Perilous Pleasures (10 page)

But he
wouldn't
be what he dreamed of, if he let his greed for power harm Zoe.

He'd already harmed her enough by trying to husband his paltry powers. Had he not feared his own lust he would have cleaned out her wound himself and prevented it from turning septic. He couldn't make the damage worse by operating on her with a knife that could worsen the poison. If that was the price the Ancient Ones demanded for the Final Teaching, it was too high.

He shoved the bronze knife back into its hilt. He wouldn't use it.

Giving himself no time to change his mind, he reached into his instrument case and pulled out his scalpel. Cold flowed into his fingers from the prime German steel. He tried to sense whether at its touch, some of his power had fled from him, but if it had, he couldn't feel it. The scalpel felt good in his hand, familiar. Memories of all the times he'd used it successfully flooded over him. He was an excellent surgeon. Even Von Faschling had admitted it this past fall in Vienna, and everyone knew how miserly he was with his praise.

So he said a silent prayer that this operation, too, would be added to the number of his successes, and that despite the advanced state of her wound, he would cure Zoe.

It would be a struggle. He'd have to find four strong men to hold her down while he did the operation. For surgery was a brutal art. He was one of very few gentlemen able to tolerate what the discipline required. It had taken him years to fight down the natural emotions that the surgeon must put aside so he could work serenely despite the agonized shrieks of his patients. And it would be even harder to operate on Zoe because of the sympathy that had joined the two of them since that fatal night at the inn. It would take all his fortitude—and more—to get through it, knowing as he did that, when he cut into her flesh, he would feel her agony as if it were his own.

He walked over to the washstand and carefully rinsed his hands to symbolize their purity, as the Dark Lord had taught him to do when he'd first begun to teach him the magic of healing. Von Faschling had laughed at him for following such a superstitious practice, but all surgeons had their little rituals, and the great surgeon himself wouldn't operate if a black cat crossed his path. When Adam's patients had done well after their surgeries, Von Faschling had forgiven him his idiosyncrasy.

Then Adam closed his eyes and invoked the help of the Unseen, asking that his hand be guided. He'd need all the help he could get, both seen and unseen, operating with nothing to dull her pain.

When he'd finished his prayer and opened his eyes, the first thing that caught his attention was his leather instrument case lying spread out on the table. The dog-eared corner of an old folded piece of paper peeked out of the pocket at one end. He hadn't noticed it before, so caught up had he been in his struggle to pick up the scalpel. But he knew what it was. And as he grasped the edge of the yellowed paper and pulled it out of the instrument case, his heart surged.

His prayer had been heard. For the Dark Lord had given him that paper long ago in Morlaix. It held a sacred spell he'd entrusted to Adam—one he'd claimed was more powerful than even the newfangled magnetic discoveries of Mesmer. The Dark Lord had said that this spell could send a patient into a slumber so deep that once it was invoked, you could stab the patient with a knife and he wouldn't awaken.

And it wasn't just hearsay. Adam had seen the Dark Lord use this spell to remove a gangrenous toe without eliciting even a single scream from his sleeping patient. Had Adam not seen it, he wouldn't have believed it possible. But he'd been given no chance to try it out himself, as the demonstration had taken place only a few days before the catastrophe that had destroyed Charlotte. And after that, the Dark Lord had been forced to send him away for his own safety.

It shamed him now to remember how, after leaving his master, he'd ignored that spell, even though he'd seen how effective it could be. But the Dark Lord had warned him to keep the secret teachings to himself so as not to earn the contempt of other physicians. Magic was out of fashion among the great minds of the Continent.

Now, as he read over the words his teacher had scribbled on the yellowed paper in his spindly script, and carefully fixed them in his mind, Adam remembered once more why he'd sacrificed so much to earn the Dark Lord's wisdom. For though they had taught him much that would be useful, no man of science had tools that could do what this spell could do.

As the Dark Lord had taught him, he waved the steel scalpel through a candle flame thrice, to give it strength. He would combine what they'd taught him in the operating theaters of Vienna with the Dark Lord's magic, and hope that with that potent mixture, Zoe might yet be saved.

Z
oe couldn't take her eyes off Ramsay's scalpel. Its blade glittered, razor-sharp. She was lying on her bed with her hands folded primly on her abdomen as she had been doing ever since he'd sent her here to wait for him, and now he was here, with that thing in his hand, ready to cut into her flesh. She clenched her fist, struggling to remain calm, daring only to ask, “Aren't you going to give me any laudanum?”

He shook his head. “I don't have any. But even so, you won't feel the pain. I've got something much better to still it.”

“Brandy?” She saw no sign that he'd brought any with the other paraphernalia he had carried into the chamber when he'd returned. Her muscles tightened. She hoped she wouldn't disgrace herself when it was time to submit to the knife.

“No, something else. Some healing magic the Dark Lord taught me many years ago in France.” Her heart sank.
He
might believe in magic, but she was too practical to do so.

“It works,” he assured her, “whether or not you believe in it.” Once again, he'd responded to her unspoken thought, but strangely, this time instead of disturbing her, his ability to hear what she left unsaid gave her comfort.

“Is it a potion?” She saw no signs of one: no powders ground out of noxious substances, no small vial filled with healing foulness.

“No. It's a spell—a really good one. All you need do is listen to me now and do just as I tell you. Nothing else.” He reached toward her. “Here, take my hand.”

She did, thinking it strange that he would allow her to touch him now, when he needed his magical powers to be at their strongest. Yet as she clasped his hand a burst of warmth filled her, despite her terror. The look of concern that filled his features made her feel cared for, yet at the same time, it made him look curiously vulnerable. Indeed, something about the way the faint haze of stubble on his cheek glowed golden in the morning light made her long to stroke his cheek and comfort
him
.

It was the virgin's sickness, again. She looked away for a moment, unable to bear the sight of his sparkling eyes so full of some emotion she wouldn't give a name to. With a sharp intake of breath he grasped her hand more tightly, then dropped it almost as quickly, as if her touch had burnt him.

When she'd found the courage to look at him again, she found him facing away from her with his head bowed. Time stretched out as he gave himself up in prayer to the powers that he served. Then he withdrew his watch from its pocket. But rather than consult the time, he let it dangle from its chain with its gleaming golden back facing toward her. With a swift motion, he set it to swinging in a broad arc, back and forth, in front of her eyes.

“Observe my watch,” he commanded.

She wondered why he should ask such a strange thing of her. But she did what he'd told her to do. She had no choice left now but to obey him.

A
dam watched intently as her eyes tracked the arc his timepiece made as it swung like a pendulum, back and forth and back and forth again. As he did, he called upon the Ancient Ones, silently entreating them to come to his aid, despite his lapses, and his sins, and the curse he had been born with.

If he could save her, he would ask them for nothing more.

As her eyes continued to follow the rhythmic motion, her fingers uncurled and her lips parted. Her breathing became slower and beat in time with the swinging of the watch. Gaining courage, he lifted the chain and led her gaze upward, very slowly, until the subtle quivering of her lids told him the spell was beginning to work.

He felt a gust of relief. It didn't always. And if she hadn't responded he would have had no choice but to round up four strong men downstairs and get them drunk enough that they'd be willing to hold her down while he went about his brutal business. But there was no need for that yet. It was going well. Her eyes had rolled up inside their lids, leaving only a tiny margin of white exposed.

Making his voice as steady and monotonous as he could, he began to chant the magical phrases that would put her under.

“You are getting sleepy.”

He said it once, and then twice, and then over and over again. And while he repeated the phrase, in his mind he said the silent, secret prayer that the Dark Lord had told him must remain unspoken.

“Your eyes are feeling heavy.” His voice had taken on the droning tone he remembered his teacher using. “You're sinking deeper and deeper into a restful sleep.”

He repeated these simple phrases, accompanying them with the mystical intention that would make them do their work And as he mouthed the words that deepened the enchantment, he imagined his teacher standing at his side as he had done at Morlaix so long ago, garbed in his long purple robe, with his golden wand raised high, lending him his strength.

He let his voice meander on, as he chanted word after gentle word that led Zoe into the charmed state where she'd feel little pain and where what little pain she'd feel would be forgotten once he allowed her to awaken. Soon the words seemed to be speaking themselves of their own accord, as he lost himself in the building of the spell, until, at last, subtle changes in her muscle tone told him the spell had her whole body in its power. Now he took the last step.

“Your leg feels nothing. It floats above your body, filled with peace and light. You feel warmth and comfort. Your leg is comfortable and numb.” He gave himself up to the rhythm of the words, repeating this part of the charm over and over, and hoping it was true.

He laid aside the watch. The moment of truth had come.

Zoe lay supine before him, her breathing almost imperceptible. She looked as though she was deeply enchanted. He pulled back her skirt to reveal the blackened wound, picked up his scalpel, and pricked her near her thigh with its tip.

She slumbered on serenely.

The spell had worked.

Drawing a deep breath, he cut deep into the tissue around the wound, swiftly and cleanly, admiring the way the expensive German steel cut. Deftly he dissected out the infection, cutting away the swollen edges where he found the blackened nodules that had formed around the splinters that had penetrated into the wound. Von Faschling couldn't have done it more speedily even with the screams of his patient urging him on.

Now and again, Zoe moaned, but she didn't awaken from her enchanted slumber.

As he cut out the poisoned flesh, he continued to murmur the soothing words of the Dark Lord's spell, reminding Zoe of the gentle warmth she felt coursing down her body even as the blood and pus spurted all over his hand.

When he was done cutting out the blackened tissue, he poured a vial of brandy over the wound. It was another thing he'd seen the Dark Lord do—to rouse the patient's spirit with spirits of wine—and, superstitious though it might seem, Adam had never been disappointed in its efficacy. Zoe stirred as the stinging fluid bathed the gaping wound, but she didn't awaken.

After allowing enough time for the brandy to do its work, he picked up a threaded surgical needle. Again, in tribute to his master's teachings, he waved it through the candle flame while muttering the correct invocation and sewed the wound closed.

The stitches went in smoothly. The edges of the wound were clean now, free of any traces of the blackened nodules. The spell even seemed to have controlled her bleeding.

Hope surged into his heart. He hadn't lost his powers, despite his lust, despite having touched the cold iron.

Zoe might live.

He was about to bring her out of her enchanted sleep, when he remembered something else the Dark Lord had mentioned, which might be helpful now. He'd said, in passing, that when removing the spell, it was possible to leave some lingering trace of it behind that would give the practitioner the ability to restore the patient to the entranced state almost immediately, should it become necessary, simply by uttering a Word of Power.

Zoe would undoubtedly experience considerable pain in the days ahead, for to heal her he'd had to make her wound deeper. So it would be helpful if he could easily send her back into a healing sleep if the pain became too much for her.

The instructions for extending the spell had not been on the slip of paper he had stored with his scalpel. But he was pretty sure he knew how to work it—it would require only that he add another suggestion to the ones he'd already implanted in her mind before he operated on her. And because of the hours his teacher had demanded he spend reading the ancient books, he was pretty sure he knew the correct Word of Power to use, too.

It must be
codladh
—the word for sleep in the language of the Ancient Ones.

So with his voice rising and falling in a musical manner, he gave Zoe one last command—that when she heard the Word of Power, she would return once again to this enchanted state.

When that was done, he murmured the final words that would lead her back out of her trance. As he finished, her eyes flickered open. He flung the scalpel down on the table and sank into a chair, exhausted.

Z
oe rubbed one eye with her fist. She felt groggy, as if she'd been asleep for a long time, but rested, too, and strangely calm. But hadn't Lord Ramsay been about to do something terrifying?
Yes. Surgery.