Page 79 of The Rebellious Lady and the Phantom Lord
She heard Gilly’s footsteps as he came running up behind her. “Fae?—”
“Look for yourself,” she said shrilly. “James Lethington is buried beneath six feet of earth. Armande is not ...”
Gilly forced her around and held her close, as though the fierceness of his hug could still her shaking, hold at bay her fears and dispel the nightmare that descended upon her.
“The old man is mad.” She muffled the words against his cloak. “It is impossible.”
“I was as shocked as you, Fae. But as for being impossible, I am afraid it is not.”
“Then you are telling me I have fallen in love with a ghost.”
“No. James Lethington is very much alive.”
She drew away from Gilly, shaking her head. “Ewan saw him hang. Dr. Glencoe brought the body back here for burial.”
“Aye, but did you notice the good doctor’s reaction after he identified James? You turned white as bed linens. Then when I began to hint we thought we might have seen the man in the portrait, Glencoe hustled us out like we were carriers of the pox. I would wager my last shilling it was because the doctor knows James is not dead.”
“Then what did he do? Practice some magic arts upon the crowd so that they all simply thought they saw James hang?”
“What I’m thinking happened is a deal worse than that.” As the moonlight skimmed Gilly’s features, she realized her carefree cousin had never looked so grim. “You’ve never been toa hanging, Fae. You could not imagine how horrible it is. Very few snap their necks at once. Most die by slow strangulation.”
“I’ve been regaled with enough of my grandfather’s gruesome tales. I don’t need you to?—”
“I am only trying to explain to you that James would not be the first man to survive such an ordeal. I’ve heard of cases where doctors can detect signs of life in the condemned even after dangling for an hour. They can revive a hanged man.”
Phaedra turned away, but she could not shut out the sound of Gilly’s voice. “The procedure is known as a bronchotomy. The surgeon makes an incision in the base of the throat, which helps the man start to breathe again.”
Phaedra’s hands flew to her throat. But it was not her own flesh she was feeling, but rather the memory of Armande’s neck, of running her fingers over that tiny scar. A result of something a friend had done, he had told her.
Gilly continued, “Dr. Glencoe admits he was there at the hanging to recover the body. If James had been yet alive, he could have revived him and spirited him away, and buried anything in that grave, even a coffin weighted with rocks.”
Phaedra walked away from Gilly, toward the gravestone of James Lethington. She bent to trace the carved lines with her fingers as though somehow her touch could draw forth the secrets of the grave, raise up the spirit of a dead man to refute Gilly’s words. But she heard nothing but the wind whispering mournfully through the grass. The coldness of the stone seemed to seep through her like the chill of death itself.
Gilly settled her cloak more snugly about her, then wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her away from the headstone. “Come, Fae. Lingering here will change nothing. It is time I was taking you home.”
She said nothing, permitting Gilly to lead her back to the curricle. They rode away from Hampstead in silence, the sleepyvillage already lost in the hush of night. Gilly, ever alert to the dangers of traveling after dark, kept a brace of loaded pistols at the ready. Phaedra sat numbly beside him, with no fear of highwaymen. Her terrors were the conjurings of her own mind, phantom memories of a summer that would never come again, an illusion born of the heat and a too-bright sun. She had stripped away Armande’s mask at last, and found not love, but death.
The long, dreary ride back to Heath passed in a blur. The plan had been for her to slip back unseen from the day’s outing. Even now Lucy was covering for her, saying that her mistress was in bed, ill from her shock of Hester Searle’s death.
But such small deceptions did not seem to matter any longer. Wearily Phaedra directed Gilly to drive her up to the Heath’s main gates. The sleepy-eyed porter regarded her arrival with some surprise, then shuffled to swing wide the iron bars.
The curricle swept down the length of the gravel drive. Blackheath House was silent and dark at this late hour. The moonlight skating off the stark block of granite, unadorned except for the tall white Corinthian pillars, gave the mansion the look of a Greek temple-cold and forbidding, awaiting its sacrifice.
When Gilly drew the curricle to a halt, he twisted the leather of the reins between his hands, nervous and unsure about permitting her to alight. “I never counted on us returning so late. Perhaps I should come in with you. We could talk to your grandfather now?—”
“No!” Phaedra cried. “Grandfather is likely already in bed. Surely there is no need to disturb him tonight.”
Gilly placed his hand soothingly over hers, but his voice was firm as he said, “It is a different situation now, Fae. Your grandfather has a right to know he harbors a murderer under his roof.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Fae, you cannot still be denying?—”
“I’m not denying anything. I’m only asking you for a little more time to think matters through.” She clutched at her cousin’s fingers, pleading. “Give me just the one more night, Gilly. Then tomorrow, we can do whatever you think necessary.”
He held her hand for a long time, obviously uneasy at her proposal. Finally, with great reluctance, he agreed. “I suppose you have been through enough hell for one day. But you take great care. And for the love of God, stay away from de LeCroix.”
That was an easy pledge to make. Phaedra was afraid to face Armande, knowing what she did, terrified to look into his eyes, and see the eyes of James Lethington staring back at her. Yet she bridled. “He would never hurt me, Gilly.”
