Free The Viscount Returns by Eryn Black

the girl he married, nor the independent woman who wore pants and worked alongside men.
    “Fiona?” Scared to touch her fragile body, he tentatively leaned closer. “Can you hear me?” Her eyelids hung low and what he saw there was vacant. Her mouth was pouty and she took in deep breaths. “What has happened to you?”
    Brushing away the sweaty threads of hair that hung in front of her face, he could tell that if she did hear anything he said not much would be taken in. That was when he saw the villain. Sitting innocently on the side table was an empty teacup chipped and battered from use and beside it a bottle of Laudanum.
    “Jesus! What have you done?” Holding her face in his hands, he pulled her limp body up to his, trying to find some sign of coherent, but she was lost in an opium dream. “Fiona! Fiona! I know you don’t want to, but I need you to open your eyes and look at me.”
    Her only response was a sleepy groan.
    “Fiona?”
    “She is fine.” Ruth’s voice came from the doorway.
    The older woman leaned against the doorframe, cradling a jug of water in her arms. She stood with an all knowing confidence that set him on edge. His world had found a smooth course, and he knew from the look in her eyes that he was about to be teetered again.
    “It would be best if you left her to rest and took yourself off to bed.” She crossed the room, pouring the fresh water into a nearby basin and began to ring out a fresh towel.
    “Fine?” He took a step from the bed but turned again to look at the gray form that he had once taken to his marriage bed. “So you are not taken back by what I have found?”
    Folding the damp towel, Ruth crossed to the bed and began to wipe Fiona’s brow.
    “She knows the proper dose and never falters on it.” Her confidence stopped with her voice, from shame Ruth could not raise her eyes to meet his.
    Turning from the old woman, Robert dragged his eyes over Fiona’s limp body.
    “I’ve known others who claimed to know the proper does, but that was never the case.” His stomach twisted in disgust for what he saw. “I will not allow the mother of my son to live as an addict.”
    In a smash the bottle shattered in the fireplace and the dying embers sparked to life. Robert pulled himself away from the sickening sight of his wife and reached for his adjoining chamber door.
    “See that any other bottles suffer the same.”
    “But there are none.” Ruth did not hesitate to jump forward.
    Turning slowly back, Robert’s fingers stretched and gripped the doorknob, fighting for composure.
    “And how can you be so sure?”
    “There is nothing left to pay for another, and the lady will not…” She turned from him and drew herself to Fiona’s bedside.
    “Will not what?” Robert pressed. “Selfishly confine herself to her room while my son is burdened with the reality of…of…of all this?” He waved his free hand in Fiona’s direction. His fingers whipped in the air like he was trying to wave away the image. “If so you are correct.” And he slammed the door behind him, shutting her and his guilt away.
    An aching groan haunted Robert’s chamber that night. There was no escaping the demons of his home. Too much was left unanswered and unattended, but too much was also cast aside for good reason. To bear a future with an addict would be intolerable for Lord Edden of Carlton, but as the mother of his forgotten son annulment was not an option.
    Robert tossed and turned as the hours passed into the next day. She had haunted and tormented his nights when he was away and now with only a door separating them she still hovered over him, strangling any peace from his body. There was only one honorable answer for him.
    Tonight she would sleep in her opium dreams, but tomorrow she would face the beginning of her nightmares and when that happened he would be there.
    The dawn came with no peaceful chirping of a lark, nor with the soft beams of light. For Robert the morning came with the