Eve Silver (27 page)

So why, then, did he stand over the child with knife in hand?

As he stood staring down at her, Anthony's expression turned bleak. Something tore away inside her, leaving Emma feeling as though she had somehow erred, as though
she
were the one who had done some vile, unforgivable thing. She looked away, thinking that there was some sorcery in his gaze that stole her common sense.

“You will not harm this boy,” she repeated.

“I will not harm him. I could not harm him.” Anthony's tone held a bitter edge. “You think—” He broke off and said nothing more.

Emma buried her face in Nicky's hair. Averse to frighten the child further, she bit back a sharp retort. Instead she made soft, soothing sounds, rocking Nicky in her arms. She could not look at Anthony, could not face her own urge to open her arms and include him in her embrace.

She was as lost as he
, she thought, as she rocked Nicky and kissed his crown.
If he was mad, then she was his true consort, for she must be unbalanced to want to rationalize away that which her own eyes had witnessed.
She could barely breathe through the heartbreak that choked her.

She loved him
. That was the terrifying truth of it, even in the face of this, the clear evidence of his ghastly intent. She loved him, this wonderful, terrible man, and she questioned her own sanity, for despite the knife, the resolution in Anthony’s expression, the appalling evidence that something was very wrong in this house, she longed for an explanation that would wash away even this.

Despair was heavy on her heart.

He had been about to harm his son. The one surety that had sustained her since her arrival at Manorbrier, the fact that Anthony Craven loved his son beyond all else, was now in question. She thought of the procession of governesses who had trooped through these walls, each one worse than the last, and she began to question all she had believed. Anthony had hired those women, allowed them into his home. He was indirectly responsible for the way they had treated Nicky. Could she have been so terribly wrong?

She felt as though a heavy band tightened around her ribs, pressing down on her. She had given herself to him, heart and soul, believing that despite his idiosyncrasies he was a noble man. And now? Now she knew not what to believe, for her heart argued against that which her eyes beheld.

And all the while, Dr. Smythe’s innuendoes and whispered cautions circled through her thoughts like black-winged scavengers determined to gnaw at her soul.

She felt truly ill for, despite it all, she wanted to believe that her eyes, her ears, her senses had lied.

When at last she forced herself to look up, Anthony was gone. He had left with silent tread, without any explanation or expression of remorse.

o0o

Emma paced her chamber, so distressed that she could not order her thoughts or feelings, instead crying one moment and laughing darkly the next. She pressed her palms to her cheeks and tried to reason out all she had seen, but there was no explanation, no revelation that could draw out the poison of what she had witnessed. Anthony had stood by his son’s bed with knife in hand, his expression dark and grim. What possible justification could there be for that?

She was extremely grateful that Nicky had fallen asleep quite quickly, believing with a child’s open and honest heart her reassurances that he had but had a frightful nightmare. Would that she could believe the same.

Searching for a distraction, she snatched up Delia’s diary and sank onto the window seat. With forced concentration, she reread page after page of frivolous chat, soothed by the very monotony of the writing. After a time, she flipped ahead, skimming through a description of a visit to the aunts and a day spent with Dr. Smythe at the fair in Bosherton.

Suddenly, she gasped and reread—once, twice, thrice—a passage that jarred her.

The time has come to face the terrible truth. I am pregnant. Pregnant. The terrible, astonishing wonder of it. After the choices I made, I had not thought it possible
.

Was Delia’s pregnancy the terrible secret she had alluded to earlier? Heart racing, Emma read on.

He was so angry when I told him. Oh, God, nothing is as it seems. Nothing. How could I have been so wrong? Empty-headed girl to be so blinded, to make such decisions based on frivolities. A flower, pretty words. All meaningless in the face of this. I am in great danger, with no means of escape. And my baby, as well. He will kill us. I saw it in his eyes. Coward that I am, I cannot risk the truth. Instead, I shall seek the company of others and protect myself with the safety of numbers. And I shall pray it is enough.

Emma ran her fingers over the delicate script, her heart pounding with such force she feared it would leap from the confines of her ribs.
He will kill us. I saw it in his eyes
. Closing her own eyes tightly, she tried to block out the ugly words, but when she opened them once more the accusation was still there, flaunting itself, eroding her trust in herself. She could not love a murderer. She could
not
.

“No,” she cried, the denial dragged from the depths of her soul. Slamming the book shut, she hurled it as far away as she could. It fell to the carpet with a dull thud. She pulled her knees up, drawing them close to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. Ghastly. This was all too ghastly to be borne, and she had no idea how she could face the coming dawn.

Was it only a few nights past that she had lain in Anthony's arms, cocooned in his embrace, glowing with passion and the unspoken love that filled her? Emma's glance slid to the diary, to where it lay on the floor like a serpent, coiled and ready to strike, the words as poisonous as any venom. The implication was clear. Delia herself had named Anthony as a potential murderer, but did the suspicion that he might murder equate with the assurance that he did in fact take a life? Or was that diary merely the ramblings of a shallow, self-absorbed girl?

Emma swallowed. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she reached for her robe. Rising, she reclaimed her candle and checked on Nicky. He slept, arms flung wide, one bare foot hanging over the edge of the bed.

She stood there for a time, her heart aching with love for him, love for Anthony, brewing a dark torrent of confusion, and then she turned and quit the room. The house was still, reminiscent of the moment when a storm gathers overhead, ready to send forth its wrath. Invariably there was a period of quietude before the rage of the storm belched forth, a moment of calm. Emma felt exactly that way as she silently descended the stairs and walked softly across the tiled expanse of hallway to where it melded with wooden floor.

Something dark dwelled here. Something evil.

But why, oh why, did she have such difficulty believing that Anthony was the source?

She barely noticed the cold beneath her feet. The realization that she had forgotten her slippers was merely a flicker on the edge of her awareness. Determinedly she crept through the stillness until she reached her destination.

Holding the candle up, Emma watched as the flame cast meager illumination over the wall before her. There was Delia, her golden beauty displayed for posterity, her gilt-framed portrait gracing the wall with elegance. Emma fisted one hand in her skirt as she placed the candle on the small table that stood next to her cousin's likeness.

“What secrets did you carry to your grave, Delia?” she whispered, the soft sound echoing about the empty chamber. “You named yourself a fool, the accusation written in your own hand. But am I any less the fool if I, too, fall prey to whispered words and the lure of passion?”

Emma traced her finger along the painted edge of Delia's gown. She had thought to come here, to look upon her cousin's serene expression and know the truth, but the portrait gave no clue. The woman portrayed here was an artist's rendition of life. Whatever secrets had lain behind Delia's smile were not reflected here; they were buried beneath the rich, dark soil.

“Did you die in childbed, as so many women do? Or were you the victim of dire circumstance, murdered and, if so, by whom?” Emma could barely force the words past the lump that clogged her throat. Her happiness, perhaps even her immortal soul, hinged on the answer. Had she made love with a widower, or given herself to a murderer?

“Oh, Anthony.” Covering her face with her hands, Emma fought to get her emotions under some semblance of control. She could not believe it of him.

Taking up the candle, she turned from the portrait and began to walk away. Suddenly, the floor seemed colder than the grave, the chill seeping through skin and muscle to lodge deep in the small bones of her bare toes. A draft swirled about her ankles, and rose up under the hem of her nightclothes. Emma began to shiver, her rapid uncontrolled movements sending the flickering candlelight dancing eerily along the walls. Her pace quickened as she took a step and then another toward the darkened doorway that would lead her from the portrait gallery.

A sound came from behind her, and she spun back toward it. “Who is there?” she whispered, then louder, “Who is there?”

“
Ehhhmmmaaa…Ehhhmmmaaa
…” Her name, a whisper in the darkness, and then the same terrible laughter that had haunted her that day in the icehouse. “
Do not search for answers. You may not like what you find
.”

“Show yourself!” she cried.

No answer came, and she spun away, running now along the corridor, her heart pounding, her fingers curled tight round the candleholder. Feeling suddenly foolish, she slowed, stopped, resting her back against the cool wall, dragging in deep gasping breaths as she pressed one hand over her pounding heart. A slow perusal of the area revealed nothing, no one, only the deserted gallery painted in preternatural shades by the eerie moonlight that filtered through the many windows.

A loud bang came from the end of the chamber, the sound acute and sharp, hacking through the gaping silence, and again the laughter rose and swelled. Emma cried out, nearly dropping the candle as she spun toward the source of the noise. Her mouth was dry, her palms damp.

Slowly, she took a step and another, back toward the gallery, toward the source of the sound. She would not scurry away like a rodent to its hole. Better to confront her tormentor, to end this now. She froze, listening, eyes straining to see into the shadows that darkened the corners and dusted the walls. Again, she crept forward, drawn on despite herself. Perhaps a wise woman would flee. But that would leave the perpetrator free to persecute her another day.

She pressed onwards, and then stuttered to a stop, her gaze fixed on the oddest sight. There on the floor was Delia's portrait, ripped from its place on the wall. The gilt frame was cracked in half, one jagged sliver piercing the canvas and pointing outward, directly through the place where Delia's heart would have been.

Too horrified to move, Emma stood frozen, staring at the foreboding image of her dead cousin, stabbed through the heart by a shard of gilt-edged wood. There was an awful and tragic menace to the sight. A message, or a warning. She stood so for a long while, not moving, not thinking, barely even breathing. And then some sense of self-preservation took hold, and she rushed back the way she had come, through the darkened house, her feet flying along the floor. She was almost at the stairs when she heard the thud of footsteps in pursuit, and the rasp of quickened breath. Almost upon her. Her pursuer was so close, so close.

“There now, lovey. What’s this hurrying about?”

With a startled cry, Emma spun, tripping on the first stair and sprawling with a dull thud, her elbow smacking sharply against the wood. Her candle fell, the flame snuffing, leaving only dim shadows and a paltry light that seeped from a distant window.

“Cookie!” She gasped, squinting at shadows. The cook carried no light.

“I heard someone about and rushed from my bed to see what the commotion was,” Cookie said. Emma wished she would step closer, a human comfort.

“There was someone in the portrait gallery. Someone in the house. He tore Delia’s portrait. Speared her through the heart—”

“Someone in the house?” Cookie’s voice rose. “Did you see who?”

Emma opened her mouth to reply when the flickering light of a candle heralded yet another nocturnal wanderer.

“Someone in the house? Are you certain?” Anthony stepped closer, the single flame sending dancing shadows over his features. He stared at Emma for an instant, his brow furrowing. “Are you hurt?”

She realized that she yet sprawled across the lowest stair, and with an embarrassed swipe at her skirt, she scrambled to her feet. It seemed that she had become strangely clumsy, always falling or twisting her ankle. A wry and inappropriate humor seized her. At least she wasn’t succumbing to a faint.

“I am unhurt.” She felt awkward, uneasy in his presence, her emotions a roiling ocean of confusion and dismay. Glancing at Cookie, she found her clinging to the shadows, making no move to draw nearer.

“I will see to the portrait gallery and search for your intruder, Miss Parrish.” There was the most peculiar inflection to his words. “Here. Take my candle and return to your chamber.”

She shook her head, intent on refusing the candle, but more than glad to seek her privacy. He held the light out toward her and, after a moment, she took it, the brief brush of their fingers sending a prickle of awareness dancing through her. Even now, after all she had seen. Oh, treacherous, traitorous body.

“I—” Her gaze slid to Cookie, then away. Now was not the time for conversation, for questions, for answers. “Thank you,” she whispered, and turned away.

She heard the sound of his booted feet on the floor, and she turned back only to find that he had been swallowed by the darkness and the night. Slowly, she mounted the stairs, feeling that something was not right, that she had missed some important detail, but unable to place exactly what that might be. She collapsed through the door of her chamber and shoved it closed behind her. She was breathing heavily, struggling against the urge to push the massive wardrobe against the portal to block out the night.