Page 67 of The Scandalous Deal of the Scarred Lady
Tess. If only I could have helped you.
But she could not. Her eyes were on Phoebe’s outstretched hand, at the red juice that leaked between her fingers, dripping like blood into the carpet. The growing stain made her think of James, and she wondered what Janet had done.
Helena moaned and took another step backward, but she was too near the hearth and to venture further would endanger her skirts. She edged sideways and stumbled against something hard and metal that hung there.The poker…!
“’Tis a shame that you cannot speak. I would hear you beg for your life. Or would you apologize to me for…what exactly? You have spent your life apologizing for your affliction. Imagine it! Me, having caused those terrible skin eruptions in the first place, and you apologizing for every cream and lotion that failed to remove the blemishes. It never took much, only the tiniest bit.”
Strawberries. How could something so innocent cause so much trouble? Helena mouthed the question. If she were going to die, she at the very least needed to know. “Why?”
Phoebe laughed. “Why? Are you asking why? When you well know how my mother always made her poor dead daughter her absolute favorite in everything? I thought to win her praise by taking care of her dead daughter’s child and what thanks did I have for it? She left me behind, traveling to the continent as though she had no second child. As though I werenothingat all.”
She said this last viciously, lunging toward Helena who stumbled against the wall, between hearth and window, one hand still inching toward the poker, but still too far, with it just out of reach.
“But then one day you ate a strawberry, and it made you so terribly ill. To think the most amazing thing would happen, that suddenly everyonecaredwhat I was doing. For the first time, the ton expressedsympathyfor me. Poor little Phoebe Barlowe, little more than a child herself, taking care of her dead sister’s sickly baby. Ah…it was glorious.”
Phoebe’s eyes glittered in the firelight. “And all I had to do was to keep feeding your strawberries. Little ones, in tiny amounts. I did not want you todie,after all. At least not then.”
Her aunt hated her. Despised her. How could she not have known this all along? Helena lunged, her hand closing around the poker. With a strangled cry that was little more than the mewling noise of a newborn babe, she lunged forward, her arm coming up with every bit of fear and betrayal put into the effort of knocking whatever was in Phoebe’s hand to the floor, of putting her aunt off balance. She would die otherwise.
I just need to escape.
She was only steps from the door; it might as well have been a mile. Helena’s steps lagged, she was still weak from her ordeal. Phoebe sidestepped her easily, wrenching the poker away from her and throwing it carelessly aside. Helena, unable to stop the forward motion, found herself pressed against the bureau, staring at the very brooch that had started everything. How it had come to be here, she did not know.
One hand scrabbled for the pin even as she turned, flinging her hands up to ward off Phoebe who in moments had her pinned. One hand came up, the juice of the strawberry leaving red streaks down her arm and staining the sleeve of her dress.
Phoebe’s breath was hot against her ear. “Normally you could eat one of these, or two if they were small and it would not hurt you other than to make the blemishes appear and maybe a little short of breath. But after today…do you genuinely think your flesh would allow even the touch of a strawberry upon your skin? So potent was that cream that to eat this, to swallow even one berry will likely kill you.”
Helena threw herself backward, knocking Phoebe back and away, but there was nowhere to go. The bed lay between her and the door, Tess, still struggled on the floor behind them. Phoebe was a wild thing, fighting her, clawing at her.
A streak of strawberry juice appeared on her upraised palm as Phoebe tried desperately to get it near her face.
Helena froze, staring in horrified fascination.No. No…No…!
With a strength she never knew she had, she brought her hands up and clawed at Phoebe’s face. If she could not defeat her through brute strength, she could in cunning, for she still had the brooch and the stones were sharp.
This time it was Phoebe who screamed and reeled backward, a long scratch having appeared on her cheek.
There came a pounding at the door. The doorknob rattled; the room was locked. It was James’s voice. He was not dead after all. Hope swelled her breast, giving new strength to her limbs. Helena recalled the fury with which she’d fought the footpad and won. She needed that strength now if she were going to survive.
It had been a dream that had started her down this path. She would not allow it to end in a nightmare.
Helena straightened, thinking how utterly ridiculous it was that her aunt was trying to kill her with a strawberry. It had to be the stupidest weapon in the world…which could only mean one thing. Her aunt was deep down a coward, unwilling to do direct harm to her.
That was what she gambled on now. Helena lunged after her aunt, her hand still clenched around the pin. As a weapon, it had not proven terribly effective, but Phoebe reeled back from her all the same, her hand going to her cheek. In fact, she was so distracted she didn’t notice Tess on the floor behind her.
The door crashed open on the other side of the room.
Tess saw the opportunity the same time Helena did and thrust her legs out even as Phoebe stepped backward. Phoebe went down in a heap just as James rushed into the room.
But it was not all over, for Phoebe landed near the poker. Abandoning the fruit as a weapon, she went for what was more efficient. Phoebe came up fast, too fast, and swung hard and wide, going straight for Helena’s head.
“Helena!”
James was suddenly there and deflected the blow with his own arm. Helena closed her eyes, not able to watch, waiting to hear the crack that would break his arm, or worse his head.
But the only sound was Phoebe’s frustrated scream. She’d missed after all.
A moment later there was a wild crash of glass, a rush of icy air. Helena opened her eyes and stared in horror at Phoebe poised in the window. The wind whipped at her skirts, and her hair tumbled down around her face in a wild frenzy.
