Page 67 of A Spinster to Reform the Duke
“I need water.” Timothy’s mouth was dry.
“Water? I’ll get you water.” George stood to his feet, hurrying across the chamber and pouring a glass of water. With him gone, Timothy looked at the specter beside him.
I am hallucinating. My father is not really here. I know he isn’t.
Yet Henry lifted his hand and placed it on Timothy’s shoulder. Timothy could imagine he felt it, that touch of support that wasn’t really there.
“What have I done with my life, Uncle?” Timothy cried out as George returned, pushing the glass to his lips. Timothy gulped, not afraid to flush his system with water.
“What do you mean?”
“What if I die from this?”
“Die? You’re not going to die!” He shook Timothy’s shoulders. “You hear me, boy. You’re going to keep on living.”
Timothy looked away from George, looking to the apparition that was still smiling beside him. Henry nodded his head. He agreed, Timothy was not going to die.
“My life…” Timothy whispered. “What a waste it has been.” He knew he was not making sense. He closed his eyes, only able to see one thing. In that darkness, there was another apparition there. She was reaching out toward him with her hand, inviting him to dance with her another time.
Rebecca…
“If I live through this, things are going to change.” He reached for the chamber pot another time, feeling his stomach beginning to cramp.
* * *
Rebecca watched from the far side of the drawing room, startled by just how many of the group were crowded round her. Eliza was by her side, with their hands clasped, whilst Amelia stood nearby, shaking. Lord Herberton and the Dowager Duchess of Frampington stood between her and where Lady Esther was sat in a chair on the other side of the room. They clearly had no intention of letting Lady Esther near her.
“Say that again, Lady Esther.” The string-like magistrate sat on the footstool in front of Lady Esther, scratching his greying brow in frustration. He clearly couldn’t fathom her actions any more than the rest of them. Behind her, the Countess stood. Her hand was on the back of the chair, as if she wished to support her daughter, yet she couldn’t bring herself to touch her daughter, not now.
“It was meant for Lady Rebecca.” Lady Esther gestured across the room again. Rebecca didn’t even flinch. She was too angry for that, and too afraid. Since the physician had arrived, they had heard nothing from upstairs.
The Duke cannot die. Timothy…he cannot die.
“Why did you wish to hurt her?” the magistrate asked, his voice clearly strained in his attempt to stay calm.
“He wanted her, didn’t he?” Lady Esther turned to her mother, as if pleading for someone to agree with her. “Anyone could see how close they were. If she was gone, I just thought…” She looked back to the magistrate, her voice fading away. She seemed to be losing steam, with her pale hair wild, having fallen down out of its updo. “You do not see it, do you? It is as plain as day to me. If she were not here, it would be so easy.”
“Do you not see that it was a life you were intending to take? It is murder.” The magistrate’s words were cold, even as he pleaded with her to understand.
She quaked in her seat and fiddled with her hands in her lap.
“She would be forgotten, soon enough.”
The words made Rebecca turn away. She felt small indeed, no more important than a bug beneath Lady Esther’s feet. At her movement, her mother took her arm, the silent comfort only a mother could bring.
“She is mad,” Eliza whispered quietly. “It is as if she doesn’t understand she would be taking a life at all.”
“No empathy,” Lord Herberton whispered too, looking back at the three of them. “I have met people like this before. They do not see the world as others see it.”
“You do not truly understand what it is you have done, do you?” the spindly magistrate asked Lady Esther, with his thin chin angled to her.
“It was a way to smooth the path. That is all.” She shrugged, as if they were talking about the amount of sugar to add to a cup of tea, not one full of belladonna berries.
“This is not working.” The magistrate stood to his feet, with Lady Esther staring after him, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“May we go home?” she asked. The simple question caused all those in the room to fall still, all except the Countess who covered her face with her hands.
One of Esther’s sisters leaned forward to talk to the other.
