Authors: Masquerade
No, not this time, Grandfather. She could
almost see the old man nod his head in approval. So strange to
think that she would probably never see him again. Phaedra sank
back onto the cot, closing her eyes tight, wrapping her arms around
herself until she felt the anger receding. A disappointed sigh
escaped Charmelle while Danby yawned.
"Maybe you should refund their money,"
Phaedra said to Belda. The matron jerked back her arm to deliver a
blow, then lowered it in frustration. Straightening her shoulders,
Phaedra sat more erect, suppressing her triumphant smile. Never
since entering this place had she felt so much in control.
Lord Arthur stepped aside to examine her food
tray. When he raised the cover from the bowl, the odor of rancid
gruel permeated the room; he hurriedly pressed a lace handkerchief
to his nose.
"Faugh! What is this stuff? Boiled rats?"
"No, indeed." Belda bustled over to him,
stirring a spoon through the thickened, grayish lumps. “'Tis a most
nourishing stew. I prepared it myself."
While the two of them had their backs to her,
Phaedra turned her attention to Charmelle, who lingered by the
doorway. The temptation was too great to resist. Phaedra squinted
up one eye and bared her teeth, mouthing the words, "I'll tear your
heart out and eat it."
Charmelle's painted mouth hung open for a
moment before she screeched, "Owww, Danny, save me." She whirled in
a rustle of purple skirts and petticoats, blundering into the door.
Amidst a cloud of powder, she fled the room.
"Charmelle! What the deuce!" Lord Arthur
spluttered, running after her and slamming the door behind him.
Belda eyed Phaedra with suspicion, but Phaedra sat with her hands
folded across her lap, gazing vacantly at the wall.
Banging the lid back down over the soup bowl,
Belda scowled, "You'd best not be up to any more of your tricks,
m’girl. Eat your dinner, or I swear I'll come back and stuff it
down your throat. We want no more of your starving nonsense."
Phaedra continued to stare as if she heard
nothing.
Belda paused just outside the door to peek
one last time through the grate. "You don't fool me none with those
saintly airs. You'll end up buried at the crossroads with a stake
through your heart yet, you mark my words."
With this grim prediction, the matron stalked
away. Phaedra waited until she heard the heavy feet retreating
before she permitted her lips to twitch into a smile. As she
thought of Charmelle bleating like a terrified sheep, the smile
became a chuckle, the chuckle a laugh which shook her entire frame.
She rocked to and fro with her mirth until the tears stung her
eyes. Abruptly she stopped, ramming her hand into her mouth. Heaven
help her! She was starting to sound like Marie.
Drawing in fortifying breaths, she calmed
herself. No, they would not make her mad. Even if no one came to
help her, she would find some way to save herself and her child
despite Belda, despite the throngs of insensitive visitors. Despite
Armande.
She had barely time to dry her tears when she
heard the scrape of the key. Not Belda again so soon. She had
controlled her emotions as much as she was capable of in one
morning. She could not bear any more torment. She half-rose,
tempted to fling herself at the door and keep the old witch out,
when she heard a familiar, gravelly voice.
"Phaedra, it's me."
A slender man of medium height stepped into
the room, his dark eyes anxiously seeking out hers, the sensitive
mouth twitching into a semblance of a melancholy smile.
"Jonathan!" Phaedra hurled herself into his
arms, burying her face against the plain brown poplin of his
waistcoat, reveling in the cold, fresh scent of autumn that still
clung to his greatcoat. His thin hands tangled in her hair.
"Oh, Phaedra, Phaedra. My dear one."
"Take care, sir," Belda growled a warning
from the threshold. "Her hands'll be around your waist one moment,
your throat the next."
"Be gone, old woman. Leave us in peace."
Enfolded in the comfortable security of her
friend's embrace, Phaedra heard with surprise the authoritative
note in Jonathan's voice. Equally surprising was the manner in
which Belda obeyed, although she did grumble as she locked the door
behind her, "Damned fool. Serve him right if he gets his eyes
clawed out."
Phaedra raised her head, eagerly scanning
Jonathan's careworn face, unable to still the hope that flared to
life. "You have done it, then? You have secured my release?"
Tears filled his eyes."My dear, I would give
anything if I could. Alas, no, I am not yet able to bring you
home."
One crystal droplet overflowed, trickling
down his face. Phaedra swallowed her own disappointment for his
sake. She caressed away the tear, her fingers trailing over his
rough cheek, pitted from the bout with smallpox that had almost
cost him his life.
"Do not distress yourself," she said, easing
herself out of his arms. "I am sure you will find a way to help me
very soon."
Dear, loyal, ineffectual Jonathan. She sank
back down onto the cot with a sigh. Where was Gilly when she so
desperately needed him?
She did not realize she had voiced the
question aloud until Jonathan replied, "I am sorry, my dear. I can
find no trace of your cousin. He seems to have vanished from the
face of the earth."
Phaedra's heart grew numb. Gilly vanished?
No, nothing could have happened to him.
"And Grandfather?" she asked softly.
"Sawyer is mending somewhat." But Jonathan's
smile was too forced to deceive Phaedra.
Her grandfather was dying, she thought sadly.
Her relationship with the old man had been stormy at the best of
times, and yet she would fain have seen him one last time before he
passed away.
Her heart already overburdened with despair,
she started to inquire after Armande, then stopped herself. No, she
need not imagine that he was ever coming back. The man had
accomplished what he'd set out to do.
Jonathan hovered over her. "My dear, you look
so pale. Have you not been eating?"
She gave a tiny shrug, the hopelessness of
her situation weighing heavy upon her. "What does it matter?"
"It matters a great deal to me." Jonathan
turned to peek inside the contents of her soup bowl. He pulled a
face. "I know the food here is not the most palatable, but you must
keep up your strength."
When she made no response, he clasped one of
her hands between his own. "Please, Phaedra. For me."
She returned his squeeze, favored him with a
wan smile. "Very well, Jonathan. For you, I will try not to lose
heart. I believe you are the only living soul who cares in the
least what has become of me."
Instantly, she regretted her words when he
dropped to one knee beside her, the severe angles of his face
softened by the glow of his eyes. He pressed a kiss into her palm.
His voice thickened as he said, "You know I would do anything to
bring you happiness."
Phaedra squirmed; even under these dire
circumstances, she was discomfited by Jonathan's expressions of
devotion. She carefully disengaged her hand. "Just get me away from
this place. That is all that you can do for me."
He bowed his head, concealing whatever hurt
her blunt statement may have given him. Phaedra tried to take the
sting from her words by stroking aside the strands of graying hair
that drooped over his brow. He rose awkwardly to his feet.
"I know what you must be suffering," he said,
"but when you are free, I shall make you forget all this ever
happened. If you could but keep your courage awhile longer."
Jonathan gave a nervous cough. "One thought
did occur to me. I wondered if the father of your child might be a
man of enough influence to help you. I do not wish to pry but, if
you would trust me enough to tell me the name."
Phaedra broke into a mirthless peal of
laughter. "You think I should appeal to the father of my
child?"
"Please, Phaedra. I am sorry. I did not mean
to make you overwrought. Please don't laugh like that. It frightens
me."
"That is only because you do not know. Maybe
I should tell you his name. Then you could share my amusement."
Jonathan drew back with a flurried gesture.
"No, don't. I regret that I asked. The name is of no consequence.
He-"
"His name is Armande, the most noble Marquis
de Varnais." She watched as the color drained from Jonathan's face;
but she felt relief that someone else should at last share the
burden of her dreadful secret.
"Varnais," Jonathan said hoarsely. "I feared
it but I never thought it possible. He seems so dispassionate, so
cold."
"Aye, as cold as a drift of snow." But even
as she spoke, Phaedra envisioned a pair of icy blue eyes, burning
with the blazing intensity of the blue core in the midst of flames.
She saw sternly set lips that could be tender; his hard-muscled
limbs that, when devoid of their cool satin, were bronzed like a
sun god's, his passion just as warm.
"And you!" Jonathan's tone was vaguely
accusing. "I always believed you hated him."
Phaedra shook her head to dispel the
sensation of Armande's presence that was all too real, all too
vivid in the midst of this hell where she now resided.
"I wish that I did hate him. It would make
everything so much easier.” She had always thought hate such a
fiery emotion until she met Armande. Now she knew that it was a
chilling, numbing thing. She felt so cold, so empty.
Jonathan clumsily patted her shoulder,
mumbling some words of comfort, adjuring her to rest and to eat.
All would turn out for the best. Then he was gone, leaving her with
the feeling she had lost her last contact with the world of
sanity.
Phaedra reached listlessly for the bowl of
unappetizing stew. One thought alone sustained her: the child
inside her. She would let nothing else matter. Damn Armande and his
quest for vengeance. Let him destroy himself in his vast wasteland
of hate. Such an emotion would never touch her life or her babe's.
It had been love that had driven her into Armande's embrace, love
that would sustain her and the child. She would love enough for
both of them.
Holding fast to that thought, she raised the
spoon to her lips, averting her eyes from the grayish lumps of
meat. She managed to swallow a few quick bites before she gagged.
Belda's cooking was worse than ever. For the sake of her child,
Phaedra choked down half the contents of the bowl before setting
the spoon aside. One more mouthful, and she feared she would be
sick.
Burrowing deep into the thin cot, she pulled
the ragged blanket tightly over her arms, seeking whatever warmth
and rest she could find. She had scarce closed her eyes when the
first pain struck.
Her mouth flew open in a startled gasp at the
intensity of it. She had no time to recover before the next one
struck and the next, like waves of a storm-tossed winter sea
washing over her, shards of ice in the water piercing her. She
flung her arms over her stomach as if she could somehow protect
herself from this unseen assailant.
The pain intensified, waves no longer, but a
steady agony, a knife twisting and turning inside her. Her body
jerked in a series of bone-wrenching spasms as she tumbled off the
cot, clawing at the floor, her hand clattering against the food
tray, sending clumps of stew flying against the walls. Even through
the mists of her pain, the terrifying thought penetrated her
consciousness. Poison! She had been poisoned! Then she was lost in
the sound of her own screams.
An eternity passed before distant figures
bent over her, shrouded by her pain-filled gaze . . . Belda, a
leering goblin amidst this nightmare of agony, the ghost-white face
of the doctor, hands wrenching her from the floor. No, dear God,
no. Don't touch me!
Ahead of her loomed the blessed darkness, if
she could only reach it. But her limbs shook so. The darkness came
and receded before the glaring white light of pain. How cold she
was! But at least the cold dulled the merciless ache inside of her.
She was freezing to death, and she did not care. It was such a
relief to be done with the pain.
Eventually even the cold ceased to bother
her. She felt her eyelids growing heavy as the frigid walls of her
cell faded. For the first time in weeks, she felt warm. It was no
longer autumn, but the last days of spring. Phaedra's eyes
fluttered closed, allowing herself to be enveloped by the heat, the
glowing lights of the ballroom. It was spring again, and she was
seeing Armande de LeCroix for the first time...
The heat of Lady Porterfield’s ballroom
assaulted Phaedra’s senses in one great wave. Through the slits of
her velvet mask, she stared up at her ladyship's famed chandelier,
tier upon tier of crystalline ice set ablaze by no fewer than five
hundred candles. For a moment, her eyes were so bedazzled that the
ballroom became a blur of color, an array of silk-clad forms that
flashed with diamonds and other gemstones.
She blinked, accustoming herself to the
brilliant scene. A sea of white-powdered heads inclined toward
where she had paused beneath the archway. Even the profusion of
spangled masks could not disguise the malicious speculation in the
eyes that had turned her way. Above the scrape of violins, Phaedra
heard the whispers. "Phaedra Grantham. I thought she was still in
Bath. Imagine! Attending a masked ball unescorted! Who would bring
her, my dear? Her husband?" Titters of laughter, then indignation.
"Shocking, I call it. Not so much as black ribbon on her
petticoats, and the poor man not dead a year."
Phaedra moved her hand upward to adjust her
own mask. Of course, she need not wonder how her identity had been
so easily guessed. Self-consciously, she touched one of the shining
red curls that gleamed against the gold-figured silk domino she
wore over her gown. As always, she wore her locks unpowdered, in
defiance of fashion or perhaps only in defiance of her grandfather,
who claimed he detested red hair.