Page 3 of Enthralled

I hesitate. But then, fisting my hands, I rise and, ignoring the way my stomach pitches and the room around me dips, hasten from the breakfast table and down the hall. Danny is just stepping out the front door into the bright morning light. “Danny!” I call.

He pauses, looks back at me. His face breaks from tense lines into a smile that is so warm, so melting, it steadies my thudding heart. He sets down his medical bag as I approach and takes both my hands in his. “So you did come to see me off.”

“Danny,” I begin then bite my lips. But I’ve come this far, I might as well continue. “Danny, when . . . when did we become engaged?” It’s such a stupid question. I know it, even as I say it. But that wall of mist in my brain is so impenetrable, and I need to know.

Danny’s fingers tighten ever so slightly around mine. Otherwise nothing about him changes. Am I imagining the sudden wave of ice that seems to ripple out from his soul? “We’ve always been engaged, Clara,” he says at last. “Since we were children.”

“Yes, but . . .”

“But when did we make it official?” He ducks his head, trying to meet my eyes. “Don’t you recall? It was earlier this summer. When you returned home from Somsbury. Lord Dashwing’s daughters no longer require a governess, and you let me talk you out of applying for another position. We’ve waited long enough, and my place at Westbend is secure for the next three years at least. It’s high time we stopped waiting for the rest of our lives to begin.”

His words flow over me in a steady stream of calm and confidence. It all sounds so reasonable, so real. And yet . . .

“Who is Lord Dashwing?” I ask.

Rather than answer, Danny plunges his hand into his pocket. “Here, Clara,” he says. “I should have done this a long time ago.” He holds out a ring, a dainty little amethyst set with tiny diamonds. His mother’s ring; I remember seeing it on Mrs. Gale’s hand.

Danny takes my hand now and slips the band onto my finger. He asks no question, makes no proposal. But when the ring is over my knuckle, he lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it. “There,” he says with satisfaction. “You’re mine now.” Then he leans forward and kisses my forehead. The brush of his lips sends a chill sweeping through my body. “You’re mine now,” he says again, murmuring the words against my brow. When he draws back, his summer-blue eyes hold my gaze, not warm and gentle like I know them. They’re cold. Cold enough to freeze me in place. “Enjoy your last day as Clara Darlington. Tomorrow morning you become Clara Gale. And all will be right with the worlds.”

Worlds?The plurality of the word strikes my brain like the toll of a bell. My very blood vibrates in response. “Danny . . .” I begin.

But he bends abruptly and retrieves his bag. “I must go now. I’ll see if I can finish up with Hubert, Jordice, and Phaedan and return for luncheon. After all, as Kitty keeps reminding me, I do have a wedding trip to pack for!” With that and a last beaming smile, Danny turns and strides down the front steps, through the little iron gate, and out into the street. The rising sun casts his shadow long before him as he turns west and hastens toward the hospital.

I watch him go, far too many questions filling my head. Sickness churns my gut again, and I sag against the doorframe. My gaze remains fixed on the street long after Danny disappears. He’s bound for the charity hospital in lower westside, a poor part of town just clinging to the ragged edges of respectability. The same part of town where my family lived for years in a dark little house on Clamor Street.

Is Oscar still there? Did I leave him alone in that house, surrounded by all those old, haunting memories? Surely I wouldn’t. Not willingly.

Is he aware of the wedding preparations? Will he come?

“Clara?” Kitty approaches behind me, takes hold of my elbow, and draws me gently back inside. “Shut the door, dear. It’s chilly this morning, and I won’t have you catching your death on the eve of your wedding.” She tugs me along after her toward the parlor. “If you’re quite done with breakfast, we do have rather a lot to finish today. Mother’s old wedding gown fits your little frame nicely, but she was rather tall, and that hem—”

“Kitty,” I say and pull my hand sharply free, backing up several paces. “Kitty, I’ve got to see Oscar. I’ve got to . . .” I can’t even finish the sentence. Turning to the door, I take several steps.

“You can’t go charging down to Clamor Street like that!” Kitty calls after me. “If you must see your brother, at least put some clothes on.”

I look down at the lace and frills adorning my person. A faint blush creeps up my cheeks. “Yes. Yes, of course. How foolish of me.” I turn to the stairs. “I won’t be long, Kitty, I promise. And I’ll come back in plenty of time for that hem.”

“See that you do,” Kitty says, watching me from the bottom of the stairs, her expression wreathed with concern. I cannot bear to look at her. I hasten up, eager to escape her gaze, eager to get out of this house.

Kitty offers to accompany me to Clamor Street, but I firmly decline. For a moment I fear she will protest or even forbid me to go entirely. I brace myself, prepared for a fight. To my relief, however, she deflates a little, shakes her head, and says only, “I know it’s hard, Clara. But at some point, you are going to have to . . . to . . .”

“What, Kitty?” I demand. It’s like my whole world is suspended on the tip of her tongue.

Her blue eyes flick to meet mine. “You’re going to have to let him go.”

“Let him go!”The words explode in my head, a dark rumble of a voice that stirs my blood and sends my pulse racing. I cannot see Kitty anymore, standing in the foyer, peering at me with such earnest entreaty. It’s a different face which swims before my vision—a beautiful face, set with intense violet eyes which spark with dark fire.

“Free him and free yourself.”The words, the image, they are all there in my head for a painfully brilliant instant. In the next breath they’re gone. Like a world illuminated in a flash of lightning only to be lost in darkness. Nothing remains but a distant echo of thunder. Kitty stands before me again, her expression sharp. “Clara?” she says, reaching for me. “Clara, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Without a word I turn away, pulling a veil down from my bonnet brim to shield my face. I hasten down the front steps of the Gales’ tidy little townhouse and into the street, all but running as my footsteps carry me down to lower westside.

Something is wrong. Something is very wrong with . . . with all of this. This wedding tomorrow. My residence in Danny’s house. It all makes a sort of sense on the surface, and yet nothing about it feels right, feels true. I love Danny, of course I do, and I’ve always meant to marry him one day. But I would never leave Oscar. Only it seems I already have.

I shake my head, trying and failing to clear it. Why can’t I recall anything of yesterday, or the day before? Or even the last few weeks? Why is there such a huge, unyielding blank inside my mind?

I walk faster. The cool air seems to do me good, clearing my head and easing the incessant nausea. My heart beats unsettlingly fast, and I’m obliged to stop and catch my breath, leaning against lampposts for support every so often. But I could make the walk from the Gales’ home to mine with my eyes closed, and the city streets are not overly busy this early in the morning. Soon enough I turn down the narrow, unkempt street where, years ago, my father moved our family when addiction and excess saw him expelled from good society.

I stop in my tracks. Morning light plays gently across the rough cobblestones and ramshackle dwellings that line both sides of this narrow street. And yet, for the briefest possible moment, moonlight fills my vision. Moonlight gleaming off the edge of a brilliant sword of otherworldly metal, held in the arms of a glorious, golden-haired being.

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