Lightning Unbound: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1

  What the heart wants, it finds a way to take.

  Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 1

  When Gerard Sterling, Earl of Ellesmere, races to Bethlehem Hospital—also known as Bedlam—to rescue a wrongly committed friend, he’s astonished to hear a voice in his head that doesn’t belong to his sister, with whom he shares a mind link.

  Fascinated and enchanted by Lady Faith Bradley, inspired by her dedication saving her brother from the horrors of the Incurables ward, he includes them both in his rescue mission. But woo her he cannot—not with a fatal disease that saps more of his strength every day.

  Faith would slay dragons to keep her brother safe from her father’s scheme to set his simpleminded heir aside. But it’s Gerard, who feels the hot breath of death down his neck, who wins her heart.

  Then it is revealed that Gerard is none other than the reincarnation of Zeus, and they face a far more dangerous enemy—Kronos, whose plan to regain power includes Gerard’s death. To foil his plan, Gerard and Faith must hold firm to the power of love…and defy Fate itself.

  Warning: Be careful—beautiful clothes, perfect manners and heat between the sheets are bound to keep you awake at night!

  Lightning Unbound

  Lynne Connolly

  Dedication

  To Amy. I couldn’t have done this without your help.

  Prologue

  1724, England

  Thunder rolled dully over the plain. Jupiter glanced up, mildly surprised because he hadn’t commanded thunder tonight. He shrugged. What else could he expect of such a godforsaken country as England?

  The great stones on one side of the road called to him, speaking of mysteries not his, a time not his. He ignored them. He would head back to Italy and the sun as soon as this meeting finished. What maggot had got into Bacchus’s head, to call a meeting here? And why did the man decide to become an Englishman? They didn’t even make their own wine, and since that was the one thing that kept Bacchus sane, his decision didn’t seem rational. Jupiter sighed, then with renewed purpose kicked his horse into a canter. You could never tell with Bacchus. Unpredictable to the last.

  The house at the end of the road glowed with golden candlelight, every window gleaming in welcome. Hoping for a warm fire, Jupiter left his mount in the care of a groom, tossing him a coin in thanks. He strode up the shallow stone staircase to the open door.

  Better, much better. A fire blazed in the hearth, and Jupiter walked toward it, not checking his pace, a smile of satisfaction curling his mouth. The doors clanged shut behind him. He must be the last to arrive.

  People cleared a path for him, but he hardly noticed, because he was accustomed to the deference. One of the oldest of the gods left alive, he was the original Roman incarnation of Jupiter. He’d seen much, lived through times strange to him, suffered the falling away of his support, but he continued. He felt good.

  Jupiter turned as a tray bearing a steaming mug of something fragrant appeared at his elbow. Bacchus bore the tray. Jupiter smiled in greeting and accepted the offering. “It’s good to see you again. It must be ten years.”

  Bacchus looked the same, but then, Jupiter expected him to. The gods never aged, unless they wanted to. The man wore his dark hair longer, tied back from his face in the current mode in a glossy queue, and was dressed a coat of deep red satin, embroidered elaborately in green and gold with a cream waistcoat underneath and breeches the same colour as his coat.

  Bacchus grinned. “Ten years and more, sir.” Currently known as the Marquess of Stretton, Bacchus was one of the leaders of London society, which meant he was of the particularly debauched and half-crazed variety. It suited him well.

  This Bacchus was a lithe, clever man who managed his special gifts with skill and humour. A necessary and unfortunate result of being the god of wine and madness was to occasionally suffer madness oneself, but at least it was subject to his own will. Bacchus was far from mad today. Intelligence lit his light-grey eyes and the amusement that was part of this man. Every vessel the god took added something of its own to the essential character of the god. Jupiter liked this one.

  People thronged around Jupiter, eager to greet the only one of the original Roman pantheon left alive. Although immune to disease and aging, other factors could and did kill them, but they always reincarnated, their essence migrating to the nearest unborn child.

  The remaining gods searched for the babies, discovered and carefully reared them, showed them their attributes and taught them to conceal them. Men no longer wanted gods, and the Olympians had endured by realizing this and living among them unrecognized. Times had changed. Some would never accept that, but they weren’t here tonight, and wouldn’t be welcome.

  It had been a good life so far. Jupiter hoped it would continue in the same way for many years to come.

  He’d enjoy this reunion. So many of his kind had survived, despite opposition by The Ancients and fanatical humans. Time to savour their existence and celebrate it.

  A short distance away, in the modern house, the man who held the attributes of Kronos stared out the window of the Gold Salon at the fast darkening sky overhead. The festivities in the old castle must have begun by now. The building had been long derelict, but the central hall and the cellars underneath remained intact.

  A perfect place for the private gathering of old friends. And a perfect place for murder.

  Kronos had discovered the real identity of Jupiter quite by accident. Ironic that the very people he’d spent years hunting had eventually found him. The Italian nobleman had not recognized him as their old enemy Kronos and after his first wariness, Kronos had known himself safe from discovery. Jupiter had shown all his old arrogance and superiority. This time it would be his downfall. Everything was in place and tonight would see the culmination of Kronos’s carefully laid plans. Nothing could go wrong now. He wouldn’t allow it to.

  When he heard a female groan from the room above, Kronos grinned broadly. He glanced across the room at his friend Manningtree, who sat uncomfortably in one of the fashionable salon chairs. “Not long now.”

  “It had better not be,” Manningtree replied grimly, shifting in his seat. “One of mine has podded already.”

  Kronos shrugged. Another cry came from above. “If they can hold on for half an hour longer, the thing will be done and we’ll have at least half of them.”

  Cosgrove strode the room, like any eager, expectant father, except he’d personally impregnated three of the women in the bedrooms above. “God, you’re a cool one! Anyone would think your own wife wasn’t involved.”

  “She is there to serve the same purpose as the others,” Kronos stared at the plasterwork ceiling above him as though he could see right through it. “If she doesn’t succeed, I’ll kill her. She knows that.”

  “Are you sure this will work?” Sulgrave asked, voice strained with anxiety.

  Kronos turned on him, a sneer curling his thin mouth. “Yes, of course. I’ve been planning this event for years. While you enjoyed your endeavours of nine months ago, there was far more to this than putting a few women in the family way. There’s no mistake. We will have them, gentlemen. For the glory of England.”

  His fellow Titans had been only too willing to help him. “After all,” Manningtree had said, “if we’re wrong, we just have a few more brats to cope with.”

  Not long now. With the gods safely locked in their prison, and the pregnant women upstairs as receptacles for the new gods, at last Kronos would regain control. He should never have lost it in the first place.

  A practically clad middle-aged woman burst into the room and without preamble addressed Kronos. �
��Another one, sir.”

  Ire rose in his breast. “Damn! Can’t you stop these women? Hold the babies in somehow?”

  The woman gave Kronos a narrow-eyed glare. “Your wife is in the third stage of labour, sir. With any luck your child will be born within the hour.”

  He turned away. “Good.” He hoped it would be. More power under his roof, more control even if sons were the very devil. In a previous incarnation, his son had taken everything from him. He’d never trusted them, but this time he’d control the child from the start. Make him his, instead of hiding him away and trying to destroy him. Keep him crippled, if not in body, then in mind. The game was not only to contain then control, but to keep the Olympian in a useless body. That way the god couldn’t be reborn in a strong body Kronos had no way of ruling. One less Olympian to worry about.

  When he turned his back, he heard the woman leave in a soft shush of skirts.

  Kronos wondered how Jupiter would feel just before he died, when he realized he’d betrayed his fellow gods.

  Not long now. The gunpowder he’d seeded under the castle would be primed by the grooms. They’d die with the explosion, since the slow matches he’d installed weren’t as efficient as he’d led them to believe.

  His watch still in his hand, Kronos consulted it once more, but as he did, a new light flashed across the sky, followed by a dull booming sound.

  Just like thunder and lightning. Very appropriate. Everyone in the room rushed to the windows to see a great sheet of golden flame arch up to the heavens, a cry for help, a cry of despair that no one would ever answer.

  He had done it.

  Upstairs, a newborn baby cried.

  Chapter One

  1754

  Hell stank. Gerard held his handkerchief over his nose, but it did nothing to suppress the pervasive aroma of urine, shit and vomit. This was hell on earth. This was the Incurables ward of the Bethlem Hospital.

  Gerard gave up and stuffed the cloth in his pocket. At least his eyes had stopped watering. He concentrated, searching for his quarry, surveying the large room before him. Black and green slime streaked the walls, and the only windows were high and unglazed. Buckets lay dotted about on the filthy stone floor, for the use of inmates who cared for personal hygiene. Not many did, hence the smell. People who could afford it had their lunatics locked away in private institutions. Only the uncared for and the destitute ended here.

  Ah yes, there he was. Dressed in what had been an exquisite evening coat, now turned into a filthy rag, Lord Stretton lay slumped in the far corner of the large room. The bright colour of his coat stood out from the drab clothes of the people around him like a red flag in a mud patch. Chains fastened to a large ring on the wall shackled his wrists, hauling them uncomfortably high. He lay passively, unlike most other occupants of the room, who groaned, wailed and writhed in the throes of madness. The cacophony hurt Gerard’s ears and he knew the sound would return in his dreams, if he slept at all.

  He’d heard Stretton calling to him last night, seen this room as though he lay where his new friend was now. Before that, he’d thought the mental communication he and his sister Deborah shared was unique to them. Now he knew it was not and he wanted answers.

  His quarry would be in the far corner. Gerard grimaced in distaste and turned to make sure the turnkey was still with him. The man jingled his keys and displayed a gap-toothed smile. “I’ll foller yer, m’lord.”

  Gerard ensured he planted one foot securely on the floor before he took another step. The floor sucked at him when he lifted his foot, as if it wanted to hold him there. He shook off the anonymous hands clutching at him and ignored the pleas of the inmates, his mood plummeting even further.

  When they reached the other end of the room, Stretton blinked and stared at him, his eyes bleary. Gerard let out a sigh of relief. He was cogent, then. The man on the floor smiled. In any other place it might have shown devastating swagger, but here it seemed pathetic and out of place. “Ellesmere.” The voice shimmered, an echo of sanity in this inferno of madness.

  “Stretton.”

  The jingle of keys alerted Gerard to the turnkey. “This is the man. Release him.”

  The turnkey scratched his unshaven chin. “Are you sure, my lord? When he was brought in ’ere ’e was ravin’. ’E’s not safe, if you arsk me.”

  “Nobody’s asking you. Release him.”

  When the man didn’t immediately obey, Gerard fixed him with a cold stare. “You heard me?”

  The man grunted and edged forward, reaching for the padlocks.

  A sound distracted Gerard, a small, feminine cry of distress, and he glanced down, to the other side. A young woman gazed at him, her face one of the sweetest he’d ever seen. She crouched low, but unlike most of the inmates she was respectably and neatly dressed, the stains on her brown gown fresh.

  His heart sank at the sight of such a tragedy. Why had this happened to her? If he hadn’t known better he would have said the light of intelligence shone in her eyes.

  She got to her feet. No chains clanked when she stood.

  She was not an inmate, but a visitor. Gerard let out a long sigh of relief, a gentle warm suffusing his body. He tensed again. He didn’t want to feel this, not here, not anywhere. Desire had no part in his life. It couldn’t. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t go there. Mustn’t.

  He gazed at her, transfixed. She seemed as out of place here as a rose, her plain, neat clothes a frame for a body that curved beautifully, the promise of soft swells nestling under the plain but clean fichu.

  A needle-sharp thought pierced his mind, in a clear, feminine tone that effortlessly stabbed through all his protective layers to his heart. Help us!

  Gerard closed his eyes, trying to absorb the shock. He’d only ever heard one female voice like this before, internally, deep at his heart.

  He opened his eyes to see her gazing at him, small creases of puzzlement between her brows. Did she know she had spoken to him that way? Gerard remained silent and didn’t communicate in return. He had to know more.

  “Good morning, sir.” He heard her low and melodious voice easily over the wails and moans of the madmen. He started back when she took a step closer, unsure if she were real or something his fevered mind had conjured.

  Her motion revealed the figure she was shielding. A young man, filthy and curled into a small, miserable hunch. Gerard looked away, unable to tolerate this epitome of human misery. He concentrated on the woman instead.

  She was slight, but with a well-formed figure. When she stood, he got a whiff of her perfume. Soap and cleanliness, welcome in this stink. Did she know how much of herself she was revealing to him, just with those expressive eyes? Even with his mental barriers in place, he knew what she was thinking. He stared into despair.

  She indicated the turnkey with a disdainful wave of one hand. “Have you any influence with—him?”

  “Some.” He didn’t want her to inveigle him into anything he might regret. The boy she sheltered might be a raving lunatic, safer in this hellhole than in the civilized world outside.

  “Help her,” came Stretton’s voice, tinged with amusement that raised Gerard’s ire. How could he find anything amusing here? “The boy’s simple, not mad. He should never have been put in here. He’s a danger to no one.”

  The woman glanced down at Stretton. “Thank you, my lord. You’re perfectly right.” She turned back to Gerard. “I would offer to reimburse you, but I have very little money.”

  Gerard let his gaze sweep and down her body once. She flushed. “You’re dressed very well for a beggar.”

  She swallowed and looked away. “It isn’t my habit to beg, but I will do it if you wish.”

  Gerard answered brusquely. “There’s no need for that. Who are you?”

  “My name is Faith Bradley. I’m the widow of Sir William Bradley and the daughter of Viscount Pendford. This is my older brother, George.” Her voice, clear, beautifully modulated, spoke to the inner man, the one Gerard rarely let lo
ose on the world and his body stirred at her call. Inappropriate, totally wrong, and she shouldn’t have this power over him.

  He gave a small bow. “Gerard, Lord Ellesmere, at your service, ma’am.”

  Taking his attention away from her, he glanced at the youth once more. The boy was so slender—how could he be her older brother?

  “He’s seven and twenty, my lord. Strong, but small for his age.”

  The boy—young man—spoke for the first time. “Faith?” He lifted his face to his sister, then turned his attention to Gerard.

  Gerard suffered a shock. George had old eyes, as though they had seen more than they should. This person had suffered. Despite the slack mouth, Gerard saw reason in his face. He was not mad. The man’s attention returned to his sister, his lodestone.

  She put her hand on his sleeve without flinching at the filth crusting it. “It’s all right, my dear. I won’t leave without you.” Her voice was soft, immediately calming the desperately anxious youth. Around them the wails and moans seemed to fade. Gerard heard only her.

  A rattle of keys recalled him to the time and place. With an effort, he wrenched his attention away to the man who had finally succeeded in freeing Stretton from the heavy chains. “I’ll take this one too.” He gazed at the man. You will release him into my care.

  “This ain’t a shop,” the man grumbled. “You can’t let madmen loose willy-nilly.”

  “He is a friend of mine. He shouldn’t be here. Let him go.” Reinforcing his mental suggestion, Gerard put his hand in his pocket and drew out another handful of guineas. “Twenty.” He’d come well prepared with gold to ease his way in and out of this dreadful place.

  The man grumbled. “Twenty-five,” Gerard suggested. More than the man would earn in a year.

  After a prolonged grumble in which curse words played a large part, the turnkey rattled his large bunch of keys. He made great play of sorting out the right one before bending to the wall and unfastening the chain. He faced Gerard, glaring at him. “Any more?” London humour prevailed, even in this place.