Free The Dark Affair by Máire Claremont Page A

tears, but her face remained hard. “You say that with the folly of a child.”
    “With innocence and purity, you mean.” He longed to grab her, to make her see. But he didn’t. If Margaret had made up her mind . . . He choked back a cry.
    “Purity?” A dry, broken laugh came from her. “You’ve done murder, Matthew.”
    “And you still wish to help me. What does that make you?”
    “Your sister.”
    He swallowed, terrified of the words he had to say. “If you marry him, you’re dead to me.”
    “You say that now, Matthew. But when you’re lost, alone in a dark corner, and your lads have abandoned you, you will need this tyrant.”
    “Not now,” he said softly.
    “Do you know how many people I can help with the Carlyle fortune? I can stop the death! The starvation! The ignorance.”
    “Aw. Now who is the innocent one, sister mine?”
    “I’m doing the right thing.”
    He shook his head. “You’re doing the easy thing.”
    “Easy?” she echoed, her voice hollow. “To marry a man I don’t love.”
    “For money,” Matthew added. “And do you know what that makes you?”
    “It makes me your savior.”
    His heart sank, his chest so heavy he could barely speak, but he had to. “You feel righteous, don’t you, Margaret? Sacrificing yourself to an Englishman? You’ve been striving for that righteousness ever since Da died. But you remember what happened to him? He played by their rules. He placated them. He begged them. Why will you be different than he?”
    She blanched.
    “They will crush you under their English privilege. That is what they do.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    His shoulders slumped. “Right then. Marry him. Save us all. Your martyrdom will go down in the annals of Ireland’s fight, no doubt.”
    A resigned pain darkened her eyes. “You’ve become a cruel man.”
    “I have been forged in the coals of our country’s suffering.”
    “It must be wonderful,” she said softly, “to be so certain.”
    “It is wonderful,” he replied easily. “And I wish to God you’d join me, Mag Pie.”
    “No. I’ll not be party to leading boys to their death.”
    “Thousands of boys have already died. Died in the fields. Died with no hope. No respect. At least now they’ll be dying for something.”
    “I won’t argue any longer.” She smoothed her hands over her skirts and took a step toward her door. She looked back over her shoulder. “I’m doing this for you. For Ireland.”
    “No.” Matthew lowered himself to the small bed. “You’re doing this for yourself, so you can imagine you’ve clean hands, even as the English torture our land.”
    “When you need me, Matthew, I’ll be there. With my English money and my English power. And we’ll see who has chosen the best path.”
    And with that she slipped out the door, away from him, away from all he’d ever hoped for.

Chapter 7
    J ames fingered the miniature of Sophia in his palm, clenching his white-gloved fist around it. He’d promised himself he would never remarry. But now, standing under the portico of one of Christopher Wrens’s ivory-spired churches, he knew he would have done anything to escape from that asylum, which leached the soul from men.
    In the end, it was a small price to pay.
    He’d seen asylums before. He’d helped rescue his friend’s wife from one. His own experiences had likely been heaven compared with the prisoners in the place Mary had been, but still. He’d felt himself slowly slipping away, with no control over his own daily activities. Daily activities? He fingered the gold-rimmed portrait. He’d not been allowed to wash himself, and the doctors had studied the color of his piss and excrement.
    Only the Irishwoman had seen that he truly didn’t belong there.
    Even so. This was no mission of charity she was performing. She was hiding something from him, some very personal reason for this union, and he would discover it. Eventually. Margaret Cassidy was a fool if she thought she could control