An Independent Woman
Page 26
The bitterness and hate in Lilith’s eyes were chilling.
“But why did you kill Crandall?” Juliana asked. “You loved him.”
“He was just like his father!” Lilith spat out. “I refused to believe it. All those years, all the things he did…1 made excuses for him. I said it was difficult to live up to the image of his father. I said he was wronged by having that upstart inherit the land that should have been his. I blamed his silly little fluff of a wife for not being woman enough to hold on to her husband. Even when he lied and cheated, even when he stole my jewelry to pay his gambling debts—I loved him too much to admit it. And then…” Her mouth worked as she remembered, her eyes filling with tears and her voice roughening. “I saw him with that maid, grabbing her and wrestling with her, and she was struggling with him, begging him to let her go. And I knew then—I could not escape it. He was just like his father—vile and lascivious…a filthy lecher. And I could not have it! I could not!”
Lilith’s grip on Juliana’s shoulders eased slightly, and Juliana seized the moment. Heaving upward with all her might, she brought her hands up, ramming them as hard as she could into Lilith’s stomach. She knocked Lilith to the side and rolled away from her across the bed.
But before she could reach the other side, Lilith was on her, clawing and grappling. Juliana wrestled with her, struggling to free herself, but Lilith’s strength was insane. The two of them rolled across the bed. Lilith swung with her fist and connected with Juliana’s cheek, sending tears of pain starting in her eyes. Juliana kicked and swung, then rolled away, but this time Lilith pounced on her from behind, sitting on her back and pressing her down into the mattress. With both hands, Lilith grabbed Juliana’s head and forced her facedown into the soft feather mattress. Juliana kicked and flailed backward, but her movements were ineffectual. The pillowy mattress surrounded her, the soft material forming to her face, choking off her air.
Faintly, in the distance, she heard a pounding and Nicholas calling her name. There was a tremendous thud against the door. It was locked, she thought dully, black spots forming before her eyes. She would never see him again, Juliana thought. She would never be able to tell him that she loved him….
The door slammed open, and an instant later the heavy weight was gone from her back. Juliana rolled over, gasping for air, as Nicholas and Lilith crashed to the floor on the other side of the bed.
Celia was by Juliana’s side immediately, helping her up from the bed, and the rest of the family and servants crowded in behind her. The butler and Sir Herbert rushed to Nicholas’s side to help him with Lilith, who was still struggling and screaming incoherently.
Nicholas handed the woman to the other two men and turned back to the bed.
“Juliana!” he cried and went to her side, taking her into his arms. “My love, thank God! Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Juliana breathed, clinging to him tightly. “I’m all right now.”
“WHAT WILL THEY DO with her?” Juliana asked.
It was the next day, and she was sitting up in her bed, fully recovered from her illness of the day before. Lilith had been accurate in her assessment of the effect of the irises upon her. After Lilith’s attack, Juliana had gradually recovered, sleeping away most of the afternoon held securely in her husband’s arms. Indeed, Nicholas had not left her until an hour ago, when he had gone down to talk with the magistrate about what was to be done with Lilith. Even then, he had sent Winifred in to watch over her until he returned.
“She’s apparently gone quite mad,” Nicholas said, perching on the edge of the bed beside her. “She confessed to killing Crandall, as well as Trenton and your mother years ago. Then, when they took her to the gaol and approached her cell, she fell into a gibbering state, screaming and kicking and making no sense whatsoever. According to the judge, she has been sitting in her cell ever since, staring fixedly at the wall and not moving. He doesn’t know what to do with her, and he came to ask me my opinion.”
“What did you tell him?”
Nicholas’s face hardened. “For what she did to you, I’d say kill the witch.”
“She’s insane,” Juliana said softly. “And what a hell she must be living in now. She killed the only people she ever loved.”
“She deserves no less,” Nicholas replied harshly. “But I cannot escape the fact that the trial would be an ordeal for you. It would be a terrible scandal.”
“And poor Seraphina! ’Tis bad enough that her brother was just murdered a few days ago, however awful he was. And now to find that her mother murdered him and her father! We cannot do that to Seraphina. Silly as she is, she is not a wicked person. And Winifred would suffer. She told me when she was in here earlier about Sam Morely and how much they love each other. She said that they plan to marry as soon as a decent period of mourning is past. She seemed so happy. But if there was a trial, and everything about Crandall and his mother and father was exposed to the world, it would ruin her happiness and cast a stain upon the family name. And she might feel she could not marry Mr. Morely with that sort of scandal attached to her. It seems horridly unfair that Lilith’s wickedness should cause Winifred any more grief. Must they try Lilith and sentence her to hang? Is there nothing else they can do with her?”
“I knew that would be your feeling on the subject,” Nicholas replied, faintly smiling. “The magistrate wants to have her locked up in an insane asylum. It’s a terrible fate, but at least it would be better than hanging.”
“I could almost feel sorry for her,” Juliana said.
“I could, as well—if she had not tried to kill you. That I cannot forgive her.” Nicholas reached out and pulled Juliana to him, holding her close. “I hope to God I never have to live through another few hours such as I did yesterday. All the time I was riding, I grew more and more certain that Aunt Lilith had indeed killed Crandall, and I thought about you lying here, weak and vulnerable. I began to wonder about your illness, and I remembered that she poured the tea yesterday at breakfast.”
Nicholas kissed the top of her head and murmured, “I’ve never been so frightened in my life. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you.”
Juliana wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her. “I love you,” she murmured. Then she sat up and pulled back to look at him. “I know you do not want a marriage of love. But yesterday, when I thought that I was going to die, I regretted so not having told you. I love you. I’m not asking you to love me in return. But I cannot go on pretending that what I feel for you is not love. I have loved you for as long as I can remember.”
Nicholas slowly smiled. “And I have loved you just as long. I know what I said. I was an idiot. I thought that I had never loved. But it is because my heart was always filled with you. I could not love any other woman. Somehow I always knew that I would come back to you. I did not call it love. But that is because it was so much more than what people speak of when they talk of love. You were my life, my home. My center.”
He wrapped his arms around her, covering her face with kisses. “I love you, Juliana.”
She melted against him, tears welling in her eyes. This, she thought, was what she had spent her lifetime waiting for. “And I love you.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0212-5
AN INDEPENDENT WOMAN
Copyright © 2006 by Candace Camp
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