Page 42 of The Butterfly
Her words choked off on a strangled cry of dismay as she set eyes upon what he was seeing. The warmth that had settled over her fled in an instant, her blood running cold and her heart dropping down into her stomach.
Adam, Daphne, and Serena were still in the garden, but someone else had joined them. Someone who struck terror into the core of her being at the mere sight of him. Tremors wracked her, beginning in her center and spreading out to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her mouth gaped open, but she could not draw breath, or speak, or even move. She stood frozen in Niall’s arms, the entire world seeming to shift and darken in a matter of seconds. Her knees gave out, and she nearly hit the floor, Niall fumbling to keep her held tight. Hot tears scorched her face when she blinked, falling off the edge of her jaw and running down her neck.
“No,” she managed, her voice small and weak. “No … he cannot be here.”
But she had seen him with her own two eyes—tall and slender and pale, that shock of red hair gleaming in the light of the sun. He’d been standing on the outside of the garden looking in, hovering on the edge of her new life as if waiting to tear it apart with tooth and claw. Her demon, come back to haunt her on what had been the best day of the past five years of her life.
Serena’s father.
The orchestrator of her most frightening dreams.
Lord Bertram Fairchild.
“Livvie, it’s all right,” Niall murmured, though he did not sound so sure himself.
He was furious; she could feel it in the hold of his shaking hands upon her, hear it in his quavering voice, smell it in the air. And she … she was plummeting again, all the light and color bleeding away and leaving her right back where she had started. She could feel it all slipping away from her—the hope, the happiness, the joy. How could she have forgotten how close he always was, how easily he could disturb her peace, returning to torment her again and again? Now, he was here in her waking hours, not just in her mind—the idea of a threat suddenly made tangible.
She had always known he could come and take their child away, hadn’t she? The threat of that had always been real, even when her dreams of him had not been.
She thrashed in Niall’s hold, panic descending upon her before she could stop it. “Serena! Don’t let him take her, Niall! Do not let him touch my little girl!”
Niall picked her up from the floor, carrying her back to the bed once it became clear her limbs had ceased to function. His face was a study in determination and rage as he loomed over her, something she’d never before seen sparking to life within his eyes.
“I will protect her,mo gradh,” he declared, his hands curling into big, meaty fists, the veins in his forehead and neck standing out so prominently, it was a wonder they did not burst. “I will protect her, and I will protect you. Stay here.”
With that, he was gone, his heavy footsteps ringing out through the room, the slam of the door shaking the walls. Rolling onto her side, she curled into herself, unable to cease shaking, her throat constricting so tight, she thought she might suffocate. Her knight would always be here to defend them, she knew this. She could count on him and Adam to stop Bertram from laying a hand upon Serena. The protective mother inside her wanted to rise from the bed, march down the stairs, and confront the man who threatened to destroy their lives, to bring her daughter inside and keep her safe. Yet, she could do nothing but lie here struggling to breathe, her limbs heavy and dead, her heart pounding, her eyes squeezing shut as she tried to escape it.
However, there was no escape. He was here, and she could sense him, smell him,feelhim. Bile burned the back of her throat, her stomach squeezing and clenching as if she might be violently ill. Still, she could not move, could find no escape.
His laughter rang out through her mind, and she could feel the weight of him on top of her, experienced that very real fear all over again … the fear that he might be the end of her. She whimpered and groaned as the tears fell, her skin itching and burning as if she might burst out of it at any moment, her soul flying free of this tortuous prison of her body.
Fighting me will only make this harder than it has to be … you’ve been practically begging for it since the night we met … just a taste, love …
“No,” she moaned, pressing her hands against her ears and shaking her head, trying to blot out his voice. “No, no, no!”
She could still hear him panting in her ear, grunting as he struggled to pin her down, laughing when he saw that she realized she had lost.
Slut … whore!
“Stop,” she whispered hoarsely. “Please… make it stop!”
There was no stopping this. It all came flooding back, overwhelming her to impotence, a state similar to the one she’d been brought home in. Tortured. Wrung dry. Broken.
Tossing the coverlet aside, she rolled off the bed, landing on the floor with a thud. She could barely lift her head, the crushing weight of it too much to bear. Somehow, she managed to get to her hands and knees, crossing toward the dressing room. There lay her trunks, all her things that had been brought from Dunnottar. Inside one of them, Maeve had stashed a few spare bottles of laudanum, knowing that one would not be enough to get her through once they’d reached London. Olivia had forgotten about them after casting the potion off altogether, had not thought of them because she had not needed them.
But now, her mouth watered for the stuff, her stomach quivering as she imagined its taste, the feel of it running down her throat, the oblivion it would offer. That was what she needed. It was the only thing that ever drove Bertram’s voice from her head, chased the coppery scent of blood from her senses, washed it all away.
She pushed the door open and crawled, her knees aching, her entire body sore as if she’d been pummeled by fists on all sides. The pain had sunk as deep as her bones, as deep as her soul. It had become more than she could bear in a matter of moments.
Had she truly believed she could do this—become whole again? How, when this sudden despair was so acute, so crushing, so insurmountable? As she forced open trunk after trunk, her breath racing as she searched desperately for the key to the dulling of her senses, she tried with all her might to fight it. She tried to remember how far she had come, how happy she had been just a short while ago. Apparently, she was not strong enough, and the weight was far too heavy to be cast off.
No force within her could prevent what she did next.
She located the bottles, pulling one free of a tangle of clothing with a sigh of relief. Leaning back against the trunk, she worked the stopper free, even that requiring more strength than she possessed at the moment. She managed it somehow, dropping the cork as the medicinal yet sweet odor of the laudanum filled the dressing room.
She hesitated for only a moment before bringing the bottle to her lips, then tipping her head back and letting the potion flood her mouth.
Niall stormed through the house with a single motivation driving him. He was going to murder Bertram Fairchild with his bare hands. He would wrap his hands around that pale throat and squeeze, crush his skull with both hands, and bathe in his blood. It could be his only recourse after the sod had dared to come here and threaten the peace they had worked so hard to cultivate, the joy that his Livvie had found after so much heartache.
