided to wallop James, I imagined he'd leave him a bruised and bloodied mess. Thankfully, he chose to take a deep breath and calm down instead, after which he looked like he was very ashamed of himself. He cleared his throat several times and smiled at me sheepishly.

"I'd rather you not fire me, Mrs. Delaney," he said quietly, losing what some people would call his "lower class" accent as he calmed himself. "I ought to know by now that you can't take offense at anything a man says when he's been deep in his cups."

I knew that I would make him blush when I patted his arm, but I did so anyway. "We could never replace you, Mr. Stanley," I assured him. "Now, I would like for you to take the day to relax and have some peace and quiet. Please pass that along to Mr. Ferris and Mr. Hughes as well. I believe that I'll leave Mr. Delaney where he is, and I'll keep a close eye on him. Thank you, Mr. Stanley, and please convey my thanks to Mr. Ferris and Mr. Hughes as well."

Morris smiled and headed for the door. They were given so little time by Mr. Bennett, I imagined that they were off to have some fun…and I had the unenviable task of doing whatever was necessary to get James sober. I kneeled in front of him, hoping, as I did that he wouldn't vomit on me. I took his hand in mine and rubbed my thumb over his palm.

"Is there anything that I can get for you, James?" I asked, wary of the look that was in his eyes as he stared down at me. "Something to drink, something to eat, or a little of each?"

He didn't answer me, he just kept staring at me, until I placed my hand on his knee. He jumped when I touched him, then he looked over my head, staring into the distance. "I didn't think that I'd see her so soon," he whispered. "She looked like time had stood still. Do you think that she ever thinks about what happened? Is it something that haunts her, or was she able to forget?"

I didn't know who he was referring to or what had happened in the past with this person, but it was something that obviously disturbed him, something that had been brought to the forefront of his mind and made him drink heavily. There were so many conflicting emotions in his eyes, and he clawed at the arms of his chair, sucking in deep breaths as he stared at something over my head that only he could see.

"My sweet girl would hate me if she knew what I was," he whispered, his voice low, almost like the growl of a dog. "Penelope would never understand what I've done…what I still want to do."

I was scared half to death, I wanted to flee the room, but he was my husband and I cared for him, so I was not going to leave his side. "James, darling, I will never hate you. I cannot say for certain what I will or won't understand, but you do not have to hide anything from me….."

He moved quickly, so suddenly that I didn't have time to react. He grasped my chin in his hand, his hold tight and painful. "You would hate me, love…you'd bloody well despise me if you knew half of what I'd done….."

And just as suddenly as he'd grabbed me, he released me and fell back in his chair, passed out once more. I stayed as I was, heart thumping, for several moments and then I rose to my feet and went to his desk for parchment and a quill and wrote a note to Brace, asking him to come as soon as possible. The only way that I could be any help to my husband was if I knew what was afflicting him and Brace would surely know what had happened in the past and why it had been brought back into his mind…I just hoped that I was strong enough to accept the news, however awful it may be.