Page 99 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
For the barest instant his eyes gleamed wildly, and she thought he meant to force her into his arms. But the high color in his cheeks ebbed and he lowered his eyes, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Then what will you do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. When Grandfather—” She paused, unable to bring herself to say is dead. “When he no longer needs me, I shall probably have Gilly take me back to Ireland. No one would know the truth about the babe there.”
“Ireland!” Jonathan’s echoing of the word was so bleak, she might have been suggesting a voyage to the outer reaches of the Arctic. She began to regret her moment of weakness, that she had ever told him about the babe.
“You will drive yourself to distraction if you keep worrying about me,” she said, trying for a lighter note. “You know I am forever in some sort of scrape.”
“So you are.” His voice held a touch of asperity. He forced his lips into a smile that Phaedra found strangely disquieting. “But I shall find some way to help you, just as I always do.”
Although Phaedra thanked him for his concern, she was grateful when he said no more. He took his leave, appearing so agitated that he did not even pay a visit to her grandfather before departing.
As soon as Jonathan’s coach vanished down the drive, Phaedra felt more lonely and depressed than ever. This day seemed twice as long as all the dreary days before it. That evening as she sat dining in solitary state, she left her food untouched again. Instead she glanced at the ceiling and thought of the old man in the chamber above, dying by slow degrees. She felt as though the same were happening to her. The very walls hemming about her seemed to reek of death. She could bear it no longer. Flinging down her napkin, she fetched her cloak and set out for a walk upon the grounds.
The days faded into night much earlier now, and the sky was already misting into the royal purple of twilight. The moon rose, a pale silver in the gathering darkness.
A bitter wind whipped the ends of Phaedra’s cloak, making her glad of its heavy folds. She supposed she should turn back, but the house behind her looked dark and uninviting. She kept on with her aimless wandering until she drew near the region of the pond. The bushes rustled, the dried leaves hissing at her like snakes in the presence of an intruder. As she pressed past the brush into the clearing, the loud crackle of a twig made her pause for a moment, listening. But she reckoned it was nothing but some small creature, a fox or a badger, perhaps even one of the groom’s dogs who had escaped being locked up for the night.
She glided silently toward the man-made pond. In the evening’s dim light, it was an expanse of darkness, marked by one knifelike shimmer of light from the moon above. How different it all was from the hot summer day when the sunlight had dappled the waters. Then it had been a silvery mirror, reflecting her and James upon the bank, entwined in each other’s arms. Then their love had been bright in all its first flush of passion.
Yet how fleeting and ephemeral that love had proved, just like the ripples upon the water, going cold and still with the dying of the wind.
Phaedra inched her way to the very brink of the pond, peering down into its depths. It was as black and fathomless as the River Styx, the legendary boundary that separated the souls of the living from the souls of the dead. Her bleak thoughts wandered to all the tales she had heard, of the hopeless people who had sought oblivion by flinging themselves into a river. It was said that the Thames in London claimed nearly as many lives as fever or the pox.
She could not understand that. The Thames was so vast and impersonal. How much better to end one’s life in the familiar depths of?—
Phaedra shuddered, taking a step back from the pond’s edge. What nonsense was she thinking? She felt her spirit rebel. To even think of killing herself was a sin. She now had more than Phaedra Grantham to consider. Her hand moved gently over the region of her abdomen. She was now custodian of another life, a life that, despite everything, was the creation of love. Hers and James. She could not?—
Her thoughts broke off as she heard another sharp snap behind her. But this time her heart thudded. Surely that sound had not been caused by any nocturnal animal. It sounded more like a stealthy footfall. She remembered how James had stolen upon her here. An absurd hope welled within her. She spun about with his name on her lips.
But it changed to a cry of terror. The shadows themselves seemed to have taken on life and assumed the form of a cloaked phantom. Before she could move to flee, two hands gripped her shoulders and gave her a rough shove.
Phaedra fell backward, her arms flailing through the air, her body breaking the surface of the pond with a harsh slap. As thedark waters closed over her, their chilling depths sent a shock through her entire system.
Cold ... she had never felt such numbing cold. The water soaked quickly through her gown, the lengths of her cloak tangling about her legs, weighting her down. She had not had time to catch her breath, and the water choked her.
In those first few terrifying moments, she forgot everything Gilly had ever taught her. Paralyzed with panic and the icy cold, she floundered, her frantic movements only serving to drag her down. She broke the surface once, then immediately sank again before she could draw air into her tortured lungs.
She was drowning, dying, her arms and legs becoming numb. Her struggles grew weaker and weaker, the pain in her chest unbearable. Images of her life shifted through her mind, the last one of James, his dark windswept hair, his mouth so tender. So warm, all of him—except for those cold blue eyes, so cold, so very cold.
Phaedra surrendered, letting blackness take her.
Twenty-Two
Phaedra shivered, drawing up the ends of a ragged blanket to ward off the chill. Such intense cold could spring only from the regions of death itself. She feared to open her eyes, knowing she would confront the darkness of her grave. Yet they fluttered open of their own accord.
She was confronted not with the blackness she had dreaded, but hazy gray. The mist settled, becoming solid, stone walls that were narrow and confining. She longed to sink back into the peace of oblivion, but her mind fought her, already striving to regain its bearings.
She must have been dreaming-how long, she could not say. Dreaming of the summer she had spent with James, that season of fire that had blazed far too bright, leading her astray like a will-o’-the-wisp until she was lost in ...
Phaedra frowned. Exactly where was she? Her eyes roved over the room, which was little better than a cell. Her gaze finally came to rest upon the iron grate that barred the window of her door. Reality slammed upon her as though the door itself had just banged closed.
Bedlam. She was a prisoner in Bedlam.
With a groan, Phaedra rolled over, then flinched. Every muscle in her body was raw and aching, and most of the soreness settled in her midsection. She tried to sit up, bracing herself with her hand. She stared at that hand, scarce recognizing it as hers; the skin was nigh transparent, stretched taut over her fingers.
Her effort to rise left her so dizzy that she had to lie still, both trying to forget and trying to remember. She had been here in Bedlam since the night she had plunged into the pond. How long ago had that been? Two weeks? Three? A month? She was not sure.
