Page 3 of The Butterfly
Conall panted, chest heaving as he studied Niall with narrowed eyes. “What were ye thinkin’, boy?”
Niall lowered his gaze, his head spinning too much for him to think of an acceptable answer. His da would not wish to hear that he hadn’t been able to help himself when confronted with something so beautiful.
“So, ye werenae thinkin’, and that’s yer problem, innit?” his da went on when he did not reply. “Too cotton-headed to use the sense God gave ye. A goat has more brains, ye lout!”
Niall withdrew altogether, refusing to speak or engage the man who seemed to derive satisfaction from taunting him, beating him, treating him as he would a dog.
“What have I always told ye?” his da prodded, apparently not satisfied with his silent sulking. “What do I always say?”
Niall lifted his eyes, but before he could answer, movement from farther down the corridor caught his attention. He turned his head to find the diminutive figure of a girl walking past, pausing in the intersection between this passage and another.
Lady Olivia … the young stepdaughter of the earl. Six years of age, she stood as small as a four-year-old, but carried herself with the grace of a grand lady somehow. Niall spied her from time to time, but from a distance … never this close.
He could have lifted her off the ground with one hand—she was so small, her slender body making her seem like some fragile thing, as breakable as the bit of porcelain in his boot. Dark, nearly black hair had been arranged in two plaits adorned with pink ribbon. That ribbon was the same color as her frilly little dress, which was covered by a white pinafore matching her perfect white stockings and the petticoats peeking out from under the hem.
His mouth fell open at the sight of her, standing there looking like a little doll. He’d seen them in shop windows whenever he went into Kincardinshire with his maw, painted with perfect faces, adorned with sausage-like curls and attire similar to what Lady Olivia wore. None of them could match her glossy dark hair, button nose, and perfect moue of a mouth. And her eyes. So large and as dark as her hair, filled with both curiosity and compassion as she stared at him.
Then, she did the oddest thing before continuing on her way. The little doll smiled at him, showcasing a gap where she’d recently lost a tooth. And something inside Niall reacted to that smile, blossoming with warmth and light. At the tender age of ten, he could not understand the emotions that welled up in him when he saw that smile. It made him want to pick her up and put her on his shoulders. It made him want to carry her about like the doll she appeared to be, keeping her from stepping in puddles, or tripping over stones, and otherwise protecting her from any form of harm.
Just as quickly as she’d paused at the top of that corridor, she was gone, skipping off to wherever she’d been headed before spotting him. The moment she had gone, he was taken up by his collar again and propelled back the way they’d come, his da berating him with every step. He was forced to trot to keep up with Conall’s swift strides, his neck craned at an impossible angle, half his face still burning.
“If ye’re gonna serve a master like the earl, ye have’ta get it through yer thick skull, boy! Ye cannae want the things they have. Ye’ll never be rich enough or good enough, so dinnae let yer soft little heart get ye thinkin’ ye can. Do ye ken, lad? What do I always tell ye?”
With a sigh, Niall squeezed his eyes shut, thinking of the pretty little doll of a girl he’d just seen and the porcelain in his boot.
His father’s words came tumbling out of his mouth by rote, reminding him quite effectively of his place in the world. “Fine things aren’t to be touched by the likes o’ me.”
They approached the servants’ entrance now, another thing that kept Niall from forgetting who and what he was … so lowly, he could only enter or leave this house through a humble door not nearly as fine as the oak concealing his master’s study.
“See that ye never forget it,” his da grumbled before throwing the door open and dragging him out toward the stables.
CHAPTER ONE
London, 1819
17 years later …
iall leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting upon his bent knees. His gaze never wavered from the slight figure he watched from his post like a sentinel, for fear he’d miss something, his eyes closing at the exact moment the tiny woman swimming beneath the bedclothes got it in her head to do something rash. In the years since Olivia had been brought back to Scotland in pieces, her mind a destroyed wasteland of horrid memories tinged by madness, he had learned that leaving her to her own devices could prove dangerous … fatal, even. He knew better than to turn his back on her, or leave her alone at any time, even if she were bathing or sleeping. No one ever knew when her memories would trigger spells of paranoia and anguish. No one ever knew when she might find something sharp and decide to gouge her skin, drawing rivers of blood.
His gaze drifted down to her arm, which rested atop the coverlet. The clean, white bandages wrapped around the limb taunted him with the evidence of his failures as Olivia’s protector. He should never have let his master convince him to travel to London and leave her in the care of servants. It did not matter that he was also a servant, or that the people who had been entrusted with her care were reliable and loved Olivia as if she were their own family.Hewas the one who could calm her with nothing more than the touch of his hand. The only one whose voice could take her from screaming in rage to sobbing in despair, then to peaceful silence. The only one who could reach her when others could not.
In the past, before this malady of the mind had claimed her, he might have been gratified at such power. To know that the girl he’d loved his entire life responded this way to him and only him might have brought a heady satisfaction. However, their circumstances made it a stark responsibility, one he considered with grave seriousness.
Scraping a hand through his hair, which already stood on end as a testament to his frayed nerves, he released a weary sigh. He had let himself be convinced to leave Scotland for London, to assist his master in a revenge plot against the person who had laid Olivia low. He’d come willingly, desperate to do whatever he could to ensure that the person who’d hurt his Livvie had paid with everything he owned. It had been the force driving both him and Lord Adam Callahan, the earl who also happened to be Niall’s best friend and Olivia’s elder brother. The two of them had vowed that they would care for her, even when the physicians claimed she ought to be put in an asylum. They’d made a pact to see the man who had hurt her repaid in kind, and with interest.
However, upholding his end of said pact had begun to stretch him thin. He could not occupy two places at once. He could not do battle at the side of his friend and master while also watching over Olivia. That had been proven when he’d opened the door to Adam’s London townhouse to discover her held in the hands of a footman, arms wrapped in those white bandages. The lady’s maid who had been tasked with her care had related the news to him; how his Livvie had sunk into a state of despondency after they’d left, how it had only taken the blink of an eye for her to break a mirror and use a shard of glass to tear her wrists open.
He had almost lost her, and not for the first time. He’d lost her when they’d been children and her stepfather had seen fit to send her to a school so far away from Edinburgh, she could only return home a few times a year. She had come back after her final term, only to turn around and leave him again to go to London for her first Season. As seemed fitting with the course of their lives, she’d come back to him again, but this time as shattered as the little statue he’d broken in her stepfather’s study all those years ago.
Thinking of that bit of porcelain he’d taken for himself, he took in her pale skin and dark hair, her slender, waif’s body. He had been entranced by that bit of porcelain for reasons he still did not understand, awed by its beauty, as well as its delicacy. He’d carried it in his pocket for years, and it now rested on the washstand in his little chamber back in Scotland, where he looked at it frequently. Just as he’d treasured it—still the finest thing he’d ever called his own—he treasured this woman, even in her state of brokenness.
Reaching into the pocket of his waistcoat, he retrieved his watch. It was quite late; Adam should soon return from the soirée he’d left hours ago to attend. Olivia had been brought to the house in his absence, and he had yet to be informed of what she’d done to herself. Niall dreaded being the one to tell him.
He perked up when Olivia whimpered, the sheets rustling as she shifted in bed, her head turning this way and that. Sweat had begun breaking out over her forehead, her brow furrowing as if she wrestled with her own mind even in sleep.
Leaning forward, he reached out to touch her—slowly, carefully, lest he make matters worse. She’d never shied away from his touch, but sometimes, sudden movements put her on edge. By the time she realized she was safe, her body would have reacted, recoiling or lashing out.
“Wake up,mo gradh,” he murmured. “Ye’re only dreamin’. I’m here.”
