Dark Gothic: His Dark Kiss Part 18

She had come here expecting that Lord Anthony was a poor parent, half expecting even worse than that. But she had been wrong. Anthony Craven was a good father.

And he was so much more.

Pulling lightly on the door until only the smallest opening remained, Emma stood poised in the threshold, about to turn away. She paused for one last glance at the sleeping child. Suddenly, the insubstantial illumination of a single flame fell across Nicky's bed. Emma glanced up in surprise and found that Anthony had come to his son's room. She longed to fly across the s.p.a.ce that separated them and fling herself into his arms, but she was so new to this role of lover that she was uncertain. Moreover, she was loath to intrude on this private moment between father and son.

Emma smiled, watching as Anthony set his candle on the dresser across from his son's bed. He stood, his face a contrast of light and shadow, and he watched his son sleep. Emma thought he looked sad and tired, haggard, as though a great weight and consternation lay upon his shoulders.

Sc.r.a.ping his fingers through his long hair, Anthony stood at the foot of Nicky's bed. His clothes were rumpled and his jaw darkly shadowed by a day's growth of beard. He looked dangerous. Hard. Emma s.h.i.+vered at the premonition that crawled over her skin, the cold fingers of an ill portent making the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. There was something tragic in this scene, though she could not name it. Anthony bore the look of a man about to do something that did not rest easy on his thoughts.

Suddenly, he glanced up, his green-gold eyes fixed on the door that s.h.i.+elded Emma from view. She pressed against the wall, holding her breath. For a moment she wondered if he could see through the gloom, like a nocturnal hunter fixing its gaze on an unwitting prey. She knew she ought to pull the door shut, to allow the scene the privacy that was its due, or call out, tell him she was there, but something, some sense of doom made her hold to the shadows, unannounced.

Stuff and nonsense, she thought. 'Twas too much imagination on her part, and too little common sense. And why in heaven's name was she even thinking such things? Because you cannot trust, a voice whispered through her thoughts. Because though he is your lover he has shared nothing of himself. Because he left you, and might well have gone straight to the arms of another. One who might make a suitable wife.

"No." Her denial was the softest whisper. Oh, why did she allow such treacherous thoughts?

Anthony moved silently across the thick carpet and then sat slowly on the edge of Nicky's bed. The child s.h.i.+fted in his sleep but did not waken when his father took his small hand between his much larger ones. He stroked Nicky's hair back from his brow and leaned forward to press his lips to the child's forehead.

Emma looked away, feeling as though she intruded. When she returned her gaze she saw Anthony take something from his pocket. His shoulders rose and fell on a sigh, as though weighty thoughts enc.u.mbered him.

The candlelight caught and reflected off the metal object in Anthony's hand. Emma stood frozen in place, horror congealing in her veins.

Oh, dear heaven! He had a knife, a sharp, glittering knife held poised above his sleeping son.

Anthony straightened his shoulders, fingering the blade lightly as if testing the sharpness. What she could see of his expression was resolute. He had reached the point of action.

Her heart twisted, constricting to a painful knot. She could not fathom it, could not imagine that Anthony would do harm to his son. Yet, here he was, clutching the wretched blade. And Dr. Smythe's warning, so improbable, so impossible only hours past, rang through her thoughts.

And here was the most terrible, tragic tableau, played out in wretched truth. Madness. This was madness.

Breath coming in short, sharp gasps, Emma moved on sheer instinct. She shoved the door open and it slammed into the wall. Nicky stirred and rubbed his eyes, then cried out as Emma threw herself across the bed, using her body as a barrier between Anthony and his son.

She looked up into her lover's eyes, which widened, then narrowed, his surprise giving way to cold, flat wariness. Her gaze s.h.i.+fted to his hand, to the small sharp blade he held in readiness. Her heart pounded and wretched bile clawed its way into her throat. There was no mistake. Anthony stood over his son, his expression resolute, remote, and the blade in his hand could not be mistaken for other than it was.

"Get out," Emma said, her voice low and hard. She could feel the child quaking within her embrace, and she tightened her hold, pressing his face to her shoulder. Her gaze was trained on the knife. "You will not harm this boy."

Anthony looked at his hand. The blade glittered in the candlelight, sending rays reflecting off the walls. His eyes met Emma's and she was stunned by the hurt she saw there. Confusion coursed through her, and anger, and a terrible aching regret. Surely he was mad. Mad. Mad. Mad.

Dear heaven.

"Go." Her voice quavered, but she held Anthony's gaze, intent on protecting Nicky from whatever evil his father intended. She felt as though she were caught in the midst of the most ghastly nightmare, too unreal to be believed. Never could she have imagined such a scene. And even as she lived the reality of it, she could not believe that Anthony would truly injure the child. Even faced with the glittering edge of the blade, a part of her was so very certain that Anthony would never do harm to his son.

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 n.o.ble 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.

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 rea.s.surances that he had but had a frightful nightmare. Would that she could believe the same.

Searching for a distraction, she s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 pa.s.sage that jarred her.

The time has come to face the terrible truth. I am pregnant. Pregnant. The terrible, astonis.h.i.+ng 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, G.o.d, 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, coc.o.o.ned in his embrace, glowing with pa.s.sion 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 a.s.surance 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 pa.s.sion?"

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 circ.u.mstance, 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 s.h.i.+ver, 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 embarra.s.sed 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 succ.u.mbing 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 p.r.i.c.kle 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 ma.s.sive wardrobe against the portal to block out the night.

She stumbled to the door that led to Nicky's chamber. He slept on, the innocent slumber of a child, arms flung wide, covers tossed aside. A sigh of relief escaped her lips.

Her feet were near to frozen as she climbed into her bed. She curled them underneath her, wrapping the coverlet around her body. The image of Delia's fallen portrait gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. Was it merely happenstance that her cousin's likeness had fallen at that very moment? Was it coincidence that the picture had been ruined, torn asunder by the sharp sliver, just as Delia's life and the life of her daughter had been ripped from this mortal coil?

Emma tried to rea.s.sure herself that there was nothing prophetic about it. The portrait had fallen from the wall, as portraits do. A poorly placed nail. A crack in the wall. Perhaps the s.h.i.+fting of the foundations. No ghostly undercurrent steered the course of her fate. But no matter how many times she silently admonished herself to be realistic, to be rational, to be strong, the image of Delia's painted likeness, punctured and torn, taunted her pitilessly, and the memory of the terrible laughter grated on her like gravel in an open sc.r.a.pe.

Emma wrapped her arms about herself and stared at the far wall, seeing nothing, lost in contemplation. She narrowed her eyes.

Surely no ghostly perpetrator, but perhaps one of this world.

Crawling to the foot of the bed, she hung over the side and dragged her fingertips along the floor searching for Delia's diary. When her touch did not discern its smooth rectangular shape, she s.h.i.+mmied closer to the edge and hung over the side, but though she twitched the bedskirts to and fro, and eventually bunched them in her hand and dragged them up to search beneath the bed, she found no sign of the journal. It was gone. Taken.

By whom?

Anxiety gnawed at her and so many questions swirled through her mind. There seemed no possible explanation, no reasonable rationalization for all she had seen this night. Her heart was heavy in her chest, a dull ache burning behind her breastbone, and she wondered if Anthony had taken the diary, if there was some incriminating pa.s.sage that he wanted kept secret.

And then she felt like a traitor for thinking it.

She sank her teeth into her lower lip and dashed at the unwelcome tears that stung her eyes, for the most terrifying question was the one she least wanted to confront.

What had he been doing in his son's room, blade held in terrifying ready? What manner of darkness gnawed at Anthony Craven's soul?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

The following morning, Emma went in search of Anthony, intent on confronting him in his lair. A sleepless night had done little to sweeten her mood but much to sharpen her thoughts. And the one thought that burned brightest was that she must determine the root of his bizarre and frightening actions the previous night. She could not equate what she knew of Anthony Craven with the scene she had witnessed at Nicky's bedside, and her sensible nature demanded that she find some resolution. To that end, she bolstered her determination, girding herself for an inescapable confrontation.

She reached the open door of Anthony's study, resolute and sure in her course, her queries well ordered in her thoughts. Dragging in a deep breath, she closed her eyes, centering her thoughts, and then she stepped forward.

He was not there.

His absence dampened her confidence, leaving her as deflated as an empty bellows.

Turning to leave, she caught sight of a stack of printed booklets on the small table by the door. The t.i.tle of the top one caught her eye-An Inquiry Into the Causes and Effects of the Variola Vaccine. The author was Edward Jenner, and the pamphlet was dated 1798. The year of her birth.

Frowning, Emma lifted the next pamphlet: A Prospect of Exterminating the Small-Pox; Being the History of the Variola Vaccine, or Kine-Pox by Bejamin Waterhouse, dated 1800. Smallpox. A s.h.i.+ver chased up her spine. Smallpox had killed her mother, and now there was smallpox in Derrymore. Mrs. Bolifer had said it was so. What could this mean, a prospect of exterminating such a dread plague?