These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(43)

I tried to respond but was immediately distracted by the picture of Mr. Braddock, braced against the wall for support. A large patch covered his forehead, one cheek showed some minor abrasions, and the other had the blue tint of bruising to match his black eye. His half-naked torso had fared better, but the looking glass behind him revealed a red, bandaged streak across his back, sending a shiver down my spine. I tore my gaze away and forced it back up toward his less confusing face.

“I . . . saw the glass broken downstairs,” I finally said. “I didn’t know what to think.”

“I should have cleaned it. I had no other means of getting in when I first arrived.”

“Where is your house staff?”

He pushed off the wall and closed in on me, trying to steer me out of the doorway. “You should not be here,” he said. “It’s not . . . proper.”

“And you should not be out of bed.” I sidestepped him and took a seat in the room’s only chair. “It’s not healthy.”

He frowned, refusing to come closer.

“Mr. Braddock, from what I can tell, there’s no household staff to make a fuss. Not that it should matter, seeing as I’m simply playing the part of nurse. So come. I’ve already healed Miss Lodge today, and I don’t intend to leave until I do the same for you.”

He took an eager step forward and almost fell. “With your power?”

I nodded. “Her symptoms disappeared within ten minutes, and she looked perfectly healthy when I left.”

Mr. Braddock’s expression changed from one of surprise to surprising warmth. “Thank you, Miss Wyndham,” he said. “I believe I owe you two sisters in return now. Though I . . . I’m sorry I have been unable to deliver the first.”

“The sooner we sort out your injuries, the sooner you can,” I said, gesturing to the bed.

He gingerly took his seat, ramrod straight on the edge of the bed, as if he didn’t quite trust it with his weight. That would not do.

“Lie down,” I told him. “You really don’t know how to rest, do you?”

His face was drawn and his lips thinned. Accepting help was obviously not something this man often did. But finally, he begrudgingly lay down.

I dragged the chair closer, wood squeaking against wood. As he squirmed slightly and adjusted, I severely misjudged where to set my gaze and found myself staring again at his uncovered skin. A very annoying blush warmed my cheeks. I had seen a torso here and there while helping Rose, but this was different. There was no emergency, and no Rose, to distract me. I could safely say that this was the oddest situation I had ever been in: trying to use a magical power to heal a strange, half-naked man in his bedroom.

“Your hand, please,” I said, pretending to have some logic to what I was doing. As I grasped his hand, my blood warmed, but I held on tightly. His hand trembled in mine. Maybe it would work better directly touching a wound. The cut on his forehead or on his back? Forehead. Definitely the forehead first.

My left hand swept back his silk-soft hair and settled on the pale forehead, fingers brushing gently over the small contusions. The air grew heavy and thick around us while we waited, as if all the world’s miraculous potential were building up right here in the room. Neither of us took a breath, afraid to suck it away.

“Is it healing? Does it still hurt?” I asked after a long minute.

He poked his forehead patch and grimaced. “I’m not certain. There is that same . . . sensation from your touch.”

I took his hand, placing it between both of mine. “I never felt it when I healed Miss Lodge, though. Only you. I can’t help but wonder if it’s connected to why I couldn’t heal you last night.”

“I suspect it has something to do with my specific ability. I must confess, I haven’t been honest with you about it.”

“How so?”

With the slightest wince, he repositioned the pillow propped behind him. “When—when I was sixteen . . . my father and—” He inhaled sharply, and a cold mask seemed to descend over his face. His words came out clipped, sharp, and detached.

“Three years ago, within a few months of each other, my father and mother both suffered from what the doctors said was consumption and passed away. At first, I thought it a horrible coincidence, but the doctors worried it was contagious or an incurable sickness passing through my family. They advised me to leave the country for some time to protect my health and to get out of that unbearable house.

“So my friend Henry Lodge, Miss Lodge’s brother, accompanied me on a trip around the Continent, happy to follow wherever my fancy or grief dictated. But before we could even settle in our first lodgings in France, Henry fell sick—from the same illness. We called for different doctors, but nothing ever seemed to work, and he grew worse and worse—much faster, too. The night he passed . . . I—I was with him. He asked me to promise him a number of things. He—he died before I could finish.

“It was during those moments I saw his eyes, and I—he made me see the truth about myself. It was me. There was a spark, a realization: We both knew I was responsible for his illness.” Mr. Braddock let out an exasperated, humorless laugh.

“I developed an ability to . . . hurt others. My touch is like infecting someone with an illness . . . or . . . draining the life out of them. And this power, I cannot control it. When it first emerged, I was too foolish and blind to realize it, until I killed my parents and my closest friend.”