Sinner's Heart

woman in my bed.

Technically, I was on your bed. And I’m not truly a woman.

Most assuredly you’re a woman. When sleep had come, his dreams had alternated between scenes of chaos and fevered images of Livia, fully flesh, fully nude, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders, her olive-hued limbs entwined with a man’s. Sometimes the man had a stranger’s face, sometimes the face was Bram’s. A mingling of her memories and his. He’d awakened with an uneasy heart and an aching cock.

Did he desire her? Resent her? Like her? Or was it an uncomfortable alloy of all these feelings?

You must have spoken to the women you took to bed, she answered.

Not certain if ‘Spread your legs,’ counts as legitimate discourse.

Her low chuckle was that of a goddess, pagan and earthy. I was never one for an exchange of confidences either. There were more important matters to attend to once a mattress was in the vicinity.

I’d no idea Roman women were so . . . unconstrained, he thought. Aside from Messalina.

She was too stupid to conduct her affairs with discretion, Livia scoffed. But my freedom was my own doing. I didn’t want to suffer the confining virtue of being a wife. And honored daughters resigned themselves to respectable, stultifying chastity. A priestess of Hecate, however, and one with my wealth of knowledge about magic, the years of study and natural ability . . . if there was something, someone I wanted, I could have them.

You sound like a Hellraiser.

Had there been such a thing when I lived, I surely would have been one.

You would’ve been fearsome indeed. He seethed with restlessness, but thinking of beds port was a continuous drumbeat, like an ancient slave ship urging its captives to greater speed on the oars, lest they suffer the wrath of the lash.

At last, Hyde Park came into view, its treetops and wide swaths of field a welcome respite after the tight press of buildings and people.

A relief to see that it wasn’t a hanging day at Tyburn. Massive crowds would gather around the triangular gallows, with wealthy spectators in Mother Proctor’s Pews to get the better view of the condemned’s last few moments alive. People of every stripe and class all assembled—shopkeepers, apprentices, gentlemen, ruffians. All hoped for a good show; displays of bravery were applauded, but fear received boos. Gingerbread sellers and people hawking copies of the condemned’s last words—before they had even uttered them—worked the crowd. Pickpockets found ample prey, an irony given that many of those about to be executed were thieves. The din and bloodlust could make one’s head pound.

Only once after his return from the Colonies had he gone to see a hanging. He had comported himself with reserve, watching the criminals dance at the ends of their ropes with a facade of disinterest, but the moment he had returned to his private chambers, he’d emptied the contents of his stomach. Thereafter he found ways to occupy himself far from Tyburn Tree on hanging days.

He avoided Rotten Row and the early risers sedately parading their horses up and down. What he wanted was a good, hard gallop.

Reaching an open expanse of grass, he kicked his horse into greater speed, and his heart gave its own kick to feel the animal bolt into motion.

The wind in his face, his greatcoat flapping behind him, the horse tearing across the field, he smiled.

He felt Livia gather close around him like a mantle, and together, they rode like demons through the park. Bent low over the neck of his horse, he gave the mare full rein. The animal was bred for speed, and it took the open space with ground-eating strides. Its hoof beats became the beat of his heart, fast and heedless, the world turning to a blur of gray and green. He lost himself in the velocity, his muscles attuned to the horse’s, his thoughts naught but motion.

Faster, urged Livia.

His mouth pulled into a grin, and he pushed the mare into greater speed.

Above the rush of wind and the pound of the hooves, he heard Livia laugh. He couldn’t stop his answering laughter, both of them caught in the heady taste of freedom, where nothing existed but speed. As if they could outrun the coming catastrophe. For a few moments, they could pretend.

Yet the horse could not sustain its pace for too long. It would run itself to death, if he so desired. He had no wish to have the mare collapse beneath him, and so he was forced to slow, gallop to canter, canter to trot, and finally, a docile walk. The horse snorted and steamed, pleased with itself.

That was . . . a marvel, Livia said. Pleasure sparkled through her voice, and he felt her smile like a caress.

Her pleasure gleamed beside his own, and that gave him a curious sense of . . . satisfaction. Strange, to gain that feeling from something out of bed.

And the time with Livia in bed had been just as strange. He had never spoken to a woman, in bed or out, with such depth, such intimacy. Some women had pressed him for details of his time fighting in the Colonies, their gazes and hands continually drifting to his scar. He would push their hands away, make their eyes close in pleasure, and kept his history to himself. A few facile anecdotes for the more insistent females.

None of the Hellraisers were aware of the details of what Bram had seen and done in the Colonies. Not even Whit knew about Ned Davies. Only Livia.

He waited for his mind to rebel, to recoil in horror at letting anyone learn the brutality of his existence in the army. All that he found was an odd, unfamiliar loosening within his chest. As if binding chains at last fell away, leaving him to test the scope of his newfound freedom.

So long had he dwelt with those chains—he almost missed them. Almost, but not quite.

I used to race with Whit and Edmund here. Edmund never could beat us, but he surely tried. We used to terrify the people out for a peaceful stroll.

Leaving a swath of sighing maidens in your wake.

Never cared for maidens, he answered. Inexperience makes for tedious flirtation.

Inexperience makes most everything tedious. But a jaded eye takes the luster off the most glittering diamond.

Bram guided his horse back toward the more populated section of the park, where men and women paraded themselves and made conspicuous their leisure. When he was a boy, he loved coming to the park, watching the dashing bucks and flower-hued girls engage in the complicated, arcane maneuvers of the adult world. He loved to see the gentlemen on their prime horses, both with twitching flanks and proud miens. He used to stand on the banks of the Serpentine and send off armadas of twigs, creating vast naval battles in his imagination.

Now all he saw were vainglorious attempts at consequence, another generation of fools chasing dross, and a large, muddy artificial river.

But there was a young girl crouched at the edge of the Serpentine, dropping leaves onto the surface of the water and watching them drift. Her inattentive nurse gossiped with a fellow servant. Meanwhile, the child most likely saw not leaves but fairy barges gliding upon the river. Her pleasure, and dreams, were real. For a few years more, she would have the privilege of dreams. Their loss was inevitable, but for now, they were hers.

If she survived.

Something moved in the river. An unidentifiable shape, more like a shadow, and it headed for the girl. He strained to get a better look, then jolted in shock.

A creature. He could barely discern its outline—its skin seemed to mimic the appearance of the water.

Gods preserve us, Livia cried in his mind. A demon.

He’d only glimpsed a few of those beasts, as they’d fled Leo’s burning home. They had run by too quickly for him to truly see them, but he’d had fast, vague impressions of claws, teeth, yellow eyes. This thing seemed another species entirely.

Whatever variety of demon it was, the thing moved toward the girl playing on the riverbank, its outstretched