Page 65 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
“Then I don’t understand why you bear so little sympathy for other unfortunate men-men such as that Tom Wilkins.”
Weylin gave a disdainful sniff. “I’ve no pity for any paupers, save perhaps the children. If I could make my way alone, so can other men. I daresay you think me a ruthless old man, but I always worked hard, never begged, never did aught I’d regret.”
He scowled, a shade of uneasiness clouding his eyes. “Except once—” He broke off and shuffled away from her, snatching up the branch of candles.
“We can’t be talking here all night. My guests will be arriving.
Come along, girl, and don’t forget your pearls.”
Phaedra would as soon have left the pearls, grieved as she was by the feeling that she accepted them under false pretenses. She knew quite well she would never be the Marchioness de Varnais. But at Weylin’s insistence, she tucked the box underher arm. At the foot of the stairs stretching above them, her grandfather bid her a curt good night.
Too hard to feel sympathy for others, Weylin might have been astonished to realize how much pity Phaedra felt for him, as he watched her retreat up the steps. Despite his satin-clad bulk, he appeared quite small, swallowed up in the vastness of his great hall, a lonely old man clutching his silver candlestick.
Phaedra returned to her chamber, where Lucy helped her undress for bed. When the girl had gone, Phaedra sprawled out on her mattress, leaving the silken bed-curtains flung wide. For what seemed like hours, she tensed, listening for any sound that Armande had returned to the room next to hers.
Exhausted by the events of the day, she felt more tired than she would admit, her eyes stinging beneath her stubborn determination to keep them open. The chamber felt overly warm, despite the fact her windows were flung wide. She kicked away the clingy satin sheet and tossed fretfully upon her pillow. In an effort to stay awake, she tried staring out the window at the moon, a golden disk set amidst a diamond scattering of stars. It was a beautiful summer night.
“Far too beautiful to waste in such a foolish misunderstanding, Armande,” she spoke aloud, wanting to be angry. But her words, as they echoed in the empty bedchamber, sounded unbearably sad. A melancholy thought washed over her; this was all her relationship with Armande had ever been, one long, wretched misunderstanding.
She drifted away, not into a peaceful slumber, but a twilight land of tormenting dreams, haunting night visions. She was skating, wearing a gown that shimmered about her like spun silver, gliding upon endless reaches of a lake layered with crystalline ice set beneath a steel-gray sky. She was soaring in the arms of a stranger garbed for a masquerade.
Again and again, she tried to draw away from him, the ice beneath her feet so thin. But she could not resist the warm strength of the hand closing over hers. Then she heard a far away voice calling her name,
“Phaedra.”
She could see Gilly on the edge of the lake shore, struggling to reach her. No! No, go back, she wanted to cry. The ice would never bear his weight. But try as she would to shout, when her lips parted, no sound would come. Gilly loomed closer and closer to where she linked hands with the stranger. He swirled between them, breaking their hands apart, trying to rip the stranger’s mask away.
The mask tore, coming away in his hands, and she found she was gazing at Armande, his eyes clouded with despair, his arms stretching out to her. She tried to run to him, but the ice was breaking beneath her feet. As she plunged downward into the dark, chilling waters, she saw shards of the ice driving into the depths of Armande’s eyes, leaving a crimson trickle of blood.
“No!” Phaedra whimpered, flailing her arms, forcing herself awake. The dream clung to her while she stared into the darkness of her bedchamber, still feeling herself lost beneath the icy waters of the lake. She lay panting for a few moments, her body covered with a fine sheen of cold sweat. With a low groan, she sat up, rubbing her temples as though to chase away the last fragments of the nightmare. The clock upon her mantel chimed twice. Was it really two o’clock? She didn’t think she could have slept that long, had not wanted to. Feeling groggy, she staggered toward the connecting door and placed her ear to the panel. All was silent within Armande’s room. She turned the handle and pushed, but the door did not yield. She tried again, but she realized Armande had bolted it from his side.
Had he returned? She raised her fist to risk a light knock when she was startled by the sound of a high-pitched laugh thatraised the hairs along the back of her neck. Her heart racing, she glanced fearfully over her shoulder, half-dreading to find some mocking specter risen up behind her.
That laugh, though, had been far too real, far too like one she had heard before, Hester Searle’s laughter.
Phaedra froze, waiting for the sound to be repeated, but she heard nothing but the distant hum of voices drifting through her bedchamber window. She stole over to the open casement, keeping well back into the shelter of the sheer white curtains.
Peering toward the ground below, she saw no one in the moonlit stretch of lawn or the graveled walk that led to the rose gardens behind the kitchen. The gardens themselves were a shadowy outline of rustling shrubs, but above the whispers of the leaves, Hester’s voice cut through the night again.
Her words carried up to Phaedra in indistinguishable snippets. “Handsomely, sir ... wouldn’t want to …”
Someone answered her, the second voice, a man’s, low and deep. Abandoning caution, Phaedra leaned out the window, straining to hear, but she could not decipher a word being said.
Hester spoke again. “Won’t wait longer. Tomorrow, ye hear me?”
Her companion rumbled a reply, but was cut off by Hester’s shriek. “Tomorrow!”
Phaedra heard the crunch of a boot, then the rustling of the garden hedges. She craned her neck, but minutes ticked by and no one emerged from the opening between the shrubs. The night resumed its silence, and Phaedra could only assume that Hester and her companion had gone out by the other side.
Frustrated, she drew back from the window. What mischief was that woman up to now, conversing so late with a man in the gardens? Phaedra stifled a yawn, turning what few words she had caught over in her mind, but could make little sense of them. She could not even be sure from the tone of Hester’s voice-nevergenteel-whether the woman had been threatening someone or simply passing along information. Only one word had stood out with undisputed clarity-tomorrow.
Phaedra dragged herself to her bed. Her mind was far too unfocused for her to sort the matter out tonight. As she stretched out upon the sheets, her gaze traveled wistfully toward the connecting door.
It was obvious she would have to wait until the morning’s light before she found the solution to the worries besetting her. Tomorrow, she would take care of everything, Armande, Gilly, Hester ... tomorrow.
Phaedra closed her eyes, but as she drifted off to sleep, the thought kept nagging at her.
Tomorrow might be too late.
