Page 69 of The Lover's Eye
A series of nods came from the other men, though none of them met each other’s gaze.
With little else to go on, the conclusion was reached that Aurelia Gouldsmith had died an accidental death of unknown cause.Her father was at leave to give her a proper burial, and per the coroner, the incident ‘would not be drudged up again’.
Giles wished that were true.Longed for it with so much fervor, his chest could have caved in, for he knew it to be impossible.Perhaps it was that simple for the coroner, who would ride back to his own village, rest his head on his pillow, and view tomorrow as a new day.
But it could not be so for Giles, who had to live among the people that had known her, and who had a wife at home already fearing she lived in Aurelia’s shadow.
The coroner’s questioning of local people had stirred an already well-stocked pot.Praise and speculation for Aurelia simmered in the village—and thanks to Giles’s connection, in higher society, too—like perpetual stew.Morsels of gossip, added one by one in a collective effort, never allowing for conclusion, never running dry.Just cooking, and cooking …
24
“Come with me.”
A cool hand was against Giles’s cheek, the elongated scrape of feminine nails against his skin.He had been on the precipice of sleep—incoherent enough to be thinking through a fog, but shallow enough in restfulness to rouse without a start, without complaint.
“Isobel,” he breathed, taking the fingers and pressing them against his lips.The hand yielded to his affections, and he made more delicate work of his mouth, tending each knuckle and joint with its own kiss.“You’re cold,” he whispered.“Come to bed.”
The hand tethered itself to his own and gave a gradual, increasingly insistent tug.Without question, Giles surrendered the warmth of his bed to follow her.She turned to face him, plying him with quick, taunting kisses and pulling him farther away.He was so engrossed in his wife, he allowed her to lead him blindly until their legs ran up against a bed.
She lay upon the linen sheets, pulling him over her.Warmth radiated from his chest out to his limbs, heat stoking to the point of scalding pain.
Giles’s hand sought out the hem of her nightdress and he bent close against her, searching for her lips.He was confronted by a mouth entirely unlike the one he had just been kissing—a gaping orifice, cranked open in anguish.As if his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Giles could suddenly see.
Aurelia’s corpse lay beneath him with eyeless sockets and waxen flesh.Where her ear should have been was a ragged surface, and where his hand lay mingled in her hair, saltwater dripped from ribbons of seaweed.He tried to wrench himself away, but he had lost the ability to move.Only his hands continued to fidget, fruitlessly pulling torn scraps of cloth from her tattered dress.
“What gives you the right?You think I’ll lie down and let some stranger examine me?”
She was screaming at him now.Every syllable resonated with familiarity, as if it were August again and she had burst into his library.He tried to speak, the muscles of his throat convulsing.
This was his chance, his opportunity to explain, to calm, to reestablish trust, to save her.Not a word was coming out.Not even the insufficient ones he had used that night.
“I should rather die than be reliant upon your protection any longer!”
Giles’s entire body thrust upright in bed, his lungs drinking in the cold air of his own bedchamber with violent, exaggerated force.As if he, too, had been drowning.
His hands clamored to the table beside his bed, fumbling with matches and flint until he managed to light a candle.Only then could he think and begin regulating the distress of his consciousness.
The mantel clock indicated that he had only lain down to sleep two hours earlier, but it felt like years.No, a wider berth than time was capable of—it felt like an event that had occurred in another lifetime.
Giles was alone, save for Smooch, who sat uncharacteristically on the floor and stared up at him with her ears pricked forward.He patted the counterpane in enticement for her to claim her usual spot at his feet, but she stayed fixed, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Staffordshire ceramic figurine.
Giles did not feel he could lie down again, and moved to a chair sitting before the hearth.The fire was nothing more than a few live coals amid heaps of ash, but he let it remain, allowing the drafty air to seep under his nightshirt and relieve the clinging heat.He was sweating profusely, and his heart was only just now settling from its thoroughbred speed.He was certain he had never endured a more wretched nightmare in his entire life.
He should have known the dreams would return upon finding Aurelia.But he never could have prepared himself for the cruel contrast his subconscious had conceived, preying on his deepest fear: that being vulnerable with Isobel would one day lead to her seeing all of him.
She would not be able to love who she found.
♦
Isobel went to bed reluctantly, despite feeling exhausted.She and Giles had shared dinner together, but he had been reserved, offering little reply to her attempts at conversation.Before long, she’d given up trying.
It had to be the inquest.Aurelia.
The housekeeper, Mrs.Taylor, had given Isobel a tour of the house after breakfast.Cambo House was a cavernous beauty, uniquely fascinating in that each of its rooms managed to retain furnishings and purpose, even if they had long been in disuse and faded from fashion.
When she had asked to see the kitchens belowstairs, she and Mrs.Taylor walked in on a gossiping gaggle of servants.Their arrival had silenced the talk at once, but not before Isobel had overheard some of their remarks.
“They say he ’ad to go an’ identify her body last night.Can you imagine?”
