Susan Carroll (47 page)

"The truth is, I am in a great deal of
trouble," she said. “I fear I am with child."

Jonathan's face registered shock but no
censure. He was struck dumb for a few minutes, her own misery
mirrored in his dark eyes. She dreaded that he would demand to know
who the father was, but Jonathan had far too much delicacy for
that.

"Are you certain?" he asked.

She nodded. God help her, she did not know
how, but she was absolutely certain.

His fingers laced together in a nervous
gesture. He asked anxiously, "You are going to marry the
father?"

Phaedra was rather astonished that that
should be his first thought. "No," she said dully. "There is no
likelihood of that. He's gone."

Jonathan exuded a deep sigh. He flushed as he
caught her hands in a tight grip. He startled her by bursting out
with, "Marry me, Phaedra! I have adored you ever since-"

"Hush, Jonathan," she begged, trying to stem
the flow of words they would both regret on some calmer day in the
future.

He dragged one of her hands to his lips, and
then the other, kissing them with a passion Phaedra had never
imagined the man capable of. His eyes glowed with such yearning
that for one weak moment, Phaedra was tempted. She was so tired of
struggling alone. At least she knew Jonathan would ever be kind to
her and the babe. But her heart rejected the notion. She knew what
it was like to marry without love.

She pulled away from him. "No, Jonathan," she
said as gently as she could. "It would not do. You are most kind
and I thank you, but-"

"Phaedra, please."

"No!" She evaded his attempts to recapture
her hands. "You will only add to my distress if you continue to
press me."

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 the dark 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.

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.

She knew she had been rescued, miraculously,
by one of the grooms at the Heath---or so she had been told. But
her behavior had been wild. She had been brought to Bedlam by order
of the local magistrate and confined amongst the mad for attempting
suicide. No one, not even Jonathan, had believed her tale of being
pushed. But it was all most strange. She had always thought that
one could not be admitted to the hospital without the
recommendation of one of the patrons.

Each day she had paced the floor, waiting for
someone to help her, to obtain her release. That much she recalled
quite clearly. It was the day that she had collapsed in her cell
that was fuzzy in her mind.

She tensed with the effort to remember.
Visitors. That disgusting old hag, her gaoler Belda had been
displaying her to visitors again- the foolish Lord Arthur Danby and
his simpering mistress, Charmelle. Then Jonathan had come with the
dire news he could not have her released. When he had gone, she had
tried for the sake of her babe to eat-

The stew! Poisoned! Phaedra drew in her
breath with a sharp gasp. How could she have forgotten the pain
that had wracked her, ripping her apart. Her stomach yet burned
with the reminder.

She opened her eyes, and this time she
managed to sit up, clutching her abdomen. She felt so weak, as if
her very life had been drained. Her fingers froze, the realization
creeping over her. She ran her hands over the region of her womb,
slowly at first, then more urgently, praying for just one butterfly
whispering of life there. But she felt nothing except an aching
emptiness. Her lips parted, a shriek of denial echoing off the
indifferent walls of her cell.

Belda's bewhiskered chin appeared at the
grating. "Stop that infernal racket. What ails yer?

"My babe," Phaedra wailed, desperately
seeking some assurance that it could not be true.

But Belda's smug smile confirmed her fears.
"Aborted," she said, "And a good thing, too. There are enough
bastards to fill the world."

An inhuman scream tore past Phaedra's throat,
a sound she hardly recognized as her own. She tried to lunge to her
feet, wanting to fling herself at the bars and claw out the old
woman's hateful eyes. But she tottered and fell back upon the bed,
a prisoner of her own weakness.

Belda shrank back from the window, muttering,
"And the wench would have us believe she isn't mad." But Phaedra
barely noticed the woman's retreat as she buried her face in the
pillow and wept.

The sobs that wracked her frame seemed as if
they would never end. But when her tears ceased at last, she felt
nothing. Her heart was as empty as her womb. With the miscarriage
of her child, she seemed to have lost her indomitable spirit as
well. She ceased to count the hours. Limp as a cloth doll, she
swallowed the food that Belda periodically forced down her throat.
But as the days passed, she somehow regained strength; it was as
though her body had turned traitor, surviving in spite of her will
to die.

One morning as Phaedra stared listlessly at
the walls, Belda came in and flung a gown at her. "Put this
on."

Phaedra allowed the garment to drop to the
floor.

"I said put it on, you fool." Beida snatched
up the dress and shook it at her. "Don't you understand? Yer gettin
out today."

Phaedra turned her face to the wall. "Leave
me alone."

But Belda seized her and rent the shift from
her back. "I've stood enough of your nonsense. I'll be mighty
pleased to see the last of you, my fine lady, and that's the
truth."

Belda roughly dragged the gown over Phaedra's
head. Phaedra experienced enough annoyance at the feel of the
woman's hands upon her to thrust Belda's fingers away and
straighten the garment herself.

"Why they are letting you go beats all fire
out of me," Belda said. "As if one inmate escaping wasn't bad
enough, they have to go setting another one loose."

Although Phaedra evinced not the slighted
interest, Belda continued to rant, "That lunatic who thought she
was Marie Antoinette vanished only days ago. I don't know how she
managed it. One of the visitors must have helped her. Sometimes I'm
not certain where the maddest ones are-locked in here or out there
on the streets."

Still shaking her head and grumbling to
herself, Belda went out of the cell. It occurred to Phaedra that
she had not even bothered to ask who was coming for her. It could
not be her grandfather. He might even be dead by now, for all she
knew.