I awakened gradually. Snow covered my face and clung to my lashes. How long had I lain there? Odd that I should feel warm encased in this frigid shroud. I looked about me. The snow was falling less steadily now. Occasionally the ethereal moon would dash its light over the snow, throwing shadows on the ground where moments before none had existed.
My head ached. I closed my eyes briefly before struggling to sit up.
At first I thought the movement to my right was nothing more than the wind whipping the snow into some odd formation. Perhaps the snow on my lashes played tricks on my mind. I rubbed my eyes, then looked again.
The apparition was gone.
What had I seen? My first impulse was to call out. But to what? Certainly there was nothing—no one— there now. The vision had been vague, like a wisp of gray smoke here one moment and gone the next.
I struggled to my feet and steadied myself against a tree until my world quit tipping to and fro. Then I continued on my journey, slogging my way unsteadily through the shin-high snow that had by now turned my feet into blocks of ice.
The kitchen was a welcome haven, dark and warm. The coals in the hearth glowed eerily beneath the drawn peat. I huddled before it, not yet ready to retire to my room and yearning for company—Matilda or Kate or even Polly would do.
Then, suddenly, I sensed that I was not alone; V2 slowly turned and stared into the darkest shadow. Yellow eyes stared back at me.
"Belzeebub," I whispered. "Here, kitty."
She stretched and yawned and padded over to me.
I took the cat in my arms, smiling to myself as its contented purring filled the room.
"Ariel?"
The sound of my name spoken so suddenly in the quiet startled me.
Adrienne entered the room. The powder-blue of her gown looked white in the semidarkness. "Have you been out?" she asked me.
I could hardly deny it. "Yes."
"I looked for you earlier ..."
"Is something wrong?"
She wrung her hands. "It's Nick. There—there's been—Oh! Oh, Ariel, it was just awful. Awful!"
I dropped the cat to the floor and hurried to her.
"What are we to do?" she asked me. "I have never seen him so—so desperate. He hardly knew me. His own sister—and he hardly knew me."
Taking her cold hands in mine, I told her, You must try to calm yourself and tell me what happened."
She shook her head and briefly closed her eyes. "We should have seen it coming. The incident with the lace yesterday should have warned us." Looking at me directly, she asked, "What madness has possessed him, Ariel? He paces the floor and argues with himself. He insists his deceased wife has come back to haunt him. Oh dear God, what are we going to do?"
"Where is he now?"
"With Kevin."
A weakness befell me. I dropped Adrienne's hand, turned for the door, and hurried down the corridor.
The candles along the bleak hallway were unlit. I groped my way along, bumping tables and knocking chairs. My eyes traversed each corner and cranny. Black—all black—I was suffocating in it.
I came to a foyer and stood like some wayward voyager uncertain which road to take. The darkness confused me. I chose the hallway to my right. The air was colder, the darkness more impenetrable. But I hurried on, so intent on my mission I was unaware that the opulent carpet beneath my feet had given way to stone until the echo of my footsteps rang out.
I stopped.
The abysmal darkness surrounded me. Dampness crept through my clothes and clung to my skin like the fear gripping my heart.
Panic seized me. Foolish girl, I scorned myself. There is nothing here but dust balls and perhaps a mouse or two. Close your eyes and when you open them again the black will seem less dense and frightening.
I tried it.
Pray, it did not work! The fathomless depth and measureless distance of the corridor promised nothing welcome. I backed away, slowly at first, making certain each step was solid until I once again felt the cushioned softness of carpet beneath my heel. I spun then and ran, frantically waving my hands out before me. I passed through the foyer: Yes, I reckoned, I should have turned left and not right.
I hurried up the stairs.
Where were the bloody servants?
Were I mistress of this bleak, dim dungeon I would line the walls with girandoles. The candles would never, ever be allowed to die!
Reaching the upper landing, I paused. Blessed relief! The hall was not dark. A warm glow suffused the port-colored carpet that lined the floor. A gilt-wood chair against the wall reflected candlelight from its gold-leafed arms and legs. I viewed these things like a child who had lost her way in the wood, and by some quirk of good luck had found her way home again. I hurried toward Kevin's room, my fear of the dark overridden again by my concern for my son . . . and his father.
I approached the door.
"Jane's come back," came the crone's voice. "Back to make you pay for what you did to her. Murderer. She's calling out from her grave this very moment, milord. Listen"
I stopped and held my breath, doing my best to cease the noisy thud of my own heart against my ribs. The walls creaked as wind roared through the eaves and drove snow and sleet against some distant window. A mournful sound, to be sure, but wind it was and nothing more.
Rallying my spirits, I entered Kevin's room.
Bea sat before the fire, her shoulders curled away from the back of her rocker, her fingers twisted like gnarled branches about the arms of her chair. Her thick-soled shoe thumped against the floor as she rocked.
The child slept soundly in his bed. Nicholas, his back to me, stood at Kevin's bedside, watching him sleep.
The thump of Bea's foot quieted as I called out, "Lord Malham?" Nicholas, however, did not move.
I refused to acknowledge her. Instead, I walked quietly up to my lord and touched his arm.
"Yes." The acknowledgement whispered, he tucked the blanket more gently about his son. "What is it?"
"Come with me from this room, sir, and I will tell you."
"Come with you?" He lifted his face to me, and his look was fell. He focused on my face a long moment as if he were attempting to recall my features. And then—what?—enlightenment? confusion? Perhaps it was alarm that widened his heavy-lidded eyes for an instant, then it was gone. Settling back against the bed, he smiled.
'Will you come with me?" I asked him. I took his hand in mine in the most brazen way. But I was not dealing with a rational person. I could see it in his eyes, his smile. He was not himself.
His fingers tightened over mine. Backing away, I said, "Come along, sir," and he obeyed me.
Chapter 9
Perhaps you would like to paint?" I asked him.
He towered above me, his downcast face gray in the half-light. Then his hand came up slowly and his fingertips drifted over my shoulder. "You’ve been out," he stated. I heard him swallow in the silence. He asked then, "Why?"
"To see a friend, sir."
His brows drew downward. "Friends. I recall having friends—yes, I can recall that much." He passed his hand over his eyes and looked away.
Squaring my shoulders, I walked to the studio door. He followed.
I moved to the center of the room while Nicholas stood at the threshold, his features hidden from me by shadow. I removed my cloak and dropped it to the floor. "Will you light the candles, sir?"
He moved like an automaton to the table and there fumbled with flint and candle for some minutes before accomplishing the feat. I watched as he lit each of the many tapers about the room until the quarters glowed cheerfully with golden-yellow light. Smiling, I hurried to a clean canvas, swept it up from the floor, and placed it on the easel. I lifted brushes and a pallet for his paints.
His eyes moved carefully over my face. What did he see? I wondered. Were those opaque, steel-gray pools acknowledging the same gauntness of my cheeks that Brabbs saw? Did he assess me in the way of an artist ... or a man?
My blo
od warmed as I fixed my gaze on his mouth. Even in the bleakest of moments, when my despair had threatened to break me those months at Menston, the memory of those lips had filled me with both anger and longing. Now I was forced to face reality. I had continued to love Nicholas Wyndham as surely, as desperately, as I had hated him for deserting me. No longer could I deny the truth to myself. "My lord," I forced myself to say, "will you paint now?"
I held my breath as he approached me. He wore the same black coat and white shirt that he'd worn earlier in the day. About his neck hung a loose cravat. As he reached for the brushes in my hand our fingers touched. We stared at each other for a long moment before I forced myself to brush past him and climb atop my perch.
Turning my back to the window, I faced him fully. His movements were hesitant at first; perhaps clumsy. But by the end of the first half hour he had fallen into the ritual with zest, losing himself completely in the colors he lavished on the canvas. Yet his eyes rarely strayed to my face. When they did, they were troubled. He would stare at me long and hard, then delve with renewed vigor into his work, his face: becoming rigid and flushed with emotion. Brushes; scattered over the floor at his feet and splashed vibrant: pigments on the tips of his boots. He took no notice.
I should have suspected the explosion that followed,, for his movements had hinted of frustration. But I was» too caught up in my memories and fantasies.
I was lurched back to reality as he grabbed the canvas from the easel and hurled it across the room, where it crashed against the wall.
"Damn!" he shouted.
I leapt from my stool, my fingers twisting into my skirts, quaking visibly from surprise as he paced restlessly about the room.
Raking his fingers through his hair, he paused before the window and gazed through the icy panes of glass. "My paintings rival Antoine Watteau in realism and yet my fingers grow dumb and my eye blind when I attempt your likeness/*
"Mine, sir?"
"Aye, yours, miss." He whirled to face me, his eyes like smoldering gray coals. Then he looked at his hands. "God help me, are they going the way of my mind?"
I tried to force a smile into my voice. "Your hands are steady, my lord." Then I hurried to the canvas, gently lifting it from the floor. Staring down on the featureless face, I studied the swirling black hair. Though shorter, it was much like mine, but the richness of color and the vibrancy of the shine far surpassed my own. "A face with no eyes? No mouth?" I laughed gaily. "Am I so nondescript, milord?"
His dark head snapped up. "Are you mocking me?" he demanded.
"Mock you, sir?" Tilting my head, I looked again at the canvas. "Whoever she is, she is very pretty. I think Fm envious."
He slowly crossed the room and stood at my side. It was all I could do not to lean into his frame, to soak up the heat of his body. For indeed his very presence sapped my strength, left me weak and breathless and yearning. In the absolute hush that claimed the room
I could hear plainly the deep draw of his breath as he watched me.
"Envious," he said in a quiet response. And then he touched me. Nicholas took my chin in the crook of his finger and gently tipped up my face. He studied it: my eyes that glistened with tears and all the unspoken words I longed to say; my mouth that parted—half in fear, half in expectation—and quivered with the memory of his kiss; my cheeks, blushing now in shame and—
"Foolish child," said he. "The paint on that pallet dulls in comparison to the beauty I behold at my fingertips."
"Beauty? No, sir, I am not beautiful. I am not even pretty."
A slight pressure of his fingertip drew me closer. His dark head tilted. "Are you not afraid of me?" he asked softly.
"No."
His eyes assessed me: my face, my shoulders, my hands—searching perhaps for some evidence of my lie. Dropping his hand, he turned away. "Who did you see in the village? A friend, you say?"
"Aye, a friend."
"A man?"
"Yes, a man."
"Ah." He stared out the window. "And what would you say if I forbid you from seeing him again?"
"I would say, sir, with all respect, that it is none of your business who I see." I replaced the portrait on the easel and picked his brushes off the floor. "Will you continue to paint?"
"Are you in love with him?"
I responded with silence. I did love Brabbs but not in that way.
"Are you about to marry some shepherd's son and leave me?" He waited; his shoulders rose and fell with a breath. "I should hate to see you go, I think."
With every nerve of my body unstrung in that moment—that eternity—I watched Wyndham's profile as he gazed at the glass. Oh, how I loved him in that instant. How I loved the sweet vulnerability I heard in his words, the unspoken hint of fondness. I had heard it before, a lifetime ago.
Was it too much to hope that somehow the spark of love for me that had once warmed his noble heart had been rekindled? The idea made me light-headed. Or could it be that deep in his mind, some buried memory of what we once shared was struggling to surface? I was determined to know.
"I suspect this a lonely place. Walthamstow, I mean.
"A prison, madam, and yes, it is lonely."
"You should go out more."
"And give the gossip mongers something more to prattle about? I don't think so." He smiled at me warmly.
"But you drink at the tavern with Jim. Do you find it a pleasant place?"
"Not often."
"Then why do you go there?"
He shifted one shoulder in a careless response, and I thought, this is getting us nowhere. I decided on a more direct approach. "Did you go there to escape your wife?"
He pursed his lips.
I asked myself in that instant, why not tell him who you are, admit your identity, your purpose for returning? The very thought, however, brought fear to my heart. I was a stranger to him, after all. Unfamiliar now with the feelings we once shared, he would suspect my motives. I could take no chances that he would banish me from my child.
Too, I was a dead woman to him. If it were true, if he was so unstable to believe his wife was haunting him, what would he think of me? Cultivating the love he had once felt would take time. During my term behind Royal Oaks's barricaded doors, I had seen many an infirm mind snapped completely by an impatient hand or tongue.
Oh, but I could not take that chance. I would not take that chance. I lost him once, and the breech had left me desperate and broken.
Putting aside the brushes, I bid him good night. He did not respond, just continued to stare out the window as I quit the room.
I spent the next two hours in my room. After hurriedly inspecting my belongings and finding no evidence of intrusion, I reassured myself that there was nothing there that could place me again at that wretched hospital in Menston. I carried the only evidence on my person: A brand, RO, had been burned into the flesh above my elbow.
Sitting in a French fauteuil with tapestry upholstery, I stared at the flickering tallow light on my dresser and listened to Wyndham pace about his quarters. As he prowled his room like a caged cat I began to share his sister's distress. He spoke on occasion, and it was then that I tipped my head and held my breath in anticipation of some reply. There was nothing, only the moan of the wind and the scrape of ice-bound branches against my window.
At midnight the wind stopped. The silence grew as heavy as the darkness outside my window.
Had I dozed? A singular noise brought my head up. Sliding from my chair, I watched the knob of my door turn slowly to the right. I looked toward the key on my dresser and held my breath.
The lock held,
"Who is there?" I called out. The words rang like an echo in a well. "Speak up," I said. "Milord, is that you?"
The knob, glittering in the dim, wavering light, slid back into place.
My ears ached with the strain as I waited. There! A movement in the hall. I swept up the key and ran for the door. One thrust and the lock grated. I threw open the door and ... nothing.
How could that be?
I returned to my room and took up the candle. Running into the dark corridor and cupping my hand around the frantically dancing flame, I hurried down the hall, beyond my lord's closed door to Kevin's room. Lifting the light over his sleeping form, I assuaged my panic with his peaceful presence. I tiptoed then to Beas door. She lay in her bed, still as a corpse on a catafalque.
Perhaps I was letting my imagination run away with me. Perhaps I had only dreamt that someone meddled with my door, as I had earlier imagined someone's presence by the pond. No doubt I was letting Polly's tales of ghosts get the better of me. Still, having returned to the hallway, I wavered in indecision. I thought to rap on Wyndham's door, indeed, had raised my hand to do so when it was thrown open.
I had witnessed madness. I had experienced terror. But the look I perceived on my lord's face as he came at me was beyond either, and it was frighteningly familiar.
The candle slipped from my fingers to the floor as I stumbled backward. My arms came up to ward off his hands—too late! His fingers closed about my throat, as cold and hard as steel.
By some miracle the candle at my feet continued to burn, sending a coil of black smoke into the air. Wyndham shoved me against the wall and hissed, "If I didn't kill you before, I will kill you now! God, how I loathe you. In the name of all Christendom, if I have to burn in hell myself I'll end this madness now, Jane!" Jane!
Though his fingers dug into my throat, I managed to cry out. "Nicholas, I'm not Jane! Not Jane! Jane is dead; she is dead!" I gasped for breath. "Please! It is I! Maggie! Maggie! God help me!" For a split second his eyes cleared. He shook his head.
His hands left me so suddenly I sank to my knees on the floor. When at last I turned my face up to his, I knew not what to expect. Coming down on one knee, he grabbed my shoulders and shook me. "She was here. I saw her out my window earlier. I heard her voice in this very hall. I smelled her perfume. I saw her, I tell you. Jane is here, she's alive! For God's sake, why won't you people believe me!"
A Heart Possessed Page 11