~Chapter 14~
Sarah moved through the square with her eyes downcast; she didn’t want anyone to ask why her face was a mixture of anger and sadness, didn’t want to stop for even a second as she hastened toward the castle. Her eyes stared, unseeing, at the street beneath her as her frozen, slipper-clad feet slipped quickly over the stones.
There was no hurry, really—she knew Edith wouldn’t need her back from her errand for a while longer—but she moved hastily through the crowds, anyway, trying to escape the sting of fresh betrayal. Maybe if she could just put enough distance between her and the shop and Will’s silence that had spoken volumes, then this whole thing would disappear, and she wouldn’t have to question his loyalty.
She bumped into several people while she wasn’t looking, and she barely heard their gasps or shouted curses and reprimands. The fact that she was being constantly jostled by passerby and bumping into people herself was nearly lost on her. Actually, it was almost comforting for her to feel as though, for a moment, she could get lost in the sea of people coming and going, living their lives like always.
A cold blast of air broke through a gap in the throng and hit her full in the face. Sarah sucked in a breath at the startlingly cold, wet air, grateful for the way it cleared the numbness spreading over her mind.
Her sister Lilly said that for someone with so much wild imagination, she could be far too logical sometimes. But Sarah was good with logic; it was real and comforting and logical. It made sense of things that seemed scary, turning the monsters into mice and disproving the impossible. When she thought logically, things became manageable, something she could deal with. And right now it reminded her that whatever had happened between Will and . . . Jade—Sarah nearly choked on the name—occurred when she wasn’t around. She hadn’t even been in the same century!
On top of that, it wasn’t like she had the right to feel that Will had been disloyal, because they had never been a couple, never defined what they were. Sarah cringed when she realized how true that was. Sure, he had held her hand and shot her that little boy smile and stared into her heart with those soulful eyes. But there were no promises made, no verbalization of anyone’s feelings, no kisses shared. Even as she willed herself to be realistic about it, Sarah couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment, though she knew there was no one to blame but herself for placing Will on such a high pedestal: It only made it a longer drop to the ground.
Her eyes burned guiltily, and she clenched her fists, sniffing back her tears. She had no right to cry.
A moment before, she had been grateful for the large number of people surrounding her, enveloping and hiding her. But now the growing throng seemed to press closer as the height of the midday haggling drew near, suffocating her. The air around her suddenly seemed stifling with the mass of bodies, and each breath was harder to take than the last. She had to get out of here.
Wringing her hands together to warm them, Sarah looked around her, searching frantically for an escape before she realized that castle gate was so close. Rudely forcing her way past a woman, she kept her eyes on the spires as she moved, doing her best to push aside her nagging thoughts in her desperation for air. When she was able to move without running into anyone, she broke out into a jog, never having thought she would be so relieved to see the castle gate looming above her, or the servants’ entrance, which suddenly seemed very safe and welcoming.
Sarah didn’t pause at the door, but thrust it open, barely breaking stride. She grimaced at the noise her entrance made, but no one rushed out to the hall to see what the commotion was about. Being more careful this time, she slowly closed the door, hearing the satisfactory click of the latch.
She leaned her back against the door, still gripping the handle behind her, taking a moment to catch her breath. The heat coming from the kitchen fires brushed against her face, though the frigid temperature outside seeped through the door and worked its way through her layers of fabric, numbing her back. That was how she felt: warm on the outside but cold and numb where it counted.
She listened to the sounds around her, willing her mind to focus on them as her pulse slowed. The kitchen was abuzz with activity as the cooks prepared for the evening meal—a wooden plate clattered to the ground and skittered across the floor; a male voice loudly reprimanded the mishap and shouted out an order that Sarah didn’t quite catch; large knives repeatedly came down hard and fast on the makings of supper.
Sarah concentrated on the sounds coming from within and felt a little more composed after a few minutes. She knew she wouldn’t have the entryway to herself for much longer, and, not wanting to be caught idle, she took a deep breath and moved toward the back stairwell. Like in the street, she kept her eyes trained on her shoes as they shuffled forward, disappearing and reappearing beneath her torn hem. She frowned, knowing she would have to ask Edith to help her mend it later.
She sidestepped just in time to avoid colliding with the pail of water set in front of the bottom step and glanced up sharply. The same young maids she had seen just before she left the castle were on their hands and knees in the foyer, scrubbing the stones that had been beneath the rug they’d rolled and set aside. Sarah had thought she was alone, but they had obviously noticed her as they paused in their tasks and stared openly with their hands frozen, mid-scrub, on their brushes.
Sarah was acutely aware of the way their looks of practiced detachment turned into expressions of animosity when they saw her. Their eyes narrowed in unison, and Sarah was surprised at the cold gazes she received—one looked like she was hoping to set Sarah on fire with her stare. She glanced over her shoulder to see if she had left a trail behind her, but most of the snow on her shoes had come off on the rug in the entryway.
Unable to help the question in her eyes as she shot them one last look, she quickly ducked her head and jogged up the stairs, forgoing any ladylike grace as she took the steps two at a time. She was sure she could feel the maids’ eyes following her and reflexively tightened her grip on the basket as she raced up the staircase toward her room, the only place left where she could be truly alone and away from prying eyes. Right now the dingy, cramped quarters waiting at the end of the hall seemed like a haven to Sarah, and she couldn’t get there fast enough.
Ignoring the few servants working at the top of the stairs, Sarah turned and went in the direction of the servants’ quarters, focusing her eyes on the end of the hall. Her chest rose and fell quickly, her flight up the stairs having taxed her, though she knew that part of her erratic breathing was from trying to suppress the tumultuous emotions that raged just below the surface.
The walls became progressively dingy the further she went, and the absence of wall hangings and decorations was almost a welcome sight. Her breath quickened when she saw her door. Throwing it wide open, a gasp stuck in her throat.
The room was completely empty. What few possessions she’d had before were now gone, and the bed had been stripped down to the straw mattress. The nub of a candle had been removed from the table beside the bed, and even the extra threadbare blankets she had neatly folded at the end of the mattress were gone.
Sarah glanced down the hallway, wondering if perhaps she had broken into the wrong room, but she was sure this was—had been—her room only just this morning.
She dropped to her knees before the small trunk that had contained a spare servant’s dress and the clothes she had worn to the castle, plunking the basket down beside her. An apple rolled across the floor unnoticed as she ripped the lid open, her eyes frantically searching the empty chest for some sort of explanation—even her sneakers were gone! She felt suddenly deflated, realizing that someone had either stolen everything, or this was no longer her room, no longer a place of solace to scream into her pillow.
“There you are!” Sarah jerked her head around and caught Edith’s gaze as she stood in the doorway. The older woman looked greatly relieved to see her, then her expression turned apologetic as she took in Sarah’s confusion. “I was hop
ing to catch you before you came in so I might explain.”
Sarah’s shoulders sagged and she released the lid, which banged loudly against the body of the trunk, letting her hands fall limply into her lap. She gave Edith an imploring look. “So I’m fired. You’re kicking me out—just like that?”
Edith’s brows drew together. “Heavens, no!” She came into the room and pulled Sarah to her feet, snatching the basket and the forgotten fruit from the floor. Wrapping her fingers around Sarah’s arm, she guided her down the hallway. Her voice softened, the same way it did when someone was about to deliver bad news. “Dear, your room has been moved.”
“Huh?” Sarah asked, not comprehending.
Edith leaned in as she maneuvered them around a buxom maid dusting the stair railing. She eyed the servant warily and lowered her voice. “It was requested that we move you to more comfortable lodgings.”
A laugh of sweet relief bubbled its way past Sarah’s lips. “Is that all? I thought I had been canned.”
Edith looked startled at her reaction. “We would never just turn you out like that. You’re invaluable to me, Sarah, what with the chaos of preparing for the ball.” Her expression turned stern. “They would be hard-pressed to take such an important staff member from me, especially one who actually has an ear for instruction.” Edith patted her arm reassuringly. “No, put such thoughts from your mind. You’re safe with me.”
For the first time since arriving back at the castle, Sarah felt herself smiling. She would have to be careful to follow orders now to keep on her mentor’s good graces.
They passed another stone staircase, this one blanketed with a deep maroon carpet that cascaded over the steps. Sarah was baffled when she realized that she was being guided toward the west wing of the castle. On her first day, Edith had told her that a portion of this wing was reserved for important guests and ambassadors when they came to stay or conduct business, though Sarah hadn’t been allowed to see it until now. But she knew immediately upon noting the growing opulence around her that they were headed into the heart of the extravagant guest wing. She felt a thrill of excitement over getting to discover a new part of the castle, but she couldn’t ignore the niggling apprehension that stirred in her gut.
The passageway opened into a large room on the right that led to another flight of stairs spiraling downward. Edith kept to the wall on their left, and Sarah followed her like an obedient dog to the other side of the room where it split into three passageways. She trailed her guide down the long, wide passageway in the middle.
The transformation during their walk was noticeable, but now the difference was staggering. It was as though these corridors were dripping with opulence: Thick, ornately embroidered tapestries hung from the walls, some decorated with the royal crest, while others depicted nature scenes in rich tones. Sarah’s old room had connected to a hall that was dingy and cramped, with completely unadorned walls or cheery decorations of any sort. The passageway was too narrow to mount and safely burn torches, so the walls turned inky-black in the night, save for the occasional tiny circle of flickering light cast by a servant’s candle as they made their way to their room.
The walls of the passageway they now walked, which housed a ridiculous number of doors leading to who knew where, were covered with some extravagant ornament or another, and unlit torches were interspersed throughout the opulence, mounted and awaiting an aristocrat’s next whim for light as they made their temporary residence in these halls. Sarah had never felt so insignificant or intimidated.
“I thought you were going to show me my new room,” she whispered to her companion, trying not to draw the attention of any of the occupants that loomed just behind these closed doors.
Eyes focused at the end of the hall, Sarah eyed the rectangular table with the overly large flower display atop it as they drew nearer with every step, making Sarah feel like they were edging closer to a dead end.
She tried again, voice low, “If they’ve moved all my stuff, we should go back. Or do we have something to do before you show me which room is mine?” She knew she was rambling in her nervousness, and she shot Edith a questioning glance, noticing for the first time her pinched expression. She had bustled into the passage before, but now Edith’s footsteps were slower and closer together, hinting at reluctance that Sarah had not noticed before. The look on the older woman’s face only increased Sarah’s apprehension. There was something she wasn’t sharing.
“That is what I’m doing,” Edith explained calmly, though her voice sounded strained. She released Sarah’s arm as they stopped before the final hulking door at the end of the passage on the right. She pushed it open and took a step back. “This one is your room.” She suddenly looked more like a servant and less like the mentor and friend Sarah had come to know her as.
Shooting her a quizzical glance, Sarah got no further than the threshold before she froze in place.
She had never truly felt the gap between classes back home, but there was no denying the vast difference in this place. Her sad quarters in the servants’ wing couldn’t hold a candle to this room, bedecked in such startling elegance that it caused her to temporarily forget her earlier distress.
Draped over the large four-poster bed was a canopy of thick red velvet detailed with an embroidered pattern of gold leaves and stems, entwining to create an intricate pattern on the fabric. The material was wrapped around each of the four pillars and tied with golden chords, pooling on the ground at each corner of the bed.
Her eyes moved over the mahogany night table that had been placed beside the head of the mattress, the legs of which had been artfully carved with the same leaf pattern on the canopy. The burgundy bedcoverings had been pulled up underneath the pillows and tucked tightly on all sides, creating a crease-free surface that Sarah was sure she could bounce a quarter off of.
A large fur rug was positioned in the center of the enormous room, and Sarah gaped at it before her eyes wandered to the writing desk pressed against the side of the room nearest her. The paper screens had been pulled back, and the light coming through the windows on either side of the bed reflected off the silver inkwell positioned next to the wax seal on the desk.
It was not the gaudy opulence she had been expecting from her view of the guest wing, and Sarah realized she was taking everything in with wide-eyed shock. The room screamed of a breathtaking and simple beauty, and she was never more aware of the fact that she didn’t belong here.
She remembered to snap her mouth closed before she turned to look over her shoulder at Edith, though she couldn’t manage to blink her saucer-sized eyes. Edith gave her the faintest of smiles and motioned with her head for her to go into the room. Sarah walked in tentatively, feeling like she was intruding at the same time she felt drawn into the room by an invisible pull. This wasn’t hers; it couldn’t be.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” she asked, her voice smaller than she would have liked.
“Yes, miss,” came the response behind her. Sarah could tell from the sound of it that Edith hadn’t followed her inside.
Her eyes roved over the walls and the furnishings again as she wandered aimlessly. Lightly dragging her fingertips across the surface of the rich mahogany desk, she felt a disbelieving smile touch her lips. This was her room now.
Her eyes wandered to the small stack of lambskin papers that had been neatly placed in the center of the desk, waiting for her to touch the tip of her ink-dipped quill to their surface, filling them with secrets and promises before sealing each one.
Lips parted slightly in surprise, Sarah gingerly touched the single rose in full bloom that had been placed on top of the stack. She stared at the flower, and the contrast of the tan page it lay in the middle of caused the petals to look blood red.
~Chapter 15~
Sarah pulled her hand back from the rose, as if pricked by an invisible thorn. Something was gnawing at her insides as she remembered what Edith had told her earlier. She turned to find her standing in the
doorway, looking uncomfortable.
“You said that someone requested I be moved. Who was it?”
There was a brief hesitation before Edith answered quietly, “Lord Lisandro. He wished for you to be moved nearer his quarters for the duration of your service.”
Sarah’s left eye narrowed, and she shook her head from side to side. “But it isn’t an issue coming from my room to change his bandages.”
Something in her mentor’s expression caused a lump of apprehension to form in Sarah’s throat, choking her as the silence lengthened. “Edith,” she managed at last, her voice strained. “Where is his room? And why would he want me so close to him?”
She watched Edith’s eyes fill with sympathy and . . . worry? “He requested that you be as close as possible; his quarters are just across the hall from this room.”
“But that makes it look like—” Sarah’s words died on her lips when Edith didn’t dissuade her train of thought. The lump of dread turned into a rock of horror that lodged in her throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe. She prayed she was reading more into the situation than there was, though all doubt over Damien’s intentions was removed when she recalled the expressions on the faces of the servant girls downstairs. She had recognized the pure hatred but hadn’t remembered the underlying jealousy until now: They thought she didn’t deserve to be his mistress.
Just thinking the word made Sarah sick.
A look akin to that of a protective mother bear came across Edith’s features as she hurried into the room and gathered both of Sarah’s hands in her own. “Whatever his exact intentions for moving you over here, I will not let him harm you.” she said firmly. “No matter what, my lady.”
“Stop it, Edith. I’m nobody’s lady.”
“You are now.”
Chasing Shadows Page 13